Part 12 (2/2)

”Why, Sam, I was worried about Lloyd. I was going to look for him, but you went instead.”

”Yes, but that didn't stop you. You went anyway, and what were you doing with Thurlow that kept you away for so long?”

”Wait a minute!” I said, thoroughly confused by this new tack and more than a little agitated by it. ”Wait just a minute. Is this about Richard Stroud or Thurlow Jones?”

”Take your pick.” He slid out of the car, stood by the door for a moment, then leaned down and said, ”I think we need some thinking time. I'll be staying over at my house for a few days.” And he closed the door and walked off through the backyard toward his house, leaving me sitting alone in the car, dazed by such an unexpected turn of events.

Stunned, I sat watching as he walked around patches of snow, going farther and farther away until he brushed past overgrown forsythia bushes to unlatch the gate that led out of the backyard onto the sidewalk. I watched his black overcoat grow smaller as he continued on his way until he turned a corner and was gone.

A wave of desolation filled the car, almost suffocating in its intensity. My head slumped down to my chest and a ringing in my head blocked out every thought except one: Sam had left me. I wanted to cry, but couldn't. I wanted to scream, but wouldn't-somebody might hear me. I wanted to run after him, beg him, plead with him, but I couldn't move.

And that reminded me of what I'd heard about Lois Iverson when her husband told her he wanted a divorce so he could marry his secretary. Everybody was talking about it-the word was that Lois cried and pleaded and begged him not to do it, finally falling to her knees and throwing her arms around his hairy legs-he'd been in tennis shorts when he made his announcement-and threatening suicide if he left.

Well, he went ahead and left, and she's still alive, but it was the consensus of both the book club and the garden club that none of us would degrade ourselves in such a shameful fas.h.i.+on, and that if she wanted to threaten anything, it should've been murder, not suicide, neither of which would've been carried out, but the threat of the former might've made him stop and think.

Mildred had leaned over to me and said, ”There's not a man alive I'd kill myself over.” Then she'd gotten up and given the report on our last flower show, while I thought admiringly of what Mildred had done when Horace had strayed-she'd given the biggest party the town had ever seen.

And still I sat, feeling the cold seeping in along with the desolation. I was about to freeze but was unable to move as I sat there like a statue in an unheated car. There was a hole in the center of my chest, and what had once been there seemed to be lodged now in my throat. I might never be able to speak again.

I saw Lillian look out the kitchen window, then in a few minutes she opened the door and came to the car, pulling a sweater on as she came. Frowning, she looked in the car window at me, then all around the yard. Finally, she opened the door and slid under the wheel in Sam's seat.

”What's the matter with you?” she demanded. ”What you settin' out here freezin' to death for? Where's Mr. Sam?”

”Gone,” I croaked, loosening whatever it was that had clogged up my throat. ”Oh, Lillian, he's left me.”

”Uh-uh, not Mr. Sam. Where'd he go, anyway?”

”His house. So he could think. For several days, he said. Oh, Lillian, he's so mad at me, and I don't know why. Not exactly, anyway. He may not ever be back.”

Lillian didn't say a word, just sat there watching me sob and thinking over the situation.

Then out it came. ”This is James's fault,” she said, ”and n.o.body else's.”

”James? What's he got to do with it?”

”He always sayin' Mr. Sam b'long in his own house, always sayin' he miss cookin' for him, always tellin' him the house fallin' apart with n.o.body in it. An' all that sorry thing want is to keep his job, so he won't have to go lookin' for another one and have to do some work for a change.”

”Why, Lillian, Sam has no plans to let him go. How in the world would what James thinks make Sam leave me?”

”'Cause he there! You think any man leave a good home if he don't have no place to go? No, ma'am, they always have somewhere to go 'fore they up and leave. An' that's what James been doin', always sayin' how he miss havin' life in the house. I bet he down there dancin' a jig right now 'cause Mr. Sam back where he b'long.”

”Well, they Lord,” I said, leaning my head back against the headrest. ”You'd think Richard and Thurlow would be enough. Don't tell me I have to put up with James too.”

Chapter 24.

Lillian walked me into the house, where we were met with a silence so unusual that I wondered if everybody else had left me too. I eased into a chair at the table. ”It's so quiet.”

”Yes'm, Mr. Pickens, he gone; the chil'ren still in school; an' the rest of 'em's in there sleepin'. An' 'bout time too-them babies been cryin' an' cryin'. I tell Miss Etta Mae they got the colic an' we oughta give 'em a sugar t.i.t, but she say the doctor don't want'em to have such as that. But a little sugar an' a drop of bourbon never hurt n.o.body.”

I was too done in to worry about giving whiskey to a baby. In fact, if I'd been a drinking woman, I might've had a drop or two myself. As it was, I warmed my hands around a cup of hot chocolate that Lillian had set before me and tried to think what I could do to put things right.

”What am I going to tell Hazel Marie and Lloyd?” I whimpered as Lillian sat at the table, her arms propped in front of her. ”To say nothing of everybody else. How does a woman explain being left high and dry?”

”You don't tell 'em nothin'. Mr. Sam, he always over at his house anyway, doin' whatever he do, an' everybody here so busy takin' care of babies, they won't even notice he gone. An' by the time they do, he be back home, an' James can moan an' groan all he want to.”

”It's more than James, Lillian, although I understand what you're saying. Sam might've thought twice if he'd had only a motel room to go to.” I rubbed my forehead and told her all the ins and outs of my dealings with Richard Stroud, his theft of both money and checks, my sworn statement to Lieutenant Peavey, which he believed but Sam didn't, and having Thurlow Jones thrown in my face as a final straw.

In fact, as I recounted the highlights of the day to her, I got so steamed up that the emptiness in my soul suddenly filled with outrage at the unfairness of it all. ”He didn't even let me explain. I mean I did explain, because he was sitting right there listening to it, but it didn't mean a thing to him. He wouldn't even talk to me, Lillian. Just got out of the car and left.” By that time I was so hot that I took off my coat and began to pace the kitchen floor. ”Let me tell you something. Wesley Lloyd Springer thought he could treat me like a doormat and, well, actually he did. But I've turned the tables on him if he but knew it. When I look back, Lillian, I can hardly believe what I put up with with that man. I don't know another woman who would've tolerated being treated as if she weren't worth noticing, much less listened to or talked to or even looked at. And when I found out what he'd been doing all those years, I promised myself I'd never let a man treat me like that again.”

I stopped and waited for her to respond, expecting to be told I should calm down and wait docilely until Sam worked out his problem and came home.

”Well,” she finally said, heaving herself up from the table, ”maybe it just as well Mr. Sam not here so he don't have to listen to all that. But I think it good you get it all out with jus' me to hear. Mr. Sam, he a fair man, so he'll think it over for a while, an' by that time you be missin' him an' he be missin' you, an' won't n.o.body be mad at n.o.body.”

So I was right. She was telling me to just take it. Just wait and take it. Well, I could do that, but Sam had better not make me wait too long, because I was through being the last one in line.

I spent the rest of the afternoon stewing in our temporary bedroom upstairs while I cleaned out every drawer and shelf I could find. I had to stay busy in order to keep my anger level up, because if I ever sat down and thought about it, that awful desolate feeling would unwoman me again.

When Etta Mae asked at the supper table that evening where Sam was, I couldn't get out a word. But Lillian was quick with an answer. ”That sorry James cook up some chicken an' dumplings'cause he don't want to work outside in the cold, then he make Mr. Sam feel guilty if he don't stay an' eat it.”

”Well, shoo,” Hazel Marie said as she balanced a baby on her shoulder with one hand while eating with the other. ”Looks like he could've invited us too and given Lillian a break.”

”I'm glad he didn't,” Lloyd said. ”I'd rather have my chicken fried, and Lillian fries chicken better than anybody. And if somebody would pa.s.s it, I'd have another piece.”

I'd thought we'd have little to say to one another without Sam there, but the babies and their needs took everybody's attention so that the empty place at the head of the table went almost unnoticed. Except by me, of course, but I was keeping myself at a slow simmer in order to get through the day.

When one baby started screaming-the one who was supposed to be sleeping-Etta Mae dropped a chicken leg on her plate and ran to pick her up. She came back with a red-faced, squalling infant whom Lillian immediately took from her.

”Finish yo' supper, Miss Etta Mae,” she said. ”This here's Lily Mae an' she need some lovin'.” She wrapped the baby tightly, held it close to her ample bosom, and began walking around and through the house until blessed peace descended again.

”She's right, you know,” Etta Mae said to Hazel Marie. ”It's Lily Mae who's the loudest.” She laughed. ”You knew what you were doing when you named her after me and Lillian.”

Later when I was in bed, the anger at the way Sam had treated me began to seep away, and I was left in the loneliest state I'd ever been in. I couldn't get fixed. I couldn't find a comfortable place. I turned first one way, then the other, but the bed was too empty.

In my mental turmoil, I recalled a poem that Tonya Allen had shown me once when the book club met at Mildred's house. I'd thought at the time that it wasn't much of a poem, but Tonya told me that it was written by a j.a.panese lady a long time ago and wasn't supposed to be long and involved. I wished I could remember all of it, but the part I did kept running through my mind: I sleep. . . . I wake. . . .

How wide

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