“But not because you need them to see.”
He shook his head. “Because I needed to look like a doctor. I needed to play a part.”
“Because…” she felt dizzy. “Because you’re an actor.”
“Yes Miss Rains, I’m an actor.”
“And you’ve played a doctor before. In that movie…the one with the leopard and the dog…that’s who you really are. You’re…you’re…”
“I’m Cary Grant.”
“Ahh…” she shrieked. “I fell in love with Cary Grant?” She swung the picnic basket at him then dropped it and ran. Beau barked behind and she continued through the awakening spring grass until a hand grabbed her arm.
“Listen to me,” he said.
“You tricked me. Twice,” she snapped. “What did I ever do to you?”
“You showed me compassion. And kindness. And shared your inner beauty. And melted my heart.”
“What are you talking about?”
He clapped his hands on his handsome face and rubbed hard. “You can’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you. Ever.”
“Okay,” she snapped.
“Kate Hepburn is here. She had a nervous breakdown right before we started filming our next movie.”
“Kate…” She closed her eyes. “Katherine Hepburn. The Katherine Hepburn is here? I need to sit down.” She went straight down into the grass, and Mr. Grant sat next to her. “Miss Hepburn was in the leopard movie, too.”
“Yes. But she’s had difficulties since that movie, and the pressure for this next film was too much for her. Mr. Cukor, our director and friend, and I came here to support her. Then he remembered a screenplay that had been floating around MGM for a few years about a woman who went crazy and her fiancé who sold the farm to get her well. We were doing test shots yesterday for that potential film. This hospital would make an excellent backdrop for it.”
Melanie held her head in her hands. “When I found you in the park yesterday—.”
“I was still in character. Reginald is the film character.”
“And last night?”
“Your father agreed to let me stay with him since he was supposed to be alone all week. But when his maid discovered your note that you were home, she called him. He called me at the house later and insisted I disguise myself. Dr. Fritzl was the first thing I thought of.”
She grabbed Beau and stood quickly. “And yesterday in the park, when you were playing the role of Reginald...all that emotion was just acting. I felt so sorry for you.”
He stood. “None of it was acting. When I was a child I was told my mother was dead. But she was really put in a mental institution. I had no idea until my father died a few years ago. She’s alive but very sick, Miss Rains. Those tears in the park—they were real.”
She shook her head. “But those kisses—last night—I was falling for you. I was imagining the most glorious water fountain. One themed with love and beauty. Instead of Aphrodite I should have imagined Hades, murky, dirty river water shooting from his eyes, all over me and Beau and our flowers in the garden.”
Tears streamed down Mr. Grant’s face, which Melanie never wanted to see again. She ran back to her car, and continued running for five months. She spent the summer in New York with her grandmother, and didn’t come home to Topeka until she was settled back at Kansas University in the fall.
One mild September weekend she came home, picked up Beau, and headed to the park. The daffodils were long since faded, and the chrysanthemums were yet to arrive. But what had emerged overwhelmed her. She sat on the bench, gazing at the spectacle for hours. In the clearing stood a sculpted tree—an olive tree—with a white marble dove gripping to a branch. Crystal clear water poured down over the top of the branches and fell gently into a pool. Just before sunset, when the sunrays crept through the branches and put sparkle in the streams, Melanie took Beau over to the base of the fountain. A bronze plaque simply read: To Elsie and Melanie, with all my affection, C.G.
She momentarily mirrored the fountain, tears streaming down her warm cheeks. She assumed ‘Elsie’ to be the sick mother who brought about real emotion in this park last spring. Melanie was confident she was the second woman mentioned, whose pain for the last several months over being tricked was now being washed away, leaving only sincere, healthy devotion.
As Mercy Would Have It
Annette Hope Billings
Cora Lee Jackson giggled as she played with her younger siblings in her grandmother’s front yard. She claimed the right of game choice as the oldest at seven. The game that morning was Simon Says. Her brother, Merdel, was five and partially understood the rules. The youngest, Dettie, was a happy lost cause at age four. They’d spent the night with their grandmother, Meemaw, so their mother could leave early for work. The children were always happy to stay with their grandmother; time with her was bliss. Tension was high in the Jackson household—three rapidly-growing children, very little income and their mother, Carlotta, had gone two months without a period. The children experienced the stress at home as a coarseness in the air. Their chests would tighten when their parents argued. The air was soft at Meemaw’s and easy to breathe.
Meemaw was cooking a grand Saturday breakfast as the children played—honey biscuits, fried potatoes with onions, scrambled eggs and bacon. She took care to fry some of the bacon just how Cora liked it – so crisp it almost broke when she picked it up. Meemaw adored her grandchildren equally; the made-to-order bacon was her nod to Cora being the first grandchild.
The children knew Meemaw as a sweet soul, but they’d also seen her be stern as stone. She always welcomed them into her house with, “Come on in here and give Meemaw some suga’.” The greeting would be uttered in her caramel, Tennessee drawl, though Topeka, Kansas, had been home for thirty years. Poor behavior would result in her spitting out, “Go out there and get me a switch!” Those switchings were very rare and were reserved for wrongdoings Meemaw felt “would make Sweet Jesus weep.” Cora and her siblings were well-behaved and vastly more familiar with their grandmother’s face-covering kisses than welts on their legs. Their mother disagreed with how far Meemaw allowed the children to go before she corrected them. But Meemaw always stood her ground. She’d explain that sparing-the-rod scriptures applied to parents, not grandparents. Carlotta would roll her eyes. Meemaw would invariably go on to say her discipline decisions were based on “the Gospel according to Meemaw.”
Out in the yard, the children remained swept up in play. Cora was impatient with the number of times she had to re-explain the rules. Then, Merdel would do something that would make all of them erupt in laughter. Cora’s back was to the road as she shouted Simon and non-Simon commands.
“Simon says hop on one leg!”
She didn’t notice the car slowly coming up the road. Merdel and Dettie saw it. The orange Plymouth sedan slowed to a stop at their yard. The two younger children watched a man exit the driver door and walk quickly around the front of the vehicle. His eyes narrowed on Cora and he sprinted toward her. They froze.
Not understanding why her siblings stood unmoving, Cora started to repeat, “Simon says ho”— she heard commotion behind her. As she turned toward the sound, the man was already at her. He snatched her up, mid-turn, with one arm. She screamed. Her siblings screamed. Their three-part chorus of terror escalated as the man opened the front passenger door and threw Cora inside.
“Sit still, girl!,” he hissed as she tried to keep him from shutting the door. Cora stopped screaming, tears rolling and looked at her siblings through the car window. Seconds later, the man was in the driver’s seat and speeding away.
Simon says don’t cry.
Cora’s sibling’s last sight of her was her wet face pressed against the car window.
Meemaw heard the screams through a closed kitchen window. The sound was different than the familiar squeals in the peak of children’s play. She felt a bolt of dread.
“Sweet Jesus,” she murmured as she hobbled across the kitchen t
o the window.
Her biggest fear was one of the children, likely Dettie, had wandered into the road and been struck by a car. A quick prayer took shape as she reached the window above the sink. She moved the curtains aside and reserved hope that what she’d heard was from some overzealous game. She’d tell them to quiet down, maybe threaten a switching, then she’d finish cooking.
She could see her entire front yard.Two of her grandchildren clung to each other crying. No Cora. Merdel and Dettie saw her at the window. The look on their faces... Meemaw’s head swam. She steadied herself on the counter and pressed a hand to her heart. Terror coursed through her. She knew whatever had happened could not be undone with a switch.
She hurried to the front door. Merdel and Dettie, hysterical, met her there and flew into her arms. She pulled them from her enough to look into their faces.
“What’s wrong? Where’s Cora Lee?” she asked them. “Where is Sissy?”
She looked frantically up and down the road as she tried to make out their sob-riddled answers. She expected to see Cora lying in the road. She saw nothing except a cloud of dust. Her heartbeat doubled. She wondered if a car had hit Cora and kept going.
She looked back down at the children and pressed them again. “Please, Meemaw needs you to hush cryin’ and tell me where Cora is. It’ll be okay.”
Many minutes passed before she settled them enough to understand what they were saying. When she made out Dettie was saying “car,” she thought her worst fear had been realized.
She searched the road again and asked, “A car hit Cora?”
Merdel shook his head, “No Ma’am, a white man stealed Cora in a car!” He began to sob hard again. Meemaw was stunned.
“No, Merdel, no!” She grabbed his shoulders. “Are you sure?” Then, desperately, “Is this a game? Is Cora hiding and you children are trying to trick Meemaw? Tell me the truth and I won’t be mad at none of you.” Even as she spoke the words, she knew the story was too awful for him to create. She groaned, “Please, Jesus, please” as she turned and led the children into the house. She made a frantic call to the sheriff. Next, she phoned the home where her daughter was working.
The lady of the house answered and replied curtly to Meemaw’s request to speak with Carlotta.
“I do not allow my help to receive calls.”
Meemaw swallowed hard. Rarely-used profanity rose in the back of her throat like bile.
“Please Ma’am, this is a terrible emergency with one of her children.” Silence. “Please.”
The woman did not respond. Meemaw heard the phone being laid down hard.
Minutes later, “Mama,” it was Carlotta, “what’s wrong?”
“Carlotta, something has happened to Cora,” she began.
Meemaw couldn’t recall later how she explained the unthinkable to her daughter. But she would never forget her daughter’s sustained howl of, “N-o-o-o-o-o-o-o, Mama, n-o-o-o-o-o-o!”
The phone at the Jackson home had been turned off. She called a neighbor to go tell the children’s father to come. The next call was to her pastor. His reply, “We’re on our way, MotherSister.”
Meemaw had been standing as she made the calls, the children clinging to her clothes on either side. She collapsed into a recliner once she knew the pastor was on his way. She drew the children onto her lap and rocked them. She cried quiet prayers while the bacon burned to black.
A contingent of folks from True Holiness Baptist Church arrived soon. Each had a Bible in hand. They arrived before the sheriff. The pastor had gone by and picked up Carlotta. She called Merdel and Dettie to her as she ran through the door. She clutched them so tightly they’d be bruised the next day. Once Meemaw saw the children were in their mother’s care, the room began to spin around her. Church ladies eased her down onto a sofa and fanned her. She declined their insistence that she take sips of water.
Through a torrent of tears, she managed to speak. “I knew something awful had happened because I heard Sweet Jesus weeping when I looked out and saw Cora gone.”
“There, there, MotherSister,” the pastor cooed at her, patting her arm. She thought she heard doubt in his tone.
She stiffened, stopped crying, and snapped, “I know what I heard, Pastor!”
*****
Cora’s thoughts reeled as she whimpered in the front seat of the man’s car. When she cried too loudly the man responded with, “Shut it up!” In her mind, to be taken by this stranger meant one thing. She, Merdel and Dettie must have done something very wrong. Warnings from her mother and Meemaw careened through her thoughts about what to do and what not to do “‘round white folk.” It’d been drummed into them to be quick to apologize to white people even if they had no idea what mistake they’d made.
“Even if you know, for gospel truth, you’ve done nothin’ wrong,” Meemaw emphasized, “say ‘I’m sorry’ to white folk and say it fast! It’s 1964, Babies, and the only thing you might be doing wrong is being colored.”
Each time Carlotta heard her mother say “colored,” she inserted that she preferred the term “Negro” or “African-American.”
Meemaw’s standard reply, ““Colored” has suited me all these years and it’s still fine by me.”
Trapped in the car, Cora knew whatever wrong she and her siblings had been caught doing, she must’ve been doing it the worst. She was the only one the man took. She thought he was probably taking her to jail. He wore no uniform, but police were the only people who could take children.
Simon says, Go to jail.
“I-I’m s-s-sorry, M-M-Mister,” she whimpered, huddled against the car door. “I’m very s-s-sorry. My brother and my sister and me didn’t know we shouldn’t—” she struggled. She could think of nothing they were doing that was remotely wrong. The man’s face bore little expression and he scarcely looked at her. A bad odor wafted from him.
“Quiet, doll. I’m not gonna hurt ya,” he said, “I’m just gonna take ya for a ride. Ya like to go for rides?”
Cora tried to make her head shake “no” but it wouldn’t obey. Restrained sobs convulsed in her body. They made it hard for her to control any part of it. Terrified, she’d wet herself when he forced her into the car.
“Everything is gonna be just fine, okay doll?” He lit a cigarette. “Say, how ‘bout I buy ya some candy? Some Pixie Sticks or Lemonheads? Hey, ya like little Tootsie Rolls? I’ll buy you a can full of them if you stay quiet.” He held her tight against her seat with his right arm while he steered with his left.
She managed, “I d-don’t want c-c-c-candy, s-s-sir.” Tears and snot dripped onto the shirt covering the arm restraining her. She added, when she remembered, “Th-Thank you.”
He glanced at her, then frowned at his wet sleeve. The corner of his mouth twitched. A smile? Not like one Cora had ever seen. His mouth moved, but the rest of his face didn’t budge.
“Aw come on, even little colored kids like candy, don’t they?”
Cora knew she was never to lie--to bear false witness as she learned in Sunday School. She’d recited the Commandments in church on a recent Sunday. Meemaw rewarded her afterwards with a pack of Juicy Fruit gum and an extra-long hug. Cora thought of grandmother’s hugs as she rode in the man’s car. Meemaw always smelled of Avon Vita-Moist Cream. Cora loved to bury her face in the fragrant bosoms. After a deep inhalation, she would announce, “You smell just like Heaven, Meemaw!”
Her grandmother would respond smiling, “And how would you know how Heaven smells, Babygirl?”
Cora would usually shrug and smile. But the last time, Cora had looked up into her grandmother’s face, solemn. “I will know what Heaven smells like someday Meemaw, won’t I?”
Her question had elicited a tight hug, “Yes, you will,” Meemaw had assured her, “if you get those commandments learned right.”
Cora had spent the rest of that week memorizing and, the following Sunday, she stood before the congregation to recite. The first five commandments came easily. With the sixth, nerves an
d the sight of her giggling siblings, made her stumble.
“Thou shalt not…” She looked out at Meemaw who shot a warning glare at Merdel and Dettie. She looked back at Cora, smiled and mouthed “kill.” Cora relaxed her tiny shoulders and spoke the fifth commandment and then six through ten with confidence. She grinned when she finished, certain her place in Heaven was secured.
Cora loved sweets, but she managed to shake her head “No” to the man’s question about candy. All she wanted was to go home. She hoped Meemaw and Jesus would forgive her for lying.
The man blew cigarette smoke out of the side of his mouth closest to her. They’d driven a long time. It was dusk. He stopped the car near a field and turned it off. He stubbed his cigarette.
“Don’t you move.” He kept his face straight ahead and got out of the car.
Cora heard him open and close the trunk. He walked to her side of the car and opened the door. He carried her into the middle of the field and laid her on the ground. Cora felt ashamed that he now knew she was wet. She caught sight of the object in his hand. An axe handle. Meemaw had one under her bed “‘case someone is fool enough to break in here to do harm.”
Cora lay still without being told. She watched the man. He stood over her and looked her in the eyes. He bent over to place one hand flat across her chest. Sweat from his face dropped onto her. Cora hated that sweat being on her more than the pee. He brought the axe handle down with a grunt. Cora reflexively tried to roll away. She didn’t make a sound as the handle impacted her head and her skull collapsed like porcelain. As mercy would have it, she only felt that first of the multiple blows. The man who was bludgeoning her had driven the roads of her town.
“I’m looking for a colored doll,” was what he told a man at a liquor store. He had found one.
Simon says pretend your hands are teacups.
Cora’s hands twitched and her last thought was about the tea party she had the day before. Merdel balked at playing and Dettie drank the pretend tea before the pretend cookies finished baking. That made Cora mad and she had a strong urge to pinch her baby sister. She resisted because intentionally hurting someone was high on Meemaw’s list of punishable offenses.
*****