Chapter Nine

Late on an August afternoon, I walked into our bedroom with my arms full of things I’d bought for my dorm room at Berkeley—sheets and towels, even a small pot for coffee, though I didn’t drink it yet. Charlene was dressing to go to a Youth of Christ meeting. “You’ll be late,” I told her. She was struggling to pull her panty hose over her stomach. She tried to suck it in, but she couldn’t.

“Charlene! Look at that belly! You’re fat,” I blurted out before I even thought about it, and then I knew.

In the mornings it was all she could do to keep her breakfast down. The scrambled eggs and grits Marilyn always cooked had made her gag that morning, and she’d run to the bathroom. “I’m okay,” she called, but we heard her vomiting.

I sat on the bed and stared at the bulge beneath her jumper. She plucked the fabric out with her fingertips, trying to make more room for her stomach. “What’ll we do?” I whispered. “Does Daddy know?”

She reached behind her neck to fix the clasp on a sterling silver heart Ernie had given her for Valentine’s Day. I thought of the cheap engraved heart Grady Pickens gave her at the state fair so long ago, and wished suddenly we were still those girls, pushing away boys we didn’t like.

“Think Daddy’ll ever notice?” she asked, patting her belly. “He doesn’t care about anything but you and Marilyn. That’s all I hear about, Berkeley and Vietnam. It’s like I’m the only one who lives here in Biloxi anymore.”

“He loves you and me. You know that.” I thought about all the nights Daddy and I had sat at the kitchen table, talking about my scholarship and application. Where had Charlene been? Out with Ernie. Or watching television, alone. I got up to hug her, but she put up her arms to fend me off. “What does Ernie say?” I asked.

“Not much,” she said. She picked up her hairbrush and picked at some curls around her face.

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“It’s my life, not yours.”

“When is the baby due?” A real baby! I could hardly believe the words.

She shrugged. “Maybe five months. Around Christmas, probably.”

“You’ve got to see a doctor, don’t you? Terrible things can happen if you don’t.” A girl in Gulfport had given birth to a baby in her own bed a couple of years ago, and nobody had even known she was pregnant. Her mother had gone to wake her up for school and found her, asleep, with a baby in her arms. “You can’t have the baby at home.”

“Ernie doesn’t want me to go to a doctor,” she said.

“Are you going to get married?” The bulge in her stomach looked enormous now.

She adjusted Ernie’s class ring. “‘Mrs. Ernie Crenshaw’ for the rest of my life? I don’t think so.”

“Why not? You love him, don’t you?” The thought of having Ernie in the family made my toes curl, but it was the only thing that could save us.

She kept biting her lip and turned her left hand, so that the red jewel in Ernie’s class ring flashed in the light. “You know what? I don’t even like Ernie anymore. Remember Art Johnson?”

“Of course,” I said. “Is he the father?”

She threw me a black look. “Are you joking? He was back in town for a few days. He was at Parris Island, you know. Got drafted. He looks good even with his head shaved. I saw him at the Dairy Queen. He bought me a Coke and we just talked. He’s so different from Ernie, he’s so …”

“Smart?” I asked, and she didn’t look offended.

“Yeah. Parris Island sounds like hell. He had a big brace around his whole middle, a bad back. The Army didn’t want him like that, so he’s going to State. He’s going to write me, he said.”

“Listen, I get tired of Rob sometimes, too, but I still like being with him. You’re not going to like somebody all the time, every second, even Art Johnson.”

“Yeah, well, Ernie’s an idiot. He says I’m not really pregnant. That’s why he doesn’t want me seeing a doctor; he’s afraid it’s true. He’d have to tell his Mommy and Daddy. Coward.” A soft look replaced the anger in her eyes. “I told Art Johnson I thought I was pregnant, and you know what he did?”

“You told him? What for? Now the whole town’ll know.” My own sister, telling a stranger before she told me.

“He was nice, he held my hand. And he won’t tell anybody.” She tilted her head back and stroked mascara on her lashes, her mouth open slightly.

“But what about the baby?” My head spun, and my throat tightened.

“A lot of people would give a baby a good home.” She capped the mascara and spritzed hairspray around her head, but the reflection of her face in the mirror was like a mask.

“Adoption?” I’d never get to see my niece or nephew.

Carefully, she styled each strand of hair as if it took all her concentration. Watching herself in the mirror, she said, “Do you know about ‘ensoulment’?”

The store where Daddy bought his elevator shoes came to mind, the way they’d raised the price for the thick soles he ordered, but that wasn’t what she meant. “No,” I said.

“It’s when Catholics say the soul enters a baby before it’s born. They say babies don’t have a soul till just before they’re born. Right now, it’s just tissue and …”

“Abortion?” Another wave of nausea made my stomach lurch. “You can’t make it all right by using the Church. They don’t like abortion.” I felt like crying.

She gave me a hard look. “Your life is so easy. Here you are, off to Berkeley, and look at me.” She pointed the brush at her belly. “What can I do? I’ve thought about every possible plan. That’s what I lie in bed doing, while you’re writing day-glo poetry.”

“Abortion is Ernie’s idea, isn’t it?”

“The baby doesn’t even exist to him. But I read some old Catholic manuals at the library, and it sounded like souls come down and enter the womb later. And there’s a doctor in New Orleans who …”

“Oh Charlene.” I didn’t know if I wanted to hit her or hug her. “Don’t. I’ll love your baby just like it’s my own. All I know is that you and me, we’ve always had soul, and Mama had soul, and we couldn’t do anything like take a soul from a baby.” A terrible thought came to me. “What on earth are we going to tell Grandma?”

She turned away from me. “Just don’t worry about it.” She gave her hair a final shot of spray, then pointed the brush at me in the mirror. “I can take care of myself.”

Charlene was only eighteen. What could she know about taking care of babies? And abortions could kill you.

“I’m calling Aunt Sylvia,” I said.

“Go ahead.” For the first time, she smiled, a secretive sliver on her lips. “But she knows.”

“You told her? And you didn’t tell me?” She’d shut me out again, just like with Ernie, and for a moment, I hated her. “I wish Mama was here. She’d know what to do,” I said.

“Mama must’ve been p.g. with me when she got married,” said Charlene.

Dates flashed through my head. September, 1949 had been their anniversary, and Charlene was born the following August. “They had you right away, that’s all. Why do you always put the worst possible face on things?”

“Ever seen their marriage license?”

“Have you?”

She shrugged. “No. But how do we know they really got married in September? Mama’s stomach is poochy in their wedding pictures. And why else would she marry somebody like Daddy? It was all my fault she ruined her life.”

Charlene’s words sank into my mind like stones. It was true. In the pictures, Mama was wearing a blue dress, full-skirted with a low neck. Beneath the gathers of her skirt, Mama’s stomach was round, not flat the way I remembered it. “She loved Daddy, that’s the only reason she married him. Daddy’s great.”

Her lips tightened. “I’m glad you and Marilyn think so.” She fiddled with her bottle of Windsong perfume.

I put my arm on her shoulder and this time she didn’t push me away. “Listen, I’ve never told you this. I heard Mama talking to Levi Litvak, right before she died. She was telling him she loved Daddy, and that she loved us. She didn’t want Levi Litvak, Charlene. She wanted us.”

Hope glinted in her eyes, a steely kind of hope. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“I thought it would upset you. It was us that she loved. Levi Litvak, he was just passing through.”

Ernie’s car horn beeped outside. She gave me a faint smile, picked up her Bible, and left.

I drove the pick-up truck to the pay phone where Drummond’s had been re-built, and called Aunt Sylvia collect. I didn’t even bother to say hello, the words tumbled out of my mouth. “Charlene’s pregnant. Please come do something.”

“Has she told your dad?” asked Aunt Sylvia.

“No, she’s mad at Daddy. But her stomach’s sticking out like crazy. You should see her.”

“She’ll tell your dad when she’s ready,” she said.

“Charlene’s waiting for Dad to notice. And she doesn’t even want to marry Ernie.” My voice shook.

“I know,” she said. “She doesn’t have to.”

An old woman came up behind me and fumbled in her purse for a nickel. I lowered my voice. “She doesn’t even like Ernie now. She wants to give the baby up.”

“Maybe that’s best,” she said, and I could hardly believe my ears. “She has her life ahead of her, like you do at Berkeley.” She paused. “I may adopt the baby myself.”

Aunt Sylvia with a baby? Mama always said Aunt Sylvia would rather change the world instead of diapers. “But you’re not married,” I said. “How can you have a baby? What would Grandma say?”

The old woman coughed and rattled her change in the cup of her hand. Every time I turned my back to her, she moved around to listen.

Aunt Sylvia laughed softly, and it felt good to hear it, even if she was laughing at me. “You don’t have to be married, honey. And I’m a grown-up; Mama doesn’t have anything to do with it. She might be happy for us. Anyway, nothing’s definite now. Charlene has to get used to the idea. Give her a hug, let her know that you love …”

“I tried, and she pushed me away,” I whispered, turning so the woman behind me wouldn’t see the tears that were rising. “It’s my baby, too! Our family! She’s talking about abortion.”

The old woman edged nearer, studying me with beady eyes suddenly curious, bright as a bird’s. She looked like she’d spied a juicy worm and wanted to chew it.

“Oh honey,” said Aunt Sylvia, and her voice sounded like Mama’s, sweet and southern. “It’s the family’s baby, and we’ll take care of it. We’ll take care of Charlene, too. Try not to worry.”

“Aunt Sylvia?”

“What?”

The words were caught in my throat, but I forced them out, cupping my hand around the receiver so the old woman couldn’t hear. “Did Mama and Daddy have to get married?”

My pulse pounded in the silence, but Aunt Sylvia finally answered. “Why are you asking me a question like that? No, of course they didn’t have to. People get married because they love each other.”

“You know what I mean. Was it Charlene?”

“Charlene had nothing to do with it,” said Aunt Sylvia. “Your parents loved each other more than any couple I’ve ever seen.”

“I better go, Aunt Sylvia.” I wiped my nose on my sleeve. The old woman brushed up so close I smelled the mothballs in the sweater she carried over one arm, even though it was hot.

“I love you, honey,” she said. “I’ll call tonight. You’ve got California ahead of you in a few weeks; your whole life, don’t lose sight of that.”

“You’re one of those Starling girls, aren’t you?” asked the woman when I hung up. Her eyes shone in triumph, her head cocked. A pigeon, I thought. I shook my head and hurried to the truck, pulling the keys from my purse as fast as I could.

“That’s the murder truck, isn’t it?” I could still hear her words as I cranked the engine and sped away.

All day, I thought of nothing but Aunt Sylvia’s call that night, what I would say. Rob kept calling to ask what was wrong, but I didn’t want to see him.

When the phone rang during supper, I leapt to get it. “Aunt Sylvia?” I said.

Marilyn sighed. “That girl thinks everybody who calls this house is going to be Sylvia. Can’t get Berkeley off her mind.” She dipped her pork chop into a mustard sauce.

“Hi honey,” came Aunt Sylvia’s voice over the line. “How are you feeling?”

“Okay.” It was a lie, and Aunt Sylvia knew it. I turned my back to the kitchen table, but I could feel Charlene’s eyes boring into me. The phone wire curled and uncurled around my fingers.

“Where’s Charlene?” asked Aunt Sylvia.

“Right here,” I said. “You want to talk?”

“Please,” she said.

Charlene had already risen, pushing her chair back far so she wouldn’t brush her belly on the table. How had I not noticed? She went back to the bedroom, and I listened for a couple of seconds while she picked up on the princess phone. “Aunt Sylvia,” she said, and there were tears in her voice. Then her voice hardened. “Hang up, Jubilee,” she said.

I sat down and picked up my fork, but I couldn’t eat.

“What’s that about?” asked Daddy. “You girls plotting a trip to New York?”

“Too much money,” said Marilyn, and she went on about how we had to save just to buy groceries.

I ducked my head when my chin started to tremble, but tears slipped out of my eyes. “What’s wrong, Jubilee?” Daddy interrupted Marilyn and put his napkin on the table. “What’s the matter?” He reached across to wipe the tears from my eyes with his thumb.

“It’s Charlene,” I said. “But she has to tell you.” I’d said too much, and I knew it.

Charlene stood in the doorway, her hands on either side of the bulge under her jumper. “It’s a baby,” she said, and at first Daddy didn’t get it.

“What?” He’d just taken a bite of mashed potatoes.

“Oh my stars,” said Marilyn. “I should’ve known, all that throwing up in the morning. Ernie Crenshaw, isn’t it?”

Daddy swallowed and then his jaw went slack. He looked at Charlene, then Marilyn, then at me. Then he pounded his fist on the table so hard the silverware jumped. “Ernie Crenshaw! Where is that bastard? I’ll beat the tar …”

I’d never heard Daddy use language like that. Charlene rushed to him and put her arms around his neck. He pulled her into his lap and cradled her like a baby while she cried.

Marilyn scraped back her chair and started clearing the dishes, staring blankly at the plates as she dumped the leftovers into the garbage. Usually, she’d save even the smallest scrap of meatloaf, but that night, it seemed like nothing was worth saving. Such was the mess we’d all made of our lives. And wouldn’t I make an even bigger mess by going to Berkeley? I sat at the end of the table, unable to stand, unable to even look at Daddy and Charlene.

Charlene’s sobs dissolved into hiccups. Marilyn handed her a box of Kleenex and rubbed her back.

Daddy said, “Hon, I have an errand. You okay?”

Charlene’s face went from collapsed to incredulous. “You’re not going to Libertyberg, are you?”

“That’s what your Daddy’s for.” He patted her hair.

“Oh, Daddy,” she said, burying her head in her folded arms. But there were no tears this time. Maybe she was happy that at least one man in her life would stand up for her.

After we heard him back out of the driveway in the station wagon, Charlene reached for her purse. “C’mon, Jubilee.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’re going to drive me to Ernie’s. What if Daddy tries to shoot him?”

“Daddy?” The only time I’d seen Daddy with a gun was one November after he nicked a deer that got away. He hadn’t gone hunting since. “More likely, Mr. Crenshaw will be firing a few rounds at Daddy.”

“All the more reason to go,” she said.

“Bye, Marilyn,” we called, though the water was running behind the bathroom door to hide the sound of her crying.

Charlene didn’t know the way as well as I expected her to, and we were late getting to Ernie’s house. It was a little ranch house, the kind that tried to look upscale, with bricks on the bottom and white shingles on top. A bank of faded azaleas lined the driveway, dying. Mr. Crenshaw had planted an American flag on the porch, for Labor Day, I guessed. “Does he always have that flag there?”

“Don’t know,” she said. She was watching Daddy on the porch, where he was talking to Ernie’s dad. Daddy kept poking his finger at Mr. Crenshaw’s chest, and Mr. Crenshaw started talking so loud I could make out most of the words.

“… not Ernie’s,” he said. “No offense, Mr. Starling, but I don’t know your daughter, and I don’t think my boy knows her well, either.”

Daddy pulled back his fist, but slammed it into his hand instead of Mr. Crenshaw’s face. I opened the truck door. “What the hell are you doing?” hissed Charlene.

“Defending you. You wanted me to come, didn’t you?” I made my way across their neatly cut crab grass. “Aren’t you Ernie’s dad?” I called.

Daddy’s mouth dropped open, then he clamped it shut and glared at me. “What do you mean, coming here? This is business!” He squinted. “Is that Charlene out there? You girls go home. I’ll be there soon.”

But I was already on the porch. “Do you have any idea how much time Ernie spends at our house, Mr. Crenshaw? Or how long he’s dated Charlene?” For the first time, I saw Mr. Crenshaw’s frantic eyes, darting anywhere but my face.

“Ernie goes to everybody’s houses for Youth for Christ,” he said, and I almost pitied him. His voice shook with the same tremor that made his eyes seem to tremble. “He’s a good boy, our only child. He wouldn’t lie to his mother and me.”

Daddy clenched his fists. “You’re saying my daughter’s a liar? This is life, and you and me are going to be grandfathers. If you want to teach your son to be a man, then show him how.”

Mr. Crenshaw’s face darkened, and he pumped himself up to his full height. “I’m a bigger man than you are.”

That’s when Daddy drew his fist back for the second time, putting his weight on his back leg. Before I knew it, I reached out to stop him. His eyes were red from tears and rage, and the muscles in his arm were strong under my hand. It scared me, like he’d unleashed some power in himself that I’d never known. “C’mon, Daddy. Let’s go.”

That was enough. Daddy’s arm relaxed, but he jabbed a finger at Mr. Crenshaw. “You talk some sense into that boy of yours. First, you better get some in your own head.”

We walked to the truck, and Daddy reached in to kiss Charlene, still waiting in the seat. “You want to drive back with me, sweetheart? Jubilee, you follow real close.”

As I trailed them, I could see their heads, nodding sometimes, and I wondered what they were saying. What would happen to the baby, now that Ernie said it wasn’t his?

We drove into the shadowy driveway, the place where I sometimes still saw Mama, her body slumped. Marilyn was in the kitchen, sitting at the table with her hands running over the green formica, as if she might read the future there. We all sat down, and looked expectantly at Daddy.

His lips were so tight he could hardly talk, and he wrapped his arms around Charlene. “Ernie’s not worth it, honey,” he told her. “That whole family’s trash.”

“What happened?” asked Marilyn. Fear began to overtake the fatigue in her voice.

“Wouldn’t take responsibility,” said Daddy. “They raised a sorry excuse for a boy.” Charlene and I looked at each other. That, we knew, was an understatement.

“Did you hit him?” Marilyn’s voice had a breathless quality, and her eyes glinted in the dim light. I knew how she felt. I wished Daddy had hit him, too. Scared old Mr. Crenshaw, lying for that lousy son of his, so he could go off to Ole Miss or Southern and get a college education without a crying baby to get in his way.

The next night, a police officer came and delivered a paper saying that Daddy couldn’t come within fifty yards of Ernie’s father. Having a policeman at the door reminded me of when Mama died, and this time I wanted to listen. Daddy was talking. “I might have lost my temper, but I wasn’t going to hurt him, no matter what he said about that ignorant, fool-headed boy of his,” Daddy said. “No sir, there’s no way I’ll go to the Crenshaw house again, papers or no papers. I wouldn’t dirty myself by standing in their doorway.” When the policeman left, Daddy wadded the papers and stuffed them into the garbage. “A grown man, crying to the police like a little baby! Trash, that’s all they are.”

Charlene broke up with Ernie over the phone. I couldn’t hear much of what she said, but I did hear her tell him, “can’t handle the truth.” She mailed his ring back to Libertyburg, along with the heart necklace. But when the next Youth for Christ meeting came around, she dressed in one of the loose jumpers she’d been wearing. Rob had just come over to watch Laugh In.

“You’re kidding,” I said. “You’re not really going, are you? Ernie’ll be there. They’ll make fun of you.”

“If they’re for real, they won’t,” said Rob, and I shot him a dirty look.

“God loves me,” Charlene said, turning sideways to eye her belly in the mirror over the mantel. “Besides, if they accepted me after Mama died, they’ll accept me now.”

I started to tell her how that was different, how they could feel smug about themselves for forgiving her for having a mother who was murdered, but that this was her own sin. She put the strap of her new purse over her shoulder and picked up Daddy’s car keys. “Bye,” she smiled, and wagged her fingers at Rob and me in a little wave. That was when I knew she was going to test them. She didn’t really expect that everything would be just fine.

Marilyn, Daddy, Rob, and I sat in the living room watching TV but we were too nervous about Charlene to pay attention. Marilyn made popcorn, but Rob was the only one who could eat. I finally took the tupperware container away from him. “You’re getting on my nerves, all that crunching,” I said, sliding the popcorn out of his reach.

He nodded like he understood, and laughed out loud at something Goldie Hawn did. “There’s nothing you can do,” he said when he saw my eyes. “Relax.”

It wasn’t long before the car door slammed in the driveway, and Daddy turned off the TV and opened the front door. It was Charlene, but at least she wasn’t crying. Her face was tight as she slung her purse onto the dining table. “They’re sinners, too,” she said. “We’re all sinners.”

“That’s only one way to look at it,” said Rob. “What is sin, anyway?”

“This isn’t the time for a big philosophical discussion,” I told him.

“Whatever you say,” he said, and made a reach for the popcorn again.

“Was Ernie there?” I asked, though Daddy frowned at me and pulled an imaginary zipper over his lips.

“At least Ernie knows he’s a sinner.” Charlene looked at Daddy. “They said he enlisted in the Army last week.” She went to the bathroom, and soon the water in the shower was running, as if she could wash off more than sweat or dust.

She never went to another Youth for Christ meeting, not even when they called to ask where she was. Instead, she started driving out to the farm once a week, to pray with Grandma Tattershall. She came home with caps and booties and tiny jackets in patterns I recognized from the crocheted doilies that lay on Grandma’s Sunday table. Grandma had clicked her crochet hooks through a lot of trouble.

We could hear Daddy sighing at night again, Marilyn trying to comfort him. “I’m losing both my girls. They’ve grown away from me. I let it happen,” he told her, and, in the next room, Charlene and I looked at each other. “Where did I go wrong?” he asked. He was really asking, if only Mama had still been alive, wouldn’t things be different?

In a few weeks, Charlene was going to move out, and at least her life with Marilyn would be over. Daddy arranged for her to live at a home for unwed mothers in Mobile. She could take college credit courses there. Sylvia talked to Daddy about raising the baby, but he wouldn’t hear of it. The baby would stay with us, he said. To cheer up Charlene, Marilyn bought baby clothes, white for either a boy or a girl. She arranged them on the kitchen table, the little caps over the sleepers, booties below, so Charlene could admire them when she came home from school. But when Charlene saw them, she burst into tears, both hands over her face.

When she could talk, she said, “I can’t be a mother. I thought I loved Ernie, but I didn’t. What kind of mother would I be?” She’d never said that much to Marilyn.

A pleased look crossed Marilyn’s face, like she could finally be a mother to Charlene. She put her arm around her. “We’ll all be the baby’s family,” she said. She picked up a pair of booties and smiled down at them. “I’ll mother your little baby to death.”

Charlene was so horrified she stopped crying. “No one’s mothering my baby to death. I’m giving it up for adoption. There must be somebody out there who’ll be a good mother to the baby.”

Marilyn dropped the booties on the table. “I’ll help you be a good mother, sweetheart,” she told Charlene, but a hurt look came into Marilyn’s eyes, as if she needed a mother, herself.

That night, Daddy sat on the sofa next to Charlene. “God gave up his only child, didn’t he?” she asked him.

Try to reply to that! said the look on her face, and Daddy couldn’t. “But … but this is your b-baby, Charlene.”

“Yes,” she said, “and Marilyn’s not going to raise my baby. She acts like it’s hers already.”

From the kitchen came the slam of a cabinet door, and Marilyn appeared, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Somebody better claim that little baby.”

“What do you care?” Charlene stormed out, slamming the bedroom door.

Later that night, when the darkness in our room allowed for confessions, Charlene told me, “I mean, love is what you feel for a baby you’re willing to let somebody else raise, because it’ll be happier.”

“If you’ll let me, I’ll be a good aunt. I’ll be like Aunt Sylvia,” I said, thinking of the places I could take my niece or nephew, the worlds I’d open up, the way Aunt Sylvia had for me. I remembered the way Marilyn cradled me during the tornado, how loved I’d felt, but there was no way to explain that to Charlene. “You know, Marilyn might treat the baby all right. She’ll love it, I’m sure.” But only silence came from her side of the room. “Mama would’ve raised your baby. She’d do anything for us. She gave up Levi Litvak for us, didn’t she?” Still, Charlene said nothing.

During the days, I packed for Berkeley, trying to keep my own life in focus. A new denim jacket, a popcorn maker, I piled it all up in a corner of the bedroom, feeling guilty about my future while Charlene’s stomach kept growing. Charlene ignored the pile until she saw me fold a mini-dress on top.

“You won’t wear that in Berkeley, will you?” she asked.

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.

“It’s too short. Guys’ll want to get in your pants. Pack jeans, that’s all they’re wearing out there, anyway.” She pulled the dress off the pile and held it up, her head cocked. “You think rules don’t apply to you, don’t you?”

“What rules?”

“See? You don’t even know rules exist.” She folded the mini-dress and put it on my bed. “Take it back to the store. Exchange it.” She looked down at her stomach. “This could happen to you, too.”

“I’ve never …” I started.

“I know. Just be careful.” She picked up the doll I’d rescued from the tornado, and tugged its skirt down. The blue crepe paper dress I’d made for her had faded to purple. She held out the doll. “Here. She’ll bring you good luck.”

I took it and hugged Charlene. “I’ll be back home as soon as the baby’s born.”

Her arms felt warm around me.

Charlene had to stay home with Marilyn while Daddy and I drove out West. Once he got me settled in the dorm, he’d leave the truck with me and fly back to Mississippi. Charlene thanked God she wouldn’t have to look at that truck anymore. He’d answered her prayers again, she said.