Chapter 17
“Charlie, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you,” I said, walking down the brick path to the gate.
I wondered how long she’d been standing out here.
The sun was bright, and a hot, dusty wind was blowing down Lamar, sending her dark curls across her face.
She had no hat on, just that same stained, yellow dress.
Her black pocketbook was tucked under one arm, and she gripped the curled top of a grocery sack.
“I would’ve gotten here sooner, but he wouldn’t pay me. Did you find out anything about Meg yet?”
“No, I—no. And to be honest, I really don’t know … if I should.” I’d gone in circles about this, and this was where my thoughts had parked themselves. For once, maybe I shouldn’t meddle and Meg was better off where she was, knowing what she knew, for now.
Charlie was probably two or three inches shorter than me, but she was a force. She came at me, like she had at the Orphan door. “What? Why not? You said you’d help me!”
I stepped back from her. I hadn’t said that exactly.
“Meg is with her new family now. She needs time to get settled in and have some ordinary days like a regular little girl.” Charlie swatted fiercely at some dark curls that’d blown across her mouth.
She was not buying it. I added, “What’s important is they can afford to look after her and she’s out of that orphanage and away from Garnett. ” That last part had just slipped out.
Charlie’s nostrils flared and her dark eyes flew open wider and I thought, Here comes the real bullfight.
“You don’t actually think Garnett is going to let Meg live a happy life with some nice new family, do you?
Do you know what that witch did to us? What she did to me?
” She uncurled the top of the brown sack and jerked a newspaper out.
The pages flapped noisily in the wind. I could see it was the issue with the story about Garnett’s award.
“Did you read her speech in the damn newspaper?”
“I read it, or most of it.” I had no idea what this had to do with her or Meg. “I have no idea what … you’re saying, Charlie.”
“I’m saying that Garnett Pittman showed up at my sentencing two years ago.
She was the one who got me declared feebleminded.
” She pushed another lock of hair off her furious mouth.
“I know it was her because the judge said her name and the next thing I know, he’s giving me the maximum sentence and sending me off to Ellisville.
I didn’t understand why she’d go to the trouble of having me committed—until I read this disgusting thing.
Who does the woman think she is, God or something? ”
She pushed the newspaper at me again. Teeth bared, dark hair flying in the wind, she seemed about as crazy as she’d been declared.
“Charlie, I’m—just not really following you.”
“Garnett got me sterilized,” she said.
I stared at her. A fierce gust of wind made us both grimace. “What? I’m not sure what you mean.”
Charlie let out a great, heavy sigh. The vitriol in her face drained down into a look of bitterness.
“Garnett Pittman had me put on a table and they knifed out my insides to make sure I could never have another baby.” She looked nauseous around the mouth.
“She made sure it was part of my sentence. It’s why she had me declared feebleminded. She told them to do that.”
I looked down at the newspaper in her hand, the black words quivering in the bright glare. “Garnett’s—she’s head of an orphanage, Charlie. I don’t see how that’s even possible.”
She looked up at the sky with gritted teeth, clearly frustrated that I didn’t understand.
“You see this ‘esteemed colleague’ who introduced Garnett at the ceremony, Dr. Hubert Ramsey? He was the head of the colony at Ellisville. It’s in his speech about ‘unfortunate orphans’ with ‘imbeciles’ for parents, ‘feebleminded women who pass it down from mother to child.’ That’s me they’re talking about, because I had a child out of wedlock.
And because I was seen talking to or possibly flirting with a colored man at the train station—that’s why I got arrested.
Do you think that makes me an imbecile? Or justifies what she had done to me? Because she does.”
I wiped my brow, trying to make sense of this.
Charlie blamed Garnett for what had happened to her in an institution?
Could Garnett … really order something like that?
Or was Charlie just looking for somebody to blame for her own sad circumstances?
Maybe she was a little off or had actually lost her mind inside that place.
But even as I wondered if Garnett was capable of this or could be that cruel, I could see the lonesome image of Meg, sitting for months in that moldy room. Garnett had done that.
The sun was baking us beside the dusty, windy road, and Charlie’s taxi was long gone.
I didn’t know if or when it was coming back.
“Let’s get in the shade,” I said. “I’ll get you some water.
” I wasn’t sure what I could do for this woman but I could at least do that.
She followed me up the brick path and I sat us on the front steps.
I brought out two glasses of ice water, relieved I hadn’t run into Frances or Mrs. Tartt, though I’d probably get questions later.
After Charlie drank her water, she pressed the damp napkin to her forehead.
A thick run ran up her stockings, and her left shoe still had the reddish-brown bloodstain on it.
She looked exhausted. God knows, I was too.
My back ached from cooking and cleaning, scrubbing something terrible I’d spilled called turmeric out of the kitchen floor tiles this morning.
“Charlie, what happened to you … sounds horrible.” Crazy as she sounded, I believed her because I couldn’t think of a good reason why somebody would make such a thing up.
“But I want what’s best for Meg, I really do.
I like her so much.” I took a deep breath and made myself push on.
“The truth is … I just think Meg might be better off right now with a family that can afford to take care of her.”
I watched her and waited for the bull charge again, the storm of tears, but she didn’t do any of that.
She nodded calmly and slid her tongue across her teeth like she’d expected as much.
I felt even worse that she expected so little from people.
I’d always prided myself on not being one of those people.
“I’m sorry,” I added. And I truly was.
She squeezed the place between her eyes and shut them. I knew the look well—utter frustration at an absolutely ignorant world.
“Alright,” she said though none of this was alright.
“But I want to ask you something. Don’t you think Meg deserves to know that her mother didn’t leave her to starve?
Didn’t you say that’s what she believes, probably because Garnett wants her to?
” She reached over and took my hand. Hers was damp and cool from the glass of water.
“She’s eleven,” she begged. “Don’t you think that lie will affect her for the rest of her life? ”
Charlie’s dark brown eyes beseeched me; her cheeks were red from the sun and the wind. This was so logical of her; I had to admire her thinking. It was a downright travesty that Meg could have seventy years ahead of her believing that lie.
“Yes,” I said. It was actually a relief to admit it.
“We could change that,” she said. “If you’ll help me find her.” She let go of my hand, but she stayed close. I could see tiny lines starting to come in around her eyes. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but … if I could stay here, just for a night or two, maybe we can figure out how to do that.”
“Charlie, this isn’t even my house.”
“I’ll sleep in the barn, I don’t care, but I can’t afford to go back to Mr. Finch and keep coming back here.
I’ll work for you, I’ll clean, I’ll cook, I’ll wash clothes—I’m good at that, it’s what I did for a living.
” She looked behind us at the unswept porch, then ahead at the unmowed lawn.
“You look like you could use some help around here. Least I could mow the lawn and clean your porches.”
Oh, Birdie. I could already hear it. You and your bleeding heart. How do you find them?
But what it came down to was this: Was I willing to feed absolute strangers and stray cats and mangy dogs at the back door but unwilling to help this woman whose child I adored? If I didn’t, Meg would spend her lifetime believing a terrible, pernicious lie, told to her by a terrible person.
What harm could a night or two do?
“I’ll speak to the homeowners. And then … maybe.”
My God, Frances was going to kill me.
I put Charlie on the back porch and told her to wait; then I slipped inside and served Frances and Mrs. Tartt a ham-and-cheese casserole in the dining room. Food first, talk later. When I brought a plate out to Charlie, she took one bite and closed her eyes and said, “Mother Mary, this is good.”
I was in the kitchen, about to go back into the dining room and explain why Charlie needed to stay, when Frances came through the swinging door. “Needs salt.”
“It does not need salt,” I said, stepping into her path.
“Yes, it does.” She walked around me and went for the cabinet by the window. “Who’s—” Her shoulders went loose. “Birdie, tell me that’s not the hobo out on the back porch?”
“She’s not a hobo, Frances, she’s an acquaintance. Her name’s Charlie. She’s having a hard time, so I’d like to try and help her.” Like I’m helping you, see how that works?
“Well, we’re having a harder time, so tell her to move on. And quit giving our food away—aren’t you the one who said we needed to be smart?”
“I’m not giving anything away, she’s offered to do some work around here. Pick up the yard and sweep the porches. They need it.” I kept my voice low so Mrs. Tartt didn’t hear.
“I don’t want some stranger sweeping our porches.”