"I think I wanna go home now," I said. And I truly did. I wanted to go home and just forget everything Uncle Melvin told me. I kept seeing their pa's man part hurting Ray's butt when he was just a little fella and it was making my head sick and my heart hurt.
"Don't be repeatin' any a' what I told you, Lori Jean. It's family stuff."
"I won't," I said. "Uncle Melvin?"
"Uh-huh."
"You had that same pa. How come you ain't like Ray? How come you don't beat on nobody?"
"Well, for one, my pa never did those things to me, and for another, I reckon I got me a bit a' love along the way that carried me through."
"Didn't Ray get hisself any?" I asked.
"Probably did."
"Well, then how come he's not like you, Uncle Melvin?"
"Baby girl, I think he mighta needed a bit more than I did."
"Why?" I asked him.
"Some folks just do, Lori Jean," Melvin said.
I went on home to bed, thinking on what Melvin said about Ray needing more love than the rest of us. And I got me the answer to our troubles. If 'n my mama and me could give Ray all the love he needed, then his head and his heart wouldn't be broken and hateful no more. Mama and me was just gonna have to love him up good. Heal him right up fine. We'd be a family, sure as church. Why, Ray was sleeping sober this very moment and hadn't had no liquor in him since the fire. He was almost cured for sure. We was so close to our dreams, I could smell the rust on the fenders of the old Chevy we'd git ourselves to fix up. That got me so excited I couldn't hardly sleep a'tall that night, thinking on how we'd drive into town, take that old car on over to Clyde Burt's dumpyard and pick us out some fenders could be painted good as new. They had a place in Marietta did that kind of thing. Carolee's pa, Morgan Thompson, had his done there. A 1949 Hudson come out looking like pretty brand-new. He had them paint it red, with a white top, he did. It had a big old ledge at the rear window. Carolee would climb up there and sleep all the way home from Atlanta when they went there to visit her cousin Eugenia and her uncle John and aunt Margaret. She was planning on me going with 'em sometime and I probably might would have if she hadn't gotten herself killed dead. That made me real sad, so I tried not to think about that part. I concentrated that night on dreams that might still could be. The chickens was close to clucking up a storm, wanting to get fed, when I finally went to sleep. It took me a while 'cause I was so happy thinking on the future we was getting ourselves.
If I had known what was gonna happen that next day, I'da been double sorrowful instead, so it's best we never know what's in store 'cause it would just ruin the time that comes before it for sure.
MeeMaw always said, "Lori Jean, enjoy every moment you can, 'cause you'll get plenty you can't." She sure was right. Saturday was one of them you can't, 'cause something terrible happened.
Chapter Eighteen
It started out like any other day. Mama had me get the eggs the chickens had laid while she fed 'em that morning. I was so tired out from not sleeping much I could barely drag myself off the cot. But Ray was going to work and he needed hisself a good breakfast for sure.
Mama fried him some eggs and fixed him bacon and toast. I poured his coffee and juice out nice for him and give him a kiss on his cheek, the side that weren't so scarred.
"Why, thank you, Lori Jean. How's my girl this morning?" he said. Fancy that! We was turning into a regular family we was, I'm telling ya'.
Mr. Jenkins done hired Ray full-time. Guess he felt sorry for him, 'cause before the fire he told Melvin he wouldn't hire him on account of talk was he might not show up regular. Mr. Jenkins's business was real good. Folks come from all over to buy his trailers. They was pretty much like new, once he got 'em fixed up. Some was much nicer than others, but those cost too much for us to get one of them. Ours only had one bedroom and a kitchen spot with a sink and two cabinets on each side, right next to a living room space. That's where I slept, on a cot we folded up during the day. It weren't real fancy, but it had a toilet inside with running water and a tub even. So that was pretty special for sure. The toilet was giving us trouble, but Ray, he was gonna work on it first chance he got. He and Melvin was gonna haul our old shed over on Melvin's pickup truck 'cause the fire didn't burn it none. Ray said we'd use it 'til the toilet worked good again.
That part about moving that shed give me heart failure. The flour sack with the money was under the back of the shed where a hole had caved in, right where I buried it the day of the fire. If Ray and Melvin dug all around to get the shed loose, they'd find it for sure. I was fixing to get that money back to the Scottsdale Cotton Mill where it belonged. I just hadn't worked out my plan yet. It was a long way to the mill.
Ray'd asked me about that flour sack that one time when they let me visit him in the hospital, and he asked me again the day he come home from the hospital. And then he asked about it that time he found bits of the sack by the porch, but that was it, so I figured he probably pretty much forgot about it and I had me plenty time to work on getting it back.
'Course he did go out and search through all our burned things at the house a few times. Made my belly drop to my innards, but he never did go near the shed that I knowed of, where we'd done our business the whole time we lived there. Probably 'cause it stunk bad, and for once I was glad about that.
Ray was fixing to move our trailer back there once we got us one of them fancy ones with two bedrooms and a nice big living area. Soon as we could get one a' them, we was gonna move he said. Those kind of trailers come with mostly new furniture even, and Mama was pretty excited, too. And I got so excited I jumped all around. Except I'da much rather we kept it parked next to Lexie and Melvin, but Ray said that's crazy, we own good land. Still I was real excited, I was.
"Calm down, Lori Jean. You're hoppin' around like a flea on a hot skillet," Mama said.
"Just think, Mama," I said, "we're gonna have us a fine place."
"It ain't happened yet." Then she started talking again about counting chickens 'fore they's hatched. That's her favorite, them chicken warnings. I tried to calm down some, but it was hard. I pretended to 'cause I wanted my mama to know I was trying to mind her good. She was trying to be a good mama, too, I think. It was just hard for her 'cause she had too much work to do. She didn't pay much attention to me, but she probably just couldn't find where to fit me in.
Even so, things was sorta looking up. But I did notice that Ray was getting pretty crabby after a few weeks of moving them heavy trailers. But you never know. Things might could still work out. Ray was asking Melvin a lot of questions about his Chevy. How much gas it took, stuff like that. Right then, we still had this old pickup truck that looked like the dickens. It was embarrassing to be seen in that thing, but most of the kids over at school still made fun of me over the clothes I wore, so I pretty much got over being embarrassed. Carolee used to tell 'em to shut up, told them they's just jealous 'cause my face was so pretty. Wasn't that nice a' her? 'Cause I'm sure my face was just regular; looked that way to me. You wouldn't have known it, though, to hear Carolee talk. She made me out to be Cinderella. I sure felt good when I was with her. I didn't care what names them kids called me. Now that Carolee was gone, they was back to their same old tricks, name-calling and stuff, but I was older and knew it didn't much matter. What did I care if they thought I was ugly? By then I knew I wasn't. Carolee give me that gift, and that's what really counted.
So whenever I climbed in that truck with Ray and Mama, I tried not to let it bother me. That morning I was counting all my blessings for what I had. Me and Mama was sweeping the dirt yard up nice. Right then Melvin come driving up that long dirt road that led to the trailers. He come flying out of the car, yelling for Mama.
"Nadine, Lexie needs you at the hospital! She's about half crazy, she is!" he said.
"Melvin Pruitt, what in the dickens…" Uncle Melvin didn't really let her get a word in crosswise.
"Somethin's happened to the baby. They ain't exactly told us what, but Lexie's gone plumb nuts and they had to give her a shot. It ain't helped none and they're fixin' to take her up to the nut ward if she don't settle down. Had to tie her to the bed."
"Sweet Jesus, what happened?" my mama yelled.
"Just git in the car, Nadine. Git in the car!" Melvin was yelling even louder than my mama.
"Mama, let me come, too," I begged. "Please let me come." But they was gone so fast the tires spun chunks of dirt onto the weeds growing alongside the road.
I run all the way over to Maybelle Hawkins's, see if she'd call the hospital for me and find out what happened. She don't like no one making any long-distance calls on her phone, but she probably might would this time 'cause she's so nosey and she'd want to know all about Lexie and who tied her to the bed and what for and stuff. But when I got over there these men from the telephone company was stringing this line back up to her house, looked kind of like a long rubber jump rope. They was busy hooking it up right next to her porch.
Maybelle come out the back door when I got there.
"What's the trouble, Lori Jean? You're clean out a' breath and filthy as leftover dishwater."
"I got to git on over to the hospital where Lexie is, Mz. Hawkins. Somethin' terrible's happened." I told her what I knew.
"Well, come on then," she said. She grabbed my arm and headed for her barn where she kept her car. It was a big Oldsmobile. She left it in there, I think, 'cause she didn't do no farming anymore. Ever since her daddy died and left her a passel of money, mostly she just looked like a farmer's wife, but she weren't. She just liked living there. It was where she was born. She liked the money her pa left her, too, and she spent lots of it, but folks said no matter how much she spent she'd never run out, that's how much her daddy left her. I don't know if that part's true, though, 'cause when people from the church asked for money to help out the poor folks, she never give much, so that part about not running out's probably not true. And she fretted about money all the time, telling us how much everything costs and for me and Mama to be careful when we dusted her things. She sure had a whole lot of pretty things. Every time we finished dusting them it was time to start dusting them again. One time I told Mama, "I don't ever want this much stuff. It's too much trouble." Now with Lexie and little Iris Anne in some kind of trouble, I knew there was other reasons not to worry over having stuff. There was things much more important for sure.
Maybelle weren't too happy to have me in her car on the ride to the hospital. My coveralls was pretty dirty, so I didn't much blame her. She spread out a dishtowel for me to sit on.
"Now don't move around none, ya' hear?"
"Yes, ma'am," I said. I set real still like, as best I could, and tried hard not to move even when I got me an itch right in the middle of my back. But I couldn't help it; it got the best of me and I had to rub myself real hard against the back seat cushion.
"Sit still, Lori Jean! Don't go rubbin' all that dirt into my upholstery."
"I can't help it, ma'am. I got me an itch," I said.
"An itch? Good Lord! You best not have any bugs. I don't want any bugs in my car."
"No, ma'am," I said. "I don't got any bugs, just 'squito bites. I got me a bunch a' them."
"Well, sit still. You can scratch all you want when we get there."
I tried not to move none. If I hadn't been so upset over what Melvin said about Lexie and the baby and I wasn't all tickly from them 'squito bites, it would of been a special day 'cause I always wanted to ride in Maybelle's car. It was real shiny. Some kids from school might could a' seen me riding in that fine automobile. That would've been something, but I was too worried about Lexie to think about it.
Turns out Melvin and Lexie's little baby, Iris Anne, died that morning. Nobody could tell 'em why. One of the nurses found her. She was in one of them cute little beds you can see clean through the sides of. She'd already turned blue. They tried to git her to breathe, but she must not wanted to 'cause she didn't blow any air back at 'em when they put their mouths over hers, 'cluding her nose and breathed lots of air into her. They told Melvin they did that for a long time, breathed in her mouth and nose, but it didn't do no good.
Seems Lexie come down to where the babies was that morning. It had a window with a big sign above it said Nursery. It was so the daddies could see their new young'uns and how big they was and show 'em off to folks that come by. It was real early. It wasn't even light out yet. By then them nurses was shaking Iris all about and yelling for the doctors, and Lexie, she seen them. She just burst right in and yanked Iris Anne out of their arms and wouldn't let go. Them nurses told her to put the baby down.
"It's dead!" they yelled. "It's dead!" Imagine that? No wonder Lexie lost her mind. The doctors come and give her this powerful shot, Melvin said, before they could pry the baby from her, and then they took her back to her room.
"When she woke up they had to tie her to the bed," he said, "'cause she wouldn't stay put. She was wailing so loud the doctors said to take her to the nervous ward, she was scaring the other mothers." Melvin were in a bad way. He was talkin' real fast and pacing hisself back and forth, back and forth. Mama grabbed his arms and tried to plant him in the gravel.