CHAPTER SIX NOTICE SERVED
CHAPTER
SIX
Notice Served
Cora moved back home after Roscoe left, but without his paycheck, and with Cora’s job going up in smoke alongside Green’s Whiskey, they only had Momma’s salary to make ends meet. They cut back on essentials, like food and gas and paying the rent.
The landlord made it clear he was done waiting for his money, threatening to put them out on the street if they didn’t pay everything they owed, so with only days left to scrape the money together, Cora sold the living-room furniture. It still wasn’t enough.
She went to bed with worry knotting her stomach, taking ages to settle into sleep. She felt as if she’d barely drifted off when a persistent knocking shook her awake. She rubbed her eyes and glanced at the clock. Not yet six in the morning.
Her thoughts flew to Lee. A visit this early had to be very good news or very bad news.
Please, God, she thought as she stumbled out of bed, let it be good news.
She flung the door open, hoping to find Patsy or Uncle Drew or even Benny on her front stoop, telling her that Lee had woken up, so it took her a second to recognize the determined face of her landlord.
‘Mr Harvey?’
‘It’s the end of the month,’ he said, his gray eyes bulging like a toad’s. ‘You need to pay me what you owe me.’
Standing in front of him in her flimsy nightdress, Cora swung the door closer to shut and tucked herself behind it. ‘It’s barely morning,’ she complained. ‘I was sleeping.’
‘I didn’t want to miss you. Now, do you have my money or not?’ His gruff tone bordered on hostile and the look on his sallow face told her she couldn’t say no.
‘I’ll go get it,’ she said, leaving him standing on the stoop while she went to her room to collect the furniture money.
She came back to find him craning his neck, looking around the room. ‘Kind of bare in here, isn’t it?’
She moved to block his view and handed him the cash.
‘You weren’t planning on skipping out on my rent, were you?’ he asked, narrowing his toad eyes at her.
She laughed. It hadn’t occurred to her but, now that he mentioned it, it might have been a good plan.
He counted the money in front of her and scowled when he came up short. ‘Where’s the rest of it?’
‘I’ll get it to you later.’
‘I’m out of laters with you.’
‘Today,’ she said. ‘Later today. And if you’d come at a decent hour, I might have had it all together. Who comes knocking on a person’s door at six in the morning expecting anything to be ready?’
He made a face, skeptical but sheepish.
‘Later today is still the end of the month,’ she said.
Old Man Harvey dragged his hand over his face and the angry vein marks on his pale cheeks disappeared for a second, then reappeared even stronger.
He told her how glad she should be that he’d been so patient, how easily he could rent this place out to somebody who could pay on time, how he wasn’t running a charity.
She gritted her teeth and nodded. ‘I understand,’ she said. ‘We’ll get you the money.’
He grunted and pocketed the cash. When he left, Cora shook Momma awake and told her what had happened.
‘Maybe Benny can give us the rest,’ Cora said. If he knew how desperate they were, he’d want to help.
‘Don’t you dare,’ said Momma, sharp as a slap. ‘Are you trying to get your brother lynched?’
‘No one would have to know he gave it to us.’
‘You mean you hope no one would find out. But what if they did? And then figured out why this white man was so generous to two colored women. Do you want to risk his life like that? For rent?’
‘Old Man Harvey’s coming back, Momma, and we need to have the money.’
‘And you thought you’d waltz into Benny’s neighborhood and knock on his door asking?’
‘I’d find a way,’ she grumbled.
‘You’re not going near that neighborhood,’ Momma said, final as the grave. ‘We’re not asking Benny.’
Cora stormed out of Momma’s room and into her own. She got dressed in an angry haze, ticking through the people she thought might be in a position to help and landed on Uncle Drew. She stalked out of the door not five minutes later.
At Uncle Drew’s place, she picked her way through the Green’s Whiskey boxes and barrels that Lee had stacked in every available inch of his living room for safe keeping. He led her into the kitchen and offered her a glass of water.
She noticed, for the first time, that he’d started to gray at his temples and had bags under his eyes. He looked worn down, and she felt a pang of guilt for coming here to ask even more of him.
She took a sip of water, then rushed through the details about Old Man Harvey and the rent. ‘I’ll pay you back as soon as I find a job,’ she promised.
He dragged in a long, heavy breath and let it out heavier. ‘I wish I could help you, Cora.’
All these weeks, he’d been paying Lee’s hospital bills, and it had taken a toll. He’d eaten through his spending money, his savings, and even his emergency rainy-day money. ‘There’s nothing left,’ he said. ‘I’m flat broke.’
Cora felt ashamed. She hadn’t even considered how the hospital was getting paid. She hadn’t thought past wanting Lee back. Now she knew that even hope had a price. ‘But if you can’t pay them any more …’
He set his glass on the counter and twirled it in a circle, watching the water ripple as it turned. ‘I’m going to have to come up with something.’ The way he said it told her he’d tried already and run up against nothing but brick walls.
When she left Uncle Drew’s, she drove straight to Lee. She slipped into his room and took up his hand, kissing his forehead, his cheek. He didn’t move.
‘Please come back, Lee,’ she whispered to him. ‘I need you.’ She rubbed his hands in hers, first the right and then the left. ‘I know you’re tired, but you have to fight now, you hear?’ She squeezed his hand as hard as she could. ‘It’s got to be now.’
She didn’t want to think about what might happen when Uncle Drew had to admit to the hospital that he couldn’t keep paying.
Worry and fear bubbled over and rushed out of her in a flood of tears.
She hurried from Lee’s room, back to her car, where she sat for a full ten minutes crying before she could drive home.
When she got there, she found Momma dragging the kitchen table out of the front door to where she’d already set out the kitchen chairs in an impromptu yard sale. She put Cora in charge, saying, ‘You watch over all this, I’m going to get the Lord to help.’
Cora thought that if the Lord had a mind to help, He would have done it by now, and He certainly didn’t need a special invitation, but she bit her tongue and watched Momma march off in search of divine intervention.
She stayed out there for hours, and it wasn’t until the evening that a couple Cora didn’t recognize came by, possibly new to the neighborhood, possibly from further afield.
They haggled over the prices Cora suggested, her clear desperation making them stubborn and thrifty, and walked away with a bargain.
She went inside and sat on the floor where the couch had been and counted out her money. It was almost enough. Almost. She pulled her legs into her chest and rested her head on her knees, fighting tears, and tried to think. He’d be coming back, and she couldn’t come up short again.
When the sun began to tuck itself away, she heard the knock. It was the end of the day. Cora didn’t move. She barely breathed, praying he’d go away.
‘It’s me,’ her momma’s voice called from the other side of the door. ‘I forgot my key.’
Relieved, Cora sprang up to let her in.
‘Did you sell them?’ Momma asked, as soon as she stepped inside.
‘Yes, but it wasn’t enough.’
Momma pulled a handful of notes out of her bag. ‘That’s okay, ’cause the Lord helped us,’ she announced. ‘Through His flock at Saints of Mercy. Pastor Glen has an emergency fund.’
Together, they sat on Momma’s bed with the money between them and counted it out. It was all there, plus a little extra. A head start on next month. They grinned at each other, the relief making them giddy, and Cora counted it again, just to be sure, and to calm her nerves.
‘You see,’ Momma said, watching her. ‘There’s no need to ask Benny.’ She hugged Cora, messing up her counting so she had to start all over again.
That night, when Old Man Harvey still hadn’t come by for the rest of his rent, Cora tucked the stack of bills under her mattress and slept on them.
In the morning, she checked on the money before she washed.
After she dressed, she put the bills on the kitchen counter, guarding them while she and Momma ate toast.
The pounding started just after Momma left for work. Not a knock, but a sharp, metallic banging that echoed through the house, like a curse. Cora gathered the money and made her way to the door. When she opened it, she came face to face with a sheriff and froze.
He held a hammer and sized her up from her bare feet to her tousled hair, then glanced behind her into the empty room. ‘Good luck to you,’ he said.
Her heart kicked up its tempo as her muscles seized. The sheriff stepped off the porch, got into his car, and pulled away.
She clutched the wad of bills in her hand and looked at the door, where he’d nailed up a pink sheet of paper. She reached up and tore it from the nail, ripping through the bold black lettering, but she could still read it easily enough. Eviction Notice. They had three days to get out.