She breathed deep and I felt her shift a little. “I said it. I did. But I was wrong. It’s like Miss Cyrena say, I just didn’t see him clear. I thought the fights he got into before we was married was ’cause he was protectin’ me. I thought he wanted to know where I was ev’ry minute and who I was talkin’ to was ’cause of love. I’d never had nobody fight to keep me safe, so I believed it. Law, I was wrong about a lot of things. I see only what I wanted to in that man. Maybe I just wanted to get away from Pap and Charles so bad. Maybe that what clouded my eyes. But since you come, since my time with Miss Cyrena, I’m thinkin’more clear every day. I remember it all, even what I don’t want to.”
After being with Wallace just two days, I didn’t know how anybody couldn’t see him clear.
Eula went on, her voice soft and slow, smoothing the uneasy prickles on my insides more and more. “The memories you got of your momma prob’ly a lot the same. You was just a baby. You see other mommas and think that’s how yours was, too.”
I thought about Lulu, the real Lulu, not the one I thought I was gonna find. I thought about when we was standing in front of Tootsies, when that tightness in her mouth hit me as familiar, and not good familiar. Could Eula be right? Had I made up all of the good things in my head? Had Momma always been made of sharp spikes and bristles?
How had Daddy ever loved her?
We got quiet and I kept pokin’ around in my soul to make sure I knew what was in there.
Baby James started making those little noises he always made before he woke up. I knew me and Eula only had a minute.
“Who do you think his momma is?” I wondered if she was a spiky, bristly woman like Lulu. If she was, baby James was sure better off with us.
Eula sighed. “Reckon we might never know. Or we could know tomorrow.”
“What will happen to him if they can’t find out who she is?” I didn’t want him to be an orphan like the boy in the book Mrs. Jacobi read us last year, Huck Finn. After the past few weeks, I knew for sure a kid can’t just float down a river and have adventures that all turn out good.
“Then they find some new parents for him. Folks who really want a baby. A place where he’ll be treated special.”
“You sure?”
“It’s what we gotta believe, child. What we gotta believe.”
Before I fell asleep next to Eula, I spent some time praying to baby Jesus to please give James a nice family that would take real good care of him, especially if he had to go back to the woman who throwed him away.
30
d
addy made me and Eula stay upstairs while he talked to the sheriff. I’d been trying to listen at the hall register—even after Eula scolded me for eavesdropping. But the men was in the living room and I couldn’t make anything out. When I didn’t hear Mamie’s voice at all, I went and looked out the window. Her station wagon was gone. I hoped she’d never come back.
Me and Eula was too nervous to talk, so we’d just been sitting quiet, worry chewin’ our insides. When Daddy finally called us down, we looked at each other. She nodded at me and then picked up James. I took her hand and we left Daddy’s bedroom. We walked slow, acting like we was marchin’ to our death—which is what Mamie said when I was being poky about something I didn’t want to do. When we got to the bottom of the stairs, Daddy was there. He smiled at Eula. I couldn’t figure out if the smile said things was okay, or that he was sorry they wasn’t. The four of us went into the living room.
Sheriff Reese picked his hat off his knee, stood up, and hitched his gun belt.
I stopped cold.
Daddy put his hand on my shoulder and nudged me forward. “It’s okay.”
The sheriff nodded to Eula, then waved his hand to tell us to sit on the couch.
He started off by looking down at me with squinty eyes. “You do know how much trouble you caused by running off, don’t you? I had every deputy doing overtime. The state police got involved. Not to mention the hours and hours the townsfolk dedicated to lookin’ for you. Then there’s your grandma and daddy’s worry. Your actions affected a lot of people.”
Butterflies filled my stomach. My mouth and throat was so dry I couldn’t hardly make a sound. “I didn’t think—”
“I can’t hear you. Speak up, now.”
I cleared my throat. “I . . . I didn’t think anybody would care I was gone.”
Daddy sucked in air like he’d been hit in the stomach. “Starla . . .”
“Not you, Daddy. I was gonna get to Momma and then she’d call you and you could come to Nashville. We’d . . .” I stopped talking. I sounded like a stupid little kid.
Sheriff Reese crossed his arms. “Now you know. This is a small town. What happens here spreads wide ripples.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were very, very lucky,” he said. “Things could have turned out much differently. Do you understand what I mean?”
When I closed my eyes, my breath disappeared and I felt Wallace holding me underwater. My eyes snapped open and I gasped a breath. “I do, sir. I most surely do.” Then I put in, “I was lucky to have Eula protectin’ me.”
He stared down at me for a long while, making me real uncomfortable. Then he said, “And do you think she’s lucky to have you?”
I started to say yes, me and Eula had a gift together. But all the sudden it didn’t seem like a fair trade for having to kill her husband with a skillet—no matter how bad a man he was—and travel to Nashville in a broke-down truck, and all the troubles along the way. I shook my head and stayed quiet.
“Mrs. Littleton,” he said, looking at Eula.
I sat there, not hearing anything for a second. I couldn’t believe that after all we’d been through, I didn’t know Eula’s last name. Littleton. Eula Littleton.
When my hearing turned back on, Sheriff Reese was explaining that he’d already sent a deputy, Daddy’s friend Don, and the coroner—from listening close I figured that was somebody who picks up the dead people—out to Eula’s place, and the sheriff should be hearing from him shortly. I didn’t know what the sheriff needed to hear from Deputy Don about; we all knowed Wallace was dead. Then I wondered how fresh the springhouse had kept him, but didn’t think I’d be asking.
Eula’s throat worked hard to swallow. Her eyes stayed on the floor in front of her feet.
“Mrs. Littleton, I know this is hard, but I need to you tell me exactly what happened.”
Eula’s nervousness buzzed against my skin. I said, “He was tryin’ to kill me! She had to hit him with a skillet to get him to stop.”
It was hard to tell what the sheriff was thinking; his eyes seemed a little sorry for me, but his mouth was perturbed. “I have to hear it from Mrs. Littleton. Maybe you’d like to go upstairs and wait.” It wasn’t a question.
I scooted toward Eula till our hips and legs was touching. “I’m fine here, sir.”
The sheriff looked at Daddy.
“It happened to me,” I said. “It ain’t like I don’t know about it already.” It felt good to be able to fight for something after feeling so low about being a bother.
Daddy said, “She can stay.” He sat down next to me. We was three birds on a wire now. I didn’t want the sheriff to shoot Eula off of it.
She tucked baby James next to her, snug between her leg and the arm of the couch.Then she wiped her hands on her skirt. I reached over and took one. I saw the sheriff look at our hands with a sour face. It made me want to take her other hand, too.
Eula let out a breath and told the whole story, right from the pie delivering that put her where she saw James dropped at that church.
I jumped up and stood in front of the sheriff, my hands in fists. “But Wallace took him!” I looked at the sheriff. “He did!”
Eula reached out and took one of my fists and pried it open until she could hold it. “We got to tell the truth—all of it. How a body to tell what comes out your mouth true or not if you don’t always speak true?”
“But—” My t
hroat closed up.
She pulled me next to her on the couch and told the rest of the story, just like it happened. When she got done, my face was wet and so was hers.
The sheriff looked at me then. “You agree? This how it happened?”
“Yes, sir. If she hadn’t saved me—”
The sheriff said, “I understand.”
“She was only tryin’ to help both me and James.”
“All right. That’ll do.” He didn’t say it mean, but he meant business.
I pinched my lips together.
He asked Eula about the exact time she saw the baby—he never called him James—being left at the church and to describe the young Negro who’d left him. When she told that the girl had a little limp on the left side, my eyes near popped outta my head.
“That’s Gracie!” I said, leapin’ before I looked again.
“Gracie?” the sheriff asked.
I rolled my lips in. If Gracie left James at the church, she’d know who his momma was. I didn’t want to get her in trouble. And I wasn’t sure I wanted James to go back to his momma either.
“Starla,” Daddy said, “you need to tell us.”
I closed my eyes. My ears was ringin’ and I felt kinda dizzy.
“Starla.”
I opened my eyes. I could see Eula was scared, too—not for Gracie but for James. She said, “Secrets ain’t gonna help James.”
“She’s Bess’s girl. Bess works for Patti Lynn’s family. Sometimes Gracie comes to work with Bess. And sometimes she works sweepin’ porches for other folks.”
“What other folks?” the sheriff asked, getting a little notebook out of his shirt pocket.
I shrugged. “Dunno.”
The sheriff put away the notebook without writing in it and stood up.
I jumped up and put myself between him and Eula. “You can’t arrest her!”
“You’re a little spitfire, aren’t you?” Then he looked at Daddy. “You got yourself a handful here.”
“Starla,” Daddy said, “the sheriff ’s just doing his job.”
I kept staring Sheriff Reese right in the eye. My breath was coming fast, like I’d been running.
Daddy asked, “Can Eula stay here? I’ll take responsibility.”
Sheriff Reese put his hands on his hips and pursed his lips. “Well, she came back here on her own, told the truth—even though your girl didn’t want her to. I suppose I can trust her not to run off before we get things sorted out.”
I sat back down on the couch next to Eula, feeling like the muscles had gone out of my legs. Daddy walked with the sheriff to the front door. When he followed him outside, I got curious. Eula tried to stop me, but I sneaked up to the side of the front door and listened through the screen.
The sheriff was talking. “. . . talk to that girl. I’ll send someone around from Child Welfare to collect the baby.”
They can’t just take him!
“What good will it do to send him off to some institution for a few hours?” Daddy asked. “You’re likely to find his mother yet today.”
“Got rules. It’s outta my hands. Besides, if we do find the mother, I doubt the court will let the baby go back to her right away. Might not be fit.” He paused like he was thinking. “I won’t be to my office to call Welfare until after I’ve talked to this Gracie.That’ll give you some time to get the womenfolk prepared. It’s the best I can do.”
Daddy must have nodded. Then he asked about the possibility of murder charges being made against Eula. The words turned me inside out. I think my heart stopped beating while I waited for the sheriff ’s answer.
“Can’t say. Lots of factors to consider. Coroner’s report. Investigation of the scene. Defense of a white girl. If it was a colored man done the killin’, folks’d be scared of being murdered in their beds and I’d have trouble even getting an investigation done before people’d be pushing for maximum punishment of the law . . . or worse.”
This made my mood swing two ways at once. It made it sound like my being white was what made me worth saving. And what did he mean, or worse? What would people do that could be worse than getting Eula arrested? Before I knew it, the sheriff ’s feet was going down the steps. I hurried back and sat next to Eula.
Daddy came back and stood in front of us. He told us about Child Welfare and how James was gonna have to go stay with them until things with his mother got straightened out. He put a hand on Eula’s shoulder. “They’ll probably be here by late morning or early afternoon.”
Eula looked particular sad, but she nodded and picked James up. “Best make sure he’s clean and fed then.”
When she climbed up the stairs, she moved slow, like she was tired, like the fight of keeping me and James safe was all she’d had and now it was gone.
I felt more helpless than when Wallace was tryin’ to drown me.
31
t
hey took James at one fifteen that afternoon. I felt even sadder than I thought I would, seeing the sheriff ’s deputy and the Welfare lady drive off with him. It had to be worse for Eula, her wanting a baby so bad and all. I wondered if watching him go made her think of her too-white baby and how Charles gave him to somebody else— I kept the dark ideas about what might have happened to him out of my head. He was a boy. A happy boy with a momma and daddy who loved him. Just like I hoped James would be. I’d asked the Welfare lady if me and Eula could come and visit him later, but she’d said she wasn’t sure where he’d be and it was a bad idea anyway. I’d been surprised that she wasn’t keeping him with her. I thought that was her job.
Me and Daddy and Eula stood on the front sidewalk and watched until the deputy turned the corner and we couldn’t see the car anymore. I saw Ernestine peeking out from the LeCounts’ living-room window, watching it all happen. Eula was the first one of us to go back inside. When Daddy and I followed her, she asked Daddy if she could use the kitchen, she felt like doing some baking. She’d noticed some bananas need usin’.
I was proud when Daddy told her she was a guest in our house and didn’t have to ask permission, she could do as she pleased. The kitchen was hers anytime she wanted. That made me feel better for about two seconds. Until I watched Eula creep through the living room and disappear into the kitchen, her shoulders folded in and her head down. And she didn’t invite me to come help like ususal. I reckon that said as much about how bad she was feeling as anything.
I hoped the law didn’t punish her; James going away was punishment enough.
I’d asked Daddy about a million times how long it was gonna be until Sheriff Reese called to tell us about finding James’s mother and what he was gonna do about Eula. Daddy finally got so prickly about saying he didn’t know that I’d finally stopped asking.
The house filled with wonderful smells. I wanted to go to the kitchen, but I think Eula just needed to be alone with her baking.
Daddy had to leave for a while, but wouldn’t tell me where he was going. When I kept asking worried questions, he told me it had nothing to do with Eula, so I could relax. I didn’t tell him that part of me wasn’t worried about Eula, part of me was worried he’d leave and never come back. Course that was silly. I knew Daddy wouldn’t just disappear like Momma had. Still, I couldn’t help my nervousness.
I heard his car start and pull away. I laid down on the living-room floor in front of the TV. The only thing on was stupid lady stories like The Guiding Light and Search for Tomorrow, so I turned it back off.Then I just laid there and looked at the ceiling, feeling too low to get up and do anything.
The only good thing was Mamie stayed gone.
In a bit, Eula come through the living room and said real quiet that the banana pie was cooling for dinner and she was gonna go up and rest a bit. She was careful not to look at me. Her shoulders didn’t seem any stronger . . . I worried that losing James might not be able to be fixed by making pies. There might be things so bad that all the whistling in the world couldn’t make them go away.
I wanted to tak
e her hand, to help her like she’d always helped me. But I remembered how she’d left me alone in the bathroom in Nashville when I’d wanted to be by myself. So I just laid there.
After a while, there was a knock at the front door. When I saw it was Patti Lynn, I got up lickety-split to let her inside and pull her close for a hug. When we stopped huggin’, we just stood there, not sure what to do next. We wasn’t really neither of us huggers.
“What’d you do to your hair?”
“I had to make it black to hide from the law. It’s really a long story.”
“And you’re gonna tell me every bit of it!” Then she looked more serious. “I’m glad you’re back.” For a minute she looked like she didn’t know what else to say. Then she poked me in the arm. “Can’t believe you’d run off without me!”
“If I hadn’t been runnin’ from Mrs. Sellers, I’d have taken you and my bike, too. Maybe even a bologna sandwich.”
She laughed. “Oh, you shoulda seen her!” Patti Lynn made some crazy faces and jumped around like she had ants in her pants, shaking her finger and pulling her hair.
Things felt more right after that.
We sat on the couch, Indian-style, facing each other while I told her everything that had happened. Everything except about how horrible Lulu turned out to be. I’d spent so much time spinnin’ stories about her and how her and me and Daddy was gonna be happy again, I just couldn’t admit it . . . not even to Patti Lynn. I let her think that I come home because I wanted to, that I didn’t like Nashville after all.
“Oh, my gosh! You’re just like Huckleberry Finn!”
I got serious then. When I’d told her about Wallace, I’d played like I wasn’t scared, but that wasn’t right. I couldn’t let her think running off alone was something a girl should do—even though Patti Lynn had a perfect family and didn’t have any reason to. “Truth be told, it wasn’t nothin’ like that story. I wish I’d never left. I almost got killed and brung a lot of trouble to Eula, too.” It made my chest hurt to admit it, but the sheriff was right.
Whistling Past the Graveyard Page 28