Little Sacrifices (22 page)

I didn’t have any choice. ‘If someone needed to get rid of a baby, where would she go?’

‘Good Lord, are you pregnant!?’

‘No! It’s not me. It’s a friend. I need to find out how to help her.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes, ma’am, I’m sure.’

‘Tsch. Well, it’s bound to happen these days, what with everyone runnin’ wild. Times have changed, they sure have.’ She looked at me. ‘Now I’m not saying it didn’t happen when I was a girl, but it’s more common now, much more common. It’s like children are eating slap–and–tickle for breakfast.’ She chuckled at her own joke. ‘Who is it?’

‘Now, I don’t want to tell you. I know you’ll tell her parents, and they’ll skin her alive. It’s a friend of mine. Best leave the details alone.’

‘And you want to know what to tell her?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘She should be talking to her own ma about this.’

‘She can’t. Her parents’ll kill her, literally. It has to stay a secret.’

‘But someone needs to pay for it.’

‘Pay for what?’

‘Well, whatever it is that needs doing.’

‘How much does it cost?’

She moved to the sofa and sat down heavily. ‘Come here. Let’s back up and I’ll tell you what I know about it.’ She pinched her lip between thumb and forefinger, blowing out loudly. ‘First off, has she tried to get rid of it herself?’

‘Can she do that?’

‘Naw, not really. Those things don’t usually work.’

‘But what would she do if she wanted to try?’

‘Now,
don’t
tell her to do anything like that. In the old days folks believed you could get rid of a baby by getting punched in the stomach or falling down stairs. More likely she’ll just hurt herself and the baby’ll be fine.’

‘What does work?’

‘Nothing that she’s gonna try. Now, I’m telling you, don’t let her be stupid. Getting rid of a baby is no easy matter.’

I remembered a passage in Mirabelle’s diary. ‘What about medicine? Or herbs?’

‘Yes, well, there are herbs.’

‘Which ones?’

‘Cottonroot. Pennyroyal. Motherwort, black cohash. Some say they all work.’

‘Do they, though?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘But not guaranteed?’

‘Nothing’s guaranteed. Some herbs might kill her. Or she might end up with a mongoloid baby.’

‘Aw jeez, what am I gonna... tell her?’

‘Miss, she needs to get herself to a doctor. There’s lots in town who’ll do the procedure. Does she have money?’

‘No, why, how much does it cost?’

‘That I don’t know. But you can bet it’s not cheap. Doctors take a risk, especially these days. They aren’t going to take it for free.’

I felt so ignorant, so dependent. ‘Are there any cheaper doctors, or maybe someone who isn’t quite a doctor? Someone who helps out girls in trouble?’

‘You mean like a pregnancy tooth fairy? Well, let’s have a think about that. In the meantime, you tell your friend I really think she should trust in her parents, and tell them. Will you do that?’

I crossed my fingers and promised I would.

Chapter 33

Real life is better than fiction, ask anyone sensible and they’ll tell you it’s true. There’s no such thing as pace, or pause for dramatic effect when it comes to people’s lives. So, alongside my own troubles I had to work out how to tell, or keep from telling, Jim what I’d discovered about his family. Keeping quiet was like trying to hold down chili I’d eaten too fast. It required constant vigilance, but nevertheless announced itself regularly at the back of the throat. It was clear to anyone who knew me that I wasn’t destined for a career in the diplomatic service. I told Lottie Jim’s saga by letter, but the leisurely pace of the medium frustrated me. I had ideas that needed to bounce, not amble. I settled on Missus Robinson as my confidante, whose incarceration guaranteed she couldn’t spread my gossip too far.

‘Oh my, yes, of course I knew the family.’ We sat together enjoying the springtime breeze in the little garden at the back of the Home. My armpits were prickly from the sun, but my old friend was mummified, her body’s thermostat having gone haywire some decades earlier. The flowering bushes vied for our attention, wriggling their blooms and throwing delicious smells our way. I said I was surprised she knew them.

‘Why’s that? The old families all know one another. I was the eldest of six remember. My sister Nettie was Clare’s age, they went to school together. That business about the adoption, sure we knew something suspicious was afoot.’ She gave a snort. ‘Your generation didn’t invent reasoning after all. The circumstances were peculiar. You don’t just take it into your head to adopt a baby at that age. I think they were in their forties. Yes, sure we knew something was amiss. But to my knowledge nothing was ever proven one way or the other.’

I told her about Henry and Mirabelle, his death and her brief stint in Atlanta.

She nodded. ‘Well, now that stands to reason. She lived next door, didn’t she? Yes that does make sense.’

‘Now Missus Robinson please don’t tell anyone about this okay? It’s a secret.’

‘For goodness sake, it’s no secret when you’ve just told me all about it.’ She patted my knee. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, these old women hardly remember what day it is. It wouldn’t matter if I told everyone in here.’ She smiled. ‘Watch, I’ll show you. Missus Crane? Missus Crane!’

A wrinkled old relic shifted her gaze slowly from middle distance to my companion. ‘Yes, dear?’

‘Missus Crane, I wondered if you enjoyed your breakfast this morning?’

‘Oh, yes, thank you. I always do. James makes the most sublime soufflés for me.’

Missus Robinson turned to me. ‘James is her husband. He’s been dead since World War I.’

I got her point. ‘What about Jim? Was there hearsay about him too?’

‘Well, of course! She was just a child, Clare’s... Mirabelle’s girl I mean. When she disappeared everyone thought she was dead. It caused a ruckus for weeks. They organized a manhunt in the swamps looking for her. She’s in Atlanta still? That’s terrible selfish. Not to be with her own son. Though I suppose she has her reasons.’

‘Do you think Jim knows about Mirabelle? Who his grandmother really is?’

‘Well, how should I know? Why don’t you ask him?’

‘He didn’t approve of my nosing through Mirabelle’s things.’

‘I don’t blame him.’

‘And anyway, I don’t want him to think badly of me.’

‘Tarnation, May. I’m sorry to break the news to you, but snooping isn’t a very flattering profession.’

Nor was sarcasm becoming for such an old woman, I thought.

A couple days later, Jim and I walked together through Forsyth Park, with our lunch banging wicker prints into my knees. The azaleas were blooming, the tulips and daffodils already past their prime. Before we moved, I thought of the South as a place without seasons. Constant sunshine is often deceiving to outsiders. But the seasons are there, and spring is my favorite. It’s the time when peachy–breasted bluebirds dot the landscape and dandelions carpet the grass. Love bugs are thick in the air pursuing their amorous pastime. Just as in the north where anxious squirrels portend autumn long before the leaves change, you have to know what you’re looking for in the South or you’ll miss it.

Ma took her domestic duties seriously when I asked her to pack us a picnic. She wrapped each edible item in enough waxed paper to protect it from the Great Flood, should it overtake us on the way to the park. She even hid some cupcakes in the bottom of the basket, in honor of Jim’s upcoming birthday. Being all for ceremony, I saved them for last. We slapped at mosquitoes and talked easily, until I worked up the nerve to tell him that I’d found more letters, and that some were from his mom. He looked away.

‘What did they say?’

‘Uh, lots of things. Jim, how much do you know? About Mirabelle and your Nan. Or Julius? Your mother?’

‘I told you everything I know.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Uh huh.’

‘Because there’s a lot more.’ I didn’t know how to continue. Jim must have been thinking about whether he wanted me to.

‘Then tell me.’

I did. We sat for the rest of the afternoon and into dusk, talking about Jim’s past. He took it all pretty well, considering everything. He didn’t get mad or cry, then. He was curious, as he always was about history. I told him everything I knew, as honestly as I knew how. The only part I put a coat of paint on was Cecile’s interest in him. There wasn’t any reason to be hurtful. He’d see it soon enough if he read Mirabelle’s diaries for himself.

‘Jim, there’s something else.’ He looked so punch drunk that I began to regret opening my mouth. What had kept for decades surely needn’t be told all at once. But he wanted it all. So I continued. 

Julius hanged himself in the garage one Sunday morning while Jim’s Nan and Aunt Belle were at church. He didn’t have the courtesy to leave a note, so everyone was left to ponder their own theories. Nan fell to pieces and emerged with the idea that Julius was a saint. Mirabelle was much more practical. He’d taken the easy way out, she thought. He was a coward.

Mirabelle was near the end of her life before she learned what drove Julius to the garage that day. Cecile finally told her, for she had known all along.

He started bothering her not long after he lost his job. He said he was sad and wanted a cuddle. He told her to be a good daughter and do what he said. She did what he said for a year. After she was pregnant he stayed out of her drawers, but he never got out of her head.

I watched my friend for a long time after I’d finished. He picked blades of grass, tearing each into tiny pieces and throwing them into the slight breeze. ‘Was I right to tell you, Jim? Should I have kept quiet?’

‘You shouldn’t have read the letters in the first place,’ he said wearily. ‘I wish you’d just left everything alone.’

‘I know, me too. I’m so sorry Jim. I should have. But I had no idea that you, your family, were involved. I promise I’d have left it alone if I’d known... What are you going to do now?’

‘I have to talk to my mom.’

‘What about your Nan?’

‘What about her?’

‘Do you think she knows ... everything?’

‘She must. Otherwise they wouldn’t have fought in the first place.’

‘Shouldn’t you talk to her about it?’

‘To my Nan?’ Coldness pounded his voice hard. ‘No, I don’t think so. She’s the cause of all this in the first place. She should have told me about Aunt Belle. She was my real grandmother.’

I put my hand on his leg. ‘Jim. I’m sure she was just trying to protect you and your mom.’

‘From what, the truth? How is that protecting us?’

He didn’t expect an answer. I didn’t have one anyway.

‘Are you coming with me or not?’ he asked.

‘Where?’

‘To Atlanta.’

‘Jim. You can’t just go off to Atlanta. You don’t even know where your mother is.’

‘No, but you do.’

‘I do not. I–’ But I did. She was at her cousin’s. And that address was on Cecile’s letters to Mirabelle. ‘Okay. When do you want to go?’

‘Now.’

‘We can’t go now. We have to have a plan.’

Atlanta was a good four hours away from Savannah by train, and our absence wouldn’t go unnoticed. We needed an alibi. To our surprise, we found one in Fie. I had to hand it to her. She wasn’t the least bit deceitful for her own sake, but she hatched a whopper of a story to cover for us.

‘You’re coming out to Isle of Hope, to my cousin’s house, with me next weekend.’

‘We are?’

‘That’s what your parents’ll think. We’ll tell them we’re going early for fishing.’

Fie really did have cousins on Isle of Hope. It was a ninety acre peninsula about half an hour away, that Savannahians had used for two hundred years to escape the city’s heat and mosquitoes. I was a little disappointed that our holiday was only a ruse.

My parents said it was fine to go, but Jim’s Nan didn’t want him out of her sight, especially in my company.

‘What’re you going to do?’ I asked when he told me.

‘I’m going anyway. Nan’ll think I’ve gone with you to Fie’s. I’ll get in less trouble if she thinks I’m there than if she knows I’ve gone to Atlanta.’ He seemed awfully nonchalant about certain punishment. He shrugged. ‘What difference does it make if I’m grounded? It’s not like I’m missing much.’ As the focal point of Jim’s social life I was a little miffed, but I had to admit he was right.

It didn’t take long to realize that the devil’s in the details. What seemed like a watertight plan soon sprang a rather large leak. We couldn’t walk to Union Station when we were supposed to be going to Fie’s. She lived a good twenty blocks away and Duncan would never buy the idea that I was walking that far by choice. They’d expect her parents to pick us up.

The lie hardly stuck in my throat. ‘Bye, Ma, see you Duncan. I’m going over to Jim’s to wait. Fie’s Dad’ll pick us up there.’

Duncan was intent upon the coffee pot. Ma smiled and hugged me. ‘Okay honey, have fun. And mind your manners. Be sure you make your bed and keep your room tidy.’

‘Ma, I know how to behave in other people’s houses.’

‘And don’t forget to say thank you.’

I waved over my shoulder. ‘Okay, gotta go. ‘Bye!’ I jumped down the stairs two at a time and trotted to Jim’s porch, casually dumping my little bag on the steps. Jim met me at the door.

I whispered, ‘Ready?’

‘Uh huh. My bag’s around the corner. We’ll have to stop for it on the way.’

‘Is your Nan awake?’

‘I don’t think so.’ I hoped it stayed that way. Ours was a remarkable endeavor with enough moving parts to almost guarantee we’d be caught. I counted on the fact that it was Jim’s idea to keep my parents from killing me when they found out.

We made a quiet dash as the car pulled along the curb. I held my breath, saying a little prayer that my parents weren’t watching closely.

‘Hi, Fie.’ I beamed, sliding in beside her and making room for Jim. She looked too small behind the wheel, and was concentrating furiously. ‘Ready?’

She managed to ease the big Ford back into the road. ‘How did it go?’