Cruel Harvest (11 page)

“I am raising two of my grandchildren,” he told me. “My youngest daughter, Sharon, was killed by a hit-and-run driver when her two kids were still babies. When she died, my wife and I adopted her two children.”

Jimmy went on to list nieces, nephews, and a sister-in-law who I never knew I had. With each family member he mentioned to me, I felt another little piece of me slipping back into place. Hearing the happiness in his voice and the matter-of-fact way he gave me their phone numbers, I knew for sure how glad he was to hear from me. I had never known the warmth of a large family before, and I was filled with gratitude that God had put my nephew in front of that television on that particular night at that exact minute.

“When can we set up a time to meet?” I blurted out.

I was incredibly excited by the thought of seeing him in person, but it was tempered when I heard the tone to his voice.

“Sure, but my work schedule is busy for the next month or two. Maybe we can get together after that.”

I could not leave it at that, not after the reaction I had received from Robbie. I knew something was not right.

“Jimmy, do you not want to see me?” I asked, afraid of the answer.

“Sure I do, Frances,” he said, and he sounded like he meant it. “But I want to look nice when I see you for the first time after all these years.”

“What do you mean? I don't care what you look like, Jimmy.”

I couldn't really understand. I thought he wanted to buy a new suit or something like that. He sounded so sheepish when he continued.

“I'd like to have some teeth in my mouth when I meet you.”

“What happened to your teeth?”

“Well . . .” He chuckled. “I fell asleep in front of the TV one night after working all day. My dog was lying beside me, and my false teeth fell out of my mouth. My dog got hold of 'em and chewed 'em up before I could get 'em away from him. My dog ate my teeth!”

I laughed along with my brother as he described chasing the dog through the house, trying to recover his false teeth.

“Jimmy,” I said, “I don't care what you look like. I just want to see you again. I won't even look at your mouth, I promise.”

“Frances, I really want to wait for my teeth. It won't be long. Danny, my oldest son, has all the numbers for your nieces and nephews. I've already told him to give them to you.” Jimmy gave me Danny's phone number and told me to call him. “You'll like Danny,” he assured me.

I tried hard, but Jimmy would not budge. We ended our talk with no plans to meet until he got his new teeth. He promised to call me just as soon as he got them. I resolved to wait and see my brother. It had been so long already, I could handle a few more months. But God had other plans!

I called Danny right away. At the start of our conversation, my nephew mentioned that he and his dad worked together laying commercial tile. Casually, he told me where they were working that week.

“We'll be at Mary Black Memorial Hospital in Spartanburg all this week. That's where we'll be in the morning.”

Wow! I was unable to speak. There was a long silence on the line. Danny thought I'd hung up.

“Are you there, Aunt Frances?”

Being called
Aunt Frances
jarred me back to reality.

“Yes, I am still here. You're not going to believe this—I can hardly believe it myself—but I am scheduled to visit Mary Black Hospital tomorrow. I am praying for a woman who is having surgery in the morning.”

“What floor are you going to be on?” he asked.

“Fourth.”

Danny whispered as if he was in awe. “We are working on the fourth floor tomorrow morning.”

That's when I knew for certain this meeting was going to happen much sooner than Jimmy thought. My face burst into a smile of pure delight. I knew that this meeting was
meant
to happen. God wasn't going to let some chewed-up false teeth keep me away from my brother.

Chapter 9
A New Life

When I arrived
the next morning at Mary Black Hospital, I did not hesitate. I walked through the beams of sunshine crossing the lobby and right to the front desk.

“Excuse me, can you please tell me where the workers might be?” I asked.

“Workers?” The receptionist raised her eyebrow.

“The men laying tile.”

“Oh,” she said. “They are on the fourth floor. Take the elevator down the hall.”

“Thank you.”

Wayne had already found the elevators. He waved me over, and I jumped on the first carriage with excitement. I could hardly contain myself the short ride up. When the door opened, I saw long strips of plastic hanging across both sides of the hallway. Most of the rooms near the elevator looked empty. The normal sounds of the hospital were muffled; an eerie but not unpleasant silence hung in the air. Even considering all the protective covering, dust floated in the air, flashing as it passed in and out of the light. A sign sat in front of the closest flap of plastic reading Construction: Do Not Enter.

I glanced once at Wayne, who shrugged. I pushed through the plastic.

“Jimmy!” I called out. “Jimmy!”

Wayne turned his head and tried to pretend he didn't know me. I kept yelling my brother's name anyway. I was sure it would be hard to recognize him after nearly forty years, so the only way I knew to find him was to make so much noise that he would have to come out. Either security would usher me out of the building, or my brother would appear to rescue me.

I walked down the hall, my head swiveling left and right. Several men poked their heads out to see what the commotion was about. When they saw me, they used their thumbs to point out that Jimmy was farther up the hallway. Then they ducked back in for cover, as though they thought I was crazy. Nobody wanted anything to do with a lady yelling up and down the hallways of a hospital.

I could not help myself. I felt deep inside that I was meant to see my brother that day. I kept shouting, and workers kept ducking back in for cover until finally I reached another area blocked off by plastic. Just as Jimmy's name left my lips, the plastic parted and a man walked out into the light. He was tall, about six feet two inches, with a thickly muscled frame and a strong handsome face. The shock of thick black hair atop his head was dappled by gray at the temples. Right away, I saw my mother in his face.

“I'm Jimmy,” he said in a quiet, deep voice.

“I'm Frances!” I blurted out, the emotions inside of me erupting like lava. I ran the few feet between us and wrapped my arms around him. He hugged me back as though we had never been apart. All the lost years vanished, and we were kids again as we had been at Uncle Mose's house.

Both of us were crying. His returning hug was a long-awaited dream coming true. When we finally parted, and I looked at Wayne, he was crying and laughing at the same time. That's when I felt another piece of my heart snapping back into place. Another part of my family had returned.

At that point, a heavily built very tall young man stepped out into the hallway. He looked like Hoss Cartwright on the old
Bonanza
television show.

“This is Danny, your nephew.”

I tried to wrap my arms around him, but they only got about halfway across. He was smiling from ear to ear.

“Hi, Aunt Frances.” He had a rough, deep voice that sounded as though he was trying to keep from crying himself. He looked at his dad, then over at me. “I'm happy to meet you at last.”

Those words were gold to me. I wrapped them around my heart, vowing never to let them go.

“We can't talk here,” Jimmy said. “I'll find us a place to sit.”

Like the perfect gentleman, he led us to a waiting room on one of the floors below. He offered me a seat on a small loveseat. My heart filled even more when he chose to sit down right beside me. We talked, the words coming as easily as breathing. My brother's mild manner told me he was more like Mama. Eventually, the conversation came around to Daddy.

“After he got arrested,” I said, “we moved to Aunt Tessie's house.”

“I didn't know her,” he said.

I looked him in the eye. “You wouldn't have wanted to know her, Jimmy.”

“Why's that?” he asked.

So I answered him.

After Daddy was
taken away to prison, we lived in the bus with Mama. In my eyes, the salvage yard became a huge playground filled with wonderful places for hide-and-seek and cars that drove all the way to England in our imaginations. Daddy was gone, and even though we were living in an old bus and had no money to speak of and very little food, I was with Mama and I was happy.

Trouble was not far off, though. Soon a group of state workers arrived. Several men and women wearing suits and carrying clipboards came and looked around the bus, asking mama a lot of questions. After that, the newspaper reporters showed up. Flashbulbs burst all around me as they took pictures of the inside of the bus and our living conditions. They took pictures of the cardboard we slept on with the dirty clothes and the orange crate where Mama cooked. Every inch of our space filled with people I did not know. I flinched away as flashbulbs went off in my face. Whispered words carried on the air:
wretched
and
deplorable
. It struck me in that moment, watching strangers peering at our home, how truly different we were. I wished they would all just go away. I crawled up under the bus and hid in the dirt until they left. The pictures ended up plastered on the front page of the local newspaper.

After a day or two, the news media left us alone and we were allowed to play again and live in peace. Nellie, Robbie, and I raced through the junkyard. Mama gave us the leeway to roam free. In the evenings Mrs. Johnson came by with food: home-cooked biscuits and a chicken, maybe a stew or casserole. She also brought information for Mama. She was Mama's link to the outside world.

“He's being held until the trial, so don't worry. I did hear the state is close to finishing up their investigation. I think they may be coming soon,” I heard her say.

I guess I did not understand what Mrs. Johnson meant. I sensed Mama was worried, but our nights were not filled with Daddy's bellowing rage and violence. In time, even Mama seemed to relax. I imagined this would be my life, and I did not mind the thought.

Everything changed early
one morning. Police officers showed up at the bus and ushered me and the other children into the back of a cruiser. I thought we had done something really bad, that they were there to take us to prison just as they'd taken Daddy. When I saw one of the men holding Mama by the shoulder and speaking to her quietly, I knew she was not coming with us. Her mouth moved, and although she was too far away for me to hear, I knew she was begging the officers not to take her children. But the car door shut, and we were driven away. I lurched around in my seat and tried to see Mama through the cloud of dust left by the cruiser's wheels. All I could see, though, was Mama's shape, sobbing in front of a swatch of yellow.

I cried most of that trip. It was not until we reached our destination, the juvenile detention hall, and found Brenda waiting for us, that I finally let down my guard a little and realized that this new place was not the horror I imagined it to be. The five of us were housed together in one large room. There was a bed for each of us with a real mattress, though we spent most nights squeezed together on Brenda's bed. Having her back was like finding a warm, safe cave in a storm, and I clung to her for dear life. All I could think about was getting back to Mama. I was afraid of the loud noises and clanging steel doors that opened and closed, keeping everyone in.

I did not fully understand it at the time, but we were in the same facility where they kept runaways and other troubled teenagers. It was the Phoenix Detention Hall. We were segregated from the other children. We ate together as a family but sat at a table removed from the others. The room we shared during the day was isolated from the other inmates. It felt like a cage, but I am sure it kept us safe and out of reach of anyone who might want to hurt us. I learned later that they did not know what to do with us, so we were sent to the detention center; they were doing the best they could for us. But I was still afraid.

While we were there, Mama came to visit every day. She would sit down with us and tell us what was going on.

“They are holding on to you just until I can earn a little bit of money,” she reassured us. “I got a job picking cotton. Shouldn't be long now until I can afford the bus tickets. We are going to South Carolina to stay with my sister. Your Aunt Tessie has already told me we can live with her, and we will have a nice life there. It won't be much longer that we'll be apart, I promise.”

After she left, we sat huddled together at the long table and talked.

“She'll be back real soon,” Brenda said, speaking to us all. “Things are going to be great once we get back to South Carolina. Just remember how good things were when we stayed at Uncle Mose's house.”

“I'm going to Hollywood,” Susie said. “I'll be an actress and travel all across the world and be famous.”