Gone Too Long

by Lori Roy

  “Wait,” Imogene says. “What is it? Is something wrong?”

  Again, Tillie’s voice drops. “You say Warren Nowling is there with you?”

  “Yes,” she says, looking up at Warren. “He’s standing right next to me.”

  “How about the two of you hustle on down here. Natalie Sharon’s outside my door, banging to get in, and someone got ahold of her face but good. I’m guessing she’s here about them watches, and I’m guessing Tim Robithan ain’t far behind.”

  The banging grows louder, as if Tillie is walking toward it.

  “We’re coming right now,” Imogene says, waving Warren toward the door. “Don’t let her in, Tillie. Don’t open that door.”

  Chapter 40

  BETH

  Before

  I’m wearing my fuzzy socks and long sweatpants like I do every night, because even though the air conditioner he put in the window blows warm air too, it’s still only March and I get cold at night without them. So when I pull the blanket up to my chin, it’s not because I need anything else to keep me warm. I do it so I can hide. The two voices are coming from the top of the stairs, and two voices are scarier than just his one voice.

  I know the sound and smell of people getting home late from a night out. I know the clicking of tall, skinny high heels and the smell of smoke and perfume all mixed together, and I know a woman’s giggle and a man whispering in her ear in a way that isn’t a real whisper. Before Julie Anna started to stay with me on Friday nights, Mama sometimes left me alone when she went out. I’d lie awake in my bed and hope that when Mama finally came home, I’d hear only her voice when she called out to tell me she was back. When the woman started coming once a month to check on us, Mama had to stop leaving me alone because she was afraid of getting in more trouble if the woman found out. She said I might get taken away so I’d better never tell anyone, and I never did but I still got taken away.

  A woman’s hand is the first thing I see as it slides down the railing. Then a pair of shoes follows, first one tall, skinny heel, then the other. I used to try on Mama’s shoes when she was busy putting on her makeup in the bathroom before going out for the night. I’d wobble around in them, thinking my feet would never grow big enough to fit. Sometimes Mama laughed and took my picture. Other times, she hollered at me because I’d ruin them or break an ankle.

  “What you got down here?” It’s the woman’s voice.

  The toe of one shoe taps at the wooden stair before pressing down on it, and then the other shoe follows. Behind her, his footsteps are quieter than hers, and that makes me wonder if he’s come in the middle of the night before without me knowing.

  “Quiet,” he says in a whisper that isn’t really a whisper.

  “What do I got to be quiet for?”

  “Just go on.”

  “You got him?” she says. She’s a pair of long, slender legs now.

  “I got him fine.”

  And then I hear a third voice, though it isn’t really a voice. It’s a tiny chirp, a gurgle maybe. I want to run to my spot under the stairs where I sometimes hid in the beginning. I’d fall asleep under there and wake up on the sofa. But if I tried that now, they’d hear me. Instead, I push myself up and ready my flashlight. I only use it for emergencies now, like when the electricity stops working.

  There’s more giggling, and the glow from his flashlight bounces around the basement as they near the bottom of the stairs. I blink when it bounces over me, but quick as it does, it’s gone and I’m in the dark again. They both stand on the stone floor now, and he hands her something. There’s more chirping and gurgling.

  “What are you up to?” the woman says as his boots hit the stairs again, but this time, his footsteps aren’t light. I wonder if he’s going to shut the door now, and if he does, which side of it he will be on.

  The woman’s head pulls back when the light at the bottom of the stairs pops on. She smiles and turns a shoulder to block the glare. Her hair is straight and dark, almost black, and hangs over her shoulders. She holds something in her arms, and as he comes back down the stairs, she smiles up at him and then looks down on the something. It’s a baby. And then she looks at me.

  I smile, not because she looks at me but because I think she is Julie Anna. She is small like Julie Anna and slender, though Julie Anna wouldn’t wear the thick black lines around her eyes or a skirt that’s so short. This woman, girl, is about the same age as Julie Anna too, because her skin is smooth and bright. But while I smile, the woman only stares. When he stops again at the bottom of the steps, she looks back at him, and then her eyes drift around the basement.

  “I’m leaving,” she says, not looking at him but at me.

  “No,” he says, resting a hand on her shoulder. “This is what I wanted to show you. Can’t just leave.”

  She waves a hand, shooing him aside. “Get out of my way.”

  “I figure it could be the four of us,” he says, sliding to one side to stop her from reaching the stairs. “You know, you and me, the baby and her.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  In her arms, the baby starts to cry. She bounces him as she turns in a slow circle to take in the rest of the basement. She isn’t Julie Anna. Her voice is nothing like Julie Anna’s, and Julie Anna wouldn’t say those words.

  “She’s living here?” the woman says. “You have her locked in here?”

  “You and me, we’ll get married,” he says, stretching out both hands this time. “Like we talked about. Be a family.”

  “I ain’t being a mama to no other kid,” the woman says, trying again to reach the stairs, but again, he blocks her path, this time holding up a hand to stop her. “You better move,” she says. “Right damn now.”

  “Tell her,” he says, and he must be talking to me. “Tell her this is what you want, to be a family.”

  I slide lower on the cushions and don’t know what to say. I want her to stop yelling because she’s holding the baby and maybe something bad will happen and she’ll fall.

  “Her mama was a drinker,” he says, reaching to take the woman by the arms, but she pulls away. “And she’s dead now. This girl needs a family. You do too.” Then he nods at the baby in the girl’s arms. “And he needs a daddy. I can do all that, can take care of all of you.”

  “Take me home, Eddie, you sick, stupid fuck.”

  Eddie. That’s his name. He’s never told me. He said in the beginning I could call him Pa, same name Laura uses for her pa, but I never did. Eddie. His name is Eddie.

  “Don’t you never call me stupid,” he says to the girl.

  “I’ll call you whatever the hell I want to, you stupid fuck. Getting a family ain’t going to make you a man. Ain’t going to make no one think any better of you neither. Now, get out of my way.”

  “Tell her we can be a family,” he says, turning to look at me.

  I’ve heard this kind of yelling before, and sometimes it meant Mama got smacked across the face. Now I think this woman might get smacked because his face is turning red and I know being called stupid makes him madder than anything. His own daddy calls him stupid. He tells me that almost every time he reads from the newspaper. See, I follow the news. I know what’s what. I ain’t stupid. Sick as fuck of people saying I’m too stupid. I nod when he says those things because I see that same red in his face and I know fists sometimes follow that kind of red.

  “Tell her I ain’t stupid and we can be a family.”

  The woman tries again to force her way past him, and this time, he pushes her and she almost falls. It’s hard to say his name, even in my head, because now he’s more like a real person. Eddie, his name is Eddie, has told me many times that his name is one of the biggest names in town, probably in the South, though he never said what that name was. I don’t think this woman knows that because she’s not talking like Eddie’s the biggest man.

  “I said get the fuck out of my way,” the woman says, leaning forward and shouting the words. Her straight black ha
ir falls along the sides of her face and hangs down over the baby still squirming in her arms. “You’re a stupid fuck. Everyone told me so. And I damn sure ain’t going to be part of your ready-made family.”

  “I already have a mama,” I say.

  The woman swings around like she’s going to yell at me too. Instead, she stares. “Where is she?” she says, tossing her head to get the hair out of her eyes. “Your mama. Where is she?”

  He takes the stairs two at a time again, but this time, instead of a light turning on, the door slams. I know the sound of the three locks being locked. Sometimes, he only locks one of them. I listen every time because maybe once, he’ll forget and not lock any. This time he locks all three.

  I’ve known him for two years, and I know he won’t come tomorrow like he always does. I won’t get my twenty minutes outside. I won’t get to run into the field of pampas grass where he can’t see me. I’ve known him for two years, and I wonder if he’ll ever come again. Overhead, his footsteps fade like they always do when he leaves, and then there is silence.

  Chapter 41

  BETH

  Before

  The next day, Sunday, when four o’clock comes and goes and Eddie never shows up, Alison shouts at me for being wrong about him always bringing food and drinks and new books on Sundays. That’s her name. Alison. Her eyes are wide and her long hair that was like a silky black curtain last night has turned frizzy. She has uneven ends like she cuts it herself. Mama cut her own hair and she was always real careful about uneven ends. Holding Christopher, that’s her baby’s name, in one arm, Alison begins walking between the kitchen and the sofa, back and forth, looking up the stairs each time she passes. As she walks, Christopher’s head flops like I don’t think it should be flopping.

  “What if he leaves us down here?” she yells. And she says other things. “We’ll run out of food. And what about air? Why are you here? What the fuck are you doing here?”

  I sit on the sofa, knees pulled up to my chest, and press my hands over my ears, but I can still see Christopher bouncing and flopping. I don’t like her asking why I’m here because it’s like her saying that I asked to be here. I want to tell her he killed Julie Anna and stole me from my home. I want to tell her this was the day I was supposed to run away and see Mama again but that Alison and her baby ruined it. I should be the one who’s mad, not her. I’m smarter now than I was when I tried to trick him with a broken bulb. I’m stronger and smarter and I know Stone Mountain is just outside and there’s a lake, a magical lake nearer to heaven than any other place on earth. I want to scream it at her so she’ll stop talking and stop walking, but I can’t make myself say it out loud. I always thought heaven being just there outside was a sign I’d make it back to Mama one day. She loved God and heaven and singing in the church where we’d see Julie Anna and her parents every Sunday. But I don’t tell this girl any of that because some things hurt too much working their way up and out.

  “Wednesday,” I say, closing my eyes and wishing that was enough to make her go away. “He’ll come on Wednesday.”

  She stops walking. The sudden silence makes me look. She has let one hip fall out to the side so Christopher can rest on it and is staring at me like she doesn’t know what Wednesday means. Christopher is staring too, as if he is waiting for me to save him. I know that feeling because I felt it sometimes with Mama. Sometimes I wanted someone to save me too.

  “Wednesday,” I say, louder this time. “That’s his other day for coming.”

  “How the fuck we know when it’s Wednesday?” she says, swings around, and starts walking again. “There’s no damn windows.” She throws one hand up in the air as if pointing out all the boarded-over windows. “Sure as shit can’t tell day from night.”

  When she turns back my way, I jump from the sofa and reach for Christopher. He isn’t crying or squirming, just holding on with his chubby arms and legs, and yet something in his blue eyes is begging me to take him. But Alison’s eyes are different. She is breathing heavy, and her eyes look like something inside is about ready to break loose. When she hands Christopher to me, his legs clamp around my waist. He already knows he has to hold on because nobody else is doing it for him.

  Three more days pass, and those questions of Alison’s play over and over in my head. What if there isn’t enough air? Enough food? Enough water? Wednesday comes and goes and Eddie still doesn’t come, but Alison doesn’t scream at me this time. From the bed where she’s been sleeping almost all the time since we knew for sure Eddie wasn’t coming on Sunday, she stares at the steps until four o’clock turns into five and then rolls over.

  Now it’s Saturday night, and my back hurts from walking with Christopher on my hip. Back and forth, from one side of the basement to the other, I carry him, and if I bounce him just so and let him play with the blue stone that hangs from a chain around my neck, he doesn’t cry. Ever since he came here a week ago, I have fed him, changed him the best I can using wadded-up paper towels, read to him, and walked him. I hold him at night, his small head resting where my neck meets my shoulder, and we sleep. When he wakes, I wake, and every day that I hold him, I worry more. My stomach sinks between my hip bones, deeper than it did before, because I’m afraid to eat. I try to, just a piece of bread or a few crackers, but I can’t force a bite in my mouth. I worry Alison saying the things she said will make them come true and Eddie might never bring food again and we’ll run out of the things Christopher can eat—mashed-up bananas, and carrots I boil on the hot plate until I can mash them too. And crackers. He likes sucking on them until they melt between his fingers.

  I try to smile for Christopher whenever I sit down to feed him, because he looks right at me the whole time, and I don’t want him seeing what’s on the inside of me. I don’t want my being scared to make him scared. I could always see the scared on the other side of Mama’s eyes, so I think Christopher can see it on the other side of mine too. He’s almost one, that’s what Alison said. He can sit up on his own and can walk if he’s holding my two fingers. His legs are spongy from fat and bow out when he stands, and he squeals at the cold stone on his feet. His tiny ankles wobble on the uneven floors. Even when I’m feeding him and he’s happy to have carrots and bananas leaking from his mouth, I don’t feel much like smiling. I feel like the basement is sliding deeper and deeper into the earth even though I still see the orange sliver every morning.

  I’m already used to going to sleep tired and waking up tired. After only a few days, I know what Mama meant when she said raising a baby is carrying a whole other life on your back, every day. Mama liked to tell me stories about how it was when I was a baby. She’d stare at pictures in the red photo album that creaked each time she flipped a page and tell about being tired like she never knew a person could be when I was first born. Never done such hard work, she’d say, touching my chin and looking into my face. You’re so darn tired you forget the days are ticking by. You forget about things making sense.

  Maybe it’s the door closing that wakes me. Maybe it’s the locks snapping into place. I open my eyes and feel as tired as when I went to sleep, and whatever it is that woke me, it’s a normal sort of sound. Christopher is asleep between me and the back of the sofa, where I know he won’t fall. My neck and cheek are damp from our being close and his warm breath mixing with mine. And then I remember those sounds aren’t normal, not anymore.

  I only know Eddie came because he left a box of food on the top stair. Inside are all the things he usually brings plus a can of baby formula and a package of diapers. I drop down on the stair next to the box and cry. I cry because we have food and maybe we aren’t sinking into the earth, but I cry too because now I think he plans to keep us all down here. When Alison wakes, I tell her, because I have to, about going outside and the field with grass tall enough to hide us. I didn’t tell before because it hurt too bad and I thought we were already sinking, but we aren’t, not yet, because Eddie has come back.

  I tell her we have to be quiet and good.
We have to never yell when we hear him coming, and we have to keep things clean so we don’t get critters. Tell him we’re a family, you and me and Christopher. I know now that Eddie wanted a family because having a family would make him a man. That’s what Alison told me. Everything Eddie does is to please his father and make him proud, and Eddie’s father thinks having a family means a man can provide and protect, and a man like that can lead, and more than anything, Eddie wants to lead. So tell him we’re already a family, I say to Alison. Tell him we’ll be his family. I don’t tell about Julie Anna and that Eddie killed her, because already Alison is mostly gone. I need for her to find that spot inside herself that wants things. Do what I say so he’ll be happy. If he’s happy, he’ll take us outside and that will be our chance. Eventually we can run. The tall grass will hide us, and we can find a way out. But as many times as I say it, I’m afraid Alison doesn’t really understand.

  Chapter 42

  IMOGENE

  Today

  Up ahead, Tillie’s shop is quiet and all looks normal for a Sunday morning, except for the broken glass in his door. Imogene stumbles at the weight of Warren’s forearm across her chest. She pushes it away, and when she tries to walk in front of him, he grabs the back of her shirt and holds tight. A patrol car is already parked in front of Tillie’s, the only car on the block except for the few outside Belle’s Café on the corner. Before Imogene and Warren left the house, Warren called in to have an officer respond right away, and that’s who is walking toward them.

  “Girl’s in there,” the officer says, jabbing a thumb toward the broken door. “Made this mess when Tillie wouldn’t open up for her. Somebody had a time with her face too. Says she fell.”

  His name is Jacobson. He has thinning brown hair and a large stomach that hangs over his black belt. He’s snagged the keys from Imogene’s hand a time or two on a Saturday night, and she’s seen him down at the lake with Daddy’s other men. Even wearing a hood over his face, she’d known him because of his low-hanging belly and the awkward way he rocked from side to side to keep himself moving. Daddy used to like saying they had all kinds among them—police, judges, lawyers, and such—though Jacobson is the only police officer Imogene knows about these days.