Swan Place (13 page)

“Now you two be quiet!” I whispered, and I glared at them just a little bit, to let them know how important this was. Savannah was still watching me from beneath her strong-looking eyebrows. I sat down in the rocking chair beside her and flipped my Bible open. The first words I saw were: “Behold, a King shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment.” It was Isaiah 32:1. So I read them aloud: “Behold!” I said to Savannah, and she jumped and glanced at the screen door again. “A King shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And behold!” I repeated. “A man—a stranger—scared us at the playground today,” I continued, in a voice that sounded like I was reading right out of the Bible.

Savannah looked a bit startled for a moment, and then she read back to me, “And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel; and He said, ‘Because that this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice
 . . .
’ and saideth unto them, ‘
What man?’
”

I flipped a few more pages, and wound up in Jeremiah, and I read aloud: “The voice thereof shall go like a serpent; for they shall march with an army, and come against her with axes, as hewers of wood
 . . .
And thereof, I don’t know what man. I telleth thee, he werth a stranger! A scary stranger!”

Aunt Mee loomed large at the screen door to the porch.

“Whatchu children doing?” she demanded.

Savannah and I locked eyes.

“Reading the Bible to each other,” Savannah said.

Aunt Mee glanced sharply back and forth between us, and once again, Savannah and I locked eyes. The silence seemed to last forever, while Aunt Mee made her decision about whether we were observing the Sabbath.

“Well
 . . .
” she finally growled, “make sure you stay with the Bible.”

“Yes’m!” Savannah and I said together, and as soon as she went back inside, we both started flipping through the pages, to try and find a way to say what we needed to say, without dishonoring the Sabbath Day. Savannah read first: “Where there is no vision, the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy is he,” and right afterward, she said in the same tone, “What man frighteneth thee
 . . .
uh
 . . .
you?” Her eyebrows shot up in expectation. Molly and Little Ellis looked at us as if we were crazy. I flipped the pages again and wound up at Ezekiel, chapter five, verse two: “Thou shalt burn with fire a third part in the midst of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled
 . . .
” Then, in the same tone, I said: “A man appeareth at the playground and asketh, ‘Have ye-all an adult with ye?’“

Savannah’s eyes grew wide, and then she looked down at the Bible in her lap. “What saith ye?”

“I saith
 . . .
” I started. “Yea!”

“Yea
 . . .
yes?” she said. “You meaneth you
lieth
?”

I flipped through some more pages, even though I had started feeling something stinging me behind my eyes. This time, I came to John 16:13, and the printing on those pages was all in red. That meant Jesus Himself was talking. But I took a deep breath and started in: “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth
 . . .
” I stumbled to a stop, my breath all choked inside of me, and then I confessed, “Yea, I
lieth!
” Savannah was absolutely silent, but when I finally looked up at her, she had tears in her eyes. She leaned toward me, holding out her hand.

“Don’t cry,” she whispered.

And I grabbed her hand and held it tight. Such a small hand! Almost like Molly’s, but oh, so warm and so welcome. Aunt Mee came to the door again.

“You children better come on inside,” she said. “Afternoon sun’s going to make it too hot out here for you.”

“I better take Molly and Little Ellis on home,” I said.

“You all are welcome to come on inside,” Aunt Mee continued. “But Savannah has to stay with reading her Bible.”

“Thanks, but we better go now.”

And as I led Molly and Little Ellis through the trees, I made another vow: I would never, ever tell a lie again. Just like loving folks, it hurt too much.

While I bathed Little Ellis
and Molly and got them into their pajamas, I made another firm and final decision: I would tell Roy-Ellis about the man in the truck. Just as soon as he came home. The thought of having Roy-Ellis back in the house made me smile. But even though I listened for the sound of Roy-Ellis closing the door to his truck and his footsteps coming across the porch for the whole night, he didn’t come home. A few times, I thought I heard something, but it turned out to be nothing except me wishing so hard. Finally, a little bit of daylight came, and Roy-Ellis still was nowhere to be seen. But just after I got into the kitchen to fix Molly and little Ellis’s breakfast, I heard someone on the back porch.

“Roy-Ellis?” I called.

“It’s me,” Savannah whispered.

“It’s way too early!” I said, hoping to take her attention away from my thinking she was Roy-Ellis. Because him being gone was a secret, even from Savannah. But then I thought about it and realized that I’d promised not to tell Aunt Bett—but I sure hadn’t promised anything about not telling Savannah!

“Now tell me about that man scaring you,” Savannah said, frowning.

“Listen, Savannah,” I started, and the words poured out of me in a mighty flood. “That man doesn’t matter. What
does
matter is this: Roy-Ellis hasn’t come home, and I don’t know where he is, and I promised him I wouldn’t tell Aunt Bett, and I’m scared! Suppose he’s been in an accident or something?” I tried to keep my voice low, so Molly and Little Ellis wouldn’t hear me. Savannah stared right into my eyes the whole time I talked, with her frown growing bigger every minute. “Now don’t you say a word about this to Aunt Mee,” I cautioned her. “She’ll probably tell Aunt Bett and then I would have broken my word.”

“Grandmama says that if someone says I shouldn’t tell her something, that’s the very thing I should do,” Savannah said.

“Please, Savannah!” I cried. She studied me for a long moment and then said: “Okay. But sometime or other, you’ve got to tell your Aunt Bett.”

“All right,” I agreed. “If he isn’t home by tonight, I’ll tell her. And don’t tell Aunt Mee!” I urged once again.

“I have to go do my chores now,” Savannah said, but as she turned to leave, she stopped and looked back at me.

“I’m here,” she said simply.

Molly and Little Ellis
didn’t say anything about Roy-Ellis not being there, because he always left for work before they were awake anyway, and mostly, he got home after they were in bed. But I kept wondering what had happened to him. Maybe he was going to turn out like my own daddy and run off with another woman and never come back again!

When I thought of Aunt Bett, I also thought of what would happen if I broke down and told her about Roy-Ellis being gone. But I told Roy-Ellis it would be our secret, and I meant to keep my word. I had also told Savannah that if he didn’t come home by that night, I would tell Aunt Bett. So I still had that one day left to keep my word to Roy-Ellis.

In the afternoon, Savannah came over and we took Little Ellis and Molly on a long walk, but not back around that park where the man scared me so bad. We just walked along a little country dirt road, all of us holding hands, and I kept pretending we’d see Roy-Ellis’s truck in the yard when we got back. But it still wasn’t there.

“You better talk to your Aunt Bett,” Savannah said. “You better tell her about Roy-Ellis being gone.” With that, Savannah squeezed my hand and went around the house to go home. I knew Savannah was right, and I was going to call Aunt Bett just as soon as I got Molly and Little Ellis some cold water to drink, after our long walk.

But when I got into the kitchen, everything went out of my mind—because there were two coffee mugs sitting on the table, and I felt all the hairs come up on the back of my neck. Was it the stranger? Was he in the house? Because I knew good and well that the last thing I’d done that morning before we left was to wipe off the oilcloth tablecloth, and there hadn’t been a single thing left on that table. I went back through the living room and into our room and looked under the double bed Molly and Little Ellis shared. And under my cot. Nothing. I went into the bathroom and pulled back the shower curtain. Nothing. I looked in the hall closet. Still nothing. The door to Roy-Ellis’s room was closed. I reached out and turned the knob, and the door swung open by itself, like it always did.

Somebody was sleeping in Roy-Ellis’s bed, and it sure wasn’t Roy-Ellis. Because he didn’t have long blond hair! I closed the door without a sound and went and sat at the kitchen table and stared at the coffee mugs for a few minutes. Then I went into the living room and called Aunt Bett. In only a couple of minutes, she came driving up in a shower of gravel and dust. I went out onto the porch and put my finger to my lips. Because Molly and Little Ellis didn’t know a thing about somebody being in Roy-Ellis’s bed.

Without a word, Aunt Bett and I went through the living room and into the kitchen. I saw Aunt Bett notice the two coffee mugs on the table. Then we walked across the back hall and to the door of Roy-Ellis’s room.

Aunt Bett silently waved me back, turned the knob, and once again the door swung open. I glimpsed the same lumpy bedcovers and the long, blond hair spread out across the pillow. Aunt Bett looked for a long time, with her eyes wide and her lips in a grim line. Then she eased the door shut, grabbed my hand, and pulled me into the living room.

“Go pack up some things for you and the little ones,” she whispered. “Just enough for tonight and tomorrow. Hurry!” I gathered together our things and when I came back into the living room, Aunt Bett had turned off the TV and was ushering Molly and Little Ellis onto the porch. When I shut the door, I saw a note taped to it. In big, angry letters, it said:
Have you gone crazy? How
DARE
you put your harlot in my dead sister’s bed?

We all piled into Aunt Bett’s car and drove away in another shower of gravel and dust. “Not a word about this to any of the children, Dove,” she warned me, and I could tell that she was trying to make her voice sound soft, so as not to upset Molly and Little Ellis. “Not even to Darlene. You hear me?”

“Yes’m.” Then I added, “What’s a h-a-r-l-o-t?”

“Lord have mercy!” she whispered viciously. So I didn’t ask again.

Aunt Bett wouldn’t let me
or Darlene help her get supper ready. She stormed around the kitchen, slamming pots and pans, and once, Darlene and I—from our own safe place in the hallway peeking around the doorway—saw Aunt Bett throw a wooden spoon all the way across the kitchen. Darlene looked at me with the strangest kind of face I had ever seen.

“What’s she so mad about?” Darlene whispered. I think I would probably have told her right then and there, despite Aunt Bett’s warning, except that I wasn’t so sure myself.

“What’s a h-a-r-l-o-t?” I whispered back. But Darlene shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.” Aunt Bett drained the boiled potatoes and threw the colander into the sink hard, and while she mashed and mashed the potatoes, she yelled things like:

“Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men!”
And
 . . .

“Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity! For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb!”
And
 . . .

“The arms of the wicked shall be broken: but the lord upholdeth the righteous!
” And at the last
 . . .

“God shall destroy thee forever, He shall take thee away, and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, and root thee out of the land of the living!”

Why, it was simply magnificent, the way she roared out the terrible words—especially
pluck!
and
root thee out!
and I made myself a promise, right then and there, that I would memorize more of the Bible, so that if I ever got as mad as Aunt Bett was, I could roar out great, wonderful, terrible words like that! Darlene and I tiptoed back into the living room and sat with the silent children. Our eyes went wide every time another stream of holy words erupted and another spoon or pan or something went
smack
against the sink or the wall or the floor. But gradually, the noise got less, and the sounds finally were only those of someone working in a kitchen to fix supper. Once things got that quiet, Darlene and I tiptoed into the dining room and set the table. Then we went back into the living room and waited. Finally, Aunt Bett came through the swinging door, and we all jumped a little, but she was simply carrying two big bowls that she put down on the table very gently. She didn’t look at any of us. The next time, she carried in a big platter of ground beef patties and a smaller platter of sliced tomatoes. These, she placed on the table equally as gently.

“Darlene, will you and Dove please get the extra chairs? All you children come on to the table.” When Darlene and I went into the kitchen to get the chairs, we could hardly believe our eyes! There were blobs of mashed potatoes on the refrigerator door and strange-looking green smears on the floor. The dented colander rested crazily in the sink, and a whole bunch of cooking spoons were scattered around the floor. We got the kitchen chairs and took them into the dining room, where Aunt Bett and the children were all sitting silently, staring at their empty plates, and we sat down too.

“I’ll say the blessing,” Aunt Bett whispered. We held hands and bowed our heads, but I expect that all of us were ready to bolt out of the way at any minute, if we needed to.

“Bless this food to our bodies and us to Thy service. Amen.”