I sat back against my bed’s headboard too. “It’s fine. Fire away.”
She looked thoughtful. “I just wonder if—as long as you think it’s your job to protect your mom from the big bad world, maybe she’s going to let you?”
I didn’t say anything. I honestly hadn’t considered the idea that I may not be as indispensable—in my mom’s life, in Danny’s, at the foundation—as I thought I was. I’d just assumed that what the preacher at Dove’s funeral had told me was an irrefutable truth, that I was the keeper of the flame.
But what if it wasn’t? What if all this energy I’d expended on making sure everything was under control at all times, had just been me spinning my wheels?
Althea tilted her head sympathetically. “I’m here to help in any way I can.” She hesitated. “You know, I told you at the hospital opening that I’d wanted to meet you for a long time. But I wasn’t entirely honest about why.”
I straightened, my nerves on alert.
“I never told you this,” Althea said, “but when I was looking for Dove all those years ago, I ran across some stories about her. One in particular.”
“Okay,” I said, cautious.
“Back in the thirties, when she was doing a revival up in eastern Alabama, she took my great-grandmother up to the mountain to see a young girl who’d gotten pregnant. The girl was miscarrying, Dove said, and she prayed for her.” Althea leveled her gaze at me. “The baby lived. There was no way she could’ve known about this girl, Eve. Her pregnancy was a secret. She hadn’t told anybody.”
“What happened?”
“When the baby grew up, she and Dove became friends. Later on, after Charles died and Dove moved back to Alabama, they were roommates for a few years.”
“Wow. I never heard that story.” I rose wearily and walked to the window. Peeked to the street outside. It was just a deserted parking lot with one lone bike lying on its side. “But it doesn’t change what she told me. That her gift was a lie. All of it. Every healing or miracle she ever did.”
“But what if that wasn’t true? What if some of it was real? And she just—I don’t know—couldn’t guarantee it or something, and so she hedged her bets and told you she was a fake?”
I didn’t answer, but it made me think. About all those times my arm tingled and then something happened: a math test was canceled, we didn’t have to run the mile in PE, Ryan Dekko called me cute, right to my face. And then there was that moment earlier today when Ember and I had harmonized so perfectly, so unexpectedly, on that old hymn—the one Griff had been listening to Ruth and Bruna sing at that very moment.
I let out a caustic, humorless laugh. “Look, I wish I could use some psychic gift and find the coin. But as much as Dove didn’t have a gift, I have even less of one.”
“But how do you know? I mean, beyond all doubt?” At my silence, she spoke again. “I wasn’t honest with you about another thing, Eve.”
I felt afraid to look at her directly.
“I came along on this trip because I wanted something from you. Your gift. The thing Dove told you she didn’t have.”
My heart suddenly felt impossibly heavy, like somebody had aimed a gun and shot it full of lead. Althea had come on this trip because she needed something from me. It hadn’t been altruism or friendship or even loyalty to Dove. I was a means to an end.
Althea took a deep breath, her voice raw. “It’s Jay. He’s . . .” She shook her head. “They don’t know what he is. They think maybe it’s something to do with his immune system. Maybe Lyme disease, maybe not. Whatever it is, he’s not right.”
I knew I should comfort her, and part of me wanted to, but I couldn’t.
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s not your problem. I shouldn’t have made it yours. It’s just—he’s struggling. We’re all struggling.”
I sat there, silently ruminating. I wanted to be okay with Althea’s confession, but I was angry—that she hadn’t been honest with me from the start. That yet another person thought I could perform miracles—just because I was related to Dove. And I was tired too, of feeling so goddamn alone.
I folded my arms over my chest. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re mad too. Which you have a right to be. I’m sorry I wasn’t straight with you. I should have told you right off the bat.”
I took a deep breath. “It’s okay, Althea.”
She shrugged, her eyes red and shiny with tears.
“He’s with the kids? Jay?”
She shook her head. “My mother-in-law has them. Jay can’t drive some days. He can’t be in a room with too much light. His legs go numb, he can’t sleep. Eve, I’m sorry I wasn’t honest, but I’m grasping at straws here. I love him so much. I’ve loved him since I was just a kid.”
“Althea,” I said. “I hate that this is happening to the two of you. And I wish I could help you. But I can’t. I don’t have any magical power.”
She nodded mutely.
“If you want to leave, if you want to go home to him, I understand.”
She hauled herself off the bed with a groan and rifled through her suitcase. “I cared about Dove and I care about you. If you’ll have me—and I swear to tell you the truth about everything from now on—I’d like to stay.”
I smiled. “Okay. I’d like that. If it’s what you want to do.”
“All right. I’m going to shower. Wash off all this grime.”
She slung a clean pair of sweatpants and T-shirt over her shoulder, and I felt a pang of envy watching her. Althea had discovered the secrets of her family with Dove by her side. She’d gotten to know my grandmother in a way I never had the chance to. All the more reason I should listen to her. Maybe she’d gotten wisdom from Dove that I’d missed. Or maybe she was just using me. I felt so confused.
“Althea?” I said as she headed for the bathroom.
“Yep?”
“I apologize if I misled you in any way. But I’m not the one who can give you your miracle.”
“Don’t sweat it. Still the best girls’ trip ever.” She sent me a wry grin and shut the door behind her.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Florence, Alabama
1934
Edith Faulk might not have been an overly affectionate daughter, but she was fiercely dedicated to preserving the Coe family reputation. As such, she was distraught over Steadfast’s disappearance.
She ordered the police out on a search and tried to galvanize the town, but most folks demurred. They murmured that Steadfast Coe was old, gone off on his head, and prone to wandering; someone would probably find him soon enough. Because of this, there was little support for more than a listless walk down to the river and back. And after a week, no one was even talking about it down at the grocery, the feed and seed, or the butcher shop.
In the middle of the hubbub, Ruth visited Bruna at her parents’ home. It was the first time she’d ever been there, and she was agog at the place. The house, just a few blocks away from Steadfast’s, was as different as the sun from the moon. With its modern design, the low-slung house of red brick and wood was full of angles and corners that slunk along the property like an angular cat waiting for its prey. Ruth had never seen anything like it.
Bruna met her in a large open room with one wall of built-in shelves, another of glass. She rushed to Ruth and embraced her.
“I can’t believe he’s gone missing,” she sobbed into her friend’s arms. “I’ll never forgive myself for being so mean about him.”
Ruth hugged her hard.
“He’s a nasty son of a gun,” Bruna said. “Even still, I can’t stand the thought of him out there, wandering around somewhere hungry and cold.”
Ruth patted her arm. “If he’s out there, we’ll find him, I promise you.”
This was the absolute truth. Ruth and Arthur had rolled Steadfast into a sheet and dragged him outside. Then they’d hauled him into the back seat of Arthur’s father’s car and driven down Gunwaleford Road all the way to the end, where Arthur ha
d tied the sheet to hold the dead man inside. They’d hiked for a mile and a half, each of them taking one corner of the sheet—through rain, over cotton and corn fields, past stands of oaks and pecans all the way to a shallow gorge with a stream.
The narrow trickle of water led into a cave that the locals called Key Cave, where moonshiners were known to hide their wares and pay the police to keep away. They waited there for a whole hour, just to make sure the coast was clear. Then the two of them dragged the old man to the back of the cave and pushed him into a narrow crevice, chinking the opening with as many rocks as they could gather.
“After you have your vision, and we take up a collection,” Arthur said, “I’ll head out here and pull him back out so it looks like he wandered into the cave.”
Ruth had nodded mutely.
Now she was comforting Steadfast’s granddaughter. She felt like such a fraud.
“But truly, I’m worried about you. Where will you go?” Bruna asked Ruth in the living room of the extraordinary house.
“Oh, don’t you worry about me,” Ruth said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe Arthur can cut you an advance of your share now, and you can get a room in town.”
Ruth clasped her friend’s hands in hers. “That’s a good idea. I’ll mention it to him.”
“Or you could stay here.” Bruna brightened slightly.
Ruth let go of her hands. “I wouldn’t want to take advantage. I’ll go to town and see what I can rustle up.” She gave Bruna another hug and headed toward the front door.
“Ruth—”
Bruna’s face was pale and drawn. She was sad, Ruth thought, but she would be okay. The Hawthorn Sisters would have more meetings, put on shows in Alabama and Mississippi, pray over folks and give them words from the Lord to lift them up. She had the coin, but she couldn’t very well pawn it off, not this soon after Steadfast’s disappearance. That would cast suspicion on her for sure.
So that was it then. She’d stay, for now. Tell Dell that they must put off a wedding until later. Maybe after all this business was done, the four of them, she and Dell, Bruna and Arthur, could go to California. The Hawthorn Sisters could make enough money out there, and each of the girls could take off on her own. Bruna would have what she wanted: Arthur and freedom from Edith and Harold. And Ruth would have Dell.
She just needed to trust that Arthur had everything well in hand.
There was another part of her that knew this wasn’t true. Arthur had broken into Steadfast’s house and murdered him in cold blood, and there was no getting around it. And he’d done it for nothing but money.
Which is why Ruth knew, as clearly as she knew her own name, that if she crossed him, if she mucked up his plan in any way, Arthur would choke the breath out of her too. And he’d quite enjoy it, she had a feeling. So she had to think quick. To figure another way out . . . not only for her but for Bruna as well.
“I’ll see you soon,” Ruth said and, after kissing her cheek, left Bruna standing alone in the strange, modern house.
The next week, Bruna and her two older brothers, James and Orillion, and her mother came to clear out Steadfast’s house of valuables. There was still an off chance in their view that the old man was just lost, but in his absence, the house was a target for thieves, and something must be done about that.
“Am I being sent away?” Ruth asked Bruna when the brothers vanished upstairs.
Bruna took her hand and pulled her back to the kitchen. “No, not yet. Mother still believes there’s a chance he’ll come back. They’d like you to stay until then, but I’m afraid they’re cutting your pay.”
Ruth nodded mutely.
“We’ll bring some bacon and cornmeal by—and anything we can from the garden. Hope you like cucumbers.” She sent Ruth a pained smile. “They said you can stay here, for at least a few more weeks. At least until Mother’s ready to sell or board the place up.”
“Bruna!” one of the brothers yelled from a front room.
Bruna scanned the cupboards. “James’s wife is going to want that china. Can you help me bring it out to the dining room?”
They picked the house cleaner than a chicken carcass. The silver, the jewelry, the jade figurines, and assorted other curios that Ruth had not realized were worth a mint—all of these were wrapped in newspaper, hauled out in wooden crates, and loaded on one of the brother’s trucks.
After bringing out Steadfast’s gold-rimmed china and stacking it on the dining room table, Ruth retreated to her room and sat on her bed, eyeing the keyhole where she’d dropped the coin. Waiting for one of them to discover its absence. Finally, she heard the expected commotion, voices in the front hall, and braced herself.
“The little vagabond’s stolen it!” one of the brothers shouted.
“She did no such thing!” said Bruna. “I know Ruth Davidson, and she’s as honest as the day is long. He hid it, just like the others.”
“But all the others are in the jar, Bruna. The Flowing Hair is the only one missing . . .”
Their voices lowered and Ruth couldn’t make out the words. She kept her eyes trained on the brass keyhole. She could never tell Bruna’s family that Steadfast had given her the coin. Even if they did believe her story—which seemed unlikely—they’d say the old man was muddled in the head and didn’t know what he was doing. They’d demand she return it and that would be the end of that.
Ruth set her jaw. Steadfast had given her the coin, and he’d known exactly what he was doing. Whether it was the most valuable thing on earth or just a worthless piece of tin, it belonged to her now.
She would say nothing. The coin would stay safely tucked in the door until she decided it was time to fetch it. That time could be now if she chose. She could find Dell, get the tarnation out of Alabama, and start a new life. But if she left, there was no doubt in her mind Arthur would track her down and kill her just like he killed Steadfast.
“Ruth. Could you come here, please?” It was Edith.
When Ruth entered the front hall, the two strapping brothers directed two sets of nearly identical, accusing eyes at her. Bruna looked angry.
Edith directed her imperious profile at Ruth. “Ruth, my father had a somewhat valuable coin collection. Error coins, some of them dating back to before the Revolutionary War. You know of them?”
Ruth twisted her hands. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, I’m afraid one of them is missing. Actually, the most valuable coin in the entire collection. It’s called the Flowing Hair.” Edith’s gaze bore into her, cold and accusing. “Have you seen it?”
Ruth stammered. “No, ma’am. I mean, yes, I saw it once, when Mr. Coe showed it to me, in his wife’s bedroom . . .”
They all stared at her.
“But I didn’t steal nothing,” she said, her voice low and steady and strong. “I wouldn’t do that to Mr. Coe. Or to his family.”
The brothers huffed and stamped and rolled their eyes like a pair of bulls in a pen, but Edith nodded.
“Bruna, you and Ruth look again. Tell us if you come across it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ruth said. “I’ll give all the rooms a good going-over tomorrow first thing.”
“I bet you will,” grumbled one of the brothers. “Gleanings from the field.”
“You shut your trap,” Bruna snapped, and with that, they were out the door and down the porch steps to the waiting truck. Bruna caught Ruth’s hand. “I’m sorry. They’re a couple of stupid brutes.”
Ruth thought it better not to say anything. She might give herself away. Confess, and then they’d take the coin from her. But she wouldn’t. It was hers, fair and square. And she wasn’t giving it up.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Florence, Alabama
Present
I was too restless to sleep, so I decided to find a place where I could have a quick beer and fine-tune my statement on behalf of the foundation. I threw on a clean pair of jeans, a white blouse, and flip-flops and was on my way out of the hotel whe
n I ran into Griff.
“Hey, do you have a second?” he asked.
We sat at one of the tables in the breakfast area and he pulled out his phone. “I didn’t want to bring it up at dinner because I thought you deserved to know first, but I did find something today.”
I felt a ripple of anxiety. Not more bad news. Please. “What?”
He handed over his phone, showing an article from an archived website. “It’s from 1934, an interview with the husband of Magdalene Kittle, the woman who killed her seven-year-old son.”
I scrolled, summarizing. “He blamed the Hawthorn Sisters for his son’s death. He said Ruth Davidson told his wife that God would only answer her prayers if she was blameless as a mother and wife. Obeying her husband and bringing her unruly children to heel.” I looked up. “No matter the cost.”
I skimmed farther down, slowing when I saw the quote from Kittle’s husband. “‘As long as she lives may God never give that charlatan a night’s rest. It’s sure as hell better than I’d do for her.’” I looked at Griff. “Wow.”
Griff looked almost sorry he’d shown it to me. “I know it’s a stretch, but do you think somebody in that man’s family, like maybe one of the other kids, might’ve held a grudge against Ruth because of what happened? Do you think they could’ve killed Dove and attacked you to get revenge?”
My shoulders slumped. “It’s possible, I guess. Hard to believe that someone could hold on to that kind of hate for so many years.”
We both fell into agitated silence.
“Now I feel like an asshole,” Griff said after a while.
“No, it’s fine. We’re all grasping at straws.”
“Do you want a drink?” He met my eyes. “In my room?”
“Yes,” came my answer, unhesitating. “I absolutely do.”
In his room, he poured me a glass of wine he’d picked up earlier. I lay on the bed and took note of his room. His clothes were not folded but heaped messily on top of his suitcase. Laptop and camera, hard drive and noise-canceling headphones along with a mess of cords and chargers piled in a jumble on the desk. Coins, wallet, and watch. Phone charging on the nightstand. The mundane items of his life and job brought me comfort in a strange way. And gratitude. This man had put his life on hold to help me. I wish I could tell him he was doing the right thing.
Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters Page 18
