On nights when Daddy worked, I couldn’t sleep so well. When I closed my eyes I’d think of all the worst things that could come to be. A thief could come in to steal from us, hurting Mama or taking her away. If I let myself sleep, I might not hear her cry out for help. I might not be able to save her.
Something could catch on fire—a washrag in the kitchen or a forgotten coal on the fire—and we might sleep right through until it was too late to get out. If I stayed awake, I’d smell the smoke. I could get everyone out of the house.
Daddy could get hurt while he was away from us. He could get caught in the line of a bullet from the gun of a thief or be driving down a dark country road when his truck would flip, making him stuck inside. My being awake could do nothing to save him, but my prayer said over and over might.
“Dear God, please protect my daddy,” I’d mouth. “Keep him safe because we need him so bad. Don’t let anything happen to him. In Jesus’s sweet, sweet name, amen.”
Soon as I’d finished praying that, I’d go around and say it again for good measure. Just in case.
I’d read in the Bible that we weren’t to babble on and on in our prayers like the pagans did. So I only let myself say that prayer for Daddy four times, asking God if He would forgive me for asking more than once.
Somehow I thought He didn’t mind too much.
I watched out my window hoping maybe I’d spy a fat raccoon wobbling his way across the yard or a skunk rooting around in Mama’s flower bed. Those critters didn’t bother me at all, just so long as the raccoon didn’t overturn the trash or the skunk didn’t let out any stink. What I didn’t like seeing, though, were possums. They made my skin crawl.
The only creature I saw wandering about that night was tall and walking on two legs. I knew from the lanky shadow he cast that it was Abe Campbell. It was in the way he swung his arms, lazy, at his sides. How his shoulders were broad and square. The way he reached up to run his fingers through the front of his hair. It was him all right.
I would have preferred a possum just then, rat tail and all.
What was Abe Campbell doing in our back yard in the middle of the night? I didn’t know the answer to that and I didn’t care. I just wished he would turn right around and go back to whatever hole he had come up out of.
But he did not. He stepped right up to the back porch and held his fist up a moment before letting it rap-tap-tap on the door.
Sitting up in bed, I waited, wondering if Mama’d even heard the knocking. And if she had, would she answer it? I hoped she’d send him away, reminding him of the time of night and letting him know that Daddy wasn’t to home.
The door did open, and through my screened window I heard Mama tell him to come in.
He did.
I held my breath and counted to a hundred, sure he’d leave by then. He didn’t. I counted to a hundred again and again. Still, Mr. Campbell hadn’t left. Getting out of bed, I got on my knees and lowered my ear to the vent. I heard their voices as a mumbled, jumbled murmur of sound.
If I wanted to know what they were saying, I had to get closer.
I left my room and snuck down the steps. They hadn’t turned on so much as one light.
“Evildoers do hate the light, you know,” Meemaw’d told me long before. “They do their evil deeds in the dark so as not to get themselfs caught.”
Once I was at the bottom of the steps, I peeked around the wall, trying with all my might not to make so much as a single sound.
Mama and Mr. Campbell stood on the other side of the dining-room table, closer to each other than I thought was proper. They were so close they almost touched. I was sure they could feel each other’s breath. Mama had to tip her chin up so she could look him full in the face.
Both of them kept their hands to their sides.
They spoke in soft voices like they meant to keep their words a secret held between the two of them. But if I listened real close, I could just make out what they were saying.
“You shouldn’t come here,” Mama whispered to him. “I thought we agreed.”
“I know.” He shook his head. “But I figured …”
“People still find things out even in the middle of the night,” Mama said. “You can’t come like this again. Somebody could’ve seen you.”
“We aren’t doing anything wrong.”
“Abe”—Mama’s voice was full of scolding—“this needs to stop. I’m a married woman.”
“I haven’t been so happy in a long time, Mary.”
She crossed her arms and turned her face from him.
“You’re happy, too,” he said. “When I’m around at least. I know it.”
“I don’t remember what it feels like,” she said. “I’m tired, Abe. It’s so hard being sad all the time.”
He took her hand. She left the other arm wrapped around her waist and she still didn’t look at him.
“I hate seeing you like this.” He stooped down so he could look into her face. “You don’t have to live like this anymore, Mary. We could go—”
“Tom used to make me happy,” she said, interrupting him. “He was all I wanted.”
“He doesn’t anymore, though.” It wasn’t a question.
Mama started crying. Abe Campbell put his arms around her and she let him. She didn’t pull away like she should have and she didn’t tell him to let her go. What she did was rest her head against his chest the way she would have if he’d been Daddy.
He only let go after the heaviest of her crying had passed.
Then he lifted his hand, putting his fingers along Mama’s jawline, tracing it all the way to her chin. She reached up and put her fingers around his wrist. But she didn’t force his hand away; she didn’t push him back. She held him and leaned her face into his touch.
Bending, he drew near her, putting his lips against hers. She let go of his wrist and put her hand on his chest, resting her fingers on his shirt, but not forcing him from her.
It didn’t last but a moment, but it was long enough to knock the breath right out of me, leaving me feeling like I might fall all to pieces right there on the floor.
I decided right then that I could never forgive her for that. I never would.
Somehow I got myself up the stairs and back to my room without making any sound. At least not so far as I knew. I didn’t know if it would have mattered one bit to either of them if they had heard me. They were too busy keeping their eyes stuck on each other.
When I got to my room my legs nearly gave out. I felt so weak all of a sudden and the air wheezed in and out so that I had to think real hard about every breath I took in. If I hadn’t known better I might have thought I was going to die right there.
I sat on my bed, staring out the window to see when he’d leave. When he did, Mama held the door open and told him to have a good night. He turned and kissed his fingertips.
I didn’t move, not so much as an inch, all night long. I didn’t know that I could have even if I’d wanted to. I stayed put until the dawn blossomed as the sun rose inch by inch in the sky.
By then Mama was stirring out of her room and setting the coffee on the stove to perk. Her singing filled the house as if she just could not help herself.
For the very first time in all my life, I wished she’d just shut up.