“From what I understand, you need a strand with the follicle attached.”
It was comical, the way they jumped so high at the sound of my voice. Clearly, they hadn’t expected me. Mrs. Huffman dropped the hairbrush she’d been holding—my hairbrush—and to my surprise, burst into tears. “Richard, I told you this was a bad idea,” she said, covering her face with her hands.
Mr. Huffman patted her on the back, his eyes on me. “So you did, honey. I should have listened to you.” He moved away from my toiletry bag, which was now sitting on my bed instead of on the sink where I’d left it.
“Richard? I think we need an explanation.” Nora entered the room behind me. “What in the world are you two doing? This is inexcusable, you know, completely unacceptable.” She laced her arms across her chest and stared at him. I moved to stand beside her.
Mr. Huffman dropped his gaze and sighed, his shoulders slumped. “You’re right, of course. It is unacceptable, and I’m sorry. I’d like to explain, not that that will make it any better. Actually, I’ve wanted to explain since the beginning, but I just wasn’t sure how to go about it.”
Nora nodded towards the bed. “I think you’d better find a way to go about it now. Your choices at the moment are to either tell us what’s going on, and God knows there better be a fantastic explanation, or pack your bags to go while I put in a call to Sheriff Moore. This is serious business, Richard. You, too, Opal. Have a seat, both of you. We’re listening, whenever you’re ready to talk.”
Mr. and Mrs. Huffman sat tentatively on the foot of the bed facing Nora, the look on their faces a mixture of embarrassment and regret. Mrs. Huffman sat with her knees pressed together and her head bowed, hands clasped in her lap. Mr. Huffman leaned forward, staring at the floor, elbows propped on his thighs and hands dangling between his legs. We waited in silence until he looked up.
“This is hard to talk about, because I don’t know where to start.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, closing his eyes, seemingly exhausted. “The truth of the matter is, Ms. McIntosh, and please forgive me if this is too shocking to you, but I believe I may be your father.”
So there it was. What Robby had said was true. I hadn’t doubted Robby, but neither had I expected to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. I didn’t respond to him right away. What does one say after hearing such a revelation? The only father figure I’d ever had was Roy, and what a sorry excuse he had been.
I suppose I could have felt angry at Richard Huffman for having left me to be raised by such a man as Roy Campbell. Or I could have felt thankful that a biological relative of mine had come to light after all these years. Watching Mr. Huffman, taking in his haggard expression, I might even have felt sorry for him, and certainly for her, as she sat quietly weeping beside him.
But instead of those things, what I mostly felt was apathy. I’d had enough therapy to understand that my lack of feeling was likely a defense mechanism, and I was grateful for it.
I glanced at Nora and she held a hand towards the Huffmans, palm up, indicating that the next move was up to me. I took advantage of it. “You’ll understand my skepticism, Mr. Huffman, but what exactly would make you think that?” I asked.
“Lindy,” he answered. “You’re Lindy Russell’s daughter, ain’t you?” He leaned his head back, peering into my face.
“In genes only,” I told him. “I haven’t seen her since I was a little girl.”
He grunted and looked away. “That’s what I’d heard. It’s terrible it turned out that way, but it ain’t too surprising for me to hear. Lindy did the best she could. You should know that.”
“Mr. Huffman....”
He interrupted me. “She was my first love I guess you could say, though I don’t know how much about love a sixteen year old boy really knows. Not much, I expect. Least not enough to have good sense.
“We was raised up right next to each other. Played together when we was little ’uns. I reckon I fancied myself in love with her by the time I was ten. She was a beautiful girl.” He looked back at me. “You favor her, you know.”
I was getting impatient with the whole conversation. “Nora, do we really have to listen to this?”
Beside me, Nora looked transfixed. “Let’s hear what he has to say, Jessie, okay? It might help you in the long run, hearing more about your past.”
“I’d ’preciate it if I could finish telling you,” said Mr. Huffman. Reluctantly, I nodded for him to go on.
“Thing was, all the boys was in love with Lindy. Time she was thirteen, fourteen, she already looked....” He hesitated, casting about for the right word. “Mature. She looked like a much older girl, if you know what I mean. It got her a lot of attention. When she started coming of age and boys began taking notice of her, she ate it up.”
“So she was the town slut,” I said. “Is that what you’re getting at? Because I really wouldn’t expect any....”
He interrupted me again, raising his hand in protest. “No. No, that’s not what I’m telling you. That’s the thing. Everybody thought that about Lindy, I reckon because of how she looked and all the attention it brought her. Even I thought that about her, at first. And she did love to tease the boys. But I found out later that’s all it was. She just teased; she didn’t do nothing with them, just made them think she might.”
Beside him, Mrs. Huffman blew her nose loudly, stuffing the soiled Kleenex back into her apron pocket. He reached over to pat her on the knee. “It’s all right, honey. I should have listened to you, but it’ll be all right.”
He addressed Nora. “Opal here didn’t do nothing. I shouldn’t have drug her into this. She tried to tell me there was a better way, but I’m a stubborn old fool. I just want you to know none of this is her fault. It’s all mine.”
“We’ll get all that sorted out later,” Nora told him. “For now, why don’t you finish explaining things.” It wasn’t a question, the way Nora said it, and Mr. Huffman knew it.
“All right,” he said. “Where was I at? Oh, right. Lindy teasing the boys. That kept them coming around, you see, and she needed them around. Needed to feel like she was loved, you know. They didn’t love her, of course, but I imagine to her at that young age it felt like they did. I know it did, ’cause she used to tell me so. It was the closest thing she had to love, anyway. Other than me, but I’ll talk more about that in a minute.”
This was turning out to be pretty interesting after all. I leaned against the dresser, waiting for the next revelation. It didn’t take long.
“Things was always rough for her at home,” Mr. Huffman said. “Her momma was a tough woman, hard on Lindy, and her daddy was a mean son of a bitch. I don’t mean to be disrespectful but there ain’t no other way to say it. Didn’t nobody want to tangle with him. Folks used to say he’d kill you soon as look at you, and I reckon that was true. Wasn’t nobody wanted to find out for themselves. Many was the time Lindy come knocking on our door, crying about something they had said or done to her. More often than not she had a bruise or two to show for it. Momma always took her in, felt sorry for her.”
I slid up on the dresser beside Nora. This explanation was obviously going to take some time.
“Lindy was the youngest,” he said. “All the older ones had done run off. Didn’t nobody even know where they went to. I couldn’t blame them. Wouldn’t nobody have wanted to hang around that house any longer than they had to.”
As much as I didn’t want to, I was starting to feel a little bit sorry for Lindy. I’d never thought of her as a child, only as the neglectful mother I’d known. It sounds awful, I know, but I’d never considered her life before me, what it might have been like or what might have caused her to make the choices she’d made. I’d been too wrapped up in how she, as a mother, had failed me.
In my defense, I hadn’t known anything about her childhood; I didn’t remember her ever talking about it. I never even knew she had older siblings, and all I remembered her ever saying about her parents was that she didn’t have any, to speak of. That was exactly how she’d said it, with a little snort, “I ain’t got no parents to speak of.”
What Mr. Huffman was telling me didn’t excuse what Lindy had done, but it did put it in some perspective. I saw her in a different light, as a little girl in need of love. The image was powerful.
Mr. Huffman coughed. “Dr. Wright, Ms. McIntosh, this is going to take more than a little bit of time to tell. Would it be all right if we all go over to our place for the rest of it? I need some water for my throat and you all might as well settle in and get comfortable while you listen. I think Opal’s got some coffee cake or something over there, don’t you honey?”
Next to him, Opal nodded. “Zucchini bread,” she corrected in a muffled voice. “And Dr. Wright, I’m so sorry. I didn’t—we didn’t—mean to do things wrong. Ms. McIntosh,” she looked at me, “I don’t even know how to make it up to you. We didn’t mean any harm. I hope you’ll believe that. Maybe you’ll understand once you’ve heard the whole thing.”
Nora looked at me, her eyebrows raised. “Do you mind going to their rooms?”
I shrugged. It made no difference to me where we heard the rest of the story. I still didn’t know what their purpose was, but I was fairly certain Mrs. Huffman was telling the truth. They hadn’t meant me harm.
With the matter decided I followed them out, almost locking the door behind me before concluding there was no point, since I was visiting with the perpetrators. Besides, when the guy who breaks into your room holds a master key, what good is a lock?