Passing through Perfect (Wyattsville #3)(40)

Isaac pulled back a bit and looked up at Benjamin. “What you talking about, Daddy?”

“Your mama was hurt way worse than you, Isaac. The car that hit her messed up her insides something awful—”

“It weren’t no car, it was a truck,” Isaac said. “It was a damn truck what hurt Mama. Ask Mama, she’ll tell you. She seen it better ’n me.”

“I can’t ask your mama, Isaac, she’s gone to rest.”

Isaac yanked himself loose and looked square into his daddy’s face. “What you mean, rest?”

“Your mama’s gone to be with the Lord.” Benjamin answered. “She fought real hard trying stay alive but—”

“Mama’s dead?”

Benjamin gave a solemn nod. “I know it’s a real hard thing to hear, Isaac—”

A red hot anger flared in the boy’s eyes. “You’re lying! Mama ain’t dead. You’re just saying that to scare me!”

Benjamin moved forward and again pulled the boy close.

“I wish I was lying,” he said sorrowfully. “They tried to save your mama, but she was too bad hurt.”

Isaac broke away again. “Ain’t nobody tried to save Mama.”

“Isaac, I know your heart’s hurting, but Doctor Goldsmith is a good man. He’s the one who fixed your leg, and he really did try—”

“I ain’t talking about no doctor.”

“Who you talking about?”

“The man what hit us. It weren’t no accident.”

“It had to be an accident,” Benjamin reasoned. “Nobody’d do something like that on purpose.”

“He did,” Isaac sobbed. “You wasn’t there, Daddy, you don’t know.”

Benjamin held the boy in his arms until the worst of his crying slowed.

“You’re right, Isaac,” he said. “I wasn’t there, but you was. You can tell me what happened.”

Seemingly glad for the opportunity to tell his side of the story, Isaac sniffed back his tears and said, “Mama and me was coming home from visiting Miss Luella ’n Jerome, and we was walking on Cross Corner Road. We was trying to hurry ’cause it already got dark.”

He stopped for a moment, and the fearful look in his eyes made Benjamin think he was reliving the moment.

“It’s okay,” Benjamin said, “take your time and just tell me what you can remember.”

“I remembers it all, Daddy. I ain’t got no doubts. We was listening for the motor sound, then the truck come ’round the bend and ran smack into me ’n Mama. He did it ’cause we was colored.”

“Nobody does a thing like because—”

“He did so!” Isaac shouted. “He said it!”

“What’d he say?”

“He said we was damn niggers, then drove off.”

For a long while Benjamin held Isaac in his arms, the boy sobbing softy as a calloused hand rubbed his back.

“It’s okay to cry,” Benjamin whispered. “Crying’s good for the soul. It lets the misery out instead of keeping it bottled up inside.”





No child’s tears can last forever. Eventually weariness sets in, and their young soul runs dry. When that finally happened Benjamin asked Isaac if he knew the man driving the truck that hit them.

“I ain’t never before seen him,” Isaac said, “but I know he got a face with hair.”

“Do you know what kind of truck he had?”

Isaac nodded. “Blue like yours. Mama thought you was coming home, that’s why she stepped in the road and started waving.”

“Was it old like mine?”

Isaac shrugged. “I can’t say for certain ’cause it was dark ’n he was going fast.”

“Anything else you can remember about the truck?”

Isaac thought a minute then said, “Yeah. It had a black tire on the front and a tire with a white middle on the back.”

“A whitewall tire?” Benjamin asked. “One with a white circle all the way around?”

Isaac nodded then began sobbing again. “I ’specially remember the back tire, ’cause I seen it when he drove off.”





Benjamin stayed beside Isaac until late in the evening, but all the while he was sitting there he was picturing the trucks he’d seen around Bakerstown. He couldn’t remember a blue pickup with a whitewall tire, but he’d find it. In time he would find it, no matter how long it took.





Moving On





The morning after Delia was laid to rest, Benjamin drove into Bakerstown and went directly to Sheriff Haledon’s office. A round-faced deputy sat at the front desk.

“I got to report a crime,” Benjamin said.

Without glancing away from the paper he’d been reading Deputy Moran asked, “What kind of crime?”

“Murder,” Benjamin answered.

“Murder?” The deputy looked at Benjamin with a raised eyebrow. “Is this some nigger fighting nigger thing?”

“No, sir,” Benjamin said. “A man run down my wife and boy when they was walking on Cross Corner Road.”

“If you ask me, that sounds more like an accident.”