A Question of Mercy (20 page)

“Damn, woman.” Will paced the length of the room. “That was a foolish thing to do.”

“But we could get into legal trouble for this, Will. We can't be responsible.”

“Sonny Long will come back, I'm sure of it. Anyway, I'm not letting some agency take the boys away.”

“I'm not with you on this, Will.” Miss Tutwiler was almost whispering now. “I can't lose everything.”

Later that day a policeman and a lady from the local Social Service Agency came to ask about the two boys who had been abandoned by Sonny Long. Will and the professor stood together, walling off the lady and the policeman from the rest of the house. Zella stood with Shooter and Ray in the kitchen doorway. Jess hid at the top of the stairs listening. She was still not comfortable around policemen.

Frank saw Jess in the hall and stood with her, listening to Will and the professor talk to the social worker. They leaned on the stair railing, their arms barely touching.

“Sonny Long went to look for work,” Will told the lady. “He'll be back. It's taking longer than expected. Miss Tutwiler shouldn't have called you. She just misunderstood.”

“We hate to have wasted your time.” The professor sounded authoritative. “I imagine Mr. Long would be angry if he returned to find his boys taken by Social Services. He might decide to sue. Anyway, he called just the other night.”

“He did?” Shooter said. “Nobody told me. Why didn't anybody tell me?”

“Is my daddy coming home?” Ray said.

“We can take care of them,” Will's voice sounded firm, in charge. “Heck, we've
been
taking care of them. The professor here has already taught them some Latin. Say something, Shooter.” He motioned for Shooter and Ray to come out from the kitchen.

“Anon,” Ray said.

“E Pluribus Unum, and Anon,” Shooter said.

“See?”

“Vini, vedi, vici!” Shooter looked proud.

The Social Services lady turned to Miss Tutwiler. “If Mr. Long is coming back, we can't call it abandonment. But,” she said, “I'll be checking in again real soon.” She and the policeman turned to leave.

“Quanta?”

“Shut up, Shooter,” Will whispered. “Let it be.”

“But you
told
me.” Shooter thought for a moment. “Vere furis.” He smiled at his own proficiency, and the professor nodded.

“What does
that
mean?” Will asked.

“It means,
You must be mad
.”

“Well, I'm
not
vere furis,” Will said.

That night Jess helped put the boys to bed. Shooter told Ray that, since the lady and the policeman didn't take them away, it meant that their daddy was coming back. Shooter already knew how to comfort Ray.

“So is he coming back tomorrow?” Ray asked.

“Probably not tomorrow,” Shooter said.

Jess turned back their covers and brought them each a glass of water. She showed them a photo of Buckhead, anything; but the boys stayed at the window watching for their father's car, until tiredness closed their eyes and they stumbled into their separate beds.

— 27 —

P
auline Tutwiler had a pretty, round face and a full figure. Her hair was white and framed her face like cotton, but she carried herself as if she were young, swinging her low hips like a girl. She was in her mid-fifties, ten years younger than Will. Her eyes were a deep turquoise color, changing hue with the colors she wore. And though she was mostly a cheerful woman, she kept alive, her suspicions about people. She had repeatedly voiced to Will her suspicions about Jess, and though he told her not to worry, she did so again at breakfast. “She's running away from something. I'm just telling you to keep an eye on her.”

“I'm taking care of things,” Will said. “You need to trust somebody.” He spoke with a mixture of affection and frustration. “Like
me
, for instance.”

“Don't start, Will. I'm not in the mood to be courted today.”

“Well, let me know when that day is,” he said, crossly. “If it ever comes. No wonder you aren't married. You don't let anybody come within twelve feet of you.”

“Don't start. I mean it.”

“You got it, Pauline.” He left the kitchen mumbling. “Where's Shooter?” he said. “I'm seeing if he wants to go fishing today.”

“It's Sunday.” Zella Davis had given everyone a lesson at breakfast about keeping Sundays holy. She had definite ideas about how Sundays should be spent. Zella attended the One-Way-Up Baptist Church. The marquee in front of the church had a finger pointing up to heaven and the word
ONE
was capitalized.

“Am I gonna get another lecture?” Will said.

“Not from me. Honey, if you'd heard my first lecture we wouldn't be having this conversation.”

“Is there a moral to this?”

“I can give you one, you want it.”

“How did I know that?”

“We're talking breadcrumbs here.” Zella drummed her fingers on the kitchen table. “You may be hopeless.”

“You just want me to go to church.” Will laughed. “Tell me, any white people in your church?”

“Not if we can help it.” Zella smiled in spite of herself.

Will went out the side door calling for Shooter. Jess came into the kitchen and poured some coffee. She stood with Miss Tutwiler at the back door and watched Will and Shooter walk together across the yard. Will Brennan was a good-natured man, even his irritation felt good-natured. He was tall, with thick grey hair, grey eyes, and a deep, measured voice, that sounded like Gregory Peck.

Miss Tutwiler's eyes grew soft as she watched Will walk away, and she confessed to Jess that she had almost married at the age of nineteen. When the boy had proposed he assumed that she would leave Lula, leave her father, and move away with him. “I couldn't leave,” she said. “I didn't marry him, but I didn't know I wouldn't have another chance.”

Pauline Tutwiler had managed the boardinghouse with her father since she was fifteen. He had owned the place for twenty-five years. Her father had taught her how to hire and fire people, judge a tenant, keep food in the pantry, and get a handyman for the inevitable repairs. Pauline learned her job so well that when her father grew sick, she ran the house and looked after him until he died. “By then,” she told Jess, “it was too late for marrying.”

Will and Shooter had moved out of sight now and Miss Tutwiler said she was leaving for the store, did Jess want to come with her. Jess declined but decided that this was the moment to ask permission to start a garden. Zella had wanted a garden for years, and suggested that Jess ask—just to see if “the old bat could be persuaded.”

“A garden?” Miss Tutwiler looked suspicious. “Flowers or vegetables?”

“Both, maybe. Zella and I want both.”

“Did Zella put you up to this?”

“No, ma'am. I wanted it the first time I looked in the backyard. She just agreed with me.”

Miss Tutwiler said she would think about it.

“Yeah,” Zella told Jess later. “She always be
thinking
'bout something.”

By the next Tuesday everyone had been assigned a specific task in preparation for the Christmas-in-July celebration. Everything about it seemed wrong to Jess, but the whole house was entering Rosemary's project with excitement. Zella and Miss Tutwiler were cooking meats and sweets. The professor, Will,
and Frank were decorating the outside of the house: lights were strung in the bushes, with wires going across the porch and into plugs in the front rooms.

“This place is going to catch fire,” Miss Tutwiler warned, but Frank and the professor helped Rosemary string the lights, then carried the nine-foot tree into the living room, making sure it was straight. Shooter and Ray helped wrap presents to place beneath the tree. Zella made cookies shaped like wreaths and Christmas stars to arrange on silver platters. A life-sized cloth Santa Claus was placed in a rocker on the front porch, though his head kept falling over as though he were asleep or dead. Rosemary taped his neck to the back of the chair, so that, now, he looked startled, rather than asleep.

A fake holly wreath hung on the front door, and smaller ones had been attached to the windows. Candles were placed around the rooms, and a bowl of rum punch sat on the long dining room table, along with platters of turkey and cranberry sauce, Zella's homemade rolls the size of baseballs, cornbread dressing, green beans cooked all day with ham hocks, corn pudding, and a large bowl of ambrosia. Four seven-layer cakes and six pies were showcased on a side table. The deep blue and purple hydrangea bushes were in full bloom around the house.

Neighbors brought champagne and bottles of wine. They had loved these Christmas parties when old Mr. Tutwiler was alive and, now, even those who never knew the man, expected to be invited. Rosemary took credit for everything, but no one seemed to care.

By seven o'clock people began to arrive and the house smelled of mulled cider, cherry pie, and roast turkey. Pauline's face bloomed from being in the heat of the kitchen, and she had already had too much of the spiked cider. Will also got drunk that night, though he proved to be as friendly drunk as he was sober.

He followed Miss Tutwiler into the kitchen and as she opened the door to the pantry, he went in behind her. They stood awkwardly together in the small room. Everything smelled of spices.

“Tut,” Will said, tipping slightly forward.

She caught him. “Don't you fall down, Will. You're gonna fall down.”

He did fall, but took her by the shoulders and she lifted her face. Her breath smelled sweet with rum, and he kissed her on the mouth. “Your eyes are like the sky,” he mumbled. To her own surprise, she kissed him back. He pulled away, took a breath, then leaned in again.

“Whoa,” she said. “William, you're drunk.”

“I'm not that drunk, Tut. I'm remembering this.” He leaned low and kissed her again on the neck.

She let him. She let him lean against her. They heard someone come into the kitchen, then leave.

“Let's get out of here,” she whispered. “Now you straighten up.”

“I'm straightened fine,” he said, with a slurry, mischievous voice.

“Stop that now.” She laughed a little. She might be falling for this man, but didn't want to.

“You are a good-looking woman. You know that?” He stepped back and she opened the door. “You like me, don't you?” he whispered hoarsely into her ear. “I know you like me, Tut.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.” She was still smiling when they both entered the parlor with trays of fresh pastry shells filled with berries and whipped cream. Fans were strategically placed to give a breeze in all directions.

A hundred people had come and gone by ten o'clock, and Zella was worried they might run out of food. Rosemary (who liked to quote Bible verses because the professor admired her ability to recall them) quoted a verse about the feeding of the five thousand, then turned to Zella and said, “Let not your heart be troubled.” Zella turned away disgusted and returned to the kitchen.

“No one else will show up this late,” Miss Tutwiler said.

Ten people were gathered around the piano singing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” Will stood close to Miss Tut, leaning on her slightly. She had her arm around his waist. Prof. Chapin played the piano, his hands moving smoothly over the keys. He paused only briefly to wipe his neck and face with a handkerchief. Rosemary stood beside him, grazing his shoulder with her breast as she turned the pages of music. She was smoking a cigarette and from time to time threw her head back and blew blue smoke toward the ceiling.

That night Jess felt the possibilities of love about to blossom in the house. The air was full of secrets. Frank had followed her around most of the evening. If she lifted a platter, he helped her carry it and when she was singing around the piano, he was close beside her. His hair looked thick and brushed back into a thin ducktail. He wore a dark suit and tie, and looked different in his grownup clothes.

“Maybe you want to dance?” he finally asked her.

“I've been wanting to.”

“So you'll risk it?”

“I guess.”

Frank reached around her and placed his hand on the small of her back. She placed her hand lightly on his shoulder. Jess had bought a full-skirted, red taffeta dress for the party, and her hair lay loose. Frank held her close and breathed into her ear. She liked the closeness. Frank smelled like soap and lime juice.

“I can't get over you,” Frank said, his voice a little shaky.

“What do you mean?”

“You take my breath away, Jess. You know that?”

“You are pretty interesting yourself,” she said.

“So you would go out with me? To a movie or something?”

“If I'm not doing anything. I mean, I work most nights.” She planned to tell him about Sam, but not right now.

“Well just sometime then, when you're not working.”

“Maybe,” she said.

They had stopped dancing and Frank touched her arm in an awkward way. “You surprise me,” he said. “You're not like other girls.” He couldn't say why.

“I'm not what you think,” she told him.

“How do you know what I'm thinking?”

“Whatever it is, I'm not that.”

Frank pulled back and looked at her a long moment. “Miss Tut thinks you're running away from something.”

The music started now. A slow dance. They turned toward each other, both wanting to dance again.

“She's been saying that?”

“Maybe you should talk to her,” Frank said. “Set her mind at rest. I can't advise you though.”

“But you are advising me, aren't you?” They were dancing close, then Jess pulled back.

Frank looked around. “It got dark in here. Did somebody turn down the lights?

“When we started dancing they did.”