The Daughters of Julian Dane

by Lucile McCluskey

  Dear, sweet, gently Ben, she thought as she stared at the untouched sandwich. Would this bring on questions from him about Addie’s biological father? That was something else he would never understand. It wasn’t as though she had deliberately kept a secret from him – it was just something else in her life that she didn’t understand. And for the unnumbered time, the scene played itself again in her mind.

  She had only been fifteen years old when she walked down that country lane alone that day, the last Friday in March. The school bus had let her and her two younger sisters, Henrietta and Johnnie, out where the lane met the blacktop road. They had to walk nearly a fourth of a mile through the woods to the old farmhouse they rented. The two younger girls had run on ahead, anxious to devour whatever food mama had waiting for them. But she was not in a hurry to get back to their house for fear that Odell would be there. And that day she had a special reason for lingering behind.

  She was searching the path for the stub of a pencil she had lost, and which needed to last her until Monday when Odell would give each of them a new one which had to last a whole month. The teacher had loaned her one to get through the day, but now, she had to get her lessons for Monday.

  She walked slowly, her head down, searching. Suddenly, a man’s feet and pants legs appeared in front of her. Odell! Her heart almost stopped in fear. The scene flashed through her mind instantly of the day her mother had sent her to find her older sister, Jimmy Lee. She had followed the sound of muffled voices to a crack in the boards of the old barn, and saw Odell and her sister, Jimmy Lee. Odell had her down in the hay, one hand over her mouth as she tried to scream and struggled to push him off her, his other hand was pulling at her sister’s clothing. He was threatening her, demanding she keep quiet.

  She had run back to the house for her mother, who then fled to the barn with the butcher knife, that she wore in a belt at her waist, raised for action. Odell had had it in for her ever since. Now she’d pay for it! Should she take off running through the woods? Could she outrun him? Would anybody hear her if she screamed?

  “Come,” said the softest, kindest voice she had ever heard. It wasn’t Odell’s harsh voice. Breathing a sigh of relief, she slowly looked up to see the strangest man she had ever laid eyes on. He was big, tall and well built, and wore rather odd-looking clothes, and had the reddest hair. It was the color of sun ripened strawberries. His eyes were without expression of any kind, and they were green, a sparkling, piercing, emerald green. Slowly, gently, he raised his arms toward her and repeated. “Come.”

  His eyes – they held hers. She was powerless to look away, and for some strange reason, she didn’t want to. He took a step towards her and gently took both her hands in his. “Come with me,” he said, but his lips didn’t move. “You’re not going to be afraid. This has to be,” he added. She remembered wondering how she could hear him when his lips didn’t move. And she faintly recalled him leading her into the woods to a lush, grassy spot, and gently lowering her to the ground. As far as she could remember, he didn’t speak another word, or she didn’t hear another word. She had been so strangely fascinated with him, so spellbound, she would have gone anywhere with him, and done anything he asked of her. She could remember him bending over her, but that was all she really could recall. It seemed like she awakened and found herself alone, lying on her back, in that spot in the woods. The late afternoon sun shining in her eyes through the budding branches of the overhead trees. She was feeling an unfamiliar, but pleasant, sensation she had never felt before. She felt so pleasurably drained, so complete. All she wanted to do was take a nap there in the warm sunshine. She lay there trying to remember what had just happened to her, until she heard Henrietta running down the lane, calling her name.

  She had first become aware that something was different with her body almost two months later, on her sixteenth birthday. Her breasts had continued to be sore and swollen long after her period should have begun, and hadn’t. She had awakened that morning, the last day of school – report card day – to the smell of coffee brewing and bacon frying. Instead of it making her want to hurry to breakfast, it made her so nauseated she could hardly dress herself.

  When she refused breakfast, then rushed out the back door just in time to throw up, her mother demanded to know if she had missed her period. She nodded her head, as she hung over the back porch railing. Her mother started screaming obscenities at Odell and apparently had drawn the butcher knife, intending to use it on him.

  The screen door was flung open, and Odell’s heavy footsteps were running across the back porch, as he yelled that he didn’t know anything about it, but sure as hell was going to find out.

  He had grabbed her by the hair, jerking her to face him, demanding to know who the bastard’s father was. Bragging, “Now, I’ll get me some help around here. “Cause he’s gonna marry you. Who is he?” he screamed at her, as he yanked her hair with such force she though her neck would snap.

  “I don’t know,” she’d whimpered, hoping her mother would come to her rescue.

  “You tell me! Or I’ll beat it out of you! Now, who is he?” he had demanded, as he grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her off the porch, and flung her to the ground. He had grabbed the wash stick, a broom handle her mother used to poke the clothes down in the hot wash water.

  “I’m telling you, I don’t know! I didn’t know I was preg...” He struck her across the hip with the wash stick. Stunned by the blow, she had tried to get up, to get away from him, but she fell back down, as she saw him raise the stick again. Quickly, she rolled over and took the blow on her shoulder blade and upper arm. She had screamed just as her mother yelled, “Stop it! You son-of-a-bitch!”

  In excruciating pain, she struggled to get up again, hoping she could run before another blow struck her, but another came down across her back, knocking her to the ground face down. Her nose struck the ground so hard it blinded her and left her senseless for a few moments. Odell was screaming at her – demanding to know the name of the bastard’s father. When she had managed to raise her head, the blood was squirting from her nose, and her mother was yelling. “Hit her one more time and I’ll slit your hand off your wrist! You low down bastard!”

  When she raised up some more, she had seen her mother rushing toward Odell with the butcher knife, and Odell running toward the barn. Her mother stopped beside her, reached into her bosom and drew out a small cloth tobacco bag that she knew contained her mother’s scraped together nickels and dimes.

  “Here!” She threw it at her. “Get out of here before he comes back. He’ll have his gun! Get up! Go!”

  She had grabbed the bag from the dirt, and scrambled to her feet as fast as her pounding, hurting body would let her. For one fleeting moment she looked at her mother, pleadingly. But her mother just yelled, “Get out of here!” She had run for the dirt lane that would take her to the blacktop road – run as fast as the pain would allow, especially in her hip where he had hit her the first time. She knew she had to get away – he would kill her.

  So, holding her hand to her bleeding nose, she had run faster and faster – still, it had seemed like an eternity before she could see the road up ahead. Each step thudded in her head and was a whole new experience in pain. She had kept listening for Odell’s running footsteps, his bellowing voice, his gun. When she had finally reached the road, she stopped to get her breath. She was feeling dizzy and light headed. She wiped the blood that was running down her arm on the tail of her dress, as she wondered, ‘where is he’? Was he coming through the woods another way? Would he jump out at her any minute now? What was she to do? Where was she to go? Then she heard the noise of Ben Martin’s old beat up truck laboring down the road.

  Ben had been her salvation then, hers and her unborn child’s. But this time, Ben couldn’t help her, or her child. She had a feeling that this time she would be alone in her desperation.

  Chapter Six

  In the house on South Street, Ben was deep in thought of Addie as he wor
ked replacing the washers on the kitchen faucets. Donnie came into the room, his arms loaded with old magazines that he had cleaned out of the efficiency apartment.

  “This is the last of the trash,” he said to Ben. “Those people sure left plenty of it. I thought I’d get it all out to the porch before you got back, but they had a closet full of old newspapers and stuff.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “Some renters are like that. Now, you remember where I told you to take it to the dump?”

  “Yes, sir. And I’ll have the rest of it loaded in a few minutes.”

  “And you’re sure your aunt and uncle won’t mind your staying to help me clean?” he asked, wondering again why the boy wouldn’t let him call the Johnson’s house to get their permission? The very idea seemed to disturb him.

  “They’re glad to have me away from the house,” Donnie said as if to himself.

  Ben was wiping his hands on a cleaning cloth hanging from his pocket. “Oh, now, Son, don’t you think you’re being just a little hard on the Johnsons?” he asked as he reached into his pocket and took out a five dollar bill.

  Donnie shrugged his broad shoulders and looked down at the floor.

  Ben folded the bill and stuffed it in the boy’s jacket pocket. “There’s a little hamburger place across from the bank’s parking lot. Do you know where I mean?”

  “Yeah. Larry’s Place.”

  “That’s it. Biggest and best hamburgers in town and fries dipped in something that makes them so good you want to eat them first, especially when they’re hot. Larry has a special on. Get us two of them. Make my drink a diet. Della says I’m getting a pot on me.”

  “Yes, sir,” Donnie said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Don’t rush, and be careful.” Ben watched the boy leave and shook his head. He sure was one unhappy youngster. He felt sorry for him, but he had his own child to worry about.

  He kept listening for the phone to ring as he worked. His mind kept going over and over the whole episode with Addie, trying to figure it all out. If it wasn’t drugs, what was it that could cause her to act so strange? What had frightened her so, and who was this Nicki? He wanted to call Della again, but he was afraid she might be resting. And from the sound of her voice, something had happened after he left that had taken its toll on her. Then too, he could be worrying needlessly. Del was always telling him that he worried too much. Everything could be just fine with both of them. After all, Del said Addie was sleeping. Della could get real upset when it came to Addie. She would probably sleep right through supper and would have forgotten the whole thing by morning, or at least have some logical explanation. But how could anybody explain such hysterics? Who knows? He would just have to wait until he got home. Maybe Della could explain it, he thought as he checked all the plumbing in the main bathroom.

  His mind wandered back to Donnie Whitefield. What on earth ailed the kid? “It’s okay,” he had said when he had joined him on the front porch after calling the Johnsons. “I have to be in before ten. They go to bed at ten, and I don’t have a key.” Didn’t they trust the boy? Did they have a reason not to trust him? He certainly seemed like a good kid. What kind of people would take a teenager into their home and not give him a key to the house? Addie sure was taken by him, and the thought of Addie sent him back to worrying about her strange behavior. He dwelt on it until it was getting dark, and he heard the truck driving into the yard.

  “Did you have any trouble?” Ben asked the boy as he came into the kitchen of the house where he was repairing a door hinge.

  He handed Ben a white paper bag and a soft drink cup, and said, “No, sir. But it took a little longer to unload all that trash. I put the change in your bag.”

  “All four cents,” Ben chuckled. “We could go out and sit on the porch steps, or we can just sit here in the kitchen floor.”

  “This is fine,” Donnie said crossing his legs and slowly lowering himself to a perfect sitting position on the floor.

  Ben watched in amazement. “Boy! That takes some kind of muscles.”

  “I spent my afternoons working out at the school gym until my mom would get off from work and come by for me,” he explained in an offhanded manner.

  Ben noticed him practically devouring his food. The boy could have eaten twice as much. He should have known that. Well, he’d know the next time.

  “Donnie,” he said, “I don’t pry into other people’s business, but you act like somebody who’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. I’m good at listening if you want to talk.”

  There was silence for a few moments as Donnie sipped his drink and took a big bite of his sandwich. “Thanks, but I’m okay,” he said slowly. Then a few moments later, “Is Addie going to be all right? Did you find out why she was so frightened?”

  “I’m sure she’ll be okay, and no, I don’t know what frightened her. I guess it’s something about these old houses. Some folks even claim that the big gray house on the corner, the one with all the gables, is haunted.”

  “This is a nice house,” Donnie said looking around at the walls and ceiling. “I like all this carved woodwork, and those are real nice cabinets.”

  “You have an eye for quality,” Ben complimented him. “They’re solid oak. This house was well built, and has been well taken care of through the years. I’d say it’s at least fifty years old. They don’t build them like this anymore. Labor is too high, and people don’t take pride in their work like they used to.”

  “Yeah,” Donnie said and was silent, looking down at the empty bag as he finished the last of his sandwich. Suddenly, he crushed the empty drinking cup with his fist.

  It startled Ben, but he didn’t comment. He just waited.

  “My mom is in a hospital in Florida!” he exploded. “She was in a car wreck. She needs therapy to walk again, and she’s used up her insurance as of the end of next week because she was changing jobs. And there’s no more money!”

  “Oh,” Ben said realizing there had to be more to it and wondered if he dared ask. Why not? “What about your father?”

  “They’re divorced – three years now. Dad married the woman he was going with when they divorced. Mom remarried three months ago. The guy’s job was relocating him, so he said. I had to go stay with my dad when they got married, just until they got settled in Florida,” he said bitterly. “The man she married was drinking when the accident happened – he was driving. When the doctors told him how serious her injuries were, he left the hospital and never came back.”

  “Good Lord!” Ben exclaimed, but then was silent. The boy needed to talk. If he would, he’d listen. He was looking off into space, and Ben thought him close to tears.

  “I had to come live with Aunt Mel because my step-mother’s fourteen year old couldn’t keep her hands off me. She kept reminding me that we weren’t related – that there wasn’t any reason why we couldn’t get it on.” He looked at Ben – his face red with anger. “Can you believe that? A fourteen year old, asking a boy to hop into bed with her? I probably wasn’t the only one either. She’s just like her mother.”

  He was looking away again, but Ben was beginning to understand his anger. This boy had been accused of something he didn’t do and was being punished for it – he was sure of it.

  “I never touched her. I wouldn’t have for a million bucks,” he declared in anger, and paused for a few moments, then looked at Ben again. “One afternoon I was stretched out on the couch reading my social studies book. I heard the back door close behind Sharon, my dad’s wife, and the next thing I knew Missy was running into the room ripping off her top with nothing on under it. Then she unzipped her jeans and flopped down on top of me and threw my book across the room. That’s why she didn’t hear the back door open again.

  “I was struggling to get up when her mother came back in. The lying little bitch said I was trying to seduce her! And her on top of me! I don’t think Sharon believed her. She probably knew her daughter too well. And I know my dad didn’t belie
ve her, but he said his hands were tied. A grown man with no say-so in his own house!” he exclaimed in disgust. Then he paused and stared at the floor again.

  Ben waited. He needed to get back to work, but Donnie needed to get this out of his system, and apparently he had not been able to talk to anyone else about it.

  “Sharon knew she would never have a better opportunity to get rid of me, and because of mom’s accident, she was afraid she was going to be stuck with me. So my gramps told my Aunt Mel that she would have to take me until he could figure out something else. That’s a laugh,” he added sarcastically. “He lives in Nashville in one of those government subsidized apartment houses for the elderly on nothing but his Social Security check.”

  Good Lord! Ben thought. “No young person should have to carry all that on his shoulders. “How do you concentrate at school?”

  “I can’t. But fortunately, I’ve never had any trouble making good grades with very little studying. I just don’t know what we’re going to do – what I’m going to do.”

  “You do your schooling,” Ben said firmly. “That’s what your mother would want you to do, and that’s the best thing you can do for both of you right now. Leave the other problems up to the adults. Have a little faith in your grandfather. Surely, he’ll find help for your mother through some organization, or government agency, or somebody. Give him time.”

  “Yeah,” Donnie said as though he didn’t believe in fairy tales. He looked around the room. “I wish we had a place like this. This would be perfect for the three of us. Gramps would like that little apartment. He likes his privacy.”

  The boy seemed relieved now, and Ben was glad he had opened up to him. “Well, we’ve got to get back to work. Got to see how much of this place we can get cleaned tonight. Let’s get the main part done if we can,” Ben said, meaning all but the efficiency apartment. The apartment was one large room, a bath that must have at one time been a pantry or utility room, and a tiny kitchen that at one time had to have been a small porch.