“I was afraid you’d be at the barn and we’d miss you,” Charlotte said, as we followed Mrs. Jordan and the little boy into the kitchen.
“Getting dinner ready for the boys,” she said.
We sat down at the table that took up half the room and I got a good look at Mrs. Jordan. A bit of her coarse black hair poked out of the dusty kerchief, and her dark eyes slanted up at the outer corners as though she had Oriental blood. Those eyes gave her a pretty, exotic look.
I tried to be observant and study everything I could see. The cot was made up with sheets that hung to the floor. Rodney climbed onto it and bounced up and down until his mother grabbed his arm and told him to go outside. There was a hand pump above the sink. No faucet. I’d never seen that before. A narrow icebox stood next to the back door. Open shelves stretched across the wall above the counter, sagging beneath the weight of Mason jars filled with vegetables and tomatoes.
“We have some clothes for the boys in the car,” Charlotte said. Then to me, “Don’t let me forget them.”
“That’s good,” Mrs. Jordan said. “Eli, he need them most. The others get the hand-me-downs, but Eli’s growin’ so fast and he ain’t got much that fits no more. Davison … Mr. Gardiner … give him some of his old overalls.”
Charlotte turned to me. “Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Gardiner have known each other since they were children.”
“Oh,” I said, wondering how that came to be.
“What Eli really needs is shoes. His shoes is so small we had to cut room for his toes.”
“Oh my.” Charlotte pulled her notepad from her briefcase. She set it on the table and wrote something on it. I assumed she was writing “get shoes for Eli.” I wondered if I should pull out my own notepad. The Jordans would be my clients, after all. I loved the sound of those words. “My clients.” It filled me with a sense of responsibility that I welcomed. “What else do they need?” Charlotte asked.
Mrs. Jordan rattled off a few things, mostly clothes and linens and asthma medicine for Avery, the partly blind boy. Mrs. Jordan seemed to like and trust Charlotte. It was like watching two old friends chatting together. There was something about Charlotte’s way of talking that put people at ease. Mrs. Jordan kept cutting her eyes at me like she wasn’t too sure about me, though, and I sat there with a half smile plastered on my face, wondering if I could ever master Charlotte’s easygoing, self-confident style.
Rodney ran into the kitchen. Around his body, he wore an old, falling-apart cardboard carton with headlights painted on it, and he ran from room to room saying, “Vroom, vroom!” I laughed, he was so cute. He barreled out the back door knocking a hole in the flimsy screen with a corner of his box, but it was one hole of many.
“We could use us a new screen door,” Mrs. Jordan said, her voice tinged with irony, and we all laughed.
Rodney banged into the house again. The box was gone and now he carried a tree branch twice his size.
“Rodney, take that thing outside!” Mrs. Jordan said. “You don’t bring no trees in my house.”
Rodney stood still in the middle of the kitchen, clutching the branch in his hand as though trying to make up his mind whether to obey or not. He looked at Charlotte, then me, as though we could help him out.
“You hear me?” Mrs. Jordan said. “Get that nasty thing out my house.”
He ran through the door again, and Mrs. Jordan rolled her eyes at us, but she was smiling. “I’m glad he’s my last, but he’s the best,” she said. “He keeps us laughing.”
Rodney popped back into the room without the branch.
“Rodney,” Charlotte said. “Come over here, angel.”
He marched right up to her and put his hands on her knees. Charlotte pulled a lollipop from her purse. “You sure are getting to be a big boy,” she said.
He smiled, little white teeth showing as he reached for the candy. “I want that!”
“You so rude!” His mother laughed and swatted his arm. “How you ask?”
He looked at her like he had no idea what she was talking about.
“What’s the word?” she asked.
“Please?”
“That’s better.”
But Charlotte still held the candy out of reach. “What color is this lollipop?” she asked him.
“Green,” he said.
“What shape is it?” Charlotte asked. He looked perplexed.
“Is it a square or a circle?”
“Round,” he said.
“That’s right. A round circle. You’re a smart boy.” She unwrapped the lollipop and handed it to him.
“He gonna be the smartest of them all,” Mrs. Jordan said. “Too smart for his own good. He’s my little travelin’ man.” She hugged him close to her, though he only had eyes for the lollipop.
“He’s your travelin’ man?” Charlotte asked, and I recognized that feeding back she’d told me about. She was right. It worked like a charm.
“He goes over to the Gardiners’ and bothers Desiree for sweets. Or he goes to the Harts’ to play with Baby William.”
“Hard to keep an eye on him,” Charlotte said.
Mrs. Jordan looked like she might have said too much. “Oh, I manage,” she said. “The boys help. Eli’s a good help and Devil’s really growed up now.”
“Well, that’s one thing we need to talk about,” Charlotte said. “Eli’s seventeen now, isn’t he?”
“Don’t cut him off,” she said quickly. “Please, Miss Charlotte, don’t cut him off. I don’t know what we’d do.”
“No, he won’t be cut off as long as he’s in school,” Charlotte said. “He has one more year and if he stays in, he’ll still be covered.” She turned to me. “Many children Eli’s age have dropped out by now, but—”
“But I won’t let him. Oh, you bet there’s days that boy don’t want to get hisself out of bed, but I give him a talking-to while he’s laying there like a lazy mule. Tell him he won’t amount to nothing. That sort of thing.”
“And that works?” Charlotte asked.
“Nah.” She grinned. “What works is while I’m telling him all that, I poke him with a fork. Not hard, now,” she added quickly. “Just enough to be a nuisance, like a fly you can’t get rid of. Now, that works.”
We laughed. She was still holding Rodney. He wriggled to get away from her arms and she let him go.
“How is Avery doing?” Charlotte asked. “I missed seeing him this week, since Pastor Freed drove him to the Braille teacher.”
“They say he need new glasses again,” she said with a sigh. “Wish them eyes of his would just settle.”
“Is he able to help with the barning?” Charlotte asked.
“Oh, he topped the plants a few weeks ago. He could see them flowers good enough to pull them off. He wants to be out there with the other boys, but mostly he gets stuck unloading the sled and carrying the sticks. He wants to be normal so bad.” Her eyes suddenly glistened and for the first time since we arrived, I felt real pain in her. I felt what her life was like and I had to look away from that raw emotion in her face. It was a tiny moment in the day. Two or three seconds. But it was my first true seed of doubt that I could do this work. It wasn’t hearing about the boy so much—I knew I’d hear much worse—it was that glimpse inside her. Seeing the pain inside.
“Is he showing interest in girls?” Charlotte asked.
She shook her head quickly. “No, ma’am. He don’t need no operation.”
Charlotte nodded. “I do worry about it,” she said. “Last time I drove him to Ridley, I could see how he’s growing up. Even with those glasses, he’s a handsome boy and he’s gotten tall and filled out.”
“All my boys is handsome,” she said.
“Yes, they are,” Charlotte agreed. “And the handsomer they get the more I worry.”
“I know he shouldn’t be no daddy, with them eyes of his. I know he can pass it on. But he don’t need the operation. I keep a good eye on him.”
It took me a moment to understand
what they were talking about. I’d thought they meant surgery on his eyes. They meant sterilization. I hadn’t realized that Eugenics Program was for boys, too. Men and boys. I didn’t even know how they did it. Surely they didn’t castrate them?
“I don’t want him to go through the hurt of it,” she said.
“We can wait,” Charlotte said. “You and Mrs. Forrester can decide when the time is right.”
At the mention of my name, Mrs. Jordan studied me hard. “You don’t say much,” she said.
I opened my mouth to speak, unsure what I’d say, but Charlotte filled the gap. “She’s taking it all in right now,” she said. “Next time you see her, she’ll be doing all the talking.” Charlotte had worked a lifetime with these people out here. How would I ever catch up?
“How are your neighbors doing?” Charlotte asked. “The Harts?”
“Mary Ella strange as ever. Like Violet.” She looked at me. “That’s her mama. I growed up with Violet.”
I nodded even though I had no idea who she was talking about.
“Explain it to her,” Charlotte said to Mrs. Jordan.
“Me and my brother growed up right here in this house. Percy Hart—that’s Mary Ella and Ivy’s daddy—he growed up in the house where they live now.” She looked at Charlotte. “Has she met them yet?”
“Soon,” Charlotte said.
“Violet—their mama—lived down the road a piece. And Davison was just a boy growing up in the farmhouse. We all knew each other. Played together. Worked the tobacca together. Just like our children do.”
“I understand,” I said.
“So like I said, Mary Ella’s getting stranger by the day, if you ask me,” she said. “Ivy’s a nice girl. She sometimes plays ‘school’ with Rodney and Baby William, trying to teach them their numbers and things. Rodney catches on, but Baby William…” She shook her head. “He’s a sweet baby, but he ain’t right. You know that. Anyway, I think Ivy’s started sneaking out at night. I seen her wanderin’ a time or two like her sister does.”
“Where does she go?”
She shrugged. “I just seen her on the road.”
“You sure it’s her?”
“Yes’m. Can tell by the hair. Mary Ella got all that wild yeller hair. Ivy don’t, plus she’s a bigger girl. Got more meat on her bones. Nonnie’s doing poorly, too,” she added, then looked at me again. “You gonna have to learn to talk to do this job,” she said.
I smiled. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you better,” I said, glad I’d finally managed to get a full sentence out of my mouth.
We walked back through the living room and I noticed small pictures taped to the wall in a neat line. I stepped closer. “These are your children?” I asked.
“Yes’m,” she said. “This is my boy Eli.” She pointed to a boy who looked more like a man to me. The pictures were all small color photographs, maybe from school. Eli wasn’t smiling. He didn’t look happy about having his picture taken. His eyes pulled me in, though. They were the color of clear amber.
“And this one?” I pointed to the picture of a dark-skinned cherub with a wide, white grin. “Oh my goodness, he’s a cutie!” I glanced at Charlotte, worried I sounded thoroughly unprofessional, but her face gave nothing away.
Mrs. Jordan chuckled. “That’s my Devil. He come by that name honest.”
“Is that his real name?” I asked, touching the corner of the picture. “Devil?”
“I named him Devon James Jordan, but my oldest—my girl Sheena—she had trouble saying Devon and it come out Devil, and that stuck. He’s not bad. Just full of mischief. It’s a real old picture. He’s growed up now.” She pointed to the next photograph. “And this here is Avery.”
I looked at the boy in the black horn-rimmed glasses. He had Devil’s grin and my heart went out to him that his vision was as bad as it sounded.
“This was from a couple years ago, too,” Mrs. Jordan said. “He’s a big boy now.”
“Yes, indeed,” Charlotte said.
I came to the final picture. “And this must be Sheena,” I said. She had her mother’s exotic eyes.
“Yes, ma’am. Miss her.” She tightened her lips. “I miss my baby.”
I wanted to know why Sheena’d been sent away, but Charlotte touched my elbow. “We have several more families to visit,” she said.
“The clothes,” I reminded her.
“Ah yes,” Charlotte said, as if she would have forgotten without my reminder, something I didn’t believe for a second. “Let’s get the clothes.”
* * *
We left three bags of clothing with Lita Jordan, and then we were back in the car.
“What you did there at the end?” Charlotte said, as she turned the key in the ignition. “Talking to her about the pictures?”
“Yes?” I stiffened, bracing for criticism.
“That’s the way to do it,” she said. “That’s the way to get them to open up. To gain their trust. You touched her where her heart is, and you’ve got a good natural feel for it.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” I said. “I was wondering if I could get her some frames for those pictures,” I said. “I felt sorry for her, having them just taped to the wall like that.”
“Ask her if she’d like that. You never know why people do the things they do. It might be tradition in her family, for all you know, to have pictures hung plain like that.” She laughed. “Though I sincerely doubt it.”
I wanted to ask about the daughter, Sheena, but Charlotte pointed into the woods to our left. “The Harts live back in there,” she said.
I looked into the woods, my eyes piercing the green veil as deeply as they could, but I could see nothing other than trees and shadow. Somewhere in there lived the strange girl, Mary Ella, and her wandering sister, Ivy. And I wondered what their stories would be.
8
Ivy
Wednesday was the third day of the barning and it was a long one. I was a sweaty mess by the time all the other workers left, but I stayed behind. I stood alone next to the barn, rubbing half a green tomato over my fingers to get off the tobacco gum, but really I was just hoping to see Henry Allen before I went home for the day. I knew he was working in the shed on the other side of the field. We didn’t have no plans to meet up tonight and that would make three nights in a row. Last night was my fault. I was supposed to meet him at midnight, but Baby William had a coughing spell and woke Nonnie and Mary Ella up and there wasn’t no way I could sneak out after that. He gave me a look this morning, asking why I didn’t come and I got to tell him “Baby William was sick” but they was the only words we said to each other all day, and it made me crazy watching him carry the tobacco to us on the sled and then go out again without being able to talk to him. Anybody watching me now would know I was dawdling. The tomato was falling apart and my fingers was still stuck together.
I was rinsing the tomato juice off my hands with water from the bucket, when down the road I saw Nonnie coming toward me fast, her cane flying out behind her. That scared me. I always said I couldn’t remember the day Daddy died, but I remembered the feel of it. The rushing around, panicky kind of feeling. Watching Nonnie run up the road toward me gave me that feeling all over again.
I dropped the tomato and started running toward her, remembering how Baby William nearly went blue in the face last night when he had his coughing fit. He was always with Nonnie this time of day but he wasn’t with her now.
Nonnie stopped running and waved to me to hurry up.
“What’s wrong?” I shouted as soon as I got close enough. “Is it Baby William?”
“I seen Mrs. Werkman’s car,” Nonnie said. She was out of breath. “She’s parked on the lane. You know she’ll want to see you and your sister.”
“That’s all?” I stopped running myself. Then Baby William popped out of one of the rows of tobacco right in front of me. I wanted to smack him for scaring me, but really it was Nonnie who deserved the smack for not watching him
better. “I thought something terrible happened.”
“Come on now, girl.” She grabbed my arm with her fat, clammy hand.
“You shouldn’t be running,” I said. “And you shouldn’t let Baby William run through the tobacco like that after the last time.” Not two weeks ago, he got lost in the rows of tobacco and we didn’t know where he was. Everyone was out looking for him. Mary Ella cried, she was so scared. It was Eli who found him, sitting on the ground, dirt smeared all over his face, playing with a fat ugly tobacco worm. When Mary Ella saw Eli come out of the field carrying her baby, she fell out on the ground sobbing, she was so relieved.
“And you should of been home by now,” Nonnie scolded. “Where’s Mary Ella?”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t want to know, neither. “Mary Ella’s running her own life,” I said. I wanted to talk to Mrs. Werkman about the things we needed. Diapers. Underwear and clothes for me and Mary Ella. And the thing I wanted the most: a window fan. I knew people at church who had one and said it was the best thing ever invented. But Mrs. Werkman brung us little things like clothes and diapers. It couldn’t hurt to ask, though.
Nonnie was holding my arm so hard her nails dug into my skin. “Don’t say nothin’ to Mrs. Werkman about the extras,” she said.
“I ain’t stupid,” I said, then corrected myself in my head. I’m not stupid. If we told Mrs. Werkman about the extras Mr. Gardiner gave us, she’d subtract them off the money we got. And Mr. Gardiner’d been right generous with us lately, even sending Mary Ella home with half a ham the other day. I think things was going real good for him and the farm.
“I hid the ham soon as I saw her car,” Nonnie said. “Hid it and come out to find you and your useless sister.”
“She ain’t useless,” I said. I wasn’t sure of the best word to describe Mary Ella, but useless wasn’t right. Not the way she could calm Baby William. Not the way she loved that boy.