by Lori Roy
“Answer me now,” he calls out, “or I’ll drag the boy out here. And if I drag the boy out, I ain’t going to be happy.”
Chapter 50
IMOGENE
Today
It’s nearly five o’clock when Imogene opens her eyes again. The overcast sky is dimly lit by the faded orange glow of sunset. The house still smells of Jo Lynne’s smothered chops, and Imogene realizes straightaway that she skipped lunch.
“You’re awake,” Jo Lynne says. She and Mama both are sitting at the kitchen table, a deck of cards scattered between them. “I was just heading in to check on Christopher. It’s about suppertime.”
“Let me go,” Imogene says, kicking off the quilt Mama laid over her.
“Warren’s been here and gone,” Jo Lynne says as Imogene twists from side to side, stretching her back. “Said he’ll be back and to tell you he’s got nothing new for you.”
One look at Jo Lynne reminds Imogene how long it has been since she showered. Jo Lynne wears a pale yellow dress that she wasn’t wearing when Imogene first got back from Tillie’s shop, and while Imogene’s clothes are rumpled and her hair is a wiry tangle of red curls, Jo Lynne is fresh again and somehow rested, though she’s probably slept less than Imogene. Garland must have brought her the change of clothes and an overnight bag earlier in the day or maybe while Imogene slept. After checking in on Christopher, Imogene will get cleaned up, eat a decent meal, and give Warren a call.
Christopher’s room, that’s what it’s already become, is darker than the rest of the house, but the small lamp at his bedside has been turned on. It throws a soft glow, making the room warm in a way it never was when it was Imogene’s room. Instead of being asleep, Christopher is sitting up in bed and is leaning against the headboard. Somehow, Jo Lynne has already managed to find him new clothes. He wears a loose-fitting blue flannel shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, and a pair of dark jeans. As she walks into the dark room, Mama coming up behind her as she does, Imogene braces herself for his question . . . is my mama back?
“We thought you’d be sleeping, little one,” Mama says, lowering herself slowly, softly, onto the edge of the bed.
Christopher leans into the hug Mama gives him, lays his head on her shoulder, and rests a hand on her arm. With two fingers, he begins tapping in time to her heart. Squatting in front of him, where she can rest a hand on his knee, Imogene readies herself to smile for him when he asks about his mama. And he hasn’t only lost a mother; he never had a father, not a real one. He and Imogene are alike in that way.
“Is the lake very far?” he asks, his head still resting on Mama’s shoulder.
“No,” Mama says. “Not far at all.”
“Can you point?” he asks.
“You want to go there?” Mama points off to the east. “It’s pretty as can be.”
Christopher nods and lifts up on his knees so he can face Mama.
Imogene hadn’t thought of it before, though Warren likely did. They’ll have to consider that Christopher’s mama might be at the bottom of the lake.
“It’s getting a little late for that,” Imogene says. “Can we go another day?”
Christopher doesn’t answer Imogene and instead reaches for the necklace hanging around Mama’s neck. With two small fingers, he lifts the stone.
“What is it, little one?” Mama asks, glancing at Imogene.
“You found Mama’s necklace?” Christopher says.
“Yes,” Imogene says. “It’s very special and very old.”
More than once, Jo Lynne has talked about a child’s body knowing long before his mind that he’s safe. That’s surely why Christopher has slept so long and so soundly. His body knows before his mind. And in that same way, as Christopher continues staring at the necklace, Imogene’s body knows something is wrong. It simmers first in her stomach, the knowing, and slowly it spreads.
“How did you know my mama had lost her necklace?”
“Not your mama’s necklace,” Christopher says. “My mama’s.”
Imogene forces herself to smile. The tightness in her stomach has worked its way into her arms and legs. Her breath is coming faster now.
“You’re sure,” Imogene says. “Look real close.”
Christopher runs one small finger over the stone and nods.
“That’s real good,” Imogene says, trying not to look at Mama because she’ll be wanting Imogene to explain what is going on. “But how about you rest just now? Can you do that for me? I’ll sit right here with you and you rest.”
As Christopher slides back on the bed, Imogene motions for Mama to turn, and once she’s unhooked the clasp, Imogene tucks the necklace back in her front pocket.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Imogene pulls back the quilt so Christopher can wiggle underneath, and then, in a quiet voice that won’t scare him, she says to Mama, “Go get Jo Lynne. Tell her to call Warren and have him come straightaway.”
Mama doesn’t move and instead stares at Imogene. She wants Imogene to explain, but she can’t. She isn’t certain what it means, Christopher saying he’s seen his mama wearing this necklace, but she needs to tell Warren right away because it might mean Christopher’s mama is alive.
“Go, Mama,” Imogene says, still in a whisper. “Go now.”
In 1981
On a Friday night in Mobile, Alabama, several Klansmen, angered by a jury that had been unable to reach a verdict in the case of a black man accused of murdering a white police officer, armed themselves with a gun and rope and set out to find and kill a black man. Upon discovering a nineteen-year-old black man walking alone, the Klansmen lured him to their car under the guise of asking for directions. They abducted the young man, beat him repeatedly with a tree branch, slit his throat, and hanged him from a tree.
Chapter 51
TILLIE
Today
That is definitely Robert Robithan sitting behind the wheel of the red truck parked just outside Tillie’s shop. Glancing behind to make sure Mrs. Tillie is still in the back room and safely out of sight, Tillie walks behind the counter and reaches for the telephone.
Glancing at his watch, Tillie figures Natalie should be getting close to Atlanta by now, where she’ll get lost in all that traffic. Keeping an eye on the shop’s door, he dials the number he wrote down earlier and tells the officer on the other end that he wants to report a stolen car. He waited until now to give Natalie a head start. He tells the officer the wrong year but the right make and model, mixes up the first three numbers of the license plate with the last three, and instead of calling the car blue, he calls it gray. And as he hangs up, the front door opens.
What Robert first says once he’s in the shop, Tillie isn’t certain. His heart is pounding, and he’s thinking about the doctor what told him to stop eating bacon. The floors rattle with each step Robert takes, and the smell of a sweet cigar fills the shop. Tillie rests one hip against the counter to steady himself.
“Got yourself quite a mess there,” Robert says after saying other things Tillie didn’t make out, and he nods at the broken front door.
Robert Robithan’s face is lined with deep creases from a lifetime of working construction, but in the soft light shining through the front window, he looks like a younger man. Picking up a crystal bowl Mrs. Tillie found at a yard sale, Robert tosses it from hand to hand. It sparkles as it passes through the overhead lights.
“You don’t look well,” Robert says.
“My car got stole.” Tillie forces himself to stand tall. “Right out of my driveway.”
The cigar smell is making him dizzy. It’s too familiar and is whittling away all the years between what happened then and what’s happening now. Robert had said the same to Tillie as he stood holding that fellow’s wrist. Hold him tight, Robert said. And then to Tillie, you don’t look well.
“Where is she, Tillie?” Robert says. “Been to her house and they ain’t seen her.”
Tillie knew what helping Natalie might mean for him, but he had hoped it wo
uldn’t mean nothing to Mrs. Tillie. But as Robert toys with the crystal, he is letting Tillie know he can do as he likes with him and Mrs. Tillie too.
“You asking after Mrs. Tillie?” Tillie says. His tongue is swelled up, and talking feels like something he’s never done before. “She’s there in the back. But I got your watches right here.” Tillie nudges the small white box across the counter. “Knew they was yours straightaway.”
“Natalie Sharon,” Robert says, ignoring everything Tillie told him. “Where is she?”
Another part of Tillie’s plan was to have this counter between him and Robert, and he’s glad of it now.
“An officer was here,” Tillie says. “That Jacobson fellow, he told her to go. Listen, Robert, I don’t know what Edison was up to when he stole your watches, but Natalie’s just a kid. I knew they was yours the second I seen them. Locked them up tight. Had every intention of giving them back. I wasn’t no part of whatever Edison was up to.”
Robert sets down Mrs. Tillie’s crystal bowl, and in a few long steps, the pine floorboards again rattling under his weight, he stands at the counter. He starts to say something but stops at the sound of heels clicking across the same pine boards.
“Hello there, Robert,” Mrs. Tillie says, walking up behind Tillie. “So nice to see you under happier circumstances.”
Swatting Tillie on the hind end so he’ll move aside, Mrs. Tillie reaches under the counter and pulls out her blue ledger, a large notebook filled with her record keeping.
“And you, Mrs. Tillie.” Robert dips his head but keeps his eyes on Tillie.
Mrs. Tillie stands the ledger up on the counter and leans it there. “You’ll say hello to Edith for me, won’t you? Didn’t get a chance to visit much at the funeral.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Robert says, and dips his head again, a signal he’s saying good-bye to Mrs. Tillie. Robert has always had a way of getting folks to do his bidding with nothing more than a nod, and his son can do the same.
“Well, I’ll let you gentlemen get back to your visiting,” Mrs. Tillie says, and tucking her ledger up under her arm, she turns and walks into the back of the shop again.
“I’m wondering,” Robert says once Mrs. Tillie has gone, again ignoring everything Tillie has tried to explain, “if maybe your car wasn’t stolen at all. I’m wondering if you give it to Natalie Sharon and maybe she’s long gone by now.”
Tillie shakes his head. “Officer Jacobson told her to leave. Near an hour ago.”
Robert takes another step toward the counter. He’s close enough he could reach across and lay a hand on Tillie’s chest. But instead of saying anything more, Robert’s eyes drop to the register, and the instant they do, Tillie knows he’s been caught.
“You say your car was stole?” Robert says.
Tillie nods.
“Stole right out of your driveway?”
“Couldn’t believe it myself.”
“Must have left your keys inside it, then,” Robert says.
Again, Tillie nods, hoping that fellow down to the café doesn’t remember seeing Tillie drive up earlier in the day.
“Then what’s that there?” Robert Robithan asks, tipping his head at the set of keys hanging from the hook on the side of the register where Tillie always keeps them.
Tillie slides one foot back and then the other. He really doesn’t care for himself. It’s Mrs. Tillie he worries over. Even if Robert leaves her be, she’ll live now with whatever becomes of Tillie and this shop and mostly their home. Robert will tell the fellows to burn it, and probably the shop too. Mrs. Tillie will be left with nothing. Tillie steadies himself with a hand to the counter and starts to let out a breath so he can tell Robert it was all his doing. Mrs. Tillie didn’t do nothing. He takes another step, the ground still unsteady underfoot, and then he starts to smile, but he catches himself. He reaches out with one hand and lifts the set of keys.
“These here?” he says. “These here are Mrs. Tillie’s keys.” Then he flicks the miniature doily Mrs. Tillie hung from her key ring because she was tired of Tillie all the time picking up her set. “Used her keys today. Mine are long gone, I suppose. Like you said, I left them in the car. Been doing it for years. Probably have to get new locks here at the shop else I’ll find this place robbed too. Got everything. Shop keys. House keys. Hell, even think they got my safety deposit box key. You suppose a person could get into my safety deposit box?”
Tillie knows he should quit talking. He presses his lips tight together to stop anything more from coming out his mouth and he doesn’t move from behind the counter until Robert has left the store and his truck has pulled out of its parking place. Then he drops onto the stool he keeps at the register and closes his eyes. Surely, Robert was angry, though Tillie remembers nothing between looking down on those keys and seeing Robert walk out the door. In the days ahead, Robert might be back with more questions and accusations, but for now those keys have been enough to save Tillie and Mrs. Tillie.
This was Tillie’s plan, but in the end, Mrs. Tillie saved it. That’s what she was doing when she gathered up the large blue ledger and leaned the tall book on the counter. She always knew, and when she heard Robert Robithan, she knew Tillie’s keys were hanging there because they weren’t stolen. He took off one key and handed it to Natalie Sharon, and he kept the rest. He kept them and hung them right there on the register where he always did. Behind the cover of that ledger, Mrs. Tillie traded her keys for Tillie’s, because Mrs. Tillie always knows.
Chapter 52
BETH
Before
As much as I never wanted to, I had to think about what might happen if I was forced to leave Christopher behind. I knew he’d use him to lure me back, and if he did, I would give in to him. But I never planned for things changing on the outside like they have. If I answer him now, Eddie’s daddy will still be dead, and his daddy dying means they have to sell this place and this land. And that means there is nowhere left for Christopher and me. I begged Eddie to let us go, promised to never tell, promised to run far away where no one would know them or us. Begged him over the years too, but the answer has always been no, and that means if we can’t be here, we can’t be anywhere. We can’t go on living. If I answer him now, those things will still be true. My only chance at saving Christopher is to outlast this man. I have to make him think I’m already gone and that I’ve left Christopher behind so he’ll go too.
He continues calling my name and shouting that I better damn well answer him, but he isn’t shouting as loudly as he could, and that must mean he’s afraid of someone hearing him. I bite the side of my hand so I can’t answer when he calls out that he’ll damn well kill Christopher if I don’t get my ass back inside. I tuck my head and try not to cry because crying won’t do me any good.
He’s gotten colder again and now I hear nothing and I think my being quiet has worked. I try to figure how long since I last heard him call my name. I worry the rustling in the grass that starts at one end of the field and rolls toward me is him, but maybe it’s from the breeze. It doesn’t have to be the sound of him passing through the rows, taking long, heavy steps as he gets closer. It’s possible he left, and I wouldn’t have heard him drive away. I don’t know if he parks his car far or close. I didn’t hear an engine like I used to hear Mama’s engine. I didn’t see the glow of headlights like I used to see when Mama came home late. I want to stand and look, but I can’t.
I’ll count to one thousand, and if I still hear nothing, I’ll run back and throw open the door into the kitchen. I’ll have to take light steps as I run through the empty, rotting house, maybe even walk instead, because if Christopher hears running, he’ll be frightened and hide. He’ll do it because that’s what I told him to do. I’ve taught him everything I didn’t know when I came to live in the basement and all the things I did know. I’ve taught him about setting the alarm on the clock every day so he remembers to wake up and marking the days and drawing a calendar. We’ve studied how many days in each month and how
to save food in cans and how never to use the flashlight except in emergencies. If he has to one day, he’ll be able to tend himself.
The darkness has settled in my head just like it’s settled in the sky. The air is getting cooler. I’m shivering, and it’s taking all my energy. I knew I’d have to be careful of that, but I ran when I had to run. I didn’t have a jacket to grab, no shoes or boots to pull on my feet. And my knees ache from having squatted for so long, how long I don’t know. Not only is the shivering sucking up all my energy, but my legs are too tired to stand and won’t carry me far or fast. I knew there would be a pain to holding still for so long. I knew because I have a memory of not being able to move. It was a toolbox in the back of a pickup. And so I practiced for the pain, Christopher and I together did. We sat still as long as we could, not saying a word. But I didn’t practice enough.
Dropping back onto my hind end, I let out a sigh because the relief is stronger than I am. I slap a hand over my mouth. He may have heard me, but I couldn’t stop myself because it felt so good. I stretch my legs into the path between the clumps of grass, the thick, dry blades scratching my bare feet. I need to keep up my circulation, but I can’t stand to do it. I bend my legs and work my knees up and down to get the blood flowing so I’ll be ready to run.
I reach one thousand in my counting. He might have left, driven off because he thought I was gone. Or he might be hiding just inside the kitchen door, ready to grab me when I run inside and throw me back down into the basement. I stretch my legs again, work my knees as I prepare them to straighten. I’ll stay low as I run from here to the back door. Just in case I’m wrong about him having left, I’ll still have the fading light on my side and I’ll hide again, crawl through the rows if I have to. Crawl until I’m lost again in this maze. There’s nothing I can do, and the darkness won’t help me, if he’s waiting for me inside the kitchen.