A Trail of Crumbs

by Finkbeiner, Susie;

  Aunt Carrie turned a page and sighed, holding the book to her chest and closing her own eyes.

  “‘Hope is the thing with feathers,’” she began, not even having to look at the page. “‘That perches in the soul.’”

  She went on, reading of a little bird that sang without stopping through a terrible storm, giving hope to any who heard her. And in return, that sweet bird didn’t ask for anything, not even so much as a crumb.

  I pictured that bird in my mind. She was a buttery color of yellow with feathers fine and wispy. She wasn’t fancy as a peacock or a parrot, but she was pretty enough just the way she was. Her voice wasn’t shrill as some birds sang. No, hers was smooth and trilling. And she sang for no other reason than to lighten the load off the hearts of the burdened. Hers was a song of hope.

  “Do you understand the poem?” Aunt Carrie asked after she’d finished reading through it a second time.

  “I think I do,” I answered, finally opening my eyes.

  “I read this poem often when Charlie was away at war,” she said. “It’s one of my very favorites.”

  “Mine, too.”

  She leaned back against a steady and strong branch and wrinkled her forehead.

  “It’s nice to think on,” I said. “Hope is a real nice word.”

  “Indeed, Pearl.” She smiled at me. “Some storms rage so loud that it’s hard to hear the sweet song of hope. But it’s always there.”

  Hope was a feathered critter. And sometimes it fluttered just out of reach.

  Aunt Carrie said she had some things to attend to before the field hands came in for dinner. I asked if she would mind if I stayed there in the tree for a little bit longer. She told me that was all right by her.

  “You stay as long as you need to,” she told me. “Make yourself at home.” I wished I had the nerve to ask if I could stay there forever.

  The Alice book open on my lap, I tried reading about her drinking from the little bottle. Every time I got to the end of the page I’d have to go back and read it all over again. My mind was just too distracted.

  I shut my eyes and leaned my head back on the branch behind me.

  I listened for the song of birds.

  Long as I waited, I only heard one bird. But she wasn’t singing. She screeched, her voice scratchy and sharp.

  Hers wasn’t a song of hope.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Daddy had never been one to raise his voice at Mama. Even when he was angry with her, he kept calm and quiet, measuring each word.

  He’d grit his teeth together, working to hold onto his self-control.

  Even when Mama’d scream or stomp her foot, Daddy stayed even.

  So when I heard him holler at her, I grabbed hold of the sheets on my bed, clutching them in both my fists so hard my knuckles hurt.

  “What is this?” Daddy yelled.

  “It’s nothing,” Mama answered. She didn’t yell but her voice was icy. “It doesn’t look like nothing to me, Mary.”

  “Were you going through my things?”

  “Why do you have a letter from Abe in your jewelry box? Tell me why.” Neither of them made a sound. Then Daddy let his voice quiet a little. “Are you having a love affair with him?”

  “It’s just a note,” Mama said. “That’s all.”

  “I don’t want you seeing him,” Daddy said. “I want you staying away from him. Don’t invite him to supper anymore. No more going for walks or calling him on the telephone. You hear me?”

  She didn’t say she would do as he said. She didn’t say anything at all. “You see him on the street, you’re to turn and walk away,” he said. “I won’t have you tearing this family apart.”

  “It’s already torn, Thomas,” she said. “Don’t you see that?”

  I felt my arm, resting my fingers on the scratches Mama’d made there just that morning. They were still sore.

  “Why, Mary?” Daddy asked. “Just tell me why you’re doing this.”

  “He cares,” she said.

  “I do, too, Mary. I love you dearly.”

  I wanted Mama to tell him that she loved him, too. To say that she’d never so much as look twice at Abe Campbell ever again. I wished so hard that she’d fall into Daddy and beg him to forgive her for letting her heart stray.

  But she didn’t.

  Instead, she went on and on, her voice shrill. She yelled about how Beanie would’ve still been alive if Daddy’d moved us away from Red River like she’d begged him to. She screamed on and on about how if he’d cared he would have never let Eddie DuPre into our home. I mashed the pillow on my head, holding it tight on my ear so I wouldn’t hear her anymore.

  I started humming, my eyes clamped shut as hard as I could force them. Humming and singing anything I could think of. Hymns and radio songs and little ditties I’d learned at school.

  My voice crackled and choked with my crying, still I kept on. It was all I could think to do.

  Ray and I were the only ones home the next morning. I went in every room of the house, calling for Mama, but she wasn’t anywhere I looked.

  “She ain’t here, Pearl,” Ray said.

  His eyes were red rimmed and for having been outside all summer long, he looked awful pale. I didn’t think he’d slept much more than I had the night before.

  “He’d never hurt her, you know,” I told him.

  “I know,” he answered.

  I went to the bedroom she shared with Daddy, thinking maybe she was still in bed. Pushing open the door, I stepped inside, my heart beating so hard I could hear its rushing in my ears.

  I let out a relieved sigh when I saw she wasn’t there.

  Mama never liked me to be in her bedroom unless she’d invited me. She didn’t want me snooping in her things. Still, I didn’t leave. I stepped in and closed the door behind me.

  Hanging on the wall was a gold-colored frame with a picture inside it, the kind of photograph made special in a studio. It was of the four of us. Daddy, Mama, Beanie, and me. Daddy and Mama sat side by side on a bench. Beanie was on Daddy’s knee and I was on Mama’s lap. Mama had her arm around my waist, her hand resting on my stomach.

  She’d kept me safe then.

  I couldn’t hardly stand looking at that picture for the way it reminded me how good it’d been once upon a time.

  A fairy tale that had a very unhappy ending.

  I saw a shoe in one corner of the room. It was a shoe with worn soles and a buckle that was polished just enough to shimmer. It lay, abandoned, on its side. I squatted beside it, my finger tracing the shape of a scuffed-up spot on the black leather near the heel.

  It had happened, that scuff, when she was carrying a basket of dirty clothes out back before scrubbing them on the washboard. She’d tripped just enough that she stumbled, turning her ankle and rubbing part of her shoe against the wood of the porch.

  Daddy’d offered to buff it out with some of his shoe polish. Mama’d said it was fine, though. Not to worry. They were old shoes anyhow.

  Turning, I saw her basket of mending full of hose that needed stitching up. She’d worn those stockings so long they’d tear if she so much as looked at them.

  Daddy’d told her to go buy a new pair. Maybe a couple pair, even. We had the money for it if she needed. But Mama’d said it was fine. Not to worry. She’d never been one to buy new when she could fix the old.

  On her dresser was the gold band Daddy’d given her on their wedding day. It didn’t shine the way I imagined it had those years before.

  He’d promised to get her another, one with a bigger diamond and smooth gold. But Mama’d said it was fine. Not to worry. She said it had good memories in every scratch and dull spot. The promise she’d made to him on their wedding day held still, no matter how fine the ring.

  I slid it on my finger, bending my knuckles to be sure it didn’t slip off. There on the dresser, propped against an old glass ashtray, was an envelope with Daddy’s name written on it in Mama’s neat penmanship. I traced the T-H-O-M-A-S
with my fingertip. I’d never liked it when Mama used Daddy’s given name.

  I remembered to take the ring off my finger, careful to set it back on the dresser right where I’d found it. Mama would’ve been real mad at me if I lost it. She’d have been sore that I’d been in her room in the first place.

  I made sure to close the bedroom door behind me and to hold the letter with firm but gentle fingers.

  I looked out the window to our back yard. All I saw of Ray were his bare feet dangling from the branch of the tree. That was fine by me.

  The way I figured it, I needed to take that letter to Daddy and I needed to go all by myself.

  I thought about leaving a note for Ray, but wasn’t sure he’d be able to read it on his own. Besides, I did believe I’d be back before he even knew I was gone.

  Soon as I stepped foot out of the house, a feeling a lot like dread settled into my heart. Much as I wanted to, I didn’t look in that envelope.

  Walking down Main Street with that letter in my hand, I moved my feet like I would have any other day. I smiled at folks passing by. When they said “hello” I said it back to them.

  What I’d learned about hard times was that no matter how bad things got I could force a smile like nothing was wrong at all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  After Daddy read the letter he leaned forward, putting his elbows on his desk to read it again. Then another time. With his fingers he rubbed at his forehead.

  “Daddy?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

  He lifted his face like he’d forgotten I was sitting right there on the other side of the desk from him. Standing, he turned his head one way, then the next, feeling of his shirt pocket like he’d misplaced something. Then he looked down at the letter and folded it once, twice, pressing the creases between his fingers like he wanted to keep it sealed like that forever.

  “We gotta go home, darlin’,” he said. “Come on.”

  He walked his normal pace and I trotted along to keep up. Every couple steps I looked up at his face to see if he’d broken yet or if he was near to it. I wasn’t sure why, but he’d seemed close to tears when he read that letter. But he kept his face firm and strong. If anybody’d been walking by, they wouldn’t have known anything was wrong at all.

  I wasn’t watching where I was going and tripped over my own two feet, falling down on my knees and feeling the sting of where the pavement tore at my skin.

  “You all right, darlin’?” Daddy asked, taking a knee beside me and getting a look at my bloody legs. “Oh, honey. You got it good. You think you can walk?”

  I told him I could and he helped me to my feet. But once I was standing the pain started throbbing in my knees, my head, my heart. I thought if I opened my mouth to tell him how it hurt I’d get to wailing and moaning and all the town would hear my very heart breaking.

  I still didn’t know why.

  When we got home we found Opal standing out on the front walk, waiting to be let in to start work for the day. Soon as she saw us coming, saw my roughed-up knees, she rushed to meet us and took my hand in hers and put her arm around my shoulders.

  “I’ll take care of this,” she told Daddy.

  He didn’t put up a fight.

  She made to walk us all the way around to the back door, but Daddy stopped her.

  “Go on in the front,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.” She led me up the porch steps and right inside to the bathroom.

  “Now, sit on the edge of the tub. I’ve got to put something on those knees,” she told me. “What happened?”

  “I fell on the pavement,” I said. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  “That happens sometimes, huh?” she asked, taking a little brown bottle out of the bathroom cupboard. “I’ve still got the scars from when I was a girl.”

  She poured the ointment on a washrag and dabbed my knees. It stung something awful and I breathed in a hissing sound through my tight-clenched teeth.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Just a little more.”

  When she’d cleaned them out as much as she could, she put bandages on them, saying I should take it easy for the rest of the day.

  “Maybe just stay inside so they don’t get infected or anything.” She jiggled the bottle of ointment. Only a few more drops sloshed in the bottom. “I’ll make sure your mother knows you need more ointment.”

  “But she’s gone,” I whispered.

  “I don’t understand,” Opal said back to me.

  I didn’t understand, either.

  Daddy told Opal she could go home for the day. He told her we’d need her tomorrow and maybe the rest of the mornings that week.

  “I’ll pay you extra if you’ll do a little cooking, too,” he told her. “Mrs. Spence had to leave town unexpectedly.”

  “Is everything okay, sir?” Opal asked, her eyes wide.

  “Sure. Yes.” He nodded and folded his arms. “Just family business is all. I don’t know when she’ll be coming back.”

  “Yes, sir.” And with that Opal turned for the back door.

  “Opal?” Daddy said, stopping her. “From now on you’ll use the front door when you come and go.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Once she got to the front door she hesitated a moment before turning the knob.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Daddy had Ray and me get into the truck. Neither of us asked where we were going or why. It didn’t seem the time to ask Daddy anything just then. I sat between them in the front. Daddy on my left, one hand on the steering wheel and the other rubbing at the back of his neck. Ray on my right, his elbow propped up on the open window and his hand riding the air that rushed at us as we rode along.

  The good dog Boaz met us where the farmhouse drive met the road. He ran alongside the truck until we got all the way up to the house. Ray got out of the truck and squatted so the dog’s face was right in his own and he rubbed at the mutt’s jowls. Bo whined for happiness.

  “Oh, poor Boaz,” Aunt Carrie called, stepping down from the porch. “Are you telling Ray how neglected you are?”

  The dog paid her no mind at all. Far as I could tell, he didn’t need anybody else just so long as Ray was there.

  “Carrie,” Daddy said. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you first …”

  “What is it?” Aunt Carrie pulled at the collar of her dress and the color drained right out of her face at the sound of Daddy’s voice. “Did something happen?”

  “We’re all right.” His eyebrows twitched together and he licked at his lips. “I just … well, I need some help with the kids today. Wondered if they could stay here for an hour or so.”

  “Of course,” she told him. “They can stay as long as you need them to.”

  “I do appreciate it,” Daddy said, turning toward the truck then changing his mind and facing Aunt Carrie again, like he didn’t know what to do with himself. He slapped his thigh so it made a clapping sound that got the dog’s attention. “It’s real nice of you.”

  “Tom?” She took a step forward. “Can I do anything for you?”

  “Nah.” He nodded at her once. “I’m just …”

  “Mama left town,” I said.

  Both Aunt Carrie and Daddy looked at me and I felt the full weight of their stares.

  “She’ll be back, darlin’,” Daddy said. “I’ll bring her back, hear?” I nodded, trying with all my strength to force hope.

  Aunt Carrie and I sat at the table in her kitchen. Her cup of coffee steamed and my cup of hot cocoa hadn’t lasted nearly long enough. She didn’t ask about Mama and I didn’t tell her, either. If she had wanted to know, I wasn’t sure what I would’ve said that wouldn’t have made Mama out to be a bad woman.

  She wasn’t a bad woman. She was good. Mama was good through and through. I had to think it over and over so I remembered.

  “There’s something I wanted to show you,” Aunt Carrie said, getting up from the table. “Wait here.”

  She left the room and came back with an old
photo album. She put it on the table before sitting back in her seat.

  “Go ahead,” she told me. “Take a look.”

  Careful as I could, I opened the cover of the album. Black pages held pasted on photos of folks from long before. In the pictures were faces I could have sworn I knew, just they looked younger.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “It’s Gus’s,” she answered, pointing at a picture of a tall boy with a big, goofy smile plastered on his face. He wore his war uniform and stood straight as he could. “That’s him.”

  In the next picture he stood between two small women, his arms resting on their shoulders. One of them looked straight into the camera.

  “Meemaw?” I whispered, half expecting her to laugh and say something to me. I nearly choked for how missing her set like a rock in my throat.

  “I believe so.” Aunt Carrie put her finger under the face of the other woman. “And that’s Gus’s mother. She’d be your great-aunt Lettie.”

  Old Aunt Lettie had her face turned up to look at Uncle Gus. “She looks proud,” I said.

  “I believe she was.”

  Turning the page, I saw a photo of the main street in Red River all decked out with banners I imagined were red, white, and blue. Folks lined up and down the street wearing their Sunday best for the occasion.

  There were no mounds of dust piled against the buildings and the streets were clean and tidy. All the shops were open without so much as a single board nailed over a window.

  “Gus said that when he got home from the war they threw him a parade,” she said. “It was quite the celebration, I guess.”

  I pictured in my mind that the band played “Over There” all the way through at least twenty times, maybe even more, and everybody sang along with every word, welcoming their own Johnnie back again.

  He’d ridden on the seat of a wagon pulled by a pack of thick horses. I asked who was driving the horses, but Aunt Carrie said she didn’t know. It didn’t matter much, really.

  I flipped through more and more of the pictures. It seemed all the folks of Red River had wanted to have their picture taken with him. In one Mad Mable had her arm linked with his. She’d turned her face toward him, saying something that made him half smile. She looked plenty sane then, pretty even. In another was Millard, not near as wrinkled and gray as I knew him to be, still a good deal older than Uncle Gus, though. They stood side by side, both straight as possible like they were trying to prove who was taller. But of all of those, I liked the one with him and Daddy most. Whoever had taken that picture caught the two of them in the middle of a laugh.