The Woods at Barlow Bend

by Jodie Cain Smith

  What I did know was that Momma stayed through all of it. I would have known if she intended to leave. I think I would’ve sensed that. I would have known if they were that unhappy with each other. So, if she stayed, there must have been love. Maybe she loved him in spite of his flaws. Maybe she loved him because he was flawed. Maybe she loved the fact that this perfectly handsome man with his perfectly wavy hair and perfect blue eyes and perfectly respectable family was flawed. Maybe she loved the chaos of it all.

  I also knew Momma was not one to go back on her word. If she said she would do something, she did it. She wasn’t afraid of things getting messy, and she was stubborn as all get out. Maybe that was it. Momma was too stubborn to leave. She was so determined to love Daddy that she wouldn’t let him off her hook. Maybe she was determined that he was a good man at heart, and she was going to force him to live by their marriage, by the promises they made sixteen years ago.

  So where did all of this leave me? What would I do when the jury came back? What would I do if the jury came back with a guilty verdict? I decided I would keep fighting. That’s what Momma would do. I believed in my heart that he didn’t kill her. He was far from innocent, but he wasn’t guilty of this crime. If the jury came back with a guilty verdict, I would conjure up all of Momma’s stubbornness and determination and figure out how to mount an appeal. I had read about appeals in the newspaper and was sure Mr. Jones would know something about them, too.

  I also realized then, sitting on that hard tree trunk and staring into the darkness of the woods, what I would do if the jury came back with a not guilty verdict. As much as I didn’t want to, I would help Aunt Mittie pack our suitcases one more time and move to Uriah with Daddy. I didn’t want to drop out of Thorsby or change my future plans, but what else could I do? I would pick up where Momma left off. I would force him to live a good life. I would show Meg, Billy, and Albert how much Momma loved them. I would show them that she did not live foolishly or naively. She was not a stupid woman. She was not a fool. She was determined. She loved him, flaws and all.

  At 10:30 p.m., Saturday, September 28, 1935, we were summoned back to the courthouse. The jury had finally reached a decision. The whole town crammed in the courtroom and crowded around the doors of the Clarke County Courthouse awaiting the verdict.

  “Not guilty,” was all I heard before the room erupted in a frenzy of reporters swarming around Daddy and cheers from the Ladies Auxiliary. The hundreds of onlookers poured out of the room and down the steps of the courthouse, surely running home to tell whomever they could, the big news. I stood still once again, just like I did on the day Daddy was taken away in handcuffs. I stood frozen, mouth gaping, while the reality of the verdict sunk in. Daddy would be free. My family, what was left of it, would be together again. A new life awaited me in Uriah, Alabama–my third new life in less than two years.

  “Aunt Mittie, I need to talk to you,” I said, standing with Aunt Mittie behind the throng of reporters. “Daddy wants us to move to Uriah.”

  “I know, Honey,” Mittie answered without looking at me. “We’ll get your things from school and get back to Luverne. I’ll help you pack up Meg and the boys.”

  “Aunt Mittie, please let me explain.”

  “Don’t need to, Honey,” said Mittie, “Your momma wouldn’t leave him and neither will you.”

  Grand Jury Indictment

  Addie and Herbert Andrews

  The Lowman Sisters

  The Lowman Family

  Hattie’s Childhood Home

  Thorsby Institute, Thorsby, Alabama

  Hattie and Gordon

  Addie Izora Andrews

  Addie and Hubbard

  Hattie Izora Riley

  A note from Addie to her daughter, Hattie

  Gordon Riley

  Part 3:

  Exodus & Afterlife

  Chapter 24

  November 1935

  Uriah, Alabama

  I stood near Daddy’s truck, parked in front of a small, clapboard house in Uriah, Alabama, which according to Daddy, was pronounced “You-rye” not “You-rye-a,” no matter how it was spelled. The white paint was peeling off the little house, and the front steps looked in need of serious repairs. The house had no front porch to speak of.

  “Well, home sweet home, kids,” Daddy said and walked toward the little house. “Go on and git those suitcases outta the back.” He motioned toward me as he walked up the dirt path to the little house. Daddy seemed perfectly comfortable in our new surroundings, as if the house and town weren’t new at all, at least not to him.

  “Hub,” said a thin woman as she rushed out of the front door and toward Daddy, “you made it already!”

  “Yeah, we made it,” said Daddy and kissed the woman right on the mouth, “Sarah Walker, I want you to meet my family.” Daddy turned around with a grand, sweeping motion and pointed at each one of us while he ran through our names and ages, “That’s Albert, he’s my youngest at seven, and then there’s Billy, who’s eleven, Meg’s thirteen, and Hattie’s my oldest. She’s fourteen.” I wondered if he had mentioned Momma, the missing member of his family, to Sarah Walker.

  “I’m fifteen, Daddy. I turned fifteen in August,” I said without taking my eyes off Sarah Walker. My voice sounded far away, like it came from someone else’s body.

  I reached my hand out to the woman. “It’s good to meet you,” I said while shaking her hand, unsure how to greet this stranger, “Ms. Walker, how do you know my father?” I knew the question was blunt, but I thought it was justified. Daddy hadn’t mentioned a woman in Uriah while we were making our plans to leave the security and comfort of Aunt Mittie’s home.

  “Um, well,” answered Sarah as she looked from me to Daddy and back again, “we met a while back. And you can call me Sarah.”

  “Uh, huh…” I said, not wanting to call the woman anything at all.

  “We’ll git to all that in a little bit. Right now, let’s git y’alls’ stuff in the house and get settled in,” said Daddy as he started to help Billy and Albert unload the truck.

  Sarah grabbed two suitcases and carried them inside, “Come on, boys, follow me. I’ll give ya’ll the grand tour!” She flitted her gaze at me as if she was afraid to make eye contact.

  Widowed several years before we moved to Uriah and into her house, everything about Sarah Walker was skinny. She had a wispy, honey-colored bob cut right at her skinny chin. She had a tall, skinny frame that fell down from her skinny shoulders. Her skinny hand felt a little damp in mine when I greeted her by the truck. Other than her extremely cheerful and rather twitchy disposition, there was nothing remarkable about her. She was just skinny.

  Once inside the tiny front room of the house, Sarah started chirping away again. “The house only has two bedrooms, so I set the boys up in here,” Sarah motioned to a single bed pushed into the far corner, “Y’all can keep your suitcases under the bed.” She then gave the fastest grand tour of any house ever given. “The kitchen is right through here.” She rushed through what looked to be a dining room and pointed into a kitchen with floral wallpaper, one green corner cabinet, a white sink, and a gas stove. The kitchen was about eight feet by eight feet at most. “I keep the icebox on the back porch. It’s real nice out there. It’s got a swing and everything.” Sarah Walker motioned toward the back door leading out of the kitchen, and to the porch. Next, she moved toward a short hallway. Even in November, her skin was shiny with sweat. I guess, to be fair, it was an awfully warm November.

  The hallway from the dining room led to the rest of the house, “The bathroom is right here next to the girl’s room, and, Hub, you’ll be in here with me.” Sarah motioned inside the room at the end of the hall. I peeked around her and Daddy to see a dresser, small mirror and one double bed. From the looks of it, Daddy and Sarah would share the one double bed. Daddy agreed to this arrangement without even looking in the room.

  Meg and I carried our suitcases into the room Sarah Walker indicated as ours. I put my case in the co
rner and sat on the edge of the double bed that Meg and I would share.

  “Did Daddy marry that woman?” Meg whispered.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” I whispered back.

  “How does he know her?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What are we doing here?”

  “I don’t know, Meg. I guess where we’re gonna live here,” I said, and hoped that my tone would put an end to Meg’s questions. “He’s sharing a bedroom with her. A bed with her. I wonder if she was one of them.” For a second, Frank Poole’s face flashed in my mind.

  “One of who?” asked Meg.

  “Oh…no one…never mind.”

  Sitting on the bed next to Meg, I ran through the blurred events of the last two weeks in my head. Maybe Daddy told me about Sarah Walker, and I missed mention of her in our conversations. I remembered that as soon as Daddy was released from jail after his trial, he rode with Melvin, Mittie, and me to Thorsby to pick up the rest of my things, and then to Mittie and Melvin’s home in Luverne. We stayed with Mittie and Melvin for about two weeks while Daddy “got us set up” in Uriah. Maybe he mentioned Sarah Walker then, but I was too busy with the kids to hear him.

  Mittie helped us pack our suitcases the same way she did back at the hotel in Grove Hill. She also packed up the few belongings of Daddy’s that had not been sold to pay his lawyers. Daddy and Melvin put everything into the back of an old pickup truck Daddy had purchased in Luverne for a few dollars. Sitting on the bed in Sarah Walker’s house, I remembered the hurt look in Mittie’s eyes when the last piece of luggage was secured. That look told me that her heart was broken at the thought of us kids leaving Luverne.

  I remembered trying to convince Daddy to look for work in Luverne, but he refused. “I got us all set up in You-rye, Hattie,” Daddy said, ending my futile attempt to stay near Mittie. Maybe he mentioned a woman in a little white house then, but for the life of me, I didn’t remember any talk of living with any woman named Sarah Walker. We rode in Daddy’s truck for six hours from Luverne to Uriah with no talk of skinny, dirty blondes with skinny hands. By the time we arrived in front of Sarah Walker’s house, my left arm and both my legs were asleep from being pressed against Meg and having Albert on my lap. I hadn’t thought for a second someone would be waiting to greet us. Before we arrived in Uriah and I witnessed her press her lips against his, I swear Daddy never mentioned Sarah Walker.

  Back in Luverne with Mittie, Daddy only said that he found us a place to live. I assumed that meant the five of us, not the five of us plus some woman he met…when? That’s what I wanted to know first. When exactly did Daddy meet Sarah Walker? Did he meet her while he was in jail in Kilby all the way over in Montgomery County? That seemed unlikely. I had heard of women writing to prisoners; that the heinous actions somehow made the criminals desirable, but what kind of woman would meet a man while he was being held for the murder of his wife, and invite him and his four children into her home? Did he meet her while on trial for murder in Grove Hill? Was she among the crowd desperately trying to catch a glimpse of the potentially dangerous, yet undeniably charming Hubbard Andrews? Maybe Peetie, Mr. Jones’s aide, arranged a supper meeting between the happy couple. Did Daddy know her before the trial? Did he meet Sarah Walker before Momma died and my life turned upside down? Was Sarah Walker one of the many women that Mr. Poole, Mr. Jones, every witness, every person in the galley except me, seemed to know about for years before Momma died and that damn trial ever took place?

  I was far too angry to sit on the bed in that hot, tiny room, and couldn’t stand to look at Daddy right then, so I grabbed Meg by the hand and led her out of the room and out of the house.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” I told Meg. “Daddy, we’re gonna walk through town. Be back later,” I yelled toward the dining room with Meg in tow.

  Walking as fast as I could down the street toward Uriah’s main drag, I couldn’t believe that Daddy had taken the four of us from Mittie’s proper home to live in sin with some woman he had met God knows how and only God knows when. Was this seriously the fresh start he told me about in the jail cell in Grove Hill? Was this really his intention, to shack up with some stranger, to have his sons sleep in the parlor while he shares a bed with some woman down the hall? Daddy still hadn’t said what he was going to do for work or how he planned to afford rent or food or anything. At that moment, for all I knew, mooching off of Ms. Sarah Walker was his fresh start. The lack of a wedding ring on Sarah Walker’s left hand answered my question of whether or not Daddy had married the woman before we moved into her house. That realization only worsened my humiliation. The most I could say for the situation was at least there was no vow that Daddy could break this time. What would Momma have done in this situation, if her father had pulled a stunt like this? How would Billy and Albert ever know that Daddy’s actions were wrong? I hoped that the dust kicking up under my shoes would bring me some clarity.

  “Hattie, slow down,” Meg whined, “You’re goin’ too fast.”

  Somewhere between moving to Grove Hill and adjusting to life at Thorsby, I learned how to explore a new town. So, dragging Meg behind me, I stepped onto Pecan Lane, named so for the pecan trees that lined the dirt road, and headed, I hoped, in the direction of Main Street. Every little town in Alabama, and I assumed the world, had a Main Street, and I knew I would find everything that the town of Uriah, surrounded completely by cotton fields and the patches of pine trees regularly sacrificed to the Blacksher Lumber Company, had to offer if I found Main Street. A half-mile later, Meg and I stood in front of Main Street Fashions, the one dress store in Uriah, and looked right and left. To the right were a bank and a Baptist Church, which meant I had just become a Baptist. At the time, little towns like Uriah rarely had more than one church, so whatever the church was: Baptist, Pentecostal, Methodist, or Episcopalian, that's what we became. To the left were the Cotton Café, a farmers’ co-op, the Blacksher Lumber Store, and the local law enforcement. That was it. That was all Uriah had to offer. I grabbed Meg’s hand again and headed to the Blacksher Lumber Store. From the look of the Coca Cola sign out front, I guessed that the store sold all sorts of dry goods and supplies, along with cold Cokes.

  I bought a Coke for Meg and me to share with money Aunt Mittie had given to me before we left Luverne that morning. I didn’t want to take the money, because I knew Mittie really couldn’t afford to give any, but she insisted. The look on Mittie’s face as Daddy backed the truck away from her house was almost more than I could bear.

  Meg and I sat down on the edge of the wooden porch in front of the store. Ms. Jenkins would have surely scolded me for sitting on the floor with my legs dangling over the edge, but Daddy had thrown propriety out the window as soon as he kissed Sarah Walker. The Coke was cold and crisp and tasted great on such a hot afternoon. That year, it stayed in the eighties right through November. I tried to let the drink cool me off, but nothing was going to help that afternoon. Daddy’s fresh start had become pointedly clear. Alone in the woods near the hotel, I had promised Momma that I would love him no matter what, but I also knew she expected more out of us than to live like this. I decided right then to take my life into my own hands.

  “Meg, let’s find the school. Daddy said there was a school here,” I said as I stood and headed to the door, “It shouldn’t be hard to find.”

  Meg polished off the Coke, and we headed back inside the store. The proprietor told me that we needed to walk to the end of Main Street and then turn left on Route 21. Ten minutes later, we were standing at the intersection.

  I knew if I turned right onto Route 21, I would eventually reach Frisco City. I could have probably hitchhiked the fifteen miles or so, but knew there wasn’t much left for me there. I could visit Momma; bring her fresh wildflowers, and then what? Should I lie down next to the small marker and pray for the millionth time that she come back to me? Momma was dead. She wasn’t coming back no matter how badly I wanted her. Should I try to fig
ure out whose baby was buried in the unmarked grave near Momma? That baby was dead. I guess he or she didn’t matter anymore. I couldn’t bring Momma back to life or change Daddy. And I couldn’t go back to the way things were before the trial, to a time before I learned that my supposedly happy family was anything but happy. I couldn’t forget what I had learned during the trial. That version of my life was done.

  I could, however, scratch out a life that would one day make me happy. I could have something of my own. Standing at that intersection, I decided to turn left toward the school, as the man at the general store had instructed. Not even two blocks later, Meg and I stood in front of Blacksher School, a large, white building named for what appeared to be the big fish of Uriah. It wasn’t quite as impressive as Thorsby, but it would definitely do. Daddy could have his fresh start, but I was going to have mine, too. I was halfway up the walkway before Meg stopped me.

  “Hattie, what are you doing?” Meg asked.

  “I’m going to enroll us. Don’t you want to go to school?” I asked, and then Momma’s voice found life, “or maybe you’d like to spend your days cleaning Sarah Walker’s house?” It took Meg about two seconds to catch up with me.

  “But don’t you think Daddy should do this?” Meg asked.

  “I’m not leaving this up to him.”

  I gave Meg a stern look and grabbed her hand as we walked into Blacksher for the first time. I could see straight through the windows along the back wall of the foyer. The school was a series of corridors built in a square around an open-air garden, and it was lovely. The windows let in an abundance of sunshine, and the garden was well groomed with benches and picnic tables placed alongside the flowers and shade trees. I quickly found the principal’s office, smoothed my hair, squared my shoulders, and opened the door. A plump, cheerful secretary looked up from a dark wooden desk.