As Good as True Read online

  “I believe you’re shook up.” He pulled me close to him.

  “Let me go.” I struggled against his grip.

  “We took care of that nigger.” His mocking tone, cool and quiet, sent a shiver down my neck. “That postman.”

  “You said you talked to him.” I knew what my father had said, what the deputy said, but I wanted to hear Ivie’s version.

  His skin was sallow. His features, though thicker, took on his brother’s likeness.

  “We took care of him.” He boasted big and loud. “Walked him through the woods, took in the scenery, showed him how a rope felt around his neck.” The smell of alcohol, sweet and rank, came from his breath.

  “Who is ‘we’?” I needed to know my enemies.

  “Just some friends.”

  “You put your hands on him?” Part of me believed he was exaggerating, trying to make himself look big. The other part of me knew he was capable.

  “Sheriff didn’t seem to think it was a problem.” Ivie smirked, revealing his stained teeth.

  “Why’d you take Elias and get him involved with a mob?” I asked.

  “Why’d you kill him?” He dropped the smirk and widened his eyes.

  “You are crazy,” I said.

  “Yes, I am.” He tightened his grip on my arms.

  I had a sick feeling to think of what they’d done and what Ivie would do to me given the chance. I needed to know if Orlando Washington was safe. The danger was real for him and for me too. I did not have only Nelly to worry about. She would protect Marina, but Ivie had no compulsion to save face or help my children. He’d burn me down and the rest of us too, even if he had to burn with us.

  He put his lips close to my ear and whispered, “How are we supposed to protect our women with some spook walking up, coming inside?”

  “You’re what I need protection from.” I tried to push him off, but he pulled me close against his chest. I felt sick that I had put Mr. Washington in harm’s way, sick that Ivie had me in his grip. I had asked Orlando Washington into my house. I had insisted. I had thought my connection to his mother mattered more than his color and mine, that I could have some influence on helping him and his cause.

  “I see you’re upset.” Ivie held me as if we were dancing.

  “Who else?” I tried to turn away from the stench of his clothes and his breath.

  “Who else what?” he asked.

  “You, Elias, the sheriff. Who else?” If I could find out, I could know better my situation and Mr. Washington’s.

  His jaw clamped tight like a steel trap. He spoke through his teeth. “All you need to worry over is where you’re going day after tomorrow.”

  The peaceful feeling I had standing over Elias had long since disappeared, and in its place, the familiar tug in my chest, as if Elias had not died at all.

  Ivie swayed with me in his arms. He whispered, “Strange, how Elias died on the same night he walked in on you two, the same night he went to tell that coon to stay off his porch and out of his house.”

  “Strange things happen,” I said.

  “Elias didn’t understand you.” He gently took my head in his hands. His face hovered over me and in a quiet voice he said, “He didn’t understand me either. I worked for that bastard as long as I could. Now it’s my turn.”

  “Your mother gave you land. Money.” I pushed against his chest. “You had every chance he did. You fouled it up.”

  He twisted my hair. “You can go to hell.” His voice was low, intense.

  “I’m not leaving because you tell me to,” I said.

  “I could hang you in a tree tonight.” His hot breath fell on my face. His thick hair fell across his forehead.

  “You don’t have the nerve,” I said.

  “You don’t belong here no more.” He shoved me toward the door.

  My shoes slid on the coins and the wet concrete, and I fell. The heel of my hand caught broken glass. Shards covered my stockings.

  “You will get your comeuppance. Marina too.”

  Warm blood flowed out of my hand. I swallowed to keep from yelling in pain.

  “I’m tired of being the grunt.” Glass crunched under his boots. He stood over me where I’d landed.

  “You’ll run this place into the ground.” I pulled myself up, careful not to cut myself again.

  “You’re not as smart as you think you are,” he hissed. He tried to grab me, but I slipped from his reach.

  When Elias beat me, I would submit until it passed, because if I did not, the beating would go on and on. If I gave in, the sooner I could go back to what was good, watching the children, the garden, my work. That was my life, surviving the bad so I could relish the good. But this was not Elias and I had nothing to lose.

  I scratched at his face and left a trail of blood, mine or his, I did not know. I scrambled past him to the open door.

  “Hellcat!” he screamed as he touched his cheek, stunned at the blood.

  I rushed through the rain to the safety of my car and locked the doors.

  “Stay out,” he hollered. His voice penetrated the pounding rain. “Don’t come back.”

  He hit the trunk of my car with his fist. He was still yelling as I drove down the alley to the street. The glass trapped in my stockings scratched at my skin. The wipers screeched against the windshield. I stopped when I was safely away from the store and picked the glass from my stockings. I dropped the shards out the window in the pouring rain.

  I searched my glove box for something to stop the bleeding at the base of my palm. I found a blue silk scarf Marina had given me. When she was twelve, she picked it out herself and paid her own money. She had given it to me for my birthday and I treasured it. I wound it tight around the gash. Whiskers of wine-red blood spread across the silk and I knew it was ruined.

  Maple Street

  The rain stopped as quick as it started. Steam rose from the pavement as I headed east on Oak and turned down Church Street. I wanted to find Marina. Ivie had rattled my nerves, and I wanted my daughter. I drove past the Episcopal church and the Methodist and slowed in front of St. Patrick’s. No one moved about the rectory or on the lawn. All was quiet. Marina’s car was nowhere to be seen.

  I turned on Maple Street, Marina’s street. The sky had a green-and-purple cast like a bruise waiting to erupt. The storms were not over. The wind blew the top branches of the oak trees. I wanted to find her and tell her what her father had done and how he and Ivie had gone after Mr. Washington. She would argue that the postman overstepped his boundaries, and I’d admit to her that I should not have let him in. I’d let her rail at me over that, but then I’d show her the bruises her father had given me and I’d tell her how he tried to press the life out of me.

  The wind blew into the car, but the air was thick with heat and I could not cool off. My hand bled through the scarf. On my dress was a slick of blood, black like the wet pavement outside.

  On Maple Street, the canopy of trees trapped the smells of rain and cut grass. Marina’s car was not in sight. I parked and took the stone path to her porch. Michael’s family came from old money, and only the most magnificent Victorian would do for him and Marina. It was a beautiful house, grand in scale, with stained glass and woodwork that rivaled any church in town.

  I knocked on the door and called her name. No one answered. Lights glowed through the leaded glass. I crossed the porch and looked in the turret windows. The large windowpanes rippled with light, and white roses floated in a crystal bowl on a mahogany table. Inside the large curved windows, the cradle I had used for her and Eli waited for her child. Soon, Marina would sit with her newborn and rock the cradle with her well-heeled foot. She could forget the sadness of her father and me, and no worries, no heat, no dirt or death would reach her then. I wanted her to sit with the baby and be happy, and if Marina had happiness, I could be happy too.

  I walked around to the back of the house and knocked on the kitchen door. “Marina,” I called out.

  “Hello, there,
” a voice chimed from the yard next door. Over the hedge, I saw the pert nose of Peggy Simms. We had been classmates and I had warned Marina not to trust her. She had been an unkind child, one who treated me as if I were dirty and low. I hid my hand and the bloody scarf behind my back.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Peggy said. Her blue eyes studied me. “I thought it was Marina.” Her pink nails flashed in the grim light. “Quite a storm we had there.”

  Her maid, Mabel, swept sticks and leaves from the back steps. The three of us were the same age. I had slipped pennies beneath Papa’s side door to Mabel so she could buy candy from his shelves. But in Elias’s store, she simply nodded at me with her eyes cast down.

  Peggy squinted to get a better look at me. My bloody hand was hidden behind my back, but she could see the ripped stockings and the dust covering my wet dress. Mabel did not look up but kept on sweeping the brick steps. I wanted away from Peggy’s scouring gaze. My eyes felt hollow and dark from no sleep. I wanted to brush my hair, wash my face, and change out of the damp, bloodied dress.

  “Have you seen Marina?” I asked.

  “I saw her this morning. She was a mess, and oh, poor thing, the tears. I thought she might be in labor.” She touched her hair with her pink talons. “She was worried about you. She kept saying, ‘My mother needs me.’ She was so distraught. Bless her heart.” Peggy meant no such thing. She was gathering gossip.

  I stepped away to end the conversation, but she kept on.

  “She’s been fretting over your dealings with that mailman.” Her voice dripped with sweetness. “I told her to be patient, that you must have some history with him. You know his people.” Peggy glanced sideways at Mabel, who pretended not to hear.

  People had said this behind my back, but Peggy was bold to say it to my face. Worse, she had said it to Marina. I understood that Peggy had intended to offend Marina—Your mother grew up in Mounds. Your family is fresh off a boat. Stay in your place. Marina hated people looking down on her, and my past brought her shame.

  I walked toward the iron gate to get away from her.

  Peggy called after me, “You should stay close to your girl now.”

  Her tone raked my skin, and I wondered if her husband had been with Elias and Ivie the night before.

  I waited for Marina on her grand front porch. She wanted prestige from this house. She was ambitious like Elias, wanting people to know what she had and what she was worth. She wanted to belong here, but I felt out of place on her rich street.

  When they bought the house, Marina had carried on about paint colors, if she should use gold or brass for the ormolu or which blue—turquoise or teal—for the lapped siding. I could not help her with the correct colors, but I pulled the best rugs from Papa’s store. I worked in her garden and wrestled the evergreen clematis vine on the veranda and brought her roses back to life. She snipped, “You don’t have to do this. We have a man.”

  The hot wind blew the clematis leaves, and the vine shimmied with light. Marina appeared on the bottom step. She huffed and I hurried to her. She had not changed her clothes. Michael’s shirt blossomed with a wealth of life under it. Her skin was slick with perspiration. She gripped the rail to pull herself up. I reached with my good hand to guide her.

  “Oh, Mother,” she said, matter-of-fact. She waddled to the door, not paying me any attention, and stuck the key in the hole. “What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to see you.”

  She turned the brass key and the lock clicked. “I tried calling you, but you weren’t at home.”

  “Grandpapa called me to come over,” I said.

  “Is he all right?” Her groomed eyebrows knit together. She fumbled getting the key out of the lock. “Don’t tell me he’s sick.”

  “He’s fine.” A lie, considering how worried he was. “He wanted to talk to me.”

  “We needed a suit for Daddy. Aunt Louise answered and said you were gone, so she and Grandmother brought one to the funeral home.” She was out of breath as she stepped inside. “I went to the men’s store and got a new shirt and tie.” She looked at herself in the mirror by her front door. “Would you look at me? I’ve been all over town like this.”

  I knew that was hard for Marina to do. She took great stock in how she looked, wishing she was blonde and blue-eyed, often saying sarcastically, “I’m an exotic beauty,” but knowing full well people liked to look at her for that very reason.

  I stood on the threshold and the cool air of the house flooded over my skin.

  “Well, come in.” She turned her keen eyes on me.

  I stepped inside and could smell myself, sour from the rain and the sweat on the wet gabardine.

  “Who has seen you like that?” The circles under her eyes were dark, like my own.

  “Your neighbor Peggy.” I was a crumpled mess—no makeup, my hair in knots, the dress wet and dark with blood. Traces of dust remained where I had hit the storeroom floor. There was a large run in my stockings and little pricks of blood along my leg. I tried to smooth the skirt of my dress and run the fingers of my good hand through my tangled hair.

  “You look like you’ve been to war.” Her gaze burned my skin. Her eyes landed on the dark spot of the skirt. She touched it and red stained her finger. “Is that blood?” She raised an eyebrow. “Your dress is ruined.” If she knew what Papa had said or what Nelly accused me of, she would never forgive it. She unwrapped the bloody scarf. “That’s more than a cut. Come into the kitchen.” She supported the small of her back. Her fingers were the size of sausages and ruddy too. If she swelled any more, her rings would have to be cut off.

  I followed her around the baby grand Michael had given her for a wedding present, past the staircase and the stained-glass windows of weeping willows, into the large dining room with its crystal chandelier. The rooms held her scent, a distinct mixture of soap and coffee, bread and vanilla, the same as it had been when she was a baby—her scalp, her warm breath, the same as her wedding day when I leaned near her face to pin the veil in her dark locks. I could almost smell milk on the baby’s breath.

  If she would have me, I would serve her, live quietly in the attic rooms and care for the baby. I could be the night nurse, the baby’s grandmother, nothing more. I could care for the house, the garden. I could bake her daily bread and cook for them. I could do anything so long as I did not have to leave them. I breathed deeply as she pulled me into the kitchen at the back of the house.

  “What happened to your hand?” Her face was dark with concern. “Did that man bother you?” She meant Orlando Washington.

  “No, no.” I should have told her then, Ivie had done this, and then shown her the bruises her father had left. But I could not. I could not upset her in her state, and I wanted to protect her from the shame of it all. She would want to fix it, protect me from Ivie, and then he and Nelly would spew their accusations. Being face to face with her, I feared her knowing the truth. I could not burden her with more of it. She had lost her father, and she was going to give birth any moment. I could not tell her that Orlando Washington had been inside my house or that Nelly and Ivie accused me of her father’s death. I needed to prepare myself for her reaction and what I should say. “I slipped on some broken glass.”

  She shook her head in disbelief.

  Beneath the rolled hem of her pants, her ankles and calves looked unnaturally swollen. With each step, she let out a whispered moan.

  “Sit down.” I touched her belly. It was hard like a melon. “Are you hurting?”

  “Yes.” Her lips pursed. She pushed my hand off. She was self-reliant to a fault, maybe because of me. I had not coddled her. I never babied her the way I had Eli.

  “How long has your belly been tight?” I asked.

  Her fists clenched the seat of her chair. “It’s not time,” she said. “The doctor said to wait until my water breaks.”

  “What does he know? He’s never had a baby.” If she gave birth, it would distract her from Elias and Nelly. The thought eased t
he pressure in my chest. “I’ll take you to the hospital. Let them check you.”

  “No.” She was as tough as a nutshell. “After the funeral.”

  “You can’t cross your legs and hold it in.” I heard frustration in my voice, and arguing would not help.

  “Don’t be crass,” she said.

  I poured a glass of water for her.

  She drank and then took my hand. She could read people. She knew how to read her father as well as me. Calling “Daddy” when she saw his mood was foul, or if he started in on my mishandling of a customer, or if I’d baked too little or too much. She’d change the subject or play a chirpy song on her piano.

  “Don’t worry about the cut.” I tried to pull away, but she tsked me and held my fingers firm, my palm flexed upward, as if she were an experienced nurse.

  “Tell me what really happened.” Her voice was tender. She had a way of getting what she wanted. She led me to the sink and ran water over the wound.

  It stung like madness. My fingertips turned white. “It’s simple,” I said. “I dropped a glass and I slipped on it. Then I got caught in the storm on my way here.”

  She wrapped a clean dishcloth around my hand. “Hold it tight to stop the bleeding. You need iodine on that.” She waddled out of the kitchen. “When I was little, Daddy called it ‘red medicine.’ Remember?”

  I followed her. My hands reached after her as if she were a toddler taking stairs for the first time.

  She gestured for me to stop. “I’ll just be a minute.”

  The house was still and quiet except for her feet padding across the ceiling. Everything was in order. The walls were crisp yellow and cheerful blue. There was no trace of death or weariness. I slid off the torn stockings, found a dishcloth, and wiped the dots of blood from my legs. I dusted off my dress and tried to make my hair more presentable.

  I wanted to leave behind all the commotion of that day and the night before. I wanted to be close and forget the old injuries I’d given her. I wanted it to be like the day I pinned her veil and she looked at me full of hope. I wanted the baby to come so I could hold it, swaddle it, and hand it to her like the most precious gift. I wanted this mournful dirge to end. But she was taking care of me, and even if her tenderness came from mourning her father, I would take it.