Necessary Lies

  “You have other cases to attend to,” she said.

  “I know, but—”

  “This arrived for you this morning.” She reached for a large envelope on her desk and handed it to me. “The board approved your petition.”

  Oh no. This was terrible timing. I took the envelope from her reluctantly.

  “Even if they hadn’t approved it on this first round, they would now that a child’s been removed from the home.”

  She watched me as I opened the envelope and read the form giving the board’s permission.

  I looked up. “I can’t lie to her,” I said.

  “Then say nothing.”

  “She’s not going to believe she had an appendectomy.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “I’ll lose all credibility with her.”

  “Better with her than with me, don’t you think?”

  I looked down at the form again, my cheeks hot.

  “Your actions are bordering on insubordination, Jane.” Charlotte leaned forward as if trying to get me to look at her. “You’ve overattached yourself to a family. You’ve broken rules. You dragged your feet when a child’s welfare was at stake. And you specifically went against my orders not to tell Mary Ella Hart about her sterilization. You, yourself, realized that was a mistake. I hope you won’t make the same mistake with her sister.”

  I couldn’t think of a thing to say that wouldn’t get me in more trouble.

  “We’ll have to seriously discuss removing Ivy’s baby when it’s born, as well,” she said. “We can’t put another child into a home that’s known for neglect.”

  I shook my head and looked at her. “You have to give her a chance to be a good mother to her baby,” I said.

  “She was right there when William got into those pills. Even if she proves herself to be mother of the year, she can’t control what her grandmother and Mary Ella do. It’s more than her ability. It’s the environment.”

  “One thing at a time,” I said, turning away from her. I picked up my briefcase and feigned searching through it for something. “I have some work I need to get done right now,” I said.

  “So do I,” Charlotte said, carefully moving her leg from the stool to the floor so she could face her desk. “We can talk more about this later.”

  “All right,” I said, but I knew I would tell Ivy.

  Even if it meant losing my job.

  37

  Ivy

  For the first time, I wasn’t happy to see Mrs. Forrester coming out of the woods into our yard. I was hanging the wash, feeling empty as could be since there wasn’t any of Baby William’s diapers in the basket. I wished I could take back all the times I complained about having to wash all them diapers. I was home alone. Nonnie was visiting the one old church friend she still had and Mary Ella was … well, who knew where she was. She’d spent the whole past week in our bed, staring at the ceiling. Not even crying, though she sure cried a lot the first day or two. I couldn’t get her to eat nothing or talk to me.

  The house felt real empty without Baby William in it. Felt like a house hardly worth living in. Even Nonnie was real quiet and I knew she felt bad about leaving them pills where Baby William could get them.

  “Ivy,” Mrs. Forrester said as she walked toward the clothesline.

  I didn’t look up from what I was doing. I had nothing to say to her.

  “I know you all must be very upset with me,” she said when she got close. “I checked with the foster home this morning and Baby William is fine. His mouth is healing very well.”

  I pulled another clothespin from my apron and stuck it on one of the towels, acting like I didn’t see her standing next to me.

  “Is Mary Ella here?” she asked. “I wanted to see how she’s doing.”

  “How do you think?” I asked, sticking another clothespin on the line. I was mad at her even though I knew she wasn’t the only one to blame. I blamed the doctor in the emergency room, too, and Mr. Gardiner, since I knew he talked to somebody at the hospital about us. I turned to face her.

  “Ever since they took Baby William, Mary Ella’s just stayed in bed. She don’t talk and she don’t eat. Today she’s gone out who knows where.”

  “This must be terrible for her,” she said. “For all of you. I’d really like to talk to her.”

  “Well, if you can find her, you can try, but good luck.”

  “Is Nonnie inside?”

  “She’s gone visiting.”

  “Well, maybe it’s best I have you alone,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “Talking to you always goes bad,” I said. “All you bring us is bad news.”

  “I guess it must seem that way lately.”

  I hung another towel on the line. “You got more of it, don’t you,” I said.

  “Can we go inside?” she asked.

  Might as well get this over with, I thought. I had a handful of clothespins and I dropped them back in my apron pocket. They must of tickled my baby, because it started moving around inside me. I kept my hand in my pocket a minute, feeling the somersaults. Nobody was taking my baby away from me.

  I walked ahead of Mrs. Forrester into the house. I didn’t say “you want some tea” or nothing. Just walked through the kitchen and sat on the sofa and said what was weighing heavy on my mind. “You ain’t taking my baby away.”

  She sat down in Mary Ella’s rocker like she owned it, and that made me even madder at her. I looked at her blond hair—how it always curled under just perfect. She must of spent lots of money at the beauty parlor to get it to do that. I looked at her perfect white blouse and her perfect, probably brand-new, stockings. She was nothing but a phony double-crosser, how she pretended to care about us.

  “As long as he or she is cared for,” she said, “I don’t think that will happen.”

  “Baby William was cared for!” I felt my eyes fill up. “We love him!”

  “I know,” she said. “I know you do.”

  “He was doing just fine,” I said. “Everybody makes a mistake like with them pills. People don’t take their babies away.”

  “Everybody doesn’t make a mistake that serious,” she said in a calm voice I didn’t like. She didn’t sound much like herself today.

  “Can we get him back?” I asked.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “Not right away, anyhow.”

  “Then why’d you bother coming? Why’d you want to see me alone?”

  She moved to the edge of the seat like she could get closer to me that way. “Before I became the caseworker for your family, Mrs. Werkman had started the process to have you … to get you the same operation Mary Ella had.”

  “What are you talking about?” I didn’t know what she meant about the “process.” I sure did know what the operation was, though, and I hoped I wasn’t understanding her right.

  “After you have your baby, the doctor is going to make it so that you’ll never have to worry about getting pregnant again,” she said.

  “Oh no.” I shook my head. “No he won’t. I ain’t letting that happen to me, too. I won’t go to the hospital. I’ll have the baby right here with Nurse Ann.”

  “Nurse Ann knows about it,” Mrs. Forrester said. “She’ll make sure you go to the hospital.”

  I stood up. “You can’t do this!” I shouted. “People can’t cut up other people when they don’t want it.”

  “You’re only fifteen, Ivy, and your grandmother signed the permission form for you to have the surgery.”

  “She said she didn’t. She wouldn’t. She said because I’m getting married.”

  “You are?” Mrs. Forrester looked surprised. She looked hopeful. “To the baby’s father? When?”

  I flopped down on the sofa again, not knowing how to answer because it was a dream, wasn’t it? Marrying Henry Allen? He hadn’t sent me no more notes, and I only seen him once—getting off the school bus with the other kids. He didn’t see me because I was h
iding in the trees, wishing I could still be on that bus. I missed school something awful, but I missed Henry Allen worse. It seemed like he’d forgot all about me and the baby now.

  But I wouldn’t let Mrs. Forrester and Mrs. Werkman and Nurse Ann and the doctor do to me what they done to Mary Ella. “I want children, Mrs. Forrester!” I pleaded. “You got to let me do that.”

  “Can you see anything good about this, Ivy? You’ll have one precious baby and then not have to worry about—”

  It was the same kind of thing she’d said to Mary Ella and it was all wrong. “No. There ain’t nothin’ good about it!” I shouted. “Just one baby ain’t natural. You said Mrs. Werkman came up with this idea, right? Don’t you have some say? Can’t you stop them?”

  She shook her head. “Please think about it,” she said. “Think about the good things that can come from having just one child to—”

  “Get out of my house!” I stood up again, not caring how rude I sounded. “I hate you!”

  “I know you feel that way now—”

  “Get out. You’re a horrid person.”

  “I want to check on Mary Ella to see—”

  “Don’t bother!” I wanted to push her out the door, but going to jail was the last thing I needed. “She don’t want to see you no more than I do.”

  She stood up. “All right,” she said as she walked to the front door, “but I’ll be in touch.”

  I slammed the door behind her as hard as I could, wishing it would hit her and I could say it was an accident, but she was too fast. She wanted to get away from me as much as I wanted her to go.

  38

  Jane

  I pulled my car to the side of Deaf Mule Road, unable to see to drive. I put my head in my hands. I’d made such a mess of things. I’d wanted to help Ivy see why this could be a good thing for her, but I’d bungled it, just as I had with Mary Ella. How could I not bungle it? It was just wrong. The whole damn thing was wrong! There was no way to be honest with a girl about sterilization without making a mess … unless you took the Charlotte Werkman approach of not telling at all. Charlotte was going to kill me. She was right: I couldn’t keep an emotional distance from the people I worked with. Or at least, not from these particular people.

  I looked over my shoulder down Deaf Mule Road. I could go back to Ivy. I imagined her crying now, terrified as she tried to understand what would happen to her. I pressed my fist to my mouth, imagining how scared she was right this minute. I wanted to hold her. Comfort her. But the truth was, she probably wouldn’t let me near her right now.

  I blotted my eyes with a tissue, then started driving again. I was a couple of miles from the farm when my car suddenly began slowing down. I pressed the gas pedal harder, but it made no difference. I looked at the gas gauge in disbelief. Empty. The needle was actually below the E. Stupid, stupid.

  I was able to pull to the side of the narrow road before the car came completely to a stop. The tires sank into the sand on the shoulder and I wondered if I’d just given myself two problems instead of one.

  I got out of the car and turned in a circle to plan my next move. I couldn’t see another car on the road in either direction. Fields surrounded me. A few tobacco barns stood here and there, and in the far, far distance, I could see a farmhouse. At least I hoped it was a farmhouse. It had a red roof. A good sign.

  I got my purse and briefcase from my car and started walking. At least this hadn’t happened to me in the heat of July or August, I thought. The temperature still had to be close to eighty degrees, but it was bearable. And anyway, it wasn’t the weather that was troubling me most today.

  I heard the sound of a vehicle a distance behind me, and turned to see a truck approaching. I started to lift my hand to wave, but something about the appearance of the truck kept my hand at my side. As it got closer, I could see that one of its front fenders was missing and the body was rusting through the fading green paint. The right side of the front window was a spiderweb of cracked glass. I suddenly felt very exposed walking alone down the road. I faced forward, my gaze on that little farmhouse, willing the truck to pass me by, but I heard it slow until it was even with me.

  “Where you goin’, blondie?” a man asked. “Need a lift?”

  I looked up to see two men in the cab of the truck. I guessed the man leaning on the windowsill closest to me was the one who had spoken. He looked like every stereotypical depiction of a backwoods nutcase—goofy grin, toothpick jutting from the side of his mouth, graying hair askew, and three days’ worth of whiskers. Against the window behind his head, I could see a gun rack holding two shotguns.

  I ignored him, facing forward again, but my heart had sped up. Just go away, I thought. Leave me alone. I wouldn’t get in a truck with those two if my life depended on it. I had the feeling my life depended on not getting in the truck with them.

  “I said, need a lift?” the man asked again.

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  “She got manners,” one of them said. “Her mama raised her right.”

  I kept walking, faster now, keeping my eyes straight ahead, and they continued driving right along next to me. Then I heard them stop. The squeak of a door opening. I wanted to run, but I’d never make it to that farmhouse before they caught me.

  The man from the truck started walking behind me and to my left, enough out of my line of sight to make me paranoid.

  “Please leave me alone,” I said, without turning around.

  “What you got in that there case you’re carryin’?” he asked.

  I ignored him. I was walking as quickly as I could, getting nowhere fast.

  “Come on now, blondie,” he drawled. “Where you headed? We can take you to the garage if that’s what you want.” He pronounced it “gay-roj.” I heard another set of footsteps and knew they were both behind me now. At least one of them was close enough that I thought I could smell his whiskey breath. Any second, he could grab me, and then what? I felt sweat trickle down my neck.

  In the distance, I saw another truck coming toward us and I ran into the middle of the road, waving my free arm. Maybe I’d be jumping from the frying pan into the fire, but right then I didn’t care, and as the truck grew closer I saw the color: pale blue. Mr. Gardiner’s truck? Could I possibly be that lucky? I lifted my arm to wave again, and one of the men reached out and touched my breast.

  “Get the hell away from me!” I smacked his face with my briefcase.

  “Oh, she’s a live one!” he said, his hand to his cheek.

  The truck neared and I realized it wasn’t Mr. Gardiner at all. A colored man was behind the wheel, but as he slowed to a stop, I recognized Eli. For the first time, I was happy to see him.

  “Get in,” he called to me through the open window.

  “You get in that nigger’s truck, he’s one dead nigger,” one of the men said. The other was heading for his own truck, and I remembered the guns.

  I had no choice. I ran around the other side of the truck and climbed in, and Eli took off before I even closed the door. Getting in a truck with Eli Jordan seemed just one step up from being with those two drunks back there, and I sat close to the door. I’d never been comfortable around him. I always felt as though he were studying me, seeing something inside me that I didn’t want anyone to see. Something even I didn’t know was there.

  “I’m getting you in trouble,” I said.

  “We’ll lose them,” he said, looking in the rearview mirror as he took a turn onto another road. “Matter fact, we done lost them already.”

  “Is there a chance they’ll find you, though? Come looking for you?” I tried to look behind us, but Eli was driving so fast, everything was a blur. I felt conspicuous riding with him. If we passed another truck or car, I’d crouch down and hide.

  “You mighty worried about me all of a sudden, ma’am,” he said.

  “I’ve always been concerned about your family.”

  “I s’pose. Mama says you all right.”

  It burn
ed me that he was passing judgment on me when it should be the other way around. I didn’t know the real story between him and Mary Ella, but I did know he’d taken advantage of her and was taking no responsibility for William. Did he even care about the little boy?

  Eli made another turn and then another, and I was relieved that I knew where we were now. The farm was no more than a half mile from here. My heartbeat returned to normal and I suddenly felt brazen.

  “Are you upset William Hart was taken away?” I asked. I couldn’t help myself.

  He didn’t look at me. He kept those amber eyes of his on the road ahead, and soon we turned into the long drive leading up to the farmhouse and the barns and shelter beyond.

  “Baby William ain’t my concern, ma’am,” he said. “Why you aks me that?”

  “Eli, let’s talk straight, all right?” I said. “I’ve seen how you act around Mary Ella. I know you’re … close to her. And I’ve had a good look at William.”

  He stopped the truck next to the farmhouse and shot me a quick, hard look. “You call that talkin’ straight?” he asked, then faced forward again. “You can get out here, ma’am,” he said. “I’m sure Mr. Gardiner’ll help you with your car.”

  I didn’t know what else to say, and that look he gave me told me the less I said right now, the better.

  I got out of the cab and shut the door behind me, then said through the open window, “Thank you for picking me up.” I wasn’t sure what he’d saved me from, but I was glad I never had to find out.

  “You know”—he leaned across the front seat to look at me—“I may be plum broke, and I may not be smart as you with your schoolin’ and all, but I can tell you one thing, and this is for sure”—he glanced ahead of him, toward the barns and the fields, then back at me—“I wouldn’t never do my own sister.”

  He pressed on the gas and took off toward the shelter where the other truck and the tractor were parked. I stared after him, trying to make sense of what he’d just said. To my right, I heard the screen door slam and turned to see Mary Ella walk onto the porch from the Gardiners’ house.