Leaving Eden

by Anne Leclaire

  Imagine every beautiful and precious thing you’ve ever known. Imagine the wet miracle of a newborn calf, or late spring in the Blue Ridge; imagine the rainbow lines of sunlight shining through a prism, or the evening sky streaked with rose in that precise moment before the sun disappears behind the mountain. Imagine the smell of a lilac bush, or a spice cake your mama’s just taken from the oven. Imagine the touch of a loving man. Now imagine holding all this in the palm of your hand. Then imagine having it disappear, cut off, your hand gone with it. That was how it hurt to wake and have Mama gone. The hard dark place in my chest burned so I might as well have been swallowing knives as dreaming.

  When I was capable of moving, I got up and did exactly what Mama’d directed me in the vision. I wasn’t even afraid. It was like there was a tiny bit of her left behind. I left a note on the table for my daddy and headed straight out for Allie Rucker’s. In the dream, Mama’d told me Allie would know if I was carrying and—if that’s what I wanted—she’d help me get rid of it. Well, that was definitely what I wanted. There was no way I could be having a baby. Mama’d understood that. She’d known a baby meant no movies. No Hollywood. No dreams coming true. I’d be just another Eden girl who got knocked up. End of story.

  This time I didn’t even hesitate when I got to Allie’s. With Mama giving me courage, I marched straight through the overgrown yard, up the steps, and rapped on the door, startling a jay with the sound. I waited a minute, then knocked again. It hadn’t occurred to me that Allie wouldn’t be home. Maybe she wasn’t even alive. Maybe she was lying inside, dead as roadkill, and I’d be the one to find her decaying body. I was fretting on what I was going to do if she wasn’t around to help me and wondering how I’d explain to people how I happened to find Allie’s body if she was dead, when she appeared from the stand of trees that led to deep woods, where it was rumored she kept her copper still. I hadn’t seen her since before Mama’d passed, but she hadn’t changed one bit in four years. She wasn’t in the least surprised to see me, just crossed to the house without a word. A couple of dusty hens pecked at her feet, which were about the ugliest feet I’d ever seen. They were worn and misshapen with bunions so big, they looked like extra toes.

  “I’m Tallie Brock,” I said.

  “I know who you be.” She narrowed her eyes and spat, the brown stream of tobacco juice barely missing the hens and her own ugly toes.

  I was trying to figure out how to tell her why I was there, but as if she had the same ESP as Mama, as if girls showed up on her porch regular with troubles like mine, she got right to it, asking straight out when I’d had my last moon. That’s what she called it. My moon. Same as Mama always did.

  Next thing she was heading into the cabin and motioning me to follow. It held the same sour, mildew smell I remembered from before. Inside, a live crow—I swear—was sitting on a windowsill. It ruffled its wing feathers and turned a black eye on me. One thing always made me nervous was a bird loose in a house, but I consoled myself with the thought that at least it wasn’t a bat. I couldn’t have stood that. Except for the crow, not one thing had changed since the last time I was there. Without further conversation, Allie went to the cupboard and pulled out some jars, taking a pinch of this and some of that.

  “This here’s what you be needing,” she said, chuckling like she’d thought of something funny. “Same as I gave your mama.”

  I remembered the vile smell of the herbs she’d made for mama. I didn’t think I was capable of swallowing something that awful without puking it up. “The Queen of Cures,” I said. “That’s what you gave my mama when she was sick.” I was wondering if she knew I’d buried the Cure out in our backyard or that a butterfly bush had grown up in that spot.

  She laughed, a big laugh, not a weak old lady one. “T’other time,” she said. “The one I made your mama t’other time.”

  “Mama came here?” I said.

  “Girl, half the womenfolk in Eden been coming through my door. You and your mama be no different.”

  “When?”

  “Long time. She be about your age. Same as you. Messing with some fool man who be carrying his brain ’tween his legs.”

  Mama? Mama came to Allie looking for help, same as me? I couldn’t believe it. But then lately it seemed I was learning about whole new parts of my mama’s personal history, things that could fill another book and that might just be the beginning of uncovering all the mystery in my mama’s past. I recalled the picture I’d found of Mama in the red convertible with the boy named Gordie, a boy who was strong and smart, according to his yearbook, but apparently not smart enough to keep Mama from getting pregnant. The date Mama’d written on the back of the pictures was 1965. I did some quick figuring. Mama’d been fifteen. For sure, Goody’d have about killed her if she was pregnant. No wonder Mama’d turned to Allie for help. Still, it made me sad to think of Mama getting rid of a baby, a baby who’d have been a brother or a sister for me. I used to dream about having a sister. I never told Mama, but I always wanted more family. With Uncle Grayson the way he was, I didn’t even have a cousin.

  Allie handed me the bag and told me how to mix it up, same as before. She warned me not to wait too long before I drank it and said not to worry if it made me sick. She said there’d be some cramping, but no worse than with my moon.

  Well, surprise, surprise, surprise. When I got home, who was sitting on the glider but Spy. You might think with him being a murderer, I’d be a little nervous or something, but as peculiar as it sounds, I hopped off the Raleigh and went right up to where he was sitting. He studied me like he didn’t know what to say, and I surprised us both by walking straight over and giving him a hug, like it was the only natural thing to do.

  “Oh, God, Tallie,” he said, breathing the words into my hair.

  I didn’t say a word, just stood there drinking in the scent of him, a smell I already knew by heart. We held on a little while longer, then we both sat down.

  “I don’t have a lot of time,” he said.

  “I was afraid you might be in jail,” I said. I said it flat-out, and it was like we could say anything to each other, like there was no time for anything but truth.

  “They released me in the Dreck Girl’s care,” he said.

  I took his hand and ran my finger over his palm, tracing the web of lines they say hold the directions and true facts of a person’s life. I didn’t know what I was looking for, but nothing I saw in Spy’s hand indicated he was a boy equal to killing his daddy.

  He curled his fingers over mine. “I need to talk to you,” he said. “To explain.”

  I pictured Mama then, how she’d come to me in the vision and the way she’d understood every bad thing I’d ever done, understood with no need for explanation, and how she’d loved me in spite of my sins. “No need,” I said.

  “I have to, Tallie,” he said. He lifted a hand to my chin and made me look directly at him. “I don’t give a goddamn what anyone else thinks, but I want you to know.”

  Then Spy told me everything. He told me how he’d gone to his daddy’s office, only meaning to scare him with the gun. “I wanted him to confess,” he said. “I wanted him to admit what he’d done to Sarah. To own up to at least one person that he was responsible for her dying. I swear I didn’t mean to hurt him.” But Spy said his daddy hadn’t confessed. He’d called Spy a stupid son of a bitch and said he’d show him what happened to people who threatened him. Then Mr. Reynolds had punched Spy in the face and tried to take the gun. That’s when it went off. He said he’d thought a lot since Sarah died about making his daddy confess, but the thing that caused him to finally confront him was that he saw his daddy hugging his youngest cousin. He said he had let Sarah down, but at least he could protect one girl.

  “I swear,” Spy said again. “I never meant to kill him.”

  “I believe you,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “I should have been able to stop it,” he said.

  I told Spy there were some things tha
t, once set in motion, can’t be stopped or derailed no matter what our will or intention. I think we could have sat there talking for the rest of the evening and all through till morning, but he had to go home. Before he left he told me he was sorry about a lot of things but not about the night we’d spent together and he hoped I wasn’t sorry either.

  Then Spy Reynolds said the sweetest thing a girl could ever hope to hear. He told me he thought that I was beautiful, beautiful in a real, true way, the kind of beauty that was a lot more than surface. He said he knew I’d still be beautiful even when I was an old lady, as old as Easter Davis. He said he’d thought that was so for a long, long time, even years back when I was just a kid on the swim team with Sarah. Then Spy said I was the kind of girl a person could trust to hold his secrets and hold his heart and not betray either one, and that that was a rare and precious thing. He said he was sorry the way things had turned out, him shooting his daddy and all, sorry it had happened before we’d had a chance. I memorized every single word he said.

  I supposed that was the time to tell him about the baby. I almost did. It seemed like there should be no secrets between us. Then I figured he already had enough worrying his mind and there was no sense adding to the list a baby that neither of us was ever going to see. That was one sorrow I’d be bearing by myself.

  He kissed me and asked me if he could call me and I said yes, no more able to tell him I was leaving in the morning than I’d been able to tell Raylene. I had this feeling that the more people I let know I was leaving, the harder it would be to go. It hurt to tell this lie, hurt to imagine what he’d think when he learned I’d gone, but I locked the hurt up with all the others and waved good-bye, whispering God bless. And I meant it, too, me who didn’t even believe in God, saying it like just for a minute I’d been transformed into Reverend Tillett or one of the ladies at Elijah Baptist.

  You might think as soon as Spy left I’d get right to mixing up Allie’s cure, drinking it down and being done with it, but I didn’t. I stuck the bag in Mama’s suitcase, along with the rest of what I’d need. I figured I’d wait until I arrived in L.A. Another day or two wouldn’t matter. Besides, if I got sick, like Allie said, it was best I was alone without anyone around to ask questions.

  Just before I fell asleep, I pressed my hands against my face and inhaled the smell of Spy.

  Tallie’s Book

  Losing your head causes bad problems to get worse.

  It is a mighty and terrible possibility that a person can do great harm without the least intention.

  twenty-one

  It started to rain in the night and by morning it was coming down like it’d been saving up all summer for just this occasion. The radio was tuned to the weather station, and the man was going on about flash floods and washed-out roads. I lay there waiting for my daddy to head off to the mill and trying to figure out how I’d get to Lynchburg. Riding the Raleigh was clear out of the question. I stared up at the ceiling and looked at the little stars Mama’d stuck there so long ago, wondering if I’d ever see them again. I’d been planning this for years, but the idea of leaving Eden made me the tiniest bit sad. I wondered if Mama’d experienced the same confusion of feelings that summer she left us.

  At the last minute, I heard my daddy revving up his truck. I jumped out of bed and tore to the kitchen door, but was too late to catch more than the sight of the rusted-out tailgate as it disappeared around the curve. I waved anyway. I fried up a couple of eggs, checking the sky about every two minutes, but like the weatherman said, the storm showed no sign of letting up. After breakfast I made up my bed and washed the dishes, then I retrieved Mama’s suitcase from the closet and checked the contents one last time. Then, without planning on it, I took out the bag Allie Rucker had given me. I pulled on one of my daddy’s rain slickers and took that bag and went out to the yard by the miracle butterfly bush. I dumped the stuff out—stuff that would get rid of any baby I might be carrying. Even now I can’t say why I did that. It wasn’t ’cause I thought I’d be sinning if I took it. Or because I suddenly was attached to the idea of having Spy’s baby. A baby would complicate my life and mess up my plans and I surely didn’t want one. Preacher Tillett would say I dumped it out because I was trusting that whatever God sent me I would take, no matter how it turned my future on its back. He’d say I was operating on faith, and maybe I was, although I didn’t think Mama was wrong when she’d gotten rid of the baby she was carrying. Before I returned to the house, I took a good look at the seeds and bark and stuff and wondered what, if anything, would be growing out of it.

  I was soaked through by the time I finished up and was still fretting about how to get to Lynchburg. I considered hiring Mr. Tinsley, but that meant spending some of the money I was saving for L.A. Finally I thought of Wiley. I gave him a call and asked for a ride to Lynchburg and he said yes, no questions asked. Five minutes later he pulled into the yard and I was on my way. Anyone else would have to be knowing exactly what I was up to, but Wiley just plunked the suitcase on the seat between us and shifted gears. Tired of keeping it to myself, I nearly blurted out my plans, but then I told him I was going off to Florida to visit Goody, same story I’d left in the note for my daddy. My plan was to have Wiley drop me outside the airport, but he insisted on coming in. I practically had to be rude to get rid of him. He surprised me by grabbing a kiss at the last minute, and I astonished myself by kissing him back. He was my oldest friend and even if he had been acting weird all summer, I was going to miss him. Leaving a place was more complicated than I’d realized.

  I sailed through the gate, prepared with my birth certificate and acting like I’d done this a few hundred times. The rain continued and I was wondering if they’d call off the flight, but pretty soon they told us to get on board and then we took off. I didn’t have a window seat and had to lean way over in order to see Lynchburg disappear. Except for the part where the plane took off and you rose up to greet the sky, boring right through the clouds, I thought flying was mostly overrated. I was crammed in the middle seat between a lady with the worst head of hair you could imagine and a man with a bad cold. I about broke my neck twisting away so as not to get his germs. About halfway to our first connection in D.C., he complained about his ears hurting and I thought it served him right for flying with a cold, spraying bacteria everywhere.

  At Washington, we had to wait for a while before we got on another plane, and I spent the time getting a Coke and using the ladies’ room, checking my panties to see if my moon had come yet. When there was no sign of it, I felt I must have been crazy to dump out Allie’s baby cure. The thing about operating out of faith was that faith didn’t always stay steady. When we got back on the plane, I was glad to see I had a window seat. After about two hours, they gave us each this little tray of food, all divided up with salad and chicken with some kind of sauce that even Goody would say had too much salt. There was some foil-wrapped cheese, a little cellophane packet of crackers, and another containing three cookies. The woman sitting next to me offered me hers, but I declined, mindful of the extra weight a camera added to a person’s frame. Then, believe it or not, I fell asleep. I woke up hours later, drool running down my chin.

  From then on, for the rest of the trip, I was torn between imagining my future in Hollywood and thinking of everything I was leaving behind. I figured by then my daddy must have discovered the note I’d left telling him I’d gone to visit Goody. I wondered if he’d believe it or would think I’d run away, and if he’d be relieved to be rid of me or if he’d miss me a little. And I wondered when Martha Lee and Raylene would hear about it and what they’d think. I figured Martha Lee must have discovered the missing money and known I’d taken it. I’d probably have to spend the rest of my life begging her forgiveness. Then I thought about Spy and that warm, wanting feeling spread through my belly. Maybe it was a train-wreck romance, but it sure was powerful. I remembered what he said about not meaning to shoot his daddy and wondered what would happen to him. I wanted to believe wha
t Raylene’d said about rich people not going to jail, but I didn’t think they let a person completely off the hook if he’d shot his daddy, even if it was an accident.

  The oddest thing was, believe it or not, I wasn’t one bit nervous and that was because Mama was with me. I could almost hear her voice, getting me prepared, telling me everything about Hollywood, stuff she’d told me a million times, like how the movie stars live in big mansions, and people stand on street corners selling actual maps so you can drive by and look at them, and about how Lana Turner had been discovered sitting at a drugstore soda fountain, and how Rita Hayworth had married a real prince, and Grace Kelly, too, which just went to show you that Hollywood was a place where dreams could come true beyond a person’s liveliest imaginings.