“And I cried.” Farrie was smiling. “I was a puny baby.”
Scarlett patted her kneecap under the bedspread. “Yes, honey, you cried day and night, I just hated to hear it. But I didn’t give up on you.”
Never in all the years since then had Scarlett told Farrie the truth. That the reason their mother had run off was that she didn’t want the baby the doctors had said might not live. The little bundle that lay on the bed and cried for hours had skin a dark slate color and it aimlessly jerked its matchstick arms and legs in a way that even Scarlett could see wasn’t normal.
“After a while I just picked you up and washed you,” Scarlett went on, “and carried you around like a real dollbaby. Nobody said anything, I guess they were just glad you stopped crying. I cleaned out the baby bottles and fed you canned milk and corn syrup like they told Mamma to do in the hospital. And I thought you were the best little doll anybody ever had. You were my very own.”
No matter what happened Scarlett would never tell Farrie of that terrible night when Devil Anse and one of her uncles had come to take the baby, without even saying what they were going to do with it. “It won’t live much longer,” her grandpa had said. “You’re just wasting your time with it, girl.”
Farrie said, “You took care of me and you weren’t much older than me.”
“That’s right, I was about nine.” Scarlett had fought like a tiger when her grandpa and her uncle tried to take the baby away, and finally they’d let it be. “Going to die, anyway,” was what Devil Anse had said.
Thinking of it made Scarlett uneasy. “Look, it’s all well and good for the sheriff to put us up like this,” she said, “but don’t forget we gotta get out of here. Devil Anse is going to find us sooner or later.”
If her grandpa did what he said he would, Farrie would be left to fend for herself in Catfish Hollow. And Scarlett knew how long that would last. They would let Farrie get sick and die, as her grandpa had meant for her to do when she was a baby.
“He’s not going to catch us, Scarlett!” Farrie hauled herself up in bed, eyes blazing. “Listen, we don’t have to go anywheres. We just got the best Christmas present anybody ever had in the whole world, only we just didn’t see it!”
Scarlett made a warning cluck against her teeth. “Farrie, for goodness’ sake, you’re gonna be sick if you don’t slide down in that bed and close your eyes. Go to sleep – I don’t want to be up all night with you, I’m tired and need some rest myself.”
But Farrie seized the sleeve of her sweater in both hands. “Scarlett, we could live right here in this house. Right here in Nancyville. We wouldn’t have to go to a far-off place like Atlanta!”
Scarlett pried her hand away. She brushed the sticky pizza crumbs off her front and stood up. “Don’t talk like that, Farrie. We can’t stay here, this house belongs to the sheriff.”
Her sister got to her knees in the middle of the bed. “Don’t you see it, Scarlett?” she shrilled. “The sheriff’s house is the last place Devil Anse will come looking for us. And if he does – why you know that big tough sheriff won’t let him do anything. No sirree! Scarlett, this here place is safer than Atlanta!”
Scarlett leaned over and pushed her sister back down against the pillows. “Farrie, I swear, I’m getting worried. I don’t think you’ve got that much fever, but you’re talking out of your head.”
“No I’m not! We can have this house and the sheriff can live here, too. All you got to do is marry him!”
“What?”
Scarlett straightened up to stare at her.
“Yes!” Farrie jerked her head up and down violently. “Scarlett, he’s good-looking,” she pleaded, “it wouldn’t be so hard to do. Not like the ones that are always pestering you around Grandpa’s place. And he’s the sheriff, you can’t get no safer than that. Besides, I think he likes you – he’s always looking at you when he thinks you don’t know it.”
“Good Lord.” Scarlett sat down abruptly on the edge of the bed. “When did you start thinking like this?”
Farrie looked at her solemnly. “Didn’t you say if we ever wanted to live like other people we had to run away from Catfish Holler? That if we stayed up there with Devil Anse and the rest we’d end up no better than they was – were? Well, I guess it was while I was taking a bath in that bathroom where you can look out into the woods, and thinking about that big room downstairs with the Christmas tree in it that it came to me. And the way I feel now in this big beautiful bed, all warm with the curtains hanging over me, just like a princess. All of a sudden I had this idea that you’n me could live here if you was married to the sheriff, and nobody could put us out in the cold. And Devil Anse would be too scared to come here, too!”
“Farrie.” Scarlett put her hand to her sister’s forehead. The skin was hot to the touch. “You gotta stop it.”
“And I knew just then,” her little sister went on, determined, “that if dreams could come true, I knew what my dream would be. That we could be a family, Scarlett, like other folks. With a beautiful big house.”
“You’re not making sense,” Scarlett said. “I don’t care how much you dream about it, I can’t make a man like that – sheriff – marry me. That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard of.”
“It’s not any worse than what Devil Anse was going to make you do,” Farrie cried. “That was why you ran away, remember?”
Scarlett didn’t answer. She stood up, went to the dresser, and gathered up the paper plates.
“That’s what’s so good about my idea, Scarlett.” Farrie hiked her frail body up on the pillows. “This way you can marry the sheriff and get this big house, and we can stay together.”
Scarlett snorted. “Until the sheriff’s mamma comes home. She lives here, too, you know.”
“She can just go live someplace else,” Farrie insisted. “Or I’ll share with her. I don’t mind sharing a room with somebody’s mamma. Oh, Scarlett, when we left Catfish Holler you said you was – were – going to take care of me. You said you was going to give us a whole new life!”
Scarlett stood biting her lip. She’d promised all that. But at the time she hadn’t known what a slim chance they’d have getting it. A better life was a sometime thing. Especially for a Scraggs.
She’d been desperate, though, to get Farrie away from Devil Anse. That was the first step, and the hardest. Now Scarlett could see how a lot of things could go wrong. Missing the bus to Atlanta was one. Landing in jail was another. Inwardly she flinched. She never wanted that to happen again.
On the other hand Scarlett had to admit that she’d never imagined they’d end up at the sheriff’s house. She was still trying to figure it out. Now, with Farrie wanting to live in it, things were growing even more complicated.
“Just lie back down, Farrie.” Scarlett gathered the paper plates to take them downstairs. “And stop having these crazy ideas.”
She started for the door, then heard a quiet sob.
Scarlett stopped short. The problem was, Farrie knew Scarlett would do just about anything for her.
“All right,” Scarlett sighed, giving in. “If you promise to lie down in bed and get some sleep, I’ll try to think of something.”
“That’s what you always say, Scarlett,” Farrie reminded her.
That, too, was true.
The downstairs hallway was quiet, and a blue light shone from an open door. Scarlett heard voices and music from a television set.