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“Can I go back to my room now, Ruby?”
“Yes, Mr. Carter.” Ruby had made her way to the table in the corner of the recreation room where her son and her father’s roommate sat. “I’m sorry to keep you out here all this time.” She took off the old felt hat and long tailored coat that belonged to Sister and laid them on an empty chair. “I never expected to be this long.”
“Didn’t mind a bit. Me and Mack have been playing chess. Can’t find too many people play chess anymore.” He waved goodbye as a nurse’s aide wheeled him away.
Mack pulled a chair out for her. “How’d it go, Mama?”
“He’s sleeping now, but I couldn’t stop him from talking, Mack. He saw so much.”
“I know.”
“And was made to do some awful things.”
“I know. Those names on the list?”
“They’re the ones in the picture, just like you thought.”
“How’d it end?”
“He asked me to forgive him and I said I did. That was all right, wasn’t it?”
“Perfect, Mama. Just the right thing to say.”
“It wasn’t a lie, at least not coming from me. Of course, I can’t speak to what Grace might’ve said. I can’t believe she wouldn’t listen to him.”
“It was the perfect thing to say.” Mack went to the coffee machine and carried back two cups. “This stuff’s been perking all day. They’ve got that powdered stuff, if you want it white. No milk. I checked already.”
“This is fine.” She studied her son’s face, the distant look in his eye. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m just trying to figure out what to do next, where to go from here.”
“Maybe I can help with that.”
Startled, Ruby thought at first that she was hearing things again. She was relieved to see Nonny Folsom standing behind them. She’d had enough of bodiless voices for one day.
“I called the house and Sister told me you were here,” Nonny said quickly, face flushed. “I’ve been at the courthouse all afternoon.”
“You find something else?” Mack pulled a chair up so Nonny could join them.
“Yes, more about Pa’s piece of land.” She handed two pieces of paper to Mack and laid a thick stack on the table.
“Pa’s piece of land?” Ruby looked at Mack.
“Damn . . .” He tapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Did I mention that we found out at that Historical place yesterday that Pa once owned a piece of land?”
“No, you did not!”
“Well, I meant to, other things got in the way.”
“What happened to it?”
“We don’t know.”
“We do now.” Nonny pointed to one of the papers Mack held.
As Mack became engrossed in reading the paper, Ruby turned to Nonny. “Tell me what it says, Nonny.”
“Old Mr. Turner bought the land, Ruby. Not long after Pa got out of the service.”
“She’s right,” Mack said, looking up from the paper.
“What? All these years, Tootsie Turner never said a word about that. Why would she keep something like that from me?”
“I knew something was fishy,” he said. “Those Turners hovered over us like mother hens, then wouldn’t give me the time of day when I asked about Bill and Jack. I’d bet a dollar to a donut, those mules are buried on Pa’s land.”
“And that’s not all.” Nonny pointed to the other piece of paper that Mack held. “We shouldn’t be looking for Bill and Jack.”
“Thank the Lord,” Ruby said, laying a hand on her chest. “You found a loophole.”
“No, Ruby. I mean we should be looking for Grace instead of those mules.”
Ruby heard a buzzing in her ears. “I’m not following you, Nonny.”
“I’ll be damned,” Mack mumbled, not giving Nonny time to respond.
“What is it?” Ruby asked.
“A death certificate for Grace Anderson.”
“My mother’s death certificate?” Ruby took the paper from Mack’s hand but found she still could not focus her eyes. “What’s it say? I can’t see a thing.”
“It says she’s buried in Beulah Land,” he said.
Ruby fell back in her chair. “You mean, Pa’s piece of land is called . . .?”
Mack laughed. “Yeah. He called it Beulah Land.”
“Lord have mercy. Sister tried to tell us, and . . .” Ruby laid a hand on her chest, an attempt to slow her racing heart. “Oh my God! Grace is buried right here?”
“Pa said something yesterday about bringing her back. Looks like he did just that.” Mack turned to Nonny. “You find the location?”
“No, it’s the proverbial needle in a haystack. The Turner’s own half the county. See?” Nonny pointed to the thick stack of paper on the table.
“What about the legal description?” Mack asked.
“I just found that bill of sale there and no legal description was attached. I don’t know how we’ll ever find it, so much has been archived and so many old records have been lost or destroyed.” Nonny tapped the stack of paper. “I printed off what I could find of the Turner’s land transactions in that timeframe, but it’s overwhelming. Pa’s piece might’ve been sold many times over . . . or the Turners might still own it.”
“But the Turners know where it is,” Mack said, his eyes narrowing. “And for some reason, they don’t want us to find out.”
“Why would that be?” Ruby murmured. “Why would they do such a thing?” She watched Nonny rise from the table and float to the coffee pot, then back again. Why are people moving in slow motion, she wondered. It’s because this isn’t real, she thought, none of this is real.
“What is it, Nonny?” Mack said. “Is there something else we should know?”
“No. I just don’t know where to go next.” Nonny rubbed her eyes. “I’ve exhausted every means available, which leaves us with the Turners themselves.”
Mack blew out his breath. “If the Turners wouldn’t tell us before, they sure as hell aren’t gonna tell us now. And I made Pa a promise. He wants to be buried with his war buddies.”
“War buddies?” Nonny said.
Ruby listened numbly as Mack related to Nonny what he had figured out with Pa and his Army buddies. His voice was low and his words spoken as if in confidence, and she began to feel left out again, just as she had at the church picnic. Feeling a tightness in her chest, she battled it down, thinking, I will take no more of this helplessness! Suddenly, the tightness moved from her chest to her jawbone, and she realized she was gritting her teeth. It was then that she turned to the conversation again.
“Good God, I bet you’re right,” Nonny was whispering to Mack. “Maybe if you told that to the Turners, they’d tell you where Pa’s land is—what used to be Pa’s land.”
“You know the answer to that one,” Mack said. “No way in hell they’re gonna tell us, and there’s gotta be a reason they’re not.”
“Like what?” Nonny asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, even if they did tell,” Nonny said, “there’s still has to be a law against burying someone on private property.” She sighed deeply. “That’s another obstacle to circumvent, burying Pa on privately-owned land. It’s hopeless. What do we do now, Mack?”
Ruby watched Mack rub his mouth and Nonny massage the back of her neck. As she absorbed their silence, she found a strange pleasure in someone else’s sense of helplessness.
Then she noticed the anguish in her son’s eyes and lived again the hours spent with her father. She began to wonder how Pa had born such torment all these years, then realized he had not. It’s why he’s in this place, she thought, letting her eyes roam around the nursing home. And I’m the one that’s put him here. She became overwhelmed with a sense of guilt then, wondering how she—a child of her father—could have done such a thing. Turn her back on him in his hour of need. Betray his trust. Why, he had even made her the Assignee on that legal affidavit.
Ruby had learned the affidavit by rote and recited it now silently, but for some reason, she could not get past one word: Assignee. Suddenly, the power in that one word smacked her between the eyes, and the darkness in her mind and numbness in her body healed simultaneously.
“I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do,” Ruby said with conviction in her voice. “We’re going to find those mules.”
“What?” Mack looked her way.
Nonny shook her head. “I’m confused, Ruby. What do you mean?”
“I mean, we start looking for those two mules ourselves—piece by piece, acre by acre, until we find them. To hell with the Turners. Pa made me the Assignee on that affidavit and if he wants to be buried with those mules, by God, that’s what we’re gonna do.”
“Well hell, I’m game,” Mack said, grinning. “Let’s hear your plan, Mama. Anything’s better than sitting on our butts.”
Nonny smiled, too. “I’m up for anything. And you have to be happy about finding Grace after all this time—”
“Grace— I’m not doing this because I want to find Grace!” Ruby picked up the stack of papers Nonny had laid on the table, eyeballed the thickness, and divided it into thirds. She handed Mack and Nonny each a portion.
“I don’t understand,” Nonny said, taking her portion. “Why don’t you want to find Grace?”
“Because she deserted her children, that’s why!”
Mack took a packet of papers, then paused. “Hold up, I think we forgot about the fly in the ointment. Even if we find them, we may not be able to bury Pa where he wants. The law might prohibit—”
“We cross that bridge when we get there,” Ruby snapped. “First we find those mules.”
Ruby bent over her stack of papers and feigned looking at it, for she still could not focus her eyes. But she noticed in her peripheral vision than Nonny and Mack were following her lead, looking at the papers and talking between themselves as they had come to do. Let them figure it out, she thought. That’s what they’re good at.
She detached from her surroundings then, and that detachment spread to her thinking. Though her future was uncertain, she found satisfaction in having a path to follow, to be in control. She thought then how strange it was that, though she had lost the war with her father, she felt no resentment toward him. The knowledge she had gained this day only reinforced a truth—that her resentment of Grace was well grounded and deserved. How could that woman—any woman—turn her back on those that so desperately needed her?
And Tootsie Turner is no better, she thought. As Ruby thought about Tootsie’s deceit, a taste bitter as gall filled her mouth. She couldn’t remember the number of times she’d gone to the Walmart to buy Fawn-Beige hair coloring—which she had reserved for Tootsie alone—and how the woman had made her dye her eyebrows the same Fawn Beige so she would look natural.
Natural? There was no one more fake in the world than Tootsie Turner.
The next thing she knew, she was envisioning the woman leaving a five-dollar tip on the table without even a backward glance, as if saying “Thank you” to a kitchen beautician was beneath her.
Now I know why you were so generous with those tips all these years, Tootsie Turner, she thought.
Ruby Barlow went deep into herself then. As she sat there sipping on bitter coffee that had been perking in a dirty pot most of the day, she became aware of an uncharacteristic sensation. For the first time in her life, she thirsted for revenge.
