A Question of Mercy (21 page)

“More romantic.” He smiled, then said, “I really do like you.”

Neither noticed that the music had stopped.

Cleanup of the Christmas celebration took about two days. The lights had to be taken down and decorations packed in boxes, the tired Santa returned to the attic, and the food—what was left—was served for supper the next night. The rest they gave to Zella.

Over the next week Miss Tutwiler was more affectionate toward Will. She made lunch for him and brought it to the porch. Jess heard them laughing together in the late afternoon. Rosemary was calling Albert Chapin by his first name. Frank whistled in his room and Jess found herself watching for him, glad to see him in the evening when he came home from the newspaper.

Clearly, Christmas had come early and left some happiness in its wake.

— 28 —

S
ocial Services had called Miss Tutwiler to say they would arrive late Wednesday morning to check on the boys again, so Will suggested that Jess take them out of the house. Wednesday was her day off. They would tell Social Services that Sonny Long had called and that he had been sending money. Prof. Chapin forged a letter from Sonny to each boy.

On Tuesday night Jess told Shooter that she wanted to show them something down by the stream, and she would take them there tomorrow. “We're going on a treasure hunt,” she said. “Tomorrow.”

“When tomorrow?” Ray asked.

“Right after breakfast.”

The next morning Jess's bedroom door yawned wide open. Shooter and Ray, their fragile boy-bodies in a room yellow with sunlight, made her heart leap.

“Is it tomorrow yet?” Ray asked. A stray orange cat, that Frank had been feeding on the sly, had slipped into the house and found its way upstairs, scooting around the boys and jumping onto Jess's bed. The cat didn't have a tail.

“She likes you,” said Shooter. “But Miss Tut won't like it in the house.”

“What's the matter with its tail?” Ray asked.

“Something chopped it off when it was little,” Shooter explained. “She looks okay though, don't you think? I like it better that way.” Ray rubbed the cat all the way down its back and into the air, as though it
did
have a tail.

Breakfast was unusually quiet. Everyone but the boys knew that Social Services would arrive soon. “We're going to look for buried money today,” Jess announced. “I'm taking the boys on a treasure hunt. We'll be gone until after lunch.”

“Buried money?” Rosemary felt overly involved in the boys' upbringing. “The root of all evil.”

“That's, ‘The
love
of money is the root of all evil,'” Zella Davis told her. “Not money
by itself
.”

Rosemary no longer wore her satin dresses, but instead, wore lightweight cotton skirts and blouses, or sometimes pants. Prof. Chapin was noticing her. He had given her rides to town. Her hair hung loose around her face and she smiled more often, but she still spouted her verses.

“Lunch gonna be at straight-up twelve noon,” Zella said.

“We won't be back for lunch,” Jess told her. “We'll take something with us.”

“I'll make some sandwiches and give y'all some soda, maybe potato chips for a snack.” Zella wanted to make it easy for them.

Jess, Shooter, and Ray walked toward the stream with a wheelbarrow. When Ray got tired, he climbed in to ride. A few times Shooter let him ride piggyback. Jess led them to a place where the soil was rich. They had brought shovels and a bucket. They were to put the soil into the wheelbarrow. “I'll take this back for a garden,” she said. “But any money you find you can keep.”

After a few minutes, Ray found a nickel. Shooter found a dime. They dug harder finding three pennies at one time. Jess could not remember how many coins she had buried, but hoped she'd scattered enough to fill the morning.

At eleven-thirty they washed their hands in the stream-water and sat on a log to eat lunch, the three of them lined up like different-sized bumps.

“So, how much did you find?” Jess asked.

Ray had ninety-two cents, but Shooter found four quarters, five dimes, and a nickel. Ray whined, so Shooter gave him a quarter and two dimes from his own stack. They wanted to dig for more, but Jess led them downstream to where a large pile of sticks had dammed the water.

“Beavers,” she said, and pointed to a beaver poking up its head.

“Hey!” said Shooter.

“Stay real still. We don't want to scare them.”

Ray sat on the ground and Shooter moved to stand behind a tree and watch them go under and rise back up.

“They're baptizing themselves,” Jess said.

“What's baptized?” Ray asked.

“It's when the preacher sprinkles water on your head at church, or sometimes they dunk you all the way under the water,” Jess told him.

“Whoa!”

“Then anything bad you've done is just let go,” Jess said. “I used to know a guy who loved being baptized.”

Ray looked thoughtful. “Did he do a lot of bad stuff?”

“No. He just liked the feel of water on his head, and he liked going under. He liked so many things.” She liked telling them about Adam. “He liked hubcaps and horses and dancing. He could hum a made-up tune, and he always wanted to go to sleep at night listening to the sound of grownups talking in another room. But he did
not
like a sharp voice or bad dreams, and he did
not
like to have the door to his room closed.”

Shooter cupped some water in his hands and dumped it onto Ray's head. “There,” he said. “Now, you're baptized.”

Ray's hair dripped with water and drops rolled down his face. He beamed.

“Now, you don't have to be scared anymore,” said Shooter. “I mean, when it thunders and lightnings.” Both boys watched the beavers' slick brown bodies moving in and out of the water. They studied the animals until Shooter tugged at Jess to say that Ray was asleep. He had slumped over onto his side.

Jess lifted Ray and put him, like a rag doll, onto her shoulder. She motioned for Shooter to follow and push the wheelbarrow back home. It was heavy, and a short way from the house, he wanted to quit. Jess said to park it on the side of the path. “I'll pick it up later.”

When they got home, all they talked about was the found money, saying they wanted to go back tomorrow—to find more.

“See what you've done?” said Rosemary. “You've tapped into their greed. You kids are too young to feel greedy.”

“I'm not greedy,” said Shooter. “I just don't see why we can't get more. Boy! I could buy me a model airplane.”

“We saw some beafers,” said Ray. “They built a dam out of sticks.” He wondered if he would get into trouble for saying “dam.”

“They are smart creatures,” said Will. “I bet beavers don't need to dig for money all the time.”

“They might have a whole chest of money down under that dam,” said Shooter. “No telling how much they got.”

“You have certainly started something, Jess,” said Miss Tutwiler. “Now what're you gonna do?”

“Sometimes when you dig for treasure,” Jess told the boys, “what you find first is all there is. I mean, there
could
be more, a little more, but I don't think you're going to find a lot of money, Shooter.”

Rosemary had more Bible verses on the tip of her tongue, and couldn't help but spit them out. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

“Does that mean I'm bad?” Shooter asked.

“No, it means the world is bad,” Will explained.

“I want to buy a beafer,” Ray said.

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard.” Rosemary was on a roll. “Consider her ways and be wise.”

“Are ants smart?” Shooter asked.

“Some are. Not many though,” said the professor.

“Shooter baptized me today,” Ray said.

“Get thee behind me …” Miss Tutwiler chanted, but no one was listening anymore.

Social Services had believed the story about Sonny Long, because of the forged letters, and because Rosemary, and even Zella, had joined in the lie. “Maybe you should tell Mr. Long to call
us
,” the lady had said. “Good idea,” said the professor. “We'll suggest that next time we talk to him.” Will suspected that all that lying had brought about Rosemary's flurry of verses.

The next day the boys returned to the stream and brought a bucket instead of a wheelbarrow. Jess couldn't go, but they promised to bring back some pennies for her, if they found any.

The professor saw them leave. “Apostates,” he said, but he looked happy for them, and hoped they would find enough to satisfy their appetite for wealth. He knew that Jess had buried only about three dollars' worth of change; but the professor and Will had buried some coins for today's excursion.

A little later the boys returned with more coins. One had eight dimes and two quarters, the other had found five nickels, three dimes, and a quarter. They reported their findings at supper and Ray offered Jess two nickels. Everyone smiled at the treasure.

“We're going to be
rich
,” said Shooter.

“This has
got
to stop,” Miss Tutwiler said. “I'm putting an end to it right now.”

Will told them that he didn't think they'd find any more. He said he thought the well was probably dry now.

“What well?” Shooter said.

Prof. Chapin held up one hand and asked the boys to let him look at the coins, especially the quarters. When they showed what they had found, he appeared surprised. “You know, boys. These aren't quarters. They're ancient coins,” he said. “Rare. You're very lucky to have found them. I imagine that you've dug up all the real money now, because this is money used a long time ago. You've got something nobody else has: a coin used by the Roman soldiers. A Roman coin.”

Their eyes grew large.

“Imagine that,” Miss Tutwiler said. “A coin all the way from Rome, Italy.” She winked at the professor. “Probably brought by the explorers to this very place.”

“Let's go look up these coins,” said the professor. He scooted back from the table and motioned for the boys to come with him. “You each have one, right?”

“Yeah,” Shooter said. “Are they worth a lot of money?”

“Even better—they're worth a lot of history.”

“Wow,” Ray said, without knowing what that meant. The boys followed the professor to his room, which looked more like a library. In the hallway they passed the fishbowl on the hall table. Ray sprinkled some fish food into the water and watched the flakes drift down. Both goldfish darted quickly toward the food.

Jess followed the others to the porch. The world looked fragile, about to rain.

“You'll bring coffee out to us, won't you, Zella?” Miss Tutwiler called.

“Yes'm.”

“A merry heart doeth good like a medicine,” Rosemary said absently.

They sat and waited for Zella's coffee. They could see her in the kitchen talking to herself, her hand knifing the air like a thin black fish.

Jess felt charged by the sweet night air and a strong desire for home. This place was good for her, like a tonic. A sharp pain opened her heart and gave her a flicker of belief that hope could rise out of nothing. She longed to be lifted out of this weave of uncertainty, to be lowered again into the fabric of familiar days.

— 29 —

T
he next day at Honey's, a man came in and sat down in a booth. Jess went to take his order and could see how his clothes were all wrong. He wore a coat and tie and muddy shoes. The tie looked stained. Outside the window Jess could see the brown and white car with a dent in the door. It seemed that there had never been a time when that car was not following her.

The diner was suddenly empty and Jess turned around, wondering where everyone had gone. The man held a menu and looked at her, without speaking. Jess asked for his order. His hair was gray, and the wide-brimmed hat that usually covered his eyes lay pushed back on his head. When he still did not speak, Jess said, “Why are you following … ?”

He interrupted her, his voice low and quiet. “Jess,” he said. “I
saw
you, I saw you at the river.”

He knew her name. He looked straight at her and, though he did not look angry, his words sounded harsh. “I want you to know,” he said. “I
saw
what you did. And Adam.”

Jess ran to get Lenny and Maggie, but when she got back the man had gone. She saw the car pulling away, and the
ike Ike
sticker. Two customers, a man and a woman, had come in. They sat at a table on the other side of the room and asked for menus.

“Where did he go?” Jess asked the couple. “That man sitting in the booth over there. He was right there.” They had seen a man rush out, but could not say more about him.

Jess wiped her palms on her apron. She felt the dark pressure of threat, and began to tremble. He had been at the river.

Lenny was worried and suggested that Jess find someone to walk her home, and that she get someone every night to be with her, so Jess called Frank, who was more than happy to oblige.

That night Frank asked what had happened and Jess explained that she had seen the car before, but she did not want to explain where she had been
when she saw it. “Maybe it wasn't the car, maybe it was just the man who looked familiar,” she said. “Frank, let's change the subject. Okay?”

“Sure.” They walked a short way before Frank asked what he really wanted to know: who she knew in Korea. He had the habit of brushing his nose with his thumb and often performed this gesture when he was nervous. He did it now.

“The guy you know in the Service,” he said. “How well do you know him?”

“Pretty well,” she said. “I dated him for a while.”

“Oh.”

As they climbed the steps to the boardinghouse, Jess could not remove from her mind the image of the man in the booth who had looked straight at her; she couldn't stop hearing his low voice saying, “I
saw
you.” That phrase rolled through her mind for days, until the phrase, itself, became a mantra.