She hollered, “Hold on, Poppy! Hold on!”
There was no stopping Donita Pendergast; she was leaving Rodney behind.
CHAPTER 36
The upstanding folks of Digby Street were ever vigilant of the comings and goings in their neighborhood of privilege. Proud and protective, they stood watch over their prestigious, historic homesteads. From behind their window blinds, they peeked suspiciously when a loitering stranger wandered on to Digby. They took special note of any suspect automobile cruising down the lane. They listened for any unfamiliar voice and took notice of every changing wind.
On a particularly warm August night, well past midnight, not a soul on Digby thought it odd when Mr. Daryl Turnball’s muted ice cream truck drove down the street, headlights darkened. Not a single neighbor ventured outside into the night when Daryl parked in front of old Sook Wainwright’s ramshackle.
On the evening of Rodney Pendergast’s disappearance, the fine families of Digby slept soundly while three shadowy figures unloaded a cumbersome cargo from Turnball’s aluminum ice cream freezer. In the light of a half moon, not a single porch light burned as three cloaked silhouettes seemed to be midnight gardening at old Sook Wainwright’s place in the ungodly hours, when only ghosts and goblins haunted Savannah’s streets.
When Rodney didn’t appear for his hearing at the courthouse the following Tuesday, Sheriff Delany presumed Rodney had skipped town. He notified old Judge Cleveland that they had a runner, who left Savannah rather than face the charges filed against him.
Sheriff Delany came knocking on our front door, prepared to ask a grieving Donita a round of questions. But when the sheriff arrived and saw the bruises along her arms and her beaten, swollen face, his tone turned surprisingly soft. Sheriff Delany postponed his interrogation, respectfully tipped his hat, and let Donita be.
As the sheriff was departing, he came upon Sookie, who was busy tending to her rows of vegetables.
“Sook, your garden looks mighty fine this year.”
“Thank you, kindly, Bernard,” she replied. “The secret to a flourishing vegetable garden relies solely on the quality of the manure in the soil. This patch of earth has the finest bullshit in all of Savannah.” Sook shoveled her spade deep in the dirt, near the vicinity of Rodney’s buried skull.
The sheriff looked to the sky. “On such a fine day as this, it’s hard to imagine that the paper is reportin’ a hurricane could be headin’ in our direction.”
“I ain’t never trusted a blue sky,” Sook replied. “It can change in a blink of an eye.”
“I suppose so.”
“Did you ask your questions of Miss Donita?”
“Yessum. Poor child,” the sheriff sighed and shook his head. “If you happen to hear or see anything suspicious, Sook, could you give me a call?”
“Yes, sirree.”
Not a single soul in Savannah thought it odd when Rodney Pendergast vanished without a trace. The truth be told, most townsfolk were tickled pink to see him long gone.
It would seem that luck had turned in Donita’s favor.
It was said that Savannah slept on her deceased. Unmarked graves were her calling card. Stacks upon stacks of unclaimed corpses lay buried below the city’s many streets, sidewalks, and squares. But luck was a fickle thing. It turned like a wicked wind. Folks believed Rodney had blown out of town, but outside Donita’s second-floor window, his spirit beckoned to her. The muddy earth couldn’t smother his calls.
Indeed, Savannah may have slept on her dead, but the grand old city traded in ghosts who haunted her ballast stone streets at nightfall, crying out for vengeance, demanding their day of reckoning.
CHAPTER 37
The angry storm blew in from the coast. Newscasters on the television reported the eye of Hurricane Clara would miss Savannah and make landfall nearer Saint Simons Island. But it was not a week earlier when old Sookie had predicted the hurricane’s arrival just off Ossabaw Sound.
She surveyed the clear blue sky and sniffed the wind. “Dontcha listen to no TV weatherman. It’s blowin’ up a mighty storm, and it’s comin’ our way. She has her eye set on Savannah.”
I said, “Sook, the newspaper reports Clara is gonna miss us.”
“Child, mark my words, Miss Clara is comin’ for a visit.”
She and I went about closing shutters, bolting up doors, and securing belongings. By early evening a howling wind blew in heavy, black clouds blanketing the sky. Come midday, town folks gazed to a troubling sky, certain it would fall from its sheer weight.
By the following day, strong gusts had ripped a dozen giant oaks in Forsyth Square from the muddy ground and tossed them back to the earth. Their mangled roots lay bare and exposed on the wet pavement. Picket fences, garbage bins, and children’s toys were strewn about the streets.
Donita remained hidden away, locked in her room upstairs, so lost in her sadness, I wondered if she was frightened by the powerful, raging storm or if she was even aware of its wrath.
Wind rattled the window glass in their frames, and the downpour found its way in through every nook and cranny of Sook’s old place. Leaks sprung from the haphazard wood shingles. Dripping water fell from the corridor ceiling and trickled from the tin panels in the kitchen. A seeping drizzle leaked from the beamed ceiling in the dining room and pooled on the long mahogany table. The rain found its way from the attic, through the innards of the walls of the upper level, escaping in a stream down the brass chain of the great crystal chandelier in the foyer. It drizzled into a tin bucket in the center of the marble floor.
Sookie’s old house seemed to be weeping under the weight of the storm. Pots and pans were scattered about the house, collecting buckets of its tears.
By dusk, as Sookie and I sat for supper, a torrential downpour fell like drapes off the house’s eaves. The authorities warned us townsfolk to move further inland. Sook determined that we would stay put. Our quaint lane resembled some lonely, deserted place.
Annabelle squalled about the house, whining at the wicked weather. She aimlessly roamed the hallways of the leaking house, pooping a trail of pellets. They dropped from her backside onto the oriental rugs like tiny green gumballs spilling from a candy dispenser at the Piggly Wiggly. The storm intermittently interrupted our electric, so Sook and I opted to watch God’s fury from the thin cracks of the boarded-up sitting-room window.
Lightning struck nearby. The bolt was so powerful, I felt it down deep in the soles of my shoes. Unnerved, Annabelle ceased her constant crying, warily peering at the creaking, plastered ceilings above her.
“It’s gonna be a long night,” Sookie warned me. “This storm ain’t gonna let up. I’m goin’ off to bed and try and get some shut eye.”
I agreed, “Me, too.”
I helped Aunt Sook up the stairs, and we traveled our separate ways along the long corridor.
“Good night, Sookie.” I called to her before she disappeared behind her paneled door.
With the storm raging outside my window, I tossed and turned in my bed throughout the night, tangled in bed sheets.
Well past midnight I heard Donita leaving her room, her slippers moving on the wood-planked floor. I suspected she was off to fetch her some late-night leftovers, but with the sound of our front door opening, I knew that something was afoot.
Slipping from my bed, I snuck to my shuttered window. I attempted to spy through the slivers in the glass, but heavy rains slapped against the panes.
White lightning splintered across the night sky, breaking the black into fragmented pieces. I strained to see through the invading rain, pouring off the shingled rooftop. The gutter pipes rushed like muddy rivers, and the wind whipped the giant magnolias. They bent and swayed like great soaked beasts, battling against the violent thunderstorm. The squalls snapped the electric poles like matchsticks, and the hallway sconces sputtered once and then went black.
When lightning illuminated the yard, I spotted her below. There, in her dressing gown, Donita moved about the yard like a haunting spiri
t. Gusts of spiraling winds whipped her hair and tore at her night dress. Steeped in mud, she battled the wrathful wind and falling water. With balled fists, I struck the window glass, fearing she’d be lifted from the earth and carried off like Dorothy to Oz. I shouted out her name.
She moved through the yard, lurching toward Sook’s garden bed, staggering against the storm. She stumbled nearer to Rodney’s resting place.
“Sookie!” I screamed, running out my door and down the darkened corridor. “It’s Donita! Sookie, hurry!”
Descending the stairs, I leaped four treads at a time. The front door stood open wide with Annabelle screeching at the invading wind. The gales whipped the swag drapes, and the downpour blew through the open door, soaking the front Oriental rug, wall tapestries, and oiled portraits. Water collected in puddles on the marble floors, and the old, heavy crystal chandelier swayed to and fro.
I ran to the door and hollered, “Donita, you’re gonna get yourself killed! For heaven’s sake, please come inside!”
Disrobed, Donita stood naked as the night under a raging black sky. Her arms stretched open wide. The hard, falling rain covered her like an anointing—her head tilted back, her face washed by God’s angry tears.
“You’re gonna drown!” I rushed to the edge of the stoop. “I’m beggin’ ya. Please, come on in!”
But Donita stood like a stone over Rodney’s grave, her bare backside exposed, her eyes searching the heavens, the dark bruising on her thighs, hips and forearms revealed to all of Digby. Rodney’s fury marked her body up and down like the foulest tattoos. In the flashes of cracking light, it appeared Donita was looking to the angry sky for any sign of her Savior’s return or Satan’s chariot coming to hasten her away.
Aunt Sook rushed out onto the porch, pitching a conniption fit. “Donita Pendergast, get your ass in here! You’re gonna catch a death of cold.” Sook cobbled down the front stoops and out into the storm. She put her arms around Donita’s frail, naked torso. “Baby, you come with me.”
She studied Sook’s mouth as though she was speaking in some foreign tongue.
Aunt Sookie squeezed Donita’s shoulders, until it appeared that she had come back to us. “We’re goin’ on inside! You hear me?”
Donita slightly nodded her head.
The rain fell in sheets. The magnolias moaned low in the tempest of the swirling thunderstorm.
“Poppy, grab her dressing gown, over yonder!”
I ran, snatching up Donita’s sopping wrap from the muddy ground and placed it around Mrs. Pendergast’s bare shoulders. We walked her back into the house.
Mrs. Pendergast was a puddle in the foyer floor, dripping wet, sniffling and snorting, her perfect ringlets reduced to soggy, limp strands, curtaining her weepy eyes. Sookie went about toweling her off, but there wasn’t any stopping Donita’s sobbing.
“Poor child,” Sook consoled her. “Go ahead and let it go.”
Her bawling continued without a breath.
“You’re gonna be fine. You ain’t the first woman to kill her husband, and you certainly won’t be the last.”
“Sookie!” I said “That’s not helping matters none.”
My old aunt shrugged her shoulders and continued to dry off Donita as if she were buffing an automobile’s chrome bumper.
“Let’s get you dry and into the kitchen. Poppy will heat up some hot tea in the kettle.”
Donita sat at the table, her eyes still spilling over with tears, wetter than the falling rain. Her mournful cries were louder than the wind howling outside our door. Annabelle’s snout sniffed near her side, attempting to comfort her grieving.
Sookie squared Donita’s shoulders with hers. “Child, you’re gonna be just fine. Are you listenin’ to me?”
Donita’s bewildered eyes struggled to focus on Sook, studying her mouth as she spoke.
“Poppy is gonna take you upstairs and tuck you into your bed,” Sookie declared in a clear, matter-of-fact tone. “You need to rest. Do you understand me?”
Donita nodded dumbly.
“We’ll handle this tomorrow. Some aches and pains are too tender to tend to in the dead of night.”
My aunt gestured for me to escort Donita upstairs to her waiting room.
I have been of the belief bacon frying in a skillet cured any ailment. The hiss and pop of a crisp side of bacon sizzling on the fire could remedy any infirmity plaguing a body. A side of bacon brought peace to a trouble-stricken soul.
In all my days spent standing in front of a gas stove, it seemed the aroma of frying pork flesh attracted folks from their sleeping quarters, beckoning them downstairs, still dressed in their bed robes and flannel pajamas, hunting a single slice of healing bacon. Hot, buttered flap jacks, biscuits, and white gravy could bring a smile to the corners of a hungry mouth, but a slab of fried bacon lessened the load of a heavy burden and lightened a solemn spirit.
Come the next morning, the men of Digby had already taken to the streets, boarding up broken windows and racking up the debris left behind in Hurricane Clara’s path. Carl McAllister came knocking on our door earlier that morning to confirm all was safe and sound.
Standing on the front porch with Mr. McAllister, Sook surveyed the damage of the stately homes up the lane—shutters hung from their last nails, window glass blown from their frames, and gutters torn from their siding. But it seemed Sook’s old antebellum had survived the storm’s wrath with only the slightest of damage.
“Carl, tell your Dixie, if she don’t get that house of hers cleaned up, I’m planning on turning her in to the town officials.”
Carl just smiled and winked at Sook.
She thanked him for coming by and gave him a basket of warm buttermilk biscuits for his hungry boys.
Strips of bacon were frying in the skillet when Donita made her way down into the kitchen; her weakened body appeared ready to give way. She cautiously held the walls for support, entering the room with an uncertain smile. “Mornin’, Poppy. Mornin’, Ms. Wainwright.”
“Child, we’re accomplices in a crime.” My aunt sipped coffee from her steaming mug. “You can call me Sookie.”
“Good morning, Sookie.” Donita nodded her head. “Thank you both for taking care of me last night.”
“’Twas nothin’,” Sook replied. “Have yourself a seat. Your coffee has been saucered and blown. Poppy, I’m certain Donita must be famished.”
From the stove, I announced, “Breakfast is comin’ up!”
“I ain’t sure how I can ever repay you both for your kindness.”
Sook dismissed her with a wave of her quaking hand. “Poppy’s flap jacks will heal whatever ails you.”
“Thank you kindly, but it ain’t necessary. I’m taking myself down to the county jail and turning myself in. I’ve made up my mind. I’m gonna walk myself into Sheriff Delany’s jailhouse and turn myself in to the authorities.”
Sookie thought on Donita’s pronouncement. “Well, let’s not say just yet what you’re gonna or not gonna do this mornin’. We got ourselves a dead man under my garden, and I suspect that rotten son of a bitch got exactly what was comin’ to him. Let’s let that sleepin’ dog lie.”
“I can’t do that, Sook,” Donita insisted.
“In case you’ve forgotten, Donita, we’ve all got an iron in that fire. Fruity Daryl Turnball might not protest being locked up in a maximum-security prison with a bunch of deviant, tattooed convicts, but you are far too fragile, and I’m entirely too gawd-damned old to be imprisoned behind iron bars,” Sook replied. “Besides, I’d miss The Guiding Light!”
“Sookie, I killed him dead,” she stuttered. “It’s a sin against God.”
Aunt Sook’s tone turned stern. “So is leavin’ this child in the hands of Georgia state authorities.” She gestured over to me. “I promised my younger sister, Lainey, a long, long time ago that I’d be accountable for the safety of this child. If anything should happen to Poppy, I’d have to live the rest of my days with the knowing that I hadn’t kept my pledge.
Lainey and I never saw eye to eye on much, but I plan to see my promise through. So, unless you’d like to find your carcass next to your late Rodney, I suggest we leave it be.”
Donita nervously took a sip of her coffee and glanced over to me.
I shrugged my shoulders up to my ears. “Sookie would be mighty displeased if she was to miss her Guiding Light.”
“Miss Donita, the way I see it, that boy was mean to his core,” Sook said. “And from what Poppy has told me, if Rodney had his way the other night, it would’ve been you buried six feet under right about now.” Sookie shuffled to the cupboard and took out her mason jar full of spirits.
Unscrewing the lid, the old woman grasped the moonshine and took a full swig. Her lips puckered. Wiping her mouth with the back of her forearm, she slid the jar across the wood’s surface. Donita caught the mason jar before it tipped over the table’s edge.
Sook offered, “Go on. Have yourself a sip.”
Donita suspiciously regarded the glass jar as if it were bottled sin.
“Child, the Lord ain’t keeping score. He never did.”
The slightest smile turned at the corners of Donita’s mouth. She tilted back the jar, swallowed hard, and had a coughing fit.
Aunt Sook chuckled. “Nothing good ever comes from hitching your wagon to one person for a lifetime,” Sook declared. “Marriage is like a deck of playing cards. When you first wed, all you need is two hearts and a diamond. After a spell, all you need is a club and a spade.”
Donita scratched her forehead.
For the remainder of the sweltering summer, Donita said goodbye to what was known. She grew stronger with each passing day.
She chose not to join me to church on Sunday mornings. I’d call up the stairs to her before I pedaled off to service, but I never received a response.
I asked Sook if she thought that Donita had buried her faith when she buried her Rodney.
“No, child,” my aunt replied. “I’ve witnessed it many times. Folks of faith are odd creatures. They go searchin’ in the darkest places until they see the light. And then they’ll follow their faith out from the darkness. It will take some time, but she’ll come ’round. Donita Pendergast will be back in the comfort of a pew any day now.”
Aunt Sookie & Me Page 29
