There was a knock on my office door, and when I opened it, Paula stood in front of me, smiling, a folder in her hand. “Fred said maybe I could help you with the petition,” she said. “Can I come in?”
“Yes, please!” I was relieved to see her. “I’m feeling a trifle overwhelmed right now.”
“I can’t believe it about Charlotte,” she said. “Sounds like you saved her life.”
“Well, not really.” I didn’t feel the least bit like a hero. “I couldn’t have done it alone.”
She patted my arm. “I just want to reassure you that things like that are very, very rare. We see some bad stuff, but it’s not usually life threatening. Good heavens.” She giggled.
I smiled myself. I liked Paula so much. Maybe it was because she looked like me or was close to my age, or maybe it was because she seemed to have a deep well of happiness inside her that made me feel good. Whatever the reason, I felt instantly calmer in her presence. I bet her clients felt the same way.
“So.” She sat down in Charlotte’s chair and I sat in my own. “I brought you a copy of the petition so you could see what it looks like.” She handed me a short stack of papers.
I leafed through them. There were forms galore. One for the physician, one for the director of the department, one for the guardian’s permission, and several for me, the caseworker. “Wow,” I said. “There’s so much to fill out.”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said. “You just need to make sure to get the forms filled out by all the appropriate people. The main one you have to do yourself is that one.” She pointed to the form I was studying. It asked me to describe the “home situation,” the “client’s abilities,” the “community environment,” and on and on and on.
I looked up at Paula. “I barely know any of this information,” I said. “Just the few things Charlotte’s told me.”
“So, you’ll learn it,” Paula said with an easygoing shrug of her shoulders.
“Charlotte said you do a lot of these.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say a lot,” she said with a laugh. “But I’m not afraid to use them when I think they’re needed. Charlotte’s really cautious, so if she says this client of yours needs it, I’d listen.”
“She’s only fifteen,” I said.
Paula shrugged. “I petitioned for a ten-year-old last month and it was approved.”
“Ten!”
“Profoundly retarded colored girl who was being taken advantage of by the boys in the neighborhood. It was only a matter of time before she got pregnant, and there was no way she’d be able to take care of a baby.”
I thought of Ivy. “This girl, though … she’s not profoundly retarded. She’s not even retarded, actually. She’s epileptic, and—”
“You can stop there. That’s enough. They’ll approve it.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got an appointment.” She hopped up from the chair. “But I’ll be in later if you need to talk.” She pointed to the folder on my lap. “I’ll leave that copy with you,” she said. “Adios!”
“Bye,” I said, as she left the office.
Once the door was closed, I sat staring at Charlotte’s desk, wishing I could magically change what had happened the day before and bring her back.
You’re supposed to help people, even if it’s hard to do, I’d told Robert.
I reached for Charlotte’s briefcase, opened it, and dug in.
14
Ivy
I hardly slept all night, and when Baby William started stirring and Mary Ella got up with him, I pretended I was asleep. I didn’t want to face this day. I wasn’t sure what all would happen, but it wasn’t going to be good. I wished last night was a dream. What did they do to Henry Allen? His daddy was a whupper. He’d use the belt on him for sure.
Baby William was crying up a storm in the living room, drowning out Nonnie’s voice and Mary Ella’s and another one I could hear just faint, but I had the terrible feeling belonged to Mrs. Gardiner. I put my pillow over my head. I wanted to disappear.
I heard the front door slam and Nonnie’s thump-thump-tap walk coming toward the bedroom, and I pulled the pillow tighter around my head.
“Fool!” she shouted, stomping into the room. “You damn, damn fool!” She started hitting on me with her cane and I was afraid she’d break one of my hands, but she smacked my hip through the covers the most and I grit my teeth together to keep from yelping. “Are you trying to get us kicked out of here?” she shouted. “Bloody stupid idiot! She told me everything. You ran around half naked and kept that boy from his duties and the barn burned down. Get up!” She cracked the cane across my hip hard enough to put tears in my eyes.
I pulled the pillow away from my face. “Stop hitting me!”
“Get up!”
“I will. Just stop hitting me.”
I sat up slowly. I was a sweaty mess from trying to sleep in my winter nightgown all night and I could smell the smoke in my hair. But as bad as I was sure I looked, Nonnie looked worse. I’d seen her mad when Mary Ella turned up pregnant, but this was twice as bad. Her face was red and sweaty and her eyes was bugging out and her double chins shook. I got that worried feeling she was going to die on us, and this time it would be my fault.
“I’m sorry, Nonnie,” I said.
She lifted the cane again and I covered my head with my arms and shut my eyes, but she must of changed her mind, and the hit didn’t come.
“The Gardiners ain’t giving you no ride to church Sunday,” she said. “You have to find your own way from now on. And you better get up and get ready to go to the barn.”
“To the barn?” How could I help with the barning today after what happened last night? “Nonnie, I can’t go over there! They won’t want me—”
“You get dressed and go over there. That’s your punishment. Facing the Gardiners and facing what you made happen with that barn. You brung shame on us, Ivy Hart. Mary Ella, too, but she don’t know no better. I thought you did.”
She turned and stomped out of the room and I sat there feeling as low as I ever did. I didn’t know how I was going to face Mr. Gardiner, but I could tell I didn’t have no choice. I got up and started dressing.
We had one dresser in the room with three drawers. Mary Ella’s was on top, mine was in the middle, and Nonnie and Baby William shared the one on the bottom. When I opened mine to get out my underwear, I saw a box of the spermicide jelly Nurse Ann had given me. Just one box. She gave me two. I opened Mary Ella’s drawer and there it was. A box of spermicide jelly. I wasn’t upset. I was glad. It wouldn’t matter if a boy didn’t pull out of her if she had that jelly. I’d make sure she always had some.
I walked into the living room where Mary Ella was rocking Baby William in the old rocker my daddy made long ago, loving on him even though he was screaming.
“Why’s he carrying on like that?” I asked. I wondered if she’d heard everything Mrs. Gardiner had to say to Nonnie. I supposed she did. My face felt hot, thinking about it.
“Don’t know,” Mary Ella said. “Why you carrying on like that, Baby William?” she asked him, but he couldn’t hear her for the sound of his own screeching voice.
“Shut that boy up or I’ll give him something to holler about,” Nonnie said. She was standing in the door to the kitchen, eating a biscuit with jelly pouring out the middle of it. From where I stood, I could see the box of blue testing pills on the kitchen shelf and I knew it hadn’t moved since the night before. I always set it just so, so I could tell if she got out the pill.
“Did you test your sugar yet this morning?” I asked her.
She looked at me like if she had a gun, she’d shoot me. “You don’t tell me what to do, missy,” she said. “How’d you think it feels having a lady like Mrs. Gardiner come tell me my granddaughter’s nothing but trash?”
I hung my head. I didn’t want to look at her no more. “Sorry, Nonnie,” I said, again. I wanted to get a biscuit for myself, but didn’t dare walk that close to her because I could tell sh
e wasn’t done with me yet. I’d go without breakfast this morning. My stomach was too knotted up to eat, anyhow.
“I told you, get dressed and go to the barn,” Nonnie said. “Both of y’all.”
“We got to get Baby William settled first,” I said. If he kept carrying on like he was, Nonnie would kill him when me and Mary Ella left. “Did he eat?” I asked Mary Ella.
“He wouldn’t eat nothing,” Nonnie said.
I lifted him out of Mary Ella’s arms and she tried to hang tight to him. “Let go!” I said to her. “Let me see that rash. Maybe that’s what’s bothering him.”
“I already told Mary Ella to put that lotion on his rash,” Nonnie said. “Did you do it, girl?”
“I done it,” Mary Ella said.
I sat on the sofa and pulled Baby William’s shirt over his head. His chest was fiery red, right up into his neck. “Oh, Baby William!” I was scared by the look of his chest. I pressed my hands to his skin and was shocked by how hot he felt. I didn’t believe Mary Ella had put the lotion on him at all. “Bring me the lotion,” I said. I’d put it on thick and if it didn’t calm down by midday when we came home for dinner, we’d have to call Nurse Ann.
Nonnie came over to get a good look. “Poor boy,” she said, the first sweet words out of her mouth that morning. She touched his dark curls. “Poor little baby.”
Mary Ella ran into the kitchen and brung back Nonnie’s knee salve. “No,” I said. “Bring me the lotion Nurse Ann left for—”
“Is that what you used?” Nonnie asked her.
Mary Ella looked from me to Nonnie and then at Baby William. “This is his medicine.” She held up the tube of salve.
“We need to wash that off him, quick!” Nonnie said. “That salve makes my knee feel better because it heats it up. Poor baby, poor baby!” She grabbed him from me and whisked him away, through the kitchen and out to the sink on the back porch.
I stood up. I wanted to smack my sister across her face. “How could you be so dumb?” I felt tears burn my eyes, imagining the hurt Baby William was suffering. I ran out to the porch and helped Nonnie soap him up while he screamed his fool little head off, and then I took him back in the bedroom and dressed him in clean clothes, smoothing the right lotion over his chest and back, but I was afraid the damage had been done. His skin was blistery and bright red.
Nonnie stood over me while I took care of him, and Mary Ella waited in the doorway of the bedroom, chewing her thumbnail.
“We’re gonna have to call Nurse Ann to come look at him again,” I said. “I don’t know if this here lotion is going to be enough, now we wrecked his skin.”
I looked at Mary Ella and saw tears running down her cheeks. I couldn’t stand it. I gave Baby William over to Nonnie and went to my sister. I put my arms around her and she leaned against me, crying hard. “I know you didn’t mean to do it,” I said. “I know you thought you was doing the right thing. You just got to be more careful.”
* * *
I didn’t know which would be worse—going to the barn or going to the Gardiners’ house to ask to use the phone. Either way, I might see Mr. Gardiner and that was the last thing I wanted to do today. I knew I’d talk better on the phone than Mary Ella, so that was the answer. As soon as we walked outside, the smoke smell I thought was just in my hair was all around us. It made me feel sick.
When we started down the lane, Mary Ella pointed to the blackened barn in the distance. “Mrs. Gardiner said you done that,” she said.
“Well, I didn’t light a match, but I guess it was my fault.” It was too much, seeing that black mess out there. I felt like throwing up. Me and Henry Allen ruined all that tobacco, all that hard work. If only he’d checked the burners before we started up with each other. We was both so stupid.
When we got to the path that ran between the fields, I sent Mary Ella to the barn and I walked over to the farmhouse. I tried to stop my sick-to-my-stomach shakiness as I climbed the front steps.
Desiree answered the door.
“Why, hello, Miss Ivy,” she said. “Ain’t you working at the barn this morning?”
She didn’t know about me and Henry Allen. I could tell by her smile and how nice she was. “Can I use the phone?” I asked. “Baby William got a bad rash.”
“You come right in.” She stood back to let me walk past her. “You know where the phone is at. Help yourself.”
“Is Mr. Gardiner here?” I made my voice real quiet.
“No, Miss Ivy.” She made her voice quiet right back at me, and I wondered if maybe she did know after all and just wasn’t holding it against me. “He out at the barn.”
The sick feeling passed and I walked toward the kitchen, where the phone was. I always liked being in this house. I liked the way one room spilled into another. There was so much space. The kitchen was big enough for a family three times the size of mine. I used to pretend me and Henry Allen would have a house like this someday. Big and roomy and waiting to be filled up with a real family. Our children would never have the kind of life I had. I thought me and Henry Allen had a chance at a good life together, but deep down I always knew his mama and daddy wouldn’t let it happen. No Gardiner would ever marry a Hart. After last night, I knew that for a fact.
I had to leave a message with Nurse Ann’s office, but the lady said she’d be sure to tell somebody to get out to our house to see Baby William today, because it sounded bad. I said good-bye to Desiree and headed for the barn.
Everyone was working at the green barn today, which meant I had to walk right past the south barn to get to it. The colored day laborers was all working on the burned-out building, taking apart what was left of it and tossing the charred pieces into the back of Mr. Gardiner’s old pickup. It took me a minute to see that Henry Allen was one of them, his face blackened from the soot, and I guessed that was his punishment: doing the colored work. He looked up and saw me. Our eyes met for less than a second before we both looked away. My throat got real tight, but I just kept walking, right past the mess him and me made. I’d work extra hard today myself.
15
Jane
On Monday afternoon, I parked my car in front of Davison Gardiner’s house. The oppressive July heat wrapped around me, but I wasn’t in a hurry to get out. This would be my first solo interview. Mr. Gardiner was expecting me, and as Robert had said over breakfast that morning, I should be ready for my Ph.D. in social work with all the reading I’d been doing, but none of that eased my nerves. I pulled my pad from my briefcase and looked over the notes I’d made during a phone conversation with Ann Laing that morning. She’d been called in on Friday to check William because the Harts used the wrong medication on his prickly heat rash.
“I believe he’s in danger there,” she said. “When I visited the other day, they couldn’t find him right away, and now this.”
I didn’t know what I was going to do about that. I thought of the man pulling the wooden block on a string. He haunted me, yet I wondered if there was a way to help Mary Ella be a better mother without taking her son away from her. I would have to talk to Fred about it.
“I gave Ivy some spermicidal jelly and condoms,” Ann said. “She says she’s not active sexually, but she’s fifteen, and I’m sorry, fifteen-year-old girls living in that kind of environment … well, I’d be surprised if she isn’t.”
I hoped Ivy was telling her the truth. It made me sad to think of a fifteen-year-old having sex. At fifteen, I wouldn’t have understood the connection between sex and love. I would have felt used.
“Charlotte thinks she should be sterilized,” I said.
“I do, too,” Ann said. “She’s epileptic. I’ve actually filled out my part of the form, so I’ll mail it to you for the petition. See if you can find out if she’s running around with boys. She doesn’t trust me, so I really haven’t been able to get her to open up.”
“We’d have to tell Ivy the truth, though, right?” I thought of Mary Ella. Of the lie told to her about her sterilization. That wa
s simply wrong. “I mean, if the petition gets approved?”
“Just take it one step at a time,” Ann had said.
So, I thought as I slipped the notepad back into my briefcase and got out of my car, talking to Mr. Gardiner would be my first step.
An acrid odor—a fire that had burned itself out, perhaps—filled my nostrils as I walked toward the house. Mr. Gardiner had the front door open by the time I’d climbed the steps to his porch. “So, you’re the new social worker,” he said.
“Yes.” I nodded. I’d told him on the phone that I was taking Charlotte’s place, and as with nearly every other person I’d met so far, he didn’t sound too happy about that.
“Well, come on in. We just finished dinner and I’m about to get back to work but I’ve saved some time for you.”
I walked into the cozy living room, which was about what I’d expected for a nice house out here. There was a large oval braided rug on the floor, and the furniture looked well-worn and comfortable, some of it covered with quilts. A spinet piano stood against one wall, above it the head of a deer. Knickknacks were everywhere.
A teenaged boy walked into the room, stopping short when he spotted me.
“This is my boy, Henry Allen,” Mr. Gardiner said.
“Hello, Henry Allen.” I smiled. He was a good-looking boy, nearly the spitting image of his father except for the glasses.
“You git back out there, boy,” Mr. Gardiner said to him, quite sharply.
“Yes, sir.” The boy nodded to me. “Nice to meet you, ma’am,” he said, and then headed for what I supposed was the kitchen and the back door. I could see a maid moving around in there.
“My wife’s at the store,” Mr. Gardiner said. “You know where that is?”
“Yes,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I could find it. I remembered Charlotte driving us past it.
“Stop by and say hey to her if you can.”
“I will.”