Read Out of Darkness Online

Authors: Ashley Hope Pérez

Out of Darkness (23 page)

BOOK: Out of Darkness
12.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Sometime during the night, she heard Henry stumble from the kitchen into the hall. She got up and sat with her back against the bedroom door, Abuelito's old rusted letter opener clenched in her hand. A threat was better than nothing.

After a while, she heard Henry snoring. She crept to the bathroom, locked the door, and undressed. She scrubbed everywhere he had touched her. She wet her comb and pulled it through her hair again and again before braiding it tightly.

She could only think: not again. Not again. She was not her mother. She was not the child she had been when Henry had first tried to use her in that way. She was herself and grown, and yet this was no protection. It meant only that the hurt he intended for her would be different from the other hurts. Her stomach churned. No matter what Henry said tomorrow, there was no making it right.

She went out onto the porch. Despite the cold, there was a familiar heat in her armpits and between her thighs. Maybe fear and desire ran along the same tracks in her body, but she refused to confuse Wash's giving with Henry's taking. She pressed her face into her knees. She wanted to run to the river to be inside the tree. To be where Wash had been. To return to the safety of their belonging to each other. But she could not leave the twins alone with Henry.

She worked her fingers against her temples. She ought to be figuring on a way for the three of them to get away. She went back into the house and checked the sock where she hid the money she saved from what Henry gave her. She'd spent too much at Christmas, she knew, especially now that he did not let her buy the groceries. She had eleven dollars left, not enough for train tickets to San Antonio. Anyway, leaving New London would mean leaving Wash. The thought of that punched through her every idea of happiness. She could not think of it being otherwise.

Around five it occurred to her to do something, so she sewed. She sat at the kitchen table and stitched her hurt into tiny perfect seams that bound a bit of lace edging to the smock and bloomers for Muff's coming baby. The blue cloth Muff had chosen was so pale it looked white.

From the edge of the camp, a rooster gave a few halfhearted crows. Naomi checked the clock. It was half past six, but the winter morning was still dark.

Naomi started a moment later when there was a knock at the back door. She opened it a crack to see Pastor Tom standing on the porch, his Bible pressed against the front of his coat.

“Hello, Naomi. Sorry for the early visit. I need to see Henry,” he said. His expression was grave, and it seemed to her that he was searching her face for information.

She wondered what he saw, what secrets he was able to peel away from her. She imagined the wood planks of the kitchen floor splitting open so she could escape that stare.

“He's asleep, Pastor.” She still held her sewing and fingered the seams she'd just sewn.

At least Henry was no longer on the kitchen floor. That would be harder to explain. But she wasn't going to explain anything to Pastor Tom or anyone. To talk about the night before was impossible.

“It's important,” Pastor Tom said.

“It's just ... I'd have to wake him...” Naomi shrugged, hoping Pastor Tom would let it alone.

Pastor Tom tugged at his beard and shook his head. “I'll wake him. If I may come in.”

She stepped back to let him pass. “Coffee?”

“Please,” he answered. He handed her his hat and coat. “From what I heard from Bud, Henry's going to need it.”

A few minutes later, Pastor Tom marched a groggy, squinting Henry out onto the porch. Snatches of the sermon drifted in to her.

“You're part of my flock, Henry. You think word doesn't get around? That bar is a den of drinkers and fornicators!”

“It was only a little dancing, Pastor—”

“Dancing! An invitation to the devil. The Lord sees all, brother. He sees all.”

“There was a well fire yesterday. Did you know that? A man roasted to death. Another one burned bad. Hell with the lid off, that's what it was. I had to get that out of my head.”

“Prayer, Henry, prayer! Have you forgotten the power housed in the dwelling place of the Lord? Have you forgotten the darkness the Lord brought you out of? Have some faith, man. You're not the first one to see hurt and loss.”

“Sure, but—”

“That dead man is a reminder! We cannot delay in putting things right with our Savior. We have to choose a path of righteousness. Do you hear, Henry? You're a new man in the Lord!”

Naomi wished she could run out to the porch and tell Pastor Tom the truth: there was nothing new in Henry. Just the same man rotted through and through. Instead, she snipped the loose threads from the bloomers and folded them with the others clothes she had made for Muff's baby.

 

HENRY
“I hear,” Henry said, but he didn't feel like a new man. Not like he had at first, during those early days and weeks when the church seemed to lift him right off the ground, when a new and holy life had felt possible. Now the Bible verses were riddles. The prayers and the meetings felt like work, and he already had sixty hours of that a week. He didn't want another prayer meeting or sermon; he wanted something to take the edge off of his hangover. He did his best to look like he was listening, but he was thinking about an iced-down beer.

Tom clapped Henry on the shoulder. “Flee temptation, brother,” he was saying now. “And drink some coffee.”

Henry nodded. “Thank you, Pastor Tom. I'm glad you're here to holler me back.”

“Repent and seek sanctification. Pursue the path where you can make things right.” Pastor Tom thumped a hairy hand against his Bible. “Remember.”

As the pastor strode away, Henry slid down to the porch steps and rested his elbows on his knees. A tinge of pink and purple colored the sky above the woods, and he felt suddenly sobered by the cold. He could hear Naomi moving around in the kitchen, and he realized that he was afraid to go back into the house. What could he say? He longed to feel clean and strong and redeemed, like he had at first in the church. She could give him that, he knew, if she would just forgive him. Henry was hungry for the relief of it. He needed it now more than ever.

He held his hands open, then closed them into fists. Open, closed. There was a way to fix things. The solution came to him whole. When the time was right, he'd make Naomi see it, too.

 

NAOMI
Naomi managed the day with no worse casualty than a few stern looks from her teachers when she stifled a yawn in class. After school, she left the twins helping Miss Bell and made a beeline for the tree. She curled up inside the blanket and slept until Wash kissed her awake.

But when she collected the twins and they went back to the house, Henry was there. The sight of him made something lurch in her. He left shortly after she arrived, mumbling something she didn't hear.

It was like those first days in East Texas, only worse. Even when he was gone, everything seemed marked by his presence. The dishes in the sink. The chair where he'd sat, the napkin left crumpled on the table. When Naomi went to use the toilet, she could smell his aftershave and, worse, him. She backed out of the bathroom.

After she sent the twins to bed, she waited for Henry to arrive, trying to think of what she would do, what she would say. She gave up when he still hadn't come home at midnight, but she lay awake listening for him. The sky had already shifted from pitch to a lightening gray when he finally came home. She stayed in bed this time, but she held the letter opener against her thigh. She watched the doorknob for any signs of turning. Sleep was an unreachable territory.

◊ ◊ ◊

“You look terrible,” Tommie told Naomi outside their homeroom the next morning.

Naomi shrugged. Her eyeballs were sticky with fatigue. Her head ached, and her hands trembled. The thought of the day ahead staggered and exhausted her. Before she'd left the house, Naomi had gulped down a bitter cupful of coffee. Now her stomach gurgled and clenched. She felt even worse than when she'd climbed stiff and aching out of bed.

She sleepwalked through the morning, unable to think of anything but closing her eyes. Mr. Pittluck, the math teacher, saw her head droop and called her to the front of the class. “Do what it takes to stay alert in my class,” he snarled.

She mumbled, “Yes, sir,” and made a move to sit back down, but he stuck out his ruler to stop her.

“You stand until the end of the hour. Here.” He made her face the chalkboard.

She could hear laughing. “God, but she's stupid,” someone hissed between giggles. Miranda whispered loudly, “Nobody but a dummy would dare sleep on Pittluck's watch.”

“I ain't complaining,” Sam Jackson said. “I'd say the scenery just improved considerably.”

On any other occasion, Mr. Pittluck would have silenced these remarks, but he seemed to view them as part of her punishment.

Naomi's face burned and her eyes itched. She looked up at the pressed tin on the ceiling to keep from crying. She slipped a hand into her pocket and traced the circle of birds on the ring from Wash until the hour was over.

“Sorry about Pittluck's class,” Tommie said when they met outside for lunch. “Deanna told me what happened.”

Naomi let out a long breath. “I wanted to die. It's over now, though.”

Tommie fingered the edge of her coat and gave Naomi a sympathetic look. “You're tired. Lay your head in my lap and doze if you want.”

Naomi gave Tommie a grateful smile. “Here, finish my apple. I'm too tired to eat.”

“Wish I had that problem,” Tommie said a little glumly, before biting into it.

“No,” Naomi yawned. “Trust me, you don't.” She was asleep the minute her head touched the thick wool of Tommie's skirt.

◊ ◊ ◊

“It's nothing,” Naomi insisted when Wash asked what was bothering her. She did not want to tell him, did not want to let Henry into their tree. And anyway, there was nothing he could do about it. She turned her face into the soft fabric of his shirt.

“What was your day like?” she asked, wanting to turn their talk elsewhere.

He shrugged. “School is school. But don't change the subject. Something must have happened.” He rubbed her ears gently and then moved his fingers in slow circles against her scalp.

She sighed and closed her eyes. “I just haven't slept well. That's all.”

“All right. In that case, here's what you do. This is a very old, very secret method, from my people.”

“Your people?”

Her skepticism didn't make a dent. “This knowledge was passed down from distant ancestors, from their days as kings and queens and healers in the heart of Africa. So listen carefully and—shhh—don't tell anyone.”

She smiled into the semi-darkness. “I can't wait to hear this.”

“Start by putting a good sized lump of sugar on your tongue. Brown sugar's best. Right on the center of your tongue.”

“They had brown sugar in the heart of Africa?”

Wash ignored her. “Then you say your lover's name a hundred times.”

“Mmm-hm?”

“And then ... if you're still awake after all that, you slip your hand under the covers ... you slide it back and forth, up your legs and down until...”

“Enough,” she said, swatting him lightly. “I get the idea.”

“What?” He laughed. “Until you fall asleep. That's it. That's the remedy. Give it a try.”

“We'll see.” She curled her body closer to him. “Or I could just come here to sleep.”

“Why don't you rest now,” he said. He slid back to give her room and stroked her hair. She let his gentleness and the quiet familiarity of the tree lull her to sleep.

◊ ◊ ◊

Naomi propped herself up on the sofa after dinner and watched Beto try to get Edgar to fetch a bit of pencil as they all listened to a soap opera. Henry was still making himself scarce. Maybe it had nothing to do with her. He was probably working to bring in a new well.

Naomi fiddled with the fabric in her lap. For the last little shirt she was making for Muff's baby, she'd cut a bit of muslin out in the traditional Mexican style. In the end, it would have embroidery around the neck and a simple tie-close opening. But now, as she went over what she'd sewn since dinner, she saw that the stitches were wide and uneven. She tossed the shirt aside. It would all have to be redone.

Naomi rubbed her face. “We're going to bed after this program,” she said.

“Come on, Omi, it's not even nine o'clock,” Cari protested. “Will you at least tell us a story about Mami at bedtime? A new one?”

Beto frowned. “And what about Daddy's supper?”

“Can it, you two!” Naomi snapped. “Daddy knows how to work the stove. As for stories, I'm not a record player. Keep it up, and it'll be straight to bed.”

◊ ◊ ◊

When the program ended, the twins brushed their teeth and tucked themselves in. Beto was extra helpful and affectionate, but Cari was withdrawn, still fuming over Naomi's refusal to tell a story. Naomi thought she'd seen her eyeing the guitar case, but she wasn't sure.

She knew she shouldn't have pushed the request away; it wouldn't be long before the twins would be too old to want her stories or songs. They were growing up, and it worried her. Once they no longer needed her, what reason would she have to stay in East Texas?

She stood in the bathroom and combed her hair, then she padded to the kitchen pantry and pulled out a dime-sized lump of brown sugar from the sack on the shelf. Wash's remedy was charming nonsense, but she was willing to try anything.

She slid into bed alongside Cari and tried to remember what sleep felt like. Sleep belonged to the same category as swimming; both activities were necessary and dangerous in equal parts. She and the twins had only learned how to swim at Abuelito's insistence, which had been prompted by her father's drowning. Sleep was a more complex matter, but most of the time she skimmed along, face barely submerged, coming up for frequent breaths. That kept her safe from dreams. Dreams might take her anywhere. Down into pink-tiled bathrooms and among translucent, unformed babies with unseeing black spots for eyes, and dark braids that moved of their own accord, working their way along the sandy bottom of sleep like inchworms.

BOOK: Out of Darkness
12.85Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

No God in Sight by Altaf Tyrewala
The Accidental Engagement by Maggie Dallen
Great White Throne by J. B. Simmons
Moon Dance by V. J. Chambers
Who Is Frances Rain? by Margaret Buffie