Final Justice (10 page)

"We never take any chances, and look how many years we've been together. Besides, you've got enough to worry about without me. So scoot. Alma's seen us, and her eyes are shooting daggers."

* * *

Norma Breedlove turned to see what was making Alma look mad enough to bite a nail in two. "Hey, isn't that your old man getting out of Dewey Culver's truck with Sara Speight drivin'? What's he doing with her?"

Without a word, Alma got up and started walking across the parking lot. She was not about to make any comment that would give Norma more fodder for gossip. Luke got out of the truck, and Sara wasted no time driving away.

Alma couldn't help thinking that he was a fine-looking man, even if he did already have some lines around his eyes, and his nose was crooked from when he broke it playing football. He was tall and well-built, and she knew lots of women thought she'd made a real good catch when she married him. Of course, they didn't know the truth, that he didn't love her and never had. But he was hers, by golly, as long as he went on believing Tammy was his daughter.

Alma thought of the promise she had made herself, how she was going to make things better because she didn't want to lose him, which is what might happen once Miss Orlena died. Luke would never come back and probably want a divorce, and if that happened, Alma knew at her age she'd probably never find another husband. So she was going to seduce him, and she smiled to think about it. When his leave was over, he'd be so crazy about her he'd want to get out of the army and settle down and be a real family man. Before, it hadn't mattered, because she knew as long as his mother was alive, things would stay the same. Only now, she was worried, and the first thing she was going to do was not to say anything snotty about him riding with Sara.

Luke took a step backwards, stunned, as she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him.

"Lordy, I'm glad you're home, but why didn't you let me know when you were coming? I'd have taken off work and met the bus."

She was still clinging to him, and Luke wondered what the hell was going on. She never hugged him, never touched him, and he had expected her to blow up about Sara, anyway.

He unwound her arms and mumbled he hadn't known exactly when he'd arrive. "I just need to get the car so I can go to the hospital. I'll be back to pick you up when you get off work."

He watched as she dug into the pocket of her pedal pushers for the keys. She wasn't a bad looking woman, he thought, if she'd wear a little makeup and fix herself up. Back in high school she had been a knockout, in a trashy kind of way, and she still had a nice shape.

She handed him the keys. "I went by the hospital on my way to work this morning, but she was asleep. I hate to say it, Luke, but I don't think she's going to live much longer. She's real bad off."

He felt the guilt that washed over him every time he thought about how he should have come home more often. It was worse now, knowing his mother was going down for the count. But hell, there was no life for him here and never had been, and not for her, either. But whenever he would point that out to her, she'd argue it was the only home she'd ever known and she wasn't running. So she stayed... and she drank... and it was killing her.

And Luke supposed he was going to always feel guilty about not being there to try and make things easier for her, but what could he have done except be miserable with her, which wouldn't have done either of them any good?

He scanned the parking lot and spotted the green Bel Air and turned to go. Alma caught his arm. "Tammy is really looking forward to your being here, too, Luke. I'll fix your favorite supper, fried chicken and turnip greens, and then we'll all go to the hospital together. But later, we need to have ourselves a talk."

"Yeah, sure," he said uncertainly. She was acting real strange. Maybe she had met somebody else and was being nice because she was going to ask him for a divorce. Well, that would suit him just fine. "See you later."

* * *

He found his mother asleep, bedded down in a ward with three other women. Two of them were crazy with old age, babbling and moaning. The third looked like she was already dead but nobody knew it yet. He turned on his heel and went straight to the nurses' station and told her, in no uncertain terms, that he wanted his mother moved to a private room as soon as possible.

The nurse, face as stiff as her starched white cap, explained a private room cost twenty dollars a day but ward beds were only eight. He told her it didn't matter, just to move her. Then he returned to the ward and pulled the curtain around the bed and sat down.

Staring at his mother, he thought of so many things he had always wanted to ask but never mustered the nerve—like just who was his daddy? And why hadn't she married him? Was it because he already had a wife? And did he live in Hampton? And how come he hadn't at least helped out with money so she wouldn't have had to take crap off Junior Kearney after her folks kicked her out? Junior wasn't his daddy. She had told him that much, at least.

What, exactly, burned inside her like a gnawing canker that she'd had to try and seek solace in a bottle all these years? She could have given him up at birth for adoption and gone away to start a new life, but she told him that thought never entered her mind. He was her baby, her son... the only good thing that had ever happened to her in her whole life, and she wasn't about to give him up, no matter what folks thought. So many questions, and the time for answers was running out.

Her hair, which had turned gray way before its time, hung loose and limp. As he pushed a few strands back from her face, her lashes softly fluttered at his touch, but she did not awaken."Oh, Lordy, Momma," he whispered raggedly, "just what were the demons in your life?"

Only when he finally left did Orlena open her eyes.
Maybe
, she thought, wishing desperately that she had a drink,
the time had finally come to tell him about those demons.

Chapter 6

Every time Luke went home, the cabin seemed to get smaller. The kitchen and sitting area were all in one room. There was only one bedroom, and the bath had been added on later and took up half of what used to be the back porch. Alma and his mother shared the bedroom, and Tammy slept on the sofa. When he was there, Tammy moved in with his mother, and he and Alma took the couch—not that it mattered. He couldn't remember the last time they'd had sex.

He was sitting on the front porch with Tammy while Alma fixed supper. He tried to make small talk but didn't know what to say.

A car pulled into the parking lot, and Luke watched as a man got out and headed straight for a cabin. The door flew open before he got there, and a woman with hair the color of egg yolks and wearing only a slip eagerly waved him inside.

"That's Miss Roxie's place," Tammy said. "And that man is one of her cousins. Momma says Miss Roxie has lots of cousins that come to visit. She's real nice. She gives me candy sometimes."

He knew then that was how Alma explained the whores Junior had started keeping, and he made up his mind to get his family out of there no matter how much his mother argued about it. Junior's place had always been a dump, and now the sheriff was apparently too busy harassing negroes to care about anything illegal going on there.

His attention was drawn to a black Ford as it pulled up to the back door of the cafe. A man dressed in black peg-legged pants and a bright pink shirt got out. He walked to the trunk, started to open it, then saw Luke watching and changed his mind and continued inside. Tammy said importantly, "That's Mister Virgil. He brings bottled water to Mr. Kearney. I've seen him unload cases of it in big Mason jars. He must have a good well or something, huh?"

Luke gave an absent nod, burning to think how Junior had not only turned the motor court into a whore house but was also selling moonshine in what was, in theory, a dry county. A few minutes later the man came out, got in the car, and, with an annoyed glance at Luke, took off with a screech of tires, red dust flying.

Junior followed and headed straight for Luke. "Well, well," he sneered. "The soldier boy came home 'cause his momma is sick. Ain't that sweet?"

Luke stood, pulling Tammy with him. He gave her a gentle push and told her to go inside, then turned on Junior. "Skip the bullshit, Junior. I see what's going on here with your whores and moonshine, and I don't like it around my family."

Junior spat a wad of tobacco juice to land near Luke's feet. "So why don't you take 'em and git?"

"That's exactly what I plan to do."

"Good." Junior nodded as though it were all settled. "So how's Orlena doin'?"

"What do you care?"

"What do I care?" Junior hooted. "Ain't you forgettin' something, boy? If not for me, you'd probably been born in a back alley somewheres. I gave your momma a roof over her head, remember?"

"She worked for it in more ways than one," Luke reminded him with hooded eyes.

Junior frowned. Luke was a big fellow, and he'd heard how he'd had a lot of special training in the army to make him real mean. Instinctively, he retreated a few steps. "You just let me know when you plan to move, and the sooner the better. I can use this cabin for one of my girls."

"Luke," Alma called uncertainly from where she stood just inside the rusting screen door, "Supper's ready."

He left Junior standing there and went inside. As soon as he got to the table, he curtly declared, "Tomorrow we're going to find someplace else for you all to live. You aren't staying here any longer, and that's final. If Momma makes it out of the hospital, I'll set her straight how it's going to be. You should have written me what's been going on here.
Cousins. Bottled water.
Jesus, Alma." He stabbed a drumstick with his fork and put it on his plate.

Tammy watched with wide eyes, and Alma cleared her throat, sending a message to Luke to cool it. They ate in silence, except for Luke's saying how good everything was. Alma had been cooking ever since she got home and had outdone herself, which puzzled him, because she had never gone to this trouble before.

"It started up in the last year." Alma had waited to say anything till they were on their way to the hospital after dropping Tammy off at a girlfriend's house to spend the night. "First it was the women. Just a few at first. Then every single cabin was taken by them, except for ours. Junior is sorry as they come, Luke, and I've sure never had no use for him, but he has taken care of your momma. He hasn't asked her to move."

"I wish he had."

"So do I, because things keep getting worse. There's the gambling, and sometimes there's big fights that spill into the parking lot. We don't go outside after dark, and I try to make sure Tammy sleeps at one of her friend's on the weekends when it gets real bad."

"Have you ever called the sheriff?"

"Oh, yes. One night when there was a big fight and a man got cut up. Deputies came and broke it up, but they didn't arrest anybody, and things kept right on. So I don't bother, anymore, especially when I've seen the deputies going in the cabins where the women are. And I'll let you figure out why," she added with a roll of her eyes.

"And you didn't write me about any of it."

"Orlena wouldn't let me. She said you'd come home and raise hell, and there was no need. You know how stubborn she can be. That old motor court is the only home she's ever had, and she wasn't about to move anywhere else. She said there was nowhere else in this county where she'd be welcome, anyhow."

"So she felt welcome around whores and drunks and gamblers." He slammed his palms against the steering wheel. "Well, I promise you one thing: she's spent her last night there."

* * *

At the hospital, Luke was glad to run into the doctor as he was making his rounds but not pleased over what he had to tell him.

"Orlena has cirrhosis of the liver caused by her drinking," Dr. Campbell explained. "Ordinarily, the damage can be reversed with abstinence if it's caught in time, but apparently your mother had symptoms she ignored. Now she has fever, jaundice, and she's in a lot of pain. There's also some sepsis—that's when bacteria invades the body—and I'm also seeing signs of heart failure."

Luke felt like he'd swallowed a brick and had to force his words around it. "Is there any hope she can pull out of this? I swear, I'll do whatever it takes to make her quit drinking. I'll sign for her to go to Brice's if you think it'll help." Brice's was Alabama's hospital for alcoholics.