"Oh, what's goin' on? Oh God, what's goin' on?" Lexie cried out. Melvin took her by the shoulders and walked her out the door. He put both his arms around her. She leaned her head into his chest.
"Oh, Melvin," she said, "tell me it ain't so. Tell me our little Lori Jean's okay. Please…" Melvin shook his head.
"Oh, please, Melvin…" Lexie said.
"You go on home now. I'm goin' with the deputies, Lexie. I got to help bring Ray in. I got to do this." Lexie started crying really hard. Her mouth was all twisted up and horrible sounds was coming from it. All the while she was bouncing Alice on her hip and patting her back trying to get her to stop crying and she was just a'wailing away herself. I knew she loved me and was crying over me and it hurt me to see her that way. I knew she didn't care whether Ray took that money and was in trouble. She never much trusted him to do much good anyway. So it had to be me being gone that was troubling her so. I wanted to tell her I was fine and not to worry none, but no matter how hard I tried to she just didn't hear me.
"Aunt Lexie, I'm just fine. Just fine. Don't be sad, hear?" But she just kept carrying on. It was real sorrowful it was. She done had so much sadness this past year, I just hated to be part of any more. Darn that no-good Ray for killing me. Now look what he done. He made Lexie hurt something awful and here my mama ain't even found out yet. He was gonna make her plumb awful sad, too.
The deputy stopped and picked up Mz. Hawkins 'fore he took Lexie home. Maybelle rattled on and on about what happened.
"And when Lori Jean told me she found that money, well you can imagine my horror. And the danger that girl must of been in. Why, they killed her to keep her quiet over that money. Now, I tried to keep her at my house. I begged her to stay with me, but she wouldn't have any part of it. Why, I told her, 'Now, Lori Jean,' I says, 'we're gonna call the authorities and let them handle this,' but no, she run off and…" The deputy leaned over towards her. Maybelle, she was sitting in the front seat of the squad car; Lexie and the kids was in the back.
"Mz. Hawkins, I don't think you ought to be carryin' on just now. This woman's been through a lot today…"
"Oh, my, yes…" Maybelle said. "Well, Lexie, how's Little Irl's legs coming along?" Maybelle jumped from one thing to another. Prattled on and on. I don't think she got it that Lexie wasn't in no talking mood just then.
After that deputy dropped 'em off, he joined up with the sheriff over at the jailhouse. They was rounding up everybody to go hunting for Ray. It was a posse for sure. And they was acting like my mama was a criminal to be on the watch for, too.
"This is the only photo we got a' the suspects," the sheriff said. "It was taken the day they was married, but it's only been a couple a' years so they pretty much look the same. Look it over good." It was that nice picture Mr. Hawkins took of them at the reception. The one I liked the best. The one my mama looked so special on. If them men looked it over good like they was supposed to, they sure enough could tell she weren't no criminal. I noticed they each took their time when their turn come to look at the picture, so I wasn't worried none about that. I was worried over my mama and how she'd feel when she found out I wasn't coming up to be with them after all.
The sheriff swore the posse in, including Uncle Melvin, and they climbed into a passel a' vehicles and took off following the sheriff 's squad car. He was headed in the right direction and I wondered how he knew which way Ray went. Then I remembered all the rain we'd had and how that dirt road out by our place showed the tracks of his truck at the end of the road. You could still see where Ray turned off to the right heading towards Sugarville.
I figured it was only a matter of time 'fore they found them and brought them in. It would be a relief to my mama. She still probably thought I was okay and would want to get home to me. And she weren't one to leave a mess, and I knowed she was thinking about all that food sitting out on the table spoiling and stinking up our trailer.
When I went back to the cabin where they was, Ray was rummaging around in the cupboards to see what was left on the shelves for them to eat. There was one can of beans and a can of corn and some beef jerky. He had Mama heat up the beans and corn and they ate the jerky right from the package. It sure wasn't like the birthday supper Mama spent so much time cooking. She didn't seem to be concerned about that, though. Her face had dark creases in it; deeper worry lines than I ever seen on her face a'fore.
"Ray, what's goin' on? Why won't you tell me?" she asked.
Ray swallowed down spoonfuls of the beans and finished the corn Mama put on a tin plate for him. She ground some coffee beans she found in the cupboard and brewed it right over the fire in an old bent coffeepot she found in the pie safe.
"I will after we eat," he said. Mama poured him some of the coffee and drank the rest herself. She didn't touch any of the food she'd put on her plate. It was a white china plate with pink flowers and gold edges. It looked old and had chips along one edge, but still, it was real pretty and I wondered how it ended up at that old fishing shack.
"You gonna eat that?" Ray motioned at the corn and beans on the china plate. Mama shook her head no. Ray took his fork and dragged the plate over to him, ate what was on it and let out a belch.
Mama got up and started clearing the table just like she done at home. She pumped water into a kettle and set it on the stove to boil and washed the few dishes and put them back where she found them. Ray nosed around and found a bottle of corn liquor in the shed outside. He come back inside and poured hisself a glassful. Mama done something I
never seen her do. She poured some of it in a glas
s for herself and took a big swallow. She swallowed hard and scrunched her eyes together when it went down. Didn't look like she liked it none too much, but she took another swallow just the same.
Ray lit a kerosene lamp and sat in a chair by the fire. Mama wrapped herself in a blanket she pulled off the bed and sat on the floor next to the hearth. Bits of burnt kindling snapped and popped. Sparks come shooting out ever' once in a while. There wasn't any screen covering the fire and I was sore afraid the sparks would catch hold of Mama and set her on fire. She didn't seem none too worried. She just burrowed in closer.
"Nadine, I ain't done right by you, girl," Ray said. Mama looked over in his direction.
"I want ya' to know I had every intention that day we got married that things was gonna be different." Mama kept staring at him.
"And I know mostly they haven't been, 'ceptin' for a short time after the fire." Mama just sat there nodding her head.
"And I ain't forgot what you done for me, gettin' me back on my feet. Ain't no one ever been better to me in my whole life than you, Nadine. No one, not even my mama. God knows she tried, but my pa never let her get near me." Ray took a big swig of that corn liquor.
"See, Nadine, all my life I just ain't been able to be what I was supposed to be. It's like…it's like no matter what chance I get I…these things inside me, these demon things, they…" Ray took another big swallow of that white lightning.
"Nadine, I done somethin' so terrible…there's no way you're gonna…there's no way I kin…see, what I done, well, I ain't gonna be able to make it right. It's just…I want you ta' know…I've tried to be…I've tried…" Ray took another swallow and then
he
done something I ain't never seen
him do before. He started crying. Not hollerin
g crying like he did at the creek that day he saw I wan't breathing no more, but crying like you do when your heart's plumb broke apart. Crying like I cried when I lost Carolee. Crying like Mama and me did when we found MeeMaw dead in her bed that winter when I was seven. He started crying like that and just couldn't stop.
And I watched and I watched and something happened to me inside. So deep inside I felt it run through every part of me. Every bit of hate and anger and bitterness I had for that man just sprang right out of my chest. And when I looked at Ray, he weren't a man no more. He was a little boy, six or seven maybe, and he was crying and his nose was all bloody and he was begging his pa to stop whipping him. And here I was no longer in that world and I was crying right along with him and begging his pa to stop hurting him.
"Please, Mr. Pruitt," I said. "Don't hurt Ray no more. He's just a little boy. He needs your love. Little children needs it to grow and be right in the head when they's grown up. He needs it so he can be the man he's supposed to be." I looked over at Ray and he was still a little boy, only now he was about eight or nine and he'd been whipped with a cat-o'-nine-tails and couldn't get to the shed, and he was peeing all over his bed.
"Can you hear me, Mr. Pruitt?" I said. "See what you done? Ray can't get to the shed. He's done peed all over his covers." And I looked up and Ray was rolling those covers into a ball and trying to hide them under the bed and his daddy was putting his overhauls on in another room and he come in and found Ray rolling up those smelly covers and he started smacking little Ray so hard he went flying into the wall. Now his face was all bloody. Ray rubbed it with the back of his hand, but before he could check to see how bad he was bleeding, Mr. Pruitt punched him right in the face with his fist. "Please, Pa," Ray said. But his pa never listened. He just beat Ray 'til he couldn't stand. I looked closer and I saw Ray's mama walk to another room and sit down in a rocking chair. She rocked and rocked. All the time little Ray was being beat she rocked and rocked. What would make a mama just sit and rock when that was going on? Then I looked into Ray's mama's eyes while she sat in that rocking chair and I seen them same beatings come down on her body, only she was a much younger woman then, real pretty with long dark curls. Ray was crawling at her feet and Melvin was in a highchair. Her tummy was all swelled up with another baby growing inside. I seen Mr. Pruitt come at her with his fists. And he hit her 'til she fell down. Then he picked her up, carried her outside, and throwed her down the cellar steps. I looked into that black hole of a cellar and heard her scream all the way to the bottom. The next time I looked, her eyes was black and her tummy wasn't swollen up with a baby no more.
And then I knowed how a mama could sit rocking in a chair when horrible things was happening. A mama like that had no life left in her. On the outside she was alive, but inside she was dead. All that was left was fear. She was plumb full of it. She had no sign of happiness about her. She had no hope. It was like things was never gonna be different. And worse, she knew it. I looked again. Ray was still crying. He was still a young boy. Now maybe ten or eleven. It was dark. So dark I had trouble making out his outline in the room. His daddy had him bent over on the bed and I knowed he was doing to him what Uncle Melvin told me their pa done to Ray for years. Ray was begging his pa to stop. He was screaming.
"Don't, Daddy! Oh, please, please don't! It hurts, Daddy! It hurts!" Ray said, and he was crying so hard. Ray's pa just kept smacking his man part into Ray's butt, all the while pushing the back of Ray's head into the covers.
"Mr. Pruitt!" I yelled. "Stop it! Stop it! Don't ya' see what this done to yer boy? Ya' done broke Ray up good inside so he can't never be well!"
I was tugging on Mr. Pruitt as hard as I could, but I couldn't feel his arm and I'm sure he couldn't feel mine. There weren't nothing I could do. I knowed I wasn't really there. It was a glimpse of Ray's memories I was seeing, his nightmares, them ones that haunted him his whole life.
"Don't ya' see what Ray coulda been?" I asked. "Don't ya'?" But even if he did, it was too late. Wherever Mr. Pruitt was now, his being sorry wasn't gonna change it. But knowing what Ray been through could change us. In those minutes that I saw Ray's past, I forgive him for everything he ever done bad, right there on the spot.
"It's okay, Ray," I called out. "It's okay. Don't cry no more. Don't blame yourself none. I know you didn't mean it. I know deep in your heart you wanted to live up to being what you coulda been. You just didn't have the right chance is all. You didn't have the right materials to do it with, just like Melvin said. I don't hold it against you, Ray. I don't. And I forgive you, Ray! I forgive you! I do! Don't cry!" But he couldn't hear me. He just kept crying.
It felt so good forgiving Ray. I found out when I didn't have that anger and hatred for him inside me it left a light, happy feeling in its place, a feeling that everything would work out in the end no matter what I tried to do. That the world and the peoples in it and the way they behaved wasn't my fault. I didn't have to take care of them no more. It weren't my fault my real daddy took off. It weren't Mama's fault Ray was mean. It weren't anyone's fault babies died and grandmas got sick. It was all part of life. Some parts is good, somes is not. Once I forgive Ray I got me peace like I never had me before. I knew then we'd been a family all along. A family with hurts and wounds and nightmares maybe, but still a family. A family with good parts and sad parts. A family with some happy times. too. Sure enough, we had some of those. I guess we had it all. And now I had me an understanding that life is just that way. That it's best we take what it gives us and accept it. So that's what I done. I forgived and I accepted.
I wanted my mama to feel peace and understanding, to have them warm feelings inside her I had in me. I wanted her to have this lightness in her heart I now had in mine. And for sure I wanted her to have it before Ray told her what happened to me.