“So what you’re telling me is that when you were born, the world did an about-face.”
I can’t believe how fast I’m falling in love with this drifter. “I guess you could say that,” I laugh. “Mama named me Millicent, after her mother’s mother. But Jack took one quick look at me and said, ‘The name fits. She ain’t worth a cent.’”
River smiles. “Millicent means strength. It’s English.”
“Well,” I continue, still unable to believe he knows so much. “Whether Jack had anything to do with it or not, everyone’s always called me Millie. Not as elegant as Millicent.”
“But it sure is a lot better than Sloth,” says River, brushing my hair back from my eyes.
I laugh. “You may think you have me wrapped around your finger,” I tell him. “But I’m not so easily fooled. No guy can be as good as you.”
“What about Sloth?” he asks. “He was a good man, right?”
“Yeah. He really was. But he never set out to break a young girl’s heart. I’m sixteen, remember?”
“Don’t worry, Millie. I’m no cad.” He pulls me into him. Rain begins to fall over us, so we run deeper into the woods.
CHAPTER 13
Two weeks have now passed since I brought River to East, and he still hasn’t left my side. I’ve learned to play card games with the Romany men, sing songs with the women, and milk goats with the children. Turns out, they don’t allow their children to date. Ever. But River’s gotten away with it because there are so many different groups here for the pilgrimage. And he has no parents. It’s ironic how he’s surrounded by all of these people, but he’s more of a loner than I ever realized. Just like me. Now the two of us are lying on a blanket in the grass, away from the rest of the group who circle the fire. The sky is pinholed with stars when I finally ask the question that’s been worming its way through my heart since he arrived in Iti Taloa almost three weeks ago. “How much longer will you be here?”
“Small group leaves in two days. I have to go with them,” he says, his voice flat.
I don’t think before I speak. “Take me with you.”
He laughs.
“I’m serious. I don’t want to stay here anymore.”
“What’s so bad about here? Seems nice enough to me.”
“What do you know? You show up for a couple of weeks a year. Try living here your entire life.”
“It’s not what you think out there,” he says, looking at the flames in the distance.
“Then you stay here. You know how to find work. I can take one of those quick-cash jobs you’re talking about. Or do laundry, like Mama. We can fix up Sloth’s old place. We can be together.” I sound pathetic. Even though I’ve spied on him for years, I’ve only really known him for a few weeks.
“I can’t stay here,” he says, matter-of-fact, as if I understand why. “Would never work. I’m a traveler. But if you really want to go with us, Millie, I’ll see what I can do.” I focus on the way he says my name. Sinfully sweet and potentially toxic.
“Promise,” I demand. “I don’t know if I can last another year in this place.”
“Sure you can. You’re a survivor. You defeated termites,” he jokes, but it makes me think that he’s not taking me seriously.
“I don’t even know if that story is true.”
“Ah … but what is truth?” he says, kissing my neck and bringing the stars down around me.
I catch my breath. “I shouldn’t be dangling my heart in front of you like this.” I lace my fingers through his string of coins.
He kisses me and I fade into him.
“One man’s truth is another man’s lie.” He leans back on one elbow like a Renaissance piece. Like something I’d see in one of Miss Harper’s library books. Nothing I could have ever imagined I’d see under the stars in Mississippi—next to me.
“Ask three men on the street what happened when a girl walked by, and they’ll all tell you something different. One will tell you she was wearing a tight red dress. The other will say, ‘No, no. It was blue and low-cut,’ and the third will say, ‘She wasn’t wearing anything at all.’ It’s all about what they want to see, not what they really see.”
“Is that so?” I tease.
“Yep. It is. Like me in the river. Everyone has a different version of what really happened that day. Some people say I fell in. Others say I rolled in by choice. And some say my mother pushed me, trying to drown her shame. I don’t worry about what’s true to them. I know my own truth, and that’s that.”
“What is your truth?” I ask.
“Truth is, Millie. I love you.”
Whether there is any such thing as truth or not, I believe him.
The next morning, I am pulled from sleep by the long, warm arms of the sun. I wake to find my body wrapped with River’s. We have stayed here all night under the moon, hidden by high green grasses and bright-yellow wildflowers.
In the distance, coffee is brewing over open fires and Romany children are already playing chase around the flames. I do not wake this magician who dreams beside me. Instead, I lie still and listen to his peaceful breathing, letting the rhythms of him slow the beating of my heart. When he wakes, he will leave, saying I can’t go with him. But I don’t want to hear good-bye. So, I roll with a slow silence out of his arms onto the dew-dipped blades of grass. I stand and stretch and smooth my hair. Then I look down and see him smile.
“Morning,” he says, pulling himself up and tugging his loose white shirt around his chest. “You’re not leaving, are you?”
I don’t know what to say. I want, more than anything, not to leave him. For him not to leave me.
“Hungry?” he asks.
“Not really,” I say. “I need to check on Mama.”
“I’ll go with you.” He stands, buttons his shirt, and reaches for my waist. I let him pull me to him.
“You should probably stay.” I am afraid of him agreeing, so I keep talking. “Aren’t you packing up today? Leaving in the morning?”
A man yells out for River and waves him over to camp. “I guess so,” River says. “Look. I don’t want to go without you, Millie. I’ll talk to the group. I don’t see any way they can say no. Why don’t you go home to pack and meet me back here? First thing in the morning.”
“First thing in the morning,” I agree. I can’t stop smiling.
“Promise?” he asks.
“I promise.”
“I’ll be waiting.” He kisses me on the top of my head.
And then I run toward home, shouting behind me, “First thing in the morning!”
I run fast, hoping Jack is still out of town with the rodeo but fearing that he may already be home. The thought of Jack brings a sting to my veins and Mama’s words echo in my head, “Pray, Millie. Pray harder!”
I always want to tell her that God stopped hearing our prayers a long time ago, but instead I do what she wants. I pray. Over and over again, I pray. I reach the edge of Mr. Sutton’s pasture and can’t help but remember a softer side of Jack. I must have been about seven. I followed Jack and Mama as they took a walk through Mr. Sutton’s field. It must have been sometime in April because they walked over a carpet of red clover. Purple hyacinth rimmed the edges as Jack reached down and scooped Mama’s hand in his.
They stepped slowly, dreamlike, fingers woven together past the red-tipped clover, through dangling dandelions and pumped-up pokeweed. Into the deep woods where bees hummed round honeysuckle and white dogwoods laced through the fresh green leaves like points of light. A few strands of forsythia lingered, and wild onion blooms kissed the path. Even the leftover irises held their breath and watched Mama and Jack walk by. They walked and walked for the longest time, and I stayed right behind them—watching my parents in love.
Jack looked up as a red-tailed hawk swept the sky. He said, “Today sure is good,” and Mama smiled back at him.
If I never have anything else, I’ll always have that. That one day, when the whole world was covered in flowers an
d everything sure was good.
But now, as I reach the edge of the pasture, I see Jack’s shadow cross the porch, and I can tell by the force of his steps that today sure isn’t good.
My instincts are right. I run to the house. Jack is yelling, spitting, cursing. I want to distract him, like River did the cottonmouth. Give him one target too many, send him crawling back into his hole.
Instead, I dive under the porch. I crawl between dripping pipes and creaking floorboards, trying to focus on finding coins or needles that have slipped through the cracks unnoticed. I remember the stray dog, swallowing her pups. How I tried so hard to save them.
I curl tighter and tighter in fear as Jack yells to Mama, “Enough’s enough!” and “Why do you do this to yourself?” I assume he’s talking about her stash, the medicine she gets from the farmhands. He beats Mama more, and Mama cries, “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. I’m sorry.” She begs him to stop. She agrees to quit the habit she’s had for years. Since the wife of a farmhand gave her something to help her handle the pain of broken bones and deep black bruises. But he beats her so hard and so long that by the end, I can’t hear Mama cry at all. I want to save her. But once again, I don’t. I hide under the house, too afraid of Jack, and of what he might do to me.
An armadillo has nested here for the day. It scrambles around in the dust, and I count the mammal’s bony plates, four-five-six, as I wait for Jack to leave. I don’t dare make a sound, even when the armadillo crawls closer. When the beast notices me, he makes a hissing sound and hobbles away. But I stay still, waiting for Jack to limp away off-balance and angry, like the armadillo. Finally, Jack slams the door and stomps out to his truck. But instead of spinning away in anger, as he’s done so many times, he just sits there. I can barely see the shape of him, but somehow I know he is crying.
I climb out from under the porch and move toward his truck. I am close enough now to see clearly. Jack sits behind the wheel, engine idling, face in his hands, sobbing. I stand and stare at him for the longest time, not quite sure what to do. Part of me wants to attack this man, the way he has attacked Mama. The other half wants to drag him back into the house and force him to look at what he’s done. But more than either of those, what I really want is to understand him. He cries hard and deep, unaware that I am watching. As his breathing slows, and his body stills, I tap on the window, gently, and say, “Jack?”
He looks up at me, rolls down the glass. “You can’t fix everything, kid,” as if I have tried to fix anything at all. Then he grips the steering wheel, punches the gas pedal, and skids out of our lives again, spewing gravel around me like a shotgun blast.
As soon as Jack is gone, I race back to the house where Mama is spread across the kitchen floor like a dirty rag. Broken bottles and needles are strewn across the floor around her. Pills have been crushed beneath Jack’s boots. She can’t hide it anymore, her dependency on the god of sleep. Blood has soaked through her clothes and spread a puddle beneath her busted head. I put a cold, wet cloth on her face. She doesn’t move. I rub her gently. Nothing. I shake her and yell, “Mama! Mama, wake up! Please, Mama. Open your eyes!” But she still doesn’t move. Worse, she doesn’t breathe.
I have no choice but to run for help, as much as I know how much Mama would protest. I look around for options. Sloth is gone. Even his ghost. I turn to the big house on the hill and try to get the courage to bother Mr. Sutton. There’s no doubt he would help us. But Mama would rather die than be shamed by someone knowing what Jack does to her. Especially Mr. Sutton.
Jack would sure enough kill us both if we disgrace him by telling the truth. Shame is the only thing I know that can be silent and loud, all at the same time. It whispers to me now, tells me that meeting River is no longer an option. I think of the farmhands, but they’re half the cause of this mess. I’m sure they won’t help. So for the first time in my life, I decide to run for my grandparents. I know Mama wouldn’t like the idea. These are the people who shunned Mama for leaving the church, disowned her for marrying Jack. The people who refuse to acknowledge their granddaughter—me.
But I have no other choice. I run all the way across town, jumping creeks along the way, to beg my mother’s parents for help. I am sure they don’t know about Jack’s attacks. No parents would let a man beat their daughter to death. Especially a minister and his wife, people so close to God.
When I arrive at their door, I bang on the wooden frame. My grandfather looks through the window and says, “Don’t answer it, Sarah.”
By some miracle, my grandmother defies his command and opens the door anyway. We stare at our own brown eyes and black curls, hers with silver streaks laced throughout, mine in tangles. I remember all the times we’ve accidentally passed each other on Main Street or in front of Tanson Theater. She always turned away. Now she looks at me, and I feel as if I am meeting myself, forty years from now, and she is facing an image of her wild-eyed past.
“Mama needs help,” I pant. I’ve run barefoot across patches of sharp gravel and rough dirt to say these words. My voice is cracking. My nerves sting.
My grandfather, the Reverend Applewhite, comes to the door and looms over his wife like a cement tower. He bears down on both of us. “It’s not our place to go messing around in their business, Millicent. Your mother made her choice.”
“But she won’t wake up!” I scream. “She might already be dead.”
My grandmother collapses in her husband’s arms, as if she’s dying too. “Hurry,” I say, tears streaming. I wipe my eyes. A cross-stitched pattern by the door reads, “As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.”
The wind rushes through my grandmother’s wind chimes, and I know I have come to the right place. In a matter of moments, my grandparents will rush to save Mama and bring us back to their home, far away from Jack, to this safe place where God lives.
And then my grandfather speaks. Like he is standing behind the pulpit, reminding us all that God is a vengeful God and that we are all wicked and filled with sin. His tongue, just like Jack’s, lashes out at me with the sting of hot blue flames. “It’s in God’s hands now.”
“Maybe it’s time to forget the past,” my grandmother says to her husband.
“Forget?” the Reverend answers. “Ain’t no such thing as forget.”
CHAPTER 14
When my grandfather closed the door in my face, I didn’t leave. Instead, I slid my back along the rough wooden panels that separated us, leaned my weight against the door, and collapsed on their front porch. I’ve been sitting here for hours now, too exhausted to think. Too afraid to run back home to Mama.
I can’t bear finding her there, dead, all by myself. Fear has me glued to this porch. And no matter how many times I tell myself to run for help, I just sit here, slipping in and out of shock.
I pray a simple prayer over and over again. “Please, God. Save Mama. Please, God. Save Mama.”
Afternoon turns to night, and now the darkness fades to morning gray. Rain slides from the rim of the roof. I still haven’t moved from the porch. I can’t figure what to do next. Or how. I look out at the path that would take me back to Mama. The other that would lead me to the gypsy camp. I wonder if River is waiting for me to join him, as I promised. I wonder if there’s still time to meet him. To leave with the travelers.
The smell of my grandfather’s chicory coffee slides under the door. My grandmother’s slippered steps skim the wooden beams like hushed secrets. The night songs of newborn cicadas soften to a lull. I stand to start my long walk home when my grandmother opens the door.
I turn. The Reverend sits with his back to us at the kitchen table, sipping hot creamed coffee and stabbing sausage with his fork. “Sit down, Sarah,” he says with controlled authority.
But instead of obeying, as I assume she always has done, she closes the door behind her. We start walking.
We leave my grandfather at the breakfast table and head across town. My grandmother is still wearing her housedress, her hair in a net. N
o way for a preacher’s wife to be seen in public. Together, we walk slowly along the rocky path, and my bare, swollen soles sting with every step. We haven’t gone far before Mr. Lee, a member of my grandparents’ church, offers us a ride in his buggy. We climb up into the back next to cotton sacks and a coon dog. The farmer clicks his teeth and his two jenny mules drive us home to Mama.
In a matter of minutes, we step through the front door. The air is heavy. Mama’s glass of sweet tea is still on the table, something I take as a sure sign that she is dead.
Then I hear her whisper, “Millie?” I swear, I’ve never heard a sweeter sound in all my life. God has heard my prayers.
I run through the house toward the sound of her. Mama is still on the floor, covered in dried blood. Her nose drips a thick mixture. The room smells of sweat and blood and the stinging stench of her purple ointment.
Mr. Lee doesn’t say a word. Instead, he runs straight out of the house. I don’t blame him. My grandmother cries and hunches over Mama while I try to clean up the mess. Before I figure how to get Mama to the hospital, Mr. Lee comes barreling back through the door. This time, he has brought Mr. Sutton, and I know the situation is out of my hands. If everyone in the whole town finds out what Jack has done, then so be it. I just want Mama to be okay.
My grandmother stands in the corner and weeps as the two men wrap Mama in a bedsheet and carry her out of the house. Mr. Sutton brings his truck around, says, “I had no idea it’d gotten this bad. I should have stopped this when I had the hunch.” Mr. Sutton drives straight to Mercy Hospital, my grandmother and me slouched in the back, covering ourselves with empty feed sacks to shield us from the rain.
The doctor says Mama’s arm is broken in three places. Her shoulder has been pulled right out of its socket. She has four cracked ribs, a collapsed lung, a busted nose, two black eyes swollen big as ostrich eggs, plus too many bruises and cuts to count.
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