“It was jest an accident, Miss Tess,” she said. “But he put your mind to rest. You oughta go.”
I pictured myself taking the bus to Ridgeview. Walking down that dirt road past the little houses. Past Adora’s yellow house. I could take her the money for the headstone at the same time. “I’ll go,” I said to Hattie. I glanced toward the foyer and the stairs. “But first I have to get dressed, and I feel like she’s waiting for me up there.” I laughed at myself and she chuckled.
“Want me to go up with you?” She grinned. “Keep her away from you while you put your clothes on?”
I laughed, getting to my feet. “You’re not good for me, Hattie,” I said. “You humor me too much.”
“Well, you good for me, Miss Tess,” she said, her voice suddenly serious. “Don’t let Miss Ruth run you off, ya hear?”
54
I took a cab to the bank and asked the driver to wait for me while I withdrew forty dollars from my personal account, leaving very little left for a move to Charlotte or anywhere else, for that matter. I slipped the envelope with the money into my red handbag, the one I ordinarily saved for dressy occasions and the only one I had now that I’d lost my everyday handbag in the accident. When I got back into the cab and told the driver to take me to Ridgeview, he asked me if I was sure that’s where I wanted to go.
“I’m sure,” I said.
He shrugged and put the cab into gear.
I had him let me off in front of Adora’s house. The day was hot and I was perspiring by the time I got out of the cab. The short sleeves of my dress stuck to my arms, and I knew that unruly black tendrils were curling over my forehead. I walked up to the door, dodging a rusting tricycle on the crumbling sidewalk. In the front window, I spotted one of the red-bordered blue star flags and guessed it was for Del.
Although only the screened door was closed, it was too dark to see inside the house. I knocked on the door frame.
Honor pushed open the screened door and there was no warmth at all in her jade-green eyes, only a look of surprise. She peered behind me, and I guessed she was looking for a car or perhaps for Ruth or Henry.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Jilly spotted me from the living room and ran onto the porch. Gripping her doll in one arm, she wrapped the other around my thighs. I felt touched by her reaction to seeing me. She acted as though we were old friends instead of two strangers who’d shared a five-minute conversation at Ruth’s house. I welcomed her innocence and trust.
“Jilly!” Honor chided her, but I rested my hand on the back of the little girl’s head.
“Hi, little one,” I bent over to say. “How’s your dolly today?”
She let go of me and hugged her doll with both arms, rocking it back and forth. “She’s happy,” she said.
“Oh, that’s wonderful.” I smiled at her, then looked at Honor who stood holding the screened door open with her hip, her arms now crossed at her chest. “May I come in?” I asked. “Just for a moment.”
“Who is it?” Adora asked as she hobbled up behind Honor and peered around her shoulder. “Why, Miss Tess!” She smiled and I felt relieved. “What can we do for you?”
“When Lucy and I had the accident,” I said, more to Adora than Honor, “we were on our way here.”
“Here?” Adora frowned.
“Yes.” I looked from her to Honor. “Lucy and Ruth had collected some money at church to help you get a headstone for Butchie and we were bringing it over. Or at least we planned to bring it over, but Lucy wanted to … run an errand on the other side of the river, and…” My voice trailed off as I pulled the envelope from my handbag. “Anyway, I brought you the money.” I held out the envelope. “I’m sorry it’s taken a while to get it to you.”
“We don’t want your money,” Honor said. I was taken aback by the hostility in her voice. She’d treated me politely at the house after the funeral. I supposed that, at the house, she’d had no choice. Now I was on her turf. I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my cheek and brushed it away with damp fingers.
Adora gave Honor a light swat on her arm. “Act like a good Christian for once in your life,” she said to her daughter.
“No, it’s all right,” I said hastily, not wanting to be the cause of animosity between mother and daughter. “I’ll just leave the envelope with you, Adora, and go.”
Adora looked past me toward the street. “No car?” she asked. “You took the bus?”
“A cab.”
“Oh, that’s better,” she said. “Why don’t you set down here before you go back?” She pointed to the two white rocking chairs on the porch. “Mite bit cooler in the shade.”
Honor gave her mother a look of daggers. “I need to go out,” she said, and without so much as a glance in my direction, she walked past me and down the porch steps.
“Where you going, Mama?” Jilly called after her.
Honor didn’t answer and Adora held the door open with one hand while leaning over to draw her granddaughter to her by the shoulder. “She be back soon, Jilly, don’t fret,” she said.
“I didn’t mean to stir things up,” I said softly.
Adora waved away my comment and limped heavily across the porch to one of the rockers, motioning me to follow her. Jilly sat down on the wood floor of the porch and began talking to her doll, making it dance through the air.
“Honor thought of Miss Lucy as a friend,” Adora said as she sat down. “She don’t feel too kindly toward you, I’m afraid.”
“I’m sure she’s still grieving her son too,” I said, sitting on the second rocker. “She’s had two losses in a row, plus she’s apart from her…” I searched a bit desperately for the right word. Boyfriend? Lover?
“From Del, yes.” Adora saved me. “It’s all been hard on her and you’re right. There’s an empty spot in this house with no Butchie, that’s for sure,” she said. “Like I imagine there is at your house with no Lucy.”
I nodded.
Adora leaned forward in her chair, nearly close enough to reach out and touch me. “I want to tell you somethin’,” she said. “I’m glad Mr. Hank chose you.”
I was surprised. “You are?”
“Uh-huh.” She nodded. “That Violet, she a real pretty thing but she ain’t no good. She don’t feel for other people,” she said. “You do, don’t you? You feel things in your bones.”
“You barely know me,” I said, though she was certainly right about me. My bones ached with all I was feeling these days.
“Oh, I know enough.” Adora brushed a droplet of perspiration from her temple. “Jilly took to you right off. Honor told me how she sat with you at the house after Miss Lucy’s funeral. She only four but she got one of them sixth senses about people, you know what I mean?”