Every Day After (9 page)

Mr. Hinkle nodded and I watched as he went around
gathering up my necessities. He brought my items over to the counter to sack them up for me.

“We’ll be leaving for the mission just as soon as Mrs. Hinkle gets finished up and I close out the drawer. Hang around if you want to go.”

“Sure would like to,” I said, taking my bagged goods from him, “but I should probably be heading back home. Is it all right if I just look at the candy first?”

“Be my guest.”

I’d asked Mr. Hinkle if I could look at the candy, but in truth, there was only one candy I cared about. Goo Goo Clusters. I hovered over the case, breathing in the air. It smelled sweet and chocolaty and peanutty. My mouth watered. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had one. The closest I could come to actually tasting their gooey goodness was taking deep sniffs of the brown paper bag in my bottom dresser drawer. But the scent had been near sniffed out. Only the faintest wisp of Goo Goo remained. The smell rising from the case was so fresh I could feel my teeth sinking into one. I closed my eyes and leaned forward. My locket tapped against the glass.

“What in heaven’s name are you doing, child?” Mrs. Hinkle huffed as she scuttled past. “I swear, Herbert, I don’t know what possesses young people today. Standing there drooling over candy. Can’t they find some useful way to spend their time? You’d think she could at least pick up a broom or dustcloth instead of standing there idle.”

I glanced over at Mr. Hinkle. He was shaking his head, not looking up from his figures.

“And what in heaven’s name is that around your neck?”

I jerked up. Mrs. Hinkle was staring me down, one hand perched on her hip, the other gripping her trusty broom. “You didn’t steal it, did you? Lord knows, and we well know, you can’t afford a thing like that.”

“No, ma’am, I did not steal it. My daddy gave it to me. It belonged to my grandmother.”

Mrs. Hinkle perked up and edged closer. “You mean it’s old? You know, they just don’t make things the way they used to.”

She was close enough now that I could see long black hairs poking from her nostrils. Why Mr. Hinkle had picked her to be his bride I’d never know. She reached out her fat fingers and wrapped them around my locket. I fought hard to keep from knocking them away.

“Herbert, why can’t you ever find something like this for me? Your gifts are never right. Look and learn.”

Mrs. Hinkle dropped the locket and shoved me toward Mr. Hinkle. He dutifully began to examine it. “Yes, dear, it’s very nice.”

“And it’s been marked. That means nobody else in the world has one like it. Why in heaven’s name a puny little girl has a thing like that and I don’t is a mystery to me. Injustice. That’s what it is.”

Mr. Hinkle released the locket and I ran my fingers across its engraving, attempting to remove any last
trace of Mrs. Hinkle. She turned and darted off into the back. I pictured her as a witch darting off on her broom, but the vision didn’t work. She was too big. She’d have crashed that stick of a broom straight to the ground.

Mr. Hinkle stood scratching his chin, eyeing my locket. If he was thinking I was gonna give my locket to that witchy wife of his, he’d gone slap off his rocker. My hand balled around the only possession I had that proved I was meant to be more than a “puny little girl.” I was meant for greatness. Daddy proved he still believed that when he left it for me. I’d worn it every day since he’d gone, and I refused to let it go now.

“You all right, Miss Lizzie?” Mr. Hinkle propped himself on his elbows, his eyebrows a furry mess of worry.

“Yes, sir. I’m fine.” I gulped. “It’s just that I know what you’re thinking. And I’m sorry, but you can’t have it. No one can.”

He nodded. “So it’s that important, huh? I could make you a real nice deal for keeping the missus off my back for a while. What do you say?”

My grip tightened around the locket and my mouth went as dry as cotton. “I can’t,” I said, looking Mr. Hinkle square in the eye. “Please understand.”

I was beginning to think staying in the store to torture myself with the scent of Goo Goo Clusters had been a bad idea. Wasn’t one of the Ten Commandments “Thou shalt not covet,” or in Mama’s words, “You can’t always have
what you want, so learn to want what you have”? Maybe God was punishing me for sinning.

Mr. Hinkle drummed his fingers on the counter, then reached over and patted my arm. “Your locket, your choice, Lizzie Hawkins.” He winked and shuffled off into the back to find Mrs. Hinkle.

The tension eased, and a few minutes later I followed the Hinkles outside.

“You sure you won’t go with us?” Mr. Hinkle asked as he opened the passenger door of his ’29 Whippet for Mrs. Hinkle.

“I’m sure,” I said. “Maybe next time.”

“Sure thing. You have a nice evening, Miss Lizzie. I’ll be seeing you around.”

“Yes, sir.” I waved them off and started back toward home, wishing the whole way that I could’ve gone with them. I hadn’t taken a ride in a car since Daddy sold ours last year. The money he’d gotten for it had gone into the emergency savings jar in the kitchen cabinet. I’d seen him pull from that jar many times since. I couldn’t help but wonder how much he’d taken from it on the morning he left. Now I was certain there wasn’t much money left, and we had no car either.

That night, after I’d cleaned up dinner, read to Mama, and put her to bed, I took my journal from the drawer and opened it to a blank page. Seeing Mr. Hinkle drive away in that car had got me to remembering, and there was one memory in particular I wanted to stay in my journal forever.

May 7, 1932

In the summer of 1928, Daddy bought a used 1925 Ford Model T from Mr. Reeves, a man he worked with at the steel mill in Birmingham. I don’t know how much Daddy gave for that car, but in my opinion it was worth whatever it took to buy it. I loved it. Daddy, Mama, and I took many drives in it, but it’s the memory of that first drive that sticks out best
.

It was a Sunday morning, our first trip to church in it. On the way, Mama sat up front with Daddy and I sat in the back alone. Daddy’s thin frame bounced in unison with each bump in the road while his left arm crooked out the window, waiting to cast a friendly wave to passing neighbors. He smiled over at Mama, and she smiled right back. Then she turned to gaze out her window. Her mouth wasn’t moving, but over the loud crunching of the tires on the dirt road I could hear her softly humming “Amazing Grace.” A warm breeze blew in through the open window, bringing in the smells of fresh air and sun-baked dirt
.

After church service, Mama decided she’d sit with me in the back to see what it was like. We bounced and jolted down the road, but pretty soon Mama went pale
.

“What’s the matter, Mama?” I asked her
.

“I’m fine, honey,” she whispered. “I’m just feeling a little sick.”

“You want me to stop, Rose? I can pull over,” Daddy offered from the driver’s seat
.

“No, I’ll be fine.”

But she wasn’t fine. We didn’t make it another half a mile before Mama started to gag. Daddy didn’t waste any daylight pulling over. Mama stumbled out of the car and headed straight for the nearest bush. That was the most unladylike I’ve ever seen her, moaning and groaning, hunched over the bushes with her hands on her knees. Once she finished gagging, I offered to walk the rest of the way home with her. She accepted
.

We had many Sunday drives after that, Daddy always crooking his arm out the window and Mama always humming “Amazing Grace” or “How Great Thou Art.” When I die, I pray God lets Daddy drive me Home on a summer Sunday afternoon. But Mama will have to sit up front, no bones about it
.

I closed my journal for the night and wondered if we’d ever be like that again—the three of us together and happy. I believed we would. I had to believe it. If my birthday wish came true, it’d happen sooner rather than later—on May 30.

I climbed into bed and kissed my locket. Though sleep didn’t come easy, it did come—deep and dreamless.

 
Nine
 

Nice Doesn’t Always Mean Good

My dreamless sleep lasted till around five-thirty. Better. I was taking it as a sign that maybe things in general were about to get better.

I’d barely finished cleaning up breakfast when there was a knock on the door. I knew by the knock exactly who it was. “Come on in, Ben,” I called.

Ben tromped into the kitchen and plopped down at the table. My palms went cold and clammy at the thought of him still being mad at me. He looked all right, but looks could be deceiving.

He spoke first. “You wanna come down to Powell’s with me? I figured you’d like to watch the buses.”

The tone of his voice settled me. He sounded all right, too. “Sure,” I said. “Just let me bring Mama in before we go.”

I took his suggestion to watch the buses as a peace offering. Powell’s Café was the local bus stop off the Bankhead Highway. It was fun to watch people as they
got off the bus for a lunchtime rest on their way into Atlanta. You could see all kinds: men in business suits with matching hats; ladies with fancy purses and high heels; ill-behaved babies with tired mamas toting ’em around like potato sacks. It was strange to think of all these people, all from somewhere else, sitting there eating greens and butter beans right alongside the people I saw every day, right on a chair I’d most likely sat in myself. Course, Ben knew the
real
reason I liked to watch the buses these days, and it didn’t have anything to do with interesting strangers. It had everything to do with Daddy.

I brought Mama inside, fixed her a glass of water, then took off with Ben. On the way, I told him all about Mrs. Hinkle wanting my locket and Mr. Hinkle aggravating her on purpose by making her serve soup at the mission. I tried to be funny in a few spots, but all I got from Ben was one measly chuckle.

Main Street was empty, not unusual for a Sunday morning. Everyone was too busy getting dressed for church to be out and about, but if you were still in town when church let out, the scene would change. Cars would zig and zag this way and that on their way home from church, and the non-churchgoers would crowd into Powell’s around noon to get the Sunday special—a chicken dinner for thirty cents. I say non-churchgoers because all the saints in town went straight home after church for Sunday dinner with family—same as we had before Daddy left.

As it was, the only thing in the streets besides me and Ben was a blue Buick, and it appeared to be coming right at us. Only one man in town drove a car like that.

I felt Ben tap my arm, trying to get my attention. “Listen, Lizzie, I been needin’ to talk to—”

I brushed his hand away and squinted at the car. “Is that who I think it is?” I watched as the car parked in front of us. Through the window I could make out a pale face with a thick mustache. I watched as lengthy limbs unfolded from the car. Yep. The very man I didn’t want him to be. The last person in Alabama I wanted to run into besides Erin. He came toward us, his long legs taking even longer steps.

“Hey, Dr. Heimler,” said Ben. “Headed to church?”

“Not this morning, I’m afraid. I’m on my way to the Martins’. One of their boarders is expecting and started having pains this morning. Still too early for that.”

I tried not to look the doctor in the eyes. I prayed he hadn’t pulled over for me. My prayer fell on deaf ears.

“This is my lucky day, Lizzie. You’re just the person I needed to see. How’s your mama?”

“Fine.”

“Well, Mrs. Sawyer certainly seemed concerned about her this past Friday. She asked me to go see her, but I’m sorry to say I’ve had my hands full with patients. Some good help is what I need.”

“Mama’s all right. I think she’s real tired, that’s all.”

Dr. Heimler stared at me with his near-black eyes.
“Well, sometimes fatigue can be a sign that something else is wrong. Why didn’t you ask me to check on her?”