The River Widow
Page 7
Taking the doll from Daisy’s muddied hands, Adah saw that its faded blue polka-dot dress was smudged with brown sludge. Adah studied the doll’s solemn embroidered face. “Did you drop her?”
“Yes, but it was an accident.”
Adah sighed. “I know it was, sweetie. I think I can get her clean again. But you shouldn’t have gone . . .” Adah then noticed that Daisy’s shoes were coated in brown sludge, too. Smears and clods also ran down the front of her dress, where Daisy must have tried to rub her hands clean.
Adah’s mistake hit her like a flat wave; she should not have turned her back for a moment. The sunlight and warm air had been too tempting for a little girl, and now Daisy was a mess.
Mabel would be furious. “Come here,” she said and led Daisy up the porch steps, set the doll on the porch floor, then helped her out of the shoes. Crouching down, Adah used the hem of her apron and tried to brush off the partially dried mud from Daisy’s dress.
The door flung open. “What’s this I see?” Mabel said, but Adah kept her head down and continued trying to remove as much mud as she could, hoping to limit what might fall off onto the floor inside. Daisy didn’t answer, either.
Mabel barked, “You done thrown that doll down into the mud?”
“No, she fell,” Daisy answered after only a moment’s hesitation.
“And look at you now!”
Adah glanced up. “It was my doing. I let her outside because it was so nice, but I didn’t realize how much mud was still around.”
“What you been teaching her?” Then to Daisy, she hollered, “You pick up that doll right now. Someone done given you something nice, and you best be grateful for it. The same with what you’re wearing. I see you disrespecting gifts again, and you’ll be getting a beating. You hear?”
Daisy shied away like a hunted animal. Adah put her hands on Daisy’s upper arms, holding her steady and sending a message as best she could. It’s going to be okay.
Mabel’s breaths emerged in huffs. “I got a hundred things to do this morning, and now I gotta run you a bath.”
“I’ll do that, Mabel,” Adah said calmly.
Daisy looked down at her feet. “I don’t want to take a bath.”
Having done all she could, Adah stood and took Daisy’s hand. “I’ll take care of this,” she said to Mabel’s folded face. She handed the doll to Daisy, who, still scowling, took the doll and touched its red yarn hair. Her face looked as tortured as Adah felt. “Let’s go inside now,” Adah whispered.
“I took a bath last night!” Daisy whined.
Mabel’s hand whipped down, grabbed Daisy’s arm, jerked the girl away from Adah, and then shook her with a force that drained all color from Daisy’s face and hung her mouth open. Her eyes were wide with shock. It happened so fast. Mabel had a brutal grip on the girl, while Adah stood there in stunned disbelief.
“You don’t never talk back to your elders,” Mabel yelled at Daisy. “You hear me?”
Daisy seemed unable to speak, but Adah soon found her voice. “Mabel, stop. You’re being too rough.”
Mabel jerked Daisy one more time and glared at Adah. “How dare you question me and what I do? I’m teaching this girl here to be an obedient child.” She shook Daisy again. “You let her talk back like that, and there’ll be no end to it. You gotta be in charge, and obviously you ain’t. You let her go outside in the mud like a wild animal. I reckon I gotta be the one in charge, or you’ll ruin her. And I’m not letting the only thing left of my dead son get ruint.”
Adah resisted the powerful urge to push Mabel away and take Daisy in her arms. “Please, Mabel. Let her go.”
“Let her go? To you? So you can go on treating her like a baby?”
“She’s just a little girl. Like I said, it was my fault. I must not have made it clear enough that she wasn’t supposed to leave the porch.” Mabel seemed to be wavering, if only a tiny bit. “I’m so sorry, Mabel. It was my doing. I wasn’t watching her as well as I should have.”
“You can say that again,” Mabel fumed and then drew in a deep breath, finally dropping Daisy’s arm. “I see one tiny smear of mud inside my house, and there’ll be hell to pay. Got that?”
“Of course, of course,” Adah said to Mabel, although she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Daisy’s face. Daisy didn’t speak, instead simply stared ahead into nothing, a look of fear on her face that rent Adah’s heart.
Throughout the process of bathing and re-dressing her, Daisy’s expression didn’t change, and she refused to answer any of Adah’s questions or respond to her gentle touch. What could Adah do? As she slowly and gently bathed Daisy, memories of her own parents flooded in. Even an admonishing stare had been punishment enough when Adah had done wrong. Her parents had been gentle souls, her mother sickly and barren ever since Adah’s birth, but still she made evening meals a celebration every night, during which her father, a postal worker, relayed the events of his day and Adah relived her time at school. Her mother had perished from the flu first, and within days, her father had fallen, too, and Adah often thought back on the inevitability of it. Her mother had been susceptible to every illness, and her father’s purpose in life had been looking after her, protecting her. Once his wife was gone, he couldn’t push forward.
Why hadn’t Daisy been born into a family of loving, sweet souls like hers?
As the floodwaters had slowly receded from Paducah and other ravaged cities, towns, and farmlands, so had any of Adah’s hope that this family could form a loving home for the young girl. Was this to be Adah’s punishment? To watch Daisy’s eyes slowly turn icy and hard like dark stones in the snow? To witness the ruination of a pure little soul and be unable to stop it or undo the damage?
No! Adah recoiled.
After the bath was done and Daisy was clothed again in a laundered dress and pinafore, the girl sat on the edge of the bed while Adah slowly cleaned her shoes with a cloth.
“I was bad,” Daisy said.
Relieved that Daisy had spoken at all, Adah moved closer and looked her in the eyes. “You weren’t. You’re still learning.”
“Because I’m bad.”
Adah sat on the bed next to Daisy, putting an arm across the girl’s shoulders. “You’re not. You’re a good, sweet girl. Maybe you made a little mistake, but you’re still—”
Daisy quickly jerked her gaze to Adah’s face. “You were bad.”
Managing to swallow while also gazing into Daisy’s eyes, Adah searched for words, then asked, “Why are you saying that?”
After a sigh, Daisy said, “Daddy said it.”
“He said I was bad?”
A moment later, Daisy nodded.
Adah rubbed Daisy’s back. “Your daddy was wrong. He made a mistake about that.”
How to explain something to a little girl, something she should never have had to witness?
“And your grandmother made a mistake today as well. She shouldn’t have done what she did.”
Daisy shrugged. Adah glanced at the doll, which Daisy had gathered into her lap.
“I have an idea,” Adah said. “Maybe we can make Dolly some new clothes. Would you like that?”
Daisy shrugged again, but her distance was waning, and she was coming back into the moment. Adah could see it in the loosening of her face and posture.
Daisy let her gaze fall gently on the doll now, and she touched it where a heart would be. “Dolly doesn’t want to live here.”
Adah whispered weakly, “She doesn’t? Why not?”
“She doesn’t like it here.”
Adah asked “Why not?” although she knew the answer. It was important for Daisy to be able to say these things, to talk to someone who would listen. Adah had watched Father Sparrow counsel church members and had witnessed the benefits when he’d managed to get them to open up and speak of their miseries. She’d seen how even one gentle, caring ear could make a difference. It was about all Adah could do now. Until . . . she figured out how to get Daisy away from here.
Adah couldn’t have said it better. Determination to remove Daisy from the Branch house was turning into desperation, but Adah had to keep her head.
Now that she knew she might be the legal owner of at least part of the flooded farm, that prospect shone like a beacon of hope. If the farm could be sold and Adah received her share, it could be her means to get away from the Branches and make a new start with Daisy. Or, if the house hadn’t been completely destroyed, perhaps it could be cleaned up and made livable again. Maybe the Branches or a judge could be persuaded to let her share of the farm include the house. Then perhaps she and Daisy could live there again, just the two of them. Perhaps Adah could find work in town and lease her part of the fields to other farmers.
The farm was the key to a different life, one centered around Daisy. The only reason the Branches were letting her stay had to be the farm, too. Most likely they wanted it all, and she had to stick around long enough to put up a fight. She had to wait it out and be as little trouble as possible while still protecting Daisy as much as she could.
Every time Adah closed her eyes, she relived the brutal force Mabel had used against her granddaughter, and reexperienced the horrified expression on Daisy’s face. Buck’s words were almost as toxic as Mabel’s actions. Daisy needed to be removed from this situation as soon as possible. But Adah had nowhere to go, no safe place to take the girl, and, more importantly, no money and no job. She’d survived with little or nothing before, but that was before she’d become a mother and had a child to take care of. She needed some luck, and then she could make a break. The farm was her best hope.
As February turned into a torturous early March, the old church building reopened, and the Sunday service was Adah’s only outing. Yet a sense of wary distance existed between the church members and the Branch clan. The congregation looked like an alliance of those who’d rather ignore anything that didn’t directly involve them. Just let it alone. They would carry on, unbothered by the bone-dusty history of the Branches. Adah slid her weary eyes over the lot of them and found no glimmers of hope.
During the first service held after the storm, she went through the motions of praying, singing hymns, and listening to the sermon, while at the same time dreading what was to come that afternoon. After church, all of the Branches would be heading over to Adah’s old house to see what, if anything, could be salvaged. Buck and Jesse had agreed to take a break from the laborious process of preparing the main fields for transplanting. Even with the tractor making it decidedly easier, it was still grueling work.
Adah doubted that anything not in ruin would be found at the house, but she had a plan. Lester had kept his cash in a locked box in the secretary, and before they’d taken Daisy over to his parents’ farm the night the flood hit, he’d grabbed it and put it in the truck cab. With a little luck, Adah would find it in what remained of the old truck, if it hadn’t been swept away. Her goal was to be the first to check its interior and grab the box without being noticed. Now convinced that she had to somehow engage the help of a lawyer, she needed to come up with the money to pay for it. She had to find out if she really did own any of the farm and, even more importantly, if she had any rights to custody of Daisy—or if she could fight for it. Adah had never adopted Daisy and might have no legal leg to stand on. Whether Adah liked it or not, she would have to return to the scene of her crime, with Jesse and Buck beside her.
Although there was a chill in the air, the sun was a bright white coin in the sky, and Adah cracked her window as she and Daisy sat in the back seat of the Branches’ four-door Dodge sedan, reserved for use only on Sundays. Back at the house, they all changed out of church clothing, and Mabel decided to stay home and start Sunday supper instead of seeing the place where her son had perished. Now, with some burlap bags and empty crates in the truck bed, Adah had to ride in the cab, holding Daisy in her lap, squeezed between Buck and Jesse.
“Did you lock up your house that night?” Buck suddenly asked. His words had the feel of sharp little stones, and it was obvious he had to force himself to address her at all. But he had said your house . Adah registered that.
“No,” she breathed out. “We hadn’t gotten to that point yet.”
As soon as the farm appeared in the distance, Adah spotted the house. With all its windows broken, the front door hanging open on one hinge, and debris everywhere, it was a pitiful survivor of nature’s wrath. No one spoke as they took in the sight.
Then Daisy said flatly, “Is Daddy here?”
No one answered.
Adah finally whispered “No, not here” in Daisy’s ear as Jesse brought the truck to a halt in front of the carcass of what had once been their home.
In a rush, it all came back—how this place had stolen her life, her happiness, her hope, and finally had taken her innocence with one reflexive swing of a shovel that would leave its scourge on her soul for the rest of her life.
And then elation—Les’s truck was still there. It listed to one side and was jammed against the house as though the flood had pinned it and kindly kept it there for her.
After Buck and Jesse stepped out of their truck, Adah slid out with Daisy, then stood looking at the house as if still absorbing the damage. Both Buck and Jesse were climbing the porch steps and entering the house, so Adah quickly turned her attention to Les’s truck. Despite its position up against the house, she would be able to get inside by way of the passenger-side door.
She grabbed a burlap bag and searched the soggy, mud-covered interior that smelled of mold, and there it was, wedged under the seat. Glancing up at the house, she saw that the men were inside, and so she grabbed the locked black metal cash box and put it in the bottom of the bag. While Daisy stood waiting for her, she looked around for something to place on top of it. The trick would be to hide the cash box until she could retrieve it later. On the ground were pieces of sodden lumber, tree branches, assorted trash, and a crumpled soggy blanket that didn’t belong to them. Nothing of use. Nothing to take. The burlap bags she’d packed on the night of the flood were nowhere to be seen. Quickly changing plans, she pulled the box back out and then slid it under the seat of the truck they’d come in. Tonight, after everyone went to bed, she could slip outside and retrieve it.
Everything both outside and inside the house was covered in brown and black sludge. When she went in the front door, the smell of mold and mildew assaulted her, and she told Daisy to remain on the porch. As they had expected, there was very little to salvage. Most of the dishes, lamps, and glassware were shattered, and the curtains and slipcovered sofa were stinking and unfit even to wash. The plastered walls were crumbling, and the wood floor had buckled. She found a coffee cup and some of her pots and pans and placed those in the bag. Buck and Jesse had been surveying the damage in the bedrooms and emerged wearing scowls, bringing only Les’s shotgun with them.
“Nothing else,” Buck said simply. “You find anything worth keeping?” Again, he addressed her as if it were torture.
“Just a few things from the kitchen.”
“You go on and keep looking around. I’m fixing to walk the property.” He turned toward Jesse. “See if there’s anything in that truck out there.”
Remaining in the house, Adah looked outside to check on Daisy and then quickly assessed the rest of the rooms. She found her brush and comb and decided they could be soaked and cleaned. The mattresses were foul smelling and waterlogged, as were the remaining clothing and bedding. Knowing it was probably hopeless, Adah searched for Daisy’s bracelets but found no trace of them. She pulled open some drawers, and then a thought hit her. The attic. Perhaps the water hadn’t risen to the level of the attic, which Les had used for storage.
Adah climbed the steps and pushed back the slab of wood that covered the opening, then lifted herself and, crouching over because the ceiling was low, stepped onto the wo
oden beams.
The attic was dry. She found a large basket of fabric scraps, a broken chair, and Daisy’s cradle. She’d forgotten it was up here. Thinking Daisy would like it for her dolls, Adah stepped closer. The cradle was too large to get down on her own, but she managed to move it to the top of the stairs, then spotted a crumpled burlap bag pushed into the far corner of the attic, where the ceiling was even lower. It was so far in the shadows one might never know it was there. From a distance the bag looked empty, but Adah decided to investigate.
She had to cross over the rafters on her haunches, crablike, to reach the bag. Inside was a small brown box full of letters, all of them addressed to Betsy Branch, Les’s first wife and Daisy’s mother. Adah pondered whether or not to take them. Why were the letters up here? Quickly thumbing through, she found that almost all had come from the same woman, Doris McNeil. Perhaps Betsy’s mother or a dear friend? Adah slowly closed the box, taking it with her when she descended the stairs. Perhaps one day when she was older, Daisy would want to read the letters.
Back outside, Buck was nowhere to be seen, but Jesse helped her retrieve the cradle and basket of fabric scraps from the attic. He put them in the truck bed, where he had also placed some things from the barn.
While Daisy played on the porch, Adah and Jesse waited for Buck.
“What’s in the box?” he asked her. Adah had placed the small wooden box full of letters inside the larger basket of scraps.
“Nothing,” she lied. “But it’s a nice box. I think it belonged to Daisy’s mother, and so I’m taking it for Daisy.”
Jesse asked “Where’d Les keep his money?” as he shaded his face with the flat of his bearlike hand, watching Buck walking back toward them. Obviously Jesse had conducted a search inside for cash but had come up empty handed.
“I don’t know,” Adah answered. Jesse had no idea that she’d found another box—the cash box—and had hidden it from them.
Jesse harrumphed. “Figures that my brother would have kept it from you.”