“Ellie, tell me now, did he bother you again? I done told your momma she can’t let no man mess over her kids. Did he hurt you again?”
Oh God. She recognized me but her mind was lodged somewhere back in Chillicothe. I was too emotionally spent to fast-forward Vera decades into the present.
“No, Vee, I just wanted to be with you.”
“That’s fine, baby.” Vera began to hum a low throaty tune. A gospel song that I recognized immediately. “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” The choir sang it the very first time I had ever stepped foot inside a church, right after Sam and I moved in with Vera. After everything fell apart. After Vera saved the babies. Vera bought us some clothes and it was the first time I had ever worn a brand-new dress. It was the color of fresh green apples with pink flowers embroidered along the neckline and hem. I was afraid to sit in that dress because it was so pretty. I remember rubbing my fingers along the embroidery over and over, amazed that anything could be so beautiful and belong to me.
Vera stroked my face lightly before removing a soft white handkerchief from her pocket. She dabbed it across my face. “Shhh . . . Hush now, honey bunny, you don’t need to cry none.”
It was like I was back on her front porch in Chillicothe.
“Ellie baby, you got to remember, family is important. But some family is good and some family ain’t so good. Some family downright rotten.” She was right about family. Unfortunate for me, I’d landed in the Manson family when I joined Houghton!
Vera continued toying with my hair. “And Willie Jay, well, he ’bout rotten as they come. He use his job and all the law behind it to do whatever he wanna do. You might not be as powerful as he is, but you a hellava lot smarter.”
I closed my eyes, listening to the old woman.
“I learned a long time ago, family is who you love and trust, not who the law say you supposed to love. That no-count scoundrel. Ain’t nobody on God’s green earth he love except hisself.” Vera started to hum again.
After a couple minutes, Vera broke from the song.
“Now, Ellie, did you do what I told you to do?” Vera asked firmly. I didn’t answer. I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but it didn’t matter. I was here with the one person in the world who loved me. Nothing else mattered right now. I just wanted her to go back to humming. I wanted nothing but her and that little sparrow that God watches over.
“What’d you do with dem chicken and dumplings I made?”
My eyes shot open.
Now, I knew exactly where Vera was mentally benched. A nervous panic coursed through me. The secret I’d spent nearly all my life running from came bubbling from Vera’s debilitated mind. A deadly, criminal secret surfacing like a body rising from its watery grave. I raised my eyes in time to catch a stern glare from Vera.
“Answer me, child. Did you do like I told you?”
“Vee, everything’s okay. I did what you told me.” In an instant, my mind scrambled with memories of murder and the fear of what Vera might have released out into the world.
Vera and I had barely spoken of that night since it happened. Then it dawned on me. How many times had she mistaken a nurse or an attendant for me and shared this very same memory? Maybe some random stranger like Jonathan or Max when they left her flowers.
Vera leaned forward. “You did exactly like I told you?”
I nodded solemnly.
“Good. That’s good. Then there ain’t nothing to worry about now.”
I gave a weak smile and Vera smiled, too, before she sank back into the Barcalounger.
“Now you dry dem tears, baby. You ain’t got no time for tears. You fightin’ for ya life. Like I always told you, you use your heart to love but you use your head to fight.”
Chillicothe, Georgia, July 1979
Living in Chillicothe in July is like living inside a gas stove set at broil. It was after eleven o’clock at night. Even at this late hour, the house was so hot that the linoleum felt warm and sticky under my bare feet. I trembled standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes. I had to make sure the kitchen was clean before Willie Jay got home. Sam was at Vera’s house and Martha had passed out in the bedroom an hour earlier. Her “demons” were back, and I heard her crying in the bedroom right before she passed out.
Now I waited.
A few minutes later, I heard Willie Jay’s car muffler rattle to a stop in the driveway. He always demanded his dinner be served on the table piping hot when he walked in the house. I rinsed the soap off my hands and scurried to the stove. I grabbed a dish towel and lifted the warm casserole dish from the oven. My hands were shaking so bad I nearly dropped it. I pulled a plate from the cupboard and a fork and serving spoon from the drawer. The car door slammed, and I peeked out the window over the sink. I quickly scooped up the chicken and dumplings from the casserole dish and heaped them on the plate. I managed to set the plate on the table at the precise moment Willie Jay walked through the back door.