Passing through Perfect (Wyattsville #3)(36)

“Times like this is good,” she said. “I’d soon as not sit here forever.”

“Ain’t nothing forever.” Luella laughed. “Best you can do is be remembering these good times and forgetting hard times. Folks what can’t turn their back on hard times got a heavy load to carry.”

“Ain’t that the God’s honest truth,” Delia replied.





The sun was setting when Delia first thought of leaving, and still she stayed a bit longer. The day had been like a slice of blueberry pie; the sweetness of it made her hunger for more.

“I just can’t get myself moving,” she said.

“Y’all’s welcome to stay,” Luella replied. “It ain’t fancy, but we can make do.”

Delia shook her head. “I’ve got to get home. Benjamin’d be worried to death if we was gone.” She stood and called out for Isaac. “Time for us to be going.”

Isaac crumpled his face into a frown. “I ain’t done playing.”

“You ain’t never gonna be done playing,” Delia said, “but we still got to be getting home.”

“If you is dead set on going,” Luella said, “leave Isaac stay. Come get him tomorrow, and we’ll have ourselves another fine day of visiting.”

“That sure enough sounds sweet,” Delia replied, “but Isaac’s got reading to do.” She went on to explain how Isaac was going to need a scholarship to go to college.

“Benjamin don’t have no side business, and seven dollars is all the savings we got,” she said.





When they finally left the tall pines were black silhouettes against a sky that was already turning dusky.

“Y’all come back real soon,” Luella called as they disappeared down the road.

Delia turned and waved one last time.





Cross Corner Road





Sally Garrett didn’t leave Luke because he was a terrible husband and a poor provider. She left him because he was a mean drunk. After three or four drinks the hatred in him came to a boil, and he turned uglier than a mean-assed bear.

When Luke came home smelling of whiskey on Tuesday night, Sally knew she was in for it. He started picking at her about being fat and ugly, then moved on to poking her in the stomach and laughing at how the fat wobbled.

“I don’t have to put up with this,” Sally said and turned toward the bedroom.

That’s when Luke whirled her around, grabbed the front of her dress, and ripped it wide open.

“Look at them ugly titties,” he laughed. “Them is the ugliest titties I ever did see!”

At that point Sally had taken all the insults she could stand.

“I may be fat and ugly,” she said, “but at least I ain’t a white trash drunk—”

She was going to say more, but Luke slammed his fist into her face.

By the time he finally passed out, the right side of her face was puffed out like a cantaloupe and she had a black eye and a broken front tooth.





Once Luke was stretched out on the sofa dead to the world, Sally pulled the cardboard suitcase from the back of the closet and packed the things she needed. In the black of night she walked from the back hill cutoff to Cross Corner Road and then all the way into town. It was a twenty-three-mile walk, most of it through Grinder’s Corner where the colored families lived, but Sally didn’t care. Enough was enough.

When the early morning bus left Bakerstown headed for Baltimore, Maryland, Sally was on it.





Luke didn’t open his eyes until nearly noon, and when he did he started yelling for Sally to bring him a cold beer.

“Hey, stupid! You deaf or something?”

Once the room came into focus, he scrabbled off the sofa and went in search of her. That’s when he saw the emptied out closet. There was no note, no indication of where she’d gone.

With no other way to vent his anger, Luke kicked the closet door with such fury it came loose from its hinges. When it fell to the floor, he stomped it until the wood split in half. After giving the broken door one last kick, he headed into the kitchen and pulled a lukewarm beer from an icebox that didn’t have a sliver of ice left in it.

Luke drained a long swallow and spit it out. “Warm piss,” he grumbled. Still red-eyed and smelling of whiskey, he got into his truck and headed for town.

His first stop was the Good Times Tavern where he had three cold beers to clear his head. Then he went looking for Sally.





Ezra Green, the bus station clerk who’d sold Sally her ticket, had seen the black eye and he didn’t have to ask questions to know where she’d gotten it. When Luke swaggered into the station hollering about how he was gonna find Sally and teach her nobody shits on Luke Garrett and gets away with it, Ezra said Sally had boarded a bus headed for Albuquerque, New Mexico.

“Damn that woman,” Luke replied. Then he staggered out the door, across the street, and back to the Good Times Tavern.





Luke climbed onto a barstool and ordered a boilermaker whiskey to ease the pain of Sally leaving and then he washed it down with a beer chaser to cool the burn in his throat.

“Ungrateful bitch,” he told Alvin, the bartender. “Run off after all I done for her.”