by Lori Lansens
Lenny gestured at the swell under the old blanket. “I felt moving when I first brung you in and I been checking every day. That baby fine. Better off dead though, that’s my opinion.”
Addy set the bowl by the side of the bed, suddenly hot and confused. “How many days I been here?”
“Three.”
“Three?”
“Mr. MacLeod said one more day and he’d wake you up hisself and you don’t wanna know about that. Ain’t nobody happy to see you.”
Addy thought about the law. “My Daddy know I’m here?”
“Just my man Morris and Mr. MacLeod. And the children of course. This Lincoln’s room you’re in. My oldest boy. He been wondering when you gonna wake up.”
“I have to thank Lincoln then. And I have to thank you, Lenny. I wonder what might have become of me if you hadn’t taken me in.”
“Oh no, Girl. I ain’t taking you in. I can’t take you in. Mr. MacLeod won’t have it and I got enough to do with my own children. Just I couldn’t leave you on the lane like that is all. No. I did my deed nursing you back and you got to find some other place to go tomorrow or the next day when you up to walking again.”
Addy looked up at the woman. “Where you think I can go?”
Lenny Davies shrugged and thought. “I been asking myself that same thing but I truly do not know. You got no other kin in these parts?”
Addy shook her head.
“Well, ladies at the church won’t have nothing to do with you, you must know that.”
Addy nodded, even though she had thought the church the first place to go.
“You know you brung this on yourself.”
A part of Addy believed she had. She answered truthfully, “Yes, Ma’am.”
“You reap what you sow. Shouldn’t have been messing with that young boy.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Addy said, knowing the woman thought the baby was Chester’s.
“I judge that baby come out by winter’s end. That right?”
Addy made a circle on her stomach. “I wonder how it’s gonna be.”
“It hurt good, but not as much as it hurt your whole life to look at it and recall what happened to make it. You gonna hate that child. You not gonna love it like you think. You gonna wish it dead.”
Addy could not make her chin stop quivering.
“I’m just telling you the truth is all.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“Don’t you cry now.”
“I won’t.”
“Well don’t, because after all the trouble you caused you don’t got the right to be feeling sorry for yourself. You understand?”
Addy nodded and swallowed and closed her eyes.
Leona Davies surprised Addy when she spoke again and there was an undertone of tenderness in her mannish voice. “I got a cousin over to Detroit City. His wife been sick and good for nothing for years. His children grown but he’s like a baby hisself and needs some looking after. Used to be a preacher but he got sent out of the church for thinking he’s better than the rest. Truth is I don’t care for him one bit and haven’t seen his face in years. But I heard his woman near gone and if it weren’t for that child to be born, I believe he would be very pleased to see you. I don’t know. I have to do some more thinking about that. You want that kidney pie now?”
Addy shuddered and did not want the pie. She shook her head and slid back down into the little bed. “All right if I stay here till morning?”
Lenny heaved herself to standing and played with the whiskers on her chin. “You help me get the supper tonight though, just so Mr. MacLeod feel like you paying him back a little.”
“I make a nice crust. I could bake a pie.”
“I bake the pies, Adelaide. You can pluck the chickens and get the dishes cleaned up after. But don’t let Mr. MacLeod see you in the dining room. He’s already worried you be stealing things.”
Lenny left the room and Addy whispered to her baby, “Don’t mind what she said. I won’t hate you. I will love you. I will be your good mother and I will nurse you from my breast and I will hold you when you cry and I will never wish you die.”
Tiger Tail
SHARLA AND HER MUM Addy settled into a pattern of easy living, feeling as if they’d always been together somehow. Sharla woke first in the mornings and would creep down the skinny hall, open the bedroom door, and wait quietly until the old woman opened her eyes. Addy would always smile at her, glad the child loved and needed her in such a way.
Some nights Sharla would dream of Collette and whatever boyfriend and pee the bed. She’d wake to find herself soaked and call out, “Mum Addy? Mu-um?” After the first time, they’d taken a taxicab to the Kmart and bought a plastic sheet to protect the mattress. Sharla’d pouted and said plastic sheets were for a baby, and Mum’d said, “For grown people too, Honey. Sometimes older people can’t hold their pee neither and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
They cooked good suppers together, and Sharla got used to eating the vegetables and fruits Mum Addy said were healthy. She also got used to drinking the skim milk Mum’d make out of powder because it was cheaper and lasted longer in the fridge. Sharla thinned out fast without the potato chips and canned food she’d eaten at Collette’s, and after a month she didn’t look like the same child who came stinking and saucy on that hot June night.
Addy took out her old sewing basket and sat with Sharla at the kitchen table. She moistened the thread with her tongue and guided it through the needle’s eye. She helped Sharla’s sausage fingers sew cross-stitches and knots, never making her rip them out or saying they weren’t good enough. She taught the little girl how to wash the dishes, not to leave damp things to get mouldy, and to nod to the neighbours and say, “Fine day,” no matter how they looked at her.
They took walks up and down the mud lane for exercise. Addy’s old legs started to feel stronger and the cherry cane gathered dust in the closet. They made bride bouquets from the little white flowers out front of the trailer and sang songs that Mum Addy said Billie Holiday made up a long time ago. She had to explain that Billie was a girl, not a boy, and had a short hard life with men.
It was late July. The blistering sun had forced them outside where Sharla could play under the hose. Sharla’d seen it first and pointed when the big golden Cadillac snaked down the mud lane and stopped in front of their trailer. The Caddy had blue Michigan plates, and the closed darkened windows meant air conditioning. Neither Addy nor Sharla’d ever seen a car quite so grand before. They watched the old man climb out with his fine clothes and clean white hat and fat cigar hanging off his lip. Addy felt her heart tug, for the old man was big and could have been Chester Monk, except that he was long dead.
The old man nodded to Addy and said, “Good morning, Ma’am.” Addy felt shy like she was a young girl again. She wondered where the big man’s wife was and why he didn’t bring her along.
The old man strode toward her, tipping his hat in a fancy way and saying, “How do? I’m Earl Bolton.”
“Adelaide Shadd,” she said.
“This here your granddaughter?” he asked, smiling at Sharla.
No one had yet inquired as to her relationship with the child, and though she felt wicked for lying, she let herself nod and changed the subject quickly. “You up from Michigan?”
The old man mopped the sweat on his chin with the silky cloth from his suit pocket. “Detroit. I’m up to see my daughter and my grandbaby. You know Bonita Berry?”
Addy pointed at the trailer a few doors down. The old man looked at the trailer and shook his head. She knew what he was thinking. There were no flowers in front of Bonita Berry’s trailer, just the broken lawn chair and some dirty children’s toys in the knee-high weeds. The vinyl siding was cracked and soiled, and for all of Bonita’s talk of pride, she didn’t keep her home very tidy or clean. Her young husband was only seen from time to time, and Addy hoped it was because he had a good job that kept him out of town. Addy shuddered, thinking of the squalor inside t
he place.
Sharla was a different child, not afraid the way she used to be. She looked up at the big old man and said, “You Nedda’s Granddaddy?”
Earl Bolton nodded. “Yes I am, Young Miss. What is your name?”
“My name is Sharla Cody.”
Earl Bolton winked at Addy, liking the look of the little mixed girl in her clean summer shorts set and pink canvas sneakers. “You like ice cream, Sharla?”
Sharla glanced up to see if she should say yes, but Mum Addy was lost in the man’s eyes so she had to decide for herself. “Mmm-hmmm.”
The old man reached into his pocket and extracted a thick brown wallet. He took out a crisp bill, the likes of which Sharla’d never seen before, and handed it to her, saying, “You buy yourself some ice cream with this here and maybe your Grandma like some too.”
Sharla squinted at the paper money and glanced up at Mum Addy again like she didn’t know what she was supposed to do. Addy decided quickly. “Thank you, Sir,” she said, “but the child can’t take this from you.”
She’d passed the bill back to the stranger, but he would not take it. He pressed it into her hand and held it there a moment longer than he had to. “It would please an old man very much to treat a sweet child to some ice cream. Say it’s fine, won’t you?”
Addy nodded, though she felt strange and confused by his generosity, and passed the money back to Sharla. Earl turned to look at his daughter’s trailer. Addy hoped he didn’t rush off. She couldn’t remember when last she passed time with a gentleman. She reckoned he was about her age and wondered if he called himself black or coloured or even Negro. She wondered about his life and where he’d come from and how it’d been. She cleared her throat and found her voice. “You born and raised in Detroit?”
The old man shook his head. “Born in Carolina, but my Daddy brought us up to Detroit when he got work at the Ford plant. Thirteen children. Imagine my Mama caring for thirteen children in the back of a dusty old wagon.”
Addy could imagine that. She wanted to bring the man inside her trailer, pour some cold lemonade from her fridge, and ask him to tell her the whole long tale of his life. She wanted to tell this man her tale too, for lately she’d been thinking if she didn’t tell someone, she would die and her story be lost on the worms and on the Lord, who already knew.
Earl Bolton leaned against his car, smiling easily, like he and Addy’d always been friends. “You born and raised in Chatham?”
Addy shook her head and almost said “Rusholme.” But she was suddenly anxious. Most coloured people, even across the border, knew about Rusholme and its history, and Dresden and Chatham too. She was afraid that not only would he know about Rusholme, but that he’d have also heard the story about the girl who ran away after causing the deaths of three people. She didn’t have to worry what to say next though, because Nedda Berry came running up behind them and jumped into her Granddaddy’s arms. “Got some money for me, Poppy?”
Earl laughed, but Addy knew he was ashamed to have his granddaughter acting impolitely in front of her. He shook his head. Nedda pouted. Sharla tucked the bill into her shorts pocket so Nedda wouldn’t see. Bonita Berry looked out from her trailer door. She’d just woken up and was unprepared for the visit. She called, “Daddy. Come on!” then disappeared inside the trailer.
Addy smiled and said, “Thank you very kindly, Mr. Bolton. We’ll let you be getting on to your family now.”
Earl Bolton returned her smile, feeling the tug of duty. He climbed into his shiny gold car, letting Nedda sit on his lap so she could pretend to steer the few yards over to Bonita’s trailer. When he got out of the car Addy was still watching, recalling when she was fifteen years old and standing in the hot, buggy fields, wishing Chester Monk would glance her way. It was not just his bigness but the soft intimate way Earl Bolton had spoken to her that put her in mind of Chester. She could hardly believe that, after all these years and her whole lifetime of people and changes, thinking of Chester Monk could still make her sad.
Addy thought to take a walk now. She didn’t want Sharla to see her face and know she was holding tears. Hand in hand they started down the mud lane, Sharla singing the old song Addy taught her the last time they cleaned the tub.
Addy smiled, for Sharla’s voice was sweet and right on key. She wanted her to keep on singing and was sorry when the child stopped and took the money Earl Bolton gave her from her pocket. Sharla waved the bill, asking, “Mum?”
“Yes, Sharla, Honey?”
“This real money?”
“Course it is. That’s American money.”
“It’s not coloured.”
“Americans only use green money, Sharla.”
“Can we walk to Sweet Freeze and buy ice cream with it?”
The ice cream shop was nearly a mile past the trailer park entrance. It was the place families stopped for cones and sundaes on the way to or from a day’s swimming at the lake. The Sweet Freeze had been there since Addy could remember. She marked time by it and knew that winter was really here when the owner locked the doors and hung his old hand-painted sign:
CLOSED FOR THE SEASON. REASON? FREEZIN’!
The sun wasn’t brilliant and the sky wasn’t blue but was a suffocating blanket of grey yellow haze. Dogs and cats hid under porches and trees. The trailers conducted the heat and cooked the flesh inside well done. Though Addy was dizzy and vaguely sick to her stomach, she thought she could walk the long mile to the Sweet Freeze and wanted to do it for Sharla. She was even cheered at the notion she could sip a cup of coffee in the air conditioning and not have to look at the golden Cadillac and think of Earl Bolton, who made her think of Chester Monk.
“Why, Mum?”
“Why what, Sharla?”
“Why they use green money?”
“Why? Because America’s a different country.”
“It is?”
“Course it is. Our country’s called Canada. Don’t you know that?”
“Mmm-hmm.” Sharla’d taken to saying “Mmm-hmm” just as she’d taken to imitating Mum Addy in other ways.
“We call ourselfs Canadians and they call theirself Americans.”
“Americans.”
“We got a different way about us.” Addy couldn’t think how to explain further. “We’re Canadian.”
Sharla squinted into the sun. “They all like you in America?”
“Like me?”
Sharla used the word deliberately, remembering what Mum Addy had told her. “They all black?”
Addy laughed and snorted and coughed. “No, Child. They are not all black.” She laughed some more at the thought of it. “They are all kinds of races and colours, just like in Canada.”
“They got different animals?”
“No. Well, yes, some. Down south they got alligators and armadillos. Won’t see them here but in the zoo.”
“They got different words?”
“Different language you mean?”
Sharla nodded. “Like the Chinkies?”
“Don’t say Chinkies, Sharla. That’s an ignorant word.”
Sharla didn’t know it was ignorant. She waved her American bill in the soupy air and ventured, “Say just Chinks?”
“No. No, Sharla.” Addy tried not to blame Sharla for her ignorance. “You don’t say Chink, Honey. You say…” But the name escaped her, as so many names and phrases escaped her these days, and she found only empty spaces when she reached for familiar things. “You say,” she cleared her throat, “China person.”
Sharla nodded. “China person. I’m getting Tiger Tail. Can I get two scoops?”
Addy nodded and shivered when a gentle breeze snuck up and pushed the fishy odour of Lake Erie into her nostrils. She loved the lake and was glad she could smell it, if not view it, from the trailer park. Rusholme was a good forty miles west of the Lakeview, and the lake smell had been different there, sweeter and richer, like something from the oven. Today the breeze came from the west and with it the stink of Mr. Kenny’s b
arn and Laisa’s hot corn bread and Chester Monk’s sweat. She wanted the memories and the smells to leave her as much as she longed for them to stay, and she felt her dead brother whisper in her ear, “Rush home, Addy Shadd. Rush home.”
Leam had come around a good deal in the past few months and Addy could not say why. Mostly she was glad for his company, but he vexed her, too. She’d been planting tomatoes behind the trailer when he’d tapped her on the back, saying, “Dig a little deeper, Sister, else the roots won’t take right.”
She’d planted tomatoes successfully all her life and didn’t much care for his advice. She thought to ignore him, as she did sometimes, but he continued, “Your hip giving you trouble again?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“You coughing a lot, too. Best to give up them cigarettes.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re old and dying, Adelaide. Give up them cigarettes.”
“I will.”
“Make a promise.”
“I will!”
“Don’t get sharp.”
“I’m tired is all.”
“I know.”
“Tired of missing my dead people.”
“I know.”
“And tired of being alone and only myself to talk with.”
“And me.”
“You trouble me though, Leam, and tell me things I like not to hear.”
“Don’t be a child.”
“You think I’m dying?”
“Yes, Sister. You think it too.”
“Go away now, Leam. I got my work to do.”
“Put them cigarettes in the trash though, won’t you, Addy? Do like Dr. Zimmer said ’cause you got to keep yourself well for a while. You got one more thing to do.”
Addy didn’t know what the one thing might be since she hadn’t yet met Sharla Cody. Addy argued with her brother’s ghost as she never had in life. “Why you always telling me how it is?” He hadn’t answered and she wasn’t sorry she drove him off. He’d be back and she knew it.
Walking with Sharla now, Addy felt her lungs squeeze, and she stopped a moment at the side of the road. She reached into her purse, drew out her package of cigarettes, and hurled them into the ditch. Cars whizzed past, spraying grit in their eyes and choking them with dust. Addy took a long look at Sharla beside her and wondered what would happen to the child if she passed right here and now.
