A Question of Mercy (4 page)

Sweetheart
,

Got two letters from you today. I keep them in my pocket and read them over and over. It makes me feel good to read them. What do you think of this war? I
don't know what to think. We had a three-hour mortar barrage yesterday. Two hit our bunker, but didn't penetrate. Our crew was okay. I hate those big mortars. You can't hear shells coming until seconds before they hit. You get so jumpy that any kind of noise makes you go flat on the ground. I have never been so cold
.

On the day we landed at Inchon, we got on trains. When the trains stopped, we saw all these poor people with pots. They hang around the stations begging for food from the GI's. We gave them all our C-rations. We couldn't help it. They looked so hungry. That night I volunteered for patrol just to keep warm, moving around. There is so much noise, or else it's too quiet. And so damn cold
.

Nobody sleeps much at night. Some things I can't write about, but I want to tell you everything. I can tell you this: we spend a lot of time just waiting, then things happen all at once. When I'm waiting, my knees shake until I think I can't stand up—then I do. Right now is pretty quiet or else I could not be writing and thinking about you. I'll try to sleep and maybe dream too. I look at your picture—your long black hair and your eyes, big like plums
.

Love
,

Sam

Night was closing down and Jess couldn't read more in the dark. The air grew thick around her and she could smell her own sour breath. She slept holding Sam's letters. The next morning she walked to a shoal where she could wash herself. Out here, time flowed more easily: minutes, no longer connected to clocks, kept pace with the sun and stars in a normal rhythm of sunrise and moonrise. But Jess did not feel normal.

She pulled off her shirt and splashed water onto her face and neck. Her body stank of sweat and rotted leaves. She needed a destination and thought of Tut's Boardinghouse in Lula, Alabama. She knew the general direction, and maybe could catch a ride for part of the way. Those early visits made Jess think that Mr. Brennan would welcome her. She washed her feet, rubbing cracked mud from her toes. She dried her hair in the sun, then followed the stream to a clearing, where she saw a shopping center with a Woolworth's, two grocery stores, and a bakery shop.

Jess walked the aisles of Woolworth's, putting matches, a pair of scissors (wanting to cut her hair), a can opener, toilet paper, socks, and a bar of Ivory soap into her basket; but she stole a toothbrush and two tubes of toothpaste, and she slipped a package of new underwear, aspirin, and a wash rag into her satchel. She had to make her forty dollars last. She decided that every time she bought something in a store she would try to steal a few things as well.

At the checkout counter she waited in line. A man, standing with his son, motioned for her to go ahead of him. But she wondered if this man
had seen her steal the items hidden in her satchel. He might turn her in. She looked around to see if anyone else was noticing her. The lady at the cash register counted up the items, and put them into a Woolworth's bag.

When a bell went off above the cash register, Jess screamed.

“You're the 100th customer this week,” the cash register lady said. Her voice carried through the store. “You win a carton of Dr. Peppers, a jar of Peter Pan Peanut Butter, and a loaf of Holsum Bread. Congratulations!”

The man with the boy complained good-naturedly. “If I hadn't given you my place in line, we woulda got that prize ourselves. See, Tommy? We just gave it away.” Tommy looked confused.

“Here,” Jess said. “You take this carton of soda.”

“No, ma'am,” the man said. “You won that fair and square. It's yours.”

“At least let me give a soda to your boy.” Jess leaned to offer a cold bottle to Tommy.

“I won't deny him that,” the man said. He looked at the boy. “We thank you, young lady.”

This conversation was more interaction than Jess had had in over a week. She left the store feeling elated and somehow connected again to the outside world. As the man and his boy drove away in their truck, the boy waved goodbye. He was drinking the Dr. Pepper.

Later that evening, feeling empowered by human conversation, Jess stole three cans of food from a grocery store: Vienna sausages, pork and beans, and a can of soup. She still had thirty-three dollars left in her satchel. At the moment thirty-three dollars seemed like a lot of money, though it was disappearing fast. Jess Booker was a thief now. She felt an icicle growing inside her chest, that same kind of chill she had when her mother died, and again when her father married Clementine Finney.

The third week of May was beginning, so Jess collected pebbles to count the weeks now instead of the days. She had left the place of grocery stores, and hoped to find a stream before nightfall. Nights were getting warmer, and she liked sleeping to the lullaby of water. Three nights ago she had slept in a gully and dreamed she was being cradled.

But tonight, she lay back on the ground trying to hear the sound of stars jostling above the trees. She recognized patterns: the Bear, Orion's Belt, those sisters, and one constellation that her father (when she was five) had named Jess's Good Hat, and another one he called Mama's New Shoes. Jess slept that night, closing her eyes to familiar stars.

— 4 —

T
he year Jess turned twelve Edward took her to Niagara Falls—mainly because her mother had always wanted to see it. The next year they went to New York City and saw a play.
Harvey
had a character who believed he was followed around by a tall, invisible rabbit. Jess hoped they might take a trip every summer; but when she turned sixteen, her father began to pursue Clementine Finney, and their trips together stopped. Instead, he began to bring Clementine and her son, Adam, home for dinner.

Jess felt startled the first time she saw Adam come in the door. He was nearly six feet tall and had unruly hair. Clementine said that he had never been enrolled in school, except for one semester in the first grade—after which he was asked not to return.

Jess had seen Adam before at Greenwood's Grocery Store bagging groceries. She thought he acted goofy. She did not like having him in her house, and could not fathom what her father was doing with Clementine Finney. She was strong, sturdy, maybe even handsome, but not pretty like her mother. The woman's best feature was her thick red hair that cascaded down her back, or lay in a large braid on top of her head. For years she had worked as a seamstress in town. Even Daisy had ordered a few dresses and skirts from her over the years.

During those early months that Edward spent courting Clementine, Jess began to have a recurring dream of a pendulum swinging from a high place with a man standing below telling her to jump onto the blade and swing up high. So Jess swung high in the dream, but when she looked again at the man standing below he was staring down at his feet, as if he did not want to be held accountable for what happened next.

When Jess woke, the window was open to bird calls and she felt a soft breeze on her face. She sat on the edge of her bed and wondered if her father had thought about the consequence of bringing Clementine and Adam into
their family. Each time she had the dream, she could not escape the feeling that she was gliding along the pendulum's long blade.

Edward had met Clementine on a September day when the church service went too long because Adam had to be baptized. Adam loved baptisms, with water dripping onto his head and face and shirt front. He preferred sprinkling to immersion, and had been baptized in so many churches that one minister had refused multiple baptisms, claiming that the repetition was becoming a joke.

On the day of his third baptism in Goshen's Methodist Church, Clementine stood on the lawn after the service. She and Adam were surrounded by members of the congregation. As Jess approached them, she heard Clementine talking about baseball. Apparently, she was an avid fan. She knew who played shortstop for the Cardinals, who had pitched a no-hitter, and what year. She even quoted batting averages. Edward lingered, listening to Clementine long after the others had left. Clementine laughed at everything Edward said, and Jess looked at her father in a shrewd, critical way, as if to say,
Don't be stupid!

That day Edward asked Clementine to go with him to a game between the Chattanooga Lookouts and the Atlanta Crackers. They left the next weekend for Chattanooga and Adam went with them. Clementine wore a yellow dress that swished around her legs. She had large breasts and hips, but a small waist. She wore her hair loose that day. Her arms and face were nicely freckled. Edward Booker teased her about her freckles, but she didn't mind. Jess declined to go with them, choosing, instead, to stay overnight with a friend.

The next Monday evening, after supper, Clementine arrived at their house with Adam. She and her father lived on the corner lot of a tree-lined street, named Dogwood Avenue, with a wide lawn and gardeners who kept it cut and trimmed. The French Broad River flowed behind the house and a large oak in front had a swing from one of the high branches.

Clementine arrived with lemon cake and a cherry pie. They all sat together in the kitchen and ate dessert. Adam picked at his pie, too shy to eat. Jess wanted to leave the table. She ate slow bites and, without comment, carried her plate to the kitchen sink. She saw the way her father looked at Clementine, and suspected that he had already kissed her.

Adam left the table too, and was told he could go out to the tree swing, where he sat twisting and pushing with his legs until he went high. Jess watched him from her window. The whole yard looked lonely with him in it, and she felt a dull tugging at the back of her head. She imagined that
if she counted backwards from a hundred, she might possibly wake to a better world.

Her mother's bathrobe hung on the back of her closet door and she put her face into it. At times, she could still smell her mother in the folds of the material and, for a moment, bring back her presence. But not today. And, in the quiet of where Jess lived, she knew her mother was slipping away, and that the scent of her skin would soon be forgotten.

Clementine and Edward came out to stand beside the oak and talk to Adam. Edward had his arm around Clementine's waist and she leaned into him. Adam was laughing hard.

Yesterday, Jess had told Clementine, “My daddy won't ever get over loving my mother, you know.” She watched for a reaction.

Clementine had answered, “You're probably right.”

That's when Jess felt that the lines between the two families were becoming inextricably tangled, and she wished for a map to guide her, or a hand to pull her back from the edge of something. She had already lost her father once, when her mother died, though they had grown close again through grief. Now she would lose him again—not to death, but to marriage and a slow brother she didn't want.

— 5 —

A
t first, Clementine had not been physically attracted to Edward. He was not an overweight man, but he looked thick, with the beginnings of a paunch. He was partially bald, and his head, already round, looked rounder without hair in front. He dressed each day in a sport coat and a freshly ironed shirt. His feet were large for his small frame so his shoes looked almost comic; but she admired his eyes, which were deep blue and shiny with kindness, and she liked the way he teased her, taking teasing in return.

Besides, Clementine missed sex and welcomed the thought of intimacy returning to her life. Edward was quick to hold her hand, or reach an arm around her waist. He kissed her tenderly and made her heart jump with expectation. And she loved the sound of his voice. She could listen to him talk for hours. And when Clementine saw the way Edward looked at her, she realized how a new life might be possible. She believed she could make Edward happy, and knew he could ease her financial burden, which would only grow larger as Adam got older.

After ten months Edward mentioned marriage, apologizing in case Clementine thought the suggestion premature. Clementine smiled and told Edward yes, but she had not shown the surprise or eagerness Edward hoped for, so Edward said that because of Adam and Jess he knew they could not plan a real honeymoon. He suggested they arrange a weekend away together. They could go to a nice hotel in Atlanta. Clementine agreed to hire someone to stay with Adam. Jess stayed with a friend.

In Atlanta's Francis Hotel, Edward and Clementine, alone for the first time, were amazed at their own excitement—anticipating an intimacy they already felt. They ordered dinner sent to their room, but could not finish dinner before getting into bed. The sheets were blue and silky and Clementine wore a yellow nightgown, her red hair curling around her shoulders. She slipped under the covers with Edward. She heard him moan when she took him in her hand.

“Wait,” he said, his voice raspy with desire. He pulled her gown from her shoulders and down over her hips. “I want to see you.” She pulled back the covers to let him see the fullness of her breasts and hips. She responded to his touch, his voice, his scent, and felt a lovely secret blooming between them. Both were hungry for each other. Their bodies turned in the sheets, and they were caught in awkward flexing and swaying of legs. Edward trembled with strands of desire until he fell back exhausted, and slept.

Clementine woke around two a.m. in a memory of what they had found together, and knew Edward was awake too. He said he felt like yelling for joy. He reached for her hand to hold it. Clementine had not said anything, but was staring at the ceiling.

“What is it? What's the matter?” he said.

Her words came calmly out of the dark. “I need to tell you something.” Her voice was full of tears. “You may not want me anymore.”

“What do you mean? Why would you even say that?”

Clementine sat bolt upright in bed, moving her fingers to smooth the sheet that covered her legs. Edward reached to touch her arm.