Waiting for Sunrise (13 page)

Mama smiled at him. “You like Veronica, don’t you, Billy?”

Billy dropped the second plate on top of the first before reaching for the last. “She’s nice, I guess.”

“Harold says you walk to and from school with her every day.”

“She’s nice.” He dared to look his mother in the eye. “What?”

“What?” Her voice was teasing, something he hadn’t heard in a long, long time.

“Come on, Mama. Why are you looking at me like that? Can I go or not?”

Mama sighed, looked back to the suds-filled sink, and dipped her hands beneath the cloud of white. “I’d have to talk to your daddy. We haven’t been to church since . . . since Casselton.”

“Why didn’t Daddy take us when we moved to Miami?”

Mama didn’t answer. She pulled a meat platter—one that matched the plates—from the steamy water and took her time to wash it. Billy waited without a word, both for the answer and the platter.

But only the platter came.

15

Two things happened that weekend.

Three, really.

The first was that when Daddy came home on Friday night, it was to a grim-faced Mama. Harold had gotten into trouble at school, back-talking a teacher.

Billy watched from two rooms away—the openness of the house plan allowed for that—as his mother met Daddy at the door. Hands wringing. Even from where he stood in the shadows of the kitchen, he could see the tension in his mother’s shoulders. The light quiver of fear that ran up her spine.

She handed Daddy a cocktail—something he’d taken up in Miami—and the folded piece of white paper she’d kept in her apron pocket since three-thirty that afternoon.

She’d even called Mrs. Stone to ask how she should handle the situation. Apparently, Mrs. Stone had said that Mama should meet it head-on.

Daddy handed Mama his suitcase. Said, “What’s this about?”

“Maybe you should sit down and drink your cocktail first.”

Daddy’s face looked angry even before reading what Principal Thompson had written after he’d had a “talk” with Harold. And after the paddling. The one Billy had heard Harold just scoffed at.

Billy now pressed his lower back more firmly against the countertop. Looked down at his feet. The Keds on his feet. The ones like Jon Provost wore. He tried to whistle the tune to
Lassie
, at least in his mind. Not out loud. Not now.

And he wondered why he hadn’t just gone to his room before Daddy got home. Or to the Stones’. Or to the Sikes’s.

Anywhere but here.

“Am I going to need two of these?” Daddy asked, walking toward the sofa and holding up his drink.

“I don’t know.” Mama sat across from him, in the low-back chair with the deep cushion.

“Which one of the boys?” he asked, waving the paper. “No, don’t answer that, Bernie. I know which one of the boys.” He took a long swallow of the drink. “What I really want to know is why you can’t seem to control him when I’m gone. Is it so hard to keep a thirteen-year-old boy in check?”

Mama didn’t answer. She tucked her chin toward her throat; her hands clutched each other.

Billy cocked his head a little to the left, watching. Daddy had better not . . .

Daddy drained the amber liquid from the short glass tumbler, placed it on the coffee table before him, and unfolded the paper. Mama retrieved the glass, wiped the table where it had been with the palm of her hand, and then watched her husband as he read. She put the glass on the floor at her feet.

It seemed to Billy that it took Daddy a long time to read just a few words. Not that he knew exactly how many words were on the page, but it couldn’t be that many. Then Daddy stood. Unbuckled his belt, slid it out from the loops as he turned toward the long hallway where the bedrooms and the baths were. Where Harold had been waiting since they’d returned home from school. Where Billy was now thankful he wasn’t.

Daddy folded the belt. Slapped it against his leg. His ample middle quaked; Billy could see it. Nervous for Harold, he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, the inside of which was already drier than dirt.

“I’d hoped the move would change all this, Bernice.” Daddy sounded almost sad.

“I know.” Mama’s voice was no more than a whisper.

“Yep.” Another slap of belt against leg.

Billy waited for Mama to look up at her husband, but she didn’t. She just waited. Just like Billy waited. Waited for Daddy to take the first step toward Harold’s bedroom. Waited for the beatings to return.

But then Daddy turned toward Mama, and the belt came down toward her. Mama’s face fell to the now-upturned palms in her lap as the leather slapped against her back. Billy heard a muffled whimper and immediately dropped to a squat, wrapped his arms around his knees, and tucked his face in.
Stop! Stop! Don’t hurt my mama!

And, dear God, don’t let him see me . . . Mama would be so upset.

Two more whacks. Daddy speaking between clenched teeth. “Your job, Bernice. Your job is to keep them straight.”

Mama crying, “I know. I know. I’m sorry, Ira. I’m doing my best.”

One final whack. “Your best is not good enough. Never has been. Never will be.”

Billy heard the stomping of his father’s feet as he headed down the hallway. “Boy!”

Billy looked up. His mother was looking at him now; he could see her between the legs of the dining room chairs that kept them separated. She waved at him to go. Flee. One more time, to run. Before Ira Liddle turned on him too.

From the depth of the hall, Harold’s door jerked open. “You comin’ for me, old man? This time I’m ready for you!”

Mama stood. “No! Harold, don’t!”

Billy scrambled to his feet. Took the necessary steps to make it to the dining room door. Braced his hands on both sides of the frame. Harold’s shadow was cast at length before him. Holding something. What was it?

“You think I’m scared of a baseball bat, boy?”

Daddy shoved Harold into his room. Harold tumbled backward like a house of cards caught in a sudden windstorm.

Mama turned to Billy. “Go,” she mouthed. “Go.”

And Billy did what he’d learned to do best. No need in begging Mama to come with him; she never had. She probably never would. But if she’d failed at keeping Harold straight, she’d succeeded at keeping Billy safe. That much he knew.

He went out the back door, not bothering to be quiet. No need. Enough noise was coming from the other side of the house to silence his exit. Without thought, he ran to the road, turned right, and straight to the Stones’. Mr. Stone was squatting in the front yard, fiddling with the sprinkler. He looked up when he heard Billy’s footsteps at the end of the driveway.

“Billy.”

Billy stopped running. Started walking. What was he to do from here, anyway? Tell Mr. Stone that his brother was getting a beating for back-talking a teacher? Tell Mrs. Stone that his mother had just been whipped for not doing a good enough job at mothering? Tell them the kind of skewed existence he’d lived as far back as he could remember?

“What brings you over here this late in the afternoon? Hoping to get an early start on the yard work tomorrow?”

Billy reached the man, younger than his father by maybe ten years. A handsome man. Kind. Loving toward his wife. Not a father for whatever reason, but Billy bet he’d have made a good one. Billy rested his hands on his hips and panted a few times before saying, “No, sir.” He blew out a long breath. “I just thought I’d stop by and ask about your church. I understand you go to the same place as the Sikes . . .”

———

The second thing happened about twenty minutes later when Mrs. Stone stepped out the front door with a glass of lemonade for her husband and the news that Billy’s mother had called and supper was on the table.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said before thanking Mr. Stone for the information on Mercy Street Baptist Church.

He turned on his heels and headed home, figuring if Mama had called him to supper, everything was okay. It was all right for him to return. The house was safe. For now.

Mama was putting a platter of meat loaf—glazed on top with tomato sauce—on the table when Billy stepped through the back door. “Go wash up,” she said, her voice monotone. “Supper will be ready to eat in about five minutes.”

Billy looked around the room, past the dining room and into the living room. His father sat reading the newspaper, legs crossed as though he hadn’t a care in the world. And maybe he didn’t. “You all right?” He spoke low enough that only his mother could hear.

“I’m fine.” She now stood at the stove, spooning green beans into a vegetable bowl; Billy thought he saw the handle tremble. Maybe it was the weight of the pot. Maybe it was everything else.

“Harold?”

“He’ll be all right. Now go.”

Billy walked straight through the kitchen. As he reached the dining room door, he heard his mother say, “Be sure to greet your father.”

Which he did.

“Where ya been, son?” Ira peered over the top of the paper.

“Went to see Mr. Stone. To ask him about something.” Billy started toward the hall doorway but stopped when his father spoke again.

“What do you need to ask Mr. Stone about?”

Billy walked to the chair, the same chair his mother had been hit in the hour before. He sat, placed his elbows on his knees. Cracked his knuckles. “Oh . . . see . . . they go to the same church as the Sikes . . . and Veronica Sikes asked me if I’d like—
we’d
like—to come to services this Sunday . . . and I thought I’d ask Mr. Stone what he thought about it, is all.”

“Church, huh?” Daddy folded the paper—folded it and folded it—until it was a neat rectangle of small black-and-white print. “Might be something we ought to do.”

Billy blinked at the words. “Really, Daddy?”

Daddy leaned forward. Reached for a new drink sitting on the coffee table. “Well, you know, son”—he took a swig, grimaced slightly, then swallowed—“one of the company home offices is here in Gainesville—the one for the southeast region—and how I look in this community is important. Going to church should be a part of what we do here as a family.”

A mixture of excitement and dread poured through Billy’s veins like honey from the plastic bear Mama kept on the kitchen table. He wanted to go to church with Veronica—shoot, he was even happy to be at school with her. To sit behind her. To breathe in the flowery scent of shampoo from her thick dark hair.

But another part of him didn’t want his daddy and mama—and especially Harold—coming if it was only to pretend to be some great family. Like Daddy was the great father of all fathers. Like he didn’t hit Mama. Or Harold. Even when Harold deserved it.

Billy cracked his knuckles. “So does that mean we can go?”

Daddy took another sip of his drink. The liquid was drained from it. Ice clinked along the sides of the glass on their way back down. The smell of whiskey reached Billy where he sat, and his nose twitched. “You tell your little friend that we’ll be there on Sunday morning. I assume services begin at eleven?”

“I think so.”

“Then we’ll be there.” Daddy laughed as he sat back, unfolded the paper, and returned to reading. “With bells on.”

———

And so, the third thing was that the family attended Mercy Street Baptist. Not just that Sunday but as regulars. Every Sunday as a foursome. Every Wednesday, just the three of them.

Billy liked going to church. Mama seemed to relax when they were there. Daddy acted like he was on a first-name basis with God, but at least he was pleasant. Harold made fun of it; his complaints started on Saturday evenings and lasted all the way to the door leading into the vestibule. But Billy didn’t care. He got to see Veronica, to hang out with other friends from school, to listen to the Bible stories, and to go to activities the church had set up for the kids.

When he was honest with himself, which came only every so often, he admitted that he was getting excited about
just
being at church and all that went with it, even if Veronica wasn’t there. True, true . . . Veronica being there was a plus. A definite plus.

But then there was everything else, like being away from home without being at school. And the church had a youth softball team, which he had joined. Turned out, he had a pretty good arm for pitching. He’d not known that before. When the time came for his Sunday school class to hold elections, he’d been nominated president and no one ran against him. Veronica was the class secretary-treasurer; she took up the offering, kept diligent records of how much the class had collected, and then gave the money to the Sunday school teacher, who put half in a churchwide fund and used the other half for class outings.

Like the hayride, and then a month or so later, caroling from door to nearby door and then returning to the church for hot chocolate topped with whipped cream. Or the Valentine’s Day banquet, when they all dressed up in their Sunday best and had a nice dinner by candlelight. They’d not been allowed to so much as pretend to be sweet on each other, but Veronica had allowed him to sit next to her.

For that he was more than grateful.

The other thing he liked about going to church was Daddy’s behavior before and after. He was only home Friday nights through Monday mornings anyway. And sometimes he didn’t come in until Saturday and sometimes he left early Sunday afternoon. So, the little bit of time he
was
at home was spent in a new kind of peace for their family.

Harold never got into it; not at all. But he knew enough not to back-talk Daddy about it anymore. That was another thing Billy was grateful for. Daddy and Harold were fighting less. Mama and Daddy weren’t fighting at all. And Mama was growing closer to Mrs. Stone, who was leaving quite an impression on Mama. Sometimes, Billy actually thought he saw her backbone straighten when she confronted Harold. Still, unless she had to, she never told Daddy anything else about Harold’s misbehavior.

Then again, maybe things weren’t changing so much after all. Now, instead of being verbally and physically beat up by Daddy, she was being verbally beat up by Harold. Harold never knew when to see the glass as half full.

So really, nothing had changed, had it?