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  “You wait here, while I talk to the other parties.” The deputy stepped through the broken glass into the store.

  That’s when Eli and Gus drove up. The deputy was out of sight. Eli jumped out of his car and saw me. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Oh, God.” Gus stared at me. “Is that your blood?”

  I shook my head no.

  “Is Lila okay?” Gus lifted Sophie from my arms.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Who did this? Ivie?” Eli tilted my chin to see my neck.

  Sophie’s legs dangled at full weight and her mouth parted against Gus’s shoulder. I was relieved she had not seen or heard any of the commotion.

  I hugged my son. “I am okay. He won’t bother me again.” Now I had proof and witnesses to Ivie’s ill will.

  “We were at the fire and heard the call over the police radio.” Eli looked me over and touched my chin. “He’s going to pay for this.”

  The deputy’s voice carried from inside the store onto the street: “You want me to drop you in the river and put you out of your misery?” His steps crunched through the glass inside the store. He was coming back out.

  Ivie slurred, “One almost killed me and the other nearly poked my eyes out.”

  The deputy exited with Ivie, who had free hands but walked unsteadily, tripping over level ground.

  Eli braced like he would charge Ivie, but I grabbed his sleeve.

  Ivie sat himself in the back of the patrol car.

  Gus took Sophie inside. “I’m going to check on Lila.”

  The officer turned to me. “Do you want to press charges? In a domestic dispute, it will be your word against his.”

  “Of course she’ll press charges.” Eli’s temples throbbed and his face was red.

  The officer ignored my son. “There are extenuating circumstances to consider.”

  Eli barked at the officer. “You mean Orlando Washington? You’re not going to arrest Ivie because she helped Orlando Washington.” Eli leaned close to the officer’s face and raised his hands as if to provoke him.

  “Watch yourself.” The deputy put one hand on Eli’s chest and the other on his weapon.

  “Eli, walk away.” I jerked my son out of the deputy’s reach and Eli slumped toward the damaged storefront. “You can go, sir. Get Ivie out of here.”

  The deputy tipped his hat as if he had been my knight in shining armor. “Don’t worry, ma’am. I’ll take care of him.” I wondered what he would do, beat him or congratulate him.

  The red taillights of the patrol car headed toward Riverton.

  Whatever happened, I hoped Ivie would not bother me again, not with the suspicion of fire hanging over him, not after what the deputy and Lila witnessed. Nelly would drown him first.

  I hurried over to Eli. “It’s going to be okay.”

  Eli’s jaw pulsed. “Look what he did to you, to your house, to Grandpapa’s store.”

  “I’m safe.”

  Eli shook his head. “It’s wrong. The roughnecks rule the world despite the law.” He hit the hood of Lila’s truck.

  I wanted to reassure him. “I’m not going to be run out. I’m here for you and Marina.”

  “You can’t stay here by yourself.” Eli hung his head. He looked tired. “I’ll have to open Dad’s store.”

  “No, you won’t,” I said. “You and Marina will sell it and you’ll go to school. You’re not my caregiver. Not yet.”

  I wanted to say, I struck the match that burned my house, but I could not. I had bought myself another night and another day. I did not know how many days and nights it would take, or if I could ever win my daughter. If those who wanted to punish me thought I’d been served my due, maybe they would leave me alone and I could try.

  I put my arms around my son. “It’s been a hard week. Go upstairs to Gus’s old room and sleep. We’ll figure things out tomorrow.”

  I followed Eli inside, where Gus had swept the broken glass and cut cardboard to cover the door. Gus looked at me, worried. “How are you?”

  “I’m okay,” I said. “How’s Lila?”

  “She’s shaken up, but she’s resting with Sophie.” Gus scratched his beard, which had grown in two days. His eyes were sad. “She’s never fired a gun at anyone, but she loves you. She wasn’t going to let him hurt you.”

  “Let’s get some rest,” I said.

  Gus taped the cardboard over the window. “We can sort this mess later.”

  “We’ll be okay,” I said. “Help me pull out some rugs for a pallet.” Papa’s room was empty, but I could not bring myself to sleep there.

  Gus rolled the rugs out, one on top of the other. He went upstairs to sleep and I changed into a fresh dress and washed my face in the dark. I lay down and listened to the still house and the sounds of the cicadas and frogs.

  I wanted sleep, but my mind would not stop. All my loved ones were under the same roof, except Marina and Eliza Anne, but they were all safe. I would convince Gus and Eli that I could live here. I wanted to make bread in Mama’s oven and work in Papa’s garden and I hoped Marina would accept me living in Mounds. At night, I’d sit on the balcony and look at the river and maybe Papa’s neighbors would see me as my father’s daughter and not as Elias’s wife. Time would tell. If Michael’s warnings came true, if they brought up charges or chased me with burning stakes, I would face what I had to, because there was the chance Marina might come around.

  Across the floor, against the counter, my eye caught sight of Papa’s kashshi, which had been under his bed a few days before. Papa must have moved it. I crossed the store and touched the soft, worn wood of the peddler’s box. A tinker had made it in New York with only an axe and a hoe to plane it and a knife to notch the dovetailed drawers. The dry leather straps had scarred my father’s shoulders. The large compartment held bags of sugar or flour or cloth, whatever was ordered or needed, and across the front the small drawers were labeled in Papa’s handwriting: cinnamon, allspice, cloves, black pepper, buttons, needles, nails, tobacco.

  Why had Papa moved the box? It had been all but empty when I’d searched it for Mama’s picture. I flipped on the light and looked inside one drawer and then another. The old scents remained. Crumbs of cinnamon sticks. Cardamom. Oregano. Vanilla beans. A few stray bone buttons. Then, in a large drawer I remembered having been empty, Mama’s ten silver bracelets, untarnished, shining silver in the dim light. Papa must have polished them. One was engraved with my name and birthdate and one with Gus’s. They slipped on my wrists as if they had been made for me.

  I opened the lid, and down in the deep bottom was a yellowed envelope. Inside it were locks of hair tied with ribbons and labeled in old-fashioned scrawl, not Papa’s or Mama’s smooth hand. The labels said, Vega, Miss Vega, baby Gus, Nicholas, and Matthew. The writing was Thea’s. Mama must have whispered the twins’ names into her ear, and because she knew the depth of Mama’s love, Thea put us all together, Vega and her children, in this simple way. I prayed I had done right trying to help her son.

  At the bottom of the box, the picture of Mama looked back. I brought the frame close to my eyes to study her face and noticed the dark rings under Mama’s eyes. She was beautiful, but not as calm and carefree as I remembered.

  In his worst moments, Elias told me I was ugly and square jawed like my father, but there I was a child, beautiful and innocent. I saw myself in Mama’s eyes. I saw Marina in her too, how similar we all looked, but the expression in Mama’s eyes was complicated. Perhaps, that day when she called me to help her water the fig tree, she sensed a future sadness, as every mother does—but despite the worry, she held me with love and hope and smiled for my father taking the photograph. I recognized the same feeling in myself, for my daughter and son, my brother and Lila, for Sophie, and now Eliza Anne. Looking at my mother’s face, I saw the love I had always wanted. I had always had it, but I had been too distracted by sorrow to see it.

  I was a child then and she never spoke of her fears or
loneliness to me. I wished I could have known Mama better. If she had grown old, I would have known her flaws and weaknesses. I hoped I would have forgiven her those, as I hoped Marina would forgive mine.

  Papa had filled the peddler’s box to give me because he loved me. He understood. I put the picture back in the box and shut the lid. I was unable to look at my mother’s face any longer. I turned off the lights, lay down, and felt my mother’s presence. I was home now. I could try to right the wrongs I had done, now that I was where I belonged. I would give Marina the photograph and hope there was time to make things right. I covered my eyes with my arm and the bracelets jangled.

  I’d give Marina the picture at my father’s funeral, and she would see the hope in my childhood face and recognize herself in my mother’s image. She might see Mama’s worry and her hope and her joy, and I would say, “What you feel for Eliza, I felt for you, but I had trouble showing it.” I would tell her that I had wanted to be good and loving like Mama, and if she gave me a chance, I would prove myself to her.

  If she turned away, I would keep trying. I’d bake bread in my mother’s oven and carry the loaves to her. If she would not see me, I’d leave them on her porch and wait for something in return. One day, I would put these bracelets on Marina’s arm and hope for an embrace that captured the feeling I had holding her child while she slept. That was the moment when love was clear to me, when I had a glimpse of truth, that pain and suffering were the right costs to have paid for my children. That was the moment when redemption was present, and I would wait for that to come again.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to Danielle Marshall, Jodi Warshaw, and everyone at Lake Union for your amazing support of this book. I am extremely grateful to Victoria Sanders, who encouraged me from our first conversation. I offer special thanks to Beneé Knauer and David Downing, both generous editors who gave me keen insights and cheered me on.

  Thank you, William Whitley, for reading so many pages, for your humor and goodwill. I also wish to thank my dear friend Alana Booker, who has been privy from the first conception of this story to its final draft, and all the many friends, teachers, and family who have encouraged me along the way.

  I am also grateful for the works of Alixa Naff (Becoming American: The Early Arab Immigrant Experience) and Philip M. Kayal and Joseph M. Kayal (The Syrian-Lebanese in America), which shed much light on the specific and the collective experiences of the early Arab Americans.

  About the Author

  Photo © 2016 Amy Gibbons

  Cheryl Reid grew up in Decatur, Alabama. She studied art and writing at Agnes Scott College and earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Georgia State University. She lives with her husband and three children in Decatur, Georgia. As Good as True is her first novel.