Before We Were Yours(86)

Zuma doesn’t dare hit us, but she’d like to. When Hootsie acts up, Zuma wears out Hootsie’s skinny behind. Sometimes, Zuma shakes that long wood spoon our way when nobody’s looking and says, “Oughta be grateful. Oughta be kissin’ the missus feet, her even lettin’ you in this fine house. I know what you is, and don’ you be fo’gettin’ it neither. You’s only here till the missus gits a baby a’ her own. Mister thinks, if she quit worrin’ about it so hard, it gonna happen. When it do, you li’l river rats be gone like smoke. Out wit’ the trash. Y’all only here fo’ now. Don’ be makin’ yo’self to home. I seen it all befo’, jus’ so you know. You ain’t here fo’ long.”

She’s right, so I got no reason to argue. There’s food here, at least, and plenty of it. There’s frilly dresses, even if they are scratchy and stiff, and hair ribbons, and Crayolas, and books, and shiny new Mary Jane shoes. There’s a little tea set for tea parties with cookies in the afternoons. We’ve never even had a tea party before, so Mrs. Sevier has to show us how to play the game.

There’s no lining up for bath time. We don’t have to get naked while other people look on. Nobody hits us in the head. Nobody threatens to tie us up and hang us in the closet. Nobody gets locked in the basement. At least not so far, and like Zuma says, we won’t be here long enough to find out whether it’d happen after the new wears off.

One thing I know for sure is that, whenever the Seviers get tired of us, we’re not going back to Mrs. Murphy’s. At night, after I’m safe in the room next to Fern’s, I look way down across the pasture and see the water through the trees. I watch for lanterns drifting along the oxbow lake, and I spot a few. Sometimes, I see lights, even far off in the slough, floating like fallen stars. All I have to do is find us a way onto one of the boats, and we can go through Dedmen’s Slough to the big river. Once we’re there, it’ll be an easy trip downwater to where the Wolf meets the Mississippi at Mud Island, and that’s where Queenie and Briny will be waiting for us.

I just need to find us a boat, and I will. After we’re gone, the Seviers won’t have the first idea what happened to us. Miss Tann didn’t tell them we’re from river folk, and I bet Zuma won’t either. Our new mommy and papa think our real mama was a college girl and our daddy was a professor. They think she took sick with pneumonia and died and he lost his job and couldn’t keep us. They also think Fern’s just three years old, but she’s four.

I don’t tell the Seviers any different. Mostly, I just try to be good so nothing will happen before Fern and me can get away.

“There you are,” Mrs. Sevier says when she finds us down at the dining table waiting on breakfast. She frowns, seeing that we’re already dressed in the clothes that were set out for us last night. Fern’s wearing a pair of blue check pants with a little top that buttons up the back. It has puffy ruffles around her arms and shows her tummy under the lace at the bottom of the shirt. I’ve got on a purple dress that’s ruffly and fluffy and a little too small at the top. I had to suck in to get it buttoned, and I shouldn’t need to, but I’m growing, I guess. Queenie says we Foss kids always get bigger in spurts.

Either I’m in a growing spurt, or it’s because we eat a lot more than just corn mush here. Every morning, we all sit down to a big meal, and at lunch Zuma makes us sandwiches on a tray. In the evening, we have a big supper too, unless Mr. Sevier is busy in his music room at supper. When that happens, we have sandwiches on a tray again, and Mrs. Sevier plays parlor games with us, which Fern likes to do a lot.

“May, I told you there’s no reason for you to be up so early and making little Beth get dressed too.” She crosses her arms over the silky bathrobe that looks like it oughta be on Queen Cleopatra. Fern and me have robes that match. Our new mommy had Zuma make them just for us, special. We haven’t put them on since. I figure it’s best we don’t get used to fancy things, since we’re not staying long.

Besides that, there’s two little bumps poking out on my chest, and the gowns are shiny and thin, and it makes the bumps show, and I don’t want anybody to see.

“We waited…awhile.” I look down at my lap. She doesn’t understand that all our lives we’ve been up at first light. There’s no other way to live on a shantyboat. When the river comes awake, you do too. The birds speak, and the boats whistle, and the waves wash up one after another if you’re tied anyplace near a main channel. The lines have to be watched, and the fish are biting, and the stove needs kindling. There’s things to do.

“It’s time you learned to sleep until a decent hour.” Mrs. Sevier shakes her head at me, and I don’t know whether she’s playing or if she doesn’t like me very much. “You’re not in an orphanage anymore, May. This is your home.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Yes, Mommy.” She lays a hand on my head and leans over to kiss Fern’s cheek, then pretends to gobble up her ear. Fern giggles and squeals.

“Yes, Mommy,” I repeat. It ain’t natural, but I’m getting better at it. Next time, I’ll remember.

She sits at the end of the table and looks down the long hall, resting her chin on her hand, frowning. “I guess you haven’t seen Papa this morning?”

“No…Mommy.”