CHAPTER ONE RELOCATING
CHAPTER
ONE
Relocating
Cora and Momma settled the question of where to go by the process of elimination.
Between the fire and the hurricane, Lee’s place was a sodden mess of charred remains, and staying with Benny was beyond out of the question.
Momma didn’t even want him knowing they’d lost the house.
‘Nothing he can do about it anyways and he’ll only get himself caught trying to help,’ she’d said.
In the end, they crammed the blue Plymouth full to bursting and set out for Aunt Teen’s. She’d never turn them away, but it wasn’t like she and Patsy had space for them either.
When she’d stayed with them before Roscoe left, Cora had slept on the couch. Now Momma took the couch, and she squeezed into the bed with Patsy, the two of them staying up half the night, like schoolgirls at a sleepover.
‘Tell me honestly,’ Cora whispered to her cousin one night, after they’d slept in the same bed for over a week. ‘Do you think he’ll get better?’ Dr George had warned her that the longer it took him to wake up, the less chance he had.
‘Nobody can answer that.’
‘But as a nurse,’ she insisted, ‘when you look at him, do you think he will?’
Patsy reached out to her and found her hand in the dark. ‘He went through a lot, but he’s still fighting. I say, as long as he’s fighting, he has a chance.’
It wasn’t the answer she’d hoped for. She wanted Patsy to say yes. That he was young and strong, and he just needed a little more time. ‘Can’t you give him something to help him heal?’ Her optimistic patience was turning into desperation.
‘If there was anything, you know we already would have. Dr George has done everything he can. Trust me. I made sure of it.’ She nestled in closer to Cora. ‘It’s up to Lee now. He’ll wake up or he won’t.’
Patsy lay still for a long time and just when Cora thought she might have drifted off to sleep, she said, ‘Let him know you’ve made your choice, and you chose him. Tell him Roscoe’s gone. He might hear you. It might help.’
Tears pooled in Cora’s eyes and ran sideways across her face, seeping into her pillow. ‘I already did,’ she said.
‘Have you …’ Patsy hesitated, then stammered out the rest of her question ‘… heard from Roscoe?’
‘No.’ Cora closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about him.
‘I’m so mad at him for leaving.’
‘I’m not,’ Cora said. ‘It’s better this way. He should be with the person he loves.’
‘I don’t mean because of his woman. I mean because he let America drive him out. He let them win.’
Cora propped herself up on her elbow and looked at Patsy. ‘How can you say that? He saw a better way to live over there and went to go live it. Isn’t that winning?’
Patsy snorted and rolled onto her back. ‘Giving up isn’t winning. Not when there are thousands still struggling. We can’t all move to Wales.’ She looked at Cora. ‘Or Levittown.’
‘So, you think Benny’s giving up too?’
‘Has he helped anybody but himself?’
Cora felt a flush of shame for her brother. He had helped no one. Not even her and Momma. ‘He’d have done something if he knew,’ she said feebly.
‘He’d have known if he’d been here.’
Cora turned away from her. The night had grown clammy and warm, and she kicked the sheets from her legs.
‘You need to tell him,’ Patsy said, poking her back. ‘He should know you got evicted.’
‘Momma’d have a fit.’
‘Probably, but think how Benny will feel when he finds out you kept this from him.’
‘I know, I know. I almost wrote him about five times, but then I think, what if he gets caught trying to help, like Momma said? I couldn’t live with that.’
‘Someone needs to tell him. He might agree it’s too dangerous for him to do anything for you, but that should be his decision.’
Her words startled Cora, like being splashed with ice water on an August afternoon.
She’d never considered that Benny might choose to do nothing.
The Benny she knew would fall over himself trying to help, but that was the old Benny.
This new, white, Levittown Benny, with his house and his job and his shiny new life, might have too much to lose.
With a jolt, Cora realized Momma didn’t just worry that he’d help.
She also feared he wouldn’t. And as long as he didn’t know, she could hold on to believing he was still the old Benny. Her Benny.
The bedroom air tasted stale and spent as Cora breathed it in and out in a steady stream, trying to quiet the tremors building from deep in her bones.
‘Momma’s right,’ she said, too loud in the quiet room. ‘There’s no reason for Benny to have to hear about this. We’ll be back on our feet soon enough.’