A Mother's Promise

by K. D. Alden

  Her thoughts turned to Sheila. She couldn’t miss her mother. But she did feel guilty for leaving her there, all alone, with nobody but Ruby to care whether she lived or died.

  Ruth Ann’s heart turned over.

  “We’re free!” Glory marveled.

  “Yes.” Ruth Ann swallowed.

  If only freedom weren’t so terrifying.

  “What the devil do you mean?” Dr. Price asked Mother Jenkins, tossing down his fountain pen and snatching off his spectacles. “The girls are gone? How? When? And where?”

  “I—I’m not sure, Doctor.”

  “They can’t have gotten far. They have neither means nor transport. They must be hidden somewhere on the grounds.”

  Mother Jenkins twisted her apron and shook her head.

  “No, sir. I even had Clarence bring out the dogs to track them, but no luck. They’re on the lam.”

  “Damnation!”

  Mother Jenkins flinched at his curse and took a step back.

  “I beg your pardon. I’m worried that the girls will come to harm.”

  But truth to tell, it wasn’t so simple. Just as he was executing a plan to pull his name and reputation out of this intolerable obscurity…the girls had run? He didn’t need bad publicity or gossip in town about runaways from the Colony.

  Irritation surged in his gut, acid eddying and pooling there. How had he gone from Johns Hopkins, Harvard Medical School and Mount Sinai Hospital to the blasted Virginia Colony for the Epileptic and Feebleminded? A pox on his wife Althea’s ailing mother. Why couldn’t she have had a second daughter to care for her? The woman had single-handedly halted his career.

  Doc stroked his beard. He couldn’t allow his temper to get the better of him. It was unseemly. So were these thoughts centered on ambition. He was a better man than this. A man of medicine. He sighed and tried to gain a little perspective. He supposed he should have anticipated this escape after Ruth Ann’s impertinence. The girls were, no doubt, afraid of the surgery. They were simple creatures, after all, with little understanding of medical procedures—even those that were ultimately for their benefit and the state’s.

  “You have my apologies, Doctor.” Mother Jenkins stared at the floor.

  “I am a busy man, Mrs. Jenkins. I cannot operate on girls who have disappeared. I suggest that you find them immediately. Indeed, if you do not find them in the next twenty-four hours, you may very well be finding yourself another post. Do I make myself clear?”

  Mother Jenkins’s lips flattened. A tic was visible at her left eye, above which a vein stood out, blue with rage.

  She’d have to keep it bottled. He knew she took her temper out on those poor hapless girls. He didn’t care for her bullying ways, but then again, one couldn’t hire someone weak whom they could walk all over. So he made do with her.

  “Mrs. Jenkins, you simply must take better precautions and care. Understand: these girls have neither the mental capacity nor the moral fiber with which to manage their lives. Most of them—quite sadly—should have been drowned at birth in a bucket, like so many unwanted kittens.”

  She nodded.

  “But since they weren’t, it is only Christian to provide room and board for them, see that they go to church services and work to defray the state’s costs for their upkeep. And it is imperative that they do not breed.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “We are the guardians of this little flock of black sheep, Mrs. Jenkins,” he said in gentler tones. “We must protect them not only physically, but spiritually. We must not let them stray, nor sin. We must save their immortal souls.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He steepled his hands upon his desk. “I can only pray that as we speak, those two aren’t busy finding themselves a pair of drugstore cowboys and some hooch. They have no sense or judgment…Locate them, Mrs. Jenkins, and bring them back before they manage to get themselves in trouble yet again.”

  She nodded. “I’ll send Clarence with the motorcar—”

  “Yes, yes…I don’t need the details.” He retrieved his pen and gestured toward the door with it. “Thank you—that will be all. You are dismissed.”

  Mrs. Jenkins looked as though she’d just swallowed a fly. “Very good, sir.” And with that, she left him in peace.

  But it wasn’t to be peace, after all. For if he wasn’t mistaken, the figure of Wilfred Block, Esquire, strode down the path toward his office door. He wore a dark gray suit that had been tailored by angels, and Doc couldn’t help but covet it.

  Doc looked down at his middling one under the white cotton coat and sighed. Then he stood and went to greet his friend. “Good day, sir. To what do I owe this honor?”

  The dapper, too handsome Block chuckled and removed his hat. “Well, to that mighty fine single malt whisky in your desk drawer, of course!”

  “And I thought you were here simply for the pleasure of my company.”

  “A Glenlivet, I believe?”

  “Glenfarclas, my man.” Doc took his cue and retrieved the bottle, along with two cut-crystal double-old-fashioned tumblers. He poured two fingers of Scotch for each of them, gestured to the visitor’s chair and settled back into his own behind the desk.

  “To Prohibition,” said Block, with a wink.

  Doc raised an eyebrow along with his glass. “Indeed.”

  Block sighed with satisfaction once he’d swallowed. “This always aids in my interpretation of the law.”

  “And it’s good medicine,” Doc said dryly.

  “The best.”

  Price’s mood darkened further as he asked the inevitable question of Block. “So…any luck on my behalf?” He’d run afoul of the law recently, ridiculous though the case was.

  “I’m afraid not. I’ll file another appeal.”

  “Very well. But it’s simply outrageous!” Doc could feel his own blood pressure rising.

  Block swirled his whisky pensively. “We just need the right test case.”

  “Yes.” Doc’s agreement was heartfelt. “And I believe I’ve found one.” If he could retrieve her.

  “That would be excellent news, indeed.”

  Doc exchanged interminable small talk with his visitor and endured more tasteless jokes until Block had drunk yet a third tumbler of his Scotch. Doc hid his relief when the attorney hoisted himself to his feet. “See you soon at the Colony board meeting, old sport?”

  Doc stood up, too. “Yes, of course.”

  “Then for now, I’ll take my leave.” Block reeled out the office door, leaving Doc alone with his thoughts.

  He stared into the depths of the whisky bottle as if the spirits could provide answers to some of the questions that troubled him. Do no harm, stated the Hippocratic oath.

  And yet two girls had fled in terror of a medical procedure that he would perform upon them. Was that harm?

  He shook off the thought. Certainly not. They were simple creatures of the lowest order; they were of severely flawed genetics; they had both been sexually active without benefit of marriage. He was sorry for their fear—he truly was. And he’d do his best to reassure them, when the time came, that the surgery was only for their benefit.

  He’d interviewed Ruth Ann’s mother, Sheila, at length before tying her tubes. She was dirty, uncouth, belligerent and profane. She’d worked as a prostitute after being widowed, drank to excess and was still of loose morals. He’d had her examined by a psychiatrist, who’d determined that she was hysterical and mentally unstable.

  Women such as Sheila Riley quite simply should not be allowed to reproduce.

  Poor Ruth Ann, arriving at the Colony pregnant, was clearly a younger version of her mother…and he expected the same would come of tiny Annabel. He’d reluctantly brought her into this world when Ruth Ann had gone into labor—what choice did he have? But enough was enough. It had to stop.

  He’d added the Riley women to his ongoing study. Imagine: two females alone costing the state of Virginia $132,000 over the course of their reproductive years! No
w add to that the third generation: another $66,000. But those figures were, in fact, conservative.

  For Sheila Riley had whelped two other girls besides Ruth Ann. One had died, but setting that aside for the sake of argument, each girl was capable of having a litter of four or five others. Who were, in turn, likely to deliver four or five more to the state. The costs were simply unsustainable.

  But how to explain such things to a girl as simple as Ruth Ann Riley? How did one explain to a parasite that she was, through no real fault of her own, a parasite? Impossible.

  One couldn’t explain. One had to act. And in doing so, he’d make a name for himself—despite being stuck in this rural backwater.

  Six

  Ruth Ann told her fear to scram. Like any other emotion, she had no use for it. Fear made her stupid, turned her into a lump of passivity and indecision.

  Though a part of her wanted to just keep hiding out behind this woodpile, a scan of their surroundings told her that it was a bad idea. There’d be several men and maybe some women working in the cheese plant as the day got under way, and there was no outhouse that she could see. That meant the woodpile was the outhouse, and it would have visitors.

  About twenty yards yonder lay the ruins of a low brick wall that had once surrounded the property. Against it was a pile of rusted-out milk canisters. That looked like a better spot to hide for the day, until they could travel again under cover of darkness. She prayed that they wouldn’t bring out the dogs to search for her and Glory. If they did, their trail would stop near the back barn where they’d slipped into the dairy wagon…and Mother Jenkins might put two and two together.

  Ruth Ann nudged Glory silently and gestured toward the pile of old canisters. Glory shrugged. The girls got to their feet, listened for any sound coming out of the plant—there wasn’t any—and crept toward the new hiding place. They scrambled over the wall and flattened themselves behind it, pulling Clarence’s canvas up over them. They ate a quick breakfast of plain bread while undercover.

  They waited and waited, as the sun rose eagerly in the east, then became bored around noon, moodily playing with clouds. It yawned and disappeared for a nap toward three o’clock…allowing rain to move in and soak Ruth Ann and Glory, despite the canvas. They were half grateful for the shower by then because of the heat. The sun returned for a couple of hours to dry them gently, and at last sank torpidly into bed in the west. Mosquitoes appeared, but the two girls didn’t dare do a lot of swatting.

  “Glad we moved,” Glory whispered, as the fourth worker came out to use the woodpile before heading off for his supper.

  Ruth Ann nodded. Every muscle in her body ached, not only from the long, awful night in the laundry two days previously, but from being jolted around in the wagon and then sitting on the hard ground all day. She pulled the rest of the bread out of her bundle and divided it between herself and Glory. That was the end of their food, so they had to make it to the Dade house tonight or go hungry.

  That’s when it hit her: How would they get food from then on? She and Glory had no money. And if they took food from the Dades, wasn’t that stealing?

  She didn’t like to think about that.

  But hadn’t the Dades stolen her baby? Didn’t they owe her a meal or two?

  Okay. But then…? How did she plan to feed Annabel? Where would the three of them live?

  Maybe I am feebleminded. Wouldn’t a normal person have thought this through?

  Ruth Ann slid her foot down into Clarence’s shoe until her wounded toe found the leather. She pressed against it until the pain came, sharp and yet somehow sweet because it distracted her from how stupid she was. How thoughtless.

  Glory chewed her bread slowly, her blond hair shining silver in the first few rays of moonlight. She looked like an angel. “Where are we going to go?”

  “To get my baby, Annabel. She’s in a house in town, with the couple who raised me after my momma was put in the Distressed unit at the Colony.”

  “But after that?”

  “We’ll work it out.”

  “So you don’t know.”

  “No,” Ruth Ann admitted. “I don’t.”

  “I thought you said you had a plan!”

  “I got us out of the Colony, didn’t I? Now it’s time for a new plan. But for now, we just gotta go south, toward town. And then head east ’til we find Washington Street.”

  “Which way is south?” Glory asked, her tone troubled.

  “Well,” Ruth Ann reckoned. “The sun set over there. So that’s west. If I face that way, then south is to the…left. So we need to go that way until we get to town.”

  “If we go into town, won’t somebody see us?”

  “We’ll stay just north of the buildings. Then we’ll find Washington and cut down it to the Dades’ house.” Lord, did her voice sound confident! How ’bout that?

  “Swell. But then…do we just knock on the door and ask for your baby? They’ll say no.”

  Ruth Ann gently took her by the shoulders. She looked steadfastly into Glory’s eyes. “We’re not knocking on the door. We’re going in through a window. We’re not asking for Annabel. We’re taking her.”

  “But—”

  “She’s my baby. I didn’t say they could have her. They just took her from me, so I’m-a get her back. How is that wrong?”

  Glory hunched her shoulders and shook off Ruth Ann’s grip. “I don’t know, but they’ll make it wrong. Somehow. We’re not…regular people. Why is that, Ruth Ann? Why?”

  Ruth Ann shrugged. “On account of we’re feebleminded, I guess.”

  “I don’t think you are. You just figured out which way we got to go, and you remember where the house is. That seems pretty smart to me. So why aren’t you regular?”

  “On account of I got knocked up.”

  “Me, too, but I thought we was getting married. He said we would. How’s I s’posed to know he was lyin’?”

  Ruth Ann shook her head and sighed. “It ain’t like Pinocchio. I ain’t never seen a liar’s nose grow, so’s you can tell he’s a liar.”

  “What about you?” Glory asked. “Did your beau promise—”

  “No.” Oh, he’d promised—to let her breathe again if she did what he wanted. “I don’t want to talk about it.” Ruth Ann turned away and folded Clarence’s canvas in half, then in quarters, before rolling it up. “We need to head out.”

  Glory got to her feet. “Did you love him?”

  “No.” But she’d loved the idea of him, hadn’t she? The handsome outer shell of the boy who’d come to visit the childless aunt who doted on him. She hadn’t seen the stinking, rotten ooze inside until too late.

  Her fault, likely, for making sheep’s eyes at him.

  “Then…why did you…” Glory’s voice trailed off into awkwardness.

  “Guess I’m just a common slut,” Ruth Ann said, not knowing why it seemed easier to say that than cotton to the truth. It seemed stronger, anyways. Less whiny and pathetic and sniveling.

  She wasn’t going to talk about her tears or pleas or fear or humiliation or pain or the aftermath of disgust she’d felt as she lay soiled and exposed, stunned, while he straightened his clothes and turned away from her as though she were a sack of garbage.

  She wasn’t going to talk about his horrid smirk every time she saw him afterward, as if she were his own private joke. And she damn sure wasn’t going to talk about how he’d gone still, then just shrugged his shoulders, when she told him about the baby.

  How is that my problem? he’d asked.

  She’d just stared at him.

  Then his jaw had gone slack. You don’t think…you think I’m going to marry you? And he’d laughed. A guffaw of disbelief and amusement at her expense.

  She broke the juice pitcher over his head, but that brief moment of satisfaction was short-lived. Because he grabbed her by the throat and dragged her to the shed behind the house and did it to her again. Told her she was white trash and if she ever said a word to the Dades or anyone
else, he’d kill her.

  Would he? She didn’t like to think about it.

  All she knew was that he still visited the Dades. What happened when Annabel got to be twelve or thirteen? What if she was pretty?

  No. It didn’t bear thinking about. She was getting Annabel out of there now. It wasn’t going to happen to her daughter. No.

  “Hello? Where are you?”

  Glory’s hand waved in front of her face, startling Ruth Ann.

  “Right here, as you can see, plain as day.”

  “Uh-uh. You were somewhere else. And why are you shaking?”

  “I ain’t.” But Ruth Ann’s hands trembled despite her best efforts to stop them. Perspiration had broken out under her arms and around her hairline. Her breathing had gone quick and shallow, and her pulse roared in her ears.

  “Are you ill?” Glory asked, pressing her palm to Ruth Ann’s forehead.

  She jerked away. “I’m fine. Let’s go.” She realized how much she didn’t want to go anywhere near the Dade home and its memories, but she had no choice if she wanted her baby. So she would.

  And then she’d leave it far behind. Walk until it shrank to the size of a dollhouse, then a loaf of bread, then the head of a pin…until it vanished completely from sight and mind and ceased to exist.

  The moon lit the way sporadically, flirting idly with the clouds, as the sun had. Or perhaps the clouds were dancing in front of the moon. Ruth Ann didn’t really know how it all worked—she was just another ant below the heavens, casting a fearful gaze toward them when they rumbled, grateful when they cast down rays of light.

  She supposed God floated above them. Was thunder His anger? Rain His tears? Lightning His fury? Sunlight and moonlight His blessing?

  If that were so, then He seemed of two minds about her mission this evening. One moment, their path was lit and Ruth Ann could see the road clearly laid out before them. And yet the next moment, pitch-black wrapped them in blindness. They stumbled along, feeling their way through the dark and occasionally straying off the path because they simply couldn’t see what lay before them.