The summer heat choked Biloxi long into the night and made the contact with Lily’s body feel uncomfortable. Her sticky legs kicked and kicked to rid themselves of the sheet and coverlet, which now lay bunched up between them.
“So you believe Cissy?” Lily puffed the words, catching her breath after the battle with the sheets.
“I do.”
“But why? Mama doesn’t.”
Janelle’s first thought was to lie, to assure Lily her mama did believe Cissy. But Lily had soaked in every hushed conversation and everything that remained unspoken since the day Cissy had killed her father. Lily could probably read all of them, ferreting out what they thought they’d concealed so expertly.
“I see the truth in Cissy’s eyes. I feel it in my heart,” Janelle said. “Your mama knows the truth, but it hurts too much to admit it. She loved your daddy very much. It’s hard for any of us to think he was capable of hurting anyone.”
Lily’s breathing grew steadier and her shoulders slacked. Janelle imagined her grateful to let go of at least some of the tension that had held her a silent prisoner.
“Will Cissy ever come home?” Lily asked, stifling a yawn.
“I hope so, dear.”
A loose floor board in the hallway moaned.
“Jessie, is that you?” Janelle sat up and squinted into the dark. A shape stepped into the room; larger than a child, smaller than Ruth.
“It’s me, Mother.” Caroline’s voice floated toward her.
“I thought you’d gone home,” she said.
“I drove around for a while, but I was worried about the girls. Lily’s not with Jessie in the guest room. Is she with you?”
“Yes, Mama, I’m here,” Lily said. “I was scared, so Grandmother let me sleep with her.”
“She did, huh?” Caroline’s words hung accusingly.
Janelle’s mind returned to those nights she’d turned away Caroline, instructing her to go back to her own bed and face her night terrors alone, or to call for Ruth when she needed comforting. She’d probably rekindled the pain that Caroline felt as a child.
“Grandmother, could Mama sleep with us, too?” Lily asked.
“If she’d like.” Janelle held her breath, afraid of how her daughter would respond.
Caroline stood still, a statue with features obscured by the black night no matter how much Janelle strained to make them out.
“I’d like you to,” Janelle said. “Climb in.”
Caroline padded across the floor and slipped off her clam diggers before getting into the bed from Beau’s side. Clad in just a T-shirt and panties, she lay on top of the covers. Janelle reached for her daughter’s hand and Caroline allowed it. Lily turned and grabbed Janelle’s other hand, the three of them lined up like sardines in a can. This moment they shared was only possible because of Cissy’s crime, but Janelle couldn’t help but savor the intimacy she’d not been brave enough to ask for with her daughter and granddaughters.
“Before we fall asleep, could we play a game?” Lily asked. Nothing was normal about this evening and a game made as much sense as anything else.
“What kind of game?” Caroline asked. She tightened her fingers and Janelle squeezed back.
“Let’s each say what we miss about Cissy,” Lily said. “I’ll go first! I miss her counting games. Oh, oh . . . and how she gave us slurpy kisses. You next, Grandmother.”
“I miss watching that girl eat coconut cream pie,” she said. “Lord, I’ve never seen another human being consume so much sugar and never gain an ounce.”
The mattress bounced with Lily’s giggles.
“What about you, Caroline?” Janelle knew how difficult the interchange must be for her, but she prayed Caroline would answer, if only for Lily’s sake.
“I miss being able to tell all my girls good night,” she admitted in a tight voice.
They listened to each other’s breathing, the cicadas that sang despite the late hour, and the cock that could not tell time and crooned in the distance.
“Let’s all say good night to Cissy together,” Lily pleaded. “On three, okay? One, two, three . . .”
“Good night, Cissy,” they chimed.
Chapter 10
As soon as Caroline and the girls left the house, Janelle showered and dressed. Two important errands weighed on her mind: buying art supplies and some warmer clothing for Cissy. Ruth suggested she ask Caroline for some of Cissy’s winter sweaters, but she wanted things that held no memories of her life in that house.
“You know you hate going out in public,” Ruth reminded her sharply. “Folks are still talking, and you always return home upset and regretting you’d gone out.”
Janelle stood in the foyer ready to leave while Ruth lingered in the doorway to the kitchen, her gingham apron covered in flour from her morning baking.
“Are my moods getting to you, Ruth?”
“No, ma’am. I’ve lived with them fifty-odd years, so we’re all well acquainted.”
Janelle laughed out loud, which startled both of them. They shared Ruth’s joke a few more seconds until their giggles petered out.
“Nice to hear you laugh, Mrs. Clayton,” she said, wiping her eyes with her apron. “It’s been awful heavy in the house since . . . well, I just worry about you.”
“Don’t worry about me, old woman.” Janelle walked right up to Ruth and pretended to hug her. Ruth squealed to get away.
“I’m covered in flour,” she chastised. “You’ll mess up that fancy suit you’re wearing.”
Janelle used her clothes as armor for the battles she imagined waited outside her door, as if a Chanel pantsuit had the properties of steel. Preferential treatment was a given. The real value was in the distance it created between her and most of the world. Untouchable. Set apart. Strange that linen and cashmere and wool would give her a sense of self she had lacked before she took the Clayton name a lifetime ago.
Janelle remembered the first time she met Beau. He and a couple of law school buddies had been fishing on the pier when they witnessed a fight she’d foolishly picked with three high school boys. She’d been walking on the beach when she came upon the teens taunting a homeless man who tried to shield himself from their jabs with a large piece of cardboard he had been using as protection from the sun. Janelle ran up to them, kicking sand and yelling to high heaven. She stood chest-high to them, and the largest of the three put his hand on her forehead as she flailed her arms. Her leg, however, had a longer reach and made contact with the boy’s groin. He fell to the ground clutching his injured pride. Although Janelle had taken him down, and was quite proud of herself in the moment, she hadn’t given thought to the other two. Within seconds, a fist to her jaw spun her around. She fell flat on the wet sand, grit in her bloodied mouth.
Although a hundred yards away, Beau and his friends took off like Roman candles, chasing the nasty teens clear down Beach Boulevard. After a few minutes, Beau jogged back to where she sat on the sand, sniffling and rubbing her jaw. He sported a bloody nose, but assured Janelle the other guy would think twice before hitting a girl again.
“Thanks,” she had mumbled, and dug her toes deep into the sand. He sat down next to her, their arms brushing together slightly. “I don’t know my limits sometimes.”
When Beau asked about the homeless man, she said she hadn’t noticed him leave. Probably taking up residence closer to the fish vendors down the beach, where he wouldn’t be so isolated.
Beau shook his head and laughed.
“What’s so damn funny?” she’d asked.
“I don’t mean to laugh, miss, but I’ve never seen so much fire in such a small package,” he’d said. When he removed his T-shirt, Janelle had blushed to see his bare chest and the sparse patches of hair around his nipples.
Mesmerizing he’d called her as he wiped the blood and sand from her chin with his T-shirt. They sat for almost three hours, side by side, nursing their wounds, looking at the ocean, and telling the stories of their young lives. She never sus
pected that within the year she’d come to find out what money and power and a good name could do for her, or that they’d become the only things she could rely on now.
Except Ruth. Janelle could rely on Ruth.
“Are you having a seizure?” Ruth asked. “You look a thousand miles away.”
“I expect I was at least a thousand miles away,” she said, and changed the subject. “Does this outfit need a hat?”
Without waiting for agreement, Janelle turned and made her way up the stairs and to her room. The pale yellow felt Breton with navy grosgrain trim would match her yellow linen suit perfectly. She pulled the dresser chair up to the armoire so she could reach the familiar floral hat box, but felt light-headed and unstable on the chair. She knocked the hat box onto the floor trying to gain her equilibrium.
“Damn it.” Janelle stepped down, picked up the hat, and perched it on her head, surveying the ensemble in the full-length mirror. Her mood didn’t match the sunshine yellow of her outfit. She hoped the shopping trip to find Cissy a sweater would take her mind off things.
Janelle would have felt most comfortable shopping at Lord & Taylor—the selection was larger and the salesladies knowledgeable—but the Saturday morning crowds were off-putting under normal circumstances. With Richard’s death so prominent in the newspapers, she had no desire to face the murmurs and stares of Biloxians who considered themselves Cissy’s jury. Rosebuds, a small ladies boutique on Water Street, would be more private, although the prices were almost double those in a department store. At least Janelle knew Rosalie, the owner, who’d likely be sympathetic or at least closemouthed.
Janelle parked the Caddy at the curb right in front of the building’s large glass window. SUMMER BLOWOUT SALE had been painted across it in bright orange, so she couldn’t tell if anyone else was in the store. No matter, she’d be in and out in a few minutes. A tinkling bell announced her entry and she quickly scanned the store. Two women, possibly in their sixties, picked through a sales rack at the rear of the store, their faces too flushed with summer heat to be cooled by the weak window air-conditioning unit. Their voices dropped to a whisper and they turned their backs to Janelle.
“May I help you?” The young lady behind the counter announced Janelle’s arrival too loudly and with false gaiety. Janelle didn’t recognize the clerk, who obviously lacked the upbringing or class to carry off her role. Rosalie had always staffed the store herself, but didn’t appear to be in the shop.
“I’m looking for a sweater, with large pockets, a woman’s size small preferably,” Janelle said.
“Ma’am, people just don’t buy sweaters in August in Mississippi,” she sneered as she finished up some paperwork. Her wide-set jaw moved side to side as she popped a wad of gum.
Once she got a good look at Janelle, though, stains of embarrassment crept up her neck. She’d worked retail long enough to surmise Janelle might be someone you worked your butt off to please. She stammered an offer to check the storeroom. A few fall and winter items had arrived, but were still boxed, she said. Janelle thanked her and said she’d browse in the meantime.
The store seemed chaotic in its bright colors and cramped racks. She hadn’t remembered it feeling so intimate on other visits. In the past, Rosalie had grouped clothing by designer and allowed adequate space around displays. The upholstered settee was gone, as was the complimentary lemonade and cookies. Had the shop changed owners?
Janelle flipped through a rack of blouses, looking at everything and nothing at once, her eyes and hands uncoordinated, working independently. She moved closer to the other shoppers, hoping to overhear their conversation, or rather, hoping to disprove her suspicion they whispered about her.
Perspiration dotted Janelle’s upper lip and she wiped it away with a handkerchief. She scanned the store for a chair, but none was to be found. Dizzy and a little nauseated, she thought of sitting on a bench in the fitting room when the clerk emerged from the storeroom, waving a garment above her head.
“I found something that might work,” she said, out of breath.
Janelle wondered how the clerk could have become so exhausted in ten minutes of opening boxes, but she appreciated her industriousness. The sweater practically glowed on the counter, robin’s egg blue with wide plastic buttons and deep pockets, perfect to hold the small notebook and pen Cissy carried with her everywhere. The clerk started to tell her the price, but Janelle interrupted. “I’ll take it. And I need a gift box,” she said. Janelle long ago stopped looking at price tags or feeling shocked at what things cost.
“Cash or credit, Mrs. Clayton?” The salesgirl’s eyes widened and her mouth turned up in a slight smile as if she was the keeper of a secret.
“Do we know each other?” Janelle asked to be polite, but regretted extending the conversation.
“I’ve seen you in the paper recently,” she said, and looked over at the two other shoppers who’d moved closer to the counter. “You’re the grandmother of that little girl who killed her daddy.”
“You’re mistaken,” Janelle said.
“I read about the murder, too,” one of the shoppers said. “I heard the daddy was having relations with the girl and that made her crazy enough to kill. Isn’t that right?”
“She’s locked away in the nuthouse now,” the other one added.
Janelle would have given anything to summon the courage she had on the beach as a twenty-year-old, to hit and pinch and bite and kick these women who distorted and mocked Cissy’s suffering. Instead, she slapped a hundred-dollar bill on the counter and yanked the sweater from the clerk, not bothering with change or a box or bag. She bristled to remember Ruth’s foreboding, but she could blame no one but herself.
* * *
Janelle replayed the incident in the boutique over and over on the drive home. The shame of inaction enveloped her. Should she have pushed over racks, screamed at the top of her lungs? She fooled herself into thinking she could have retaliated with something as outrageous as their remarks. No response would have been enough to shatter the kaleidoscope of laughing eyes and malevolent smiles overlapping and twisting out of control in Janelle’s mind.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid old woman,” she mumbled, and jammed the accelerator with the anger her limbs couldn’t contain.
The siren and lights behind her broke her trance. She pulled over, not surprised her day spiraled in this direction. Janelle rolled down the window and the heat rushed in, displacing the cooler air pumped through the vents toward her face.
“Ma’am, please turn off the ignition,” the officer said.
“I’m sorry, sir. Was I speeding?”
“Yes, ma’am, I’d call going fifty miles per hour in a thirty zone speeding, but I’m more concerned about the stop sign you just shot through.”
Janelle rested her head on the steering wheel. She longed to shut out the voices of the women in the boutique, but their obscene faces still danced in her memory.
“Ma’am, are you feeling okay?” he asked.
“Oh, yes, young man, I’m fine. It’s just . . . Well, I’m a little embarrassed. I’ve never been pulled over before,” she said, even though she felt anything but fine.
“License please?”
The sun bounced off the liquid mercury of his sunglasses and her reflection stared back. Her tongue became cottony and useless. She handed him her purse. Janelle just wanted to get home to drink a seltzer to calm her upset stomach.
“I don’t need your whole purse, ma’am. Please just remove your license,” he instructed.
Her clumsy hands rifled past a lipstick tube and tissues to find her wallet. Her gloves made it impossible to grab the thin plastic edge of the license, so she handed him the entire wallet hoping he could read it through the clear plastic sleeve.
“Mrs. Clayton, I didn’t recognize you. I knew your husband, ma’am,” he said. “Judge Clayton was a great man.”
His words drifted out of her reach, muddled and foreign. She stared at his strange lips, thinking she
should ask him to call Caroline or Ruth. Before she could say anything, the officer handed back the wallet and tipped his hat.
“Please be more careful, Mrs. Clayton,” he said. “Or next time, you’ll get more than just a friendly warning.”
Confused, Janelle watched him return to his police car, start it, and pass her with a wave of his hand. No ticket? She rolled up the window, wishing the ringing in her ears would stop. Her eyes closed. She needed just a rest.
A loud rap on the window startled her awake. The teenage girl could have been Cissy’s age, but she was petite and curvy, her skin browned from too much sunbathing.
“Excuse me, are you all right?” she shouted through the glass.
The molten pavement in front of Janelle resembled fun-house mirrors, wavy and distorted. The girl, too, appeared shapeless.
“You can’t stay in a car in this heat with the windows rolled up,” she said, tapping the glass harder now. “You don’t look well. I have a car. Let me drive you to the hospital.”
The young woman pointed to a faded blue Volkswagen, rusted by too many years at the shore, idling in front of Janelle’s Cadillac. She rolled down the window and the outside air felt strangely cool, the exhaust of the engine pungent in her nostrils.
“Oh no, dear. I’m not ill,” she said, but doubt buzzed in her ear.
“What’s your name, ma’am? Could I call someone?”
Because Janelle didn’t know the answer to either question, she left her car by the side of the road and allowed the girl to lead her away.
* * *
They circled around Janelle’s hospital bed like mourners at a coffin—Ruth and Caroline with bloodshot eyes and wet cheeks; Lily and Jessie with confusion creasing their young foreheads.
“I’m fine,” Janelle insisted. “I had a touch of heat stroke.”
“The lady who brought you to the hospital said you didn’t know your name, Grandmother.” Lily seemed close to tears.
Janelle turned her palms upward, and each granddaughter took a hand. Jessie hesitated, though, worried about the IV.
Forgiveness Road Page 10