Take My Hand(27)

Mama showed her love in funny ways, and getting that apartment was the kind of gesture that reminded me of that.





FIFTEEN





When I told Mace Williams about the letter, he was not impressed. “Let’s go get the application for the apartment,” I said. “You don’t want to lose your place on the list.”

“Girl, I got to work today.”

“You don’t look like you’re working to me.”

“I got to be here in case the man come around here looking for me. I can’t just go trotting off with some crazy woman.”

“I’m not a crazy woman.”

“Look crazy to me.”

“Mace, go with her,” said Mrs. Williams from her chair on the other side of the room. She was patching up the knee on a pair of her son’s pants. By the way she fingered the needle, I could tell she needed eyeglasses. “This girl taking the time to come around here and see about you and your childrens. The least you can do is go with her and see what she talking about. I’ll talk to Mr. Adair if he come around.”

“Mama, we can’t afford no apartment. How I’m supposed to work for Mr. Adair if I’m living way out in this Dixie Court place?”

“Mr. Adair done told you there ain’t no work for you here no more. We got to get off this man place sooner or later and you know it,” she said, eyeing him steadily.

“As I said, the apartment’s free,” I said. “At least, until you start working. They’ll fix you up with a jobs agency.”

“I done talked with them jobs people before. They ain’t got nothing for me.”

I did not think he had tried hard enough, but I didn’t say that. Maybe he was just too stuck in farm life.

“Well, look, if you want to stay out here and drown in your own pity, that’s fine,” I snapped. “But the girls and their grandma got a right to go out there and live in this nice apartment, with or without you.” Surely it was unbearable that he and the entire family had to share one room—dressing, eating, sleeping. What was wrong with the man?

Mrs. Williams laughed as she stretched the needle out in front of her. Somehow she had managed to thread it.

“Pssht,” he hissed, and then moved to throw a twig on the dying fire. It was cold in the house, maybe colder than outside. April had not warmed up yet, and we were still dealing with blustery spring winds. A dog lying on a pile of clothes lifted his head and started barking at the sound of the wind rattling the door. “Get!” Mace yelled at the dog and it slowly rose, stretched its legs, and walked out. Mace kicked through the clothes, picking out a shirt. He sniffed it, snatched the stocking off his head, and pushed open the back door. Before it closed completely I could see him begin to pull his shirt over his head. I tried not to look. In a brief glimpse, I caught sight of the man’s sinew, and just like his face, the skin was bronzed by the sun.

“I’ll wait in my car,” I said to his mother.

I wanted to know if India and Erica had kept their hair and clothes neat in the weeks since I’d seen them, but I didn’t see them around. There really wasn’t anywhere else for them to go. The closest neighbors lived a couple of miles up the road. I turned the car around so that when Mace came out, we would be ready to drive down the hill. In the meantime I promised myself I wouldn’t let him make me nervous. He came out wearing a clean enough blue shirt and holding a hairbrush in his hand as he limped to the car. At least he didn’t look like he’d just stepped out of a barn. As we passed Mr. Adair’s house, Mace gave a nod and two-finger wave to a white man sitting on the hood of a pickup truck. The man stared at us but did not acknowledge the greeting.

“Is that him?”

“One and the same.”

“He treat you and the family alright?”

Mace didn’t answer. He just stared out the window. I figured he didn’t want to talk, so I said nothing. We did not have to be friends. The man thought I was a nuisance, but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t doing this for him. I was doing it for the girls. I held the steering wheel with one hand and the letter bearing the address, 3501 Dixie Court, in the other. The rental office hours were ten to six on Saturdays, so we had plenty of time. The car coasted down the highway. The static in the radio cleared, and Carla Thomas’s voice floated out of the speakers.

“Hey,” he said.

“What?”

“You know you low on gas?”

I looked down at the gas meter. I was less than low, more like about to run out. It hadn’t even occurred to me to put gas in the car, I was so used to Daddy doing it. A 76 station appeared up ahead. As I slowed the car, a man in blue overalls sitting on a chair watched us.

“I’ll fill it up for you,” Mace said.

I dug in my purse for the money. Mace paid the man, then returned and flipped the lever on the pump.

I watched Mace in the mirror. He kept his eyes on the ticking numbers. I wondered about his late wife, if they had been teenage sweethearts.

“You ever been outside of Alabama?” he asked me when he was back in the car and we were on the road again.

“Of course.”

“Like where?” he said in a tone as if he thought I was lying.

“Well, I . . .” I started to tell him what I usually told people when they asked me about my travels: that my daddy had taken me to New Orleans for my sixteenth birthday. That my aunt Ros lived in Memphis and we sometimes visited her at Christmas. That I’d driven with my daddy to Nashville for a conference once and visited Fisk, my mama’s alma mater. But as soon as the words started to come out of my mouth, I stopped. Maybe it was the look on his face. Suspicious-like.