Four
The harsh jangling of the telephone brought us both to our feet. Blanche reached the phone in the hallway first, but I took it from her before she could speak.
“Hello?” My voice cracked a little.
“Miz Beckworth?” It was Patrice.
“Hey, Sugar. You worried about your mama? I shoulda called you a long time ago and I just forgot.” I forced cheer into my voice and rushed on before she could respond. “Blanche isn’t feeling too well, honey. I’m just gonna put her in the guest room and have her stay the night. You’re all right there, aren’t you? Can you get the others fed okay? How old are you now? Sixteen, isn’t it?”
“Yes’m, I’ll be seventeen next month. And we done had supper, but… Is Mama okay?”
“She’s just feelin’ a little poorly, but she’ll be fine. I think she ate something that didn’t agree with her.”
“Is Grace all right there, too? Do you want me to come get her?”
“No, that’s okay. She’s already asleep, so she’ll stay here, too.”
“I didn’t mean for her to stay the whole day over there. She drew Mama a picture at school and was just set on takin’ it straight to her. I thought Mama’d send her right on back home and I’ve kinda been worried about her. I hope she hasn’t been botherin’ you.”
“Lord, child, Grace is no bother. Don’t you worry a bit. Your mama will call you tomorrow mornin’ to check on y’all, okay?”
“I don’t know, Miz Ora. I really think I oughta talk to Mama about it. Can she come to the phone?”
“Well,” I hesitated, “not right this minute, but I can have her call you in a little bit if it’s not too urgent.” Blanche reached for the phone and I turned away tugging the receiver close to my ear.
“Well...I just need to know what she wants me to do. You sure she’s okay?”
I could hear the concern in her voice. It bordered on panic.
“She’s fine, Patrice. I’ll have her call you. Bye!”
I hung up before she could say another word. That was not one of my finer performances I’m sure, but I didn’t want Blanche to talk to anyone until we’d had a chance to talk about Grace.
“I cain’t leave my children overnight, Miz Ora.”
“Patrice is no child, Blanche.”
“I ain’t never left ‘em alone all night.”
“I’m well aware of that,” I said. “Tell you the truth, I don’t know how you’ve done half the things you’ve done by yourself since Luther died.”
“It’s been six years now, I’m ‘bout used to it. And Patrice helps me.”
“What do you reckon Luther’d want you to do about this thing with Grace?”
Blanche squared her shoulders and sucked in a long breath.
“Luther woulda landed hisself in jail or worse over ‘this thing’. I never thought I’d say it, but it’s prolly good he ain’t here to deal with it now. The way I see it, they ain’t a thing we can do that wouldn’t make it worse than it already is.”
“Not even calling the police?”
“Huh,” Blanche grunted. “Especially not callin’ the police.”
“You can’t believe that, Blanche.”
“It ain’t the same for you, Miz Ora. You jes’ go’n have to trust me on this one.”
Part of me knew she was dead right, but it wasn’t something I wanted to admit. Not to her, anyway.
“Surely we’re not still living in that kind of world…” I trailed off helplessly.
“What kind of world is that, Miz Ora? What do you think would happen to my girl - hell, to my whole family - if we went to the police with this?"
I opened my mouth to answer, but she went on.
"I'll tell you what would happen. They'd take my baby down to the hospital and they'd do their jobs, but they ain't no way she'd understand. She'd just feel like they was doin' things to her all over again. Meanwhile -“
“Blanche.”
“Meanwhile,” she nearly shouted over me, “they'd act like she couldn't hear a word they said, but she'd hear all right. She'd hear them call her a liar, even if they didn't actually use that word. And they'd make her feel dirty, 'cause they think she's dirty."
"Blanche, no..."
"Then the police would come askin' questions she couldn't answer. They'd do they damnedest to trip her up and it would! By the time they got done with her, she’d be doubtin' she was even my baby."
"But, I won't let that happen, Blanche. I wouldn't leave your side for a minute. I know Chief Kornegay! He would never let them get away with…"
"Chief Kornegay?! That just shows how much you don’t know. It was Ralph Kornegay's son did this to Grace. He raped her, Miz Ora! He full out raped my baby and then he laughed in her face!"
"Oh, sweet Jesus," I moaned and turned away from her. I couldn’t seem to breathe. I clutched at the front of my blouse, but my hands were trembling and the fabric slipped from my fingers. Blanche went on.
"And what if somebody did believe her? What if they did send that boy to jail for what he did? He's still in high school. Worst that would happen to him is goin' to reform school and what good would that do? What do you think would happen to Gracie at school then? They would torment her, that's what would happen."
I covered my ears with both hands and turned toward the living room.
"Okay, Blanche, okay. I understand..."
"No, you don't understand, Miz Ora! You don’t understand at all. It wouldn't just be hard on her. It would never be safe for her again. Sooner or later, somebody would want revenge, if not before that boy got out, for sho' after he got out. I ain't puttin' her through it, do you hear me? I ain't!"
"I hear you, Blanche," I said. "I hear you, and Lord help me, you’re probably right, but we can't just let it go. If he did this to Gracie, he'd do it to any child. We have to do something. We can't just sit here and do nothing."
Blanche put her hands on her hips and looked at me like I didn't have good sense.
“I need time to think, Miz Ora. Until then, nothin’ is exactly what we go’n do.”
I woke up early the next morning. Truth is, I barely slept at all. I peeked into the guest room at six a.m. and Blanche was sleeping soundly with her arms wrapped tightly around her youngest child.
I went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. I put some bacon in a cast iron skillet and pulled what was left of yesterday morning's biscuits from the bread basket on the kitchen counter. I decided to fry the biscuits in butter and scramble a few eggs once the bacon was done. I wasn't hungry. I just needed something to do.
A half hour later Blanche came down the hall looking like she'd never gone to bed. Grace was beside her, still half asleep, but Blanche had obviously cleaned her up a bit. Blanche pulled out a dining room chair and deposited the child in it. Grace promptly put her head down on the table and went back to sleep.
"How you feelin'?" I regretted the question as soon as I asked it. Blanche didn't answer.
"Want some coffee? I made some bacon and eggs, too."
"I cain't eat nothin', Miz Ora."
"Yeah, neither could I."
Blanche shuffled over to the coffee pot and poured a cup. She added milk and sugar and stood at the kitchen counter to drink her coffee. She didn't speak for several minutes.
When the silence got too heavy, I reached out and touched her arm.
“Blanche?”
She didn’t look up, and almost whispered when she finally spoke.
“She woke up cryin’ in the middle of the night.”
I thought my heart would shatter right there - just burst into a thousand tiny shards of glass and spill out between my ribs.
“Blanche...”
“I told her it was just a dream,” she said. “Just a really bad dream - that it never happened at all.”
“Dear, Lord…” I whispered.
“And then I prayed He’d forgive me for lyin’ to my baby like that.”
I offered lamely, "We're gonna get through this, Blanche."
"I reckon we are." She didn't sound convinced.
"I want you to do something for me and I won't take no for an answer." Silence.
"I want you to let Grace come here after school for a while. She can ride the bus right down to the corner and you can meet her there every day.”
Blanche brought her coffee to her usual place at the table and sat heavily in her chair. She gave me a look that I took to mean she was going to object. I plowed ahead.
“Now, I know what you’re going to say and I’m telling you, the child won’t be any trouble. It’s just for a couple of hours a day and besides, I could use the company.”
Blanche coughed and stared at her cup.
“I was up all night thinking about this, Blanche. I’m here with you every day. You know my routines and I know yours. Hell, I know what you’re thinking half the time, but I don’t know your children.”
“What’re you talkin’ about, Miz Ora? You know my kids.”
I waved my hands at her.
“Oh, I know little things about them from the stories you tell. I know Marcus is at Fort Bragg now. I know Patrice is your studious child, your rock, the one who holds the family together when you’re gone. I know the twins are boy-crazy and working on giving you gray hair and I know that Grace will never be the same again, but what I don’t know is who she was before this awful thing happened to her and I don’t know why I don’t know.”
I stopped and drew a deep breath. I did know why. I knew exactly why and so did Blanche. It made me sick with grief and shame.
Blanche straightened her back and sat tall in her chair. Her face was set in a way that said her decision was made. I could argue until I was blue in the face and it would not change her answer. In the brief seconds before she spoke I actually felt relieved. It was one thing to recognize myself as a fraud. It was another thing entirely to do something about it. I could console myself with the knowledge that I tried to change it, but the truth was, I was glad that Blanche would refuse my gesture. It somehow made sense that she wouldn’t want my help with Grace.
Blanche stood and looked out the window for a moment.
“I’m keeping Grace out of school for a week or so. I’ll make arrangements to change her bus route when I call the principal about her schoolwork.”
I sat in stunned silence for a moment before I managed a shaky, “Good. Then that’s settled.”
Blanche cleared her empty cup off the table and started in on the dishes. I took my coffee to the front porch.
I had never questioned my benevolence before. I was raised on the Scriptures. I knew what Jesus said about doing “unto the least of these”. Doing a kind thing was part of my nature and wasn’t it a kind thing to allow Blanche’s child to stay with her every day? So why, suddenly, did it seem as if the gift had come from Blanche?
Grace woke up thirty minutes later. She wandered onto the porch with her hair stuck straight out on one side and a crease on her cheek where it had rested on the table. She stared at me for a moment, then climbed into my lap as if she had sat there a hundred times before.
“Mama said to come keep you company.”
I patted her leg and we sat quietly watching the squirrels in the pecan trees until Blanche came to get Grace to take a bath. While she was in the tub, I walked to the JC Penney store downtown and bought a new outfit, complete with shoes and socks, for Grace. I came home to find Grace wrapped in a huge towel, sitting on the bed in the guest room. Blanche was rolling up Grace’s soiled clothing and putting it into a paper sack.
“What are you going to do with those?” I asked. I think part of me still hoped she’d call the police. I couldn’t imagine not reporting such a horrible violation as Gracie had endured.
“I’m not sure,” she replied.
“Don’t wash them yet.” I said, and prepared for the backlash I was sure would come.
“Hadn’t planned on it,” Blanche said.