Read Online Lay that Trumpet in Our Hands by Susan Carol McCarthy - Free Book Online Page B

make him keep his robe at his mother’s house. I could bring him to you and he’d
swear
on the family Bible that he had nothin’ to do with this. Reed said he would if it’d help you feel comfortable comin’ back to us.”
    “Ah’m sorry, Miz Lucy—”
    But Miz Lucy cuts her off, whispering like a cry, “Armetta! Don’t you see I’m
beggin
’ you
here
!”
    Armetta takes another long, slow breath. “Miz Lucy, Ah’m just as sorry as Ah can be. Ah’m sorry for you and Ah’m sorry for li’l Miss May Carol and Ah’m sorry that mah Marvin lies rottin’ in his grave at age nineteen with cuts on his body and a bullet hole in his head. Ah could never,
ever
, again work in the house of a Klan member.”
    Miz Lucy Garnet, whose blue eyes are full of wobbly tears, takes a step backward. She fumbles with her white purse, finds and pulls out her big black sunglasses. Putting them on, there inside the showroom, she says, light-voiced, “So, you goin’ to be workin’ permanent for Warren and Lizbeth now?”
    “This is jus’ temporary, cleanin’ mostly, gettin’ things ready for the summer season,” Armetta answers.
    “Then what?”
    “Ah hope to find me another family to work for.”
    “In Opalakee?”
    “Yes, or here or Wellwood, it don’t matter. Ah’ll find somethin’, some place.”
    “I’m sure you will, Armetta. And I’m sorry we couldn’t straighten this out.”
    “Marvin’s killin’ is somethin’ that won’t stand straightenin’, Miz Lucy.”
    “Goodbye, Armetta.” Miz Lucy says it quietly. She turns to go, but stops midway and turns back. Removing her glasses, she’s obviously remembered something.
    “May Carol asked me to say ‘hey’ for her,” she says, biting her pink lip.
    “You tell that chil’ she’s a angel, tell her Ah said she’ll always be a precious li’l angel to me.”
    “I, uh . . .” Miz Lucy looks up at the ceiling, bosom rising, as if she’s collecting herself from the very air. “I, uh . . . don’t suppose I could get a copy of your snicker doodle recipe for her? May Carol, uh . . . she asked me to ask.”
    “You know it’s outta my head, all my recipes are; but . . .” Armetta’s face softens. “Ah’ll try. If Ah can figure out the measures, Ah’ll write ’em down and send ’em to you.”
    “Thank you, Armetta. We’ll watch for it.”
    Miz Lucy Garnet turns on her white patent-leather heel and strides quickly out of the showroom. Passing Mother, she waves vaguely in her direction. “Lizbeth,” she nods and keeps on walking out into the sun shining on the Pontiac, high heels crunching the gravel driveway.
    Armetta shakes her head and treads slowly back to the marmalade wall, climbs steps, picks up her spray bottle and resumes her work.
    “Time in the fire,” she’d told me.
Seems to me some people get
more than their share.
    “You all right?” Mother calls to her.
    “Ah’ll be fine, MizLizbeth. ’Ventually Ah’ll be jus’ fine.”

Chapter 10
    Somewhere, someone must have put grieving to music. There must be a song that, when you hear it, helps your heart heal its aching hole. I don’t know that person, and I don’t know that song. But, I do know, mine has lyrics—
Marvin’s dead, gone forever
—and that my brother Ren’s is a simple series of beats—
Bhhh-dmmm (pause) p f;
sometimes harder,
BHH-DMM
, sometimes softer,
Buhhhh-dummmm,
with a varying pause, and a final
p f
.
    Ren’s grief song is the sound of a solitary person throwing a baseball that hits the ground, bounces against the car barn wall, arcs through the air and into a lonely glove. The rhythm, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, changes with the distance between the ball and the wall, which alters the arc and the glove pocket’s answer.
    I can see my brother outside my bedroom window, a lean little figure facing a big, blank wall, on the bright opening day of Major League play. For baseball fans across the country, this is a personal holiday. But for Ren and