Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind (23 page)

The gold watch that Wesley Lloyd wore in a special pocket came to mind, the one with a heavy gold chain with a Rotary pin on it. But no, they’d taken that off him and given it to me when they closed the casket after the final viewing. Maybe it was a check or a large bill.

“If it’s money, Little Lloyd, I can assure you that your father would be proud of you if you put it in the bank. That way, it could earn even more, and I know that’s what he’d do with it.”

“No’m, it’s not money.” He slowly turned his spoon around on the table. His hands were small, frail-looking like his mother’s. It occurred to me that the child was deeply worried about this problem. It wasn’t a game to him.

“All right,” I said, leaning down to catch his eye. “Here’s my advice. Talk it over with your mama. I expect she’d know what to do.”

“I thought about that.” His voice was so low that I had to lean even closer. “But my daddy gave it to me the very same night he went to be with Jesus, and he told me not to tell anybody.”

“Well, my goodness,” I said. “Was…did your daddy, I mean, do you think he knew he was going to, well, go be with Jesus when he gave it to you?” Images of that fearful night when I found Wesley Lloyd slumped over his steering wheel flashed through my mind, the whirling red and blue lights of ambulances and patrol cars, the tubes and black kits with dials and toggles that technicians worked with to revive him, the rough kindness of young deputies trying to comfort an old woman trembling on the porch steps.

“I don’t know.” Little Lloyd sniffed and wiped tears from his face with the back of his hand. I gave him my napkin. “He didn’t feel so good, but he had to leave anyway. My mama wanted to call the doctor, and I think he got mad about that. Me and her stayed in the kitchen while he went to the living room to do something. Then he called me to walk out to the car with him, and that’s when he gave it to me. He said for me to keep it and not tell nobody and he’d see me next week.” He sniffed wetly. “But he never did.”

Wesley Lloyd’s last minutes revealed, and they sounded just like him. Calling a doctor because he wasn’t feeling well would be admitting to weakness. It didn’t surprise me a bit that he’d been too stubborn to take advice. But I was pleased to hear that Hazel Marie had tried.

“So, I guess you figure that if he’d wanted your mother to know about it, he’d’ve given it to her and not to you?”

He nodded his head. Then he lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes with his fists.

“You’ve had a pretty heavy load to carry around.” I patted his shoulder. “But listen,” I went on, “don’t be worried about having a secret from your mother. That’s just the way your daddy was. He was treating you like a man, and he didn’t think men should get women, even mothers, involved in their business.” Wives or girlfriends either, I could’ve added but didn’t.

“Did you know my daddy?” he asked, his voice breaking as he tried not to cry.

I studied him a few minutes, thinking how remiss I’d been in not realizing that this child had lost a father he’d loved, and was still mourning him. Somehow it’d never occurred to me that anybody beside myself could be hurting.

I took a deep breath that caught in my throat and tightened
my chest. “Yes, I knew him and I’m sorry that he’s gone. I know you miss him, but these things happen, don’t you know. We just have to be strong and go on with what we have to do.” Platitudes, but that’s all I had to offer. I patted his back again.

“Yes’m, I guess so.” The paper sack crackled in his lap as he shifted in the chair.

“So,” I said, “we still have the problem of what to do with what he gave you. And I think I have the answer. You just pick somebody you trust, tell them what it is, and let them decide what to do. I don’t think your daddy meant for you to keep it hidden forever. I think he just meant for you to keep it safe, don’t you?”

Worry knotted his forehead, making his glasses slip down on his nose. “You really think he’d want me to tell somebody about it?”

“Yes, now that he’s gone, I think he’d want you relieved of the responsibility. But I also think he’d want you to be very careful who you choose to tell. But there’re a lot of people you could trust with his secret—Deputy Bates, Lillian, Mr. Sam Murdoch. Your mother, of course. Any of them would be able to help you with it.”

He continued to look at the table, avoiding my eyes, his hands resting now on the sack in his lap.

“Would you?” he whispered.

“Me?” I was taken aback. What had I done to deserve his trust? Or put it another way, what had I done to have another burden added to the ones I already carried? “Why, of course,” I finally managed to say. “I’ll help you if I can, but somebody else might do a better job for you.”

“No’m, my mama said you’re the best friend anybody could have.”

“Well,” I said, “I declare.”

“It’s in here,” he said, unrolling the Winn-Dixie sack, and I prepared myself to treat a book about lions with suitable seriousness. To tell the truth, I was beginning to wonder if the boy had good sense, considering how he was agonizing over such a trivial thing.

He pulled the book out of the sack, pushed his coffee cup aside, and laid the book on the table. Very carefully, he leafed through the book and removed a thin, pink envelope.

As he handed it to me, our eyes met, and this time I saw, not Wesley Lloyd, but Little Lloyd himself.

I held the envelope, slowly turned it over, and saw that it was sealed. I was reluctant to open and read what my husband had written to his child in his last hours on this earth. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know anything so personal, nor did I feel prepared to comfort his grieving child. A letter from the grave, so to speak, could only open the wounds again. I wished Lillian were there to help me.

“Have you read it?” I asked.

“No’m. I just kept it like he told me to.”

“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath, “let’s see what it says.”

I reached behind me to the counter for a bread knife and slit the envelope. I pulled out a flimsy pink page, unfolded it, and silently read the sentence written there in my husband’s heavy handwriting, studied his unmistakable signature, and felt my world fall away.

“Little Lloyd,” I whispered, “you were right to show this to me. It has to do with your daddy’s business. I’ll have to study on it a while before deciding just how he’d want it handled. Now, why don’t you tiptoe upstairs and get dressed. Or you might want to get a little more sleep, if you can. It’s still early, so try not to wake your mother.”

“Okay,” he said, relief shining on his face. “Now I can get rid
of this ole paper sack.” He wadded it up and put it in the trash can on his way out of the room. “Thank you for the coffee, Miz Springer.”

I watched him leave and listened to his bare feet slither on the polished wood between my Oriental rugs. Then, with an aching heart, I looked back at the sheet of pink stationery that represented my husband’s last will and testament.

T
HE BOY TRUSTED
me, so that gave me some time. He hadn’t read it, probably wouldn’t have understood it if he had, so no one on God’s green earth knew about it. Except me.

I studied the pink page, taking note of the drawing of pastel flowers at the top, and understood that Wesley Lloyd had used a sheet of Hazel Marie’s stationery to cut me off without a dime.

I thought about how it must’ve happened that night, because that’s when the sentence had been written. I didn’t doubt that, since the date of the night he died was right there on the page. He must’ve known something was bad wrong with him, a premonition of some kind, to’ve made such a sudden and drastic change. Maybe if he’d taken more time to consider his responsibilities, he’d have made some provision for me. Then again, maybe not. Maybe nothing was exactly what he’d thought of me, and exactly what he’d wanted me to have.

I buried my face in my hands, my shoulders shaking with the pain of realizing that in his last hours he’d taken no thought of me at all. I was not included in this, his final testimony to what was important to him. I read the sentence again: “I name my only son, Wesley Lloyd Junior Puckett (Springer), heir and beneficiary of all my worldly goods, and Sam Murdoch as execu
tor of my estate and guardian until the age of majority.” Dated at the top and signed at the bottom.

With one sentence, my husband of forty-four years had pauperized me and put me on welfare and food stamps. My home no longer belonged to me, much less any of the other properties that I’d taken such pride in owning. My furniture, my car—everything—it all belonged to a child who should’ve never been born.

My hands shook with the rage that flowed through me like an electric current. I wanted to crumple the page and tear it to pieces. I wanted to stomp it into the ground. I wanted to tear my hair out and scream my head off. I wanted to hurt Wesley Lloyd like he’d hurt me.

I trembled with the effort of controlling myself, stricken with the power of my anger. I drew a rasping breath and tried to come to terms with my new and impoverished state.

This would certainly relieve Hazel Marie of the concern about supporting herself or about where she and Little Lloyd would live. They could live right here in my house if she wanted it. Lillian could work for her, and probably would for Little Lloyd’s sake. Hazel Marie could entertain my friends, go to my Sunday school class, sit in my pew, drive my car, take on my life. She could take my place in everything, just as she’d taken my place in my husband’s heart and bed. And on top of losing everything, my pastor and half the town thought I was demented, incompetent, and a danger to every man I met.

I couldn’t face it.

I needed time to think about what to do. I folded the page, put it back in its envelope, and slipped it into the pocket of my robe. I lifted my cup of coffee, tasted and swallowed the cold and bitter dregs. Take one thing at a time, I told myself, and this new will was the most pressing problem.

Little Lloyd would assume that I was taking care of his secret; he wouldn’t question me. He didn’t know it had anything to do with him. Hazel Marie didn’t know, thanks to her son’s integrity in following Wesley Lloyd’s instructions. Sam, involved in executing the older and more appropriate will, didn’t know. If I kept quiet, then things would take their course the way they were supposed to. I ground my teeth together as I remembered how important it’d been to Wesley Lloyd to do what was
supposed
to be done. I would only be following his lead, because a wife is
supposed
to benefit from her husband’s estate. It was only right.

Besides, I told myself, a case could be made that Wesley Lloyd was not of sound mind that night. Couldn’t it? He was sick, even dying, when he set pen to paper. And besides that, he’d not had that will witnessed and notarized. That meant it was invalid, didn’t it? I wished I could talk it over with Sam.

Then I thought of something that would make it right, or at least justify me in rearranging Wesley Lloyd’s last-minute intentions. I’d set up a fund for Little Lloyd’s education. And maybe a monthly allowance for his and Hazel Marie’s living expenses. She would be so grateful. She and everybody else would think highly of me for such an act of Christian charity and generosity.

She’d think I was the best friend a person could have.

I covered my face again, sobbing at the position Wesley Lloyd had put me in, and realizing that if Pastor Ledbetter had his way, I wouldn’t be able to be generous to anybody.

Then, hearing Lillian walking down the drive, I hurriedly got up and left the kitchen. I couldn’t face her this morning. I went upstairs and closed my bedroom door. I couldn’t face anybody with the knowledge that my husband had discounted me as unworthy of his care, and I couldn’t face anybody with the knowledge that I was considering living a lie for the rest of my natural life.

I SAT BY
the window in the floral chintz—upholstered chair that Wesley Lloyd had hated. He’d never liked anything with flowers on it or that was pastel in color, and the wine-dark living and dining rooms reflected his preferences. I’d felt that the bedrooms could be softer, a little more feminine, but he’d put a stop to that when I’d had the chair re-covered. As I sat there, I thought again that it was the only thing in the house that I’d selected. And he’d hated it.

That was a symbol of something.

I rubbed my hand over the arm of the chair, trying to take in what he’d done to me and what he was still doing from the grave. My throat hurt down into my chest as I tried to convince myself that I had every right to destroy his last will and testament. Who could blame me if I did?

No one, I told myself, because no one would ever know.

I sat up straight as Brother Vern came to mind. Did he know? But he couldn’t know. Not for sure, anyway. He’d been looking for anything Wesley Lloyd might have left the two Pucketts. He couldn’t know there was a new will. Could he? Even if he suspected something, what could he do if it never came to light?

He could accuse me if Little Lloyd ever told anybody that he’d given me a paper from his father. Everybody would suspect what it’d been. I’d be ruined in this town. Hazel Marie might sue me. Little Lloyd would grow up distrusting me, always wondering if I’d stolen what belonged to him.

You could move away, I told myself, just sell this house and move to Florida. Leave this town and its suspicious minds and enjoy your old age in comfort and security.

I declare, I didn’t think I could do it. Enjoy it, that is. On the other hand, whatever I decided to do—reveal the new will or destroy it—my feelings about Wesley Lloyd were going to make the rest of my life miserable. Lord forgive me, I prayed, for the bitterness in my heart.

I dressed slowly and carefully, feeling disconnected to the familiar morning routine. Zippers snagged, buttons refused to equal out with buttonholes, hairbrushes fell to the floor, hairpins flew from my hands, yet I overcame each obstacle with deliberate care while my mind whirled on some distant plane.

Dressed at last, I pinned the envelope to the inside of the bodice of my dress. I wasn’t about to leave it where someone might find it. As I smoothed my hand across it, the answer came to me. It would be my secret for a few days at least. I’d see if I could live with it staying a secret. Nothing would be lost or gained by delaying a final decision.

Yes, that’s what I’d do.

Now, I thought, let’s pretend that the page doesn’t exist. Let’s pretend that everything is just as it was before Little Lloyd turned to me as his trusted friend. And, while we’re at it, let’s pretend I never laid a hand on Dr. Fred Fowler.

I had too much to do, I told myself, to worry with last-minute, undoubtedly invalid last wills and testaments that probably wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans.

I went downstairs, my head high, to confront them all.

“
WHAT’S THE MATTER
with you?” Lillian asked as soon as I stepped into the kitchen. “You look downright peaked this morning.”

Lord, does it show already?

“I’m fine,” I said. “Just not sleeping too well. Too many things on my mind.”

“You need to start straightenin’ them things out,” she told me. “You can’t keep hidin’ Miss Puckett and that little boy, and you can’t keep tellin’ stories to the police.”

“I know it. And I guess today’s the day to do it.” I sat down and propped my arms on the table, uncommonly tired and
dispirited. “I don’t know why I feel like I have to take on the problems of the world. Hazel Marie is a grown woman and capable of caring for herself and her child. There’s no reason I should take it on myself to hide them from the police or protect them from their own relatives.”

“That don’t sound like you.” Lillian stood in the middle of the kitchen frowning at me. She wiped her hands with a dish towel and said, “You sure you feelin’ all right?”

The pink paper burned against my skin
.

“I’m fine,” I said again, looking in her direction but over her head. “It’s just that I’ve come to realize that I’ve taken too much on myself and meddled in business that’s no concern of mine. I aim to stop it.”

“Hmm,” she said, folding the towel and laying it on the counter. “How you figure on doin’ that?”

“I don’t know yet.” I rubbed my forehead, and felt the paper crinkle under my arm. “I’ve a good mind to move my letter to the Episcopal church, and dare Pastor Ledbetter to slander a member of another church. Then I ought to call Lieutenant Peavey and tell him all about Hazel Marie and Little Lloyd, and let the chips fall.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Well, I may have to.”

“What about that Brother Vern? What if he claims Little Lloyd and gets him away from his mama?”

“He won’t. The only reason he wanted the child was because he thought they had some money from Wesley Lloyd. When he learns from Sam and Binkie that neither of them have a nickel, he’ll be gone quick enough.”

The pink paper seemed to throb with each beat of my heart. It was taking on a life of its own
.

“Well, and what about me?” Lillian demanded. “You think the police gonna just forget about what they callin’ kidnappin’?”

“They will when they learn the truth, and that’s what I’m going to tell them.” Except not all of it, not yet.

KNOWING THE RISK
I was taking, if Pastor Ledbetter was right about my sinful flesh, or rather the danger I was putting him in, I went to see Sam. Walking up onto Sam’s broad front porch, I noted the fresh gray paint on the floor at the end of the soft rose-colored old brick of the steps and wide walk. White rocking chairs lined each side of the open front door.

“Julia.” Sam stood holding the screen for me. “Saw you coming up the walk. What’s wrong?”

“Everything, Sam.” I went into the cool hall, and he led me into the living room. Books, stacked neatly on tables and the floor, and newspapers folded on the sofa indicated that Sam truly lived in this room. Unlike mine, which was always cold and polished, ready for company.

“Have a seat, Julia. Want some coffee?”

“I don’t want anything but an end to all the mess I’ve gotten into.”

Sam smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Where do you want to start?”

That was the question. Which secret sin did I most want help with? On the way to his house, I’d thought about showing him Wesley Lloyd’s pink paper will and just accepting the fate it decreed for me. Then I’d thought I wouldn’t, and by the time I’d gotten there I’d decided to put it off a while longer. To see if I could live with my secret knowledge in the same room as Sam’s honesty.

Funny, it never occurred to me that Sam might collude in keeping the new will secret. There was no question that he wouldn’t. Some people are honest to the bone. And some aren’t.

“Pastor Ledbetter,” I said, and told him how Dr. Fowler’d
been brought in to have me evaluated. I couldn’t bring myself to tell him that they might have reason to conclude I was riddled with sin and out of my mind. “Can they do that?”

Sam leaned back and, if it wasn’t completely unlike him, appeared to roll his eyes. “I tell you, Julia, preachers have the least common sense of any group of people I’ve ever known. Unless it’s doctors.” He hunched forward in his chair. “Listen now. In this state, it’s not difficult to have someone declared incompetent. All they have to do is demonstrate that you lack sufficient capacity to understand the consequences of your actions.”

“I understand them, all right. I live with them every minute of the day. But, Sam, there’s no telling what they might say about me. You just don’t know what they’re accusing me of. I need to do something.”

“Do like Sophocles and write a play.” He was laughing at me now.

“What’re you talking about?”

“His son petitioned the court to have him declared incompetent so he could get at his father’s estate. The old man asked for a chance to prove himself, and the judges agreed. So he went home and wrote one of the Oedipus plays. When the judges heard a reading of it, they not only acquitted him, they escorted him home. Probably broke open a jug of wine, too. So nothing’s new, Julia, that happened back in the fifth century
B.C.
”