Necessary Lies (28 page)

She called me into the kitchen and put a big bottle of pills next to Nonnie’s little one and her testing pills on the shelf. “Here’s those vitamins I told you about,” she said to me. “Just one a day.”

“I know,” I said.

She left by the kitchen door, and when I went back into the living room, I saw Mrs. Forrester still standing by the door, reading the paper Nurse Ann gave her. Then she stuck it in that case she always carried.

“How are you?” she asked me.

“She said it’s gonna be a Thanksgiving baby,” I said. I knew that wasn’t what she’d said but I couldn’t remember her exact words and I liked how “Thanksgiving baby” sounded.

Mary Ella was rocking Baby William in the rocker and he was babbling his words that wasn’t really words. “This is a happy day,” she said.

“Lord.” Nonnie put her head in her hands. “She thinks this is a happy day! I’m living with two imbeciles, Mrs. Forrester. Lord, help me, please. Three of ’em, you count Baby William. And now a fourth coming.”

“It’s my dream,” said Mary Ella.

“No more school for me,” I said to Mrs. Forrester, hoping she might have some way to fix that. I knew she had the only clear-thinking brain in the house.

She nodded. “I’ll talk to them,” she said. “Maybe there’s a way you can continue your schoolwork from home.”

“Ain’t no way,” Nonnie said, like Mrs. Forrester was stupid.

My knees was still jittery, and I sat down on the sofa, as far from Nonnie as I could get.

“This is my dream,” Mary Ella said again, and Mrs. Forrester looked at her.

“What’s your dream, Mary Ella?” she asked.

“Me and Ivy having babies together. I dreamed about it and now it’s a dream come true.”

Mrs. Forrester went in the kitchen and brung out one of the chairs and put it right next to Mary Ella’s rocking chair. She rubbed her hand over Baby William’s back. “It’s really not good to have babies when you’re not married, though,” she said. “Too hard to do it on your own.”

“Now, that’s the first true thing anybody’s said in this house today,” Nonnie said.

“I know,” Mary Ella said. “I didn’t mean we should have a lot of babies right
now.
When we’re married we can. I want five. Baby William and four more.”

“Is there someone you wish you could marry, Mary Ella?” Mrs. Forrester was almost whispering to her. I leaned forward to hear because I wanted to know the answer myself, but Mary Ella only rested her cheek on Baby William’s curls.

“Nobody yet,” she said. “But someday I’ll meet the right boy.”

“Five children,” Mrs. Forrester said. “That’s a handful.”

I knew what she was thinking: Mary Ella couldn’t keep a good eye on even one little boy.

“It’s a handful,” I said, “but now that I’ll be out of school, I can help her.”

Mrs. Forrester stood up. “I think I’d better get going,” she said. She looked at me. “I just wanted to make sure Nurse Ann got here to see you today.”

“Well,” I said, “she sure did.” I was afraid of Mrs. Forrester leaving, but I got up and opened the door for her and went out on the porch to watch her walk across the yard to the woods. I wished I could just walk away myself. I didn’t want to go back in the house.

I had the feeling Nonnie wasn’t done with me yet.

31

Jane

I’d parked my car between the woods and the tobacco field, and now I sat behind the steering wheel in the heat, rereading the form Ann had handed me to go with the petition. I’d type it up when I got back to the office. It was time to send the petition to the board. I couldn’t put it off any longer.

I looked toward the fields where the Jordan boys were helping Henry Allen with the mule. So, Mary Ella wanted five children, I thought, remembering her happiness over Ivy’s pregnancy. It was her dream and she had no idea it was impossible. Maybe it was right to prevent her from having more, but it wasn’t right that she had that dream. I didn’t care if she was deemed feebleminded. I didn’t care.

I felt angry as I turned the key in the ignition. I wouldn’t deceive these girls I’d come to care about. I’d hope and pray the board would turn down Ivy’s petition, but if they didn’t I would tell her. And I was going to tell Mary Ella as well. If she was capable of understanding that she could have those five children, then she was capable of understanding that she couldn’t.

32

Jane

33

Ivy

Three days passed since Nurse Ann was here, and Nonnie hadn’t spoke one word to me. The only time she looked at me it was like she wanted to shoot me dead, so I tried my best to stay out of her way. When me and Mary Ella got back from the barn today, though, all of a sudden Nonnie started screaming at me. I’d ruined her life, she yelled. I’d ruined everybody’s life. She wanted to know who the boy was, and when I wouldn’t say, she yelled, “Well, he better be white, that’s all I can say!” We got into a shouting match so loud it made Baby William scream his head off and Mary Ella start to cry. All of a sudden, in the middle of a sentence, Nonnie ran out the back door. Was she going out there to cool off? I hoped so.

“I never seen her so mad,” Mary Ella said. She stood in a corner of the living room like she was trying to hide from all the noise, hugging Baby William to herself.

“I know,” I said, though I
had
seen her that mad once before—when Mary Ella turned up pregnant three years ago.

Mary Ella walked over to the rocker and sat down, Baby William in her lap. I flopped down on the sofa, trying to cool off after all the hollering. My baby was doing somersaults inside me and ever since Nurse Ann said she could feel it up in there I worried about it falling out, so I tried to sit as much as I could when I wasn’t at the barn.

“There’s Mrs. Forrester again.” Mary Ella pointed through the front door and I stood up to see her walking toward the house.

“Today ain’t her day for Avery,” I said. That was usually when she’d stop by. Either way, I was glad to see her. I started walking to the door when all of a sudden Nonnie came rushing at me from the kitchen, carrying a switch, and I knew she hadn’t gone outside to cool off at all. She just went to find something worse than her cane to hit me with.

I ran behind the one big chair in the room. “Mrs. Forrester’s coming!” I pointed to the door. “Don’t hit me!”

“I don’t care if Jesus Christ hisself is coming!” Nonnie yelled at me, waving the switch through the air. She couldn’t reach me and I kept the chair between me and her.

“Don’t hit her, Nonnie!” Mary Ella shouted from her chair. She was covering poor Baby William’s ears with her hands.

“What’s going on here?” Mrs. Forrester stood in the doorway and I saw what she was seeing: a house full of crazy people.

“This child needs a whupping!” Nonnie said.

“That won’t change anything.” Mrs. Forrester said exactly what I’d been thinking. A whupping might work if you stole a biscuit off somebody else’s plate, but it wasn’t gonna change me having a baby.

“Don’t matter.” Nonnie sliced the switch through the air, hitting the seat of the chair with a whack, and I sure was glad I wasn’t sitting there. “She needs it for what she’s done. How am I gonna feed another child?” Her voice cracked like she was about to cry, and I suddenly knew she was more scared than mad. I felt sorry for being the cause.

“Mrs. Forrester will give us more money, won’t you?” I looked at Mrs. Forrester. Every baby meant more money. Not much, but everybody knew they wouldn’t let a new baby starve.

“Please, Mrs. Hart.” Mrs. Forrester walked into the room. I thought she was awful brave to do that. “Please put that stick down,” she said. “Hitting her won’t solve anything.”

“Why are you here?” Nonnie asked.

“I need to talk to Mary Ella about something.”

“Me?” Mary Ella sounded surprised.

“What about?” Nonnie asked. She was still holding the switch and I wasn’t moving from behind the chair.

“I want to talk to her in private,” Mrs. Forrester said. “Mary Ella, can you come outside with me for a few minutes?”

“Okay.” Mary Ella put Baby William on the floor and stood up. Baby William stuck his thumb in his mouth and sat down right where she put him.

Nonnie looked suspicious. “She’s a minor child,” she said. “I should be there.”

“I can speak to her privately.”

“What do you want to say to her?” Nonnie looked like she wanted to take the switch to Mrs. Forrester now, and I was glad she wasn’t looking at me no more.

“It’s between Mary Ella and me,” Mrs. Forrester said. “But please hand me the stick first.” She reached her hand toward Nonnie, who gave up so easy I felt bad for her. She didn’t hand the stick to Mrs. Forrester, though. Just put it on the floor, then looked at me.

“Go change that boy,” she said, pointing at Baby William. “He’s stinkin’ up the house.”

Mrs. Forrester put her arm around Mary Ella and turned her toward the door. “Let’s sit outside,” she said. Mary Ella looked over at me and smiled. She liked Mrs. Forrester. She liked her paying attention to her. I wished she was talking to me instead, like usual. I was jealous.

I didn’t smell nothing coming from Baby William’s diaper, but I was glad to get out of the room. I shut the door of the bedroom as far as it would go and dropped Baby William onto the bed. He was tired out from all the fuss and just laid there with his thumb in his mouth. I got a diaper from the dresser and was taking the old one off him when I heard Mrs. Forrester’s voice coming in the window right next to me.