Cottonwood Whispers

by Jennifer Erin Valent

  Chapter 22

  Mr. Poe washed up downstream a day later. Sheriff Clancy came by our place to tell us personally, but I knew what he was there to say the minute he drove up, and I wouldn’t go to the door to hear him say it.

  Momma hadn’t stopped crying since Daddy dragged Luke, Gemma, and me from his truck, muddied and exhausted. She’d kept vigil over us that whole evening, offering up soup, warmer clothes, and prayers. Gemma and Luke managed to sleep, but I lay awake in my bed, staring at the ceiling, bitter thoughts eating away at my insides.

  Joel Hadley disappeared that very day we lost Mr. Poe. His feet had left guilty prints all the way out of Calloway, and there wasn’t a single soul who didn’t believe Gemma’s story after he ran like a coward.

  But being rid of Joel didn’t help everything. There were still money problems, lives in need of healing, and all sorts of feelings for me to work through. Most of all, there was a hole in my heart the size of the hope I’d had that someday I’d be able to believe what my momma and daddy did, what Gemma did. It was the one thing that had always divided us, and I’d secretly hoped I’d someday find that thing that was missing between us.

  But all my hope died the day Mr. Poe’s fingers slipped from Joel Hadley.

  We buried him two days after he was found, and though I heard the prayers and the kind words, I spent the time scanning the faces of all who stood by Mr. Poe’s grave daring to lift up a man they’d betrayed that painful summer. They were false people, the way I saw it, people who could condemn a man while he lived and praise him when he was dead.

  Luke hovered around me from the day we arrived back home, but even his presence did little to lift my spirits. My whole world was off-balance, and it was more discouraging for me to discover that Luke Talley couldn’t heal all my hurts.

  And I desperately wanted healing. I hated walking around like a shell, living life without even noticing. But I feared there was nothing that could heal me now.

  Miss Cleta’s teakettle whistled, an earsplitting noise that matched my mixed-up thoughts. Nothing was the same anymore. I’d been in this place before, this forced acceptance of things I never wanted any part of, and I was tired of life always having its say. I removed the kettle from the heat and joined Miss Cleta in the living room.

  Nate Colby was sitting on Miss Cleta’s sofa, doubting himself as I’d seen him do so many times of late. “She ain’t takin’ it, Miss Cleta,” he moaned. “I’m tellin’ you, she don’t like me.”

  “You’re gettin’ all worked up over nothin’,” she scolded, taking the bottle from Nate’s hand and using it to tickle the baby’s lips. “You just got to give her some hints, is all.”

  The baby’s lips wriggled and then latched on, and Nate’s smile broke out in a way I hadn’t been sure it would ever manage to again.

  All because a baby sipped some milk.

  “There you go, you see?” Miss Cleta squeezed Nate’s shoulder and looked away so he wouldn’t spy the tears that glistened in her eyes. “That baby knows her daddy.”

  I reached out to touch the baby’s tiny toes. “What’re you goin’ to call her?”

  His face creased up, so that I immediately regretted my question. The look on his face reminded me of the one I’d possessed since that day at Rocky Creek. But he kept his eyes locked with those of his baby girl and managed to whisper hoarsely, “Grace.”

  “Oh, that’s fittin’,” Miss Cleta murmured. “Sure enough, ain’t no name better.”

  The moment did nothing to cure my blues, and I crept away into the kitchen.

  I heard Nate leave minutes later, and when Miss Cleta came into the kitchen, my face felt stiff from dried-up tears. I lifted my chin to keep any new tears from spotting Miss Cleta’s tablecloth. “Feels like everybody’s gone all at once, and I don’t know why. There ain’t no reason to any of it.”

  Miss Cleta poured the tea and then sat next to me, taking my shoulders in her aged hands. “Ain’t nothin’ without purpose, Jessilyn. Nothin’. God gives us kind people out of the goodness of His heart, and He takes them home when He’s good and ready.”

  “But He always takes the good ones,” I argued, anger ripping through my insides. “There’s bad people walkin’ this earth like a plague, but the good ones always get taken away! What sort of God does things like that?”

  “We ain’t got the right to argue with Him, Jessilyn Lassiter. The sooner you realize we ain’t much more than God’s creation, subject to the Master, the better off you’ll be.”

  Her voice was firm and strong, and I swallowed hard under her stern gaze. “That’s what Mr. Poe said, near about, just before he surrendered himself. He said, ‘A body don’t say no to his God.’”

  Tears welled up in her eyes, but she leaned forward to wipe my own away with her thumbs. “People thought that boy had no sense, but he had more than all of us put together.” She pulled a lace hankie from her sleeve and blew. “He knew what life was all about, and he knew what death was all about, and he didn’t argue one bit when his Maker called him home. Don’t you go lettin’ bitterness sweep away your life, Jessilyn. I seen it enough, and it ain’t nothin’ but tragedy.” She stuck that hankie back in her sleeve with decisiveness. “Those men you’re hatin’, Joel Hadley and the like, they get those hard hearts from bitterness. Don’t you go becomin’ like those people you’re bitter against.”

  Her words struck hard, and I buried my head in my arms to keep her from seeing my shame.

  She reached a hand out to ruffle my hair, and I heard her let out a long sigh. “And besides that, Mr. Poe ain’t really gone. He’s always in our hearts. All those things Mr. Poe said to you, they were special to your heart, weren’t they?”

  “Yes’m,” I said, my reply muffled by my arms.

  “Well, they’re as special now as they were then. Don’t matter none if he’s gone.” She sat back in her chair, and her face took on a wistful expression. “Heaven knows my Sully was taken earlier than I’d have liked. The day he left me, part of my heart crumbled into pieces. He was a good man, Sully was, and he always had a way of sayin’ things that made me smile even when I didn’t feel like it.” Her eyes blinked three times fast to keep tears away and then focused on me. “Don’t you know he’s never gone from me, though? My memory of that man won’t never leave me, no matter how old I get. That’s God’s gift to me. He didn’t have to do that, you know. He didn’t have to even give Sully to me at all. He could’ve left me alone all those years, but He didn’t. And now I’ve got years of memories to keep me goin’.”

  I watched her through misty eyes as she got up from her chair arthritically slow and shuffled to the open kitchen window. “Hear that breeze?” She closed her eyes and a sweet smile spread out across her face. “It’s like the breath of God washin’ over me, stealin’ away all my worries, whisperin’ precious words.”

  But the tears still painted tracks down my cheeks, and Miss Cleta’s face creased up into sadness on my behalf. Suddenly she took my hand and led me outside. “Ain’t nothin’ to heal a heart all at once,” she said as we made our way down her back steps. “But there’s balms to soothe it if you know where to look.”

  I was hiccuping in air as we walked, but the cool breeze was just what Miss Cleta said, a balm. It tossed my hair away from my face and dried the tears up into salty streaks. I felt peace tiptoe into all the nervous spots of my spirit and dropped to the ground with my head held up, eyes closed. Before I knew it, Miss Cleta was beside me, no matter her advanced age.

  The trees around us swayed and rustled, a sound that blocked out all the worries that had been racing through my head for days.

  “Those trees are talkin’,” Miss Cleta said, and I opened my eyes in time to see her smile. “It’s days like this I swear I can hear my Sully. Whisperin’ on the breeze just like he was whisperin’ in my ear.” She leaned back on shaky arms and crossed her ankles. “There weren’t nothin’ my Sully loved more than sittin’ on the porch on a beautiful day. ‘Cleta my
darlin’,’ he’d say, ‘the good Lord favored us with a fine one today.’ The man knew simple blessin’s when he saw them.”

  “You say you hear his voice, Miss Cleta?”

  “Not so much in my ears, mind you, but in my heart.”

  I lay back on the grass, the windblown blades tickling my ears, and stared at the cottony clouds that streaked the sky. “You think Mr. Poe’s in heaven?”

  “Oh, honey, that man knew my Jesus like nobody else I know. Folks around here thought he weren’t given much since he didn’t think like most people, but that ain’t true at all.” Like a young girl, Miss Cleta lay down beside me and searched the clouds. “Most people think too much about things that don’t matter, but that weren’t true with Elmer Poe. He didn’t clutter his mind up with all that much, and that was a gift from God, sure enough, because it kept his mind free for higher things.”

  “You sayin’ he was better off not bein’ smart?”

  “Smart’s somethin’ people come up with, not God. Who says what’s smart? It’s knowin’ God and His Word that means somethin’ to Him, not knowin’ what people wrote in books. Elmer didn’t know all the particulars about book learnin’, but He knew as much as a body can about our God.” She took my arm in her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Sure enough that man’s in heaven now, sittin’ at the feet of Jesus. Don’t know of no one who loved our Lord more. And that’s what Jesus asks of us, Jessilyn.”

  I wiped my nose with the back of my hand and kept my eyes on the sky, knowing full well her words were aimed at my unbelieving heart.

  “He up and walked this earth, took our sins upon Him, and died on that cross, just so He could rise again for you and me. There weren’t no better gift than that, givin’ up His life for ours. And all He wants is for us to believe, to let Him take us by the hand and help us walk through this life. Elmer knew that. That’s why he was able to give up his own life, because he knew he was goin’ somewhere so much better than here.”

  The clouds tumbled over the sun, so I didn’t have to squint for a minute, and I took Miss Cleta’s hand. “I don’t know why I can’t,” I murmured.

  “Why you can’t what?”

  “Believe.”

  Miss Cleta turned her head to look at me and let tears spill to the grass. “Oh, honey, just sayin’ that tells me whose you are. You just don’t know it yet. If you want to believe, someday you will. You just wait. God’ll open your heart when you least expect it, and He’ll take that wide-open heart of yours and fill it up with believin’ till there ain’t no room left.”

  Her words soothed my anxiety, and I closed my eyes with a deep breath. There weren’t any more words to be said, and the two of us lay there beneath the busy trees, close in spirit if not in age.

  And we listened.

  Chapter 23

  Gemma and I visited the creekside two weeks after the tragedy. Daddy had come earlier to place a memorial cross under the cottonwood tree, but neither Gemma nor I could go with him. Our hearts had still been too raw. But this day we decided to go there, just the two of us, to pay our last respects, so to speak.

  It was a warm and quiet day, but a breeze had begun to filter in as we walked, and by the time we got there, the creek was rippling in a steady wind. I found the spot beneath the cottonwood tree where I’d last seen Mr. Poe and settled on the ground, lifting my face to the heavens. Cool air rushed across my face, setting the leaves into a noisy flutter.

  For the first time in days, I felt a sort of peace push its way into my angry heart. I thought of Miss Cleta and a smile crossed my face. “What’s that you say, Mr. Poe?” I asked aloud.

  Gemma turned her face into the breeze, her hair fluttering across her lips. “What’d you say?”

  “It wasn’t me. It was Mr. Poe.”

  She sat up sternly and shot me a worried glance. “What’re you sayin’, Jessilyn Lassiter? Mr. Poe can’t talk no more, and you know it.”

  “It’s not what he’s sayin’ now, Gemma. It’s what he already said. If you listen close to the breeze, it sounds like he’s whisperin’.”

  “That’s foolish talk.”

  “No it ain’t! Miss Cleta says she hears it sometimes. It’s just rememberin’, is all.”

  Gemma sat and stared at her toes for a minute before finally giving in to my notion. “What’d he say, then?”

  “You remember that day some years ago when he took us to see that honeycomb out in back of his house?”

  Gemma frowned at the memory. “That’s the day I got my first bee sting.”

  “But you remember what he said when I said you were actin’ like a baby over it?”

  “No, but I remember you callin’ me a baby.” She put her arm up in front of my face. “I still got a scar from that bee sting right here, it got me so good. See?”

  “Well, I ain’t talkin’ about that part,” I said, pushing her arm down. But I didn’t let go of her. “I’m talkin’ about what Mr. Poe did. He tended to your arm in the best kind of way, and then he looked at me and said, ‘Miss Jessie, ain’t a body that don’t need a good cry every now and again, ’specially when they’re hurt. Besides, good friends look out for each other.’”

  She smiled and looked at the creek that now ran so smoothly, no one would have believed its fury just weeks before.

  “His words made me feel all sorts of guilty for days,” I said. “Miss Cleta says even though he weren’t book smart, he was smart in ways most men ain’t.”

  “I reckon she’s right.”

  “Well, I reckon he was right too. And he sure knew about friends.” I grabbed her hand and held it in both of mine. “You always look out for me.”

  She let her head drop between heavy shoulders and sighed. “I tried to look out for Mr. Poe too, and now he’s dead.”

  “You know better’n me you ain’t in control of everythin’, Gemma Teague.” I tipped her chin up to make her look at me. “Don’t you go takin’ things on your shoulders like that. All this evil came from the likes of Joel Hadley. It ain’t for you to be takin’ responsibility.”

  I watched her tears trickle down and drop onto her lap. “Life’s too hard,” she managed to squeak out. “It hurts too much.”

  She was right, and I figured there wasn’t much I could say to that. But the last thing I wanted to see was my Gemma weighted down by the problems of all the world. I squeezed her hand tight. “Then it’s a good thing we have each other, ain’t it?” The wind rustled the trees again, and I smiled upward. “There he goes again.”

  Gemma swept a hand across her wet cheeks and rolled her eyes. “I think you’re goin’ crazy or somethin’, Jessilyn.”

  I closed my eyes and lifted my nose to catch the scent of honeysuckle. Then I pulled Gemma close with one arm. “Nope,” I said with a defiant shake of my head. “For the first time in a while, I think I might just be fine.”

  Luke wasn’t himself after Mr. Poe died, like the rest of us, and I could tell that seeing Mr. Poe slip away like that had stuck with him. There wasn’t a lot I could say to make him feel better, much like there wasn’t a lot I could say to make Gemma feel better. Besides, a few whispering winds couldn’t heal my heart all up; they were only that balm Miss Cleta had talked about.

  But I started a new habit. Every time I started feeling sad about the events of the summer or about life in general, I thought up a new memory of Callie or Mae or Mr. Poe. I likely drove my family crazy talking about them so often, but it was my way of coping, and they knew it. Luke listened most of all, especially when I talked about Mr. Poe, and whenever I’d finish my story, he’d say, “He was an uncommon man, sure enough.”

  It was this uncommonness that was taunting Luke, I could tell. One day I found him flipping through Daddy’s Bible, fingering the pages without reading a thing.

  “You know anythin’ about this Bible outside of church learnin’?” he asked.

  I wasn’t all the way over my unhappiness with God, even after Miss Cleta’s strong talk, so I shrugged. “All’s I
know is the stories.”

  He didn’t say anything. He just nodded slow.

  Momma opened the noisy screen door with her hip and came onto the porch, balancing two large glass bowls. Luke jumped up to take them from her, causing the Bible to slip to the floor.

  Momma glanced at it but looked away quickly as though she’d break some sort of spell if she let on she saw it. It was just like when she would come upon Gemma and me having a nice sisterly moment, and she’d stand real still to keep from making any noise to distract us.

  Luke put the bowls onto the wooden table in the corner of the porch and then snatched the Bible up, embarrassed.

  “Well, I got me here some corn to shuck and beans to snap,” Momma said, pretending she didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. “You two can decide who does what.”

  On her way inside, she stopped in the doorway and peered back at us, a mist in her eyes. Luke had already grabbed the bowl of corn and let his head drop down to pay more attention to the contents than he needed to.

  When the door slammed shut, I sat in silence, mindlessly snapping the beans. Luke sat as quietly as I did. And when Gemma came outside with an extra bowl of snaps, I scooted over to make room for her, and she sat as silently as the two of us.

  But I didn’t need talk just then, anyway. I decided not to think about life’s scary parts and tried to think about the good parts. Sitting there between my best friend and the man I was determined to marry someday, I figured life wasn’t always as tough as I thought.

  In spite of all the hate and unhappiness and ignorance in the world, some things were just good no matter how you looked at it. For now, I had Gemma humming a hymn beside me, Luke tapping his toe in time . . .

  And memories of loved ones whispering on the breeze.

  Discussion Questions

  Jessilyn and Gemma are sometimes at odds throughout the book. What factors do you think contribute to this? Have you experienced a similar situation in your own life?