All of a sudden, something shiny winks at me from the bottom of the ravine. It is a tiny glimmer of light, like the sun reflecting off the silver of Daddy’s banjo in the living room. The wind blows and the sunlight makes its way through the trees from directly overhead. I lose sight of the flicker for a moment, but then see it again. Raccoons steal shiny things, but it doesn’t look like an area where raccoons would nest. I stand to get a better view and step closer to the edge. I train my eyes to make out familiar shapes. Amid scattered sunlight and shadows, the glimmer of light continues.
“What is it?” Daniel asks.
“There’s something down there,” I say. “But I can’t make it out.”
Daniel stares where I point. Then Nathan comes over and does the same. The light flickers again and they both see it this time.
“Let’s go down there,” Nathan says.
“You think that old bridge can hold us?” Daniel asks. He doesn’t look like he’s so sure.
Nathan studies it for a while. “If we do it right,” he says.
One by one we cross the rickety wooden bridge. I go first and squeeze my rabbit’s foot and long for my medallion. Because I still hold a grudge, I don’t pray to God and his angels like I would have done before. But I thank the bridge for holding us up and keeping us safe. Halfway across I notice a section of the bridge is missing. I take short, careful steps around the missing section. If there is a baby inside me, I want to keep it safe, even though a part of me hates it for even existing.
Daniel and Nathan follow. They cross, stepping lightly and fast like they are dancing over a hot fire. If they are scared they don’t show it. And it is the one time Nathan doesn’t stop to hitch up his pants.
Once we are on the other side Daniel leads the way. We leave the path and go down the hillside toward the ravine. The steepness of the rocks makes it slow going. My legs ache from all the walking and climbing we’ve been doing and I’m still tired and cold. After about 100 yards, Daniel stops and looks over at Nathan. Then he points to something up ahead that I can’t see.
“Is that a deer carcass?” Nathan asks Daniel.
“I don’t think so,” Daniel says. They exchange another look.
“Maybe you should go back and wait for us at home,” Daniel says to me.
“I don’t want to,” I say bluntly. I am tired of being treated like a child.
“I don’t want your mama mad at me,” Daniel says.
“Not a chance,” I say. “She thinks you’re the best thing since electricity.”
Nathan chuckles.
“Come on, then,” Daniel says to me.
I smile, having won a small victory for my independence and follow them into the gully of the ravine. As we walk, I catch glimpses of what is ahead, but I can’t clearly see until we stop at the edge of the stream. What Nathan thought was a deer, is a crumpled body in a brown coat. A pool of dark red blood covers the rocks around the body.
Nathan makes his way across several boulders to get a better look. “It’s Johnny!” he calls.
I gasp.
“Wait here,” Daniel says to me.
I start to follow anyway but he holds out a stiff arm to stop me. His look convinces me I should stay.
Daniel and Nathan turn Johnny over.
Johnny is dead. His skull is cracked open and there is a ragged wound in his thigh from where Amy shot him.
“He probably tried to cross that bridge with the frost still on it,” Daniel says.
As if wanting to protect me from the sight, Daniel takes off one of his flannel shirts to put over Johnny’s head. Before he covers Johnny’s face he leans down and takes something from around Johnny’s neck. Then he walks over to me.
“This must have been what you saw from up there,” he says.
Daniel hands me my medallion of Mary with Johnny’s blood crusted over the baby Jesus. I wash it off in the ice cold water of the stream. The fear and anger I’ve felt since Johnny attacked me, washes away with the blood. I take a deep breath. For the first time in weeks I feel safe.
I don’t know where Johnny will end up for eternity. But in a twinge of mercy, that surprises me, I hope he finally gets to see his mother again and his sister Ruby. I hate Johnny for what he did to me. Like Ruby, it seems he’s already lived a life close to what I imagine hell to be. Maybe God will take that into account. If God exists after all.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
After the hard winter the Almanac promised, spring shows off in a big way. The first buds are on the trees and the weeping willow has feathery, light green leaves on the tips of its limbs. Sitting in the graveyard, I feel different now. I spent the whole winter holed up in the house. Some days it was so cold we kept our gloves and scarves on all day and didn’t venture far from the wood stove. But we survived.
The air still has a hint of coolness to it, like the last little bits of winter are blowing through. Warm breezes promise to follow—breezes filled with the heavy summer sweetness of blossoms and ripe fruit.
Sitting next to Daddy’s headstone, I rub my swelling belly that holds Johnny’s baby inside. For months I hated this baby, just like I hated its father. But my hatred wore itself out over the long winter and I decided not to blame the baby for being there. Just like me, it had no choice in the matter. But in the middle of the night when doubts creep in, I still blame myself and I think Mama blames me, too.
A week before Christmas, Doc Lester showed up at the house to talk to me about ways to get rid of it. I knew Mama had put him up to it and I cussed them both to their faces before I made Doc Lester leave. After that, a silence settled between Mama and me that feels permanent.
At least my sisters and Aunt Sadie haven’t deserted me. Amy, as quiet as ever, has never spoken again about Johnny. But she comes over and sits with me and sews me new clothes big enough for my swelling belly. She also stitches little outfits for the baby, both pink and blue. Over the winter, Meg took to reading me romance novels out loud. I was so bored, I let her.
Jo is due any day. But I can’t help but wonder if some of the joy has been robbed from her because of me. People can’t look at her without thinking about me. The two McAllister sisters, both with child, one by good fortune and one by misfortune—the white and the black sheep of Katy’s Ridge.
I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to the whispers in church. Preacher doesn’t come by anymore. Nothing in his big black book instructs him on what to do with an unwed mother whose child was conceived the way mine was. In my own way, I have become Mary Magdalene. It doesn’t matter that in the Bible story Jesus was nice to her and considered her a friend in the end. Niceness is too much to ask of the self-righteous of Katy’s Ridge.
I don’t go to school anymore and do my studies at home. Becky Blackstone comes over every Saturday and ignores the growing lump under my clothes week after week. After about a month, I started calling her Becky again, instead of Miss Blackstone, and she doesn’t seem to mind.
Mary Jane’s mother won’t let her come over anymore. If we see each other at the store or on the road, Mary Jane acts strange, like she doesn’t know what to say to me. Her brother, Victor, is the only one who acts like nothing has changed. When I go to the grocery for Mama he always asks how I am and he smoothes his hair down to look nice. This makes no sense given my new role as outcast. But I appreciate the gesture. Probably more than he will ever know.
Horatio and June Sector invite me over for a picnic in their backyard the first warm day of spring. The kids are all running around barefooted, though there’s still a chill in the air. I am beached on a faded old quilt and I don’t think I could get up on my own if I had to. Their new baby, about six months old now, is asleep on the edge of the quilt. We fish pickled eggs out of a jar and have honey on fresh baked bread, the pure goodness of which gives me hope that life might be normal again someday.
Horatio is dark golden and has blue eyes. His wife is just the opposite. June is light skinned and blond headed but with dark eyes that se
em to penetrate right into your soul. I show Horatio the ruby he gave me which I have started carrying in the same pocket as my rabbit’s foot.
“That’s a star ruby, Miss Wildflower, and very rare.”
No matter how many times I ask him not to, he always calls me “Wildflower.” I thank him again for the ruby.
“I still miss your pa,” Horatio says.
“I still miss him, too,” I say.
“A spring day as beautiful as this is for the living, not the dead,” June says. She is always direct. A trait that is as rare as a star ruby here in the South.
June feels around on my stomach like she’s counting fingers and toes through my skin. “It’s a girl,” she says, “on account of how you’re carrying.”
Something about hearing that makes having a baby seem more real. Over the winter, I spent a good deal of time pretending it wasn’t happening at all, in spite of the fact that it was getting next to impossible to tie my shoes. Now I just wear old sneakers with the laces out of them.
“This baby is going to be good for you,” June tells me. “Don’t you listen if people tell you different. She’s going to grow up to be very important. A prophet of some kind. Just like you are.”
Besides being a mama to four kids, June is also a fortune teller and I wonder if she is reading my future and can see the secret sense there. Maybe I haven’t lost it forever after all. Something about the beauty of the day and the possibility of good coming out of the badness of Johnny Monroe makes me smile.
Horatio and June are outcasts, too, and I make up my mind, then and there, that being in exile from all the people on the mountain that make judgments may be a good thing.
The next week I go spend time with Aunt Sadie. Her house is about the only place I feel at home right now. But even Aunt Sadie is sad these days because Max died on Christmas eve. Daniel and Nathan helped bury him out behind her house. Nothing could console her losing her best friend, so even Christmas was a sad day this year.
I feel like I’ve lost my best friend, too. Not just Mary Jane, but Daddy. When I sit in the graveyard now, it’s like he’s finally gone. We don’t have conversations anymore, and I can’t hear what he’s telling me. Under the ground is nothing but a box of bones, a skeleton of memories. The fleshy parts, things I thought I’d never forget, are fading and turning to dust.
“I’m sorry if you’re disappointed in me, Daddy,” I say, looking at the sky in case he’s up there now. The willow tree brushes its leaves against me in the breeze.
I lower my gaze and notice someone walking up the hill toward me. At first I think it might be Johnny and my whole body stiffens and I get ready to run. But then I remember that Johnny is dead and in an unmarked grave next to his sister Ruby.
Once I get the old memories out of the way, I smile when I see who it is.
“I thought you’d be here,” Daniel says. He tosses a piece of straw onto the ground that he’s been chewing.
I brush leaves aside so he can sit next to me. “Don’t you have anything better to do on a Saturday?” I ask.
“I could ask you the same,” he says. “But Jo wanted me to check up on you.”
“Mama used to be the one who’d send someone, but I guess she’s given up on keeping track of me,” I say.
“Give her time,” Daniel says.
I feel like I've given her enough time. She’s been different ever since Daddy died, and even before that she was not all that patient with me. Now with the baby growing inside me, I’ve given up hope that we’ll ever be close again.
Daniel and I sit together and look at the river in the distance. A whooping crane walks the edge of the reeds. It’s one of a pair of cranes who spend spring and summer in Katy’s Ridge. I don’t see its mate.
“How’s Jo?” I ask.
“She’s good,” he says. “About to bust like an overripe melon,” he adds, smiling.
I smile back at him, but then grow serious.
“Daniel, things are so messed up,” I say. “You and Jo haven’t been able to enjoy your baby coming as much because of me.”
“It’s not your fault,” he says. “We all go through hard times.”
“But why do things like this happen?” I ask. This is just the kind of question I would have asked Daddy to ask God for me. But God and I have not been on speaking terms for months now.
“Wildflower, I have no idea,” he says.
“Please don’t call me that,” I say, patting the roundness of my stomach. The girl I used to be has been buried in an unmarked grave, too.
“I like the name Wildflower,” he says. “I think it’s about time you claimed it back.”
“My name is Louisa May,” I say. “Plain and simple.”
I glance at the newest mound in the graveyard, a lump of red dirt next to Ruby’s pile of weeds and dirt. I think of Johnny’s crumbled body at the bottom of the ravine, wearing my medallion. As far as I know, he didn’t even have a funeral.
“There’s nothing plain and simple about you,” Daniel says.
We settle into silence. As hard as I wish it never happened, I can’t wish this baby away. It would be like trying to wish away the river in front of us. This baby will have a hard enough life without a mother who wished she’d never been born. The gossip in Katy’s Ridge will follow her around her whole life. To be a bastard child is just about the worst thing you can be around here, other than colored or Indian.
“What do I do now?” I ask Daniel, resting an arm on my belly.
He pauses like this question requires thought. “No matter what life delivers to us, I think it’s important to live with as much honor as possible,” Daniel says.
“That sounds just like something Daddy would say,” I tell him.
He smiles like I’ve given him a huge compliment. “Just remember you’re not alone. We’re all in this together.”
“Tell Mama that,” I say.
“She’ll come around,” he says, like he believes it.
“But I’m not so sure I want her to come around,” I say. I never told Daniel about Mama bringing Doc Lester to the house to tell me ways to get rid of the baby. If he knew, he probably wouldn’t forgive her, either. “I watched a bird once,” I continue. “It was pushing its baby from the nest. The little bird fought back, but the mother bird was bigger and pushed it out. The little bird had a bad wing and fell to the ground. It didn’t get up again.” I pause. “That’s Mama, Daniel. I’m on my own, whether I have a bad wing or not.”
He nods like he’s heard me, but doesn’t necessarily agree.
I trace the dates on Daddy’s tombstone with my finger, following a familiar path. “This October will mark two years since he died,” I say.
“Has it been that long?” Daniel asks.
“Too long,” I say.
Daniel looks out over the river. “I can see why you like to come up here,” Daniel says. “It’s beautiful.”
Ducks honk as they fly overhead and skim the water below in perfect landings. It wasn’t the beauty that drew me here in the past, but the feeling that Daddy was here. Now he seems as silent as Mama.
“Are you ready to go home?” he asks.
“I’d like to go to Sadie’s instead,” I say. “I think she’s lonely since Max died.”
“I’ll walk you there,” he says.
The walk is long since I don’t take the shortcut anymore. On days like this I wish we had a car. Daniel and Jo have their old truck but it only works half the time. Despite my complaining, it is a lovely day and it feels good to stretch my legs.
When we arrive at Sadie’s house she is sitting in a straight-back chair on the porch, a butter churn between her knees. Her face is flushed pink from the churning. I always dread when Mama gets out the old butter churn because the task of churning cream into butter will make your arms ache for days.
“Well hello, you two,” she calls from the porch. The absence of Max is impossible to miss.
“Let me take over,” Daniel offers.
>
“Gladly,” she says. She wipes beads of sweat from her forehead and stands to hug me. It is a shame that Aunt Sadie never had children because she is a natural at it.
“How are you, honey?” she asks. She spreads her fingers across my belly, as if saying hello to the baby, too.
I tell her I’m fine but she looks over like she doesn’t believe me.
“Let me make you some tea,” she says. “And a big glass for you, too, Daniel?”
“Yes, please,” he says. “Then I need to get back or Jo will come looking for me.”
Sadie goes inside, the screen door slamming at her heels. A screen door slamming always irritates Mama, but it doesn’t bother Sadie one bit. When she returns we drink tea and talk on the porch until Daniel finishes churning. He wipes his face, finishes his tea in one gulp and gets up to leave.
“I’ll let your mama know where you are,” Daniel says.
“Not that she cares,” I say.
“Talk to her,” Daniel says to Sadie.
Aunt Sadie agrees. We finish our tea and Sadie says to me, “Let’s take a walk.”
We walk past her garden. “The strawberries will be up in a few months,” she says. “Right around the time you’re due.”
“I love your strawberries,” I say.
“I love it when you help me pick,” she replies.
“I don’t know what kind of shape I’ll be in this year,” I say, patting my belly.
“Having a baby is not an illness,” Sadie says. “It’s perfectly natural. Women have been doing it for centuries.”
I grow quiet, knowing that I will be a mother at thirteen and not through any choice of my own. Something about that doesn’t feel so natural.
“Everything is going to work out,” Sadie says. She takes my hand as we walk. “And don’t you worry; your mama will come around.”
“That’s what Daniel says.”
The Secret Sense of Wildflower Page 17