The River Widow(28)
Florence said, “Follow me to my car, and I’ll write down those folks’ addresses for you. I have a pencil in the car.” She turned and started to walk away, and Adah, not caring about the Branch family or what they thought, followed in Florence’s footsteps.
“Will I be able to walk to see the folks you have in mind?”
Once they reached the car, Florence wrote down some names and addresses on a piece of stationery. “Funny thing, I just bought a box of stationery the other day and forgot to take it inside.” She handed over the paper, then stopped and looked at Adah with a baffled expression. “Why would you need to walk?”
Adah shrugged.
“That family of yours has a truck and a car. About the only people in these parts that have two vehicles. Why can’t you use one of them when need be? Don’t you know how to drive?”
Adah hesitated, then answered, “Yes, I learned from my . . . my husband way back, as soon as we got married. I can drive just about anything, I think, but I’m trying to be as little trouble as possible to the Branches.”
Florence stared at Adah for a few long moments, then breathed out, “Well, if that don’t beat all.” She lowered her voice and leaned in. “Though if I lived in that house with those people, I’d want to be as little trouble as possible, too.”
Adah had to tamp down the urge to tell this nice woman all of what she’d been enduring. She longed for some sympathy but knew better than to reveal anything. The Branches had to have some friends in the community, and Adah didn’t know whom to trust. Even though Florence seemed nice, it was possible she was a gossip, and anything Adah said to anyone could come back to bite her.
Florence sighed. “Never saw a whole lot to like, truth be told.”
A little burst of triumph. She had been right. Not only did many people steer clear of the Branch clan, they downright disliked them. And Mabel seemed to have no clue. “So why did you come today?”
Florence glanced about. “I’m a neighbor, and I don’t want to get on their bad side. You know, it’s just the way we do things around here. A family loses one of their own, and we tend to gather ’round, no matter what. Even if we’re not the best of friends . . .”
Adah would’ve loved to hear more, but by then she could see that Buck, Mabel, and Jesse were waiting for her, standing outside the sedan with Daisy and looking annoyed. “Well, thank you for the information. I sure appreciate it.”
Florence was studying Adah and tilted her head to one side. “You take care of yourself, now, you hear?”
All Adah could do was shrug again. She had to contain her quivering chin. Her plan had to be carefully, cautiously enacted—appease the Branches by bringing in some money from laundry, wait for the ownership of the farm to be determined, get advice from an attorney in town about both Daisy and the farm, and don’t let anyone know. For now, she had to remain alone in her plight. But solitude had never been a stranger to her. In many ways, it was her best friend.
Chapter Ten
The next day, Adah asked Jesse if she could borrow the truck to go to town and post notices about her laundry services. Which indeed she would do, as well as oh so much more . . .
“Your husband ain’t even in the ground one day, and you wanna go prancing about town?”
Jesse’s attitude no longer surprised her, and he had always been less terrifying than his father. She had even risked defending herself with him. “I’m trying to bring in some money. That way I can pay your parents back for some of the funeral expenses. I heard the casket they chose was costly.”
He harrumphed. “You bet it was costly. They wanted the best for their dead son, or should I say murdered son?”
The word murdered burned through her like a hot staff. But she was learning how to let words fall away and show no expression in response. If they knew for sure, she would be a dead woman. Did they think they could somehow pull it out of her? Was that one of the reasons they were keeping her around? Jesse seemed too single minded to ever give up on an idea, and she wondered if he was even the slightest bit intelligent.
She ignored his question and stood still.
After staring her down for a while and sneering, Jesse finally handed over the keys. “Don’t be gone long. And you best make it worth your while. Don’t come back here with nothing to show for it. Pa expects you to start bringing home some bacon. And I mean real soon.”
“That’s why I’m going to town, Jesse.”
He looked to be searching his brain for a new threat to make but had to settle on one already stated. “Like I said, don’t be gone long.”
Adah took the keys without touching Jesse’s hand. “I wouldn’t dare,” she said and dropped the keys into her pocket.
Jesse let that go. Although there was no tempering toward Adah, he and Mabel seemed to be tiring of the tension they’d created in the house. But Buck, why, he flourished on it. His line of the Branch family had a deep history of slave ownership, and his treatment of Adah reminded her of what it must have been like to be an indentured servant taunted by her master.
If Adah ever had reason to smile, he quickly said, “Wipe that grin right off your face, girl. You best be showing the signs of a wounded woman ’round here.”
Once, she had asked if she and Daisy could listen to a radio program, The Bob Hope Show , on the Blue Network, and Buck had retorted, “We have no time to listen to no programs. Pretty soon, come growing season, there won’t be no time for anything but going to bed after night falls, and you best be prepared to do your share of the work. When your head hits the pillow, you’ll be so tired you won’t know what hit you. That is, if you can still sleep after what you done.”