A Gentle Rain (51 page)

They shrank back. Lily covered her face.

"Whatever happened to that baby ... I won't hate you for telling me the truth. And neither will Ben. But you have to tell me. Glen wants to take Mac away from the ranch, and the truth is the only thing that can stop him. I know I'm confusing you, but trust me. Tell me what happened to your baby."

They stared at me, electrified, tormented. The intense misery and fear in them tore at my heart. "I don't want Mac to go to prison," Lily whispered.

Mac reached over the back seat and clasped her shoulder. "They can kill me before I let you go to jail."

Lily looked down at her hands, again. Her mouth worked. Tears crept from Mac's squinted eyelids. Finally, her hands unfurled under my consoling grip. She lifted a finger and pointed it. "Drive a little bit more. Down there. There's still a porch."

We edged along until a disembodied porch appeared among a tangle of honeysuckle. The rotted structure sagged to one side at an impossible angle, as if only Lily's shame kept it from disappearing into the vine's delicate, sweetly scented blooms. I stopped the truck. "Is this where you lived with Granny Maypop?" She nodded, her head still bowed. "Lily, it's all right. I'm sure this was once a lovely little house-"

"No!" She jerked her head up and stared at me fiercely. "No. We stuck newspapers to the walls to keep out the bugs, and in the winter, it was cold. And there was no indoor bathroom. And sometimes ... nasty men came to visit Gra ny. And I had to sit out on the porch until they were ... they were done." She leaned close to me, furtive and horrified. "People said she was a ... a bad woman. And that we lived in a ... a ... a white trash house."

"I never s-said that," Mac supplied. "Never."

Lily moaned. "But it's a bad thing. It was a very bad thing for a house to be. And it meant the people who lived in the house were white trash, too. If the people in the house were black people there was another name for `em. And that was an awful name, too."

My throat ached. "It doesn't matter what people called you. It's not about who you are. It's just a name."

She shook her head. "You don't understand. I'm even worse than that. Worse than white trash. Me and Mac. We did something awful. We didn't mean to. But we did."

Chills went up my spine. "Tell me what you and Mac did."

"I can't. I can't! I can't ever talk about it. I'm not supposed to. Glen said never, ever, ever. Ever. Never talk about it. Never."

"Can you ... show me? Can you just ... pretend to tell me? Or even just hint? Lily, I swear to you, I will not tell anyone what you and Mac share with me. No matter how bad it is. I swear to you. I give my word." I made an X over my heart. "I cross my heart." I drew the symbol over the embroidered daisies on her jumper's bib. "And I make you a promise on your sacred daisy."

That did it. She looked at Mac. He nodded. She looked next at the sagging porch and the deep forest beyond it. Suddenly she jerked her hands from mine, opened the passenger door, and clambered out. She headed for the woods as fast as she could, sobbing.

"Lily!" I parked quickly. Mac and I ran after her.

The oaks became tall pines. The sunlight cascaded through their high limbs in sheared beams of light. I followed Lily a mile from the truck, at least. Gnats swarmed in my face. I dodged sharp saw palmetto fronds and spider webs.

Ahead of me, Lily, still crying, plowed through the living air of the Florida summer woodland as if oblivious to everything but her tears. Mac lumbered behind me, crashing through the underbrush like a bear.

We reached a small clearing, maybe twenty feet wide. She sank to her knees and dug her fingers into the loam. Mac sat down next to her. I dropped to my sandaled heels in front of them both. "What are you searching for?" I begged.

Lily dug feverishly. "Mac and me brought little memories here, every chance we got." She was crying so hard I could barely understand the words.

"Every time we could s-sneak away," Mac said, "we came here and left painted rocks. To mark where our h-hearts are."

"Painted rocks, Lily? Mac? Why? Why was this place important to you?"

"Here's one!" She rubbed something on her dress, polishing it, cleaning it. Her hands shook as she held it out to me. On her palm was a small, rounded, river rock. I squinted and made out the faint hint of white petals with a gold center. One of her daisies. "You painted daisies on rocks and brought them here to bury? Why?"

She cupped the rock to her chest again and shut her eyes. "Because this is where we killed our baby."

My legs gave way. I sat down sideways, bracing myself with one shaky arm. When my breath returned, I said, "Tell me what you mean by that. Tell me what happened."

Lily rocked slowly. "We tried to run away. Nobody knew we were gonna have a baby. Not until the very last, anyhow. We knew people wouldn't let us keep our baby."

"So I saved some money," Mac said. "To run away before the baby came."

Lily nodded. "We were going to get on the bus and travel far away. Far away. So we'd be somewhere safe when the baby came. But ... we only got this far on the way to the bus, and then ... then here, right here, it hurt so bad. It was dark. We were so scared. We didn't know what to do. And ... so we just ... stopped. And the baby came out. It was a girl."

Lily sobbed. "But she didn't look right. She didn't move. She didn't make any noise. And then they found us. Glen sent people to hunt for us. And he was with them. And they took her away. And Glen said ... he said ... she was dead. And he said ... that we killed her."

I made a sound, I don't know what.

Lily looked at me frantically. "You're crying. Oh, no. You hate me and Mac now, don't you? We killed our baby." She bent her head and sobbed harder.

I dragged a hand across my eyes and mouth. Deep breath. Calm dawn. "No. No, Lily. You and Mac didn't deliberately hurt the baby, did you? You didn't squeeze her, or drop her? Or shake her?"

Mac shook his head wildly. "No! She came out and she just lay here, and we only looked at her. We were afraid to touch her. She was bloody and ... we were so s-scared. We just looked at her. We were supposed to do something. But we d-didn't know what. Because we're stupid. We're retarded."

"No, no. Please. Glen insisted that you'd killed her?"

Lily hugged herself, sobbing. "Yes, and we did. We must have. He took her away. And we never saw her again. And he said-" Lily's voice rose, broken, filled with agony-"he said, `Never tell anybody, or else.' He said we had to do everything he said after that, always, because he knew best. And he said if anybody ever found out we killed our baby, even if we didn't mean to, they'd lock us up. And they wouldn't even let us be locked up together."

She covered her face and cried quietly. Mac, crying, put his arms around her.

The enormity of what Glen had done burned me like acid. Mac and Lily had wanted me. They had not rejected me, given me away, harmed me, or forgotten me. I had been born wanted. And they had suffered for all of the thirty-two years since then, suffered and dreamed of daisies. I crawled to them. I put one hand on Lily's face, and the other on Mac's jowly cheek. I clasped Lily's hand over hers, pried her fingers open, and touched the outline on the rock. "What do the daisies mean? What do they represent about you and the baby?"

Her face convulsed. She struggled to speak. Finally, she whispered, "That's what we named her. Daisy."

I came undone. There was no rationale for that moment. Nothing to debate. No practical choices. Just pure instinct, pain, and love. I took Lily's face between my hands. "It's all right," I whispered. "You didn't kill your baby." I touched her startled face. I touched Mac's tear-streaked jaw. Their faces. Our faces, our shared eyes, our hair, the curve of our mouths, our dreams. Mirrored. Lily and Mac gazed at me tearfully. "How d-do you know?" Mac asked.

Lily moaned. "How can you be sure?"

I shut my eyes. I became my real self. I looked at them tenderly. I whispered to them. "Because I'm Daisy."

Ben

Joey slept sound, lookin' pinker by the hour. I sat in a chair by his bed, starin' at the phone on his tray table. When it rang I had the receiver in my hand before the first ring ended.

"Ben," Miriam said loudly. "Her name's Daisy!"

"Whose name?" I heard excited voices behind Miriam. I recognized Dale's voice and Cheech's accent, then the rest.

"Karen!" Miriam yelled. "I mean Kara! She's Daisy! That's why Mac and Lily love that flower so much! That's what they named their baby girl! " Miriam's voice moved away from the phone. "Settle do"'n1, settle down! I can't hear!" Then, to me: "Everybody's here in the kitchen, yatterin' like electrified jaybirds."

I clutched the phone with a tight fist. "Are they all right? Karen and Mac and Lily. Where are they?"

"Tolbert. She took `em to Tolbert. Old stompin' grounds, old memories. Got `em to talk. Ben, that sonuvabitch Glen not only told `em their baby was born dead, he convinced `em they'd killed her. That's why they'd never admit nothing. They thought they'd go to jail."

Damn him. "Where's Glen?"

"Who cares? The sonuvabitch showed up here and nearly got his sorry ass kicked a second time."

"What happened?"

"We knew the baby story by then. Karen had called. So Glen walked into a mad swarm of Thocco ranch hands. The whole gang stood on the front porch and wouldn't let him so much as set a foot on a step. Roy and Dale started prayin' real loud for Jesus to strike him dead, and Bigfoot picked up a chair to throw. Cheech put some kind Cuban voodoo curse on him-I couldn't understand a word of it in Spanish, but it sounded like bad mojo-and Possum carried Gator into the yard like he might throw him on Glen. Me and Lula had to calm everybody doann. Then I told Glen to get the hell off Thocco property and not come back."

I scrubbed a hand over my hair. "Awright, so Glen luiows all about Karen?"

"Hell, yeah. We told him she's Mac and Lily's daughter, and that she can prove it, and she's a richer-than-Midas Whittenbrook."

"What'd he say?"

"Ben, he turned white. The only color on him was the bruise where you hit him in the mouth. He knows how the truth makes him look."

I shut my eyes. Satisfaction is sweet.

Daisy had bested him.

Kara

During our visit to the main offices of Sun Farin Bank, in downtown Tolbert, the startled bank president confirmed my information with a call to Sedge, then a few perfunctory calls and faxes to and from my personal accounting firm in Connecticut. As the truth sank in, and my request to open the largest individual checking account in the history of Sun Farm Bank became believable, the bank president got up from his leather executive chair, and, trembling with excitement, offered a courtly nod to Lily, a handshake to Mac, and a bow to me.

"Are y'all ready to go shopping, now?" he asked. "I will consider it an honor to escort y'all personally."

Lily and Mac looked at me for guidance. We held hands. Our faces were swollen from crying. My injured nose, now further abused by emotion, throbbed. But I smiled, and then, so did they.

"Let's go see for what's for sale around here," I said.

We drew quite a crowd at the storefront-window offices of the town's most respected realtor. Mac, Lily and I sat in fine armchairs across the desk from a wide-eyed trio of property agents. The bank president provided introductions and assurances that I was not some lunatic or scam artist. He now sat to one side, ready to tally our purchases on a small calculator. I became aware that a crowd of local citizens had amassed outside the windows behind us. "Would y'all like to go into a back room for some privacy?" the head agent asked weakly.

"No." I smiled. "We don't mind the attention."

Mac and Lily looked at me. "Baby girl, how much money do we have?" Mac whispered.

I squeezed his hand. "We have lots of money. Anything you want to buy, we'll buy it."

Lily huddled closer to me. "Can we give the pet people some money?"

"The pet people?"

"She means the humane society," a real estate agent supplied, fanning herself.

"Of course." I looked at the bank. president. "Would you handle that, please? A half million to the local humane society."