Playing With Matches (25 page)

I don’t remember the last time I looked in Shookie’s eyes, saw their ragged-edged corneas, making her soul look old. God help her, that she knows all this.

Auntie once told me they’d lived in Greenfield. When she left the circus, she came down here to be with her sister. So—
Shookie was in False River because someone she loved was locked up in Hell’s Farm
. I come around the table and squat next to her.

She looks at her plate. “They’re wonderin’ how they wound up within a million miles of that place. They talk about who all done ’em wrong. They get to be arrogant sonsabitches, coverin’ they asses day and night. White child, there ain’t no such thing as livin’ in prison, it’s all dyin’. All dyin’.”

She takes a mouthful of cold tea and lets it wash down. “Runnin’ wild with nightmares, missin’ they kin, backbones curled up and shakin’ under the sheets.”

Wheezer pushes back his chair, lays his other hand on Shookie’s arm, like maybe he thinks she’s falling, falling.

“I ain’t done talkin’,” Shookie says. “They get what they want outa you, ’cause they shine you on. You watch out—ain’t no man goin’ without very long. If he be down on his luck and in need of thangs, he find a way—postage stamps, say. A ice-cream bar on a hot day.”

She says softly, “Then one day, your man leanin’ back, makin’ out like life is all right, but he say one wrong thing, get on somebody’s bad side, and he go down in a heap on the floor, kilt. The prison, they send you bones in a wood box. You stand in a field and bury it on your own.”

“Oh, Miss Shookie.”

“Mama,” says Bitsy, struggling out of her chair. “I’ll fetch your pills. Then we’ll get you on up to bed.”

Auntie’s elbows are on the table; her head’s in her hands.

Shookie rises, unsteady, from her chair. I wonder how much longer her legs and thick ankles will be able to navigate the stairs. “You remember this, Clea—the troot’s plastered over so thick they can’t find it.”

At the foot of the table, Thomas doesn’t know where to look.

I take the bottle Bitsy brings and shake out two tablets. Shookie swallows. She looks cornered and old.

“Oh, girl,” she says, as Bitsy leads her from the table. “You gullible as hell, you give yourself away to them mens. They’ll shine you on ’cause they hearts is dried up and gone to dust, like old cake. Don’t believe nothin’. And that’s all.”

“That’s all,” whispers Harry.

In two seconds I am around the table and holding my boy and wondering if anyone else heard.

“Harry talked!” Luz cries. “Miss Shookie made Harry talk.”

This is a household of secrets.

Holy hell.

Light as rain, black as mud, Uncle rises and brings himself a cup of coffee, pours it gently up, and sips from the saucer. “Hurricane coming, category two.”

If it weren’t dark I’d take Harry outside, tell him and Luz about growing up here—show them how I used to climb out the window, how Finn swung like a monkey from the tree.

If I can talk to felons, I can talk to my kids.

I think about my first writing class this morning. I didn’t offer much. Five men out of—how many? Two thousand?—left their shoebox cells for an hour and twenty minutes. If they never write anything but fiction, class is a diversion for them, a place to go.

Auntie puts sheets and an old quilt in my arms. “On the sofa,” she says, not looking at me. “Bed down your man.”

I hate this. I don’t want to see Thomas or hear him or be anywhere near him.

News comes that the storm is stalled in the gulf. It’s picking up size and speed, of course. Maybe, I say, Greta will turn eastward to Alabama and the Florida panhandle.

Uncle says,
Fat chance
.

38

P
olitely, Thomas thanks Auntie for the supper. She tells him he should be thanking his daughter, and he does, bending over Luz, planting a kiss on top of her head.

Auntie asks of him, “Where you stayin’ at, Mr. Thomas? You got a place for the night?”

He stands, awkward, I with the blanket in my arms. “I’m at the Covey Motel, just this side of Greenfield.”

“A long ways for you to be comin’ and goin’, storm heading this way and all.”

“It’s not so bad,” Thomas says.

Ever since Shookie said her piece at supper, he has not taken his eyes from me. I’d like to ball up my fists and blacken them both. He comes into the parlor, sits on the edge of the sofa.

“Mind you, the Covey’s a pure rat trap,” Auntie calls from the kitchen, and I know what is coming. I shake my head firmly, but she pays me no mind.

I put the bedding on the sofa, sit on the floor with Harry, and finger some things I gathered in the kitchen and brought to the carpet. Because Auntie’s insisted, he’s temporarily given up his
spoon for a washing. “This is a fork, Harry, and a knife, remember? Pop bottle. A can of soup. Can you say ‘soup,’ love?”

These are things Harry knows, of course, but I’m so afraid that if he doesn’t speak, he might forget.

I settle back against the chair leg. As a kid, I sat here, against Uncle’s bony knee, reciting my times tables and planning my escape. To Mama’s house.

I take a pen and draw a face with a crown, on my index finger. I tell Harry, “Once upon a time there was a king who wore only fine clothes. He dressed in his very best ones when he paraded through the streets, so the people could see him. They cheered and cheered.” I draw a face on my other index finger. “One day, a tailor came to town.”

In the kitchen, I hear dishes rattling. Uncle Cunny is drying. Wheezer has gone upstairs.

I tell Thomas, “It’s his favorite story, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes,’ ” and I watch, with some pleasure, his embarrassment at not knowing.

“Clea—”

“Luzie, why don’t you take Harry to brush his teeth, put his pajamas on him? I’ll be up shortly to finish the story.”

“Wait! That reminds me,” Thomas says. He rises and heads for the back door. “I have a couple of things in the car. For the kids.”

He goes out and comes back with an armful.

“Books!” Luz cries. “Oh, Dad, you saved my Greek history! And the atlas too!” She hugs him around the waist. Her
Modern History of Greece
is a wreck. But it’s been carefully dried, and the curled pages unstuck.

From under his other arm, Thomas pulls Harry’s rabbit, white with dust, the stuffing still wet and lumpy. I wish I had been the
one to save it. My breath catches in an almost-sob. The whole day has been more than this white child can bear.

Auntie gives me the arched brows. “Mr. Thomas, you go on in to the Covey now and fetch your things. We’ll put you up on the sofa till the bad weather’s past.”

“Auntie,” I argue, “your house is already over-the-top full.”

“I won’t have it any other way. Family should pull together in hard times. ’Parently you forgot that. Besides, Cunny’s going down to Greenfield early, to bring plywood for windows, and I’m riding in with him.”

Uncle finishes the wiping up, drying his hands.

“You and Francis will be up at the prison,” Auntie says to me. “That way, Mr. Thomas can stay with his children.”

I cannot fathom whose side Auntie and Uncle are on, and why no one’s on mine, but then scold myself for thinking they should feel torn at all. I haven’t told them what’s happened, and no man can judge what he does not yet know. The real battle between Thomas and me has not even begun. In the morning, if he had a mind to, Thomas could take the kids and run. I, myself, have a history of running.

When Luz and Harry have gone upstairs, I say between my teeth, “Thomas, you and the kids be here when I get back at noon.”

I cannot tell what he’s thinking. In this household, everyone seems happy but Shookie and me. But then, Miss Shookie has never been happy. Now I know two strong reasons why. She loved an offender, who lived the life men must live in prison, and then he died. Perhaps just as bad, there was a white child abiding under her sister’s wing.

I have a niggling concern about Auntie and Uncle’s trip to
Greenfield tomorrow. They’re going for lumber. Is it possible they’ll stop by the sheriff’s office?

Surely they would not.

But somebody will.

Who?

Anymore, I don’t know. I’m so tired of this worry, this fear I’ve carried, living in its shadow. I’m sick of lies and cover-ups. This may be the hardest decision I’ve ever made, but when the storm is over, I’m going to face up to it. Turn myself in.

Wheezer bounds down the stairs. “Damnation, you all. I got the radio on, and it looks like, tomorrow, Greta’s going to be a bad one.”

39

O
ur third morning here, Luz wakes me early. Around the gables, the wind has picked up, but it’s not yet raining. “Mom.”

I open my eyes. She’s standing at the foot of the bed.
“Mm?”

She points to the window in the far gable. “What happened to the house next door?”

My heart lurches. I long to roll over, go back to sleep. Pretend I didn’t hear. There’s no point asking her what she means.

“A lot.”

“You can tell there used to be a house. There’s some steps and pipes and stuff. I asked Aunt Jerusha, but she said I should ask you. Mom? Is that what your book is about?”

“That,” I say, blinking sleep from my eyes, “is what the book is about.”

“You said we’d talk. You could tell me in chapters.”

Smart Marie-Luz. Maybe, chapter by chapter, I can mend some damage. Pay it back. With this prison class, have I already begun?

I let out a puff of breath. “All right. Yes. I’ll be gone a couple of hours. You and Harry stay here with Dad. Then, when I get back, we’ll talk. Okay?”

I touch her hair, dark and fuzzy, unbraided. I look over at Harry. For the first time, last night, he slept well, the misshapen rabbit under his arm.

Thomas is up, rumpled and stumbling through the kitchen to the bathroom.

I step out into the wind. Even as I stand there, a new and lower layer of gray clouds moves in. Out over the river, gulls dip and rise in jerky circles, trying to find a slipstream to ride. Luz informs me that this is not a good sign.

“They always fly ahead of a storm,” Uncle agrees grimly. He’s arrived for breakfast and to pick up Auntie. “Been years since I’ve seen them this far inland. Even worse, they’re still headed north.”

Inside, Auntie’s got waffles ready and the radio playing.

“Hurricane’s predicted to hit the coast about five o’clock,” she says.

It’s not yet eight. Uncle butters a waffle. “Means things will get pretty ugly here tonight.”

Wheezer thumps down the stairs and says to me, “Plenty of time to get you back before the storm. Just let me grab a bite.”

I forgo breakfast and follow Auntie to her room. Close the door. Perch on her candlewick spread. She lays out a dress for the trip to Greenfield and finds serviceable black shoes.

I am already on a fine edge about the weather, about Thomas.

“Aunt Jerusha,” I say, “I recall that you came to False River to be with your sister. Miss Shookie’d come here to be with her man. There’s one more thing I need to know. Tell me, please, about my mother.”

Auntie dabs sweet-smelling lotion into the palm of her hand,
rubs her raw knuckles and ashy elbows. She looks neither surprised nor distressed.