by Bev Marshall
His mouth moved to my ear.“I saw the look in your eyes; you leaned so close to move the pillow because you wanted me to feel your breasts against me.You want this as much as I do.”
I pushed against him as hard as I could, breaking out of his grip, but before I could get up, he grabbed my arm and flung me down on the bed beside him. He fell on top of me, pinning me down on the soft blue sheets. I bucked and kicked like a wild horse at the rodeo, but I couldn’t throw him. One hand moved to my hair and he yanked my head so hard tears came to my eyes. His other hand was pulling up my T-shirt, working his fingers beneath my bra. I slapped at his head, his back, pounded him with my fists, and tried over and over to get my knee up to his loins, but Wallace didn’t seem to feel my nails scraping his back. I could feel his legs against mine as he squirmed on top of me trying to release his penis from the flap of his boxer shorts that was my only protection.This will not happen, I told myself. I remembered Roland and I knew how quickly and easily he could get what he wanted.This will not happen, I screamed inside. But it was happening.Wallace held my wrists with one hand, jerking my shorts and panties off with his other. With the weight of his body pressing down on me, horror washed over me as I felt his skin against my thighs.
I must have been screaming because I didn’t hear Mama come home, but there she was standing beside the bed with the 7-Up bottle in her hand. I think she yelled “You son of a bitch” or something like that before she slung the bottle across his head with so much force, it broke, and glass and sticky 7-Up rained down on us both. I squeezed my eyes shut as I felt Wallace rolling off me onto the floor. Mama was yelling. “You bastard, you piece of shit.”Wallace cried out something I couldn’t understand that maybe was the word “Don’t.”
When I opened my eyes and raised up on my elbow, across the room I saw Mama’s purse lying on the floor where she had thrown it. I heard Wallace thrashing on the floor.When Mama lifted her head, she looked up at me and whispered, “I think I killed him.”
I sat up and looked down to where Mama knelt in a pond of blood and saw Wallace’s red-spattered face beside her knees. Beneath his jaw a jagged shard of 7-Up bottle stuck out of his neck like a triangular bow tie. “I think you did,” I said.
Mama rocked back on her heels and pressed her lips together. Neither of us moved or spoke as we stared into each other’s faces acknowledging a truth that we’d never expected in our lifetime to share. Finally, Mama said, “Are you okay? Did he rape you?”
“Noooo,” I said.“You saved me,” and then we were crying and holding each other as we huddled on the far side of the bed. I don’t know how long we sat shivering as though we were locked in a freezer afraid to look past each other’s faces to where Wallace lay making no sounds now. I remember thinking we could call an ambulance, that maybe he wasn’t dead, but I knew he was. I’d seen his eyes staring at the ceiling emptied of his black soul.
When it was dark, Mama eased off the bed. “I’ll call Pop,” she said. “He’ll know what ... what to do about ... about ... about what we have to have to.”
I nodded like she was making perfect sense. “Okay.”
After I pulled on my panties and shorts, we waited for Papaw in the den sitting side by side on the couch in front of the coffee table, Mama overlooking northern Mississippi and me the southern counties. Mama had a lot more blood on her than I did, but now I noticed small drops dotting my right arm. I shivered. It was Wallace’s blood, and jumping up, I ran to the bathroom to scrub him off my skin. I tore off my clothes and climbed into the bathtub, twisting the taps as far as they would go. Crying, without making a sound, I washed away every speck of the Reverend Wallace Ebert from my life.
I hurried into clean clothes, and by the time I got back to where Mama was still sitting like a block of ice, I heard Papaw’s truck in the driveway.
After Papaw went into Mama’s bedroom and saw Wallace, he came back through the den and went to the wall phone just inside the kitchen door. “No need to call an ambulance,” he said, “but we’d better call the law.”
The sheriff and a deputy we didn’t know arrived in record time, but it seemed like hours before the coroner’s stretcher took Wallace away. The sheriff questioned me first. He sent Mama into the kitchen and sat across from me in the arm chair facing the couch. I couldn’t stop shaking and I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, feeling that if I let go, my body would fly apart. During the entire time the sheriff asked about what had happened, I could feel Wallace’s presence in the house, feel him lying there on the floor. Dead he seemed more present than he had all day. I was so distracted by him I couldn’t pay attention to those questions. They were about sequence of events, rape, my clothes, evidence, 7-Ups, a napkin filled with cracker crumbs. I could hear Mama and Papaw murmuring in the kitchen with the deputy as the sheriff scribbled my answers down in his notebook.
Then it was Mama’s turn, and we played fruit basket turn over, switching rooms and people. In the kitchen Papaw let me sit on his lap with my head resting on his shoulder like I was a little girl again, and for a little while, I pretended Wallace wasn’t lying on the bedroom floor deader than last year’s gardenias. The deputy was nice. His name was Rob Yellin, and he said he had a little girl named Marcie who was three years old. I liked him much better than the sheriff, whose name I hadn’t bothered to remember.
It must have been after midnight before the coroner carried Wallace out of our house for the last time. The sheriff stood beside Mama, still huddled on the couch, and closed his notebook.“We’ll have to take you in for booking, Mrs. Ebert,” he said. “You have the right ...”
“Bullshit!” Papaw stood eye to eye with him. “She’ll come down in the morning. My daughter’s in shock; she needs rest, just now recovering from a car wreck.”
But the sheriff didn’t care about any of that. Mama left with the sheriff and I didn’t see her again until the next afternoon when Papaw brought her home. I had just woken up and was coming down the hall when I saw Miss Louise throwing open the door. For a moment I wondered what she was doing in our den, and then remembered that Papaw had called her to come stay with me after Mama was taken away. I didn’t know if he had stayed with me, too, because, after I swallowed the sleeping pill Miss Louise gave me with a muffin and a glass of milk, I barely made it to bed before I fell asleep.
“Made bail,” Papaw said.“Charged her with voluntary manslaughter at the arraignment this afternoon.We’ll get this nonsense cleared up, but there’s a helluva lot to do first. We need to get a good lawyer, the one they appointed doesn’t know shit, and after the autopsy, somebody’s got to do something about burying that skunk.”
Mama collapsed then. I hadn’t gotten all the way into the den where Papaw, Miss Louise, and Mama stood, but as I took a step toward them, Mama crumpled down onto the floor like someone had wadded her up like a paper cup.
As I watched Papaw carrying Mama down the hall to my bed, I trailed behind praying out loud. “Please God, take care of Mama. She saved me. It’s Your turn now.” Then it came to me that God hadn’t answered my prayers for suicide. He knew that I didn’t really want to die. I wanted to live.
Chapter 19
PAPAW DIDN’T KNOW ANY LAWYERS, BUT I KNEW ONE.“WHAT about Mr. Albright?” I said. “You met him. The Albrights were at the Fourth of July party at Dixie Springs Lake.”
As Miss Louise laid a bowl of chicken gumbo in front of him, she said, “I remember the Albrights. Isn’t their son the one you dated for a while?”
I held my bowl out to her. It had been a long afternoon and my appetite had returned when I smelled the gumbo bubbling on the stove. How Miss Louise had managed to make it was a mystery to me considering she’d been so busy. She had helped Mama bathe before giving her the same small blue miracle pill she’d given to me.Then after Mama was tucked into my bed, Miss Louise had taken up the rug in Mama’s room, washed the sheets, vacuumed up every sliver of glass and eve
n cut some maroon mums for a vase that now sat on the center of the table where we sat waiting for Mama to wake up.
“Yeah, I went out with him once. He’s going steady with somebody else now though.The girl he brought to the picnic.”
“Well, if the son takes after the father, he’s got bad taste in women. I don’t know that we’d want him defending Frieda,” Papaw said, as he blew on his spoon before lifting it to his mouth. “Good gumbo, Lou. You’ve got good taste in food and men.”
She smiled and sat down with us. “Maybe we should say grace,” she said.
I looked over at Papaw. I remembered the one time Grandma had made him say the blessing and he’d said, “In the kitchen, down the hall, hope to God I get it all.” But he bowed his head and kept silent.
After a moment Miss Louise said, “Pass the butter please, Layla Jay.”
MAMA DIDN’T EAT ANY GUMBO; she slept on in my room until the next morning. After Papaw and Miss Louise left around ten o’clock, I got back into bed with her and lay with my arm wrapped across her body so that I would know if she got up during the night. Although she mumbled a few times, frowning and crying as she twisted the sheet into funnels, she never opened her eyes until the phone rang around eight o’clock the next morning.
It was Papaw. He was on his way over with Mama’s lawyer, Mr. Gordon Albright.
I threw on the clothes I’d tossed on the floor the night before, and while I made coffee, Mama got dressed. When she came into the kitchen, I was relieved to see that she’d put on some makeup, pinned her hair up in a twist, and put on our favorite blue dress with the low-cut ruffled bodice. I grinned, thinking that no matter what had changed in our lives, old habits resurfaced easily. A man was coming to our house, and Mama was going to look her best.
Papaw looked like hell. He hadn’t shaved and white stubble covered his cheeks and chin. His eyes were red-shot, I couldn’t think blood anymore, but the ever present unlit cigar was clenched between his teeth. Mr. Albright was immaculate in a suit, clean shaven, and as I shook his hand, I noticed that his long slender fingers were exact replicas of Jehu’s.
Mr. Albright talked a lot about damage control after showing us the Friday edition of The Lexie Journal. A reporter named Jason Dowell had written the front-page story about the “alleged murder.” He’d done a lot of homework for his report in a very short time. He quoted statements from several New Hope members. My old Sunday school teacher, Miss Mansfield, said, “Brother Ebert was a wonderful pastor. Everyone loved him. This is truly a great loss to our community and New Hope Church.” Jason Dowell’s characterization of Mama was accurate, if not flattering. He said she was employed at Salloum’s department store as a “beauty consultant” who had been involved in a serious accident on Highway 98 after attending a party at Dixie Springs Lake. In the last paragraph, he noted that “Mrs. Ebert dropped her membership at New Hope recently.”The only person who said something nice about Mama was, unfortunately, Tilly Bryant, who worked at the package store. She said, “Oh, Frieda Ebert comes in nearly every week to buy her gin. She’s a darling lady, has a smile for everyone, and she always pays cash. I can’t believe she would hurt a fly, much less murder her husband.”
“Isn’t this self-defense?” Papaw asked Mr. Albright after we all got settled at the kitchen table to review Mama’s situation, as she called it.
“Technically, I’m afraid not,” Mr. Albright said. “He didn’t have a weapon, was sick in fact, and Layla Jay here,” he nodded his head across the table toward where I sat with my feet crossed in the chair, “says he didn’t rape her.”
“But he was going to,” Mama said. “I got there just in time.”
“That’s right, and it wasn’t the first time he’d tried stuff with me.”
“What!” Papaw and Mama spoke in unison, both of them grabbing a wrist.
I didn’t want to tell them more with Mr. Albright sitting there looking like he wished he hadn’t agreed to take on this case. “Well, it’s just he, uh, a long time ago, put his hands on me, on parts, you know, private.” I was whispering by the end of the sentence.
Papaw slammed his fist on the table, and all three of us jumped along with the salt and pepper shakers.“I knew it. I told Lou I didn’t trust that son of a bitch.”
“When?” Mama wanted to know.Then before I could answer, “Exactly what happened, Layla Jay?”
I tried not to cry, but I shook my head back and forth and the sobs came out before I could answer.
Mr. Albright laid his hand on Mama’s arm, pinning it down onto the table. “Let’s give Layla Jay some time. She can tell us more later. Right now we need to put out the fires we’ve got burning us. File a motion to dismiss and get a date for a hearing on that.We’ll get the police reports, autopsy, and so on.” He stood up. “Mrs. Ebert, I ...”
“Call me Frieda,” Mama said. “I don’t want to hear that name anymore than I have to.”
“Should’ve never had it in the first place,” Papaw said.
Mr. Albright closed his leather briefcase and pressed the gold latches shut. “All right, Frieda. I want you to write down every detail you can remember about that afternoon from the time you got home until you called your father.” He walked around the table to where I sat, blowing my nose on a napkin.“And Layla Jay, you, too. I want you to write down everything you remember, not just about that day, but any other times you felt threatened by your stepfather, things he did or said that frightened you.”
“Okay,” I said. And while Mama and Papaw walked him to the door, I sat wondering whether he would tell Jehu about all the awful things I was going to write. Why had I suggested him for a lawyer? I hadn’t thought of the consequences, hadn’t thought about my secrets all coming out now that Wallace was dead. “Damn you,” I said to Wallace looking down at the floor over hell. “You may be dead, but you’re still screwing up my life.”
Mama and Papaw were taking a long time saying good-bye, and I went to the kitchen window and looked out at the three of them standing by Mr. Albright’s white Chrysler. Mama was shaking her head “no,” and Papaw’s cigar was going up and down in his mouth as he chewed on it. Mr. Albright held up his palms and shrugged his shoulders. When I saw Mama look back toward the kitchen window with tears in her eyes, a sinking feeling came over me. They were talking about me, not Wallace.
I waited until Mr. Albright got in his car and then I headed back to my room and sat on the bed. A few minutes later, Mama tapped on the door as she opened it. “Layla Jay?”
I wasn’t going to answer any questions until I got good and ready. “Huh?”
“You need to get your shoes on. Pop’s going to drive you to the hospital now.” Still holding on to the doorknob, she wasn’t looking at me.
“Why? I’m not hurt or sick.”
“Mr. Albright wants you to be examined.Thinks that’s the best thing to do. Just to be, uh, you know sure about Wallace.”
I threw myself across the bed. “No! I told you he didn’t rape me.”
“Well, I know you did, and I believe you, but Mr. Albright, he says it’s what we need to do. Sometimes people block these things out. Like if you don’t want it to be true, then you believe it so much, it isn’t to you, but it is true.” She waited until I lifted my head and finally came into the room. She sat on the bed. “I argued with him, baby, but it’s for the best, I guess.You don’t have a choice and neither do I. Even Pop said we have to cooperate with our lawyer, not hide things from him.” She kissed the top of my head.“Do this for me, will you? If it’s not true, this is the only way you have to prove it.”
I sat up, bit my lip, trying not to cry. “Can I take a bath first?”
“No, he said it would have been better if you hadn’t taken one right after ... after. Why don’t we just go and get it over with?”
I knew what I knew, but now I understood that in a way it would have been better for Mama i
f Wallace had raped me. As I tied the laces on my tennis shoes, I thought about Roland. When he examined me, the doctor would find out I wasn’t a virgin. He’d know that, but he wouldn’t know who I had had sex with. Unless I confessed, and I wasn’t about to tell him or Mama the truth. It could have been Wallace, nearly was ... and then the first glimmer of a plan formed in my mind. I kissed Mama and told her not to worry, that everything was going to turn out just fine.
Of course, there was no semen, nothing to swab except my own secretions, but Dr. Harrington twirled his swabbing stick inside me anyway. After I got dressed, he called Mama into the exam room and delivered the surprise news that my hymen was not intact.
“He did rape you!” Mama said, covering her face with her hands. “Oh, Layla Jay! You said he didn’t!”
I jumped off the exam table where I had been sitting. My legs were rubber. I was a wreck. I wasn’t sure I could go through with the lies I had concocted in the car on the way over. Now I couldn’t remember exactly what I had planned to say at this moment. I kept my back to Mama and pressed my stomach against the exam table. I had to do this, and I had to do it just right, or Mama was going to go to prison for ridding the world of a man who should never have been in it in the first place. The time had come for me to tell my lie, but the antiseptic smell of the exam room was making me sick, and I swallowed bile. I wanted to get out of this room, away from the odors of sickness and disinfectants, away from the constant distant ringing of the phone in the reception room. And I wanted to say that Wallace had raped me before Mama got home, just before she killed him, but there was no way I could explain what the doctor didn’t find inside me. “He didn’t rape me that day. But . . .” I stalled for time. Looking down at my hands, I saw that I had shredded the white paper on the exam table into ribbons. “Wallace did rape me, just not that day. He was trying to do it for the second time.” There, that was it. I had said the lines I’d rehearsed inside my brain over and over while the doctor examined me. Wallace had done it once; he’d do it again.They would believe me, wouldn’t they?