A Long Time Gone

by Karen White

  I didn’t know where John was, or when he’d be home, and the sound of the incessant rain against the roof and the windows of the old house was beginning to unnerve me. I was about to call Sarah Beth again to find out what was taking her so long, when headlights flashed across the parlor, and I heard the sound of doors shutting.

  I ran to the front door to open it so that the doorbell wouldn’t awaken Bootsie or Mathilda. I watched, surprised, as three figures ran from the car and up the front steps, laughing. I could smell the alcohol and cigarettes before they’d even reached me.

  “Darling,” Sarah Beth crooned with a mouthful of smoke. “I hope you don’t mind, but I brought Willie and Chas. They’re both too drunk to drive, so I thought I’d be doing a community service by delivering them here. I’d say go ahead and make up a room for Chas, but he’ll probably be happy sleeping on the floor.”

  “I’m perfectly fine,” Chas said, stumbling forward past me and into the foyer. Willie came up from behind Sarah Beth and put his arm around her, then tried to kiss her. She pulled away from him, and he almost fell as she quickly walked past me.

  When I’d closed the door and joined them in the parlor, Chas was already looking in all the drawers and cabinets. “Where d’ya think they keep the booze?” he asked. Both he and Willie were dressed in their business suits, but with their unkempt hair and slurred speech, neither looked like the respectable bankers they were supposed to be.

  “My aunt and uncle are teetotalers. You won’t find any liquor,” I said quietly, hoping they’d give up and leave before either Bootsie or Mathilda awakened.

  Willie pulled out a flask from his jacket pocket before tossing the jacket on the floor, then threw himself down in my uncle’s wing chair. “Don’t worry, old man. I’ve got you covered.”

  Chas made his way to my aunt’s chair opposite, but missed and landed on the floor. “I meant to do that,” he said, resting his head against the front of the seat and reaching up for Willie’s flask.

  “Put some music on, will you, doll?” Willie called out to Sarah Beth, who stood with her long, elegant cigarette holder between two fingers, looking at the men with curled lips.

  “Do it yourself,” she said, then sauntered toward the velvet love seat, where she dropped her fur coat before elegantly draping herself onto the thick cushions.

  “We’ve got a radio,” I said, moving toward the window, where my aunt’s pride and joy sat. After the good harvest of two years before, my uncle had given in and bought one for his wife. Although he wouldn’t admit it, he enjoyed listening to a baseball play-by-play as much as Aunt Louise loved Sam ’n’ Henry. I didn’t want anybody else touching it, knowing that my uncle needed to sell it if this year’s crop was lost. Which, although nobody was admitting it, was already a foregone conclusion.

  I turned on the radio and moved the dial until I found a station playing dance music, making a mental note to change it back before Aunt Louise or Uncle Joe turned it on again. Nobody made a move to stand, and I was grateful, having no interest in dancing with either Willie or Chas. The men sat sharing a flask while Sarah Beth lit another cigarette. If it hadn’t been raining so hard, I would have opened the window to air out the room.

  I was about to suggest a game of cards when we all turned to the sound of somebody coming down the stairs and walking across the foyer. I saw Mathilda the moment she saw my three guests, and she froze.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Adelaide. I heard noises and wants to make sure you was okay. . . .”

  “I’m fine. Thank you, Mathilda.”

  “I’m hungry,” Willie said. Holding his flask upside down, he shook it. “And I could go for a Co-Cola.”

  “Yes, sir,” Mathilda said quietly, and began to back up into the foyer.

  I stood. “That’s all right. You go on up to be with the baby. I’ll get us something from the kitchen.”

  Willie sat up and I watched as his face darkened. He was a mean drunk, and I found myself hoping that Uncle Joe or John would come home soon.

  “No, Adelaide. You’re not the maid here. You, girl,” he said to Mathilda. “Go get us something to eat and some Co-Colas. And don’t take your sweet time about it, neither.”

  Mathilda left and I glowered at Willie. “That was uncalled-for, Willie.”

  Chas snickered, his head lolling back against the seat of Aunt Louise’s chair. He hadn’t bothered to get up off the floor where he’d landed.

  We listened to the music and the sound of the rain, and felt the tension thicken in the air like molasses in winter. About five minutes later, Mathilda entered the room with a tray of four glasses filled with Coca-Cola and a plate of cheese and crackers. I hurriedly stood and took it from her, eager for her to leave. But before I’d had time to turn around and place the tray on the coffee table, Chas had pulled himself to his feet and was moving toward her.

  “Hey, I know you,” he said, managing to reach her without tripping.

  I quickly put down the tray, preparing to step between them. I noticed that Mathilda’s cotton dress wasn’t buttoned to the top like she normally wore it, and I imagined she’d thrown it on in a hurry to come downstairs. And there, tied around her neck by a single silk cord, was the pearl I’d seen her wearing at the Harvest Festival, but which she’d kept carefully hidden ever since.

  “No, sir,” she said, taking a step back.

  “You calling me a liar?”

  “I think she is,” Willie announced from his chair, either unwilling or unable to stand.

  “Stop it,” I said. “You’ve both had too much to drink. Why don’t you sit down and have something to eat and Mathilda can go back to Bootsie—”

  “Well, isn’t this pretty,” Chas said as he reached up to Mathilda’s throat to tug at the pearl. Using the necklace to pull her forward, he moved her so that Willie could see. “Look—she’s got a pearl. You ever seen such a thing on a colored girl?”

  Willie looked at Mathilda with bleary eyes, a low whistle on his lips. “Where’d you steal that from, girl?”

  “I gave it to her.”

  We all turned toward Sarah Beth, who was blowing out smoke from the side of her mouth. “She didn’t steal it.” She stood, and I noticed for the first time the earrings that swung from her ears. They were made of emeralds, and were identical to the earrings Angelo Berlini had purchased from Peacock’s jeweler’s. I sucked in my breath at the recognition, and she gave me a sharp glance. And when I looked at Willie, I knew he’d noticed them, too.

  Chas dropped the necklace and Mathilda quickly stepped back, pausing at the threshold as if wondering if it would be worse to run away or stay.

  Chas turned on Sarah Beth with a leer. “Well, well. Can’t say I’m surprised to hear you’re a nigger lover. I’ve heard things about you. From somebody who ran one of them stills up by the Ellis plantation.”

  Willie threw himself at Chas, knocking them both over and making the radio wobble. I held my breath, unable to do anything except wait for something horrible to happen. Sarah Beth had gone completely white, the ash at the end of her cigarette threatening to drop onto Aunt Louise’s rug.

  They scuffled on the floor, drunken blows flying and most of them missing. Willie managed to drag Chas up by his collar and pull him toward his face so he could shout at him, spittle flying, “Don’t you say that about the woman I’m going to marry. You hear? Don’t you say that! Those people at Ellis were white trash, pure and simple. They’d say anything to make a well-bred lady look bad. You hear?”

  He shook Chas, then threw him back into my aunt’s chair, landing him on the seat. “Get out,” Willie said.

  Chas swiped at his cut lip with the sleeve of his jacket. “I’m sorry. It was only a joke. She just made me mad, is all.”

  “Get out,” Willie said again, taking a step toward his friend.

  Chas backed up a step. “But I don’t have my car
. . . .”

  “Get out,” Willie shouted again, shoving him in the chest. “Get out of my house and I don’t want to see your face here again.”

  Chas stumbled toward the front door and I heard him fall as he reached the porch, and then nothing more. I imagined he’d passed out where he fell and would walk home as soon as he awoke, or Uncle Joe would have to load him into his truck and drive him.

  Willie glanced back at Sarah Beth and then at me. With a sickly smile, he said to Sarah Beth, “Nice earrings. I don’t remember buyin’ those for you.”

  Sarah Beth sucked in her breath. “You didn’t. My father bought them for me. An early birthday present.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, then managed to make it to the steps. “I’m going to bed. G’night, ladies.” He hoisted himself up each step, leaning heavily on the banister.

  Neither of us said anything as we watched him until he reached the top.

  “I’m going home.” Sarah Beth grabbed her fur and headed for the door.

  I ran to catch up with her. “Wait, please. What was Chas saying? About the people we saw. He meant Leon and Velma, didn’t he?”

  “You heard what Willie said, how they’re all trash and the Klan did a good deed when they cleaned them out. Good riddance.”

  “Then why did you lie about the necklace? We both know where that came from, and you didn’t give it to her.”

  She was standing very close to me, and when she spoke, her breath was hot and smelled like cigarettes, making me want to gag. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to hear the answers to.”

  She tugged open the door, then left, emerald earrings swinging. When I turned back around, Mathilda was gone, Sarah Beth’s words lying heavily on the air.

  Chapter 41

  Vivien Walker Moise

  INDIAN MOUND, MISSISSIPPI

  MAY 2013

  Brushing my hands against my apron, I peeked into the dining room, where my mother and Cora were busy setting the table. Mathilda was joining us for supper, along with Tripp, who would be in charge of getting Mathilda here from Sunset Acres. I counted the place settings, allowing myself to smile when I realized that once again Carol Lynne had included a setting for Bootsie. Just like Bootsie had done for her all those years my mother had been gone. I’d never thought to ask, but I wondered if they’d done the same thing for me and imagined they probably had.

  Tonight was the night of the dance, and I hadn’t seen Chloe all afternoon as she’d been primping. I’d brought Carol Lynne up to Chloe’s room to help with her hair, and she’d stayed for over an hour before she came back down. When I’d asked her how it was going, she’d already forgotten.

  The three of us had gone to Hamlin’s, as promised, and after a few tussles with Chloe as to what she should try on, Carol Lynne had intervened and pulled clothes off of racks. Chloe actually agreed to not only hold the hangers but to put the clothes on her body. She’d ended up with an eclectic mix of seventies throwbacks and lots of bright colors, but I didn’t care as long as they fit, were age-appropriate, and weren’t grungy T-shirts and black jeans.

  I even managed to find a couple pairs of respectable shorts for me, and I made my mother try on a pair, too, thinking they’d be cooler for her to wear than jeans in the summertime. We stood staring at our reflections in the mirror, at our identical hair and eyes and matching grins.

  “Your legs sure are pretty, Vivien.”

  I looked down at her legs, which didn’t look like they belonged on a sixty-seven-year-old woman. “I guess I know where I got them from. You could win a swimsuit competition with those.”

  She laughed so hard that Chloe stuck her head into the dressing room to see what all the commotion was about, and she started laughing, too, just because.

  On a whim, I’d suggested getting a hair trim—which Chloe agreed to only after Carol Lynne promised that with her shorter bangs and evened-out length she’d still be able to wear it in a French braid.

  As I stepped back into the foyer, I saw Chloe coming down the stairs looking so beautiful I had to press my hands against my mouth so she couldn’t see my lips trembling as I tried not to cry. She was wearing a new pair of bell-bottom jeans and a beautiful, flowing floral blouse with a scooped neck and scalloped hem. Her hair was French-braided, and there wasn’t a sign of thick black eyeliner or red lips anywhere.

  She stood on the bottom step, watching me, biting her bottom lip, the dog sitting at her side while both of them waited for me to speak.

  “You look amazing, Chloe. I love what my mother did to your hair.”

  “She did my makeup, too. She had to keep asking me how old I was. I guess she didn’t want to put too much on.”

  “She did a terrific job—I can see your beautiful eyes now. But she had a great canvas, too. And you’re really rocking those clothes. Good choices.”

  “Whatever,” she said, stepping past me, but not until I’d seen her smile. “I’m going to grab a snack before I go to the party. I’m starving and I don’t want to stuff my face when I get there.”

  I silently patted myself on the back for teaching her that little gem and followed her into the kitchen. I’d been slicing carrots and celery and keeping them in handy plastic bags in the fridge for easy snacking, and I watched with satisfaction as she reached in and grabbed a handful of carrots.

  With her mouth full—something I still needed to work on—she said, “I already met a friend who’s going to be at the dance tonight. Her name’s Wendy. She went on a field trip to the B. B. King museum with me and Mrs. Smith. She likes to read, too, and so we traded some books. Have you read The Hunger Games?”

  I was too happy that she’d made a friend to point out that I hadn’t known she liked to read until she’d discovered the shelf in my room, and that the books she’d lent to her new friend were actually mine. “I’ve heard of it, but haven’t had a chance to read it. Maybe I can borrow it when you’re done?”

  “Sure. Or maybe we could read it together. That’s what Wendy and her mom did, because there were some scary parts.”

  I kept my face neutral and resisted yet another urge to do a fist pump. “That sounds great.”

  She put a few more carrots into her mouth and said, “I need to show you something in the garden.”

  “Sure,” I said as she picked up her gardening journal from the kitchen table. She surprised me by grabbing my hand, then leading me outside, where tiny shoots were sticking out of the dark earth like green spaghetti. “This one isn’t growing,” she said, squatting down in the back corner of her little plot.

  I knelt next to her, and saw not even a small tip of green emerging from the spot. I looked around and grabbed a stick, then began gently scraping away the top layer.

  “I thought you said we weren’t allowed to help them poke through the dirt,” she said.

  “Technically, no. If we’ve done everything right they should just shoot up. But sometimes,” I said as my scraping revealed a tiny glimpse of green, “our babies need a little nudge to get them going.” I continued to scrape away until the tiny sprout was sticking out above the soil.

  I sat back on my heels. “There,” I said. “It should be fine now.”

  She was busy writing in her journal, her face pinched in concentration.

  “Is that part of your grade?”

  She shook her head. “No—Mrs. Smith just checks to make sure that we’re keeping up with it. But I thought maybe I could do a vegetable garden back home and that these notes could help me.”

  I thought of her not here, tending a garden without me, and my chest felt hollow, a barren field in winter.

  “Are you okay? Your freckles look darker.”

  I smiled, liking the way she said I was pale. “Yeah, I’m fine.” We both turned our heads at the sound of a car driving up out front.

  I took the journal from Chloe a
nd tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “That’s probably Mr. Smith. I’ve got your ticket money on the hall table—come on.” Cora’s husband would be driving the homeschooled kids and chaperoning the dance. I’d offered to move the supper with Mathilda, but Cora had said that she was just fine missing an entire evening spent with a bunch of middle schoolers.

  I’d made it to the kitchen door before I realized that Chloe wasn’t behind me. Turning around, I saw her looking at the cypress tree, her eyes narrowed. “You should plant another one in the same place. I mean, it was here for so long that it doesn’t seem right that it’s gone. Where are you going to sit with your kids and grandkids if there’s no tree there?”

  “Good point,” I said, not really understanding her logic, but seeing how empty the backyard seemed. How somebody returning home might not recognize it.

  Chloe said good-bye to Cora and my mother—the latter asking her where she was going for the third time—and then I walked her out to the front porch, where Cora’s husband, Bill, was waiting in the car with three other girls about Chloe’s age. One of them squealed when she saw Chloe, and I figured it had to be Wendy. She opened the back door and moved over on the bench seat, patting the vacated spot next to her. “Sit here—I want to talk about Time at the Top.”

  Chloe leaned down to hug the dog and scratch him behind the ears. “I’ll be back soon.”

  As if he understood, he trotted to the porch and lay down by one of the rockers, where I knew he’d stay until Chloe returned.

  “Thanks, Bill—I owe you,” I said, leaning into the open window.

  “And I’ll hold you to it,” he said with a laugh.

  He waited to back up as Tripp’s car pulled into the drive, then moved to park in front of him.