Call Your Daughter Home

by Deb Spera

  “I don’t know how you continue with Camp, Annie,” Lizzie once told me. “As one of twelve children from a religious family, I’ve had my fill.”

  “I don’t mind the ritual,” I told her. “It allows the past to live.”

  “If there isn’t a proper bathroom and toilet, then the past can shove off.” She laughed then. We both did.

  Edwin contributed a large sum of money to the governor’s election and made sure every plantation in the southern part of the state lined up behind him. This was, of course, before the boll weevil infestation. Once ordained, the governor inherited bad luck, poor man. The tarnish is on him now. Every decision he makes going forward will be informed by famine and need.

  Our governor is a Methodist and well-loved in this Camp. There isn’t a soul who doesn’t watch him and Edwin speak like old friends. After all, power begets power. The governor glances in my direction as my husband talks. Edwin has told him of my condition. He takes off his hat and holds it to his chest before coming to greet me. I don’t know what I’m thinking when I try to push myself up to stand. Habit? I weigh more than I thought, and for a moment the world goes topsy-turvy. Gertrude catches me and eases me back into my seat, then backs away when Edwin sits beside me and straightens the blankets.

  “Darling,” he says. “You mustn’t overdo.”

  There’s so much rot in his speech I am nauseous. The governor squats beside me and holds my hand.

  “Ann, Lizzie told me to tell you, you’re a glutton for punishment.”

  “She’s right, Tom,” I say.

  Off in the distance the band strikes up a tune, “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” The Campground grows ever more crowded as people come from their tents to listen to music and engage in the festivities. Boys set off firecrackers in distant fields behind the tents. There is much revelry. Tom’s aides, conscious of his schedule, wait close by to move him along.

  “I’m sorry you aren’t well,” Tom says.

  “That’s the price you pay when you marry a monster,” I say to him, clearly, directly. I want him to hear the weight of my words. Edwin tenses beside me, and Tom’s face is filled with confusion.

  “Excuse me?” Tom asks.

  “My husband is not a good man, Tom. He’s fooled an entire community for years.”

  “Annie,” my husband says as if he is surprised by my allegations.

  “That’s not true, Ann,” Tom says. “Edwin is a stalwart citizen, you know that.”

  “It’s all a farce, Tom. Edwin’s lost everything, his money and his family.”

  “She’s not herself today, Governor. She’s overtaxed,” Edwin says.

  “Ask the children what he’s done,” I say. “They will tell you.”

  “I was worried about this, but she insisted on coming to Camp,” Edwin says.

  I’m watching our governor. He’s accustomed to politicians. Surely he can see through this nonsense.

  “Did you know we had a son who killed himself? He was only twelve.”

  “Annie, stop it,” Edwin says. He’s got that edge in his voice he used with the children when they were little.

  “For the longest time I couldn’t understand why a child would do such a thing, and then I discovered my husband’s little secret. He likes children. He makes souvenirs of their underwear.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Edwin says, but I never take my eyes off Tom. He needs to understand what I am telling him.

  Tom drops his mask of puzzlement to reveal disgust. He tries to pull his hand away, but I hold on.

  “I don’t need a doctor, Tom,” I say. “I need justice.”

  Alarmed, Tom turns to my husband, who sighs and hangs his head, the perfect victim.

  “Illness and age have no mercy,” Edwin says.

  In the end the governor must settle for what he’s comfortable with.

  “It happens to the best of us,” Tom says to my husband. He pats my arm and stands.

  Men can’t bear what women must. They jump to cry insanity as cause for a woman’s unhappiness; the utterance of the unutterable must be dementia. It’s just too much to consider otherwise. Edwin slides a hand to my shoulders and clenches my back.

  “Let’s get you inside to rest,” he says.

  Before he can turn backward to call for help, I fill my mouth with what moisture I’ve gathered from my morning sustenance and spit all of it in his face. Edwin stands and takes a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his eyes and cheeks. He pulls the governor away with apologies, walking with him to the stage. I look out into the sea of eyes upon me. I used to think I was so lucky not to be them. So lucky not to have to grovel or beg for work or money; it was easier to ride above it all. Now they look at me with horror, or is it pity?

  Lonnie comes beside me and asks, “Mother, what are you doing?”

  “I’m telling the truth, sweetheart. I’m finally telling the truth.” If it’s a show they want, I shall give them one.

  Around us are the families that have gathered alongside us for the better part of fifty years. We have history here, history and secrets, more than any of us are willing to admit. Amelia Childress comes forward to take control, as she always does. She is accustomed to rolling over people.

  “The money is gone, Amelia,” I tell her as she draws near. “We don’t have to pretend to be friends any longer.”

  She stops, opening her mouth in surprise. I wave her away, and she goes. Lonnie reaches down and takes my hand. I search for the eyes of anyone willing to meet mine, ready to speak what I know, but they’ve turned away and move toward the bandstand where the governor is preparing to speak. All, that is, but one. It’s Edwin’s eyes I ultimately find coming toward me from across the Campground, and they are filled with fury.

  “Mother,” a voice cries out, and another echoes the same. “Mother!”

  Edwin turns first, and what he sees hastens his stride.

  I look to find the object of his discomfort pushing through the crowd like little boats moving upstream. They come holding hands just like they used to when they were small. My girls are here.

  Gertrude

  The Missus’s daughters stop when they are within their mother’s reach as if asking for permission to be here, but none is needed. She flings open her arms, and they fold into her like ducklings. Lonnie stands protecting the flock, and Eddie goes to intercept his father. Both men got their eyes where I got mine. It’s him needs watching.

  When I was ten years old a panther killed our sow but fled before he could feed. Daddy was readying to take Berns out for the hunt, and I stood at the door and begged to go. He already had his coat and hat on when he stopped to listen. I stood just like my girls stand now. There are days when I look at them and feel I am raising myself.

  “This ain’t like deer hunting,” Daddy said. “This is a wild animal. It’s dangerous.”

  “I can shoot, Daddy, you know I can,” I told him.

  He was sizing me up, seeing if I was ready. Finally he said, “Can’t do no harm. Big prey is best hunted in numbers. Go fetch your mama’s gun.”

  I back up to the porch where Retta stands holding the screen door open. I don’t know if she means to come out or me to come in.

  “Stay there,” I say.

  Edna is carrying a platter of steaming pork in from the back. “Fetch me the rifle from the wagon,” I tell her.

  Edna knows the signs for trouble. Knows from the sound of my voice, from the feel of things. She looks up to see what is happening in the yard.

  “Run,” I say. She drops the platter onto the table and hightails it down the hall.

  Ain’t many folks that can track a panther, but my daddy could. He knew that cat wouldn’t go far, not with a fresh kill. A kill that big can feed an animal for days. No, that panther was close. Closer than we knew. Daddy said good hunters know how to go quiet and
slow. You can’t rile nature; otherwise you come home empty-handed. Nature gives up its own only when you can trick it into thinking you are part of it. Nature is selfish business.

  We stayed together, the three of us, for the better part of the morning until we come upon a tree laid sideways in the woods. I don’t know what it was about that tree, maybe there were marks, I can’t recall, but it was there I was told to stay and wait. I remember that hunt like it was yesterday. Makes me itchy for a weapon.

  Retta steps out and joins me on the porch. She’s in a state.

  “Don’t be stupid,” I tell her. “You ain’t safe out here.”

  “I ain’t safe nowhere, child. Look at the color of my skin.”

  Out in the yard the horns play their welcome, and everybody claps and yells when the governor steps up on the stage. He waves his hat to the crowd. They’ve all got their backs to us, facing what’s important. Even the old folks have disappeared from their front porch rockers to venture out and be with their families. Retta steps off the porch and into the yard, but I grab her by the arm and hold her back.

  “Just wait,” I tell her through my teeth. She heeds my words.

  Mr. Coles comes slowly to his clustered family. He lifts his chin, signaling Eddie to come heel behind. His son does what he’s told without question, the habit of his whole life in his step. Mr. Coles sees the governor has the attention of the people. He’s in the clear. Then the Missus raises her head from the fold of her daughters and finds her husband upon them. Her girls stand and turn when they feel their mother shift, but the Missus holds tight to their skirts like she’s afraid they’ll blow away.

  “You girls got no place here,” Mr. Coles says.

  Retta tenses beside me, and I find myself looking over my shoulder listening and waiting for Edna’s return.

  Molly steps away from her sister and says, “We have every right. She’s our mother.”

  Mr. Coles speaks quiet and calm. To the outside they look like they’re talking about the weather. But this ain’t no sunny day.

  “For fifteen years you turned your back on your mother. That’s not what daughters do. You need to turn around and go back from where you came,” Mr. Coles says.

  “No,” the Missus cries out.

  “Perhaps it’s you who should go, F-Father,” Lonnie says.

  Eddie touches his daddy’s arm, but Mr. Coles shrugs him off and steps toward Lonnie. “Oh, you’re the big man now. Is that it? Big man who can’t form a coherent sentence.”

  I learned when I was ten years old, trapped prey is the most dangerous. Anybody knows that. If you aim to kill, you best do it quick unless you mean to cause yourself harm. I don’t know what I was thinking that afternoon. It must not have been the panther ’cause I let my gun down, and when I did what was hiding in the brush was ready. When the cat leapt, it was Berns that saved me. He and Daddy never went far. They stood just to the side of me in the brush. Daddy knew the whole time that panther was there. I was the bait.

  Mr. Coles reaches down with three fingers and unlatches his holster, a quick move unseen by the family, but not by me. The danger is in the detail.

  Sarah says, “We’ve come to take Mother home with us.”

  “Your mother’s not going anywhere.”

  Mr. Coles clenches his hand around the gun. Before I can stop her, Retta is past me and into the yard.

  Retta

  My Odell is a wise and good man who has always stood up and done what’s right. He’s taught me through faith and action, and I’m better for the learning. I find the ground beneath me and do what I should have done a long time ago.

  “Edwin Alistair Coles,” I shout. “You leave this family be.”

  Edwin Alistair Coles is what his mother called him when he was in trouble. After she died nobody called him that. Nobody dared. The sky is gray all around us. A gray so big it’s like we’re inside the belly of the whale, like we’ve all been swallowed up whole. There’s no color left in the world. Even the green of the trees has faded.

  Miss Annie says, “Retta, don’t.”

  She’s scared. I see it in her hands, the way she twists them.

  “Don’t you worry for me, Miss Annie.”

  “Keep your mouth shut if you know what’s good for you,” Mr. Coles says.

  “Even when you was a boy in your mother’s arms you had secrets.”

  He starts talking over me, but I don’t know what he’s saying. I don’t care. All the years of wait have been pent-up inside me. I am glad my husband is not here to witness my rage, for my mouth is a pump that won’t be shut off, and this would break his heart.

  “She didn’t see your evil ’cause no mother sees the bad seed in her own child. But I saw. Should have said it then. Maybe I could have stopped what you done to these children.”

  He is confused. I am a slave woman. He can’t believe I dare speak retribution.

  “You got no place here, nigger,” he says. His daddy taught him those ways; that the Negro can’t think for herself, that she’s got to be led by the teeth and punished for wrongdoing. But the rest of what his son is, all the rest belongs only to Edwin. He’s come upon a new day now, and this one ain’t gonna go his way.

  Mr. Coles looks back at Eddie and says, “Get her off this yard.”

  Eddie comes and takes my hand. “Come on, Retta,” he whispers to me. “Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.”

  But I don’t move, so he gives me a little pull and says, “Come inside.”

  “Let go, boy,” I say. He wants me where it’s safe, but that’s a lie I told myself long enough. That’s a trap. There’s no such thing as safe. I can’t go back. Not ever again.

  “You’re an evil man,” I say to Mr. Coles, “and I’m tired of looking at you.”

  Eddie backs away when Mr. Coles lifts the gun from his holster. It’s Lonnie that grabs his father to stop him. Mr. Coles whirls and raises the gun to his own boy’s head. Miss Annie and the girls scream. Lonnie falls to his knees.

  Eddie runs to his brother’s side and cries, “He won’t do anything more, Father. Will you, Lonnie? He didn’t mean anything, he’ll be good.”

  Mr. Coles backhands Lonnie with the gun, and he falls sideways. Blood runs down his forehead and into his eyes. He knows better than to get up so he stays down. But I walk right at that miserable old cuss, shouting as I go, “You’re an abomination, Edwin Alistair Coles. The curse that you placed on this family is now upon you. You belong in the hellfire.”

  The sun breaks through the gray, enough to set a simple ray of light in front of me, so bright it looks like God himself has reached down his hand. They’ll say she was a mouthy old nigger who got her due. That’s the story they will tell. Let them. Nothing I could ever do about that. I step into the light and find my peace in the center. When the shot comes I greet the darkness with gladness.

  Gertrude

  Out in the yard the governor talks and the crowd cheers. He and the band is all they can hear, but a single gunshot turns them in our direction. A ruckus comes up from the back of our tent, and when I turn it’s not just my daughters I find. All the help have followed. Mary screams when she sees Retta on the ground, and Edna flies through the screen door with Mama’s gun. She throws it to my outstretched hand. I thumb the lever to the side, break open the shotgun and check the shell.

  “Speed and surprise is all you got for a kill,” Daddy said, “but even that don’t help if there ain’t a bullet in the gun.” I always keep a loaded gun.

  Mr. Coles is a rabid old dog. His rage has him by the throat, and he can’t see nothin’ but vengeance. That’s a misstep on his part; he ain’t lookin’ where he needs to. Molly and Sarah have helped the Missus to her feet and hold her between them. Eddie runs to his brother’s side and helps him up. They all aim to get away, but it’s the women Mr. Coles goes after. He grabs his wife by the hair and y
anks her backward out of her daughters’ embrace. She falls to the ground, but he don’t let go, dragging her toward the tent. Lonnie tears away from his brother and charges his father. Without hesitation, Mr. Coles raises his gun for a second shot. I recognize the hate of a father for a son, but Lonnie don’t stop, he runs headfirst toward his own death. That’s when I step into a clear line of fire, pull the trigger and find my mark. A bullet for a nickel—that’s an even exchange.

  Mr. Coles grips his chest with his free hand and looks surprised or confused, can’t say which, when his hand comes away wet with blood. He reaches for his handkerchief. When he brings it up and out of his pocket, change scatters—a whole pocketful of bright shiny nickels. He looks up, and it’s me he finds, the dawn of a new day upon his face. The hunter is hunted.

  In The After

  Retta

  Lonnie carries me to the back of a waiting wagon. Bobo lays me inside, and Gertrude puts a pillow beneath my head and covers me with blankets.

  “I’m gonna be fine,” I want to tell them, but words don’t come.

  “Get her to Dr. Southard’s place,” Lonnie tells the driver. “Go the short way.”

  I am lulled to sleep by the rocking wagon. When I wake we are stopped alongside the Edisto River. Tree leaves shake against a now orange sky. There is the day. I thought it had gone. The weather’s turned warm again like it sometimes does in fickle October. The breeze that floats over my skin is so sweet I could drink it. Kicking off the covers I sit up, looking for those that brought me here, but they’re gone. I pull myself up and out of the wagon and step onto the riverbank to the path that is there.

  I’ve been here before. I know this place.

  Through tall, sweet grass I walk to the center of a golden meadow and wait. A deep hum comes through the wind in a song that stirs the grasses around me. The palmetto trees rattle. I can’t tell if the music moves the wind or the wind makes the music. Either way it’s a blessed sound. I turn in a circle looking through the woods until I see movement between the oak trees. I know what’s coming and I am too jumpy to wait.