I made to call out his name, hoping he’d see me and smile the way Daddy had. I was about to lift my arms and wave at him so he’d know we were there. But Aunt Carrie took my hand and, real gentle like, kept it held down.
“It’s a time of quiet gratitude, dear,” she whispered. “You can wave at him all you want later on. Now he needs the respect of hand to heart.”
I did as she said, not feeling scolded. Instead I felt the thankfulness swell inside me. What for, I wasn’t so sure. But I was just ten and war still didn’t make so much sense to me.
My right hand on my chest, I felt the thump, thump, thump of my heart. After they passed, Aunt Carrie nodded and asked if we’d like her to walk us home. I told her we’d manage just fine.
“We know the way,” I said.
“I bet you do.” She gave me a kind smile and a little wink. “Well, I’d best go find Uncle Gus. He’ll be waiting for me at the end of the road.”
“Are you coming to supper tonight?”
“Yes, we will. Your mama invited us,” she said. “Isn’t that nice?”
I told her it was.
We said we’d see her later and turned to go home. Along the way, Bert caught up to us. He walked with a strut like he was trying to show Ray how big and tough he was even if the top of his head barely reached Ray’s shoulder.
“You like the parade?” he asked.
“Sure I did,” Ray answered.
“Say, you wanna go down to the creek?” Bert asked. “Catch a couple turtles?”
Ray didn’t give him an answer. He just took off running along with Bert toward the creek and I walked by my lonesome back home.
I tried real hard to believe it was fine by me, them leaving me out like that. It was a good day and the sun shone bright. Behind me, the band still played a bumping tune and folks around me were full of smiles.
They weren’t smiles for me, though.
Mama, she’d be happy to have me near, I just knew it. She’d let me tell her all about the parade while I helped her do this or that in the kitchen. She’d laugh and smile and tell me how grateful she was to have a girl like me to help her get together dinner.
If there was one person in all the world I could count on it was Mama. The warmth that bloomed in my heart healed up my lonely feelings.
I walked along, my arms swinging at my sides and a bounce in my step. Glad was how I felt just then.
If only that glad feeling could have lasted more than the rest of that morning.
If only.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I could see through the big front window that Mama sat at the dining-room table. She touched her cheek and I thought she was wiping a tear out from under her eye. Her mouth was moving like she was telling somebody something.
Whatever it was she was saying made her sad. And here I’d held out hope for her to have a good day.
One of her hands was resting beside a coffee cup on the table, her fingers spreading and curling as she talked. I watched as her crying got stronger and she shook her head.
A hand covered hers, wrapped fingers around it. That hand belonged to a man. I wondered how Daddy’d made it home before me.
I opened the front door and walked in.
The chairs in the dining room pushed back fast, making a scrambling sound on the wood floor. Mr. Campbell turned and looked right at me, putting his hands in his pants pockets.
Mama held her hand to her chest, the hand he’d touched.
“Did you have fun?” she asked, using her other hand to wipe under her eyes.
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered.
I forgot about asking for a cookie. It was just as well. I felt like I might be sick.
After supper the men went out back to play catch. Uncle Gus even brought an old wood bat and enough mitts for anybody who wanted one.
Mama gave me a look out the corner of her eye when I put one of those leather gloves on my hand. I made no show of taking it off and putting it back in the pile. What I really wanted to do was throw a fit. But I didn’t want to ruin the day, so I held it in.
Aunt Carrie sat beside me on the back porch and together we watched the ball go back and forth, hearing it slap against the men’s leather gloves. Every once in a while a stray ball rolled to my feet and I tossed it back to Daddy.
He always pretended like I’d whipped it so hard his hand stung under the mitt.
“It’s nice and cool out here, don’t you think?” Aunt Carrie asked, stretching her legs out in front of her. “Just right.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered, straightening my legs like she had and feeling the chill of early evening breeze brush over my skin.
“What was your favorite part of the day?” Aunt Carrie asked. “Almost all of it,” I answered, turning to look at her. “Especially the parade.”
“What did you like most about the parade?”
“Seeing Daddy.” I turned to her. “What was your favorite?”
“I liked seeing Uncle Gus in his uniform,” she answered. “He looked handsome.”
“Aunt Carrie,” I said. “What war was Uncle Gus in?”
“The Great War, dear.” She let her feet swing just above the ground. “He was in France. Same as my brother.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother.”
“Well, I did.” She sighed. “I suppose I don’t talk about him much anymore.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died,” she said. “He never came home from the war.”
“I’m sorry,” I told her.
“I am, too.”
“My sister died, too,” I whispered. “It hurts real bad, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Yes, it does.”
“Does it ever get better?”
“I don’t know about better.” She shifted, sitting up straighter, the palms of her hands pressed flat against the porch. “But the sadness changes.”
I waited, not saying anything, hoping she’d explain what she meant. “When my father was a boy he had an accident and he lost his arm,” she said, shaking her head. “That happened a lot back in those days. Anyway, he said at first the pain was sharp, thudding, all through his body. Then, after he healed a bit, he still felt pain once in a while. As if the arm was still there, being torn off all over again. Other times it didn’t hurt at all.”
I felt of my own arm. The skin was smooth and whole. I tried imagining what it might be like to have it missing. Seemed it would’ve been hard to do about anything at all without it.
“Over time the pain of missing my brother became more and more dull. And then, after my folks died it hurt all over again,” she went on. “But it’s still there, pushing at me. Days like today I miss him a lot.”
“Why today?” I asked.
“He would have loved to walk in the parade.”
I thought of Beanie. She wouldn’t have liked the marching band. It would have been too loud for her and she might have held her hands over her ears to dampen the sound. The animals might have caught her attention, leading her to want to ask a hundred questions even if she wouldn’t even think of touching any of the critters. It sure would’ve bothered her to see them on leads like they were.
She would have liked seeing Daddy, though. That would have made her proud. She would have followed him out the corner of her eyes with her shy and quiet smile.
It would have tickled her to have him wave right at her.
Beanie’d sure loved Daddy.
And, boy, had he ever loved her.
I woke with a start, blinking away the last bits of a bad dream, and worked to free myself from the tangled up bedclothes. Sitting, I pushed my already-open window wider, letting in a nice breath of air. I was grateful for the breeze, lazy as it might be.
I rested my head on the window frame and closed my eyes. Just as I drifted back to sleep I jolted again, feeling like I’d fallen from a great height.
Eyes wide open, I knew I’d never get back to sleep. Even if I did, t
he terrifying dream might come back and I didn’t want to even think of that.
The woods out on the other side of our back yard were quiet just then. I wondered if there were coons and possums wandering around, searching between fallen branches and under blankets of leaves for a little something to snack on. There’d be birds hunkered down in their nests, keeping chicks warm through the night.
I knew very well there weren’t any ghosts out in those woods. Still, I could have sworn I heard the groaning of the runaway slave ghost and saw the shimmer of her floating just above the tree branches and hovering among the leaves.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I got an antsy, light-headed feeling. My heart beat so fast it made me afraid of it giving out. It was a lot like spinning out of control. I held on tighter reminding myself to feel the sheets on my legs, the mattress underneath me, the wall pressed against my shoulder, my face. I was there, in a house that was solid, unmoving.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” I whispered over and over, trying to convince myself it was true and not believing it one bit.
I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I was spiraling away from all I knew and into some strange darkness. The fear pulled on me, tugged at me, hoped to push me under so I wouldn’t be able to breathe anymore.
When I kept my eyes open I thought for sure I saw the shadow of something wicked moving about in the yard. When I closed them I imagined ghosts with hollowed-out faces and demon-red eyes.
Spinning, spinning, spinning. I felt I was being lured away from the only place I’d ever wanted to be.
Home.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I stepped off the back porch and took in the already-hot morning, knowing that by the end of the day it’d be blazing. It was a reading and writing lesson day for Ray, and Mama’d told me to scoot. I took my book and made for the woods. All I could think to do was find a spot under a nice shade tree to read where nobody’d come along.
Taking my time, I walked to the edge of our yard where the trees seemed to welcome me. Stooping down to smell the flowers that’d popped up on top of long stalks I told God He’d done a good job making that day. I wasn’t sure He needed encouragement, but it felt real nice to be thankful.
Over my head a big old blackbird beat at the air with its wings, heading directly to the forest. I watched it until it disappeared into the thick trees. Even though I couldn’t see the bird anymore, I could hear it cawing.
“One for sorrow,” I whispered to myself, remembering an old nursery rhyme that’d been in one of Daddy’s books. “Two for mirth.”
Turning round and round I hoped to find another crow so I could break the spell of sorrow, but there were no more. Not out in the open anyhow. Maybe, I thought, there was just one more in the woods.
I decided I was sick of sorrow and wanted to be done with it. A good dose of mirth never did anybody any harm.
Quickening my steps, I walked into the woods, holding my breath when I remembered the spooky sounds I’d sworn I’d heard coming from there not two nights before. No ghouls swooped down at my head and I didn’t hear the moaning of any ghosts. Still, I’d learned plenty enough about forests from all my reading.
Nightmares. That was what lived in the forest.
But the sunshine was kind that day, beaming down in glistening light-puddles on the ground. Dappled. That was what Aunt Carrie had called it. In her mind, she had a whole treasure chest of words that sounded like a poem all on their own.
“Dappled,” I said out loud, not caring if anybody heard me.
Just the sound of that word lifted my spirits.
I couldn’t think of a single bad thing that could happen just so long as the ground was covered in dappled sunlight.
I spent a good hour reading at the base of the twisted tree. Skipping along through the pages with my fingers, I read only the parts that I liked best. When Dorothy met the Scarecrow and when they entered the Emerald City. Flipping forward and back through the book, I ran fingertips over the smooth pictures, wishing they’d come alive like a movie.
Not far from my foot I saw something move across the ground and stop. Move and stop. I pulled my feet back and hollered at it before it slithered away, quick as lightning, under the porch of the cabin.
I didn’t know if the snakes in Michigan were full of poison like the snakes in Oklahoma were, but I wasn’t in the mood to find out.
Getting to my feet, I ran until I got to the opening of the woods guarded by the two tall pines.
I thought it only made sense to go visit with Aunt Carrie a bit, seeing’s I was nearly to her house.
Besides, I was sure she’d have a cookie for me.
I found Aunt Carrie upstairs, sweeping the hallway floor. She stopped soon as she saw me and leaned the meat of her arm on the broom handle.
“Well, I was hoping you’d come today,” she said.
“You were?” I asked.
“Yes, I was.” She pushed her dust pile to one side and leaned the broom against the wall. “Come on.”
I followed her into the room Ray and I had shared when we stayed there. On top of the dresser was a hair bow I hadn’t known I was missing.
“It’s yours, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“When I saw it, I thought of you and smiled.”
“Thank you,” I said, letting her put the bow into my hand.
It was the kind that Mama’d thought was real pretty, one that was just about as big as my whole head. As for me, I’d never cared for it so much. I thought it made me look too little-girlish. I had every intention of dropping it along the way on my walk home.
“Now, if you can wait for me to finish sweeping the hallway, I have a cookie with your name on it,” Aunt Carrie said. “Sound good?”
It did and I told her so.
I stood in the doorway of the room I’d borrowed and watched her finish up. When she was ready, I stooped and held the dustpan for her while she pushed the dirt into it. Once I stood upright, I saw a door at the end of the hall. Aunt Carrie turned and smiled.
“You’re wondering what’s behind that door, aren’t you?” she asked. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Didn’t you notice it before?”
I shook my head.
“You were too busy, weren’t you?”
“I reckon I was.”
“I’m happy to show you.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “Go ahead and put that dustpan down, dear.”
I did as she said and followed her to the far end of the hall.
“Ready?” Aunt Carrie asked, looking at me over her shoulder, her hand on the doorknob.
I told her I was, not sure what it was I needed to be ready for. Curiosity sparked in my mind, eager to see what was behind that door.
A spiral staircase filled the small room and Aunt Carrie told me to go ahead. I climbed, holding tight to the railing on account I felt nervous about falling.
“It’s safe, Pearl,” she said, following right behind me. “I’ve climbed up here a thousand times. Maybe more. And I have never fallen.”
I did try to believe her even as my knees knocked together.
At the top of the stairs was a room that was glass window on all four sides. There was just enough space for the two of us to stand in there, side by side. It let in so much light it almost hurt my eyes.
“They call this a widow’s watch,” Aunt Carrie told me. She rested her fingertips on the sill of one window and looked out over the fields where Uncle Gus was sure to be working. “These rooms were popular long ago on houses that overlooked the ocean. Women would have them built so they could wait and watch when their sailors came home from months at sea.”
Taking my time, I turned and looked out over the front yard and the fields of growing corn on the other side of the old dusty country road. Turning just a little more, I saw the chicken coop and the girls pecking away at the grass under the weeping willow. Then I moved and saw the apple orchard and the woods beyond. If I sq
uinted just right I was sure I could see the tip-top of the twisted tree.
I wondered aloud why anybody’d call it a widow’s watch.
“Because many of the men—the sailors—were lost at sea. They’d be declared dead.” Aunt Carrie’s eyes rested on me. “Widows would come to their watch even though their husbands were never coming home again. But they held onto hope, no matter how unlikely it proved to be. I think it may have been all they had left.”
“That’s sad,” I told her.
“Isn’t it?” A wrinkle of flesh formed between her eyebrows. “Yes. It is.” One for sorrow, I thought.
“I used to come here often when my brother Charlie was away at war,” she said. “I’d pretend I could see him coming home to us.”
“What do you pretend now?”
“The same thing,” she said. She took in a breath and sighed it back out. Then she made her face brighter, less sad. She smiled even. “In the fall, when all the leaves drop from the trees, I’ll be able to almost see the chimney of your house.”
Lifting up on my toes I tried to see so far, but the green leaves blocked my view. I did plan on asking if I could come back after fall.
But then my eyes fell back to the twisted tree. Of all the trees in the forest, that one looked most desperate in its upward reaching. Its sparse leaves flickered in the soft blow of wind.
“What made that tree twisted?” I asked.
“Hmm. I don’t know.” Aunt Carrie crossed her arms. “It’s been like that for ages. I wonder if that was just how it grew out of the ground. God must’ve wanted something a little different when He allowed it to grow.”
“I heard it got twisted when the runaway slave’s ghost screamed,” I said. “The woman who’d lost her son.”
“Who told you that?” she asked, pulling her head back.
“Bob,” I said, not remembering if he’d ever told me his last name.
“He did, did he?” She laughed. “That surprises me not at all. Bobby has always been a creative boy. What story did he tell you?”
I tried remembering it as he’d told it. A runaway slave woman waiting for a son who never came because he was lynched. She cried until she died and turned into a haunting ghost. Aunt Carrie listened to every word even quick as I told it.
A Trail of Crumbs Page 19
