Good Hope Road (18 page)

Mazelle Sibley spread misery like cake frosting. It was no wonder she was enjoying hanging around the armory stacking bandages, wallowing in the sadness and grief, gathering horrible stories she could tell around town and to visiting newspaper reporters.

Looking up, I noticed Dr. Albright stepping out the door behind us. He stood on the stoop for a minute, not seeming to notice we were there. Bending his head forward, he rubbed his eyes, looking tired.

I hated the fact that he was going to see me there with Mazelle. Now he really would think I was an old busybody.

“Eudora . . .” Mazelle’s voice scratched the surface of my mind, and I glanced sideways, realizing she was still talking, and she hadn’t noticed the doctor standing in the doorway. “I said, did you hear about that little Anderson baby? Pulled right out of her crib by the wind. Just ten minutes after her mama put her down for a nap. Her mama was right in the next room when the tornado came through, and she couldn’t get to the baby.”

She sighed, shaking her head and making a sorrowful
tsk-tsk
with her teeth. “It’s just the most terrible thing. So sad. A newspaper reporter came around earlier and asked me about it. I could hardly tell him the story for crying, myself. It’s just the saddest thing. A newborn baby. They still haven’t found her. Just can’t imagine why something like that would happen to good
churchgoing
folks, and meanwhile, the houses of people like . . . well, the
Lanes
, for instance, left standing without a scratch.” She crossed her arms. “And can you
believe
that
Jenilee Lane
, running around here pretending she’s Florence Nightingale? Well, it’s just a fortunate thing she didn’t
kill somebody
. I can’t imagine
what
she was
thinking
.”

My dander rose when she mentioned Jenilee’s name that way, like it was a dirty word to spit out. I realized I had said it that way in the past myself. “I imagine she was thinking that people needed help.”

Mazelle tipped her chin up, and clicked her tongue against her teeth again. “Don’t imagine you can blame that
Lane
girl for not knowing any better. That family is all so
backward
, and it’s no wonder, given the way their daddy is. Wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if
he
never came back. Do you know, just the other day he and that
Shad Bell
came into my store drunker than Cooter Brown and darned near picked a fight with some poor truck driver who was just trying to get gas. They . . .”

Behind us, the doctor let out a long breath, so that Mazelle noticed he was there.

I realized I’d got myself interested in the gossip about Jenilee’s daddy, and I felt a pinch of shame, because I knew in the past I would of joined right in.

Mazelle shifted on the step beside me, holding up her tray. “Oh, Doctor. I didn’t notice you were there. Would you care for a candy bar or some cheese crackers? I salvaged these things from my store, thinking folks might be tired of chili and oatmeal.” The doctor didn’t reply, just glanced at her, gave a quick sideways jerk of his chin in answer, and then folded his arms across his chest, looking at the tent village below.

Mazelle went on talking to him. “I was just telling Eudora how horrible it is about the Anderson baby. Blown right out of her crib by the tornado and just two weeks old, and no sign of her yet, and her mother looking everywhere around town, completely out of her mind with grief. It’s made me ill worrying about her and the baby and the poor father. I’ve been crying and crying all day long.”

The doctor didn’t answer and neither did I. A flicker of emotion crossed his face; then he closed his eyes tight and jerked his head quickly back and forth, shaking it off.

“. . . heard there were six children missing from a day care in Shale City,” Mazelle was droning on, sounding like one of those terrible talk show hosts on TV. “The police said they might never be found, I heard. Can you imagine that? That a person could just be swept up in a tornado and never be seen again? That a family could lose their
children
? Just in the blinking of an eye?
Gone?”

Without saying a word, Dr. Albright turned on his heel and walked down the steps, and along the side of the building, disappearing around the corner like he couldn’t take one more word of Mazelle’s mean-spirited prattling.

“Well!” Mazelle made an offended cough in her throat. “He’s an odd sort.”

“He ain’t the only one,” I muttered, and walked off, too.

I heard Mazelle huff and mutter something, but I didn’t turn around and say I was sorry. On any normal day, I would of put up with her and done my best to be cordial because we were in the garden club and the ladies’ Bible class and various other groups together. None of that seemed to matter now.

I’m not sure why I walked around the corner of the armory after Dr. Albright. I didn’t want him to think I was like Mazelle, though oftentimes in the past I had showed a pretty wicked tongue myself.

Olney used to tell me that once I latched on to an opinion, I held on like I was Moses and it come straight from a burning bush. It wasn’t a good way to be, and it wasn’t only them Lane kids that had been damaged by my gossiping. I had done damage to myself. All that mean-spiritedness took a lot of the laughter out of me over the years. I had pretty much let myself become a mean old lady.

I slowed my steps as I reached the corner, wondering if the doctor might be just around the edge of the wall, and if he might not appreciate me following him. I took one last, careful step, cleared the corner, and just stood there staring.

There, squatted down in the long grass by the wall, was the doctor, his head in his hands, his shoulders round and trembling.

I stood still for a long moment, trying to decide whether to say something or just slip away. I wondered what had brought him to that point, crouched alone in the grass with his head in his hands.

Not a sound came from him, not a word or a sigh or a sob, just the quaking across his shoulders that said he was feeling something powerful.

He looked for all the world like a broken man.

I waited to see if he would notice I was there and look at me. Finally I stepped back around the corner and left him to himself. I didn’t figure I’d know what to say to him, anyway.

Mazelle was gone from the step and headed toward the camp down the hill. Parked next to her sedan was Janet’s car. The front seat was empty, the passenger-side door hanging open, and the seat belt bell chiming.

I scratched my head, climbing the steps to the armory. My eyes took a minute to adjust to the dim light inside. Jenilee was on her knees in the light from the door, her bag of pictures spilled out on the floor. She didn’t even notice I was there, she was so busy turning the pictures right side up and laying them on the floor.

A small sound from nearby stopped me before I could ask the question.

I heard Lacy before I saw her. The softest whisper, just a little coo like baby kittens make.

“Oh,” she whispered.

I turned my head and saw her there beside June’s bed. The old coot was propped up on his pillow, his blue eyes fixed on Lacy, who was watching his hands intently. Wrapped around those old hands was a loop of red string, and he was showing her how to make a cat’s cradle.

How in the world can that be?
I thought. How could drunk, dirty old June Jaans be sitting there showing my granddaughter how to make a cat’s cradle, and how could it be that Lacy, who hadn’t said a word to me in two days, was talking to him?

“Oh,” she whispered again as he moved his hands and changed the string.

“Sure enough like magic, ain’t it?” June smiled at her. “See here, this middle part looks like a little kitty’s ears.”

Lacy nodded.

“Sure does, doesn’t it?” June smiled, his teeth surprisingly even and white. I remembered that smile. I remembered a young fella who used to smile like that when he got a home run for our school baseball team.

“Now, look at this. Watch this.” I didn’t hear June’s voice. I heard the boy’s, saw him smile underneath a mop of sandy blond hair. “Looks like a cup and saucer now, see?”

“Oh.” Lacy’s voice wasn’t much more than a breath sprinkled with sound.

“Would you like to learn how to do that?” June smiled at her again, and that long-ago time and place come flooding back to me. I remembered that young blond-headed June Jaans doing parlor tricks in the hall at school, making a little primrose appear out of nowhere, handing it to me, and saying,
It’s just a little trick. Would you like to learn how?

I remembered shaking my head and stepping back, thinking that maybe he was doing some sort of sinful thing. He was new to our school, moved in with his family from New Orleans, where folks said his mama used to sing jazz in nightclubs. They didn’t go to church, and nobody in town was sure what to think.

“Here, lean close now and put this string on your fingers like this,” he said to Lacy.
Here, hold your hand out, now you put the flower here like this,
I remembered. I remembered him touching my hand, talking to me in that strange, foreign-sounding way of his, the words slow, drawn out, with just a dash of his mama’s French accent and a strange rhythm that sounded like the blues music that made people dance in heathen ways I had only heard about.

“See now, move your hand this way,” he said to Lacy, cupping his hands around her small fingers and helping her twist the thread into a basket. “Now spread your fingers out like this. There, that’s it, and the thread goes this way, and that way. See? Like weaving a blanket.”

Lacy looked at him, a spark in her eyes.

June nodded, tipping his head to look at her face, hidden under a shield of dark hair. “There, now, see you got a little bit of a smile under there, after all.”

I remembered him saying that to my sister, Ivy. Little Ivy, who looked so much like Lacy, they could have been twins. Ivy Grace. So plain and shy with her dark hair and big gray eyes always looking up so that there was a rim of white around the bottom. She moved through the world quietly, soft like a shadow, so that most people never really noticed she was there.

I always wondered why June Jaans noticed her—why from that first day he come to our school, he picked Ivy out of the crowd. I wondered why he come around and teased her with those little tricks of his, and said things like,
Well, look at that, Ivy’s got a smile in there after all. A real pretty smile, and a nickel behind her ear. Now will ya look at that. . . .

Maybe I was jealous. I suppose I was. But I was also worried for Ivy. June Jaans was popular with the girls. He had a smooth way of talking and a million parlor tricks up his sleeve. I couldn’t figure why he paid attention to Ivy, or why, when he finally asked me to a social, he said we ought to take Ivy along too. I figured he felt sorry for her, so I asked Mama to let her come along.

I never figured anything bad would come of it. . . .

“See, now you got a little magic of your own.” June’s voice was soft. I looked at him, and it was more than I could bear, seeing him with my Lacy, who looked so much like my sister all those years ago.

A sick feeling started in my belly and gurgled hot and sour into my throat. I walked to the bed and took Lacy’s arm, getting her to her feet. I glared at June with fire in my eye. “
Where
is Janet?” I heard the words spit from my mouth like venom. “How in the world could she leave this child here alone like this?”

June opened his mouth mutely, like he didn’t understand what I’d said.

Lacy slumped against me, the string dangling from her hand, all the life gone out of her. Finally she opened her fingers, and the string fell to the bed, a little pool of red against the white sheet.

“Don’t . . . don’t know,” June stammered out finally. “The little girl just wandered in here by herself. I didn’t know who she belonged to.”

“Well, she
belongs
to me,” I said, wishing I would have told him that about Ivy all those years ago.
You can’t have her. She belongs to me. Leave her alone before something bad happens.

“One of your grandchildren?” I heard him ask.

“Cass’s daughter,” I bit out. I wondered how he could look at her and not notice how much she looked like Ivy. Maybe he’d forgotten all about Ivy, but I hadn’t. That long-ago summer still festered in me like an old sore waiting to be scratched open.

He moved his hands back to his chest and pulled his blanket higher, giving me a surprised, hurt look.

I felt guilty, even though I didn’t want to. “She’s had a hard time lately. I better go find Janet and get Lacy home. She needs rest and quiet.”

June breathed a long, slow sigh, a sad sound, like a groaning from somewhere deep inside him. Reaching up, he put the red string in Lacy’s hands. “Here, sweetness, you take this with you. You practice cup and saucer, and sometime later I’ll show you how to go all the way on and make cat’s cradle.”

Lacy didn’t reply, just turned toward the door.

“We got string at home,” I heard myself say. I took Lacy’s hand and led her out of there without taking a look back at June, or saying a word to Jenilee, who was sitting on the floor looking at me with her mouth hanging open.

Janet was coming up the hill outside as I walked Lacy down the steps. She crossed the parking lot quickly, her arms swinging stiffly at her sides. I could tell before she got to us that she was mad.

“What in the
world
are you doing taking Lacy in
there
?” she snapped.

I gritted my teeth. It’s a good thing about old age that your temper gets as dull as all the rest of your wits. Ofttimes, it forgets to wake up, when in the past it would of come claws-out like a wet cat. “I found her inside, sitting there playing cat’s cradle with old June Jaans, of all people.”