Jilo (Witching Savannah #4)(109)
He was taking advantage of the free time this long stay had given him to take Willy in hand. Tinker had known boys like him before. He wasn’t fool enough to think he could change Willy, and besides, he loved the boy exactly as he was, but he would be good and goddamned if he didn’t teach Willy how to fight. The day those sons of bitches forced his car off the road, he’d stayed conscious only long enough to watch as Willy was dragged, defenseless, from the car. Nope. Never again. He was Willy’s papa now—he didn’t care if he was only a dozen or so years older than him—and that boy was gonna be nobody’s victim. He felt the anger steal over him again, and the Red King’s mark twitched, prodding him, encouraging him to commit violence. He drew a breath, then shrugged his shoulders to make them relax. The mark was fading, had been since the day the Red King placed it there. In time, with enough prayer and good works, Tinker hoped the good Lord would take it from him. For now, he’d make sure he did nothing else to help it sink its roots deeper into his soul.
He lit the kerosene lamp and cast a glance at Robinson, still dead to the world, his peaceful expression helping to calm Tinker’s spirit. He rose and dressed, then carefully carried the sleeping Robinson under one arm into the kitchen where they’d set up a cot for Willy. He set the lamp on the table and then nudged the cot with his knee. “Here,” he said, “take care of your brother.” A groggy Willy reached up and pulled the boy into his embrace.
Tinker passed by the table and blew out the lamp’s flame. His eyes struggled to readjust to the dark. Life was kind of like that—it was a constant back-and-forth between moments where everything seemed so clear, so perfect, and those in which a man was left to grope around in the dark, nothing to guide him but the few familiar objects found by his own fumbling hands.
He found his way out to the house’s main room, then crept out the door. When they’d arrived here, the small front porch had been sagging, but he’d spent two afternoons replacing the rotting boards and bad brace. Now the porch was set to face another decade or so of whatever Mother Nature had to throw at it. He chuckled to himself. Might even outlast the rest of the house.
He stepped off the porch and turned to the east. The sky overhead was changing. The deep black-blue of nighttime was giving way to the color of fresh plums. Though the tall pines blocked his view, he knew a strip of red would soon form on the horizon, and the entire sky would catch fire. He passed around the side of the house, heading south to find the thin stretch of land that cut across the marshes and led to the beach.
As he made his way along the trail, the bushes began to shake. Two whitetail deer burst out of the growth and turned to run on ahead of him. As they faded into the distance, he found himself humming Binah’s song, “Come Some Sunny Day.” Binah was living the life of a queen up there in Detroit. He’d meant to tell Jilo he’d heard it on the radio again, playing in the store in Meridian when he went to call Savannah, but the song’s hit status had come to seem like old news now that radio stations, white and black, all around the country had begun to play it.
“Beneath your feet and always faithful, like your shadow on the floor . . .” he sang the song’s opening lyrics, though not loudly. It was the crack of dawn, and no one was in sight, but he still didn’t want to risk being heard. He wasn’t a singer, not like his sister-in-law. That girl had a voice. She’d cut her record soon after landing in the Motor City. She’d written Jilo to say she’d recorded the whole song barefoot, her feet swollen from pregnancy. Jude Wills had been born soon after. When she performed for folks now, Binah always kicked off her shoes before singing “Come Some Sunny Day,” because it just didn’t feel the same if she tried to sing it with her feet bound.
“She’s a star!” Willy had exclaimed the first time the family listened to the song together.
“She always was,” Jilo responded. Tinker knew his wife took great pleasure in the knowledge that everywhere that Taylor boy went, Binah’s voice was there to remind him of his foolishness. She took a bit less pleasure in knowing Binah had gone to the trouble of tracking down their mama Betty. Even though Binah hadn’t laid eyes on the woman since she was an infant, she’d taken Betty in and showered her with every luxury. Their mama, Jilo sometimes groused, had found a way to live her dreams through her abandoned daughter. Still, with each letter, each phone call from Binah, he could see Jilo was softening. Someday she might actually take hold of the receiver when it was Betty on the other end of the line.
As he drew near the beach, the sound of the crashing surf inspired him to sing out louder, but the sight of his beautiful wife, all done up like a morning glory in hues of purple and blue, the sweet darkness of her features set aglow by the red-and-orange dawn, made him fall silent.
Jilo wandered along the white sand, dyed rosy by the first light of day, both hands over her round stomach. Another conversation, he reckoned, with Miss Rosalee.
For a moment, he felt like he was intruding. He was about to turn now that he knew she was safe, head home and leave her to her private thoughts, but she stopped and turned to look at him, like something had alerted her to his presence. She raised both hands and waved him forward, welcoming him to join her.
His heart filled with so much love, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to take a single step, but still he felt his body begin to jog along, his shoes, meant for city streets, digging down into the loose sand, grains of it kicking up and grinding into his socks. He didn’t care. He kept trotting along, and soon, the wet, compacted sand helped carry him to her side.