“Thank you.” Before the woman left, Adah asked her, “Do you know Chuck Lerner?”
The woman nodded, and Adah fetched the jacket, which she had laundered, ironed, and folded. “Please return it to him with my deepest gratitude.”
“Will do.”
Adah whispered to the woman, “Do you think you could get ahold of a doll? Any ole doll would do.”
Flipping her coat collar up against the wind, the woman looked hesitant but eventually said, “For the girl, yes. I’ll try my best.” She turned to leave, then swiveled back, giving Adah a strange stare, one of pure sizing up. “You’re not like them, are you?”
Adah only gulped, afraid to answer but grateful for the woman’s words. She had the feeling that Father Sparrow’s spirit had guided the woman to her. With an aching chest, she thanked him in her heart. She also thanked her hardworking parents, who had taught her right from wrong.
The woman gazed down at the jacket she held in her hands. “Nice job on the jacket, by the way.”
One day Adah found Mabel in her favorite parlor chair, knitting. Gathering her strength, she said with determination, “Mabel, may I have a moment of your time?”
Mabel looked up and waited.
“Daisy needs new shoes. She’s outgrown the pair she’s been wearing. I was thinking I’d borrow the truck or the car and go to town.”
Mabel dropped the knitting in her lap and gazed upon Adah with disdain. “She has new shoes, those hand-me-downs, isn’t that right? I don’t like taking charity, but you done took it, didn’t you?”
“They don’t fit right, Mabel. Her old pair is getting too small, and the shoes given to us are way too big. She needs to wear shoes that fit her feet right. It could cause damage—”
“Damage?” Mabel picked up her knitting again and stabbed the needle in and out, in and out. “How dare you talk to me about damage when the town is near ruint and my son hasn’t been found? You know nothing about damage . You talk to me about damage ?”
“I’m talking about the girl’s well-being, about his daughter. Your granddaughter, Mabel.” Adah shot a glance toward the window. “The men are out there working. They know the farm must go on, their work must go on. People are getting back to their houses now, and they’re talking about rebuilding. At least that’s what we heard in church. Daisy’s life must go on, too.”
“Hers, yes. That seems to be all you care about.” Mabel’s eyes looked as if they could shoot flames. “Lord knows I’m the only woman in this household who’s grieving for Lester.”
Adah steadied her voice. “I am grieving for Lester, too. But I feel the best thing I can do for him right now is look after his daughter. I can alter the clothes that don’t fit, but I can’t fix the shoes.”
Mabel batted her eyes a few times. “No businesses have opened again yet. Where do you reckon you could find shoes for a little girl at a time like this?”
“I was thinking about seeing what the Red Cross has to offer, or maybe the churches have been collecting things?”
“You ain’t going out of this house begging for charity! We always done taken care of our own, and we ain’t gonna start asking for handouts now. It’s embarrassing you took clothes and shoes already. If I’d have known what you was up to, I’d have put an end to it, but I didn’t want no scene in front of that lady done come out here.” She pulled in a ragged-sounding breath. “You cain’t understand people like us. And never will. I knew it the first time I laid eyes on you. Knew Lester was making a big mistake.”
Ignoring that comment, Adah said, “What do you expect me to do? Let her go barefooted? I only want what’s best for the girl.”
A strange resolve entered Mabel’s eyes. “That girl is fine. You go and spoil her with every little thing she thinks she needs or wants, and you’ll ruin her, turn her into a brat. Believe you me, that’s not going to happen in this house.”
“I’ve never wanted to spoil her or turn her into a brat.”
“We done seen your influence. We sure has. And it’s gonna stop.”
“Are you refusing shoes for your granddaughter?”
Mabel dropped the knitting. “You ain’t too bright, are you? You best leave well enough alone.”
During the day, Adah helped the men with the seedbeds, while at night she slept with Daisy tucked in at her side, the girl sleeping soundly, having not once cried for her father or even barely mentioned him.
“Where’s Daddy?” she finally asked one night as Adah was reading a book, one that Adah had found in the bottom of the needlepoint bag. The Cat Who Went to Heaven , based on an old Japanese tradition, taught a gentle lesson about compassion and goodness. It contained lovely illustrations, too. Obviously the nice lady had intended it for Daisy.
Adah rested her hand on the page, then closed the book and turned Daisy around to face her.
“Honey, I have to tell you a sad truth. Your daddy’s not coming back, and I know that’s a difficult thing to hear. Most people would say he’s gone on to a better world, up in heaven. That’s what they tell you in church. But the truth is, we don’t know for sure. It’s nice to think of him in some better place, though, isn’t it?”
Daisy shrugged, and she looked down. “Daddy was mean.”
Adah blinked hard. “Why do you say that?”
“He hit you.”
Adah sighed. “Yes, he did.” There was no use in denying it; Daisy had seen. “People do bad things sometimes, but it doesn’t mean they don’t love you. Your father loved me and he certainly loved you, I’m sure of that. And now he’s looking down on us from what we can only hope is a better place.”
“Can he come back?”
“No. No, he can’t come back.”
Daisy shrugged again.
“I’m sure you miss him.”
Daisy said, with no expression on her face, “Can we finish the book now?”
“Of course.”
After that, Daisy had spoken no more about him. Adah lay awake wondering about Daisy’s reaction and also about the scant appearance of friends and supporters for the Branch family during their time of loss. People had always spoken to the family at church, remaining somewhat distant but polite. The Branches were polite in return and then complained during the drive home. Buck had once fumed that a woman had brought her baby into the sanctuary and the infant had cried during the sermon, and Jesse often made fun of an extremely shy young man who attended with his grandmother, calling him “that dimwit.”
But the Branches kept that side of themselves hidden as best they could. How many people really knew them? Why had there been no gathering of people offering comfort, no clusters of women coming over to cook, no men offering to help Buck and Jesse in the fields during this difficult time? Had the Branches turned away charity before and so no one offered it this time? Or was there something else? What did they know that Adah didn’t?
After the fields were prepared, Jesse and Buck often disappeared during the day. Adah overheard them talking one night, gleaning enough to realize that the men were going out on a boat in search of Lester. It seemed that the flame of hope, even one so tiny, was too intense to smother.
One day Buck and Jesse returned from searching, clumped inside to the kitchen, and looked past Adah to Mabel. Buck simply shook his head.
Mabel grasped the edge of the worktable in the kitchen. “I need to find my son. I need to put his soul to rest proper.”
Adah had been cutting up an apple as a snack for Daisy. Her hand stilled. So the men had been looking for Lester’s body . So they had lost hope of finding him alive.
Buck said, “We ain’t giving up.”
“We ain’t giving up, never,” Jesse added.
Mabel breathed out. “I want him to have the finest gravestone in the county.”
“Don’t you worry about it none. We’ll find him and return him to his maker, alright.” Buck turned to leave the room and suddenly seemed to realize that Adah was in the kitchen, too. She handed Daisy the apple sli
ces on a small plate and then looked up. Buck had stopped dead in his tracks, and his back had stiffened. “This is all your fault.”
An ire she couldn’t suppress rose in Adah. Not this time. It was out before she knew it. “The flood wasn’t my fault.”
The old man caught her eyes in a stare as squeezing as a vise. “Did I ask you a question?”
“You made an unfair accusation.”
He pointed his finger. “Listen here. Don’t you never talk back to me, you hear me? It’s bad enough we have to give you a roof over your head cuz you don’t have another goddamn soul willing to take you in, but I’m sure as hell not going to listen to your comments about anything. I don’t give a rat’s ass about your opinions, neither.”
Adah zipped her lips.
Buck made as if to move away; then he spun back and laid his harshest stare on her again. “A funny thing we saw today. Looked like your old milk cow out loose roaming around down close as we could get to your farm.”
Adah almost gasped.
“Funny thing the cow you was aiming to rescue survived, but Les didn’t, ’specially since the cow was supposed to be down by the river with you.”
Adah scrambled. “Don’t cows swim?”
He squinted. “I reckon so. Maybe. But it sure casts some doubt on your story, don’t it?”
Desperate to not appear rattled, Adah asked, “Did you bring the cow back? Les and I were hoping to find her and the mules after the flood passed.”
Buck barked, “You think I care about a cow at a time like this?”
Adah simply looked away.
“I ain’t seen too much sadness from you, like one would ’spect from a grieving widow.”
Turning back, Adah met his gaze. Shakier souls would’ve wilted under his scrutiny, but Adah faced it straight on. “I grieve in private.”
“You grieve not at all,” he said. “You look all fine and dandy to me. Look like the cat that swallowed the canary, if you ask me. You’re as slinky and crafty as those barn cats out there, eking out a life from stalking mice and birds.”
“Scaredy-cat,” Daisy said out of the blue as she picked up a slice of apple and plopped it into her mouth.
The hair on Adah’s arms lifted. Where had Daisy heard that expression? Even though Adah had tried to conceal her fears and worry around Daisy, had she been too transparent?
Adah recalled one day when she’d been sewing a romper for Daisy and had lost track of the time. When Lester came in from the fields, the meal wasn’t ready. He stomped into the house and took one look at her as she abruptly remembered the time, set aside the sewing, and rose from sitting in front of the machine.
His face full of scorn, Les said, “You care more about her than you do about me.” Daisy was a toddler then and had just learned how to stand without holding on to furniture or someone’s hand. Adah glanced at the girl as she lifted herself to stand, and, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the house, the toddler beamed a smile of self-satisfaction, seeking Adah’s approval. For a moment, it was just the two of them, intertwined against the enemy. Adah had to tear her eyes away.
By then she should’ve learned to keep her mouth shut, but there were times when the urge to defend herself burst through her carefully constructed wall of reserve. “She’s a child. She needs more.”
Les’s face went tomato red, and he breathed like an inhuman beast. He looked ridiculous, and she had to tamp down a grin.
“I need more!” Les shouted. “Lately I don’t get nothing from you.”
Unconsciously she shook her head, grateful that the education her parents and Father Sparrow had provided allowed her to speak correctly more often than not. She quipped, “If you never get nothing, that means you get something.”
Les looked confused for a moment, then his expression quickly turned. “Don’t be smart with me.”
“Not to worry. I haven’t made a smart move since I met you.”
He raised his arm. And that was the first time she remembered cowering. He had taught her to cower. “Scaredy-cat,” he said, smiling deviously.
Could Daisy remember back that far? Were the most powerful memories of our childhoods the bad ones?
Buck’s booming voice brought her back to the present. He pointed at Daisy. “Now we’re talking. Now you’re talking like the Branch you are. You better believe she’s a scaredy-cat, one that’s scared for a damn good reason.”
Face burning, Adah summoned her willpower and held her tongue.
She didn’t think it could get worse, but later over dinner, Buck asked her out of the blue, “How’re you planning to earn your keep ’round here?”
Her fork nearly fell out of her hand. She had to remain here with Daisy until she could hatch a plan. Trying to appear unfazed, she said, “I’m looking after Daisy. And I’ll help even more in the fields, if you like. Les and I worked together some of the time. I know a bit about tobacco farming.”
Buck stabbed a piece of pork roast and stuffed it in his mouth. Still chewing, he said, “Is that all? That don’t bring in any money, now, does it?”
Adah searched her brain. She must do something to earn her keep. The Branches weren’t hurting for money; they simply wanted to make her as uncomfortable as possible. Then she remembered the woman who’d complimented her work after she’d laundered Chuck Lerner’s jacket. “I could take in laundry.”
“That’s it?”
Adah’s thoughts spun. “That’s all I can come up with at the moment. But I’ll give it more thought . . .”
Buck snapped his fingers. “Come to think of it, that ain’t such a bad idea. You can take over doing our laundry, too. Then we can fire that old colored washerwoman we been using.” Buck gave a slow blink. “Yep, I reckon you could take in laundry.”
“I’ll get to work on it right away. I can put up a note at church and ask around, too.”
“You do that,” he said, a bit of spittle at the corner of his mouth.
That night her mind fought sleep as it had been doing every night since the flood. The cow swirled in her brain. She doubted Buck or Jesse had ever noticed the cow before, but perhaps they had, and since the cow had never been branded, no one could ever prove it was the same one. It was nothing, she told herself. But the search for Lester’s body terrified her. Although if Lester was ever found, it would be in the water or where water had been. The dent in his temple could be blamed on debris having struck him while he was being swept away. It would corroborate her story rather than contradict it.
Only then did she remember something else Buck had said: Looked like your old milk cow out loose roaming around down close as we could get to your farm . Your farm. Of course. As Lester’s legal wife, she would inherit at least part of it, unless Les had a will that denied it to her. But Lester had never mentioned a will, and Adah thought the chances were slim to none that he had executed one she hadn’t known about.
The farm, useless as it was now, could still grow corn and other crops less labor intensive than tobacco. They’d always grown corn in the lowest of the lowlands anyway. She would probably own some of the property, which had to be worth something, even if it did flood from time to time. It would explain why the Branch family had been keeping her around. All along Adah had wondered about that and then had concluded that it would reflect poorly on the Branches if they threw their homeless, widowed daughter-in-law out on the street. Mabel cared about appearances, and besides, she disliked looking after Daisy. Adah was useful as a caregiver for the girl. Also, if they wanted to someday pin Lester’s death on her, they would need to keep her close at hand.
But the farm—that made even more sense. No doubt at some point they’d ask her to sign over her portion because they could use it and she couldn’t. It was true; she couldn’t run a farm on her own, and the house would probably be unfit for living. They would probably try to convince her of that.
As she lay there at night, the house talked to her; it moaned as if some benevolent creature had been trapped in it
. Perhaps it was the good soul of a former family member who had wanted to escape the stigma of being a Branch. During harvest time, the Branches had always hired colored field-workers, who dotted their fields, backs bent, the sun pounding down. Everywhere they went, these colored workers were paid almost nothing, but it was widely known that the Branch farms paid even less than smaller spreads.
Two years earlier, when one worker had dared to question his wages, the man and his family were visited at their dilapidated shack a few days later by mounted Klansmen wearing white masks and robes and waving burning torches. They hadn’t set anything on fire, but the message was clear. The Paducah Sun-Democrat published an article about the rare KKK incident but didn’t name any suspects, and yet it was widely known—Adah had heard it whispered in church—the Branch clan meant to send the direst of messages: Don’t no one ever cross us.
The problem with still, dark nights was their witchy emptiness, which allowed all manner of fears to form and grow.
Chapter Seven
A late-February thaw brought a few unexpectedly warm days. One morning, when the day broke, sunlight beamed through the lacy curtains and filled the bedroom Adah and Daisy shared with a yellow glow.
After breakfast Adah let Daisy play on the front porch with her doll, which had been given to the girl the day before by a woman who also came bearing even more hand-me-down clothing and shoes for both Adah and Daisy. Finally Daisy had a pair of right-sized shoes: black patent leather ballet flats with a strap.
Adah, despite protests from Mabel, helped clean the kitchen and wash and dry dishes. As she glanced out the window and saw that Daisy was no longer on the porch, she quickly put aside the coffee cup she’d been drying and went straight to the front door. Stepping out, she turned her head frantically in both directions, then breathed again when she saw Daisy trudging toward the house, cradling her doll.
Adah rushed down the steps. “Where did you go, honey? You weren’t supposed to leave the porch. I was worried.”
Daisy’s perfect little forehead folded down as Adah reached her. Daisy said, “Dolly fell in the mud, and now she’s dirty.”
The River Widow Page 6