Alibi (4 page)

“Momma, please, why you asking me so many questions?”

“ ’Cause, you don’t know what you doing. You just so fast, that’s what’s wrong with you now.”

No she’s not, no she’s not getting ready to start with me about how I make my money.

“Messing with all these crazy men, and you talking to private investigators. It ain’t nothing but trouble. You need to get
your life together, Daisy Mae. You need Jesus. Jesus saves, did you know that?”

“Yes, you’ve told me before.”

“Well, you need to let him save you. And what you got an investigator for? You looking for a missing person or something?”

“No, Momma, I’m helping out a friend. It’s just a favor, that’s all.”

“Favor, favor, ain’t no helping here if I got to talk to no investigator. What kind of mess you done got into now.”

“Nothing.”

“Well, then don’t do it. Don’t say nothing to no investigator without getting yourself a lawyer first. They got commercials
now. I think you better call ’em.”

“Momma, I don’t need no lawyer, I ain’t in no trouble. Come on, put this robe on, please.”

“Mmm-hmm, I don’t want to. I want to go in my room. I don’t want no investigator looking at me. Next thing you know I’ll be
some kind of suspect and all messed up. No, sir, I’ll go in my room and close my door.”

Daisy’s mother stood up but looked as if she was about to fall back down. Daisy grabbed her right arm, holding her up.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Okay, as okay can get, but I still don’t want you getting in no trouble.”

“Momma, I ain’t getting in no trouble, please don’t worry about me. Did you take your medication?”

“Yeah, but I been feeling a little funny. You know, just feel like I’m out of myself, like my body’s over there and I’m somewhere
over here looking for it. And my foot’s been sleeping all day. I tried to shake it, but it still got them pins and needle
feeling in it.”

“Don’t worry, when I’m done with the investigator, I’ll come in and rub you down.”

“Yeah, you good at them massages. At least you good for something. Now, that you can do,” said Daisy’s mother as Daisy helped
her sit on the edge of the bed. “You just be careful, Daisy. Just be careful, baby.”

“I will, Momma, I will.”

Just then the buzzer to the downstairs intercom rang. Daisy closed the door behind her mother, spoke into the intercom, and
buzzed in the investigator. To her surprise it was all quite simple. The investigator simply showed her a photo of Nard and
asked was she sure he was in the bar with her. She answered yes, gave him a simple time frame, and signed a witness statement.
That was it. After he left, she paged Sticks, and sure enough, within twenty minutes he was downstairs sitting in front of
her building in his green E Class. He counted out two thousand dollars, handed it to her, and told her he’d call her later.
Daisy couldn’t believe it. It was like somebody else had been blessed and passed it on to her.

She thanked Sticks and hurried back upstairs. She opened the apartment door.

“Momma, it’s me,” she yelled out and then went into her room. She closed the door and counted out her money again.
Boy oh boy, the sun sure will come out tomorrow.
With two thousand dollars in her pocket you could bet your bottom dollar and hers. Daisy sat there making a mental list of
all the things she could do. It didn’t dawn on her that her mother hadn’t responded. Daisy was too preoccupied with all that
her small fortune would be doing for her—hair, nails, clothes, maybe even a new microwave and a TV for her room. Two thousand
dollars was just so much money and she needed it so bad right now. It really was a blessing.

“Momma, guess what?” said Daisy as she made her way down the hall. “I’m gonna get you something special, Momma. You hear me?”
she asked as she flung open her mother’s bedroom door.

“Momma, you okay?” she asked as she walked over to the bed. “Oh, Momma, no.”

Her mother was lying still, her mouth open, her eyes open, and her face wearing a look of shock.

“Mommy, please no, please god, no. Momma, please, you’re all I got, Momma, please don’t leave me.” She rushed over to the
side of her mother’s bed. She sat on the side of the bed next to her mother’s body. She closed her mother’s eyes, and then
kissed her open mouth. She rubbed her silver hair from her mother’s face and patted her hand. She realized that she was all
alone, and for the first time in her life, she felt afraid. At least, no matter how bad things got, she had her mother and
the feeling of being truly loved by someone, but without her mother, there was nothing, nobody and no reason, no reason to
even live. For the longest time, that was how it was, just Daisy and her mom. Ever since she was a little girl that was the
only family she had to fall back on. Somewhere out there in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, she had an aunt and a cousin, but other
than that, no family to tell of.

Her mother, Abigail, had been born in Murfreesboro in 1927 and was fifty-nine years old. She was the elder of two. Her sister,
Matilda, was six years younger than herself. Times were hard for her family, as for most, but the Wrights had established
their land and their farm. People might not think of a cow or a mule as being as precious as a diamond or gold, but in those
times, they really were valuable, and John Wright kept his shotgun handy at all times. Wasn’t nobody taking his cow, his mule,
his chickens, or his pig. That was all he had, and without them animals, his family would starve. Without the cow, no milk
or cheese, butter or cream, and he needed his mule for plowing. The family lived in a house not yet equipped with electricity
and running water. They had a well that they lowered buckets down into on a rope so they could pull the water back up from
the earth. There was no bathroom, only an outhouse, no tub, just a large washbin to sit in from time to time. And of all the
things he wished for, he most wished for a horse.
If I only had a horse. If I only had a horse.
His head sang that song for a long long time. Millie was all right, but if she cut short on a trip, decided she was tired
or whatever else was ailing her, well then the trip would just be cut short. He couldn’t get her to move. That was one thing
about them mules, once they decided to stop, they stopped. Not even a rattlesnake would get a mule to flinch. A horse will
run like the dickens in the wind and pay no mind to where it’s running to, and you could be on it. A horse to draw his cart
to town was a luxury he could not yet afford. He was still working with Millie. It was okay, too, because in a way, he had
more than a lot of others. Not a lot, but enough for him and his family to survive. Growing up, Abigail and Matilda lived
the typical
Little House on the Prairie
life. Her pa worked the fields and her momma did all the work inside the house. The two sisters had their routine as well,
a typical load of chores for a small farm. That meant up at 5:00
A.M
. to fetch fresh water from the well to wash up and to cook with, collecting chicken eggs to make breakfast, milking Bessie,
the family cow, feeding their four chickens, their one hog, Kirby, and Millie the mule. Didn’t sound like much, but it was
a lot. School wasn’t far, only a little over a mile. The girls walked the road, as did most of the children. The school wasn’t
more than one room, with an outhouse behind it. Wooden logs made long benches and the children sat doing their lessons at
long wooden picnic tables. When Abigail didn’t have school, she would have to help her pa with plowing the field. Matilda
was still too young to work the field. The family worked hard and barely made it by. Scraped and scrounged to get through
the Great Depression of the 1930s. It wasn’t easy, but the family survived through hard times. And just when things seemed
to be getting a little better, they just got worse.

“What do you want me to do, Arhris. We ain’t got no choice. Roosevelt has declared war. Pearl Harbor is gone, the Japs just
blew it off the map. What do you want me to do? America is going to war. What if I get called to serve my country? I have
to serve my country. Who’s gonna help provide for the farm until I get home, you? Are you nuts? You’re gonna need to hire
a hand, you understand. If I sell Bessie, you’ll have nothing. I’ll be gone. I’m doing this for you and Matilda. Abigail is
fourteen, come on. My daddy would have got her moved on.”

“John, please, John, not Abigail, please. There has to be another way, John. She’s too young, she’s not old enough, she’s
not even got her period. We just can’t.”

“We can, Arhris, and we will, and that’s that, dagnabbit. Just because she’s slow with breeding don’t mean nothing, she’s
ready. She’s a grown woman, for Pete’s sake, she’s gonna end up pregnant, then what? You see them boys staring her down when
we go to town. We don’t got no choice. Winter’s coming, Arhris, you’re gonna need wood for fire. I can cut Kirby up to get
you through the season, and there’s the chickens, but you’re gonna need Bessie, Arhris. Abigail is just another mouth to feed.
Besides, Mr. Fothergill says he’ll give us a pretty penny for her, a pretty penny, and he said he’ll take good care of her.
His money will help you run this farm and cover you while I’m gone, don’t you understand? He’s gonna make sure she gets to
finish her schooling and what not. I made sure of that. And, she’ll be close by, only a few towns from here, less than a hundred
miles. I just don’t see no other way, just don’t.”

“There has to be another way.”

“Well, there ain’t. There ain’t no other way. Mr. Fothergill said he’d be here later this afternoon, so… be best if you go
on now and get Abigail packed up.”

“But…” said Arhris, pleading with her husband.

“Woman, I say the law,” said John Wright, flexing his suspenders, ready to strike her down for being disobedient. “Now, she’s
going and that’s that. Mr. Fothergill’s fixin’ to marry her and take care of her and you need to have her ready. You hear
me, Arhris?”

“Yes, John, I can hear you, you’re hollering at the top of your lungs. How can I not?” asked Arhris, in the tone of a child,
then mumbled under her breath as she watched John turn his back to her and leave the room.

“Is that some kind of backtalkin’ tongue-lashing you mumbling about?” he asked with his left eyebrow raised.

“No, I’m just humming, that’s all… if it’s all right wit’ you,” she said, cursing him silently under her breath.

“I reckon it’s not, if I can’t understand what you’re saying,” he commented before walking away. “Don’t need to hear you or
understand you no way. Don’t even know why you speak at all. Just a waste of air if you ask me,” he told himself as he closed
the door behind him and walked down the hallway, continuing his personal conversation to himself.

It was the saddest day of Arhris’s life to see her daughter sold away to some stranger, but she had no choice or say in the
matter. What could she do? She was a woman, and unfortunately, in the 1940s a woman was nothing more than property and was
just not allowed to disobey.

Abigail seemed to sense something wasn’t right, walking up the dirt path from the main road. She saw a strange man standing
next to her pa. He looked at her and her sister and smiled kindly.

“Who’s that?” asked Matilda.

“I don’t know, Tildie,” said Abigail as she watched her father counting out what looked like a lot of money.

As they got closer to the house, Abigail saw two pieces of luggage on the porch.
I wonder where Pa is going?

“Abigail, come on over here and let me talk to you. This here is Mr. Fothergill.”

“Hello,” said a young smiling Abigail.

“Hello,” said a middle-aged, tall, medium-built man with a receding hairline, wearing pants, a clean white shirt and a matching
suit jacket.

“Um, well, Abigail, this here is Mr. Fothergill and… um… well, he done come to take you on home with him. He’s gonna marry
you, you understand.”

Abigail looked at her father standing tall and firm. He had the look of a cat who had just swallowed a canary.

“I don’t understand, Pa.”

“Well, um… Mr. Fothergill here, he’s gonna take care of you and you’re gonna go live with him.”

“But, I don’t want to live with him, I want to live here, with you and Momma and Tildie. Daddy, please, don’t send me away.
Please, I’ll milk Bessie every day, Pa, and I’ll do all my chores. And you don’t have to do no plowing, I’ll do every lick
and I’ll wash all the clothes for Momma, hang ’em on the line, nice and neat, and I’ll cook, Pa. I can cook…” But the more
she spoke, the more she knew she was wasting her breath. The more she spoke the more she knew she was already leaving. The
more she stood there pleading with her father, the more she realized that the money he had been counting was the money Mr.
Fothergill had paid for her. The more she spoke, the more Mr. Fothergill realized he was getting his money’s worth.
Hell, she’s barely a child, and she can cook, too.
She looked at Mr. Fothergill with pleading eyes full of tears.

“Don’t mean no harm, mister, but please don’t take me from my family.”

“It’s gonna be okay, I’m gonna take good care of her,” said Mr. Fothergill as he took Abigail by her arm. She tried to pull
away, but his grip was too firm.

“Ma, please, Ma, please don’t let him take me. Pa, please…” she began to beg as Mr. Fothergill dragged her on over to his
horse-drawn carriage.

“Momma, where’s that man taking Abigail?” asked Tildie as her mother covered her mouth and ran inside the house crying. Tildie
just stood to the side, watching a screaming Abigail being led away by some stranger as her father stood alone, patting his
pocket, daydreaming about a horse, a rich, smooth, brown horse with a white patch between his eyes. He had already seen her,
she was a mare, so she could birth. He’d pick her up tomorrow, just in case the draft came through. Once Mr. Fothergill and
Abigail were out of sight he turned to Tildie. “All right now, ain’t no need standing out here all night long, might as well
go on inside. What’s done is done, cain’t go back, cain’t go back, Tildie.”