“It’s that simple.”
He chuckled. “Graham Lee ain’t complicated. He never has been. Just got too caught up with that gal—”
“That gal has a name,” she said, maybe more forcefully than she intended. His lean hand’s grip on the steering wheel tightened and she considered apologizing. But the words lodged in her chest. She’d done enough bowing, scraping, and apologizing for her daughter to last a lifetime. The best Elnora could do now was speak softly. “Her name is Cissy.”
“They can’t have a life together,” he said.
“I know that. She does too.”
“Problem is Graham Lee,” he said. “He has a head like a brick. It doesn’t come from the Donner side. No, that’s his mama’s family. Those stubborn Perkins. You can’t tell them shit.”
“Where could he take Hattie that folks wouldn’t ask questions?” Elnora asked. “She’s light, but she ain’t light enough to pass.”
“Stop your worrying. He’s stubborn and fool-headed, but he won’t let a thing happen to that little girl.”
Rayford Drew dropped her off at the corner where Clay Street intersected Boone Alley. The short walk home felt like a miles-long journey without little Hattie in her arms or anything meaningful to report. With evening and the supper meal closing in, her neighbors were rounding up their children from their yards or trudging in from a long day at work. They waved and mumbled the usual greetings, but none of them had an inkling of the weight she bore. She wasn’t about to confide her troubles. She needed to get home and talk things out with Cissy. It could be that Rayford Drew knew his nephew well and understood the inner workings of the younger man’s mind. She hoped that was the case.
Anticipation gleamed in Cissy’s eyes when she woke from her nap. About an hour earlier, Elnora had arrived to find the greens and the ham done. A plate of hot water corn bread sat warming in the oven. And Cissy was asleep on the bed in the front room. Instead of waking her, Elnora eased onto the rocking chair, pushed her shoes off, and just watched her sleep. It had been a long time since she’d had that privilege. She didn’t often dwell on the past, but giving away her only child had been a grave mistake.
“You find her?”
“No,” she said. “Rayford Drew took us out to Holcomb—”
“That’s where he usually takes her. To that little house out there.”
Elnora nodded. “That’s where we went. No sign of her or Graham Lee. Except I found this.”
She pulled the torn photo from her pocket. She watched Cissy closely as the younger woman gazed at the image and frowned.
“We took this in one of those photo booths. Up in Memphis.”
“It’s torn.”
“I see,” Cissy said. “Graham Lee is ripped clean off. Some don’t like the thought of us together. Not even in a silly, stupid picture. But look at Hattie. Don’t she look pretty?”
“Yes, she does.”
Elnora went to her bedroom that separated the kitchen from the front room and took the little rag doll from where it rested on the pillows. Back with Cissy, she handed the doll over.
“This is Hattie’s. This is the one you made for her.”
Elnora pressed her lips together to keep from speaking out of turn or saying the wrong thing. If the torn photograph meant nothing, surely the little rag doll meant something. The sight of the doll wrapped in the sheet had put Elnora on edge. She didn’t want to tell Cissy what she was thinking, how she was feeling. That something wasn’t right. That the house had felt cold and empty. That she didn’t know how to fix this.
Cissy looked at the doll as if she didn’t know what else to make of it. Like it had no right to be in her hands when she was without her daughter. “Where he take her, Cousin El?” she asked, looking up with eyes that were lost and unbelieving. “What Mr. Donner say about that?”
“Nothing. He doesn’t know.”
Sudden anger hardened her soft features. “He know! He just don’t want to say. He helped Graham Lee steal Hattie.”
“I doubt that,” Elnora said. “He ain’t in on this with Graham Lee.”
“He put in a toilet and you don’t think straight—”
“Cissy, don’t say shit to me about that damn toilet! That white man ain’t about to help his nephew steal a little black baby even if that baby is kin!”
Cissy hugged the doll to her. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t make it without my little girl.” She sniffed the doll’s dress and yarn braids. “It smells just like her. She calls it Molly. Says Molly’s her baby. She wouldn’t just leave Molly. She’s throwing the worst fit right now, I bet.”
“I bet she is.” Elnora brushed a few stray strands from Cissy’s forehead. “Supper’s getting cold.”
VI
Thunder shook the wooden-frame house and rattled the windows, pulling Elnora awake. She had rested her eyes for a moment to ponder her findings — the ransacked cottage, the baby doll, and the ripped photograph — when she’d drifted off to sleep. Now she discovered that Cissy had left but the little rag doll rested on the pillow in her place. The photo was on the chiffo-robe. Accustomed to having a plan, Elnora didn’t cotton to the troubling sensations that filled her gut. The sudden rat-a-tat-tat of rainfall hitting the tin roof made her jump. When the knocking started at her back door, she rubbed her arms and cursed her fears.
Glimmers of red shone through the back door window. That was enough to set her at ease. She knew what waited on the other side. A handsome young man in uniform with a red cap on top completed the picture. She opened the door and Ed swung her up into his arms. Romantic spectacles had never been their thing, but he had been away longer than usual. From the way he squeezed her close, he had missed her as much as she had him.
A little while later, they sat at the kitchen table. Elnora confided her concerns about baby Hattie while Ed finished his plate of greens, ham, and corn bread. All the while he chewed, a frown creased his forehead and he shook his head.
“You don’t need to be riding ’round with Rayford Drew Donner,” he muttered after he swallowed a sip of coffee. “Bad enough folks talking shit about that convenience he put in... What it look like, you riding in that coupe with him?”
“I told you we were looking for the baby!” She pushed away from the table. Her chair screeched along the linoleum floor, warring with the sounds of nature that were exploding outside. “What the hell I care what folks think about anyway? You should hear what they say about you creeping over here every time you come home.”
“I ain’t creeping. I ain’t hiding shit.” Ed stood. Tall and self-assured in his blue-and-white-striped boxer shorts and white T-shirt, he took his empty plate to the sink and washed it. “Everybody know you mine.”
She held up her hand. “Ed—”
“Elnora May.” He folded his arms across his chest.
“I don’t belong to anybody. Not you or anybody else.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said quietly.
“I know what you meant.”
Emptiness captured the moment, waiting for one of them to speak or make a move. Elnora sensed the spark of opportunity, but she wanted no part of it. She and Ed had danced around this cakewalk before. He was young. Maybe if she was sure that he understood about her past and some of what she had sacrificed, maybe then she’d be willing to accept more than the good times he offered whenever Illinois Central dropped him off at the Grenada depot. But for now, all she knew for fact was that she felt better in his arms than she had in any other man’s in quite some time. If that was all the Lord was willing to give for the troubles she’d laid at His gates, she’d take it and be glad for it. Later she might have regrets.