The Vanishing Half(16)

“She’s back there, I know it,” her husband had told him over the phone. “That’s where all her friends are. Where else would she go? Sister gone. She and her mama don’t talk.”

Early clutched the phone, working his bare toe over the wood.

“Where her sister gone off to?” he said.

“Shit, I don’t know. Look, I wired you the first payment. You gonna find her or what?”

This was why Early stuck to hunting criminals: it was never personal between the criminal and the bondsman, only a simple disagreement over dollars and cents. But a man searching for his wife was different. Desperate. He’d almost felt Sam Winston pacing behind him. Maybe Desiree would return to her husband on her own. If Early had a dime for every time a woman had stormed out on him. But Sam was convinced she’d left for good.

“She just lit out,” he said. “Packed a bag and took my kid too, man. Just lit out in the middle of the night. What I’m supposed to do about that?”

“Why you think she run off like that?” Early said.

“I don’t know,” Sam said. “We had a disagreement, but you know how married folks are.”

Early didn’t, but he didn’t say this. He didn’t want Sam to know anything about him. So he didn’t tell Sam when he’d decided to head to Mallard instead. A hurt bird always returns to its nest, a hurting woman no different. She would go home, he felt sure of this, even though he knew nothing about her life. On the I-10, he kept fiddling with the photos that Ceel had given him. Studying them for clues, he told himself, although he knew he was just admiring her. A pretty girl flirting with him on her porch now a beautiful woman, smiling, kneeling in front of a Christmas tree, surrounded by glimmering lights. She looked happy. Not like the type who might pick up and run. So what had driven her to? Well, no use in wondering. None of his concern, either way. He’d find her, take a couple pictures as proof. The photos in the mail, his money on its way, and his business with Desiree Vignes would be through.

He hadn’t expected to find her so quickly in a bar filled with refinery men. He certainly hadn’t expected that bruise on her neck. When he’d pulled her scarf, he hadn’t meant to offend her—he was just surprised, that’s all. But she’d recoiled as if he’d been the one to grab her throat, then shoved him so hard, he backed into the man behind him and spilled his drink. He should’ve followed after her, but he was shocked and a little embarrassed, to tell the truth, all the other men whooping and laughing.

“What she do that for?” the old barmaid asked.

“I don’t know.” Early reached for a napkin, wiping down his jacket. “I ain’t seen her in years.”

“Y’all used to go together?” a thin man in a Stetson asked.

“Used to!” An old man laughed, clapping Early on the back. “Yeah, used to sounds right!”

“She ain’t used to be that angry,” Early said.

“Yeah, well I leave her alone if I was you,” the Stetson man said. “That whole family got problems.”

“What kind of problems?”

“You know her sister run off, get to thinkin she white now.”

“Oh yeah,” the old man said. “Out there livin real fine like a white lady.”

“Then Desiree got that child of hers.”

“What’s the matter with the child?” Early asked.

“Nothin the matter,” the Stetson man said slowly. “She just black as can be. Desiree went out and married the darkest boy she could find and think nobody round here knows he be puttin his hands on her.”

“Come back to town with a big ol’ bruise.” The old man laughed. “Guess he be trainin her. He turn her into Joe Frazier, that’s why she come after you!”

Early didn’t believe in beating on women—a man ought to fight fair, and until he met a woman who could match him blow for blow, he’d settle his disputes with them otherwise. At the same time, a job was a job. He wasn’t her minister or even her friend. He’d never really known her at all. Just a girl flirting with him on her porch. What happened between her and her husband was none of his business.

In the morning, he gave a boy a nickel to point him to Adele Vignes’s house. He trampled over thick tree roots, slowly remembering the way, the camera bag bouncing at his side. Already, he felt seventeen again, wandering heartsick through these woods. How disgusted Adele Vignes looked, pointing him down the path. Desiree silent beside her, unable to even look at him. He’d stumbled home, humiliated, but when he told his uncle, the man only laughed.

“What you expect, boy?” he said. “Don’t you know what you is around here? You a nigger’s nigger.”

He never spoke to Desiree after that. What was he supposed to say? A place, solid or not, had rules. Early mostly felt foolish for thinking that Desiree would ever ignore them for him.

Now he waited, hidden behind trees, focusing on the white house through his lens. Ten minutes, maybe, although he lost track of time, listening to swallows swoop overhead. Finally, Desiree stepped onto the front porch and lit a cigarette. Yesterday she’d startled him in the dark bar. He’d barely registered the reality of her. In the daylight, she reminded him of the girl he’d once met. Willowy, her dark tangled hair hanging down her back. She was pacing barefoot, brimming with a nervous energy that seemed to glow through her body to the tip of her cigarette. He finally raised the camera and snapped. Desiree reaching the end of the porch—click—then turning on her heels—another click. Once he started, he couldn’t stop watching her through the tiny rectangle, how her blue dress shifted as she walked, drawing his eyes to her slender ankles. Then the screen door opened and a jet-black girl stepped onto the porch. Desiree turned, smiling, stooping to sweep the girl into her arms. Early lowered the camera, watching Desiree carry her daughter inside the house.