This Bitter Earth (21 page)

“Oh.” Pearl sighed. “It was a baby girl.”

“Really?” Seth was still amazed at the fact that Shirley Brown had ever even produced another human life. “What she name her?”

“Ciel. Ciel Brown,” Pearl said with a yawn and then, “I think I’m going to have me some of that ice cream too.”

Sugar was looking at Joe when Pearl announced the name. It was a look a daughter gives a father she hadn’t seen in a while. A look that took in the new gray at his temples, the soft double chin and the eyes heavy with age.

She got all warm on the inside when she looked at him. It felt good to look at someone and know that your veins carried the same blood.

But the name that somersaulted off of Pearl’s tongue and the look on Joe’s face of recollection and then complete horror that followed, shattered those feelings.

“Ciel Brown.” Sugar coughed the words, as if she’d swallowed the name instead of spoke it.

“Yes,” Pearl said, digging into the ice cream.

Joe’s chest heaved.

“Joe?” Pearl questioned, her hand, the spoon heavy with ice cream, suspended in midair.

Sugar looked at Seth leaning on the sink, his hands folded across his chest.

“Ciel Brown was my mother’s mother.”

There was silence and then the look of disbelief and then both Seth and Pearl began to laugh.

Joe said nothing; he was looking at his hands, the scuff on his shoe and then his hands again.

“You joking, right?” Pearl asked after she sat down and wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes.

“No.” Sugar shook her head. She could see as plain as day the small, yellowed obituary notice from the Short Junction paper that said it was true.

... She leaves to mourn three sons, Abel, Finis and Wylam, and one daughter, Bertie Mae.

Those words and those four names had been seared into Sugar’s memory. No, she was not joking.

“She dead, though,” Sugar said, taking the spoon from Pearl’s hand and popping its contents into her mouth.

Sugar could care less if Shirley Brown was related to her. She hadn’t forgotten the hurtful words Shirley had slung at her on the porch of #10 or the stinging slap she’d levied across her face.

No, Sugar wanted nothing to do with Shirley Brown, great-grandmother or not, and the thought of it slipped away just as easily as the ice cream had down her throat.

They all just stared at her.

“But ... but ... that make Shirley Brown your ...” Seth was trying to get the words out before his mind had finished piecing together the family line.

“Don’t make her nothing.” Pearl stood up suddenly, rocking the table and causing Joe to jerk back in surprise. “It don’t make Shirley nothing.” She turned on Seth and then swung back around to Joe. “Nothing.”

Joe didn’t move, blink or breathe.

Pearl would not lose Sugar again, not to anyone. Not even to her great-grandmother. Sugar belonged there with her. God had made it that way. He’d taken Jude away and given Sugar in her place.

They were her family, not Shirley Brown. Shirley didn’t deserve her; Shirley was getting exactly what she deserved.

Pearl did not voice any of her thoughts; she just pinched her lips together and rolled her eyes over all three of them before storming from the kitchen and up the stairs.

Chapter 25

JOE thought it was his parents walking through his dreams. He didn’t suspect Jude; she never came to him. He didn’t take it as anything; daughters were closer to their mothers.

Maybe it was just his father. He always walked heavy, his footfalls upsetting the tiny house Joe had grown up in. His mother had complained about it, fussed all the time and warned him that he would step right through the floor one day.

Maybe that’s who it was.

It had been going on for a few nights; the heavy stepping sounds and then the smell, an odd smell that he tried to place even during the hours in the day when he was awake, but couldn’t.

But tonight his bladder demanded his attention and Joe’s eyes flew open. Those stepping sounds were still with him, even as he stared into the blackness of his bedroom.

He was awake, he knew that for sure, but the sounds were still with him and then he realized that they were outside his window.

Joe crept from the bed and moved silently over to the window. The shade was drawn, so Joe pulled at the side so that he could peek out into the night.

There was a car parked a few feet away from the house. It would have been well hidden behind the bushes that sprouted out along the side of the road, but moonlight was caught in the grill of the automobile, revealing it.

Joe cocked his head. He couldn’t make out the color, make or model. It probably belongs to someone visiting a neighbor, Joe thought to himself, but the rationalization was unsettling to him.

He moved to the second window, so that he could see down onto the front of the house.

The flowering azalea bushes were trembling even though there was no breeze and then Joe caught sight of something. It had moved so quickly in and out of his vision that he could not even begin to decipher what it was or had been.

Joe’s bladder called to him.

Joe crossed his legs and peered deeper into the night below him.

What he saw caused his breath to catch in his throat.

He knew he hadn’t completely forgotten that face or those stone-cold dead eyes. Well, he had for a while, and then his own flesh and blood came back to Bigelow and reminded him all over again.

Lappy Clayton stepped into view. He was smiling and nodding as he backed away from the house.

Joe heard the window in the living room below him close and then the night was filled with the walking sounds that had occupied his dreams.

Lappy turned toward the road, looked over his shoulder once and waved. The moonlight abandoned the silver grill of the car and attached itself to the gold of his teeth.

Joe stumbled backward and almost slipped and fell in his urine.

Seth had seen the footprints coming in off the road, heading back out to the road and pressed into the earth around the flower bed below the first-floor windows. Had seen them but had not said anything to anyone about it. In fact, he’d forgotten about it with each new day and every hour that filtered through it.

But when he saw his father standing over the flowers, head slightly tilted forward, fingers pulling slowly at the short hairs on his chin, the memory floated back to him.

“Footprints still there?” Seth asked as he took his place beside Joe.

Joe’s head seemed to swivel for a moment before coming to a complete stop.

“You seen them too?”

“Yeah, for a few mornings now.”

Joe turned his attention back to the earth. “Stems all broken,” he said, but Seth had a feeling he was talking about something else.

“A man’s shoe print for sure. I thought it was yours,” Seth said and bent to pluck a weed.

“Smaller than my feet, but bigger than yours.” Joe didn’t want to say that, but that’s what came out. He wanted to tell his son who he’d seen last night, but he hadn’t convinced himself completely that it was more than a dream.

“Uh-huh,” Seth sounded and threw a glance over his shoulder. Something felt wrong all of a sudden.

A truck backfired down the road and then the sound of its sick engine moved closer until Seth and Joe could see the shiny surface of JJ’s broad nose.

“Humph,” Seth sounded again.

Joe walked out toward the road to greet his oldest son and after a while Seth followed.

Joe nodded at JJ and then pulled the passenger side door open before JJ could even get the truck stopped good.

“I want to go down to the lake,” he said and stepped in just as JJ’s fingers wrapped around the ignition.

“Hodges Lake?” JJ was baffled.

“You know of another lake ‘round these parts?”

Joe scooted close to JJ, so close that their thighs pressed together and each man could feel the other’s body heat. “C‘mon, Seth.” Joe patted the worn vinyl space beside him. “You come along too.”

Seth hesitated before climbing in beside his father.

The radio was busted and there was no air-conditioning in the truck so they rode with the windows open and listened to the sound of the tires roll against the road.

The journey was uncomfortable because of the heat and the silence around them; the twists in the road made it worse as the three bodies pushed against each other with each turn.

The Taylor sons did not question their father as to why they were headed to Hodges Lake. All three had not been there together since before JJ had enlisted in the service.

They had come though, alone, or with friends or sweet-hearts.

Seth had not been there for ten years and he blushed and felt ashamed at the memory of the last time he was there. That was in November of 1955, with Sugar.

Joe came sometimes, times when he needed peace and quiet and wanted to think about his life and the people death had taken from him one by one over the years.

JJ still came. He came to hunt the wild deer that drank from the lake and the beaver that made their home closest to the place where the stream called Miracle spilled in.

They came to a stop at the top of the road. The ground was too soft past that and the truck’s tires would sink fast if they drove in closer.

JJ and Seth exchanged glances as they followed their father down the slope and toward the lake. The banks were thick and green in places where the leafy canopy had lost a limb, allowing the sunlight to filter through. Everyplace else was bare except for tiny bits of winged garnet that had managed to struggle free from the earth.

They came close enough to the lake to see the brightly colored bream that moved slowly beneath the water tupelo and cypress.

Joe looked down and around for some time while Seth realized that Hodges Lake still did have a hold on him, and he wanted so badly to rip himself from his clothes, jump into the lake and yank his brother in by his ankles. He cleared his throat instead and swallowed away that loose youthful feeling.

“I ain’t done a lot of things wrong, but I guess I done some.” Joe was talking to the trees, but Seth and JJ listened anyway.

“I’m not saying that Sugar was a wrong thing. No, I’m not sorry she’s here. No, I’m not saying that.” He looked down at the fish and explained. “I know it hurt your mama when she found out what I had done and it hurt her more, me not saying what it had produced ... well, after I known it fer sure and all. But I don’t think anything hurt her more than losing Jude.”

The sons muttered in agreement.

“She ain’t gonna be able to take another loss. Not the loss of her sons, me, Sugar or that child Mercy.”

The brothers’ heads jerked up at the name. Seth wanted to point out that Mercy wasn’t even family, but he just cocked his head and squinted his eyes at JJ.

“That child Mercy is in danger,” Joe said and turned to face his sons.

“From what, Daddy?” JJ asked, thinking about the story on his arm and how it matched hers so perfectly.

“From who, Daddy?” Seth asked, wishing to hell he had asked Gloria to come for him today instead of tomorrow.

Joe looked up at the trees again before he allowed his eyes to fall on Seth.

“Lappy Clayton.”

Joe said his name like he’d been saying it on and off in conversation for ten years.

JJ screwed his face up at the sound of the name. It did something to his insides and made the hair stand up on his neck.

Seth just stumbled where he stood and then his mouth fell open.

“You know who that is?” JJ asked him as he reached for his brother’s elbow.

“He know,” Joe said and started walking back toward the truck.

It was late May, June was just around the corner, so Pearl was not surprised when she stumbled upon the oval-shaped light-green blotchy shells that lay scattered on the ground at the base of the magnolia tree.

Mockingbird egg shells.

It was late May and the mockingbirds were celebrating the birth of the first set. There would be two more hatchings, July and then September.

Pearl bent down and picked up one of the delicate shells and wondered if Sugar would stay around that long.

This thing about Shirley had made Pearl feel uncomfortable, ornery even. Her head banged when she thought about it and she was reminded of the days when she bled and she couldn’t stand to even hear the sound of Joe’s voice. That’s how she felt now. Irritated and angry.

And then there was that damn note she’d found.

She didn’t know where it came from, but there it was, stuck to the inside of the washing machine Joe had purchased as an anniversary present a year earlier.

She’d done two loads of clothes, darks and whites. A mixture of clothing from everyone in that house. It shouldn’t have bothered her at all. It was just a wet piece of paper with bleeding blue letters that didn’t make a bit of sense.

apy id it

She had spent the better part of the day staring at it, removing it from her dress pocket to study it until her frustration overwhelmed her and she folded it, tucking it away again.

She could show it to everyone, ask them one by one if they recognized the paper and then demand that they tell her its meaning. But that didn’t seem like a sane act and she had been accused of treading toward madness before, so she kept the paper and its message to herself.

“Foolish old woman,” she’d reprimanded herself each time she reached for the paper. “It don’t mean nothing,” she told herself, knowing all along that it meant something and probably everything her life depended on.

Mercy was flying; she was sailing above the tulip poplars and short-leaf pines, inhaling the sweet scent of the blue lobelia and wild hydrangea. She joined an arrow of sparrows that dipped through the blue sky above #9 before tiring and returning to earth.

Sugar had been watching her from the window. Just seeing Mercy spin ‘round and ’round in those wide crooked circles made Sugar dizzy and every so often she would have to grab hold of something to keep from losing balance.

She watched her so that her mind could become preoccupied with something other than Shirley Brown. She had scrubbed the sink in the bathroom and even dusted the woodwork in the hallway on the second floor, all of this to keep from walking over to Shirley Brown’s house so that she could look her in the face and maybe see Bertie Mae’s eyes or delicate lips.

So she swept the front porch instead and then had come to stand at the window to lose herself in Mercy’s wild circles.

But now Mercy had fallen flat on her behind.

Down on the ground Mercy stretched her arms out behind her and threw her head back so that the sun could kiss her full on the face. She squinted against its bright rays and then let out a stream of childish laughter that caught Sugar by surprise.

Mercy still wasn’t speaking and she remained distant, but something was changing about her, something Sugar hadn’t been able to put her finger on yet.

Perhaps Mercy was getting better, Sugar thought.

Maybe she
would
go over and visit with Shirley Brown.

Maybe coming here was a good thing, the right thing.