35

HAVING these two puppies with us on our walk home from berrying turned out to be a stroke of luck. I knew good and well that, without the distraction of them, Ida Bell would’ve caught on right quick that something was working on my mind. Ida Bell and Sugar Bell were a sight, both heading down Daisy Street with sugarcane hanging out their mouths.

We turned to head through the driveway oaks, and I stopped straight off. Stretched out next to Ida Bell’s car was the longest, meanest-looking moving van in this here world. Even the front lights and bumper made a cruel face at me, and gave me an all-over shiver. Seeing that awful thing made me feel for sure and certain about my stay-with-Ida-Bell plan all over again.

“Gracie, what you nodding your head at?” Of course, I didn’t mean to be nodding my silly old head as I thought how amazing it was that the act of grace waited for me, so I thought up one of those little white lies that Ida Bell said gives life a little color.

“I’m counting the oaks, Ida Bell. I want to remember each and every one of them.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said, but there was a hint of curiosity to her voice. If she’d caught on to my plan, she wasn’t telling. It’s a strange thing, two folks possibly keeping the same secret from each other. We walked on toward the house, and I snuck another peek inside Ida Bell’s long blue Cadillac. I swear, Ida Bell peeked in there, too. The garage was free of boxes, and so was the kitchen. The emptiness hit me hard with the feeling of leaving a place, the only place I’d ever called home. Only thing left was the piano in the living room.

Ida Bell and me rinsed our berries with water, then sat down on the floor where the kitchen table used to be. She reached for the little bottle of cream she had brought. After that, she pulled out two little sugar packs. “Now, we can’t go eating blackberries without the sweet and the cream!” she said. “Gracie, I gots a mind to enjoy this nice and quiet-like, the way we’ve done before.”

“Me, too, Ida Bell.” We took it slow, not wanting our last bowls of Daisy Street blackberries and cream to finish up.

The sound of my momma broke our quiet. “Children, I need all y’all outside and ready to ride. We got the dogs rounded up, and you know they won’t stay rounded longer than a minute!” The dogs barely fit in our truck and the one my Daddy’s friend drove up for us.

Ida Bell’s eyes closed and her head lowered. My forehead beaded up with sweat, and I was scared I was going to throw my blackberries and cream right up. It was getting on time for me to head for that kennel cage. Still, I was a little bit stalled, like a horse wanting to run out the gate, but the gate still good and locked. Ida Bell raised her head and saw me just sitting there, and knew she’d have to be the one to start up the goodbyes.

“Sweet Gracie-girl, they ain’t words for certain times, and this here’s one of them. Let me squeeze you good, and that’ll be our words,” Ida Bell said. She hugged me with all of her wide-open heart, and squeezed out the courage I needed to get myself to her car. “I sure do love you, child.”

“I love you, too, Ida Bell.”

Did my face look as hot as it felt? I goodbyed best as I could, hoping that my eyes looked sad enough that Ida Bell wouldn’t catch on to my act-of-grace plan. “I guess I better run before Momma comes looking for me,” I said.

Ida Bell didn’t say another word, least not with her mouth. Her eyes, deep as the shadowy, cool places in the blackberry woods, held our stories, our secrets, and our hearts, and I don’t know how in this world I’d have ever taken mine off them if I thought I was leaving her for good. Sugar Bell and me slipped out, thanking the good Lord everybody else was already out front. We were quick about it, and went straight to Ida Bell’s long blue car without a sound. I eased open the back door, unlocked the kennel, then wedged on in. Good thing Sugar Bell and me were small. I was happy to be a ten-year-old wearing clothes made for nine-year-olds. I gave Sugar Bell a fresh cane stalk so she’d keep quiet. My heart thumped so loud, though, that I thought for sure it could give me away. We covered up with blankets and kept still as a steamy pond after a good rain.