by Lori Roy
“And I’m guessing you don’t believe her story,” Warren says.
The officer shrugs as if he doesn’t much care. “Tillie says she goes with Tim Robithan. He might be inclined to take to a girl’s face that way.”
Warren glances at Imogene, his brows raised as if the officer’s comment is more proof of the danger she brought on herself by tangling with Tim Robithan in her mama’s kitchen. And then with a sweeping gesture, he motions for her to walk on inside the shop. He and the officer follow.
Once inside, Warren and the officer study the broken door and Imogene walks on in. Seeing Tillie, she makes her way toward him. He is standing alongside his workbench, and Natalie Sharon sits in his usual chair. The cloth she’s holding to her face covers one eye. Though Imogene rarely talks to Natalie beyond a nod hello, they tend to find themselves at the same bar and sitting on similar bar- stools come one in the morning on any given night.
Even though it’s chilly outside, Natalie wears a tank top. The slender straps hang loose over the ridges where her collarbone protrudes. Her long hair, not quite blond, not quite brown, hangs down around her face and over her shoulders, the tips dark and stiff with dried blood. Her left eye is tearing and red, her top lip is swollen where it has split, and Imogene is guessing whatever is hidden under the cloth she holds over the right side of her face is where the real trouble lies.
“Says it wasn’t Tim Robithan what messed up her face,” Tillie whispers, juggling a bag of ice that Natalie keeps waving off. “But I already told the officer I figure it sure was. Told him about them watches, too. Wasn’t going to, but Natalie started to mouth off about them straightaway.”
Imogene nods and glances around the small shop. A light in the back office is on, and someone is banging about.
“That’s Mrs. Tillie back there,” Tillie says, reassuring Imogene Tim Robithan isn’t lurking somewhere in the shop. “She just got here. Drove herself over even though I told her to stay home. And Natalie here, she says Tim didn’t give her them watches neither.”
“I’m real sorry about all this,” Imogene says. “I said something to Tim about the watches this morning. He was at the house. Damn, this is my fault.”
She’s talking partly to Natalie and partly to Tillie and, truth be told, partly to herself for letting her life get away from her. She sees proof of the mess she’s made of herself in the eyes of men like this Officer Jacobson, who’s still talking with Warren. Men like him look at her like they know something more about her than they do, like they’ve boiled her down to the things she can do to them and for them. They look at Natalie Sharon the same. They used to look at Imogene with pity in the early years after Russell and Vaughn died. And then when she started stumbling out of bars with men she scarcely knew, their looks turned to yearning, a clamoring to be the next to have a turn with her, and lately their looks have turned to disgust.
“I wasn’t thinking,” she says, running her hands through her hair, her fingers catching in the tangles. “Natalie, you especially. I’m real sorry. I sure didn’t mean for this to happen, to get you in trouble with Tim.”
“Was your daddy,” Natalie says. Her face is tiny and she might be beautiful if not for her eyes set too deep in her head. It’s like parts of her insides have rotted away, and there’s less and less to hold up her outsides.
“I already told you, Natalie,” Tillie says. “You lie about Tim beating you, no one is going to believe nothing else you have to say.”
Natalie stretches her long, slender fingers as if they’re stiff and rolls her head side to side. “I ain’t never said Tim didn’t beat me. I said I wasn’t beat by no one. That’s different, you know. Besides, it was her daddy.” Natalie points up at Imogene. “And that’s the truth.”
Up near the front door, Mrs. Tillie, a broom and dustpan in one hand, has joined Warren and the officer. She holds a tissue to her nose with her other hand and is likely crying. The officer takes the broom and dustpan from her as he glances at Natalie. He shakes his head like Mrs. Tillie’s crying is Natalie’s fault and gives her a nod meant to remind her to stay put and keep her mouth shut, a look he’s given Imogene when she’s lunged at him while trying to get her car keys back. As the officer begins sweeping up the glass, Warren helps Mrs. Tillie to a tufted chair just inside the door. He squats before her and looks up into her face. He’s done the same to Imogene when she was slumped over a barstool.
“What are you saying about my daddy?” Imogene asks Natalie.
“He give me the watches,” Natalie whispers. “That’s what I’m supposed to tell you. Wasn’t Tim what give them to me. Was your daddy. He told me take them down to Augusta. Said they’d have pawnshops down there, that they’d have the money to buy them. Said Mr. Tillie wouldn’t have no money like that. But your daddy died and I didn’t want to drive so far. Wasn’t Tim. That’s mostly what I’m supposed to say.”
“You telling me my daddy stole those watches and wanted you to sell them?”
Tillie sets the bag of ice on the table next to Natalie and guides Imogene farther into the store, where they’re hidden by a shelf filled with DVR players.
“She says she did the stealing,” he says, “but that it was your daddy’s idea. He promised to pay her. Said she could steal them watches easy seeing as she was at the Robithan house often enough. Your daddy having money trouble?”
“If Tim didn’t do anything, then why did he beat on her like that?” Imogene says, not answering Tillie’s question because she doesn’t want to involve him in the mess Daddy made.
“I’m guessing he must have thought she was telling people he’s the one who stole. Made her come here and say otherwise. Lord, I hate to think what this girl is in for if Robert Robithan gets word of this.”
“Is he going to help her?” Imogene asks, nodding toward the officer at the front of the shop.
Tillie shrugs. “Listen, I got to ask. Your daddy, they sure he died of something natural?”
Imogene looks from Natalie to Tillie. “You think . . . ?” She pauses. “No, nothing like that. It was his heart. That’s for certain. Nobody did anything to him.”
“Just had to ask.” Then Tillie pulls Imogene closer as he leans to look around the display. “But listen, them watches ain’t why I called.” Reaching in his shirt pocket, he pulls out a necklace by its silver chain. “Am I right? It’s your mama’s?”
Imogene cups her hands, and Tillie drops the necklace into them. The silver chain is dull, but the pale blue moonstone, hardened moonlight so the tale goes, shines and sparkles in the light overhead. Mama had been heartbroken when the necklace disappeared. It had been her only tie to all the Simmons women who came before her. They’re the ones who saved us, Mama once said to Imogene, and though Mama didn’t say it, Imogene knew she meant those Simmons women, believing like they did and praying like they did to have no sons, saved Imogene and Mama from sinking into all that hate.
“Yes,” Imogene says. “It’s Mama’s, all right. She’ll be thrilled to get it back.”
“Well then, take it and get on out of here.” Tillie presses a hand to her lower back. “You don’t need none of whatever is going on here and sure to hell don’t need the police getting ahold of your mama’s necklace.”
“Where did it come from?” Imogene says, slipping the necklace into her front pocket because Tillie is right about it being taken as evidence.
“Seemed strange to me that it showed up at the same time as all this watch nonsense. Asked Natalie already. Says she don’t have nothing to do with it.”
“You believe her?”
Tillie straightens, lifts his chin, and puckers his lips as if he’s thinking. “Told her I have tapes. Didn’t seem to trouble her. Figure that means she’s telling the truth.”
“What did the tapes show?”
“Won’t show nothing,” Tillie says. “Only one camera.” Then he leans out again and nods toward the front of the store. “Pointed there toward the door. Whoever done this with the necklac
e, they come in through the storeroom. Got a broken-out pane of glass back there too. But Natalie don’t know that. Least, I think she don’t.”
“Imogene.” It’s Warren’s voice. From the sound of it, he’s still up near the front of the shop with Mrs. Tillie. “Let’s get you on back home.”
The Sharons are always in trouble around town. There’s a half dozen of them, and they’re either speeding, drinking, stealing, or lying, so this isn’t anything unusual to Warren. He probably wouldn’t even have come down, but instead would have let Jacobson handle it, if Imogene hadn’t insisted.
“If the police want to take the watches,” Imogene says to Tillie before joining Warren, “you let them. Don’t get yourself involved. Sooner they’re out of your shop, the better.” Then she takes hold of Tillie’s forearm. “Promise me, Tillie. You don’t want to involve yourself with Tim Robithan. Not Robert Robithan either. I don’t want what happened to Natalie over there happening to you or Mrs. Tillie.”
Chapter 43
BETH
Before
It’s a Wednesday, and I’ve been in the basement for three years. That’s my first thought when footsteps cross overhead. The floorboards creak. Someone is in the house. I haven’t thought about Wednesday being Wednesday in almost a year, because ever since he locked Alison in down here, Eddie doesn’t come on Wednesdays anymore. Only Sundays, and when he does come, it’s only to leave food on the stairs. He never comes down. My hair is longer than it’s ever been, and I’m taller than ever too, taller than Alison, who’s twenty-one, while I’m only thirteen. My arms and legs are thin and hard now, and I have a waist like Mama said I would get one day. The footsteps grow louder. They stop. The door at the top of the stairs opens and stays open.
I grab Christopher from the floor. He’s walking now and rarely stops moving, and his chubby body has begun to turn lean. As his legs clamp on and his sticky fingers reach for my mouth, he doesn’t feel soft and spongy like he once did. He makes a cooing sound that I quiet by pressing a finger to his lips. Alison is lying on the bed. She must hear the door too but doesn’t move. I’m not sure she can. Holding Christopher close to my chest, I cup his head with one hand so he can hear my beating heart. His silky dark hair has grown long and thickened up in the past year. I used to dream that the door would open and it would be someone other than Eddie, someone who would save us. I try not to think that anymore because it’s always Eddie, and when it is, I feel relief mixed with terrible pain. Relief that he hasn’t left us and pain that we’re still here. But today is Wednesday. He doesn’t come on Wednesdays anymore. It could be someone new, and so I can’t stop myself from hoping.
For eleven months and two weeks, Eddie has come only on Sunday mornings, always leaving food and diapers on the top step. Last Sunday, I asked Eddie if he would please bring a potty chair because Christopher is nearly out of diapers. He brought two dolls one Sunday, and another he brought a wooden cradle. It fell when he closed the door but didn’t break too bad, and he brought a small television set another time. He told me how to hook up the antenna before closing and locking the door. Not long ago, he brought a small refrigerator.
“Where is she?” Eddie hollers down the stairs.
Christopher presses his face into my shoulder at the sound of a man’s voice. It washes over me, the relief mixed with pain, but both are quickly replaced by fear. So many Wednesdays have passed without Eddie coming here, and now he has. Something is different. Something has happened to make him come back again, and I’m afraid of what that something is.
“She’s sleeping,” I say, glancing again at the bed.
“Wake her up.”
Bouncing Christopher so he’ll not start to cry, I squat next to the bed and look Alison straight on. Her eyes are open, but she doesn’t seem to see us.
“You hear me?” he shouts, not moving from the top stair. He’ll be listening for Alison, probably wondering if she’ll run up the stairs and try to force her way out again. She did that twice, in the first months she was here, and he’s ready for her to do it again. He won’t know what she’s become.
“Yes, I hear you,” I say, calling out over my shoulder. Turning back to Alison, I whisper, “Alison, you have to wake up.” On my hip, Christopher kicks and leans, mimics me and says wake up, wake up, one of the first phrases he put together, and tries to grab a handful of Alison’s hair. “Please, you have to wake up.”
Alison wasn’t always so lost. During her first few months in the basement, she liked to listen as I read aloud to Christopher from the books about Laura and Pa. I also tried to get her to study the textbooks with me. I loved them, no matter the subject, because they were a reminder that the outside was still there and always would be, and I thought Alison would love that too. But she said no. She only wanted to hear about the outside I remembered. I asked her once to tell me about where she lived before the basement, but she had nothing to say. She had only just moved to Georgia from Alabama when Eddie locked her up. Nothing to tell about Alabama. Nothing to tell about Georgia. Eddie was the best she could find. She had known he was too old, but he talked a big game and she needed a daddy for Christopher. I was pretty sure that meant Christopher’s daddy was back in Alabama.
She told me that same day about fellows who talk a big game and how they are always trouble. She also told me about the boy she loved back in Alabama. He was tall and smart and so Goddamn handsome, like a boy in a magazine. I leaned in like she was reading to me from one of my books as she told all about the boy she loved and the way he touched her and peeled away her clothes. She loved him so bad it scared her. That’s when her face changed from happy and bright to hard and angry. She was right to be scared, she said, because he ran off on her the second that happened, and she nodded at Christopher.
She asked how old I was and if I had started to bleed. I nodded and told her I already knew about sex because I read a book that told all about it. She said it was good I knew because the subject was bound to come up whether I liked it or not, seeing as how Eddie was a man and I was, well, mostly a woman. Leaning forward, she touched the stone that hung from a chain around my neck. Eddie give you this, didn’t he, she asked and nodded like it was another sign of things to come between him and me. And then she said there ain’t a book been written that will tell you what you really need to know, and that made her laugh, about the only time she ever laughed. Her laughing made me laugh. And once I started, I couldn’t hardly stop. I laughed until my laughing turned to crying. And when my crying faded and the worst feeling I’ve ever had took over because I remembered what being happy felt like, she asked if Eddie had made a move on me yet. I shook my head and didn’t tell her about the time he lifted a strand of my hair and let it slide through his fingers. He will one day, she said. Just remember that him doing something bad don’t make you bad. Remember that, and you’ll be okay.
I was lonelier after that day because feeling happy again, even for such a short time, had reminded me of all that I had lost. Every day, I became busier with Christopher, and he filled me so full I didn’t always notice how lonely I felt, but it was always there, steadily dripping down from overhead. And sometimes, late at night, it would come in a wave that drenched me. The day that I laughed until I cried was my best day and Alison’s last good day.
“Please, wake up,” I whisper to Alison again and listen hard for any sound that Eddie has started walking down the stairs. “Wake up and be good and maybe we’ll get to go outside when Sunday comes.”
From the bed she rarely leaves anymore, Alison swings her legs around. I stand and step aside as she sets her feet on the cold floor. The back of her hair is knotted up into a wad because she never brushes it, and she’s wearing a thick flannel shirt over a pair of sweatpants. I wash her sometimes when she’s sleeping like Mama used to wash the old people, and she doesn’t smell so bad anymore. At the sound of Eddie’s boots climbing down the first few stairs, her eyes flick in that direction. He’s moving slow, feeling out what Alison wil
l do.
“He’s coming,” I say, still whispering as I bounce Christopher. “He killed Julie Anna, Alison. That’s why I’m here. Remember when I told you about Julie Anna?” When Alison first came here, I told her all about Julie Anna, how her face was always scrubbed clean and that she was smart and would be going to college, but I never told that Eddie killed her. I couldn’t tell because saying it made it real. But I have to tell her now so she’ll know what Eddie can do, what he might do if we’re not good.
“Do you hear me?” I say. I shift Christopher to my other hip in hopes he won’t hear me because he’s starting to copy the things I say. “He killed her. So be good. Don’t yell. And don’t run at him.”
I’ve not been so good about keeping things clean since Eddie stopped coming down. I’m always too busy taking care of Christopher, so as Eddie’s boots hit the next few stairs, I glance at the kitchen and hope I’ve left it clean. The canned vegetables he brought last Sunday are still stacked on the kitchen table. We always eat the things that might spoil first, things like eggs, bread, and cheese and the oranges Eddie brings sometimes, and I try to save the things that won’t spoil. In Laura’s stories, they saved up food for winter, so I save up too. I especially save the things that come in cans, hiding them under the stairs where Alison won’t look for them, just in case he ever stops coming and also because Alison eats more than her share. She sleeps and she eats and she stares at the small television that only gets two fuzzy channels. I don’t have time to store the cans now. With Christopher still in my arms, I hurry back to the sofa as Eddie reaches the bottom step.