by Lori Lansens
“Look what you done!”
“You done that, Sharla. You dropped it.” Fawn stood and looked around. “Let’s go bug the cows.”
“Mum Addy said don’t be climbing that fence.”
“Don’t have to climb it, Stoop. Alls you have to do is pull the wires a little and go through at the bottom. I done it a million times before.”
Nedda and Sharla shared a look, impressed. Nedda brought the package of cookies along as they followed Fawn out to the barbwire fence. They all had a quick look around to make sure no one was watching before Fawn lowered herself to her knees and, carefully, avoiding the barbs, pulled the wires apart and put her head through the fence.
Nedda clucked her tongue and said, “She’s gonna get stuck.” Nedda was right. Fawn had never gone through the fence before and she had not the strength to pull the wires further. They sprang back against her neck and locked her in place with the barbs. Fawn pulled and tugged and couldn’t get her head out, but her struggling did cause her too-big shorts and bathing suit bottom to slip farther down on her hips, exposing the cleave of her butt. She could not turn her head to see the girls standing behind her and could only say, “I’m stuck. Help me.”
Nedda chewed a coconut cookie. “Thought you done this a million times.”
Sharla knew it was wrong to enjoy seeing Fawn’s head caught in the fence, but looking at the chocolate stain on her pretty dress made her feel spiteful. “Yeah, Fawn, thought you done it a million times.”
“I have done it a million times but just not in this spot. Help me. Come and help me.”
Nedda and Sharla chewed their cookies and watched Fawn struggle and twist and pull at the wires, her shorts and bathing suit bottom sliding farther and farther down on her hips. The more she struggled, the more Nedda and Sharla thought it was the best thing they’d ever seen.
Fawn’s little white body was quickly exhausted. There were red smears of blood on her neck and hands from the sharp edges of the barbs. She was mad now. “Help me or you’re gonna get it,” she seethed.
Nedda laughed and pointed at Fawn’s bottom. “Look. You can see her whole butt!”
Sharla laughed too and reached through the crinkly Cellophane for another cookie. Fawn let out a howl but they were far enough away, and it a breezy enough day, that no one in the trailers could hear. “GET ME OUT!”
Nedda sneered, “Get yourself out!”
Fawn began to cry a little. “My Aunt Krystal’s gonna kill you.”
Sharla had a sudden sickening thought that Fawn’s Aunt Krystal looked like a woman who could kill, but still she made no move to help.
The next thing that happened was Nedda’s idea but Sharla knew she’d pay for it in some way or other. Nedda was ready to take a bite of another coconut log when she stopped and announced to Sharla, “I got a good idea.”
Sharla giggled and waited to see Nedda’s good idea. Fawn cried, “HELP ME. HEEELLLPPP MEEEEEEeeeee.”
Nedda lunged forward. Sharla was surprised she’d decided to help Fawn out of the fence after all. But when Nedda stepped back, Fawn was still stuck, and there was a coconut log cookie jammed into the crack of her butt. Sharla laughed in a way she had never laughed before. Fawn cried, “What is that? Get it out! Get it out! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you, Nedda!”
Fawn wagged her bottom this way and that trying to shake the cookie free, but that only made Sharla and Nedda laugh harder.
It wasn’t until Chipper showed up that Sharla and Nedda stopped laughing. Chipper stopped a few yards from Fawn, licking his black-and-pink lips and baring his teeth. The big Shepherd was unpredictable and all the trailer kids had been warned by Warren and Peggy he was a dog to guard and not to play with. Nedda clapped her hands and squealed, “Uh-oh, Fawn. Chipper’s coming. Chipper’s coming!”
Fawn screamed as Chipper began to creep forward, sniffing the air and stalking the cookie. Sharla thought how much she would like to see Chipper eat the cookie out of Fawn’s white butt, then it occurred to her the big dog might not know enough to stop at the cookie. Sharla charged forward, pulled the melting cookie out, and threw it as far as she could behind her. Chipper chased the cookie, swallowing it without a chew.
Sharla pulled apart the wires holding down Fawn’s head and helped her to her feet. Fawn’s face, which they hadn’t been able to see till now, was wet with tears and apple red. She said not a word but ran out of the field and disappeared down the mud lane.
Everything was quiet. Chipper trotted off sneezing. Sharla and Nedda returned to the blanket. Nedda laughed and said, “That was funny.” Sharla nodded but she felt ashamed. She didn’t say goodbye Nedda or thanks for coming to my birthday but rose from the blanket and ran all the way to the trailer and into the comfort of Mum Addy’s just-waking arms.
After she had tearfully confessed everything to Mum Addy, Sharla felt better, then quickly worse when Mum said, “Well, you know what you have to do now?” Sharla shook her head because she’d been sure confessing would be the end of it.
“We are gonna take a little walk over to Fawn’s trailer and you are gonna tell her how very, very sorry you are for what you done.”
Sharla folded her arms. “No I’m not.”
“I beg your pardon, Miss Sassafrass? You go get Fawn’s lunch box, Sharla. We’ll bring that over too.”
“No. I don’t wanna give her my lunch box.”
“Make no mistake, Child. That’s her lunch box and you will bring it.”
They said not a word to each other on the long walk to Fawn’s trailer. Addy allowed Sharla to take her hand but did not call her Honey or offer any other words of comfort. She wanted Sharla to feel bad, very bad, for what she’d done. She knew Fawn was a bully, but she also knew that Sharla would not grow up to be a good person if she believed people should get what they deserved.
Addy made Sharla knock on the door and was glad when Fawn answered and not Krystal. Fawn’s face was puffy and blotched and there was crusty snot caked around her nostrils. She looked at Sharla standing on the other side of the screen and said nothing. Addy backed away a little to give the girls their privacy but wanted to be within earshot.
“Where’s Krystal?”
“None of your beeswax.”
“You tell her?”
“She’s sleeping, but I’m gonna.”
“Sorry, Fawn.”
“I got cuts here and here you know,” she said, pointing out the wounds on her neck and hands.
“Hurt?”
“Yup.”
“Sorry, Fawn.”
“Chipper coulda bit me, y’know.”
“I know.”
“I coulda got the rabies, y’know.”
“I know.”
“Krystal’s gonna kill you when she finds out.”
“Sorry, Fawn.”
“What you got there?”
“Mum Addy said I had to give you your lunch box.”
Fawn opened the screen door, grabbed the lunch box, and closed the door again.
“I wish Nedda never put a cookie in your butt.”
“Well she did.”
“But if she didn’t it was fun before that.”
“It was all right.”
“It was fun going in the sprinkler.”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry, Fawn.”
Fawn shrugged and Sharla knew her apology had finally been accepted.
“I better go now.”
Fawn scratched the screen with her dirty fingernails. “Okay.”
Sharla turned and started down the steps. Fawn stopped her. “Wait.”
Fawn disappeared from the door and returned after a moment with something in her hand. She opened the screen door and passed a folded-up white envelope to Sharla, saying, “Aunt Krystal took the money ’cause of your Mom scoffing her leather coat and records and that. Don’t tell her I give you this though.”
Sharla nodded, took the white envelope, and hopped off the last step. Fawn disappeared inside the trailer.
Sharla held up the white envelope to Addy.
Addy’s heart was thudding, for she knew there was a letter from Collette in the envelope and she could not imagine what it might say. She couldn’t tell if she was more worried that Collette was coming back or that she never would. She smiled at Sharla, took the envelope, and said, “That was a very nice apology. You feel better, Honey?”
Sharla glanced up. “You love me again?”
“I never don’t love you, Sharla. But I sure don’t like what you did.”
“I won’t do it no more.”
“No you won’t.”
Sharla gestured at the envelope. “That a letter from Collette?”
“I believe it is.”
“You gonna read it?”
Addy could not wait. She stood in the middle of the hot dusty road, opened the envelope, and unfolded the four crisp white pages. She was relieved to see the big looping script, for if Collette had written smaller she’d have had to wait till she got home and found her eyeglasses.
She read to herself:
Dear Mizz Shadd,
I bet you thought you’ll never see it but here’s the hunnerd dollars like we agreed on for taking care of Sharla. Me and Emilios had a change in plans and stead of staying here in Lakeview we are gonna go for trip down to the States and won’t be able to see Sharla on them Sundays like we said. We likely won’t be back in time for when school starts and if you want you can get her registered at St. Theresa’s because that’s where my ex Claude works and she really likes Claude. If you dont get her registered that’s okay because its just Grade one and not like they do alot. Me and Emilio might even end up getting a place in California because he got a cousin there and thinks he can get work. This has all come up pretty sudden so don’t blame me for not telling you when I didn’t know myself. We will likely want to get setteled in before we send for Sharla to come and I guess I’d mail you some money and get her on a train but we haven’t go that far in figuring things out yet. If your finding Sharla to much I don’t blame you if you send her to foster care because I myself found her to much on many days and that’s my own daughter. Maybe she might be better off in foster care anyway because she needs some disiplin. There is really no place else for her because I don’t know her Daddy and he doesn’t know she was even born. My own father hates me and because Sharla’s half coloured she don’t count as a granddaughter and his wife Delia is a bitch so don’t even think of that.
She signed the letter: Love, Collette.
Addy finished and read it quickly once more, for she couldn’t understand what Collette was really saying. It seemed to Addy she meant never to come back and that she didn’t much care what became of Sharla. She thought to burn the letter to make sure Sharla could never read it, but realized she ought to keep it as proof that the child had been abandoned.
Sharla was waiting to hear what the letter said. Addy folded the pages and stuffed them back in the envelope. “Well, your Mama gonna stay away for a long while I think. But she says in there that she loves you a lot and she thinks about you every day.”
They held each other’s hands much tighter than usual on the way home. Addy took a deep breath and Sharla did too. Sharla suddenly remembered, “We never had cake and ice cream.”
When they returned to the trailer Addy cut each of them a huge slice of chocolate cake. She watched Sharla eat but could not eat herself. She had a picky feeling in her lungs and stomach that made her afraid if she closed her eyes tonight she would not wake again. She wondered who would love this child as their own when she was gone, and she would spend a long sleepless night thinking of Sharla Cody and all the other children lost in the world.
Diamonds
RILEY RIPPEY NEVER DID come home. Not the night baby Leam died. Not the next day to help Addy and Verilynn shovel the frozen earth for the little grave near the house. And not even the next day, when Addy filled Poppa’s old suitcase with the few things she called hers and left Chestnut Street, knowing she’d never fulfil her promise to Verilynn to return someday.
Addy Shadd didn’t know where she was going. Her heart urged, “Rush home. Rush home,” but much as Addy longed to, she could not return to Rusholme. She doubted her father would take her back into his house and even if he would, she could not go, for he would say her baby’s death was for the best, and that was something Addy could not bear. She would never think her son’s death was anything but tragic, and her only grace was to know that he was an angel in Heaven, keeping company with his Uncle Leam and her sweet Chester Monk.
Verilynn had begged her not to leave. “You could come to Cleveland with me, Addy. I could get you a job at the club.”
“I ain’t pretty like you,” Addy’d whispered. “Who’d want to see me working in a nightclub?”
“We’ll get you work in the back. In the kitchen.”
“No. But thank you, Very. You’re good to think of me.”
“Then stay here, Addy.” Verilynn’s chin puckered. “Stay till Riley comes home. It’ll kill him if you’re gone. It will.”
“I believe he’s staying away now just till he’s sure I’m gone. He feels guilty and ashamed in a way we can’t hardly imagine. My face will only remind him what happened. He don’t want to see me, Verilynn. I know that to be true.”
After a long and frustrating search, they collected only a few dollars from here and there around the house. Verilynn couldn’t understand why there wasn’t more, seeing as her brother’d told her about the money from Enos and the others, but Addy knew it was because Riley liked to carry the whole fat roll around in his pocket and pretend like he was a rich, rich man.
“Least you got Mama’s ring, Addy. You can sell that. But don’t take less than it’s worth.”
“What’s it worth?”
Verilynn shrugged, unsure. “A lot. More than fifty dollars.”
“Who can I sell it to?”
“Anyone who’ll pay your price.”
Addy nodded and thought of the little blue box in the side pocket of the old leather suitcase. The greatest treasure in the box was not the ring though. It was the black curl of her baby boy’s hair, which she’d carefully snipped from his angel head and placed beneath the velvet square on which the sparkling marquise sat.
It was as cold and dark a day as Detroit would see that year. The wind shook the windowpanes and the house on Chestnut Street groaned at the loss of yet another soul. Addy was still weak from the efforts of her labour, and still sore and bleeding, but she knew she had to leave and she had to leave today. Late in the afternoon she boiled a dozen potatoes and fried the chicken legs Verilynn bought at the butcher. She ate heartily, without appetite, Verilynn’s portion too, for she remembered only a few months ago being hungry and alone and unsure when she would eat again.
Verilynn insisted Addy take her grey coat and she was grateful, for all she had besides was the threadbare cloth coat Lenny Davies had given her back at that farm in Sandwich.
Addy was glad too that Verilynn loaned her warm gloves and her much-too-big boots, though Addy’d protested at the time, knowing she’d never return them. And she was further glad she’d spent all that time crocheting, for Poppa’s wool hat and scarf would fight the wind and chase the chill from her cheeks and chin on her journey back to Canada.
The nights had been long and sleepless in the days since she bore her silent son, and Addy had walked the floor of Poppa’s bedroom, frantic to come up with some plan for her future. She’d seen in Riley’s face, the instant he looked down upon her just-pushed-out baby, her dream of life on Chestnut Street fade away. Finally, after hours and days of thinking on it, she decided to make her way to far-off Toronto and find that friend of Poppa’s, Dr. Shepherd, who’d said, “Life is different in Canada.” Addy reckoned that a kind man such as he, especially one called Shepherd, would show her how to make her way in the world.
The sky was icy black by the time Addy dried the last dish from supper, and though frightened, she was eager to leave. Veril
ynn was concerned about Addy travelling in the darkness but understood she couldn’t cross the river by day and risk being stopped or questioned and sent back. “But where you gonna go when you get to the other side?”
“I’ll go to one of the bootleggers and ask which direction to Toronto and how can I get there on the dollars I got,” Addy said as she filled her pockets with fat Spy apples.
She worried what would become of Verilynn Rippey and tried not to think of Riley at all. The two women embraced but Verilynn would not let go when Addy pulled away. She whispered in her ear, “You’re so brave, Addy Shadd. I’ll never be as brave as you are this moment.”
The remark, and the sincerity in Verilynn’s eyes, made Addy want to laugh because she didn’t feel brave at all. How could she explain to Verilynn or anyone that to do what a person must do requires no bravery? She called upon bravery not to do what she did, but rather not to do what she wished to do, and that was throw herself under the tires of a fast-moving truck. And when, midway across the black frozen river, she felt the ice heave and crack, she did laugh, and cry a little too, for her terror was complete and she wished Verilynn or anyone was there to see it.
There were no bootleggers on the other side of the river, and as Addy scaled the bank toward the mostly deserted street, she wondered if they’d all been caught and jailed. She could hear the rumble of the trolley cars in the distance and wondered if the drivers could be trusted to point out the way to Toronto. She limped forth and cursed the ache between her legs as she watched a pale, stout man in a rich wool overcoat lock the doors to a darkened shoe shop.
The stout man pulled his hat down on his head, stuffed his bare hands in his pockets, and started down the street. Addy was frightened by the man and the strange way he looked at her, then she realized how oddly she must be walking with her sore lady parts and Verilynn’s much-too-big boots. She called with some difficulty, her jaw being all but frozen shut, “Excuse me, Sir.”
The man stopped, annoyed but polite. “Yes?”
