Roseflower Creek (6 page)

    "Yes, sir," I said. But it was a lie. I seen that man. He didn't look like no doctor to me. And I heard Mama scream out in the kitchen, some plumb awful cries. I heard that man, too. He had a deep, gravelly voice.

    "Don't move!" he said. "You move, it's gonna hurt all the more."

    Ray kept staring at me. After a while Mama come back and laid down on the bed. Ray got a bottle of whiskey out and took a long swig. He offered the bottle to Mama, but she shook her head and rolled over onto her side and faced the wall. Then Ray left. I curled up next to Mama and fell asleep. When I woke up there was blood all over the bedclothes.

    "Lori Jean, git up, honey. I gotta change these sheets 'fore Ray gets home," she said. I got up.

    "Oh, Mama," I said, "we best fetch a regular doctor. That other one's done somethin' bad awful to you!"

"I'm gonna be fine. You go on back to bed now."

"But Mama…"

    "Go on…it's nothing. Just a little blood is all. I'll be fine come morning," she said. Even so, I was mighty scared. I give her a hug. Her face was pasty white, and she was all clammy.

    "Go on now. I'm fine. Just fine."

    But she wasn't fine, not a'tall. I woke in the night to check on her. She was on the floor in a puddle of blood as big as me. Her nightie was all hiked up and all that blood was coming out of her private place. She didn't have her panties on, and I could see the fuzz down there she ain't never let me see before. Ray was asleep in the front room on MeeMaw's old sofa. I about woke up the moon I was so scared.

    Ray stuffed some towels up against her bottom and fetched Doc Crawley. I know he come directly, but it felt like I waited three days' worth of revivals 'fore he got there. Doc took one look and said we needed an ambulance. We didn't have a phone. Time was a wasting, he said, so they did the next best thing. They wrapped her up tight in the bedsheet and put her in Doc's Buick.

    "What in thunder went on here?" Doc Crawley asked Ray as they was tucking her into the back seat. I heard Ray tell him my ma took a coat hanger to herself.

    "I begged her not to, Doc. Begged her. I went out for a piece and that's when she gone and done it. Found her like this when I got home," Ray said. Doc got in his car and tore down that dirt road that led back to town. I found out later he called for an ambulance there and it come and took her clear over to the hospital in Decatur. She near bled to death.

    I don't know why Ray told Doc Crawley that lie about my mama and that coat hanger. That's plumb crazy talk. Why would she do something like that? I wanted to tell Doc when they was wrapping her up tight that if a coat hanger got took to her, it wasn't her that did it, more likely it was that stranger Ray'd paid money to, done it to her on the kitchen table. I wanted to, but Ray was staring me down good. His eyes was black as a hoot owl fixing to strike. I was sore afraid if I told, Ray'd call that man back once Doc Crawley left and pay him to hurt me next. I was a coward for sure, I was, but I forgived myself, 'cause a coat hanger poked in a potty spot sounded like a sorrowful way to die.

    My mama made it. Doc Crawley said it was no small miracle, either. I listened through the walls the first night she got home. They's like paper. My mama was crying. It sounded like they was trying to talk soft, but it didn't do no good. I could hear every word.

    "There won't be no more babies, Ray Pruitt. That's what this done to me."

    "What's it matter?" Ray said.

    "It's what you promised, Ray. Git married. Have us a baby. You'd settle down. You said, Ray. You said." I heard Mama cry harder.

    "Shoot, Nadine, we can still get married. I kin settle down. I don't need me a baby to stop chasin' women."

    "Is that so?" I heard my mama blow her nose. "What's it gonna take then? Huh?"

    "Well to start with, it's gonna take us gettin' married."

    "But we'll never have a young'un. Married folks s'posed to have a young'un between 'em. Brings 'em together." I could hear a sadness in my mama's voice I ain't heard before.

    "More like brings 'em apart, as I see it," Ray said. It give me a fear in my chest when he said that. I remember thinking Ray might be right. My ma and pa had me between 'em and it sure didn't keep 'em together none. I musta pulled them apart.

    My mama was still crying. I heard the bedsprings creak like they does when she rolls over towards the wall. Then I heard Ray's boots on the floor. The bed creaked a bit louder. He probably set down on the edge and pulled my mama back towards him to sweet-talk her.

    "We're gonna get married like I said we was before any a' this happened. And I'm gonna be good to ya'. I am," Ray said. That sounded like one of his lies for sure.

    "Ain't nobody else in this dad-blame town gonna take care a' ya', that's for sure." My mama didn't answer none that I could hear.

    They told me the next day they was getting married when she got strong enough. Mama seemed happy about it. She was talking about getting a new dress even, and Ray said she could. Mama said it was a good idea; that it was time they settled down. Seemed like a dumb idea to me. Guess she figured Ray was gonna be a new man after the wedding. I couldn't rightly understand my mama's way a' thinking. Ray was a terrible boyfriend. How'd she figure he'd be any better a husband?

    Even so, I wanted her to be happy. I was trying to figure out how it was I'd pulled my ma and pa apart so's I could keep from doing it to Ray and Mama. I thought real hard, but I couldn't think of what it was I done. Those years was mostly all a blur. I just remembered my pa's green truck. And I remembered the smoke coming out of the tailpipe all the while it roared down that dirt road getting away from us.

    "One whif a' this and a man will do 'bout anything," she said.

    All that fat and makeup—she had that right. My mama never let on if she smelled that perfume on Ray. She was making plans for the wedding at the Rock of Calvary Church, up on the hill where we went every Sunday. It was all set for Easter time and the weather was near hot as summer. "A new beginning," Ray said. The year was going real slow. I was still eight, but seems like I shoulda been older.

    I stood next to Mama that day while she and Ray stood under the ivy trellis the church ladies strung up. He give her a gold band, put it on her finger and promised to love her and cherish her 'til he died. He was full of lies, that one. I think the preacher knew it, too. He stood back when the ceremony was over and kept shaking his head as everyone was wishing them well and congratulating Ray.

    Even so, it was a fun day that day they got married. Everybody brought along a different covered dish. The church ladies set the food out on this long table the men carried out to the church lawn. They strung crepe-paper streamers from the trees, and they put these white puffy paper bells in the center of the table. It was a reception or something and the fanciest party I ever been to. Fancier than Carolee's even. Everybody from around Roseflower Creek come. Mz. Hawkins baked a two-layer wedding cake with blue flowers that matched my mama's dress. Mr. Hawkins took a picture of them he give 'em as a present. My mama's smiling real nice. Her eyes is kind of tearful, though. Happy tears probably, but could be sad, I guess, if in her mind she was looking down the road a piece. Still, it's a right nice picture. My favorite. When everything started going wrong for us, the sheriff took that picture and give it to the posse.

Come June, Lexie was almost ready to have her baby. I went with Melvin in his truck to get Lexie a present to cheer her up while she was waiting. What Melvin told me made it real hard to hate Ray like I wanted to. Melvin said their daddy was a real mean fella. Tried to work hisself out of being poor in Alabama and couldn't do it, so he drunk hisself to pieces trying to forget it. Didn't do a decent job of that, neither. He come home mostly and beat on their mama, and Ray, being the oldest, stood up for her real good and got knocked around hisself more than their mama ever did. Melvin said Ray was right handsome once, 'fore their daddy punched his face in plenty.

    One night their daddy beat Ray so bad he couldn't make it out to the shed to pee and Ray, he messed hisself all night long. Melvin said their daddy whupped him bad in the morning for making a smelly mess for their mama to clean up.

    "You know, Lori Jean," Melvin said, "Ray never let me take a beatin' when I was a boy."

    "Not ever?" I said.

    "Nope. Not ever. He always got in between my pa and me before it could happen."

    That made Ray sorta like a hero, I guess. It made me feel a whole lot sorrowful for him, it did. 'Course that didn't excuse him from hurting my mama none, but I thought maybe it had something to do with why he kept doing it. Maybe my mama looked a bit like his daddy and Ray got confused when he drank all that liquor. I asked Melvin if 'n she did. He said no.

    "Baby girl, I never saw anyone looked like my daddy, praise God almighty."

    So it was still a mystery why Ray kept hurting my ma and sometimes me. I reckoned I'd have to think on that a while longer 'fore I could figure that one out.

    We went into town that day, Melvin and me, and bought Lexie some baby blankets and a package of little T-shirts that's for boy or girl babies. Lexie was feeling right pitiful, she was. It was so hot. We was having one of them summers where nothing grew big enough to brag about at the fair. Peach crop died. Corn didn't come in good and it cost a bunch along the roadside when we tried to buy it. Peanut farmers wasn't real happy that year, neither.

    Lexie was having herself a terrible time. She grew herself a baby belly bigger than any I ever seen. She had a mighty hard time getting around much that last month and she wan't sleeping good a'tall. The heat got so bad I could hardly sleep myself, and I wan't sharing my body with no little baby kicking theirself around, trying to get out. I stayed with Lexie that night when we got back from Clarkston and put washcloths on her forehead. She said it felt so good. Kept me up most of the night, but I didn't have any school so it didn't matter none. I'da done it even if I did.

    Melvin, he still had his job. He had to go to work in the morning so he was fast asleep. He didn't drink hardly ever, just once ever' so often, so he didn't have no trouble keeping work like Ray did.

    Early on the next morning, Melvin left for work about the time I was falling to sleep. I was just drifting off when Lexie Ann woke me up. She had a month left to wait 'fore she had the baby, but that didn't seem to matter much that morning.

    "Lori Jean! Wake up!" Lexie said, and yanked the pillow out from under my head.

    "Lori Jean, go on over to Mz. Hawkins! Tell her to call Doc Crawley and send somebody for me!" Lexie yelled.

    I jumped out of that bed. Lexie had her hand under her belly and was holding it in place like that baby would plumb fall out if she let go. I was so scared it would, I felt the floor ready to leave me. My head told me to get moving, but mostly I just stood there staring.

    "Lori Jean! Go! Go! Go!" Lexie yelled at me.

    I run out to the kitchen. I still had my clothes on from yesterday, except for my shoes. I couldn't rightly 'member where they was. I was looking around for 'em when Lexie let out a holler like I never heard a'fore in my life. I looked up and she was laying herself down on the floor flat on her back, moaning something terrible. Water was running out of her bottom all over the kitchen linoleum.

    "Lexie, I best not leave you!" I said. "I best not!"

    "Lori Jean, if you don't go get help right now, I'm gonna kill you, right after I die havin' this baby, hear?" she said.

    I run over to Mz. Hawkins in my bare feet, screaming bloody murder.

    "Mz. Hawkins! Mz. Hawkins! Call Doctor Crawley!" I run right on into her house without knocking or waiting polite like for her to answer.