A Land More Kind Than Home

by Wiley Cash

  But that tree that grew up between them was just a gnarly old thing with thick roots that ran deep and wild and tore at the ground until it opened up, and, once it did, Julie found herself clear across a great divide from Ben, so far apart that they couldn’t even see each other from where they stood. Julie looked around and saw that she needed her faith to help her understand God’s plan for that little boy and for her family. It was like Ben’s lack of faith inspired her, and his turning his back on God and the church worked on her belief and made it that much stronger. She never missed a chance to teach her boys a lesson about the Lord, especially after Jess was born. He was a curious thing, and once he lit into asking you questions about God and Heaven and Jesus you’d better have him some answers ready, or it just wouldn’t do. But his daddy was somebody different altogether. There were two things that man just wouldn’t talk about: his heavenly father and his own daddy. I reckon he figured that once he cut his ties with his earthly father, any substitute, whether holy or not, was going to be judged with the same thorough measure he judged just about everything else in his life.

  And the Lord knows that when people don’t get what they need they take what they can find, and Julie wasn’t no different from most women about such a thing as that. What she found was a Christian family that welcomed her and her two little boys and never asked one question about why her husband wasn’t joining the rest of his family on Sunday mornings. I reckon it was just about good enough for her, but I know there were still times when that loneliness for the way her and Ben used to be would come over her, and with it’d come a fear of him that I couldn’t ever quite put my finger on. I ain’t saying that Ben was the kind of man to hit a woman, because I can tell you that he wasn’t. His daddy was, but Ben just didn’t have it in him the way some men do. He wasn’t the kind of man to let a woman get him riled up enough to go and make a scene and take to swinging his fists. But he was a brooding soul, and I believe the way he carried himself in all that quietness hurt Julie more than an open hand ever could. It got to where those two didn’t hardly talk to each other at all, not even about the most important things married folks are supposed to share.

  It turns out that the tree I’d imagined growing up between those two wasn’t no tree at all. What I took for being roots were actually stories and lies and promises that festered deep into Julie’s heart to where there wasn’t anything anybody could do to pry them loose. Those thick limbs and branches that kept Julie and Ben from seeing each other when they needed to the most weren’t nothing but arms and fingers that held Julie back, covered her eyes, and took her hand and led her to a place she never had no intention of going. Looking back now, it wasn’t no tree at all; it was Carson Chambliss.

  IT MUST HAVE BEEN A YEAR OR SO BEFORE CHRISTOPHER DIED THAT I was out in my backyard gathering my laundry off the line when I saw Julie about as bad off as she’d ever been. It had come up a little rain, and I was trying to get all my laundry in before the sky opened up and took to pouring. On my way out back I looked across the valley and saw the dark clouds gathering in the distance, and I figured they were getting a good wash just a little piece up the road. It wasn’t doing anything but drizzling now, but I knew better than to think that it wasn’t going to come up a storm some time soon.

  I took to unfastening the laundry from the line and tossing it into the basket when for some reason, and I can’t tell you what it was, I knew that somebody was watching me. I turned around, and that’s when I saw Julie standing up in the corner of the yard by the house. She was standing there in the rain and watching me with her arms folded across herself like she was freezing, but it was a warm summer day, not a bit cool at all.

  “Lord, girl,” I hollered up at her. “You just about scared me to death.” I turned around and went to unfastening the rest of my laundry from the line, but when I looked again I saw that she hadn’t moved an inch. “You all right?” I hollered. She didn’t say nothing to that, and she didn’t make no move to come down to me either, so I dropped the clothes I was holding into the basket and walked up the yard to where she was standing. When I got close up to her, I could see that her hair was damp and her skirt was wet where it had caught some high grass on her walk over to my place. She had on a pair of rubber boots that were covered in mud up to her ankles.

  “You all right?” I asked her again when I got up to the top of the yard where she was standing. She pulled her arms even tighter around her and turned her head and looked up the road she’d just come down. That rain picked up a little then, and I could hear the thunder rumble out over the valley behind me.

  “Can you keep me from having a baby?” she asked. She turned her face to me and her eyes looked like she was just terrified to have to ask me a question like that.

  “Do you think you’re pregnant?”

  “If I was, could you keep me from having it?” she asked.

  “Why are you asking about that?” I said.

  “I just can’t have me another baby,” she said.

  “Well, Lord, why not?” I asked. “Having a baby is a good thing, girl. It ain’t no reason to be scared.”

  “I can’t have it,” she said.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because,” she said, “I’m afraid it’ll happen again.”

  “What’ll happen?” I asked.

  “It’ll be like Christopher,” she said.

  “Goodness, Julie,” I said. “That ain’t no reason to get rid of it. Christopher’s a fine boy, and you know you don’t love him no less than you would’ve if he’d been different. And look at Jess. You got yourself two fine little boys, and there ain’t nothing wrong with either one of them.”

  “But Pastor said it might happen again,” she said. “And I think he might be right.”

  “What makes you think that man knows anything about having a baby?” I asked. “He ain’t no woman, and he ain’t no prophet neither. No matter how bad he wants y’all to believe he is.”

  “He just knows,” she said. “And I believe him when he says it.”

  “What’s Ben got to say about all this?” I asked her.

  “I ain’t told him yet,” she said. “And I ain’t going to either.”

  “A man needs to be told something like this,” I said. “I think a father needs to have a say in it.”

  “If you’re thinking you ain’t going to do it, then tell me now so I’ll know for sure,” she said. Her eyes dropped to the ground, and her voice was just a whisper. “I already been trying to stop it anyway.”

  “What have you done?” I asked. She turned and looked out over the trees that ran down into the holler behind the house. When she looked at me again, her eyes were full of tears. She tried to say something, and then she stopped herself like she was going to cry.

  “I been doing all kinds of things,” she finally said. “Boiled some water in a pot and knelt over the steam until I couldn’t stand it anymore.” She looked back toward the road, and then she looked down at her stomach. She lifted up her blouse with one hand and pulled at the waistline of her skirt with the other. When she did, I saw that her stomach was purple with bruises so dark it looked like she’d dyed her skin with blackberries.

  “Lord, girl,” I said. “Who done this to you?”

  “I done it,” she said. “I threw myself on the edge of the porch until I couldn’t stand up to do it again.”

  She started crying then, and I went to her and wrapped my arms around her, and when I did her body shuddered like it was too painful to even be touched. She folded her arms across her belly again and leaned her head against my shoulder and took to sobbing.

  “It’s going to be all right,” I said. “There ain’t nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I was going to drink some castor oil, but I didn’t have any,” she said.

  “Who told you that would work?” I asked.

  “Pastor did,” she said. When I heard that, I leaned back so I could see her, and she stepped away from me and wiped her eyes.<
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  “Pastor told you to do all this to yourself?” I asked.

  “He showed me how to do it,” she said. “And he told me if I didn’t get it this month then I should come and see you. He said you might be able to fix it, if you’re willing. He said you wouldn’t tell nobody either.”

  I didn’t like Carson Chambliss speaking for me, especially when it came to this kind of thing, especially when we hadn’t said more than two words to each other in years and years. And I didn’t like a grown woman telling her pastor she was pregnant before her own husband knew and then him sending her out to me after showing her how to get rid of it on her own. Then it dawned on me, and I’ll never forget the look on Julie’s face when I asked.

  “Is this Ben’s baby?”

  She raised her eyes to mine, and we stood there looking at each other. “What do you mean?” she said.

  “Is this Ben’s baby?” I asked again.

  “Of course,” she said. “Whose in this world would it be otherwise?”

  “You tell me,” I said.

  “If you don’t think you’re going to do it, then tell me now,” she said. “I can figure out something else if you won’t help me.”

  I ain’t going to say that I hadn’t ever done it before, and I ain’t going to say there’s not reasons good and bad for that kind of thing, but I knew right then there wasn’t no way I was going to do it for Julie Hall, no matter who’d sent her. But I didn’t tell her that with her standing out in the rain soaking wet and scared to death, bruises spreading out across her belly like flower blossoms.

  “Let’s just wait,” I told her. “Let’s just wait another month and see what happens. It ain’t going to hurt nothing at all if we just wait. You probably ain’t going to show for a while anyway.”

  BUT I GUESS WHAT SHE’D DONE TO HERSELF MUST’VE WORKED BECAUSE she never mentioned nothing else about it to me, and she sure didn’t have no baby. I waited a couple of months before I asked her about it again, and I could tell then that she didn’t want to talk about it at all. We were standing out in the parking lot one Sunday afternoon after the service had let out. I’d brought the children up from the riverbank, and they were all running in between the cars and chasing each other like they always did. Julie was standing and talking to a few of the women from the church, and I waited until she was alone before I went up and spoke to her.

  “I reckon you had your cycle,” I said, “because you ain’t been back around to see me.”

  “I got it this month,” she said.

  “You ever tell Ben?”

  “No,” she said. “Turns out there wasn’t nothing to tell. I was just late; that’s all.” She turned around and hollered for Jess and Christopher, and then she loaded them up into Ben’s truck.

  “You come by and see me if you ever need to,” I said. “It ain’t got to be about something like this, but just know you can come and talk to me whenever you need to.”

  “Thank you,” she said, “but I reckon everything’s all right now. I’m fine.”

  I stood and watched her back Ben’s old truck out of the parking lot and drive off up the road. I remember thinking, There goes a woman who’s gone and got herself scared good, but I just couldn’t figure out what in the world could’ve scared her so bad.

  I turned back toward the building to talk to some folks before they left, and when I did I saw Carson Chambliss standing in the door of the church. The sunlight was right in his eyes, and he stood there with a wooden crate in each of his hands. He stared at me without even once blinking. He held those crates down at his sides by the little suitcase handles that were fastened to them; they had chicken wire stapled up around the insides, but he was too far away for me to see what was in there, although I knew well enough what they were.

  “How’re you, Sister Adelaide?” he asked me.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I’m just about to leave.”

  “We had us a blessed service this morning,” he said. “And I pray our children did as well.”

  “We got along fine,” I said. “We always do.” He took him a few steps into the parking lot and stopped in front of me, and when he did one of those crates he held bucked so strong I was afraid it would jump out of his hand. He looked down at it for a second, and then he looked up at me. He was smiling.

  “That’s good to hear,” he said. “Children are the lifeblood of this church. There ain’t no future without them.” He turned and set those crates in the back of Tommy Lester’s pickup truck where Tommy had put the ones he was carrying, and then he went around to the other side and climbed in beside Tommy. I watched them pull out of the parking lot and listened to Tommy rev the engine as they took off up the road.

  I stood there and watched them go and thought about how that was an awfully strange thing for a man to say who’d go and show a mother how to kill her own.

  FIFTEEN

  BUT JULIE DID COME BACK OUT TO MY HOUSE. SHE SHOWED up at my door on Monday evening, the day after Christopher died, and when I saw her standing out there I could tell that she’d been crying.

  “You told me before that I could come and talk to you,” she said.

  “Well, of course you can, girl,” I said. “Come on in here.” I closed the door and led her over to the sofa and sat down beside her. It was only the night before when we were doing this very same thing, and it almost brought a chill to my bones, the very idea that we were almost going to relive it together. “Can I get you anything?” I asked her. “I got a little bit of coffee left on the stove, or I could heat you up a little water for some tea.”

  “No,” she said, “I’m fine. I just need to get away from that house.”

  “Well, Julie, you can stay with me for as long as you need to,” I said. I reached over and put my hand on hers, and when I did she took to crying. She tried covering her eyes with her hands, but it didn’t do any good. “You can bring Jess over here with you too. He might want to be with his mama.”

  “I can’t,” she said. “Ben won’t let me have him. We’ve already talked about it. He won’t even let me be alone with him, he won’t even hardly look at me.”

  “He’s just trying to get through this,” I told her. “Same as you. Everybody goes about dealing with things in different ways.”

  “But he started up drinking after we got home from the hospital last night. And this morning, after his daddy took Jess to school, the two of them went off to his daddy’s house and they’ve been over there all day. I wanted to pick Jess up from school, but he wouldn’t let me have the truck, and I’m afraid he’s drinking too much to drive and I’m afraid of what’s going to happen. When I tried to talk to him, he just told me that everything that’s happened is all my fault.”

  “Well, y’all just lost your son yesterday, Julie,” I said. “Y’all just lost your little boy, and there ain’t nothing that can prepare folks for something like that. People say all kinds of things when they’re grieving, especially men. This is just one of those things you can’t be prepared for.”

  “It’s not just that,” she said. “I’m scared of him. I’ve never seen him like this in all the years we’ve been together. He’s acting just like his daddy did, and I hoped he wouldn’t ever be that way.”

  “Now, you know that ain’t true,” I said. “You know he’s a better man than that.”

  “I’d hoped he would be,” she said. “But he’s blaming me for what’s happened, saying it was my idea, saying the healing must’ve been my idea.”

  “Well, Julie, you did the best thing you knew to do,” I said. “And you know it’s not right of Ben to blame you for trying to help Christopher.”

  “But it wasn’t my idea,” she said. “It wasn’t my idea to do it.”

  “Well, who in the world said it needed doing?”

  “Pastor,” she said. “It was his idea. He told me there was something in Christopher that wasn’t letting him talk, and he promised me he could get it to leave him alone. He told me to trust him and that I sho
uldn’t even tell Ben about it until after it was done. He said that Ben would understand God’s truth eventually, that everybody would see how God had healed him.” She dropped her hands in her lap and sat there staring down at them. “But I shouldn’t have let them do it again last night,” she said. “Not after what happened yesterday morning.” She raised her eyes and looked at me. “But, Miss Lyle,” she said, “I swear I heard him speak. I swear he called out for me with all of them laying their hands on him. I know he was scared, but it worked. The Lord was healing him. I know He was. And Pastor wanted me to bring him back last night so he could finish, but I was scared after what had happened, and I wanted to say something. I wanted to stop it, but I just didn’t know how.”

  “You really trust him, don’t you?” I asked.

  “Who?”

  “Chambliss.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I do. I do trust him. I know he’s a man of God. I know God speaks through him.”

  “Julie, like I told you, you can stay here as long as you need to. But I can’t have that man over at this house, and I’m asking you to please stay away from him, at least until all this gets settled. Your little boy died in his church, under his hand. I just think it’s best if you stay away from there for now. At least as long as you’re staying here with me. Can you do that?” She looked down at her hands for a minute like she was thinking about whether she could or not, and I honestly didn’t know how she was going to answer. She finally looked up at me.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said. “I can do that.”

  “Good,” I said. “I just can’t have him coming around here. Not after what’s happened.”

  As I was saying that, I’d already started thinking about how Carson Chambliss wasn’t going to like Julie staying with me, and I knew for sure he wasn’t going to like me talking to the sheriff on Tuesday afternoon, even if I didn’t know anything for certain about what happened to Christopher. Chambliss knew there were other things that I’d seen and heard, other things that I could talk about that might make him look bad or guilty. So I wasn’t a bit surprised when Julie came into my room on Wednesday evening after the funeral and told me he wanted me to come down to the church the next day, and I can say that after I did I knew for certain that I’d looked right into the face of evil.