Into the Free (17 page)

CHAPTER 26

Just after the new year, Dr. Jacobson discharges me on the condition that Diana will care for me at her home. I don’t plan to stay forever, only until spring, when River returns and I can join the gypsies. We leave the wheelchair at the hospital, and Diana drives me out to my house to pack.

She encourages me to box a few things from the cabin. It isn’t easy to manage with my arm still in a cast, but I prepare a bundle of library books to be returned to Miss Harper. Diana helps me fold some clothes into Jack’s worn suitcase.

In a pillowcase, I pack Jack’s cowboy hat and dusty boots, pulled from the hospital bag. I add Mama’s faded apron and a small bundle of zinnia and peony seeds I clipped from her summer gardens.

I remove the family photo from my bedroom wall and wrap the glass frame carefully in newspaper. Then I slide it into the suitcase, careful to pad it between layers of clothes.

Mama’s secret box is on her bed. It is open, as if Mama had been looking through it after I left for the rodeo. Before she died. Spikes go through me as I realize the box, and its contents, are what made her so upset. I am the one who pulled that box from the ground. I insisted on going to the rodeo. And I left Mama alone with a last request to tell me her secrets when I returned. It is all clear to me. I am to blame for Mama’s death. My own selfish desires pushed Mama over the edge.

My ears ring with guilt. And then I see the empty pill bottle. I feel sick. Sick that I left Mama here alone, with a box of sad memories and only a stash of morphine to turn to for help.

I pull Mama’s tattered Bible from the box, its pages worn from years of turmoil and faith. A dried leaf from my sweet gum pokes its edges out from a page. I flip to the marked passage and read Isaiah 43:2 to myself.

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.

I want to laugh. Scream out to Mama’s God, “Where are You now?”

Instead, I close Mama’s Bible and place it gently back in the box. I add the box to my luggage. Next to that, a bright-yellow scarf. A promise given to me by Babushka. I’ve kept the scarf safely in my drawer for three seasons now. It still smells of whiskey and fires. Of River, a promise, and freedom.
Where are you now?

I move to the kitchen, find the glass Jack brought to Mama when he filled it with tea. I walk outside and take a good long look at the porch swing, carving an image of it in my heart. I add a shaving of Sweetie’s bark to my bag. I want to climb back up my tree and look down on the world below, take one more glance at Mama and Jack placed side by side in Mr. Sutton’s field. Go back to the day when Mama and Jack walked hand in hand in the field of clover, when I followed them through the blooms. When Jack looked up at a hawk sweeping the sky and said, “Today sure is good.” But there’s no turning back.

I whisper good-bye, close the front door of my house, and follow Diana out to her car.

Diana lives in a beautiful white house. Sparkling windows are framed with wooden shutters and every flower box sprouts purple pansies, despite the winter’s cold. A large porch wraps itself around the house like a bow, with circular sitting areas at each corner and an abundance of comfortable porch swings and rocking chairs. A sunny garden spot stretches along the back of the yard and a tire swing sways from a large pecan tree.

I am greeted by a long-haired cat, purring and hugging my ankles. “Looks like Charlie’s glad you’re here,” Diana says as I bend down to give the gray feline a few gentle scratches behind the ears. “He’s a stray. Showed up on the doorstep last summer.”

“Kind of like me,” I say, understanding why Charlie chose this house above all the others in Iti Taloa.

Before I can follow Diana to the front door, a blonde ball of laughter comes bouncing around from the backyard. “This is Camille,” Diana says, introducing me to her beautiful daughter. Diana has told me she’s nine, about the same age I was when I first followed the gypsies.

“Welcome, Millie,” Camille takes a bow as if I am the Queen of England. “I’m oh so very glad you’re here. I’ve heard all about you. Like how you read big books and how you can draw really good pictures of horses. And did you know I like horses too? So I figure we’re pretty much like sisters already. I’ve always wanted a sister. I’ve prayed and prayed and prayed all my whole entire life. And now here you finally are. I can hardly believe my eyes. And you’re so—pretty.”

Camille comes up for air and I look to Diana for a hint of how to react to this blue-eyed wonder. Diana shrugs and smiles, as if there isn’t much she can do to tone down Camille’s flair for drama.

“Wanna see my room? You can share it with me, if you want. But Mother said you might want a room of your own. I’m so glad you’re here! Let’s go see our room!”

The entire house smells like pecan pie. I breathe in that rich blend of brown sugar and molasses baked in with sugary syrup and roasted pecans, and suddenly I’m no longer a sixteen-year-old orphan in a stranger’s home. I am five years old again. Jack and Mama are alive. Autumn has arrived. I weave my way between my own yard and Mr. Sutton’s big house, through the trunks of seventeen pecan trees. I gather as many pecans as I can find, pile them into tin buckets, and separate them into brown paper sacks.

Mr. Sutton’s three-legged dog named BoBo joins me as I stack the bags of nuts in a rusty red wagon. The wagon’s wheels whine once we hit the smooth concrete sidewalks, as if they prefer the rugged dirt paths as much as I do. When we reach the area of town where the houses wear fresh coats of paint and the streets are named for dead presidents, we sell the pecans for three cents a bag, unshelled. A nickel, shelled.

BoBo and I spend our afternoons knocking on doors and trading nuts for coins. I roll smooth silver nickels around in my pocket, as I pull my wagon on to the next beautiful house. There I repeat my much-rehearsed presentation: “Hello, ma’am. Would you like to buy some pecans?” Mama taught me that phrase, and it is a winner.

When I knock on the door of 121 Lincoln, I sell not one, not two, but three bags of shelled pecans to a tall, tanned lady with a beautiful gray hat. Later that afternoon, a steaming pie has already been left to cool on the windowsill. The wave of bubbling cane syrup makes my stomach rumble. I am ecstatic to hear her call me to her porch. “Millie, why don’t you take a break and come enjoy a warm slice of pie?” Her voice is not sweet and sticky like honey, but soft and strong like a feather.

“Um, I probably shouldn’t,” I reply, happy that she has bothered to learn my name.

“I really don’t want to have to eat this all alone,” she argues.

The roof of her porch is painted a fabulous shade of robin’s-egg blue.

“The thing is,” she continues, “how do I know these nuts aren’t poisoned? I insist you take the first bite.”

I putter up the steps and feign disinterest. With her insistence, I swallow a spoonful of pie. But I do it slowly, acting the part, showing hesitation. Then I crumple into a mound of torturous screams and pretend to convulse into death. BoBo barks and pounces on me. All the while, I swim away in the peaceful blue ceiling and the taste of warm pecan pie.

The woman laughs. “See now. That’s why I don’t trust you not to poison my pecans. You’re one to watch, Miss Reynolds. One to watch for sure.”

That was a time when miracles were as real to me as the coins in my pocket. Tangible, solid little orbs that slid between my fingers. Easily calculated too, leaving me with a surplus or a debit at the end of the day. I stood on that porch of 121 Lincoln and wished on my nickel that I could live in place like that. And now here I am, moving my boxes from the other side of town, being asked to share a room with Camille Miller, who is explaining to me that they are the very same Miller family who founded this town. “Basically, we own near about all of Millerville,” she says, and I can hear Jack laughing. Telling Camille
her people
are living on stolen land.

Even though I’ve marched myself up to the front door of nearly all the pretty houses in town to sell pecans each autumn, as I enter Diana’s home, I’m certain I have never seen such a perfect house in all my life. Everything in its place. No dust on the floor. No broken hinges, hole-punched walls, or mildewed windowpanes. I am intimidated by the sudden lack of chaos. Knowing that life could be like this. That home could mean something secure and safe.

I’m afraid to touch anything, on account of my clumsy nature and how incredibly nervous I am feeling at the moment. On the other hand, it is the kind of house that dares you to walk around and touch absolutely everything. I want to feel every inch of luxurious fabric, every polished rim of silver. I figure this might be what the Suttons’ big house looks like, but I have never been invited in.

Camille gives me a tour. We see the parlor, library, and music room, where a grand piano longs for attention. Then we move to the kitchen and pantry with a butler’s service area that connects the kitchen to the formal dining area. There are three restrooms and six bedrooms—each with its own coal-burning fireplace and two with a shared sitting room. Charlie follows our trail and curls into my lap as soon as I sit on Camille’s bed.

It is hard for me to imagine sharing my days with a sibling. I have always been alone. Just me and Mama. It’s been so long since Sloth died, and my time with River was much too short. I’m not used to having someone take such interest in me, or talk to me, or want to hear my thoughts. I don’t know how to handle all of the expectations Camille has for me. I am certain to fail her and shatter her perfect idea of a big sister. I decide it is best to just listen. So that’s what I do.

Camille tells me all about Garrett Jenkins, the cutest boy in all of the school, and the importance of looking your best, and the value of a good bedspread, and the reason lightning rarely strikes the same place twice. On and on she talks, and on and on I listen, wondering how a little girl could have so much to say.

I follow her to the backyard, where she yells, “Mabel? Mabel, come meet Millie!” The housekeeper is beating a rug across a tree limb at the edge of the yard. She smiles, waves her hand, and says, “Be there in a jiffy!”

Camille tugs my arm and pulls me along. “You’re just gonna love Mabel. She’s the best. The bestest of the best,” and before I know it, I am being introduced to the woman behind the magic of this fabulous house, Mrs. Mabel Tillings.

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Reynolds.” Mabel offers a smile as genuine and generous as any I’ve seen. “I’ve heard a thing or two about you,” she adds, giving me a wink that makes me wonder what she’s heard.

Does she know I am a dirt-poor half-breed who doesn’t belong here? Does she know my parents have died in awful ways? Does she know I’m in love with a traveler and plan to leave with the gypsies as soon as they come back through town? What exactly has she heard?

Before I have time to ask, Diana calls from the house. “Bill Miller will be home any minute now. Come on in and get washed up for supper.”

I have noticed that Diana calls her husband by his first and last name. Never Bill, or my husband, or honey, the way other wives do. Always Bill Miller, as if he is her boss or her neighbor or maybe her cousin’s new boyfriend. Whether he has ten names or two, I just want him to like me. I don’t want anything in the world to mess up my chances of living in this beautiful home.