“I knew how to drive before I started working for them.”
He turned off the road onto gravel. The heavy rainfall forced him to work hard to keep the car from sputtering into a ditch and Elnora was glad for the distraction. She didn’t like where his questions were headed. For the most part, she had few complaints about her time with the Tennant family. Like her time at the country club, working for them had been a job. The elder Tennant and his mother were nice but she received no special favors, nor did she offer any.
“This is it,” Rayford Drew said, his tone solemn.
A two-story framed house loomed before them. Even in the midst of the downpour, Elnora noticed that the home’s better days were behind it. The place was livable, but just that. Her three-room shotgun house in Boone Alley was better kept. Shutters hung from the windows and clattered against the building. A forgotten swing dangled lopsided from a chain at the far end of the porch. Gloom haunted the air. Light glimmered from inside, casting an eerie glow through the pouring rain and the swaying branches of the nearby weeping willow. If not for her mission, Elnora would have been content to just sit in the car.
IX
“What’s waiting for me in there?”
“My brother called,” Rayford Drew said. “Graham Lee brought the baby to them—”
“She’s in there?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“What are we doing here? Are we going in that house or not?”
He pulled the key from the ignition and twirled the key ring around his index finger. Elnora recognized hesitation, and she wondered why he hadn’t moved.
“What’s going on, Rayford Drew?” she asked.
“Graham Lee brought the baby to them, but his mama wouldn’t take her. He begged and she told him to take the baby back where he got her from. It got ugly.”
The more he talked, the less she wanted to hear. Elnora wished this had been spoken during the drive instead of questions about the Tennant menfolk and their Buick. Her heart weighed heavy in her chest. She feared the worst; his explanations didn’t help.
“I’m going in.”
Elnora was out of the car and onto the porch as fast as the wind and rain would allow. Her coat, now soaked, was nothing more than a heavy second skin. She clutched the dripping fabric like it was a lifeline. Rayford Drew came up on her left side. Tall and lean, his shoulder and arm brushed against her and she knew it was no accident. This was the best support he could offer. Still, the dread boiling in her gut made her want to push him hard and force him to feel half the agony that was coursing through her.
He reached the door first. He beat hard once against it and then stormed inside. Shuddering both from cold and fear, Elnora followed.
“Oh my God,” he said as he stopped short in the middle of the room.
Tired and angry, Elnora tried to sidestep him — but if he hadn’t reached out and grabbed her, she would have stepped right on the sleeping toddler.
Curled on her side with a thumb in her mouth, little Hattie lay on a blanket fast asleep. Elnora scooped the child into her arms. Other than a murmur, the little girl remained oblivious to the storm, her surroundings, and the trembling woman who held her close.
X
The storm’s fury kept them inside. Raw emotion pulsed within Elnora. The loud thunderclaps and the increasing downpour could not compare to the confounding mix of elation and frustration that made her unable to sit still. To her surprise, little Hattie slept through the worst of it. She only whimpered once and Elnora hummed until the baby went back to sleep. Rayford Drew paused to stare at them during his task of building a fire in the hearth. Once he managed to create a brilliant spectacle of blue and orange flames, he lit a small branch as a torch and left the main room. His heavy steps thudded on the hardwood floor. Elnora edged close to the fire. She hummed every lullaby she knew, thought about Cissy, and wondered what else Rayford Drew was hiding.
He returned with two wooden straight-back chairs that appeared to be in better shape than the ripped furniture littering the front room. Unlike their discovery in Holcomb, this home had lost its peace years ago. No one person or event had stripped it bare. The assault had occurred over time. As Elnora pulled her chair close enough to dry off but not catch fire, she was aware of Rayford Drew’s studied silence and how he kept looking from her to the child in her arms.
“You won’t dry if you keep the coat on,” he said.
Elnora’s first thought was to lie and say she was fine. Help often came with a price. She’d accepted more from him today than she wanted to admit to herself. Acknowledging that he had good advice was her limit.
“You’ll catch cold.” He extended his arms. “I’ll hold her. It won’t take but a minute.”
“No need to trouble you more than I have.”
She positioned Hattie across her lap. The wet coat clung to her, but she managed to tug free of it. She hooked it on the back of her chair and had Hattie back in the curve of her arms before the next streak of lightning.
“I had nothing to do with any of this.”
Elnora shrugged. Who was she to expect a man like Rayford Drew Donner to owe her an explanation? Hattie was back safe and unharmed. Once the storm cleared, they’d head back to Grenada and everything would be set right again.
“I can’t say that my brother wouldn’t leave her out here alone,” he said, “but I didn’t know. Not that she was alone. He just told me to come to Tie Plant—”
“Please,” she interrupted, unable to hear more. The words created unbearable images — a little two-year-old girl left alone in an abandoned house during the worst storm of the year. Discarded by family like she was yesterday’s trash. The knowing hurt. Elnora didn’t want him to speak another word.
“I told Graham Lee a thousand times that he and that gal wouldn’t ever work.”
Hattie began to stir. Elnora kissed her forehead and smoothed her hair from her cheek.
“Fool kid thought a baby would change things,” Rayford Drew said. “His folks aren’t ready for that kind of change. I told him to keep the baby away from them.”
“Who left her here?”
The question demanded an answer, but silence was all he offered. When he finally parted his mouth to speak, Elnora recognized the tilt of his head wavering between a lie and the truth. She wondered how far he planned to go with either. Then a noise came from a distant room. Footsteps advanced toward them. Elnora clutched the baby to her chest. Rayford Drew moved toward the sound, his hands balled into fists at his sides.
“Who’s there?” he called out.
“Us.”
Graham Lee entered first, with Cissy close behind him. She still wore her maid uniform and he was a younger version of his uncle in a button-down shirt and slacks. Both looked worn, beaten to the brink of exhaustion. Elnora hugged Hattie close on instinct. Cissy stepped toward them, reaching for the baby, but Graham Lee pulled her back.
“Cissy?”
“I’m sorry, Cousin El—”
“We hope you’ll look after her,” Graham Lee spoke up. “I’ll send money. You won’t be put out at all.”
“You have lost your mind.” Rayford Drew backed away and stood at the front door. The thunder was beginning to taper off, but the rainfall continued to pour at a steady pace. He seemed more interested in the weather than the foolish ideas being revealed in the room.
“And then what?” Elnora asked. She couldn’t stop herself. She had to know if they were both as naive and hopeful as the words tumbling from the young father’s mouth.
“We’ll come for her,” Cissy said.