by Ann B. Ross
“Are you all right?” I asked.
He shook his head. “One afternoon,” he said, running his hand across his face. “And they’ve cried evey minute of it. Is it like this every day?”
“Pretty much,” I said complacently as I emptied the cole slaw into a china bowl. “But, see, we’ve built up a tolerance for it, while you’re coming in cold. You’ll get used to it.”
He just stared at me, a harried look on his face.
“Sit down, Mr. Pickens,” I said, turning him toward the table. “Go ahead and eat. It may be a long night.”
I couldn’t help but ride him a little because he’d been mostly absent during these first hectic days.
As the crying suddenly decreased by half, Hazel Marie stumbled out and collapsed in a chair at the table. Her makeup had long worn off and her hair needed a comb, and she looked in no mood to repair either.
“I’ve given up,” she said, tears welling up-again. “We can’t just let them cry their little hearts out.”
“That’s right, honey,” Mr. Pickens said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “If it’ll help, let’s just do it.”
“Do what?” I asked, spooning baked beans onto Hazel Marie’s plate. Then I lifted my head as the other half of the crying abruptly stopped. “What’s Etta Mae doing to them?”
I saw what she’d done when she came walking out, a silent baby in each arm.
“Here,” she said, handing one baby to Hazel Marie and the other to Mr. Pickens. Each one was tightly swaddled and sucking peacefully away on a pacifier. “I don’t want to put them down until we’re sure they’re asleep.”
Hazel Marie gazed mournfully down on the daughter in her arms. “I didn’t want them to have pacifiers. Everybody says it’s so hard to break the habit once they start.”
Mr. Pickens grinned, put down his fork, and reached for her hand. He was getting quite adept at doing everything one-handedly. “So what, if they take ’em to kindergarten? Who cares, as long as they’re happy now?”
“I guess so,” Hazel Marie said, cuddling the swaddled baby closer. “I just don’t want their teeth to come in crooked.”
“That’s an old wives’ tale,” Etta Mae said with some authority. She dried her hands after washing them and came to the table. “You and J.D. have good straight teeth, so they will too. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Good advice, I thought. Besides, crooked teeth could be fixed—a small future price to pay for a little peace and quiet tonight.
Later in the evening, as I climbed the stairs to my lonely temporary bedroom, I wondered how much longer I’d have to wait before my husband was with me. I was more than ready to move back into the spacious room that Sam and I had vacated in favor of Hazel Marie and Mr. Pickens when they were first married and Hazel Marie, heavy with child, had been forbidden the stairs. But when would they be ready to move to Sam’s house and be on their own?
Not until those babies were on some sort of schedule and Hazel Marie no longer needed Etta Mae’s help, I realized. That could be awhile. Actually, it would be when, if ever, Hazel Marie could manage by herself. Lord goodness, that being the case, I thought as I closed the bedroom door behind me, Sam might never be back.
Hazel Marie was the dearest person you’d ever want to know—sweet and thoughtful, and always eager to learn and do the right thing. She had been a comfort to me in the years between Wesley Lloyd Springer’s demise and Sam’s advent in my life, and she continued to be a loyal friend and companion. I wouldn’t say a thing against her for the world.
But let’s face it, Hazel Marie wasn’t a take-charge person with the ability to manage two things at once, and why the Lord saw fit to give her two babies at once was beyond me to understand. Of course it was reassuring to know that James would stay on to cook and clean for the Pickens family, but child care? No, I didn’t think so. Hazel Marie was going to need a nanny or an au pair or somebody to help her until those babies were old enough to go to school.
James himself created another problem. I kept telling Sam that he was letting James get by with too much, or rather, with doing too little. I could just envision James intimidating Hazel Marie and running the house the way he wanted to. Hazel Marie would never be able to put her foot down and straighten him out.
Then I smiled to myself. Mr. Pickens could. James would meet his match, and then some, when Mr. Pickens moved into Sam’s house. That would fix James and maybe pay him back for gossiping and trying every way he could to keep Sam and me apart.
With that comforting thought, I began to undress for bed. I put on a long flannel gown and pulled socks onto my feet, all necessary because I would be sleeping alone. My warm husband was still four blocks away and not in my bed, heating it up.
Going to the front windows to open the curtains so the streetlight would cast a glow after the lamps were off, I noticed that the wind had picked up. I shivered, wondering how low the temperature had dropped. Tree branches were tossing and scraping against the house. A paper bag tumbled down the empty street, and the traffic light on the corner swayed on its cable. Just as I adjusted the curtain, a white car eased through the green light, headed on Polk Street away from town.
My mouth opened in a gasp as I recognized the car as the same one that had been going toward town in the early morning hours only days before. Somebody was spending Saturday nights with somebody, and I didn’t have to eat my hat to know who one of those somebodies was.
Chapter 42
Wrong, wrong, wrong, I said to myself as I came out of my flannel gown and started dressing. Don’t even think that Helen Stroud is on her way to Sam’s house. He would not do that to me, not at any time, but certainly not now after assuring me he’s coming home.
But even as all that was running through my mind, I was snatching up underclothes, thick stockings, or tights, as Hazel Marie called them, searching through the closet for the heavy wool dress I’d worn on another cold night, my breath rattling in my throat as I tried to hurry without making noise and fumbling to put on enough warm clothes at the same time. The weather had begun to warm up, melting the last of the snow and making the ground soggy. But cold temperatures at night put a layer of ice over every watery place, so I got out my rubber galoshes too.
My hands were shaking so much that I pulled on the tights inside out, twisting them around in such a way that I could hardly take a normal step. Stepping into low-heeled shoes, then the galoshes, and grabbing a heavy coat, I sneaked out into the dark hall, noting with relief that Lloyd’s door was closed with no light showing under it. Then, remembering what I’d forgotten, I turned around and went back to my room for gloves and Lloyd’s multicolored cap that I’d failed to return to his closet.
As I slipped down the staircase in the dark house, my nerves stretched to the snapping point, I prayed that nobody would be up tending babies. Thank you, Etta Mae, I thought, for the peace that pacifiers had wrought.
Then I sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and thought through what I was about to do. I didn’t want to go out in the cold night by myself, but I certainly couldn’t just go to bed and let nature take its course. I had to find out where Helen was going and what she would do when she got there.
If I hadn’t given Lillian the weekend off, she’d go with me. She wouldn’t like it, but she’d do it. And Etta Mae was right at the end of the upstairs hall in the sunroom. Maybe I could wake her and she’d go. But no, she’d be afraid the babies would wake up, and Hazel Marie and Mr. Pickens would need her. And they would, because Mr. Pickens hadn’t quite gotten the hang of changing diapers, even disposable ones. In fact, he became nauseated every time he discovered more than he expected.
Hazel Marie would go up to wake Etta Mae, and when she found an empty bed, she’d be dialing 911, thinking Etta Mae had been kidnapped. I could do without having every deputy in the county on the prowl.
Briefly I thought of Lloyd but quickly discarded that idea. He’d be grand company and up for anything, but with the frigid weathe
r he might catch a cold. Besides, if—and I really mean if—I found Helen’s car at Sam’s, which I didn’t believe for a minute, I didn’t want Lloyd to know about it.
That left me to go it alone. I started to rise, then sank back down, recalling the promise I’d made to Sam just that afternoon.
“Now, Julia,” he’d said, “anytime you get an urge to take matters into your own hands and go off on some wild-goose chase, stop and think.”
Well, that’s what I was doing, wasn’t I? Why else would I be sitting on a stair step in the middle of the night, gathering my nerve to brave the wintry blasts?
Of course, he’d said something else too: “And come talk to me about it. If it’s worth doing, I’ll do it with you, and we’ll leave your partners in crime out of it.”
Yes, well, I could see me asking Sam to help me discover where Helen was spending the night. I didn’t think he’d be amenable to casing his own house.
Determined to do what had to be done, I got up and slipped through the rooms into the kitchen, where the hood light over the stove had been left on for visual aid in preparing bottles when needed. I stood and waited for a bit to be sure no one else was stirring, then, congratulating myself on having a little foresight this time, I found my keys and put them deep in a pocket. I didn’t intend to get locked out again.
And I didn’t intend to walk all over creation, freezing to death either. This time I was going to take a chance and take the car, counting on the baby tenders to be dead to the world from lack of sleep. My plan was to drive straight to Sam’s, check for a white car, and return home before anybody missed me.
As I carefully closed the kitchen door behind me, I stood on the back stoop waiting for my eyes to adjust. Just as I stepped out onto the yard, the overhead light in the kitchen came on.
Somebody was up. Plunging between two huge boxwoods, I crouched down behind them and peeked through the windows to see who it was. Oh, Lord, it was Mr. Pickens, the last person I wanted to see or wanted to see me. He was stumbling between refrigerator and sink, yawning and scratching himself. But even half asleep, his detecting antenna would pick up the least little thing, so the car would be staying right where it was. Which meant I’d have to walk.
The nearest way to Sam’s was to go through my backyard and out the back gate. Popping up, then back down, I watched Mr. Pickens move back and forth in the kitchen, preparing baby formula. Then he parked himself in front of the sink, right in front of the window that overlooked the backyard, and stood there and stood there—doing who-knows-what while I waited and waited. For all I knew, he’d fallen asleep.
Crouched down as I was, my knees started aching and I knew I had to move even if it meant going the long way. So I melted into the row of boxwoods that lined the driveway and, staying close, crawled on my hands and knees to the sidewalk. Then I had the devil’s own time getting to my feet with nothing to leverage myself with but limber boxwood twigs. I not only scratched my hand, but also left a gaping hole in the big bush on the corner.
Scurrying along the sidewalk, I didn’t feel safe from curious eyes until I was well past Mildred Allen’s yard and in the dark spot between streetlights. I stopped and pulled on Lloyd’s cap, feeling the bite of the wind for the first time after the surge of adrenaline.
I waited a few minutes under the branches of Mildred’s forsythia, which hung over the sidewalk, to consider a plan of action. I was way off the shortest course to Sam’s house, which would add a couple more blocks to the four that it normally was.
Well, it couldn’t be helped, and longing for the car heater that would just about be revving up by now, I started walking, thinking and planning as I went. To tell the truth, I didn’t know what I’d do if I found Helen’s car at Sam’s—just knock on the door and invite myself in? I cringed at the thought. I’d spent my life avoiding making a spectacle of myself—even when I had every right to make one—and I wasn’t going to start now.
No, I’d simply confirm my suspicions and go back home to bed. That’s where I’d decide what to do next. I had to stop and lean against the low stone wall that bordered the Whitakers’ yard as pure misery overtook me. I didn’t suspect Sam of two-timing me with Helen. I really didn’t, yet here I was sneaking around to check on him even after he’d made it clear only hours ago that he was eager to come home.
What was the matter with me? Why couldn’t I trust the most honest, open, and decent man I’d ever known?
Well, of course anybody who knew me could answer that. Wesley Lloyd Springer, my first and long-departed husband, engaged in a secret liaison that lasted a decade while I blithely and blindly lived a life of unquestioning trust, unable to imagine that he was capable of such treacherous behavior.
But Sam wasn’t anything like Wesley Lloyd. I kept telling myself that but wondered why I wasn’t able to stay home in bed, secure in that knowledge. Just because one husband had been unfaithful didn’t mean the next one would be. I knew that, but like any Presbyterian, I was a staunch believer in the doctrine of original sin, a preexisting condition with the potential for additional sin. I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I found out whether Sam had allowed the potential to become the actual.
When I knew that, then I’d go to bed.
By the time I got to Sam’s house, having walked the extra blocks because of how I’d started out, I was breathing hard and my chest was burning from the cold and from my dashes into the shadows when two cars passed by on the street. Because Mr. Pickens had lingered so long at the sink, causing me to reconfigure my route, I was approaching the back of Sam’s house. Slipping under the low branches of an ancient hemlock on the edge of his yard, I had a clear view of the back porch and the garage on the far side. No lights were on in the house, but one burned at the top of the stairs that led to the small apartment above the garage. James, I thought, and hoped he was a sound sleeper.
That one burning bulb cast enough light for me to see that there was only Sam’s old—and I mean old—red pickup parked in front of the garage. There were no other vehicles parked behind the house, not even where I’d seen Helen’s car once before. Avoiding the yard entirely, I walked along the sidewalk to the front of Sam’s house and saw that the driveway was clear. Then I walked the length of the sidewalk in front of the house to make sure that a certain white car had not been sneakily parked where it would draw no attention.
Feeling more and more confident that I was on a fool’s errand, I decided to continue on to my house and go to bed. Whoever Helen had been going to see, it had not been my faithful Sam. Getting a second wind, I stepped out smartly, taking the short way home because surely by that time Mr. Pickens was no longer hanging over the sink.
Then I stopped, turned around, and hurried back the way I’d come, anxiety burning a streak through my chest. Sam’s garage had been closed. Sam had only one car. Sam’s pickup was in the driveway. It was a two-car garage.
Chapter 43
Looking up and down the sidewalk, then scanning the house and the garage, I saw nothing to deter me. No new lights were on, and everything was quiet except for the rattling of tree branches in the occasional gust of wind. Avoiding the driveway, I scooted across the grass toward Sam’s pickup, then edged along it until I reached the double garage doors.
Bending over beside a front tire, I studied the matter, then sat down and studied some more. Whoever had last driven the pickup—James, most likely—had left the truck parked right between the two doors and so close that there was no way to lift a door and swing it up. No need to even try—even if I had the strength, it would be blocked by the truck.
As the cold from the concrete driveway began to seep through all the layers of wool I had on, I came to the conclusion that getting in the garage through those doors was out of the question. My next thought was to try to peep through the small windows along the top of the doors, but when I tried that, I wasn’t tall enough to see more than the garage ceiling.
So, carefully holding on to the hood of the pickup, I ho
isted one foot onto the front fender, and straining to get the other one off the ground, I almost made it. The fender creaked and groaned with my weight and shifted downward, one end falling to the pavement as my feet slid to the ground. Losing my balance, I banged against the garage doors, making enough noise to wake the dead and breaking Sam’s truck at the same time.
Flying to the far side of the garage, I squatted in a clump of weeds that James hadn’t cut, terrified that the whole neighborhood would be up in arms. I don’t know how long I stayed there, watching for lights to come on and doors to open. Gradually, as nothing happened, my heart rate slowed and I began to consider what to do next.
Knowing that James was sleeping, or maybe lying half awake right above my head, I began to creep along the far side of the garage. I hugged the side of the garage, turning the corner to go along the back, fighting weeds and straggly bushes every step of the way. All I wanted was one good look inside, but there were no windows anywhere.
But as I got around to the side with the stairs—and the burning light above them—I found a door under the stairs, a normal door that led into the garage. Praying that it wouldn’t be locked, I crept to it and turned the knob. With a sigh of relief, I pushed it open and sidled inside, closing it quickly behind me in case James came out onto the stairs and saw it open.
Easing along and feeling my way in the dark, I groped across the concrete floor to the car parked inside—one car! And it was Sam’s car. I touched it, patted it, and blessed the fact that it was all alone.
I knew it—of course I knew it. I’d known it all along—Sam was as true as true could be, and I could’ve floated on air with the relief that came from finding an empty space where Helen’s car could’ve been but wasn’t.
In fact, I was so overcome with relief that I whirled around in that empty space like a crazy woman, tripped over my own feet, and fell against the workbench. Grabbing the edge of the workbench to stay upright, I knocked over a tin can full of nails or screws or something metallic that men save and never use. The tin can hit the concrete floor with a clatter, spewing nails or whatever they were all over the place, and the thump of feet—big feet—hit the floor above me. James was on his way.