A Sliver of Sun

by Dianna Dorisi Winget

  “Okay, coming,” she said. She turned her nose up and brushed past me.

  Ginger gave me a sad look and shook her head. She followed Ben up to the counter. But I stayed put, curling and uncurling my fingers, while the blood pounded in my ears. Then I edged up to the stack of fertilizer and carefully tugged the top bag off the pile. It landed on the floor with a gentle “whomp” and split open, spilling its brown and black innards all over the floor. I carefully spread the mess across the aisle with the side of my foot before I walked up to stand on Ben’s other side.

  “We’re open till seven each night during the week,” Angela chatted into the phone. “And six on Saturdays.”

  I shook from the effort of trying to hold back my laughter as Ben handed over a credit card and signed the receipt a minute later.

  Angela’s uncle pumped Ben’s hand. “Appreciate the business,” he said. “Y’all have a great rest of your evening.”

  “Thank you much,” Ben said. “I’ll probably be back for some paint later on.”

  Mr. Griffon winked at me, and I felt a tiny spark of guilt for wasting a bag of his Walt’s Best—premium, organic fertilizer. But then Angela gave us a fake smile and said, “See ya at school,” and I figured if Mr. Griffon had half an idea what his niece was really like he wouldn’t mind too awful much.

  We were nearly to the door when Angela let out a gasp. “Oh no,” she wailed. “Look at this mess.”

  I knew better than to turn around, but I just couldn’t help it. And as soon as I did, Angela locked her gaze onto mine, and her face turned the color of a beet, and she looked mad enough to spit one of those nails that Ben carried in his paper bag.

  “Aw, now, it’s nothing that can’t be fixed,” Mr. Griffon said. “Guess you shouldn’t have stacked them so high. You know where the broom is.”

  Ginger raised her eyebrows in alarm, and the laughter bubbled in my chest as I scooted out the door after Ben.

  Chapter Fourteen

  We stopped at Mr. B’s Pizzeria on our way home, and Ben bought a take-and- bake pizza so Mama wouldn’t have to cook us supper. I figured Mama needing to stay off her feet might turn out to be a good thing.

  “What did you do back there in the lumber store?” Ginger asked, as soon as Ben went in to buy pizza.

  “What makes you think I did anything?”

  “Cause of the look on your face.”

  I giggled. “I just spilled one of those little bags of fertilizer is all.”

  Ginger opened her mouth and closed it again. She shook her head.

  “What?” I said. “She more than deserved it. I think we ought to work some more on that book report when we get home.”

  Ginger smiled, and we both started to laugh. But she hushed me when Ben came back to the truck. So I kept my face to the open window and grinned into the rushing wind.

  When we got home, Mama was sitting in the recliner with her feet up, looking all proper and innocent, but the batch of chocolate chip cookies cooling on the counter gave her away. I studied her face, trying to tell if she was still put out with me for my comment about the baby, but she didn’t seem upset. “How was the lumber store?” she asked.

  “It was good,” I said. “We got gumballs.”

  “You did?” Ben said. “How come you didn’t get me one?”

  I stared at him, caught off guard. Then it dawned on me it might be a perfect chance to make him happy instead of mad. I fumbled in my pocket for the yellow gumball. “Here, I got two of ’em.”

  His eyes flared with surprise. “Aw, thanks, Piper Lee. But I was only teasing. You keep it.”

  I figured he was only doing me a favor, but my heart still shrank as I slipped the gumball back in my pocket. Would he have taken Ginger’s white speckled one if she’d offered?

  “We got pizza for supper, Mama,” Ginger said. “So you don’t have to cook.

  “I see that,” she said. “We can have an early supper, and I can get started cleaning out the storage room.”

  “No,” Ben said, in a voice that made even Mama jump. “The girls can do it.”

  Mama put her fingertips to her forehead, but one corner of her mouth lifted. “Ginger,” she said, “go on and preheat the oven for us. I’d do it myself, but I’m sure your daddy wouldn’t allow it.”

  Ben gave Mama a tight smile. “I’m starting to feel mighty unappreciated,” he said. “I’ll be out unloading the truck if y’all need me.”

  Mama giggled as he strode out the door. “Aw,” she said, “now I feel like a big, ol’ meanie. One of you girls need to take him out a cookie.”

  “I would,” Ginger said, “but I gotta go pee real bad.”

  Mama watched Ginger speed down the hall before she turned back to me. “Go ahead then, Piper Lee. Take him one for me.”

  I swallowed. He’d already rejected my gumball. I didn’t wanna give him a chance to reject something else. “Why?”

  “Cause it’ll make him feel better, that’s why.”

  “How come you don’t do it?”

  “Cause I’m ‘sposed to be sitting down, ‘member. That’s what the whole conversation was about.”

  My insides started to quiver. “But … what if he don’t want one?”

  “Bet he does.”

  I couldn’t think of anything more to argue. I picked up one of the chocolate chip cookies and headed out the door. Ben was rummaging around in the cab of the truck, his back to me.

  I crept up behind him. “Here,” I said.

  He whirled around so fast he whacked the back of his head on the door frame. “What the …” He scowled at me and rubbed his head. “Don’t you know better than to sneak up on a prison guard?”

  I gulped. “S—sorry.” I held out the cookie like a shield between us. “Mama said to give you this.”

  Ben studied the cookie, and his face softened. “Did she now?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, then,” he said. He winked at me and reached for the cookie. “Guess only a fool would turn down a chocolate chip cookie. Thanks, Piper Lee.” He turned back to the truck.

  I’m not sure if it was the wink, or my great relief that he’d accepted the cookie, but something told me it was the perfect chance to ask about Ramsay’s daddy. I cleared my throat. “Uh … Ben? Do you happen to know a prisoner by name of Mr. Joseph Tate?”

  Ben grew still for a second, then slowly turned to face me again. “Now why would you be asking me somethin’ like that?”

  I swallowed. Maybe he didn’t talk about work on account of all that stuff being confidential. Maybe I was even breaking some sort of law by asking. But it was too late now. “Cause his son’s in my class. And he’s kinda worried about him because they usually write letters, but he hasn’t heard from his daddy in over a month.”

  Ben studied me while I babbled my explanation. Then he took a bite of cookie and seemed to mull things over while he chewed. “What’s this boy’s name?” he finally asked.

  I rocked back on my heels. “Ramsay. Ramsay Tate.”

  “I know his dad,” Ben said.

  “You do? So, is he sick or somethin?”

  Ben ate the rest of the cookie and brushed the crumbs from his hands. “He’s not sick, he’s in solitary.”

  “Solitary? That means he’s all alone?”

  “For now.”

  Ben looked at me like his answer should’ve explained everything, but all it did was make more questions spring to mind. “Can he get letters?”

  “No communication when you’re in solitary. No phone calls, no TV, no visits, no nothin’.”

  “So, what do you do all day?”

  Ben raised his eyebrows. “Well, if you’ve got a lick of sense, you think on what got ya’ there, and how you can avoid it in the future.”

  “Oh.” I looked away from his gaze. “But Ramsay said he only has one more year to serve.”

  Ben sniffed. “Might’ve been true before he attacked a guard. It’s lookin’ pretty doubtful now.”

&nbs
p; “He attacked a guard?”

  “Took part in the prison riot last month.”

  My eyes widened. I looked at the red line of stitches above Ben’s eye. “The riot you were in?”

  “One and the same.”

  “Poor Ramsay,” I breathed. “I don’t think he knows. How long will his daddy be in solitary?”

  “Depends on if he behaves himself. Probably a few months.”

  I was stunned. A few months? I thought of how Ben had made Ginger and me stand by the trees for the better part of an hour—how that had felt like forever. I couldn’t imagine bein’ by yourself for months. “He has to sit in a jail cell all that time?”

  “He gets out an hour and half every day for exercise.”

  “That still sounds pretty awful.”

  “Shoulda thought of that ‘fore he screwed up.”

  I gave Ben a helpless look. “What should I tell Ramsay?”

  “You ought to just keep quiet. It’s best not to get involved in what don’t concern you.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, softly, as the weight of his words settled on my shoulders. But Ramsay was so worried about his daddy, how could I not tell him what I knew? It’d be the same as lying, and that didn’t seem right, or fair.

  An awkward silence closed around us, and I took a step back. “Well, thanks,” I said.

  I looked down at the ground as I headed back to the house. I’d done it. I’d had an honest to goodness conversation with Ben. But it was hard to feel good about it. I’d promised Ramsay I’d have news for him by Monday. What in the world was I ‘sposed to say?

  I’d hoped to work more on Ginger’s book report after supper, but Ben set us to work emptying out the storage closet instead. Mama hovered nearby and gave directions while Ginger and I sorted and cleaned and packed armloads of stuff out to the garage.

  I was glad when bedtime finally came so I could wash the dust and grime from my hands and be alone with my thoughts for a while. I lay in the darkness and thought about Angela and what I’d done in the lumber store. And I thought about Ramsay, what exactly I should tell him. But for some reason, my thoughts kept veering back to Ben refusing my offer of the gumball. Sure, he’d taken the cookie, but that was from Mama so it didn’t count.

  I knew it was plain silly to fret over something as goofy as a gumball, but I really wanted to know why he didn’t take it. Was it like he said—he’d been teasing about wanting one to begin with? Or was it that he really did want one, just not from me? I listened to Ginger’s quiet breathing coming from the top bunk, and tried to remember if her daddy had ever accepted anything from me. But then again, what had I ever offered?

  I decided to try an experiment. I’d find something nice, something Ben was sure to like, and offer it to him. If he took it, then I’d know this whole gumball thing was just my imagination. But if he didn’t take it, then I’d have proof he really didn’t like me.

  • • •

  The next morning after breakfast, Ben started tearing off the back wall of the storage room. And the best part was, he let me and Ginger help. He gave each of us a pair of leather gloves and a hammer and showed us how to use the metal claw part to wedge under a nail or a board, and then he let us have at it. Ginger was slow and careful and winced every time I thwacked the hammer within two feet of her. But I thought it was great fun to demolish a wall, and I was disappointed when the whole tearing down and destroying part was done in only two hours.

  Mama brought us out a pitcher of ice water, and all four of us stood back and looked at the big gaping hole left by the missing wall. “Looky there,” I said, “now we can go in and outta’ the house without using the door.”

  “Not for long, I hope,” Mama said. “Wild animals might come in.”

  Ben smirked. “That cat of Piper Lee’s is the only wild animal around these parts. But I’ll have it closed back in by the time I go to work tomorrow afternoon.”

  Ginger and I spent the rest of the morning in the shade beneath the trampoline, working on Angela’s book report, with the constant music of screeching and banging and drilling in the background. I didn’t mind any of the noise except for the skill saw. Whenever Ben started sawing a board, I plugged my ears against the high pitch scream.

  There was a half hour of quiet when Mama made Ben stop for a lunch of tuna fish sandwiches, carrot sticks and chocolate chip cookies. And right about the time he went back to work, a fancy silver car pulled into the driveway and rolled up close to the porch.

  “Know who that is?” I asked.

  Ginger shook her head. “Do you?”

  “Course not,” I said. “This is your house.” But as soon as the driver climbed out with her big floppy sun hat and crooked smile, I knew it was Hattie Pierson. “It’s Mama’s boss,” I said, “from the Black-eyed Pea.” I scrambled out from under the trampoline. “Hey, there, Miss Hattie.”

  “Well, hello yourself, Piper Lee. I was hoping this was the right place. How’s your mama doing?”

  “She’s s’posed to stay off her feet,” I said. “But she’s not listening so well.”

  Miss Hattie laughed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” She held out hand to Ginger. “You must be Ginger. I’ve heard a fair bit about you and your daddy.”

  Ginger beamed. “You have?”

  “Of course. All good things, mind you.” She looked back at me. “So where is that mama of yours? I brought something for her.” She opened the back door of her car and hefted a black garbage sack into her arms. “Baby clothes, from all us gals at work.”

  “Oh,” was all I could think to say. “Come on, she’s inside.”

  Mama sat at the kitchen table thumbing through one her Woman’s Way magazines. She grabbed her cheeks when she saw who was behind us.

  “Hattie!”

  “Afternoon, Heather. I stopped by to see if you were following doctor’s orders or not.” She waddled across to Mama’s chair and set the black bag at her feet. “And to bring you these.”

  Mama leaned forward and peered into the sack. “My goodness, what’s all this?”

  “For your new young one,” Miss Hattie said with a wink. “From Clara Sue and Bitsy and me. We all sorted through our old baby things.”

  Mama clapped her hands like a little kid. “Well, this is wonderful, Hattie. Thank you so much. These will be so fun to look through.” She pulled out green footed pajamas with an alligator on the front and giggled. “Oh, this is just precious.”

  “We had no idea whether you’re having a boy or girl, so we just pooled everything in there together. Some will work for either, of course.”

  “Of course,” Mama said. She pulled out a tiny pink onesie with a ruffle on the back. “Oh … my, you forget how tiny everything is.” She turned it toward Ginger and I. “Look girls, bet you can’t believe you used to wear things this small.”

  I tried not to gag. I prayed that Mama had never dressed me in a pink onesie with a ruffled butt.

  “So what do you think of getting a new little brother or sister?” Miss Hattie asked. I figured the question was probably aimed at both of us girls, but she was looking straight at me, and it tied my tongue up in knots.

  “The girls are still warming up to the idea,” Mama answered, giving Miss Hattie a knowing look. “It’ll be a big change, for sure. Piper Lee, get our guest a glass of sweet tea.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, glad for something to do.

  The whine of the skill saw filled the air, but it wasn’t so bad inside the house.

  “You’ll have to excuse all the ruckus,” Mama said. “Ben’s building us a nursery.”

  “How exciting,” Miss Hattie said. “Do you have your colors picked out?”

  I expected Mama to ask what colors she was talking about, but I guess I was the only one who didn’t understand, ’cause Mama started talking about how she’d probably stick with sea green, since that would work for a boy or a girl, and how she’d decided on a farm animal theme.

  My heart shrank as I liste
ned to Mama’s bubbly voice. I wanted to go back to working on the book report, if for no other reason than to get away from all the baby talk, but Ginger settled herself on the floor next to the bag of clothes and didn’t look like she planned on moving anytime soon. So I handed Miss Hattie her sweet tea, and hung around, fidgeting as Mama ooohhed and awwwwwed over each stupid outfit she pulled from the bag. And just when I didn’t think I could stand it a second longer, some interesting stuff started coming out of the sack. First some stray quarters, then a couple pens, and a small book on cabinet repair.

  “Oh, goodness,” Miss Hattie said, “see what happens when you bag up stuff that’s been sitting in your garage for who knows how long?” She set the odds and ends aside in a small pile.

  I didn’t pay much attention until Mama pulled a baseball cap from the bag. It was olive green corduroy with the silhouette of an eagle embroidered on front.

  “Well, looky there, Piper Lee,” Mama said. “It’s a lot like your aviator cap.”

  “You like caps?” Miss Hattie asked me. “I’ve got no use for it. Would you like it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Thanks.” She tossed it to me, and I traced my little finger over the soft ribbing of the eagle. The hat had a plastic strap in back with holes punched to adjust the size, and I knew I could make it fit. But I had a better idea.

  Ben liked caps, and this was a nice one.

  It was just the thing to carry out my experiment.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I still hadn’t decided what to say to Ramsay by the time he caught me in the hallway the next morning. He shook the bangs from his face and leaned forward with puppy-dog eager eyes. “Did ya’ ask him?”

  I swallowed. “Uh, yeah, I asked him.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He knows him.”

  “And he’s okay?”

  “Yeah. He’s not sick or anything.”

  Ramsay grinned, and relief spread over his face like a mask. “What else did he say?”

  I scratched my cheek real slow and careful as my mind raced. This was my chance to get off the hook. To say Ben hadn’t told me anything more. But Ramsay looked so hopeful, like he was just sure I had the answers. And I thought about how much I’d hated not knowing the truth about my own daddy. The years I’d spent hoping he might come back, while my mind meandered all kinds of crazy directions trying to guess the truth about what had really happened to him. And I figured that’s probably what Ramsay’s mind had been doing too—coming up with all kinds of guesses about why his daddy had stopped writing him. He was sick, one of the prisoners had done something awful to him … he didn’t love him anymore. And even though I knew the truth would hurt, it wouldn’t hurt as bad as all the guessing.