Chapter 39
Meg
If it was up to me, I would jerk a knot in Lucille.
With only a week left till school, you figure a girl deserves a little fun with her cousins before the end of summer.
Well you figure wrong. As if it wasn’t enough that Lucille called Marybeth and her mama fat, now the whole family knows Lucille kept Mrs. Heidelberg’s adoption money and picked up a urchin for free.
It was Gloria’s mama started it. Yesterday at church, before Mrs. Heidelberg came over, she overheard Mrs. Heidelberg upset, talking to Big Tom about what Tom and Lucille did, so Gloria’s mama called Lucille up on the telephone last night and asked was it true.
And did Lucille say she was sorry for telling the family all those lies?
Or for wrapping me and Tom up in her scheme?
No. She told Gloria’s mama so what if it’s true, mind your own damn business, and congratulations on winning the ugly contest.
So now the other mamas think it’d be best to keep the cousins away from me.
Marybeth is the only one I really care about seeing anyway, so this morning, I write her a apology note since, unlike Lucille, I am a civilized human being.
Dear Marybeth,
I am sorry I lied to you about Memphis. Please forgive me. I was in a bind.
Your best first cousin, Meg.
Short and simple, like when you make a prayer to God. I show it to Willy May and ask does it look all right.
Law knows it can’t hurt, she says and takes the letter to deliver it for me.
I spend the rest of my morning with my nose in a book.
After I finished Huck Finn, I tried one called The Secret Garden, but after a few pages I took it right straight back to the library and told Mrs. Block, who I pretend works there, that I had had enough of orphans for a lifetime and I needed to exchange it for something more cheerful.
I was firm so she didn’t argue. Now I am reading a book called The Call of the Wild.
The dog in it is nothing like those dogs snarling out my window. It gets my mind off things a while.
A few hours later, Willy May comes back with a letter. But I see it is the same one I wrote, not even damn opened. I sho am sorry, Meg, Willy May says.
When Lucille comes in the kitchen, I ask could we at least go pick up those free toys they set out in the yard. No point in letting them go to waste.
I wouldn’t touch their charity with a ten-foot pole, Lucille says. Well I would, but evidently I don’t get a vote.
I figure the day could not get much worse until the black car pulls up. It is Big Mr. Heidelberg this time. I have not seen him come over here ever. I stand back and let Lucille deal with the man.
Big Tom, come in, come in, she says, all nervous. Can I get you a—
He stomps past her without speaking a word.
So huge and shaking the whole house, Lord I hear those bottles clinking in the china cabinet in the dining room.
I hold my breath. He goes directly into Tom’s office and shuts the door.
Not a slam but it sends a message. Lucille and I both lean in to listen. We can only hear parts.
… time for you to staht acting like a man, Son, he says, and I want yoah wohd that foolish business is ovah, and Yoah mothah is woid sick—
I’m so sorry, Daddy, I promise. Nothing like that will ever happen again.
There is some hemming and hawing and stomping about. Then Mr. Big Tom says, And you need to luhn to control that damn wife a yoahs.
Ha. I am glad Lucille heard that. Though Lord help Big Tom if he ever tried to control Mrs. Heidelberg.
When the doorknob turns, we dart back to the living room, pretend to be busy doing something. He stomps out with nary a word and lets his own self out the front door.
That evening before supper, I see Tom standing in the kitchen.
He is awful quiet, gazing out the back windows like he is listening to something.
Maybe it’s those wild dogs I hear in the middle of the night, snarling and snapping in the woods.
I am too scared to ask if I really hear them or if they’re just in my head.
Sometimes it is better not to know things like that.
How you doing, Tom? I try and ask it like his mama does.
He smiles sad and says he is alright, he is keeping his head above water. Don’t you worry about me, Meg.
At least there is a bright side to all this.
First of all, after some very serious and quiet arguing, Tom and Lucille make what they call a peace treaty.
What it comes down to is you got to treat marriage like a war.
Since selling Tom’s book is the only hope they got left for any money, Lucille agrees to stay off the liquor drinks so Tom can keep working hard as he can.
Well thank you, Baby Jesus, because I have been a nervous wreck.
It’d got to where I was getting the indigestion at supper, worried a Heidelberg would walk in and see a bottle.
Tom’s mama has not been by since Sunday when she told them the jig was up.
Supper does run a hair quiet now, without anybody arguing. But who needs conversation when you got a chicken potpie to enjoy?
Willy May brought it, and Tom pops it in the oven to warm.
How in the hell have I never tasted such a thing before?
It is a pie you toast up hot, with pieces of chicken and a creamy business inside, and it is the bee’s knees.
I learned that term on the car radio. I do see somebody pulled a fast one and snuck some green peas into it, but they don’t get past me, I sort those to the side.
Lord, this thing tastes like a damn chicken dessert.
The second good thing is, while we are eating our potpie, Tom says, I know school starts Monday. What do you say we try and go swimming every morning this week?
I say that would be just fine, sir!
Say around eight, then. Don’t be late, turkey, or I’ll have the lake all to myself.
The next morning, I got my suit and cap on by seven thirty.
Me and Tom walk through the quiet, piney woods.
There is a little haze hanging over the lake water this early in the morning.
I doubt the cousins would come this time of day, so it’s just us.
I slip in and the lake water is warm as a bathtub.
Tom practices me on my arm strokes and teaches me what he calls technique.
Get a rhythm to it, Meg, that’s it, you’re doing swell, kiddo.
When I am worn out, I lie on the dock in the sun and he takes his swimming independent time.
I watch him close as he swims toward the middle.
That is just my nature. As he swims farther out, I want to holler, That’s too far, Tom.
Come on back. Gets awful deep out in the middle.
But Tom is a strong man long as damn Lucille is not pulling him down.
On the walk home through the woods, I get the nerve up. Tom, do you ever hear wild animals chasing something in the night?
Tom frowns at me. You heard the dogs? Like he is surprised. Like maybe he thought they were in his own head too.
I nod. It seems like I hear them on the worst nights, when I am having a rough time. Why are there so many? It sounds to me like there are sheer packs running around at night.
I don’t think Tom wants to tell me, but he says, Those are slave dogs, Meg.
They used to hunt slaves that’d run off from their owners.
They were bred for their bad temperament and their long teeth.
The only way you could stop them from eat—from killing the slave was to shoot the dog, so they bred them by the thousands.
After the war, they just turned them loose.
Slave dogs.
I skitter close to Tom and take his hand. Can they get us? Walking through these woods, Tom?
No, no, don’t worry. No dogs will come after you with me around.
I guess that is about the best you can ask for in life. To find the person who will keep the dogs from getting you.
After three days in a row of swimming, I am laying on the living room floor after supper, reading my McGuffey Reader. Some of it is too young for my reading level, but that is just the price you pay when you’re in the Exceptional Learner Group.
Tom is sitting on the green sofa with Lucille. She’s hardly said ten words to me all week.
Do you really think so, Tom? she asks him. When he says he does, she says how that would be so nice, to get away awhile and see some friends, go to some decent stores. Course I got to look up at that.
I hope I am not a old woman still jerking alert every damn time somebody mentions going to the store.
New York sure would be nice in the fall, Tom says. I could deliver the manuscript to Bill in person, see what he thinks about it.
What will you do with me? If you go to New York, I ask.
Lucille gives me that eyebrow of hers for talking when you are not spoke to.
You’ll come with us, turkey, Tom says, smiling. Did you think we would leave you here by yourself?
I do not begin to answer that.
After a while, Tom says plan on a afternoon swim tomorrow since he wants to work late tonight.
I lay in bed thinking about New York City in the fall.
Wouldn’t that be something? For two years the most I saw was the wrong side of a door and scary faces up on a ceiling.
And soon I could be taking in the city lights, maybe shaking my behind on the avenue.
I fall asleep and dream about all that spectacular.
Have you seen my book, Meg? The one by Fitzgerald?
I am in my room waiting for our afternoon swim.
Lucille took it, I tell him. Probably the only intelligent thing I have seen her do around here is read that book, but I have no qualms tattling on her.
Thanks. I’ll be ready to go in a few minutes.