A warm steady rain starts as soon as she unwinds. Lumbering into the kitchen, she brings the Gazette out of her bag, folding it into thirds. She smells the oppressive, heavy ink and paper, and crouches in front of the sink. She grunts and shifts to her achy knees, pulls out one of four brown boxes and files the newspaper inside. Naomi has every edition of the Gazette from the last twelve years. She holds onto everything she can in this world, saving what she loves, like a girl with jewels in her pocket.
Done with the paper she opens the upper cabinets, reckons the number of cans, and finally puts away her purchases; the highest shelf packed with twenty cans of neatly stacked tuna and the lower fit with twenty cans of shrimp. It is her habit to list her kitchen every morning and go to market every afternoon. She is agitated and worried when her groceries are low. Naomi stands in the middle of the room when everything is put away, cracking her knuckles against her thighs. Calm.
Thank you Mother Mary. She sits down at the small table, pushes her difficult curls behind her ears and eats her dinner, calmly thumping her feet against the foot of her chair and staring at the perfect place setting in front of her. The day she moved into this tight, comfortable coop, she had set out a plate and service on the chance, or hope, Sheriff Riddle would stop for a visit, or maybe dinner. It seemed to her that he always turned up at just the right time. But after saving her the second time, he never made it by.
The kitchen scrubbed to a shine, she puts away the extra plates. She fills a cup with water, fills two bowls with tuna, and takes them outside. Naomi sits on her little yellow garden stool, next to the fence siding Mr. Baldacci’s lot, and taps her heels. She waits, hoping to see the kittens, every now and then checking on her azaleas and watching the sky. The showers take a break for the moment as the storm holds steady on the coast, but rumbling and fickle.
She calls out to the feral and her babies by clicking her tongue. The fleecy grey mother slides from behind a bush, rubbing against the fence. She has a giant matted knot on her chest and her left eye oozes. The kittens dart from behind her, nervous, crisscrossing in front of their mother’s legs. Whiskers twitching, she cautiously sniffs at the food. It has been over a year since Naomi took to feeding them and still the feline is cautious, keeping guard while her young ones eat. They make purring sounds in their throats and Naomi hums along.
It grows dark and the sky is sprinkling by the time she wafts inside, locking the door behind her. She makes her way through the moonlit kitchen and to the bathroom. She takes a long hot shower, then eases into her soft flannel gown, crawls into bed. When she is still and the night silent, she begins to think too much about one simple thing—with Sheriff Riddle gone, there is no one waiting to save her.
Beneath her soft popcorn coverlet, fingers holding the edge tight up to her chin, she begins counting each fluffy crocheted tuft. Her room is dark save the streetlight shining through the front window. The counting calms her, her breath sounds like the breeze. Counting through to twenty she stops and starts again; each time she counts to twenty and each time she grows more and more tired.
A shrill voice barks from the apartment upstairs. “Boy! You better clean up this milk or I’ll give you something to cry about.” Angry footsteps pound across Naomi’s ceiling and she hears a muted, padded slap. The little boy’s tired cries come next.
She tightens her eyelids, begins to count again. Bang! Bang! The ceiling vibrates. Tiny, clumsy footsteps of a brand new walker stumble across the apartment upstairs and into the room just overhead. Oggie seems to trip once but doesn’t cry. She hears his bedroom door slam shut.
“You stay in there until I tell you to come out. Momma’s having a friend over.” Naomi had heard those words before.
There’s a loud pounding on the front door and the woman flies down the stairs. It’s a man. Naomi can hear their moans and murmurs. They make her stomach hurt. The door slams shut and their footsteps trail away. Soon the house is alive with very different noises. Naomi starts her counting again.
SHERRY
“SHERRY,” MR. SHEPPARD peers across the round table and over the girl’s ice cream soda, staring at her sternly. “I’m taking you to see a friend of mine.”
“Pardon?” Sherry Garland pushes her tall glass away, looks at him, and gracelessly wipes her mouth on the back of her hand. She is done with the ice cream but still famished. Trying not to stare at the plate of potato chips in front of him, she smiles.
“Girl, are you really that slow?”
He and her father had grown up in Goshen, a small, factory town in Suffolk County, about two hours east, on the coast. They shared an odd and sentimental kinship, though Mr. Sheppard was always higher in community standing. Their talks were usually about running hooch on back roads, her father’s former pastime, and playing high school baseball in the swampy back fields. Mr. Sheppard would give her a dollar on her birthday and bring the family a ham for Christmas. She remembers him at their table for Easter dinners and drinking with her daddy on the occasional Saturday night.
Her father died of cancer when she was fifteen. He had spent forty-odd years working for, smoking, and chewing Coward Tobacco. He spent his last few months coughing blood and losing time. Soon after Daddy passed, Mr. Sheppard gave Sherry’s mother a job waiting the counter at his little pharmacy on Rail Avenue. This was a greater kindness than one might imagine, as Sherry’s mother was a few stalks shy of a full bale and wouldn’t have been able to hold a job elsewhere. She had always been the kind of woman who needed a helping hand.
Her mother had been fond of saying, “Not much in this world without a man, baby girl. You’ll see.” The woman had always been too proud of her looks and, after Daddy died, she took comfort in the idea of becoming a wife again. Sherry often recalls the last time they spoke. She was leaving for school. Mother stood in the bathroom, knobby fingers working hair cream through her ends, sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes she had snuck out of Mr. Sheppard’s store.
“If this date goes well, maybe we can move away from here. I think he’s from Florida. I’d have to read the letter again. But, wouldn’t that be nice, baby?” Her red-tipped fingers carefully smoothed her hair into separated strands and tied them with strips of ripped sheets. She had a movie magazine on the vanity and kept looking at it, posing. Mother had placed an ad in the lonely-hearts section of the Suffolk Sentinel. She told her daughter there was a man coming to take her on a date that evening.
She turned toward Sherry and frowned.
“You should let me do your hair, honey.” A trace of pity. Breezy sadness for her awkward girl.
“No. Really, it’s okay.” Sherry took a step away from mother.
Sure enough, a shady fella in a light blue Bonneville eased down the dirt path toward their little house around 9:00 p.m. The curtains and furniture reeked of mother’s cheap perfume and cigarettes. He honked his horn. There was a rush of goodbyes as she flitted out the door.
“Shouldn’t he come to the door, Momma?” Sherry said to her mother, who was already off the porch.
Mrs. Garland never came home. The constable, as well as the rest of Coward, thought she probably just ran away. No matter, Sherry never saw her mother again.
Later, when the bank tried to take her daddy’s house, Mr. Sheppard, being a good Christian, helped her pay off the note. He gave her the counter job at his pharmacy. As for school, she was always a sore thumb in her small class, and jumped at the chance to quit. In a way, she was grateful. Mr. Sheppard never asked for anything in return and, until recently, never seemed to care about her life beyond the pharmacy.
“You listening?” She has drifted a million miles and he snaps his fingers at her.
“Yes. Sorry.” She shifts uncomfortably in the wooden seat and shakes her head. The ceiling fan moves the heavy, humid air. The sky outside the big store windows clouds over.
“With all due respect, I can’t have customers coming in and taking offense to you. You do realize how much you’re showing?”
“Oh. No.” Her hands automatically reach for her hard stomach. “I thought with the apron, I was fine.” Little kicks inside her.
“Certainly not. But like I said, I have a friend. He’s in Goshen. A preacher. His church helps girls in your predicament.” His voice drops to a whisper and his eyes look around the empty store. Her belly tightens. Relaxes.
Five months ago, afraid she might be sick or even dying, Sherry asked Mr. Sheppard for something to settle her stomach. She had been violently ill for weeks, unable to keep anything down, positive she had no insides left.
He noted that despite her illness, she was growing rounder, fuller. With her hands covering her face, embarrassed, she told him she had also been spotting blood a little every day but without her full cycle.
“I wouldn’t even mention it but, I think there might be something really wrong,” she had said. After several sensitive and grown-up questions, he explained her condition, her predicament. To her relief, he had never asked about the father.
“Get a few things together. They have nurses and a clinic. You can stay there for a little while, after the child comes.” He pulls the napkin from his collar and wipes his mouth, smearing mayonnaise along his chin.
“Really?”
“Get going. I’ll pick you up tomorrow morning. Oh, and wear something nice. It is a church after all.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sheppard. I am grateful.”
He waves her off with liver-spotted hands.
Outside, a sulfury gust from the Chawnee Paper Mill three miles up the coast sweeps through town, touching air already tossed with pungent tobacco. It hadn’t rained, though the sky had threatened and the air feels heavy. She steps over the double set of train tracks and crosses to the dark side of Coward. Here there are deep ditches, abandoned train cars and equipment, and the rundown neighborhood where only black families live.
Locals call it Half Town. Sherry’s house is less than a mile south of Half Town. She trips down the weedy ditch, clutching a bag of sugar packets and chocolate bars nicked from the pharmacy, making her way to the other side when she hears an engine cough and sputter off.
“All right y’all,” the driver hollers out and bangs on the door.
“Night,” a chorus of tired voices returns.
The Coward Tobacco pickup truck rolls to a halt and the back falls down with a metal screech and a rusty clatter.
“Diggs! I appreciate you all taking the extra shift,” a tired voice calls out in the sultry night.
“We thank you, sir. A fat paycheck is always welcome.”
Marcus Diggs walks over the tracks and into the dark, heading home with his mother and oldest sister. All three work at the factory. Sherry knows he has two younger sisters as well, and they all live in a one-room shack near the edge of Half Town. A handful of other folks follow behind.
Sherry stops and hides behind a rusty sheet of railcar left behind years ago. She has never been one for socializing. When she hears Marcus’ voice, she feels like calling out to him or running away. She remembers the last time they were together.
“Sher, you are the best part of my day, but we can’t do this anymore,” he had said.
They had been sitting close in the shadows of her porch, warm arms resting against each other, listening to WHET out of Suffolk. The talk programs were over and they were waiting for Bandstand. The summer sun had drifted to the horizon and the edge of the sky was a fiery orange. His skin smelled of fresh-cut tobacco and his white oxford smelled of homemade lavender soap.
The first time they met, Marcus’ mother, Lottie Diggs, had sent him to Sherry’s house a week after her mother disappeared. He brought biscuits, fried chicken, and Lottie’s condolences.
Marcus dragged his feet for nearly four months before he finally called on her, in the dark, in secret. After three weeks, he held her hand. Took him two months to gather his courage and kiss her. Their first time together was their first time ever—painful for her and embarrassing for him. But the more time they spent together the easier it became. He had been the only one to touch her since her mother disappeared, and she was glad she let him in.
“I can’t keep sneaking out. Someone’s going to catch me,” he said.
A small, exasperated groan whispered from her lips. She started biting on the inside of her mouth. Marcus held his head in his hands. His words had come as a shock, a kick to her swollen gut.
“My younger sister keeps asking all kinds of questions about where I go and what I do.” He shook his head, rubbing his hand over his face, nervous. “She’s gonna follow me. I know she is. She’s a nosy pain like that.”
What they did, how they felt about each other had been a secret, a sweet gift just for them. Out of that came her other secret, the one growing fast inside her. He was leaving her, too. Taken aback, she just listened and frowned. No, this is not how it should be.
“You know, a bunch a men killed two kids up in Suffolk about a month ago. It was a couple; they were parked off in the woods. I heard they hung them, Sher.” A soft breath passed between them and he stared at her a moment, letting the truth sink and settle.
She knew they would never be like everyone else. They would never drive down the main street and cruise with the other kids. They would never sit side by side at the movies. Her house was the only safe place.
“They even killed her. And she was white.”
“Please, just stop talking.” Hush. Hush your stupid, stupid mouth Marcus Diggs. You weren’t supposed to say this or do this. You weren’t supposed to leave me. Cicadas sang themselves to sleep in the yard, a wave of sound rising and falling.
“It’s not just me, Sherry. If people find out about us, they might hurt my mom or sisters.” He shook his head. “I can’t let anything happen to them. I’m all they got.” He looked at her and she looked at the floorboards.
“Do you understand? Please tell me you understand.” He leaned back, frustrated, and put his forehead to her shoulder.
“You should probably go now.” Her voice was no more than a whisper and flat as a board. Leaning forward, she picked up his half-empty soda, pilfered from Mr. Sheppard’s pharmacy, finished it, and wiped her mouth on the back of her shaking hand.
She stood up quickly, almost lost her balance, and stepped to the front door, opened it hard, smacked her forehead on the frame. She slipped inside the house, rubbing her head. She couldn’t turn to look at him. She just couldn’t. Locking the door behind her, she shut off the front porch light, leaving him in the dark. You weren’t supposed to be right. I know you’re all they have and I have nothing.
The Coward truck starts up, jerking Sherry back from her sad memories. The night shift workers clamber across the street and climb into the truck, replacing the day shift, slamming the tailgate. The driver shifts into gear and the truck lurches, jerking everyone forward. It bounces toward the factory, men and women laughing and coughing.
Quiet takes over again and only the breeze stirs, a pain like a pointy shard of glass stabs at her insides. The pain is familiar to her by now, but the spasms, like a hand bellows working inside her, are stronger every day. She has to get home soon. One step closer.
She pushes on her bump and lifts the weight off her tender, swollen insides. There is another shocking kick of pain and her knees buckle, threatening to let her down. She cries out and at last, just as suddenly, the pain lifts. The knot inside her, the lump of alien life, rolls all the way over, worms to the other side and curls into a small ball. Her insides feel alive.
The night clears and the moon glows, stars like crystal angels. The heavens look bigger than before, stretching and opening. She thinks of a Christmas song from when she was young and still knew the words. Way up in the sky little lamb.
“A child, a child sleeping in the night, will bring us goodness and light.” She shakes her head and rubs the back of her hand over her mouth. “He will bring us goodness and light.”
She holds her belly steady with one hand and grasps her stolen
treats with the other. Slowly she makes it up the steep, prickly incline. Once home and just before bed, she packs for her first trip anywhere. She looks through her dresser drawers, choosing her best undergarments, anything without holes or loose elastic. She has no idea what to expect from a real doctor’s visit. Her mother took her only a handful of times as a child.
She takes one of her mother’s old suitcases from the top of the closet, packing her hairbrush and toothbrush. She has only one nightgown, stained with bright orange Nehi on the front. She knows it shouldn’t matter. It’s a church, after all, and the church will always take care of you. She closes up her bag and sets it next to the front door.
She darts around in circles for a time, debating what to wear in the morning. Her father was the only one in the family to step inside a chapel, much less pray. Once he died so did his habits, so she has nothing fancy, nothing for church. Nothing will fit properly now anyhow. She chooses a yellow pleated skirt, and one of her father’s starched white button downs. Neither fits terribly well. Her stomach pushes out the top tab on the skirt and the shirt barely buttons around. Soft brown flats will do. She puts everything out for the morning, turns off her bedside lamp, and lies down.
Flat on her back, she watches her stomach roll. She sees the point, an elbow or a foot, jut forward. She pokes it with her finger. It pushes back. She pokes again. It responds in kind. Sherry plays the game once more and this time the little limb moves away, sulking.
NAOMI
NAOMI WAKES IN the morning with a film of perspiration spreading across her skin. Despite the noise, the heat, and her generally nervous nature, her sleep had been deep and undeterred. She feels like she’s coming out of deep, deep darkness. She lumbers to the window, breeze puckering her skin, and sees Mr. Baldacci reach over the fence, pick up her empty cat bowls, and throw them in his silver trashcan.
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