The Sound of Broken Ribs(47)
“Sorry.”
“I asked you a question.”
“Ma’am?”
“Did you say your prayers?”
“Yessum.”
“Good. Would you like to say them again with me?”
“Is everyone else okay?”
“Jack, what is this? Why are you so concerned with everyone’s health?”
“Because… because you called me. Twice.”
“I cannot call my daughter now?”
“No, ma’am. I mean, yessum. I mean—”
“You’re stammering, Jack. Decent women do not stammer.”
“Yessum. What I meant was, you only ever call when… when something’s wrong.”
“I do not. I call you plenty when I’m in God’s good graces.”
“Yessum.”
“If you must know, I called because I’m worried about you. Until you leave that godforsaken state, I will continue to worry about you. You are my daughter. It is my job to worry. So I worry. I worry so very much, Jack. Your father does as well.”
Her father didn’t worry about anything these days. His mind was eaten away with Alzheimer’s. What did they say? “It’s the thought that counts.” Well, what happens when you can no longer think properly? Do you no longer count? Jack thought that was closer to the truth than she wanted to admit.
“I am all right.” She annunciated very carefully, struggling to remove any subservient tone from her voice.
“That’s good. Would you like to pray with me, Jack? I would like to pray with you.”
“Yessum.”
“Good. Head down.” Jack did so without so much as a thought for how her mother couldn’t see her.
“Yessum.”
“Our Lord, which are in heaven, haloed”—this was an error Jack always smiled at but never corrected. The rest of the prayer was equally jumbled and error-filled— “be thy name. They kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven. Dear God, I pray that you allow Jack peace of mind and body and that you allow her to finish this godless job in that godless country known as California. Lead her not unto temptation and keep the devils of homosexuality and drugs and fornication from her person.” At the word ‘homosexual’, Belinda Walsh’s sodomite companion flashed into her mind. Her stomach churned with revulsion as it did when confronted with any abomination. She was still thinking about the gay man when her mother said, “Amen.” Jack had missed the last of the prayer. She was both grateful and deeply saddened. As much as she hated being treated like a child, she hated ignoring the Lord even more. She felt absolutely loathsome now, having betrayed her mother’s prayer with thoughts of such unclean persons as that black sodomite. He was a disgrace to his race and his sex. God would judge him, and Jack hoped she was there to see it.
“Amen,” said Jack without hesitation.
“Goodbye, Jack.”
“Goodbye, M—” The phone crashed into the cradle, cutting her off.
Jack sat looking at the display of her phone for a while, for no other reason than to put off the next call. She wasn’t sure why this second call should be postponed, but she felt it imperative, as if God had stilled her fingers from sending the signal out through cell tower after cell tower after cell tower…
She watched the clock on the display tick the minutes off one by one. Seven whole minutes passed before her fingers were allowed to make the call. It was after midnight in California, which meant it was three in the morning when Lei Duncan answered her phone.
*
Lei was halfway through an episode of Orange is the New Black when the private investigator she’d hired to find Belinda Walsh called. She was laying on her stomach, pillows tucked under her chest, about as comfortable as one could ever be in a bed that was not their own. She tapped her tablet’s screen and paused her show then grabbed her cell from the nightstand where it rested beside her prosthetic.
She rolled over onto her back and said, “Hello?” while she scratched at the scarred flesh of her stump.
“Mrs. Duncan?”
“Yes, Jack, how can I help you?”
“Sorry to call so late, but I have an update for you.”
“That’s fine. I wasn’t asleep. What have you found out?”
“Belinda Walsh is staying at the Imperial Hotel in Fontana, California. It’s on Valley Boulevard. Would you like the address?”
“She’s in California?”
“Yessum.”
Yessum? Lei’d had several discussions with the woman up until this point and not once had Jack tossed out that archaic jumble of words. Was it some kind of joke? Was Jack being a smartass; playing slave to Lei’s massah? Lei wondered if even thinking such a thing was racist. Probably.
“Any idea why she’s in California?” Lei wasn’t sure why she cared about the details, but they seemed important.
“That’s exactly how I found her.”
“Huh?”
“I mean to say, the reason Walsh is in California is because of a man named Carl Jacobson. He’s a gay black man.” Jack seemed to pause for effect as if she expected Lei would want to comment on the sexual orientation and race of a man she’d never met. “A sodomite.” Another pause. Lei left the silence pregnant. No way was she delivering that baby.