Passing through Perfect (Wyattsville #3)(49)

After dinner they spoke of what they would take and what they would leave behind. Isaac chose the books Delia had given him and a yellow ball. Benjamin said they’d need their clothes and food to eat on the road. The remainder of their things they would leave behind, just as the Barker family had left their three-legged chair.

Once Isaac was sleeping, Benjamin went out and walked through the fields he’d loved. There were no longer rows of corn or anything that resembled a crop. The ground was covered with a tangle of ferns and kudzu. He tried to convince himself that he wasn’t leaving anything of worth, but his heart argued differently. This was where he’d grown up; this was where his mama and daddy died, where their baby girl had been laid to rest. This was a place filled with memories. He tried to collect them as something he could carry with him, but the image of Delia lying out on Cross Corner Road was too overpowering. Some things were best left behind.





Benjamin





Last night after Isaac went to sleep I sat on the front porch ’n cried like a baby. All day I been holding back because of Isaac, but sitting there by myself I couldn’t hold it no more.

Never in all my years have I felt so low. I been shamed in front of my boy ’n told my word ain’t worth speaking. I’ve got to wonder what kind of God lets a man be born to a life where he got no chance of fairness. I ain’t lied or stealed. I ain’t never caused nobody harm and I ain’t asked for one thing more than I’m deserving of, but none of that counts. I got nigger skin ’n that’s that.

I been accepting of we got our place and white folks got theirs, but God’s law against killing ought to be the same for both. I trusted it was so, but it ain’t in Alabama. Even when the truth is staring a white man in the face, he looks past and don’t see nothing but the color of skin.

Somebody in Bakerstown knows the truth of Luke Garrett, but nobody’s willing to ask. Not even Sheriff Haledon. I figured him for a fair man, but even he ain’t willing to go up against the hate this town’s got.

When a man comes to where he can’t lift up his head no more, it’s time to move on. Delia spoke the truth. If I don’t take Isaac away from here, he’s gonna one day be sitting right where I’m sitting. I can’t let that happen. He deserves better.

Feeling beat down and shamed is punishment I deserve for not minding Delia’s words, and knowing that’s a misery I’ve got to live with.





Leaving Alabama





The next morning, with Isaac by his side, Benjamin began to prepare for the trip. He drove into Bakerstown and left Isaac waiting in the truck as he went and knocked on the back doors of the people he’d been working for. He offered an apology and explained they were leaving town and he wouldn’t be coming back to work.

Abigail Mayfield, upset because she’d planned on having him trim the bushes next week, said he ought to have given folks more notice and since he hadn’t she was in no way obligated to pay him for the day’s work he’d already done. Herman Kraus, however, wished them well and handed Benjamin five dollars to help out with the trip. A number of others did likewise. There was two dollars from both Tom Porter and Amanda Gray, and a day’s pay or a single dollar from a dozen others. In all Benjamin collected twenty-four dollars before he headed to the hospital.

“I know I got four days’ work yet to do,” he told Mamie Beasley, “but Isaac and me got to leave town. I can pay the four dollars if that’ll square things.”

Mamie gave that great big laugh of hers. “Benjamin, you has more than paid your debt. You ain’t owing a dime.”

“I ain’t expecting charity—”

“And I ain’t giving none,” Mamie cut in. “They been paying you way less than what ought to be, so we’s fine with what you already done.”

She told him to wait then disappeared into the lounge area. When she returned she pressed ten one-dollar bills in Benjamin’s hand.

“The ladies in the back is sending you this going-off present,” she said and gave another big chuckle.

That evening they took the dog and chickens to Bessie Mae’s house and said their goodbyes.

“I ain’t blaming you for going,” Bessie said, “but I sure is gonna miss you.” She hugged Isaac to her chest and whispered in his ear, “You take good care a’ your daddy, ’cause you is all he got.”

“I’s gonna,” Isaac promised.

That night Benjamin tried going to bed, but sleep never came. He tossed and turned for nearly two hours, then climbed from the bed and sat on the porch. As he creaked back and forth in the rocker where Delia once sat, the memories came at him. He closed his eyes and pictured the yard filled with happy and laughing friends, a young Delia carrying Isaac in her arms.

In that long stretch of night he wondered if he was doing the right thing in leaving so much behind. Even with its faults and prejudices Grinder’s Corner was a place he knew, a place where he had friends and people who’d watch over Isaac. The world beyond Grinder’s Corner was a blank, a thick patch of gray fog where the only way you knew what was waiting for you was to move into it; then it was too late.

In the end it was Delia’s voice that convinced him. He could still hear her telling Isaac, “There’s something better out there, a place where you can grow and be anything you want to be.”