Chapter Forty-One

Since Momma lost her job, my days of hitching rides came to an end, but only temporarily. I drove the hatchback to and from work for only a few days before it broke down. On the evening of its death, the car coasted into our carport and sputtered to a stop. My emotions were already so battered that the development didn’t register as a letdown. So I’d have to get around on foot again. Oh well.

I struggled with the lock on the front door and bumbled into the house, surprised to see Momma on the couch. “You’re up.”

She grunted.

“Did you eat something?”

“Did you?”

Actually, I had hardly eaten all day. At school things were still unbearably awkward, so I didn’t go in the teachers’ lounge. I spent my lunch hour surfing the Internet in the library instead. And at the United, I had eaten only a package of crackers on my break.

“You talk to JohnScott today?” Momma flipped channels with the remote.

“Some.”

She didn’t continue the line of questioning, but I recognized it as her way of saying she wished things would get back to normal in our family. Well, so did I. JohnScott and I still spent thirty minutes together before the first bell, but our conversations had become testy.

The library had become my sanctuary.

But on the bright side, Momma lay curled on the couch, a drastic improvement from being shut in her room, and I couldn’t help wondering if she needed me, a little. Not that we discussed our problems like a functional family, but at least we occupied the same room.

Crouching at the hearth, I stirred the fire she had built earlier in the day, digging for red-hot coals, which gave off more heat. I added two logs, then leaned back to warm myself. No additional snow lay in the forecast, but temperatures would still dip down to freezing after dark.

A knock at the door sent a nervous jolt up my spine. Which of my friends was it, coming to tell me what I should do? I didn’t want to speak to any of them.

I reached for the fireplace poker and resumed stirring.

Momma huffed. “Fine, I’ll get it.” She peeked out the window before opening the door.

Clyde Felton strode past her as though we were expecting him. “Freezing out there.”

Momma replaced the bed pillow we now kept in front of the door to ward off the draft. “You can warm up by the fire. Ruth Ann, scootch over.”

I didn’t want to scootch over. I wanted to hide in the hall like I’d done before, but that felt disrespectful now, even for Clyde.

He knelt next to me and held his hands near the fire. “I’m glad your momma’s up and about.”

I frowned. “What do you know about Momma?”

“Watch yourself, Clyde,” Momma muttered under her breath as she sat on the couch and tucked her feet between two cushions.

“It’s been a long time, but we used to hang out in school.” The ex-convict shook his head, assuming my next question. “I don’t mean like that. She ran with Blaylock back then.”

“Neil?” A red light flashed in my mind.

“It’s nothing, Ruth Ann,” Momma snapped.

Clyde lowered his eyes as if he’d been sent to the principal’s office, but I restated my question. “What do you mean, she ran with Neil?”

“Lynda, I didn’t mean to stir up trouble,” Clyde said quietly. “I figured the girl knew.”

I shifted, wondering what he meant.

“Oh, Lord,” Momma growled.

A corner of his mouth lifted as he peered at me. “She’s got Hoby’s eyes.”

Momma pulled an afghan over her legs, not looking at him.

“You knew my daddy.”

His gaze swept to Momma, but when she didn’t acknowledge him, Clyde answered, “Sure. Back in school, we played football together. Then after we graduated, we’d get together for dominoes.” He chuckled, but it sounded forced. “I’d usually win.”

Momma hummed a reprimand. “You know you and Hoby split the wins. You both cheated, though.”

“Aw, Lynda. Don’t go telling the girl I’m a cheat. You’re looking at a reformed citizen.”

“Ruth Ann, don’t get all judgmental,” Momma said. “Clyde may have spent twenty years in prison, but he didn’t do one blasted thing to deserve it.”

I remembered him building the fire for us after Thanksgiving, remembered him breaking up Fawn and Tyler at the fund-raiser, remembered him finding Fawn on the side of the road and bringing her to the Cunninghams.

For once I agreed with Momma. Clyde Felton didn’t seem dangerous after all.

“How did it happen then?” I asked hesitantly.

“He doesn’t like to talk about it.”

Clyde cleared his throat. “She probably ought to know.”

Momma snorted. “Everybody ought to know. Not likely to happen, though.” She focused on me and exhaled. “Back in the day, Clyde had him a girlfriend, sixteen years old. Pretty little thing, smart, and I don’t often say this, but she was a sweet girl—back then anyway. You can see why she hit it off with Clyde.”

He lowered his head.

“Anyway, her daddy wasn’t too keen on him. Told her to break up—you know the type, father knows best—but she wouldn’t do it.” Momma cackled. “I’d have loved to see the look on that man’s face.”

“Why didn’t he like Clyde?”

Momma lifted her chin, seemingly proud I would defend him. “He was from the wrong side of town. And if that weren’t enough, Clyde had reached the ripe old age of twenty-one.” Her smile faded into an empty stare. “And when the girl ended up in the family way, her daddy charged Clyde with statutory rape.”

“No matter, Lynda,” mumbled Clyde. “It’s in the past. Let’s leave it there.”

“As long as you’re in Trapp, it won’t be in the past.” She softened her voice in wonder. “You ought to go away and start over some place.”

“Aw, Lynda, this is home.” He bent down and stirred the crackling fire, sending a shower of sparks onto the hearth. “Besides, I don’t want everybody around here thinking poorly of me for the rest of my life. I want to set things straight.”

“You can’t set things straight, though, and you sure can’t change anybody’s mind.”

“I don’t expect to. I just want to live so they’ll know I’m a good person.”

“Maybe in fifty or sixty years. The people here are awful, Clyde, plum awful. If it weren’t for Velma, I’d have left by now.”

“Naw.” He shook his head. “People are no different here than anywhere else. No different than me. No different than you.”

Momma sat up straight. “I am not like those people.”

“You don’t act like them, but deep down inside, we’re all the same, you know? We all have problems. We just mess up our lives in different ways.”

“I disagree.”

He rotated to warm his other side. “You never could forgive people, Lynda.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she snapped. “After what they did to you? Twenty years of it, and you’re willing to forgive them?”

Clyde swallowed hard. “I know you’ve had a hard time, and people treated you bad, but they weren’t the ones who soured your life. You did that by yourself.”

She lifted her eyebrows and blinked at him.

“Aw, Lynda …” He laughed softly as he rose and stepped to the door. “I’ll be seeing you in town.” Then he was gone.

I diverted my gaze from Momma as my problems faded into triviality. Clyde’s story outweighed my dating troubles with Dodd, or my edginess around JohnScott, or even Fawn’s untimely pregnancy.

Momma dragged herself off the couch, replaced the pillow by the door, then plopped on the hardwood next to me.

We gazed into the fire, and I sorted through the information she had dumped on me. Strange. Momma didn’t often tell me about the past, and it occurred to me she felt more secure speaking about someone else’s memories than her own.

A question nagged at my brain, but I feared she would shut down again or, worse, get angry. The more I thought about it, though, the more my curiosity itched.

“Momma?”

“I know what you’re going to ask me,” she said quickly.

I looked at her out of the corner of my eye.

“I ought to tell you it’s none of your business, except of course, it is.” Her face flushed, but then she shook her head as though to settle into her typical bland numbness. “Don’t worry about it, Ruth Ann. You’re better off not knowing the details.”

I clasped my hands together, willing them not to shake. “Tell me what happened.”

But Momma only answered by jabbing the fire, taking out her frustration on the red-hot coals.