The Ghosts of Varner Creek (26 page)

“
Well, we’d get you in it just as soon as you sit still. Now up go the arms.” And Sarah complied by lifting her arms into the air. Mama grabbed the dress and drew it off Sarah in one quick motion. Then she grabbed the pink dress and started to place it over Sarah’s still uplifted arms, but she paused when she noticed Sarah’s waist. She had gotten a pooch on her that Mama didn’t remember seeing. “Good Lord, girl, maybe I shouldn’t have made such a big cake for today,” she joked.

“
Cake!” yelled Sarah, happily, knowing that was the sweet treat she got to eat when someone had a birthday.

Mama put the dress down for a moment and stared at Sarah’s little bulge. She had brought in her sewing kit just in case she needed to make a quick alteration, and she reached inside and grabbed the measuring tape. Just a few weeks ago she had used it to measure Sarah for the dress, and her midsection had been a uniform twenty-six from waist to bosom. Mama wrapped the tape around Sarah’s little bulge and read the measurement, thirty. Four inches in just over three weeks, that couldn’t be right, she thought. “Sarah, honey, you been sneaking snacks when Mama ain’t looking?” she asked.

Sarah just yelled “Cake!” again.

And Mama sat back on her haunches looking at the bubble in front of her. Then another thought crept into her, a more sinister one. But no, that couldn’t be right, she calmed herself. There hadn’t been an opportunity, she thought. Sarah never was left alone with the boys at church. Even when she wasn’t there around her, Sol was. But still, the thought nagged at her. Four inches in three weeks was awfully hard to explain away on sweets, especially since she hadn't noticed Sarah eating abnormally. She needed to know for sure. “Sarah, honey, you mind if Mama has a look at yah?”

The idea seemed like a fun game to Sarah, so she smiled and turned around for Mama like she was modeling a dress that she didn't have on.

“
No, sweetie,” began Mama, “here, come lie down on your bed.” And Sarah complied, lying down on the bed with nothing but her underwear on. “Now I’m going to take these off of yah and have a quick look, okay?” And she stripped Sarah down.

Sarah just giggled. She thought being naked was a funny thing. A game that big people sometimes played, she’d been told.

Mama inspected what she was looking for and stood back in horror when she found Sarah wasn’t untouched. I could see Mama's reaction from our place in the corner and it suddenly dawned on me what it meant. “Sarah!” My Mama said in a hushed yell, “You been doing it?” Sarah just started giggling again, but Mama got real serious with her. “Sarah! Listen to me now.”

“
What, Mama?” she asked, truthfully having no idea what Mama meant.

Mama walked around the room a bit, her hands shaking and her mind swimming. She started chewing on her nails frantically like she did when she was stressed or nervous. Then she knelt again beside Sarah, who was sitting up now in the bed, still nude. Mama looked at her and her mentally retarded features. Who could possibly do such a thing, she thought? What bastard had been at her sweet little girl. “Sarah, sweetie, you been laying with any boys?”

Sarah looked confused. She didn’t know what Mama was asking her.

“
Listen to me, honey,” said Mama, and she got down close by Sarah and held her hands. “Have you lain down with any boys?” she asked again slowly.

“
What b-boys?” asked Sarah.

“
Any boys,” Mama said, “Have you been laying down with any boys?”

Sarah was still a bit confused, but then she smiled as she realized what Mama meant and said, “Sol!”

“
Sol?” my Mama asked in horror.

“
I lay down with S-Sol.”

My Mama was nearly having a fit as she tried not to think of the unthinkable. Sol was just a little boy, it couldn't be him. "Do you lie next to him naked, Sarah?” she asks.

But she’d lost Sarah again. “Naked sweetie,” said Mama forcefully, “like now, with no clothes on.”

“
No, Mama,” she responded.

“
No?” My mother repeated.

“
N-no,” Sarah said again.

Thank God
, my Mama thought. “Well, have you been laying with any boy naked?”

Sarah didn’t like this conversation. It seemed like Mama was asking her hard questions on purpose, trying to confuse her. Did Mama mean just boys, or men, too, the big boys? “Daddy?” she asked Mama.

My mother’s heart froze, “You been laying with daddy naked?” she asked.

“
Big P-People game,” Sarah started to explain.

Mama’s fear was like a thick soup in the room. “What’s the big people game, baby?”

Sarah suddenly remembered she was never supposed to talk about the big people game. It was a secret and he’d said Mama would be really upset and cry if she knew that they played it without her. “You can’t never tell nobody,” her daddy had told her. “It’s a secret game only big people are supposed to play, but since your Mama don’t play, you can have her place. But you can’t tell, because whoever you tell will get real sick and maybe even die,” he had said. “That’s why big people don’t never talk about it.”

Sarah was scared, now. She had forgotten what her daddy had told her and now Mama might get sick and die if she told her, so she didn’t answer Mama’s questions and pressed her lips together tightly to show she didn’t want to tell.

But Mama was in a frenzy now. She grabbed Sarah by the arm roughly and said sternly, “Sarah Mayfield, you tell me right now what he's been doing with you.”

Tears filled Sarah’s eyes. She didn’t understand why Mama was acting the way she was, and she didn’t want to tell the secret that could make Mama be sick and die. And then Mama began to cry, and that scared Sarah even worse. Daddy had said that if Mama found out they played the game without her she’d cry. And now she was crying just like he said. So Sarah thought if she told Mama any more, the other things he said would happen, too. “You’ll d-d-die,” she tried telling Mama. Sarah knew that dying meant someone went away and never came back again.

Mama was feeling sick. Every word took her closer to something so terrible that the very thought of it threatened to rend her in two, but she had to know. “Listen to me, honey,” she said softly, “Mama won’t die. But it’s very important that you tell me what you and your daddy have been doing.”

Sarah looked at her skeptically.

“
Baby, does your mommy lie to you?” Asked Mama.

“
No, M-Mama,” said Sarah.

Mama wiped a tear that was running at a sprinter’s pace down her cheek, “Then believe me, it’s okay to tell Mama.”

Sarah had always been a complacent girl. She tried to do whatever her parents told her, like a good girl was supposed to act, daddy had said. She told her daddy she didn’t like playing the big people game because sometimes it hurt, but he said sometimes she had to do things she didn’t always like. That was part of being a big person. Sarah was thinking about the game now and started to tell Mama, “We hug and D-Daddy . . .” but she trailed off.

“
What?” said Mama. “What does Daddy do?”

“
He g-gets on me,” said Sarah.

Mama dropped her head in despair and loss. “Oh, My God!” she whispered in horror. “No, no!” Her voice began to escalate and it frightened Sarah so much she started crying again. “Oh, baby!” said my mother quickly, “Sh-h-h, sh-h-h-, don’t cry, baby, don‘t cry.” And she reached out to hold Sarah.

“
Mama g-g-goin’ away?” asked Sarah, meaning was Mama going to die now that Sarah had done what her daddy had told her never to do.

Mama was rocking her back and forth. “No, baby, it’s all right. Everything is all right. Mama’s not going away and Mama’s not mad.” She held Sarah close, wincing with pain.

The tears kept coming for Mama. First a trickle and then a stream. She willed them to stop, forcing them to retreat, but they were getting the better of her. Instead she concentrated on rocking her baby in her arms, her pregnant girl child who was carrying her own sibling in the womb.

As Mama sat there rocking Sarah and trying to think about what to do next, all the people arrived for the birthday party. I could feel Mama’s horror, and her shame. She couldn’t go out there and look at Pap, or me, or her sister, or Miss Thomas. She couldn’t imagine what would happen when people knew about Sarah’s condition, and who’d got her that way. It was too much to bear. She knew she’d have to tell someone, Emma, or Miss Thomas, someone . . . but not today. She didn’t have the strength to face this now. So she pushed it back into a corner like I’d learn to do so many years later. Her heart had just broke, though, and her mind was quickly following. . . .

Chapter
16

The scene changed and it was us sleeping in our bedroom. Sarah’s spirit was still standing next to my own and she said, “This is the bad place.” I could feel her not wanting to be here. There was something very sad about this memory to her. We stood side by side, looking down at the memory of our living selves sleeping peacefully. Sarah was still in her dress and I was like a log under my covers. Then I heard something outside the door and it quietly cracked open. When the door opened the fear inside of me coming from Sarah made me expect to see Pap standing there, but instead Mama crept quietly inside the room. She knelt down by Sarah and whispered, “Sarah? Sarah, baby? I need you to get up, now, girl.” Mama looked exhausted. Her face looked aged ten years and her eyes were puffy, and the feeling I got from her was of an eerie emptiness, like she’d be drained of emotions and was a hollow vessel.

At first Sarah just tossed a bit, but Mama was persistent and nudging her. Finally Sarah opened her eyes and said, “Mama?”

“
S-s-sh-h-h,” hushed Mama. “Don’t wake Bubba.” The boy in the bed didn’t budge. “Get your shoes on . . . quietly,” Mama told her, “we’re going to take us a walk.”

“
W-w-walk?” whispered Sarah.

Mama gave her a stern look, “Just do as Mama tells yah.”

Sarah got up and started putting on her slippers. She followed Mama out into the main room and then outside. We did, too, without taking a step. It was like watching a movie that changed scenes, except that we were inside of it with the characters. Mama took the former Sarah by the hand and was looking up at the moon. "You know, Sarah, when I was a little girl I was very bad," Mama told her. "I didn't listen to my own mother and I laid down with a boy, your daddy, when I wasn't much older than you are now, and I got pregnant with you. It was evil because we weren't married." She looked over at Sarah who was quietly trying to understand why Mama was acting so strange. "Do you know what Mama means by pregnant, baby?"

Sarah shook her head no.

"You, see, Sarah, when a man lays down with a woman like your daddy laid down with you, they make a baby." She bent down and put her hand on Sarah's belly, "Just like you have a baby in you, now."

Sarah looked down at Mama's hand and said, "b-baby?" Sarah had seen babies before in town and lots of baby cows and pigs, and in this way understood what Mama was telling her.

"Yes," said Mama, "but it's an evil baby because your daddy put it there. Daddies are never supposed to put babies in their own children, because it's a horrible sin.” She looked back up at the night sky filled with stars that looked down upon everyone, good or evil, with the indifference of her father, “Daddy’s always been a sinner, but this one is real bad, baby. He's made it so we’ll all probably go to hell when we die."

Sarah was getting scared at what Mama was telling her. She'd heard all about hell at church, and it was the worst place anybody could ever go. A person would be set on fire forever, but never die. They'd just burn and burn. "Hell?" She asked frightened.

Mama's eyes were kind of glazed over. She remembered reading the passage in her mother's Bible so long ago, about how children who were evil were supposed to be punished and killed. You must clear away what is bad from your midst, she remembered. Sarah wasn’t evil, she knew, but she had been tainted by it. The devil was in their midst, and Abram had been his instrument. He’d come soul collecting and would take them all down to the fiery pits, soon. Mama knew what she had to do to save Sarah's soul. She remembered her dream about fornicating in the Lord’s house, when her own mother had risen up to clear away the evil. ‘
Harlot! Jezebel!’
Mama thought. Her mother had seen it in her, knew the evil seeds Mama had sown in sin. Now they’d ripened on the vine, and the devil had come to harvest. She knew what she had to do.

She let go of Sarah's hand for a moment and walked over to her flower garden. She had decorated the trim with some large rocks she had asked Abram to bring home from the fields and knelt down to pick out a heavy one, but not so heavy that she couldn't manage it well enough. Sarah just watched her innocently, but Mama told her, "Don’t worry, baby, Mama ain't gonna let you go to hell." Sarah seemed to feel better about that. Mama never lied to her.

Mama walked over to the well where she dropped her stone and began pulling up the bucket. "Come over here with me, Sarah Jane," she told her. She drew up the bucket of water and placed it on the ledge. "Do you know that when y’all was little, I took you and your brother down to the creek where the preacher baptized you. Do you remember that?" We had been six and five, respectively. Sarah nodded. She knew what being baptized meant and remembered something about a man all dressed up in a robe standing in the creek and dunking some of the kids under the water. "That’s the only way we can get our soul clean," Mama told her. "I want you to pray with me, now, okay, baby?" She helped Sarah put her hands together and then put her own hands the same way. "Dear God," she began. Sarah looked at her confused. Mama sure was acting funny, Sarah thought. "Say it with me, Sarah,” Mama told her, “Dear God . . ."