Leaving Carolina (5 page)

“Mark my words, Belinda,” Aunt Adele says, “that girl is gonna have a weight problem like her mother. Fat, I tell you.”

That’s a mean word. Aunt Adele ought not to talk ugly about other people
.

“Well, certainly a little plump.” Aunt A-linda nods
.

“Her mother was a little plump two years ago. Now look at her. Believe you me, that girl is gonna be the same. No wonder her daddy didn’t come.”

Neither did mine. But Mama said he got in late last night and we shouldn’t ask him to keep a promise that might make him sick. Still, I wish he was here so I could show him my Jesus eggs. Hey! If the plump girl is alone like me, she can show me her eggs and I can show her mine
.

With my countin’ finger, I count ten girls on the lawn who seem like they eat too much, but they aren’t alone. They got somebody. Some got a couple somebodies—a mama and a daddy. I reach into my pocket and squeeze a bunny. Maybe one more…

“Oh, no you don’t, missy,” Aunt Adele says like she means business
.

The air gets stuck in my throat, but it’s not me she’s talkin’ to. It’s Maggie
.

A cookie in her hand, my cousin puts her chin up like she means business too, her red curls bouncin’ like I wish my flat red hair would bounce. “Why?”

Aunt Adele points a finger past her. “See your cousin?”

Is she pointin’ at me?

Maggie turns, and by the way her nose wrinkles up, I know she’s lookin’ at me where I stand a little ways down the hill
.

“Do you want to look like Piper?”

The curls on my cousin’s head swing. “No ma’am. Or talk funny like her.”

I do not! I stopped sayin’ “ain’t” like Daddy told me to. And Mama stopped sayin’ it too
.

Aunt Adele snatches the cookie away. “Then you aren’t to behave like her.”

“Adele!” Aunt A-linda says. “I think the child heard you.”

Aunt Adele’s eyes pinch me hard like her boy, Luc, pinched me when I got to the rainbow egg a-fore him. “Somebody’s gotta tell her the way it is. Her mama sure hasn’t seen fit to.”

It was my mama they were talkin’ about. My mama Aunt Adele said is fat and what made my daddy not come. It feels like I got a real bunny in my throat. And there’s a big hurt in my heart—like it done fell and broke and the sharp pieces are stickin’ me
.

“I’d best go talk to her,” Aunt A-linda says, and I feel a piece come unstuck. Maybe she’ll smile at me… pat my back… carry me inside so’s if I cry, no one will see
.

As she comes around the table, I step toward her
.

“Mama!” Little Bart calls, his blond hair a mess and his bottom lip stuck out as he stomps toward Aunt A-linda. “Luc bite!”

And just like that, my pretty aunt turns from me to him. “See what your boy did, Adele! And with him ten years old and Bart only three! That Luc needs a whippin’, and I’ve a mind to do it myself. There’s something not right with him.”

Aunt Adele puts her hands on her hips. “If your brat had stopped pesterin’ Luc, it wouldn’t have happened.”

Poor Bart. Mean Luc. Sad Piper. The sharp pieces feel like they might cut right through me, and I pick up my basket. Why’s it so light? I glance down at the shiny crinkle grass. No rainbow egg. No eggs at all
.

I hear laughter, and when I look up, Luc is poking his red-haired head around the big ol’ tree and sticking his tongue out. He laughs again and steps to the side to tilt his bucket. It’s full. And that’s a rainbow egg on top!

A cry jumps into my throat. It hurts—like it’s too big to fit, but it’s
comin’ through anyway. I turn and run a little ways down the hill and hunker behind a bush
.

Still Luc is laughin’, though he can’t see me no more. I lift my skirt and wipe my runny eyes and nose, and some of my little pink bunnies fall outta my pockets and onto the grass. I grab ’em, but bits of yuck are stuck to ’em. They’re not good for eatin’ now. Aunt Adele would be happy
.

But I am not happy. Not anymore. Is this why Mama has to try to be happy? ’Cause people say ugly things about her? I wish she would take me home and Daddy would speak nice to her and I’d sit a-tween them and they’d hug on me. I wish…I wish God hadn’t listened to Mama’s prayer. I wish it had rained!

I shake the sticky bunnies off my hands and jump up and stomp them into the ground until the pink mallow squishes out from a-neath my white shoes
.

“What are you doin’?”

I jump back. Bart’s big sister, older ‘n me by two years, is standin’ there like she went poof! I sniffle. “I—I didn’t see you there.”

Bridget makes a snorty sound. “My mother says you’re in a world all your own.”

Is that bad too? “My bunnies fell out of my pockets and got dirty.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “And you thought you’d teach them a lesson by grinding them into the ground and killing the grass, hmm?”

She’s mad at me, and I don’t think she’s ever been a-fore. Usually she just ignores me
.

“Why, I bet they ain’t biodegradable.”

Bio—? I don’t know that word. But Daddy would say she sounds like a hick if he heard her use the “ain’t” word. Pickwicks aren’t supposed
to do that or make one-syllable words into two or turn all them “-ings” into “-ins.”

“That mess will probably get stuck in some poor bird’s throat and kill him dead.” Bridget shakes her head, and her thick blond braids swing pretty like Maggie’s curls. “You’re a litterbug, Piper.”

And plump. Her mama said so. I start to cry again
.

“Did you find out what’s wrong with your cousin, Bridget?”

I peek a-tween my fingers at Uncle Obe comin’ up the hill, his hair orangy red in the sunlight
.

“All’s I know is she’s a litterbug.” Bridget frowns. “And a crybaby.”

“Did you hurt yourself, Piper?”

I shake my head, and Bridget says, “Litterbug!” and runs off
.

As Uncle Obe comes near, I see a boy’s with him, about Luc’s age, with hair so short he’s almost got none. He’s starin’ at me—not mean-like, though when he looks to where Luc is, his face gets kinda ugly
.

Uncle Obe puts a hand on his shoulder and says somethin’, and the boy stays put. My uncle comes over, squats down, sets his elbows on his knees, and lets his big hands flop a-tween them. “Did Luc take your eggs?”

I nod. “And the rainbow egg I was gonna give Mama.”

His eyes look up the hill. “Your Aunt Adele and Aunt Belinda are makin’ a right spectacle of themselves. Gonna give the town a lot to talk about.”

“I wanna go home.”

“All right, but not without your share of eggs.” Uncle Obe gets up. “Come on.”

I shake my head
.

He puts on a thinkin’ face that makes him seem old, like maybe
forty, and then holds out a hand. He never did that a-fore, him not likin’ company. “Let’s go talk to that floppy-eared rodent—the, uh, Easter bunny. He’s in my garden.”

I wanna go home, but I wanna see the bunny, so I put my hand in his. As he walks me up the hill, I remember the boy. Maybe he wants to meet the Easter bunny too. But when I check over my shoulder, he’s gone. “Who was that boy?”

“My friend’s son, just here for today.”

I wanna ask who his friend is, ’cause I don’t know that he has any, but Aunt Adele calls to Uncle Obe. I hook my thumb around his thumb and hold tight so’s she can’t take him away like Bart took Aunt A-linda away
.

But Uncle Obe turns aside like he don’t wanna talk to her. “Was supposed to be a frog strangler today, but the sun came out and not a cloud in the sky.”

I nod. “Mama prayed the rain away. God listens to my mama.”

I think he smiles, but I can’t be sure ’cause his mouth don’t ever move much. “I’m sure everyone in Pickwick is grateful to her.”

“I don’t think they know, ’cause if they did, they’d be nicer, and maybe she could make her some friends. Maybe I could too.”

Frownin’, Uncle Obe leads me around the house to his garden. It’s so pretty, even if only a few flowers have got back their color
.

“Sit here.” He lets go of my hand. “And cover your eyes while I have a speak with that rodent.”

I wiggle onto the bench and set my basket on my lap. “I wanna see him.”

“He won’t allow little ones to see him on Easter day, so don’t look or he won’t leave you any more eggs.”

I put my hands over my eyes as his feet crunch away. A while later, he’s whisperin’ and the bunny whispers back. I hope they hurry so’s I can find Mama and tell her how much she sounds like the Easter bunny
.

Finally I hear Uncle Obe’s feet again. “More eggs have been delivered for you.”

I drop my hands, and sure enough, there are colored eggs all over the garden. I run to him and hug his legs. “Thank you!”

He pats my head. “Go get ’em.”

When I find the last one, Mama comes out the back door of the kitchen, wipin’ her hands on a towel. I don’t tell her about Luc or what Aunt Adele said ’cause she seems more happy now, and I don’t want her to lose her happy face
.

She holds my hand as we walk to the front lawn, and Uncle Obe follows. The kids are still there with their mamas and daddies, and I’m glad I got my mama. She leads me to a big patch blanket, and we sit on it
.

Mama looks over her shoulder at where Uncle Obe is walkin’ away. “Poor Obadiah,” she says like she don’t know anyone is listenin’. “I don’t think life turned out the way he expected. I know the feelin’.”

Poor Uncle Obe. Poor Mama. But not poor Piper, ’cause I got a basketful of Jesus eggs and I’m not gonna think about the ugly things Aunt Adele said. I just hope she and Luc don’t bother us over here. “Mama?”

“Yes?” She smiles, and I want to kiss her smile, it’s so pretty. So I do. And she laughs. I like it when she laughs
.

“Would you say me a prayer?”

“What kind of prayer?”

“That everyone is nice, and anyone mean will go away so we can be happy.”

Her eyes get wet like when she waits supper for Daddy and he don’t come, and then she closes them and prays. Not more ‘n a minute later, Aunt Adele is draggin’ that Easter egg-thievin’ cousin of mine after her, and he’s got a hand over his face and is bellerin’ like someone hit him. And Maggie is followin’. Then they’re in their car and drivin’ down the long driveway
.

See, God does listen to my mama. Though I still got a hurt in me, I’m gonna try hard like her to be happy. “Happy…”

A
s the little girl’s voice drifts away, I hear the woman she became whisper, “Happy…”

For fear of slipping into another memory, I squeeze the steering wheel hard and accelerate into the cobblestone parking area across from the entryway. I reach to cut the headlights but draw my hand back. They are the only lights on the estate, and I don’t want Uncle Obe’s gardener stumbling around in the dark, which could happen if, say, his flashlight dies.

The minutes tick by without a sign of Axel. Did something happen? He did say the outage could be intentional…

I pull my purse onto my lap. As I once more grip the pistol alongside the little Bible (I have got to rectify that), I scan the driveway.
Where are you?

He likely has me worried for nothing. It probably
is
just an outage. I don’t recall seeing any other house lights when I came down that winding mess of a road, better known as Pickwick Pike.

Correction. Bronson and Earla Biggs’s lights were on—notable because some of the lights were of the Christmas variety. “Why take ’em down?” Bronson used to defend his right to leave them up year-round. “I’ll just have to put ’em up again next year.” So if the Biggs’s lights were on…
Of course, they are a mile away, and the outage may not have extended that far. In fact, I’m certain nothing sinister is happening. It’s just fear talking. I release the pistol, cut the lights, and open the door.

As if on cue, a half-dozen darkened windows light up. “Power outage.” I sling my purse onto my shoulder and slam the door. A few moments later, I ascend the mountain of steps.

In spite of Artemis’s forgetfulness, the key is under the welcome mat. I open the door, and the soft light within sweeps away the shadows surrounding me. At first look, the entryway appears as grand as ever with its far-flung walls and soaring ceiling. But at second look, it’s tired like an old woman dressed in all her finery that, on closer inspection, reveals her shawl is pulled and yellowed, the folds of her skirt are rimmed with dust, and her slippers are worn. The twelve-foot ceiling is discolored, the iron-and-crystal chandelier is strung with cobwebs, the mirrors and marble-topped tables on either side are thick with dust, and the rug that stretches across the entryway is threadbare.