Before We Were Yours(75)

He moves away from me and closer to her, his steps uneven and wobbly. At the corner of the railing, he blocks her path. The two shadows melt into one. He whispers something.

“Mr. Riggs!” Her hand swings out of the shadow and back in. Skin slaps on skin. “Have you been drinking?”

“I s-s-seen how you b-been watchin’ me.”

“I have done no such thing.”

“Y-you b-b-be nice, or I’ll tell Cousin Ida. She d-don’t like nobody to g-gimme trouble.”

She sidles to the wall and slides past him, and he lets her by. “You…you will keep away from me, or…or I…I’ll tell her myself. I’ll tell her you got liquored up and were fresh with me.”

He lumbers on toward the stairs. “Y-you oughta look—see the li’l boys first. S-s-somebody tumped outta bed in there.” His feet fall heavy as he walks on down. The boards squeak and sing.

Hugging her arms around herself, the worker watches him before going to see about the toddlers. I stand up on shaky legs and hurry to my bed, and pull the covers all the way to my neck and wrap up. It’s a good thing, because the worker comes in our room next, maybe thinking Riggs was closest to it.

She walks along and lifts covers and looks at every one of us like she’s checking for something. When she comes to my bed, I breathe long and deep and fight hard not to shiver as she pulls the covers off me and feels my skin. Maybe she wonders why I’m wrapped up so tight when it’s sticky hot. Maybe she can smell the night on me like Riggs did.

She stays over my bed awhile.

Finally, she’s gone, and I lay there looking up at the dark. One more day, I tell myself. You only gotta get by one more day.

I think it over and over again, like a promise. I have to. Otherwise, I’d find a way to get that screen off the window, and I’d jump out and hope it’s high enough to kill me.

I can’t live like this.

I fall asleep knowing it’s true.

Morning comes in fits and jerks. I wake and sleep, waiting on the voices of the workers to tell us to get out of our beds and put on our clothes. I know better than to move before that. Mrs. Pulnik made sure to tell me the upstairs rules before she showed me my bed and the little crate underneath where I keep my clothes.

But I won’t be needing that crate for long. I’ll get us out tonight, all three of us—me, and Fern, and Stevie—no matter what it takes. If I’ve gotta grab a kitchen knife and stab it into somebody to get us past, I’ll do it, I tell myself. I won’t let anyone stop me.

It’s not till we’re downstairs for breakfast that I know I’ve been making promises that’ll be hard to keep. First rattle out the box this morning, Mrs. Pulnik spotted sandy footprints in the kitchen. They’re dried, so she knows they were put there last night. They fade out before the stairs, which means she can’t tell where the trail would end up, but the prints are big enough that she’s sure it was one of the older boys. She’s got them lined up, and she’s trying them one by one against the tracks to see who fits.

She hasn’t noticed yet that I’ve got big feet. Standing by my place at the table with the rest of the girls, I squeeze my toes in and hope she won’t look my way.

Maybe one of the boys is the size of the prints, I think, and I know that’s wrong, because I’d be getting somebody in trouble. Bad trouble. Mrs. Murphy’s in the room too, and she’s hotter than a jar fresh out of the canning pot. She’s got an umbrella with all the cloth torn off. She means to whip somebody with it. After that, it’ll probably be the closet.

I can’t get the closet.

But can I stand by and let it happen to somebody else when it’s my fault? It’d be the same as if I was swinging the umbrella myself.

Through the washroom, I see Riggs by the back screen door. He’s watching the show. He nods and smiles at me, and my skin goes cold.

The new worker looks on from the corner, her dark eyes skittering. She’s never seen anything like this. “It…it could’ve been me,” she babbles out. “Mr. Riggs mentioned stray cats outside, and I went to shoo them away.”

Mrs. Murphy barely even hears her. “You will not interfere!” she screeches. “And your feet are too small. Who are you covering up for? Who?”

“No one.” Her eyes dart off toward me.

Mrs. Murphy and Mrs. Pulnik try to follow them. Time slows down.

Be still. Be still, I think. Don’t move. I stay frozen.

“C-could be those w-was there last evenin’. Th-th-there’s mud round the rain b-barrel,” Riggs tosses in, now that everyone’s looking at my side of the table. At first, I think Riggs wants to help, and then I understand he just doesn’t want me locked up tonight where he can’t get at me.

Mrs. Murphy bats a hand at him. “You hush. Honestly, you’re far too kind to these little ingrates. Give them an inch and they’ll take a mile.” She slaps the umbrella against her palm, studying my side of the table. “Now…if it wasn’t one of the boys…then who could it be?”

The girl who was in the bed across from me last night, Dora, tips her head back and wobbles around and faints dead away on the floor.

Nobody moves.

“Not her, I guess,” Mrs. Murphy says. “And if not her, then who?” The umbrella swings in a circle like a magic wand. “Step away from the table, girls.” Her eyes sparkle. “Let’s see who our little Cinderella might be.”