I’m cryin again. If I cry too much more, I think my eyes are gonna fall out. My Daddy says I gotta stop cryin so very much, or he won’t know what to do with me. He just says that so I won’t think he’s wantin to cry too. First my Pappy, then my best friend, then Momma and Lilly gone at the same time, now Buck.
“He was just a pup. We can get another.”
“No, Lilly gave Buck to me for my birthday. She named him. She always names the critters. I don’t think I could come up with a proper name all by my own.” Which Daddy knew meant I didn’t want to talk about it, so he should just hush up. Well, I think he knew that, he just didn’t do it.
Instead, a vein popped out in his neck. “Now, Lavvy, just stop all this. You just go around a cryin and a fussin and I can’t fix it all, so just stop it.” His eyes started to get puffy and wet. “I miss your Momma, and I miss your sister, and I miss my Daddy, and I even miss that useless mutt.” Big tears began to escape out of his eyes. “I didn’t want to move here, I had to for the job.” That job with the train company that Momma had wanted him to take. It was supposed to be a good opportunity. It was also supposed to take some of the hurt from losing Pappy away. “But all we got in the world now is each other and if you don’t stop all these tears, I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it bein the only one who’s strong.” He was blubberin so hard by now that it was hard to make out what he was sayin. “So just stop it already. Stop cryin and feelin so damned sorry for yerself. I didn’t want this to a happen.” Now he broke down into slurred prattle.
I wanted to stop cryin and go hug my Daddy. I wanted to tell him that I was eleven now, old enough to quit being a kid and go work. I wanted to let him that I thought he was the strongest man in the world. But I didn’t. I just sat there, tryin to keep my runnin nose wiped.
After a few minutes, Daddy got quite again. I could still hear him snuffle from time to time, but he was pretty much quieted down. “We’re movin, Lavender. The train company needs some more offices built and track laid out in some other place. I’m volunteerin. But right now, you go to bed. I’ll be back later.” That meant he was going to go find some liquor on a friend’s tab in some bar and bring home some woman who wore too much rogue and demanded money we didn’t have at the end of the night.
That had been the story of our life for these past many months. I stopped countin days.
This was also the fourth move Daddy and me were going to be makin. I knew the truth.
It wasn’t that this place had too many memories; it just had too many people that Daddy had made mad. He had always been like this, I just didn’t know before cause Momma knew how to make a house into a home and how to make hurtful things just part of forgotten nightmares. Since Momma had been gone, the nightmares were starting to become real.
I woke up the next mornin and Daddy wasn’t home.
I wasn’t surprised. While I was cookin me up some eggs I decided not to go to school cause we was gonna be movin soon anyhow. Not like anybody was gonna come make me go.
Around lunch, the next door neighbor, Shelley, came over. She was tall and dark and expecting a child. Her husband worked with my Daddy. They would be movin with the trains too, so she had come over to help me pack. She knew about it before I had and the gang had to move out in the mornin. News for me.
Since it was just the two of us now, there wasn’t much to pack. That night I went over to Shelley’s house for supper. We enjoyed mashed taters and turnips without the men. The day before a move was always busy. So much stuff to bring along. We simply put our boxes marked with our names on the dirt that made a front yard. I slept there so I wouldn’t be lonely, and Shelley was nervous to be alone cause of the baby.
In the mornin, we got on the back car of a train with many other women and children.
Some of the men were there too, though most would catch up with us later. I drew on some scraps of paper on the train and played with some little boy that wouldn’t leave me be. I might have napped, but I don’t remember.
We got to the new town and this time it was a little coal-minin town. I stopped keepin track of where we were when Momma died. There were mountains and a nice stream and of course lots of people dusted black by the dirty work. It seemed everythin was dusted in grays and blacks in that town. Shelley and I decided that our two tiny households would share a lean-to until more permanent homes could be built.
As we were unpackin, I saw a flash. Just a little blur of white in the corner of my eye. It ran away behind me and as I turned I saw it go over the hill nearby away into the trees. I shook my head and decided it was just my imagination playin in a place with all the jitters movin brings.
That night, Shelley and I cooked dinner. Only Ray, Shelley’s husband, came home. I just shrugged it off. “He probably found a bottle of whiskey that seemed better than our dinner and little house.” Shelley made a little sound.
“Oh sugga, don’ go a sayin’ such thins!” Her accent always got worse when she was upset. I think she came from Louisiana or somewhere down there. “You Daddy loves you dear, an he been through too much as late. I’m sure he’s a jus..” She trailed off.
I stopped payin attention anyway. Another little white light shimmered from the corner of my eye. It seemed to run out the window and into the trees.
The next day was rainy. Not much work could get done and everyone was cranky. I expected Daddy to come on home and raise a stink over not getting paid for the day on count of the rain.
Ray came home. Daddy didn’t.
Somethin inside me said I should worry, but I was so relieved over not getting yelled at that day, I just shrugged my shoulders at Ray’s attempt to apologize it away. Shelley had gotten me some paper, so I was a busy writin poem about sunny places and kings and big prancing ponies anyway. Knights in shiny armor. Little girls can dream.
The fourth night, and still no sign of Daddy, I looked Ray right in the eye at the supper table. “Tell the truth. You’ve been dodgin it and I ain’t bothered to ask. So I’m askin. Where’d my Daddy go off to?”
“I don’t know, Lavender. He’s been missing since the day before we left.”
“Nonsense, I saw him just that night.”
“Well, he didn’t come into work, and well…”Shelley stepped in. “Sugga, there was some folks tellin’ ‘bout some bad happenin’s a way up the river from town.”
Up the river. That meant where the bootleggers, drunks, harlots, thieves, and other such people come together and done their dirty business.
“Yeah, there’s always somethin bad happening up that way. Worse thing about that town. Daddy had a hand in it?”
“Well, Sugga, we don’ know for sure. Until we do, why don’ ya’ jus’ stay here wit me and Ray. I’ll need help with the baby soon nough.” At mention of the baby, Ray shifted uncomfortably. He was probably afraid I’d be bad influence on it, seeing as how he never met my Momma, and Daddy was never a shinin example of good folk.
“Yeah, I’ll stay. I’m no fool though, Shelley. I know you just bein nice to me. Daddy has finally up and gone for good or off and got killed. So after the baby comes and I see that you’re doin fine for yourself, I’ll probably light up out of here and find some work in a city somewhere.”
Shelley and Ray just nodded. Satisfied to do right by their human duties to me, still a child, even if I didn’t know it.
Ray did his best to provide for all of us, but havin the third mouth a couple of months early wasn’t helpin. I heard him talkin late one night after I’d gone off to bed.
“Shell, we can’t keep her here after the baby. I’m havin hard enough time keepin up with three mouths and four…”
“I know it, but there ani’t a thin in this world worth it, if not a child.”
“She ani’t our child, an she’s more woman now. If she aims to go, then let her. If not, make her. She stays not a month after the baby.”
After that I took to doing wash and child watching to make extra coin. I bought my own food, and never ate another bite that man ever brought home. He was right. They shouldn’t be saddled with me with a little one on the way. Shelley was two months out, and that was as long as I wanted to be here. Shelley or Ray never talked to me about that night or asked about my getting my own food. I think it hurt Shelley’s feelins, but her stomach hurt worse, and hunger is a mean devil.
It had rained for four days and nights, with no sign of lettin up. Everythin was wet, right down to the soul and bone cold. Shelley made jokes about Moses forgettin to pick us up, and Ray needin to get started on a boat. He probably should as ill as he’s been. Rain meant no work, no work meant no money. We all went to bed early for all the good it did. Tryin to sleep in a puddle under the table was useless.
Late into that restless night, Shelley stumbled across the room and plopped into a chair.
She was pale and sweating and looked to fall over any minute. I jumped up to catch her as she came off the chair, she’d have landed on me anyway. She was burning to the touch and cryin.
“I’m a hurtin’ in a real bad way, Lavvy baby.” That’s what she liked to call me. I didn’t think I liked it, but that didn’t matter at that time.
“What’s wrong? You want me to get Ray?”
“No, let him sleep. Better dreamin than stewin.” She lay half in the floor, half on me, breathing heavy.
“You sick?”“God forbid if ….” She screamed. It was a loud, sharp thing that I never did hear one worse. Like a train whistle from hell itself. I didn’t know what to do, so I sat there, half under this screamin woman, tryin to cover my ears.
Ray came runnin in the room. He ran to Shelley.
“Shelley? Shelley? Stop screaming! Shell?! Girl, go raise the fire so I can see what’s what.”
I crawled out from under the weight, and did as I was told. As the fire jumped, Ray screamed, too. Not very manly, but I followed suit when I saw the blood. A big pool of it coming from where that baby was suppose to come from next month. Ray jumped up and ran outside screamin for help.
I was alone with Shelley.
“What do I do, Shelley? What you need?” She couldn’t answer me. She was a thrashin on the floor, hands on her belly, bleedin from her womanhood, and I stood there silent.
She started to reach for me, so I dropped to my knees and held her hand. It hurt. She kept scratchin and squeezin it. I wondered when Ray was going to get back. I wondered if he knew we didn’t have a doctor in our camp. I didn’t know where a doctor was to be found.
Then I saw them again. Little flashes of light all around. Some of them outside, some of them right next to me. If I tried to look at them head on, they flitted about and hid. So I took another look at Shelley, then I closed my eyes.
Maybe I closed them to pray, or to shut out that look on her face. Whatever the reason, when I did shut them, I felt something queer. It felt like hands. Warm hands touching my back, my hair, my arms, and my hands.
Shelley got real quite and real still.
“I don’ wanna go. I wanna have my baby. I wanna love my Ray. I wanna stay.”
I was afraid to open my eyes. I was afraid to answer. All I heard was the crackle of fire and the rain outside.
Something else, like a song, floated around me. The hands still touched me, but I could feel them moving to Shelley.
“No, please. At least give the baby life.”
Rain.
Fire.
Hands.
“Can I tell Ray?” Shelley didn’t sound like it hurt anymore. She was just cryin softly.
“Okay, then. Bye, Lavvy baby. Take care of Ray now, promise?”
I didn’t answer right away.
“Promise?” It was Shelley, more demanding, more afraid.
“Yes.” I started to cry, but I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t want to have to leave with her.
I thought if I kept my eyes closed, then maybe no one would see me.
Things got quite.
Things got cold.
No more hands and the fire died cold. I thought hours had passed, but it was more than likely just minutes start to done.
“Shell?”
It was Ray.
I opened my eyes. No lights flyin around. No Shelley either.
“Shells? Shell!” He fell onto the floor beside her, nearly on top of me. I obliged by movin to dyin fire. More people came in, some women. They had cloth and herbs and clean water. They just stared at me.
“Shell, I brought help. The old women. They came to help you. See?” He looked up at them. “Come help her.”
They nodded and one shooed him away. He came to stand by me. After a minute, the oldest got up and came to us. “She’s gone. The baby, too. I’m sorry. We’ll ready her for burial, you go rest.”
“What? No, you can’t bury her. She hates small places. She’ll wake up, and if we put her in the ground, she’ll think I left her. No. She’s fine.” Still mumblin this craziness, he picked Shelley up and took her to their bed. He laid her down, and covered her up.
The women left, knowin better than to try to talk to him. When I tried to talk sense to him that mornin, he knocked me to the floor. The blood in my mouth kept it closed after that.
For two more days it went like this. When the rain finally gave way, some men came to talk to Ray and to take Shelley to her grave. I took her silver necklace from the box, and left. I didn’t need to be in that house anymore.
I stayed around camp long enough to hear that Ray had thrown himself down a mineshaft.
I left that place, those people.
I still never found out about my Daddy. I figure, I never will. I figure that it’s best.
Worst is that broke my promise to Shelley. First real promise I made, and I broke it.
Maybe I am like Daddy, maybe I should have just went with Shelley that night. Maybe that would have been for the best, too. I’ll never know.