by Louis Bayard
“That so?”
She cut another glance back at the car. “Hiram always used to tell me I was—I was a bird. A wild bird that had never got around to using its wings. He’d say, ‘Ida, you’ve been in this nest too long. It’s time you took flight.’”
“Then what you doing back here? You get tired of flying?”
“Oh, no,” she said.
And in that very moment, she looked clear gone. Like to the far side of Mongolia. Only something must’ve called her back because she said, “There’s this one matter.”
She opened the passenger door of that car, and she reached in and brought out a wicker basket, lined in powder-blue cloth. In this basket was a baby. Fast asleep.
My hand went to my throat as I took a half step forward.
“Yours?” I whispered.
Ida hesitated, like she weren’t even sure herself. Then she nodded.
“Yours and…” I started to say.
But I didn’t need to finish the sentence.
“It’s why I went away in the first place,” she said, smiling mournful. “I couldn’t possibly have the baby in Walnut Ridge, not with all those wagging tongues. So I went and stayed with my cousin in Newport News.” She looked down at the basket. “And out she came.”
What a surprise to see Dudley ambling over to us. Wiping his hands on Hiram’s old apron and flashing that professional smile. Soon as he saw that baby, though, the smile dropped right off his face.
“I can go,” he said.
“No,” I said. “Don’t. I was just gonna ask Miss Ida what she thought she was doing here. With that there baby. Which she didn’t want nobody to see till now.”
Her face fogged over. “Hiram…”
“Hiram ain’t here. Hiram’s gone.”
“But he always told me … if I got in a bind, there’d be a place here.”
“A place?” I said. “Here?”
I stared at Dudley. He stared back.
“Well, listen, Miss Ida,” he said. “There ain’t much room here to spare. I mean, I sleep at the Gallaghers’ most nights, and all that’s left is the…” A glint of panic as he switched his eyes my way. “The bedroom over the store and that’s—that’s where…”
Where Hiram used to sleep.
Hotter than damnation in the summer. Colder than an Eskimo’s ass in the winter. Tolerable nice in the spring, but you can’t keep the window open too long or you’ll get all fumey from the gas.…
Only it’d gotten a sight nicer since it was rebuilt. Had a real mattress now. Better ventilation. But I still couldn’t bear for nobody to live up there.
“That might do nicely,” said Ida.
Then she did the most extraordinary thing. She took that baby out of its basket—still wrapped in its linen blankets—and set it in my arms. And my arms, without my knowing, folded themselves into a basket. So the baby never knew no difference.
Ida looked at the baby, then at me.
“She’s been well cared for, Amelia. I promise you that. And she’s very easy. Already weaned, drinks right out of the bottle. Sleeps till five in the morning—longer, if you hold her. She won’t give us any trouble, I promise.”
Us …
“Now, it so happens,” she said, “my father isn’t speaking to me anymore, so we—we can’t look for much help in that direction. But I’m here to tell you I’ve got a little money left over from my aunt Adela. I don’t know how much, exactly, but it’s bound to be a help, isn’t it? Oh, and this car!” With a cry of triumph, she swung back to the Studebaker. “Great Caesar, we could sell it. Sell it tomorrow. And get … oh…”
“Somewhere between nine hundred and nine fifty,” I said, numbly.
“Well, then! That’s something.” Her eyes was mad with purpose now, ranging the whole circuit of Brenda’s Oasis. “And in the meantime, there must be something I could do. To help pay our way…”
She stood for some while in the lightly falling rain, like she’d forgotten where she was. And me, I kept waiting for Dudley to say something. Something like Just ’cause your hair’s all normal don’t mean you ain’t as loco as ever. Something like We can’t afford two more mouths to feed … even with the Studebaker and Aunt Adela’s money.…
Not five minutes before, I’d been pumping diesel into a bunch of eastward-bound trucks—wondering somewhere in the back of my head where I could get my hands on lederhosen. Cars was whistling past. The air was silvery with summer.
Now I had this warm bundle pressed against me and Ida’s pale stricken face before me, and all I could think to do was look at the baby she’d left in my arms.
*
That’s when I gazed on you.
*
Your eyelids had just fluttered open, and they was still a-tremble, trying to decide if they wanted to close again. Maybe it was the rain that woke you for good.
I saw one blue eye staring at me. Another blue eye skedaddling away. I knew for true that you were his.
Well, here’s the thing. If a body has bottled up every last one of its tears for five or six years … when those tears finally burst loose, it can be a scarifying thing. Looking back, I’m astounded I didn’t drown you.
Funny part is the harder I cried, the happier you got. I reckon you thought I was playing some kind of game with you. So, even with my tears outrunning the rain, I was smiling, too. And when Dudley’s hand landed on my shoulder, that felt like a smile, too.
“She got a name?” I heard him ask.
Ida hesitated. “Elizabeth. But if you don’t—”
“Elizabeth,” I said.
It come out so easy. Sweet and clean, like I’d been saving it up my whole life.
“Now, listen here,” I said, running my free arm across my face. “Ain’t nobody gonna shorten this girl’s name by one letter. Ain’t gonna be Lizzie. Nor Liza nor Beth. Elizabeth, you hear?”
They was too scared to answer.
“And another thing,” I said. “If you’re gonna stay here, Ida, it’s on one condition. You gotta adopt us.”
I believe her face lost a gallon of blood.
“There ain’t nothing to be feared of,” I said. “All you gotta do is sign your name to a piece of paper, and it’s done. I ain’t gonna look to you for nothing, and Earle and Janey pretty much take care of themselves. And then, soon as I’m of age, I’ll take ’em back from you, I promise. You won’t even notice.”
I couldn’t look at Ida, so I watched the rain, dripping like sweat, from the Brenda’s Oasis sign. Then I heard her say, “If you don’t mind adopting me, too.”
*
Which is just how it come to be seen by the folks of Walnut Ridge. Every time they looked at Ida, they saw a gal with barely enough sense to—well, come in out of the rain. But thanks to Mina, she’s gotten mighty quick with the broom, and she always has a fresh pitcher of tea for the customers. She can’t cook like Hiram, but soon as we showed her how to do chop suey, she took to it right off, and it was chop suey for breakfast, lunch, and supper till we had to beg her to stop.
She cuts her own hair, once a month, using the rearview mirror of our truck.
And every morning, when you wake up, hers is the first face you see. You may have noticed she don’t lay on the hands like the rest of us do, but I think that’s ’cause she still don’t trust herself. She never knew her own mama, and her daddy weren’t but half a daddy, so she’s feeling her way there.
It weren’t so long ago, her and me had just got you down for your afternoon nap, and your hands was doing that little clutching motion they do when you fall asleep. Like they’re squeezing an india rubber ball. Then they went still, and we could hear your easeful breathing. Ida stared out the window and, in a soft wondering voice, said, “I should’ve gotten adopted a long time ago.”
*
Miss Wand no longer bicycles past Brenda’s Oasis. But every Sunday, Dudley and me go to our rock, regular as church folk. We lay there, side by side, for as long as the weather allows. Holding hands,
mostly, but now and then he’ll hook one of his legs over mine or curl his hand real soft round my neck, and some part of me’ll turn to water and the other part to ice, and there ain’t no way to make the two sides meet.
“Sorry,” I say. “It ain’t like I don’t want to.”
Well, here’s what I got to tell you about Dudley Blevins. He’s got the patience of a Christian martyr.
“There ain’t no hurry, Melia. We got acres of time.”
Only how much time we got, really? I look back on Mama and Hiram, it’s like they was gone in the flap of a wing. We knoweth not the hour. So one night in June, Dudley and me was setting out on the porch swing, listening to the cicadas rattle. Next thing I knew, I was straddling him and giving him the best kiss I could think of.
And that’s when I said, “I ain’t gonna be no Frances Bean.”
His head pulled back an inch. “What you talking about?”
“One of them lonely married ladies. Laying awake at nights and setting alone at soda counters. You marry me, it means you’re all in.”
That’s when he pointed out he hadn’t asked me to marry him yet.
“Well, so what?” I said. “You in or not?”
That’s when he said he was.
*
And if you’re wondering if that’s how I always dreamed of being proposed to, the answer is no.
*
I can’t say when it was I got the notion. Maybe it was seeing you passed around amongst all the Gallaghers and Hoyles and Blevinses on the occasion of your first birthday. Coos and kisses showering down on you, and how much of it would you ever recollect or know or feel?
Well, that got me thinking on how much of my own life was lost to me. All those curves in the road, the switchbacks and hairpin turns that led to the one surprising destination of me. Mama took that map with her before I could think to ask for a copy, and not even Rand McNally can draw me one now. So I thought the best gift I could give you was a map of your own. For when you’re ready. Maybe you won’t even need to look at it till you’re an all-grown woman. I look forward to that day, though I expect I’ll always miss the quiet little baby that rested in my arms that soft-raining June morning. I hope you know it was love that brought her here. And keeps her here till the last sun sets.
Yours very truly,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Walnut Ridge isn’t a real place, but Warren County, Virginia, is, and I owe a debt to Jim Heflin of the Laura Virginia Hale Archives for his research assistance. Special thanks also go to Abby Yochelson, Wally Mlyniec, Margaret Wood, Laura Godwin, Christopher Schelling, and Dan Conaway. Throw Don into the mix, too.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Louis Bayard is a New York Times Notable author and has been nominated for both the Edgar Award and the Dagger Award for his adult historical thrillers, which include The Pale Blue Eye and Mr. Timothy. He teaches creative writing at George Washington University in Washington, DC. louisbayard.com. Or sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Louis Bayard
Henry Holt and Company, LLC
Publishers since 1866
Henry Holt® is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.
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All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bayard, Louis, author.
Title: Lucky strikes / Louis Bayard.
Description: First Edition. | New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2016. | Summary: “Set in Depression Era Virginia, this is the story of orphaned Amelia and her struggle to keep her siblings together”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015023829 | ISBN 9781627793902 (hardback) |
ISBN 9781627793919 (e-book)
Subjects: | CYAC: Orphans—Fiction. | Poverty—Fiction. | Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Depressions—1929—Fiction. | Virginia—History—20th century—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Family Orphans & Foster Homes. | JUVENILE FICTION Girls & Women. | JUVENILE FICTION Social Issues Homelessness & Poverty.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.B379 Lu 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015023829
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First hardcover edition 2016
eBook edition July 2016
eISBN 9781627793919
