Mother May I(80)

I opened my mouth to speak, and in my back pocket I finally felt the gentle buzz of the phone.

In thirty seconds Marshall would be sprinting for the woods. If he was right, he’d find Robert, snug in his little car seat. He would go in, get him, and take him down to Trey. Trey would drive the baby out of reach of any gunfire, and Marshall would come up the stairs to get me. Armed, dangerous, ready. But first Marshall had to get out of her field of vision to the shelter of the trees, unseen.

I stood abruptly, staring at the spine of the carousel, behind her.

“Is someone else here?” I asked, my voice sharpening.

“No!” she said, alarmed. “Not unless you brung ’em.” She still held her tea, but her other hand moved under the afghan.

I hurried past her, past her bench, heading to the hollow center spine of the carousel. The boards sagged under my steps, creaking audibly. She turned to track me, now facing away from the lot.

“Be careful,” she said. “You could bring the rest of the roof down.”

I ignored her, going directly to the carousel house. The door panel had been ripped away. Inside I could see the remains of all its workings. It was a dank and musty space, cold and dark, like a cave inside a cave. Dead empty.

I looked back at her, shrugging. “I think it was settling. Or maybe a rat. Are there rats?”

She was still twisted around, peering into the darkness with me. I walked toward her so she couldn’t face the road without giving me her back. Her shoulders stiffened, and she set her tea down, turning as far as she could to watch me approach. Her free hand came up to rest on the bench’s back. It was old and gnarled, twisted by arthritis.

I reached out, very slowly, so as not to startle her, and I put my hand on top of hers. Her skin was cool and dry and papery. I felt such a strange tenderness for her as our hands touched. I could not explain it. But I saw in her eyes my same feelings reflected. My touch had opened up a well of small regret inside her. Maybe even mercy?

“I came to beg,” I said. I knelt, my hand still on hers.

I looked up into her face, and I could smell her now. Baby powder layered over the sour smell of a person who had not washed thoroughly in days. Marshall must be right. In the Dentons’ hidey-hole, she’d be using baby wipes or a basin of water warmed on the stove. Her hair, this close, was thick with grease.

Her eyes were not black after all. They were a dark, deep brown, flecked with gold. The whites around them were yellowed, veined in red. She had an old woman’s downy mustache. I could see how sick she was in her pallor, feel that her hand had a shake in it.

I said, “I came to beg you for my baby.”

She looked down at me. Thinking, I hoped. Considering, her gaze full of a thousand things, but one of them was close to mercy. I could see it.

Finally she said, “You’re so pretty, up close. Real pretty. Taller than I thought, too.”

“I want my son,” I said. “And what you’re asking me to trade is impossible. You’re punishing me more than any other person. Me, and Geoff’s mother. What did we do?”

She glanced at her watch, a utilitarian thing, digital, then shook her head, her eyes on me so tender. “We do not have the time it would take me to explain. This is going to finish in my next hundred breaths, one way or another. Still, I want you to know I thought about what you said to me. About how this path I had to take was so hard on you, and Geoff’s mother as well. Did your husband tell you what he done?”

I blinked, unsure how to answer. “He told me a little,” I said at last. “But . . .” I had no excuses for him, no way to finish.

“I thought as much. Anything he said, I’m sure he made it soft, for you. So yesterday I wrote some things. Hard, true things. An explanation, if you will. Then I drove down to the post office. When you get my letter, you’ll understand what’s happened here, and why. You’ll know who Geoff’s mother is then. I added her name and address. Maybe the two of you ought to talk. You maybe can help each other cope.”

My breath caught. “You mailed me a letter?” I tried to imagine seeing Kelly Wilkerson again, reading Coral’s twisted version of the ugly story Trey had told me.

“Yes. It’s the best I can do. Now, for your boy’s sake, call your husband up. It’s time.”

Surely Marshall was safely out of view by now? Still I knelt, holding her gaze. “The best thing you could do is stop this. Tell me where my son is.” This soft woman, begging like a child, this was true and truly me. At the same time, I spoke slowly, buying Marshall precious seconds.

She made that short, small hum noise that I knew so well. Her eyes on me stayed kind. “You remind me of my own girl. Not that you look like her. But you’re so smart and pretty, and I think you have a sweet heart.” She swallowed audibly and blinked hard, clearly in the grip of some deep feeling. “You’re the woman I hoped she’d grow to be when I sent her off to college. Maybe that surprises you, that a woman like me would have a girl who went to college, but she did.”

“I did, too,” I said, soft, drawing another line between me and Lexie. She didn’t seem to hear me, though.

“Even when she was little, she was so booky and so smart. She applied for every scholarship you ever heard of, and she got a slew of them. So many people, her teachers, our pastor, they wrote letters like you wouldn’t believe on her behalf. Such a bright future, all those letters said.” Her gold-brown eyes were so tender and so sad, but her next words came out harder. “It didn’t work out that way. Not for her. Not like it did for you.”