The Kingdom Land (17 page)

Her only answered was to get the apartment manager
and tell him the toilet was plugged. It wasn't the best decision,
but she couldn't think of anything else. The manager looked
perplexed at the request, and even troubled as she left him alone
in the apartment, going to her car and leaving.

She would return to the apartment, but only to get
her belongings. She owed three weeks rent for not giving notice,
but that was a cheap price to leave that place.

 

The corrugated tin covering of the Point seemed to be
a screen that held the pictures of those events, and she couldn't
take it any longer. Her tears still flowed, but she pulled out of
the drive-in stall and headed towards Sweetgrass. The first portion
of the trip, Highway 2 to Shelby, would have very light almost
nonexistent traffic. By the time she hit the truck traffic heading
north to Alaska on Interstate 15 she hoped to regain her composure.
She simply couldn't sit still in the lot anymore. Her thoughts
churned her stomach too much to simply sit there.

The traffic was very light to Shelby and her only
company on Interstate 15 was the semi heading north to Calgary or
Edmonton. She was unable to completely block out the images of the
doctor's words or the left behind apartment. She was able to
restrain her tears. But she could still tell her cheeks were puffy
from their effect.

She pulled into her parking place at the Dew Drop
Inn, a converted motel that was now apartments. She noticed the
owner's lights were still on. This wasn't unusual, as the owner,
Gracie, always complained about insomnia. Then Laura saw that not
only was her lights on, but Gracie was pacing in front of her units
while taking a puff off of one of her ever present cigarettes every
third stride. Laura would have loved to avoid a conversation. She
knew that would be impossible.

 

“
Girl, it's too early to be home if
you coming from the Mint, and it's too late for a nice girl like
you to be out on the town,” Gracie said as Laura got out of the
truck. “I didn't know who to expect out here when I saw the
headlights appear. Oh, my god, what's wrong with you?” Gracie
pointed a lit flashlight at Laura and saw her tangled hair and
swollen eyes.

“
Nothing, Gracie, it's just been a
long night. Let's leave it at that.”

It was nothing new for Gracie to see Laura's tears,
but these tears weren't tears of a good cry but tears of a fight.
Gracie just didn't know Laura was fighting with herself.

“
Did someone beat you? Let me know
their names.” Gracie was a big black lady who would bring fear to
anyone who crossed her.

“
No one beat me. It's
nothing.”

“
Don't tell me it isn't nothing. Let
me get you a warm washcloth. Maybe some ice, and you can tell me
all about it.”

“
No, Gracie, I've done enough
talking tonight. I just want to go to bed. I've got a job interview
at the WinRight grocery in Fairfield in the morning, so I have to
get my sleep.”

“
Okay, I'll let you get your sleep,
but I won't let you get away so easy tomorrow. Before you go to
sleep you better put a pretty picture in you mind. There's no use
fretting about what happened now.”

Not only is Gracie sweet, but she's
smarter than a lot of people who call themselves God
fearing
, Laura thought. She nodded. “I
will. Thanks, Gracie.”

 

 

 

Chapter
Thirteen

 

 

T
he sun
slivered through the bottom of the plastic window blinds and left a
line on the opposite wall to mark its presence. Laura focused her
eyes and saw 8:30 on the face of her watch. She had the habit of
sleeping late after the Mint's night shift. She was irritated at
having woke early until she remembered there was no more Mint and
late work to be done.

The WinRight appointment wasn't until 2:30. That
would give her time to get her things together and move out. She
hadn't thrown away the boxes from her last move so the chore would
be easy. Her worldly possessions were few and would only fill half
the bed of the pickup.

She also knew Gracie would be waiting for an
explanation. Gracie was always there when Laura needed her. Laura
had never met anyone like Gracie before and Laura doubted she would
have ever made it through the last year without her. She thought
about the day before when they had discussed her getting fired from
the Mint, but Laura had managed to keep it short and slipped away
to Fairfield before Gracie could ask too many questions.

But this was today and there would no avoiding the
inevitable. Laura pulled on the jeans she wore last night and
picked up a small toaster oven and a box of worn shoes and headed
for the pickup with her first load. It was frivolous to take a box
of shoes that she no longer wore and probably would never wear
again, but she needed some connection to a time when life was
normal and there were no nightmares.

She took a last look at the Dew Drop Inn to imprint
the image in her mind. The Inn was better than living in the
pickup, which she had done for a time, but not much better. The Dew
Drop Inn had been built in the thirties and for years had been a
12-unit motel. Each unit was a separate, albeit small, building
with the units arranged in a straight line to draw attention to the
passing travelers heading to Canada and needed a stop. Now the only
permanent tenets were the mice from the nearby fields. Only Laura
and Gracie's units were filled. Gracie had become the “owner' when
she was offered a 100 year lease. The landowner would keep the land
and Gracie would have the headaches of maintaining the already
rundown units.

Laura turned toward the parking lot and the pickup.
She wasn't surprised to see Gracie leaning on the side of the
truck, putting as much weight as possible on the bed of it.

“
Did you take my advice or are you
still beating yourself up this morning?” Gracie asked. Laura didn't
say anything but put her shoes and oven in the back of the pickup,
and turned to go back for a second load.

“
Why are you acting like a little
kid and pretending that if you don't look at someone they don't
exist? God knows, everybody in the county knows I exist.” Gracie's
head went back as she laughed at the own joke.

Gracie was one of only a few African-Americans in the
area, and her huge overweight frame was accentuated by a cherry red
smock that could be seen in a white out snowstorm. Laura had never
seen Gracie without the smock, but it was always clean and
pressed.

“
Are you going to keep playing this
game or are you ready to talk?”

“
I'll talk. Got some good news. I
got an interview to be a checker at the WinRight store in
Fairfield, so my luck might be changing. I think I found a place to
live, so that problem might be covered. It's nothing like your fine
apartments, but nothing can be like the Dew Drop.” Laura knew
better than to think she could get by with that short explanation,
but she tried anyway.

“
Don't be smart with me” Gracie's
black Southern drawl added to her persona.” We both know this place
is a dump and if I had a chance to leave it, I would end up just
like you. You know that's not what I'm talking about. What about
those tears last night? What's up?”

“
I told you, it was nothing. Oh,
yeah,” Laura tried to act as the event was so insignificant she had
nearly forgotten it. “I stopped by a drive in that was empty, and
in walked the same guy that started the fight at the Mint the other
night—”

Gracie didn't wait for Laura to say another word but
raised her weight off the pickup and pushed her short sleeves
higher.

“
He hit you, didn't he. I thought
you might've been hit when I saw you last night.”

“
No, he didn't hit me. Why on earth
would he hit me?”

“
Well, he must have done something.
Some people don't have to do anything. But breathe and trouble
follows them. It sounds like this guy is one of those. Keep away
from him.”

“
After the way I left him last night
I don't expect he'll want anything to do with me. But it wasn't
him. It's me. I'm trouble.'

“
Don't give me that foolishness.
You're like a broken record, blaming yourself for everything. I
know you enough to know you aren't trouble, but you carry your
problems around like they were your only friends. You aren't
fooling me. These cheap walls are as thin as paper so you don't
hide anything. I hear you even when you think I can't hear you.
You're going to run out of tears if you don't watch it.”

A semi passed on the nearby highway with its horn
blowing and a cat whistle from the driver as an obvious gesture to
Laura's beauty. Again Gracie stood up from her resting place, shook
her fist at the trucker and yelled, although she would never be
heard over the loud diesel.

“
You keep that truck moving. There's
nothing for you here. Find some cheap tramp in Canada. This girl
has way too much class for you.” She positioned her weight once
again, and resumed as if her sentence had not
interrupted.

“
I don't know what you brought with
you when you moved here, but it must have been bad and you're
probably packing it up to take it with you. Now, if I carried all
my past from North Carolina I would have shot myself years ago. The
past is past; you can't do a thing to change it. You're getting
away from the Mint, now go start a new and fresh start, and I mean
fresh. If you carry your problems to your new place, it's like
cleaning your refrigerator to get rid of the smell and putting the
rotten food back in again. That fridge is going to smell as long as
that food's there. Don't keep your rotten past around.”

“
I know that, Gracie, but it's not
that easy, and every time I try to forget, in the end it all came
back to me.”

“
What's this all about? You've been
here four months, and we've talked about everything but what's
really bothering you. What'd you do, steal your fiends lunch money
in grade school? You remind me of someone who got a rock in his or
her shoe and never takes it out. They can still walk, but every
step reminds them of that dang rock and not what's in front of
them. Stop yourself. Deal with it, and get on with your life. It
can't be that serious.”

“
It is that serious.” Laura turned
to walk away, but turned back without taking a step.

Gracie shifted her weight on the pickup. “Well, are
you going to tell me about it, or feel sorry for your sore
foot?”

“
I got pregnant and I've never been
married.” Laura interrupted Gracie

“
And?”

“
And I got pregnant,” Laura
carefully formed the words, “and I lost the baby”.

Gracie nodded. She didn't look shocked, only pensive.
“How long ago was this? And how far along was the baby?”

“
I lost the baby two weeks before I
moved in here, and the baby was four months old. I could feel the
baby move, and that baby was all I had….”

“
From what I hear almost all babies
that miscarriage have problems that wouldn't make them whole. Maybe
it's better.”

“
Don't tell me it's better. I don't
care if my child had to be fed and carried the rest of my life.
That was my baby and I needed it.”

“
So you needed her more than what
the baby might have to live through. Being a mom isn't for the mom,
it's to protect their children.”

“
Gracie, that's my point. I didn't
protect my child from the very start. It wouldn't have happened
if… The baby would have lived if I hadn't abandoned God. There
was no love in what I did. It was disgusting and terrible. I walked
away from God and God took my baby.”

“
Girl, how did you ever come with
that answer? What type of God do you follow?

“Sure, let's say you're bad and all that stuff you
Christians feel guilty about. That baby didn't do anything. You're
saying God killed an innocent baby cause you did something He
didn't like. We're all in big trouble if that's God. If a man did
that they would put that person in jail for the rest of their life
and he'd be considered the worst of the worst. Now you're telling
me God is that disgusting.”

“
I didn't say God was disgusting and
I didn't say God killed the baby”

“
Sure you did.You said He took the
baby, didn't you?”

“
Yes”

“
Well, that's using nicer words, but
it means the same.”

“
Gracie, it's not that easy, you
aren't listening.”

“
I'm listening. Now listen to
yourself. You've got a good head on your shoulders, but you aren't
making any sense. I know it must have been the worst thing in your
life, but you can't dwell on something so painful for so long
without going crazy. You know you didn't cause God to ‘take your
child'.”

“
But He had every right to take it.
It was terrible and I wouldn't expect you to understand. How could
you? I can't get the image from my mind. I just keep thinking about
it over and over.