Bombshells (36 page)

“How’s your foot today?”

“It’s a bit better. I should be able to get back to work next week.”

“I hope so. I sure do miss you.”

“Are you saying that’s why you took the bus all the way here? Because you miss me?”

She’s smiling, so I know she’s teasing. I think she understands that I really need help.
Please, God, let her help me with this mess
.

Taking a deep breath, she leans back and folds her hands in her lap. “Well? What is it, Mellie? Your Mama all right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Y’all gettin’ on with the Mayfields?”

The mention of the Mayfields makes my stomach clench and I curl my knuckles against it without thinking. I glance up at Flossie.

She nods. “Uh-huh. Mayfields brought a problem with them, huh?”

I nod. The words pile up on my tongue, but I can’t seem to open my mouth to let them out. Those words belong in that dark place.

“Let’s see. Miz Mayfield, she’s always got somethin’ to be put out about, but she doesn’t mean anythin’ by it. Now, Missy Brooke is spoiled and too busy with her own self to think about anything else, so I don’t guess it’s her. That leaves Kevin, doesn’t it?”

I nod again. I wait for Flossie to keep talking. Maybe she’ll say the words for me, and I won’t have to. But she just sits there with her eyes closed and hums under her breath.

“It’s Kevin,” I whisper. “He kissed me.”

“Uh-huh. And?”

“He grabbed me. He hurt me.” Hot tears start to flow, burning trails down my cheeks. “He said awful things.” After that the words just tumble out.

With her eyes still closed and the humming wrapping around us, she reaches out and pulls me up against her.

I sob. I shake until I think I’ll shake apart, like a wooden house in a hurricane. Flossie rocks me, humming and patting my back, stroking my hair. She waits and waits, until my sobbing quiets.

FLOSSIE

I put my hands on this poor girl’s cheeks and kiss her forehead. I know she come to my house for help. Before I can give her what she needs, Mellie is going to have to answer some hard questions for me.

“Listen to me, Miz Mellie,” I says. “You got to tell me the truth here. It’s real important that you tell me the whole truth, understand?”

She bites her lip and nods.

“Did you bleed?”

She wrinkles her forehead in confusion. I can tell she don’t know what I’m talking about. A bit of relief comes to me.

Shaking her head, Mellie says, “No. It’s not that time of the month.”

“Did that boy take off your clothes?”

A furious blush covers her face. She drops her gaze to her lap, shakes her head.

I can wait. I can wait as long it takes for to find her words to answer me.

She looks up and whispers, “He ripped my shirt, reached under my bra and pinched me. It hurt.” The tears roll down her cheeks, and I’m on fire with anger at this boy who hurt this sweet girl.

“Sugar.” I cradle her against me and rock her back and forth. “Poor baby. I know. What else?”

“He…he put his hand inside my…”

I hug her harder. I can’t help myself. I put my lips against this sweet girl’s hair. I wish I could make this all go away. But wishin’ don’t make it so.

She sobs. “He said I wanted him to do that. That I liked it.”

I draw back so I can have a look at her. She’s gone pale. Her tears have made shiny streaks on her face.

“I think he would have done more if the phone hadn’t rung. He said he knew what to do because of Robert and Brooke.”

She cries and I rock her. She cries some more and I hum. Outside, the crickets begin to sing. They sound like whispers between the rushing traffic.

“Child, sometimes words cut deeper than any knife.” I stop, clear my throat. “I’m sorry for that. Your bruises are gonna heal and your flesh won’t remember that hurt. But, Honey, your mind is always gonna remember those words, those lies he told you.”

I stand up, easing my weight off my hurt foot. I lift my arms out from my sides. “Look at me, girl.”

Mellie wipes her eyes and looks into my face.

“I’m a colored woman. That’s a fact. But I ain’t a nigger.”

Shock sweeps over Mellie’s face. She can’t believe I’d use that word.

“Don’t be so scandalized, girl. That ugly word is part of life. It’s a part of
my
life. It’s one of the lies of
my
life. I’ve lived with it in my head, had it ringing in my ears sometimes, but I never let it get to my heart. It never changed who I really am. Do you believe that?”

She nods.

“What Kevin said to you is one of the lies of life. It’s become one of the lies of
your
life. People blame others for the ugliness they know is in their own heart. Men who use women like Kevin used you always say the women were sluts, the women asked for it. Ain’t so, though. You know that.”

She nods again. The clouds of shame in her eyes begin to clear. I must be making some sense to the poor girl.

“The thing you gotta know and understand is that Kevin was wrong. You didn’t ask for what he did. You didn’t make him do it. It was inside him. What he did to you can’t change who you are unless you let it. Just like calling me a nigger doesn’t make me one. You understand?”

I watch as she twists her hands together in her lap. She’s got more to tell. I can see it in her face. “What is it, child?”

“Well, in the beginning, when Kevin was just talking to me, I thought to myself, I do want him to kiss me. I wanted to know what it was like. So, he was right. I did want it. Does that make me all those things he said?”

I open my arms and smile at her. “What do you think, child? Come here.” She steps into my embrace. “No, missy. Wanting a kiss from a boy don’t make you bad. It makes you human.” I sigh, thinking about the heartache we peoples cause each other. “Mellie, one day you’ll understand that a woman wants a man and man wants a woman. They want to touch and be touched and when it’s done with love, it is a true wonder.

“You been hurt, in your body and in your soul, but only you can let it change you. Your body gonna heal quick. Them bruises gonna be gone in a day or two. Your soul gonna take longer. You got to be patient and help your soul get better. You got to remember who and what you are. You’re Melanie Adams. You’re a smart girl, a loving girl, a good girl in your soul, Melanie.” I put my hand over my heart. “Right here in your soul.”

“Flossie, how do you know all this?”

I rock her back and forth, wrapped in my arms and pressed against my softness. I’m wishing I could’ve stopped this thing from happening to her. I’m remembering the first time some man thought he could do whatever he wanted to with me. “I reckon most all women had something like this or worse happen to them.”

“Flossie, were you ever married?”

“Nope, never got married.”

She’s studying my face. After a little spell, she says, “But you loved a boy, didn’t you?”

I can’t hold back a sigh. “If you want to hear this story, we best sit down again.”

“What happened?”

“You guessed right, child. I did love a boy. We were gonna get married, but he wanted a better job first. He went over to the big mill and asked for a job. The foreman laughed at him and told him they didn’t hire no niggers.”

I stare at the wall for a long time, seeing those scenes playing over in my mind. Remembering the pain. “He went back to his job at the packing house on the river. The foreman there called him into his office after work that day. He didn’t like his
boys
lookin’ for work nowhere else. The foreman said he always did think my man was uppity and that he needed to be taught a lesson.”

Mellie swallows hard. I know that for the first time in her protected life, she’s learning how cruel people can be. That cruelty isn’t limited to one mean boy. She’s seeing that folks are capable of all kinds of hateful, hurtful, merciless acts against each other.

She says, “That’s enough. You don’t have to tell me anymore.”

I turn and give her a hard look. “I think you need to know, Melanie. There’s a lot of ugliness in life. But like I told you before, it’s up to you whether you let it change you or not. You need to hear this to understand about a lot of things.”

There is a long pause. Mellie studies me for a minute, then nods.

I take a deep breath and tell my story. “That foreman and his men beat my Clyde. They beat him so bad, he bled inside. He died in my arms. Then they came after me.”

She sucks in a breath, her eyes wide. “No.”

“Yes. They kicked me around, too. Said, Who did we think we were, me and Clyde? Always too big for our britches.”

I close my eyes against the remembering. “Thing is, I was expectin’ at the time. I lost the baby.” Big, fat tears run down my cheeks, even after all these years. After all these years, I still cry for my lost baby. “My brother came and got me, and we moved to Jacksonville. Been here ever since.”

“How do you stand it? Why don’t you hate white people?”

I take her hand in mine. “Child, the way I see it, you have two choices in this life. You live or you die. Some people, they’re so filled up with hate and meanness that they die inside. I choose to live. If I’d let those men make me like them—hateful and bitter—they would have won. So I pray every day to learn to love and forgive. Not for them, but for me. So I can live and see some joy, some happiness in this life. So I can enjoy being with good people like you and your little sister and your mama, who loves you both so much.”

She closes her eyes. I move the hair away from her cheeks. “I told you, sugar. It’s all up to you. What are you gonna choose? Are you gonna let this eat you up or are you gonna make yourself a life?”

Mellie smiles at me, understanding shining in her eyes.

“Well, then. Let’s get some milk and cornbread. We need to call your Mama, too. She must be worried sick.”

MELANIE

On the drive home, Daddy and I are both quiet. I don’t suppose either of us knows what to say. I’ve never left home without permission before.

“Why did you go to Flossie’s?” Daddy almost whispers the question, like he’s afraid of the answer.

My eyes burn as I stare at the road ahead of us. Flossie and I had decided that I should tell Mama and Daddy what happened, but I just can’t right then. I can’t. I swallow hard and shrug.

“It’s the Mayfields, right?”

I suck in a sharp breath. Did he guess what happened? I wonder if there’s a mark on me somewhere, but then I remember what Flossie said about that being part of the lie and the hurt: I might feel like everyone could see on the outside what had happened to me. But it’s not true. Nothing shows on the outside of me. I have to remember that.

I’m not marked. I’m not bad. But still, I can’t answer Daddy.

He hits the steering wheel with his fist. “I knew it. This was a bad idea from the beginning. I should have stood up for my family and told Myra Mayfield to find someplace else to stay. I knew from that first night when Kevin threw a tantrum about going to bed that this just wasn’t going to work out.”

He glances over at me, studying my face in the light of the dashboard. “The house is too crowded, isn’t it? I know your mama is going crazy trying to take care of everyone. Well, she just can’t do it.”

He drives in silence for a few miles. “Tomorrow. They have to go tomorrow. That’s it.”

I sigh and lean my head against the cool glass of the car window. I know he’s trying to make things right. “Thanks, Daddy.”

We turn onto Highway 13, and the tires settle into the clickety rhythm of the concrete road. Pine trees loom tall and shadowy beyond the road’s shoulders. The sad call of a peacock, those poor, displaced peacocks who roam around the little creek, wavers through the night. The tires bump over the joints in the narrow bridge.

Daddy clears his throat. “I love you, sweetheart. There’s just been too much happening.” He blows a harsh breath between his lips, and I look over at him. His shoulders slump. “I’m sorry I let you down. Again.”

In the glow of the dashboard lights, I see him chew his lower lip.

It’s true. He did let me down.

It’s true that I’m still furious with him and Aunt Lola. But I think about Flossie praying every day to learn to love and forgive. Right now, it seems like it will be impossible for me to forgive Daddy or Lola. Especially Kevin.

But I’ll try. If Flossie can learn to forgive those horrible men who took so much from her, I can try to learn to forgive Daddy and Lola. I can try to love them again.

But the matter of Kevin is still up in the air. I don’t see how I’ll be able to forgive him. I’ll try, just maybe not tonight.

NORAH

The slamming car doors announce that Clay is back with my daughter. I swing the front door wide open, covering my mouth with my hands as I run toward the car. I can’t wait to hold my baby.