Gone Too Long

by Lori Roy

  It’s a relief to see the boy unmoved because that means Imogene has more time to think. It’s never been so hard, the thinking. But it’s also a concern seeing the boy so still. He seems not to have moved at all. Something could be wrong. He could be dehydrated or have not eaten a decent meal in days, maybe weeks. Or he could have a concussion. Imogene turns away from the open doorway and lowers her head because the boy looks smaller than he did before and already the room smells of him, like powder that his mama maybe rubbed on his skin to keep it from chafing in the damp basement. The thought of that makes Imogene pinch her eyes closed, and the little bit of thinking she had been able to manage is gone. She’s suddenly back in that dark basement, her body stiff from fear, her heart pounding in her ears. It all really happened, and the sweet smell of baby powder is proof of it. Imogene pulls at Jo Lynne, nearly knocking her off her feet, and quietly closes the door.

  “We can’t wake him,” Imogene says, turning away from Jo Lynne so she won’t see the deep breaths Imogene is taking to calm herself. She can’t let the fear grab hold again here in the hallway, not like it did in the moments after she first brought the boy home. Jo Lynne will think it’s pills for certain if Imogene collapses.

  “What is going on?” Jo Lynne says, stepping around Imogene to get a look at her face. She leans in as if checking Imogene’s eyes. “We’re going to have to go in there eventually so we can carry him to the car.”

  “He won’t go,” Imogene says. “He won’t leave his mama.”

  “Leave her where?” Jo Lynne says. She speaks slowly and quietly, has slipped into the calm, measured person she has to be when coaxing a hysterical mother to let Jo Lynne take her child.

  “She might still be down there in Grandpa’s house,” Imogene says, starting down the hallway, but Jo Lynne grabs her arm and stops her. “I need to go tell Eddie. They need to know she might be in the house somewhere, upstairs maybe.”

  Keeping hold of Imogene’s arm, Jo Lynne pulls her down the hallway, out into the living room, and to the sofa. Once seated, Jo Lynne pauses, eyes down. She’ll be counting to three and composing herself. Then she takes hold of both Imogene’s hands. It’s a certain way Jo Lynne has with people. By taking hold of their hands and speaking in a soft, hushed way, she takes hold of their worries.

  “Very clearly, now,” she says, looking Imogene straight on. It’s a familiar pattern, Jo Lynne staring at the whites of Imogene’s eyes, sniffing her breath, moving from side to side as she talks to see if Imogene can follow her. “Who is he? Where did he come from? And where is his mother?”

  “I told you,” Imogene says, trying to pull her hands free, but Jo Lynne holds tight. “And I need to tell Eddie now so they’ll be looking for her.”

  “You’ve told me nothing.” Jo Lynne’s voice is pitched lower than normal, and though her jaw is set firm, she still speaks slowly and quietly.

  “The basement. I found him in the basement at the old house.”

  “So you found this boy in the basement and now the house is on fire. Where is his mother, how did the fire start, and what does any of that have to do with Daddy?”

  “I don’t know,” Imogene says. “The boy was living there. He didn’t want to come with me because he said a man took his mama and would bring her back so long as he was good. His mama, I think she’s still down there. Jo Lynne, the boy, he said Daddy’s name. I’m sure of it.”

  “What does that mean? Did he say Daddy took his mother?”

  Imogene shakes her head. “No, when he was fighting me, not wanting to leave, he said it. Said he wasn’t allowed to, but he said Daddy’s name. That means something, right?”

  Finally letting go of Imogene, Jo Lynne slides to the edge of the sofa, sits with a straight back, and rests her hands in her lap. In a moment, she’ll rest one of those hands on Imogene’s shoulder, rub it there lightly, and tell her everything will be okay. This is how it’s always gone. Jo Lynne lectures Imogene about giving up the drinking and the ridiculous parade of men and the dead-end career she’s chosen, and then when Imogene caves under the shame of it, which she never really feels but does a good job of pretending to do, Jo Lynne rests a hand on her shoulder and says it’ll be all right. As much as Jo Lynne fusses about the mess Imogene’s made of her life, she loves picking Imogene up. Better than anyone, even Mama, Jo Lynne cleans things up, puts things away, starts things over. She has a softness and beauty that she uses to reel people in and a sweetness to her voice to make them trust her and to make them forget she is a part of the Klan. But Jo Lynne doesn’t do any of those things now.

  “Get up,” she says instead, again grabbing Imogene by the upper arm. The soft, sweet tone is gone. “You get Mama’s bag together and then you get whoever that is sleeping in your room up and in your car.”

  “And take him where?”

  “Downtown,” Jo Lynne says. “To my offices. We cannot have this boy here, fire or no fire. You have any idea what kind of trouble you could get me in? And don’t you dare say another word about Daddy. I will not let you do this.”

  “I’m not doing anything,” Imogene says. “And Eddie said we’re safe here. We don’t need to leave. I have to go down there. They need to know about this boy’s mama.”

  Jo Lynne shakes her head. “First of all, when is the last time Eddie had one damn idea what he was doing? And you’re not going anywhere except to gather that child up and get Mama’s bag. Mama and I are leaving, and you and that child are coming with us.”

  Chapter 23

  IMOGENE

  Today

  Imogene and Jo Lynne stop talking at the sound of another car rolling across the gravel drive outside the house. This one doesn’t drive on through the gate but stops, and a car door slams. Footsteps hit the stairs leading to the porch and Garland walks through the door, bringing with him the smell of more smoke. He pulls off his hat and smooths his dark hair.

  “You all okay in here?” he says, glancing at Mama’s door to make sure it’s closed, because like most men, Garland has a hard time with Mama’s heart. It likely gets to men more because they are inclined to fixing things and there’s no fixing Mama. He switches on the radio even though there’s nothing to drown out. Already his face has started to shine.

  “You should have a jacket on, for goodness’ sake,” Jo Lynne says, meeting him at the door. She kisses his cheek and tugs the tip of his dark beard. Silver streaks, nearly the same color as his eyes, cut through the closely cropped beard that Jo Lynne has been nagging him to shave since he first grew it a few months ago.

  Not standing from the sofa, Imogene does her best not to look at them because she doesn’t like seeing Jo Lynne pick at Garland. Maybe it’s his beard or the belt he’s wearing or the way he cuts his steak. Even though Garland and Russell were never really friends, in part because Russell was five years younger, seeing Jo Lynne pick at Garland is still like seeing her pick at Russell. Your husband is alive, she’s said to Jo Lynne more than once. Quit nagging him all the time.

  “You all should get Mama around,” Imogene says. “Take her to your house, and I’ll stay and hope we don’t have to leave. At the very least, this smoke won’t be good for her.”

  “Wind’s carrying the smoke,” Garland says. “Eddie tell you all you should leave?”

  Sitting at one of the chairs at the kitchen table, Garland leans back on its metal legs and lets his knees fall out wide. There’s a lag to everything he does, because he’s always waiting to get Jo Lynne’s approval before making his next move.

  “He said to get Mama ready,” Jo Lynne says. “Said we should take her and go.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Imogene says. “You said we should leave. He said, suit yourself.”

  “No reason for waking your mama,” Garland says. “Fog’s thickening up.”

  Jo Lynne swings around to face Garland and cocks her head in a scolding way.

  “Dampness in the air,” he says, lifting a hand as if he can feel it. “Got plenty of men down there too.
Any idea how it started?”

  Jo Lynne crosses her arms and looks to Imogene.

  “I did not start that fire,” she says.

  Wiping his face with one of Mama’s tea towels, Garland studies Imogene and Jo Lynne. “What’s going on, ladies?”

  “Tell him,” Jo Lynne says to Imogene.

  It’s only been a few hours since Imogene sat in the first pew and held Mrs. Tilley’s hand on one side and Mama’s on the other and every so often leaned over Mrs. Tillie to squeeze Tillie’s hand, but it feels like days have passed and now there is a boy who is scaring Imogene almost as much as being in that basement. The thing she hasn’t told anyone is that he said her name and knew about her red hair. She doesn’t tell Jo Lynne and Garland because they’ll see it as more proof that Imogene is somehow at fault. She doesn’t want to be special to the boy either or someone he believes in or maybe even, though she couldn’t imagine why, loves. She doesn’t want any of it, never again. There is too much hurt on the other side of someone needing her. Today of all days won’t let her forget that.

  And it isn’t just him knowing her name or about her red hair that she can’t bring herself to tell. There were those books, organized smallest to tallest. They were hers, she’s sure of it. The boy had her books and he knew her name and it’s all really happening, this thing that is only supposed to play out on the news. A girl rescued from a backyard prison. Three girls trapped for years in the second story of a house with neighbors on all sides. Strangers crawling through bedroom windows to steal girls in the middle of the night. It’s supposed to be news. Not life.

  Without looking at Garland, Imogene tells him what happened. She starts with the wire Mama showed her. She tells every detail, except for the books and the boy knowing her name and the color of her hair, doing it as much for herself as for Garland and Jo Lynne. She needs to secure what happened in her mind, because the details are thin and wispy and will vanish if she doesn’t do something to give them some weight. The entire story is surprising, shocking, unimaginable. But none of those words are big enough. As she talks, blinking under the glare of the kitchen light so bright against the white cabinets and linoleum floor, she’s careful not to let her eyes drift off to Jo Lynne, who’s leaning against the sink, arms crossed, staring at Imogene as if trying to decipher, based on the absurdity of her story, exactly how many drinks she had at the reception.

  “And then he said Daddy’s name,” she tells Garland. “He didn’t mean to. I think he wasn’t supposed to. But he said it. And you need to go down there and tell Eddie, tell whoever, so they know to look for his mama.”

  “There is a boy, here in this house?” Garland says, ignoring everything else Imogene said. He stares hard at her, his gray eyes bright under the kitchen lights.

  Imogene nods.

  “White boy?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Imogene says. “Really? That’s what you’re going to ask me?”

  “Just want to know who I’m sharing a roof with,” Garland says. “Anything wrong with that?”

  Imogene forgets sometimes who Garland is because he keeps a safe distance from the Knights so he can protect their assets. He’s most often kind too, and Imogene finds herself feeling sorry for him because he’s up against a life of being a never-ending disappointment to Jo Lynne. But he’s one of Daddy’s, or rather he was one of Daddy’s. Now he’ll be one of Tim Robithan’s. All of them believe—Garland, Eddie, and Jo Lynne—though they’ve all learned to do as Tim Robithan does and talk like they’re only trying to do as their Lord intended. Jo Lynne is especially quick to quote a scripture as if trying not only to convince Imogene but also to convince herself that she isn’t the same as all the Klan who came before her. You can’t take the stink out of shit, is usually Imogene’s reply.

  “Don’t you start, Imogene,” Jo Lynne says, starting to scrub at one of the windowsills in the kitchen. The smoke will settle on everything and leave a black layer of soot. “Yes, Garland, he’s a white boy.”

  “And where is this mother?” Garland asks. “Did you see her too?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Imogene lowers her voice. Waving her outrage just now isn’t going to help that boy or his mama. “She wasn’t there.”

  “So she abandoned her son?” Jo Lynne says, still scrubbing. The house is starting to smell of lemon-scented cleaner. “Why on earth would that have anything to do with Daddy? Course, we’ll see to the boy, but this has nothing to do with Daddy.”

  “But I think it does. She didn’t abandon him. A man took her.”

  “You don’t know that,” Jo Lynne says, her hips moving as she stretches across the countertops. The cleaning and keeping busy is what she does to avoid Mama’s heart, and it’s what she’s doing now to avoid what may have happened.

  “I do know that,” Imogene says. She remembers that part clearly, the boy looking up at her and saying . . . if I’m good, he always brings Mama back.

  “And you think Daddy was the man who took this boy’s mama?” Garland says, mopping his face again. The skin around his eyes has taken on a blue cast, the first thing that happens to him before Mama’s ticking heart chases him from the house.

  Imogene nods.

  “And that’s why you started the fire?” he asks.

  “I already told you,” Imogene says, “I didn’t start any fire.”

  “They were squatters, then?” Garland says, looking over his shoulder at Jo Lynne. When she nods in agreement, he says it again. “Yes, squatters. Hell, the mother probably started the fire.” Again, he glances at Jo Lynne. And again she nods.

  “Squatters don’t put locks on the outside of the door,” Imogene says.

  “But mothers do,” Jo Lynne says, jabbing the bottle of cleaner at Imogene to emphasize her point. “Heaven knows why she’s living there, but I see it all the time.”

  “You see mothers locking up their babies?” she asks Jo Lynne.

  “Sweetie,” Jo Lynne says, and damn it all but Imogene hates when her sister calls her sweetie. “I seen a whole lot worse than that.”

  “Town’s full of crazy people,” Garland says, pushing out of his chair and tugging at both shirtsleeves. “I’ll give Warren a quick call, make sure he knows about the boy.”

  “You think it’s wise to call the police just yet?” Jo Lynne says.

  “Can’t hurt,” Garland says. “Warren’ll know this wasn’t Daddy’s doing.”

  “He needs to see to finding the boy’s mama too,” Imogene says.

  Warren Nowling, detective with the Simmonsville police department, has tried to be a lot of things to Imogene since the day he had to notify her that Russell and Vaughn were dead. Brother, cousin, best friend, in the beginning. The past year, something more. But nothing has ever fit. Mostly, Warren is just a reminder and not one she needs right now.

  “Did the boy actually see Daddy?” Garland says, holding open the door while he stands on the threshold. “Did he say that? He seen Daddy take the boy’s mama away?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know,” Imogene says, leaning forward and burying her face in her hands. “It all happened so fast.”

  “You should know by now, Imogene,” Garland says. “Plenty of folks have tried to cause your daddy grief.” As he speaks, Jo Lynne nods. “Who knows what that boy’s mama told him to say. Can’t imagine why she’d burn the place down, but some folks is beyond imagination.”

  “Garland is right, sweetheart,” Jo Lynne says, stepping up to Imogene and smoothing her hair. “We’ll see to the boy tonight, and I’ll call into the office in the morning. Maybe someone down there knows his mama. They’ll see to it the boy is safe.”

  Jo Lynne always has a way of smelling sweet through and through, even in the middle of the night in a house that’s leaking smoke. If anything were to make Imogene cry after all that’s happened, it would be the warm touch of her sister and her sweet smell, all of it reminding Imogene of being a child and wanting to be so like Jo Lynne. But that didn’t happen. The gir
l Jo Lynne once was is gone, and Imogene has ended up like this.

  “That’ll be good,” Imogene says, relieved that Jo Lynne knows what to do for the boy and that Garland is calling Warren. “That’ll be real good.”

  Even if they don’t believe her, Garland and Jo Lynne are doing the right thing. Imogene drops back in the sofa and closes her eyes. She never thought she’d feel this kind of tired again. It kept her from getting out of bed in the days and weeks after Russell and Vaughn died. She wasn’t there for her own son when he most needed her, and he died, and all these years later, she can’t be here for this child either. She, like Eddie, is the disappointment, the one who never gets it right. The one who never will.

  Chapter 24

  BETH

  Before

  Every day since I first started planning my trap, I’ve practiced climbing on the textbooks. One of the first times I tried, the books fell and I fell with them. I had a lump on my head that lasted for two days. Now I know to hold on to the back of the chair until the books are steady. I do that now, and holding the flashlight between my teeth, I start to unfold my legs. I move slowly, my thighs aching for carrying all my weight. The books wobble. I stop, wait for them to quit shaking. Already, my jaw is tired from holding the flashlight. I never exercised that part of me.

  When my legs are all the way straight, I reach for the bulb, and as soon as I touch it, I jerk my hand away. That’s another thing I wasn’t ready for, the burning-hot bulb, but the clock reads 3:30 and he usually comes at four and I’m already up on the chair and I have to do it now. I take the flashlight from my mouth so I can stretch my jaw, lick my fingers, and give the bulb one quick turn. I give another turn. The light goes out and the basement turns black. The smell of damp things that never dry is suddenly stronger. And the air is colder.