For the first few days she made their breakfasts and dinners from cans, she and Sammie sitting on the bathroom floor on a folded sheet pretending they were having a picnic. Maybe she was making too much of trying to keep the rooms clean, but she hadn?t been invited here, she couldn?t help feeling like an intruder.
She had turned the bedspreads wrong side up to keep them clean and now, after her third day of job hunting, she lay across her bed, exhausted. Her feet ached from walking the streets, her head ached from filling out countless job applications, answering the same probing questions over and over, and dealing with countless interviews. The questions always included the same inquiry about her marital status and her husband?s occupation. In the last week and a half she had applied for eighteen jobs and had been told eighteen times, after filling out all the applications, that there were no openings or that she didn?t fit the qualifications or that they would call her if something came up. What did she expect whenshe told the truth, that Morgan was in the Atlanta pen for a robbery and murder that he hadn?t committed, that she was working with an attorney on an appeal?
On the nineteenth application, where she must check either married, single, divorced, or widowed, she marked widowed, and she used her maiden name, Tanner. She had to find a job, and soon, and then a small apartment near a school for Sammie. The problem of after-school weighed heavily, she hadn?t solved that one yet. Now, when she was out job hunting, Sammie stayed quietly in their room but she couldn?t leave Sammie alone in an apartment.
On their visits to Morgan she found it increasingly hard to hide her despair at the lack of a job. When she was with him she talked hopefully about their request for an appeal, but too often he would simply hug her and change the subject, knowing she was holding back her stress and doubts. She worried, too, because Sammie wasn?t sleeping well. And now Sammie wouldn?t talk about her dreams, though she had never before been secretive. Sammie had started to make a picture book of small pencil drawings in a plain, unlined tablet, but she didn?t want to show Becky, she made her promise not to look.
But soon, when Anne was out at one or another of her club meetings, Becky would come home to find Sammie upstairs in the kitchen with Mariol; at first that disturbed her, but Mariol herself put Becky at ease. The housekeeper was a handsome Negro woman to whom Becky had warmed at once. She had been with Anne since before John left, before the divorce. Soon Mariol was giving Sammie a hot lunch, and then she had them both coming upstairs to a hot breakfast. Anne was quiet during those meals but she seemed to tolerate the arrangement. Mariol would hug and cuddle Sammie, but of course Anne didn?t put aside her own reserve, Becky knew she never would.
One thing was certain?Anne didn?t want to talk about Morgan or the trial. If Becky mentioned Morgan, Anne grew ill at ease. Becky wanted her to understand that Morgan was innocent, but after three awkward attempts she gave up. Anne would think what she pleased. Becky was surprised when after only a few days, Mariol?s kindness to Sammie seemed to stir a subtle change in Anne. Several times Becky found her watching Sammie with a puzzled frown and once, when Becky was tucking Sammie in bed and hearing her prayers, Sammie said, ?Bless Aunt Anne and please make her less lonely.?
But then came the night when Sammie woke screaming,?Look out! Look out! Get away from him! Get away!? Becky lunged for the lamp switch, turned it on to find Sammie sitting up in bed still half asleep but trembling and terrified. Becky crawled into bed with her, holding her close. ?What was it?? she said softly. ?What did you dream??
?I don?t remember,? Sammie said, clearly lying. ?It?s gone now. I want to go to sleep now.? Whatwere these new dreams, that she wouldn?t talk about them? Prison dreams? Ugly prison incidents that no child should see and that Becky couldn?t stop her from seeing?
?Whatever you dreamed,? Becky said, ?there?s more good in life than ugliness. We have to hold on to the bright part, so we?ll be stronger.? They lay holding each other until at last Sammie slept?leaving Becky wakeful, certain that Sammie had seen Morgan hurt. No matter what she told Sammie, she couldn?t shake her own fear. She had no notion that across the room brightness did touch them; that the yellow tomcat sat on the mantel watching them, reaching out an invisible paw to ease them as he, too, considered Sammie?s dream.
MISTO HAD SEEN the child?s drawings, had looked carefully at the little sketches. In one a man was falling a great distance tied to a rope, and that puzzled him. The tomcat had been in and out of the Chesserson house ever since Becky and Sammie had arrived; he had prowled the opulent rooms getting to know Anne and Mariol, seeing how each interacted with Sammie. He had rolled luxuriously on the fine upholstered furniture and the dense imported carpets, leaving no mark; he had sampled Mariol?s good cooking, licking his whiskers; he had stalked the neighborhood rooftops. Galloping along the steep angles of the Tudor?s slate roof, leaping into the high foliage of the great oaks and across the roofs of the big Morningside homes, he had spied down through mullioned windows, and peered down into lush, shaded gardens; but always he returned to Sammie. He was shocked to a rigid stillness when Anne Chesserson realized that something unseen wandered the house.
If Misto drifted into the room with her, she would turn in his direction with a puzzled frown. If he stood on the kitchen table licking a plate or peering down at Sammie?s drawings, Anne would look around the room, frowning. She never seemed afraid. When she became too intently aware of him Misto would vacate the house, would return to prowl the prison beside Lee, abandoning the luxury of Morningside, watching for the shadow that, too often, followed his cellmate.
13
LEE?S MORNING WAS brightened considerably on his next visit to the dispensary by the sight of Karen Turner coming down the corridor carrying a sheaf of files, the zipper of her short uniform pulled low, her dark hair clean and bouncy.?Hi, Fontana. You look chipper today.?
Lee grinned at her, the very sight of her made him feel lighter.?Guess I do feel pretty good, I just got myself a job.? Thanks to Gimpy, when a job had opened up in the cotton mill, Lee was in?with some reservation from his counselor, on a try-and-see basis. He was to start the next afternoon on a short, three o?clock shift.
?I?m glad for you, Fontana.? Karen?s smile warmed him clear to his toes. She went on past him, but before she entered the next office she turned and gave him a wink and a thumbs-up.
His counselor had been hesitant about the job, but Lee persisted until Camp said he could give it a try.?Wear a handkerchief over your face, Fontana. Or get a mask from the dispensary, the air isn?t the best in there.?
Lee said he would, but he wasn?t going to go in there acting like a sissy, with some kerchief tied around his face.
He moved on down the hall to the doctor?s office, still thinking about Karen?s smile and wink. Swinging up onto the examining table, he took off his shirt, wincing as Dr. Floyd slapped the cold stethoscope on him. With the doctor preoccupied, thumping his chest and back, telling him to take deep breaths and listening to his heart, Leescanned the small, square room. A tray of several sizes of adhesive tape and bandages sat beside the sink, along with a bottle of antiseptic. There were no small, sharp tools to be easily slipped into a guy?s pocket. But across the room on the wall hung dispensers for rubber gloves and paper towels, a disposal bin for waste products and another one for used razor blades: a simple metal box with a handle that operated a dump bin at the bottom. Lee studied this as Dr. Floyd took his blood pressure. He was looking innocently at the doctor when an orderly stuck his head in the door, a thin guy in a pale blue lab coat. ?Can you take a phone call from the warden??