The Past Is Never Read online

  “They should not have dug this up,” Fern said.

  “I think it’s an old quarry,” Junior told her. “See how those rocks are the same as the ones on the roads around here?”

  Fern took a few steps back, tugging him along with her. “This is a bad place.”

  His sister was like that, superstitious and intuitive. Their mother had been the same.

  “Let’s find fresh water,” he said. “I’m thirsty.”

  In the distance, he heard a rushing river. He followed the sound and found the source of the spring. They drank the cool water and ate berries until their stomachs ached.

  The twins fell asleep against the trunk of a white oak. They dozed through the hottest part of the day. Junior was so tired from walking he might have slept through to the next day, but Fern nudged him awake in the fading afternoon. A boy was staring at them from a few away. The boy seemed feral, crouched like a panther ready to spring. His lips were wet and open. His small, sharp teeth gleamed. The boy was not much older than he and Fern, but he was better fed and bigger. Junior braced himself to stand and fight or run.

  “What do you want with us?” Junior said.

  Fern whispered, “He’s alright.”

  The boy grinned and crawled closer. Junior tensed. Fern put a hand on his shoulder to calm him. “He’s alright,” she said again.

  The boy reached out a dirty hand, and Fern grasped it. Junior wanted to run, but he couldn’t leave Fern with this wild boy. She was too trusting.

  The boy stood and Fern stood with him. He motioned for them to follow. Fern walked off with the boy like she’d known him her whole life. Junior had no choice but to go along. They walked for a long time, through the hardwood forest and across a small creek. Junior kept his bearings by the sun. He knew they’d walked north and west of the small town with its shuttered stores and cranky old men.

  The boy led them to a house off a long dirt road. It was a small, well-built home with a porch on all sides. They’d passed grander homes in their walk through town, homes with stately columns on the outside and many gabled roofs, but Junior thought the modest home in the country looked more welcoming. The boy led them to the porch and tried to take them right through the front door. Junior held back and pulled his sister with him. It was one thing to show up on someone’s porch, but quite another to walk uninvited into a stranger’s home. The boy might not be dangerous, but they couldn’t know about anyone else inside the house.

  After a few minutes, a woman stepped onto the porch. She wore a pair of overalls and men’s work boots. Her hair was bobbed above her shoulders. Junior thought she was beautiful.

  “Well, come on inside,” she said. “I expect you’re hungry. You can tell us all about it over supper.”

  Fern grinned and sprinted past the woman into the house. Junior followed. What choice did he have?

  There were two women in the house and no evidence of any men. In addition to the wild boy who’d brought them here, there were three other children at the table. The women took in children who had no place else to go, they explained. Some of the children stayed for a short time while their parents worked. Others stayed for years until they could take care of themselves.

  “This one,” said the woman not dressed like a man, “is all mine.” She put her hand on the wild boy’s head. She told them her name was Clementine. Junior thought she had one of the nicest faces he’d ever seen. She was pretty, but not in a fussy way. She wore her thick dark hair pulled back into a low bun and her skirt seemed to have been pieced together from old flour sacks. Somehow she wore it without looking poor.

  The woman in the overalls was called Ora. She asked them about their travels. Junior told her they’d come from Florida. He kept the details vague, not wanting to give too much of himself to strangers.

  “And your folks?”

  “Dead,” Junior said. It didn’t feel like a lie. His father might as well be in the ground with his mother. He wasn’t coming back for them. Junior didn’t like talking about their parents. He didn’t care about losing his father, but he missed his mother in a desperate way. Even when she was ill, she’d kept her children close. She would pull Junior and Fern to her side each night and tell them stories about the island before the white men came. Junior loved those stories. They were all he had of his mother.

  His grandfather had been a powerful chief and his grandmother was a runaway slave. She’d run to escape the plantation owner who wanted her to do more than clean his home and cook his meals. She fought him and he beat her. She ran away once and he came after her. He marked her left thigh with a cattle brand to signal his ownership. She ran again and found shelter with the Seminoles. When she became pregnant with Junior’s mother, she dug away the brand scar with a sharp shell. Infection took her life soon after she gave birth. Ama was born with a large purple birthmark on her left thigh, and her father said it was the mark of her mother’s misery. He told her never to curse the mark or feel ashamed of it. The mark kept her mother’s memory alive. Junior had liked to put his hand over the mark. It felt warm even when the winds were cool. He liked knowing he was descended from a woman strong enough to carve out a curse from her own leg.

  After a supper of beans and cornbread, the women showed Junior and Fern to a room with the other children. There were quilts lined up against the wall and rows of small striped mattresses on the floor.

  “It’s not much,” the woman in the overalls said, “but I think you’ll find it more comfortable than sleeping outdoors.”

  Junior thought it was more comfortable than any place they’d slept since they left the island. It was a stroke of tremendous luck to find these women. Times were bad and food was scarce. There weren’t many folks who could afford to take in a couple of kids. Most nights he dreamed of his mother and of the birds and of the warm water lapping against the mangrove islands, but that night he slept a deep, dreamless sleep.

  EIGHT

  GRANNY CLEM SHOWED UP just after Easter, another holiday we no longer observed: no sugar-cured ham, no blueberry cake, no eggs hidden in the flowers, no wicker baskets filled with chocolate bunnies and jelly eggs. Without Pansy, what was the point?

  Granny Clem did bring one of her pound cakes and a pint of blackberry jam. She placed it in the center of our dusty dining table, put her hands on her hips, and looked around. I was ashamed at how shabby and neglected things had gotten. We’d given up on vacuuming and dusting. Mildew crawled across the bathroom tiles and our countertops felt sticky. The whole place smelled musty and sour, like a picnic left to sweat in the sun.

  “I wanted to see how you’re getting along,” Granny Clem said.

  Willet put on a pot of coffee, and I went to fetch Mama from her bedroom. There was a half-smoked cigarette in the ashtray next to her bed, and the room reeked of stale smoke. Pansy had been missing for eight months and Mama sank deeper into depression each day. When I told her Granny Clem was visiting, she squinted at me as if she didn’t understand what I was saying. I pulled a clean gingham shirt and a pair of cotton pedal pushers from her closet. “Why don’t you put this on?” The nightgown she wore was stained and so thin I could see right through it.

  “What is she doing here?” Mama took the clothes from me and yanked her nightgown over her head. She was so thin, I could count the ribs underneath her small breasts. The pants sagged on her hips.

  I picked up Mama’s silver-plated boar brush from her dressing table. “Let me brush your hair.” Dust motes scattered in the air. Mama used to give her hair a hundred strokes with the brush each night. Her hair had once been thick and shiny and long, but now it barely seemed enough to cover her scalp. She had a bald spot the size of a quarter above her left ear, and I wondered if she’d been pulling it out. I smoothed her hair into a ponytail at the nape of her neck and fastened it with an elastic band. I tied a satin ribbon in a bow to cover the band, surprised she allowed me so much intimacy. It made me feel terrible, really. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d touched he
r. She needed bathing. A sour smell wafted from her skin like eggs gone bad.

  “You look pretty, Mama.”

  She stared into her open palms. “I don’t want to see her, Roberta Lynn.”

  “She brought pound cake.”

  “I don’t trust her.”

  I fetched a damp washcloth from the bathroom across the hallway. When I returned, Mama was sprawled on the bed again, a lit cigarette in her hand. She smoked and stared at the ceiling. I washed her face with the warm damp cloth. How could Mama distrust the woman who’d delivered all of her children into the world, the woman who’d raised her husband?

  “Come out for just a little while.”

  Mama massaged her forehead with her fingers. I thought she might refuse to get up, but she grunted and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She mashed out the cigarette and sighed. I followed Mama into the living room where Willet and Granny Clem sat on the sofa holding mugs of coffee.

  Granny Clem smiled. “Loretta, how are you?”

  Mama sank into the hard rocking chair. “How do you think I am, Clementine?”

  “Let me get you some coffee, Mama,” Willet said.

  Mama nodded. I followed Willet into the kitchen. “What is she doing here?” I pulled plates from the cabinet.

  Willet shrugged. He sniffed a pint of cream in the fridge and poured a splash into a cup of coffee, stirred it with his finger.

  I cut large slices from the cake on the table. The scent made me dizzy. The sugary lemon glaze stuck to my fingers. I licked my thumb and savored the flooding rush of sour and sweet.

  When we settled again, Granny Clem told us the reason behind her visit. “I was thinking,” she said, “maybe Bert could come work with me this summer.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re old enough to help out in the garden and I can teach you how to make medicinal teas, among other things.”

  “No,” Mama said. “I don’t like the idea.”

  I wasn’t sure I liked the idea either. I thought of Uncle Chester’s trailer just outside Granny Clem’s house. Did I really want to spend time in such close proximity to my uncle?

  “Hear me out, Loretta.”

  Granny Clem sounded like a woman who’d already decided things and not like a person engaged in a negotiation. I would come to expect it from her, that sense of certainty and complete lack of second-guessing or compromise. It was who she was.

  “I’ll pay her, of course. And it would be good for her to learn an occupation.” She put her cake plate on the end table next to the sofa and clasped her hands in her lap. “She doesn’t look cut out for secretarial school, does she? Or beauty school?”

  Willet snorted, and I glared at him. I was wearing a pair of his old jeans cut off above the knee and a T-shirt with a faded rainbow across the chest. My hair was uncombed. I’m pretty sure my face was clean. I never dressed up or thought about my appearance. There were so many other things to worry about. How could I spend time curling my hair or applying blue eyeliner as the other girls in my class did? It seemed silly. Plus, I’d heard the talk about Pansy. People said she was an exceptionally beautiful child. They seemed to think her beauty had something to do with her disappearance. Who wouldn’t want to snatch such a pretty girl? I hated people who said such things. Still, I couldn’t see any benefit to striving for beauty. Beauty seemed like trouble.

  Granny Clem kept talking. “We’ll stick to the botanical lessons, and I’ll not drag her into the messy stuff. Not yet. Not until she’s ready. You have my word.”

  “I don’t like it.” Mama hadn’t even tasted her cake yet.

  “I think she’s old enough to have a say, don’t you?”

  I knew I was supposed to agree with Mama, but I couldn’t do it. “I think I should. We need the money.” Willet gave a quick nod and I was glad he approved.

  “First things first,” Granny Clem said. “I’ll teach her to drive. She’ll need a way to get out to the house and she’s old enough.”

  I grinned. I couldn’t help myself. “I already know how!”

  Mama narrowed her eyes at me. “Don’t tell stories, Roberta Lynn.”

  Willet said, “I taught her how. I’m sorry, Mama. I should have checked with you first.”

  Mama stood. The cake plate tumbled off her lap and clattered to the floor.

  Willet took her arm, but she jerked away from him. “Please stop coddling me,” she said. “I’m not a child.” She walked from the room and I heard the bathroom door slam.

  Granny Clem sipped her coffee and settled deeper into the sofa. She was a tiny woman, but she had a way of filling up a room.

  “Thanks for the offer,” I said. “I guess maybe I shouldn’t do it.”

  Granny Clem wrapped both hands around her coffee mug and looked at me. “I have a good feeling about you,” she said. “I always have.”

  No one had ever had a good feeling about me before, at least they’d never said so.

  Willet said, “Go on, Bert. It’ll be good for you to get out of the house. What else are you going to do all summer?”

  We worked out the details while Mama hid in the bathroom. Granny Clem said she’d take me for my driver’s license the first week of summer break, and I’d start working for her right after. It felt bad, leaving Mama out of everything, but she’d been out of it for so long there didn’t seem to be another way.

  The second week of summer vacation, I drove to Granny Clem’s house. It was the farthest I’d ever driven on my own. When I pulled into the driveway, I glanced at Chester’s trailer. I thought I saw a shadow move across the back window, but it might have been a reflection from the morning sun. I wondered if Uncle Chester ever talked to Daddy anymore or if he was as puzzled as we were about Daddy’s prolonged disappearance. I didn’t believe Chester could keep the counterfeiting business going without Daddy. Chester didn’t have Daddy’s discipline. Daddy would never send a wonky bill into circulation, but I suspected Chester wouldn’t be much concerned with quality control. Still, he was doing something in that trailer. When the wind shifted, I caught a whiff of something sharp and acrid. It smelled of cat piss and dirty laundry.

  Granny Clem welcomed me with a cup of coffee. “Are you hungry?”

  “I’m okay,” I said, though I hadn’t eaten breakfast. I never did.

  “Well, let’s get started.” She placed a wide-brimmed straw hat over her silver hair and pulled on a pair of steel-toed work boots. We stepped out the back door and I squinted into the morning sun. Behind Granny Clem’s house stood a vast green field. It was nothing like our puny neglected backyard. Tangled tea rose vines surrounded the wooden porch. I never cared much for the scent of roses, but the peach-colored blooms were pretty. We walked onto the damp grass and Granny Clem pointed at one raised bed and another. Plantings popped out of whiskey barrels and an old cattle trough. Every few feet, she’d erected a raised bed of some sort and each bed sprouted some mysterious plant I couldn’t name.

  Until I worked with Granny Clem, it hadn’t occurred to me plants might be useful beyond eating them or looking at them. I never paid attention when Mama tended her backyard garden and I’d certainly done nothing to keep it alive since she lost interest. Granny Clem showed me where she planted her herbs and pointed out which plants were best used in teas and which could be mashed up and used on the skin. “These,” she said, pointing to a long bed of hairy leafed plants, “I grow mostly for the roots. But the comfrey leaves will soothe poison ivy. The ivy is terrible around here.” She handed me a pair of garden shears. “Cut me a bouquet of those tulips, Bert. We’ll put ’em on the front table. The women I treat like to see something pretty.” She showed me how to cut the tulips close to the soil. I tucked the gardening shears into the waistband of my shorts and gathered the thick bunch of tulips in my hands. When I turned around, Granny Clem cackled. “Bert, you look like a redneck bride at a shotgun wedding. And a pretty one, at that.”

  No one had bothered to look at me in the months after Pansy’s disapp
earance. Neither Mama nor Willet gave any thought to what I was wearing or how I looked when I left the house. All they thought about, day and night, was finding Pansy. And it’s not like I blamed them. I thought about Pansy, too. I thought of her all the time, but that moment in the garden with Granny Clem was the first time in a long time I’d thought of myself. It made me feel guilty but also good in a strange way. Granny Clem looked at me in a way that reassured me I was real. I wasn’t some wisp in a fairy tale. I wasn’t a lost child in the woods. I wasn’t an annoying gnat buzzing around and waiting to be swatted. I mattered.

  Granny Clem taught me useful things and paid me well. I’d have gone there every day for free, but each Friday she handed me an envelope filled with cash. I never looked at the money in her presence but waited until I was a good piece down the road to peel back the flap and count the bills. Usually it was about eighty dollars, but sometimes as much as a hundred. There was no place else in White Forest where a fifteen-year-old girl with no work experience could pull down such wages in a few hours each week.

  Willet didn’t like me spending so much time with Granny Clem. He was happy for me to earn some money, but he didn’t trust her. He never understood the real nature of her business. He didn’t see the way she treated the newborns or how gentle she was to the women who ended pregnancies or who gave away their babies. Granny Clem never tried to persuade a woman to change her mind. No one came to her on a whim. “If they’re here, they know what they want,” she said. “Or they’re slap out of options and they know what they must do. They don’t need me preaching at them. One person’s sin is another’s salvation. It’s not for me to decide.”

  I’d been working with Granny Clem for about a year when a young woman showed up, panting hard and complaining about her swollen belly.

  “I feel like a tick on the verge of busting,” she said.

  Granny Clem got her settled in the spare bedroom she used for births. The woman wasn’t much older than I was and she looked familiar to me, like someone I might have passed in the grocery store. She said she lived in Clarksdale and wasn’t married. She hadn’t told anyone about her pregnancy and she was ready to be done with it. As I boiled my grandmother’s forceps and pulled together a pile of clean towels, I said I thought the woman was fooling herself if she imagined she’d hidden her pregnancy from anyone. Granny Clem said she was a fat little thing even before the baby, so she expected most people figured she’d gotten fatter.