Sophie and the Rising Sun (27 page)

“We need to make a list of things,” Fiona said. “So we can go in town in a little bit and get whatever we need. But of course, we don’t know how long we’ll have him here with us, so we don’t want to spend too much.”

“One of us better go and one stay here with him, leastwise until we get some of them rubber pants,” Glory said, and Fiona nodded in agreement. In the meantime, Glory had brought a soft old shirt from the closet, and when Fiona shook it out from its folds, she caught—for the least little moment—the faintest aroma of J. Roy’s shaving soap.
Funny that his smell should still be in this shirt, despite it being washed and put away for so many years! s
he thought, but she said nothing. Strangely, she felt her eyes fill up, but she didn’t know whether it was because of J. Roy’s aroma still on the old shirt or whether she was feeling the sheer joy of taking such a pitiful little boy, cleaning him up, and putting him into fresh clothes. Regardless, she blinked away the tears that threatened to come, put the man-sized shirt on the child, rolled up the sleeves until his small hands appeared and then buttoned the front, which went all the way down to his toes.

“Well. That’s all we can do for now,” Fiona sighed. “Now let’s get some good food into him. Lord only knows when he last had something to eat. ‘Cause no telling where his mama came from, but not from around here, that’s for sure. And no telling how long she’d been traveling. A long way, I should think, from the looks of her. And out in that awful storm, to boot.”

The women both remembered again the thin, rain-soaked woman who had knocked on their back door long before dawn. Remembered her anguished face and heard her whispered words, “I’m sorry to bother you folks so early.” That was absolutely every word she said, but then she had pointed toward the tree and put her hand over her mouth, as if to stop herself from speaking further.

While Glory stood at the screen door, with the porch light shining behind her, Fiona picked her way across the yard and found the child asleep. When she turned to ask the woman what was going on, the woman was gone.

“Where’d she go?” Fiona called to Glory.

“Don’t know,” Glory hollered back. “Didn’t see her go. Just disappeared!” And then Fiona had gathered up the child, surprised at the weight of so fragile-looking a little thing, and carried him into the house.
Time to find out what this is all about later,
she thought to herself, because her entire attention was turned to the child who was in such an obviously miserable condition. While Glory held the door open, Fiona carried him inside and put him on her own bed, where he mumbled and turned onto his side, his small mouth making slight sucking sounds in his sleep. Fiona pulled a cotton quilt over him, over the filth and the wet clothes, as well. And immediately, they phoned Doc—the only person they knew to call—and he said for them to let the child sleep, and he would come by to see him as soon as he could. In the meantime, Doc would see if he could find out anything about the mother.

“Grits are probably done by now,”
Glory said, breaking the reverie of memory for them both. They’ll be easy on his stomach, and a soft scrambled egg will be good, as well. But I still say a good dose of castor oil would do him just right.”

“Forget that, Glory. I simply won’t permit it.”

“Well. Don’t you go blaming me if he gets so stopped up he ends up with a fever.”

“He won’t.”

“Won’t get stopped up?”

“Won’t get stopped up
or
get a fever.”

All this time, the child looked from one to the other of the women, looked not with the typical curiosity one would expect, but with a calm, reassured expression, as if he knew, despite their fussing with each other, knew in some strange, non-verbal way that those strange women had been right: everything was going to be okay.

What he didn’t know—couldn’t know, at his tender age—was that his vision of the skirt would fade away so quickly, and that he would not consciously think of it again. But he also didn’t know that deep in his

heart, where he couldn’t see it or even know it was there—or that it wasn’t—
something
was gone, and that nothing would ever be the same again.

Augusta Trobaugh earned the Master of Arts degree in English from the University of Georgia, with a concentration in American and Southern literature. Her first novel,
Praise Jerusalem!,
was a semi-finalist in the 1993 Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Competition. Trobaugh’s work has been funded through the Georgia Council of the Arts, and she has been nominated for Georgia Author of the Year.