by Betsy Ashton
“Mama.” She half shut the door.
A youngish woman appeared and sent the child inside. In heavily accented English, she told me to go away.
“I’m looking for Father Alvarado. Is he here?” I switched to Spanish.
The woman shook her head. “Not for a few weeks. Come back.”
With that, she turned and shut the door. The deadbolt clicked.
Well, then. So much for being friendly.
When I was little, Catholic Churches were unlocked and a spiritual leader or servant of God was always available. This woman exuded no warm-and-fuzzies. I was pretty sure she wasn’t the traditional servant of God. Still, I’d found a child.
Where there was one, could there be more?
Try as I might, I couldn’t stop thinking about the little girl at St. Anna’s. I used the windshield time driving to civilization and back to create any number of scenarios about her and her mother. I had no idea how old she was; I guessed she was closer to Alex’s age than Emilie’s. She didn’t act very socialized. Maybe she and her mother had recently arrived in the country. Maybe they didn’t speak much English. Maybe the child was shy. No, it was more than shyness. Something deeper.
I took Emilie over after classes a few days later to get her read. We made some cookies, well, cookies from a mix, as an excuse to go calling. I rang the doorbell and waited.
“Why are you interested in this girl?” Emilie looked around the porch for signs of life. Nothing. No plants or chairs. No wreath on the door. No welcoming signs of habitation. The storm could have blown it all away, but I didn’t think so. Nothing personal had ever graced this porch.
“I don’t know. Partly because she’s the only child I’ve seen.” I rang the bell again. “It’s something else. I want to know what you feel.”
I was about to give up when the woman unlocked and opened the door. I introduced myself and Emilie and told her we were her new neighbors living in the Baptist church parking lot down the road. I made myself so nicely neighborly and pushy she had little choice. She edged aside to let us in.
The woman led us into a cool, dark living room and went to fetch a pitcher of iced tea. The drapes were tightly drawn, without even a sliver of light coming through. The room was as dark as dusk, even though it was mid afternoon on a bright sunny day. Emilie and I accepted glasses of what I hoped wouldn’t be sweet tea. I steeled myself to be polite and took a sip. Hark! Regular tea with a sprig of mint and a slice of lemon. She still hadn’t told us her name.
“Thank you for letting us stop by. My name is Maxine Davies, and this is my granddaughter Emilie.”
“I’m Isabella Sanchez de Jesus.” Mrs. Sanchez stumbled with English. “I, um, hope the tea is all right.”
“It’s delicious, Mrs. Sanchez.” Emilie responded in Spanish.
The woman relaxed a little when she realized Emilie spoke her language, though she remained on guard.
I asked where her daughter was, saying I wanted our two girls to meet. “Are there no other children here?”
A flicker of wariness appeared before the woman stood and walked to the hallway. “Marianna, please come here.”
A few minutes later, Marianna stood in the doorway. She wore a shabby yet clean, pressed dress. Who put dresses on young girls today, anyway? The child could have been from an earlier time, mid-fifties or earlier. She smiled and looked at Emilie.
Her expression was far older than her years. Had she seen more of the world than a girl her age should have? Was she an old soul in a too-young body? Emilie had a similar look about her, but my granddaughter’s was the result of her mother’s murder and her special gift. That didn’t seem to be the case with Marianna.
Emilie smiled, introduced herself and held out the plate of cookies. Marianna entered the room and perched on the edge of a chair. She looked at her mother for approval before she reached for a cookie. We didn’t stay long. I’d accomplished my goals—learning their names and exposing them to Emilie.
####
We hadn’t been back long before I trotted over to the bus. I planned to run my impressions past Ducks when he gave a cry of anguish. The door was open. I ran in.
“Ducks? Are you all right?” I headed toward the back of the bus.
Ducks emerged from the bathroom. I stared at him before bursting into laughter. He had one, not two, bushy red eyebrows. I peeked around him. Sure enough, the other one lay like a dead caterpillar in the basin.
“I forgot to change the shoe on my razor.” He held up an electric shaver. “Now I’m lopsided.”
“Give it to me.”
He handed it over, sat on the commode and let me even out his other eyebrow, whimpering all the time. “Thank goodness you didn’t shave it completely off. You’ll be lean for a while, but your brows will grow back.”
“Do you think Alex will notice? He’ll ride me unmercifully.”
“Is water wet?”
That night the nuclear family ate under the cloth gazebo, all except Ducks, who fled to New Orleans in an effort to forestall Alex’s teasing. Netting and citronella candles kept the recently-arrived ravenous mosquitoes at bay. Barely. I swatted at flying things, real and imagined.
Alex was overflowing with energy as always on a Friday night. With no school the next day, he wheedled his father into taking him to the beach Saturday.
“We’re going to swim and throw Frisbees. I’m going to ride my new boogie board.”
“We’re going to paint.” Emilie was as excited as Alex about Saturday’s activities. “We get to help people get new homes.”
“I’d rather play.” Alex, ever stubborn, wasn’t about to admit he wanted to work with us.
Emilie chattered about our visit to Mrs. Sanchez and her shy daughter, but she seemed to be holding something back. From experience, I knew she’d talk about it when it was time. She was my granddaughter; no one could pry something out of me until I was damned good and ready. I sat lost in thought. For a moment, it felt like unfamiliar territory. Johnny brought me back to reality with a question.
“What was their last name?” Johnny shook hot sauce into his jambalaya and stabbed a chunk of andouille sausage.
“Sanchez de Jesus. Odd combination,” Emilie said.
“Sometimes Brazilians born out of wedlock are given the mother’s family name followed by ‘de Jesus,’ kind of like ‘child of Jesus.’” Whip said. “Do other Latin cultures do the same?”
“Not a Mexican and Mexican-American habit. Could be Central and South American.” Johnny forked a piece of chicken into his mouth. He stirred his jambalaya and moved some objects to one side.
“So, Mrs. Sanchez was illegitimate?” Emilie seized on one possible reason for the family name.
“Not necessarily. The name could have been handed down in the family for several generations. Don’t assume either she or her daughter is illegitimate,” Johnny said.
I leaned closer and looked at the pile of objects on the side of Johnny’s dish.
“What?” He’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to.
“You don’t like carrots?” I pointed a finger at his dish.
“I’m a grown-up. I don’t have to eat carrots if I don’t want to.” He stuck his chin out to tease me.
“You’d better eat them if you know what’s good for you.” Alex laughed. “She’ll make you sit there until you do.”
“Wanna bet?” Johnny threw down a challenge.
“Yup.” Alex tucked a slice of carrot into his mouth and chewed.
I frowned and pointed. Johnny poked an orange-colored sliver and carried it to his mouth, held his nose and chewed.
Emilie came in to kiss me good night and snuggled down beside me before climbing into her bunk.
“Marianna’s bright orange inside.” Her gift of seeing people’s internal colors helped her analyze their state of mind. “She’s darker around the edges, though.”
Her mother’s colors changed from bright to dark after she fell under Hunter’s
control.
“Mrs. Sanchez is dark yellow. That’s not good.”
“Do you know what it means?” I hugged my granddaughter.
“Not yet. I may have to ask Dr. Schwartz or Mr. Ducks.” She kissed my cheek before scrambling into her bunk. “Don’t worry. You’re still pinky orange. You’ll figure out what’s going on.”
I will? The familiar warmth embraced me. Emilie pulled her curtains closed. I will.
I prepared my clothing for the next day’s work. When I picked up a jacket I’d worn on the trip down, I stared at the card Val and Hank gave me at Walmart. I went straight to my laptop and opened Google. Hmm, way more to them than I thought when we met.
####
Emilie and I rose early Saturday, grabbed a quick breakfast and headed to Hope Village. Emilie was too excited to sit still; I was curious to see how much progress the Care-A-Vanners and God’s Pit Crew had made. Where two houses stood less than a week ago, two more were ready for painting. Three were well along and would need painting by the following weekend.
“Watch the Pit Crew.” Gayle met us when we got out of the Rover. “I’ve been doing this a long time, but I’ve never seen a bunch of guys work as quickly or as hard as they do. They want to finish eight houses before they go home in a few days.”
“From the looks of this place, they’ll make it.”
I led Emilie to the main tent and got her registered. Gayle pointed us toward the supply tent, where we picked up brushes, rollers, trays, and gallons of paint. One of the Care-A-Vanners walked us to the next house ready for painting, showed us where to begin and how to do the work.
Halfway through the morning, Val poked her head in the room.
“Why don’t you and Johnny come over next Saturday? We have potluck suppers. You could get to know everyone.”
“Sounds great.”
After my snooping on Google, I wanted to get to know the Scotts a whole lot better. Johnny and I would have a real date with adults outside our family.
“You’re lucky. Someone’s already done the ceilings.” Val glanced upward. “You don’t have to worry about splatters either. Last thing we do is lay the carpet.”
With that, Emilie and I went back to work. We worked in companionable silence until we finished the first bedroom. We broke for water and an apple for energy.
“Something’s wrong with the Sanchezes.” Emilie played with her water bottle. “I don’t feel good about them. They were so uncomfortable around us. Almost like they were afraid to talk to us.”
“I agree. That house is full of secrets.” I polished off my apple and wished for a second one.
“Mrs. Sanchez doesn’t want anyone getting too close to Marianna. She’s, like, totally protective.” Emilie drained her bottle. We walked to the food tent and brought back two more and a couple of apples in our pockets. “Even more protective than you are.”
I swatted her butt with a paint rag.
“Did you notice how scared Marianna was? She wouldn’t say anything without her mother’s approval.” I gulped ice water.
“Like I said, their colors are all wrong. I need to get to know her. I wonder if they’d come to the beach with us.” Emilie stretched and headed toward the second bedroom.
“It’s worth a try.” My radar was going off big time. I’d seen that look of wariness before.
With an hour free before I had to finish dinner, I plopped in a chair outside with my journal and an “un” sweet tea. Whip and Alex hadn’t returned from the beach. I documented my concerns for the Sanchez family, all the while trying not to remember where I’d seen her haunted look. I’d finished my daily entry when Ducks emerged from the bus. He ambled over, snagged a chair with a foot and pulled it close.
“Mind if I join you?” He pulled his pipe from a pocket. “If I’m not interrupting.”
“Not at all.” I closed the journal before setting it on the table. “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be hiding out from Alex in New Orleans?”
“I didn’t go after all. I couldn’t stop thinking about the Sanchez family. I rode over to the church and stopped. No one answered when I knocked. You and Em are right to worry about that child.” Ducks opened his tobacco pouch and filled his pipe. “Something’s off.”
“And you know this because Em told you? Or is it something you feel?”
I hoped I didn’t get the single warning blink. Instead, Ducks relaxed and leaned toward me, elbows on knees.
“As you’ve guessed, I have some of the gift too. Mine’s different from Em’s. It’s also not as well developed.”
Oh great. I had two spooks around. “Better developed than mine, I bet.”
“Because I no longer fight it like you do.”
I was used to Emilie’s weirdness. She no longer freaked me out. Ducks, too, was part of a select group. “Is this what Em meant at the end of your interview?”
Ducks’s eyes hooded and a single blink followed. “We all have our secrets, Max. The one I’m ready to share is my gift.”
“Okay.” I was positive he still hid a lot from me.
“I see things, not as images, but as very strong emotions.”
“Em internalizes what she feels. It’s as if she’s experiencing what someone else feels.”
“I told you right after I met her she was an empath. That’s what they do—feel what others are feeling.”
“She sees internal colors too.” I glanced at my journal. I needed to think about how Emilie analyzed situations. Something profound lay under the surface, but I didn’t know what it was.
Ducks waved a match over the pipe’s bowl. He puffed until the tobacco caught the flame. He blew a thin stream of vanilla-and-brandy-scented smoke skyward. “I’m different, but if someone close to me is upset or happy, I know before anyone says anything.”
“I’m glad you understand her.”
“That’s why I said I could help her, along with Angela Schwartz, of course. I’ve been studying the subject since I was in my mid-thirties.”
“What happened to spark your interest? Did you suddenly discover your gift?”
Ducks blinked again. “Something like that. I accepted a truth about myself.”
I hoped for a concrete example, but Ducks wasn’t forthcoming. Questions elbowed each other behind my tightly closed lips. One look at the teacher’s face was enough to shut me up. Not the time or place for prying. I tried a different approach.
“Are you the feather?”
Ducks blinked one more time. I knew better than to probe further. I tried to quiet my thoughts. I’d return to what he said, and didn’t say, when I was alone. If I were ever truly alone again. I felt a wash of warmth.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Mississippi, week of October 17
Emilie helped with dinner. She chattered about how she liked painting the new house, how nice it was to work with the single mother who’d be living there, how tired she was and how this was going to be an early evening. “My arms ache from the roller.”
“Mine too.” I stirred the beef stew I’d put in the slow cooker before we left for Hope Village. “I hope your dad and Alex get home soon.”
“They can always eat leftovers.”
Alex and Whip raised a commotion by returning from a day at the beach. Alex shouted to Johnny and a couple of men who were playing catch outside the chain-link fence.
“We had so much fun, Uncle Johnny. We met a man whose house disappeared. It was, like, so cool.”
“Cool? Losing your house is cool?” Emilie rolled her eyes at her brother’s insensitivity.
I let her get away with it because I agreed. One of these days, maybe, just maybe, Alex would think before putting his mouth in gear.
“Okay, guys. Dinner in ten.”
“Set a place for Ducks. He didn’t go to New Orleans after all.” I called to Emilie, who went to fetch large soup bowls from the boys’ dorm.
“I know.”
I slipped into the bus to hand Ducks a paper sack. He peeked insi
de. “Do you have one?”
“You bet. I’ll text you when I’m ready.”
Emilie and I carried food to the table. I was last out of the dorm because I needed to freshen my look. I texted Ducks to arrive at the same time I did. We both wore Groucho Marx glasses, complete with bushy black eyebrows and mustaches. Alex’s attention was all on the glasses and not at all on Ducks’s new semi-bald look.
“Why the Groucho glasses?” Johnny laughed.
“Why not?”
Before Alex could dominate the conversation, Johnny wanted to know if Whip had had any luck finding more crews and supervisors. With more men going missing every payday, we needed to backfill and add another supervisor or two just to keep even with the leakage.
“Called Tops. He can’t spare anyone. All our guys are booked. He’ll call around, though, and see what he can scare up.” Whip ladled stew into his bowl. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
“I had no idea how hard it would be to keep people working.” Ducks pushed the Groucho mustache aside. “Of course, it doesn’t help with our menacing quartet prowling the roadways.”
“I put both pastors on alert this week. They’ll spread the word, as will the Care-A-Vanners.” I didn’t mention a sheriff’s car tailing me.
“Did you find anyone?” Johnny knew how shorthanded we were. “We gotta have more people.”
“Don’t know. I left a lot of messages and talked to about a dozen supervisors. One will be down next week with as many men as he can bring.” Whip ate a few bites of his dinner. “Hell, I got desperate enough to call Charlie to see if her company had anyone.”
“Wow! Is Charlie coming?” Alex turned up the volume.
I couldn’t pounce on him about using his outside voice. He was outside, after all.
“I’m sitting right here, Alex.” Whip reminded his son. “I’m not deaf yet.”
“And?” Johnny sopped up gravy with a second biscuit. “Can she send anyone?”
“Her company’s headquartered in Texas. Most of her crews are rebuilding in Texas after Hurricane Rita hit less than a month after Katrina. It’s the pits when two hurricanes hit so close together in both time and space. I left about a dozen other messages. If we don’t find more people, the job will take longer.”
