“I wish I had me so many nice dresses,” Savannah whispered, almost as if she didn’t want me to hear her.
“I’d let you borrow some, but Aunt Bett has to have them back, and if any of them got torn or anything like that, I’d be in big trouble!”
“Well, Grandmama’s making me some new dresses anyway,” Savannah said. “Just not this many. And besides, I’ll probably be going to live with somebody else in Mama’s family pretty soon.” I felt my heart lunge in my chest.
“You’re going away?” My voice must have held all the heartache I was feeling, because how could I not have this beautiful friend in my life forever?
“I know,” Savannah said simply. “I don’t want to go, but Grandmama says she’s too old to take care of me all the time, so some of Mama’s other kin folks have to help out.”
I reached out and hugged Savannah then. She felt small and thin in my arms and a little stiff too, as if maybe she wasn’t used to getting hugged. When I let her go, I saw that she had tears in her eyes.
So it seemed like I turned into Aunt Bett in a flash. “Well, we just have to get through this the best we can,” I announced, and Savannah brightened at the confident sound my voice made. It even comforted me as well, and made me be able to pretend that everything would be all right. And I never said a thing to Savannah, but I remembered that promise I’d made to myself not to love anybody again, and knew that I’d broken it. Even though I meant to keep it. So my heart was hurting again, and I had no one to blame for it except myself.
When Roy-Ellis came home from work—sending Savannah in her usual flight out the back door—he went right into the bedroom, and while I was getting ready to serve his supper, I heard the shower start up. Then he came into the kitchen wearing jeans, his cowboy shirt and boots, and carrying his cowboy hat. He glanced at me a little anxiously, I thought, and started in on his canned spaghetti in a hurry. Then he downed the last of his coffee, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up.
“Dove, honey—I just can’t sit home every single night. I ain’t cut out for it. So do you mind if I go out? I mean, you won’t be scared or nothing, will you?”
“I was never scared when you and Mama went out,” I said, and I kind of stumbled over the words, because just for a moment, I halfway expected Mama to come out of the bedroom, all dressed up and ready to go with him. “Besides,” I went on, “I’m older than I was then. So it’s okay.” Too, I thought about how I could see the porch light on Aunt Mee’s house, and that was a comfort, for some reason.
“Good!” he said, grinning in a way I hadn’t seen him do in a long time. So I knew he was heading out for Across the Line.
“Who’re you going with?” I asked, and my own words were a complete surprise to me.
“Nobody,” he said too quickly. “Just nobody . . . somebody . . . alone.”
And before I could say another word, he was gone, and only the good smell of his cologne remained. The house seemed so strangely quiet all at once, and when I was bathing Molly and Little Ellis and getting them into bed, it was like the silence was so loud, I could almost hear it. I read for a while, and when I got sleepy, I made sure the door was locked and the porch light was on before I went to bed. Real late, I heard Roy-Ellis come home. He tripped on that same front step, but he didn’t say a word, and the next morning, Aunt Bett came by for us children and we all went to church. She didn’t ask about Roy-Ellis, and I didn’t volunteer anything. She wouldn’t like knowing that Roy-Ellis had started in to honky-tonking again, but I didn’t mind it one little bit. Roy-Ellis worked so hard all the time, coming home and swallowing down whatever I had fixed for supper, then going right to bed. And too, he’d been awfully good to Mama when she started getting sick. And he was a good provider for us, and me and Molly not even his own children. But there was one thing I thought about: What if Roy-Ellis met somebody he wanted to marry! I mean, Roy-Ellis was a fine-looking man, and he was still pretty young. When Mama died, I always figured he’d spend the rest of his life taking care of us. But maybe that wouldn’t happen. Even my own mama found somebody else after my daddy left us. And if that happened with Roy-Ellis, what on earth would become of me and Molly and Little Ellis?
I wanted to talk to Savannah about it, but I couldn’t. Because maybe it would have hurt her feelings. She was without a mother or a father, and had to be shifted back and forth among her relatives. If Roy-Ellis found somebody else to love, maybe he wouldn’t want us anymore, and we didn’t have a big family to be shifted around to. We just had Aunt Bett.
Chapter Six
Roy-Ellis was ever so much happier, once he got started honky-tonking again, and also, he’d put a big dent in most of the bills, so he didn’t have to work so many extra shifts. He’d already been back to Across the Line two Saturday nights in a row, and he didn’t seem to have met anybody special, so I forgot to worry about that. Besides, when he would get all dressed up to go out, he looked so fine and handsome, I was truly proud he was my stepdaddy.
But then there came a very late Saturday night in June when the ringing of the phone startled me out of sleep.
“Hello?” I almost whispered because Aunt Mee had let Savannah stay late at our house, and we’d been watching a movie on television about a man who kept calling a lady and not saying a word, just breathing into the phone. Savannah was so scared after that, I had to take our flashlight and walk halfway through the woods with her so she could get home. She ran the rest of the way, while I shined the light on her, and then I heard her call “Okay! I’m safe!” when she reached Aunt Mee’s porch.
“Hello?” I said again.
“Hey, Dove?” Roy-Ellis’s voice, loud and clear. Then someone with a high voice giggling, and a muffled sound. Roy-Ellis putting his hand over the receiver?
“Yessir?”
“Dove, honey . . .” the muffled sound again and Roy-Ellis saying, “Be quiet just a minute, darling.”
Darling?
Then Roy-Ellis coming back on the line and saying, “Honey, you think it will be okay if I don’t come home tonight? I mean, would you be scared or anything?”
I looked at the clock. Almost 5 A.M.
“No, Roy-Ellis, I wouldn’t be afraid.”
“Good. Now listen to me a little minute—just don’t say anything to Bett about this. It will be our secret—yours and mine. Okay?”
“Okay, Roy-Ellis.”
“So I’ll see you all tomorrow evening, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Go to church with Bett, but don’t say anything. You know how she worries over nothing.”
“Okay.”
I hung up the phone and went back to bed.
Darling?
Uh-oh!
The next morning, we were ready when Aunt Bett came for us, and she didn’t even notice that Roy-Ellis’s truck was gone. Church was good, with lots of singing and a sermon that didn’t last too long. When Aunt Bett dropped us back at home, she noticed about the truck.
“Where’s Roy-Ellis?” she asked.
“Maybe they called him in for an extra shift,” I suggested, trying hard not to lie. Because a promise is a promise.
“Well, goodness knows, you all need the extra money. You call me if you need me,” she commanded.
“Yes’m. Thanks.”
“And be sure to take off your church clothes right away and hang them up.”
“Yes’m.”
After I got us all changed and hung up the good clothes, I made tuna sandwiches and sliced tomatoes for our lunch, and then I read four picture books to Little Ellis and Molly before I put them down for their naps. While they were resting, I sat in the porch swing, reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn again. But once in a while, I’d put the book down and look out across the dry-grass field on the other side of our road, with not another soul in sight, and I’d wonder what it felt like to live in a real city and have all those people around and things going on all the time. Darlene said something like that to me one time. S
he said, “This is such a dead little town. I sure do wish I could go someplace exciting!”
Aunt Bett had overheard her and she said, “It’s just your age, Darlene. It will pass. Why, when I was your age, I wanted to run away and join the circus.” Two of Aunt Bett’s youngest children went running by, laughing and whooping. “But look at me now,” Aunt Bett laughed. “I’m living right in the middle of my own circus all the time!” She laughed at her own joke, and Darlene and I smiled. But we glanced at each other, because we knew that kind of heart-hungry longing wasn’t a joke at all.
I went back to my book. Back to New York City and all the people and things going on. And when Molly and Little Ellis got up, I knew I just had to find something different for us to do. Or that long, lonely Sunday afternoon was going to last forever.
“I’ve got a surprise for you all,” I told them, after they had finished their cookies and milk.
“Prize?” Molly asked.
“SURprise,” I repeated.
They were already wearing pants and shirts, so I put on their shoes and socks and sat them on the couch.
“Stay there,” I commanded. I got a brown paper bag out of the pantry and in it I put an old sheet, the rest of the bag of cookies, an unopened quart carton of orange juice, and some of Molly and Roy-Ellis’s favorite storybooks. And we all set off down the road. Past other little gray houses like ours, with clotheslines in the backyards and one with an old car up on concrete blocks. Past the flour mill, quiet and deserted because of it being Sunday and nobody at work, and then along the dirt road all the way to the Waynesboro Highway. As soon as we reached that, we could see the big brick schoolhouse.
“The playground!” Molly chirped.
But Little Ellis had begun to whimper, because it was a long way to walk, and his legs were little. So for the rest of the way, I carried Little Ellis on my hip and held the grocery bag in my other hand, with Molly holding onto the bag, as well. It was the next best thing to me holding her hand, I thought.
We put the bag in the shade of a big tree, so our orange juice wouldn’t get warmed up. And then we started playing. We rode the seesaw, with Molly and Little Ellis on one end and me on the other. I had to sit pretty close to the middle for our weights to balance, but we laughed and had a good time anyway. Next, they wanted to go on the round-and-round—I really don’t know what it was called, but that’s what Molly called it. It had a round base that was mounted up on some kind of a pole, and metal bars for hanging onto. I put Molly and Little Ellis on and made sure they were holding tight, and then I pushed and ran until it was going fast, and I hopped on and stretched out on my back, so that I could see the rich, green leaves on the trees circling round over my head. It was such a wonderful feeling.
After we played for a good, long time—all with that hot summer sun burning down on us—I spread out the sheet in the shade, and we ate cookies and took turns drinking the orange juice. Then I started reading some of the books to Molly and Little Ellis, but I noticed that a brown pickup truck had turned in at the entrance to the school. I wondered maybe if it was someone come to tell us we couldn’t be on the playground when school wasn’t going on. It just kept on coming toward us so slowly, and there was something about it that made me feel worried. But I didn’t know what it was.
I didn’t want to frighten Molly and Little Ellis, so I said in my most cheerful voice, “Okay, let’s gather up our things and head on back toward home.” I had almost everything back in the bag when a strange man got out of the truck.
“You children okay?” he hollered to us.
“Yessir,” I yelled back.
“You got a grown-up with you?” The question sounded dangerous, and I was thinking about as hard as I could of what to say. Because Aunt Bett had talked to me several times about being careful around strangers, now that I was getting pretty grown up.
“You’ll be getting a woman’s figure soon, Dove,” she had said, shaking her head as if that would be a terrible thing. “So you gotta be careful.” Maybe I had frowned, or in some way shown my confusion, because Aunt Bett added in a whisper, “Men.” She said the word as if it made a bad taste in her mouth. And now here was a stranger—a man—and him asking if we were alone at the playground.
“You got a grown-up with you?” he repeated, and my scalp went all prickly.
“Our daddy’s coming for us any minute,” I said. I had the sheet folded across my arm, and I lifted it a little and looked at my arm, as if I had a watch on.
“Oh yes—he’ll be here any minute now.” And strangely, I almost believed it myself. Almost could see Roy-Ellis’s truck coming and Roy-Ellis, big and strong and wearing his cowboy boots and hat, walking up and standing beside us and taking care of us.
The man stared for a long time, and then he said, “Okay. You all want a ride?”
“Nosir . . . No.” I changed from my good manners. He got back into his truck, but he took a while to drive away. We stayed right where we were. But I wondered if maybe he would be parked somewhere down the highway, in a place where he would be able to see us walking back home, and then he would know I’d lied—that nobody was coming for us.
All I could seem to think about was our own safe little gray house, and how I wished we were there and not out in a wide open playground with nothing near but a deserted school building.
I had to get us home where we would be safe. But how? Don’t worry, Mama. I’ll take good care of Molly and Little Ellis. Right at that moment, a huge flock of noisy, black crows flew over our heads and landed in the trees above us. They seemed to tilt their heads and look down at us with black eyes that were lost against the black feathers. Then all at once, they started cawing, over and over again, to each other or to me—I didn’t know which. So I just stood still and listened.
“Caw! Caw!” they said. And in an instant I knew what they were saying.
“Caw! Caw!”
Run! Run!
I handed the storybooks to Molly.
“You carry these. They’re not heavy.”
I picked Little Ellis up, got him settled on my hip, and said, “We’ll go home a better way. C’mon, Molly. Hurry!”
“Not such a long way?” Molly’s mouth was in a pout.
“Yes,” I lied, not wanting to get her all upset. Because I would not take us all back along the highway, when maybe there was a strange man in a brown truck who would see us and know we didn’t have any big, strong daddy coming for us. Run! The crows had said. And I meant to do just that. We reached the highway and went in the opposite direction from the way we had come.
“Wrong way!” Molly announced.
“No, Molly. This is the right way. Trust me! Hurry!” Maybe she sensed my fear, because she didn’t pull against me again. We went on down the highway—fast—in the wrong direction, until I saw a house across the highway. We crossed over, went through the side yard of the house, and came to a thick stand of trees.
“This is the way,” I said, more to give myself confidence than to comfort Molly, and we all stepped into the thick woods. It was slow going, with Molly’s shoe coming off and briars catching our clothes, and Little Ellis feeling as heavy as a sack full of bricks. I got Molly’s shoe back on, untangled us from the briars, and shifted Little Ellis to my right hip. The muscles in my left arm were quivering from tiredness.
Forward! That’s what I kept saying silently. And crazily, I remembered the T-shirt I borrowed at Aunt Bett’s on Easter Sunday afternoon. Forward! Forward! I thought again, Mama’s big girl!
On and on, until through the trees off to my right, I could see yet another house. I thought we’d probably gone far enough to cut over and find our dirt road, but far, far away from where it met the highway we’d crossed and also maybe far away from a brown pickup truck that was waiting.
“This way,” I said to Molly, and I heard her sniffle.
“What’s wrong?” I said, but I was thinking, What’s wrong, besides the fact that maybe I’ve gotten us lost, and you’re
hot and tired and scratched by briars, and we don’t know where home is, and there’s a strange man around somewhere?
“Go home!” Molly fairly shrieked, and I had to work hard to stop myself from screaming those same words. Instead, I said, “That’s what we’re doing, Molly,” with a rough sound to my voice. I heaved Little Ellis upward from my hip and almost yanked Molly along as I trudged off toward the house I saw through the trees. All of a sudden a dog was barking—so loud and so close! We froze, right where we were.
“Who’s out there?” A man’s voice. Angry. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Little Ellis pressed his face into the side of my neck, and Molly stepped behind me, her arms wrapped around my legs.
“Who’s out there?” Louder. Angrier.
“Children, sir!” I yelled back.
“Children?” Still loud. Still angry. “Well, get outta here!”
“Yessir!” I yelled.
“You don’t get out, I’ll turn the dog loose.”
“We’re going!” I fairly screamed.
Little Ellis had begun sobbing against my neck, and I moved slowly across the side yard, with Molly still behind me, and as we passed, I saw the man—no shirt, leaning on the back porch banisters. Red face. Big white belly.
“Go on!” he yelled, and I sprinted forward, dragging Molly along. When I thought that we were far enough away from the angry man and his big dog, I stopped and tried to put Little Ellis down for a moment. But he hung on to me in all kinds of ways, and trying to unwrap him was like trying to get rid of a kudzu vine. Little Ellis and I wound up on the ground in a heap, and Molly piled right on top of us.
“It’s okay. It’s okay,” I tried to croon to them. But I was trying hard not to cry. Because Little Ellis was so heavy and Molly was so scared, and I still wasn’t sure of where we were. I finally got us all calmed down and sat up, and I found that I was looking through more brambles and trees… but through them, I could see a dirt road. Our road? Yes! And for the first time in what seemed like forever, I knew how to get us home.
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