The Arms of God: A Novel

by Lynne Hinton

  “Your father was aiming for the side of my head because I think he enjoyed watching my neck flinch and the way I’d get when I was scared, a way that usually made me turn away.” A breeze stirred in the wide arms of the trees beside where they sat. The rustle of leaves surprised them.

  “But this time, I don’t know why.” She turned to her daughter and lifted her chin, cupping it in her hands. The older woman smiled. “Maybe it was because it was you inside of me.” Tree waited.

  “But this time,” she said again, “I stared straight at him. I wasn’t afraid; and the tip of his belt flew up into my eye, cutting it from top to bottom.”

  She dropped her hand from Tree’s face and slid it down the front of her dress.

  “I think he was stunned by how I looked, by how my eye split and bled. I don’t know what it was, but I know he was surprised by something because he threw down the belt and walked away. It was as if he suddenly couldn’t hit me any more.”

  Ruth stopped again; because here she knew it was tricky. Here, she knew was what her daughter came searching for; but to tell it, to say it out loud, was a hard and unusual thing to do.

  “I don’t know who put the gun beneath the porch steps,” Ruth said, her voice suddenly clear and bold.

  She paused, remembering that the secrecy was part of the success of the women’s lottery, a means of punishment used only in extreme circumstances in Smoketown.

  She learned later that the detailer was the one chosen by the selection of the ink-dipped straw drawn out of a coffee can in the back of Sadie Coble’s woodshed. That this person simply made the necessary arrangements; the decision to carry out the plan made by the detailer was always clearly only one woman’s to make.

  Ruth also knew but didn’t tell her daughter that the gun was Maurice Coble’s and had been resting in the shed near the can. It was cleaned and loaded and returned so quickly Maurice never knew it was missing. The detailer had the responsibility of securing the weapon.

  Later one of the women told Ruth that everyone appreciated the fact that the detailer, whoever she was, stood by her word and took care to find an easy gun for a woman to handle.

  “I was surprised, I think,” Ruth confessed to the two little girls, “by how the gun felt when I dropped down to pick up some tomatoes that had spilled from my bag.”

  Ruth remembered the early morning, the red vegetables tumbling through the wet, torn paper bag, the sun sliding across the porch, the shock of finding the weapon so neatly hidden, the coolness of the barrels.

  “But something happened to me there with my belly dipping low beneath my legs. And I stood there, completely calm, sliding my fingers up and down the shaft and along the trigger.”

  Olivia and Tree were quiet and wide-eyed. They waited for the final part of the story that they both knew had to be on the way.

  “At the time, I did not lift it or even pull it out to look at it. I just sat there on the ground feeling the wood and the steel.” The older woman glanced out across the street, watching the sun falling behind the trees and knowing that she still had at least an hour’s worth of work to finish.

  “Three days later when your father raised his hand and peered behind me and noticed our only son, your brother, E. Saul, and then looked at me like he had finally figured out a way to make me hate him for good, I did not hesitate one minute.”

  She stood up behind her daughter, stretched her back, with both of her hands sliding down her hips. “Not one minute,” she repeated.

  The color of the sky was as orange as Olivia had ever remembered seeing it and the little girl turned first to see the sun and then to the front of the house where she noticed a boy peeking at them from behind a curtain. She turned around to Ruth to hear the rest of her neighbor’s confession. Tree was facing the road in front of her, but Olivia could see that she had closed her eyes.

  “I took the gun and pulled the trigger one time.” She stopped and smoothed down the front of her apron-covered dress. “Just one time.”

  The little girl flinched as if she heard the shot.

  “So, yes, child, I killed your father. The law treated it as self-defense, did not arrest or charge me, but call it what you want, it remains as it was. I killed him.”

  The two girls were as still as wood.

  “And if my life was to play itself over, same people in it, same streaks of meanness even from the man I love, the man who could take a common afternoon and turn it into magic, I’d do it again.”

  The older woman bent down and picked up the three glasses, placed them on the tray, and started to walk up the steps.

  “I’m sorry, child, that you had to be brought into this world like that, that the man whose blood runs in your veins had such a twisted mind. But I suppose it’s good that you know the truth. I suppose it’s always best to know the truth.”

  She peered down at her daughter and paused as if she might say something more; but she just opened the door wide, and walked inside.

  Olivia and Tree got up from their seats on the steps of the back porch of the house where Ruth cleaned and cooked, afternoon shadows falling around them like misbehaving ghosts, and without a word between them, headed home.

  I’ve got a question

  this one I’ll keep

  is it best to dream only when I sleep?

  In the beginning, Olivia could tell that her mother pretended not to notice the changes. Not in her appetite. Not in the way dresses draped where they used to cling. Not in the way she could never get enough sleep. It seemed to her daughter that Mattie closed her eyes to the gray and ghostly image that stared back at her from the mirror and made herself believe that she was the twenty-something girl who could turn heads and open wallets with half a smile and the cut of her eyes.

  Olivia imagined that her mother pretended it was envy that she saw in women when they walked by the house, granting no possibility to the notion that it was nothing but simple pity that made them shake their heads and move to the other side of the street. And she did not seem to notice the deplorable dismissal from the men when they rode by, the men who used to pay, pretending instead that they turned her away when she called to them from the front porch because she was too rich for their poor blood. Olivia figured that Mattie made herself believe that she could still make a man beg and truly thought she was desirable.

  It seemed to the little girl that this pretense was the only way Mattie would get out of bed and go to the toilet, open the window, or choke down a piece of toast. Mattie’s game of make-believe was beggarly, even to a ten-year-old, but Olivia understood that if her mother couldn’t pretend, she could not survive. And even though the little girl could tell her mother was wasting away from disease and denial, that survival itself was primarily a fantasy, Mattie’s daughter would continue to do whatever it took to keep the woman alive.

  It was not because of anticipatory grief or even the fear of being an orphan that kept the little girl pushing and pulling her mother away from dying. That would have made more of the relationship than what there was. No, Olivia didn’t want her mother to die because she knew that without the presence of a mother, even a poor and sick one, she would be left to the care of strangers in thick black suits who carried briefcases with mounds of paperwork and who always assumed they knew what was best for children.

  Olivia had seen these people before. A couple, a man and a woman, both acting like they cared for the little girl and her brother, came sniffing around their house when Mattie was arrested and put in jail. She was drinking a lot those days, and she had apparently gotten mad at some old lover and thrown a beer bottle at him. Billy Ray told Roy how they had to wrestle his mama to the ground, she was so mad. “Like a bull,” the teenager told her brother.

  Olivia had overheard the two boys talking just before the social services personnel had come to their house asking questions about how many days the two children had missed at school, what they had for supper, and if Olivia had ever stayed by herself at night. When her mother
returned later that evening, the child walked Mattie to the bedroom, helped her undress, fixed her a bowl of butter and syrup, and vowed never to let strangers, especially those in dark wool suits with brown folders in their hands, in her house again.

  When Mattie got worse, Olivia, with the help of Ruth and Miss Nellie, nursed and cared for her. Even though her neighbors begged her to go to a doctor, her mother refused and Olivia was relieved. She was, after all, worried that if someone discovered how sick Mattie was, the man who wrote down everything she said and the woman who smiled just a little too much would return, forcing her to leave their little home at the edge of Smoketown. And Olivia, though certainly not rich or safe, could not fathom a life beyond the one she had.

  Finally, after Mattie took to the bed for good, having become unable to pay her rent, Kay Martha, concerned and frustrated, came by to collect. Her former employee was three months late with the rent; and the landlord was beginning to feel as if the young woman was taking advantage of her. She didn’t know that Mattie had gotten ill; she had only heard the gossip about the drinking and had seen the police reports that were printed in the local paper.

  It was Saturday, late in October, and the day was surprisingly warm for the passing autumn season. She walked from her shop, after closing early, and discovered that the sun was more intense than she had anticipated. She was dressed for a church revival service that was held later in the evening, a dark velvet dress with a long silk ribbon tied behind her waist. Her stockings clung to her legs while drops of sweat began to fall along her forehead, forming a tiny row of beads just at the band of her new red felt hat. She moved slowly at first and then sped up, wishing that she had waited until the following morning to make such a long and ambitious journey.

  The landlord arrived at the front door, knocked first, and then peeked in the window. She saw no movement in the house that she had made possible for the Jacobs family; and she stood for a few minutes, waiting and listening. She was about to leave the porch and head home, leaving a notice in the screen door, when Olivia came around the corner, holding a scrawny yellow kitten.

  “Hey, Miss Kay.” The girl smiled, surprised to see a visitor. Olivia liked the woman at the beauty salon where her mother used to work. She had always been cordial to the Jacobs children.

  “Hello, Olivia.” The woman in a hat and velvet dress remained standing at the front door. Olivia walked up the steps to join her. “Who you got there?” she asked, pulling at her dress that was sticking between her legs.

  “Oh, this is Butter,” the little girl answered, thinking that the woman was terribly overdressed for such a simple Saturday afternoon. “Me and Tree found her in a storm drain at the feed store.” She held the cat out to Kay Martha.

  The woman reached out and scratched the animal behind its ears. A drop of sweat fell from the side of her head. “Hmm,” she made a humming noise as if she had discovered something unexpected. “It appears it needs something to eat.”

  “Yeah, I was just going to get it some milk.” She walked past the woman to the door. “You want to come in?” Olivia opened the door and held it with her elbow. She was not considering the consequences of bringing her mother’s former boss into their home.

  Kay Martha walked in behind her, curious and unsure. The house was cold and dark, not at all a reflection of the afternoon sun, and she was glad for the shade and for a cool room. She turned toward her left and noticed that the door to the main bedroom was closed.

  She hadn’t seen Mattie in a number of weeks. A few months earlier, just at the end of summer, the young woman had started missing days at work and then, a couple of weeks later, she just finally quit showing up. Kay Martha had come by before but had never found anyone at home.

  “Your mama here?” The woman glanced around.

  Olivia put the kitten down and retrieved a can of milk that was on a shelf above the kitchen table. She found a saucer in the sink and poured a bit of the old milk into it and set it on the floor.

  Kay Martha peered into the kitchen. Most of the shelves were empty and dirty dishes were stacked on top of the stove and counters. She waited for the little girl to answer.

  “Mama is gone to town,” Olivia replied, rubbing the kitten as it drank the milk. She didn’t look at the woman since she was nervous about telling a lie.

  “Oh,” Kay Martha responded, glancing toward the rear of the house where she was sure she heard a rustling noise.

  “She had to run some errands,” she added. Olivia noticed the woman’s focus. She heard her mother stirring and the little girl stood up and moved to the doorway. “That’s our dog. He must just be waking up.”

  Kay Martha nodded. “You have a dog and now a cat?” she asked, having no memory of the Jacobs family bringing a pet in the house. She knew that Mattie never liked animals.

  Olivia bit her bottom lip and turned in the direction of her mother’s room. “Yes, mam. It’s a big dog too. I suppose you might not want to see it.” She was hoping now that the woman she had invited in would leave.

  “I don’t mind big dogs,” Kay Martha replied suspiciously, her hat now cocked to one side. “Is he in the bedroom?” The woman started through the door, moving past the child.

  Olivia jumped in front of her. “I don’t think you want to go in there,” she said, her voice suddenly loud and nervous. “He’s sometimes real mean.”

  Kay Martha could tell that the little girl was trying to keep her from entering the rear of the house; and she hesitated, considering that there could be something terribly wrong and that maybe she should check on things. She had been worried about Mattie since she quit coming to work and wasn’t sure if she was just staying drunk or if she was sick and in need of assistance.

  Kay Martha paused, however, before she kept moving and noticed that there was a look about the little girl, a sort of desperation in her eyes, the need to keep her mother from being seen. She didn’t know if it was shame or fear that kept the little girl so guarded; but the woman dressed for evening worship didn’t go any further. She decided to honor the walls the child was building.

  She studied Olivia and saw the signs of frailty, of a loose recklessness, and decided that she didn’t need the rent payment anyway. She hadn’t seen the boy, Roy, in a long time; so she didn’t know of his condition. She didn’t even know if he was still in the home, though there were signs of a teenage boy evident throughout the house.

  Before she left she waffled in her decision to leave things alone in the Jacobs house. She considered that Olivia would be turned over to the state and would get better care in a government facility than she did in that little house, that Mattie would be better off too. But the flash in the young girl’s eyes, the apparent need to hold on to her mother, and an obviously deep attachment to a neighbor child kept Kay Martha from changing her mind. She assumed the woman next door, the one who helped her deliver Olivia, was taking care of them anyway, so she finally became clear that she would not intervene.

  “Okay, Olivia.” She cleared her throat. “I won’t check on your big dog.” She straightened her hat and stuck the notice of past due payments in her purse that hung at her elbow.

  “Just tell your mother that I stopped by and if you need me, if she needs me, you come by the shop and find me.”

  “Yes, mam, I will.” Olivia walked the woman to the door and held it open.

  Kay Martha stopped and turned toward Mattie’s room and then again to the little girl. She sighed and then walked out the door. Olivia stood watching as the woman headed up the street toward town. Then she closed the door and went into her mother’s room.

  Mattie, lost and unaware, did not recognize the goodness of a friend. She didn’t know of the debts that her former boss and landlord paid. She wouldn’t know that Kay Martha began buying the family groceries and paying their bills.

  She breathed. She took in. She let out. But beyond that, she was void. She had long since lost her role as mother. Since the bonds had been so flimsy from the begi
nning, it was not difficult to believe that she had become detached. Just as she had managed not to see the rest of her reality, she pretended not to see the son who grew more violent as his body changed from a boy’s to a man’s.

  She turned away when he leaned into the other child, throwing aside the memories of her own father’s heavy hand and angry temper. She tugged the pillow over her head to silence the blows that she knew the younger girl was taking. And as the pretending grew more and more difficult, Mattie slept.

  It was a dreamless sleep and fretful, filled with the tossing and turning of undecided hope, marked by the too-deep wounds of life. The disease just below the surface of Mattie’s flesh was nothing compared to the temptation to forget larger and larger pieces of her life. So that as the cancer of her memory grew, gaps in her life widened and began to pull her down with a force greater than the multiplication of irregular cells, more destructive than forgetfulness, and without the mercy of time.

  Mattie, unable or unwilling to comprehend, was, however, visited by snatches of tenderness even though she could not remember the faces or the names. Kindness changed her sheets and soothed her sores. The small childlike hands of her daughter would pull a blanket to her chin, brush her hair, feed her fingerfuls of jelly, and spoons of sweet milk. Mattie would lightly stroke the hands that cared for her, trying to call out a name, trying to capture the angel. But bit by bit, little by little, Mattie began to die.

  Her daughter’s vigilance, however, the one pair of tender hands that visited her, pulling her up and through hour upon hour, kept death at bay. Time and time again, night and day, minute after minute, as the woman pleaded for her passing to come, one child willed it not to be so, her determination so fierce it pumped life through Mattie’s veins.