The Day of Small Things (25 page)

Looking at them eggs and smelling the coffee and bacon, feeling the friendly warmth of the woodstove and hearing the cheerful crackling of the fire, I find myself
wondering if Heaven can be as nice a place as here. I remember something that my granny told me once about these misty mountains of ours they call the Smokies. Granny said God hung that haze on purpose, to hide these hills from the folks up in Heaven who was raised here, so they wouldn’t look down and be homesick.

I turn back to the cookstove and fork the crisp bacon out of the skillet and onto a flattened-out paper poke. Even after I have some for breakfast, they’ll be plenty more to make a bacon biscuit for my dinner. I pour off most of the grease and take up an egg to crack against the side of the skillet when the sound of a vehicle rattling over the plank bridge in front of my house stops me short.

Now, who in the world … ? I think, putting the egg back in the bowl and pulling the skillet to the side of the stove top away from the firebox.

I start for the living room, wondering who would be stopping by so early in the morning. The meter reader was here not a week ago and them Witnesses don’t generally come except of a Saturday.

Through the window I see Dorothy’s old blue Ford. She flings the door open, hops out, and hurries towards the front steps, leaving that car door wide open; run down the battery, like as not. I wonder what can it be has got her in such a state. She ain’t even put up her hair, neither, just pulled it back with a rubber band. That ain’t like Dorothy.

I pull open the door and wait, dreading to hear what’s the matter. She has flung on her clothes any old how—shirt buttoned all crooked and she has put on one black sock and one brown. Her round face is kindly flushed like as if she’s been crying or fighting or maybe both and her mouth is set in a thin line. She marches up to the porch and through the door without a word,
terrible as an army
with banners
, like it says in the Book, and when I can see her close to, the look of pure hatred on her face chills my heart.

“Why, Dor’thy—” I reach out and lay a hand on her shoulder, feeling the muscles just a-quiver like a dog about to fight. “Whatever is the matter? Why, you—”

Dorothy’s face begins to crumple up. “Prin’s took him, Birdie!” she cries and I know right off what has happened—Calven’s no-good mama has got him.

“They come by this morning afore me and Calven was even up. There was all this knocking on the door and I pulled on a housecoat and run to see who it was.”

Dorothy stops and goes over to my tissue box and grabs her a handful. The tears is leaking from her eyes and she jabs at them with a big wad of tissues before she takes up her tale.

“Prin had two mean-looking fellers with her and she pushed right past me and went and woke Calven up and told him to come with her and off they went, not even waiting fer me to pack up his things.

“Birdie, you got to help me!” She is squeezing my hand right hard but I look away. It don’t deter her none; she goes on squeezing and insisting. “Remember, I
know
about you, Birdie—I used to hear my mother whispering to her sisters about you and the stories that was told and how Luther turned you from all that—I know what you can do. It’s my best chance of getting the boy back. It ain’t like Cletus—it was too late for you to help him. But Calven … please, Birdie, you got to!”

(Dorothy)

“… like a little wild thing Calven was, used to taking care of hisself. I know for certain sure he spent more time in that trailer without Prin than with her. She’d leave one of those worthless boyfriends of hers there to look after the boy while off she went to the Lord only knows where, doing the Devil probably knows what.”

See how Birdie stares—reckon I sound like a crazy woman
, Dorothy thought, suddenly aware of her friend’s puzzled gaze.
And I’m purely trembling like a leaf. I got to calm down and make Birdie see that she must help me
.

But the words wouldn’t be contained. They were flying out of her mouth in a great buzzing babble: All the dark suspicions she had hoarded, all the accusations and finger-pointings that she had restrained for the boy’s sake poured out unhindered.

Her voice was rising higher and higher and the words were swarming into a dark cloud and she knew she should
stop but still she went on, clutching Birdie’s arm and gabbling and gibbering like a tongues-talking believer.

“And why did she come back for him after all this time, answer me that? Prin’s got a use for him is why, and I dread to think what it might be. Do you know there was one time, and Calven not but seven years of age, Prin and one of her boyfriends took him and they checked into a tourist cabin so’s they could use the kitchenette to cook that old crystal meth. Calven told me about how something blew up and the feller got burned real bad—if it hadn’t been that Calven had gone outside to get Prin her cigarettes from out of the car, who knows what might have happened to him?”

Dorothy collapsed onto the sofa, breathing heavily.
Oh Lord, what can I say to make Birdie see that she must help me? And her just standing there like a carved statue while I yammered on. I’ll get down on my knees, if that’s what it takes
.

At last Miss Birdie spoke. “So this here’s the trial that’s coming,” she muttered, lowering herself into the recliner and stretching out her legs.

It took a moment for the words to register but when they did, Dorothy sat bolt upright, exhaustion forgotten. “You mean you knew …”

Birdie’s face was still solemn as an undertaker’s but at least she was speaking and nodding in agreement. “Ain’t no doubt the poor little feller’s had it awful rough. Never knowed who his daddy was and then with a mother like Prin—law, it would of been a sight better had Prin
stayed
gone after running off like she did.”

“Truer words was never spoke!” Dorothy dabbed at her eyes but somewhere deep inside she sent up a brief prayer of thanks.
She’s coming round, I do believe
. “You
know I had just about got Calven tamed—though he’s still fighting that lawless nature he was born with.”

“Everybody says you’ve made a world of difference in that child.” Birdie lay back in the recliner and closed her eyes. “When I think what he was like when first you brought him by here—not a
please
nor a
thank you
in his mouth …”

Much heartened, Dorothy chimed in. “His mamaw Mag
tried
when she had him, back when Prin first run off. Mag did her best, and that’s the truth, but Calven’s papaw—that Royal Ridder—he ain’t no more fit to be around a child than them boyfriends of Prin’s. And Mag won’t never say no to Royal—she’s a fool for that man—always has been. They might have been a chance, now that Royal’s back in jail, but—”

Seeing her friend’s lips tighten, Dorothy stopped mid-sentence.
Birdie never did have much use for Mag—and I can understand the why of that. But Magdalene’s still my baby sister and a good somebody no matter what Birdie thinks. Mag would of done better if things had been different.…

Dorothy looked down, trying to gather her thoughts, and caught sight of her uneven shirt front. “Now, will you look at that—buttoned all skee-jawed! I was in such a hurry to get over here I just throwed on my rags without paying any mind. Reckon I must look like a crazy woman, along with sounding like one.”

Noticing her mismatched socks, Dorothy stuck out first one foot and then the other and gave a little laugh. “Maybe I’ll set a new fashion. Leastways I managed to get out of my nightgown afore I jumped in the car to come over here.”

Seeing the beginning of a smile at the corners of Birdie’s lips, Dorothy went back to her pleading. Hands
on her knees, she leaned toward the woman in the recliner. “But, oh, Birdie, if you could of seen them fellers Prin had with her … one of them was the wickedest-looking somebody I’ve ever seen; purely gave me chills to look at him … and poor little Calven, trying to act like going off with them weren’t nothing out of the ordinary—”

She could hear her voice beginning to shake again. “You know how hard Calven tries to put on like he’s a big tough man.” Unable to sit still, she pushed herself up from the sofa, pulled off her glasses, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, forgetting the wadded tissues in her other.

Give me strength, Lord, to reason with Birdie and not go all distracted. Don’t let her bow up on me again
, Dorothy prayed as she began once more, unashamedly begging for help from the fragile-looking woman who continued to listen, eyes still shut, her expression telling nothing.

“The child looked so little and puny and scared when them two fellers got on either side of him and herded him out to that big van with the blacked-out windows—”

Dorothy felt her face begin to bunch up as she tried to keep from breaking down altogether. “I got to blow my nose,” she said and stumbled like a blind thing toward the back of the house.

In the bathroom she dashed cold water on her face.
I’ll just set down on the commode seat till I can feel some calmer
. Burying her face in her hands, she tried to pray but the thoughts would not be stilled.
Will Birdie help me, I wonder? Me and her ain’t never talked of those things that the others whispered about, but if it’s true …

The smell of fresh coffee greeted her when she returned to the living room. She could smell bacon and hear the crack of an eggshell and a cheerful sizzle as the egg met the hot grease.

“Come on in here, Dor’thy, and get you a chair,” Birdie called from the kitchen. “We’ll have us some breakfast while we study on what to do.”

Dorothy hesitated.
I must go gentle-like if I’m to get her help. Let her see that I’ve tried everything I can
.

In the crowded little kitchen Miss Birdie was standing at the woodstove, tending a black iron skillet in which two bright-yolked eggs were sizzling. On the table, two places were set and two moisture-beaded glasses of milk waited. Dorothy cast a guilty glance at the clock on the wall.