Swan Place (34 page)

“Dove, you like to make up stories,” Buzzard said. “Think of what kind of story could be made up about this little baby not having a daddy.”

“Why, the truth, of course,” I said immediately. “Roy-Ellis is this baby’s daddy, and he was killed in an accident.” Crystal and Buzzard looked at each other in surprise.

“That’s what we’ll do!” Buzzard said. “We’ll tell the truth for once! That’ll be something new.”

So things settled down
a little, and we just moved forward, like we always did.

Buzzard moved the buttons on Crystal’s work dresses, and even later, when Crystal couldn’t button the dresses at all, her beauty parlor smock still covered the gaps. Nobody said anything else about finding an attorney to help us about Molly, and we just finished out the fall in our little routines.

Christmas was kind of hard, because all I could do was think about Aunt Bett.

Seemed to me that I could almost smell all our freshly-scrubbed cousins, and I could imagine Aunt Bett’s house with a Christmas tree in it and all those many stockings hung up and waiting for Christmas candy. Buzzard and I had gotten a few Santa Claus things for Molly and Little Ellis, and Crystal gave me more new notebooks and I gave her a poem I had written about babies. But I guess that was a mistake, because she cried when she read it.

On the first day of school after Christmas, I stopped to get the mail on my way up the driveway, and there was the usual stuff—an electricity bill, a postcard giving $2.00 off on an oil change at a garage in town. But underneath those, there was a large, thick manila envelope addressed to Buzzard. The return address was Aunt Mee!

It was a long, long driveway, but I ran the whole way. When I got inside, I called out, “Buzzard? Where are you?” Her answer came from far down the hall, and when I got to the little television room, Molly and Little Ellis were sitting on the floor, watching cartoons, and Buzzard was in the recliner, reading. I thrust the mail at her.

“The big one’s from Aunt Mee. Open it, please, and see if there’s a letter in there for me from Savannah.”

“Who’s this Savannah?” Buzzard asked as she started trying to tear the envelope open.

“You ought to know,” I said. “She’s one of your relatives.”

“One of mine?”

“Yes. Savannah is Aunt Mee’s granddaughter. I already told you that before, and how come you don’t know about her?”

Buzzard went on pulling at the tape on the envelope. “It’s complicated,” she said, and at first, I thought she meant the way the envelope was put together. But then she went on: “We got us such a spread-out family, don’t any of us really know all about each other.” At last, the envelope tore open, and three separate envelopes fell out. The first one was addressed to Crystal—in Aunt Bett’s handwriting. The second was addressed to Buzzard—in Aunt Mee’s handwriting. And the third was addressed to me, from Savannah! I tore it open, right away:

Dear Dove,

I’m so sorry you all had to move away. Has the bad man found you all and Molly? I am so worried about you, and I miss you very very much. Will I ever get to see you again? Will you write to me? Send your letter to Aunt Mee—but she says that you must not put a return address on the envelope—and she’ll send it on to me. Please?

—Love, Savannah

I looked up. Buzzard was reading her letter from Aunt Mee and frowning.

“Soon as Crystal gets home, we got to give her this letter from you all’s Aunt Bett,” Buzzard pronounced.

“What does Aunt Mee’s letter say?”

“She says your Aunt Bett’s letter will explain what’s been happening.”

“Happening?”

“That’s all she says. We’ll have to wait until Crystal gets home.” From Buzzard’s tone of voice, I knew there was no use in arguing with her. But Crystal was awfully late getting home that day, and when she came in the back door, she was limping.

“What’s the matter?” Buzzard asked, pulling out a chair from the kitchen table and guiding Crystal into it.

“Gotta put my feet up,” Crystal said. I pulled another chair out and Buzzard and I lifted Crystal’s legs, to put her feet in it. But when we saw Crystal’s ankles, we both flinched. They were all puffed out—probably about twice as big around as they were supposed to be.

“You’re holding fluid,” Buzzard pronounced.

“Yeah,” Crystal answered. “I went to a clinic near the mall when I got off work because I was worried about how swollen my ankles were. The nurse said I had to cut out all my salt and try to keep my feet up as much as possible.”

Buzzard touched a finger to Crystal’s ankle, pushing into the flesh a little “That’s not gonna be easy, in your profession.”

“I know.” Crystal reached for her purse and fumbled around in it, finally coming up with a big white plastic bottle. “And they gave me some vitamins to take and wanted to know which hospital I was going to, to have the baby.”

“Don’t need a hospital,” Buzzard said. “Got the best midwife in the world living down the road just a couple of miles.”

“Midwife?”

“Yes. Best one in the world. Now you go to that clinic so they can keep an eye on you and check your blood pressure and give you more vitamins, but when this baby gets ready to come, we’ll get Miss Rebecca from down the road to bring it into this world.”

Crystal didn’t argue—just heaved a deep sigh and rubbed her hand over her swollen stomach. With just a few minutes of having her feet up, her ankles already looked better.

“The place for you, anytime you’re sitting, is in that reclining chair of mine,” Buzzard said. “And I’ll scramble up some eggs for you—without any salt in them, ‘cause Dove and I fixed some ham slices for tonight’s supper, and you sure can’t eat anything that salty.”

Then, Buzzard and I both remembered about Aunt Bett’s letter at the same time. Buzzard got it and handed it to Crystal.

“What’s this?” Crystal asked wearily.

“From your Aunt Bett.”

Crystal looked from one of us to the other. “Came in an envelope from Mee, this afternoon.”

Opening the letter with shaking fingers, Crystal started reading silently. “Please read it out loud,” I begged.

“Okay—it says:

Dear Crystal,

I will give this to Aunt Mee, and she will send it on to you all, wherever you are. You were so right! He came to your house again, and a sheriff with him! And when he couldn’t find anybody, they came to my house. I was so glad that I really didn’t know where you all had gone, because he challenged me right then and there to put my hand on my own Bible and swear it. And I did. So they didn’t even have to take me into court for that! The sheriff wanted to do more, but he said he knew if I would swear it on a Bible, I was telling the truth. He said he was bound and determined to find his girls, Dove and Molly, and have them with him. I asked him what his wife thought of that, and he hemmed and hawed around and finally said they weren’t together anymore. “Did you leave her too?” I asked him. Oh, I tried so hard not to say “too,” but I couldn’t help myself, I was so mad! He hemmed and hawed around some more and finally he said yes. Well, that made me mad as fire! So I said, “Well, I’ve got some news for you, you stinking…” Well, I had to stop there a little minute and ask God to put a big, strong angel in charge of my tongue! And I guess He did, because I changed it and said, “I’ve got some news for you too. Maybe you’re not the daddy you think you are.”

“What do you mean by that?” he said. And I said, “Maybe your daughters aren’t yours. Maybe you’re not the only one who did wrong.” I wish you could have seen his face! I was trying awful hard not to enjoy seeing his pain. But after what all he did to my sweet sister, running off and leaving her to raise the children alone, I’m afraid that I did enjoy seeing it. Just a bit. And he just turned and walked away. He hasn’t been back, and that was over a month ago. I waited until now to tell you, because I wanted to see if he was going to make trouble again. But I haven’t heard another thing. I swear to you, Crystal, when I told him about maybe him not being the daddy he thought he was, I only meant Dove, like that deathbed letter of my sister’s said. But when I saw he took it to mean Molly too, I didn’t correct him. Maybe that big old angel sitting on my tongue stopped me. I don’t know. But I think maybe he won’t bother you all anymore. When we’re sure, maybe you all can come home. I miss you all so much.

Love, Bett”

By the time Crystal finished reading Aunt Bett’s letter, she was crying. “Oh, maybe Molly’s safe now!” she whispered. And then she started crying even harder. “But I can’t go back. Not like I am!” Once again, her hand stroked her stomach.

“Why not?” I argued.

“I can’t let Bett know,” Crystal pronounced. “This baby will be coming too soon for me and Roy-Ellis to have been married. Aunt Bett will know we didn’t
 . . .
wait
 . . .
till we were married.”

Now, I didn’t know all the details about what happens between a man and a woman that makes a baby, but I did know how folks felt about mothers who got a baby before they were married good and proper. So maybe it was getting a little clearer to me.

“And how much
too soon
?” Buzzard asked. Crystal glanced at me and blushed. “A week,” she finally said, and Buzzard laughed in the softest kind of way.

“Wouldn’t nobody notice a little thing like that,” Buzzard assured her, and then she laughed again and shook her head.

“Well, Aunt Bett
might
notice,” Crystal insisted. “And she would never forgive me.” I was so surprised when I heard myself saying, “She forgave my mama. My mama got
me
when she wasn’t married to Roy-Ellis.” Then I remembered my mama again and how she worked all the time in that little bitty shop Roy-Ellis had made for her. And how hard Aunt Bett tried to help us out with clothes.

“Well, you all just don’t be in any hurry to make up your minds,” Buzzard said to Crystal. “Main thing is to wait until we’re sure about Molly’s daddy and sure that this baby that’s coming is all right.”

“Yes,” Crystal said, and then Buzzard added, “I think maybe it’s time for you all to talk to your Aunt Bett on the phone.”

“But that’s so expensive,” Crystal protested.

“I already told you all not to worry about that,” Buzzard said.

“Well, all right then. But I’m not going to tell her about the baby.”

“That’s up to you,” Buzzard said.

So Crystal called Aunt Bett long distance, and they talked for a long time. And like she’d planned, Crystal put Aunt Bett off. “Well, we really still aren’t sure, as you know. And it’s better to wait and see if
he
comes back. And too, Dove’s real happy in her new school.”

Aunt Bett said something else, and Crystal answered, “Oh, they’re just fine. They have a big garden to play in, and they like Buzzard real well.” Then silence. Crystal glanced up at me and bit her bottom lip. “Of
course
we still need you, Bett! Please don’t talk like that. It breaks my heart.” Crystal was close to tears. I held out my hand for the receiver, afraid Crystal would get so upset that she’d blurt out something about the baby.

“Hi, Aunt Bett!” I said, as cheerfully as possible. “We sure have missed you!”

“Oh, have you really?” Aunt Bett’s voice softened right away.

“We sure have. And I’m so glad that maybe nobody’s going to try to take Molly away. But we have to be sure about that. And I think God put a very special angel in charge of your tongue. I sure do thank Him for it!”

“Thank you, Dove. Thank you. Now what are you all doing for clothes?”

At that point, I went right into lying like a fool. Lying so much and so convincingly that Crystal and Buzzard both stared at me and with their mouths hanging open. I told Aunt Bett that some of Buzzard’s relatives had only one girl and no other children, and she was older than me, so I could have all her clothes. I told her that even her shoes got passed down to me, and that she was growing so fast, she didn’t have a bit of time to wear shoes out, so they were like new. I told her that other relatives had children just a little older than Molly and Little Ellis for handing down the clothes, and that we all had more than we knew what to do with. And then, I stopped lying when I said, “And I’m still trying to make me a friend.”

“You are?” Aunt Bett said. “What’s her name?”

“Sharon,” I said. “She’s timid, but I think you’d like her.”

“Well, tell me about this Buzzard—good Heavens, what a name!” Aunt Bett went on. “I didn’t even know that Aunt Mee had relatives I’d never heard of.”

I glanced at Buzzard. “She’s real nice,” I said. “And she makes such good biscuits too. She makes them for us every single morning.”

“Better than my biscuits?” Aunt Bett asked, and I was thinking,
Uh oh! I think I’ve stepped on Aunt Bett’s toes!

“Just exactly like your biscuits, Aunt Bett,” I said in a hurry. “Why, if I had to tell which were better, yours or Buzzard’s, I wouldn’t be able to say.” I winked at Buzzard, and she nodded and smiled. She understood exactly why I had to say that.

“Well, thank you, Dove. Now let me talk to Crystal again, please.”

“Yes’m.” I handed the receiver back to Crystal, who really didn’t want to take it.

“Yes?” Then a long, long silence while Aunt Bett talked, probably urging and urging us to come back home. Finally, Crystal rolled her eyes. “Aunt Bett, Dove and I will write you a letter tomorrow, I promise. This is awful expensive, talking long distance, and I don’t want to run up Buzzard’s phone bill. Yes. We’ll just wait and be sure! Okay. Bye-bye now.”

When she hung up, Crystal heaved a sigh. “I don’t know if we can go back—ever. Maybe it’s not safe! Maybe he will wait until we come back and then find out about Molly and take her away. Too, it’s better to wait and see about this baby. Then we’ll know lots more than we know now.”