The mass grave at the Pritchett farm was barely noticeable from the road, and lye prevented the odor of decay from fouling the air, but the incident was still fresh on everyone’s mind. Other dairy farmers and cattlemen in the region were selling their herds to the FSRC’s agents, but none of those transactions had sparked incidents, partially because they had taken place in rural areas, not in the immediate vicinity of Gilead and its shantytown full of people who were barely subsisting.
In order to avoid foreclosure of their property, many local landowners were eager to take advantage of the government program before the money allotted to buy cattle ran out. Sentiment extended only so far when it came to a choice between losing a herd and losing everything.
No one blamed a man for trying to make the most of a dire situation. Many townsfolk admired Mr. Pritchett, who had denounced Sheriff Anderson for standing by and doing nothing when the ruffians turned a terrible situation into a life-threatening melee. Others were outspoken in their contempt for Mr. Ellis and his ilk, who would actually profit from the program while cattlemen and farmers were left with nothing with which to rebuild. Some, those who disliked the shanty-town and distrusted everybody in it, thought the vagrants had got no better than they deserved.
Rumors spread rampantly. Backbiting turned vicious. Tempers were short and tension was high. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something bad to happen. Dread was as oppressive as the unrelenting heat.
One evening as he studied the chessboard, waiting for Mr. Rainwater to make his move, Mr. Hastings absently remarked, “Sticky today.”
Mr. Rainwater limited his response to an absentminded nod.
Ella had been baking all day, so even after the sun went down, the kitchen remained a hotbox. There wasn’t a breeze to be found, although every window in the house was open in the hope that one would be coaxed inside. She had asked the gentlemen if they minded her and Solly sharing the front parlor with them, where the small electric fan at least stirred the sultry air.
Mr. Hastings had answered for both of them. “Of course not.”
She’d settled into a chair and situated Solly on the floor beside her, where he played with spools of thread while she caught up on mending.
Mr. Hastings took a sip from his sweating glass of iced tea and, continuing his one-sided conversation, said, “Humid as it is, it could storm before daybreak. Dare I think we might actually see rain?”
Mr. Rainwater thoughtfully moved a chess piece. “If I didn’t know better,” he said slowly, “I’d think you were trying to distract me with all this talk of the weather.”
“Guilty,” the older man said around a chuckle. “I’m trying to hold on to my title and my dignity. You’re improving with each game.”
“But you still outplay me.”
“Not for long, is my guess.”
Mr. Rainwater smiled across at him, but Ella also caught his gaze shifting to Solly, who was absorbed in his play with the wooden spools. For the past half hour, she had become aware that Mr. Rainwater spent as much time studying Solly as he did the chessboard. Solly had been playing quietly, but it suddenly occurred to her that he might be a distraction, preventing her boarders from fully enjoying their game.
Hastily she snipped the thread she’d been using to sew a button back onto one of Solly’s shirts. She replaced her thimble, thread, and scissors in the sewing basket. Carefully she pushed her needle into a stiff white card and slipped it into an inside pocket of the basket.
Mr. Rainwater, noticing, asked, “Are you finished?”
“For tonight.”
Mr. Hastings came around in his seat. “Are you leaving us, Mrs. Barron? I was enjoying your company.”
She smiled wanly, grateful to him for the polite lie. “It’s time I put Solly to bed.”
She bent down to gather up the spools of thread that he’d been playing with. He protested when she wrested one from his hand and dropped it into the basket. “Time for bed, Solly,” she said, praying he would go without creating a scene.
Her prayer was in vain.
Solly began the high-pitched whine that signaled he was distressed. He raised his hands to the sides of his head and began flapping them against his ears, as the whine intensified into a full-blown screech.
Leaving her sewing basket on the floor beside her chair, Ella picked him up and wrapped her arms around him in an effort to pin his waving hands and kicking feet to her body.
“I apologize for the interruption, gentlemen. Good night.”
Carrying Solly, she practically ran from the room. As she passed the staircase, an apparition in a lightweight robe and a hairnet leaned over the railing from the gallery above and called down, “Is everything all right?”
“Fine, Miss Pearl. Good night.”
Ella rushed into her bedroom and fell against the door to close it, hoping the heavy oak would block the terrible sound issuing from her little boy. She clutched him to her, shushing him, whispering a litany of comforting words, yet knowing the uselessness of them. He was tortured by demons against which she was powerless. To her and others, his fits were a disruption. To him, they were sheer torment, the extent of which she couldn’t even conceive. She couldn’t protect him from his own mind, couldn’t protect him from an unseen enemy, and that was her greatest heartache.
Each time something like this happened, it also increased her fear that she wouldn’t be able to protect Solly from being institutionalized. What if Mr. Rainwater reported this episode to Dr. Kincaid? What if the doctor took matters into his own hands and notified authorities of the dangers Solly’s fits posed?
Short of that, if this continued to happen, she might lose boarders. Kind as they were, there was a limit to their tolerance for these outbursts. Times were hard, money was scarce, and every penny counted. She couldn’t afford to lose good, permanent boarders like the spinster sisters or Mr. Hastings, especially since Mr. Rainwater’s residency was temporary.
After catching her breath, she carried Solly into the small room in which he slept. Closing the door made the room even hotter and more airless than it already was, but the door would remain closed until she got him calmed down.
But nothing she did stopped his hand flapping or his squeal, made even more earsplitting as it echoed in the small room. In the end, she left him long enough to rush back into the formal parlor and, ignoring the anxious and inquisitive eyes of the two men, retrieved her sewing basket. When she returned to Solly’s bedroom, she upturned the basket onto his bed, spilling the contents onto it.
He stopped screeching instantly. Picking out two spools of thread, he set them carefully on the floor beside his bed, close to touching but not quite. Then, one by one, he replaced the items scattered across his bed in the basket. When he was done, he set the basket on the floor, climbed up onto his bed, lay his head on the pillow, and closed his eyes. He was asleep within seconds.
Ella fell back against the wall and slid down it until she was sitting on the floor. She was damp with perspiration and more exhausted than she would have been if she’d run all the way to Brownsville and back.
Bending her head low, she picked the pins from her hair, relieving the back of her neck from the weight of the tight bun. There was also relief in Solly’s silence and inactivity, and for that she felt very ashamed. She looked into the sleeping face of her son, and her heart constricted with love and a twinge of pity. She had no way of knowing, but she wondered if perhaps sleep was the only state in which he found his own peace.
She scooted across the floor on her bottom to the side of the bed, being careful not to disturb the two spools of thread that Solly had so painstakingly placed. For several minutes, she simply stared at him with that same mix of love and sorrow. Then, gently, she touched his hand where it lay on the counterpane. Her fingertips traced the fine blue network of veins just beneath his pale skin. Barely making contact, she ran her finger across his eyelashes, then along the rim of his ear.
He didn’t flinch or deflect her touch. He didn’t even stir except for the almost indiscernible rise and fall of his thin chest. These were the moments of her life most precious to her, when she could luxuriate in touching her child without being rebuffed. During the hours that others slept in her house, she often spent in this tiny cell of a room that had bars on its only window to prevent escape. She passed many dark nights caressing Solly, imagining a day when he would look at her and smile with recognition and reciprocated love.
It was a ridiculous hope. Many had told her so. But she clung to it nonetheless. If ever she let it go, she feared falling into an abyss of despair from which there would be no escape.
Only one clap of thunder preceded the rain. It didn’t start with a few sprinkles and build. It fell suddenly and violently, an instant downpour.
In a heartbeat, Ella was up. She grabbed her robe and was still pushing her arms into the sleeves of it as she left her room. The central hallway was dark, but flashes of lightning provided intermittent illumination as she rushed toward the formal parlor.
When she stepped into the room, a lightning bolt momentarily blinded her. Carefully, she felt her way across the room to the west wall, where the tall windows remained open. Rain had already doused the sills. Her bare feet discovered the floor wet and slippery. Quickly, she closed the corner window and moved to the next.
She made her way down the row, shutting out the pelting rain. Jagged bolts of lightning opened up cracks in the black sky. Treetops were tossed by an angry wind. Someone’s laundry had been ripped off the clothesline and was being blown down the street, empty pants and shirts tumbling like circus performers.
When the last window had been closed, she left the twin parlors and went to the front door. It was on the south side of the house and protected by the second-story balcony, but rain had been wind-driven across the porch and through the screen. The wind was so strong she felt resistance when she closed the solid door against it. She flipped the lock to secure it, rested against it for a moment, then turned.
He was standing on the bottom tread of the staircase, his right hand on the newel post, as though he’d been arrested in motion when he saw her.
He all but disappeared during the intervals of darkness between blinding flashes of bluish light when his shirt showed up abnormally white. Only one button in the center of his chest was done up. He hadn’t taken time to tuck in his shirttail. His suspenders formed loops against his thighs. His feet were bare.
Ella knew she must look as disheveled as he, maybe more so. Her hair was wildly curling around her face, a tangled mane down her back. Her robe was damp from rain. The wet hem of it clung to her ankles. Her feet felt cold and clammy, reminding her she was barefoot.
All this registered with her in a matter of seconds, during which it seemed that her breath had been snatched from her body. A lightning bolt struck dangerously close. The thunder that followed shook the house. Glassware and china made tinkling sounds inside cabinetry. The light fixture above the hallway rattled. The back door slammed shut, echoing the thunderclap.
Even then, neither of them moved. Their eyes stayed locked. Ella’s heart felt on the verge of bursting.
She said hoarsely, “The storm finally broke.”
He held her stare for several moments longer, slowly shaking his head. “No. It didn’t.”
She drew in a tremulous breath, her heart crowding her lungs, and forced her feet to move.
As she went past him toward her room, he added quietly, “Not yet.”
As soon as breakfast had been served and the kitchen cleaned, she and Margaret went outside to clear up the debris left by the storm. Ella was surprised to find Brother Calvin gathering broken tree limbs and heaping them into a pile in the ditch that ran along her property line.
She looked at Margaret accusingly, but her maid shrugged. “I didn’t send for him.”
“That’s true, Mrs. Barron. I came on my own, hoping to help out.”
She had relented and let him paint the shutters. He’d also been paid to do other chores that required more strength and time than she had. “I can’t afford another employee,” she told him now, even as he sawed a broken limb from the pecan tree.
“No charge. I owe you.”
“You don’t—”
“We’re a long way from even, Mrs. Barron.”
When the damaged limb fell free from the tree trunk, he turned and looked at her. She saw that the white of one of his eyes still had a spot of red in it. Realizing that this was a matter of honor to him, she assented with a small nod. “I appreciate your help, Brother Calvin.”
“That storm was all bluster. Ground’s hardly damp.”
Ella had heard on the radio that morning that rainfall amounts were barely measurable and that what little rain there had been had fallen so quickly that it ran off before it could soak into the hard-baked ground. It certainly hadn’t put an end to the drought.
The preacher motioned toward the ditch. “Later today, I’ll burn this brush for you. There’s more to add to the pile.”
“Come to the kitchen at lunchtime. Margaret will feed you.”
“Your butter beans?”
She smiled. “Not today.”
“Whatever it is, I thank you, ma’am.”
Ella was busy for the rest of the morning, seeing to it that all the windowsills and floors that had been rained on the night before were mopped and dried. Her parlor draperies were damp. She shook them out and turned the fan on them to speed up the drying process.
The noon meal was served, but she had so many chores to catch up on, she turned that meal over to Margaret, then sent her to the store with a long shopping list. By midafternoon, Ella had pork chops braising on the stove and was putting finishing touches on a banana pudding when she realized that Solly was no longer in the kitchen with her.
“Solly!” She burst out of the kitchen and raced down the center hallway toward the front door, through which he’d ventured out once before.
“In here.”
She turned abruptly and retraced her steps, stopping when she reached the arched opening into the informal parlor. Mr. Rainwater was sitting on the floor, a set of dominoes scattered in front of him. Beside him was Solly, watching intently as Mr. Rainwater picked up a domino and stood it on end in perfect alignment with the previous one.