Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind

by Ann B. Ross

  “I’m sorry,” he sniffled, wiping his teary face.

  “What’re you sorry about? I don’t care if you want to sit in the pantry at five o’clock in the morning, but sitting at the table is more comfortable. You want some coffee? Or a glass of milk?”

  “Maybe some coffee, if you don’t mind.” He stood there in his baggy pajamas with his paper sack clutched to his chest, and I noticed a fine tremor running across his shoulders.

  “Are you cold?”

  “No’m. I just didn’t want to bother you.”

  I poured a cup of coffee and set it on the table.

  “You couldn’t bother me, Little Lloyd,” I said, pulling out our chairs. “Come sit down. I’m glad to have your company.”

  “Yes’m.” He sugared and creamed his coffee with a heavy hand and, as he stirred, I wondered how he could drink the concoction. But to each his own.

  I said, “Don’t tell Lillian I gave you coffee, okay?”

  He glanced up at me, saw me smiling, and smiled back. “Okay.”

  “So,” I said. “We’ve got to get you and your mother settled, don’t we? School’s going to start pretty soon.”

  “Yes’m.”

  “You looking forward to living with your grandmother?”

  “No’m, I don’t reckon I am.”

  “Oh? Why not?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged and looked around the kitchen. “I like it here.”

  “Well,” I said, surprised, “I’m glad you do. But I expect you’ll get used to whatever your mother decides on, don’t you think?”

  “Yes’m, pro’bly so.”

  We sat in silence, drinking our coffee and waiting for daylight. I couldn’t think of anything else to talk about except the things that were worrying me, which weren’t fit to share with a child.

  He set his cup down and straightened his shoulders from their habitual slump. His eyes darted around from me to the table and back again. He took a deep breath. “Miz Springer?”

  “Yes?”

  “If somebody gave you something to keep, what would you do?”

  “Why, I guess I’d keep it. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes’m, I would.” He lifted the cup with both hands to his mouth, and blew on the hot coffee. Then he set the cup down without drinking.

  He said, “’Cept, maybe you’d need to know how long to keep it. Wouldn’t you?”

  I made a show of considering the question, twisting my mouth in deep thought. “I suppose so. You mean, I take it, if this somebody hadn’t told you when to give it back?”

  “Yes’m, but more than that. I mean, what if you can’t give it back?”

  “Ah,” I said. “Like, if somebody gave you something to keep and you happened to lose it?”

  “Oh, no’m!” He looked at me, eyes wide at the very thought. “No’m, I wouldn’t never lose it.”

  “Well, I was just speaking hypothetically, you know.”

  “What? I mean, ma’am?”

  “Hypothetically. Just in general, so to speak. I didn’t mean to suggest that you would.” Though of course that’s what I’d assumed the conversation was about.

  I said, “Let’s start over. You want to know what I’d do if somebody gave me something to keep for them. I haven’t lost it, but I can’t give it back. And you want to know how long I should keep it?”

  He nodded, watching me intently. Talking to a child wasn’t proving all that hard to do.

  “Let me think,” I said, patting my mouth with my fingers and studying the problem. “I need some more information. It’s not broken, is it? That’s not the reason you can’t give it back?”

  “No’m.”

  “And you still have it. You haven’t given it to anybody else.”

  He shook his head solemnly, from side to side.

  “In other words, you’ve taken good care of it. Oh, I know. You’ve grown attached to it and don’t want to give it back. Is that it?”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t want it anymore. I just don’t know what to do with it.”

  “Well, just tell whoever gave it to you that you can’t keep it any longer. That’s what I’d do.”

  He slunk down in his chair, his head tucked into the collar of his pajamas like a turtle. “I can’t. My daddy gave it to me.”

  Oh, Lord, and here I’d thought I was doing so well playing a game with this strange child.

  “Well,” I said, “that puts a different light on it. I guess, if he didn’t tell you how long to keep it or who to give it to, he meant for you to have it. Yes, I’m sure he meant for you to keep it for your own.”

  The gold watch that Wesley Lloyd wore in a special pocket came to mind, the one with a heavy gold chain with a Rotary pin on it. But no, they’d taken that off him and given it to me when they closed the casket after the final viewing. Maybe it was a check or a large bill.

  “If it’s money, Little Lloyd, I can assure you that your father would be proud of you if you put it in the bank. That way, it could earn even more, and I know that’s what he’d do with it.”

  “No’m, it’s not money.” He slowly turned his spoon around on the table. His hands were small, frail-looking like his mother’s. It occurred to me that the child was deeply worried about this problem. It wasn’t a game to him.

  “All right,” I said, leaning down to catch his eye. “Here’s my advice. Talk it over with your mama. I expect she’d know what to do.”

  “I thought about that.” His voice was so low that I had to lean even closer. “But my daddy gave it to me the very same night he went to be with Jesus, and he told me not to tell anybody.”

  “Well, my goodness,” I said. “Was…did your daddy, I mean, do you think he knew he was going to, well, go be with Jesus when he gave it to you?” Images of that fearful night when I found Wesley Lloyd slumped over his steering wheel flashed through my mind, the whirling red and blue lights of ambulances and patrol cars, the tubes and black kits with dials and toggles that technicians worked with to revive him, the rough kindness of young deputies trying to comfort an old woman trembling on the porch steps.

  “I don’t know.” Little Lloyd sniffed and wiped tears from his face with the back of his hand. I gave him my napkin. “He didn’t feel so good, but he had to leave anyway. My mama wanted to call the doctor, and I think he got mad about that. Me and her stayed in the kitchen while he went to the living room to do something. Then he called me to walk out to the car with him, and that’s when he gave it to me. He said for me to keep it and not tell nobody and he’d see me next week.” He sniffed wetly. “But he never did.”

  Wesley Lloyd’s last minutes revealed, and they sounded just like him. Calling a doctor because he wasn’t feeling well would be admitting to weakness. It didn’t surprise me a bit that he’d been too stubborn to take advice. But I was pleased to hear that Hazel Marie had tried.

  “So, I guess you figure that if he’d wanted your mother to know about it, he’d’ve given it to her and not to you?”

  He nodded his head. Then he lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes with his fists.

  “You’ve had a pretty heavy load to carry around.” I patted his shoulder. “But listen,” I went on, “don’t be worried about having a secret from your mother. That’s just the way your daddy was. He was treating you like a man, and he didn’t think men should get women, even mothers, involved in their business.” Wives or girlfriends either, I could’ve added but didn’t.

  “Did you know my daddy?” he asked, his voice breaking as he tried not to cry.

  I studied him a few minutes, thinking how remiss I’d been in not realizing that this child had lost a father he’d loved, and was still mourning him. Somehow it’d never occurred to me that anybody beside myself could be hurting.

  I took a deep breath that caught in my throat and tightened my chest. “Yes, I knew him and I’m sorry that he’s gone. I know you miss him, but these things happen, don’t you know. We just have to be strong and go on with what we have to
do.” Platitudes, but that’s all I had to offer. I patted his back again.

  “Yes’m, I guess so.” The paper sack crackled in his lap as he shifted in the chair.

  “So,” I said, “we still have the problem of what to do with what he gave you. And I think I have the answer. You just pick somebody you trust, tell them what it is, and let them decide what to do. I don’t think your daddy meant for you to keep it hidden forever. I think he just meant for you to keep it safe, don’t you?”

  Worry knotted his forehead, making his glasses slip down on his nose. “You really think he’d want me to tell somebody about it?”

  “Yes, now that he’s gone, I think he’d want you relieved of the responsibility. But I also think he’d want you to be very careful who you choose to tell. But there’re a lot of people you could trust with his secret—Deputy Bates, Lillian, Mr. Sam Murdoch. Your mother, of course. Any of them would be able to help you with it.”

  He continued to look at the table, avoiding my eyes, his hands resting now on the sack in his lap.

  “Would you?” he whispered.

  “Me?” I was taken aback. What had I done to deserve his trust? Or put it another way, what had I done to have another burden added to the ones I already carried? “Why, of course,” I finally managed to say. “I’ll help you if I can, but somebody else might do a better job for you.”

  “No’m, my mama said you’re the best friend anybody could have.”

  “Well,” I said, “I declare.”

  “It’s in here,” he said, unrolling the Winn-Dixie sack, and I prepared myself to treat a book about lions with suitable seriousness. To tell the truth, I was beginning to wonder if the boy had good sense, considering how he was agonizing over such a trivial thing.

  He pulled the book out of the sack, pushed his coffee cup aside, and laid the book on the table. Very carefully, he leafed through the book and removed a thin, pink envelope.

  As he handed it to me, our eyes met, and this time I saw, not Wesley Lloyd, but Little Lloyd himself.

  I held the envelope, slowly turned it over, and saw that it was sealed. I was reluctant to open and read what my husband had written to his child in his last hours on this earth. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know anything so personal, nor did I feel prepared to comfort his grieving child. A letter from the grave, so to speak, could only open the wounds again. I wished Lillian were there to help me.

  “Have you read it?” I asked.

  “No’m. I just kept it like he told me to.”

  “Well,” I said, taking a deep breath, “let’s see what it says.”

  I reached behind me to the counter for a bread knife and slit the envelope. I pulled out a flimsy pink page, unfolded it, and silently read the sentence written there in my husband’s heavy handwriting, studied his unmistakable signature, and felt my world fall away.

  “Little Lloyd,” I whispered, “you were right to show this to me. It has to do with your daddy’s business. I’ll have to study on it a while before deciding just how he’d want it handled. Now, why don’t you tiptoe upstairs and get dressed. Or you might want to get a little more sleep, if you can. It’s still early, so try not to wake your mother.”

  “Okay,” he said, relief shining on his face. “Now I can get rid of this ole paper sack.” He wadded it up and put it in the trash can on his way out of the room. “Thank you for the coffee, Miz Springer.”

  I watched him leave and listened to his bare feet slither on the polished wood between my Oriental rugs. Then, with an aching heart, I looked back at the sheet of pink stationery that represented my husband’s last will and testament.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THE BOY TRUSTED me, so that gave me some time. He hadn’t read it, probably wouldn’t have understood it if he had, so no one on God’s green earth knew about it. Except me.

  I studied the pink page, taking note of the drawing of pastel flowers at the top, and understood that Wesley Lloyd had used a sheet of Hazel Marie’s stationery to cut me off without a dime.

  I thought about how it must’ve happened that night, because that’s when the sentence had been written. I didn’t doubt that, since the date of the night he died was right there on the page. He must’ve known something was bad wrong with him, a premonition of some kind, to’ve made such a sudden and drastic change. Maybe if he’d taken more time to consider his responsibilities, he’d have made some provision for me. Then again, maybe not. Maybe nothing was exactly what he’d thought of me, and exactly what he’d wanted me to have.

  I buried my face in my hands, my shoulders shaking with the pain of realizing that in his last hours he’d taken no thought of me at all. I was not included in this, his final testimony to what was important to him. I read the sentence again: “I name my only son, Wesley Lloyd Junior Puckett (Springer), heir and beneficiary of all my worldly goods, and Sam Murdoch as executor of my estate and guardian until the age of majority.” Dated at the top and signed at the bottom.

  With one sentence, my husband of forty-four years had pauperized me and put me on welfare and food stamps. My home no longer belonged to me, much less any of the other properties that I’d taken such pride in owning. My furniture, my car—everything—it all belonged to a child who should’ve never been born.

  My hands shook with the rage that flowed through me like an electric current. I wanted to crumple the page and tear it to pieces. I wanted to stomp it into the ground. I wanted to tear my hair out and scream my head off. I wanted to hurt Wesley Lloyd like he’d hurt me.

  I trembled with the effort of controlling myself, stricken with the power of my anger. I drew a rasping breath and tried to come to terms with my new and impoverished state.

  This would certainly relieve Hazel Marie of the concern about supporting herself or about where she and Little Lloyd would live. They could live right here in my house if she wanted it. Lillian could work for her, and probably would for Little Lloyd’s sake. Hazel Marie could entertain my friends, go to my Sunday school class, sit in my pew, drive my car, take on my life. She could take my place in everything, just as she’d taken my place in my husband’s heart and bed. And on top of losing everything, my pastor and half the town thought I was demented, incompetent, and a danger to every man I met.

  I couldn’t face it.

  I needed time to think about what to do. I folded the page, put it back in its envelope, and slipped it into the pocket of my robe. I lifted my cup of coffee, tasted and swallowed the cold and bitter dregs. Take one thing at a time, I told myself, and this new will was the most pressing problem.

  Little Lloyd would assume that I was taking care of his secret; he wouldn’t question me. He didn’t know it had anything to do with him. Hazel Marie didn’t know, thanks to her son’s integrity in following Wesley Lloyd’s instructions. Sam, involved in executing the older and more appropriate will, didn’t know. If I kept quiet, then things would take their course the way they were supposed to. I ground my teeth together as I remembered how important it’d been to Wesley Lloyd to do what was supposed to be done. I would only be following his lead, because a wife is supposed to benefit from her husband’s estate. It was only right.

  Besides, I told myself, a case could be made that Wesley Lloyd was not of sound mind that night. Couldn’t it? He was sick, even dying, when he set pen to paper. And besides that, he’d not had that will witnessed and notarized. That meant it was invalid, didn’t it? I wished I could talk it over with Sam.

  Then I thought of something that would make it right, or at least justify me in rearranging Wesley Lloyd’s last-minute intentions. I’d set up a fund for Little Lloyd’s education. And maybe a monthly allowance for his and Hazel Marie’s living expenses. She would be so grateful. She and everybody else would think highly of me for such an act of Christian charity and generosity.

  She’d think I was the best friend a person could have.

  I covered my face again, sobbing at the position Wesley Lloyd had put me in, and realizing that if Pastor
Ledbetter had his way, I wouldn’t be able to be generous to anybody.

  Then, hearing Lillian walking down the drive, I hurriedly got up and left the kitchen. I couldn’t face her this morning. I went upstairs and closed my bedroom door. I couldn’t face anybody with the knowledge that my husband had discounted me as unworthy of his care, and I couldn’t face anybody with the knowledge that I was considering living a lie for the rest of my natural life.

  I SAT BY the window in the floral chintz—upholstered chair that Wesley Lloyd had hated. He’d never liked anything with flowers on it or that was pastel in color, and the wine-dark living and dining rooms reflected his preferences. I’d felt that the bedrooms could be softer, a little more feminine, but he’d put a stop to that when I’d had the chair re-covered. As I sat there, I thought again that it was the only thing in the house that I’d selected. And he’d hated it.

  That was a symbol of something.

  I rubbed my hand over the arm of the chair, trying to take in what he’d done to me and what he was still doing from the grave. My throat hurt down into my chest as I tried to convince myself that I had every right to destroy his last will and testament. Who could blame me if I did?

  No one, I told myself, because no one would ever know.

  I sat up straight as Brother Vern came to mind. Did he know? But he couldn’t know. Not for sure, anyway. He’d been looking for anything Wesley Lloyd might have left the two Pucketts. He couldn’t know there was a new will. Could he? Even if he suspected something, what could he do if it never came to light?

  He could accuse me if Little Lloyd ever told anybody that he’d given me a paper from his father. Everybody would suspect what it’d been. I’d be ruined in this town. Hazel Marie might sue me. Little Lloyd would grow up distrusting me, always wondering if I’d stolen what belonged to him.

  You could move away, I told myself, just sell this house and move to Florida. Leave this town and its suspicious minds and enjoy your old age in comfort and security.