Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle (37 page)

But even as all that was running through my mind, I was snatching up underclothes, thick stockings, or tights, as Hazel Marie called them, searching through the closet for the heavy wool dress I’d worn on another cold night, my breath rattling in my throat as I tried to hurry without making noise and fumbling to put on enough warm clothes at the same time. The weather had begun to warm up, melting the last of the snow and making the ground soggy. But cold temperatures at night put a layer of ice over every watery place, so I got out my rubber galoshes too.

My hands were shaking so much that I pulled on the tights inside out, twisting them around in such a way that I could hardly take a normal step. Stepping into low-heeled shoes, then the galoshes, and grabbing a heavy coat, I sneaked out into the dark hall, noting with relief that Lloyd’s door was closed with no light showing under it. Then, remembering what I’d forgotten, I turned around and went back to my room for gloves and Lloyd’s multicolored cap that I’d failed to return to his closet.

As I slipped down the staircase in the dark house, my nerves stretched to the snapping point, I prayed that nobody would be up tending babies.
Thank you, Etta Mae,
I thought,
for the peace that pacifiers had wrought.

Then I sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and thought through what I was about to do. I didn’t want to go out in the cold night by myself, but I certainly couldn’t just go to bed and let nature take its course. I had to find out where Helen was going and what she would do when she got there.

If I hadn’t given Lillian the weekend off, she’d go with me. She wouldn’t like it, but she’d do it. And Etta Mae was right at the end of the upstairs hall in the sunroom. Maybe I could wake her and she’d go. But no, she’d be afraid the babies would wake up, and Hazel Marie and Mr. Pickens would need her. And they would, because Mr. Pickens hadn’t quite gotten the hang of changing diapers, even disposable ones. In fact, he became nauseated every time he discovered more than he expected.

Hazel Marie would go up to wake Etta Mae, and when she found an empty bed, she’d be dialing 911, thinking Etta Mae had been kidnapped. I could do without having every deputy in the county on the prowl.

Briefly I thought of Lloyd but quickly discarded that idea. He’d be grand company and up for anything, but with the frigid weather he might catch a cold. Besides, if—and I really mean
if
—I found Helen’s car at Sam’s, which I didn’t believe for a minute, I didn’t want Lloyd to know about it.

That left me to go it alone. I started to rise, then sank back down, recalling the promise I’d made to Sam just that afternoon.

“Now, Julia,” he’d said, “anytime you get an urge to take matters into your own hands and go off on some wild-goose chase, stop and think.”

Well, that’s what I was doing, wasn’t I? Why else would I be sitting on a stair step in the middle of the night, gathering my nerve to brave the wintry blasts?

Of course, he’d said something else too: “And come talk to me about it. If it’s worth doing, I’ll do it with you, and we’ll leave your partners in crime out of it.”

Yes, well, I could see me asking Sam to help me discover where Helen was spending the night. I didn’t think he’d be amenable to casing his own house.

Determined to do what had to be done, I got up and slipped through the rooms into the kitchen, where the hood light over the stove had been left on for visual aid in preparing bottles when needed. I stood and waited for a bit to be sure no one else was stirring, then, congratulating myself on having a little foresight this time, I found my keys and put them deep in a pocket. I didn’t intend to get locked out again.

And I didn’t intend to walk all over creation, freezing to death either. This time I was going to take a chance and take the car, counting on the baby tenders to be dead to the world from lack of sleep. My plan was to drive straight to Sam’s, check for a white car, and return home before anybody missed me.

As I carefully closed the kitchen door behind me, I stood on the back stoop waiting for my eyes to adjust. Just as I stepped out onto the yard, the overhead light in the kitchen came on.

Somebody was up.
Plunging between two huge boxwoods, I crouched down behind them and peeked through the windows to see who it was. Oh, Lord, it was Mr. Pickens, the last person I wanted to see or wanted to see me. He was stumbling between refrigerator and sink, yawning and scratching himself. But even half asleep, his detecting antenna would pick up the least little thing, so the car would be staying right where it was. Which meant I’d have to walk.

The nearest way to Sam’s was to go through my backyard and out the back gate. Popping up, then back down, I watched Mr. Pickens move back and forth in the kitchen, preparing baby formula. Then he parked himself in front of the sink, right in front of the window that overlooked the backyard, and stood there and stood there—doing who-knows-what while I waited and waited. For all I knew, he’d fallen asleep.

Crouched down as I was, my knees started aching and I knew I had to move even if it meant going the long way. So I melted into the row of boxwoods that lined the driveway and, staying close, crawled on my hands and knees to the sidewalk. Then I had the devil’s own time getting to my feet with nothing to leverage myself with but limber boxwood twigs. I not only scratched my hand, but also left a gaping hole in the big bush on the corner.

Scurrying along the sidewalk, I didn’t feel safe from curious eyes until I was well past Mildred Allen’s yard and in the dark spot between streetlights. I stopped and pulled on Lloyd’s cap, feeling the bite of the wind for the first time after the surge of adrenaline.

I waited a few minutes under the branches of Mildred’s forsythia, which hung over the sidewalk, to consider a plan of action. I was way off the shortest course to Sam’s house, which would add a couple more blocks to the four that it normally was.

Well, it couldn’t be helped, and longing for the car heater that would just about be revving up by now, I started walking, thinking and planning as I went. To tell the truth, I didn’t know what I’d do if I found Helen’s car at Sam’s—just knock on the door and invite myself in? I cringed at the thought. I’d spent my life avoiding making a spectacle of myself—even when I had every right to make one—and I wasn’t going to start now.

No, I’d simply confirm my suspicions and go back home to bed. That’s where I’d decide what to do next. I had to stop and lean against the low stone wall that bordered the Whitakers’ yard as pure misery overtook me. I
didn’t
suspect Sam of two-timing me with Helen. I really didn’t, yet here I was sneaking around to check on him even after he’d made it clear only hours ago that he was eager to come home.

What was the matter with me? Why couldn’t I trust the most honest, open, and decent man I’d ever known?

Well, of course anybody who knew me could answer that. Wesley Lloyd Springer, my first and long-departed husband, engaged in a secret liaison that lasted a decade while I blithely and blindly lived a life of unquestioning trust, unable to imagine that he was capable of such treacherous behavior.

But Sam wasn’t anything like Wesley Lloyd. I kept telling myself that but wondered why I wasn’t able to stay home in bed, secure in that knowledge. Just because one husband had been unfaithful didn’t mean the next one would be. I knew that, but like any Presbyterian, I was a staunch believer in the doctrine of original sin, a preexisting condition with the potential for additional sin. I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I found out whether Sam had allowed the potential to become the actual.

When I knew that,
then
I’d go to bed.

By the time I got to Sam’s house, having walked the extra blocks because of how I’d started out, I was breathing hard and my chest was burning from the cold and from my dashes into the shadows when two cars passed by on the street. Because Mr. Pickens had lingered so long at the sink, causing me to reconfigure my route, I was approaching the back of Sam’s house. Slipping under the low branches of an ancient hemlock on the edge of his yard, I had a clear view of the back porch and the garage on the far side. No lights were on in the house, but one burned at the top of the stairs that led to the small apartment above the garage.
James,
I thought, and hoped he was a sound sleeper.

That one burning bulb cast enough light for me to see that there was only Sam’s old—and I mean
old
—red pickup parked in front of the garage. There were no other vehicles parked behind the house, not even where I’d seen Helen’s car once before. Avoiding the yard entirely, I walked along the sidewalk to the front of Sam’s house and saw that the driveway was clear. Then I walked the length of the sidewalk in front of the house to make sure that a certain white car had not been sneakily parked where it would draw no attention.

Feeling more and more confident that I was on a fool’s errand, I decided to continue on to my house and go to bed. Whoever Helen had been going to see, it had not been my faithful Sam. Getting a second wind, I stepped out smartly, taking the short way home because surely by that time Mr. Pickens was no longer hanging over the sink.

Then I stopped, turned around, and hurried back the way I’d come, anxiety burning a streak through my chest. Sam’s garage had been closed. Sam had only one car. Sam’s pickup was in the driveway. It was a two-car garage.

Looking up and down the sidewalk, then scanning the house and the garage, I saw nothing to deter me. No new lights were on, and everything was quiet except for the rattling of tree branches in the occasional gust of wind. Avoiding the driveway, I scooted across the grass toward Sam’s pickup, then edged along it until I reached the double garage doors.

Bending over beside a front tire, I studied the matter, then sat down and studied some more. Whoever had last driven the pickup—James, most likely—had left the truck parked right between the two doors and so close that there was no way to lift a door and swing it up. No need to even try—even if I had the strength, it would be blocked by the truck.

As the cold from the concrete driveway began to seep through all the layers of wool I had on, I came to the conclusion that getting in the garage through those doors was out of the question. My next thought was to try to peep through the small windows along the top of the doors, but when I tried that, I wasn’t tall enough to see more than the garage ceiling.

So, carefully holding on to the hood of the pickup, I hoisted one foot onto the front fender, and straining to get the other one off the ground, I almost made it. The fender creaked and groaned with my weight and shifted downward, one end falling to the pavement as my feet slid to the ground. Losing my balance, I banged against the garage doors, making enough noise to wake the dead and breaking Sam’s truck at the same time.

Flying to the far side of the garage, I squatted in a clump of weeds that James hadn’t cut, terrified that the whole neighborhood would be up in arms. I don’t know how long I stayed there, watching for lights to come on and doors to open. Gradually, as nothing happened, my heart rate slowed and I began to consider what to do next.

Knowing that James was sleeping, or maybe lying half awake right above my head, I began to creep along the far side of the garage. I hugged the side of the garage, turning the corner to go along the back, fighting weeds and straggly bushes every step of the way. All I wanted was one good look inside, but there were no windows anywhere.

But as I got around to the side with the stairs—and the burning light above them—I found a door under the stairs, a normal door that led into the garage. Praying that it wouldn’t be locked, I crept to it and turned the knob. With a sigh of relief, I pushed it open and sidled inside, closing it quickly behind me in case James came out onto the stairs and saw it open.

Easing along and feeling my way in the dark, I groped across the concrete floor to the car parked inside—
one
car! And it was Sam’s car. I touched it, patted it, and blessed the fact that it was all alone.

I knew it—of course I knew it. I’d known it all along—Sam was as true as true could be, and I could’ve floated on air with the relief that came from finding an empty space where Helen’s car could’ve been but wasn’t.

In fact, I was so overcome with relief that I whirled around in that empty space like a crazy woman, tripped over my own feet, and fell against the workbench. Grabbing the edge of the workbench to stay upright, I knocked over a tin can full of nails or screws or something metallic that men save and never use. The tin can hit the concrete floor with a clatter, spewing nails or whatever they were all over the place, and the thump of feet—big feet—hit the floor above me. James was on his way.

I flew to the door, almost skidding on a million screws scattered everywhere, but not stopping until I was out the door and curled up under a clump of some kind of bushes in the Masons’ backyard next door.