Missing Isaac

by Valerie Fraser Luesse

  “So what are you gonna do?” Dovey asked.

  “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

  When Pete and Dovey made it to the crossroads, Aunt Babe was sitting on her front porch. Cyrus came running out to meet them, taking the biscuit Pete offered him and ushering his young friends to the house. Aunt Babe left her rocking chair and stood on the porch, staring down at the boy and girl who had stopped at the bottom of her concrete-block steps.

  “Aunt Babe,” Pete said, “could we talk to you for just a minute?”

  “Who this girl, Pete McLean?”

  “This here is Miss Dovey Pickett.”

  “Paul’s grandbaby?” Aunt Babe asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Pete said.

  Looking at Dovey, Aunt Babe suddenly clasped her hands to her face and shook her head as if she had just solved a mystery. “Sweet Lord,” she said. “You Lottie’s chile.”

  Dovey’s eyes flew open almost as wide as her mouth. “You knew my mama?”

  “I wept in sorrow when I heard the Lord done called her home, but I can understand why he need her up in heaven,” Aunt Babe said. “Sweet Lottie prob’ly teachin’ them angels a thing or two ’bout kindness. She used to stop by here reg’lar to see do I need anything. She don’t know me from the milkman—just knowed I was a old woman by myself, and that was enough for her to do for me. I wonder what become of that cuttin’ I give her from my ramblin’ rose?”

  “I take real good care of it,” Dovey said. “It fills up a whole flower bed.”

  Aunt Babe smiled. “You a angel like your mama?”

  “I hope so.”

  Aunt Babe looked down at Pete and Dovey standing side by side on the step below. “Dearly beloved,” she said, shaking her head. “Come on in.”

  They sat down at the little table in Aunt Babe’s red kitchen, and she gave them each a tea cake from a jar on the counter before taking a seat herself.

  “Aunt Babe,” Pete began after he had thanked her for their tea cakes, “it’s like this. Me and Dovey, we like doin’ things together.”

  “What things?” the old woman asked, frowning and leaning in toward Pete as if to read what was really on his mind.

  “Well, all kinda stuff. Sometimes we fish. Sometimes we go wadin’. Sometimes we slip one of Daddy Ballard’s horses out for a ride—’preciate it if you didn’t tell him that, though. But Dovey’s got this idea that my folks and her folks wouldn’t go along with it, and she don’t want none of them to know. She ain’t got a telephone, so I can’t call her and let her know if Mama decides to drag me off to Birmingham to buy school clothes when me and Dovey had already made plans.”

  “Mm-hmm. Keep talkin’.”

  “So I got to thinkin’ about your telephone and Cyrus,” Pete said. “He’s the smartest dog in the whole county, and I bet we could teach him how to track Dovey. That way I could call you if I can’t make it, and you could send Cyrus to let Dovey know so she won’t think I forgot about her and get her feelin’s all hurt. Maybe you could tie a kerchief or something around Cyrus’s neck—that could be our signal that something’s gone wrong and I can’t come to the hollow. What do you think, Aunt Babe? Will you help us?”

  She leaned back in her chair and studied the two of them. “Pete McLean, her people works for yo’ people. This ain’t the proper order o’ things, what you tryin’ to do.”

  “You mean we can’t fish together just because her folks work for Daddy Ballard?” Pete countered. “You worked for Ma Ballard but y’all were friends.”

  “That was different.”

  “How?”

  “’Cause your grandmama was like a daughter to me! There wasn’t never no danger that me and Sweet Ginia was gonna get it into our heads to run off and get married to one ’nother.”

  “Married?” Pete and Dovey said together.

  “But I just turned thirteen!” Dovey said.

  “And I ain’t even outta school!” Pete said.

  “You talkin’ ’bout now,” Aunt Babe said. “I’m talkin’ ’bout down the line. Y’ain’t gonna be thirteen forever. Time I was fourteen, I was done married with a baby on the way. What you wanna do now’s fine. What you gon’ wanna do later is somethin’ altogether different. That gonna stir up a hornet’s nest.”

  “But I don’t see why we oughta let something bad that might happen down the line mess up something good that’s happenin’ right now. Besides, just because you run up on a hornet’s nest, that don’t mean you gotta stir it up. You can slip right by it if you’re careful.”

  Dovey was proud of him for arguing their case so well.

  Finally Aunt Babe gave in. “Done my best,” she said, shaking her head. “Can’t nobody say I didn’t. Do what you will with Cyrus. I got a red kerchief ’round here somewhere. Just be one more aggravatin’ phone call for me to fool with since yo’ granddaddy pushed that durn telephone off on me.”

  Pete jumped up and hugged her neck. “Thanks, Aunt Babe!”

  “Go on then,” she said.

  Pete had already run outside to start training Cyrus when Dovey stood up from her place at the table. “Would it be alright . . . if I hugged you too?” she asked.

  Aunt Babe opened her arms wide and let Dovey in.

  Pete and Dovey sat on a flat outcropping of limestone and dangled their feet over Copper Creek while they ate their lunch. It was an especially good one because Pete’s mother had fried a chicken for supper the night before. Usually they stayed on Deep Creek because Pete didn’t want Dovey to walk this far by herself. But since they were already at Aunt Babe’s, they took the opportunity to enjoy a new spot. He could walk her back to the hollow before he went home.

  The two of them had followed the clear little stream from the bridge till it took a wide bend, carrying them out of sight of Hollow Road. Here they wouldn’t have to worry too much about being spotted. Thanks to Aunt Babe, they both felt like a load had been lifted.

  Pete was eating his chicken and looking down at the clear water beneath their feet.

  “You’re thinkin’ about Isaac,” Dovey said.

  “We used to walk by this spot a lot,” he said with a smile, “and I’d always tell him we ought to try fishin’ from this rock, and he’d always say the bream wouldn’t bite here, and I’d always get a little aggravated. He was right, though. I ain’t seen a sign of a fish since we got here.” And then he got really quiet.

  Dovey knew he didn’t feel like talking, so she just hummed to herself, swinging her feet over the clear water. Pete started to hum along with her, and once they got to their favorite part, they gave each other a big grin and started singing loud enough to shake the cones off the pine trees. “Walkin’ After Midnight” never failed to chase the clouds away.

  Nine

  SEPTEMBER 12, 1964

  The next week, Pete and Dovey were back on Deep Creek.

  “You tell me when you get tired o’ hearin’ this, okay?” Pete was saying.

  “I don’t mind,” Dovey answered, keeping her eyes on her cork bobbing in the water but listening intently to every word he said. Dovey had learned something about Pete that would forever be true. He couldn’t stand to think he had let somebody down. That, more than any other kind of worry, would eat at him until he figured out how to make it right. So when he talked about Isaac, she could tell he just needed her to stay close by while he wandered around the situation and looked at it from every direction.

  “It’s just that Glory’s such a small place,” he went on. “Everybody knows everybody. Everybody’s kin to everybody. So how could something awful happen to somebody we all know, and nobody has any idea what it was?”

  “Somebody does know,” Dovey said, pulling in her line and casting her cork in another direction.

  “But they woulda told the sheriff or Daddy Ballard or Hattie—somebody—wouldn’t they?”

  “Maybe not.” She sighed, setting her fishing pole down. “Pete, what’s throwin’ you off is that you think there’s just one world we all
live in, but there’s not. There’s a bunch of ’em. There’s the world you come from and the world I come from and the world Isaac comes from—there’s all kinda worlds. And the only people that don’t seem to know that are the ones that come from yours.”

  He looked like she had hurt his feelings.

  “I’m not tryin’ to be mean,” she went on. “But I don’t want you to keep on gettin’ disappointed either. You’re lookin’ for Isaac in your world. But whatever happened to him, happened in his.”

  Pete was quiet for a long time before he said, “You’re right. Always are. Aggravates the stew outta me.” But he was smiling when he said it.

  “I guess we better get on home,” she said.

  “Yeah. Wanna meet right here next Saturday at lunchtime?”

  Dovey nodded.

  “Before we go, I got something for you,” Pete said. He pulled a small square package out of his knapsack. It was wrapped in pink paper and had a narrow white satin ribbon around it. Dovey had never seen anything like it. “I’m sorry I missed your birthday, but I just didn’t know,” he said. “And I couldn’t get nobody to carry me shoppin’ till the other day.”

  Dovey carefully unwrapped the little box, trying hard not to tear the paper because she wanted to keep it. Inside was an oval-shaped silver locket with pretty scrolling around the edge and a pink rose in the center.

  “Hattie carried me to get it,” he said. “I only had that one chance to shop, though, so I hope you like it okay.”

  Dovey had already fastened the delicate silver chain around her neck and was holding the locket up so she could see it. “I’ve never ever seen anything so pretty,” she said.

  “Happy late birthday.” He smiled, standing up and holding out his hand to help her up before they said their goodbyes on the bridge.

  Aunt Babe wasn’t on her porch when Pete got to her house, which was a relief. Most of the time he would remember to bring her a little something, like peach preserves from his mother’s pantry or some cut flowers in a Mason jar, but he had forgotten today, and he hated to meet her empty-handed after she had been such a help. He was almost past her house when he heard the screen door slam and a voice—not Aunt Babe’s—call to him. “Pete McLean! I would speak with you on this porch!”

  Most of the porch was in deep afternoon shade, but a shaft of light filtered through one of the pecan trees and fell on the old white woman in the cotton dress standing at the top of the steps. He had seen her only a few times in his life, but there was no mistaking who she was. Slowly he made his way to the porch and climbed the concrete blocks till he stood face-to-face with Miss Paul Pickett.

  “Sit down,” she said, gesturing to a small straight-back chair next to Aunt Babe’s rocker, where she took a seat. “You know who I am?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then you know why I am here. And before you even ask, no, Babe did not summon me. She has kept your trust. I was gathering roots in the woods when I spotted you with my granddaughter on that horse of Ned Ballard’s. Dovey’s Aunt Delphine has been keeping watch over you ever since. Babe revealed nothing to me but your name.”

  “Miss Paul, we ain’t done nothin’ wrong.”

  “I know that,” she said, “else you would not be breathing. And while we are on the subject, if you ever take it into your head to dishonor Dovey in any way, I will hunt you down and kill you myself to spare her father the sin of murder and the fires of hell. Do you take me at my word?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You mean to continue keeping company with Dovey?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then you must walk in the light. No good comes under cloak of darkness.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I would speak with Ned Ballard—alone—at my house. Tell him I would have a moment of his time Monday morning.”

  Pete swallowed hard. “You wanna talk to Daddy Ballard—about me and Dovey?”

  “Are you ashamed of her?”

  “No, ma’am! I’d take her to church if she’d let me. But she’s always been so sure that something terrible would happen if any grown folks found out—’specially her daddy—and she’s always right about pretty much everything—”

  “Well, she is wrong about this. Out in the light. That is how it will be, if it is to be at all.”

  “Does Dovey know about all this?” Pete asked.

  “She does not. First you and Dovey, then Ned Ballard, then—God be with us—her father. That is how it must go.”

  Miss Paul had said her piece. She left the porch and walked toward a pickup now idling in the road. Pete was sure it hadn’t been there before. Aunt Babe came out and put her arm around him as the truck slowly drove Miss Paul back into her hollow.

  “Baby chile, you done come through the fire,” Aunt Babe said, giving his shoulders a squeeze. “If you was old enough, I’d offer you a shot o’ whiskey.”

  “If I was old enough, I’d drink it,” Pete said.

  Aunt Babe looked at him and burst out laughing. She laughed till she couldn’t catch her breath, and her laughter had always been contagious. The two of them were still giggling when Pete hugged her goodbye and started home.

  Ten

  SEPTEMBER 14, 1964

  Miss Paul and Ned Ballard sat across from each other at her kitchen table. They had known each other for at least fifty years but had never had a conversation that wasn’t absolutely necessary. That was her doing, not his. He and Hinkey had grown up together. Hinkey had been a good friend to him when he had next to nothing, and Ned saw no reason for their friendship to change just because he married into money. Neither did Hinkey. Paul, however, didn’t believe in mixing. You stick with your own kind—that was her way. And she had just dealt her landlord a shock. Pete, she said, had spent the better part of the summer in the hollow with her granddaughter.

  “Well, Ned Ballard, what say you?” Paul asked.

  Ned was reminded of Paul’s longtime dilemma, which Hinkey had once explained to him. She could not bring herself to call him Ned, as Hinkey always had, because she thought it unseemly to be so familiar with one who held her family’s livelihood in his hands, nor would she stoop to “Mister.” That left her no choice but to address him by his full name.

  “I don’t quite know what to say,” he replied. “Has Pete behaved himself?”

  “Delphine reports that he is both kind and protective toward our Dovey.”

  “And Dovey? Where does she stand?” he asked.

  “God have mercy, I divine she loves him dearly—or will—though she’s too young to know it.”

  “Well, Paul, it’s been my experience that there’s not much use in tryin’ to tell young folks who they can love and who they can’t. If they’re not doin’ any harm and they help each other get through some sadness, which they’ve both had, I don’t see any need to get all worked up about it.”

  “But what comes later, Ned Ballard? They are children now, but not for long. What say you when they are fifteen or sixteen? What say you when Pete wants to marry her, as I divine he will? What say you if the devil has his way and that boy needs to marry her?”

  “Pete’s been raised right, Paul. He knows the difference between right and wrong, and he’s a good boy. As for me, I think you’ve known me long enough to predict what I’d do in most any situation. I don’t believe in duckin’ and dodgin’. I believe in ownin’ up to my choices. That’s how Pete’s been raised.”

  She nodded. “Best to have no muddy water,” she said. “Best to be clear from the start. You know well as I do that if these children wed, all those Baptists of yours will say your grandson’s marrying down.”

  Ned shook his head. “Look, Paul, everybody around here with any age on ’em knows I got most of my land from Virginia’s family. Plenty of folks back then said she married down when she put my ring on her finger, but I’ve tried to be a good steward, and Virginia and me, we did alright. I don’t care about that marryin’ down business. But I do care ab
out Pete. And if he’s spendin’ all his time with your granddaughter, I’d like to meet her.”

  “Agreed,” Paul said.

  “And one more thing,” he said. “Let’s us promise that whatever happens between these children is up to them. They’re mighty young. They may well get married one day and stay married for sixty years. On the other hand, either of them could wake up tomorrow and decide they’ve outgrown the other one. That’ll be real hard on whoever gets left behind. But they’ll just have to take their knocks like the rest of us and go on. I don’t fault you one bit for keepin’ an eye on ’em, but whatever comes of it has to be their choice. If Dovey leaves Pete, it won’t affect your farmland one bit. And if Pete leaves Dovey, I trust you not to set my cotton on fire. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  Eleven

  SEPTEMBER 19, 1964

  Pete and Dovey couldn’t stop fidgeting. Miss Paul had told them to sit and wait at her table, but there was no way they could be still, so they paced around the kitchen like a couple of caged bobcats.

  First Miss Paul had cornered Pete at Aunt Babe’s house. Then she had summoned his grandfather to her house. That meeting, Pete gathered, had gone surprisingly well. But now Dovey’s father had been called in from the fields by Miss Paul, and who knew what might happen next? She was waiting for him on the front porch.

  After what seemed like an eternity, Pete heard footsteps coming onto the porch, followed by a deep, smooth-sounding voice. Wonder if he could sing like Dovey?

  “Something wrong, Mama?” the voice said.

  “Come inside, John,” Miss Paul said.

  Pete and Dovey were standing side by side in front of the sink when John Pickett followed Miss Paul into the kitchen. Pete had never laid eyes on him before. He was tall, lean, and muscular, with angular features. His hair was as shiny black as a crow’s feather, and it sort of feathered back like a bird’s. He wore it longer than the men in town—all the way over his collar—and definitely no Brylcreem. His skin was dark from working long days in the sun, and he had dark eyes too—nothing like Dovey’s. Her daddy’s eyes were like onyx, and they had a way of looking through you so that you couldn’t be sure whether he was listening real close or deciding how he meant to murder you.