by Ann B. Ross
I declare, I didn’t think I could do it. Enjoy it, that is. On the other hand, whatever I decided to do—reveal the new will or destroy it—my feelings about Wesley Lloyd were going to make the rest of my life miserable. Lord forgive me, I prayed, for the bitterness in my heart.
I dressed slowly and carefully, feeling disconnected to the familiar morning routine. Zippers snagged, buttons refused to equal out with buttonholes, hairbrushes fell to the floor, hairpins flew from my hands, yet I overcame each obstacle with deliberate care while my mind whirled on some distant plane.
Dressed at last, I pinned the envelope to the inside of the bodice of my dress. I wasn’t about to leave it where someone might find it. As I smoothed my hand across it, the answer came to me. It would be my secret for a few days at least. I’d see if I could live with it staying a secret. Nothing would be lost or gained by delaying a final decision.
Yes, that’s what I’d do.
Now, I thought, let’s pretend that the page doesn’t exist. Let’s pretend that everything is just as it was before Little Lloyd turned to me as his trusted friend. And, while we’re at it, let’s pretend I never laid a hand on Dr. Fred Fowler.
I had too much to do, I told myself, to worry with last-minute, undoubtedly invalid last wills and testaments that probably wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans.
I went downstairs, my head high, to confront them all.
“WHAT’S THE MATTER with you?” Lillian asked as soon as I stepped into the kitchen. “You look downright peaked this morning.”
Lord, does it show already?
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just not sleeping too well. Too many things on my mind.”
“You need to start straightenin’ them things out,” she told me. “You can’t keep hidin’ Miss Puckett and that little boy, and you can’t keep tellin’ stories to the police.”
“I know it. And I guess today’s the day to do it.” I sat down and propped my arms on the table, uncommonly tired and dispirited. “I don’t know why I feel like I have to take on the problems of the world. Hazel Marie is a grown woman and capable of caring for herself and her child. There’s no reason I should take it on myself to hide them from the police or protect them from their own relatives.”
“That don’t sound like you.” Lillian stood in the middle of the kitchen frowning at me. She wiped her hands with a dish towel and said, “You sure you feelin’ all right?”
The pink paper burned against my skin.
“I’m fine,” I said again, looking in her direction but over her head. “It’s just that I’ve come to realize that I’ve taken too much on myself and meddled in business that’s no concern of mine. I aim to stop it.”
“Hmm,” she said, folding the towel and laying it on the counter. “How you figure on doin’ that?”
“I don’t know yet.” I rubbed my forehead, and felt the paper crinkle under my arm. “I’ve a good mind to move my letter to the Episcopal church, and dare Pastor Ledbetter to slander a member of another church. Then I ought to call Lieutenant Peavey and tell him all about Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd, and let the chips fall.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Well, I may have to.”
“What about that Brother Vern? What if he claims Little Lloyd and gets him away from his mama?”
“He won’t. The only reason he wanted the child was because he thought they had some money from Wesley Lloyd. When he learns from Sam and Binkie that neither of them have a nickel, he’ll be gone quick enough.”
The pink paper seemed to throb with each beat of my heart. It was taking on a life of its own.
“Well, and what about me?” Lillian demanded. “You think the police gonna just forget about what they callin’ kidnappin’?”
“They will when they learn the truth, and that’s what I’m going to tell them.” Except not all of it, not yet.
KNOWING THE RISK I was taking, if Pastor Ledbetter was right about my sinful flesh, or rather the danger I was putting him in, I went to see Sam. Walking up onto Sam’s broad front porch, I noted the fresh gray paint on the floor at the end of the soft rose-colored old brick of the steps and wide walk. White rocking chairs lined each side of the open front door.
“Julia.” Sam stood holding the screen for me. “Saw you coming up the walk. What’s wrong?”
“Everything, Sam.” I went into the cool hall, and he led me into the living room. Books, stacked neatly on tables and the floor, and newspapers folded on the sofa indicated that Sam truly lived in this room. Unlike mine, which was always cold and polished, ready for company.
“Have a seat, Julia. Want some coffee?”
“I don’t want anything but an end to all the mess I’ve gotten into.”
Sam smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Where do you want to start?”
That was the question. Which secret sin did I most want help with? On the way to his house, I’d thought about showing him Wesley Lloyd’s pink paper will and just accepting the fate it decreed for me. Then I’d thought I wouldn’t, and by the time I’d gotten there I’d decided to put it off a while longer. To see if I could live with my secret knowledge in the same room as Sam’s honesty.
Funny, it never occurred to me that Sam might collude in keeping the new will secret. There was no question that he wouldn’t. Some people are honest to the bone. And some aren’t.
“Pastor Ledbetter,” I said, and told him how Dr. Fowler’d been brought in to have me evaluated. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that they might have reason to conclude I was riddled with sin and out of my mind. “Can they do that?”
Sam leaned back and, if it wasn’t completely unlike him, appeared to roll his eyes. “I tell you, Julia, preachers have the least common sense of any group of people I’ve ever known. Unless it’s doctors.” He hunched forward in his chair. “Listen now. In this state, it’s not difficult to have someone declared incompetent. All they have to do is demonstrate that you lack sufficient capacity to understand the consequences of your actions.”
“I understand them, all right. I live with them every minute of the day. But, Sam, there’s no telling what they might say about me. You just don’t know what they’re accusing me of. I need to do something.”
“Do like Sophocles and write a play.” He was laughing at me now.
“What’re you talking about?”
“His son petitioned the court to have him declared incompetent so he could get at his father’s estate. The old man asked for a chance to prove himself, and the judges agreed. So he went home and wrote one of the Oedipus plays. When the judges heard a reading of it, they not only acquitted him, they escorted him home. Probably broke open a jug of wine, too. So nothing’s new, Julia, that happened back in the fifth century B.C.”
“I knew that much,” I said, but I wasn’t the reader that Sam was. “But if proving the condition of my mind depends on writing a play, I’m in worse trouble than I thought.”
Sam laughed. “Ah, Julia, that was just an example.” Then he turned serious again. “Look, I don’t want to scare you, but I’d better talk to Binkie about this. And, just so you know the process, anybody can make application to have someone declared incompetent. After that, a guardian ad litem would be appointed to represent that person’s interests at the hearing. If the person’s adjudicated incompetent, then a permanent guardian would be named, and that’s the end of it.”
I thought about it. It would turn me inside out to have to go through such a humiliating experience, but it sounded as if there would be enough safeguards to protect me.
“Well, Sam,” I said, “I’d hate it if it tomes down to it, but you could be named the guardian ad litem and Binkie the permanent guardian. Seems to me that things would go on just the way they are now, except for signing some legal papers and such. Now that you’ve explained it, it doesn’t sound so bad.”
Sam shook his head and looked down at the floor. “No, Julia, it’s not that simple, but let Binkie and me worry a
bout this. We’re not going to let them railroad you, so what you have to do is stand up to them. And I know you can do that. You do it to me all the time.”
I managed a smile in spite of the pink paper burning a hole in my skin inside my bodice.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
WHEN I GOT back to the house, I went through the gate in the back garden and on into the kitchen. I nearly turned back around when Lillian told me that Pastor Ledbetter and Dr. Fowler were waiting in the living room. I grabbed the edge of the counter and prayed for a fainting spell so I wouldn’t have to face them. It didn’t work.
“I tol’ them I didn’t know when you be back,” Lillian said, as she arranged glasses of lemonade on a tray. “But they say they wait anyway. You better go on in there, ’cause Miss Puckett in the room right above an’ she’s up tryin’ to get herself dressed.”
“Little Lloyd with her?” I managed to ask.
“Yessum, I done warned ’em both to stay up there an’ stay quiet.”
I watched Lillian arrange cheese straws on a silver plate, girding myself for the ordeal to come. I tried to overcome my embarrassment by building up a head of steam to confront those two about their meddling, but it was hard to do. Somehow that pink paper inside my dress was sapping my spirit, and nothing seemed worth the effort anymore.
I took a deep breath and held the door for Lillian as she preceded me into the living room. Both men stood as I entered the room, Pastor Ledbetter’s broad smile masking his nefarious intentions.
I nodded a greeting, unwilling to risk a handshake, and took a seat on one of the Victorian chairs by the fireplace. Lillian placed the tray on the coffee table in front of the sofa where both men were seated. She offered the plate of cheese straws and, after an encouraging glance at me, left the room.
I sat and waited for them to begin, ignoring my natural inclination to entertain them with conversation and make them feel welcome. This visit was their idea, and since it was so hard on me, I determined not to make it easy for them. I saw them glance at each other over the tops of their glasses of lemonade, then cut their eyes at me while I burned with shame. I couldn’t meet Dr. Fowler’s eyes, but I held my head up. I couldn’t even reach for my glass on the tray, so I just sat there with my hands in my lap, waiting them out.
Finally, Pastor Ledbetter cleared his throat. “Uh, Miss Julia,” he began, setting down his glass and patting his mouth with a napkin. “Have you given any thought to what I talked with you about over at the church? We can’t let matters drag on forever, you know.” He cut his eyes over at Dr. Fowler. To see if he was doing all right, I guess.
“Pastor, all I’ve thought about is what you said to me in the bridal parlor, and I’ve come to the conclusion that you were wrong. I’ve also concluded that you and Dr. Fowler here conspired to put me in a compromising position. I’d like to know how you’d answer that in a court of law, especially when I describe what Dr. Fowler had in his pocket. Well, I don’t mean his pocket, but you know what I mean.”
“Now, just a minute here,” Dr. Fowler said, briefly levitating from my sofa.
Pastor Ledbetter held up his hand, taking charge. “Let me handle this, Fred. Miss Julia, Dr. Fowler has already explained it all to me. What that was, if it was anything, was an autonomic nervous system response to unwelcome stimuli, which any man in the world would understand, given the circumstances. It’s incumbent on me to advise you not to use that in any way. It would only make you appear even more childlike not to understand these matters.
“Now,” he said, hitching himself forward to lean toward me, “here’s what I want to talk to you about. None of us wants to take any legal steps against you, but something has to be done. We want to consider your wishes as we decide these matters. Have you thought about what you’d like to do?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“You should, Miss Julia.” He clasped his hands together between his spread legs and looked earnestly at me. “I’ll be honest with you, that episode of you taking in that child claiming to be Mr. Springer’s son should’ve been a warning to us that you weren’t thinking right. And now”—he spread his hands—“look where it’s led us to.”
“I don’t have an idea in the world what you’re talking about, Pastor,” I said.
“It’s like this,” he said, resting his hands on his knees. He gave another look at Dr. Fowler, who was leaning back with his legs crossed, staring at me with those strange eyes of his. “We, that is, the church, the congregation of this church, are your family, the only one you have in this town. It’s up to us to look after one another. Now, Miss Julia, I come to you not only as your pastor but as a member of that family, to say that we are deeply concerned about you. Besides what I saw with my own eyes, I’ve had reports that you’ve exhibited other strange behavior. All of which points to the fact that I’ve been remiss in not pursuing this matter more vigorously. Now, I know—”
He raised his hand, palm out, to stop any argument to the contrary, but I overrode him. “Tell me about those reports.”
“Oh now,” he said, smiling and shaking his head, “we don’t need to discuss the details. Suffice it to say that several people, people who care about you and want to help you, have noticed a few worrisome things.”
“Who?” I demanded.
“Now, don’t get upset. We need to talk about this reasonably and come to some decision that’ll be best for you.”
“Who?”
“Miss Julia,” he said, sighing, “this is just the kind of thing I’m talking about. You’re not thinking straight. You need to be thinking about what you’ll do in the future, not what’s happened in the past. That’s behind us, and I’m concerned about you right now, and I want you to know that Dr. Fowler here has opened a retirement center, a fine, Christian place, offering the best of care for our senior citizens. It has what’s known as lifetime care where you can have a room with your own furniture and personal things, but also have nursing care when you need it. I’ll tell you, it’s a wonderful place with chapel every morning and evening prayers at night. There’re nurses on duty day and night, and a trained dietitian, and therapists of all kinds. Why, they even have a social director who plans outings and all kinds of activities for the residents, things like aerobics and sing-alongs and birthday parties. Why, the days are just filled with wholesome activities, and all your meals are prepared and served in a lovely dining room with white tablecloths and candles at the evening meal.”
Some of the old fire flamed up inside of me and I forgot about the pink paper pinned to my bodice. I straightened my back, thankful for all the calcium I’d taken over the years, and looked him in the eye.
“Are you going to tell me who has brought reports of my strange behavior to you, or did you break your promise and start the rumors yourself?”
“Now, Miss Julia, you don’t want to get upset.”
“Upset?” My voice went up alarmingly on the last syllable, and I made an effort to contain myself. “I simply want to know,” I went on in a calmer tone, “on whose reports you’ve made the decision that I need to be in an old-folks home.”
“Well,” he said, giving another quick glance at the silent Dr. Fowler. Pastor Ledbetter pushed his hair off his forehead and sighed. “Several people have come to me with their concerns. It seems, for one thing, that you’re planning to open a kennel right here in your house. And going so far as to buy a number of unlikely medical items for which you have no need at all. Now, you have to admit that that is a little strange and not at all like you. And, for another, people speak to you on the street and they get unusual responses from you, or no response at all, as if you’re off in another world. Those are just examples, Miss Julia, and of course, I have not and will not speak of another example if, that is, you get some help. And let’s not forget the way you took in that strange child with no idea in the world who he was or what he was after. You’re just not yourself, Miss Julia, and we want to see you taken care of. Because we care about you and we’
re all worried about you.”
“Oh, I’m sure Norma Cantrell’s just made herself sick with worry over me,” I said. “As well as Buck Tatum and Troy Beckworth. Both of them ought to be minding their own business instead of poking their noses in mine. I wouldn’t trust either of them as far as I could throw them, since they’re the biggest gossips in town. Except for Norma, who you ought to know by now doesn’t have a lick of sense.”
I swung around in my chair and faced Dr. Fowler. “And what is your interest in this, Doctor, other than befriending lonely old women so you can fill up the rooms in your rest home?”
“I…” he began, uncrossing his legs and looking away from me for the first time, “I was asked by Pastor Ledbetter and the session to give my evaluation of your state of mind. For your own good, I might add.”
My soul sank inside of me. If my competency rating depended on Dr. Fowler’s evaluation, the rest of me was sunk, too. They were giving me the choice of voluntarily committing myself or having a judge do it for me. And either way, it was for my own good.
As I opened and closed my mouth, trying to speak, footsteps sounded on the porch and the doorbell rang.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
WHY, BROTHER VERN,” I said, staring at him through the screen door, my mind going a hundred miles a minute, wondering how much he knew or how much he’d guessed, and what he intended to do. I was so shocked I couldn’t move, trying to figure out how to get rid of him. And Pastor Ledbetter and Dr. Fowler, too, while I was at it. My mind fluttered here and there, trying to think how to warn Lillian and Hazel Marie.
He took hold of the screen and said, “Miz Springer. May I come in?”
“Why yes,” I managed to say. “Yes, come in.”
He walked in, nodding to the two men who’d stood as he entered. I saw Pastor Ledbetter take in Brother Vern’s brown polyester suit, yellow tie, and white shoes. Short-sleeved shirt, too, since no cuffs showed below his coat sleeves. Brother Vern looked hot, his face red and shiny, his black hair glistening.
