Rush Home Road

by Lori Lansens

  The man watching her seemed satisfied, but the other did not. He pointed at her stomach and said, “You wouldn’t have a few bottles of liquor hidden in that pillow under your dress, would you, Ma’am?”

  Addy was shocked by the question even as she knew she was sitting on the crate. Morris laughed much too hard, and the first lawman said, “You mind lifting up your skirt, Ma’am, just so we’re sure you’re not toting illegal liquor across the river?”

  Addy’s voice wasn’t small this time. “I never heard so indecent a question in all my days.”

  The lawmen looked a little sheepish but would not let it go. “Mind standing up then, just so we can have a good look at you?”

  Morris looked grim but Addy was fearless. “I do mind. I can’t barely stand right on dry land with this load I got on me and I ain’t gonna stand up in no rowboat.” She opened her cloth coat and pulled the fabric of her dress across her stomach and the nub of her big belly button. “You see that? If you think that there’s a bottle of liquor then you need to go ask your Mama how a lady gets a baby.”

  The first lawman tapped the other on the shoulder. They started the motor back up and left without saying sorry to have troubled. Morris waited until the Patrol boat disappeared around the bend, then he took up the oars and drove them into the water, not stopping to catch his breath until they hit the shore on the other side.

  There was a man waiting in the bushes nearby to collect the crate from Morris and to pay him for the liquor and a little for his trouble. Addy knew he’d done the deed before, for the man who paid him knew him well. She wondered what all Lenny Davies’d think about her husband being a bootlegger.

  They made their way up the riverbank, through some bush, and finally to a road. Morris pressed a piece of paper, on which there was an address and a crude map, into her hand. He pointed at a street with tiny clapboard houses and skinny dogs and a few coloured children, who were kicking a ball and making clouds with their breath. Morris gestured at the map and said, “Go down this street a ways, turn at the end, then turn again here and here again. You’re looking for Chestnut Street. Lenny’s cousin live at the first corner house on the third block and he don’t know you’re coming so you’ll have to think how to explain it all.”

  Addy had a hundred more questions, but Morris didn’t say another word and just started back the way they’d come. Addy wondered what he’d say if he got stopped by the Patrol again and had no wife in the boat and just the broken plank seat. She hoped he would get stopped, for she didn’t like the man and thought he might have at least said she’d done well with the lawmen and offered her a dollar from the money they gave him, or more from the roll he surely found in the Pastor’s black coat.

  She wished she had some money to give to Lenny’s cousin, whose name she realized she didn’t even know, and continued to think on that as she walked. The streets, with their recently built clapboard houses and older two-storey brick homes with grey slate roofs, were quiet. The yards were tended, the road was paved, and it appeared many of the people owned automobiles. It didn’t look to Addy like a big-city neighbourhood though, not the way she’d imagined. At the end of each block, Addy looked up to read the street signs and grew increasingly anxious as many of the names were unfamiliar and unpronounceable.

  Her muscles ached and her stomach churned and her legs wondered if they would ever rest again. Finally she found Chestnut Street and stood in front of the house of Lenny’s cousin. It was small, but red brick and tidy, with white lacy curtains in the windows on either side of the door. There were two high-back chairs on the porch out front, and even though it was cold, she wondered if she might sit awhile before she knocked. But the door opened, and a skinny, sickly-looking man-child with a look-away eye and a too-big black suit came through it. Addy thought he was too young to be Lenny’s cousin and must be one of the grown children. The boy looked at her strangely, for she just stood there staring at the house. After a moment, he said, “You come to pay your respects?”

  Addy quickly realized that the boy’s dying Mama must be recent gone and was altogether sorry she’d come. She nodded all the same, and the boy opened the door wide to let her into the house. There were three people in the sitting room, two men and one woman, all of them older than her father. They were quiet, sipping tea and smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. They looked up and said nothing, taking note of her shabby clothing and swelling middle. No one in the room resembled Lenny Davies, and Addy did not know who to look at or what to do next.

  The boy with the look-away eye stepped up behind her, saying, “She came to pay her respects, Poppa.”

  Though he did not rise, the smallest and oldest of the men set his cigarette in a glass saucer and held out his hand. Addy took the hand and whispered, “I’m sorry for your loss, Sir.”

  The man nodded and gestured at a chair. “Sit down, Miss. Riley get you some tea.”

  Addy took the chair, wishing her legs would stop trembling. The woman stood and smiled at Addy in a genuine way, then turned to the other man and said, “Best be getting on now.”

  The man rose and Lenny’s cousin too and the three shuffled over to the door. The boy came back into the room, handed her a cup of tea, and sat down in the chair beside. He reached for a tobacco pouch, deftly rolled a cigarette, and offered it to Addy. She shook her head, so he lit the thing himself and blew out his words with the smoke. “I never want to live these last three days over, no thank you, Ma’am.”

  Addy nodded and thought how the boy and all the people outside of Rusholme had a different way with their words. The boy turned on her with his look-away eye and must have seen her clearly because he said, “You don’t look atall familiar to me.”

  Addy shook her head, still wondering how to explain all she had to, but she was saved because Lenny’s cousin came back in the room and asked, “Would you like a slice of apple cake, Young Miss?”

  It was wrong, she knew, to drink tea and eat apple cake and not say why and how she’d come to be here, but Addy wanted the cake badly. “I would, Sir. Very much, Sir. Thank you kindly, Sir.”

  The old man laughed and said, “I believe this young lady would like two slices of apple cake.”

  Riley didn’t huff at having to rise again but plugged his cigarette into his mouth and went back down the hall. Lenny’s cousin rubbed his eyes, sat back down, and said, “You must be a friend of Verilynn’s. She’s gone back to school, you know. I said, Child, I said, stay until we got your mother buried, then go back and get on with your life. Riley and I be fine. She left yesterday. She’ll be sorry she missed you though. What’s your name?”

  Addy found her voice just as Riley walked back into the room and passed her a delicate china plate with two fat cake slices and what looked like a fork for a baby. “My name’s Adelaide Shadd, Sir.”

  The boy’s good eye found her. He asked, “You a friend of Verilynn’s, Adelaide?”

  Addy shook her head and Lenny’s cousin looked surprised. “You must have known Rosalie then? You knew my wife?”

  Addy shook her head again. The fork began to clatter on the cake plate. Her chin quivered and tears squeezed out her eyes. She knew it had to be told, but was sorry as she was telling it that the ears that heard had deep troubles of their own. Once she began though, she could not stop the rush of words. By the end, after she’d explained about Lenny taking the Pastor’s money roll and how Morris rowed her across the river and pointed the way, she felt like she’d lived it all over again and she could scarcely breathe. Wallace and Laisa, Chester Monk and L’il Leam, and especially Zach Heron, had filled up the room and stolen all the air.

  The faces of the man and the young man had said many things as they listened to her story, but she could not tell if the anger she saw was toward her or Zach Heron or Wallace or who. Finally, after a long moment filled by the distant sound of children and barking dogs, Lenny’s cousin rose and said, “Adelaide Shadd, I do not believe you.”

  Riley looked up from his teacu
p, his face drained. “I believe her, Poppa. Who could make up such a story as that?”

  But the older man just shook his head and said, “No Sir, I do not believe it was cousin Lenny who sent you to us.”

  Addy waited and didn’t know what to think when he bent down and took her hand in his. “I believe it was the Lord, Miss Shadd. For who else could know your trouble and ours and bring us together in this right way?”

  Riley smiled and liked his father for what he said. His Poppa’d been a preacher years ago and still had a preacher way about him even though he questioned the Bible and said it could not all be right. The old man had decided there was only one thing in that whole big book he could fully believe and that was love one another. Simply, love one another.

  Riley nodded. “That’s right, Adelaide. What with Mama passing and Verilynn gone off to her school, we been saying how we’re gonna need a woman in the house. We’re both lonely and sick and you look like medicine to us, isn’t that right, Poppa?”

  Addy was puzzled and sure they hadn’t heard her correctly. “But I got a baby coming, Sir, and I ain’t married. I’m ruined and that’s the only truth.”

  The man shook his head slowly and said, “This is what I believe, Young Adelaide, I believe that you are a good child and a grievous wrong has been done unto you. I believe that the Lord sent you to us like a gift, and I would be honoured if you lived in my home and allowed me to know the power of the Holy Spirit through you.”

  Addy thought there must be rum in the house but couldn’t smell any on this rare man’s breath. She let him collect her tears in his soft white handkerchief and said, “Sir. I be most grateful if you and your son here take me into this house. I won’t never let myself be seen with you or shame you in any way. I am a fine baker and a good sewer and I could do for you and earn my keep.”

  “Call me Poppa, Adelaide, like my other children do. And I’ll be a Poppa to you, and not like your own Daddy, who needs not our hatred but our forgiveness. And I’ll be a Poppa to your child too, for the only thing left to do is love.”

  Addy felt the sting of rising tears again, but her eye caught the apple cake still untouched on her lap. Poppa saw the way she looked at it and said, “Riley, let’s get Adelaide fed proper with good meat and some of the other victuals our friends have brought to us.”

  Riley nodded and went back down the hall. When he returned, Addy thought she might be dreaming, for he brought a pretty china plate so full of good food it was like the best church supper. She ate that plateful and more, until Poppa said she might get sick and best to lay down in Verilynn’s room now.

  When Addy woke the next morning, Riley was sitting on a chair near the bed, his eyes watching the rise and fall of her growing stomach. He smiled shyly and said, “I thought you might sleep all day, Adelaide.” She smiled just as shyly at Riley and wondered why she hadn’t seen before that this young man was so much like L’il Leam in nature and stature he might have been her own dear brother himself. She said, “Thank you for me being here.”

  Riley shrugged and said, “Well, Poppa knows the Lord like no man living and if he thinks it’s the best thing, I think it is too. Verilynn won’t agree. Very’s not the agreeable type. Poppa made some tea and I thought you might like an apple turnover for your breakfast.”

  Addy nodded and smiled and didn’t tell Riley that whoever made the turnovers had worked the dough too long. She watched him leave the room, feeling Heaven’s grace just as Poppa had said.

  Glancing around, Addy saw there was a writing desk in the corner, a shelf filled with books, and a certificate of merit on the wall on which she could read “Verilynn Rippey.” Rippey, she thought, and how strange it was she was only now learning Poppa and Riley’s last name.

  Verilynn’s bedroom was unlike the rest of the house. There was a dark blue curtain without trim or ribbon, and the quilt was not like the delicate patchwork one she saw when she looked into Poppa’s room. Her bed had a thick brown blanket that was warm enough, but not pretty. Addy wondered about Verilynn, remembering what Poppa told her last night about his daughter being away at school learning how to be a nurse. She’d been envious and impressed and wondered if the woman would be wearing a starchy white apron and nurse cap when she came home. She also wondered what all Riley meant about Very not being agreeable.

  When Riley returned with the sweet milky tea and two heavy turnovers, Addy could see that he was changed. He’d become distant and sullen and hardly responded when she inquired about the neighbourhood. “Black Bottom,” was all he said, and she had no idea what it meant. She reckoned he was tired and still sad at losing his Mama. She understood. She was still sad at losing her own.

  Red Licorice

  ADDY WAS LOATH TO do it because she did not like to beg favours, but she knocked on the screen door to Bonita Berry’s trailer all the same. Bonita came to the door wearing just a T-shirt and her underpants, coughing and swallowing her snot. “Thought you was one of the kids.”

  Addy wondered how that explained her answering the door in just her underwear. “Could I trouble you to keep an eye out for Sharla? I’ll just be gone ten minutes or so. She’s over there building a twig tower with your Nedda.”

  Sharla and Nedda Berry had become friends of sorts. Sharla said they were best friends and was devoted to the older child. But Addy thought Nedda was bossy and mean and knew the child liked to go through her cupboards and sneak things. Just moments ago she’d overheard Sharla say to Nedda, “Put them back. Don’t.”

  “She won’t know! There’s a whole package here!”

  “That’s stealing though. Same as if you put something in your pocket and don’t pay for it.”

  “You’re a suck, Sharla.”

  Addy stepped out from the hall and caught Nedda with her fingers in the cookie tin, a coconut log already stuffed in her chocolate-smeared mouth. Addy narrowed her eyes at Nedda and said, “How many of my cookies you eat already, Young Miss?”

  Nedda closed the tin and stepped down from the chair, chewing, stalling. Finally she swallowed. “None.”

  “Sharla knows how I feel about thieving and I’ll tell you right now, if you ask me for something, chances are I’ll give it to you. But if you think you are gonna sneak from me, then lie about it, you won’t be welcome here.”

  Nedda didn’t like to be scolded and got sassy right away. “You ain’t my mother. You can’t hit me. Only my mother can hit me.”

  Suddenly understanding why Nedda was Nedda, Addy sat down in a hard-back chair and said, “Come here, Nedda Berry.” Nedda shook her head. Addy reached out, taking Nedda’s hand, and pulled her firmly till the child stood in front of her. Addy asked softly, “Now, would you two girls like a coconut log?”

  Sharla clapped her hands. Nedda nodded, confused. Addy gave each of the girls a cookie and sent them outside lest they get their sticky chocolate fingers all over her clean walls. She called after them, “Do not go near them cows!”

  Bonita Berry squinted and scanned the field behind the trailers until she could see the children. Addy knew this woman was not a reliable guardian but reckoned she’d only be gone a short time and felt sure that Sharla’d be all right until she returned. “Just ten minutes. Just going up to Warren’s office.”

  “I’m not feeding her lunch,” Bonita warned, and Addy felt cross at that because she often fed Nedda lunch. In fact, Sharla begged her to make peanut butter and banana sandwiches just because they were Nedda’s favourite.

  “Won’t have to. I’ll be back long before.”

  “Good, ’cause I got nothing in my fridge.”

  “You remember it’s Sharla’s birthday party tomorrow?”

  “Shit.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “I forgot about her birthday.”

  Addy tried to sound calm. “That little girl be heart-broken if Nedda can’t come.”

  “Well, I don’t have a present and I don’t have the money to buy one now.”

  “That’s all right. T
hat’s all right. Just wrap up any old thing and say it’s a present. Just please let her come. Around eleven. We’ll feed her lunch and have her home by three.”

  Bonita yawned and plodded back into her trailer.

  Addy sighed and started off down the road, hoping Sharla wouldn’t see her leave. The air was heavy and dusty, and there was no hint of cool like sometimes happened in mid-August. Addy’s garden had been miserable without rain. The children were suffering and the mangy dogs and cats too. Originally Addy thought to make a party for Sharla at the lake and take her and Lionel and Nedda and a picnic basket full of goodies out there in a taxicab. But she knew it would be too hard for her and too much responsibility to look after three children who she knew couldn’t swim.

  In the end, she decided on hot dogs and ice cream, a few games, and a run under the big waving sprinkler that she was going to borrow from Warren and Peggy Souchuck’s office now.

  Addy imagined Sharla’s face when she opened her presents. There were three presents in all: a beautiful fairytale book with a three-dimensional mermaid picture on the cover that Sharla’d been eyeing at the Kmart, a fancy cartoon lunch box for school, and—Addy smiled thinking of it—Chick’s doll.

  Chick’s doll, her sixth birthday present, had been slumbering in a shoebox, saved along with the white cotton dress and hidden in Addy’s closet all through the years. She was a baby doll with porcelain arms and feet and a porcelain face. Her watery blue eyes looked out from beneath a head of delicate blonde curls, and her white cotton dress was carefully sewn. It didn’t hurt Addy to look at the doll again as much as she thought it would. In fact it pleased her to think of giving it to Sharla. She wouldn’t tell Sharla it was a doll to be looked at and not played with the way she’d done with Chick. If the doll was played with and ruined, so be it, Addy thought.