by Lori Roy
“We go outside today,” he says, looking at Christopher but not at me. “Get yourselves together.”
In all these months, Eddie has never seen Christopher and he’s surprised by how much he’s grown. Eddie’s changed too. He’s bigger in the stomach, and his white shirt pulls tight like the buttons might pop. His cheeks are fuller, and his dark hair is speckled by more gray. As if getting his first good look at me, he drops his head off to one side. I’ve changed too in the past year. Even though we sometimes saw each other when he was leaving boxes at the top of the stairs, they were quick meetings in dim light.
“Are all of us going?” I say, glancing at Alison, who is still sitting on the edge of the bed, and I hug Christopher tight, which makes him push against me. He was frightened at first, but now he’s excited at seeing someone new. He kicks his legs, his signal that he wants down. I wrap a hand around one of his warm feet to calm him.
Eddie nods as he reaches out to touch the tips of Christopher’s toes. This makes Christopher go still, and he tucks his face into the spot where one of my shoulders meets my neck. I want to turn away so Eddie can’t reach him, but I force myself not to move because it might make Eddie angry if he knows I don’t want him touching Christopher, or talking to him or even looking at him. My body is shivering for wanting so badly to pull Christopher away from Eddie and knowing I don’t dare. Instead, I hold Christopher tight, our faces pressed together, until Eddie steps past us. And then I exhale.
“You too,” he says, meaning Alison though he doesn’t look at her. He smells like the outside. It’s March again. The magnolias bloom in March. He smells of magnolia blooms and the dirt he’s walked through and cigarette-stained fingers, and he fills the basement, making it suddenly too small.
Pushing off the bed, Alison slips her feet into a pair of sneakers that are too big and walks toward the stairs without saying anything. She’s hunched over like the weight of her own head and shoulders is too much for her to carry. He tells me don’t bother when I go to grab a jacket for Christopher, so I slip on my shoes, and before starting up the stairs, I stuff Christopher’s feet into the only pair of shoes he has. Something about this—him coming down here after so long, him saying we’re going outside on a Wednesday when it’s always been a Sunday, him not looking me in the eye—makes me certain going outside isn’t going to be a good thing.
The New Klan
The late 1970s saw another surge in Klan membership. In 1974, a former neo-Nazi organized the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and began traveling the country to spread the Klan’s message of white supremacy. Shunning the title of Grand Wizard for the more mainstream title of national director, the former neo-Nazi wore business suits for public appearances as opposed to the traditional robe and hood. He spoke in an articulate fashion that helped him gain national media coverage, and in a bid to appeal to a broader segment of the population, he attempted to disguise the Klan’s radical and hateful views.
Chapter 44
TILLIE
Today
Telling Natalie Sharon to stay put until Officer Jacobson finishes with his phone call and comes back inside, Tillie walks behind the counter and drops the two watches in a small white box. He’ll ask Officer Jacobson if he might see Mrs. Tillie home and stand guard over the house after he’s taken Natalie to the police station and returned the watches to Robert Robithan. Tillie wants to make sure Robert Robithan knows he had no part of whatever Edison Coulter was up to when he stole them watches, and Officer Jacobson should understand that.
“You’re free to leave,” the officer says, being careful of the broken glass, leaning inside and looking at Natalie.
Still holding a bag of ice to her right eye, Natalie stares at him but doesn’t move.
“She can’t leave,” Tillie says, holding up the box with the watches. “And you got to return these to Robert. And take Natalie down to the station too.”
Officer Jacobson is a good bit younger than Tillie, but still Tillie knows he’s one of the Knights, and as such he’ll appreciate full well how careful Tillie needs to be.
“Robert said them watches weren’t stole,” Officer Jacobson says, glancing between Natalie and Tillie. “Said he intends to come by personal to see to them.”
“And does that mean he intends to see to her too?” Tillie says.
He’s also wondering what Robert might intend for Tillie. After all, Tillie took the watches from Natalie, and he didn’t call the police straightaway. None of that will look good to a man like Robert Robithan. In fact, it might look like Tillie was intending to sell those watches and split the money with Edison Coulter.
“If Robert says they weren’t stole, then there ain’t no crime,” the officer says, “and there ain’t nothing for me to do here.”
“She broke my door,” Tillie says. “Ain’t you got to take her in for that?”
What Tillie doesn’t say, though Jacobson will know Tillie’s thinking it, is that Natalie would be safer inside a police station than out on the street.
“Robert said he’d see to that too,” the officer says, tipping his hat in Natalie’s direction.
Tillie stares at the front door as it falls closed. Robert Robithan was on the other end of that phone call and now he knows Natalie and his watches are here in Tillie’s shop, and Tillie too.
“You heard him,” Natalie says, walking out from behind Tillie’s worktable. She tugs on one corner of her cutoff shorts and slides a finger under the strap hanging off her shoulder, lifting it back where it belongs. “I guess I don’t get no money, huh?”
“You can’t leave,” Tillie says.
“Sure I can,” Natalie says. “He said I ain’t done nothing wrong.”
“You stole from Robert Robithan,” Tillie says, setting the box back on the counter. “And he is on his way here right now. He’s coming for these watches, and he’s coming for you. You’re going to have to do as I say, and I don’t want no argument.”
He’d rather not tell Natalie what she might be facing, but he will if he has to.
The first thing Tillie does is put Natalie and Mrs. Tillie to work filling a suitcase with clothes that’ll fit Natalie. Riffling through the racks and picking out clothes for herself and it not mattering how much any of it costs makes Natalie happy, and she forgets for the moment about wanting to go home.
“Pick out some warm things, too,” Tillie says, pulling open the front door. “And dishes and such. Pack it all up.”
While they’re pulling clothes from hangers, Tillie hustles down to the bank at the end of the block and withdraws $800 from the ATM, the most it’ll let him take from his account. When he returns, he takes all the cash from the safe and register—another $1,328—and tucks it inside an envelope. Next, he looks up the non-emergency number down to the police station and writes it on a small pad of paper. When Mrs. Tillie hollers that she and Natalie are done, he carries everything they packed up to his car and loads it all in the trunk. Last thing, he opens the car door and motions for Natalie to get in.
“I don’t get what’s happening.” Natalie stares at the open door but doesn’t move. Her hair has been combed out and she’s wearing a blue dress, both things making her look like the girl she is instead of a grown woman already worn to a nub.
“There’s a little over two thousand dollars in there,” Tillie says, helping her into the car. She looks straight ahead as if not sure where she is as Tillie hands her the envelope. “That’ll tide you over. You get yourself to the interstate and head north. Keep driving until the weather turns colder than you ever felt.”
“But I ain’t never been in the cold.”
“No place is as cold as six feet under,” Tillie says.
“I still don’t know why I got to go,” Natalie says, looking up at Tillie with her one good eye. “Can’t I maybe go home instead? It’s just watches.”
“It ain’t just watches, not when they belong to a Robithan,” Tillie says. “You can call your mama when you pass Atlanta. But no go
ing home to say good-bye.”
Tillie and Mrs. Tillie wait as Natalie pulls away, and once she’s gone, they walk back inside the shop, where they both know they’re going so they can wait for Robert Robithan to come.
Without saying anything about what might happen next, Mrs. Tillie puts in a call to the fellow what can board up the broken window and door and then goes to work straightening shelves in the storeroom. Tillie hangs his keys where he always keeps them, sits behind his worktable, but instead of getting to work on a phone, he watches out the front window, and when a red truck rolls past nearly an hour later, he stands. If he’s not mistaken, Robert Robithan drives a red truck.
Chapter 45
CHRISTOPHER
Today
I’m alone in my room, but I can hear the grandma and Miss Jo Lynne. When they walk, the floors creak. First they creak loud, but then the creak gets quieter. I think that means they’re far away now. Every time one creak ends, I wait, make my hands into fists, and listen for the next. I scoot deep into my chair with wings that almost wrap around me. If I lean a little, the sliver of light doesn’t hurt my eyes.
I hear their voices too, so I’m not alone. I don’t have to climb stairs here and no one unlocks for me. This door can open, I think, anytime, and that makes my head spin most of all. Open and close. Open and close. The air is full and light, and so much of it all makes me wobbly. I wonder does Imogene or her mama scrape underneath this door so the air keeps moving inside like Mama does to the door at the top of the stairs. Once a month, the first day, Mama uses the straightened-out hanger to poke and scrape under the door so we can keep breathing air.
When I was done eating my banana, Imogene said she had to go away for just a little bit and asked am I okay to stay alone. I said yes, and when she left, I stayed with Miss Jo Lynne and the grandma until my eyes got tired and I went back to the room that they say is mine. Now the room is quiet except I still hear the creaks. My head between my eyes hurts some, and I’m tired like after we have exercise time. This bed is bigger than my basement bed and this pillow is softer. Even though I told Imogene yes, I’m okay to stay alone, I’m afraid she won’t come back. My mama was supposed to come back and she never did. Not yet. Before she left, Mama said to be brave like Laura in her books, so that’s what I’m trying to do. But I hope I don’t have to do it much longer.
I think I slept and now I’m awake again and I hear more footsteps. But these are different footsteps. I know all about the different footsteps people make. I’m hearing footsteps made with big feet, heavy feet, feet that are maybe wearing boots. They’re growing louder. Every step is bigger and heavier than the last. I think they’re just outside the door that isn’t all the way closed when they stop.
Mama always goes up the stairs on Wednesdays. We hear those big footsteps and she knows it’s time. She dresses in a white dress on Wednesdays that is thin and hard for her to pull over her head, sits on the bottom step to wait for the clanking of the locks, and then she calls out, I’m coming, and climbs the stairs. I usually only see his boots and the bottom of his pants. They’re usually blue, and sometimes he leaves dirt on the stairs that I brush into my hands after he’s gone. The last time Mama went, she said she’d be back. She told me to wait at the top of the stairs even though I am never allowed to go there, except I do to get the dirt he leaves behind. But this time was different, she said, and I should wait there on the top step unless I heard big, heavy footsteps. Mama’s footsteps aren’t heavy. His are.
As I sat at the very top stair, scrunching myself as small as I could so I’d fit and wouldn’t fall, I pressed my ear to the door and listened. I listened even though I was scared of hearing those heavy footsteps and even when I got tired of listening and my ear started to hurt and even when my knees wanted to stretch out instead of being scrunched. Mama said that if I heard those footsteps, I should hide under the stairs like Harry from the books did. Hide like Harry until I come back, she said, and be brave. But I didn’t want to be brave. I wanted Mama to stay in the basement, but she said this was our chance to get out. I didn’t know what out was, and she said it was like where we went on Sundays except much bigger and we’d get to stay all day and all night. We’d get to stay forever.
But Imogene came instead. Mama says Imogene is the one who will save us, but I think maybe Mama is wrong. Imogene isn’t quite what Mama said she would be. Imogene’s hair is red and filled with curls, so Mama was right about that. But I always thought Imogene would know me because I know her, and I can tell she doesn’t. She looks mostly at the ground instead of at me and she picks at her fingernails. Mama calls those bad habits. Mama makes me practice looking people in the eyes. She says that tells people you’re strong, honest, and friendly. I shake Mama’s hand, say pleased to meet you, and tilt my head so I can look her straight in the eyes. I think Imogene doesn’t look in my eyes because maybe she is afraid of me. Mama never said that would happen. She says Imogene might take care of me one day and help me grow up, but she never said Imogene would be afraid of me. When Mama says those things, it scares me and makes me grab on to her hand tight and never want to let go. If Imogene is taking care of me, that will mean Mama isn’t, and if Mama isn’t, I worry that means something bad has happened to her.
The footsteps haven’t moved from outside the door that isn’t all the way closed, and I’m starting to get that feeling again, like this outside world is too heavy for me. There’s too much. The kitchen floor is shiny and white and makes me pinch my eyes almost all the way closed. There is glass in the windows and not boards, and glass catches the sun and makes it too bright. There are lots of voices here and too many things plugged in that will break the electricity. Too much air. Too much light. Too much to smell and hear and feel and see. Too much of everything. Still sitting in the chair that hugs me with its big wings, I pull my knees to my chest, squeeze them tight, and the door with no locks that Imogene didn’t all the way shut slowly opens and the man from the top of the stairs steps into the room and presses a finger to his lips.
“Don’t say nothing,” he says in a whisper that rattles as it makes its way up his throat and out of his mouth. “Don’t say nothing about me, and I’ll take you to your mama. You and me, we’ll go together, real soon, as soon as it gets dark, and we’ll find her. Just so long as you don’t say nothing.”
Chapter 46
BETH
Before
It’s just like the first time Eddie led me outside, only this time I know his name and he doesn’t bother tying a dark cloth around my head, or Alison’s or Christopher’s either. Still, as I hold Christopher tight to my body, pressing my mouth to his ear and whispering that we’ll be fine, I feel like I’m walking toward the edge. Christopher must feel it too, the something in the air that is warning us, because he lets me hold him tight even though our skin has turned hot and sticky from us being pressed so close together. Alison walks ahead, her head still hanging as if she’s studying the ground, and Eddie nudges me from behind and tells me to hurry it up. I start shaking my head because I don’t want to go anymore. I stop and turn so I can tell him, but he gives me another shove.
The kitchen door that leads out the back of the house is already open. It’s the only door we ever use, the only door that isn’t boarded over. That open door isn’t the thing that makes my feet stop. Instead, it’s the screen door. Whenever we would push through it on our way outside, back when Eddie still took me outside, it would slap closed behind us. But today, that screen door is standing open and that means someone on the outside is holding it.
Alison doesn’t know what I know, so she walks straight through the open doorway. She doesn’t look up, isn’t frightened, doesn’t even seem to know she’s outside. It’s like someone tipped Alison upside down and emptied her out and now nothing is left inside. She’s an empty shell. I stop walking, squeeze Christopher, turn a shoulder so he is as far from that open doorway as I can get him and so I’m between him and it, and I make myself watch. Even from
the kitchen, I can smell the fresh air and it’s like my lungs haven’t filled up, not all the way, since I was last outside. Eddie gives me another shove, but this time, I push back.
“We don’t want to,” I say.
He takes me by the arm, squeezes, and pulls me along. “Good Lord, it’s all you’ve been asking for.”
Alison has reached the bottom step, and through the doorway where the screen still stands open, I see her turn as if she is finally seeing something. She is seeing whoever is holding open the door, but nothing about her changes. She’s like that now. If she thinks anything or wants anything, she never says it. She only takes things in but never lets anything out. I stop at the threshold where the outside meets the inside and I make myself look too. It’s another man this time. Not a woman like when Alison came. That’s all I see. Thick shoulders. Dark hair. A baseball hat like Mama used to wear when we did Sunday yard work. He nods, signaling for me to come on out.
I walk down the three steps, slowly, no quick movements, and lower myself to the ground so Christopher’s feet can touch. I shiver to feel the outside air on my skin. The freshness is like a sharp edge after so long inside. Sitting cross-legged, I pull Christopher into my lap. He clings to me, both arms wrapped around my neck, and buries his face in my hair. I pull back to look into his eyes, but they are squinting, nearly closed. It’s the sunlight. I hold a hand above them and make a shadow on his face. Over Christopher’s shoulder, I see that the new man is watching me. He smiles and tilts his head to see me tending Christopher. I turn away, look straight ahead. Just to the side, where I can see her without turning my head, Alison stands, her arms hanging loose, her face hidden by her black hair. Behind me, a lighter snaps and the smell of cigarette smoke drifts over us, pushing out the light sweetness that hung in the air.
