A Long Time Gone

by Karen White

  I stared at her for a moment, knowing it was pointless to argue.

  John came across to my side of the car to help me out. As I stood on the running board, I saw Mathilda trying to figure out how to navigate the basket and herself out of the rumble seat. Willie and Sarah Beth had already climbed from the car and were walking toward the ruins of the old plantation house while John stood, waiting patiently to help me out.

  “Hang on,” I said, jumping down, then heading toward the back of the car. “Here,” I said, taking the basket from Mathilda. “Give that to me so you can climb down.”

  She looked at me with grateful eyes, eyes that were lighter than I’d noticed before, with specks of green in them.

  “Thank you, Miss Adelaide,” she said quietly. She climbed down from the rumble seat before retrieving the basket from my hands, then walked away quickly in the direction Willie and Sarah Beth had gone.

  I found John watching me with an odd expression. “That was kind of you, Adelaide.”

  I shrugged, feeling embarrassed. “My mama always told me to treat all people the way I want to be treated. I don’t remember much else about my mama, so I try to remember that.”

  He smiled at me and I suddenly became aware of just how alone we were. I knew Aunt Louise wouldn’t approve, and the thought gave me an unexpected thrill, like a drip of cool water against my skin. I shivered. I’d never been alone with a boy before—not that I’d ever been given the opportunity—and I also knew Sarah Beth and I had been lectured again and again about coming out to the old plantation house. I’d heard my aunt and uncle talking about the “unsavory characters” who sometimes made their home in some of the abandoned slave cabins on the property, but all of us children in Indian Mound knew the adults wanted us to stay away because the old house was haunted.

  You could just tell by the way the glassless windows stared out at you like empty eye sockets, and how sometimes you could see a shadow pass by even though the upper floor had rotted away years ago and there was nothing to stand on just in case you wanted to walk by a window.

  And nobody hunted in the woods surrounding the house or in the old cotton fields that had been abandoned right after the Civil War. Men said that the animals stayed away, as if they sensed something they were afraid of.

  The land had been allowed to return to forest. Uncle Joe called it a sin to waste all that good farmland, but I thought it was the natural course of things. In my sixteen years of history lessons and just paying attention, I knew that sooner or later the Mississippi River or the land that had been stolen from it would demand payment for trying to force them into doing something nature had never intended. It was just the way of things in the delta.

  I started talking, trying to erase the silence that hid beneath the sound of the insects in the trees and in the clusters of weeds and grass that sprouted through the dirt road like the tail of a scairt cat. “This plantation used to belong to Sarah Beth’s family—on her mama’s side. Right after the Civil War they moved to New Orleans, where they had family connections.” I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I’d heard Aunt Louise use the term a lot and figured it made me sound older.

  I continued. “They brought some of their freed slaves with them—their Bertha is a descendant. People say Mrs. Heathman’s grandfather was a blockade runner and made a fortune during the war.”

  “And who owns it now?” John walked with his hands respectably behind his back, but so close to me that my arm brushed his with every step.

  “I think they still do. Uncle Joe says that with Mr. Heathman being president of the bank, he doesn’t need to get his hands dirty with farming.” I looked at him and saw that he was smiling at me in that way of his that made me feel like a child. I stopped walking. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot your family owns a farm, too. I only think of you as a watchmaker.”

  “No apology needed. Farming is a very noble profession, in my opinion. Not everybody can make things grow, or has the patience to wait for rain or pray for it to stop.”

  “I love to grow things in my garden,” I said, feeling emboldened by how near he was to me. “I’m quite good at it. Even during a drought, I always have a good crop of vegetables. Aunt Louise says I come from a long line of brilliant gardeners.”

  We stopped, just now becoming aware of where we were. We’d walked around the ruins of the house and stood near the back, amid several outbuildings with missing roofs. Gnats and mosquitoes buzzed and dipped around us, but without biting, as if they, too, felt the magic that seemed to surround us. The pond was visible through the trees and we could hear Sarah Beth’s scream of laughter followed by a loud splash.

  John took my hand and began leading me in the opposite direction. “Let’s go this way,” he said, finding a path that skirted through stands of new trees and eventually led to a row of abandoned slave cabins. I should have said no, on account of not only the words of warning from my aunt and uncle about never being alone with a boy who wasn’t related to me, but also from my sheer terror that we would encounter one of those ghosts I’d been hearing about all of my life.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice.

  “Here,” he said, stopping, then facing me. “I’ve been dying to get you alone ever since I first saw you. Do you remember that? Last year in Mr. Peacock’s shop?”

  I nodded, breathless.

  “I’ve been wanting to do this.” He pushed his boater hat farther back on his forehead. Then gently he took my head between his hands and bent toward me, his lips gentle on mine. Aunt Louise would definitely not approve, regardless of how many lilies he brought her.

  He pulled his head back, his eyes exploring mine. He smiled. “That was even better than I’d hoped.” He moved his thumb to my lower lip and pulled it down, staring closely at it. He was about to kiss me again when I noticed smoke rising in the air from behind one of the slave cabins. I pulled away, and John followed my gaze.

  “Somebody’s here,” I whispered, trying to imagine which was worse—ghosts or unsavory characters. Either way, I didn’t want to see them.

  John took me by the shoulders. “They’ll leave us alone if we leave them alone.”

  I wanted to agree, and allow John to kiss me again, but I’d already spotted the picnic basket, set down in the scrubby grass in front of the cabin where the smoke was coming from.

  Pulling away, I said, “Mathilda’s there. We need to make sure she’s okay.”

  He noticed the basket, too, and without argument, he took my hand and led me toward the cabin. I found myself praying that ghosts didn’t light real fires. I prepared to stop, to sneak around the back so we wouldn’t be noticed, but John simply led me around the cabin toward the sound of low voices.

  He stopped, and I stopped right behind him, our hands still clasped tightly. The humid air was thick with the smell of what I thought was vinegar, and something else I recognized but couldn’t name. And there was another smell I thought familiar: the scent I sometimes caught on Mr. Heathman’s breath in the evenings.

  I wondered if John could hear my heart thumping in my chest, or at least feel the rush of blood through my veins and into my fingertips. I just wasn’t sure whether it was from discovering somebody in one of the abandoned cabins, or the fact that his fingers were wrapped around mine and I could smell his sweat mixing with my own.

  “Good afternoon,” he said softly, as if he’d stopped in on friends for a glass of lemonade.

  I peered around his shoulder, my eyes widening. In the center of a clearing behind the shack were two large barrels, one with what looked like an upside-down copper tub stuck on top, with a copper tube connecting the barrels. A fire burned under a large copper pot, creating the column of steam that I’d seen. Surrounding the barrels were about a dozen oversize empty jars with a single finger loop near the top. And sitting in front of the smoldering tub were
three upturned logs where a black man, a white woman, and Mathilda sat. Standing quietly by the barrels was a black boy about my age, barefoot and wearing torn denim pants, his dark eyes taking me in just like a butcher deciding which part of a hog to cut up first.

  They looked at us in surprise, the man standing slowly before moving behind the woman, his hand on her shoulder to show us that they were together. The woman’s lower lip was filled with tobacco, and I watched as she lifted a small jar, brown liquid swirling inside, and spit into it, her eyes never leaving my face. I wondered if these two people might be the unsavory characters Aunt Louise had warned me about.

  I turned toward Mathilda, whose eyes had the look of a rabbit in the sight of a rifle. “You okay?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t insulting anybody. The man’s hair was heavily sprinkled with gray, but his hands were as big as watermelons, the muscles under his filthy undershirt pressing against the flannel like giant snakes caught in a sack. His suspenders hung down the sides of his pants, and I looked away as I realized I’d never seen a man before in such a state of undress, except Willie once by accident.

  Before Mathilda could answer, John lifted his chin toward the man. “Leon,” he said in greeting.

  The black man nodded his head in acknowledgment and I wondered how John knew his name. And why he wasn’t introducing us, although it was apparent that Mathilda already knew them.

  John turned his attention to Mathilda. “You get on down to the pond, Mathilda. I’ll bring the basket.”

  She looked at Leon as if seeking his approval, but before she could leave we heard the approach of running feet and laughter, and then Sarah Beth and Willie were standing in front of us, their hair and costumes soaking wet, their hair slicked back like a couple of models in the Vogue magazine that Mrs. Heathman kept by the side of her bed.

  They were holding hands, and in Sarah Beth’s other hand she held a flask. My aunt and uncle were teetotalers, so I’d never seen one up close, but I knew what it was. I just couldn’t figure out what it was doing in Sarah Beth’s hand.

  They’d stopped laughing, as surprised to see us as we were to see them. Sarah Beth pulled back her shoulders as I’d seen her mother do before giving orders to one of the servants. “I’m thirsty,” Sarah Beth said, using her new boarding-school voice. Her head was slightly tilted back so that she really was talking down her nose. She emphasized her words by raising her arm and shaking the flask.

  Willie and John shared a glance before John took my shoulders and led me gently back to the path that wound around the shack. “Go with Mathilda. She knows the way. I’ll be right behind you.”

  I was embarrassed and confused, and I couldn’t understand why Sarah Beth didn’t meet my eyes. Not knowing what else to do, I began to follow Mathilda.

  “I said, I’m thirsty,” Sarah Beth’s voice announced again.

  The man coughed, and I heard the woman say, “That girl ain’t no better than she oughta be.” I imagined her lifting the jar to her mouth again, spitting out the nasty brown liquid.

  I started to turn back, but Mathilda tugged on my arm.

  I followed, feeling silly, and useless, and like a child who was still supposed to believe in Santa Claus.

  We made it to the pond, where I immediately pulled off my clothes and dived into the dark, still waters before I could remember my fear, knowing no amount of cool water could take the sting of heat from my skin.

  Chapter 12

  Carol Lynne Walker Moise

  INDIAN MOUND, MISSISSIPPI

  APRIL 3, 1963

  Dear Diary,

  I feel so sick inside, like black mildew is starting to spread all over my innards. I haven’t really felt like this for a long time, at least not since Bootsie came back when I was six and reminded me all over again that there was something about me that made people want to leave me behind.

  My friend JoEllen Parker buried her daddy last Saturday, which got me thinking about my own daddy. I knew better than to ask Bootsie, because she always just gets a funny look on her face and then tells me that the past is best left to the past. But I never really knew him, and that emptiness is part of my present. Maybe learning something about him will fill this empty hole in my heart before the mildew spreads into that, too.

  I was in the kitchen helping Mathilda polish the silver and decided to ask her. I’d long since figured out that the best way to speak to adults about something touchy was to ask them when you were both busy doing something else. Mathilda was probably the best person to talk to about my family anyway. She’s known Bootsie since before Bootsie was even born, helping to take care of her as a baby when my grandmother drowned in the flood. And she seemed happy to talk about the old days. At least at first.

  She said my daddy was a sweet boy, growing up downtown in the rooms above his family’s grocery store. From the moment Bootsie set eyes on him it was true love—not that I believe in that kind of thing, but I didn’t want to interrupt Mathilda when she was being so free with her information. He was sweet to Bootsie, bringing her flowers and opening doors and taking her for long walks. And he loved her garden and this house—even with all its peculiarities. He said a home should be like the family who lived in it—and this family was apparently something he liked: each part independent and strong, yet all together something truly original and beautiful. Only a house built from love could have that kind of character.

  I almost interrupted Mathilda to tell her that my daddy was a slick talker who knew what to say to get what he wanted, but I didn’t. Sometimes it’s best to let old people believe what they want. Memories and ancient photographs are pretty much all they’ve got left.

  But then the war came and he joined up in 1943. They decided to get married before he shipped out, so they did. Fortunate for me, I guess, because if they’d waited, I probably wouldn’t be here. Because when my daddy came back from the war and I was just a tiny baby, he wasn’t the same man. Mathilda said he continued to fight the battles like he was still there, angry and yelling at people all the time, starting fights and spending the night in jail to cool off. Bootsie was afraid for him to come home, and only felt safe when she knew he was in jail.

  And then one night my daddy did come home, and he beat Bootsie so bad that it just about killed her. She went to the hospital and never came back—not for six years.

  I started crying, so Mathilda sat down and put her arm around me like I was still a little girl, and I remembered that—remembered how even when my own mother had gone, Mathilda was there to hold me when I cried. I wanted her to tell me why Bootsie didn’t take me with her, wanting to understand what was wrong with me.

  But all Mathilda could tell me is that each mother has her own language that she has to learn first before she can teach it to her children. It took Bootsie a long time to learn it, because she had a deep hole in her heart that started when her own mama had left her when she was a baby, even if she hadn’t meant to on purpose. I think that it doesn’t matter how or why, but not having a mama is like being born without a heart.

  Mathilda said that Bootsie’s hurt was more than just the bruises you could see, and she had to go away to get better. She left me with people who could love me and keep me safe and be my mother while she couldn’t. A mother’s love is a lot like faith, she explained, where you just have to believe something even when you can’t see it. All I know is that I was practically an orphan for six years and there’s not enough faith in this world that will ever make me see that any different. Mathilda told me that sometimes we need to grow up first before we stop seeing our mamas with the eyes of a child, and that I’d understand more when I became a mother myself, but I won’t. Why would I have children if I’m going to just mess them up like my own mother and grandmother did?

  It all made me cry harder, even though I didn’t know what for. It was the biggest sadness I’d ever felt, like a hole out in Bootsie’s garden without a seed in it
, and I don’t know how to fill it.

  Yesterday at school the boy who sits behind me in English class, Jimmy Hinkle, said he and a bunch of kids from Indian Mound and a few other places were planning on doing a little freedom ride of their own, and visiting all the theaters in three towns. Blacks and whites are supposed to be sitting together in all public buildings now, but he says it’s not happening down South, and the federal government isn’t doing anything about it. College kids and adults around the country have already been doing it in the bigger cities, so why not here?

  I said yes before I really understood why. I hadn’t really given much thought about why all the colored people sat in the back of the theaters when I could sit wherever I wanted. But I figured if I could think about something other than that mildew growing inside me, even just for a day, it would be worth it.

  And it was—right until we all got arrested in downtown Indian Mound for disturbing the peace. I got the feeling that Jimmy wanted the National Guard to be called out and dogs set on us, but all we got was Sheriff Oifer and two of his deputies to round us up and lock us into the two cells at the jail.

  Bootsie didn’t say a word on the drive home. It was only about five miles, but I swear it felt more like a hundred. She sent me to my room without any supper, which was unfair, because she’s always preaching to me about doing the right thing even though it’s not the most popular thing to do. I stood on the stairs right next to that hallowed watermark and raised my voice to her for the first time in my life and called her a hypocrite (that’s a new word Jimmy taught me), because here she is pretending to be a caring mother by punishing me for spending a few hours in jail defending the rights of others, yet she could walk out of my life to let me be cared for by somebody else.

  “But I came back,” she said—as if that made up for her going away. Like her leaving was a pencil mark and her coming back an eraser. I wanted to take out my heart and show it to her so she could see that empty hole that no eraser could ever make go away. Instead I just told her that I hated her.