RAYMOND
My legs felt wobbledy as Pick and me looked at each other. What would he do when he found out I brung Daddy here? I didn’t say nothing, and him neither.
Until the others caught up. “Shovel, what in blazes—?” Pick sputtered.
“Shucks, Pick, your sister’s like a dad-blame bloodhound.”
“Sister?” the little boy said. “Are you my sister?”
“She is for a fact, Raymond,” Pick said. “This is Adabel.”
“Are you my brother?” Raymond asked Norris.
“No,” Pick said. “This is the feller what used’a be my best friend. Afore I found you. Now we’s best friends, ain’t we, Raymond?” He ruffled the boy’s hair.
Raymond smiled big afore he sidled over to Daddy. “Are you Pick’s daddy? I never had no daddy.”
Pick reached out to pull Raymond away, but stopped short.
I didn’t know if Daddy was goin’ pass out cold or strike Mamaw with his fist. His face leaned in to hers. “I have a son ya never told me about?” It wasn’t a roar like the drinking Daddy would’a made, but his words were stern and crisp. Without a hint of slur.
He bent down to Raymond. “Yes, Son, you do have a daddy.”
Mamaw turned away from Daddy. “Pick, you fetch Raymond home. These folks was jist leaving.”
Norris tried to squeeze betwixt her and Pick, and I seen Daddy struggling to git holt of his temper.
“Ya don’t need to talk to ’em,” Mamaw said over Norris’s shoulder. “Remember what your daddy done to ya?”
Pick’s fingers brushed the side of his cheek, where a scar stood out against his freckles.
I stepped in front of him. “Daddy don’t drink no more, Pick. He ain’t the same as he was afore.”
Pick didn’t look like he believed me, but he scanned Daddy’s face. He had to see the clear eyes.
“A drunk is a drunk is a drunk,” Mamaw said.
“He changed!” I insisted.
“I’m a-trying to change,” Daddy said. “Nothing’s sure but the sun coming up in the morning.”
“And it’s fixing to set afore ya git back to Smoke Ridge,” Mamaw said. “Ya best hurry along.”
“Calm down, Leona,” Daddy said. “There’s things we need to talk about.”
“And things we need to tell Pick,” I added. “Give us time to talk a spell.”
We walked back to Mr. Putney’s truck, and the spell we talked was a long one.
“Ada would’a wanted me to know about the baby,” Daddy said. “About Raymond. Especially if she give him my name.” He run his hand along the boy’s shoulder. “Why didn’t she send word?”
“She writ ya a letter when she got well, Ray,” Mamaw said, “asking ya to come and fetch her. But ya never did.”
Me and Pick looked at each other.
“Ya say Mama wrote a letter?” I asked.
Mamaw nodded.
“Mama didn’t know how to write, did she, Pick?”
I could see anger brewing in Pick’s eyes.
“Did I say Ada writ a letter? That ain’t what I meant. I writ it for her. That’s right. That’s what I done.”
“I never got no letter,” Daddy said.
“Royce took it to your house, but ya wasn’t home.” Mamaw said. “He left it for ya, but it must’a blew away or something.”
“When would that’a been, Leona?”
Mamaw thunk so hard sweat broke out on her forehead, even in the December air. “It would’a been August 1925. That’s right. August. Raymond was born in September. Day afore Ada passed.”
I seen Daddy clench and unclench his hands. “What kind’a fool ya take me for, Leona? I wasn’t gone from my house for a single minute that August,” he said. “September neither. Adabel was sick, and I was with her ever’ minute.” Daddy looked like he wanted to wring Mamaw’s neck like a suppertime chicken, and for once, I almost wanted to see his fist fly out, but he looked down at Raymond and kept his hands at his sides.
“Mamaw.” Pick’s tone was harsh. “Ya said Daddy didn’t care about Mama or Raymond. Ya lied to me! Ya lied to all of us!”
“No, Pick, ya’s wrong. I sent a letter with Royce. It ain’t my fault if’n your daddy didn’t git it. The bad blood betwixt him and Royce is his own doing.”
I wondered if there’d ever been a letter. Likely Mama told her mama to write one, and waited to hear back. Or waited for Daddy to come for her. It must’a broke her heart that he didn’t.
I knew we couldn’t trust neither Mamaw nor Mr. Grayson. Might be if Daddy’d got a letter and knew where Mama went and why she left, he wouldn’ta started drinking in the first place. And if he’da knew about Raymond … who knows how different our lives might’a been.