Playing With Matches (33 page)

The hollows and planes of her face work themselves into something else. “Reckon I could, but—don’t you be stupid, girl. Them men down there ain’t gonna tell you nothin’—not what they done, or about folks they let down.”

Something new is in the wind. She lifts her rake and combs leaves from the prongs.

“I don’t care what they write,” I say carefully. “As long as they do it.”

Her eyes narrow. “Tellin’ lies, that’s what.”

I put down my hammer. “They’re doing all right. I don’t mind that they shine me on.”

Nearby, Luz is listening too.

“Girl, don’t go gettin’ attached,” she says, and shakes her head once. “They’ll steal your heart and cheat you past Wednesday.”

“I’m sorry?”

She’s wearing a flannel shirt, sleeves too long and rolled up. Her eyes are jittery. “Where’s Ollie Green—”

“Miz Millie—did you have a man—some family, a true love—down at the Farm?”

“Don’t you speak to me about love,” she says.
“Where’s that Reverend?”

“You had a man in the prison, I
know
you did—”

“I’m just a bedeviled ol’ woman. Get on about your business. Leave me be.”

The smoke burns my nose. “Miz Millie, let’s sit here on the porch step. Come on, now.”

I lead her gently. She rocks back and forth and hugs her elbows. “Goddamn thing is hot,” she says, and pulls off her wig. Wisps of red hair are stuck to her scalp. I sit on one side of her, Luz on the other. “I need Ollie to take me for my shot.”

“Your shot?”

She lifts her chin, the way Genie did. Maybe it’s something about living on Potato Shed Road. “My methadone shot.”

I remember her opium den with its smoke rolling out on the porch. No wonder that goose was happy, tramping in her gardens, eating her grapes. I can’t say I haven’t wondered what’s become of her habit. “Miz Millie, that’s great. You’re going to a treatment center. How long have you been on methadone?”

“Ten year, on and off,” she says stiffly. “Some good times, some bad. Ollie helps me.”

Luz is watching Miz Millie’s face.

I say, “We’re glad to hear it, aren’t we, Luz?”

Luz takes an old hand in her dusky one. She says, “How can I help, Miss Millie? What can I do?”

My daughter. My Luz.

“You’re the smart one that reads,” Millicent Poole says.

“Yes,” Luz says. “How did you know that?”

“I hear everything. You ain’t her girl, her own bred child.”

“I’m adopted,” Luz says. “So is my brother, Harry. I love my mom, and yes, I do read. Would you—would you like me to read to you sometime?”

Miz Millicent stares at Luz. She has been taken by the shakes. Ollie Green sees and come to her. “Millie, it’s time we take a little drive,” he says. “My car’s down the road. I’ll fetch it now.”

I lay my hand lightly on her rounded back. She has the spine of a bird. “You had someone at the Farm. Is he still there?”

She exhales like it’s the first time ever. Like she’s letting out toxins. “He was a black man. A fine man. I gave up everything—my mama and daddy—to be with him.”

I nod.

She’s shaking harder but lets Luz stroke her. “Before he went there, he had a true heart. One month in a cell, he was as fulla hisself as the day is long. That’s what prison does, you know. Said it weren’t that he didn’t love me—his mind was wild with bad dreams, had to watch his back every minute, an’ he didn’t need to worry about me too.”

Incredibly, I hurt for Millie Poole. “How long ago was that?”

“Thirty year. I coulda packed up and moved home, I guess, but—”

“You didn’t want to—”

“Didn’t want my family sayin’ ‘I tol’ you so.’ Truth was, all my heart was gone.”

“You went on loving him—”

She begins to cry. “I used to send money, make sure he got things, you know? Till he had no more use for me. ’Fore long, he had ladies—pen-pal letters and more presents than a man knew what to do with.”

“But you used to go see him?”

Her fists are balled tight. Life depends on her rocking. “That first year, every Sunday. He got put on a field gang, a hoe squad. Monday through Friday, they’d march past on the road, chained at the feet. They’d come back around sunset, sun-blistered and stinkin’; you could smell them from here. Gal, you seen ’em.”

I had. Many times.

“Oh, when he said he was done with me, I argued. But he said
he had to let me go. It weren’t the way of life at the Farm to be faithful.”

“Is he still there?”

Ollie Green pulls up in his car. Luz and I help her up. Miz Millicent’s face is tight and trench-dug.

“What does it matter?”

She’s shaking. I reach for a blanket in the Reverend’s car, cover her shoulders. Close her door and say through the window, “Miz Millie—I’m just wondering—what was his name?”

“His name is William. An upstanding name.”

“Yes, it is.”

“William Garnett. Willy. We was married when he’d been inside one week and four days—even though we knew he was never comin’ out again.”

An odd little chirp rises up in my throat.

I set off running.

Jesus Christ
.

Jesus Christ.

Wheezer has kept an eye on our man. All week, in class, I’ve talked about nothing but writing. I’m worried sick.

Miz Millicent, after a shot of methadone and much cajoling on our part, has partially agreed to my plan. But she’s reserved the right to back out at any second.

On Saturday morning, Luz and I show up with a broken compact of makeup, an eyebrow pencil and a brush, a cotton summer dress we’ve borrowed from the nice lady who lives at the Oatys’.

We’ve scrounged up a tub, and we hang sheets and heat water and pour in bubble soap.

Luz says, “Mom. We’re a spa!”

Luzie and I hold up towels while our “client” takes off her clothes and sets herself down, making whimpering and somewhat prayerful sounds. I wonder how long it’s been since she sat in a tub. With our eyes averted, we soap her up, scrub her with a soft brush, and rinse her skin gently. Then we wrap her in towels and pat her dry and sit her in a chair, apply cheap moisturizer that I found at the dollar store.

“You smell wonderful,” I say. “Like a real southern lady.”

I apply powder to her cheeks and chin.

She wails and moans.

“You’ll be fine,” Luz says. “Miss Millicent, you’re already the belle of the ball.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know.”

She weeps, and we cover her tears with more makeup, and she cries again.

I work conditioner into her scalp.

“I need my wig,” she says. “I got to wear a hat.”

“No, ma’am,” I tell her. “You’re pretty as a picture.” I comb her hair back with my fingers and catch it up in a black ribbon that used to be Ernie Shiloh’s string tie.

“Lookit me,” she says, miserably. “Demons came on me, that’s what. The devil took me. Pulled out my hair, wizened my face. You cain’t fix that.”

“Those weren’t demons, Miz Millie. That was time. And worry. And love, not used up.” I open the top button of her dress and apply makeup to her throat. Along the road, yesterday, I found a long string of cheap pearls. I’ve cleaned the mud from them, and polished them, and I hang them around her neck. I touch lipstick to her pruny mouth. Millicent Poole looks like a whole other person.

Also, today, the sisters are leaving. Last night, there was a great deal of hugging and kissing. Right about now, they’re probably piling into Ernie’s truck.

“Oh,” Miz Millicent wails. “I changed my mind. I ain’t goin’.”

“What a shame to waste such beauty,” I say.

“You are lovely,” Luz tells her. “Stunning. Winsome.”

Ernie chugs along the lane as Luz and I stand there, applying lotion to Millie Poole’s thin wrists and arms.

The sisters wave.

I lift a hand in deepest thanks and say, “Raise your head, Miz Millie. Love is passing by.”

I was wrong about visiting day. A sagging chain fence has been erected down the middle of the prison yard. Offenders line up on one side, company on the other. In the corner of the yard, the five chairs are still standing. Wheezer has commandeered that space for us, and it’s a good thing. Miz Millicent is trembling so hard, I don’t think she could stand. And it’s not because she needs a shot.

I hold her hand and squeeze tight while her man walks over. I can see that he is as scared as she is.

My belly is caving, my heart bursting. What must the two of them be feeling?

“Miz Millicent Poole,” I say grandly. “Mr. Willie G. Willy. William, it’s nice to see you on a Saturday.”

“Miz Ryder,” he says, without looking this way. “Millie. Oh, Millie—”

They each take a seat.

And that is enough.

50

T
here is nothing left, now, but to face my mother’s house—rather, the land it once stood on. And there’s not much there.

I’m standing in the twilight, in the grass that has lifted from the flattening of the hurricane. I’m alone. Alone. A soft wind sighs through the oaks along the river that is now sleeping. Calm. Calm, a lullaby.

I have given this house—and by extension, my mama—all the chances they deserved, and I have given the land all the angst I can spare.

I say to the bits of foundation and pipe, to the back steps that lay rotting on their side, “I’m not sorry. I’m not. It would be wrong to say I am.”

Thomas and I walk the lane one last time. I tell him, “I grew up on Potato Shed Road. Every day I saw the prison, the wire winking in the light. I thought I knew our neighbors. But I didn’t. I was a child, as self-centered as a child must be, and I never made the connections.”

Thomas says, “Before, I didn’t believe in miracles—”

“And now?”

“I do. Clea, I will never cheat on you again. I love you. Will you come home with me? I was thinking we could find a good therapist.”

I love you
. He’s waiting for me to say it back.

“Thomas, I can deal with only one thing at a time. Go home, will you, and clean up Lilac Lane?

“Luz and Harry and I are going to stay another month so I can meet with my class, help Auntie and Uncle get back on their feet. Then I’d like to take the kids to Belize City, enroll them in school. Luz can speak her native language. Harry’ll have lots of kids to play with—most of them living tougher lives than his. I’ll work at the Sisters of Mercy clinic.”

“But—”

“For a year, Thomas. We all need this. Then—the kids want to come back to the river. There are plenty of people to help me clear the land, maybe build a cottage. There’s already talk of building a boys’ reformatory where the Farm was.”

“And,” Thomas says. “You and me?”

“We’ll see,” I tell him. “Just wait, and we’ll see.”

Maybe I’ll come back and write another book.

51

I
have rented two rooms, plain-scrubbed, near the canal. The kids and I love it. They’ve drawn autumn leaves and fat turkeys, and we’ve cut them out and taped them to the walls. We’ve sent twenty postcards home to False River, and Luz writes long, descriptive letters to her dad. Luz, who’s turned twelve, is captivated with the work at the clinic, where, after school, she labors harder than anybody. She helps me watch Harry, who attends all-day kindergarten and plays ball with the other boys in a street blocked off behind the market.