Into the Free (9 page)

CHAPTER 12

It’s been four days since River let me sit beside him at the fire. Four days since he led me into the high grasses and gave me a kiss that changed my whole world. In those four days, we’ve hardly been apart. I haven’t even been to school, knowing River’s time in Iti Taloa is limited and not wanting to waste a single second that I could be with him. This morning, I wake to find him on the porch again. Talking to Mama.

“Just a little poetry,” Mama says, holding up a book to show River what she’s reading.

“Mama grew up in a library.” I lean against the front door and greet them, remember Mama’s stories about her childhood as a preacher’s daughter. I think of Mama’s box tucked under my bed, and I wonder if her father has anything to do with the name of the church written on the back of the business card.

“Oh, not really,” Mama says, blushing as if she’s a girl again. There’s something hopeful and alive in her. “I did grow up working in the library, but it was just a small one. Nothing more than a closet, really. In my father’s church. Books were my salvation.”

River nods in understanding. “Favorite book?”

“Psalms,” Mama says, and I hope she doesn’t start quoting Scripture.

“Good one.” River tosses her a quote.
“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”

“Thirty, verse five,” Mama says, drawing her face into a genuine smile for the first time in months.

I’m amazed by River’s ability to memorize passages. No doubt, he has a gift. “How do you do that?” I ask.

“Just a little trick I learned a long time ago. Makes for easy tips in most towns.”

Mama laughs, and I love the sound of it. I can’t help but hope that River stays. That Jack leaves. And that Mama never goes back to the valley again.

Just as I start planning to stick around the house today, open the box, and have a long talk with Mama, a housekeeper shows up with a basket of laundry. I wait to make sure Mama can handle the work. She assures me she can, so I take River into the woods, along a familiar trail, to one of my favorite childhood hideouts.

“One spring,” I tell him, “the fire chief’s nephew went missing for three weeks straight. Boaters found him camped out on the river in his jon boat, living off of bream and bass. He insisted he was Jesus on the Sea of Galilee and that the fishermen had been sent by God to serve as his disciples. Supposedly, his parents responded by sending him to live with his aunt out in Texas, but everybody knew he was sent to the East Mississippi Insane Asylum.”

I point to the big brick building across the river. “We call it ‘East.’”

When I was a child, I heard they locked people up in there, put them in straitjackets, and performed experiments on them—like lab rats or medical monkeys. For years after he got sent there, I had the same nightmare over and over again. I’d wake up with my sheets soaking wet and my throat lodged shut, too frightened to scream or cry or breathe.

In my dream, the doctors from East roared into town with their quack exams and classified everyone as insane. In the dark of night, they hauled us all away in cars with no glass in the windows. Cold wind snapping my cheeks as long ribbons of sedans slithered their way along the dark, dusty trails, like newborn black racer snakes leaving the nest.

Some things about the dream would change from night to night, but one thing was always the same. I was always trapped in a car with a nameless, faceless driver. I would sit in the wide backseat, propped against the door, peering out into the nothingness of night and whispering to the barren trees that blurred past me like ghosts. “Come and save me,” I would whisper in the hush-hush screams that exist only in dreams. Every time the trees would sing, “In the spring. In the spring. We will save you in the spring.”

I believed them because I’d heard that God talks to us in our dreams.

“I figure I’ll end up there by the time I’m eighteen,” I say, tossing a rock into the air, half hoping to hit the towering asylum. “How old are you now?” River asks.

“Sixteen,” I confess. Ashamed I’m not yet seventeen, like he is.

“You’ve got two good years left.”

We both laugh, and then he adds, “Were you born the year of the flood?”

“March 21, 1926. One year before the flood.”

“There’s my proof!” he teases. “Interesting things do happen in the spring!” He leans me back against a shagbark hickory and fills me with his touch.

I surrender and say, “Technically, it wasn’t spring. If you want to know the truth, my birth occurred during the in-between space, the vernal equinox.” I shift my voice and try to sound intelligent, hoping to teach him something he doesn’t already know. “That means I broke out of the womb and swam headfirst into this world when the sun was sitting directly above the equator in perfect balance. Just before the Northern Hemisphere began its gradual tilt toward the sun and winter turned to spring.”

“So what you’re telling me is that when you were born, the world did an about-face.”

I can’t believe how fast I’m falling in love with this drifter. “I guess you could say that,” I laugh. “Mama named me Millicent, after her mother’s mother. But Jack took one quick look at me and said, ‘The name fits. She ain’t worth a cent.’”

River smiles. “Millicent means strength. It’s English.”

“Well,” I continue, still unable to believe he knows so much. “Whether Jack had anything to do with it or not, everyone’s always called me Millie. Not as elegant as Millicent.”

“But it sure is a lot better than Sloth,” says River, brushing my hair back from my eyes.

I laugh. “You may think you have me wrapped around your finger,” I tell him. “But I’m not so easily fooled. No guy can be as good as you.”

“What about Sloth?” he asks. “He was a good man, right?”

“Yeah. He really was. But he never set out to break a young girl’s heart. I’m sixteen, remember?”

“Don’t worry, Millie. I’m no cad.” He pulls me into him. Rain begins to fall over us, so we run deeper into the woods.

CHAPTER 13

Two weeks have now passed since I brought River to East, and he still hasn’t left my side. I’ve learned to play card games with the Romany men, sing songs with the women, and milk goats with the children. Turns out, they don’t allow their children to date. Ever. But River’s gotten away with it because there are so many different groups here for the pilgrimage. And he has no parents. It’s ironic how he’s surrounded by all of these people, but he’s more of a loner than I ever realized. Just like me. Now the two of us are lying on a blanket in the grass, away from the rest of the group who circle the fire. The sky is pinholed with stars when I finally ask the question that’s been worming its way through my heart since he arrived in Iti Taloa almost three weeks ago. “How much longer will you be here?”

“Small group leaves in two days. I have to go with them,” he says, his voice flat.

I don’t think before I speak. “Take me with you.”

He laughs.

“I’m serious. I don’t want to stay here anymore.”

“What’s so bad about here? Seems nice enough to me.”

“What do you know? You show up for a couple of weeks a year. Try living here your entire life.”

“It’s not what you think out there,” he says, looking at the flames in the distance.

“Then you stay here. You know how to find work. I can take one of those quick-cash jobs you’re talking about. Or do laundry, like Mama. We can fix up Sloth’s old place. We can be together.” I sound pathetic. Even though I’ve spied on him for years, I’ve only really known him for a few weeks.

“I can’t stay here,” he says, matter-of-fact, as if I understand why. “Would never work. I’m a traveler. But if you really want to go with us, Millie, I’ll see what I can do.” I focus on the way he says my name. Sinfully sweet and potentially toxic.

“Promise,” I demand. “I don’t know if I can last another year in this place.”

“Sure you can. You’re a survivor. You defeated termites,” he jokes, but it makes me think that he’s not taking me seriously.

“I don’t even know if that story is true.”

“Ah … but what is truth?” he says, kissing my neck and bringing the stars down around me.

I catch my breath. “I shouldn’t be dangling my heart in front of you like this.” I lace my fingers through his string of coins.

He kisses me and I fade into him.

“One man’s truth is another man’s lie.” He leans back on one elbow like a Renaissance piece. Like something I’d see in one of Miss Harper’s library books. Nothing I could have ever imagined I’d see under the stars in Mississippi—next to me.

“Ask three men on the street what happened when a girl walked by, and they’ll all tell you something different. One will tell you she was wearing a tight red dress. The other will say, ‘No, no. It was blue and low-cut,’ and the third will say, ‘She wasn’t wearing anything at all.’ It’s all about what they want to see, not what they really see.”

“Is that so?” I tease.

“Yep. It is. Like me in the river. Everyone has a different version of what really happened that day. Some people say I fell in. Others say I rolled in by choice. And some say my mother pushed me, trying to drown her shame. I don’t worry about what’s true to them. I know my own truth, and that’s that.”

“What is your truth?” I ask.

“Truth is, Millie. I love you.”

Whether there is any such thing as truth or not, I believe him.

The next morning, I am pulled from sleep by the long, warm arms of the sun. I wake to find my body wrapped with River’s. We have stayed here all night under the moon, hidden by high green grasses and bright-yellow wildflowers.

In the distance, coffee is brewing over open fires and Romany children are already playing chase around the flames. I do not wake this magician who dreams beside me. Instead, I lie still and listen to his peaceful breathing, letting the rhythms of him slow the beating of my heart. When he wakes, he will leave, saying I can’t go with him. But I don’t want to hear good-bye. So, I roll with a slow silence out of his arms onto the dew-dipped blades of grass. I stand and stretch and smooth my hair. Then I look down and see him smile.

“Morning,” he says, pulling himself up and tugging his loose white shirt around his chest. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

I don’t know what to say. I want, more than anything, not to leave him. For him not to leave me.

“Hungry?” he asks.

“Not really,” I say. “I need to check on Mama.”

“I’ll go with you.” He stands, buttons his shirt, and reaches for my waist. I let him pull me to him.

“You should probably stay.” I am afraid of him agreeing, so I keep talking. “Aren’t you packing up today? Leaving in the morning?”

A man yells out for River and waves him over to camp. “I guess so,” River says. “Look. I don’t want to go without you, Millie. I’ll talk to the group. I don’t see any way they can say no. Why don’t you go home to pack and meet me back here? First thing in the morning.”

“First thing in the morning,” I agree. I can’t stop smiling.

“Promise?” he asks.

“I promise.”

“I’ll be waiting.” He kisses me on the top of my head.

And then I run toward home, shouting behind me, “First thing in the morning!”

I run fast, hoping Jack is still out of town with the rodeo but fearing that he may already be home. The thought of Jack brings a sting to my veins and Mama’s words echo in my head, “Pray, Millie. Pray harder!”

I always want to tell her that God stopped hearing our prayers a long time ago, but instead I do what she wants. I pray. Over and over again, I pray. I reach the edge of Mr. Sutton’s pasture and can’t help but remember a softer side of Jack. I must have been about seven. I followed Jack and Mama as they took a walk through Mr. Sutton’s field. It must have been sometime in April because they walked over a carpet of red clover. Purple hyacinth rimmed the edges as Jack reached down and scooped Mama’s hand in his.

They stepped slowly, dreamlike, fingers woven together past the red-tipped clover, through dangling dandelions and pumped-up pokeweed. Into the deep woods where bees hummed round honeysuckle and white dogwoods laced through the fresh green leaves like points of light. A few strands of forsythia lingered, and wild onion blooms kissed the path. Even the leftover irises held their breath and watched Mama and Jack walk by. They walked and walked for the longest time, and I stayed right behind them—watching my parents in love.

Jack looked up as a red-tailed hawk swept the sky. He said, “Today sure is good,” and Mama smiled back at him.

If I never have anything else, I’ll always have that. That one day, when the whole world was covered in flowers and everything sure was good.

But now, as I reach the edge of the pasture, I see Jack’s shadow cross the porch, and I can tell by the force of his steps that today sure isn’t good.

My instincts are right. I run to the house. Jack is yelling, spitting, cursing. I want to distract him, like River did the cottonmouth. Give him one target too many, send him crawling back into his hole.

Instead, I dive under the porch. I crawl between dripping pipes and creaking floorboards, trying to focus on finding coins or needles that have slipped through the cracks unnoticed. I remember the stray dog, swallowing her pups. How I tried so hard to save them.

I curl tighter and tighter in fear as Jack yells to Mama, “Enough’s enough!” and “Why do you do this to yourself?” I assume he’s talking about her stash, the medicine she gets from the farmhands. He beats Mama more, and Mama cries, “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. I’m sorry.” She begs him to stop. She agrees to quit the habit she’s had for years. Since the wife of a farmhand gave her something to help her handle the pain of broken bones and deep black bruises. But he beats her so hard and so long that by the end, I can’t hear Mama cry at all. I want to save her. But once again, I don’t. I hide under the house, too afraid of Jack, and of what he might do to me.

An armadillo has nested here for the day. It scrambles around in the dust, and I count the mammal’s bony plates, four-five-six, as I wait for Jack to leave. I don’t dare make a sound, even when the armadillo crawls closer. When the beast notices me, he makes a hissing sound and hobbles away. But I stay still, waiting for Jack to limp away off-balance and angry, like the armadillo. Finally, Jack slams the door and stomps out to his truck. But instead of spinning away in anger, as he’s done so many times, he just sits there. I can barely see the shape of him, but somehow I know he is crying.

I climb out from under the porch and move toward his truck. I am close enough now to see clearly. Jack sits behind the wheel, engine idling, face in his hands, sobbing. I stand and stare at him for the longest time, not quite sure what to do. Part of me wants to attack this man, the way he has attacked Mama. The other half wants to drag him back into the house and force him to look at what he’s done. But more than either of those, what I really want is to understand him. He cries hard and deep, unaware that I am watching. As his breathing slows, and his body stills, I tap on the window, gently, and say, “Jack?”

He looks up at me, rolls down the glass. “You can’t fix everything, kid,” as if I have tried to fix anything at all. Then he grips the steering wheel, punches the gas pedal, and skids out of our lives again, spewing gravel around me like a shotgun blast.

As soon as Jack is gone, I race back to the house where Mama is spread across the kitchen floor like a dirty rag. Broken bottles and needles are strewn across the floor around her. Pills have been crushed beneath Jack’s boots. She can’t hide it anymore, her dependency on the god of sleep. Blood has soaked through her clothes and spread a puddle beneath her busted head. I put a cold, wet cloth on her face. She doesn’t move. I rub her gently. Nothing. I shake her and yell, “Mama! Mama, wake up! Please, Mama. Open your eyes!” But she still doesn’t move. Worse, she doesn’t breathe.