Touched (15 page)

Fourteen

W
HEN Duncan and I got back from our wagon ride, JoHanna had a big pitcher of lemonade made for us. Will was taking a nap. I couldn’t be certain, but there seemed an extra spark in JoHanna’s eyes, and her step was light as she finished putting together the peas and okra and the cornbread that would comprise our dinner. It was only when Duncan was in the bathtub that she pulled me down into a chair in the quiet kitchen.

“Will is leaving me the car for tomorrow. Are you sure, Mattie?”

No matter how sure I was three seconds before, whenever I tried to speak of it, I felt as if I were suddenly cocooned in a womb of bright light and heavy silence. The husk of my body sat at the table, but I was somewhere distant, wrapped in light and the pounding sound of silence, unable to reach out.

JoHanna touched my shoulder. “You don’t have to do this. Having a child isn’t the end of the world. A baby could bring you joy and love and happiness you’ve never known.”

I found a voice, something strained and awful that felt as if it were tearing my throat. “With a baby I’ll never escape.”

JoHanna stood up and came to me, cradling my head against her bosom. She hushed me, stroking my hair like she did Duncan’s. “Hush, Mattie, hush. No one is going to make you do anything. But this is dangerous. You could die. You could become sterile.”

I let her stroke me, hungry for the comfort of her touch. My mother had always had a child on her hip and one at her feet. She had not hacaresses and tender words for us older children. It never crossed her mind.

“I just want you to be sure, Mattie. You don’t have to stay with Elikah. If you want to go home, I’ll take you to Meridian. I’m sure we can arrange things. If that isn’t good, then there are homes where you could go. Decent places that would find a loving home for your baby.”

I didn’t want to go to a home where there were other girls pregnant, girls who would give birth and then pack their clothes and leave, shedding their baby like an old skin. A child wasn’t something I could walk away from. How could I explain that in my life there had been a series of Jojos and Elikahs, and women like my mother, who were too beaten down, too weak to defend their children. There was only one way I could guarantee that my baby would not go to a home like that.

“Don’t make a decision now.” JoHanna talked to the top of my head, her breath a puff of tenderness on my part. “Don’t think about it. Tomorrow we’ll see what the doctor has to say. Then you can decide what you really want to do.” She grasped my shoulders and knelt down so we were eye to eye. “I have to tell you, though. Mattie, an abortion is dangerous. There are so many risks. To your body and to your mind. If that’s what you decide, you have to promise me that you’ll never look back. Regretting the past is an indulgence few people can afford.”

“Coming to Jexville like I did, I don’t have a past, and if I’m pregnant, I certainly don’t have a future.”

“Oh, Mattie.” JoHanna’s eyes filled. “You have a future, but you have to take it. Some people get one handed to them, an open path with no hurdles in front of them. You were born in a crevice, but you can squeeze and push yourself out of it. You can. You’re strong.”

Her blue eyes willed me to believe her, to share her strength. “I don’t know,” I answered.

She nodded. “Tomorrow.” She stood up and went to the stove to check the cornbread. The day was still hot. Too hot for baking, but Will was home.

“Let me get Duncan out of the tub and heat some more water. I think a good hot bath would make you feel better,” she said.

“No.” I stood up. “I think I’m gonna walk back to the creek. It’s so hot.”

She put her hands on her hips and leaned back against the kitchen sink. “You want a suit? I have an extra.”

I shook my head. “No, thanks.”

“Have fun.” She smiled. “There are towels on the clothesline. Help yourself.”

“Duncan said I could borrow some of her books.”

“They’re in the bookcase in her bedroom.”

I selected a thick one. I could hear Duncan in the bathtub, singing away. It sounded as if Pecos was adding some kind of rooster song. With the book in my hand I went out the back door, careful not to let the screen slam. I took a bright green towel and a yellow one from the line. The afternoon stretched before me, a block of time completely cut away from my life. I felt as if a dark box had opened and sunlight had been allowed to filter down to me. I had the beautiful solitude of the woods and the magic of a book for an hour or two.

When I came out of the woods, my hair wet and dripping down my back, I stopped beneath the last of the pines to watch Will and Duncan. She was in a swing and he was pushing her. I could see the vast improvement in her legs. She was able to hold them out in front of her, pointing her toes as she flew squealing through the air.

Will pushed her with force, sending her flying up into the branches of the magnolia tree, where the pods were thick with red seeds. My brothers and sisters and I had often thrown the heavy pods at one another, sometimes in jest and sometimes in earnest. They could draw a welt. Still, they were interesting to look at and touch. JoHanna would gladly give me as many as I wanted. I wondered if I could germinate one, make it grow in my barren yard. In Elikah’s yard. At that thought, I knew I had not escaped him.

“Mattie?”

I turned to find JoHanna in the hammock. I’d completely overlooked her. “Will ate half the roast, but there’s plenty left for supper.” She was smiling as she watched her husband and daughter. “Duncan’s legs are getting well.”

“I know.” I took my seat against the chinaberry trunk. From that vantage point I could study JoHanna as I had earlier studied Duncan. In the afternoon light the tiny wrinkles around her eyes were more noticeable. The short haircut made her look older, more worn. Nothing could dim her blue eyes, though. They were ageless, like some hard substance forged in the heat of the earth, then glazed by the sky.

“Will is going to New York tomorrow. We’ll give him a ride to the train station in Mobile.”

“And Duncan?” I couldn’t believe JoHanna would take Will with us. Not when we were going to the doctor. And certainly not Duncan. Not a child to witness what I would not even try to imagine because I knew it was going to be gruesome.

“I didn’t tell Will anything except that we were going shopping. Duncan can spend the day in the boot shop with Floyd. I’ve already called Mr. Moses and asked.”

“Thanks.” I could have wept with relief. “You didn’t tell Will?”

She shook her head. “I love him more than anything, except Duncan. But men are men. Some things they don’t need to know. Some they don’t want to know. This is between us, Mattie. For the rest of our lives. Only us.”

“Why are you doing this?” I had wondered. Abortion was illegal. JoHanna could go to prison. The doctor, too. And me? I would be as guilty of murder as they were.

JoHanna reached down and plucked a tall strand of bahia grass. She crushed the juicy stem with her teeth. “I think maybe the worst thing in the world is not to be wanted. The second worst is being the weapon used against someone you love.”

That wasn’t exactly an answer to my question. “You’re risking so much. Why? Why for me?”

She chewed more of the stem, drawing it into her mouth with her lips. “In a perfect world, Mattie, only people who wanted a child would get pregnant. I don’t know the truth about you, and I’m not asking for details, but I feel like maybe you didn’t have a choice.” She looked away from me, dropping her gaze to the ground. “I want you to have a say in this. Of all the people in the world, the mother should want her child.”

The night in New Orleans rolled over me, a furnace of shame and horror and revulsion. “You don’t know what he did to me.” I dug my fingers into the ground. The grass roots held tenaciously to the soil, clumping in my hand, giving me something to cling to until the worst of it passed.

“Tell me if you must,” she said so softly I had to calm myself to hear her. “I’ll listen. And I promise that I won’t tell anyone. But I can’t promise you that I won’t hate him, and some very strange things grow out of hatred.”

I looked up at her.

“Love and hate. Both nourish some powerful actions, good and bad.”

The compulsion to tell her was stilled in me. To hear such a thing would change us forever. She could never know the way it was. I could not tell her truthfully, because it changed with each hour, each day. There were times it didn’t seem so bad. I could shrug and honestly feel that it was past and gone, one night in a million, a nightmare that I had endured and survived, banished by the day. Other times I felt as if the core of me had been touched by rot, that I was dying by degrees.

If I told her, what truth would it be? If I told her, it would change me even more.

“When we get back from Mobile, will you take me to Fitler with you and Duncan?”

JoHanna reached from the hammock and picked up my wet hair, lifting the mass of it so that the cool suddenly touched my damp back. “You’ll love Fitler, Mattie.”

I felt the need for action, for some task that would define me, at least for a few moments. “You stay here and rest. I’ll go put supper on the table. Shall we drink the lemonade?”

“For Duncan, yes. Will brought us a bottle of wine from one of the senators. A good merlot. It’ll be perfect with the roast. The glasses are in the dining room, the smaller bowl-shaped ones.”

I’d studied the different shapes of her glasses but I didn’t know JoHanna had seen me doing it. Somehow, it made me feel like a child, like a loved child, and I smiled at her before I turned and ran across the yard and up the steps. At the top step I caught a whiff of the roast, and it made saliva spring into my mouth. I’d never felt so hungry, so ready for food.

The day was still hot when we sat down to eat, but Will had to be at the train station early, not to mention that we also had to be in Mobile as early as we could. To my surprise, I ate and laughed as if I hadn’t a care in the world. Will McVay could do that to a woman.

He teased me outrageously, making Duncan and JoHanna laugh at the blushes that added to the warmth of the evening. He told us about his meetings in Washington with powerful men who worried about the wax on the cars they drove or whether their coats were cut in an elegant enough fashion. He made us laugh at those faraway figures I’d never even thought to consider as human beings. With that laughter, he pried
open the door to the world a tiny bit wider for me. When he told us that next summer, when Duncan was completely well, that he would take all of us to New York on the train with him, I felt as if I could do it. New York. With Will to show the way, it was within my grasp.

JoHanna had been there, more than once, but Duncan had not. We would share that adventure together.

“You’ll certainly have to teach me to dance before we go,” I told her across the table. “I’ve read about the hotels where there are orchestras that play all night and clubs where people go to dance and listen to bands.” A sudden image of a negro band in a blue-lit room made me stop. A giddy, sweet taste of bootleg rum choked me. My fork slipped from my fingers.

“Mattie?” Will was sitting beside me and grasped my arm. “Are you okay?”

My eyes connected with JoHanna’s. A piece of cornbread was in her hand, halfway to her mouth, and she didn’t move. Whatever was on my face made her eyes fill with tears. Even Duncan paled and looked down at her plate.

Will stood up, my arm still in his hand. “Let’s go out to the swing and get a breath of fresh air.” He assisted me from the table, casting a look back at JoHanna that asked her what the hell was happening.

He put me in the swing and sat beside me. Not close and not far away. The distance of a friend. He pushed the swing enough to get us going and to set up the steady, comforting song of the creaking chains.

When I didn’t speak, he sighed. “Mattie, if he’s hurt you in any way, tell me and I’ll take care of it.”

I don’t think anything in the world had ever frightened me as much as those words. Once, when Jojo kicked me in the stomach, and I saw his foot draw back to kick again, I thought I was going to die. But this was different. This was even more terrifying. I could not look at Will for fear he would see something that would make him act. I did not doubt that he would get in his shiny red car, drive to my small house, and drag Elikah out into the street and beat him to death. There was about Will a sense of definite action. He was like JoHanna’s stride, a force of nature that could not be stopped once it was started.