by Shutta Crum
I heard Miss Woodruff moving behind me. She was inching her way across the porch.
“You get down from my porch and get going with these two poor excuses for human beings,” Doyle said to Miss Woodruff. “I want all three of you off my property now!” He swung the shotgun and aimed it at Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield.
As Miss Woodruff scooted past us, she said, “I was just trying to help.”
Doyle’s whole body stiffened and his face got beet red. “Help? Help?” he sputtered. “All you did, woman, was to help get me kicked out of my own house. Helped me so I hardly see my boys anymore. And now, with your two buddies here, you’ve helped me and mine become the laughingstock of Beulah County.”
Doyle had swung back in our direction. “Hell, woman,” he said, “I’m just trying to save what little I’ve got left from your kind of nosy-body help!”
Now I could see Miss Woodruff’s face. She had gone all white, her mouth tight.
“Please, Doyle,” Beryl Ann begged from up on the porch, “don’t do this. There isn’t any going back if you hurt somebody.”
“What about us, Beryl Ann?” asked Doyle. He lowered the shotgun but kept it pointed in Miss Woodruff’s direction. “What about us? What about the shame they’ve done brought on us? They hurt us; somebody should have to pay for that. They can’t just go around making fun of us in front of the whole world like that.”
“I know, I know,” Beryl Ann answered. “They came to apologize. They didn’t mean it the way it turned out.”
“And that brat there.” Doyle indicated me with the barrel of the shotgun. “What’s she doing talking about us so that it gets reported in the papers?”
“Those weren’t my words. They mixed them all up,” I said.
Mama yanked at my arm again, hushing me. “Doyle,” she said, calmly and quietly, “Jessie was misquoted, that’s all. She didn’t mean any harm.”
Mr. Whitten cut in. ‘“Didn’t mean any harm?”’ He spit on the ground again. “That girl’s been trouble since the day she was born. You should have put her up for adoption, Mirabelle. Any decent woman would have.”
Mama stiffened, but she didn’t say anything.
Mr. Whitten came sauntering up closer, like he was lord of the kingdom. He looked us over and chuckled under his breath. Then he stopped in front of me, grabbed me by the chin, and twisted and turned my whole head first one way and then the other.
“Hey!” I yelled, pulling my hand out of Mama’s and trying to push him away. “Let go. That hurts!”
Mama reached out and sank her fingernails into Mr. Whitten’s arm. “Let her go, Curtis,” she said through clenched teeth.
Mr. Whitten turned me loose and leered at Mama. I gave him a dirty look and rubbed my jaw where it felt like his grip had bruised me all the way down to the bone.
“So,” he said. “You can see the brat’s daddy stamped all over her.”
What! My stomach suddenly knotted up and hurt like someone had thrown a big rock right into my middle. I heard Mama gasp.
“Didn’t think I knew?” I could tell Mr. Whitten was pretending to be surprised. “Couldn’t keep something like that to himself, now could he?” he purred real soft-like. “I thought he was just bragging, but I see it now. Maybe I should do some ‘reporting’ to a few folks myself, eh?”
Did Mr. Whitten know who my daddy was? I looked into Mama’s face.
“Shut up, Curtis!” Mama commanded. Mama had gone steely hard all over. She was looking him right in the eye and not giving an inch.
I wanted to punch him. I wanted to punch him right there in his gut. And I would have, except that Mama had grabbed my hand again. I started counting to myself. Only, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what came after five.
Mr. Whitten leaned forward and whispered something in Mama’s ear that I didn’t catch. I thought my hand was going to be crushed for sure and that Mama was going to jump right off the ground and fly all over him like a wet cat. If looks could kill, Mr. Whitten would have been pushing up daisies right then and there—and I’d have made a point to stomp on every single one.
Just then, the screen door flew open and banged shut. “Baby, get back inside!” I heard Beryl Ann order. There was more noise behind me. It sounded like Robert had come out, too, and was trying to catch hold of Baby and drag him inside but couldn’t. Baby slipped past Beryl Ann and Robert. When he got near us, Mama turned and lunged sideways for him, but he jumped off the steps and, thumb in mouth, started across the yard.
By this time Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield had sidled backwards almost to their car. And Miss Woodruff was stopped in the middle of the drive, watching.
Baby walked right up to Doyle. He took his thumb out of his mouth and clamped both his arms around Doyle’s leg. “Daddy!” he said.
Doyle still had his shotgun trained on Miss Woodruff. We stared, unable to move, as Baby Blue clung to Doyle. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw Mr. Henry, way down by his car, slowly start to raise the camera that was hanging from his neck.
Don’t, I said to myself. I must have jerked, because Mama turned slightly and saw Mr. Henry, too. She scowled and cleared her throat, like she was trying to draw everyone’s attention to herself. “Go back inside, Baby,” she coaxed.
It felt like the world’s longest minute. Everything was moving in slow motion—slowed right down to the longest, thinnest intake of breath. It even felt like the wind, the sun, and all the insects had stopped what they were doing and were waiting to see what was going to happen next.
The whole time I kept repeating to myself, Don’t do it. Don’t do it, Mr. Henry. Put that camera away, and praying that Doyle and Mr. Whitten wouldn’t notice.
Then Doyle shook himself and looked down at Baby clinging to his leg. “Get inside, Baby!”
Baby clamped on tighter. “Daddy, can you come home?”
Doyle looked at us. Now Robert was standing partway down the steps by Mama and me with his hands gripping and twisting the sides of his overalls. “Come and get your brother, Robert,” Doyle ordered.
Except for his nervous hands, Robert looked as straight and strong as Mama. He shook his head. “No.”
Suddenly, Doyle heaved one great sigh, and like a load was lifted off him, his shoulders drooped and he lowered his gun. “Oh, Baby,” he said, putting his hand on top of Baby’s pale hair. “What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?”
To my complete surprise, Doyle squatted, laid his gun down, and wrapped his arms around Baby. He burst into great choking sobs, muffling his cries against Baby’s small chest. “What am I gonna do?”
Then a whole lot started happening at once. It was as if we’d all gulped air at the same time after holding our breath until we’d almost given out. All except Mr. Whitten, who swore and shot Doyle an ugly look as he stomped off.
Beryl Ann and Robert barreled down the steps, almost shoving Mama and me aside to get to Doyle and Baby. The four of them grabbed at each other and started crying.
Miss Woodruff simply sat down, right on her bottom in the dirt. Her blue dress billowed up all around her. Mr. Henry and Mr. Birchfield dropped everything and came running back through the hubcaps to raise her up.
And Mama started shaking all over. With a loud sigh and a shudder, she slumped down on the wood steps and hugged me with both arms. She held me so tight I still had trouble breathing. Then she rocked me back and forth. She was shaking so hard I was afraid she’d come apart. It wasn’t easy, but I held on.
When Mama’s shakes had subsided enough that she could walk, we went down the drive and made sure Miss Woodruff was going to be all right. Then Mama went in the house and called the county sheriff. We waited until Officer Boyd showed up to arrest Doyle. Then we walked home with our arms around each other.
The next day Mama told me Beryl Ann had called. Doyle would stay in jail until his case came up before the judge. They’d hauled Mr. Whitten in, too. And Miss Woodruff, Mr. Henry, and Mr. Birchfield had to go in to be questioned. Even Mama had to go
to the station.
The sheriff didn’t keep Mr. Whitten in custody because he said he had just gone along with Doyle to try to keep him out of trouble. But Officer Boyd knew he wasn’t telling the truth. He told Mr. Whitten that he had his eye on him. If Mr. Whitten so much as glanced in the direction of his whiskey still, or took off up to the handler’s church to do any more worshiping with snakes, or even so much as spit on a Sunday, Officer Boyd said he’d be more than happy to find a bunk in the jail for him for a good long time.
thirty-five
I STARTED HAVING BAD DREAMS. I’d wake up shaking, or crying out in my sleep. I was tired and cranky.
I spent a lot of time at Lester’s. What I needed from Lester right now I couldn’t get from Mama. She was acting strangely, almost like she was avoiding me. I knew it had to do with what Mr. Whitten had said. I knew it had to do with my daddy. But I didn’t know how to talk to her about it. And I didn’t think I could talk with Grandma about it.
When I told Lester that Mama seemed nervous around me lately, he sighed and hugged me. “Give her some time,” he said. “She has something to tell you that isn’t going to be easy for her.”
“Is it about my daddy?” I asked him.
“That’s her story to tell, little one, not mine,” he said, and hugged me again.
One night after I woke up from a bad dream, Mama was sitting on the edge of my bed. She leaned over and brushed back my hair. “Shh, shh,” she whispered. “It’s all right, sweetie. It was just a bad dream. It’ll go away. Shh, light of my life.”
I reached out and took her by the wrist. “Mama, I keep dreaming about Mr. Whitten. He’s like a big old snake hissing ugly things at us. And I’m so scared.”
“Oh, sweetie,” Mama said. “I would never let anyone hurt you. Not Curtis Whitten, not anyone.”
“I know. But he did say something to you that hurt you. What did he mean?” I looked at Mama, gripping her wrist tighter. “He knows who my daddy is, doesn’t he?”
Mama looked away and started to rise from the bed. “It’s late, honey You should go back to sleep.”
I held onto her wrist and sat up. “Please?”
“Tonight?”
“Please, Mama. I’ve got to know sooner or later, and it is about me. I should know,” I pleaded. “If you don’t tell me . . . I don’t know what will happen. I keep dreaming that Mr. Whitten is whispering things—bad things. He’s telling everybody, and people are laughing.”
“You’re right,” she said. She wiggled her wrist free from my grasp and rubbed it. I didn’t know I’d been holding on so tightly. She brushed her hand lightly across my cheek. “You need to hear it from me. But it isn’t a pretty story, Jessie,” she warned.
“That’s OK,” I told her, even though I was a little scared. Deep down I’d always known something was wrong from the way Mama acted—sad or angry or impatient—when I asked about my daddy. I just knew I had to hear it right now, tonight, and I hoped it wasn’t too bad. “I need to hear it anyhow,” I said.
Mama whispered, “Oh, love, you are the light of my life.”
She paused for a long time after that. It took her so long to get started I thought she’d forgotten what she was going to do. “Mama?”
“Let’s see.” She cleared her throat and sat up straighten “You remember, I told you about the bad times and the house burning down?”
I nodded.
“Well, something happened before that, before the house burned down. I . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I . . . Well, you’re a big girl. And . . .”
I knew all about how babies are made, what Grandma calls “the birds and the bees.” “Did you fall in love with someone?” I asked. Even though all the faces of my pretend fathers through the years had been kind of blurry, I’d often imagined Mama falling in love with someone and being happy. For a long time I’d hoped that it had been Warren.
“No, no,” Mama whispered and looked down. “That was the problem. I, ah . . . I didn’t love your father at all.”
I didn’t understand. “You didn’t? Then why . . . ?”
Mama looked at me, and there were tears in her eyes.
She took a big swipe at them. “I didn’t want to . . . Oh, Jessie, honey, I don’t want to hurt you and spoil whatever you’ve imagined about this. But, honey, it was bad. He forced me to. I . . .” Mama stopped and took a deep breath.
I tried to take it all in. My eyes hurt from straining forward, trying to understand what she was saying.
She continued, “It was after I became friends with Warren. I went with him to a conference in Owensboro. I was young and excited. I talked about it a lot. I was going to observe at my first medical conference. Traveling all those hours to Owensboro and back, just Warren and I. Folks heard about it and didn’t like it.”
Mama stared down at her shaking hands and clenched them together. “Someone—a bad man—wanted to teach me a lesson. Someone I knew, but I never thought he’d . . .” She swung her head from side to side like she was trying to fling away an ugly picture. “We’d known each other since we were kids. And even though we didn’t like each other, I just never thought he’d actually hurt me like that. He . . . he forced himself on me, Jessie.”
While Mama paused and put her face in her hands, I tried to make sense of it. My thoughts kept running up against a big dark wall. I’d thought it might be a sad story Mama was going to tell me, but I’d never thought it was going to be this bad.
Slowly I slid my hands up to the sides of my head to cover my ears. But I knew I had to hear the rest. I couldn’t go back to my imaginings anymore, it wouldn’t be the same. It was like the clubhouse, only much, much worse.
“I don’t understand, Mama,” I whispered, not wanting to understand.
When Mama raised her face, tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Jessie. It wasn’t about love or romance or any of those good things. It was all about being angry and hitting, and someone bigger and stronger than me wanting to hurt me. I . . . I went to Warren afterward, since he’s a doctor. He helped me. He wanted me to go right to the police. He would have gone himself and filed a complaint, but I stopped him.”
“Why? Why?” I yelled, finally finding my voice and letting my hands drop from my ears. My stomach knotted up, and I could feel the heat beginning to spread all over me. I didn’t bother with trying to calm myself down. Someone had hurt Mama, and she hadn’t even complained about it! “Why not?” I asked, clenching up a fistful of blankets.
Grandma had said that we Bovey women are tough and strong. I had to know why she hadn’t stood up for herself, hadn’t even bothered to go to the police. “Why?” I demanded again.
“I was scared, Jessie. He threatened to hurt us if I told. He told me he’d hurt Grandma. And then . . . and then a couple of months later the house burned down. I knew he’d done it. It was a warning to keep my mouth shut. I was so scared.” Mama looked around the room and then back at me. “I wanted to go, to run away. But there wasn’t any place to run to. After the fire, there was no money to run with. And then . . . he died, and I didn’t need to run. He couldn’t hurt us anymore.
“Oh, Jessie,” Mama whispered, reaching out to stroke my arm. “You don’t know how much I hoped and prayed that I could avoid telling you this. I hoped that somehow, it’d all . . . I don’t know—I guess I was hoping it would just melt away as you grew up, and it’d be all right if you never knew the whole story. But I’ve known that I was fooling myself, ever since that day at the Ketchums’. I knew that I’d have to tell you, or Curtis might.”
I could tell that Mama was trying to smooth it all out for me. But it still didn’t make sense, not if the man who’d hurt Mama was dead now “If he couldn’t hurt us anymore, why’d you keep it a secret?”
“After that, what did it matter?” Mama asked. “We were all finally safe. And I didn’t want people talking about me even more. Also . . . there were others who would have been hurt by knowing the truth. I just wanted to live unaf
raid again. I didn’t want to think about it anymore.”
“Who didn’t you want to hurt, Mama?”
She tilted her head and stroked my cheek. “Most importantly, you. I didn’t want the child I was carrying to ever, ever, be ashamed of who she was.”
I closed my eyes, leaned forward, and hid against her, thinking. After a while, I asked, “Who else would have been hurt?”
Mama sighed. “Lester.”
“Lester!” I yelped, falling back on my pillow. I was more confused than ever. “What does he have to do with it?”
“Lester had already had a lot of sadness in his life. Darlene, his daughter, was as good as gone; nobody had heard from her in years. His wife had died not too long before this. I didn’t want to hurt him again.”
“But I still don’t understand about Lester, Mama.”
“Lester’s grandson—Jack. He was the one.” Mama heaved a body-shuddering sigh.
“Jack?” I whispered. I could feel my stomach and back tensing up. “You mean the one in the picture in Lester’s living room?”
“Yes. Darlene’s son.”
I tucked my knees up into my chest and laid my head down so my eyes were shut up tight against my knees. I pushed into my kneecaps, trying to black everything out, hoping that when I looked up again I could see it all straight and lined up instead of all crazy and scattered.
I didn’t say anything for the longest time. Finally, I looked up. “Jack . . . forced you?”
“Yes.” Mama sighed again.
“He’s the one? He’s my . . . father? And you never said so, even after he died, so Lester wouldn’t get hurt?”
“Yes.” Mama nodded. “And to protect you. I never wanted you to know this, Jessie.
“As for Lester,” Mama spread her hands out and continued, “you know, Lester’s been like a father to me ever since my own daddy died. I didn’t want him to know how bad, how . . . well, what a bad person his only grandchild was.”
Then she turned to avoid my eyes. “I never even told Grandma,” she whispered. “She wanted me to tell her, so she could . . . I guess, somehow make it better—to insist that whoever had gotten me pregnant should marry me. But I couldn’t. I didn’t want that! I wanted it to all go away. I was just living from day to day and hoping something would happen to change things. And then one night it did.”