Dark River Road

by Virginia Brown

  After about ten miles, she said, “We’re taking Mikey to a doctor I know in Memphis. He needs surgery within the next year.”

  It was what she didn’t say that brought Chantry’s head around to look at her. Tension rode her brow, her hands were white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and he thought it must be pretty bad for her to be so upset. Maybe she’d gotten another letter. Maybe Mikey’s doctor had found another hole in his heart. He glanced down at him. Mikey just looked glad to be riding in the truck and out of Cane Creek.

  Nothing much was said during the hour and a half ride to Memphis. When they got close to the downtown area, Mikey got real excited at the glimpse of lights and high buildings. He wanted to stop and look, but Mama said first things first. She seemed to know where she was going, but it made sense, Chantry guessed, since she’d grown up in Memphis.

  Wet streets reflected red and green traffic lights, and there were seven and eight lane roads so full of cars Chantry could hardly believe all these people existed. It seemed like too many. It was entirely different to read about an expanding population, and come this close to it. Quinton County was one of only two counties in the entire state of Mississippi that didn’t have a single traffic light, and here there were traffic lights on almost every corner.

  Mama turned onto a four lane road with big old houses lining it, and old fashioned kind of street lamps like he’d seen in movies. A sign named it Peabody Avenue. A clinic stood on one corner, and behind it he saw a big cross all lit up and letters that said Methodist Hospital atop a red brick building that had to be at least ten stories high. Mama passed all that up, and put on the turn signal in front of a greystone house set back from the road and up on a slight hill. It had a long driveway that went up beside it with a turn-around, and a covered part that stuck out. It didn’t look much like a doctor’s office to him, but when Mama stopped the truck, he figured this was where she meant to be.

  She turned and looked at them. “You boys be on your best behavior, do you hear me? No matter what you hear me say or what you hear anyone else say, just be quiet and do not speak until you are spoken to directly. Understood?”

  This just got stranger. They both said they understood, though neither one of them did. It didn’t look like something they should question, with Mama acting so nervous.

  They followed Mama up on the front porch and she rang the bell just like they’d come for a visit instead of a doctor’s appointment. She was wearing her best suit, he noticed, her Sunday one she used in the winter time. It had a straight slim skirt and little short jacket, and was a pretty blue color that almost matched Mama’s eyes. Her hair was softer around her face today, looser than usual but still pulled back on her neck. Her hand shook as she punched the bell again, and Chantry began to feel really anxious.

  Finally someone came to the front door. She was an older lady and wore a uniform of some kind, with a white apron over a dark dress. Mama looked a little surprised, but asked firmly enough if the doctor was in.

  “No, ma’am, he’s out of the country for a while. If you’d like to make an appointment, I can give you his office number—”

  “No,” Mama said, and looked real upset, “I have his office number. This is—personal. I . . . may I leave him a note?”

  The lady hesitated, and said to wait just a moment, she’d ask the secretary. Because it was raining and blowing on them where they stood on the porch, she asked if they’d like to wait inside where it was dry and Mama nodded yes.

  It smelled like lemons and fresh flowers inside, even though it was winter and most all the flowers had died for the year. A huge vase of gladiolas and flowers he didn’t recognize sat on some kind of table in an entrance hall that was bigger than half their house in Cane Creek, and Mikey just stared around him with his mouth open.

  “Is this a castle?” he finally whispered, and Chantry squeezed his hand so he’d remember they were supposed to be quiet and not say anything without being spoken to first.

  Mama was acting really odd. She walked from the entrance hall to one of the open doors just like she knew where she was going, and stood looking in at a room that should have been in a museum. It had velvet couches and chairs, and huge paintings of horses and dogs and people in really old clothes on the walls. Chantry wanted to leave. He didn’t like it here. It felt cold. Not just because of the weather, but there was nothing here that made it feel welcoming.

  In a moment, a lady in a suit a lot like Mama’s came down the stairs that had thick carpet on them. “Yes, how may I help you?” she asked pleasantly enough, and Mama turned around.

  “I had hoped to see the doctor, but have been informed he is out of the country.”

  “Yes, he and his wife are on a business trip and extended holiday. If this is pertaining to a patient, perhaps—”

  “It is a personal matter. I . . . I would like to leave a note for him. Could you be certain that it is given to him as soon as they return? It is quite urgent.”

  “Urgent? He left a colleague on call if you’d like his name.”

  “That will not be necessary.” Mama took a deep breath. The woman looked at her with a little frown as if she didn’t understand at all, and Mama said, “I am afraid I was not prepared for the possibility that he would be out of the country. If I might ask for a sheet of paper and an envelope, please? I apologize for being a nuisance.”

  “No, not at all. Come this way, please. I’ll see that Doctor Callahan is given your letter as soon as he returns.”

  Mama turned to look at them. “Stay right here and do not move.”

  Chantry stared at her. Was this Doctor Callahan a relative of his father’s, or was it just a coincidence they had the same name? He held Mikey’s hand really tight, and stood still in the center of the entrance hall with the huge crystal chandelier hanging overhead. Outside, the cold rain beat against the windows and street, and inside it smelled like a spring garden.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Mikey whispered, and Chantry rolled his eyes. He had to go, too, but he knew better than to say anything.

  “In a minute,” he said.

  After a few moments passed, Mikey said, “I hafta go now, Chantry.”

  Jesus. He blew out a heavy breath and nodded. “Okay. Let me find that lady again.”

  He went down the entrance hall toward another door, and stuck his head around the frame to look into the room. It was empty, but he heard someone moving around close by.

  “Excuse me,” he said as loudly as he dared, and in a moment, the first lady in the apron and dress came back around the corner. “My little brother has to . . . to use the bathroom.”

  “Of course.” She smiled, dark little eyes squinting up so easily that he guessed she spent a lot of time smiling. “I should have thought to offer. Come along this way now, boys, and I’ll show you where it is.”

  She showed them to a bathroom that was bigger than his bedroom at home. It was off the kitchen, and didn’t even have a tub, just a toilet and a wash basin, and some fancy furniture. A window made of stained glass like in the New Cane Creek Baptist Church let in colored light, and he looked around as he helped Mikey with his clothes and washing his hands. When they’d both finished, he went back out and found the nice lady waiting on them in the kitchen with a big plate of cookies and glasses of milk. It was different in here, bright and cheery and not so cold. She smiled at them.

  “Sit here and have something to eat. You’re bound to be hungry if you’re like my boys.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, we’re not supposed to. Mama told us to wait in the hall.”

  “I’ll make sure she knows where you are. Sit, now. It gets tiring standing up.”

  He glanced at Mikey, and saw his eyes fastened on the cookies and milk. Mama’d be mad at them for not minding her, but he didn’t know what to do when this lady was so insistent. So he sat down at the wide oak table that looked just polished, and helped Mikey with his cookies and milk. His stomach growled, and he took a cookie nearly as bi
g as his hand. It was a sugar cookie, soft and sweet. He ate two so quick Mikey hadn’t had time to finish his first one.

  Then Mama was at the door, her tone sounding funny. “I told you boys to wait on me in the hall.”

  Chantry stood up quickly, but the lady in the apron said, “I insisted they have something to eat. We don’t have any children in the house, and it’s always nice to see young faces at the table.”

  A strange expression crossed Mama’s face, but she didn’t say anything else except to tell Chantry and Mikey to thank her for the refreshments and come along. The apron lady wrapped a few cookies in a paper napkin and put them in Chantry’s hand. Then she walked them to the door and said goodbye, and they went out into the rain that was still coming down.

  It must have been the rain, but Mama’s face stayed wet all the way back to Cane Creek.

  CHAPTER 7

  Chantry lay awake and listened to Mama and Rainey argue. Mikey was so exhausted he’d fallen asleep soon after they got back home. Rainey had been waiting in the doorway for them, mad as a wet cat and about as sweet-smelling.

  He wished he knew what had happened, why they’d gone all the way to Memphis and then turned around and come back home without seeing any doctor. And he wished he knew who the doctor was that had the same name as his. He’d wanted to ask Mama, but she’d not been in any kind of mood for questions. The ride back had been so quiet, if it wasn’t for the sputtering sound of the old truck, he’d have thought he’d gone deaf.

  Every now and then he’d catch more than a few words of the argument in the front room. Mama liked to keep her voice down, and for some reason, Rainey wasn’t being real loud either. It was pretty strange.

  “ . . .irreparable damage to his heart,” Mama was saying, “if he does not have surgery soon.”

  That would be about Mikey. Rainey said that there wasn’t anything that could be done anyway and she just needed to get that through her thick head. He sounded more mad than drunk and Chantry was glad for that. It wasn’t often Mama went against him with something like taking his truck, so he had to know she’d been pretty determined. He’d liked to have seen Rainey’s face when he got home and found his truck gone, though. He bet that’d been something.

  “Dammit, if you want money so bad,” Rainey said loudly, “then do what you shoulda done a long time ago and file papers with the gover’ment. That brat of yours should be gettin’ money on account of his dead daddy anyway.”

  There was a heavy silence that made Chantry hold his breath to hear what happened next.

  “And I will tell you one last time that I will not take that money,” Mama said after a minute or two. “It would be like benefiting from his death. I will not do it. Now lower your voice.”

  Nothing was said about the house in Memphis, only more stuff about not having the money to pay for Mikey’s doctors, and Chantry fell asleep finally. When he woke up, the house was dark and quiet and he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten when they got home, not wanting to be too close when Rainey and Mama got into an argument. All he’d had to eat were those cookies.

  He got up carefully so he wouldn’t wake Mikey, and crawled off the foot of the bed. He wore only a loose pair of thin sweat pants, and shivered in the chill air. Mama would wait as long as possible before turning on the gas heaters. Propane cost money.

  A night light burned in the kitchen for those nights when Mikey was restless and Mama got up with him. He didn’t turn on the lights but went straight to the refrigerator. It was an old one, but scrupulously clean. There wasn’t much offered, a few hot dogs and plate of cold bacon, or a bowl of cereal. He got out the milk, cereal, and a bowl, feeling in the drawer for a spoon.

  When he carried it to the table, the light suddenly flashed on, bright and blinding and startling him. He dropped the cereal box and it spilled onto the floor, going everywhere. Rainey squinted at him.

  “What you doin’ out here sneakin’ around in the dark, boy?”

  “I’m hungry. Sorry.” He knelt down on the floor to pick up the cereal box, keeping a wary eye on Rainey to see what he’d do.

  “Made a helluva mess there. Clean it up before I put my foot up your ass.”

  “Yessir.” He kept his head down, eyes on Rainey as he scooped cereal into his empty bowl until he had it all picked up.

  “Oh no,” Rainey said when he started toward the trash bin with it, “you spilled it, you eat it. We ain’t got enough money to be wastin’ food just ‘cause you’re clumsy.”

  Chantry looked into the bowl. Mama was a good housekeeper, but it’d been raining and the floor had dirt and specks of mud on it despite her efforts. Debris coated some of the cereal flakes. Before he could decide what to do, Rainey moved from the doorway and grabbed him by the back of the neck, big hands biting deeply into muscle and skin to force him to the table and down into a chair.

  “Eat it,” he said, and slammed the spoon into the bowl. “Every damn bite.”

  Chantry didn’t move. He just looked down at the bowl and the spoon and dirty cereal and sat still. He didn’t know why. Rebellion was always costly. He just knew that he wasn’t going to eat that cereal without a fight, that was all.

  “Leave him alone, Rainey,” Mama said from the doorway, and Chantry looked up to see her sagging against the doorframe. “Stop taking your anger at me out on him. He is innocent.”

  “Is he? I wonder just how damn innocent. I heard some things down at the Tap Room. He ain’t no sweet little boy like you think he is.”

  Chantry looked at him. He went real still and tried to think what he’d done that Rainey might have heard about. There wasn’t much of anything. He just didn’t have time lately to get into any trouble. Except for sneaking out that night with Tansy . . . and he hoped like hell Rainey didn’t know about that.

  “Whyn’t you ask him?” Rainey sneered. “Just ask him what he does when he’s not here. I think you might find it interestin’.”

  Mama’s eyes moved to him and he looked back at her. It was cold in the kitchen, but he shivered because he just knew something bad was about to be said. He didn’t know how he knew that but he did.

  Rainey took the flat of his hand and knocked it against the back of Chantry’s head. “Go on, boy. Tell her. Tell yore mama what you get up to in the night when you’re s’posed to be in bed.”

  Damn. He knew. It wouldn’t matter that nothing really bad had happened. Rainey would make something of it anyway. He stood up.

  “Nothing happened, Mama.”

  Rainey laughed, but it was an ugly sound. “The hell it didn’t. Run off in the middle of the night with that li’l yella gal and everybody knows what happened. Don’t take a smart man to figure that one out.”

  Mama was looking at him real close, and Chantry wanted to tell her the truth about it all but didn’t want to say anything in front of Rainey. He’d only make it sound worse than it really was.

  “Yeah,” Rainey said, “he come sneakin’ back in here a couple hours later smelling like a whorehouse and cheap wine. Thought I didn’t know. But I saw him, and I heard him, and I smelt him. And if that li’l gal gets knocked up then you’ll see just how long you get to keep your job teaching decent folks’ kids.”

  Chantry went cold. All it would take is rumor to get old man Quinton down on Mama.

  “It’s not true,” he said, and Rainey reached out quick as a snake and smacked him upside the head before Mama could stop him.

  “Don’t be callin’ me a liar, boy. I heard you.”

  Chantry caught his balance and looked back at Mama. “I meant that we didn’t do anything wrong. We just talked. And . . . and drank a little wine.”

  “Oh, Chantry,” she said with a long sigh that sounded so sad he wanted to cry. That was all she said. Just Oh Chantry like that, and he felt like crying and hitting something and going to his knees and asking her not to be disappointed in him. It was the funniest thing. Rainey could be mad and hit him and say all kinds of bad stuff and he’d never feel sorry, but al
l Mama had to do was give him that sorrowful look and sigh, and he wanted to turn himself inside out to undo what he’d done.

  “We will talk in the morning,” Mama said after a moment. “Go to bed now. It is late.”

  Chantry cleaned up his mess and didn’t eat the cereal even though Rainey stood there so long he thought he was going to try to make him. He’d lost his appetite anyway, and went to bed and lay there awake until the sky got a little bit light and birds got ready for the day.

  Mama woke him up for church and told him to hurry or they’d be late, and he felt like he’d just gone to sleep. She’d made pancakes, with thick sorghum syrup over them, and he was glad Rainey was still asleep so he could eat without being grudged every bite. After he’d brushed his teeth and helped Mikey, they went outside on the front porch to wait for Mama.

  It’d stopped raining, and the ground out under the black walnut tree was slick with mud. Liberty Road had plenty of gravel and stayed pretty good even in winter unless the fields flooded, because it was built up on a roadbed that let it drain quickly under normal conditions.

  Mama didn’t say anything about taking Rainey’s truck, and they walked down the middle of the road toward town and the church. Just as they got to the church, Mama turned to Chantry and said, “I intend to ask Reverend Hale to counsel you, Chantry. You need a strong, decent male influence.”

  Chantry recoiled. “No.”

  Mama’s eyes held his, and she said, “Yes. There are things you need to know that I cannot properly teach you, things that will be better coming from someone like the reverend.”

  “I don’t like him.”