The Unraveling of Mercy Louis (33 page)

“I doubt it. But if the story breaks big enough, it'll keep him from becoming mayor next week.”
One-two one-two,
she twitches.

“So why me? What's the point in me having it?”

“The point is, it's the truth. Isn't that what your mama wants? I know my mom and I are sick to death of his lies, of the company's lies.” She shakes her head hard, like she's trying to dislodge bad memories. “And Illa?”

“Yeah?”

“I'm sorry. Really, this time. For . . . everything. It's just, every time I saw you, it made me think of my dad, and . . . it just pissed me off.” Illa nods wordlessly, then dabs her eyes with her sleeve. After a pause, Annie says: “So are you going to take me to Mercy or what?” When Illa doesn't answer, Annie continues. “Look, I'm the first to admit, I've been a shit to Mercy.” She places a hand on Illa's shoulder. “But we've got years between us, and I've got love in my heart for her, that's not nothing. I know she's hurting. I want to be there for her.”

Turning the engine of the car, Illa nods. She knows that Mercy needs all the help she can get.

“Let's go, then,” Annie says, climbing into the front seat. They bump out of the driveway, the jalopy groaning from the sudden movement. When Illa guns it, the engine lets out a slow but triumphal roar. As they drive, Illa fills Annie in on what she knows.

Across town, Travis eyes Annie warily, then slides into the backseat. “What the hell's she doing here?” he asks.

“Don't worry about me,” Annie says. “I'm going to be a goddamn Girl Scout.”

“I'll explain later.”
Oh God,
Illa thinks. What are they doing?

When they're a quarter mile from the house, Illa pulls up under the branches of a sprawling live oak that leans out over the road. The windows of the stilt house glow with lamplight. She notices Pastor Parris's ragtop Cadillac parked in front of the mailbox.

“You think they already started?” Travis asks nervously.

“We're fixing to find out,” Annie says.

Even with the aid of Travis's pocket flashlight, the ground is a dark swell empty as outer space, with only the squishing of muddy turf beneath Illa's sneakers to let her know it's earth. There's a damp maritime chill in the air; Illa zips her hoodie farther up her neck. She shows them the back way into Mercy's room, where she helped Mercy climb up the afternoon she collapsed in the woods by Lucille Cloud's lean-to. They arrive under Mercy's window and stare up at it.

“Okay,” Travis says, turning to Illa. “Let's get her out of the house. Illa, you're the smallest of us, I'll hoist you so you can tell us what's going on.”

“Okay, then,” Illa says. “Hurry.”

They lift her up, and from there, she grabs the rungs of the balcony railing and, monkeylike, shimmies her hands higher until she's standing upright at the edge of the balcony and can slide over the railing.

Through the window, Illa sees Mercy curled on the bed, eyes closed. She's dressed like a baby for a baptism in the froufy, ill-fitting white dress she wore to Annie's Purity Ball. Illa taps softly on the glass, then harder when Mercy doesn't respond. Nothing. Depressing the door handle, she eases into the room and tiptoes to Mercy's bedside. “Mercy,” she whispers. “Mercy, wake up.”

She nudges her shoulder gently, then again, this time harder, but Mercy doesn't stir. Not even an eyelid flutters. Alarmed, Illa checks her neck for a pulse and is relieved to feel one strong against her fingertips. Up close, she notices a pinkish tinge around Mercy's mouth. That's when she spots the empty bottle of Benadryl on the bedside table.

From down the hall, Illa hears the doorbell, then the rumble of voices. Scurrying back to the door, she leans over the railing. “Who's at the door?” she asks.

Below, Travis and Annie stare up at her. “Someone just pulled up and went to the door,” Travis whispers. “Too dark to see who.”

“She's out cold,” Illa says. “I'm going to need help. We'll have to haul her out.” She takes a breath to calm her runaway heart. The moon is a yellowed fingernail, shining dirty light on the bayou, which shimmers blackly.

“Okay,” Annie says, bouncing once, twice on the balls of her feet. “I'm coming up.”

Travis gives Annie a boost, and soon she's standing next to Illa. Downstairs, the voices grow louder, Evelia shouting, “Get out, get out of my house!”

“Mercy,” Annie says, going to her and brushing the hair off her forehead. “What did they do to you?” she whispers, voice cracking.

“We need to wake her,” Illa says. Looking around, she grabs a half-full water glass off the vanity. “Move,” she says to Annie before splashing the water over Mercy's face and giving her a few light slaps on the cheek. “Come
on,
Mercy. Wake up.”

Sputtering water out of her nose and mouth, Mercy rolls over, eyes fighting to open. Illa grabs her shoulder and tries to sit her upright, but Mercy slumps to the side. “You'll not get the girl!” Evelia's cry carries down the hallway.

“We've gotta get out
now,
” Illa says to Mercy, feeling frantic.

Footsteps heavy against the creaking floorboards, then the bedroom door bursts open, banging against the wall behind it. Mercy starts at the noise, then turns and vomits pink ribbons over the side of the bed. She gasps as saliva drips out of her mouth. Evelia enters first, then someone vaguely familiar. The woman from the yearbook photo. Charmaine Boudreaux.
She came,
Illa thinks. She glances at Mercy, who still looks zonked out of her head, then at Annie, whose shocked expression confirms Illa's suspicions

“Keep that devil dog away from the girl!” Evelia says, as if instructing Illa. “She's come to steal her, body and soul!”

“We are engaged in spiritual warfare every minute of every day,” Pastor Parris says as he enters. “The apostle Paul was frequently called upon to cast out the devil from his congregants.”

“Mercy, are you okay?” Charmaine says, stepping toward her. Mercy recoils into the bed pillows, a series of vehement grunts spilling from her mouth,
huh huh huh.

“Jesus Christ witnessed demonic possession,” Pastor Parris continues, his voice shifting into a strange, high whine. Seemingly oblivious to what's happening, he keeps a white-hot focus on Mercy. “But He had only to speak the Gospel and the demons fled before Him.”

“Are you going to tell me again how much
better off
Mercy is without me, Evelia?” Charmaine spits. “Look at her, shaking like a kicked dog! What did you people do to her?”

Evelia wheels around to face Charmaine. “Have faith in the Lord, and He shall protect you, Mercy child. Say Jesus' name and you shall be saved from these demons!”

“The devil is a master of disguise,” Pastor Parris says, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, eyes closed. “His demons have many faces. Speak Jesus' name and be saved.”

Adrenaline rampages through Illa's body. Just as she starts to contemplate what to do, Mercy stands up, her white party dress streaked in pink vomit, and the shouting stops.

“I must've died a thousand times, thinking about you,” Mercy says to Charmaine, her voice cracking with the last word. She sniffs, clutching her elbows against her body, staring at the floor as she talks. Standing in her little girl's dress, she looks wrenchingly vulnerable. Evelia's jaw is set, but her hands shake badly.

“Why don't you tell her the truth, Mother,” Charmaine says. “Tell her!” She takes Evelia by the shoulders and gives her a shake. “Tell Mercy the truth.”

“You destroyed this family . . .” Evelia whispers.

“It was
rape,
and it was me that got destroyed.” Charmaine sobs. “You made me
marry
that criminal.”

“
Jesus,
” says Illa. Mercy's face is twisted with shock, mouth open, eyes wide and blinking.

Evelia looks around at the others as if expecting someone to come to her aid. “I was only trying—”

“You were only
nothing
,” Charmaine says, wiping furiously at her face to stop the tears. The streaks of wet make her cheeks gleam in the room's low light. “You
sacrificed
me, all because you were worried they'd kick you and your whore daughter out of church, shame you in front of the town.”

“If you'd been a good girl, if you'd obeyed me and not gone out . . .”

“I was a
girl
,” Charmaine says. “I was a girl who wanted to go on a
date
. That man took a girl who'd never been kissed and raped her three times. And after I got pregnant, you told me it was God's plan, that even if life started in a terrible place, we had to respect His will.” She takes a step toward Evelia. “Witness Louis stole my joy, and all you could think about was your reputation.” Charmaine turns to Mercy. “I wanted you out of my belly because I couldn't carry that man's child for nine months, I just didn't think I could do that and live.”

Mercy says, “I want to . . .” She pauses as a fit takes hold of her arm. “I want to know one thing from you.” Pause.
Huh huh huh.
“What happened three years ago? When you came back?”

Charmaine tugs at her shirt. “After I'd been clean for a while, I decided to try to come down and see you. Evelia wouldn't meet me, though. She sent Jodi Martin to run me out of town. She told me you were better off here and I ought to leave you be if I wanted what was best for you.”

“You were sober when you came?” Mercy asks.

“I was a year and a half clean.”

Mercy nods deliberatively.

“She was . . .” Evelia starts, but Mercy simply says no, then picks her way across the wrecked room and walks out the door.

I
LLA, TRAVIS, AND
Annie drive me to the Starlite Motel, where Charmaine is staying, and Charmaine follows in her truck. I feel as if I'm suffocating in this too-small dress, the satin tight against my ribs. Inside the car, the smell of vomit is stifling.

At the motel, I rush into Charmaine's room, knowing only that I need to get unzipped and
out
of this reeking dress so I can breathe again. From behind me, Travis says they'll be right there waiting if I need them.

In the privacy of the room, I fumble with the zipper but can't quite reach. “
Fuck!
” I say, pounding my fist on the glass of the window.

“Here, let me help you,” Charmaine says, hurrying over. In one motion, she unzips the dress and pulls it down over my hips. I step out of it. Folding my arms over my chest; I can't stop shivering. Our eyes meet; she looks confused about what to do next, but then she rummages in a suitcase and takes out some clothes. “Put these on.”

After pulling on the T-shirt and shorts, I feel a little calmer. At least I can breathe again. I walk to the window and stare at Illa's beater, sitting in the empty parking lot under a halo of light from the streetlamp. I can see their heads in silhouette, and I consider going back out to them, taking refuge with my friends, leaving behind this messy part of my life once and for all.

From behind me, the muffled sussings of Charmaine's feet on cheap carpet. She comes up behind me and takes my hair in her hands, starts a braid. The gentle tug of the hair at my scalp feels good. When she's finished, she leans her face into the back of my head. “Mercy, will you turn around? Will you let me hug you?”

Something about the way she asks me to do this, in a voice that shimmers with care, makes me want to, so I turn and let myself be held, her face warm on my neck, hands at my back. Soon I'm holding on, too, arms looped around her waist. “You're going to be okay,” she says. “We'll get you better.”

We stay that way awhile, till she starts us rocking side to side like a dance. From time to time, my bad arm flies out. When it does, she catches my hand and holds it loosely, her arm moving with mine. She hums the same three notes over and over. I feel a yawning hole in me, the wind whistling through. All the lullabies, the dances, the nonsense talk, the time spent skin to skin, rocking, rocking, rocking. The countless moments that fill years shared by mother and child—we missed that. This is only a single moment; we share no common book of memory. How can we start from here?

“Tell me about three years ago,” I say, turning back toward the window. It is easier to stare at the empty parking lot than her face. The fact is, I don't know this person.

She takes a breath, releases it audibly. “I had a job, I'd saved enough to rent a place of my own, so I came down here to see what Evelia thought about letting me have my baby back. See, Witness left a few weeks after you were born, took the first chunk of money Ma promised him and ran. I couldn't afford the place we were living in, so I moved back in with Mama. Pretty soon I went to see Father Dubois up at All Hallows, to see if I could get an annulment. I didn't want Witness's name or anything to do with him anymore. I hadn't planned on telling the priest everything, but I was all hormones, I just broke down and told him the whole story, the rape, how Mama paid Witness to marry me, even though
he
was the one that did wrong. Father Dubois called Mama up to church to confirm everything I said, and she didn't dare lie to a priest, but I could tell she was steamed at me. He helped me through the annulment paperwork, and that was it, Ma was so angry she wouldn't let me in the house, said I wasn't fit to touch you now that I'd gone and made you a bastard after all she'd done to prevent it. She left the church after that, too.

“I was so young, didn't realize I had any rights, I thought I was the lowest, worst scum of the earth. That's when I got in a bad way with the booze and other poison. Got myself two DUIs, courts packed me off to rehab, and Mama had me declared an unfit mother. She became your guardian and I spent my time trying to erase my brain, just wipe everything clean, forget about Witness and you and Evelia and Port Sabine. I did a pretty good job of it, nearly killed myself. Whatever other lies she might have told you about me, Evelia couldn't have exaggerated how bad things got between me and the stuff. We were doing a death dance, that's the God's honest.

“When I'd been straight awhile, I just got this feeling every time I thought about you, like when you get a bad flu and your whole body hurts and you can barely move. And I knew how hard it could be, living by Evelia's rules. I started wondering about you, how you were doing, what you were like. I knew adopted kids looked for their real parents thirty, forty years down the line, so maybe I had a chance. Maybe I could go down to Port Sabine, take bank statements and letters of reference from my boss and caseworker, and work something out.” She pauses. “I was so stupid.”

“She never told me,” I say. “She said you never looked back.”

“I didn't get very far once I got here. Evelia holds a deep grudge. Wouldn't let me in the door. Jodi met me at the Waffle House,” she continues. “And I got out my folder, showed her my pay stubs and all the other paperwork. I told her I wanted to see if you might like to live with me in Austin over the summer, just a trial run to see how we both took to it. But she told me it'd be too disruptive if I showed up after so many years, said you were really happy, a great ball player who showed real potential within the program . . .”

“Potential within the program?” I say. “I
was
her program.”

“I could tell she thought I was a first-class loser who shouldn't be allowed within a hundred yards of you. I played for Jodi her first two years at Port Sabine. Even back then, fresh out of college, the woman couldn't stand losing and couldn't abide losers. When I sat down across from her at the Waffle House, she had me pegged. She said it was okay, that some women just weren't mother material, and how could I be sure I wouldn't relapse, and what kind of life would that be for a girl, always living with the threat of her mama's addiction, and what kind of example would I set for you? What would I tell you when I had to go to my NA meetings, or when you asked why I didn't have a beer now and again. And boy, if I hadn't been a loser long enough to believe everything she said.” Charmaine shakes her head. “So I put all my papers back in my folder, went out to my car, and drove away, telling myself you were better off where you were.”

Fury burns through me. I grab the closest thing to me, the TV remote, and hurl it sidearm across the room, where it cracks against the opposite wall, bits of black plastic spraying out.

I grip my bad arm, trying to stop its movement. “What she
knew
was that her program would collapse without me.
Player like you comes along once in a lifetime,
she said. Some might say that about a mother.”

My body is tingly with tired. Charmaine steps back, doesn't try to soothe me, and I'm glad, because I am a downed telephone wire sparking in the street, waiting for someone to grab hold.

The digital clock on the end table reads 8:43 in blinking red numerals. I want to get in Illa's car and go and keep going, away from everyone, because I'm eighteen years old and there's not a person on this green earth who can do a thing about it. But as much as I want to go, where would I end up? I'm not so foolish as to think I don't need somewhere to land.

And Travis, my heart. Even though we haven't talked in so long, I've taken comfort from the fact that he falls asleep in the same town I do, looking at the same piece of sky night after night. If I leave, then we'll lose even that fragile connection.

Charmaine walks to the sink adjacent to the bathroom to splash water on her face. She leans up against the sink, pats at the water with a paper-thin white washcloth. I see again the woman-me, a fine-boned face aged too fast, filled with loss, clearly the root from which I grew. She sits on the edge of the bed facing me.

“I came for you the once,” she says. “And when I came, I was weak. I might not be proper mother material or anything like the mother you want, but me and others been making that decision for you for years, and it's time you got it figured for yourself.” We sit in silence, Charmaine staring at the floor like a criminal awaiting sentencing, me a quarter turn away from her, watching the headlights come and go on the frontage road. Finally, she says: “'Course, I'd be lying if I didn't admit I'm back for selfish reasons, too. A solid job, a monthly rental, and a collection of sober days are what I got to show for my thirty-five years. And then there's you. Look at you. So beautiful and talented, I can't hardly believe you're anything to do with me, but I see it written all over your face that you're my girl.”

My brain fizzes with new truth. “This is kind of a lot for me to process,” I say, and to my surprise, she lets out a laugh, first just one bark but then a whole bunch, so she has to tilt her chin up as if to keep all the laughter from spilling out at once.

“Yeah,” she says, barely squeezing in the syllable before another cascade of laughs. “Oh, girl . . .” She reaches across the narrow lane of carpet that separates us and puts her hand on my cheek; her thumb moves softly back and forth against my cheekbone. I lean in to it to extract more pressure. She laughs until it gets inside me and I'm laughing, too, not a joyful laugh but one that makes room for the absurdity of this night. “Keep in mind,” she says, “I'm asking, not telling, when I say that I got a spare bedroom up in Austin and you're welcome to it. We could get to know each other a little. I've written the address on the notepad by the phone.”

Too tired to do much more, I nod to acknowledge I've heard the offer. “I should find my friends,” I say.

“Why don't you stay here with me,” she says. “I could run you a bath . . .”

“No,” I say. “I don't think I better do that.”

“Got someplace else, then? Besides Evelia's?”

“I'll figure it out,” I say. “I won't go back there tonight.”

“I'm heading home to Austin tomorrow morning,” she says. “Around eight o'clock, so I can make my shift. I hope you'll consider coming with me.”

“I don't know,” I say. Still, she presses the notepad into my hand. We step through the door and into the night. Travis and Annie sit on the walkway, surrounded by Coke bottles and candy wrappers. Illa must have gone home. It's late, after all, Annie asleep, her head resting on Travis's shoulder. From somewhere, they've procured a brown blanket against the wind. When Travis hears the door creak, his head swivels in our direction. Annie stirs, opens her eyes, looks at us foggily. I smile, shake my head. Though I'm unsure how to classify what's happened over the last couple hours,
done
seems a poor word for it. But it's not a beginning, either. I wonder if it's possible to be in the middle with someone you've just met, because that's how it feels with Charmaine this early-November night—like we are travelers on a train, and now we're moving—perhaps by chance, perhaps by fate—in the same direction.

“Where's Illa?” I ask.

“She freaked out and bolted a few minutes ago,” Annie says. “Something about her mom's medicine?”

“Meg Stark . . .” Charmaine says, wistfulness softening the name. “How's she doing?”

“Not great,” I say. “She's in a wheelchair, and Illa takes care of her.”

“How awful,” Charmaine says. “I'll drive y'all where you're going. I might stop at the Stark house on my way back. I feel like I ought to have been told about Meg. It's crazy, but I used to be the first person she told anything to . . .” Her voice trails off, a distracted look on her face. But she snaps back quick, ushers us to her truck. “Come on, now, before we freeze.”

Travis jumps in the truck bed, and Annie and I cram into the front seat, where I sit straddling the gearshift, pressed against Charmaine. It feels good. I remember her letter about wanting to touch my hand and let all the love flow into me from her fingertips. Maybe that's what this warmth between us is. When she stops the truck at Travis's house, I consider driving with her to Austin just like this.

But when Travis holds out his hand to help me down from the truck, I take it. Because it was through his hands, not hers, that I first felt love. And because I'm not yet sure I want to leave this town.