“What could be worse?” Mama asks.
I wonder the same.
“She was . . . in a family way,” Amy whispers.
My breathing fills the silence as I imagine the looks they give each other. Mama can say more with her eyes than a whole dictionary full of words.
‘In a family way’ means Ruby’s stomach wasn’t just big from being hungry. As I lower my head, sweat drips onto my arm. Tears fill my eyes for Ruby Monroe and for her baby who will never see the light of day. The walls close in. I crawl from behind the wood box and tiptoe out the door, avoiding the floor boards I know will creak and step onto the porch. Fresh, warm air fills my lungs. Air, I am suddenly aware, Ruby will never get to breathe again.
Questions crowd my mind, as if sent to push the feelings away. Why would Ruby do such a thing? How could she possibly be so desperate and scared? And who is the father of her baby? I’ve never seen any boys around her. If this happened to me I wouldn’t have to kill myself; Mama would do it for me.
Two days later, everybody in Katy’s Ridge shows up for Ruby’s funeral. The whispers are like a fire that refuses to die down and the packed church vibrates with judgment. The people of Katy’s Ridge aren’t all that forgiving when it comes to sinning. Meanwhile, Preacher’s long face reveals what they already believe: the pearly gates of heaven won’t be opening for the likes of Ruby Monroe.
Surely God won’t send Ruby to hell just for having a hard life, I think. She didn’t even own a pair of shoes and had to tend to a father and a brother who could have cared less about her. Preacher is fond of saying that the first will be last and the last first in God’s kingdom. If this is true, then it makes more sense for God to send Ruby and her baby to the head of heaven’s line.
Mama and I join Aunt Sadie, Daddy’s older sister, and the rest of the family three rows from the front, the pew our family always sits in. The story told to me is that Ruby had an accident. But for the life of me I can’t figure out how a rope could, by accident, slide around a person’s neck.
I can’t seem to take my eyes off of the wooden box that has Ruby in it. It smells of new lumber and hardly seems big enough for a thirteen year old girl and a baby and all the sadness she carried with her. I worry that she still doesn’t have on any shoes and close my eyes to ask Daddy to put in a good word to God for Ruby and her baby.
“Have some respect for the dead,” Mama whispers to me, as I lean over to get a better view. I want to remind her that I’m the one who spends a fair amount of time in the cemetery, not her, and if anybody has respect for the dead, that would be me.
Arthur Monroe sits on the front row wearing a torn pair of overalls, his dirty hat staying on his head the whole time. I’ve never seen him in church and he looks about as out of place as a mule in a kitchen. Johnny Monroe sits beside him, staring at the floor, his hair uncombed, with his younger sister, Melody, leaning into his arm. Melody’s nose is running and she looks younger than her years. Her hair is tied up with a piece of knotted string.
The church is sweltering. It is three o’clock on an August afternoon with not a hint of breeze. Preacher clutches a worn, black Bible and bellows out the 23rd Psalm like we are all deaf or half-wits. Sweat forms in large half-moon circles under his arms. Droplets dance on his wide forehead as if the fires of hell are nipping at his dusty black shoes. He is bald except for a thin, sagging crescent of hair that reaches from one ear to the other, a temporary dam for the sweat, before it streams down his neck and forehead. To hear Preacher tell it, the whole of Katy’s Ridge is doomed to teeth gnashing with the devil because of all the hearty sinning we do.
His face flushes crimson. His voice raised, he speaks of God calling his children home when they least expect it. He shouts “Repent!” several times and warns us to not end up like Ruby. Johnny hasn’t looked up once, not even with Preacher standing a foot away from him. If I was a betting person, I’d bet Johnny wishes he had a peach can to sit at Preacher’s feet to ping some tobacco spit into.
The top of a whiskey bottle bulges out of Mr. Monroe’s pocket and on one of Preacher’s repents Mr. Monroe snarls and takes out his pocketknife. He opens the blade swiftly with his thumb and scrapes at the dirt caked on the bottom of his boots, letting the dirt fall onto the church floor. Two deacons start to come forward to take Mr. Monroe out of the church but Preacher holds up a hand to stop them, as if even he knows this wouldn’t turn out well.
Mr. Monroe doesn’t look the least bit sorry for Ruby’s death and heat rises to my face. I want to smack the man from here to Christmas, and Preacher, too, whose empty words make no sense. Why would God call Ruby home by way of a rope and an oak tree? A trickle of sweat slides between my shoulder blades and I let out a huff. If God decides to call me home anytime soon, I will refuse to answer.
Arthur Monroe’s livelihood is hunting, setting traps and selling the meat. His clothes always stink like a ripe carcass. Though he is an eligible widower, his odor discourages even the most ardent widows and spinsters of Katy’s Ridge.
If he manages to corner you anywhere, on the road, or at Sweeny’s store, he’ll tell you the story of getting gassed in a trench in the big war in Europe, World War I, and the whole time you’re getting gassed just standing there. On one of those occasions when I was wishing I had a gas mask, Mr. Monroe told me that once or twice a year he checks into the Veterans Hospital in Nashville with blinding headaches. I got a headache just hearing about it.
A few years ago, during one of those headaches, he came after Johnny at school for forgetting to feed Arthur’s old coon dog. The whole school witnessed him bursting through the door and dragging Johnny right out into the schoolyard. While he beat the tar out of him, he kept yelling, “Get behind me, Satan!” A short time after that, Johnny quit coming to school and started hanging out on the road.
Sweat sticks my legs to the wooden bench. I think of Ruby inside that box, her baby inside of her, Ruby’s belly being its own little casket. It is entirely possible that I have entered my own version of hell where life is not fair and the wrong people die and for no good reason.
Mama takes my pinkie finger on my right hand and bends it to the point of pain. This is my signal to stop my squirming in church. As I take my hand away, I give her a look that says she will end up like Ruby if she’s not careful and she gives me a look back as if daring me to try it. Meanwhile, Preacher is using Ruby’s death to put the fear of God in us and further his cause. After Preacher finishes, he looks pleased with himself and wipes the sweat from his face with a starched white handkerchief and looks over at the organ.
In a flourish of wrong notes, Miss Mildred starts playing Amazing Grace, real slow. This was Daddy’s favorite hymn, but I try not to think about that, or about the last time I heard it, which was at his funeral. We all sing along, most of the congregation confident that Ruby Monroe was the wretch that needed saving in the first verse and since she never came to church she was out of luck. Ruby was lost, but nobody even tried to find her.
When the music stops, the four McClure brothers go up front to lift Ruby’s pine box to carry it to the gravesite. Buddy, the youngest McClure, grunts as if the box weighs more than he expects. They balance their load and we file out of the church, following the box up the hill. In the distance a pile of fresh red dirt marks Ruby’s final resting place, a stone’s throw away from Daddy’s willow tree.
A fine, misty rain starts to fall and the melody of Amazing Grace still plays in my head while we walk up the hill. Aunt Sadie lightly squeezes my hand and I have the secret sense that she knows exactly what I am thinking about. The last time we climbed this hill was nearly a year ago.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” Aunt Sadie asks, and I say, yes, though I’m not the least bit okay. Now I have proof that God doesn’t know what he’s doing by taking both Daddy and Ruby before their time.
Ruby’s box is lowered into the grave with two ropes and Preacher throws a clump of muddy red dirt into the hole. The dirt hits Ruby’s coffin
with a dull thud and Mama jerks her head like a gun has gone off, and then she glances off into the distance at Daddy’s grave. As far as I know, she hasn’t visited it once since Daddy died, and I want to take her by the hand and lead her there and show her how beautiful the spot is. But her eyes are as ominous and blue gray as the sky.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” Preacher says and the words sound hollow.
When someone your same age dies, it’s like it could have been you. I hope I never get as desperate and sad as Ruby. Losing my father taught me how deep sadness can go. The rain grows harder and thunder rumbles in the distance. Another summer storm passes through Katy’s Ridge as we say our goodbyes to Ruby Monroe.
CHAPTER THREE
When I tell Daniel and Nathan I heard somebody in the woods three nights before, they come by and search the hill behind our house.
“We saw deer tracks,” Daniel says, when they return to the back porch. He stomps the mud from his boots on the top step, then uses the side of his boot to sweep the mud away. Daniel looks over at me and shrugs his shoulders in an apology, like he wishes he’d found something.
“It was just Louisa May’s imagination getting the best of her,” Mama says. “She’s been like that since she was a little girl.”
Her words make me doubly mad. For one thing she refuses to call me Wildflower, and for another she acts like I don’t know the difference between my imagination and something real in the woods. That was no deer that night, I am certain of it. I’ve been around plenty of deer, and a deer in the woods doesn’t make my skin crawl.
Meg comes home from work, fixes herself a glass of tea and joins us.
“What’s going on?” Meg asks.
“A wild goose chase, that’s what,” Mama says.
Daniel puts a hand on my shoulder as if to discourage me from wrestling Mama to the ground.
“You’ve got a nest of baby possums in the base of that old Hickory,” Nathan says, hitching up his pants. He is as lean as the fence rails he put around his field last summer and has to wear both a belt and suspenders. People joke with Amy that she doesn’t feed her husband near enough, but I’ve seen him put away as much food as two regular sized men.
“Are you sure you heard something?” Daniel asks me. He keeps his arm on my shoulder. I am just the right height for Daniel to use as an armrest.
“I’m sure,” I say. If anybody else had asked, I’d probably gotten madder still. But Daniel doesn’t ask it like he thinks I am somebody who just makes things up.
“Sometimes the wind in the trees makes some weird rustling. It even fools me,” he says.
“I know what I heard, Daniel,” I say. “It was too heavy-footed for a deer or the wind. It was a person, I’m sure of it. Mama says it was just my imagination but she felt creepy about it, too. She locked up the house tighter than a drum.”
Mama looks at me like I’ve somehow made a liar out of her. I scowl at Meg, leaving space for her to side with me, but she doesn’t say a word.
“Who’d be traipsing around in these woods?” Nathan asks.
“I bet I know,” I say, regretting the words the moment I speak them. Mama looks at me all curious. This is not a road I want to take. The less information Mama knows the better.
“What did you say?” she asks.
I stick my hands deep into the pockets of my overalls and finger a smooth, round stone I fished out of the streambed the day before. Rocks aren’t supposed to interest girls my age, so I hide my treasures now.
“I said I know who it was,” I say again, but I sound more timid this time.
Everybody looks at me like I am Moses about to deliver the Ten Commandments. Mama folds her arms into her chest, her lips tight. When I was younger, this could make the truth spill out of me like cornmeal out of a sack. But I am not in the mood to give her what she wants.
“Well, who was it?” Mama asks. “Those baby possums out back have already had time to be weaned and have babies of their own.”
Everybody waits while I debate which of my actions will get me in the least amount of trouble. If I tell, Mama will be like a dog given a new bone to chew on. If I don’t, Johnny might just walk right into our house someday like he owns the place.
“It was Johnny Monroe, that’s who it was,” I say finally.
Daniel takes his arm off my shoulder. He places his foot on the porch rail and leans on his knee, as if this information changes things.
“Johnny’s a good-for-nothin’, that’s for sure,” Nathan says.
Johnny is Nathan’s second cousin, but they aren’t close. Practically everybody in their family has given up on Johnny. He is what people around here call a “black sheep.”
“It was him,” I insist.
Mama presses her fingers into her temples like I am giving her one whopper of a headache.
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Daniel says. “Those Monroes know these mountains better than anybody. They might be watching us right now.”
“But why would Johnny come up here?” Mama asks. Her eyes narrow like she’s just set a trap for me.
I mumble that I don’t know and shoot Meg a look that threatens to expose her entire collection of romance novels under our bed. Meg doesn’t flinch from my threat and pours herself another glass of tea.
I am not about to tell Mama how many times Johnny has asked after Meg, or the things Johnny has said to me. She’ll make too big of a deal about it or no deal at all. But it would be just like Johnny to hike up the ridge and perch on the hillside in the hopes of getting a look at Meg or me in our underwear.
“We could go ask Johnny about it,” Daniel says to Mama.
“No, you boys have done enough,” Mama says. “I’m sure it’s nothing to fuss about.” She goes into the pantry and gets them each a jar of homemade applesauce. Mama never lets anybody leave the house without giving them something to take back home. Applesauce, apples, tomatoes, strawberry preserves—-anything she has extra in the pantry. “Tell the girls I said hello,” Mama says.
They each kiss Mama on the cheek.
“The best part of having grown daughters is the sons-in-law that come with them,” Mama says.
She looks over at Meg and me like she expects us to come up with someone to marry who is just as good. I don’t know how to tell her that I have no interest whatsoever. All girls want to do around here when they grow up is get married. But if I can’t find somebody as good as Daddy, I’m not going to bother.
Later that night Meg and I are in bed and I give her the silent treatment because I am still fuming that she didn’t speak up earlier about what I heard in the woods.
“Johnny gives me the creeps, too,” Meg says. She turns a page of her book.
“Really?” I ask, my anger turning to relief.
“Just stay away from him,” she says, not looking up.
“I do stay away from him,” I say, “except when he’s waiting on the road. But what if that was him out back the other night, Meg?”
She puts a finger in the book to mark her place and turns to face me. “Johnny’s too lazy to come all the way up here. He hangs out mainly on the road. It was probably a deer or something and you just imagined it was Johnny.”
It feels like the hundredth time that day my grasp on reality has been questioned, but I am just too tired to argue.
“I’ll turn out the light in a minute,” she says. Meg moistens her bottom lip with her tongue like she is reading something delicious, and then turns another page.
According to Preacher, God is real big on forgiveness, especially for us lowly sinners like Meg who has a fondness for romance novels. With that in mind, I decide to forgive Meg, too, though I’m not about to give Preacher credit for it.
I close my eyes and pray for Meg to find someone to love soon so she will quit reading romances and go to bed at a decent hour. She pretends to be happy that Jo and Amy got married last spring, but I know she’s jealous and wants someone of her own.
The house is
quiet. While she’s reading, Meg always keeps one eye on the door in case Mama comes in so she can throw her book under the covers. But Mama has gone to bed early with a headache. A headache she probably blames on me.
I think about Daddy resting in peace on the hillside, the moonlight dancing with the breeze through the weeping willow tree.
“Goodnight, Daddy,” I whisper.
Sleep well, Wildflower, he whispers back.
CHAPTER FOUR
On my thirteenth birthday I have cramps so bad I can barely stand. This is my fourth monthly and I am still getting used to the whole thing. Growing up with older sisters has its advantages. It wasn’t a mystery for me. When it happened, Mama gave me two cotton pads she had sewn together out of leftover quilt pieces. One I wear inside my underpants. The other I use as a spare when I wash the soiled one out in the evenings. Mama made each of us different colored pads so we could tell them apart. Mine are white, with pieces of light blue running through. With all these girls and Mama, there are times when the back clothesline will have a whole bunch of pads hanging on it, like flags from different countries.
“Come on, Wildflower, open your presents,” Daniel says. He motions for me to sit on the porch and everybody else gathers around.
We’re all full of Mama’s chicken and dumplings she made me for my birthday dinner and are moving kind of slow. Jo baked a cake that we will dig into after presents.
Meg hands me a small package wrapped in paper from the Sunday funnies and some twine. I open it and find a comb and mirror that all fit together in a little leather pouch from the Woolworth store. I thank her and give her a hug. I love the gifts she’s given me since she started working there.
Amy and Nathan’s package is much bigger and contains a new dress to wear to church. It is red with a small white daisy pattern. It also has two big pockets on the front because Amy knows I like collecting things.
“Thanks, Amy,” I say.
The Secret Sense of Wildflower Page 3