I took longer than I should’ve, walking home from the library. I hoped maybe Mama’d gotten to feeling better and that she’d be up and getting supper together for us. Even then, I wasn’t sure which Mama she’d be. The way her moods went up and down, I never could know from one minute to the next.
When I finally turned on the corner of the main street and Magnolia, I thought real hard about just walking round back and heading straight through the woods to Aunt Carrie’s house. No matter the day of the week or the kind of weather, Aunt Carrie was the same. Kind, smiling, and warm.
For about the thousandth time I wished Aunt Carrie was my mama. And for the thousandth time I felt guilty all the way to my bones for thinking such a thing.
“Hey, Pearl,” a voice I knew belonged to Bert called out to me. “Over here.”
Turning, I saw him and Ray standing inside the pigeon coop, looking out at me through the chicken wire–covered window.
“Come on,” Ray hollered.
Seeing as how I didn’t want to go home just yet, they didn’t have to ask me a second time.
“You two look like you went and got locked up,” I said, crossing the street and walking directly to them. “Sassy get out and trap you boys in there?”
“Nah, she’s still in here,” Ray said. “Bert thought she was a little lonesome.”
“Probably why she’s always running away is ’cause she’s in here by herself all the time,” Bert said. “She just needs a little company.”
“Come in,” Ray said. “There’s room.”
The boys shifted positions in the coop so I could join them. Sure enough, that bird was still in there, perched on the ledge just above Bert’s head. Her feathers were puffed out and her head pulled in tight to her chest. I wondered if she really was sleeping or just pretending with hopes that those boys might leave her be.
“You wanna know a story one of the boys told us today?” Bert asked. “Go on, Ray. Tell her.”
“Nah.” Ray rubbed at the back of his neck and looked at the ground. “It’d just give her bad dreams is all.”
“It’s just a ghost story.”
“No it ain’t.” Ray shook his head.
“You too scared to tell me?” I asked, crossing my arms.
There wasn’t a story ever told that could get goose pimples raised up on Ray Jones’s arms. But, boy, did he like scaring the willies out of me whenever he got the chance.
“I ain’t too scared,” he said. “It just ain’t a ghost story. It’s real. Bob said so.”
“Since when do you believe anything Bob says?” I asked.
Bob was full of ghost stories and old town gossip that nearly never proved to be true. Why anybody’d listen to him was beyond me. Whenever he got to telling one of his tales, I’d just roll my eyes and walk away.
Besides, any story Bob told usually ended up giving me nightmares for weeks, Ray was right about that. I sure didn’t need the help.
“Bob’s dad told him,” Bert went on. “He said it’s a true spook story.”
“You really wanna hear it?” Ray asked, looking me in the eye and shaking his head. “’Cause I ain’t fixin’ to get you mad at me for tellin’ you somethin’ that’ll keep you up all night.”
“I guess so,” I answered.
I leaned back against one of the posts that held the coop together. Bert scooted nearer to me, resting on the same post. It took all my power to resist the urge to put my elbow into his side to make him give me some room.
“From what Bob says, ten years ago there was a whole bunch of folks here in town that ran with the Klan,” Ray started. “You know what the Ku Klux Klan is, right?”
“Course I do,” I said. “I’m not stupid.”
“My dad wasn’t one of them,” Bert said. “He’s always been friendly with the coloreds.”
“Most men didn’t join up, I guess,” Ray went on. “But there were enough for them to have meetings and cause a little trouble.”
“You know whose dad was in the Klan?” Bert’s nose wrinkled like he smelled something rotten. “Delores Fitzpatrick’s.”
“Everybody knows that,” I said.
I sighed and looked away from Bert and blinked long and slow at Ray, hoping he’d think I was getting bored with his story and get on with it.
“That’s right. Bob told me that, too,” Ray said. “He wasn’t one of the bosses, I guess. He never had enough money to be a boss over nobody.”
“Who cares?” I asked. “What’s it got to do with anything?”
“Well, seems the Klan around here never had much chance to do nothin’ excitin’,” Ray said. “Weren’t no Negroes livin’ around except the farmhands and such. Never did cause them boys trouble on account the farmers protected them. They never did go after the Mexicans, neither. They’d pick at harvest for hardly anything. Wouldn’t make sense to drive them outta town. And there weren’t no Catholics for them to go after except for in Adrian, and that was too far. So, the Ku Kluxers just sat around playing poker.”
A picture formed in my head of a handful of men in those white robes and pointed hats like I’d seen in the news reels. They were all around a table dealing out cards. With their faces covered up, I didn’t figure they’d have to worry about holding a poker face.
“One day a man and woman came to town and moved into a house on Astrid Street. You know the one.” Ray turned his head and spit on the ground. “They come lookin’ for work and such.”
“Nah, they came because her family lived here,” Bert said.
“Didn’t neither.”
“Sure they did. My dad said so.”
“What’s it matter?” I asked. “Just go on with the story.”
“All right. I will,” Ray said. “All the folks in the houses nearby watched them movin’ their stuff in. Wasn’t long before the Klan boys got word that the man was colored and his wife was white. They didn’t like that too much. So one night they went over and put a cross up on the front yard, burning so bright most the whole town saw it. Then they went in and dragged that man out. The Fitzpatrick man, he had something to prove, I guess on account he was poor.”
Ray stopped and cleared his throat and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“What’d he do?” I asked.
“Well, he got him a rope outta somebody’s truck and strung it around the Negro’s neck. Hung him right up a tree that was in the schoolyard.” He leaned forward. “Hung him till he died.”
I looked Ray right in his eyes. If I hadn’t known any better I might’ve thought he was about to break. But he blinked and turned his attention to the pigeon as if he was waiting for her to do something real special.
“Wife of his?” Bert said. “Died of heartbreak that very same night. Their spirits haunt the house. You know, the one that’s all boarded up.”
“Why’d you tell me that?” I asked, with my eyes still on Ray.
He didn’t answer me, just kept his eyes on the bird.
“Ray, I’m talking to you,” I said, my voice near a holler. “Why’d you tell me something so awful as that?”
Bert tried putting his hand on my shoulder. I hit it away.
“Don’t touch me,” I said.
“It probably ain’t true,” Ray said, turning toward me. “You know Bob’s stories ain’t never true.”
“Well, don’t tell me any of his fool stories anymore, Ray,” I said, looking up at him. “Just don’t.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and I knew he meant it. “Why’re you so mad?”
What I told him was that I didn’t know. But that was a lie and he knew it. The truth was I didn’t know how he could tell a story about a man hanging after what his father’d done. Seemed to me, that picture of his own pa strung up in their old dugout back in Red River would’ve been plenty enough to keep him from telling something stupid like that.
“I never meant to—” Ray started. Then he stopped talking.
I could’ve sworn he was about to start crying.
Seeing Ray cry would’ve broke me for sure. I pushed past Bert and out the door of the coop, not caring that it slammed shut behind me. My eyes stung, but I willed myself not to cry for a second time that day.
Across the street and up the steps, I opened the front door of our house and stepped in. There was no smell of supper cooking. The dining room table hadn’t been set. On the kitchen counter was a half cup of black coffee that’d turned cold. The door to Mama’s room was open and I peeked in. Her bed was a mess and her shoes weren’t lined up against the wall where she always kept them.
“She’s gone,” I whispered, my heart beating fast. “She left us again.”
My stomach turned and I was sure I’d be sick. I rushed to the kitchen, surprised that I didn’t trip over my own two feet getting there. Every thought in my head stopped and then started twirling fast as ever, making me feel like I was going to collapse from the dizziness. My chest tightened up and I couldn’t seem to get any breath.
“Pearl?” Ray called from the living room. “Where’re you at?”
I stepped out from the kitchen. I must’ve looked like I’d seen a ghost for the way he rushed to me and shook his head.
“I didn’t know the story’d bother you so much,” he said.
I shook my head. “It’s not that.”
“What then?”
“Ray …” I said, feeling the burning of tears in my eyes. “I knew she would. I just knew it.”
“She’s gone.”
“Nah,” Ray said. “Bet she’s just takin’ a rest. Did you check her room? Or maybe she had to get to the store for somethin’ she forgot.”
“I looked.” My eyes clenched shut and the tears rolled down my cheeks. “She’s not there.”
“You stay here,” Ray said. “I’ll take a look-see around. All right?”
I did as he said, standing right where he’d left me. All through the house, his bare feet slapped against the floors. Up the stairs, through the hallway, back down the steps, across the living room.
He checked the whole house twice over and still didn’t see her. Finally, he went to the back door and pulled it open.
“Pearl,” Ray called. “You best go get your daddy.”
I gasped for breath, opening and closing my mouth like a fish that’d just got hooked and pulled up from the water. I used the backs of my wrists to rub at my eyes.
“What is it?” I asked, my voice coming as nothing more than a whisper.
“She’s here,” he said before stepping out.
All of me stopped feeling. The racing feet and speeding mind slowed. In dreams I’d sometimes glide over the floor and that was how it felt just then. Like gliding. In a dream I might’ve twirled or the room might have grown longer so I’d never seem to reach the back door.
But it wasn’t a dream, I’d pinched myself to be sure. And I did reach that door and step through. Mama hadn’t left us.
Mama was still at home.