Into the Free (27 page)

CHAPTER 38

I don’t follow Bill Miller home. Instead, I stay right here listening to the thunder roar and thinking about how Mama used to tell me that if Jack ever hurt me, we would leave. She always made a big deal of the fact that I didn’t need to be afraid of him. That he would never lay a hand on me. She failed to realize he was hurting me in other ways. With every punch of his fist, every jolt of his angry voice, every kick of his boot into Mama’s frail frame, I was damaged. Over and over again. Damaged.

Perhaps, if I had ever seen my mother say no, if I had ever seen her fight back, demand better treatment, or define her own worth, then I would have had it in me to do the same. But all I have ever known is to apologize, be quiet, and don’t make him mad. It’s the cowardly thing to do, and some might say, the crazy thing to do. But in that moment, when Bill Miller held me down, I crossed a line. The one Mama and Jack had crossed long before, and the one I had straddled for most of my life.

I sit here by myself in the silence. I am determined not to end up like Mama.

I make a promise to myself. I promise that Bill Miller will be the last person to take advantage of me. The last man to ever hear me beg.

It’s been hours since Bill Miller left, and all night I have sat and stared at the church bells, the stained-glass windows, my torn yellow dress. My sadness turns to anger. I’m tired of hiding.

Before the morning sun even peeks through the windows, I open the door to the steeple room and climb back down the stairs. The church is empty, and I notice that Bill Miller turned the lights off when he left. How proper.

No one will arrive for hours. I fill the baptismal pool with warm water and remove my Sunday clothes in the dark. Beams from the streetlight trickle through the stained-glass panels. My eyes strain in the dim expanse of the sanctuary.

Candles line the wall behind me, unlit. I step down the three slick steps into the deep basin. A Bible is open above me on the pulpit where the minister would stand. A wooden cross leans against the wall beneath the familiar verse, John 3:16.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

For Mama, this cross was a reminder of God’s great sacrifice. Of grace and goodness. Of suffering. A symbol of faith in things unseen. Of love. And forgiveness.

But the cross reminds me of a different verse.
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Mama told me that after being nailed to the cross and beaten barbarically, Jesus said,
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
Mama used that verse to help her understand Jack. “Please forgive him. He doesn’t know any better,” she’d tell me again and again. “People only know what they know, Millie.”

Did the same truth apply to people like Bill Miller? I don’t think so. I think Bill Miller knew better. He knew it wasn’t right to rape a girl in a steeple room. A girl of barely seventeen, who had befriended his daughter. A girl who called his house a home.

Bill Miller and Jack had to have known what they were doing was wrong. You can’t beat your wife into submission. And you can’t rape a person because she reminds you of your own regrets. The truth is they both knew exactly what they were doing. And they chose it anyway. They didn’t care whether it was right or wrong.

I don’t want to forgive him. It’s not that easy.

But here’s the truth. I also don’t want to feel afraid for the rest of my life. I don’t want to live around my scars. I don’t want to be a victim. Not one second more. I want control of my own life. I’m tired of the fear.

I wash myself in the water and hear Mama’s voice. I am ten years old again, and she is telling me the story of the crucifixion. “He asked for them to be forgiven, and then He ended His life with one more simple message,” Mama says.
“It is finished.”

Can it be that clear? Can I put everything that has happened behind me and consider it
finished?

Bill Miller took control of me yesterday, but I don’t want him to control the rest of me. I don’t want to end up like Mama, weak and submissive. I also don’t want to turn out like Diana, with a lack of trust due to secrets untold. I sure don’t want to follow Jack’s course, abusive and aggressive, fighting against love and loss even after the chance for a fresh new start. And I don’t want to spin out of control like Bill Miller, bitter and vicious because I didn’t get my way.

Maybe there’s another choice. I think of Mabel, and Sloth, and Bump. All the steady people I have ever known. I sink into the baptismal pool and let the warm water roll over me. Under the surface, sounds are amplified. My heart pumps, the blood beats within me, my ears roar. And suddenly all is clear, as if the voice of God is speaking directly to me. I hear it. I understand.

I am here. I am here for a reason. For something more than to just breathe, blink, swallow. I am worthy of happiness and love. Worthy of a good life filled with good people who love me in return. And no one, not Jack, not Bill Miller, no one has the right to rob me of that peace.

I think of Bump’s family. As sharecroppers and tenant farmers, they have so many reasons to be unhappy, angry, and bitter. But despite wealthy planters who keep them under their thumbs, the Anderson family still circles together to pray. Prayers so sweet and sincere, even I felt the presence of God in their home. No doubt they’ve had hard times. Unfair struggles. But they have chosen, one day at a time, to forgive and to love.

I think of Mabel, a woman so devoted to her faith that even the tragic deaths of her son and her husband have not made her cold. “How do you get through it?” I asked Mabel one day. “I do two things,” she told me. “I remind myself that it’s not all about me. And I focus on the good. There’s always a way to find some good.”

I turn again to the words on the wall just as morning breaks through and beams of sunlight reach the wooden cross. It may take a long time, but somehow I believe that the broken pieces of me will come back together. Someone, somewhere, is on my side.

CHAPTER 39

I leave the church in my yellow dress, my hand hiding the rip across the front. It’s a dress for a child, one that no longer suits me. I am anxious to change into pants and boots.

I hurry to the Millers’ home. I need to collect my things and leave that house as quickly as possible. The crew will be leaving for Texas this morning. And I want to compete.

It’s Monday. Bill Miller will be at the bank. Camille, at school. With any luck, Diana will be at the hospital or socializing somewhere other than home. Mabel? I need to tell her good-bye and send a message to Camille.

Around the corner of Main and Miller, I am met by a band of gypsies. I stop in my tracks and count the seconds before my heart beats again. I look for River.

Babushka sees me, and I wave to the old lady with the cat eyes who gave me the key to Mama’s box. We take slow steps to come together.

“You find your story?” she asks. “The key fit?”

I nod. The day she gave me the key seems a lifetime away.

“You know truth now?” she asks.

“I think,” I say. I no longer care about the travelers’ mysteries or anything magical in the world. I only care about shedding this dress and collecting my things from Bill Miller’s home.

Babushka pulls a red scarf from her bag and wraps it around my head.
“Krasnaya,”
she says. “Red.”

I shrug my shoulders and say the word she taught me for yellow, “Zheltaya?”

“No, no,” she says. “Now you red. Krasnaya. Strong. Beauty. Krasnaya.” I blink back tears, not wanting anyone to see me cry. “Where’s River?” I ask, afraid of what her answer might bring.

“He here,” she says. “Arrive today.”

A clammy sweat builds inside my palms. He is here.

I set my mind back on Firefly and the Texas Stampede. I bid Babushka farewell and hurry to Diana’s, thinking I have to leave town before I see River, before he stops me from competing. But when I reach Diana’s house, River is leaning against the front porch post, waiting.

“Millie?” He rushes to meet me, lifting me into the air and turning me around. “I can’t believe I found you!”

After counting down for four whole seasons, I should be excited, at the very least. But I’m confused. I don’t know what I feel.

He spins me through the air, his hands on my waist, but my body doesn’t react the way it once did in a field of wildflowers, every time River touched me. I try to be polite, but I can’t even smile.

“You’ve been gone a long time,” I tell him. He puts me down.

“Just a year,” he says. “I tried to find you before we left. I waited a week. Came to your house every day.”

How can I explain to River all that has happened in the past year? Why I didn’t meet him as I promised because Jack had nearly beaten Mama to death. How I used the key Babushka gave me to open Mama’s box, which unlocked all the evils into my world. How I finally got the courage to visit the rodeo, only to see my father fall. How I, too, took a fall, but was caught by an angel, pulled from the arms of Death. How my recovery brought me to Diana and Bill Miller, and a breaking point. And how somewhere in between all the hurt and loss and chaos and damage of the last year, I had found Bump.

No words are needed. He understands. He’s arrived one day too late.

I quote his favorite book,
This Side of Paradise
.
“If the girl had been worth having she’d have waited for you.”

River responds, as Fitzgerald wrote,
“No, sir, the girl really worth having won’t wait for anybody.’”

I look at him. His flint-black eyes still shine. He’s magnificent. Every inch of him. And he came back for me. He kept his promise.

“I named a star after you,” he says. “I will sing to it every night.”

I stand in Diana’s driveway. River walks away. His white shirt blows in the breeze against his sunwrapped skin, the shiny belt of coins rocks against his strong hips. His long hands tuck deep into his pockets. His black hair falls down against his shoulders. And I don’t feel a thing.

Bill Miller has robbed me of everything.

I walk up the porch steps and realize Diana is hosting bridge day. It couldn’t be worse timing.

I need to get my things and head for the arena. But I know better than to walk into Diana’s house and interrupt her high-society gathering—still wearing yesterday’s church dress, no less. I scan my brain for other options. I sneak around to the back door and creep into the kitchen, careful not to let the door squeak.

Mabel is kneeling on the floor. Her back is turned to me, and she doesn’t hear me come into the kitchen. With her head bowed, she is whispering. I stand still and listen as she finishes a prayer.

“… keep her safe, dear Lord. Don’t let any more harm come to this sweet child. Please, in Christ’s name, watch over her and give her strength. All my life, people like the Millers been telling me what to do. Keeping me in my place. Don’t let them push her down, dear Jesus. Don’t let them break her spirit. Let her rise above it, Lord. Please. Bring Millie home.”

I fight tears as I realize she is praying for me. I press the door open and let it close again, this time loud enough to make my presence known. Mabel lifts her head and turns to see me all at once. She whispers, “Thank You, Jesus.”

I rush to her and give her a hug, then help her to her feet.

“You had me scared out of my mind, Millie. And Camille. She’s about to die not knowing why you up and ran off on us.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Mabel. I didn’t mean to worry you.” I wipe a tear from my cheek. “I can’t go into all of that now. I’m really in a hurry, and all I need is—” But before I can get it out, Diana calls from the parlor, where the bridge game has just begun.

“Mabel? Mabel! We’re dying of thirst in here. Where are those iced lemonades?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mabel answers.

I stuff a bite of muffin in my mouth and wash it down with lemonade. Mabel doesn’t complain as she pours another glass for the tray she has been preparing for the ladies.

“I need help,” I say.

“Of course, honey,” she says gently. “I’d do anything for you. You know that. I’m just glad to see you’re all right.”

She rushes into the parlor, carrying the heavy tray of frosty lemonades out to the women of the week.

I peek through the crack in the swinging door and catch sight of Mrs. Talbot, the woman who told Diana about Mama’s previous engagement to Bill Miller.

“Biggest stir I ever saw,” she rambles. The women chime in and the gossip swirls.

Mabel glances back at me, as if to explain she’s trying to hurry. She doesn’t dare cause a spill or pique Diana’s curiosity by doing anything out of the ordinary. She has to stay calm. In the meantime, I shove muffins and fruit down my throat. I am famished and dehydrated. The time ticks away.
Hurry, Mabel. Hurry.

Finally, just when I can’t wait any longer and the effects of the sugar are coming on strong, Mabel barrels through the door, empty serving tray in hand, ready to hear me out.

“I need my stuff,” I mumble, my mouth full of food.

“Now hold on just a second,” she cuts me off and spins me around. “First, I take a good look at you. Um-hmm.” She says, looking at the fresh bruises on my arms.
Stamps and bangers
. She touches a scratch on my face and says, “I saw Mr. Miller come in yesterday.”

I don’t like where she’s going. I interrupt. Tell her again how I’m in a hurry. She shushes me and keeps right on talking. Something I imagine mothers normally do.

“I saw him looking not quite right,” she says, the thoughts scraping around in her brain. “Told me he got caught up at the bank. But Mr. Miller ain’t never been home late, not once in my eighteen years of working for him. And he ain’t never gone into that bank on the Sabbath. I got my suspicions. His story just don’t add up.” She is looking right at me.

“Then you go missing. Just vanish,” she says. “And he keeps telling Mrs. Miller not to worry. You’d show up. Not to make a stink of it all over town. But she was real worried, pacing the floor, phoning her friends, until he finally snapped her up by the shoulders and told her to stop, real loud, like nobody’s ever talked to Mrs. Miller before.”

Again, Diana calls for Mabel. Says they need refills. The heat is draining the air right out of the house. It’s only spring, but the first heat wave of the year always catches everyone off guard. Seventy-seven feels like one hundred and seven, and the women’s complaints are draining through the walls. The sounds of their voices swarm all over me. Mabel reaches right down and hugs me. Hugs me tight.

“Mabel,” I bury my shame-red face in her chest. “Please. I’m leaving. Today. I’m going to find Firefly, and I’m going to compete. And”—this is the hard part—“I’m not coming back. Not to this house, anyway. I’d explain more, but I honestly don’t have a second to waste. Got to catch the crew before they head out for Texas. Right now I need your help. Please, Mabel. It won’t do us any good spreading this around. You know it. And I know it. So please, let’s just keep it between us.”

She squeezes me tight into her warm, motherly wings. Finally, she nods her head. “Secret’s safe with me. But truth’s gonna come out sooner or later. Always does. You best tell him, Millie. Bump’s not the kind to judge you for it.”

It takes nearly an hour of hiding and nail-biting before Mabel is able to help me pack up my stuff and sneak it out of the house. It takes all my strength to carry the heavy suitcase to the end of the driveway. Just as I think I’ve escaped without Diana knowing, I hear her voice calling me from the porch. “Millie? Is that you? Where have you been? Where are you going?”

I turn back and look at Diana. The women fill in the space around her. Everyone stares. Silence thickens. There are so many things I want to say, but not now. Not here.

I turn and walk away. Mrs. Talbot sneers behind me, “Good riddance.”

When I finally get to the arena, Janine is the only person in sight. She’s standing outside in the empty parking lot looking up at the sky. “Oh, hey, Millie,” she squeaks. “I was just thinking I need to order fireworks for the Fourth of July showcase.” The entire area is unusually quiet. The rodeo sounds are all gone.

“Where is everyone?” I ask. “Please don’t tell me they’ve already left.”

“’Bout an hour ago. Headed out early. Bump said it must be on account of me not holding ’em back with all my luggage.” Janine laughs, and then notices the suitcase in my hands. Jack’s old leather one. “Did you change your mind, Millie? You wanna go to Dallas?”