Kind of Kin (29 page)

Wednesday
| February 27, 2008 | 8:45
A.M.

First Baptist Church | Cedar

S
printing
back through town in sneakers and sweats, Sweet prayed that her son wouldn't
wake up—she'd left him asleep on her bed under the afghan, his swollen adenoids
making his snores as loud as poor old Mr. Bledsoe's—and also that if anybody saw
her, they might think she'd taken up jogging rather than that she was trotting
back to First Baptist to commit a felony, and also that Misty Dawn hadn't
particularly heard that last order to stay put inside the nursery so that maybe
she wouldn't feel compelled to act just precisely the opposite. On this last
count, apparently, the Lord wasn't listening.

Because, indeed, it was Wednesday morning at nine
o'clock when the Women's Missionary Union had their weekly meeting, and there in
the cramped hallway between the church nursery and Fellowship Hall stood Misty
Dawn in the preacher's blue plaid bathrobe, her long sandy mane combed, pink lip
gloss on, balancing a mug of coffee in each hand as she lectured four baffled
blue-haired ladies and the preacher's confused wife about illegal immigration.
Vicki Dudley's youngest boy was asleep in her arms. The other wild one was
racing around in circles. Sweet could see Brother Oren standing back in the
bright kitchen, rubbing his palms hopelessly up and down over his face.

“—
do
pay taxes,” Misty
Dawn was saying. “That's just another lie, because people don't like Mexicans,
when actually there's as many illegal Indians as Mexicans, but you don't ever
hear about that. I mean like India Indians, not Choctaws or anything, obviously,
but when you think about it, we're
all
illegal
immigrants from their point of view, American Indians, only they're the only
ones who'll say that, and my grandpa,
he'll
say it,
which is probably half the reason he's in jail, nobody wants to hear it—”

“Okay, okay!” Sweet cried, rushing forward to
squeeze herself between Misty Dawn and the WMU ladies. “We know, they know,
that's fine, Misty, thanks.”

“People
don't
know!
That's what I'm saying—”

“Hi, Brother Oren!” Sweet waved toward the kitchen.
“Y'all got back!” She dashed a quick smile at Vicki. “How's your mom, good, huh?
Boy, that was some weather. Glad y'all made it home safe. Misty, why don't you,
um, run get dressed—”

“I'm dressed.” She opened the robe to show her.
“I'm just cold.”

“Yes, all right.” Sweet beamed at the ladies—and
Lord, oh, Lord, wouldn't you know one of them would have to be Claudie Ott. “I
guess y'all are fixing to start your meeting, huh? Well, we don't want to hold
you up. Come on, Misty, let's just get out of their way.” She didn't, of course,
actually move out of the way. The nursery door was closed behind her, thank
goodness, but she could hear the baby in there talking Spanish to her
daddy—Spanish! Probably the elderly WMU ladies were too hard of hearing to
detect it, but the preacher's wife wasn't. But then there probably wasn't ever
any way to keep this from Vicki anyhow. Sweet looked desperately toward the
preacher in the kitchen. He was slouched back against the counter, and his hands
were down off his face now, but his eyes were closed; he looked like he might be
praying.

“You're Gaylene's daughter, aren't you, dear?” This
from the retired schoolteacher Ida Coley. She'd taken Misty Dawn by the arm. “I
remember your mama so well, what a pretty girl. I'm just so sorry about your
brother. That's your brother, isn't it? Bobby's grandson that disappeared?”

“I always said that child would come to a bad end,”
remarked Claudie Ott. “Too pretty for her own good. Didn't I always say
that?”

“It's a shame,” Edna Martin said, frowning hard to
tell Claudie Ott to shut up.

“A crying shame,” agreed Alice Stalcup.

“Honey?” the preacher's wife called toward the
kitchen.

The preacher straightened up from the counter and
started toward them just as his older boy, Isaiah, came tearing along the hall
making squealing tire sounds. The boy rounded his mother with a wailing screech
and slammed open the nursery door and raced inside, causing Lucha to let out a
shriek and start sobbing hysterically. Sweet and Misty Dawn rushed forward
together, Misty a half step ahead. She clunked down the coffee mugs and reached
for her screaming daughter sitting on her daddy's lap. The child clung to her
and sobbed and sobbed. Juanito got to his feet, looking worried. Little Isaiah
flew around the nursery with his arms out, an airplane now, and Sweet tried to
catch him, barking “Quit that now, quit!” Lucha's sobs grew louder, turned into
long trembling wails, as if everything, the mine, the dark, the cold, the
hunger, her parents' fear, the strangeness of everything had culminated in her
little chest all at once. “Shh, baby, shh,” Misty Dawn said, walking the room
with her, patting her back. The preacher came on into the nursery and picked up
his son, who was sputtering motorboat sounds now, his little chunky arms and
legs pumping, and carried the boy back out to the hall. The four WMU ladies
crowded together in the nursery doorway to see in.

Looking up, Sweet cast her gaze from each old
woman's face to the next: Ida Coley's startled eyes and rounded mouth, Edith
Martin's creased frown, Alice Stalcup's raised, auburn-penciled brows, Claudie
Ott's crimped satisfaction. Oh, what's the use, Sweet thought. It's all over.
All over. But she had to go on. “Miss Coley,” she said loudly over Lucha's
wails, “would y'all leave us a little privacy? It's a family matter. I'll come,
well, explain in a minute. I know it looks . . . We just need to
. . .” She smiled, trying to act as if the shabby-clothed,
coal-smudged Mexican man standing next to her niece might be invisible. Clearly,
he was not invisible. Edith Martin's frown deepened as she stared. Claudie Ott's
filmy blue eyes never left his face. But Ida Coley, bless her heart, bless her,
announced in her trembling turkey voice, “Come on, girls. If we mean to get
those Lottie Moon baskets finished, we'd better get started.” And she came
around in front of the other three like a skinny little cow dog and herded them
out the door toward the Adult Women's classroom.

Sweet took in a long breath, listened to the
child's wails a moment longer, then she turned on her niece. “Do you see what
you've done? Do you
see
! No, you don't see! Because
it's never your fault, is it? It's always somebody else's!”

Misty Dawn stared at her, shocked.

“I told you to stay hid!” Sweet snapped. “But you
don't listen. You have
never
listened. To anyone!
You longhead on, doing just what
you
want to do.
Your granddaddy's sitting in the Latimer County Jail this instant because of you
and that . . .
husband
of yours. And I
don't blame them, Misty, I blame
you
! What have you
ever given this family except trouble and heartache?” Fat silent tears were
running down the girl's cheeks, but Sweet was too wound up to quit. She stormed
around the room. “I'm asking you, Misty. Name me one thing! We all go carting up
there for your daughter's birthday, but you can't even a make dadgum birthday
phone call to your granddaddy who put his whole life on the line for you! You
can't think to send a card to your baby brother, who would not be lost right now
this minute if you'd just come home with me like I asked! But no, you got to
wait for your illegal husband to swim back across the damn river! Or whatever it
is they do. Then y'all show up at my door expecting
me
to fix things, expecting me to give you food, give you money, pay for
your gas and whatever, risking my own future, my
own
child's well-being, and then you're going to stand there and lecture
those poor old ladies about how people don't like Mexicans! Give me a break! You
are so selfish and self-centered, you don't care about anybody but yourself!
Look how you're raising your daughter, Misty! Look at her! She can't even speak
the damn language of the country she lives in!”

Misty Dawn was crying now as hard as the baby,
whose wails had increased in volume and hysteria right along with Sweet's rant.
Juanito was awkwardly trying to pat Misty's shoulder. Sweet stood trembling,
panting a little, knowing her anger was as much at her dead sister as her
self-centered niece. She'd said the same things to Gaylene when she came home
from Oregon years ago and took Misty. The same things, and worse. Sweet looked
up to see the preacher standing in the doorway. He met her eyes a moment before
silently withdrawing. She sank down on the low table. She felt like throwing up.
“I'm sorry,” she whispered. Three times she said it, even though she knew Misty
couldn't hear over the child's wails. Not that it would make any difference if
she did hear, because Sweet couldn't unsay the words. Misty Dawn would never
forget them. And the preacher—he'd seen her acting like that. Dear Lord help me,
she prayed. Help me be better. The baby kept crying.

Wiping her face on her sleeve, Sweet got to her
feet. She didn't look at the kids when she told them to please stay in the
nursery, she'd be back in a minute. There was no time now to wait for a tow to
get Juanito's truck out. Claudie Ott would be on the phone the minute she got
home. Sweet would just have to go ask the preacher for his car keys. If they got
caught, she'd tell the cops she stole the car. Maybe that might keep Brother
Oren from getting charged with harboring and transporting at least. Sweet's
limbs were moving in slow motion, like she was crawling underwater, when she
needed so badly to hurry, she really did, because she needed to get this done
and get back to the house before Carl Albert woke up.

She walked across Fellowship Hall in a watery
dream, reached for the push bar on the glass door, saw then, at the side of the
parsonage carport, her coatless, hatless son, in his yellow T-shirt, yawning
next to the preacher, who stood in the driveway talking to Arvin Holloway.
Sweet's dreamlike stupor vanished in a sudden rush. The sheriff's cruiser was
parked behind Brother Oren's Toyota, red and blue lights stuttering. Sweet tried
to read the preacher's face. She looked helplessly at her shivering son. What
was Carl Albert doing with the sheriff? And what was the sheriff doing at the
church?

A big F-250 pickup pulling a stock trailer stopped
on the street. Then two more cars stopped. Townspeople wanting to know what was
going on. And, oh Lord, here came Claudie Ott tottering along the icy sidewalk
from the front door of the church. She went right up to the sheriff, talking
excitedly, bobbing her head at the glass doors to Fellowship Hall, where Sweet
stood. Sweet didn't wait to see more—she dashed back across the room and around
the corner into the nursery, slammed shut the nursery door.

“S
anctuary,” Oren Dudley repeated. Miss Ott's filmy blue eyes peered up
at him. The sheriff stood massaging the side of his nose. Carl Albert tugged on
his sleeve. “Brother Oren, I'm cold!”

“Say what?” the sheriff said again.

“
Sanc
tuary. We decided
to offer . . . or that is I . . . the church fellowship
. . . well, I did plan to do a prayer walk. With the deacons, of
course. Welcome the stranger, the Lord said.”

“Sweet Kirkendall ain't a stranger.”

“Well, no.”

“It's something fishy, Arvin,” Claudie Ott said.
“You mark my words.”

“Claudia!” Ida Coley came picking her way between
the slick spots along the front walk. “What are you doing out here without a
coat?”

“Well! I looked out the window on my way to the
ladies' room! And what do you think I spied but the sheriff's car!”

“You're gonna freeze a twig.”

“I'm fine, Ida. Listen here. Arvin's hunting
Georgia Kirkendall, now what do you think of that?”

“Morning, Sheriff,” Ida Coley said. She gave a
meaningful look to Claudie Ott, but the woman's lip was unbuttoned; there was no
shutting her up now.

“I told him, I said she's right
there—
” Claudie stubbed a thumb toward the glass
doors. “Right inside the church nursery with her sister Gaylene's oldest
daughter and that precious little girl and”—she lowered her voice as if
whispering a bad word—“a
Mexican man
.” Edna Martin
and Alice Stalcup came carefully along the walk from the sanctuary. Vicki Dudley
arrived from the other direction, the parsonage front door. Carl Albert tugged
the preacher's sleeve again. “Can I go see my mom?”

In the street Floyd Ollie got out of his truck and
stepped across the drainage ditch to come find out what was what. Colton
Springer and his little pregnant girlfriend got out of their car; Tommy Joe
Holbird got out of his. Phyllis Wentworth walked over from her house across the
street. Somebody must have phoned the deacons, because Clyde Herrington and
T. C. Blankenship both pulled up, and within minutes a good-sized crowd had
gathered in the patch of yard between the parsonage and the First Baptist
Church. With each new arrival, Claudie Ott repeated her observations, never
failing to finish in a hushed whisper:
a Mexican
man!

“Brother Oren,” Carl Albert said, “I wanna go see
my mom.”

Arvin Holloway was pacing back and forth beside his
cruiser with his fist on his pistol, trying to make up his mind whether to call
for reinforcements or just take the suspects in himself. He was convinced the
Mexican man was the same one the Brown kid had been seen with; he knew he was
close on the trail now, and this whole drama was soon to be finished, starring
himself as arresting officer and hero—but you never knew what you were walking
into in this sort of a blind situation. How well armed they might be, or how
desperate. Might be a drug lord of some kind, or a loco, you just had no way of
knowing.