Over and over he let the water take him down until the jail and the gawkers and that idiot sheriff were completely washed away, and the burning anger he had felt for days had faded to a flicker. When his last ounce of energy was spent, he relaxed in the warmth of the hot summer sun with the cool blue water wrapped around him. He could finally breathe again. And with the grime and the anger washed away, he had a clear, unobstructed view of one pure, beautiful image.
Lila sat in her front porch swing with her feet up in the seat and her head down on her knees. For a while she had tried her best to stop crying, but in the end, the pain and misery of losing John overtook her. At the courthouse that morning, she had managed to get hold of herself just long enough to beg off lunch with her father and sister and to assure Pete that she was okay so everybody would leave her alone. Then she had fled to the sanctuary of her farmhouse, which was the only place she could stand to be right now. It was probably going on four o’clock. No telling how long she had been sitting in this swing. She didn’t even notice a vehicle pulling into her driveway, and when she heard the footsteps of a long stride crossing her porch and felt someone sit down beside her, she knew it had to be Pete, coming to check on her. She kept her head down so he wouldn’t have to see her cry.
———
“Lila?” John had taken a seat as close as he could get to her in the swing, but she didn’t move till he called her name. She looked at him, not with anger, which would’ve been easier for him to bear, but with the most profound hurt and sadness. He knew he had cut her to the bone. She looked like she might run away at any minute—like she might even be afraid of him. And he knew he deserved whatever she decided to put him through to make it right.
“I’m not . . . I mean, I don’t . . . I wouldn’t blame you . . . at all . . . if you told me to leave and never come back. I said some unforgivable things to you in that parking lot.” He paused, hoping she would say something.
She just kept looking at him blankly, with those awful tears he had made her cry falling and falling and falling.
“None of my hard times is your fault or your family’s,” he went on. “I know that. But it’s just . . . workin’ so hard for so long and feelin’ like you don’t have nothin’ to show for it . . . that’s a wearin’ thing. And I guess I didn’t know how much it’s been wearin’ on me till you opened a door and showed me a way out, and I thought I could finally . . . steer my own boat and build something I could leave behind for Dovey. But then I got hauled down to that jail, and I knew I might never get out on my own. And that . . . well . . . it just reminded me that I still wasn’t steerin’. So I loaded all that up and I fired it straight at you, which is without a doubt the meanest, sorriest thing I’ve ever done in my life. And there ain’t no way to make up for it. Or take it back. All I can do is tell you I’m sorry. I’m just . . . so sorry, Lila.”
They sat together, with only the squeaking of the porch swing breaking the silence, as he waited and hoped that she would say something—anything. Finally, when he thought he couldn’t stand another minute of it, she looked at him with a puzzled frown, as if he were just now coming into focus.
“Your hair’s wet,” she said.
He nodded. “Went swimmin’.”
“Where?”
He smiled. “Secret spot—way back in the woods.”
“Oh.”
“Want me to take you, Lila?”
“What?”
“Swimmin’—someplace nobody else can take you?”
She sighed. “I used to get a running start and dive into the deepest water I could find. Can you believe that? Now I’d probably drown.”
“I wouldn’t let that happen.”
“You probably think I’m a wimpy pool girl, but I’ll bet I could swim in the woods just like you do.”
“Just like I do?”
“Just like.”
He smiled at her.
“What?” she said.
“I was just thinkin’ that’s something I might like to see.”
They were quiet for a little while before he said, “Don’t you wanna . . . cuss me out or . . . hit me over the head with a skillet or something?”
“I really don’t have the energy.” She tried to laugh but looked too tired to manage it.
John gathered her in his arms and lifted her onto his lap. She put her arms around his neck and let him rock her in the swing for a little while. Mercifully, she had stopped crying, but he had a feeling she hadn’t said everything she needed to.
“John,” she finally said in a very small voice, “it’s not what you said that hurt so bad—it’s what you did.”
He thought he had made it home, but now he was lost again. He ran his hand over the tops of her bare feet propped in the seat of the swing. “Can you tell me what I did?” he asked, not at all sure he wanted to know.
“You let go. You let go—of me—and left me out there all alone.”
It was true and he knew it. What’s worse, he had done it on purpose, not out of meanness but out of fear. When he was growing up, if some good fortune had befallen his family, his father would joyfully exclaim, “Ain’t we lucky?” To which his mother would respond, “Pride cometh before a fall.” John had spent his whole life with those opposing voices doing battle in his head. And now here he was with this woman. If ever he had seen anything too good to be true, it was Lila. He knew, once he really let her in, that he couldn’t bear losing her. But if he didn’t break his old habits, if he couldn’t find the courage to step out of the dense woods and show himself, he could lose her right now. So he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and blurted it out.
“You scare the daylights out of me.”
He felt her sit up and knew she must be looking at him. Unsure that he was ready for what was coming, he kept his eyes closed until she brushed her fingers feather-light across them, and his desire to be with her overcame his fear of losing her.
“You scare the daylights out of me, Lila,” he said again.
“But why?”
“Ever lost something you wanted more than anything else?”
“You know I have.”
“Well, I almost always do. And that’s why you—I mean, it’s why I couldn’t—I just never wanted anything or anybody so much.”
Lila was crying again, but she was smiling too—that smile he loved. “John,” was all she said.
He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, her beautiful mouth. She relaxed onto his shoulder as the swing rocked back and forth.
After a long while, she said something so softly that he could barely hear her. “I need to ask you something, John.”
“I’m listening,” he said, stroking her blonde hair.
“Did you and Jack—did he ever talk about—did he tell you that when Pete was born, I had some trouble?”
He tightened his arms around her. “I’m not a greedy man, Lila. You got Pete and I got Dovey, and I don’t think ten more kids would make us one bit happier, do you?”
Lila didn’t speak. She just shook her head and relaxed into him. They listened to the creaking of the porch swing and the early evening song of cicadas as the afternoon faded away.
Thirty-one
MARCH 16, 1968
Lila hung up the phone and shook her head. She and John hadn’t had a minute alone since their moment of reckoning on her porch. He and Dovey were coming over for supper tonight, and since the kids would want to leave right after, she had hoped the two of them would have some time together. But her father had just called and said he needed to see all of them, so there was nothing to do but invite him to supper. Once she got over the disappointment, though, her curiosity kicked in. Why did he have to see all four of them today since they already planned to have Sunday dinner together tomorrow? What could be so important that it couldn’t wait a day?
Hattie thought she heard a car in her driveway. Dear heaven, she didn’t have time for company this afternoon. She had so many neighbors to look after.
She a
nd her mother had ridden out the storm in Junie’s brick house. It had a basement, which kept them safe. Sheer luck—no, God’s guiding hand—had put them there. Junie had just bought a new living room suite and wanted her mother and grandmother to see it, so she had picked them both up and fixed them a nice lunch at her house. Cyrus was right there with them. Hattie’s mother never brought him to Junie’s, but on that particular morning she said she “had a funny feeling about the sky” and refused to leave him behind. They had just finished with their pound cake and coffee when the sky grew dark.
And now so much tragedy. Fifteen people in Glory had lost their lives—many of them members of Hattie’s beloved Morning Star Baptist Church. One family—Lord Jesus, one family—had lost five. Reverend Patterson, whose sweet wife had died just six months ago, would be burying his sister and her husband because of that awful tornado. It got white folks too. That nice Mr. McAdoo that owned the lake, his mother-in-law was gone, and they said his poor wife near about had a nervous breakdown over it. At least Morning Star still stood, so those who were suffering had a beacon and a shelter.
Hattie was in the middle of fixing her part of supper for homeless neighbors sleeping at the church when she looked out her kitchen window to see Mister Ned getting out of his Cadillac. This wasn’t like him. He never disturbed her on weekends. In all these years, he had never once asked her to work a weekend or a holiday. At Thanksgiving and Christmas he would pay her for the whole week, even though he only asked her to work one day, “just to knock through the house.” Of course, Hattie didn’t just knock through anything. Before she took off to be with her family, she got that house spic-and-span, washed all his clothes, cooked some food he could heat up, and let his girls know exactly what he had in the icebox so they could take turns inviting him over for the rest of his meals.
She heard him knock and met him at the front door. “Afternoon, Mister Ned. Come on in.” She motioned for him to take a seat in her parlor. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, Hattie, thank you,” he said as she sat down across from him. “I’m sorry to bother you on a Saturday, but I need to talk to you.”
She listened and waited.
“Hattie,” he went on, “the FBI just arrested two white people for Isaac’s death.”
She stared at him in disbelief. “They . . . they done what?” she managed to say.
“They arrested two white people for Isaac’s death,” Ned repeated.
Hattie stood and walked to her front window. She clasped her hands together underneath her chin, almost as if she were praying. When she turned to face him, her eyes welled with tears, and her voice was trembling so that she could barely talk.
“Was it that awful Klan?” she asked.
“No, nothing like that,” he said quietly. “Hattie, Isaac was killed in a hit-and-run accident. The driver was Celeste Highland.”
Hattie frowned. “That hateful lady from Birmin’ham?”
Ned nodded. “She was with an insurance salesman from Childersburg, fellow by the name of Harv Akers. They were in his car when it happened.”
“But how on earth did you find this out?” she asked, returning to her seat across from him.
“Well, turns out there was a witness. The FBI got her story the day of the storm, but they wanted time to gather more evidence, so they asked me not to say anything. But Hattie . . . they have positively identified Isaac’s remains.”
Her hands shaking violently, Hattie was trying to wipe the tears from her face.
Ned handed her a fine linen handkerchief from his pocket. “Right now he’s at the FBI lab in Birmingham. But they’ve made a positive identification and gathered all the evidence they need. They tell me they can release him to you Monday morning.”
“But how on earth did he end up in Paul’s cave?”
“Here’s what happened. Isaac was on his way home from his card game when he saw a white woman, Dolores Bobo—she works at the Tomahawk—he saw her broke down on the side of the road. Her and her husband live in that trailer park on 51. She had hit a pothole and knocked a hubcap off her car, and when she stopped to look for it, the car wouldn’t crank again. Isaac happened by and stopped to jump her off. She was down in a ditch lookin’ for that hubcap when he got hit. She overheard Celeste Highland and Akers talkin’—stayed hid in the ditch so they couldn’t see her—and she heard how they were up to no good together and decided to hide Isaac so Celeste’s husband wouldn’t find out. They’re the ones who hid him in that cave. What they didn’t know was that the Picketts use it for a storm shelter. Paul’s family hadn’t been in there for years, but with the tornado . . . they found Isaac. That’s why that crazy Sheriff Flowers arrested John Pickett—because Isaac was found in the hollow, and John was the only member of the family home the night he was killed—that and some mischief the Highlands cooked up.”
Hattie was struggling to sort through it all. All these years and no answers. Now they were coming at her in a flood. “But if they found Isaac the night of the storm, that means—”
“Hattie, I don’t blame you if you’re mad at me for waitin’ a week to tell you who did it. But the FBI had to run all kinds of tests—dental records and so forth—to make sure that was Isaac. And they wanted to gather all the evidence they needed before word got out.”
“I’m not mad. Whatever you done, I know you was just tryin’ to do right by me.”
“And you need to prepare yourself for when you get Isaac. After all this time, well . . . there’s only bones. Nothing you could recognize, except for his belt buckle. They found that in the—they found that with him.”
“I wouldn’t care if it was just one tiny bone of his little finger. I’d know. Somehow I’d know my chile.” She thought for a minute. “Them white people just dumped my boy in a dark cave and left him? People like that—was they even sure he was dead? Did they check to see could a doctor help him? Oh, Lord, if they left him lyin’ in agony alone in that darkness—” Hattie broke into sobs.
Ned moved his chair closer to hers and put his hand on her shoulder. “Hattie, that did not happen. Isaac died the second that car hit him. He didn’t suffer. I believe that with all my heart. I was there when the FBI questioned Dolores Bobo, and I was there when they questioned Harv Akers and Celeste Highland. I think Akers was actually relieved to get arrested and confess. He described in detail how he checked to see if there was any sign of life. And he said that when he carried Isaac into that cave, he checked again to make sure he was gone, and then Akers laid him out proper, like a funeral home would. Don’t ask me how a man can be party to such a thing but still think it’s important to lay the body out right, but I believed him when he said it. You can know that Isaac didn’t suffer. I would never lie to you about something as important as that.”
“What about that white woman you said done the drivin’—what she have to say?”
“Mostly lies, far as I could tell.”
“You think she’s gonna pay for what she done?”
“I don’t know. I wish I could say yes. But you know how things work around here well as I do. All I can tell you is that we’ve done all we can to get justice for Isaac. Now it’s up to the law and the courts.”
“Pete know all o’ this?”
“Not all of it. He don’t know they’ve made an arrest. Hattie, he saw Isaac in that cave. He helped John get the Picketts out of there the day of the tornado—the day they found Isaac. Pete’s the reason I believed Akers when he said he’d laid Isaac out with respect—that’s how Pete said Isaac looked to him. But he’s gonna be pretty shocked when he finds out who did it. Don’t quite know how to tell him, but I mean to do it soon as I leave here. I think he’ll be a little put out with me for not tellin’ him right away who killed Isaac. That’s why I haven’t seen much of him this week—stayin’ away from him was the only way I could keep from tellin’ him.”
“And now he’s got to find out that the woman what killed his friend’s been sellin’ pound cakes alongside h
is mama at the church.” Hattie shook her head. “Got to learn some hard lessons in this life.”
“Never thought I’d see the day when I’d want a woman from my own community to go to jail,” Ned said. “But that one deserves it. There’s such a thing as evil in this world, Hattie.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, wiping her eyes with his fine handkerchief. “But they’s righteousness too.”
Everyone at the table was stunned. Ned had just delivered the shocking news about Celeste Highland.
Pete got up and stood at the screen door to his mother’s kitchen, staring out at nothing in the backyard. “If y’all don’t mind,” he said flatly, “I think I need some air.” He started outside but then stopped, turned, and held his hand out to Dovey. She hurried to him, leaving Ned sitting across from John and Lila at the kitchen table.
John knew that Lila was almost as distraught as Pete. It had to be a shock to find out somebody she actually knew was capable of killing a man and throwing him away like he was nothing. He could see her eyes filling with tears and knew she couldn’t hold it in much longer. Underneath the table, he reached over to hold her hand.
He was relieved for Hattie, that sweet lady who had been kind enough to come and see him at the jail. But he couldn’t stop thinking about what had just happened between Pete and Dovey. John had never let anybody see him in the state that Pete was in now. His instinct was always to hide away in solitude until he had his emotions in check. But he had seen the look on Dovey’s face when she thought she was going to be left at the table, and he had seen her relief when Pete came back for her. He remembered—much more vividly than he wanted to—Lila’s stricken expression the day he had abandoned her at the courthouse. And he made a silent vow that he would die before he ever did that to her again.
Missing Isaac Page 24