Mama Rocks the Empty Cradle (6 page)

It was a little after two-thirty when I pulled out of Smalls Lane. The rain had stopped; the sun was shining through the thickly tree-lined highway.

I popped in Nancy Wilson. Her tape, “A Lady with a Song,” filled the car with her smooth and mellow voice. It was exactly what I needed on this
trip. I felt depressed, or maybe sad … I don’t know. Whatever my mood, Nancy’s voice supported it.

The drive to Cypress Creek is along a twisting highway surrounded by acres of maples, silver-white birches, tall green pine and oak trees, and a thick undergrowth of shrubs. Every five or six miles, there is a sprinkle of farmhouses.

The strip is usually empty. The few cars that use it whisk through with no downtime. So when I glanced at my rearview mirror, I was surprised to see the dark blue Ford coming up fast behind me.

I slowed to let him pass. I wasn’t in any hurry. Yasmine was on my mind. Her world is made up of cosmetics, fashion shows, and salon events. She is on the go so much, she barely keeps up with herself. My girlfriend is bright, the kind of woman who becomes more attractive the longer you know her.

Yasmine was a full-grown woman, I thought, capable of making her own decision, and I had no choice but to live with whatever she decided. I sighed, remembering that she hadn’t asked my opinion. All she wanted was for me to go with her to the clinic.

I wrestled with that thought … to distance myself from personal involvement … to convince myself that I had to respect my best friend’s decision. But the more I thought about it, the more intense my feeling against the abortion became.

And something else was bothering me. For years, I’ve had to defend not being maternal, not being a woman who thought the only way to be happy was to
have kids. Now I was having to defend why I wanted to save an unborn child, so much so that I was risking my friendship with my best friend over it.

It was ironic that Yasmine’s dilemma and the kidnapped Morgan were what it had taken to spark my maternal flame. Still, my conversion was real—I felt like I had finally become a sharer in the bond with all of my sisters—you know, that woman’s thing that tells you to be a part of perpetuating the human race!

My hands gripped the steering wheel. “Yasmine would tell me to get pregnant without being married and have a baby myself, since I’m such a staunch opposer to her abortion!” I said aloud. That thought lingered. “I’m sorry, girlfriend,” I said. “I don’t care what you say, I’m not going with you to that clinic!”

This whole thing had me talking to myself.
Simone, get a grip
, I was thinking when from the corner of my eye I saw the driver of the blue Ford pick up speed. He put on his turn signal, then pulled out in front of me. As he drew even with me, he threw up his index finger like he was pulling the trigger of a gun.

The driver was black, middle-aged. His hair was woolly, long over the ears and combed back. His lips were uneven, his top one long and thin, his bottom lip fat. His beard was a scraggly thing that was in bad need of trimming. His complexion was leathery like he had spent a lot of time out-of-doors. The Ford slowed, then shot past me along the deserted road.

Once the Ford was out of sight, I was alone again. My unpleasant sight of the driver had made me a
little uneasy, but with Nancy’s song filling my car, I was beginning to relax. I thought of how Cliff would react if I was pregnant, what it would do to our relationship. That thought, and a nudge of the tightness still in my stomach, made me shiver. I lowered the air conditioner. “Pregnancy and babies,” I whispered. “All of a sudden my world is filled with both!”

By that time I had noticed the blue Ford again. It was ahead of me, the driver moving less than twenty miles per hour. I slowed. As I did, he put on his signal to pull off to the side of the road, as if he had a flat tire. I drove past, looking for any sign of car distress. There was none. But as I pulled past, I noticed the baby’s car seat strapped behind him.

The whole encounter took less than a minute and I wouldn’t have thought any more about it except the Ford soon caught up with me again. This time the driver didn’t pass. He was driving so close behind me that I thought he was going to ram my tail end. I glanced at the rearview mirror. The driver was staring at me unblinkingly. Something in the look on his face told me that this man would hurt me if he ever got the chance. And what I heard next made my heart jump into my throat. There was a thump and a fizz. One of my front tires had blown. I turned down the volume on the tape and took a deep breath. One of the things I’ve learned about panic is that it causes errors in judgment. Things happen fast, and because of the instinct for survival and the desire to get away
to safety, thought usually follows action.
Be calm
, I told myself.
Think
. I knew how to change a tire. Cousin Agatha’s house wasn’t too far away. My eyes went back to the mirror. Just inches behind me, the blue Ford followed. The demented eyes of its driver just seemed to be waiting for me to stop my car. Flat tire or no, I kept driving.

The Ford stayed close behind me. I felt trapped, stupid. I kept staring back at the car inches behind me, fighting to stay calm, fighting to take deep, even breaths.
Think, think
.

The roadway was deserted, the silence eerily profound except for the rhythmic thump of my flat tire. There wasn’t another car in sight. I took a deep, careful breath and with my left hand tight on the steering wheel, I opened the car pocket with my right hand. I examined the can of pepper spray I found there. Was it good? The last time I’d used it was during that affair in Bentley a year and a half earlier.

I glanced into my mirror again. The Ford was still inches behind me. But now, in the far distance, a white car was coming up fast behind both of us. My heart leaped. I whispered, “Thank goodness!” When I eased the Honda toward the shoulder of the road, the driver of the Ford immediately followed.

I switched off the car, checked to make sure that all of the doors were locked. A flock of crows, disturbed by our arrival, cackled and scolded, then flew off over the tall trees. I prayed.

The man in the Ford behind me didn’t move. I was
beginning to wonder why he hadn’t gotten out of his car and come toward me when I realized that he, too, had seen the approaching car … he was going to wait until it passed before he made a move.

As the white BMW neared, I flung open the door and jumped from my Honda. I ran into the middle of the highway, waving my hands frantically and screaming as loud as I could.

The driver of the BMW slowed his car. Two young men in their twenties and a young woman gaped out at me, confused.

“Help me!” I screamed. “Please help me!”

The young man who was driving stopped his car. He opened his window and said, “Calm down, lady … what’s your problem?”

“My tire,” I said. “I’ve got a flat tire!”

“Uh, you feel like changing a tire?” the driver asked his two passengers. The young lady in the backseat rose up, looked me in the eyes, then whispered something to the two men.

I felt the eyes of the man in the Ford boring straight into me. I pointed. “That man has been following me! If you won’t fix my tire, at least give me a ride … Just don’t leave me!” I begged.

The three people in the BMW looked toward the parked Ford. “Okay, lady,” the driver said, as he swung his car in front of my Honda. “If you’ve got a tire jack, we’ll change your tire!”

The man in the Ford shook his head. Then he turned the key in his ignition and pulled back out
onto the highway. When he swerved past, I saw for the first time the baby who was strapped into the infant’s seat.

The man had Cricket’s baby in his car!

Y
asmine’s problem had stuck in my throat like a lump of scorched rice pudding; the guy who had Morgan added to that lump. Now the only thing I could taste was bile.

I’d planned to go back to Atlanta on Saturday. I’d concentrate there on influencing Yasmine not to have the abortion. After thinking about Cliff’s problem with his client, Mrs. Campbell, I decided that whatever delay he’d have in getting back to Atlanta would allow me time to spend with Yasmine. Now, that cold-eyed turkey in the blue Ford had pissed me off in a way that made me want to stay in Otis long enough to help Mama not only to track down who had brutally murdered Cricket, but to find out who had kidnapped little Morgan. If, as I strongly
suspected, the baby’s kidnapper was the guy in the blue Ford, I’d take pleasure in personally throwing salt into his eyes.

By the time I’d picked up the food from Agatha and driven back home, a hodgepodge of emotions were surging through me. As soon as I walked into the house I’d intended to tell Mama that I’d spotted little Morgan, but I found her steadying herself, pressing one hand on the wall for support as she painfully made her way toward the family room. I waited until she was seated in the family room, her feet propped up on a stool. The expression on her face told me that she already knew I had something I wanted to tell her.

“You wouldn’t believe who I saw,” I began. No sooner were the words out of my mouth, however, than my father walked into the room. He pointed to the food on the tiled kitchen counter. “What’s that?” he asked.

“Cousin Agatha sent dinner,” I said, glancing at Mama. I suspected my father was thinking that while his cousin’s cooking could never equal Mama’s, it was definitely better than anything I could throw together. Whatever he was thinking, he pulled back the foil paper that covered the bowls. “Field peas, rice, corn bread, and fried chicken,” he reported, then he shook his head. “I’ll eat later.” He turned and headed toward the front door.

“Mama, you wouldn’t believe who I saw,” I began again before we heard the door shut behind him.

Mama’s stare was a big question mark.

“Morgan—I saw Morgan less than an hour ago,” I told her.

Mama’s eyes grew wide.

“I swear—when I was going to Cousin Agatha’s house. On Highway Three, that winding road that dead-ends near the Cypress Creek road. Morgan was inside a blue Ford that some fool was driving.”

I quickly explained what had happened to me on the highway. Then I told Mama, “That goon had such an angry look on his face, he made me sure that he would have tried something crazy if he could. Thank goodness those kids came by.”

Mama studied my face. “Would you recognize the man if you saw him again? Or the car?”

“Of course I would,” I said.

We were both silent, but it was a packed, thoughtful silence. Then the doorbell rang. The expression on Mama’s face told me that she didn’t want visitors.

After the third ring, I opened the door to Sarah Jenkins, Annie Mae Gregory, and Carrie Smalls.

The three women brushed past me and walked directly into the family room. To my surprise, Mama greeted them happily. When everyone was seated, Carrie Smalls eyed Mama grimly. “You feeling better?”

Mama smiled slightly. “Yes,” she answered. “I guess I didn’t realize how painful the removal of bunions could be.”

Sarah Jenkins sniffed. “You should have asked me before you had it done, Candi. Couple years back I had a bunion, a callus,
and
a corn cut from
one
foot.”

Mama said, “I’m sure that was some affliction.”

“It’s a fact,” Sarah Jenkins said, proud of her ordeal. “Doctor had to break a bone in my foot just to set it straight again.”

Mama nodded sympathetically, then she asked, “Did you ladies find out anything about Cricket’s murder this morning when we left you at the Cherry Ridge apartments?”

Annie Mae Gregory’s thick jaws wobbled. “We found out that Cricket was in some kind of scam that forced quite a few men in Otis to pay her money each week to keep her quiet.”

Carrie Smalls folded her arms across her chest, and pushed her breasts up like balloons as she proudly added to their astonishing report. “Mattie Snipes told me her husband was paying Cricket fifty dollars a week to keep some kind of a secret from the deacon board of his church. Mattie said she for one was glad the hussy was dead. Now that fifty dollars of her husband’s hard-earn money could go to her house, where it was suppose to be going all along.”

“Heaven knows how many other men in Otis was dishing out money to that good-for-nothing Cricket Childs,” Annie Mae Gregory continued smugly.

Mama gave the women a long, serious look, but she didn’t make any comment. If the news about Cricket being a blackmailer surprised her, nothing in her face showed it.

Annie Mae Gregory continued. “The way I figure it, if Cricket had ten men whose secret she was keeping and each gave her fifty dollars a week, that’s
enough money for a heap of people to want to see that girl gone on to her reward, whatever torment as that may be.”

Sarah Jenkins’s brow wrinkled. “If I had a husband, and a hussy like that was making him give her money every week, I’d likely kill her
myself
. Course, that ain’t no reason to steal her innocent baby. The Good Book did say, though, that your sins will go against your children. I suspect Abe will find that child Morgan out in somebody’s field butchered up just like her no-good heifer of a mama.”

At first I wondered why Mama wasn’t responding to the news of Cricket’s little scam. Then I realized that she probably knew somebody else who would know more about it than these ladies. “Did you know Cricket’s mama or daddy?” Mama asked them.

Sarah Jenkins coughed.

“Sure did,” Carrie Smalls answered. “Cricket’s daddy’s name was Archie Childs from Sugar Hill.”

“You probably went to school with Cricket’s mama, Barbara Williams,” Sarah said.

Mama looked interested. Annie Mae Gregory shifted. Her body shook like a walrus trying to sit in a chair. “Barbara was stunted. Not five feet tall when she was full grown.”

Recognition flashed in Mama’s eyes. “She was bright-skinned, had thick lips?”

“That was Barbara, all right,” Annie Mae Gregory said.

Mama nodded. “Barbara and I were in the twelfth grade together, and then—”

“She got knocked up,” Carrie Smalls interrupted. “Archie Childs got Barbara Williams pregnant.”