“He was nice.” I smiled. “He treated me very well.”
“I’m glad. He’s a good feller.”
“He really is.”
“I hope you don’t mind me asking this, Dorothea. But do you think he has intentions of a relationship with you? Other than friendship, that is.”
“I don’t know, Lola. Part of me hopes so. But another part of me isn’t sure I could handle that right now.”
“Dorothea, if you end up in a relationship with him, you are going to have to disclose certain unpleasant information with him. You are aware of that, correct?”
“I know.” I pulled the rolls out of the oven and instantly covered them with the thick, sticky icing. “Did you ever date anyone after you left the life?”
“I did have a few interested gentlemen.”
“How did you tell them?”
“Well, the first one never knew.” She sipped her coffee. “I told the other one after a year of dating. The next day he sold the engagement ring that he’d bought for me. I hadn’t known he was about to propose.”
“That stinks.”
“It most certainly did.” She grimaced. “He assumed I got into the business by my own choosing. He wouldn’t hear contrary to that idea. Now I’m glad we never married. How could I do this ministry with a man would refuse to understand?”
“Do you think Paul would be mad at me?” I asked, small voiced.
“No I don’t. He’s a special guy. But I do think that you need to tell him before he gets intentions.”
A flutter in my chest, a tightening in my throat. I gasped for breath. The bowl of icing fell out of my hand and to the floor.
“Dorothea?” Lola got up and poured me a glass of water. “One of your attacks?”
I nodded. She led me to a chair and made me sit.
“I can’t tell him,” I cried between sucking in air and breathing out wheezes. “I don’t want to remember.”
“Those days are over, sweetie. No one is going to hurt you like that again.” She rubbed my back. “You are safe.”
After a few minutes, I regained my calm. Breathed easier. Tinges of the anxiety still pulsed, but most of the fear was gone. Lola used a wash cloth to wipe the sweat from my brow. She let it rest on the back of my neck.
“Sometimes I get all those closed-in feelings. Like I’m still trapped.”
“I know, Dorothea. But you aren’t stuck anymore.”
“Do the memories ever mess with you?”
“Yes. Often.” She stooped to wipe the icing off the wood floor. “I think the nightmares are the worst.”
“Yeah.” I closed my eyes. “I just wish they would all go away. Like, that I’d grow out of them.”
“Me, too. But I also dream often about the day I got away. And those are glorious, thankful dreams.”
“Tell me the story, Lola.”
“You’ve heard it before, Dorothea.” She rinsed out the wash cloth.
“I know.” I put my head on the table. “But I want to hear it again. It always makes me feel better. Please, Lola.”
“Very well,” Lola said.
She told about walking the streets in Grand Rapids. After years of working for the same pimp, she gained his trust. Instead of insisting that she check in every hour, she only had to report back each morning before returning to her motel.
One night, a man picked her up for a date. The customer asked very specific questions about what she would do and how much he would need to pay.
“Are you a cop?” she’d asked.
“No,” he had answered.
“If you’re a cop, I want you to arrest me right now. I promise that I’ll tell you everything you want to know. I’ll tell you about my pimp and who he works for. I’ll tell you where his money is laundered and where he keeps us girls. I’ll tell you about the drugs and the guns and the under aged girls. I will tell you everything. And I promise I won’t fight you.”
Lola was arrested that night. She said she slept better in that jail cell than ever before in her life. She tasted freedom for the very first time when locked up behind bars.
The next morning, after giving all the information she could, she entered a protection program and waited to testify.
Nobody cared to try that kind of case. So, the charges against the pimp were dropped. Her protective custody was lifted and she moved around for two years, hiding, trying to stay safe.
After those two years she purchased the house that would be a safe place for all of us girls. She’d somehow raised enough money from churches and fundraisers.
Lola’s gentle voice lulled me to sleep that morning.
Later, I woke up to the sounds of family breakfast. Plates clinking, laughter, chairs scooting across the floor. I sat up slowly, trying to wipe the drool from my chin without anyone noticing.
“You’re cute when you’re drooling all over the table,” Paul said, sitting in Lola’s chair. He took a bite of cinnamon roll. “These are really good, Dot.”
“Thanks,” I said, too confused to be embarrassed. “Wait, you’re not allowed in here.”
“I know. But I brought Mom and Dad. They wanted to see how things work here. Lola said it was okay.”
I nodded, pushing the hair off my face.
“And I wanted to see you. Drool and all.” He smiled. “So, can we get burgers later? Pick up where you left off?”
“That would be great,” I said. “Are you sure you can handle my story?”
“I think so. Why?”
“Because I can hardly stomach it.” I smiled. “Speaking of stomach, I’m starving. You wanna share that cinnamon roll?”
“For you, anything,” Paul said, pushing the plate to the middle of the table. “I mean that, you know. Right?”
“I think so,” I said, stuffing a piece of roll into my mouth.
Cora – 37
“Good morning, Cora,” Lisa said.
“Hi,” I said, scooting over on the couch to make room for her to sit. “I thought you had to go on a youth group trip today.”
“Thank goodness, someone else volunteered to go. I’m just a little too old to hang out with twelve teenage girls all day. I’ll gladly leave that to the twenty-something crowd.”
“I can’t even imagine. The world must be so different now. It’s been so long since I’ve been out there.”
“Yes. You’ll have a lot of catching up to do when you get out of here.”
“I don’t think that’s something I’ll need to worry about for quite a while. I’m not nearly well enough for that.”
“Actually, you do need to start thinking about it.” She placed her hand on mine. “Cora, haven’t they told you?”
“Told me what? Who?”
“Dr. Emmert said he was going to tell you the other day.” Lisa sighed.
“What? What do they need to tell me?”
“The State is closing this facility. They don’t have the money to keep it open. They’ve placed Edith and Wesley in other programs.” She looked at me with a hopeful smile. “But they’ve determined that you’re well enough to go home.”
“I don’t have a home,” I said, nearly panicking. “Where am I supposed to go? I have no money. I have nothing.”
“I know,” Lisa said. “But you have me.”
“Who?”
“You have me.” She squeezed my hand. “Listen, first we’re going to have to get a hold of Dot. We’ll see what she thinks about everything.”
“She won’t be able to support me.”
“I know. And that’s why I was hoping you might just agree to come live with me.”
“Why would you want that?”
“Because you’re my friend.” She pulled a picture out of her bag. It was of a house in the process of construction. “See this? I’m building a house. There are far too many rooms in it for just me. I thought I’d like to have you live with me.”
“But I can’t pay you anything.”
“I know. Maybe you could help me learn h
ow to cook. Teach me how to make cookies.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Lisa. I just don’t know.”
“Well, think about it. You have two weeks to decide.”
“Two weeks isn’t enough time.”
“It’s plenty of time.” She smiled at me. “Now let’s get back to your story.”
Struggling to grasp the goodness of Lisa’s offer, I looked at her hand on mine.
“Where did I stop last time?” I asked.
“You’d just identified Titus’s body,” she answered.
“Oh, yes.” I cleared my throat. “And it must get far worse before it gets better.”
~*~
The sheriff drove me home. By then, my mother had awakened. He told her about my brother’s death. She took the news with closed eyes and streaming tears. Silent, shaking sobs that moved the whole bed. She covered her face with the blankets.
She mourned Titus without sound for weeks. Not eating, not getting up for the outhouse. She refused to speak. My life consisted of caring for her. Giving her pills to swallow. Changing the sheets when she messed the bed. Fretting over her.
One morning, after so many days of silence, I heard my name. A faint, fragile voice called for me.
“Cora,” my mother called, standing in the doorway of her bedroom. “Honey, I’m ready to get up now.”
I dropped my dust rag and rushed to her, gently wrapping my arms around her. So afraid that I would break her if I held too firmly.
“Be a dear,” she said. “Help me to the rocking chair, please.”
I helped her into the chair, stuffing pillows at her sides to keep her upright. An old, threadbare afghan tucked over and around her legs.
“Cora, honey,” she said “Would you be willing to get me a glass of water, please?”
I brought her a small canning jar of water. She wrapped her bony fingers around it.
“Thank you.” She lifted the jar, unable to get it to her lips. She lowered it into her lap. “This is a heavy glass.”
“Would you like me to hold it for you?” I asked.
“Please, darling. That would be kind.”
I tipped the glass to her mouth, gently pouring a thin stream of water into her mouth. She swallowed the small sips. Then put her hand up when she’d had enough.
The blue of her irises gleamed like jewels. She pulled her brow together. The slack skin of her cheeks was turned down in a pained frown.
“How about you sit with me for a minute, Cora?”
“I can’t, Mother. I have so much to do.” I took the jar into the kitchen and put it on the counter. “If my father comes home and sees this filthy floor, well, I shudder to think what he’d do.”
“Your father has never cared about the condition of this house, dear.”
I walked back into the living room. “But I—”
“But nothing. When he walks into this house all he is interested in is getting sleep.” She flashed a shamed look at me and then turned her eyes to the floor.
She massaged the center of her forehead. “Just sit with me, please. I would like to talk to you. It isn’t asking too much.”
I sat on a stool by the window. The chilled air seeped in through the cracks around the glass. The yellow flowers from weeks ago had fallen to the floor, exposing the windowsill once again.
“You know where your father works now, don’t you?” She looked directly at me again.
“Yes, ma’am.” I turned my face away from her.
“Do you know what he does there?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, what he does is not good. Not even a little. But I think that you’re old enough to know about it. Do you think you will be able to handle knowing such a harsh truth about him?”
I had watched my sister taken to be sold. I had been the one to identify my brother’s bullet-torn body. My own father raped me. My life was nothing if not completely consumed by harsh truth.
My heart raged against her. I kept us alive and took care of everything. She had given up, incapable of helping me. A few pills down her throat and she could escape into sleep. I held such resentment in my soul against her. She had been the mother. I was the child. And, yet, I mothered her.
But, instead of screaming and yelling and slapping, I answered her in a weak voice.
“Yes, ma’am. I believe I am ready to hear about what he does.”
“See, your father...” She spoke slowly, with intent, her hands folded in her lap. Her calm defused me.
“Yes?” I asked, leading her.
“Well, allow me to start this way. What happens at Ducky’s is far beyond the law. Do you know what they do there?”
“I do. Yes. The men go there to drink and gamble. There are women there for the men to fornicate with.” I blushed on account of the word.
“Correct. And all that money goes to Ducky. Men are willing to pay a lot of money to have their way with women.”
“I know.”
“Well, it is your father’s job to make sure that the men pay. He also keeps the women in line.”
“Do you think he hurts the girls?”
“I don’t know, Cora.”
“Marlowe is one of those girls.”
“Yes, Cora. She is.”
“But she wouldn’t want to let them do that to her. I just know she wouldn’t. So, how can they force her to do those things?”
“Oh, Cora, what they do to those girls is very wrong.” She sighed. “But Ducky is a dangerous and powerful man. I have no idea how he came about such influence, but he certainly is in control. People are afraid of him. Even the sheriff seems to be under his thumb. No sheriff I have ever heard of is able to afford a new car every year.”
“The sheriff works for Ducky?”
“Yes, he most certainly does.” She paused. “Cora, your father is stuck. He’s gotten himself into a bad situation and he doesn’t know how to get himself out.”
I looked at her. She’d buried her hands under the afghan.
“Your father has many problems, Cora. He drinks too much and is no good at playing cards. Both of those things have gotten him into a lot of trouble.”
“So he had to work at Ducky’s to pay off his debts.”
She nodded slowly, solemnly.
“I hate him,” I whispered. The raw emotion pounded in my heart. “I wish he would just drop dead. I pray that someday he will be killed. I want him to die and I want it to hurt him real bad. If I could kill him myself, I would be glad.”
“Oh, Cora,” she said, pulling her hands up to her chest. She shook her head. “Don’t say such things, honey.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Anger burned in my quiet voice. “And how can you stand up for him? He hurts you, too.”
“He is not a bad man, Cora. He has been hurt in his life, too. And he has made some terrible choices. But you can’t hate him. You must never allow yourself to hate him.” She sighed, letting her head drop slightly. “We have to love our enemies. As impossible as that seems, it is what Jesus calls us to do.”
“I don’t care what Jesus says. I will love everyone else in the entire world, but I will never love that man. That’s a promise. And I will never forgive him. Never.” The force of the words punched through my voice. “I would rather die than love him.”
She looked down. Her shoulders shook with a sob. She raised one of her skeletal hands to wipe the tears from her face.
“I know what he has done to you,” she wept. “Oh, God, help me. I know what he has done.”
My stomach turned, for fear that she would be angry at me. “I’m so sorry, Mother.”
“It isn’t right for a man to take advantage of his own daughter that way.” She dropped her face into her hands. “It is an evil thing to do.”
“I hate him,” I said again.
“I know, honey. I know.”
Suddenly, her arms encircled me. How she got from her chair to me, I didn’t know. But her arms held me tighter than I would have expected. Each wave of my w
eeping nearly broke her brittle body. She held on to me through it all. When the storm of grief passed, she sat me up and wiped my face with the heel of her hand.
“I am sorry that I have never been the mother you needed. I am sorry that I have failed to protect you. I just didn’t know what to do.”
“It’s okay, Mother.” I forced a smile.
“No, it is not okay,” she said, her energy drained. She leaned against me. I could tell her head felt heavy on her neck. “I need to go to bed.”
“Would you like something to eat?” I stood to help her to her feet.
“I don’t have a stomach for anything.”
I lifted her body into bed once our shuffling feet got us into her room. She felt lighter than ever before.
“Dear, I’ll need my sleeping pills.” She held out her hand as I grabbed the bottle of medication. “Leave the bottle on the bedside table, dear.”
I gathered the dirty laundry from the basket in the corner of the room. As I walked out, I heard her small, fading voice.
“I’m so sorry, Cora.” She reached her stick arm toward me. “Promise me something, will you? Promise me that if anything happens to me, you will leave this mountain.”
“Nothing is going to happen to you, Mother.”
“Just promise.” Her arm fell, too heavy to hold up. “Whatever it takes, you must get away from here. You’ll never have more than this if you stay. It will only get worse. Just promise me.”
“Okay, Mother. I promise.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Now go so I can get some rest.”
I felt her eyes on me as I walked out of the room.
Dot – 38
“So, how many yellow roses can one guy buy?” I asked, inspecting my second bouquet from Paul.
“As many as it takes.” He smiled at me. “Hey, somebody like me getting another date with somebody like you. That’s worth celebrating.”
“Oh, Paul,” I giggled. “Wait on the porch. I’ve got to put these in some water.”
The kitchen still smelled like bacon from the morning’s breakfast. I reached under the sink for a vase. Lola walked in behind me, talking on her cell phone.
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