by ANDREA SMITH
“You say his father worked all hours,” Olive put in. “Noah had to be his own mama and daddy.”
“Always try to get him to talk ’bout Noah Sr., but he won’t,” Bonnie said. “Must be tough. Lovin’ someone and hatin’ him all at the same time.”
Miss Idella bit into a chicken wing. “You gon’ keep him?”
Olive fanned herself with a magazine, Thora swatted flies away from the punch bowl and Miss Idella wiped her mouth with a napkin while they waited for Bonnie’s answer. She wanted Naz to come back, and she still missed her husband desperately, but she hadn’t heard a word from the man since he left. Then too, after only one week, she couldn’t imagine being without the boy. “I think I will keep him,” she replied. At that very moment Bonnie fully gave Noah her commitment and her heart. Thora leaned over and hugged Bonnie as the women applauded. Noah and the other children looked at the adults as if they were having a party of their own.
“We’re right here to help you, Bonnie, girl,” Olive said.
“A boy can never have too many mamas,” Miss Idella chimed in.
Just then, Ruby-Pearl emerged from the house with a three-layer chocolate birthday cake.
“Come on, babies,” she called to the kids.
Wynn sat on the porch in the “birthday chair” but screamed out when the other children ran in from the yard. Olive and Delphine got them settled around the cake. Bonnie draped her arms around Noah. She felt proud, not only of him, but of herself. This party, this day, was a testament to something that she had done right…something she had done from her heart. For the first time in months, her tears weren’t for Naz or for a broken heart but for a job well done.
Ruby-Pearl had just lit the first candle when Pine’s car stopped in front of the house. He got out and stood at the bottom of the steps for a moment, witnessing the festive occasion. Most times the ladies tensed up when Pine came around, but today the celebratory mood continued as if God Himself had sanctioned this gathering.
“Hey there, Pine,” Miss Idella called.
“You come jes’ in time fo’ cake and ice cream,” Ruby-Pearl said.
“Cain’t stay fo’ cake.” Pine stood at the bottom of the steps.
“Oh, loosen up, man,” Thora said. “Miss Idella made the cake, and you know that Miss Idella got a way with a chocolate cake.”
“Bonnie,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”
There was something about the way Pine was standing, something about the tone of his voice, his grave expression and the way he shifted the brim of his cap that suggested that something was wrong. The women must’ve sensed something too, for Delphine shuttled the children into the house to eat their cake. Noah stood inside the screen door.
“Maybe we should speak privately,” Pine said.
“It’s okay,” Bonnie said. “These are my sisters.”
Pine nodded. “Tilde come to me…” he started.
“Again?” Thora said. “That woman always tryin’ to fill yo’ mind wit’—”
“She say,” Pine went on, “that you…helped Natalie run away. Say you helped her and her boyfriend—”
“I ain’t help nobody,” Bonnie said defensively. “The girl came to me lookin’ fo’ her chile. It was her chile.”
“You give her money?” Pine asked.
Bonnie gripped the side of her skirt. “I give her twelve dollars.”
“And I gave her eight,” Ruby-Pearl put in.
Pine shut his eyes.
Ruby-Pearl asked, “What in the world is this about?”
“They been lookin’ for Natalie for the past two weeks…Tilde and Cal. Tilde say she called you and you denied knowing where—”
“I don’t know where she is,” Bonnie snapped.
“Well, that boyfriend,” Pine went on, “that Kevin Price…the one is the father of Natalie’s chile…he finally called Tilde and say that they were in Charlotte.”
“Well, there you are, then,” Bonnie said dismissively.
“He said that Natalie was real sick. So sick that he had to call a doctor.” Pine shifted his hat in his hands. “Natalie died at the hospital.”
The women’s smug expressions faded. Even Thora went quiet. The afternoon that Natalie came by sped through Bonnie’s head like the movie reel rewinding in the cinema house. She knew the girl was just recovering from a difficult delivery, so did Ruby-Pearl, but neither had done anything to stop her. And Bonnie could’ve stopped her. She could’ve insisted the girl sit down and rest herself. She could’ve called a doctor. She could’ve called Tilde, she could’ve called Pine.
“You don’t know what you doin’ here, Bonita.”
Bonnie sat on the step and lowered her face into her hands.
“This is too much…it’s too damn much!”
Thora put her arms around her friend. “I know what you thinkin’,” she whispered. “And this ain’t yo’ fault.”
“Bonnie Wilder and Jesus Christ!”
Bonnie tried to stand but her legs gave out and she fell back onto the step.
“I told you to end this thing,” Pine said. “I even looked the other way when I believed you would. But Tilde went to the sheriff and told him everything. Now he say I got to round up as many of yo’ kids as I can find and take ’em on over to the county home.”
“That’s crazy,” Thora yelled. “You know that ain’t right, Pine!”
Miss Idella and Delphine remained quiet. They looked terrified.
“I’m sorry, Ruby-Pearl,” he said.
“You mean…Wynn?” she cried.
He nodded.
Bonnie couldn’t face Miss Idella, Olive, Delphine and especially not Ruby-Pearl, sobbing. “Like you tryin’ to play God.” But more, she couldn’t look at Pine when he cuffed her. Then he placed Bonnie, a frightened Noah and a screaming Wynn in his patrol car and took them all away.
PART V
SEVENTEEN
Canaan Creek, 1985
Somehow Tally knew that they were watching him. So he leaned close to the pretty young woman in her postal uniform and the two laughed up a storm. He handed her Bonnie’s mail and the girl nearly dropped it. Tally quickly put his large hands under hers to assure that it wouldn’t hit the ground.
“I’ll be,” Bonnie said, looking from the window.
“What?” Thora called from the kitchen. She sat at the table clipping coupons from the morning paper.
“Tally,” she said. “He got some woman-mailman out there.”
Thora hurried through the house and stood behind Bonnie at the window. It had been more than a week since their date. Ever since, Tally had left the mail outside in the box rather than bringing it directly into the house. This morning, though, his smile was as bright as summer sky, his walk spry and confident. The young woman beside him, her hair in dozens of tiny braids, followed on Tally’s heels. Her regulation white knee-socks made her look even younger than she probably was.
“Women ain’t s’posed to be carryin’ no big ole bag like that,” Thora said, eyeing the girl. “Mailmen is what they called. Them bags tilt yo’ womb…gi’ you that arth-u-ritis, sho’ nuff.”
“Pretty lil’ thing,” Bonnie said.
“She alright,” Thora said. “If you go fo’ that type.”
“Mo’nin’, ladies,” Tally hollered through the front screen door.
Thora hurried back to the kitchen. She flipped through the newspaper when he came in followed by Bonnie and his new apprentice.
“Morn’in’, Thora,” Tally said.
“Tally,” she returned, without looking up.
“And who is this pretty young lady?” Bonnie asked, trying to cut the tension.
“Inez, ma’am.”
“She my new student,” Tally beamed. “I’m teachin’ her my route.”
Thora peered up from the paper.
“Why you teachin’ folks yo’ route?” asked Bonnie. “You goin’ somewhere?”
“Not in the next year or so,” he replied. “But Mackie,
he the big man at the main post office in Charleston, he wanna start trainin’ mo’ folks for the Three Sisters. So he sends ’em to me.”
“I’ve been sent to the best,” Inez put in. Thora rolled her eyes.
“Don’t think I ever seen a lady-mailman befo’,” Bonnie said.
“That’s ’cause there ain’t s’posed to be none,” Thora muttered.
The girl looked at Thora curiously.
She finally closed the morning paper. “So why’s a pretty gal like you wanna do a man’s work?” Thora asked.
“Isn’t a man’s work anymore, ma’am,” she replied.
“Need to get with the times, Thora,” Tally defended. “Got a woman that work for the Canaan Creek Tool and Dye. I ’clare, she drive a big ole semi all the way ’cross the state. And she even smaller than Inez here.”
“You from these parts?” Bonnie asked.
“I’m from Pennsylvania,” she answered. “But my husband was born here in South Carolina.”
Bonnie could see Thora’s body relax at the word “husband.”
“I ’spect Canaan Creek must be a lot different from Pennsylvania,” Bonnie said.
“Oh yes.” She smiled.
“Ain’t she pretty, Bonnie?” Tally said.
“She certainly is that.”
“And smart too,” Tally went on. Thora sucked her teeth at the old man fawning. But Bonnie could clearly see that Tally’s compliments were meant more for Thora’s sake. “Inez here is a college gal,” Tally boasted. “Went to a big school in Pennsylvania. What’s that you call it, Inez?”
“Penn State,” she answered.
“There you go,” he said.
“So, why a smart college gal deliverin’ the mail?” Thora persisted.
“Check yo’self, Thora Dean,” Tally put in.
“It’s okay, Tally,” Inez replied. She seemed poised and polished and well able to handle herself. “After I left school,” she explained, “my husband wanted to come back south. You know, find his roots.”
“Lotta folks doin’ that these days,” Tally said.
“We’ve lived in New York City for the last four years and—”
“New York City,” Bonnie gasped. “Glory be, I cain’t imagine what that would be like.” Bonnie set both hands flat across her chest. “That big ole place,” she said. “Scare the fool outta me jes’ thinkin’ ’bout it.”
“People are people,” Inez replied. “Just that some talk a little faster than others.”
Thora examined Inez cautiously.
“Go’n, Inez, and gi’ the ladies they mail,” Tally said. “That’s what a mailwoman s’posed to do.”
Inez quickly separated the letters into two piles and handed one to Thora and one to Bonnie.
“You did that very well,” Thora said sarcastically.
Tally’s eyes lingered on Thora. When she didn’t return his gaze, he said, “Let’s get goin’, Inez. Still got to git to Manstone.”
“No breakfast this mo’nin’, Tally?” Bonnie asked, following him out to the porch. Thora stood just outside the screen door.
“I’m cuttin’ down,” he said, patting his stomach. “Got to try to keep fit.”
Inez picked up her mail sack from the bottom step.
“Best be careful with that bag, young woman,” Thora said.
“See you next time, Bonnie,” Tally said. Inez settled in the truck. Tally was just about to step in.
“Tally Benford?” Thora called. She stood on the top step with her arms folded. “They’s got that…Back to the Future movie playin’ in town,” she said. “You seen it?”
His eyes narrowed. “No…”
“I’m gon’ ask you again,” she said. “You seen it?”
“Absolutely no!”
Bonnie and Inez looked puzzled by the conversation.
“I ain’t seen it neither,” she said. An awkward pause followed. Then she sighed deeply. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll go with you on Friday.”
Tally scratched his head. Bonnie could see him thinking. “I’ll let you know tomorrow,” he said.
“You’ll let me know right now,” she snapped.
“Well,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “You gon’ behave yo’self, Thora Dean?”
Bonnie could see her old friend struggling. But the fact was, once again Thora Dean had faced her ghosts. She stood here in the cloudless morning with her tail between her legs.
“Yes,” she replied.
Tally fiddled with his mailbag unnecessarily. “Friday, you say?”
“Pick me up at seven.”
“How ’bout six?”
“How ’bout seven!”
“Seven,” he said.
“Fine,” she said. Then she went in the house.
Tally gave Bonnie a quick wink. “A bright young woman,” he said to Bonnie in a loud whisper. “It’s the oldest trick in the book.”
EIGHTEEN
Canaan Creek, 1958
Bits and pieces about the Sisterhood were revealed the very next day in a tiny blurb in the Canaan Chronicle. The heading read, “Local Woman Arrested for Illegal Adoptions.” By the time Bonnie was released, everyone in town knew about her one-night stay in the Canaan County jail.
She sat quietly in the backseat of Horace and Thora’s car while Horace drove. Horace hadn’t uttered a single word since his wife had paid two hundred and thirty dollars of his money to get Bonnie out. But as usual, Thora more than made up for the lack of conversation.
“People been calling my house all mo’nin’,” she prattled. “Mrs. Reverend Duncan, Jenna Dixon, Kitty Wooten…even one of the damn Bell sisters,” Thora said, glaring at her husband. “Cain’t believe that a Bell had the nerve to call my house…even if it was to ask about you, Bonnie.” Horace never took his eyes off the road. “And you cain’t imagine how many people are callin’ you a real live hero!”
The word “hero” sounded strange to Bonnie. In fact, she felt like she was walking around in someone else’s life…like some character from a movie. Pine was an actor—maybe Brock Peters—when he led her into the stony room with two cells, a desk, a few folding chairs and what looked like a ticket window. Bonnie realized that this was the same office that she had come to with Naz for his hunting license. She recalled that the room had been warm and flooded with sunlight. But last night, the place was dim and cool. The male guard on duty, a white man named Mr. Jamison, was nearly seventy years old and wore a dark blue uniform. He had fingerprinted Bonnie by pressing her thumb onto a black inkpad and then blotting it into a small box reserved for the prints of cold criminals. Bonnie felt numb the whole time, even when Mr. Jamison had taken her picture. But oddly, while this humiliation took place, she could smell fish frying somewhere in the back of the jailhouse. This scent—this aroma—snapped her out of the distant place and made the room feel human and real. The warm and homey smell of toasted cornmeal was like when Naz would return home from a fishing trip and she would fry up his catch.
Mr. Jamison then placed her in a cell with two other women. The younger woman, Dolly King, had been arrested for holding a shotgun on her neighbor, and the other, about Bonnie’s age, Precious Wilson, had stabbed her husband’s mistress. Interestingly, Bonnie could relate to them both.
Mr. Jamison turned on a small TV set and angled it so the women could watch The Ann Sothern Show. Then the old man fed them hot fried grouper on white bread with stewed okra.
Bonnie could honestly say that her night in prison wasn’t all so bad…until the lights went out. She lay on the small cot looking up at a piece of the bright moon through a high window. She thought about Natalie and cried at the idea that the girl just wanted to be a mama. She considered Ruby-Pearl and couldn’t imagine the pain that the woman must be feeling, having lost yet another child. And what of Wynn? He had been separated from the only mama he ever really knew. Because of Bonnie, the child was surely frightened, surrounded by strangers. Then there was Noah. Bonnie had buried her face in the white sh
eets when she thought about her boy. She couldn’t rid her mind of an image of him sitting on the steps of the county home waiting for her to come. But with all the people she had hurt still plaguing her, the thought that saddened Bonnie the most was how much she longed for her husband.
“Bonnie,” Thora said, turning to look in the backseat of the car, “I know that you puttin’ all this on yo’self. Right?”
Thora knew her well.
“Jes’ you remember, though,” Thora said, wagging her finger, “that if anybody is to blame over Natalie’s death, it’s her own mama. Tilde made that gal run out and find her baby. So you stop blamin’ yo’self!”
Bonnie looked out of the window at acres of brown and barren farmland.
“I got somethin’ to say,” Horace put in. “Y’all might not wanna hear this, but I feel the same way Naz do. Like y’all ain’t had no right to be foolin’ with them children. Now, I ain’t blamin’ Bonnie fo’ that gal’s death or nuthin’, but a bunch of church ladies shouldn’t ha’ no say ’bout who gets a baby and why.”
Thora suddenly slapped Horace in the back of his head. Bonnie jumped from the loud clap against his bare skin. Horace raised his hand to return the blow but quickly pulled back.
“Don’t you talk to Bonnie that way!” Thora spat. “She feel bad enough as it is wit’out yo’ big-ass mouth!”
“Thora,” Bonnie whispered.
“One a these days, I’m gon’ lose myself, woman,” Horace shouted, “and I’m gon’ slap you right back. Then you be hurtin’, sho’ nuff! Hurtin’ bad!”
Everything was spinning out of control. Bonnie couldn’t get a grip on her life. When Horace drove through the gate on Blackberry Corner, he and Thora were still squabbling.
“I ain’t gon’ talk to you ’bout this no mo’,” Thora said, gathering her purse. “Bonnie needs me now and I’m gon’ spend a night.”
“Spend a night?!” Horace said. “Woman, you got a home!”
“I’m jes’ fine,” Bonnie cut in. “You go ’n with yo’ husband.”