Beyond Molasses Creek

by Nicole Seitz

  Daddy gets up and paces the room. “Can’t believe we haven’t heard anything yet. What are they doing? Why is this taking so long? They said a reward would get people to talk, didn’t they? Maybe we haven’t offered enough money. I’m going to tell Monroe to double it as soon as I see him. Maybe that’ll do it. That’s got to do it.”

  We’ve been told to stay here and wait for word from the embassy. The consulate officer, Davidson Monroe, is coordinating with the police and the military to find Constance, but I’m losing hope. Since she was taken, I don’t think I’ve had any hope. There are no leads. But she’s out there. Oh, God, why would someone take a baby? I pray that they are treating her right. Please keep her healthy and safe, I say. I’ve never been much of a prayer, but now the pleas flow easily over my lips. I just wish someone, anyone, was listening.

  My father kneels down in front of me and looks me in the eyes. “Ally. Ally? Honey, we will get through this. The police know what they’re doing, and it hasn’t been that long. Seventy-two hours isn’t so long. They say there’s a good chance they’ll find her and bring her back. Don’t give up hope, honey, okay? Don’t give up.” Daddy stands, looking leaner than I remember. He clenches his fists and grabs his jacket and hat. “Well, I can’t sit here. I’m going to go look for her myself,” he says.

  I want to stop him. I want to remind him they told us to wait here for the call, but I can’t get my mouth to work. I don’t know how Daddy will get to where he’s going or where he’s going exactly. I just let him go and turn back to the stream on the lawn of the Shangri-La. I watch as it travels over little rocks, and far, far away, I remember Molasses Creek. I am a child with my feet in the water once again, a girl dancing on the riverbed with Vesey. A young woman with a large belly, seeing her reflection in the rippling water with no one beside her.

  I am here in Nepal. With Daddy but alone. If they don’t find her, I don’t think I can ever return. How will I ever be able to look at the water of Molasses Creek knowing my spirit is out here roaming on the other side of the world?

  FORTY-FIVE

  Where Did All the Time Go?

  Charleston

  Ally

  “VESEY. CAN YOU HEAR ME?” I SQUEEZE HIS HAND. They’ve run some tests and he’s stabilized, resting quietly, but we still don’t know what’s wrong with him. I can’t stand seeing these white sheets on him. Can’t stand the wallpaper in here or the artificial lights casting a fake white glare.

  Seeing him like this, laid back and unmoving, Vesey looks old. I’ve never thought of Vesey as old. I’ve always thought of that tight, plump skin, those muscles, that teenaged boy. He’ll look better when we can get him up and out of this place. He doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t belong in some sterile institution. He belongs outdoors with the fresh air and birds and nature. He belongs on Molasses Creek. This place—this is just all wrong.

  The door opens and a doctor walks in.

  “Mr. Washington? Mr. Washington, are you coming around?”

  I look to Vesey and he struggles to open his eyes. When he does, he’s alarmed and moves to sit up but I hold him back. “It’s okay, Vesey, I’m with you. Miss Ally’s here. You collapsed at your house, honey. But you’re fine now.” I turn to the doctor. “Have you found out anything?”

  “We have. Does he have any family that you know of?”

  “Why, yes, a sister and a daughter and her family here in town. Another daughter in Greensboro. His parents are deceased. His son . . . I think they’ve already called his daughters. I expect they’ll be coming in soon.”

  “Good. Well, I’ll go ahead and tell you our patient here has had a myocardial infarction or what you might know as a heart attack. Quite a serious one, at that. You were lucky you found him when you did. Apparently, he was in full cardiac arrest. Mr. Washington, how are you feeling right now?”

  He leans in and looks at the monitor showing Vesey’s heartbeats. To me it looks regular, but what do I know?

  “A heart attack,” I say.

  “I’m afraid this has weakened your heart a great deal. The chances of this happening again are . . . well, they’re very high.”

  “Again?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  I look at Vesey, who is now staring out the window. I lean down and kiss him on the cheek. “What do these folks know, anyway? Right? Welcome back, honey.”

  I motion for the doctor to step out into the hallway.

  With the door closed, I look at him, arms crossed on my chest, and say, words beginning to fail me, “I understand he had a heart attack. I’m understanding that. But I can’t understand how. Vesey is one of the healthiest, strongest men I know. Don’t let his age fool you.”

  “It’s not a matter of age, Ms. . . .”

  “Green,” I say.

  “Ms. Green, your friend is very, very ill. From his records, he’s had high blood pressure for quite a while now.”

  “High blood pressure?”

  He flips through his chart. “The records indicate the last time he was in here was due to fainting. Looks like he has trouble staying on his regimen.”

  “Wait a minute. When does it say he came in here last? Does it say who brought him here?”

  “It does. It looks like it was his doctor, Dr. Reid Green. Some relation?”

  I nod and fight the fog coming over me. “My father,” I say.

  My father knew Vesey was ill and he never told me. No one ever told me.

  “He should be resting comfortably now. He’s in good hands.”

  “Thank you,” I say, and the doctor walks away.

  Back inside the room, I sit down on the chair beside the window. Vesey is still staring out, so I look to see what he sees. There is a flock of black birds in the crisp blue sky, flying in V-formation high above the trees. They all descend on one huge oak.

  “Sorry you got to see me like this,” says Vesey, his voice low and grumbly. It’s wonderful to hear that voice again though. It soothes my soul.

  “Oh, it was worth it to see you wearing that cute little gown.” I smile and he does too, barely. “How bad do you feel?” I ask him.

  “Bad. Like a truck ran over me. But ain’t nothin’ I cain’t handle.”

  “I think your daughters will be here soon.”

  “I wish you hadn’t called them.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “Oh, don’t want ’em frettin’, all worried and carryin’ on.”

  “You men. You’re all alike. Daddy was the same kind of stubborn, wasn’t he?”

  “He was, he was. Good man, he was.”

  There is an awkward silence created by me trying to figure out how to begin this conversation. Where’s a nice car ride when you need one? “Well, listen, Vesey, the doctor told me you have high blood pressure. Was Daddy treating you for that?”

  “As best he could. I’m a terrible patient, Ally. I’d rather let nature take its course.”

  “Oh, Vesey.” I’m ruing every last pot roast and pork dinner I’ve made him over the past few months. I wish I had known.

  “Ally?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Time. Where’d it all go? Sure has gone by fast, ain’t it, and where’d it all go?”

  As he looks in my face, I see it, the years cropped up on us, shrouding our faces yet gone with the wind.

  “Not sure, Vesey. Just not sure.”

  “You’re a good friend,” he says. “You know that? A real good friend.”

  I want to say the same thing back, or anything at all, but silence lingers and fills the space. I nod with watery eyes.

  “I don’t want to stay here, Ally. I want to go home,” he says. “Whatever my family tells you, I need you to get me back home.”

  “We’ll get you home soon enough. Let’s get you fixed up first.”

  “No,” says Vesey. His voice is steel. I get up and walk to the window. I’m not ready to let him go. If he comes home, he’ll die there. I know it in my heart and it crushes me. “Promise me, M
iss Ally. Promise me you’ll make sure I get home, no rehab place, no more hospital. I need you to promise.”

  This man has never asked me for anything, yet always given freely to me, to Daddy, and now he’s asking me for this one thing. A major thing. My insides feel like the shreds of batik that Kat sneaks in and leaves behind. I’m quiet, playing with the fabric of the curtains as I watch the pine trees outside the window swaying in the wind. It looks like it’s getting cooler.

  “If it’s what you want,” I say, but I can’t face him. “I’ll take you home. You know I’d do anything in the world for you. That’s what friends do.”

  The glass fogs up with my hot breath and I work hard to keep my shoulders from trembling. Work hard to keep my tears from falling. I have to be strong for him now.

  After the nurses come in and take all his vitals and look all serious at him and curiously at me, Vesey seems especially tired. Looks like he might go to sleep, but I don’t want him to. Part of me worries he won’t wake up.

  “We got to get you back on your feet,” I tell him. “I was hoping you could help me get some of Daddy’s furniture back in the house.”

  “Does that mean you found it?”

  “I did find it. Right before I found you laid out on the ground.” I turn to him. “Vesey, you know I don’t care, but I’m just wondering . . . Did I not tell you to have it sent to that warehouse in Georgia? I thought I did, but I don’t remember.”

  “No, you told me to do it. Gave me the address and everythin’.”

  “So . . . why didn’t you?”

  “Well,” he sighs, “I took liberties. I figured you’d change your mind on it. You usually do. About important stuff . . . and small stuff . . . It ain’t a bad thing, just who you are. What with you grievin’ over your daddy and all, I figured you’d rue sendin’ his things away and then I could be the hero, you know, say lookee here. Look, it ain’t gone after all. Maybe it was selfish.”

  “How do you know me so well?” It comes out more as a statement than a question. I am touched beyond belief that this man knows me so deeply, flaws and all, and still considers me a friend. How could I have ever questioned his motives? I’m a heel.

  “Because we go way back, I reckon.” He winks at me weakly. “Way back to before time.”

  “Yes, I suppose we do,” I say, turning back toward the window, trying to keep my eyes from filling up. “We go way, way on back.”

  Vesey

  1959

  “I seen you sittin’ over here,” I say to her, waving. “Wonder, you wanna fish with me? I got two poles, some big ol’ worms.”

  Miss Ally’s quiet, and I itch behind my head.

  “Or I can come back,” I say.

  “No. No, I’d like to go. I’m just finishing up this picture. Wanna see?”

  Miss Ally turns this book around and shows me a picture of a snail shell she done with her own hand. It’s big and pretty and the snail is setting right there on the dock beside her. “How you learn to draw like that? You think you can teach me?”

  She smiles, which causes myself to grin wide.

  “Right now?” she says.

  “No. Not now,” I say. “We goin’ fishin’ now.”

  She looks at her house and thinks a minute. Then she turns round and says, “Okay.”

  Truth be told here, I been thinkin’ about Miss Ally a whole lot since that last boat ride. Things ain’t been so happy on over to our house these days and I like to see somebody smile. I like her smile. I help her in the boat and she puts her drawing book under her rear and then nods at me she’s ready.

  “What would you say if I told you I was gonna have me a nice house someday, over yonder,” I say to her. I point and she looks at my hand. “See that there? See how the land juts out, on past the oyster bed, on out beyond Molasses Creek? I’m gonna settle my bones there someday. I can see it now, big ol’ house with a big porch and rocking chairs and commodes that don’t get stopped up. I’m gonna have me a great big house, a mansion even, just like your house. Then I’ll ’vite you over someday.”

  She stops looking off at the spit of land and turns back to me. “I’d like that. I can see your house there right this very minute. We can have a party. I’ll bring over some . . . some sweet tea. And some Co-Cola cake.”

  “I like Co-Cola cake. And boiled peanuts.”

  “And Charleston Chews.”

  “Mmmm. I’m gettin’ hungry.” Mama had been real distracted in the days since my brother died and we didn’t get regular meals no more. I had me a piece of bread and a little cold piece of chicken that morning. I had me the idea of fishing so I could eat some fish that night. These days I was having to plan ahead. I planned on having some fish all cleaned and ready for her to cook to make it easier on her. Mama’d had it pretty hard.

  “Here now,” I said as we settled the boat and I hooked her worm for her.

  “I don’t mind doin’ that,” she told me. My heart fluttered. A girl who don’t mind hooking a worm. I handed her the rod and cast my own and we sat there as the warm sun baked our backs and the tops of our knees and heads. We caught three fish total, one for her and two for me, but when we got back home she told me to hold on to all three of ’em.

  “I don’t know how to clean ’em and I wouldn’t know what to tell Daddy.” She turned serious all a sudden. “I don’t think he would like me coming off like this.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I thought that was understood between us, that my folks didn’t want me with a white girl and her folks didn’t want her with me. So I didn’t say anything. I just set her off on the dock, looking over her shoulder to make sure her mama and daddy didn’t see my boat. When nobody came a-running, I held my pinky finger out and she hooked it with hers and we both smiled and spit on the dock. It was our secret handshake. I liked having a secret handshake. I liked having a secret friend named Miss Ally. It helped me get through the dark days.

  FORTY-SIX

  Enlightenment

  Ally

  THE YEAR 1973 HELD SOME OF THE DARKEST DAYS OF MY life. There was no light whatsoever. I remember the flight home from Nepal. I remember sitting there in a comatose state, looking out the window and seeing little lights down below, so dim, so scattered. Every tiny light meant people, and where there were people, there was the possibility of someone who had my child.

  I’d named her Constance because with my wandering spirit, she was the one constant I was going to have in my life. I had committed to having her on my own. I was committed to loving her and raising her and being her mother forever. But I had failed her. Her name had been a cruel joke. I’d jinxed myself—and her.

  I’d been too stubborn. Why couldn’t I have settled for Robert and become a housewife and mother? Why did it matter so much that he’d have girlfriends on the side? Why couldn’t I have just fallen in love with Robert and not cared any more about Vesey’s life? So what if he was married and had a child? I should have been okay with that. I didn’t own him. I didn’t have to run away. I didn’t have to be so cowardly. Dang it all, I should have told Vesey a long time ago the way I felt about him, that I didn’t give two cents what people would say about us being together. To heck with people. Yes, to heck with them.

  It was people who talked me into leaving the States with my child. Many of my friends, now hippies, some of the same ones at Furman who had trekked to Woodstock, wound up hitchhiking through Europe with the purpose of reaching India and Nepal. I would run into them and see the stars in their eyes. They told me I had to go, and so I went to Nepal, desperate for peace in my spirit. Like my friends and the Beatles, I went seeking enlightenment.

  I knew I needed some sort of help when I drove by Jasper Farms in the hopes of spotting Vesey and saw Beulah instead with her growing belly, how she looked so pretty and happy. I was eaten up with jealousy. I loved my child and should not have cared about another woman, another child being born to Vesey. I hated the way I felt. So I thought it was time to get over it all and bought a ti
cket for me and Constance for Kathmandu. I thought I was doing something good for our future, despite my parents’ plea for me to stay. I was not going to hitchhike through Europe like the others. I was going to skip all that and go straight to the enlightenment part. Then I’d come home a new woman, a better mother, and the thought of Vesey having a family wouldn’t hurt me a bit.

  I came home a different woman, all right.

  The only thing certain in those days when I came back stateside was I didn’t want to live without my daughter. The only reason I didn’t do myself in was the fact that I believed she was alive out there. She was alive and the only thing I could do for her now was to keep breathing and hoping and looking for her. The Hindus in Nepal believe in reincarnation. Depending on your past life, you come back in either a higher caste with more luxury or a lower caste with more suffering. I was beginning to wonder what sins my past life had committed. They must have been pretty terrible. I was paying for them now, suffering greatly. One minute I’m sitting in a café reading the menu with my child next to me, and the next minute she’s gone. Vanished. I had lost my child.

  We’d searched all of Kathmandu. I went to that café almost daily in the last few months after they said it would be nearly impossible to retrieve her then. That in cases like this, a baby might be sold to a black market adoption agency. That she had probably already been adopted out. That she could have been adopted back into the United States somewhere to some unknowing loving couple. Someone who’d have no idea she was kidnapped and my child. I clung to this possibility because the alternatives were grimmer.