Prayers and Lies (5 page)

“Of course I do. And I’m glad you had a fun day together.”

“Lord God in Heaven.” Reana stood abruptly. “I gotta get back home. I promised Mama I’d help her put supper on the table.”

She skittered to the door and was gone in an instant, leaving behind chocolates and ribbons.

When Reana Mae had gone, Mother made me lie down in bed while she and Tracy washed the dishes. I heard them clatter around the small kitchen, Tracy chattering about what she would do on a day in St. Albans.

I was still awake when Tracy came in. I lay quietly as she pulled back the covers and crawled into the double bed beside me. She sighed, pulled the quilt up over her head, and almost immediately fell into the deep, regular breathing that told me she was asleep. Whatever she did or didn’t do during her days, my sister’s conscience never kept her awake nights. She always slept the sleep of the innocent.

I lay quietly beside her, wondering what I could possibly do. I couldn’t tell anyone what Tracy had done, that much I knew for sure. But what would Reana Mae do without Essie?

I shuddered, thinking of poor Essie buried under the black mud by the river. I couldn’t leave her there. I would have to go get her … that was all there was to it.

It seemed like hours before I heard my mother pull out the sleeper sofa in the living room and blow out the kerosene lamp. It was quiet in the house then—quieter than it ever got at home in Indianapolis, where there were always street sounds outside.

Still I waited, because I knew Mother was at her prayers now. I couldn’t see her in the dark, but I knew she was kneeling beside the sofa, her face buried in her hands, her lips moving silently as she talked to her God. She did this every morning and every night, and woe to the little girl who shouted or laughed or disturbed Mother’s conversations with the almighty Lord.

At long last, I heard the creaking springs of the sleeper as Mother climbed into bed. And a while after that, I heard her gentle, regular breathing.

Now there were only the sounds of sleep in the dark little cabin by the river. Tracy wheezed slightly beside me, Mother snored softly in the living room, Melinda and Nancy slept silently in the loft above. Now it was time to go, before I lost my nerve.

I crept into the living room, fumbled for the key on the hook by the door, turned it in the lock, and slipped out onto the porch. I closed the door again, slid the key under a large rock by the steps, and then I was running down the dirt road, my bare feet slapping the ground, my heart pounding.

The night sky was lit by a nearly full moon, but below lay a silent, palpable, living darkness. No streetlights shone along the river, no porch lights, no spotlights from car dealerships, no traffic lights. The moon was bright, but off the road on either side, the woods closed in darkly.

I had never been out alone at night, and I slowed to a walk when I got past Uncle Hobie’s place. I felt brave and shivery and very alert, seeing the familiar houses locked up and dark. The air on my skin was cool and damp, and I stopped for a moment to enjoy the strange sensation of being alone in the night. Everyone I knew, everyone who knew me, was asleep. I felt like I might be the only person awake in the whole wide world.

Down the river somewhere a dog barked, shaking me from my reverie. I had to get done what I needed to do and get home before I was missed.

I ran along the road, swift and sure. I knew every bump and rock, where to stay on the dirt, where to run in the grass alongside. It took only a minute to reach Reana Mae’s house. It was dark like all the others. Bo, Bobby Lee’s big coonhound, lay sleeping on the porch. I worried briefly that he would bark at me if he woke, but he only sighed in his sleep as I passed. I knew Jolene kept Buttons, her little white muff of a poodle, inside at night, for which I was grateful. Buttons, I was sure, would have barked her fool head off.

I slipped around to the back of the house and stopped at the top of the hill, undecided about how to go down. Usually, Reana Mae and I slid down to the bank below. I didn’t think I wanted to try that in the dark, in my white cotton nightgown. But I surely did not want to navigate those thirty-two uneven stone steps in the dark. I stood, frozen in indecision, my stomach clenching, my palms sweating.

I sat down at the top of the hill, staring at the steps, those uneven steps. How could I do this in the dark, Lord? After all, I was only ten years old—much too young to do something like this. And yet, how could I not rescue Essie?

Finally, I scooted slowly toward the edge of the first step, then bumped down on my bottom to the next. I would scoot down this way, one step at a time. And I wouldn’t look down at all, no matter what.

One step after another, I bumped my way down. Halfway down, I stopped to say a quick prayer.

Lord, just help me get down okay and get Essie out of the mud. That’s all, Lord, just that. If you’ll do that, Lord Jesus, I promise I’ll be good from now on. I won’t ever tell a lie again, and I won’t fight with Tracy, and I won’t try Mother’s patience. Only just get me down without falling
.

I waited for my heart to stop pounding so loud, then I slid to the next step, and on down—slowly, one uneven step at a time—till I got to the bottom, where I sat gratefully for an instant, saying thank you to the good Lord, not thinking of how I would get up again.

It took only a moment to find the place where Tracy had laid poor Essie in the ground. The dirt was mounded slightly, and I knew she wasn’t buried deep. Using my hands, I dug as quickly as I could until I felt Essie’s smooth rubber head. I pulled the doll from her shallow grave and hugged her tightly to my chest, heaving gratefully.

Clutching the wet doll in my fist, I started the long, slow climb up those thirty-two steps. My heart was pounding so hard it seemed I could hear it beating like an Indian’s tom-tom.

Then quietly, under my breath, I began to sing: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.”

By the end of the third verse, I had dragged myself onto the top step. Looking back over my shoulder, down the long flight I had climbed, I swayed. My head swam dizzily and, for a moment, I thought my knees would buckle under me.

I turned away and walked unsteadily to the front of the dark cabin, where good ole Bo still slept. I laid Essie on the step to the porch, then turned and ran as fast as I could toward home, and my bed, and my mother’s gentle snoring. As my feet pounded the dirt road, I prayed with every step,
Dear, sweet Jesus, let them still be asleep. Please don’t let them wake up till I’m home.

I reached the cabin porch, cold and sweating, and as I knelt to retrieve the key from beneath the rock, I realized I was covered with mud; my hands and face, my feet, and my white nightgown were all a black, muddy mess.

I walked around to the side of the house, slipped off the nightgown, and shoved it deep into the bushes, resolving to wash it in the river in the morning, before Mother saw it. Shivering in the cool night air, I ran to the pump in front of the house and pumped icy-cold water onto my hands, my face, my feet and legs.

Then, clenching my teeth to keep them from chattering, I unlocked the cabin door, crept inside, hung the key on its hook, and padded to my room.

Heaving a huge sigh of relief, I pulled a clean nightgown over my head and crawled into bed beside Tracy. Then I snuggled myself around her curled back, thankful for the heat from her body. Tracy may have been as mean as a cornered possum during the day, but she put off heat like a cookstove and she slept like a bear. On cold winter nights at home, I often left my own bed in the converted attic that was our room and climbed into bed with my sister, soaking up her warmth. And in all the years of our childhood, she never woke or complained of it. For that, at least, my sister was a blessing.

As my body warmed against hers and my teeth stopped clattering, I finally relaxed into the pillow and allowed myself to drift off to sleep—secure in the knowledge that I had fixed the wrong Tracy had done, without bringing a curse down upon myself or my father.

But my sleep was restless and filled with dreams. I dreamed that Reana Mae was buried up to her neck in thick, black mud by the river. And Tracy, smiling wicked, was shoveling dirt onto her head. In the dream, I couldn’t move, couldn’t help Reana, couldn’t make a sound. And all the while, Reana Mae screamed.

4
Signs and Wonders

I
struggled to wake myself from the awful dream.

Finally, I opened my eyes to see the sun just peeking through the parted curtains of the little room I shared with Tracy, who still slept soundly beside me.

But the screaming continued, even when my eyes were wide open. I was not dreaming. What was happening?

I slid out of bed and ran into the living room, just in time to see Mother fling open the front door and run out onto the porch. I followed her as she ran down the step, into the yard, and out to the road, her blue housecoat flapping behind her, her hair still pinned to her head with a small army of bobby pins.

I didn’t call to her as I ran; I simply followed her as best I could, racing down the road in my nightgown for the second time in eight hours, wondering at the sight of my mother out in public in her bobby pins.

As we passed Uncle Hobie’s, I saw Aunt Vera peek through the curtains at us, then pull them shut again.

The screaming continued. I knew it was Reana Mae. We rounded the curve in the road and I saw her on the sagging porch of her house, crouched down, her hands covering her head.

“No, Mama, don’t!” she was crying, over and over. “Don’t, Mama, please don’t!”

Jolene stood over the small, huddled body. She was still in her nightgown—a tiny slip of pink-flowered nylon—and she held one of Bobby Lee’s belts by the buckle. She smacked the belt against Reana Mae’s back again and again. Her face was mottled crimson, her red hair fell in tangles over her nearly bare shoulders, and she shook with rage as she swung the belt. Her mouth hung slightly open. She said nothing.

I stopped in the road, transfixed at the sight of her. But Mother ran into the yard, letting the wooden gate swing shut behind her. I don’t believe she even knew I was there.

“Jolene! Stop it! What are you doing?” she cried.

Jolene did not look up. She just kept hitting Reana Mae. The belt made a sickening smack each time it met with flesh.

“You stay out of this, Helen,” she said. “This don’t concern you.”

“But what happened?” Mother stood at the foot of the porch, just out of range of the swinging belt. “Why are you doing this?”

Reana Mae had stopped screaming now and was huddled in a small, sobbing heap.

“She went and ruined her own doll baby,” Jolene yelled, bringing the belt down hard on her daughter’s back. “The one her daddy brung her all the way from Atlanta. The one he paid for with good, hard-earned cash money. Look at it!” she screamed, pointing at poor Essie sprawled on the ground by the porch stop. “Look at what she done to her doll!”

“No, Mama!” Reana Mae cried out. “I didn’t do that! I didn’t, Mama.”

“Don’t you lie to me!” Jolene screamed, swinging the belt again.

“Jolene, stop it!” Mother was on the porch now, grabbing at Jo-lene’s arm. She wrested the belt from Jolene’s hand, pushing her backward into the wall of the cabin.

“Stop it now.” Her voice became quiet, soothing. “Where’s Bobby Lee, Jolene? Is he at the store? Is he coming back soon?”

Jolene didn’t answer. She jerked away from Mother, righted herself , and stood silently for a long moment, staring at my mother in obvious rage, her fists slowly clenching and unclenching. I thought she was going to hit Mother, but then she turned abruptly and walked back into the house without a word, slamming the door behind her.

Mother crouched down by Reana Mae, wrapping her arms around Reana’s shaking body and lifting her up.

“Get the doll, Bethany,” she said to me quietly.

Reana Mae’s arms curled around her neck, Mother carried her out of the yard and down the road, crooning softly all the while. I followed, holding poor Essie by the arm. Of course, in the moonlight I had not seen it, but the doll was a wet, muddy mess. I held her small cloth body to mine and walked miserably behind my mother, trying not to cry.

When I raised my eyes from the road, I saw Tracy standing at the bend. She stared at Reana Mae, her face white, her eyes round. Her fist was shoved against her mouth and she was visibly shaking. On down the road, Melinda and Nancy were standing on our porch in their pajamas, hair still wrapped around the orange juice cans they slept in each night.

“What’s happening, Mother?” Melinda asked.

“Come inside, girls,” Mother said quietly. “Let’s get ourselves dressed and have breakfast. Everything is fine. It’s going to be all right.”

She walked past Tracy into the yard, up the steps, and into the house. In the road, Tracy stood absolutely still except for the shaking. I thought she might shake herself completely into pieces. I stopped beside her, still clutching Essie.

“Look at what you did,” I hissed.

She raised her eyes to mine and stared mutely. I had never seen her look like that. She looked younger and helpless and completely lost. She stared for a minute, then turned and ran toward the beach. I watched her in disbelief. Should I go after her? I had never felt sorry for Tracy before, but right then I did. Even after what she had done to Essie, I felt sorry for her. But I didn’t go after her. I looked down at poor Essie, dirty and wet in my hands, and went into the house to be with Reana Mae.

She was sitting by Mother on the couch, still crying. I heard Melinda and Nancy in the kitchen, getting out bowls for cereal.

“Hush now,” Mother crooned. “Everything is going to be all right. You’re all right now.”

Looking up, she nodded at me. “Bethany, why don’t you get dressed and find something for Reana Mae to wear.”

She took Reana into the bathroom, and I heard Reana cry out as Mother dabbed Mercurochrome on the open welts along her back and legs. Then Reana Mae put on my nicest sundress, and we all sat down to Cheerios and toast. Mother didn’t ask where Tracy was; I’m not sure she even noticed Tracy was gone.