Chapter Eleven

Sneaking through the hallways, feeling like a thief, Mae avoided Ruby and her neighbors as she eased shut the door to her room. She leaned back, feeling the press of the cool wood seeping through the thin material of her cotton dress, and took deep breaths. A thin sheen of sweat shone on her forehead as she entered the room.

The late-afternoon sun created bars of light across the table’s surface standing in the corner across the room. Dust motes danced in the air, defying her constant cleaning. Walking to it, she lifted the tail end of her dress and wiped across the gleaming surface before reaching into her dress pocket and pulling the thick envelope free. She shook it, curious about its unusual weight. Smoothing it out, she immediately recognized her father’s handwriting, the thin, spidery lines.

Glancing over her shoulder toward the door, then back at the clock sitting on the table’s polished surface, she calculated Clyde’s arrival. Her shoulders relaxed. It was still hours until he would be home.

Her eyes lingered lovingly on the gleaming surfaces of the table beneath the window, her red-and-white kitchen table with the matching upholstered chairs, and the brass headboard of their bed. She would never have had any of this back home.

Looking around the pristine room, Mae became aware of the disparity between her hopes and the dismal prison of fear and secrets that her life had become. It should have been good.

Her hands rubbed the swollen nipples of her breasts, tender from the abrasive sucking and biting Clyde had given them the previous night. Her face was a study in sadness as she sat, isolated in the midst of her bounty. She thought fleetingly of venturing out to find Ruby or one of the other neighbors she had just slid past, then dismissed it as she remembered Clyde’s warning. Loneliness tugged at her until the dread of Clyde’s appearance obliterated it.

Lowering herself into the wing-backed chair, a small smile of anticipation lifted the corners of her mouth, pushing away her lingering sadness. Tapping the envelope against the palm of her hand, she savored the joy bubbling in her gut.

A pang of yearning stirred as she thought of her father. She saw him in his heavy wooden chair pulled up to the round table with its faded red cloth, his nearly bald head bent in concentration as he carefully shaped each letter. She remembered her young self standing on tiptoe to kiss his bald spot while he laughed and chuckled. “Grass don’t grow on no busy street,” he’d say. Back then, he was the father that existed before Verna, the babies, and his retreat into whiskey—the year of absence from him thinned the bad times between them. The hard edges of his flaws were softened, leaving only the desperate image of a love that past reality had denied. She missed him.

As she removed and unfolded the letter, two more sheets of paper and two creased dollar bills dropped into her lap. Her eyes squinted in curiosity as she lifted the second goldenrod sheet, noting the faint scent of lavender drifting to her nose. She allowed them to fall into her lap. Taking up her father’s letter, she began to read.

Dear Mae,

Seem like you been gone a long time, and it ain’t the same here no more. This here house ain’t been cleaned good since you left, and I ain’t had no good eating like I done when you was here. Verna, she doing her best, but is any chance you might changes your mind and come back? I makes sure she be treating you better if you do. She know now you was a big help around here.

Mae harumphed loudly, fanning the letter in front of her face, and tried to imagine Verna wanting her back home. Papa was thinking with his belly again, the only thing he thought with other than his man parts. She knew the only time Verna would welcome her back would be if she were dead, and then she would probably spit on her grave. She returned her eyes to the page and continued reading.

How that man treating you? I seen his mama the other day. She done come back here and staying somewhere between Rayville and Delhi. She hit me with a evil eye what made my man parts shrivel up. That boy better not be putting his hands on you neither. I ain’t too old to whup some ass about my baby if I needs to.

Well, today, this man and this little skinny woman say her name is Gal stop by here and say Crazy Cora done sent them. She keep saying. ‘Miss Cora say this the only way you gon’ save your girl.’ She push that letter I done sent you at me, told me don’t read it and don’t tell nobody about it.

You knows I ain’t no scary man. But it be something in that letter for sure. I feels it. Every time I went to read it, something stop me.

Write and tell me what that woman say, but don’t put too much store by it. You know she crazy as cat shit. Folks say she be talking to dead peoples. The babies send they love, and your mama Verna, well, she just herself. And I put a little something with this here letter in case you needs it.

Love, Pappy

Mae wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, her father’s final words assuaging her heart. Picking up the money, she rolled up the bills, tightly wadding them in her fist, then stepped to the large trunk at the foot of their bed. Kneeling, she lifted the lid.

Pushing aside the handmade quilts and clothes, she dug to the bottom until she found her only purse, which had belonged to her mother. She ran her hand lovingly over the smooth tan leather and opened it to the compartment for bills. Carefully, she added her father’s to the ones she had collected from her tenant baking before Clyde had forced her to stop.

Admittedly, Verna was a miserable, conniving heifer the whole time she’d known her, even if her father couldn’t see it. Still, she had occasionally spit out wisdom worth retaining. She saw Verna, her mouth twisted and her eyes narrow slits, as she snatched Mae’s earnings from her hand. “This be all of it?” she’d asked before she slapped her. “I know even you ain’t stupid enough to give nobody all you got. I done told you before, don’t be nobody’s fool.”

Mae stared at her father’s letter and then read it again, an inexplicable fear and apprehension gathering at the base of her spine. She stood and paced the room, shaking her head intermittently, then collapsed back to the floor. Her mind raced, trying hard to make sense of what she had read in her father’s words, Cora’s letter waiting beneath her fingertips.

An hour later, the afternoon sun played across Mae’s face, where she still sat on the floor in front of the trunk, Cora’s letter scattered in the pool of her dress.

The letter stank of craziness. She lifted it and thought of tearing it up and throwing it away before the insanity reached out and grabbed hold of her mind. It forced her to start rethinking images that scurried around the edges of her brain. The missing pieces fought to fall into place, scattered puzzle pieces coming together to form a cohesive picture. She reread until the words jumped off the page at her.

Miss Mae, I know this be hard for you to hear and believe, but I ain’t crazy like I might sounds. Clyde a killer with a soul black as hell. He try to kill me, and I know he done killed other women’s because I done talked with them.

Pappy had to be right. The woman was crazy, must be. But at the same time, Cora’s words made sense of her life, the way Clyde stared at her, his brows drawn together, his eyes dark and smoldering, his vicious assaults on her body. And his disgusting new sexual appetite growing and increasing along with the level of violence.

After leaving her raw and sore, he often got up and left their room when he thought she was asleep, never saying where he had been when he returned. Later, after he’d come back when the bed vibrated with his snores, she would roll over and sniff for the smell of another woman on his skin and find none.

She shook her head violently, freeing the scenes from her mind. She refused to accept it. She knew Clyde. He was no killer. She would have known it if he were, felt it. She read the last paragraph again.

Ain’t nobody safe from him. You needs to watch him close as you can. You can see the dark if you looks. It be swimming in his eyes, like smoke, black smoke. The dark make him ugly mean too. You must got a lot of the light in you, so you can probably feels it your own self. It probably what done kept you safe so far, but I be the only one who can really help you.

Mae pushed the thoughts away, burying them in the back of her mind until she could bear to bring them out and examine them further. Looking at the small clock on the table, she hastily pushed the letters inside the purse with the money, then buried it back in the trunk beneath the other items.

Standing, Mae brushed down her dress and crossed the room to the dual hot plate. Lifting the lid on the cast-iron pot, she stared down at the chicken and dumplings simmering in the thick broth and inhaled normalcy.

Her ears perked as she recognized the sound of Clyde’s footsteps, his heavy tread stopping at the door, followed by the key turning in the lock. Mae reached up to smooth her hair into place, bringing up a smile that she hoped looked real.

“Hey, honey.” Her words floated toward him as she crossed the room and reached up to embrace him. Clyde grabbed her wrists, startling her, and held her away from him. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, then studied her intently, his eyes roaming from her head to her feet. Seemingly satisfied, he let her go.

“What for dinner?” he asked, sniffing the air and ignoring the puzzled look on her face.

“I made chicken and dumplings today and them biscuits you like.” Her words tumbled over one another. “It’s all hot and ready for you whenever you wants it.” The smile she’d pasted on felt false, pulling at the corners of her mouth but not touching any other part of her face as she walked back to the burner, the warnings from Cora’s letter pushing into her thoughts.

Clyde came behind her, moving to the small sink to scrub his hands with the bar of lye soap she kept there. She watched the grease and dirt run into the bowl, noticing that the area beneath his fingernails remained black.

“How was your day? It go good?”

Clyde grunted, hunching his shoulders.

“That supervisor and them men still messing with you?”

He grunted again, and she sighed, almost missing his mumbled answer. “Since Eugene finded that dead rat in his locker with the stomach pulled out, they ain’t laughing no more. Not none of them.”

Mae shuddered. What Cora had written in her letter about Clyde killing small animals jumped to the forefront of her mind. She shook her head, tossing her bangs to the side.

“That terrible. Who do something like that?” she asked. Looking down to avoid his eyes, she studied a yellow stain on the tablecloth that she hadn’t noticed, her thumbnail scratching at it.

Clyde’s face hardened. “How I know?” She could feel him glaring at her, his gaze burning into the top of her skull.

“Fix my plate,” he snarled. “I’m ready to eat.”

Mae recoiled and turned, her thighs knocking against the table, causing the salt and pepper shakers to sway. Reaching out, she steadied them, glad to have something to do with her hands and a place to look other than at Clyde.

His eyes raked over her again, and she trembled, aware of what the night would bring. He felt the leash loosening on the darkness and grinned. He would set her right.

The sun sat high in the sky with a promise of the heat it would bring by noon, hot enough to make the hair oil on her scalp drip down her forehead. Mae felt a slight breeze caress her skin, blowing through her hair to cool her head. Ruby sat across from her, smug satisfaction stamped on her features for having successfully hounded her into coming out of her apartment. She’d rapped on the door like an errant woodpecker until Mae had relented and answered, speaking to her with the door still on its chain. Ruby refused to accept no for an answer.

Now she looked over at Mae, a large bowl of unsnapped green beans resting in her lap, unasked questions in her eyes. Her fingers moved rapidly, years of sensory memory kicking into habit and finding the right place to break the beans and the portion to discard. Mae held a similar bowl, untouched.

Ruby cleared her throat, and Mae jumped, startled. “What’s the matter with you, child? You looking mighty peaked.”

Mae’s lips lifted in a wan smile, and she waved her hand in front of her face, dispersing her feelings into the wind. “Oh, it ain’t nothing. I got a letter from my daddy back home, and it got me to missing my folks. You know how it is.”

Ruby sat back in her chair, grunting, her fingers moving faster. “Naw, I ain’t got no family no more. Everybody gone but me.”

The silence dragged, filled with their shallow breaths of discomfort, until Ruby sighed and lifted her head to look at Mae, tears glistening in her eyes. “But I still miss my mama a lot of times. Think about the things she used to say to me.”

“Me too, I mean, my real mama. She died when I was still a young gal. Had the typhoid. Then my daddy got up with Verna and married her like I told you. She want to act like she my real mama.”

“Girl, sure enough?”

“She ain’t, though. She was mean as hell, always making trouble for me. Like this one time, my daddy had bought her this dress for church. She done hung it up over the stove so she can look at it. When I come in from school, she be hollering about starting up the stove. I ain’t know the top wasn’t closed. Then woosh. I tried to put it out, but the whole bottom burned up. When Daddy come home, she still crying and swear I done did it on purpose. Daddy damn near beat the skin off me. Ain’t nobody’s real mama would have stood for it.”

“Shouldn’t no man be beating on a girl child or a woman like that.” Ruby nodded, hesitating and taking in a breath, pausing to see the effect of her words on Mae. “Mae?” She nodded, chewing her bottom lip, and starting to speak again. “Mae.”

The bowl of beans slid from Mae’s lap as she leaped abruptly to her feet, the contents scattering. Bending forward, she quickly began scooping them into the bowl.

“Lord, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Miss Ruby. It was a bee,” she lied, fearing what Ruby would say next. She turned hastily, gesturing with her hand that Ruby should remain seated and not try to help as she gathered the beans. “I best get these inside and wash them. I’ll be back.” She called, halfway to the door as she spoke, reaching for the handle.

Ruby sat back in her chair, beans snapping and falling into the bowl while she stared at the fat white clouds drifting overhead, echoes of Mae’s night cries resonating in her ears. Shame rose in goose bumps on her arms as she remembered how she had listened, curled up on her bed, her hands covering her ears, trying to block out the sounds from her ears and her heart. She’d heard the thud of Mae’s body hitting the wall, the sharp slap of his palm against her flesh, and her pleading between the whimpers.

She’d rocked back and forth, her hands clasped around her knees, her prayers and supplications to God for his intervention stopped at the ceiling. Then the rhythmic sound of the bed springs creaking had replaced the sounds of assault, followed by a blanket of silence.

Today, Ruby had sworn to herself that she would not nod and pretend that she hadn’t heard Mae screaming and begging. Not accept Mae issuing a self-deprecating laugh at her clumsiness and how she had run into the door or tripped over her big feet. No more having her hide in her apartment until the bruises faded to purple and mottled yellow, and she could walk again with a natural gait.

The screen door slammed behind her and Ruby watched her go, knowing Mae wouldn’t return to the porch.