All anybody knew for sure was that Lenny Miller had dropped Opal off at her door where she’d found that letter. They couldn’t even agree if Lenny’d walked her up the steps or if she’d read the letter before or after telling him good night.
The folks in town put together stories of their own imagining that best fit what it was they wanted to believe. Some spread the word that Opal and Lenny were having a love affair and that she’d been stepping out on him with somebody else and that was the reason for the letter. Others said she’d tricked Lenny, playing Potiphar’s wife to his Joseph. She’d slipped liquor into his soda pop and tried seducing him with her wiles. When he’d told her no she’d written the note herself, playing the victim to Daddy to get pity out of somebody at least.
Not a one of those stories made a lick of sense to me. But, I guessed it was something they had to do so they didn’t have to admit there was a mean-spirited person living among us.
Daddy hadn’t come home for the noontime meal, so I put together a sandwich of leftover ham from the icebox and a thermos of iced tea to take to him. Opal hadn’t come back to work for us after all. Much as Daddy told her otherwise, she was scared she’d make trouble for us if she was around.
Daddy said he could handle whatever trouble might come, but that he wouldn’t force her. Daddy was a gentleman.
Aunt Carrie kept us fed most of the days and I’d done my best to keep the dirt from taking over the house. Other than the laundry piling up and me breaking a couple glasses in the dishwater, I thought I’d done a pretty good job.
I walked down the main street of town, sandwich and thermos in my hands. Folks didn’t pay me any mind, which was fine by me. I wouldn’t have wanted to have to get at them for saying something sour about Opal. It sure would’ve been a shame if I’d had to drop that heavy thermos on somebody’s foot.
I found Daddy sitting behind his desk at the police station, Mayor Winston sitting across from him. He had his arms crossed, Daddy did, and a look on his face I knew to mean he was past annoyed. He had crossed over to plain old aggravated.
He saw me walk in, but didn’t give me a smile or tell me hello. I figured he meant for me to sit and wait, so I went to the bench, letting my feet hang an inch or so off the floor. I remembered how the long bench in the courthouse in Red River had just been an old church pew somebody’d put against the wall. But there in Bliss it was fancy with slats all along the back and curving, carved sides. It seemed it belonged in the library or the Wheelers’ house rather than in the police station.
“Listen, Jake,” Daddy said. “I do understand. But folks around here can’t think it’s all right to leave a threatening note on a girl’s door like that.”
“But we’ve got no proof, Tom,” Winston said. “We don’t know who did it. There’s more than a few people who think she wrote that note herself. Besides, there’s those earrings of Mrs. Miller’s that Opal had in her apartment.”
“Miss Moon worked for me nearly a year,” Daddy said. “I trust her with my kids. She’s never lied to me. Never stole from me. She said Lenny gave her those earrings and I’m inclined to believe her. If anybody stole them, it was that Miller boy.”
“I believe you. And I’ll back whatever you decide.” Winston shook his head. “I just don’t know how you’ll figure out who wrote that note.”
Daddy leaned forward and rested his elbow on the top of his desk, pinching at the bridge of his nose with thumb and finger.
“What happens if somebody makes good on the threat?” he asked. “Like they did with the Carsons?”
“We just have to pray that don’t happen.” Winston let out a deep sigh. “I don’t like it either, Tom, but it’s been simmering. Ever since the dances started. It surprises me it took this long to start boiling. We can’t be too careful.”
Daddy let his shoulders slump. He shook his head and let out breath it seemed he’d been holding for days.
“Well, if I see so much as one person look at Opal sideways, I’m going to have him in here for questioning,” Daddy said. “She’s a good girl, Jake. She doesn’t deserve this.”
“And I’ll be right here to be sure nobody tries to interfere.” Winston got up from his chair. “I’m just hoping hard that this fades away. Some things like this have a way of doing that.”
“Maybe for us,” Daddy said. “But I don’t know that Opal can walk down the street now without wondering if she’s safe. We might have a way of forgetting the kind of ugly that was in that letter, but folks like Opal have got to live with it every day.”
“Don’t seem fair, does it?”
“No, it does not.”
The mayor got to his feet and walked toward the door. When he saw me, he stopped and took my hand.
“Pearl, you are the ray of sunshine I needed today,” he said.
I couldn’t help but smile and maybe even blush just a little bit.
“Lord God Almighty, give me strength,” Daddy said just as soon as Winston left.
“You sound like Meemaw,” I told him, getting up from the bench and carrying the plate and thermos to him.
“Sure could use her right about now.” He looked at me and shook his head. “What would she say about all this mess, I wonder.”
I put his lunch in front of him on the desk and sat down where Mayor Winston had been. The seat was still warm from his behind and I thought that was a funny thing to notice.
“Thanks for bringing me lunch, darlin’,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I answered.
He took a bite of his sandwich and made a humming sound like it was the best thing he’d ever eaten.
“Daddy?” I said.
“Hmm?”
“Why don’t folks like Opal?”
“I’d say most do. It’s just some don’t know what to make of her, I guess.”
“But why?” I asked.
“It doesn’t make much sense to me either, darlin’.”
“I saw the earrings,” I told him. “The ones Lenny gave her.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think he was trying to get her in trouble?”
“Nah.” Daddy shook his head. “I don’t suspect he was thinking much of anything.”
“Can’t he tell somebody that Opal didn’t steal them?” I asked.
“He’s probably scared of getting in trouble,” Daddy answered.
“I wish they’d just believe Opal.”
He took another bite of sandwich and chewed it real good and took a sip of iced tea.
“Me too, darlin’,” Daddy said. “It’s just they’re more inclined to believe a white boy over a Negro girl.”
“But Opal’s only half,” I said.
“Not the way some of these folks see it.”
“Not the way Mama sees it, either,” I said.
Daddy nodded. “I know, Pearl.”
Sitting there across from Daddy I realized what it was Meemaw would’ve said. She’d have hummed her hm-hm-hm until she had my full attention. Then she’d have looked me right in the eyes, maybe even taking my hand to be sure I really listened to her.
“Man only looks at the outside,” she’d have started. “At the mussed-up hair and the wrinkly old face. All’s a man sees is a stained shirt or scuffed up shoes. But that ain’t what God sees. No, miss. God sees right into the heart. He’s got eyes that’ll see either kindness or hate. He don’t miss bitterness if it’s there, or love neither. He sees it all. The heavenly Lord sees all that’s in the heart, darlin’.”
If it was true, I knew God saw nothing but sweetness and beauty in Opal.
He saw her just the way He made her to be.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
It’d taken me far too long, but I finally finished reading the Peter Pan book while sitting on the steps in the library, the painting of Wendy and her brothers flying over the river just above my head. There was no happy ending to the story. All that happened was Peter kept getting little girls to take care of him, whether they liked it or not.<
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Even as upside-down as Mama’d been the last year, she never would’ve let somebody take me away like Wendy let Peter do with her little girls.
Shutting the book, I put it on the step beside me, not wanting to touch it, let alone hold it on my lap.
After a bit Mrs. Trask called to me, letting me know it was time to go for the day. I took up the book and carried it down the stairs.
“My dear,” Mrs. Trask said. “You’ve been crying.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered.
“It is a dreadful ending, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Wendy Darling should have learned to lock the windows,” she said. “Don’t you think so?”
I nodded and smiled.
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered.
I decided to walk home the long way past what’d once been Nehemiah and Ruthie’s house. I hadn’t walked that way since I’d heard what had really happened there. It didn’t scare me anymore. What it did was make me sad.
Walking down Aster Street, I saw a man kneeling in front of the porch, putting in flowers, pushing down the soil around the plants with his hands. Yellow and orange and red flowers grew out of green stems. Marigolds. I knew because Aunt Carrie and I had planted them all around her garden to keep the rabbits away from the lettuce and tomatoes.
I stopped, watching him plant a couple more marigolds in the ground. When he turned his head I saw the scar that cut down the side of his face. I stepped back, ready to run off if need be. Then I realized who it was.
Mr. Fitzpatrick straightened up his back but still kneeled on the ground. He had on an old hat with a brim so weathered and rippled I wondered if it hadn’t been run over by a truck. His stained undershirt was loose on him and the work pants he had on were covered with patches. I could see that even from where I stood.
He gave me a nod, the kind men do instead of waving.
“You Delores’s daddy?” I asked, even though I knew for sure he was.
He nodded again but didn’t smile at hearing his daughter’s name the way I’d thought he would have.
“Will you tell her I said hi?” I asked. “I’m Pearl.”
His eyebrows pushed together and he blinked real fast a couple times. I didn’t think he could’ve been any older than Daddy. Maybe even a year or two younger. Still, he wore the look of a man who’d seen a whole lot of hard times.
“Trial and tribulation got a way of agin’ folks,” Meemaw had told me one time. “But the burden of the Lord Jesus is easy and light, Pearl. You know why? On account of Him takin’ most the load on His own back, darlin’.”
Standing there not ten feet from Mr. Fitzpatrick’s worry-lined face, I wondered if he’d ever had somebody like Meemaw to tell him nice things like that.
“I’ll tell her,” he said before turning back to his planting.
What I wanted to do was stay there, watching him do his work. Then I thought I’d ask him why he was doing it. But Mr. Fitzpatrick didn’t seem the kind to talk all that much, and besides it wasn’t any of my beeswax.
Anyway, I thought I knew well enough.
Seemed to me there must’ve been about a hundred ways to say sorry.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
It had been more than a couple weeks since somebody’d put that letter on Opal’s door. Folks in town all but forgot that it’d ever happened. They’d moved on to talk about how this person or that had lost their home to the bank and how that person or this had moved away.
It seemed to me gossip flittered about like a moth. Landing here one day and lighting over there the next.
Still, Opal stayed to herself. Daddy had told me not to bother her too much, so I hadn’t gone to her apartment. I sure did hate to put upon folks.
But once two weeks had passed, I decided it was time to pay her a visit.
Opal had her door propped open to let a little breeze in. She had her radio playing and the song poured out to me as I climbed up the steps to her apartment. When I got to the top I saw her kneeling on the floor with her back toward me.
What few things she owned were lined up on her bed, an open suitcase resting on the floor. One by one, she lifted pictures and dresses and her old tin cup and a book, placing them each with the very most care into the suitcase.
I reached my fist to the door and gave it a knock.
“Hi there,” she said, looking at me over her shoulder. “Come on in.”
She turned the radio down so it wasn’t so loud, but we could still hear it.
“What are you doing?” I asked, my heart feeling like it was fixing to drop all the way down to the soles of my feet.
She pushed aside this and that so there would be room on the bed for us to sit. When she patted the thin mattress I sat down.
“You’re leaving,” I said. “Aren’t you?”
She nodded and then took my hand in her own.
“Bliss never was ready for a girl like me,” she said. “I need to go somewhere people might understand me a little.”
“I understand you,” I said, not knowing if what I said was the truth or not. “I try to, at least.”
“I know you do, Pearl.” She squeezed my hand.
“But you’re still going?”
She nodded again.
“Pearl, meeting you was one of the very best things to ever happen to me,” she said. “I’m telling the truth.”
I couldn’t remember a nicer thing anybody had ever said to me and I had to hold real tight inside my throat to keep from crying.
“If my getting stuck in Bliss only happened so I could have you in my life, then it was worth it.” She sniffled. “But this town has never been home to me. I need Detroit. The busy streets and the sidewalks full of people rushing to one place or another. And I need my family. I just miss them so much.”
“Remember how you told me about listening to the music from the jazz club?” I asked.
She smiled and nodded.
“Was that true?” I asked.
“Yes. On weekend nights we didn’t sleep until three in the morning sometimes, the music was so loud,” she said.
“And you never cared, did you?”
“No.” She smiled and pulled in her bottom lip. “I never did.”
“Do your folks still live in that apartment?” I asked.
“I hope so.”
“What if they don’t?”
“I’ll find them,” she said. “Even if it takes the rest of the year. Or the rest of my life.”
I didn’t ask her why she’d spend all the rest of her life looking for her family. Didn’t have to. I already knew.
They were her home.
Daddy offered to drive Opal back to Detroit. She told him she’d already bought a bus ticket. She wouldn’t hear of anybody seeing her off. No goodbye suppers or cake or pie. She didn’t want a fuss.
She left Bliss the way she’d come, quietly and without many noticing.
But I noticed. And I cried the better part of the day.
Lying in bed that night, I imagined how it would be for her, getting to Detroit.
The bus wouldn’t get there until the middle of the night. She’d climb down the steps to the platform and wait for the driver to pull her suitcase out from under the seats. It wouldn’t take long on account there weren’t too many travelers that time of evening.
She’d remember the streets, the tree on this corner and the funny looking dog that lived at the house on that corner. Nobody would be out, not really. Most folks would be inside sleeping, resting up for the next day’s work.
Somehow, she’d get herself turned around. It’d just been too long since she’d been home last. So she’d close her eyes and listen as close as she could. Listen until she heard a ba-da-bum of drum and wah-wah-wah of trumpets. She would listen for the meow of a clarinet and the trill of a flute.
She’d follow the music, letting it lead her home.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
I spent the better part of the day with Aunt Carri
e in her garden. Opal’d been gone a full week and I’d finally started to feel like I would be all right without her after all. Besides, she’d written saying her folks still lived in the apartment across from the jazz club. They’d been glad to see her. Her mother had cried. Her dad, too.
“I can’t say I wish I’d never left,” she’d written. “But I’m so very glad I came back.”
The hurt of missing her was muted by the happiness of hearing she was happy.
After Aunt Carrie and I finished pulling weeds and picking whatever we found ripe—beans, sweet peas, carrots, and the like—we sat in the soft grass, our heads tipped back to watch the clouds.
“It’s a walrus,” she said, pointing. “Do you see its tusks?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I told her. “And he’s eating a tulip.”
“Oh yes. I can see it.”
We sat for a little while longer, being lazier than we had any right to be. Still, we enjoyed the day.
“Aunt Carrie?” I asked.
“Yes, dear?”
“Pastor back in Red River said one time there wouldn’t be any clouds in heaven,” I said. “Is that true?”
“You know, I’ve never pondered that before.” She shut her eyes and pushed her brows toward the middle. Then she opened her eyes and looked at me. “What do you think?”
“Well, I don’t know. I hope there are some there,” I answered. “Sure would be nice to sit up there and see stories in clouds.”
“I think so too, dear.” She leaned back, letting the sun warm her face. “I’d find Beanie,” I said. “Meemaw too.”
“Wouldn’t that be something?”
“I’d be sure you got to meet them.” I smiled. “They’d like you, I just know it.”
Aunt Carrie reached over and cupped my cheek with her hand. The way she smiled let me know I’d said the right thing.
Ray was in his room by the time I made it back from the farm. I knocked on the door and waited for him to answer. But he didn’t.
“You in there?” I asked.
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