Chapter Ten

Cora sat still at the living room table, her right hand smoothing the lace and linen cloth that covered it, and stared out at the tree in the yard. She imagined herself walking through the hard brown grass, feeling it break under her toes as she made her way to the tree, picked pecans, held them in the hammock of her apron, and dreamed of the pecan pies she would bake.

She stared upward through the heavy branches soaring more than seventy feet into the sky, the thick canopy protecting the house as it had for over one hundred years, marking where her ancestors gathered to meet and exchange stories. Reaching out with her senses, she felt for the light around her. Felt for the blood of the long gone to lend her strength and wisdom.

The tangle of her emotions knotted, then frayed as she thought of Clyde, loose somewhere in Chicago. Was he stalking another victim while she sat trapped inside her body, the power of the Knowing locked within her? Her agitation escaped in moans of frustration, her mouth twitching uncontrollably, her good eye focused on Joe standing by the mantle.

“I thought sure we was through with Fannie after Gal seen her a year back. You remembers.” Joe chewed on the stem of his pipe as he sucked on it, exhaling small puffs of smoke as he talked. “Gal said she was with some little cute child done married Clyde, and they was gone move to Mississippi,” he continued, not really expecting more than the usual gargled noises from Cora. “Why the hell anybody marry him, I cain’t tell you. I wish I had caught his ass or knowed Fannie was back around. I’d have killed her and done my time with a smile.”

Rayville was a small town, with word traveling mouth to ear and back, limited only by transportation available to the speakers and listeners. “Ain’t no telling how long she been hiding out there in them woods. I remembers when you got dead, Fannie had done hightailed it out that house before I gots there. I wish I knowed where she went.” Joe stopped, searching Cora’s face, hearing her grunting, the sounds coming faster and louder.

Gal stepped into the room, drying her hands on a cloth as she came from the kitchen, ignoring Cora and turning her comments toward Joe. “Mr. Joe, I done told Miss Cora about that girl what they say Clyde married. She been gone most about a year, but her peoples still in Delhi.”

Joe paced, his thoughts racing. Clyde had been back in Rayville as recently as last year, and he hadn’t known. “They say anything about her and him?” Joe asked, pacing back and forth across the room, chewing on the stem of his pipe.

“Yeah”—Gal grinned—“they say them was in Mississippi and then went to Chicago. Say that’s where they at now. Her name be Mae.” Gal squeezed the dish towel in her hands. “She real cute. I seen her that one time with Miss Fannie.”

Joe grumbled low in his throat, stared over at Cora, then snapped his mouth shut. Cora’s mouth hung open, and her good eye rolled wildly in its socket. Kneeling in front of her chair, he grasped her hands in his, rubbing them in his own.

“I’m sorry, Cora. It just bring it all back to me. Hearing his name. Knowing he been here where he might could hurt you again.” He inhaled deeply, then leaned his forehead on her hands. Standing, he motioned to Gal before she could begin again.

Cora counted inside her head, seeking calm, praying until the Knowing rose like the tide. She knew what she needed to do.

She looked down at the sheets of writing paper in front of her and drew in a deep breath, thankful that her mind remained sharp within the withered shell of her broken body. She prepared herself for the ordeal of writing, her good hand shaking in anticipation of holding her pencil for such an extended period as the one that lay ahead.

“I done told you, you needs to get somebody else what knows they letters to write for you, Cora,” Joe insisted, settling back into his rocker, blowing smoke rings from his pipe as he rocked the chair forward and back, tapping heel to toe with each motion.

Cora shook her head and grunted her no. They would never understand her mangled speech. She would write for herself, even if it took her all day. Her lamp stood ready for darkness. She glared at Joe, then bent her head to the task, sighing in resignation. She should have felt Clyde sooner. The Knowing should have informed her. Instead, it had let her fail once again.

Her head shot up at the sound of soft sobbing. She glanced past Joe to the couch, where the woman who called herself Eva sat with her ankles crossed primly, wiping the tears that streamed down her cheeks. Cora let her mind connect with her and waited for her words to flow.

“Why he kills me? I ain’t never even seen him before. He just grab me and pulls me in the alley and start choking me.”

“He ain’t needs to know you,” Cora answered as women began to assemble, filling the room with their ethereal forms, gliding around their newest member, and studying her intently.

“You make your money on your back?” Baby Doll inquired, one eyebrow arching upward. Eva sucked in air, her mouth rounding and her hand fluttering to her chest.

Baby Doll’s laughter was loud and boisterous, joined by the women around her. “Girl, ain’t no shame here. We cain’t judge nobody, so you can stop putting on airs. We all did the same thing. Spreading our legs for all them righteous pricks. That’s how he find us.”

Eva bowed her head and sniffled again. “That’s why he kill me because I be a whore?” She glared at the women around her. “What I’m supposed to do? I got two babies to send money for. How I’m supposed to take care of them?”

Cora cut through the chatter, her thoughts drowning out the others. “Where was you living?”

“Chicago over by Forty-Seventh Street.” Her tears had stopped, and she wiggled a little on the couch, trying to make a dent in the cushions.

“You remembers what the man look like what done it?” Cora waited for the verification she knew would come as Eva shuddered.

“I cain’t never forgets him, them bug eyes muddy yellow and red all around the edges. It was like it was something in them, something dark what was reaching out to me, trying to pull me in, and he smell like something dead.”

Cora stopped listening. She didn’t need to hear anything else. She should have told Joe when Gal told her about seeing Fannie. Should have let him go and find her, drag the information from her about where Clyde was. Maybe Eva would still be alive.

Joe was talking again, oblivious to the spirits around him. He cleared his throat, coughing loudly and pounding his chest with his free hand before sucking on his pipe again. Cora looked away from the women who crowded around Eva and obscured her from her sight. What Eva said aligned perfectly with Gal’s information. Looking back at the paper, she raised her hand and began to write slowly and carefully.

Dear Miss Mae,

You don’t know me. I be the midwife what brought Clyde into this world. I hear tell you married Clyde Henry. I don’t know how that be possible, don’t see how he get any woman to marry him, but I be guessing what I hear be true. What I’m sending you ain’t going to be easy to swallow, but trust and know it be the truth.

Cora straightened her body as much as her muscles would allow and looked down at the sheets of paper filled with her neat, tight script. She had not seen the sun set outside the window or seen Joe turn on the lamp to banish the shadows crowding the table. The familiar weight of her Afghan rested on her shoulders, and beneath it, she felt the knots of pain from leaning over to write. She became aware of the muscles in her hands, cramped and spasming from the tight grip she’d held on the pencil. She felt Joe’s warm lips brush against her forehead as he leaned over her.

“Is you finished, stubborn woman?” he asked, looking at the sheets beneath her hand.

She studied the sky, faded to purple and blue like bruised skin, the stars pinpoints of light winking at her. Cora looked up from the letter, wondering if she had said enough or too much.

She nodded at Joe and watched as he folded the pages and placed them in the envelope.

“Me and Gal ride over to that girl’s daddy and give him this. Hope he send it to her.”

Cora nodded and returned her gaze to the darkness beyond the window. Her breath hitched, and she leaned forward, catching a glimmer of light flickering through the trees.