I ignored her as I helped Sam to a kitchen chair. I raced to the sink and poured him a glass of water. I watched him drink it all in one long swallow. I refilled the glass and handed it to him again.
I was supposed to leave for boarding school in a month. But Sam wouldn’t be safe with Willie Jay or Martha. I grabbed Sam by the hand. “Come on, let’s go.”
*
We stepped onto Vera’s big wraparound porch, a place that always seemed to beckon people to come inside to laugh, to rest, and to drop their troubles at the door. And no matter what time of day, the smell of something good always floated through the house.
Vera was in the kitchen baking when Sam and I arrived. The old box fan was perched on the counter and blew hot air all over the room, failing miserably to cool things down. The only thing that made the space comfortable was Vera’s dimpled smile when we stepped inside.
“Hey! There’s my little honey bunnies.”
Sam sat down in one of the brown cane chairs and started to spin the Lazy Susan Vera kept on her kitchen table filled with condiments.
I stood beside Sam. “Hi, Miss Vee.”
“Y’all hungry? I got some ham left over. I can make you a couple sandwiches.”
“No, thank you,” I said.
Vera gazed down at Sam before she flitted a glance at me. He continued spinning the condiments without a word. His eyes were starting to swell from crying, and a few mosquito bites were starting to welt on his face and arms.
“Sammy, baby, I think I might be able to scrounge up a couple pork chops. What you think?”
No answer. The Lazy Susan spun slowly.
Vera eyed me again. I bit my bottom lip.
“Sammy, you wanna go watch some TV?” she asked.
Sam eased from the chair and sulked into the living room. Vera and I stared at each other and waited until we heard the laugh track of a TV show come alive in the other room.
“I’ve never known Sammy to turn down my pork chops,” Vera said as she returned to the counter. She began sifting flour. “Ellie, come help me with this here pound cake.”
I walked over and stood beside her.
“Crack me six eggs.”
I pulled a bowl from the cabinet and opened the carton of eggs.
“What happened?”
“I was only gone for a few hours—”
“Uh-uh. This ain’t about you. You can’t stand guard twenty-four hours a day. Just tell me what happened.”
“He locked him in the shed out back and told Martha to only open it if Sam stopped making noise.”
Vera rested the sifter on the counter and stared out the window. “Heavenly Father.”
“Miss Vee, I don’t understand how he can be so mean if he’s supposed to be a police officer.” I finished cracking the eggs.
“Sweetie, if I lived a thousand years, I’d never understand some folks.” She went back to her mixing bowl.
“Sometimes I think Martha hates me and Sam. She’s been saying she’s not gonna let me go away to school.” My voice started to crack as I fought back tears. “She said she needs me to help her around the house and she doesn’t have the money to send me to Virginia, so I can’t go.”
“I already told you, I got that all taken care of. I’ll talk to her.”
Vera’s voice of authority soothed me.
“Why would she marry a man like Willie Jay? Why would she stay with someone who treats us the way he do—all of us. I hate him.”
“I don’t know, sugar. Only the good Lord knows why some folks make the decisions they do. And don’t say hate.”
“It seems wrong that someone who’s supposed to enforce the law doesn’t follow the law. What kind of justice is that?”
Vera lifted the sifter and started preparing the flour. “There’s different kinds of justice in the world. Willie Jay Groover sees justice one way. Some folks see it another.”
I stared at Vera for a moment. Just long enough for the kernel of an idea to sprout. An idea I’d been cradling and nursing in my mind since the first time Willie Jay touched me. An idea too big and evil for me to utter in words. “How can I go to Virginia and leave Sam? I don’t think I could concentrate on my schoolwork knowing Sam had to live alone in that house with Martha and Willie Jay.”
Vera finished off the flour and clapped the dust from her hands. She turned to face me with one hand on her hip. “Listen to me, you getting that scholarship to school is the best thing to come out of Chillicothe since I’ve been here. And that’s a heap of years. If you don’t go, you’ll let a lot of people down, and most especially you’ll let yourself down. You go on to school. I’ll look after Sammy.”