“Shouldn’t we go inside with the others?” I asked. I don’t want to be alone with him.
“No, we need to talk, just you and I.” I saw Francine’s kitchen curtain move. She’s watching. If the policeman noticed, he didn’t say. He took out a little notebook and a pen.
“Your baby’s dead,” he said.
He’s mixed up. She was asking for her bottle just last night. She can’t be dead. Not Jamie.
He waited, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Not Jamie.
He never took his eyes off my face. “She looked pretty roughed-up,” he said. “How many times did he hit her?”
“He never hit her.” I couldn’t believe he’d said that.
His face was full of disgust. “That’s not how it looks to me. There was blood all over the crib.”
“He never hit her.” He isn’t writing what I said. It doesn’t count.
“What about those bruises? He ever hit you?”
“No. He never hit anyone.” I spoke louder, and the curtain moved again. But I knew Francine couldn’t help.
“If you don’t tell the truth, you could get charged along with him.”
“He never hit Jamie. Or me. Ever, ever. That’s the truth!”
“You can lie if you want to, but you can’t change what happened.”
Now that is the truth. I can’t change what happened. I ought to feel something, but my feelings are wrapped in something padded. Like a movers’ quilt.
Richard and his policeman came out into the yard. His policeman said something to me, but I didn’t understand. My policeman stood up, and the three of them walked down the drive. I heard the car doors closing.
Francine came back as soon as they left. “My God, Kathy, what happened?”
I couldn’t say anything—I sort of flapped my hand down the drive, where I’d had my last look at Jamie, not Jamie, a sheet pulled up all the way. A sheet-covered lump, like Sharon and me when we used to play ghost. Jamie’s a ghost. I was shaking.
“What happened? Was she sick?” Francine insisted.
“A cold. Not real sick. I didn’t think. . . .” I shivered in the morning heat.
“Where’s Richard?” she asked.
I made myself pay attention to what Francine was saying. She was as small and far off as a puppet play. “The police.”
“Oh, Jesus, honey. Jesus. Your folks know?”
“No, I have to call them now.” I turned away to go back to the house.
She put a hand on my arm. I couldn’t feel any warmth where she touched me. “Wait, Kathy,” she said. “Come over to my place—you can use the phone in my guest room.”
“Richard might call,” I told her. “I have to be home.”
I wanted to go back into the house. Jamie will be in there, waking up, wondering what all the fuss is about. She couldn’t have gone away. She isn’t old enough to go anywhere on her own.
“Soon as he does, come over, cher. I’ll be waiting for you.” She hugged me with a heliotrope smell.
“Sure, Francine.” Thank God she’s going.
The house was quiet and messy. I better clean up. Strangers came in. . . . They must have thought we’re hippies, same as Mom does. I picked up the newspaper and Richard’s pillow. Jamie’s new Raggedy Ann is on the floor. It’s going to get dirty. I propped it up in the corner of the crib. Maybe I should tell it.
“Jamie died,” I said. “I have to make some calls.” The doll watched me dial the phone.
Sharon wasn’t home. I called my parents’ number.
“Woodbridge.” Dad’s voice.
“Jamie’s dead,” I said. “She died in her sleep.” My voice is as flat as the lady’s voice that says the time and weather.
“No.” He sounded the way he did when I was little, when I did something bad.
“Jamie’s dead.”
“My God, what happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, God. Let me talk to Richard, honey.”
“He’s not here. He left with the police.”
Dad’s end of the phone went quiet.
“Dad?”
“Sorry. Kathy, oh God, Kathy, I don’t know what to say. Your mother and I will be right there. We’re leaving now.” He hung up.
I put the phone down and sat on the bed, empty-handed. I didn’t answer when Francine knocked, but she pushed the door open and came in anyway.
“You talk to your folks?”
“Dad’s coming.”
“I called Martin and Eddie. You can’t be alone now, Kathy. Come over to my place.”
“I can’t. Richard might call.”
Another knock, and Thu and Martin came in. “Where are Dom and Joss?” I asked. You can’t leave little kids alone. Something bad will happen to them if you do.
Thu looked puzzled. “We left them with a neighbor.” She put her arm around my shoulders. “You shouldn’t stay here, Kathy. Come and stay with us.”
“I can’t.” They all say the same things. The padded feeling was getting stronger, quilts between me and everyone else.
Eddie ran in. “My God, doll, what happened?”
I couldn’t answer. I looked down at my knees and shook my head. Something strange had happened to words—they didn’t work anymore. I was a foreigner who didn’t speak the language. I let go and sank into the soft numbness. As hot as it was, I was shivering, so I lay down and curled into a ball. Someone put a blanket over me.
I heard something beyond the words bouncing around the room. Why, that’s Jamie talking. That’s funny, she isn’t old enough to really talk yet. I listened harder, like tuning in to a faraway radio station, and Jamie’s voice wound on and on. I felt such relief, listening to it. The language she was speaking was my language. That was where I wanted to be, in that peace, listening to Jamie. Someone jiggled my shoulder, but I wouldn’t go back.
When I woke, the room was dim and quiet. I sat up and looked around. Francine and Dad were sitting at the table. Mom wasn’t there. Maybe she’s lying down at Francine’s. As soon as I thought it, I knew how idiotic it was to hope that. But I couldn’t help it.
“Richard called,” said Francine.
“You should have woken me.”
“We tried,” she said. “You wouldn’t wake up.”
“What did he say?”
Francine glanced at Dad.
“Richard’s been arrested,” he said. “I offered to pay his bail, but he wouldn’t discuss it.”
“Arrested? What for?”
“Second-degree murder.”
“But he didn’t do anything. Why did they arrest him?” I tried to imagine Richard, what he looked like, what he might be doing, but I didn’t even come up with an outline, let alone anything like Richard.
“He wasn’t specific. Apparently there’s some kind of evidence.” Dad stood up and switched on the light. He turned his head and the glare caught his glasses. I couldn’t see his eyes.
He was wearing his gardening jeans and a T-shirt he’d bought on a family trip. “Bullfrog Gold Mine” was marqueed across it. The day he bought it, he put it on right away. The desert sun made the glitter blaze across his chest. Dad the superhero.
Now the glitter was tarnished and flaking, and the shirt had an L-shaped rip. I wondered if I should get my sewing kit and fix it. I stared at it, planning stitches. I’d have to be careful at the corner, or it would pucker.
I jerked my mind back—Francine was standing up. “I have to go over to my place,” she said. “I’ll see you later.” She shut the screen door carefully behind her, not letting it slap, the way we usually did.
“What else did Richard say?” I asked Dad.
“Just that he had to get off the phone. And he thinks it would make it worse if we visit.”
“Worse?” I still felt groggy.
“I hate to say it, but he may be right about that. He said he’d call again when he gets a chance.”
“Oh.”
Dad sat beside me on the edge
of the bed. “Look, honey, I know how awful this is for you. Would it make it easier if I take care of the arrangements?”
“What arrangements?”
“Well, the funeral. Things like that.”
“I hadn’t thought.”
“No, no, I guess not. But we have some plots at Greenoaks—I don’t know if I ever told you that. I’d like to bury her there—that’s where your mom and I will be someday. Let me take care of it for you, please?” He sounded like he was going to cry.
“Well, if you can. I don’t know what to do. Could you call Sharon? I tried earlier, but she wasn’t home.”
“Sam and Sharon are in Hawaii—medical convention. I put in a call to their hotel, but it sounded pretty chaotic. Anyway, I’m sure they’ll call before long.”
“Did Mom come with you?”
“No.” This time, Dad didn’t give an excuse.
I felt groggy again. “Would you mind if I took a nap now, Dad? I’m worn out.”
“Why don’t you settle down in Francine’s guest room? That way, I can make some calls from here. I’m sure she’d be glad to put you up. Maybe I’ll stay the night and we’ll go back to Baton Rouge together in the morning.” He sounded tired and old.
“Okay. Why don’t you stay with her, though, like you did before?”
“I have an idea she’d like some company. You know, another woman, that sort of thing.”
“I see.” He’s right. I have to take care of Francine. She loved Jamie, and she must be terribly upset. Someone should stay with her, hug her and give her some comfort. Good thing Dad thought of it. . . . I’ll get a few things together, go right over and help her. I looked around my place. “It’s sort of messy here, though. I meant to clean up, but I didn’t have time. There’s food in the refrigerator.”
I got some pajamas out of the drawer, and my toothbrush, things like that. Dad walked me over to Francine’s. He didn’t say any more about Richard. Maybe he didn’t know what he could say. Like me.
When Francine let us in, I hugged her. I didn’t want her to be too sad.
“You take a rest now, cher,” she said. “Fais dodo for Francine.” That was a good idea. She led me to her guest room, and I fell into the bed and went right to sleep.
The next morning, I woke up just long enough to take the packed suitcase Francine handed me, put it into Dad’s car, and get in. I waved good-bye to her and scrunched against the car door. I slept all the way to Baton Rouge. When we got there, I headed straight for my old room and sat on the bed.
Maybe Mom will come in. Maybe she’ll say she’s sorry about Jamie.
I lay down, remembering to kick off my shoes so I wouldn’t mess up the bedspread. The house was completely quiet—no sound of voices, no footsteps in the hallway.
Stupid, stupid. When do I quit hoping? Mom doesn’t want to be with me. I’ll never understand her. I’d give anything to be with Jamie. Wherever she is.
~ 26 ~
February 1975
New Orleans
Lacey
Willis went to the kitchenette and looked in the refrigerator. I heaved our suitcase onto the bed and unpacked. Sorted our clothes and put his into the empty top drawer of the dresser. I opened the second to put in mine, but it was full of men’s things, more or less crammed in. I opened the one beneath it.
“Lacey, for God’s sake,” Willis protested, looking up from opening a soda can. “You gonna ransack the place, now?”
“I’m not hurting anything, Willis.” This third drawer was half-full of women’s clothes. I held up a shirt. Just about Kathy’s size, I thought. I closed that drawer and opened the bottom one.
It was full of little overalls, shirts, socks. Diapers. Baby things. I caught my breath and pulled out a little pink sweater to show Willis.
He wasn’t paying attention—he was opening a kitchen cabinet to get a glass. But he got a surprise of his own. The shelves were filled with baby food—cereal, fruit in jars, even a nursing bottle. He stared as a rubber nipple rolled out and bounced on the counter. He blinked a couple of times. The nipple didn’t go away.
I set my folded clothes on top of the dresser, making room by pushing aside a piggy bank. On an impulse, I grabbed the piggy and gave it a good shake.
“Lacey, what in hell are you doing?” Willis yelped.
I ignored him. Something was rustling in the piggy. The big rubber stopper in its stomach came out with a pop. I fished out a roll of dingy hundred-dollar bills. Ten of them.
“Lacey, don’t!” He set his soda on the table and headed in my direction. I stuffed the money back in the piggy, then went to the closet and jerked the door open.
“Lacey!”
“Willis, there’s a folded-up baby crib in here!” Behind it, I discovered a lovely dress, about a size two. Dusty and squashed, but almost unworn. White eyelet with limp pink ribbons. The tags swung from its pink padded hanger.
I pulled an album from the closet shelf. Willis, forgetting his scruples, craned his neck behind me as I opened it. Photographs. Professional photographs. One of a young child, a black child, wearing the beautiful little dress. Another of an older white man holding the child. Kathy holding the child. Kathy and a sullen-looking young black man. The child was nestled up to Kathy. Four pages of the album used, then nothing.
Willis sat heavily on the bed. “Oh, my God,” was all he said.
I couldn’t think of a word to add. If the house was the way Kathy left it, something had happened there. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to know what. Richard was black. Kathy and Richard had a child. A child that didn’t need her clothes anymore, didn’t need her brand-new party dress. A child that didn’t need her mother anymore. And Richard was in prison.
“Didn’t need her mother. . . .” I’d been mouthing that one for a while, hadn’t I? Running a little pity party for myself. Now I felt like the biggest fool in the world. I’d thought I had problems, when I was as well off as a woman could get—my daughter so smart and strong and healthy, my daughter who didn’t need me because everything had gone the way it was supposed to.
Not quite the same as Kathy, was it? Kathy, with her four-page family album. I felt ashamed that I’d snooped through her private things, and I couldn’t think of one thing I could do to help her.
As we showered and changed for the dinner, we fussed over details to use up the time. I put on makeup and removed all of it. Willis took the laces out of his shoes and threaded them back in. Six o’clock finally came.
Neither of us was in the mood to meet Kathy’s friends. I dreaded having to make conversation.
We trailed silently across the patio to Francine’s. I didn’t have one idea what we could say when we got there. I was kicking myself for another reason—we were stuck. The only places in New Orleans where we could possibly get a room now would be hot-sheet motels.
Francine opened the door and led us into a room full of people. They all introduced themselves, and I was careful to keep them sorted out. Sharon and a redheaded man who turned out to be her husband, Sam. Eddie, of course. An Oriental woman whose name sounded like Too. Her husband, Martin, good-looking man with an Australian accent. He was in a wheelchair. They had a couple of little boys. Ten people, counting the kids. One good thing—I had maneuvered Willis into doing the talking.
~ 27 ~
July 1974
Baton Rouge
Kathy
When I couldn’t make myself sleep anymore, the sky was indigo and late summer stars were starting to show. I got up, a little shaky, and decided to see if I could find some orange juice in the kitchen. As I started down the hall, barefoot on the shag carpet, I heard Mom’s voice from the dining room.
“Alan, I don’t know why you wanted to bury her at Greenoaks. I refuse to spend eternity next to a colored child.”
“She was our granddaughter, Virginia.” Dad sounded shocked.
“And have the funeral at All Saints, for heaven’s sake. At least it’s closed-casket.”
I st
opped where I was. I can’t exactly go in and say hi after that.
“Let’s talk about something else.” Sharon’s voice.
So, they’d come home from Hawaii. I wish I could see Sharon, but not if I have to go in there.
“Well, maybe it’s for the best after all,” Mom went on, ignoring Sharon’s protest. “Kathy can go back to school. No one has to know. She’ll meet someone else.”
I sucked in my breath hard before I remembered I didn’t want them to hear me. To make sure it didn’t happen again, I clapped my hand over my mouth.
“What about Richard?” asked Sam. He sounded gruff.
“He’s been arrested, you know.” Mom again.
“No, I didn’t. Alan and I didn’t have a chance to talk when he called. Why was he arrested?”
“I guess they think he did it. He is a little disturbed. Last time Alan went down there, Richard nearly hit him.”
“Ginny, that’s not so!” Dad said. “I felt nervous, but he didn’t do anything.”
A chair scraped. Something was set down with a sharp clink. “Why do they think he did it?” Sam asked.
“Alan says she was bruised and there was blood on the sheets. And she was all huddled into the corner of the crib.” Mom’s voice sounds smug, almost happy.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” Sam answered sharply. “Those are common features of infant deaths, including natural ones. What did the autopsy find?”
“There wasn’t one,” Dad said.
“There wasn’t an autopsy? Didn’t the parish do it? Didn’t they require it?” Sam’s voice was incredulous.
“No,” Dad told him. “Orleans Parish requires them, but Jefferson doesn’t. Kathy could have asked for one if she’d wanted it.”
“You didn’t talk to her about it?” Sam’s tone was beyond incredulous, almost accusing.
“No, I didn’t want to mention it. I mean, you being a doctor and all, it probably seems normal to you to slice someone up. I don’t think Kathy could have stood the idea. She’s not in good shape at all, Sam. She was crazy about Jamie.”
“She loves Richard, too, and he’s charged with a serious crime. He could go to prison for life. I can’t believe you’re burying the only evidence that could have cleared him.” I’d never heard Sam so angry before.
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