Take My Hand(91)

I sat on the sofa, waiting for the pillow. Then I closed my eyes and did not remember opening them again until morning.





FORTY-SEVEN




Rockford

2016


The face of the house is flat and unremarkable, and I comprehend with a sudden and intense pain that they are still poor. There was never a large monetary settlement, never a large payout from the government to right the wrong inflicted upon those girls and that family. Mace has been dead some twenty years, Mrs. Williams gone ten. Their deaths don’t sit right with me, most likely because I was never able to make my peace. At least, it feels that way.

The morning after my meeting with Mrs. Seager’s daughter, I’d driven out to Dixie Court. Alicia had said the apartments were scheduled for demolition and I wanted to get a last look at them. At first they appeared abandoned. Windows boarded, grass knee-high. But as I drove through I realized there were still some families inhabiting the complex. It was grim to know families were living next door to empty units, critters taking up residence alongside children. The Williamses’ apartment was one of the boarded-up ones. Someone had spray-painted something illegible in red across the boards. The stairs were dark, but I could see India bounding down them, the memory fresh.

Now, in front of their new home, I understand a little better this stretch of time that has passed. I tentatively touch the doorbell, understanding with full certainty that this is more than a door. It is a portal. I hear a faint chime and the yap of a dog. And there is Erica, unmistakably Erica. She smiles at me through the iron door as she unlocks it with a key. It all happens so fast I am barely able to think. I bite the inside of my cheek.

“Dr. Civil is here, India. Dr. Civil!” she calls out over her shoulder.

I touch my sweaty neck. Erica, on the other hand, looks cool and comfortable. The same broad forehead dotted with dark freckles. The generous nose and quick smile. It hits me in the stomach that she looks like Mrs. Williams, her grandmother.

She ushers me into the house and I awkwardly step inside. The air-conditioning unit whirs softly. A brown Chihuahua sniffs my feet and runs in circles, though its yapping has ceased. The curtains are pulled. The room is lit by a large television. A sweet scent hangs in the air.

“Something sure smells good,” I say.

“I can’t cook like my grandmama, but I can bake a cake. It just come out the oven, too.”

“You didn’t have to go through the trouble.”

“Honey, it’s so good to see you. We been waiting for you. Traffic was alright?” She places her hands on my waist, and I quietly stand there, momentarily unable to square the child with this middle-aged lady holding me.

“Sit down, sit down,” she says.

I choose the sofa. There are two recliners, and I assume they belong to the sisters. A crocheted throw hangs over the back of one of the chairs, and I wonder if it is the handwork of Mrs. Williams. I’m filled with ache. I should have come years earlier. I should have called and kept in touch.

“India!”

She tells the dog to sit down as she hurries to go get her sister. The room is small but cozy, the floor covered in wall-to-wall pink carpet. Beside the front door hangs a picture of Barack Obama. It looks like it was cut out of a magazine and framed. Below him there is a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. Above the front door, a cross-stitched sign quotes John F. Kennedy: “Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.”

A console table behind the sofa is covered in framed pictures. I stoop to look and a window into the lives of the Williamses opens up. There is Mace, standing beside his pickup truck. He wears tight jeans that flare at the bottoms and his hair hangs in a shag to his shoulders. He is not smiling in the picture, but the sun has caught the glow of his eyes and he’s relaxed. I look for other pictures of him, but there are none. I know that Mace passed away of heart disease. While I know that he never remarried, I want to know if he found love, healing. But I’m too embarrassed to ask.

Another picture captures Mrs. Williams in her Sunday best. She’s wearing a white suit and hat, as if it is Missionary Day at the church. Swollen fingers clutch a white beaded purse in her lap, and she’s sitting in a wheelchair. I glance toward the hallway and wonder if Erica was also tasked with taking care of her grandmother in her last days. From what I understand, Mrs. Williams married again, but the husband passed away a few years before she did. They pose in one of those Sears studio photographs with a fake forest background. He stands behind her, his hands wrapped around her waist. He has salt-and-pepper hair and thick sideburns. His round face reminds me of Dennis Edwards from the Temptations. Mrs. Williams looks settled, satisfied. One of her teeth glints gold.

Just as I pick up a picture of the sisters, they enter the room. I put it back in its place. Erica leads India slowly by the elbow. India is wearing a housedress and looks much older than her sister even though she’s the younger of the two. It may be because the pin-curled wig she wears is styled for an older woman. She smiles at me.

“India,” I whisper as I go to her. “India.”

She’s a couple of inches taller than I am now, so when she places her head on my shoulder she has to lean down. I hug her to me.

“India? Do you remember me?”

The younger sister smiles at me but does not answer.





FORTY-EIGHT