Daddy didn’t come home for lunch the day after the dinner party at the Wheelers’. Mama didn’t say a word about his empty chair or the plate of food she’d placed at his spot that went untouched. All she did was push the cooked carrots around her own plate with a fork. Ray and I didn’t do much talking, either. When we did, Mama didn’t pay us any mind at all.
After I finished eating, I asked if Mama wanted me to take Daddy’s lunch to him at his office. She nodded and went to the kitchen to put together a thermos of coffee. Even on a hot afternoon like that one Daddy would want his coffee.
“Take this right to him. And don’t dawdle,” she told me, handing me the plate and thermos. “Don’t stay long if he’s busy, hear? Your father has a very important job.”
She said it like she wasn’t all that convinced of her own words.
“And bring my plate back when he’s done,” she called after me.
July was turning out to be blazing hot. In Millard’s last letter to us he said he couldn’t hardly stand it and wondered if Red River had relocated to the surface of the sun when he wasn’t paying attention. On the radio we heard there was a heat wave striking down the whole country. That afternoon as I walked to the police station with Daddy’s plate of food I thought I was about to melt what with the heat beating down on me from the sky above, searing up from the pavement, and squeezing me in with the humid air.
Summers in Red River had been hotter than hot. But it had been a dry heat. Summer in Michigan was a whole lot of boil and simmer.
In church the Sunday before, the preacher had said, “In everything give thanks.” He’d told us to give thanks in good and in trial and even in the days with nothing special going on. So, that day, I gave thanks to the Lord for the trees somebody had seen fit to plant all up and down Main Street that offered even the tiniest of shade.
I decided it felt good to give thanks and it passed the time just fine. A list of things I was thankful for grew in my head. Chirping birds and scampering squirrels. Ice cream from Miss Shirley’s and nickel movies with Ray. Aunt Carrie’s fried chicken and Uncle Gus’s big laughs.
So many things grew in my mind like a garden of thanksgiving, blooming despite the gray clouds.
But when I stepped on a spit-out wad of chewing gum, it sticking to the sole of my shoe, I ran out of things to give thanks for. I wasn’t sure a mess like that was on God’s mind when He had that part of the Bible spelled out.
Daddy sat behind his desk in the police station. In one hand he held a lit cigarette and in the other a pen. His scribbling scratched across the paper. He’d set up a fan so it would point right at his face. Still, it didn’t keep the sweat from beading up on his forehead.
When he saw me, Daddy put the pen down and stretched out his fingers like they were sore from writing all day.
“Lord, but are you a sight for sore eyes this afternoon,” he said. “Did you bring me a little something to eat?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s a girl.”
“And some coffee.” I put the plate in front of him on the desk. “I can pour it for you.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “Thanks kindly, darlin’.”
Daddy took a cup from one of his drawers and told me it was clean. I filled it with coffee, making sure not to spill so much as one drop.
“What would I do without you?” he asked. “I reckon you’d be hungry,” I said.
“I think you’re right about that.”
Daddy got up and pulled over a chair for me so I could sit next to him with the fan doing its darnedest to cool the both of us. He handed me the newspaper to read while he ate.
“Might be funnies in there,” he said.
I turned from one page to the other but all I found was a bunch of news. Trying to hide my disappointment, I folded it back up. That was when I saw a list of names. I ran my finger down it, smudging the ink and turning my skin gray.
It was real long, that list. And it had addresses printed right next to the names. Our name wasn’t there and neither were Uncle Gus and Aunt Carrie. But I did read a whole bunch of names that had become familiar to me since coming to Bliss.
“Daddy, what is this?” I asked.
Daddy took the paper, shaking it to make it straighten in his hands. He shook his head and bit at his bottom lip.
“Why aren’t we on that list?” I asked, looking over his shoulder at the names.
“This is all the folks in the county that are taking assistance,” he said. “We aren’t?”
“No, darlin’, we are not. Not yet, at least.”
“Why’d they put that in the paper?”
“Don’t know.” He folded the paper and set it on the top of a stack of papers on the left-hand side of his desk. “Maybe out of meanness. Maybe because he wants to shame those folks. I know he’s not fond of the government giving out assistance. Couldn’t tell you why he’d do something so ugly, though.”
I knew he was talking about Abe Campbell. After all, he was the one that wrote up and printed out the newspaper every morning.
Daddy made a sound that was half grunt and half growl. “Whatever it is made him print that, it’s wrong if you ask me.”
“Maybe he doesn’t know it’s wrong,” I said.
“Maybe. I doubt that very much, though.”
He pushed his empty plate to one side of his desk and set back to doing a little of his work. I watched him, seeing the way his handwriting slanted, especially with him rushing the way he was.
“There’s some scratch paper in my drawer there,” he said, not looking up from his paperwork. “And an ink pen you can use.”
I sat beside him, my pen moving along the scraps of paper to make pictures of flowers and trees and a road that led to somewhere magical. Somewhere that had food aplenty and jobs for everybody. A place where lost little children found their homes and mamas weren’t ever tempted to stray away.
When Daddy asked me what I was drawing, I didn’t know what to say. “It’s just a picture,” I said.
“It’s a good one, darlin’,” he said. “A real good one.”
I stayed there with Daddy until he said it was time for him to make his rounds through town. I put the ink pen away and put all my pictures into a stack, tapping them against the desk so they’d be neat.
“You mind if I keep a couple of those here?” he asked. “I think I’d like to see something pretty every once in a while.”
I told him he could have them all.
“Thanks kindly.” Daddy put them on his desk right where he’d see them the next morning. “Now, you wanna go with me on my rounds?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered.
“That’s fine.”
Daddy had let me go on rounds with him before, back in Red River. We’d go to the few stores still open, then out to the sharecropper cabins and the Hooverville to see the folks passing through. He’d get his hands dirty trying to help some fella dig out a tractor or he’d carry a heavy basket of laundry for a housewife.
He was a good man, my daddy.
There in Bliss, Daddy walked up and down the pavement in front of the post office and Wheeler’s store and all the way to the library before turning back to pass the places on the other side of the street. We went past the movie theater and the little hardware store before ending up at Miss Shirley’s diner where Daddy treated me to a dish of ice cream.
“Don’t tell your mama,” he whispered in my ear. “She’d be mad at me for spending the money.”
I promised I wouldn’t tell.
It felt good having a secret just between the two of us for a change.
Daddy wanted to go out to a farm clear to the other side of town. I asked if I could go with him, but he thought I’d better get back home.
“See if your mama’s doing all right,” he said. “She might just need your help.”
I headed on home, but halfway there remembered I’d left Daddy’s lunch plate at the station. Mama would sigh for the rest of the afternoon if I didn’t bring it back the way she’d told me to. She might even holler and I didn’t want more of that if I could avoid it. I turned back and took my own sweet time getting there.
The way the sun blazed its dragon-hot breath on me I didn’t think it was a good idea to rush. As it was, the water-heavy air filled my lungs and made me cough every dozen steps or so. I thought maybe once I got to Daddy’s desk I’d sit in front of that fan of his for a couple minutes to cool off before turning around and going back home.
I found Mama’s plate right where Daddy’d left it and stood with my face inches from the fan. The air hit my face, but it wasn’t near as cool as I’d hoped it would be, so I switched it off.
That was when I heard talking coming from down the hall where Mayor Winston’s office was.
“People are talking, Abe.” I knew that voice to belong to Mayor Winston. It was deep and full of gravel just then, not smooth like normal.
“Who is?” Mr. Campbell asked. “Wheeler? You know he’s a bigger gossip than any woman in this town.”
“So you’re telling me it isn’t true?” Mayor Winston paused before going on. “You didn’t walk Mary Spence home last night and stand outside her front door for an hour chatting it up with her?”
Silence. Abe Campbell didn’t answer. I got out from behind Daddy’s desk and walked quiet as I could toward the hallway.
“You can’t do that,” Winston said. “It doesn’t look good.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It looks bad, Abe.” The mayor’s voice was firm. “She’s married. They’ve got kids.”
“What do you want me to do?” Campbell asked.
“Stay away from her.”
Neither of them said anything else for more than a couple minutes and I expected they were staring each other down like I’d seen men do in the movies. They had their eyes locked, not blinking, to prove who was stronger.
I wanted so bad to believe that Mayor Winston was the mightier man. “Are you done?” Mr. Campbell asked.
“I guess I am.”
“Good. I have work to do.”
“Do the right thing, Abe,” Mayor Winston said. “I hope you still know what that would be.”
I rushed out the station door and to the street, walking fast as I could down the pavement in the direction of home.
When I passed the Wheelers’ house I saw Hazel at their front gate, talking over the fence to one of the girls that followed her around. They stopped and watched me walk by. I stuck my tongue out at her before running fast as I could all the way back home.
I got to the front door of our house before I realized I’d forgotten the plate.