Nobody Said Amen

by Tracy Sugarman

  He had laughed. “Being adorable.”

  She walked to the window, brushing back the curtain, gazing at the wheeling gulls that swept by the edge of the sand. “Adorable, like Mary Magdalene!” She turned, a half smile on her face. “Jesus would not be approving of what I’ve been doing with you.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Perkins folded his arms, smiling and quizzical. “In my Colorado Sunday School they taught us that Jesus hates the sin but loves the sinner. It’s hard to think of last night as a sin, though. They didn’t change the text in your Delta liturgy, did they?”

  She rejoined him at the table. “No. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a wagon load of guilt under this gorgeous suntan.” Her voice was tender.

  “Last night didn’t surprise either of us. And we weren’t surprised that it was wonderful, like we’d imagined it would be.” She frowned. “But there are other powerful things in my life, like Luke, like Alex, like Benny.”

  Perkins put down his cup and regarded her. “So that’s the but I keep hearing through all this Biblical sweet talk?”

  She nodded. “There is a but.” Disconsolate, her voice was nearly inaudible. “It’s because I don’t know where I belong.”

  He rose, clearly annoyed. “Just hold it, Cotton Queen. You came here out of choice. You made a decision to come and be with me. I thought that was a grownup decision you made about where you wanted your life to go.”

  She stared at his angry face. “But . . . ”

  “No ifs, ands, or buts, Willy. Are you telling me that this was just a fling for you? That you came here to get laid, to find out if I was a better lover than your husband? Is that what’s going on?”

  “That’s mean, Dick, and not fair. I came here thinking I would find some answers, but what I’m finding are more questions.” Her voice broke. “Help me, Dick.”

  “I thought you knew you wanted to close one door and open another. That’s what decisions are, Willy; they’re choices we make. I made a decision when I left Colorado to go to Mississippi. I made another decision when I left Shiloh to come here. And I thought your ‘Dear Prince Charming’ telegram was the decision you had made. Or are you just testing the waters?”

  She murmured, “The waters are wonderful, but that still doesn’t tell me what I need to know.”

  “And what exactly is that, for God’s sake?”

  “I need to know where I fit. I need to know where Willy McIntire Claybourne belongs.”

  Perkins struggled to control his temper. “Your kids are growing up like kids grow up, Willy. You’re not going to stop loving or supporting them, nor is Luke. But Luke has never given you the recognition and respect you deserve. His idea of you is the perpetual Cotton Queen, the trophy wife, perfectly dressed and the life of the party.”

  “And yours?”

  “I’ve seen you as the woman you’re becoming: intelligent, curious, adventurous, a woman who has been seeking to expand her horizons. And I’ve seen you as strong and decisive, someone who knew what she wanted. But now—” He hesitated.

  Willy’s voice rose. “The problem, Prince Charming, is that underneath what you describe is a Delta farm girl who still has Mississippi mud under her fingernails that won’t let go. I didn’t mean to, but even during these lovely days with you, my mind would fix on Shiloh.”

  Perkins reached for her hands and examined them. “If there’s Delta mud, I don’t see it. I think it’s time for you to decide to change your life, Willy. It’s time for you to make up your mind. It’s past time.” He raised her hands to his lips and kissed them, then raised her face to kiss her lips.

  Willy said, “Don’t.” She rose from the table. “You always get what you want, don’t you Dick?”

  Perkins stood to face her. “No. But I always know what I want, and you can too. Do you know what you want, Willy?”

  “No. I wish I did.”

  Perkins voice was pleading. “Stay with me, Willy. You don’t have to go back. You’re discovering a whole world outside of the Delta.”

  Willy turned from him. “For years I dreamed about seeing that world you described. I longed for change. I was sure that I could only find it if I left Mississippi.” She raised her head. “But change is happening in the Delta. It’s happening in Shiloh. Maybe it’s happening in me. It’s so slow and hard, Dick, that it hurts. But it’s happening. And I’ve got to decide if I want to be part of that.”

  Perkins said gently, “There’s your choice, Willy. You can flip a coin or you can simply say ‘I know what I want.’”

  She watched him leave the room and slowly close the door.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Taxco, Mexico

  Dearest Luke,

  How strange this is. My first letter ever to my husband of 21 years.

  It’s day 13, and I’m counting. You may no longer care to know that, but it’s so. Eleven days on the Redneck Riviera, from Gulfport to New Orleans, then two days here in Taxco, looking for the shiny world Willy McIntire imagined. And I’ve found that Willy’s world isn’t here anymore, maybe never was, except in my dreams when everything outside Shiloh seemed magical and out of reach. And when I fell in love with you, I put my McIntire dreams away and proudly became Wilson Claybourne. I hope you believe that, because it’s so. But dreams die hard, and 21 years later I had to see for myself. I’ve done that now.

  I miss you, Luke. I miss Alex, and I miss Benny. I miss being important to people I really love. Wilson McIntire Claybourne wants to come home.

  Love

  W.

  Luke returned from dropping off the boys at the construction site by the pond to find Willy’s rental car in the driveway. He reached into his glove compartment and extracted his nearly exhausted pack of Luckies. When had he started this damn business again? When she left? Irritably, he lit the cigarette, staring morosely through the smoke at the luggage stacked by the door. When Willy came outside for the bags and saw his car, she stopped. Luke stepped from the Chevy, ground the butt of the Lucky on the macadam, and walked to the step.

  “Why didn’t you let me know when you were getting in?” He stepped past her and lifted the bags into the hall. “Did you think I wouldn’t pick you up? In case you forgot, I’m still your husband.”

  She followed him into the living room, pausing at the door to assess her home. “It was an ungodly hour, Luke. The connection from New Orleans was in the middle of the night. Besides, I wanted to drive home as the sun was coming up.” She settled with a sigh on the couch. “The Delta looked so scrubbed and beautiful.” When Luke took the chair facing her, she said, “And I really didn’t know if you’d want to pick me up after you got my letter.”

  “Tell you the truth, Wil, I was scared to open the letter.”

  “Scared?”

  “Scared because I knew I’d missed you. And I wouldn’t have bet a Confederate dollar that you’d be coming back. I was somewhere between rage that you actually left and relief that you said you’d be coming back.”

  “And now?”

  “I don’t know if I can trust it, your being back.” The words seemed to weigh him down. “Are you really back?”

  She hiked forward, watching intently. “I think so. I did a lot of thinking while I was away. And I think I discovered who I am, and re-discovered where I belong.”

  Luke sat rigid, fighting to control his anger. “You had to put me through hell to do that?” His voice rose. “You had to fly out of here like a runaway kid to do that? Why?”

  Her voice was gentle. “Because here I was Willy Claybourne, and I thought it was all I could ever be.” Her eyes were unblinking. “All you’d ever let me be, Luke.”

  “So what’s changed? You left being Willy Claybourne and you’re back being Willy Claybourne. That’s what being married means.”

  “No. Now I know I’m Willy McIntire Claybourne. Remembering who I was, what I was that made you want to marry me in the first place.” She searched his face. “I think you liked that grit and toughness once.”


  “And you needed Dick Perkins to help you find that?”

  “Yes. I did. He was the friend I needed who saw me as I want to see myself, as I really am.”

  Anger tinged his voice and flushed his face. “So why come back at all? Dick Perkins doesn’t live here! Your husband lives here! Your sons live here!”

  When Willy spoke, her voice was hushed. “I came back because Luke Claybourne is such an important part of who I am. We grew up together, we’ve been tested by hell fires together, we’ve won and lost together. And in the end, I love you, Luke.” Her voice broke. “I’m not complete without you.”

  Shaken, Luke moved uncertainly to the couch and sat beside her. “For thirteen days I’ve been replaying our twenty-one years. I remember winning Willy McIntire. That was the biggest hand I ever won, and I knew it. But I’m a sore loser, Wil, and I thought I’d lost you. And I’ve been angry with you that you made me lose.” Frowning, he stopped abruptly, his face flushed. “But when your letter came, I had to be absolutely straight with myself and look at where I’ve been and who I’ve been. And I’m not happy with the me I found.” She watched him rise and walk across to the window, becoming a silhouette against the bright morning. “I’ve been a lot more like my old man than I ever admitted to myself.” He turned. “Or to you.”

  “I love the man you’ve become, Luke. Not the high school star I loved when I was sixteen. Not the hard-driving ‘ol’ redneck’ you liked to call yourself.” She came to him, placing her hands gently on his face. “The man who could humble himself to become a prison guard, the last thing in the world you wanted to do. The man who started over again, remaking his life from scratch to make it work.”

  “Then why, for Christ’s sake, did you leave, just when things started to go well? For me? For us?”

  “Because I needed to find me in all that.” She moved back, her eyes intent on his. “I felt I was suffocating. I needed some place where I could breathe again.”

  “And running away did that?”

  “Yes. I needed to find what the world outside felt like.”

  “And?”

  “And I found that the world really is round. You keep moving and you reach the place you left from. ” She smiled wryly. “Real nice scenery along the way. I saw the Gulf, I spent two days in Mexico, even saw our old haunts in New Orleans. But I found out Mississippi is part of me just like I’m part of Mississippi.”

  Luke walked to the luggage at the door. “I’ll carry your bags up.” He stopped suddenly, at a loss. “I don’t know what room to put them in.”

  Willy reached for one of the suitcases, opened it, and took out a sombrero. “When I was in Taxco, I picked up a sombrero that’s supposed to be like the one Pancho Villa wore. And the legend they tell in Taxco is that when Villa came to a new place, he’d sail his sombrero into the room and see if anybody shot it. If nobody did, he’d walk through the door.” She turned with a grin, “I thought I might have to do that when I got home.” She tossed the sombrero toward the stairs and they watched it settle gently on a step. She said, “I’d like them to go to our bedroom. You gonna shoot, Pancho?”

  Luke picked up the sombrero and placed it on Willy’s head. “No. We missed you. The boys did. I did.”

  “I missed all of you. How are they doing? They were already gone when I got back.”

  “I get them out early. They’re fascinated watching the co-op’s crew that’s digging ponds at the catfish farm, but they’re fine. They kept askin’ ‘When is Mom getting back?’ They’re not little kids any more, but they missed their mom. Two weeks away? They knew this was something different. I knew this was different.”

  “It was different.” She cleared her throat. “What does a girl have to do to get a drink around here?”

  Luke smiled and went to the small bar across the room. “You need Dutch courage?”

  “Hell, no. I needed Dutch courage to leave. That was the hardest day of my life. No. I’d just like us to have a welcome-home drink together.”

  “We never had a farewell drink, Wil. You were like a bird, beating your wings against the cage. And I felt like I was still being a prison guard.”

  “It wasn’t you that made me leave. I felt I couldn’t be here in the Delta one more day—losing the plantation, losing the house, losing the years, watching everything changing except us.”

  “And what about your—” he hesitated. “What about Dick Perkins?” Willy said evenly. “It wasn’t Dick Perkins made me go. It was me, Luke.”

  “Did you sleep with Dick Perkins?” The words were unadorned. “Did you?”

  Willy stood and faced him. “Don’t go there, Lucas.”

  “Don’t go there?” His voice was incredulous. “I’m your husband, and I have a right to know!”

  “And I’m your wife. What rights do I have to know? Did I ask what you were doing in Jackson all those years when you were carousing with your buddies, selling cotton and getting quality time at Matty Semple’s house? Do you really believe that the wives at the Shiloh Club didn’t know about the delights of Matty Semple’s house? There are things in everybody’s life that we learn to live with that we consider exclusively our own.” She paused. “I wasn’t carousing, Luke. I was with a kind friend. Then I came home.”

  “So who came home? Don’t I have a right to know?”

  “The McIntire girl who you chose to be your wife, warts and all, who believes in herself, and wants to start fresh with the man she really loves.”

  He gazed at Willy with wonder. “Jesus. Am I ever going to get used to you?”

  She smiled. “I certainly hope so.”

  He poured two drinks and handed her one. “Nothin’ fancy. Not even a Taxco Marguerita, just my daddy’s bourbon.”

  “Your daddy’s bourbon is fine. I’ve had enough Margueritas to last a lifetime.”

  “A lifetime’s a long time, “Luke said. “You sure?”

  Willy laughed. “Sure? What’s sure? I think so.”

  “Welcome home, Willy. I’ll drink to that.”

  She touched her glass to his. “It’s time I got back to work at Parchman. I’m surprised Eula didn’t send a posse out looking for me.”

  “When she called I told her you needed a little R and R. She’ll be glad to hear from you. She’s a good friend, Willy.”

  She smiled. “And a good friend nowadays is hard to find?”

  Luke said, “Maybe not.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Jimmy’s meetings with Ted were exhausting, testing the old friendship in ways that surprised him. Mendelsohn was unrelenting, probing the sensitive spots in the careful edifice Jimmy had erected and defended for his whole adult life.

  What’s the matter, black boy? You can’t deal with this cracker? You ’llowed in this part of town, nigger?

  It wasn’t the taunts. Hell, he’d heard worse. It was Mendelsohn saying them. They seemed to come too easily to him. The more vulnerable Mendelsohn made him feel, the more suspicious Jimmy was about the role-playing. He was getting hit, and it made him irritable. “Why am I letting this white cat torment me?” he growled at Eula. “Maybe he likes it, enjoys baiting me, saying what he always felt but never said.”

  She laughed at his fears. “He loves you, baby. It’s the way he’s trying to protect you. You’re talking about Ted, not just some cracker.” And he knew she was right. But as the days got closer to the campaign, Mendelsohn probed deeper, watching the days slip by, anxious to arm him before he tangled with Timmy Kilbrew in November.

  By the night of the kickoff of the Mack for Congress campaign, Jimmy was no longer uncertain if he loved or loathed Ted Mendelsohn. Ted’s incessant racist barbs had induced a scar tissue that had grown into a sustaining patience deep within Jimmy, giving him the confidence to measure, think, and counter-punch. When they approached the auditorium, Jimmy felt the adrenaline rising, and he nudged Ted.

  “You gonna be there to run interference for me, Honky?”

  Ted grinned. “I’
ve seen you in the open field, Nigger. You don’t need me. You just need you.”

  Willy paused by the hall mirror, checking her hair, adding a little color to her lips. “I’ve got to be going, Luke,” she called. “Are you going to come with me? We’ve talked this Jimmy Mack rally into the ground. If you’re coming with me, we have to leave now.” She turned and saw Luke standing, his arms folded, his back against the front door. “Are you coming?” she repeated.

  “Willy, don’t do this.” His words were stark, echoing in the small foyer.

  “We’ve gone through this, Luke. You know I’m going. You know why I’m going. The word is all over Parchman that I am going to the Mack rally and speak there.”

  “Oh, Christ. Just as I feared.”

  “Feared? Why feared? You’re as fearful as the women in my group at the prison! ‘Gonna call you nasty names, Miz Willy. Nigger lover! Whore! Judas!’ They don’t want me to go, scared to death that the crackers will kill me.” Her voice softened and she stepped close to Luke. “I know you’re worried like they’re worried, and I hate making you worry. But I need to go.”

  He touched her shoulders. “For God’s sake, listen to me. Those women could be right. This is not about redemption, Wil. It’s about a man getting elected to represent us. Us!”

  “Us? Which us? The ones you remember who had the Claybourne place? They don’t live here anymore.” She removed his hands from her shoulders. “Those folks who closed the Shiloh pool in July, to keep them out?” Her voice was flat. “The ones who started the white academies in Magnolia County so our kids could be taught in a pure place?”

  “Willy, this is Shiloh, not Gethsemane. We didn’t break all the eggs. You know that. What’s done is done.”

  Her anger could not be leashed. “The black toilets are done, Luke! The black water fountains are done! The all-white juries are done!” Her voice rose, and tears were brimming in her eyes. “Segregation is not done!”