by Attica Locke
“I’ll let you tell her that.”
Raymond laughed out loud. “I will, I swear I will, Gray.”
“So you’re not planning to sell?” she asked, because it still felt unclear.
“We don’t know what we’re going to do, Gray, not at this stage, no. But I promise you’ll be the first to know whatever we decide to do with the land out there. Daddy and I know what you’ve done for Belle Vie, you and your mother.”
Caren nodded, but she sensed there was more he wasn’t saying.
“Is that it?” Raymond said, smiling, openly relieved, it seemed. “Is that what you drove all this way to ask me?”
“I was hoping to put everyone at ease. They’re getting kind of nervous out there,” she said, meaning the staff. “It’s been a very difficult couple of days.”
“Oh, of course, Gray.”
“I just thought it would mean a lot if I could tell them their jobs were safe.”
“Well, I’ll count on you to do just that. We need stability right now, more than anything. It’s a mess, this thing that’s happened. Makes me sick to my stomach.”
His desk phone beeped, followed by the sound of Joyce’s smoker’s voice.
“Tom Hinman, Mr. Clancy. He’s retuning on the state matter.”
“Tell him to hold.”
“Yes, sir.”
The line clicked, and Clancy looked at Larry, who was motioning in Caren’s general direction, offering Raymond some silent instruction, some last piece of business to handle. Raymond nodded at him, and then Caren felt his hand on her back. He leaned over her, awkwardly shrinking his normally impressive height and making her feel as if she were under the weight of a massive shadow, a fast-moving rain cloud. “Look, Gray,” he said, in a whisper both husky and strong. “We just want to reiterate the importance of not speaking with the press about what’s happened out there, that gal killed and all. Now, they’ll try to put a story together anyhow, but the less we give ’em, the better. You understand? No reporters, hear? Not a word about a body at Belle Vie or that it was a Groveland worker who was killed. In fact, nothing at all about the Groveland Corporation, okay?”
They’d already gone over this.
She didn’t understand the need for a second instruction about his call for silence on the issue, and she told him so. His eyes narrowed a bit, and the grip on her shoulder tightened. “I just want to make sure we’re clear, Gray. I wouldn’t want to invite any trouble, for my family or yours. We’ve been good to your family, haven’t we, you in particular, Gray?” She knew where he was heading. They had an exchange like this at least once a year, Raymond reminding her what all he and his daddy had done for the Grays. “I think you owe us a little of your trust on this. We wouldn’t let you down, wouldn’t leave you hanging, no matter what we decide about Belle Vie.” His breath was warm, suffocating, really. She tried to understand how they had somehow made it back around to the subject of a sale that supposedly wasn’t even happening.
The intercom beeped. It was Joyce again. “Tom Hinman holding, sir.”
“I need to take that, Gray.”
“Sure.”
She was escorted out by Joyce, a middle-aged black woman with impeccable taste. Her hair was stylish and short, and her clothes, silk separates of olive and gold, were cut close to her petite frame. She saw Caren all the way to the bank of elevators in the firm’s lobby, holding open the doors when a car arrived and seeing to it that Caren and her muddy boots made it all the way inside and on their way out of the stately building, even going so far as to reach inside the car and press the ground-floor button herself.
Caren arrived at Morgan’s school a little before the final bell. She signed the visitors’ sheet in the main office, where the receptionist, upon seeing her name and that of the fifth-grader she was there to pick up, stopped her just a few minutes later. Caren had already made her way to the east hallway, which was painted yellow and decorated with a mural of fleurs-de-lis in shades of purple, green, and gold, a different fifth-grader’s name written in script inside each lily-shaped symbol. Her daughter’s name was near the top: Morgan Ellis, 9, Rm 112, Ms. Rivera’s homeroom class. She heard a woman behind her, calling her name. Caren turned to see the school’s receptionist, her low heels clicking on the tiled floor. Catching her breath, she informed Caren, without any hint of alarm, that a man had been by the school early that afternoon, asking to see a Morgan Gray.
“Morgan?” Caren said. “My daughter?” The receptionist, a woman with big, round glasses and tight plum-colored sweater, nodded. It was an older gentleman, Caucasian, she felt the need to add.
“We don’t get that a lot,” the woman said. “Usually parents alert us if a visit is planned.” She offered this last bit as a soft reprimand, scolding Caren for not following the rules. But Caren had planned no such visit, and she couldn’t imagine who would have come by the school, asking after her daughter. “Was it a cop?” she said, though she had a niggling feeling that this couldn’t be so. She certainly didn’t put it past Lang to try to get Morgan away from Caren, to speak to her alone. But Lang, or any cop associated with the case, knew her daughter’s last name was Ellis, not Gray.
“No, ma’am,” the woman said. “He didn’t look like any police officer I’ve seen.” He was wearing jeans, she said, Wranglers, and he just, well, he just didn’t seem like a cop. And he wouldn’t leave his name when she asked. He’d turned around and walked out of the school’s office without saying another word, she said.
“Thank you,” Caren said, feeling her mouth go dry.
By the time she made it to the door to Ms. Rivera’s classroom, she felt fairly certain it was no cop who’d come by the school. The more she thought about it, the sicker she felt, a breathtaking fear that made her head hurt, made her chest feel cold and hollow, a small cry of panic echoing in the dark. The school bell rang, startling her, and she was quickly pushed back by a stream of fifth-graders spilling out into the hallway. The boys pushed and shoved each other, teasing and laughing. The girls moved more slowly, in groups of two and three, their small heads pressed together, their bell-like voices quietly intense. Inside the classroom, Morgan was still at her desk when Caren entered. She was shrunk down in her chair, wilting under the gaze of her teacher. Donna Rivera was standing over Morgan with her arms crossed and her behind leaned against one of the school desks. She was a dyed blonde in her twenties with a voice like spun cotton and a tendency toward brightly colored sweaters with appliqués of apples or trees or napping cats. She wore a pen on a chain around her neck. “Caren,” she said, calling her by her first name, part of a culture of equity and free exchange between parents and teachers that was greatly encouraged by the Laurel Springs School District. It was meant to suggest that she and Caren were in this together, that they had the same investment in the raising up of this child, when, really, nothing could have been further from the truth. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “I was just taking a moment to speak with Morgan here about the need to follow rules.” She looked down at Morgan, pausing briefly to give her wayward pupil a chance to agree. “And we’ve decided she will no longer read unassigned materials during science class or social studies or any other time except what has been set aside as an accepted time for reading. Isn’t that right, Morgan?”
“You don’t want me to read, got it.”
She stood up out of her desk, ready to leave.
“Sit down, Morgan,” Caren said, more sternly than she might have if they were alone, because she wanted Ms. Rivera to know she wasn’t responsible for everything that came out of her daughter’s mouth. “I don’t believe Ms. Rivera said she was finished talking.” The teacher, perhaps reassured by this show of force, said, “No, she can go.”
Morgan practically sprinted out of the classroom, dragging her backpack. Caren was only a few steps behind her when she felt a cool hand at her elbow. Donna Rivera was motion
ing her away from the classroom door. “May I speak with you a moment?”
“Of course.”
Morgan’s locker was directly across from the open classroom door, and Caren could see her pulling out her schoolbooks and loading them into her backpack. Inside the locker, she saw several of Morgan’s white school shirts, balled up on the shelf.
“Is everything okay at home?”
“Why? Did Morgan say something?”
Donna smiled reassuringly. She tapped her index finger against her lips, trying to find the words, the right way to put whatever it was she was about to say about another person’s child. “Well, I think you know we’ve had some concerns about Morgan’s . . . social spirit. I know I’ve mentioned it before. I’m sure you remember.” Caren remembered a single sentence scribbled at the bottom of one of Morgan’s report cards, a note about her daughter being very shy, presented then as a character trait and not pathology or anything that would warrant the serious tone of this conversation. “It’s just that we’re nearing the end of the first semester, and I can’t say that Morgan has made a single friend this year. She eats lunch alone, reads during recess, and I never hear her talking with any of the other girls about sleepovers or parties or any activities outside of school.”
“Well, we live a ways outside of the parish.”
“You’re out on the plantation, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Hm . . .”
She nodded to herself, thinking. “I guess I just thought she would have opened up by now,” she said. “Sometimes we see this kind of withdrawn behavior with kids who have some personal stress at home.” Her voice ended on an up note, and Caren realized this was meant as a question. She was staring at her, waiting.
“Well, her father’s getting married.”
“Oh?” the teacher said, though Caren got the sense this was not news to her.
Treading carefully, she said, “And how does Morgan feel about that?”
“She’s excited to see Washington, D.C.”
Which didn’t answer the question, and Caren knew that, but she suddenly wanted out of this impromptu meeting in Ms. Rivera’s classroom. Morgan’s social spirit, as the woman put it, was about the least of her concerns about her daughter right now. “Well . . . we’ve got a long drive back.” Donna held up a single finger, signaling her to wait for just one more moment. She crossed to her desk and opened the top drawer, from which she pulled a stapled stack of papers that were well-worn and curling at the edges. She walked the papers over to Caren, holding them out. “This is what Morgan was reading in class today,” she said. “It’s very . . . advanced.”
Caren glanced at the top page, taking in the title: “Recovery and Reconciliation and the Emergence of a Free Labor System in Ascension Parish.”
But it didn’t really register.
Something in the school hallway had caught Caren’s attention.
Outside the classroom, Morgan had dropped her book bag at her feet. She was staring, gape-mouthed, at something in the distance, well out of Caren’s line of sight.
“Another possible explanation for Morgan’s behavior in the classroom is that she is simply too bright for this environment,” Ms. Rivera was saying, speaking over Caren’s shoulder. “There are some excellent advanced programs at other schools in the state. They’re worth looking into. It might be a better fit for someone like Morgan.”
In the hallway, Morgan broke into a huge grin.
“Daddy!” she screamed, running down the hall.
Stunned, Caren walked out of the classroom, turning to her left, where she saw her daughter pushing through the crowd of students, racing to the waiting arms of her father. He swept her up, lifting her. Morgan laid her head on his shoulder, a place where she had always felt safe. Eric looked down the length of hallway to Caren. He was wearing a light-gray suit, looking as if he’d just come straight from work, as if he’d decided at his desk, just a few hours earlier, to catch the next flight to New Orleans. The tail of a paisley tie was peeking out of his side pocket, and his shirt collar was unbuttoned. Holding his only child in his arms, he gave Caren a small shrug that suggested he couldn’t help himself: I’m here. She was struck by how thin he looked. He’d changed his glasses, and his hair was shorter. But it was Eric all right, and Caren felt at once the regret, cutting and familiar, but also, as their eyes met across the noisy school hallway, a sense of joy, relief almost, that this man was Morgan’s father.
11
“She’s not talking,” he said.
Eric folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the cheap Formica countertop of Caren’s small kitchen. His suit jacket was in the other room, along with a small overnight bag, set at the foot of the parlor’s leather couch. Morgan was upstairs, changing out of her school clothes and washing up before an early dinner. She’d chosen to ride home in her dad’s rental car, just the two of them, and he’d again tried to get her to open up, expressing to her the gravity of the situation. “She swears she doesn’t know anything about it, that she never even left the house that night,” he said wearily. “And she’s sticking to her story that the shirt probably isn’t even hers. She doesn’t know how any blood got there.” He shrugged his shoulders, not sure what to make of this entire situation, the very fact that he was standing in her kitchen. He was looking right at her, and Caren felt shy all of a sudden. She felt his eyes on her back as she turned, standing over the hot stove, stirring an array of steaming pots on the burners. Letty had left a chicken casserole in the fridge before leaving work, but Caren had taken one look at it and decided against it. Eric hadn’t been in Louisiana in a long, long time, and she wanted him to have the real deal. So she’d borrowed the golf cart from security and driven over to Lorraine’s kitchen, begging off bits and pieces of the menu she was working on for tomorrow, and grabbing a bottle of Bordeaux from the wine room. Lorraine had kindly asked few questions, but was plainly enjoying Caren’s nerves. “Word is you got a visitor out there, baby,” she said, smiling big.
At her own stove now, she heated Lorraine’s food: shrimp fritters; steak grillade over sticky rice, roasted cauliflower brushed with salted butter and coriander, and butternut squash mashed with candied yams and ginger. Smoke and steam filled the kitchen, and Caren thought to open a window. The heat was starting to get to her.
Carefully, she said, “Someone came by Morgan’s school today.”
Eric looked up at her. “What?”
“I thought it was a cop . . . but maybe not.”
It was a man in Wranglers, the woman in the front office had said.
Caren had a sudden memory of that red pickup truck on the highway, the one that had tailed them from Laurel Springs the day before, the same truck she’d seen on the farm road by Belle Vie, circling and doubling back, a white man behind the wheel.
“How scared should I be, Caren?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you’re sure it was blood?”
“Yes,” she said, hearing aloud the kernel of doubt in her mind. Now, with Eric here, standing in the same room, she wasn’t feeling sure of anything, could hardly think straight. “And, anyway, she’s acting weird. She’s acting like she’s hiding something.”
She left out the rest of it.
Her panic Thursday night, what she’d done with Morgan’s shirt.
She was hiding something, too.
Eric shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why would she lie?”
The heat in the kitchen swelled. Caren felt hungry and light-headed. She started for the small casement window next to the washer and dryer, turning her body sideways to pass Eric. Cracking open the windowpane let in a cool stream of air that shot down the length of the kitchenette, parting the heat and steam. She wiped a film of sweat from her forehead, drying her palm on the front of her jeans. When she crossed from the window back toward t
he stove, again turning sideways to pass Eric, they came face-to-face for the first time, and he reached for her arm. It wasn’t an embrace exactly, and yet the touch paralyzed her, pinning her in place, so close to him that she could feel his breath against her cheek. She could smell his aftershave, a sweet, musky scent that made her think of summer, nights he used to sit out on their old porch. She wondered if Lela let him smoke—or if there were parts of his life, this trip even, that were outside of her authority. “If Morgan saw something . . .” he whispered, his voice trailing off at the mere suggestion of what that could mean for his daughter. He could hardly tolerate the thought and backed away from it almost as quickly as it had come to him. He was trying to stay levelheaded, to be practical about this. “What are the cops saying?”