I didn’t move right away. If I could see into her face, maybe there would still be a little love there. If it was gone, all was lost for me. I had nowhere else to go.
“Go on.” She turned from me to go back outside.
Much as I wanted to stomp my feet hard against the stairs as I went up to the room, I didn’t. I trod lightly, wishing I could just disappear.
I watched the rest of the picnic from out the bedroom window. After a bit, folks took their serving dishes and headed on home. Once they were all gone, Aunt Carrie and Mama started the work of cleaning up the plates and glasses and Uncle Gus folded up the tables and Ray got all the chairs.
Daddy stood off to one side of the yard with the man we’d met at the diner not a handful of days before. Winston, the mayor of Bliss. From what I could tell, those two men were talking business and I wished real hard I could hear what they were saying. I tried reading their lips, but both men had mustaches that made it next to impossible.
Daddy glanced up and, seeing me watching him, nodded his head once at me. I didn’t smile at him or wave even. I didn’t mind him seeing just how miserable I was right then.
I remembered reading about all the princesses in fairy tales that’d gotten locked up in towers by wicked stepmothers or witches or ogres. Difference between me and them, though, was they’d never done anything to deserve that punishment.
Winston left after a couple minutes, getting into an old jalopy that was so rusted it almost looked red. Daddy went about helping everybody finish picking up the yard.
I rolled over on my back and shut my eyes, not falling asleep but wishing I could. I stayed that way until I heard knuckles on the door. It was Daddy, I just knew it.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
I told him he could if he wanted to.
He stood in front of me, his hands on his hips and looking like the most handsome thing God ever did see fit to create. When God had knit Daddy in Meemaw’s womb, He’d put extra time in to give him the kindest eyes and the warmest smile.
“How’re you doing, Pearl?” He reached into his shirt pocket for a cigarette but, finding none, came to sit beside me on my bed.
“All right, I guess,” I answered.
“Your mama was upset …” He didn’t finish and I was glad because I was afraid of what he might say. “She got scared about you wandering off like that. It made her think of …”
Of Beanie, I thought. The way Daddy’s eyebrows pushed together for just a second made me think that was exactly what he’d meant.
“Your mama was …” He paused and breathed in deep. “I guess we were just wanting you to make a few friends. Seems your mama was upset you didn’t make nice with those girls.”
What I didn’t say was that I didn’t need any friends besides Ray and that I never was one for playing dress up or house with the other girls. Never would be.
What I did say was that I wondered if Mama was still mad at me.
“Nah,” he answered. “It’s just, since Beanie … Since she died, your mama is scared to lose you, too.”
“She is?”
“Course.” He nodded. “We don’t know what we’d do if anything happened to you. And when you were sick we were real afraid.”
We stayed quiet a minute or two and I gnawed at the inside of my cheek, trying my very best not to start boo-hooing.
“I thought she was fixing to whup me,” I said, shrugging.
“Well, maybe she was. But only because you mean a lot to her.” He rubbed at his chin. “I’m not going to punish you. I think missing out on the picnic was enough.”
I didn’t tell him that I hadn’t minded too much.
“What I wanna know, though, is why you did it.” He turned and looked me full in the face. “Why’d you run off into the woods like that?”
“I wanted to show those kids how brave I was.”
He mm-hmmed.
I nodded. “One of the girls asked if I was a hillbilly.”
Daddy tossed his head back and gave a full laugh. When he’d finished he tsked his tongue. “Nah. We aren’t hillbillies. Just Okies.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Now,” he said, squinting his eyes at me. “You wanted those kids to think you were brave, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Pearl, I don’t know that I’ve ever known a girl as brave as you. Heck, you’re even braver than some full-grown men I’ve met.”
“I am?” I asked.
“Sure you are.” He nodded. “But being brave isn’t taking a foolish risk. Folks who are brave don’t have to prove their courage to anybody.”
He put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him.
“You wanna know who you remind me of?” Daddy asked.
“Who?”
“Meemaw. She never could pass on a dare.” He smiled at a memory. “I heard one time she jumped on the back of a horse that wasn’t broke yet just because someone called her chicken.”
“Is that true?”
“Don’t know.” He put his hand on the back of my head. “Part of me hopes it is true. Even if it isn’t, you get your grit from her, I do believe.”
The whole rest of that Saturday evening I tried to picture Meemaw holding on for dear life to a wild horse just to prove she wasn’t scared.
I got my grit from her. I did like the sound of that.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
What I liked most about the church in Bliss was the way sunshine bled through the colored-glass windows, staining the white walls blue and red, green and yellow. What I liked almost as much was how the preacher didn’t holler his sermons at us or call down God’s wrath on our heads.
Instead he gave us the Word of the Lord with gentleness and a calm voice.
Meemaw might’ve thought he didn’t have the Spirit or that he needed a little fire in his belly. But the way he kept his words smooth and his eyes smiling made me feel like God might be glad to give mercy after all.
I liked listening to that kind of teaching just fine.
The sermon that day was on the man named Hosea, how he’d married a “sinful woman.” I knew he meant a woman who got paid to fornicate with men. Back home in Red River, Pastor Anderson would’ve used a harder word for that woman, one that growled up from the back of his throat.
But there in Bliss, the preacher didn’t use harsh words for Gomer. He spoke of her like she’d been a real woman with struggles just like the rest of us.
Just like Winnie. I knew she’d been a “sinful woman.” Pastor back in Red River had said so, more than once, right in the middle of his sermon.
That minister stood behind the pulpit and said how God had told Hosea that he best love that woman named Gomer. And He told him that he best take her back in his arms as many times as she returned to him after being with another man.
It was the way God welcomed sinners back to Himself.
Winnie and Gomer were sisters in my mind. Difference was nobody’d come along to rescue Winnie. Not like Gomer’d been rescued by Hosea.
He’d come to save her on account he loved her. Didn’t seem like anyone had ever loved Winnie, leastways not like that.
Every once in a while I pretended she wasn’t dead. I never would’ve told Mama that, Daddy either. But I let myself think on that daydream sometimes.
I’d imagine she’d climbed up out of Eddie’s cellar right along with me, her stomach whole, her eyes alive. That she’d gotten herself a train ticket to someplace pretty and green where she could start over and forget about all the bad that had been in her life. I just hoped she wouldn’t have forgotten about me all the way.
I imagined her in a new dress, a nice blue one that matched her eyes. She’d wear her hair fresh curled and her face washed of all the paint she’d brushed on it. She’d look like herself.
She’d look like me.
The house she lived in would be a good one with flowers in the window boxes and a yard full of grass. Maybe she’d even have a cat sitting in the
window, watching the birds that nested in the tree.
Winnie would wait by the door for her husband to come home from work. He’d be a clean-shaved man who wore a sharp suit and tie and had a kit that he kept in the hall closet to shine his shoes. He’d kiss her soft and tell her how glad he was to see her. Then he’d touch her stomach and ask how the baby was.
She’d keep that baby and raise it. She’d love it and watch it grow. He’d make for a good father and he’d teach that child all it needed to know about the world and family, and God even.
They’d never, ever leave that child.
Winnie would stay true to him and to that baby. At least that was how I pictured it in my mind. And for her great faithfulness, Winnie would have life brand-new.
Sitting there beside Mama in the church pew, the stained-glass window making a red puddle of light on my legs, I could’ve kicked myself. I’d gone and made a fairy tale.
All the wishing in the world for Winnie to be happy was nothing more than spitting into the wind. It was too late for her and I knew it full well.
After Sunday dinner Mama told me she’d like me to get a little rest. I asked if I could spread a blanket out in the yard to relax in the sun. She said that was fine just so long as I didn’t wander off someplace. The way she raised her eyebrow told me she was still sore about me running off in the woods the day before.
I promised I’d stay put and I did intend to hold to it.
I lay on my back under the sky, squinting up and finding stories in the clouds. A marooned pirate crew on an island surrounded by man-eating sharks. A race between three horses and one giant rat. A mermaid twisting her way through the seawater to the surface, her hair billowing all around her head.
My eyes got lazy feeling and I let my lids close, feeling sleep gather me in its arms.
“It certainly is a nice day.”
The voice woke me right up and I rolled to my side to see Aunt Carrie walking my way with a couple glasses of lemonade.
“I wondered if you would like a little company,” she said.
“I’d like that,” I told her, making room so she could sit beside me.
She handed me a glass. The lemonade was cold and sweet and tart. I took small sips hoping to make it last. I liked the way it stung the back of my tongue and how it cooled me all the way through.
Aunt Carrie tipped her head back, her eyes wandering the sky. I liked to think she was seeing pictures in the clouds, too. If she did, she didn’t say so just then.
“Did you make a few friends yesterday?” she asked. “I saw you with the girls.”
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I’m not sure they liked me so much.”
“Some girls are that way.” She took a sip from her glass. “Some girls are difficult to understand.”
“One of them said she was real rich.”
“Let me guess,” Aunt Carrie said, turning her face toward me. “Hazel Wheeler.”
I told her that was the one.
“I suppose they are comfortable. They come from what some of us would call ‘old money.’ They didn’t end up losing so much in the crash as others.” She leaned toward me and nudged me with her shoulder. “You aren’t jealous of Hazel, are you?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered even though I might’ve been just a little.
“I’m glad.” She pointed at a puff of cloud. “It’s a cat with a monkey riding its back.”
“And that there’s a turtle flying an airplane,” I said, glad for her to play the game with me.
We traded cloud stories until we’d run out. Still, we sat in the nice day, our glasses empty on the grass beside us.
“Even rich people have troubles,” she said after a few minutes of quiet. “You know that, don’t you?”
“I guess so.”
“They do. It’s true.” She smoothed her skirt and crossed her ankles. “No one makes it through life without some kind of trial.”
I knew she was right even if I wished she wasn’t.
“Soon enough you’ll find that even the Wheelers have struggles,” she said.
“I can’t imagine they do.”
“Believe me, Pearl. They’ve got more than their share.”
She stood and offered me her hand and I took it, letting her pull me to my feet. She didn’t let go as we walked back to the house.
Holding hands with her felt like coming home.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ray’s favorite place to be in all of Bliss, Michigan, was up in the old tree Aunt Carrie had told us was called a weeping willow. Ray would scurry up the trunk and relax into its branches. I would stay on the ground, hollering up about how unfair it was of him to go where I couldn’t well follow.
“Come on then,” Ray called to me between two branches.
We’d been in Bliss more than a week and I was gaining in strength. Still, pulling my full weight up a tree seemed impossible. I felt the bark, running my fingers along its grooves and ridges, working up my nerve to at least try climbing. But my nerve kept finding reason to stay away.
“You can see all the way into town from up here,” Ray said.
“Can’t either.”
“See for yourself.”
“I can’t, Ray,” I told him.
“You ain’t tried.” His face disappeared behind a branch thick as my thigh.
“I got a dress on.”
“Don’t matter.”
“Does too.” An ant crawled up the tree lugging something on its back. It changed route to avoid my finger. How lucky the little critter was, not having to worry about being ladylike.
“You need yourself a pair of pants,” Ray told me. “I bet your mama’d make you a pair.”
“Nuh-uh. She never would,” I answered him. “If I so much as asked, she’d make me copy from the Bible where it says women shouldn’t dress like men.”
“It don’t say that in the Bible.”
“Sure it does.”
“Where at?”
“Well, I don’t know exactly, but God did say it.” I picked at the bark, pulling a loose piece off between my fingers. “You don’t see men wearing dresses, do ya? Mama isn’t like to let me wear slacks.”
“If you say so,” Ray said.
The leaves rustled and I could tell it was because he was climbing higher and higher up. I pouted, even though I knew he’d never see it, and sat down at the bottom of the tree, leaning against it and closing my eyes. I sat like that for more than a couple minutes feeling sorry for myself.
“Hey, you awake?” Ray asked, his upside down face hovering near my head.
“Uh-huh,” I told him, looking up to see how he was dangling from a branch by just his bent legs. “Be careful.”
“I ain’t gonna fall.” He pulled himself up and swung down to the ground. “I been thinkin’.”
“Yeah?”
“I been thinkin’ about writin’ a letter to my ma,” he said. “I figure she might wanna hear from me.”
“You need help?”
“Can’t do it on my own.”
“All right, then,” I said, glad to be needed.
The two of us went inside and Aunt Carrie told us we could use a couple pieces of her good stationary. It was real pretty with sweet little daisies bordering all the way along the edge. She even let us use her ink pen. It wrote smooth, she told me, but I worried about making a mistake without a chance of erasing it.
Ray and I sat at the little table in Aunt Carrie’s kitchen. He leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his chin and sticking his tongue out the side of his mouth. I didn’t rush him. I knew he was thinking real hard.
“I ain’t never wrote a letter to nobody before,” he whispered, leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table.
“It’s not too hard,” I told him, smoothing the paper against the table-top. “You wanna start with ‘Dear Mama’?”
“Write ‘Dear Ma,’” he said, watching real close as I moved the pen over the page, nodding like he was giving me his ap
proval.
I tried my best to keep my hand steady, to make the letters clear and neat. To keep the ink from splattering all over the place. It had been months since I’d written so much as my own name, though, what with the school closing down and me being sick. My hand started hurting before I got down even those two words.
“Tell her I’m happy here,” he said. “Tell her there’s green grass all over the place and that I ain’t seen even a speck of dust. Not no dirt, neither.”
“Sure there’s dirt,” I said, looking up at him. “How else would the grass grow?”
“You know what I mean.” He pointed at the paper. “Write it down anyhow. Maybe she’ll wanna come if she thinks there ain’t dirt she’s gotta clean up.”
I wrote what he told me, sighing when I couldn’t remember how a certain word was spelled. Then again, I didn’t know that Mrs. Jones would mind so much if I misspelled a word or two. Probably she wouldn’t even know the difference.
“And tell her she could maybe find a job up here,” he told me, leaning over the page and watching me write. “Put down that if she comes we’ll get a place all our own. Tell her I’ll get a job, too, so we can make rent.”
“Slow down,” I said. “I don’t wanna rush.”
He waited, letting me catch up, but tapping his foot to let me know he was short on patience. I felt him watching and it made me nervous. Still, I wrote what he told me to. I didn’t ask him where she’d get a job or if he’d stay out of school to work. All I did was write that letter as he said it.
“That it?” I asked once I’d caught up. “Anything else?”
“Tell her that I miss her somethin’ awful.” He waited a minute. “Got it?”
“Uh-huh,” I answered. “You wanna sign it?”
He took the pen and slid the paper in front of himself. His whole hand wrapped around the pen. It took him near as long to write the three letters of his name as it had for me to write the whole thing.
I thought sure he’d rip through the paper, he pushed down so hard.
Once he was done he looked up at me like he was real proud.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him he’d made his R backward.
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