A Long Time Gone

by Karen White

  “I am your friend. That’s why I won’t lie for you. I’ll help you get through this, but I won’t do what you’re asking. Because I’m a real friend. Please, Sarah Beth. Come with us to Missouri. Everything will be all right.”

  She picked up her empty flask and threw it into the fire, hitting one of the andirons and making it bounce back into the room.

  Leaning down, she picked it up again. “You’ll be sorry, Adelaide. I will make sure you’re sorry you didn’t help me when I needed you.”

  I watched her run toward the front door, her damp dress clinging to her slight frame.

  “Please, Sarah Beth. Don’t leave. Let me help you.”

  She paused in the open door. “It’s too late,” she said, then slammed the door behind her.

  I heard a deep intake of breath and turned to find Mathilda still in the parlor. She’d been so silent and still, standing in the corner by the window in the shadow of the clouds outside. I knew from her eyes that she’d heard everything. But I saw something else there, too: something that looked a lot like fear.

  My eyes dropped to the collar of her dress, which was buttoned up to the neck. But I could see the small round lump beneath the fabric, and knew it was the pearl necklace that Sarah Beth had lied about to Willie, saying she’d given it to Mathilda.

  The baby began crying upstairs, awakened by the slamming of the door.

  “’Scuse me, Miss Adelaide,” Mathilda said as she made her way past me to the stairs.

  “Mathilda,” I called after her.

  She stopped without turning around.

  “Who gave you that pearl around your neck?”

  Her hand reached up to her throat. “Miss Sarah Beth. She done give it to me.”

  I sucked air in through my nose, knowing she was lying to me. Lying to corroborate Sarah Beth’s story. A story Sarah Beth had made up to protect Mathilda.

  The baby’s cries became more strident, and I wanted to stop asking my questions so one of us could go to her and pick her up and tell her that everything was going to be all right. But I remained where I was. “Why would Sarah Beth want to protect you?”

  Mathilda began climbing the stairs again. “I gots to get the baby now.”

  I watched her run the rest of the way, knowing I was through with my questions, remembering something she’d said to me that night Robert, Mathilda, and I had brought a drunk Sarah Beth up to her bedroom. I be real good at keepin’ secrets.

  I returned to the parlor and picked up the sock, unable to concentrate on pulling thread through fabric. I put away the sock, then went into the dining room to finish packing up the rest of the china and silver to move to the attic in case the bottom floor flooded. The wind and rain pushed at the house as my mind continued to churn over my conversation with Sarah Beth while I prepared for disaster.

  APRIL 20, 1927

  The storm continued to rage with barely any respite, the temperature plummeting. The firewood was too wet to burn, and we moved about the house bundled in coats and woolen underthings. Bootsie, who was now crawling, grew impatient with the extra layers that hindered her scooting along the floors, and her chubby knees were raw from moving about uncarpeted wood. But she remained mostly cheerful, despite the change in her world and the tension among the adults.

  Uncle Joe had sent word that they were barely keeping up with the level of the river, the need for sandbags constant. The only way they could come home would be if the levee broke and sandbags would have no effect against the expected torrent. We could only hope and pray that the crevasse—and there would be one—would happen downriver of us.

  He told us to go ahead and load supplies into a mule wagon and prepare to head to the old hunting cabin on the highest point of our property.

  Mathilda, Aunt Louise, and I, along with a couple of the field hands that Uncle Joe had left behind, loaded up the wagon, including the suitcases I’d packed for the journey north. I couldn’t go without John, so temporarily moving to higher ground was the only thing I could think to do while I waited for him to return.

  I had tried to salvage part of my garden, but when I’d gone out the day before, during a five-minute period when the rain had slackened to a drizzle, I’d realized it was all gone. It saddened me, but excited me, too. The rains would stop, the floodwaters recede. And those of us who returned would replant our fields and our gardens, and live our lives like they were brand-new, and with the knowledge that we’d survived yet again. It was the way of the delta.

  Mathilda was waiting for me in the kitchen when I returned, placing my muddy shoes inside the door instead of out, knowing they’d float away if kept outside.

  “I’m afraid we’re going to have to start over once the water goes down.”

  “Don’ worry, Miss Adelaide. I puts your seeds in paper bags and puts them in the wagon.”

  “Thanks, Mathilda. I’d forgotten all about them. My mind is in such a turmoil these days.”

  “Mama says I remembers everythin’.” She smiled and I smiled back, wondering why her words sounded so prophetic. Maybe when I was old and gray and arguing with John about a lost memory, I’d have cause to ask her to remind us.

  “I’m glad,” I said, reaching for Bootsie, who’d just pulled herself to stand using the skirt of Mathilda’s dress.

  The fire whistle began to sound in the morning hours of Thursday, April twenty-first. Even though we were prepared and had been expecting it, it still sent my nerves jangling. A neighbor, on his way to Vicksburg with his family and what possessions they’d loaded into their truck, stopped to make sure we’d heard the whistle, and to let us know that the crevasse was in Mounds Landing. It was the worst possible place, only forty-five miles north of us. Most of our land and part of the house would be underwater.

  Aunt Louise ran from room to room to make sure nothing had been left behind. I’d decided to place all the photographs and books I could grab into the attic, along with the china and silver. If I could save those things, I could handle the loss of everything else.

  On my way down from the attic, the telephone rang. I was surprised it was still working. I’d tried calling Sarah Beth several times with no luck getting through, and I liked to believe she’d tried, too. Service had been spotty for weeks on account of the rains and thunderstorms, and it had been so silent that I think we all believed that the telephone wires were already down.

  I was standing by the phone in the foyer and picked it up before it rang twice.

  There was a moment of silence as the call was connected. “Hello?”

  “Mrs. Richmond?”

  The voice was familiar, but odd-sounding, like he wasn’t opening his mouth wide enough to get the words out.

  “Yes, this is she.”

  “This is Mr. Peacock. John asked me to call you. The phones are so unpredictable right now, you understand.”

  I was confused as to why my husband hadn’t called me directly, but I needed to know about John. “Is he all right?” I asked.

  “He’s on his way here, to the store. To help me pack up all the jewelry and move it to a safe at the bank.”

  “He’s on his way now? Downtown? But the whistle has sounded—we’re evacuating.”

  “Yes, of course.” A pause. “He, uh, he said he would evacuate with you, to the place you discussed previously, up north, he said. But he wants you to meet him here instead of evacuate with your family.”

  John must have heard something—something that made him believe that we needed to go north now. I felt a shiver of fear. I thought of our suitcases in the wagon, and knew I didn’t have time to get them. If I had to sell my watch for supplies, then I would.

  “All right. Are the roads between here and downtown still passable?”

  “Yes. Muddy, so you’ll need to be careful, but still passable. But you need to leave now.”

  “Of course. Than
k you, Mr. Peacock. I should be there in no more than thirty minutes, depending on the roads.”

  I hung up the phone and saw Aunt Louise watching me. “You’re going with us, Adelaide. To the hunting cabin.”

  I managed a smile. “Later. Right now John wants me to meet him at the jewelry store. He’s helping Mr. Peacock secure his merchandise.”

  She looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “The levee’s been breached, Adelaide. There’s so much water coming in. One of the field hands just told me that a refugee just passed by from Greenville—water’s already up to the bottom of the doors on the shops downtown, and that’s less than forty miles from here.”

  “I know. But I have to go. John needs me.”

  “What about Bootsie?”

  “She stays with me.”

  Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand. . . .”

  I hugged her and kissed her cheek. “I’ll explain it all later. I promise. But right now we need to leave.”

  I bundled Bootsie up and dressed myself in an extra layer as Aunt Louise fussed and pleaded with me over and over, trying very hard not to cry. I wanted so badly to tell her, but I remembered what Angelo had said—about how I might put others in danger if I told them where I was going. But I trusted John, and knew that he would bring us back soon, and I held on to that thought so I wouldn’t start crying, too.

  Aunt Louise kissed Bootsie hard, and then kissed me again and said good-bye. Mathilda kissed Bootsie, too, her eyes wet, then stood silently watching. I gave her a quick smile before I ran outside in the teeming rain, the sound of the whistle almost obliterated by that of the wind and rain pelting the ground and the old yellow house. I placed Bootsie on the seat beside me, then looked back at the front porch, where Aunt Louise and Mathilda stood, their faces drawn in identical expressions of worry.

  I waved, and they waved back; then I put the car in gear, making sure I didn’t look in the rearview mirror. Mathilda had once told me that looking behind you when you left a place meant you’d never come back. But as I made my way down the long drive, I hit a fallen limb—almost invisible in the mud—and when I looked up again I saw the reflection of the old cypress in the backyard, its leaves weighed down by the rain, its limbs drooping as if in mourning. I quickly looked away and focused on the road in front of me, praying that this would all be over soon.

  Chapter 45

  Vivien Walker Moise

  INDIAN MOUND, MISSISSIPPI

  JUNE 2013

  For two hours the dog ran up and down the long drive, whimpering and pawing at the ground, looking out toward the highway. I was afraid he’d keep going, running down the paved asphalt all the way to California. I’d heard of dogs doing that, finding their owners after traveling for long distances. But each time he came back to the porch, where I sat on the steps, dry eyed, and put his head in my lap as if to tell me that he knew running away wasn’t going to get him where he needed to be.

  Tripp had taken my mother inside to calm her down. She’d grown agitated watching Chloe leave, her confusion mixing with the sure knowledge that something bad was happening, though she couldn’t figure out what it was.

  Cora had finally put her back to bed, and after making sure she was settled, Tripp came out on the porch and sat next to me. We sat in silence for a long while as the sun got higher in the sky and turned the brunt of its heat onto the front steps where we sat.

  “You’re going to get more freckles,” he said.

  I closed my eyes, remembering the day at the lake, and how Chloe had been so happy and for the first time in my life I’d felt like I’d done something right. “Good,” I said, tilting my face up toward the sun, hoping I’d burn.

  “I just want you to know that I would have punched that son of a bitch in the face if I thought it would improve matters. But I know he’s a surgeon and wouldn’t have risked his hands even if he knew how to punch back. That would have made me feel like a bully, and gotten me sued, to boot.”

  I didn’t respond—couldn’t. It was as if the morning’s events had scooped out my insides and scattered them in the fields, leaving me an empty shell.

  As if he were unaware that I was within a strong breeze of falling over, he continued. “Of all the things my mama and daddy taught Claire and me, there’s one thing that’s always stuck out. When we were hitting our heads against a problem, they said to find one true thing about the situation. And following it would be like unwinding a ball of yarn, leading you to the heart of it. And you know what? They were right.”

  I slid away from him, angry that he’d be telling me stories about his parents when I could barely breathe. Could barely summon the energy to stand up and go inside the house.

  “This is bigger than just a problem, Tripp. Everywhere I look, I see one self-inflicted disaster after another. It’s like I’m sinking in quicksand and I don’t know how to get out of it.”

  He was thoughtful for a moment, and I braced myself. “That one true thing is your rope you’re going to need to pull yourself out.”

  What I needed was a time machine to take me back before I’d made the first in a string of bad mistakes, not stupid platitudes from a guy who spent a lot of time with dead people. If I’d had the strength, I would have pushed him, or hit him, or yelled at him. But all I could do was sit with my face toward the sky, hoping I’d burn.

  He stood, blocking the sun, making me blink up at him. “I heard what he said, about the prescription. It’s not the answer, Vivi. And it sure as hell won’t pull you out of the quicksand.”

  “Go away,” I said, angry that he’d read my mind. That he knew that as soon as Chloe had gone, I’d been wanting to pop a pill to take away all of my hurt, to take away my dreams of being somebody other than who I’d become.

  I turned my head, but I knew he was still there because I felt his shadow on my face.

  “Something else my mama told me. She said that it’s those who are hardest to love who need love the most.” He stood and slowly walked down the steps, stopping but not turning around. “She told me that when you left.”

  I listened to the crunch of dirt and rocks as he made his way to his truck, then the engine starting and the truck making its way down the drive and out to the highway, following the path of the limo. Just one more person I’d pushed out of my life. Just one more mistake I couldn’t stop repeating.

  The dog began to pant, and I knew he wouldn’t go inside without me, so I managed to pull myself to stand and lead him into the kitchen, where he headed straight for the water bowl, making me feel worse than I already did.

  He followed me up to Chloe’s room, where her made bed—complete with lumps and untucked sheets but otherwise made—sat empty, the unused dog bed on the floor by the side.

  The closet door was slightly open, and when I walked over to close it, I saw that all of the clothes I’d bought for her were hanging haphazardly on hangers. The floral tops and jeans, her plaid skirt, the purple leggings. I stared at the clothes for a long time, and finally I began to cry, something I hadn’t been able to do since Chloe left. At some point I moved to the bed and was sobbing into the pillow, the dog up on the bed with me, licking my face as if he really believed that would make it all better.

  I cried until I had no more tears left, the pillow damp beneath my head. I found myself staring at the plastered ceiling, at the small brown spot of water damage near the light fixture that needed to be fixed. It was like that small spot had become the proverbial straw, and I felt as if the whole ceiling were now pressing against my chest, making it impossible to breathe.

  I sat up, my mind racing as I panted for breath. I knew in the far reaches of my conscious mind that I was having a panic attack. And that one pill was all I needed to make it go away. I remembered the single pill in the bottom of my purse, remembered leaving it there as if even then I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stay off them for long.

 
; I scrambled from the bed, trying to remember where I’d left my purse, tripping and stumbling in my need to find a way to forget. I made it to the hallway, pausing to catch my breath, to quell the dizziness that threatened to pitch me forward and down the stairs. I closed my eyes for a long moment, trying to remember how to count backward. Twenty, nineteen, eighteen . . .

  I managed to make it to one, although I had no idea if it had taken me one minute or thirty. I slid to the floor, trying to catch my breath, trying to recall why I’d been so frantic. I put my head in my hands when I remembered, wishing I had more tears to cry.

  My breath still came in shallow gasps, and I concentrated on filling my lungs as my gaze stumbled along the hallway, looking for something on which to focus. Bleary-eyed, I stared at the portraits of long-dead family members, relatives whose names I didn’t know but should. I imagined I could hear Bootsie’s voice telling me about her mother and the flood, and growing up on the farm with Emmett, and how at Christmas they would collect magnolia leaves for the mantels in the house.

  I found myself wishing I could go back in time so I could listen more carefully, so I could write it all down so that her words wouldn’t be forgotten forever. But Emmett had once told Tommy and me that wishes were like the fish we never caught: too slippery to hold in our hands, and pointless to chase after when we already had a bushel of fish in the boat. He’d been right, of course. I’d just been too young and stupid for too long to understand he’d been talking about chasing ghosts.

  My gaze settled on the closed attic door across the hall from me, the light from Chloe’s room reflecting off the crystal doorknob and making it shine like a beacon. I needed a distraction that would keep me busy for long enough to forget about Chloe being gone and what was sitting in the bottom of my purse.

  I figured now would be a good time to ignore the spiders and sort through the attic for Bootsie’s ring, although I was no longer sure what finding it might tell me. But maybe searching the attic would help me reconcile with my past, and even find a way to reconnect with Bootsie and the other Walker women who’d gone before me, to find a clue as to where they drew their strength and wisdom, since my own supply had been on empty for years and I was in desperate need of it now. With deliberate steps, I crossed the hallway and opened the attic door.