Then something mighty peculiar happened. All them places on my body that hurt me so bad started to not hurt me so bad no more. And the sky, it was swirling with these pretty lights, and the ground wasn't cold and wet like it were when I fell. 'Fore long I wasn't even on the ground no more. I was floating on pillows soft as clouds. Imagine that! And that blanket of barbed wire that wrapped me tight snapped off and a comforter thick and warm as a jacket of goose feathers took its place. The roaring in my ears stopped, too. And my teeth weren't jagged on my tongue no more, neither. Fancy that! I laid there and rested myself good for quite a spell.
It took me awhile, but eventually I knowed I wasn't part of their world no more; the one Ray and Mama and Uncle Melvin and Aunt Lexie lived in. I wasn't part of it, but I was near it. I watched from a place, soft and peaceful, a place full of light, far off, but close enough to see and hear everything. It was something, I'm telling ya'. I wasn't really there, yet I was. I could hear, but they couldn't hear me. I could talk, but they couldn't talk back. I called over and over. No one answered.
Ray come looking for me then. He yelled, his voice filled with liquor.
"Lori Jean! You git back here! Ya' hear me?" he said. I heared him, but I didn't answer. He found me then; stumbled over me in the grass. He yanked me up by my hair, but I didn't move. That's when he seen—I couldn't walk. I couldn't breathe. That's when he changed his tune. He dropped down on his knees and held me so nice. He had his arms wrapped all around me and he was hugging me to his chest, just like a regular daddy, just like I always wanted him to.
"Oh my girl, my sweet baby girl," he said over and over. I watched him carry me down to Roseflower Creek and dump me in the water. There I was, floating on a cloud, floating in the river, right in the middle of the creek! Ray took off running and I followed him home. It was mighty peculiar. He couldn't tell I was there. And my body didn't have to move to go with him, but I could see everything going on, plain as church.
Mama was busy setting the table for my birthday supper. She'd made a roast and boiled potatoes and collard greens and corn bread. There was carrots next to the roast and gravy in a pan on the stove. My cake didn't have any frosting, but it had sugar sprinkled on the top with ten candles. Looked real fine.
"Nadine, pack your bag. We gotta get outa here," Ray said when he burst in the door of the trailer. Mama whirled around.
"What in blue heaven are you talkin' about, Ray?"
"Don't be askin' no questions, Nadine. I'm the man of this family, and I say we gotta clear out of here!" He grabbed Mama by the hair, spun her around and shoved her towards the back of the trailer where the bedroom was.
"Git! Git yore stuff. Git it now or leave it. Either way, we're goin'." Mama had gotten some of her old spunk back while Ray was recuperating from the fire, and I think she might of give him some trouble about leaving, but when she seen the look in his eye something must of told her to go along with him. She went and grabbed a few things and stuck 'em in a pillowcase.
"We got to go on over to Mz. Hawkins's and get Lori Jean," she said. Mama folded the pillowcase in half and laid my sweater and extra coveralls on top.
"And we should stop by Melvin and Lexie's. Tell 'em supper's off, too. You ain't forgot it's Lori Jean's birthday, have you?" she asked. "This supper I fixed here is for her." Mama pointed to all the fixin's.
Ray shoved Mama out the door of the trailer. "We can't be worried 'bout no supper right now. Get in the truck." Mama climbed up on the front seat of the truck. He slammed the door shut behind her.
"Can't you tell me what's goin' on at least, Ray? We got a life here," Mama yelled out the window as he run to the other side of the truck.
"We don't got nothin', woman, if we don't get outa' here."
"Someone after you, Ray? Did somethin' happen with Mr. Jenkins? Huh?" Ray didn't answer. He put the truck in gear and tore off down the dirt road, but when he got to the end of it he didn't head towards town like he always done before. He turned onto the part of the road that led up to Sugarville. There weren't nothing up there but backroads and woods and a bunch of abandoned shacks from when people got tired of looking for gold MeeMaw said probably wasn't there to begin with.
"If ya' done somethin' wrong, Ray, it's best we face it. There ain't no sense in runnin', Ray," Mama said. "We kin…"
"Shut up!" Ray yelled. "Shut up!" He swung his right arm out and smacked her good on the side of her face.
"I can't think straight with you runnin' yore mouth." It was then Mama noticed what direction he was going in.
"Ray! Turn around! Turn around! We gotta git Lori Jean!" she said.
"We'll have to have Melvin bring her to us later. They're ain't no time right now." That's when Mama started to wail.
"Oh, God, oh, God! What's goin' on?" She was crying and carrying on something terrible. I knowed then she loved me like she done loved MeeMaw. I sure felt good about that. But that lying no-count Ray, he told her Melvin could bring me up to wherever they was headed, and that was one his lies for sure 'cause I weren't around to bring nowhere to nobody no more. I knew when my mama found out what he done to me she'd probably not want to be going with him ever again. That part would suit me fine. We never got to be no family nohow. Ray done brought Mama a lot of heartache and he was fixin' to dump some more on her. She deserved someone better than him. She deserved someone like Uncle Melvin who'd take care of her and love her up right. And here we'd been trying to give Ray all the love he done missed when he was a little boy, and it didn't do a lick of good.
They drove until they was on empty and Ray stopped at a filling station in a little town called McCoy. A man come out with dirty overhauls and a dirty cap to match. His name was written on the top of his overhauls in red thread.
Chester
it said. He was sucking on a toothpick. He pushed it to the side of his mouth with his tongue when he talked. He never once choked on it, so he'd probably been sucking on toothpicks a long time.
"Howdy, folks," he said. "Fill 'er up?"
"Nah, just give me a dollar's worth," Ray said. He looked through his wallet, then closed it up. Mama stayed in the truck dabbing at her eyes. A nasty bruise was forming on her cheek where Ray punched at her.
"Me and the Mrs. is takin' a bit of a holiday. Git away from the kids fer a spell; have us a little fun," Ray said and winked when he said the word
fun.
"You know anybody got a place we could stay at?" The man called Chester scratched his head.
"Nothin' fancy, now. Somethin' don't cost too much money," Ray said. "I got more sense than money and my woman here says I ain't got much a' that." Ray and the fella shared a laugh. But that fella Chester didn't laugh like his heart was in it, and he kept staring at my mama when Ray wasn't looking. He might of been the kind of person can tell when something just ain't right. MeeMaw said there's folks like that. They got extra-special senses or something. Then there's these kinds of peoples can tell when a person's character is good or not just by standing next to 'em, MeeMaw said. Seems maybe this Chester fella was both these kind of people all at once. He sure didn't seem to cotton to Ray none. Funny thing, Ray didn't seem to notice it, but I sure did. I think Mama did, too, 'cause she kept looking at this fella, pleading at him with her eyes when Ray wasn't watching. Her eyes was kind of saying,
Help me, please help
me
—that kind of look.
The Chester fella cleaned their windshield while the gas was pumping.
"George Johnson's got an old fishin' shack he don't use no more since his arthritis got too bad. Might could stay there a spell," Chester said.
"Now how would I get a hold a' this Mr. Johnson? We gotta hurry," Ray said.
Chester looked up when Ray said that.
"We ain't got a lotta time 'fore I got to be back to work. We're anxious to git where we're goin', git our holiday started," Ray told Chester. Chester nodded polite like.
"Where you folks from?" he asked.
"Macon," Ray said, and that was a lie. We ain't never come from Macon.
"Macon. That's a pretty far piece for a short holiday," Chester said.
"We kept drivin' along. 'Fore we knew it we was here," Ray said. "Now this Mr. Johnson fella…"
"He's over at the coffee shop. Just take this road into town a piece." Chester pointed at the road straight ahead.
"Can't miss it. Only place there that's got any eats." Chester took Ray's dollar, tipped his cap to my mama and walked back to the filling station door. He picked at his teeth and watched them drive away. He dialed up the telephone, I noticed. Whoever this Mr. Johnson was, he'd probably know what Ray wanted even 'fore they got there. That's how small towns is. Everybody passes on what they hears, soon's they hear it.
Ray made arrangements with that Mr. Johnson man and got the key. Give him five whole dollars for the week. Ray told him he and Mama was making it a second honeymoon and didn't want no one to know they was there and could he keep it a secret. Mr. Johnson said sure enough, be happy to. Then he come outside and said howdy to Mama. She had the truck door open and her legs swung out like she was fixin' to run. Maybe she would have if Ray had a' stayed inside a tad longer. Mr. Johnson had bad arthritis. He was crippled up more than MeeMaw ever was. If he took hisself a good look at Mama, he'd know they weren't on no honeymoon—second, third, or whatever—by the 'spression on her face.
When they got up to the cabin, Ray had to build a fire to keep them warm. It can get right cold in them Georgia mountains come sundown. Once Ray and Mama got settled, I started wondering what was going on with Melvin and Lexie and Mz. Hawkins and everybody back home. I found out that when I closed my eyes I got to the place where they was; simple as that. Nothing to it! I could hear 'em and see 'em and everything. This being no longer in the regular world weren't
all
bad. It was magical.
Aunt Lexie was beside herself when she got over to our trailer and found supper all ready and Mama nowhere in sight. Uncle Melvin said to hang on to her britches, that something must of come up and they'd find out directly; just to have a little patience. I think Aunt Lexie was one a' them kinds of people that can tell when something's wrong for sure, and she was fretting up a storm.
Sure enough, Sheriff Dooley and his deputy man come up to the trailer and talked with Melvin in real quiet tones and kept looking over at Lexie as they was whispering. Lexie was sitting on one of our kitchen chairs, holding Irl on her lap, and Alice was sitting on the floor playing with a little cloth doll Lexie made her. Uncle Melvin kept saying real soft like, "Oh my God. Oh my God." They might of been telling him about the money. It weren't hid all that good and Ray, he didn't take time to look for it at all when he hightailed it out of the woods. They probably found it by now. And they might coulda been telling Melvin 'bout me if 'n they seen my body floating in Roseflower Creek where Ray throwed me. Could be, 'cause Uncle Melvin looked awful in the face and had to go set hisself down on the sofa.
"Lexie, honey, come here," he said. "Sheriff, can you take the kids on outside?"
"Melvin, what is it? What is it?" Lexie asked. She walked on over to Melvin, but she was looking up at the sheriff as she was doing it. He weren't saying anything. He just stood there and his deputy stood next to him by the door of our trailer. The sheriff said, "Who'd like to blow that siren in my car?" Irl went stumbling towards the door in his leg braces.
"I wanna do it!" he said. Alice got up, run over to the sofa and climbed into Lexie's lap. When the sheriff tried to take her she wouldn't have no part of it.
"It's okay. It's okay," Lexie said. "Let her stay with me, Melvin," she said. "They're scaring her." Melvin nodded at the sheriff.
"Darlin'," Melvin said. He pulled Lexie close to him and put his arm around her shoulder. He patted the back of Alice's blonde curls.
"They found Lori Jean floatin' in the creek, honey…"
"Hhuuuuuuuuhhhh…" Aunt Lexie started to shriek like a chicken done seen a fox in the hen house. Alice started crying, too, but I don't think she knew what she was crying for. She was just fussin' 'cause Lexie was making them scary noises.
"Lexie, honey, listen to me. Listen," Melvin said and put his hand across her mouth.
"They think Ray done it and…" Lexie kept shaking her head side to side and moaning like she didn't want to believe any of it.
"…and they found some that payroll money, you know what was taken from the mill. They think he and Nadine run off with the rest of it…"
"Noooooooo!" Lexie jumped up.
"Nadine wouldn't a' done that! I know Nadine wouldn't…" Alice was screaming and hanging on to Lexie with all her might. Melvin looked up at the deputy.
"Would you take my family home?" he said. "And stop by Mz. Hawkins's and get her to come be with Lexie and the kids?" The deputy nodded. He come over to Lexie and took her gently by the arm.
"Come with us, Mz. Pruitt. This ain't no place to be right now," he said. Lexie looked at the table with all the food spread out. She spotted the birthday cake sitting on the counter and started to rock her body back and forth with Alice in her arms.