The River Widow(20)
Adah, despite protests from Mabel, helped clean the kitchen and wash and dry dishes. As she glanced out the window and saw that Daisy was no longer on the porch, she quickly put aside the coffee cup she’d been drying and went straight to the front door. Stepping out, she turned her head frantically in both directions, then breathed again when she saw Daisy trudging toward the house, cradling her doll.
Adah rushed down the steps. “Where did you go, honey? You weren’t supposed to leave the porch. I was worried.”
Daisy’s perfect little forehead folded down as Adah reached her. Daisy said, “Dolly fell in the mud, and now she’s dirty.”
Taking the doll from Daisy’s muddied hands, Adah saw that its faded blue polka-dot dress was smudged with brown sludge. Adah studied the doll’s solemn embroidered face. “Did you drop her?”
“Yes, but it was an accident.”
Adah sighed. “I know it was, sweetie. I think I can get her clean again. But you shouldn’t have gone . . .” Adah then noticed that Daisy’s shoes were coated in brown sludge, too. Smears and clods also ran down the front of her dress, where Daisy must have tried to rub her hands clean.
Adah’s mistake hit her like a flat wave; she should not have turned her back for a moment. The sunlight and warm air had been too tempting for a little girl, and now Daisy was a mess.
Mabel would be furious. “Come here,” she said and led Daisy up the porch steps, set the doll on the porch floor, then helped her out of the shoes. Crouching down, Adah used the hem of her apron and tried to brush off the partially dried mud from Daisy’s dress.
The door flung open. “What’s this I see?” Mabel said, but Adah kept her head down and continued trying to remove as much mud as she could, hoping to limit what might fall off onto the floor inside. Daisy didn’t answer, either.
Mabel barked, “You done thrown that doll down into the mud?”
“No, she fell,” Daisy answered after only a moment’s hesitation.
“And look at you now!”
Adah glanced up. “It was my doing. I let her outside because it was so nice, but I didn’t realize how much mud was still around.”
“What you been teaching her?” Then to Daisy, she hollered, “You pick up that doll right now. Someone done given you something nice, and you best be grateful for it. The same with what you’re wearing. I see you disrespecting gifts again, and you’ll be getting a beating. You hear?”
Daisy shied away like a hunted animal. Adah put her hands on Daisy’s upper arms, holding her steady and sending a message as best she could. It’s going to be okay.
Mabel’s breaths emerged in huffs. “I got a hundred things to do this morning, and now I gotta run you a bath.”
“I’ll do that, Mabel,” Adah said calmly.
Daisy looked down at her feet. “I don’t want to take a bath.”
Having done all she could, Adah stood and took Daisy’s hand. “I’ll take care of this,” she said to Mabel’s folded face. She handed the doll to Daisy, who, still scowling, took the doll and touched its red yarn hair. Her face looked as tortured as Adah felt. “Let’s go inside now,” Adah whispered.
“I took a bath last night!” Daisy whined.
Mabel’s hand whipped down, grabbed Daisy’s arm, jerked the girl away from Adah, and then shook her with a force that drained all color from Daisy’s face and hung her mouth open. Her eyes were wide with shock. It happened so fast. Mabel had a brutal grip on the girl, while Adah stood there in stunned disbelief.
“You don’t never talk back to your elders,” Mabel yelled at Daisy. “You hear me?”
Daisy seemed unable to speak, but Adah soon found her voice. “Mabel, stop. You’re being too rough.”
Mabel jerked Daisy one more time and glared at Adah. “How dare you question me and what I do? I’m teaching this girl here to be an obedient child.” She shook Daisy again. “You let her talk back like that, and there’ll be no end to it. You gotta be in charge, and obviously you ain’t. You let her go outside in the mud like a wild animal. I reckon I gotta be the one in charge, or you’ll ruin her. And I’m not letting the only thing left of my dead son get ruint.”
Adah resisted the powerful urge to push Mabel away and take Daisy in her arms. “Please, Mabel. Let her go.”
“Let her go? To you? So you can go on treating her like a baby?”
“She’s just a little girl. Like I said, it was my fault. I must not have made it clear enough that she wasn’t supposed to leave the porch.” Mabel seemed to be wavering, if only a tiny bit. “I’m so sorry, Mabel. It was my doing. I wasn’t watching her as well as I should have.”
“You can say that again,” Mabel fumed and then drew in a deep breath, finally dropping Daisy’s arm. “I see one tiny smear of mud inside my house, and there’ll be hell to pay. Got that?”
“Of course, of course,” Adah said to Mabel, although she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Daisy’s face. Daisy didn’t speak, instead simply stared ahead into nothing, a look of fear on her face that rent Adah’s heart.
Throughout the process of bathing and re-dressing her, Daisy’s expression didn’t change, and she refused to answer any of Adah’s questions or respond to her gentle touch. What could Adah do? As she slowly and gently bathed Daisy, memories of her own parents flooded in. Even an admonishing stare had been punishment enough when Adah had done wrong. Her parents had been gentle souls, her mother sickly and barren ever since Adah’s birth, but still she made evening meals a celebration every night, during which her father, a postal worker, relayed the events of his day and Adah relived her time at school. Her mother had perished from the flu first, and within days, her father had fallen, too, and Adah often thought back on the inevitability of it. Her mother had been susceptible to every illness, and her father’s purpose in life had been looking after her, protecting her. Once his wife was gone, he couldn’t push forward.