log. “Has she run off again?”
“No, no, she’s all right.” I cross myself in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost to guarantee that she is.
E. J. points and says, “That’s a nice ring. Where’d ya get it?” I bet he’s thinking something like it would make a nice engagement present for Woody when the time comes.
I sit next to him and hold the mother-of-pearl in front of my face. “Clive told me I could have it after he died.” The ring really is gorgeous. It even smells good. Like the ocean. “I took it from his place when I went and got Ivory.”
E. J. gives me a smile and a nod. He knows that my bark is worse than my bite. Having that dog by Woody’s side will calm her down better than almost anything.
I watch as he laces up the high tops he got at the church rummage sale. They’re royal blue and two sizes too big. “Thanks for bringin’ the berries up to the fort. I coulda done without the song, though. Can’t for the life of me understand why Woody liked it so much.”
He grins.
“Our mother’s dead,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says, not looking up. “I suspected she might be.”
“Really? Why’s that?” I ask somewhat eagerly. The Tittle place is so close to ours and E. J.’s always running around in the woods and going back and forth across the creek searching for something good to eat. Could he have seen what happened to Mama and just been too nervous to tell me?
He says, “When she didn’t come back for such a long time… she wasn’t the kind of person who would just up and leave her babies. She just wasn’t.” Mama was always kind to E. J. Paid him too much money to do odd jobs around Lilyfield and gave him plates of her pecan fudge to take home to his other two sisters, who thought it was delicious because they’re not very picky eaters. “My mama thinks so, too. She told me that if she could, Miss Evie would’ve come home by now. That had to mean that she couldn’t. That she was… ya know.”
I pick up a rock and toss it hard as I can towards the creek. “Ya coulda told me that you were thinkin’ that way.”
E. J. picks up a rock, too, but doesn’t throw it. Just runs it through his fingers. “I thought… ya seemed so sure that she was still alive and… you’re so much smarter than me.” He’s embarrassed that he had to drop out of school last year to work hard for his family. “How did you find out about her… um…”
I look over to Lilyfield. Even though Papa told me that things were going to be different from now on, out of habit my skin crawls when I think about Woody all by her lonesome up in the fort. “His Honor told me.”
“Has she been passed for a long time or did they just… did your father tell ya how your mama-?”
“She…” The pain of going over this is gumming up my mouth, but I got to tell him. E. J.’s stood by us through thick and thin. “She’s been gone for almost a year. She died on carnival night last year.”
“How?” he asks, stunned.
I’m not sure if I should tell him this part, but I do. “His Honor didn’t tell me how, but Woody saw what happened. She’s known the whole time that Mama’s dead.”
He hops off the log. “Did she say something to you?”
“Don’t be stupid. I’d tell you if she did,” I say, before he goes completely bonkers. He misses her talking as bad as I do. Their long chats about their future together. They want to get married at Lee Chapel and have enough kids to make up a baseball team.
From the house, we can hear Mrs. Tittle humming a lullaby to the baby. I speak up about why I’ve come. “You know how Woody’s all the time makin’ those scary drawings?”
“I don’t think they’re scary.”
“They’re scary as hell and you know it.”
“I don’t-” He stops when I give him a you’ve-got-to-be-kiddin’-me look. “Fine,” he says. “What about ’em?”
“There’s this one… have you seen it? It’s of Mama and there’s somebody else, too. She got real agitated today when she showed it to me. I think it has something to do with what she saw that night, but I can’t figure out what.”
E. J. looks off into the woods. “Sometimes when ya hunt, no matter how hard ya chase after something you can’t get a bead on it. That’s when you got to be patient and wait ’til it circles back to ya.”
“You know better than that,” I say.
Of course, he doesn’t disagree. Patience is not my long suit. “Will you help me find out what happened to our mother? You know, how she died and where she’s buried?”
E. J. screws up his face. He must be thinking along the same lines that I am. It’s one thing to go looking for a long-lost mother but an entirely different ball of wax trying to figure out how she died. That’s a much, much sadder chore.
Seeing how he’s waffling, I tell him, “Woody can’t tell us what she saw, so we got to find out on our own so we can share the burden with her.” I can see that E. J.’s mostly going along with that. I have inherited His Honor’s persuading personality. “Once she has somebody to share that secret with, she’ll feel so much better.” I smile before I present my closing argument. “I bet she’ll even start talkin’ love and marriage again.”
E. J. squares his cap, which I have always believed is the font of his bravery, and says, “What’s the new plan?” He throws caution to the wind and doesn’t care where it lands when that coon sits on his head.
“New plan?” I haven’t thought this through. I don’t have any idea what to do next, other than talk to Gramma or persuade Woody to tell me what she saw that night back in the clearing.
“Well, I could… maybe we should… oh, E. J… Mama… she’s… never comin’ home.”
He saves me from collapsing onto the ground by taking me into his arms. Lets me cry on his shoulder beneath the twilight sky.
“Shen?” E. J. says, once I get my sniveling under control. “I know you’ve been wantin’ to talk to Vera. We could head over to the drugstore.”
I scrub the sad off my face with the bottom of my T-shirt and say, “Ya only want to go to Slidell’s
“We’ve got to be quick about it. I don’t want to leave Woody alone too long,” I say, looking down at my wrist to check the time out of habit. It’s two freckles past a hair. That’s something else I need to take care of. Getting Mama’s watch back from my uncle tonight. “We also need to make a stop at What Goes Around Comes Around.”
E. J. asks, “What for?”
“I’m gonna get Woody one of Mama’s scarves. Papa rip-I mean, I accidentally lost the one she had.” Getting her that scarf is not a completely unselfish act. I figure she might tell me what she saw the night Mama died if she’s got some of that chiffon wrapped around her neck. Later tonight, when she’s got a full stomach and is surrounded by all that soft, she’ll be prime for the picking. If that doesn’t work, I’m going to have to get strict with her. Absolutely no almond cream rubs until she coughs up that information.
I stand up and dust off my bottom. “Ready?”
E. J. looks around for my lunch box. “Did ya bring the disguises?” We always wear them if we have to sneak into the busy part of town. I have a black-haired wig from the year Mama got this idea that she and Woody and I would go trick-or-treating on Halloween as the three witches from
“We don’t need the disguises anymore. Papa says it’s all right for Woody and me to go into town again.”
E. J. gives me a squinty look. I’m sure he must be curious why all of a sudden we’re being allowed to roam free, but just like everybody else around here, he knows better than to go prying into Carmody family business.
I extend my hand, he grasps it, and we turn towards the fastest way to get to town.
