She leaned with her back against the car, doubled over, gasping. “You could have stopped him from raping me just by coming in the barn! But you didn’t! You ran! And Dad never came to help me either! What was it? Your little secret?!” Her body began to heave with the force of her sobs.
Jeffrey reached out and grabbed her by the arms. She beat against his chest. “No! Leave me alone!” She tried to break free from his grip, but he wouldn’t let go. He wasn’t going to leave. Not this time.
“Listen to me, Elizabeth,” he said in what he hoped was a calming voice. “Please, just listen to me. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I left you in that barn to be raped by a man we both trusted. A man our father trusted. I should have tried to help. I should have screamed and ran and done anything. But he was too big; I knew I couldn’t stop him. And I was afraid to leave you. So I sat outside the barn just making sure he left. I didn’t know what else to do. And when he finally came out of the barn, I started running toward the house to tell Dad. But he chased me down and told me that if I ever told a soul, he would do it again, and that he’d kill our father if he ever found out we had told him.”
Jeffrey was crying too, now, hot blinding tears. “I didn’t know what to do, Elizabeth. I didn’t know what to do.”
“You never told Dad?” Her body heaved.
He slumped his shoulders. “No, no, I never told Dad. He said he would kill him. And I believed him. I was so afraid. I was so afraid.”
Elizabeth dropped to the cold, packed ground. Jeffrey sank down beside her.
“It hurt so bad.”
“I know.” He drew her into his arms, running his hands over her hair. “I can’t imagine what you’ve carried, and I’m so sorry. Please forgive me, Elizabeth. I should have told! I should have told Dad, but he was his right-hand man on the plantation, and I just didn’t know what to do. And then when he died that next year, I knew at least that you were safe.”
She leaned back in his arms. “But he’s been here ever since.” She reached up with a forefinger and pounded it against her temple.
“And that moment has been here.” He pointed to his heart.
“I didn’t know he threatened you.”
“I didn’t want you to know I had even been there.”
“I saw your shoes and heard you run past the barn. Through the crack under the door.”
“But I would never have left you. I couldn’t leave you. Not until I knew he was out of there.”
“I’ve hated you since that day. I’ve hated both of you.” She wiped her nose with the sleeve of her coat. It was one of the most unlady-like things she had ever done, and it made Jeffrey smile.
“I know you have. I’ve hated me too. Maybe that’s why I became the man I was. All the horrible choices. Maybe I didn’t think I was capable of being a real man. The kind who sticks in there and makes it work. I became a runner.”
“It’s haunted me all these years, Jeffrey. Not just what he did to me, but what I thought about you and about Dad. I thought you didn’t care. I thought nobody cared.”
Jeffrey reached up and brushed back the brown curls from around her face. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“I could have forgiven you long ago if I had just known. I didn’t know you had stayed.”
“I couldn’t leave.”
“I’m sorry you had to experience what you went through too.” She dabbed at her face with the palms of her hands. “I spent all those years hating Dad too.”
Jeffrey reached down and held her face in his hands. “But he loved you so much.”
Her tears seeped through his fingers. “But I still hate it here. I’ve hated this place ever since that day, because every time I come, I have to see that barn.”
“You’ve got to let it go, Elizabeth. Somehow you’ve got to find a way to let it go.”
“I don’t know how.”
“I didn’t either. But I’m learning.”
“I’m stubborn.”
“No, you’re mean, remember?” They laughed together as Jeffrey let his hands fall to his side. He felt a chill run through him, and he shuddered.
“We’re going to freeze to death out here.”
He looked at her and grinned. “Not if we had a campfire.”
For the first time in years, Elizabeth looked at her brother. Really looked at him. There was an odd expression on his face, a strange light in his eyes. A look of triumph. He stood to his feet and took her hand. “I need you to trust me.”
She should have laughed at such a statement. But she didn’t. “What?”
“Just trust me,” he said as he led her through the back gardens to the fence line.
She pulled back. “Jeffrey, no.” She wasn’t ready. Not now. Not ever.
“It’s all right,” he said gently. “You’re not alone this time.”
She felt her very insides tremble as she entered the cold, musty barn. She thought she might throw up, but she could feel Jeffrey’s presence, right beside her, taking every step that she took.
“It was right there,” she said, pointing a shaking finger at the far corner of the last stall. “That’s where it happened.” She swallowed down the bile that had lurched up into her throat. “Every day, all my life, I’ve seen it. Seen him.”
“But look, Elizabeth, he’s not there now,” Jeffrey said. “He’s gone. He’s dead.”
She knew he was right. But tell that to her brain and her gut, where he still remained, where everything still remained—the sounds, the smells, the pain, the fear. The barn might have been empty except for a few rusty old tools and some moldy hay bales, but it was full of every demon she had fought for the last twenty years.
The scream started in the very soul of her, low at first, but building into a primal rage that shattered the quiet of the barn. “No!” she shouted. “No, no, NO!!”
She lunged forward, out of Jeffrey’s grasp, and grabbed up a pitchfork that leaned against the barn wall. She plunged it into a pile of hay in the corner of the stall, over and over again, screaming out her anger and pain with every thrust. She would end this, once and for all. Right here. Right now.
Much to her relief, Jeffrey didn’t try to stop her. He just waited quietly until she was finished and finally sank, empty and spent, on the floor of the barn.
Almost an hour of silence passed between them before she finally spoke. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for being here.”
“Got anything left in you?” he asked.
And he pulled a pack of matches from his pocket.
The smoke from the fire was still thick in the night air when Jeffrey and Matthew finally left. Esau made his way outside, bent over the cast-iron flowerpot, and lifted it up by its edge. The white envelope was there, just as it was every month. There was no need to count it.
A day with the kids always left him drained. But he knew that, especially with what had transpired between Elizabeth and Jeffrey today, the playing field had shifted completely.
There was so little time left. He sat down on the teak bench underneath the covered porch and pondered—quietly, solemnly, hopefully. He’d know in three months if it had worked. It was all out of his hands now.
part 4
May
chapter thirty-seven
Mary Catherine sat back in her chair and looked across at Terrance’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. “I think you should be extremely proud of Terrance this year. He did a complete turnaround since our first meeting. If he can maintain this attitude through the remainder of middle school, he will see amazing things happen.” Mrs. Johnson smiled across at her husband. “Terrance told us just the other day that you had made all the difference for him. I told him, ‘Well, Terrance, you need to tell Mrs. Bean that. ’ He looked at me with that look he has, you know?”
“Oh yes, I know.” Mary Catherine chuckled.
“And he said, ‘Mama, if I told Mrs. Bean I liked her, she would advertise me like Shrimp Lover’s Tuesday at Red Lobster’!”
“Well,
we’ll keep his admiration our little secret.”
Mr. Johnson opened the door. “It’s no secret to us what a wonderful job you have done. We couldn’t be more grateful for the attention you’ve given our son. He may never have another teacher like you, but he will always know what a good one was.”
As they started out the door, Mrs. Johnson turned. “Did we tell you we had a son in the fifth grade? Terrell.”
Mary Catherine felt her knees go weak. “No . . . ah, no, you never told me about Terrell.”
She heard them laughing as they walked up the hall.
She walked back into the classroom and looked down her list of parents’ names. She had gotten a few more than last time, but Charmaine’s mother was still a no-show.
She closed her lesson book and gave a satisfied sigh. Only four more days until school was out.
As she climbed into her car, she felt a tug in her gut. Only a few times in her life had she felt such a compulsion, this knowing. Once was shortly before her mother died—even as young as she was, she had an overwhelming desire to spend the entire day with her mother. They painted their toenails, braided each other’s hair, and giggled with Elizabeth over an old movie. She’d felt the same sense of urgency the week before her father passed away, and again the night she had gone to Edisto Island to sit in the church.
She knew she had to do it, whatever the outcome. She turned the car in the direction of the North Charleston projects, one of the few low-income housing projects that remained since the revitalization of the North Charleston area.
She found the address she was looking for and pulled over to the curb. It wasn’t until she was halfway up the walk that the vulgar remarks began from across the street. She quickened her steps and opened the ripped screen door. The hallway smelled of marijuana and stale urine.
A drunk lay passed out across the stairs with no clue anyone else was on the premises. Mary Catherine scanned the darkened corridor for Charmaine’s apartment number, then realized it must be upstairs. She skirted over the drunk and made her way up the metal steps, trying to keep from touching either the rusted railing or the graffiti-covered gray wall.
The smell of pot was stronger here, mixed with some other strange odors she didn’t recognize. At last she found the right apartment number and knocked tentatively on the dented door. It opened slightly against her touch, and she froze. Terror seized her: go in and die, or run and possibly survive the last three months to even see your inheritance.
She stood there vacillating between possible death and a comfortable life. Finally she tapped on the door lightly once more. It shifted open even farther. She reached up and pushed against it.
It took a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The tiny apartment was full of . . . bodies. Two lay sprawled across the sofa half-dressed. One was scooping up white powder off of the floor. One sat in the corner smoking a crack pipe and singing children’s songs. Two more lay on a filthy mattress in the middle of the kitchen. They weren’t dead, but they might as well be. Not one of them even acknowledged that there was someone else in the room.
Then she caught sight of a slight shaft of light coming from underneath a door down the hall. Against her better judgment, she stepped inside farther. The woman with the crack pipe stopped singing and gazed at her oddly but made no move to stop her.
The door had three separate dead bolts and a peephole. Mary Catherine raised a trembling hand and knocked.
A shadow passed behind the peephole. Locks flipped, and a black arm reached out and jerked her inside.
She squinted in the sudden, bright light, and as her eyes adjusted, she had the strange sensation of falling down the rabbit hole into another world.
It was a typical teenager’s room. A single bed occupied one wall, with a bright pink bedspread and accompanying pink pillows. In one corner sat a small wooden desk with a lamp and a stack of school-books on top. The walls were covered with posters. Everything in the room was neatly and perfectly arranged.
Charmaine still had her by the arm and shook her. “Mrs. Bean, what in the world are you doing here? You could have been killed. Lord knows you better get back out there, or your car will be stripped—or gone completely.”
“Charmaine?” Mary Catherine whispered.
“Mrs. Bean, you don’t have to keep your voice down. There’s not a crackhead out there that can hear you or would care what you had to say if they did.”
Mary Catherine grabbed the girl and pulled her down on the edge of the bed. “Charmaine, how long have you lived like this?”
The girl shrugged. “I’ve lived this way most of my life. But don’t worry about it. I’m perfectly fine. I’ve got food.” She nodded toward the corner of the windowless room. Behind a makeshift curtain of brightly colored beads stood a small refrigerator, along with a toaster and a stack of plastic plates and cups.
“It’s so clean.”
“I’m a neat freak. You should know that about me by now.”
Mary Catherine shook her head in disbelief. “But how do you get money for food, and for your school uniforms?”
“Getting money isn’t hard. You can always find money in a crack house. When you’re addicted to crack, there are only two things you ever think about—when do I get my next fix, and where do I get the money for my next fix? I know where my mother keeps her stash, and I pull out a twenty here and a twenty there. I figure it’s not really stealing, considering that parents are supposed to feed their children.”
Mary Catherine grabbed Charmaine and pulled her to her chest, holding on as if arms might reach from underneath the bed and snatch her away.
“Mrs. Bean, I can’t breathe.”
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry.” Mary Catherine was still whispering. “Now, you listen to me, we are going to pack your bags right now. You are getting out of here today, and you’re never coming back.”
“Mrs. Bean, that’s a nice thought, but I don’t have anywhere to go, and this is my home.”
She looked around at the young girl’s room and felt a lump grow in her throat. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. How about you come home with me for now? We’ll take everything we can carry, we’ll lock up your room, and I’ll get someone to come over here and get all of your stuff.”
Charmaine turned her dark eyes on Mary Catherine. “I can’t leave my mama.”
Mary Catherine stood up and ran her hands through her hair. She started pacing. Why should the girl even care? She studied the adult concern on Charmaine’s childlike face. It didn’t matter whether she should care. The fact was, she did care.
“I will get someone to help your mother, okay? That will be my responsibility.” She sat back down on the bed and took Charmaine by the shoulders. “I’m not sure how we’ll work all this out, but you can’t stay here. Not another day. Now get up, and let’s get you packed.”
The corner of Charmaine’s face turned up in a smile. “Mrs. Bean, are you sure about this?”
“Honey, you can’t live this way. No one can live this way! I don’t have any idea how you’ve managed. Now, get to stepping!”
In five minutes they had stowed most of Charmaine’s things in a couple of big black trash bags. She locked the door behind her, and as they made their way through the party room, Charmaine went over to the woman with the crack pipe and kissed her on the cheek.
“I love you, Mama,” she said. The woman turned vacant eyes to the ceiling and resumed singing.
Mary Catherine caught the burning tears but not before they momentarily blinded her. “Let’s go, honey.”
They climbed over the drunk and made their way out the door only to find four men sitting on Mary Catherine’s car. In that moment every ounce of anger, fear, and outrage came into focus, and when she opened her mouth, it all came out in a terrifying scream. The men took off as if the devil himself was on their heels.
“You’re crazy, Mrs. Bean.” Charmaine opened the car door and put her bags in the backseat. “I’m not saying that’s a bad
thing, but you are crazy.”
“I’m glad you called.” Jeffrey held open the door to Poogan’s Porch restaurant so Elizabeth could enter.
“I’m glad you were available.”
A young blonde woman nearly collided with Elizabeth in the doorway. “Oh, excuse me.”
Elizabeth stepped back to let the woman pass. She was beautiful, tall and elegant in a navy sleeveless dress.
Then Jeffrey spoke from behind her. “Aaron!”
Elizabeth turned, and Aaron nodded in her direction. “Hello, Elizabeth. Jeffrey.” He extended a hand in Jeffrey’s direction, and Jeffrey let go of the door, which banged into Elizabeth’s protruding knee.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry.” Jeffrey released Aaron’s hand to grab the door again. “It’s great to see you. It’s been a long time.”
“Yes, it has been awhile.”
“I hear things are going wonderful with Dad’s company under your care. I know he always trusted you.”
“Well, he was a very special man to me.”
“I think you’ve proven that.”
Elizabeth and the blonde stood there eyeing each other. In a split second, Elizabeth came to a conclusion: the woman was a bimbo.
“Oh, excuse me,” Aaron said hastily. “Erica, this is Elizabeth and Jeffrey Wilcott. Their father owns—well, actually they own the company I work for.”
Elizabeth lifted her chin slightly.
“A pleasure to meet you,” the bimbo said.
“How are you, Elizabeth?” Aaron asked.
“Me? Oh, never better. Couldn’t be more perfect, actually. Totally fine. Peachy, actually.” She gave a fake laugh and cringed inwardly. Apparently she was quite capable of sounding like an idiot. It had never happened before.
“Erica here is an attorney with Avant, Taylor, and Dunham. Elizabeth is an attorney as well.”
“Oh really? What type of law do you practice?”
“Well, I do a lot of different things. Real estate development, closings, titles, things of that nature. And you?”
“I’m a child protection advocate. I’ve fought for the cause of children my entire life.”
The Will of Wisteria Page 29