Counting Backwards

8

Carrie

October 1923

When Mrs. Alice and Mr. John returned from Durham, Clarence spent two long summer days cozying up to them, following Mr. John around the farm, noting all the improvements he’d made while they were gone. There was the roof he’d thatched, he said, pointing, and there was the fencing he’d mended. Clarence took all his meals with his aunt and uncle in the dining room, acting as though he barely knew me. On the third morning though, as I served porridge and griddle cakes to the Dobbses, Clarence’s seat at the breakfast table stayed empty.

“Should I keep the oats warm for Mr. Clarence?”

I asked as I ladled the food out for Mrs. Alice.

“No need,”

she answered absently. She mixed blackstrap molasses into her morning tea, making it bitter the way she liked. “He’s gone on his way.”

The words were such a relief I nearly dropped the pot in my hands. I never did find out where he’d gone. Nobody thought to tell me, and I told myself that I didn’t much care, so long as he was far away from me. My only thought then was good riddance to bad rubbish, as Mr. John liked to say.

Not until weeks later, after the leaves had started changing color, did I realize my predicament. I was in the back hallway, searching in the closet for the tin of shoe polish we used on Mrs. Alice’s boots, when my eye caught the pile of clean sanitary towels folded behind the bath towels. The sight made me realize I’d not had my own monthly in quite some time. Too long. I startled as I suddenly understood why I had been feeling poorly in the mornings, sometimes the afternoon too, and why my appetite had soured. A tiny piece of Clarence had planted itself inside my womb.

I hoped with all my heart that Clarence’s seed wouldn’t stick. I’d lived on a farm long enough to know that not all pregnancies ended in babies. Sometimes an animal would start bleeding long before it was time, and there’d be nothing to show for the pregnancy except a mess on the barn floor. I knew I’d have to do whatever I could to dislodge that kernel before it grew any bigger inside me, weed the thing out like a dandelion from a vegetable bed. In the meantime, I couldn’t tell. Not anyone.

For those next few weeks, Mrs. Alice was happier with me than she’d ever been before, as I worked doubly and triply hard, lifting, carrying, sweating my way through the day, hoping something would shift that baby loose. Then at night, instead of drifting off after a hard day’s work, I’d lie awake on my cot wondering what would happen if Clarence found out. Would he want to marry me? I prayed with every ounce of my being that he would not. I didn’t realize then that there were worse things to fear than Clarence or how much was going to be ruined for me because of that one afternoon by the crick.

After another month went by, my breasts had grown bigger and my belly was starting to show the slightest bit of roundness. I let out the waists on my dresses, hoping Mrs. Alice wouldn’t notice. I knew, eventually, my secret would come out, and I hoped to figure out a plan by then.

It was Billy who said something to me first. Sunday afternoons, he and I liked to go walking across Free Bridge, up above the Rivanna River, one of the tributaries to the James. It was a mild autumn day, the weather less crisp than the few days before, and the sun was beating down on us strong. I was complaining about Mrs. Alice again, going on about how she soiled the good tablecloth with cranberry sauce for a third time. She expected me to rid the material of the deep red stain, yet again, without abrading the fabric none, but Billy interrupted me.

“You ready to talk about what’s really on your mind?”

he asked, ignoring all I’d said about Mrs. Alice and her cranberry relish.

“Like what?” I asked.

He looked for a moment like he was calling up the nerve to speak, and then he just spit them words at me.

“About how you let Clarence Garland knock you up.”

My heart near stopped when he said it. I felt like he’d kicked me square in the chest, knocking the breath from me. “I didn’t let Clarence do anything!”

I said, not yet realizing what I was confessing.

Billy’s words had cut me deep, and I was too busy being offended to keep anything inside. His accusation brought to mind all the questions I’d been wondering ever since the crick. Did I let it happen? Could I have fought harder or done more to protect myself? Was it my own fault for leading him on right from the get-go? Would I ever feel clean again?

Billy stopped in his tracks, yanking my hand to make me face him.

“Wait. That son of a bitch forced you?”

Billy had never cussed around me. His jaw was set tight, looking like he was fixing to hunt down Clarence that very moment, even as we stood there in the middle of the bridge.

“You think I would have done that with him by my own choice?”

“I’m going to murder that bastard,”

he said, his eyes darting around.

“Billy, stop. I just want to forget the whole thing.”

“But you could have him arrested for what he did to you. That’s a crime. You can’t just let him get away with it.”

His hands were in fists, and his face was getting redder and redder.

“And who’s going to listen to me? I’m just a foster kid who got herself in trouble like that loose mama of hers. And now with another mouth to feed on the way.”

Billy stared back at me hard for a long moment. Then finally his face softened, his shoulders coming back down a bit too.

“You know how far along you are?” he asked.

“I reckon the baby’ll come around the end of March.”

I looked off toward the river, unable to meet his eyes. I didn’t want to see the judgment there. But then he surprised me.

He grabbed for my hands, both hands now, pulling at me until I brought my gaze back to his own.

“Marry me then,”

he said, his eyes brightening and his breath starting to come faster.

“What? No.”

I couldn’t do such a thing, not all sudden like this. And not when I’d never felt anything for Billy more than a sisterly love.

“I’ll get you a ring. We’ll do everything right.”

Then he started lowering himself onto his knee.

“No, no, Billy.”

I pulled at his arm so he’d not go down like that. “I can’t ask that of you. It just don’t feel like the right thing.”

“But I’ll take care of you,”

he said, standing back to full height. “We could get our own house. It’d be small until I got more money saved up, but we’d be together.”

His cheeks were turning pink as he talked. He looked at me so hopefully then that I thought about giving in.

“Look, I know you don’t feel that way for me,”

he said. “I understand that, but there’s all different ways to love. The other stuff, maybe that could come in time. And until then, you’d be safe. And maybe happy enough? We could make a life, you and I.”

I might not have been a romantic girl anymore, but I couldn’t do it, not to Billy. It just felt like taking advantage when he still had his whole life ahead of him. And I didn’t want to do that to my one true friend.

“You don’t want to be stuck with me,”

I told him. “Not when you could find a woman who wouldn’t be pretending. You deserve a woman who’ll love you true.”

All the excitement went out of his eyes then, his mouth coming closed and his whole face seeming to sag all at once. He nodded slowly, and I imagined he was replaying my words in his head. I almost wished I could take them back, but I thought I was doing what was best for both of us. I reckoned I’d find a way to solve this problem by myself. I’d been mostly on my own for so many years now.

It was only two days later that I realized how very wrong I had been.

* * *

Early that Tuesday morning, I heard Mrs. Alice calling for me from the other side of the house. I’d just finished tidying my cot in the alcove, hadn’t even started on breakfast yet.

“Carrie!”

she hollered again, and I hastened through the house toward the front room. I found her standing beside the large fireplace, like she was waiting for company to arrive. Mr. John was there too, his lunch pail in his hand, fixing to leave for work, it seemed. Before I could wonder why he’d be heading out so early, Mrs. Alice pointed at her favorite rocker and told me to sit down.

I’d never had permission to sit in that chair before, but I did as she said.

“John.”

Mrs. Alice huffed out the word like a command, telling him it was his turn to talk.

Mr. John cleared his throat and pulled at his starched collar.

“Well, Carrie,”

he said. He rumbled his throat again but didn’t say more, just looked back at his wife.

“For heaven’s sake.”

She sighed, swiping her hands against each other the way she often did before a task. “Carrie,”

she said, “your condition is becoming obvious.”

I was surprised she’d caught on. She paid me so little heed most of the time, only fussing about whether I’d done my chores to her liking. There was no use denying it though. So I just kept quiet.

“It’s unfortunate,”

she said, looking from me over to her husband. “You’ve been a good worker over the years, especially recently. But we can’t have a pregnant girl under our roof, not unwed. You really are no different from your mother. I suppose we should have expected something like this would happen eventually.”

Seeing the disappointment in her eyes, I knew what I had to do.

“Mrs. Alice,”

I said, my voice cracking. “It wasn’t my fault. Your nephew, Clarence, he done this to me. Forced himself on me down by the crick while you folks were down there in Durham. I couldn’t make him stop. I begged, but he was so strong.”

I swallowed hard. “You know how strong he is. Billy says he should be arrested for what he done.”

I thought maybe Mrs. Alice would take pity on me now that she knew, but instead she kept quiet as Mr. John nearly lunged at me.

“How dare you!”

he shouted. “You listen here, missy.”

He came closer to where I sat and leaned in toward my face. His cheeks were suddenly fiery with rage, and I felt myself afraid of him for the first time since I’d known him. “You’ll not be saying such things about my sister’s son. Not after we took you in, after all we’ve done for you, year after year. Clarence is an upstanding boy, a fine young man. You won’t be spreading this around town, that he’d hurt a girl, that he’d fornicate in the woods. No, I won’t have it.”

He studied me a moment, a look of disgust turning his lips down. He was still bent low, his eyes level with mine as they bored into me. I had to lean back in my chair just to put some air between us. But then he straightened to his full height and took in a deep breath. “No one would believe you anyhow, not a girl like you.”

He ran a hand down his necktie, smoothing the brown fabric back into its place.

I looked over at Mrs. Alice, who was still regarding me as if I was a stray cat in the house. Foolish girl that I was, I’d expected them to be horrified by their nephew’s actions, his violent, foul behavior. But Mr. John acted more upset at the idea of me spreading bad news about Clarence than what-all he’d actually done.

Then I thought Mr. John just didn’t believe me, which was why he’d got so mad. It wasn’t until later that I realized the truth of things didn’t matter. Mr. John didn’t care what had happened to me. He just didn’t want me accusing Clarence of any of it.

“Alice,”

Mr. John said, looking away from me, “I’ve got those people to speak to. You keep the girl inside the house until I get back.”

When Mr. John returned later that evening, he found me pressing linens in the kitchen.

“Pack your things, girl,”

he said as he handed me a small travel case. His voice was gruff, like he wouldn’t tolerate questions. Much as I wanted to ask where I was going, I stayed silent and did as I was told.

I trudged through the kitchen back toward the cramped, dank alcove where my mattress lay, a place that I had for so long yearned to escape. Yet as I stepped inside and let my eyes rove over the worn bedding on the floor, the lone cubby in the corner with my nightclothes folded inside, I was suddenly reluctant to go. I opened the case Mr. John had given me and began filling it with everything I had to my name. There wasn’t much, just a couple of work dresses, my underthings, my old schoolbooks, and some trinkets Billy had given me over the years.

As I loaded the case, it was as if I was seeing each item again for the first time. I realized only then how much of my life at the Dobbses’ had been tied up with Billy. Atop my cubby sat the yo-yo he’d loaned me during the third grade and then never wanted back. There was a wooden bell he won for me at a holiday fair the year before, and five genuine Venus pencils that had become a Christmas tradition between us. Billy gave me one every year since the time I’d stopped going to school, on the promise that I’d take pains to remember what I’d learned before my school days came to an end. He was the only decent person I’d known since Ma, and saddling him with Clarence’s child to raise . . . I knew for sure that wouldn’t have been doing right by him.

I put those pencils he gave me to only one purpose over the years, and that was writing letters to my ma at the Colony. I had to ask permission from Mrs. Alice each time I wanted to send a note because I needed her to give me a postage stamp. I didn’t ask more than once or twice a year because I knew what she’d say. Mama never wrote me back anyhow. Sometimes I wondered if the folks in that place she was being kept even let her see the letters at all.

The items in my small case rattled around as I followed Mr. John out of the house. There was a car in the drive waiting for us. I did what he said and got into that back seat, still not knowing what in the world was to become of me.