The Friendship Doll (15 page)

“Stay down!” Mrs. Weldon commanded her. “It’s no sense you reading to me now, anyway. Your voice would sound like a cat scratching on a mirror. I will read, if you tell me where you’ve placed the book. Oh”—with weary arms, she held out the object she’d been carrying—“and I need you to do something for me. I need you to watch over Miss Kanagawa while I, while I …” She glanced at Olive. “While I go to Lexington for an important appointment. There’s no one else I trust.” She stepped so close to the bed that she could smell the mustard poultice Olive had recently applied. “May I have your word
you’ll keep her safe?” She placed the doll in the bed next to Willie Mae, whose tears dried the moment she gazed feverishly into its eyes.

Mrs. Weldon turned to Olive. “Where is the doctor?” she hissed. “This child needs care!”

“He’s stopping back this evening,” Olive said. She moved to the bed, smoothing the coverlet, smoothing the child’s hair.

Mrs. Weldon fluffed herself up like a broody hen. “I should think so.” She reached her hand out, too, as if to touch Willie Mae’s hair.

“I’ll stay with her, Mrs. Weldon,” said Olive. “You best go back to your room.”

Mrs. Weldon tapped her cane on the floor. “And you’d best mind your own business.” She scanned the room. “Ah, there’s
Huck Finn
, over there.” She moved toward the bureau and snatched the book from its resting place on top. She spied a rocking chair in the corner and hobbled toward it.

Settling into the chair, Mrs. Weldon opened the book up smartly.

A slip of paper fell into her lap. “I could do with a glass of water, Olive. With a thin slice of lemon,” she added, picking up the paper.

Olive sighed loudly, nodded, and slipped out of the room.

Mrs. Weldon glanced at the page in her hands. It was rough and coarse, with many erasures and written in a
child’s round hand. The sheet was filled with poems—about giant seashells and river rafts and sorting stones. The very last poem was entitled “A Quiet Friend, by Willie Mae Marcum.” Mrs. Weldon glanced over at the girl, now sound asleep with her thin arms wrapped tight around the very subject of the poem. Softly, she read the last stanza aloud:

Mrs. Weldon read all of the poems, and found her eyes misty at their sweetness. There was even one about
her
, comparing their daily visits to pulling treasures out of a Christmas stocking. Mrs. Weldon was not a frivolous woman, but she would have been willing to bet that no one—except perhaps her beloved Arthur—would look at time spent with her in such a way. She pushed herself out of the rocker and limped over to the child’s bed. Should her forehead be so hot? Her cheeks so pale? She was going to give Dr. Pemberton a piece of her mind when he arrived.

As she watched the girl, an image of her young self came to mind, and a humiliating memory of her father finding some of the poems she’d written after Mother’s death and reading them aloud over supper one night. She sensed that Willie Mae wasn’t ready to share these with
the world yet, either, so she refolded the paper and tucked it under Miss Kanagawa’s obi as the doll lay in the sleeping girl’s arms. The poems would be safe until Willie Mae was up and around again. Mrs. Weldon made her way back to the rocker, determining that after
Huck Finn
, they should read poetry. She had that lovely collection of Wordsworth, for starters, and then they could move on. Perhaps to Dickinson or maybe even that Yankee, Robert Frost.

When Olive returned with Mrs. Weldon’s glass of water, the old lady didn’t pay her any mind. She kept reading out loud from that
Huck Finn
book. She read all night, even after Dr. Pemberton came. She read and read and read, from one day to the next, until that little girl slipped out of the suffering of this world and flew on angel’s wings to meet her Pap and Mary Rose.

Though she could never see the reason in it and it exasperated her no end, Mrs. Weldon lived for five years more, during which time she arranged for a monthly check to be delivered to Willie Mae’s family—something not even the nosiest of the town’s busybodies ever discovered.

After Mrs. Weldon died, Sarah Junkins nearly fell off her horse when Mrs. Trent flagged her down and told her she’d been left the Weldon book collection along with strict orders to open a free lending library. And the mayor got a nice check to build said library. That was surprise enough, but the whole town was knocked for a loop when it was revealed that Mrs. Weldon had not, after all,
left any money to the Daughters of the American Revolution, but instead had bequeathed a tidy sum to her daughter, and to a family she’d never met, way down Cut Shin Creek.

After the little girl died, I tried my best to comfort the old woman. On good days, I was able to untangle some pleasant memories from her sad thoughts and pull them to the surface. Then she would speak to me. “Remember when Willie Mae made that joke about the Egg Rock?” she might say. Or, “I knew that girl was something special the first day she read to me from
Tom Sawyer.
” Or, “Didn’t Willie Mae’s smile light up this sorry old room like fireworks on the Fourth of July?” For a few fleeting moments, she was lifted by such remembrances. But nothing could truly bend her grief; it was rigid as a
yari
, a spear.

Most times the old woman sent everyone away. She would rock sorrowfully in her chair, a copy of
Huckleberry Finn
in her lap, saying nothing. It was impossible for me to connect with her. There on the shelf, I was left to my own thoughts.

I came to understand that those unfamiliar twinges inside me when I met Bunny and Lois were part of the awakening process. Those little discomforts were signs that the tight bud of my heart had begun its slow unfurling into full bloom. But I do not understand why Master Tatsuhiko wished this awakening for me. I do not know why any doll would want it, not when it means being opened to the pain of loss.

And yet, that pain is softened somewhat when I recall that my presence dried many of Willie Mae’s tears. I think I now understand Master Tatsuhiko’s words about good and bad being entwined in one rope.

Though I wish I did not.

Lucy balanced the tablet on her bent knees, writing furiously to block out the hum of grown-up voices downstairs. It had been only a week, but Mama’s scent was disappearing from Aunt Miriam’s house. The best place to smell Mama anymore was here, in the bedroom closet. The closet was a good place for other reasons, too. When Lucy was inside it, she could block out the face Pop was wearing these days, all ragged and gray like a worn-out sock. She could block out all the people downstairs, in the kitchen, dressed in somber suits and somber dresses. She could even block out Aunt Miriam, wearing a flowered apron as she served sandwiches and coffee.

In the closet, no one bothered Lucy with words that
didn’t make any sense, like “She’s gone to a better place” or “At least she’s not suffering anymore.”

In the closet, she could let out the tears that came every time she thought about Mama going to the hospital, and not coming back. She scribbled furiously.

She put her pencil and tablet down, wiggling deeper into the closet, the hem of Mama’s waltzing dress brushing the top of her head. Lucy could almost imagine it was a dancing night, a Friday night, again and Mama was calling to her, “Lucy, come tie the bow on the back of this dress. You’re the only one who can get it just so.”

“Midget?”

Lucy raised her head at Pop’s voice, saw that he held out a plate. “It’s red velvet cake. Your favorite.”

She ducked her head again, rubbing tears against her scratchy stockings so he wouldn’t see. The last cake Mama had baked was a red velvet cake for Lucy’s ninth birthday last month. “I’m not hungry.”

Pop eased to the floor, just outside the door frame. She heard the clink of china against the linoleum. “Me either.”

When she turned her head to peek at him, he patted the floor by his leg. She hesitated, then scooted out from the closet and under his arm. Pop rested his chin on her head. Lucy breathed in his smell of tobacco and coffee and St. John’s Bay Rum aftershave.

“The preacher did a real fine job today, didn’t he?”

Lucy nodded in agreement.

“Real fine,” Pop repeated. Lucy could feel his heart beating hard in his chest. “Your mama would’ve loved the singing, too.” His voice cinched up and he didn’t speak for a while. Lucy didn’t mind; it was a comfort to sit with him without having to say anything. Mama had been the talker in their family, anyway. She would chatter like a kingbird trying to scare folks away from its nest. But it was lively chatter, happy chatter. Any story Mama told was bright and cheery, like the first jonquils in spring. Thinking about her made Lucy’s throat clamp tight and her eyes all leaky.

“I got something important to talk to you about.” Pop’s chin bobbed up and down on her head as he spoke.

She snuggled closer.

He cleared his throat. “Aunt Miriam—” he started. Then he scratched his neck. “A girl needs a woman around. And Aunt Miriam could sure keep you comfortable. Better than sleeping in our old jalopy on the road.”

Lucy pushed herself away so she could look her father in the face. “No. No. I’m going with you.” That was the one thing she’d held on to through Mama’s long sickness, through losing the farm, through having to move to Aunt Miriam’s, with her unhappy ways and constant reminders that they were living off her charity. California meant a home of their own again. She wasn’t going to lose that chance. “No sir, no way. I’m not staying.”

Pop patted his pocket for his pipe and tobacco. But he left them there. Aunt Miriam threw conniptions about his smoking in the house. “There’s liable to be tough times. Empty bellies.”

“Times won’t be so tough if we’re together. Besides, you said a man couldn’t go hungry in California. Beans and pears and tomatoes and potatoes. It’s a regular Garden of Eden, you said.” Back on their farm, ankle deep in dust, Pop had sat at the kitchen table, night after night, reading aloud to her and to Mama from handbills printed by the growers in California. The flyers said things like “300 workers needed for peaches. Plenty of work. Start Right Away.” After the last cow died, they’d made plans to head west right then and there. As soon as Mama felt better.

But she didn’t get better.

“I know I said that, but—” Pop took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He pushed his specs back up on his nose. “You’d have to leave Gloria Jean.”

Lucy couldn’t remember a day when Gloria Jean hadn’t been in her life. But if she had to choose between Pop and Gloria Jean … “Well, we can write. And maybe her family will come west, too. She said her daddy’s talking about it.”

Pop let out a breath, long and slow. “I never could win an argument with either of my girls.” He hugged Lucy. “Okay, partner. I’ll tell Aunt Miriam.” He stood up, brushed off his trousers, and headed downstairs.

Lucy reached for the plate Pop had brought her and ate up the slice of cake, every last crumb.