Queen Sugar: A Novel (37 page)

Miss Honey’s living room was New Year’s Eve before the ball dropped with all the party hats and plastic kazoos, the spiraled tin sparklers and colored streamers draped in scallops, and mylar balloon bouquets everywhere. Charley taped the
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
banner over the window before everyone hid, until Micah, still sleepy but dressed in her school uniform, opened the bedroom door and headed for the kitchen and they all jumped out and yelled
Surprise!

“But you told me we weren’t celebrating until this weekend,” Micah said when she recovered from the shock. She had asked her two new friends to sleep over, and Charley had agreed to let the girls do beauty makeovers, have cake and an ice cream bar.

“I couldn’t let your real birthday go by without doing something special,” Charley said. “And since I won’t be home until late tonight, I thought we’d celebrate now.” She would drop Micah at school, then head to New Orleans.

“Open your presents,” Blue said. “Mine first.” He handed Micah a wad of newspaper tied with string. “It’s Zach,” he said before Micah could untie the knot. When she did, Charley recognized the action figure he played with the day he arrived. It was his favorite, she knew, and gave Blue a hug. “You’re so sweet. Thank you,” she said, knowing Micah would give it back to him.

Miss Honey gave Micah a new Bible with a bright white cover and real gold leaf on the edge of each page. “Every child who goes through confirmation at Mount Olive gets a Bible just like this. I order them special.” Micah opened the front cover and saw her name in gold letters. “I still have mine, from when I was a girl,” Miss Honey said.

Then Charley set a large present on the coffee table and they all held their breath as Micah lifted the lid off the cherry-red box and held up the Leica IIIf “Red Dial.” “It has a self-timer,” Charley said.

“Mom.” Micah stared at the camera. “This looks expensive. Are you sure?”

Charley nodded. “It’s used. And the man at the camera store said I can pay in installments. He said it still has a lot of life left. I thought you might need something more advanced since you’re in the photography club.”

•   •   •

Miss Honey made grits and eggs, Micah’s favorite breakfast, and they were passing the camera around, taking turns looking through the viewfinder, when Violet, in paint-splattered overalls, on her way to repaint the church bathrooms, rushed into the kitchen. “I wanted to catch you before you went to school. Happy birthday,” she said, and set a box of Meche’s glazed doughnut holes with two containers of chocolate dipping sauce on the table. The doughnut holes were still warm, light as air, and Charley stuck a candle in every one and they sang “Happy Birthday” and Micah made her wish. They passed the doughnuts around and everyone took two, and Micah announced this was her best birthday ever.

Charley looked around the table. She saw her grandmother, she saw Blue, she saw Violet, she saw her daughter, who looked happier than she had in months, and Charley thought,
yes
, this was what she wanted. This was what she’d been hoping for.

“I just wish Ralph Angel were here to celebrate with us,” Miss Honey said. She shot Charley a dark look. “He was pretty upset when he came in last night.”

It had not occurred to Charley until that moment to wonder about Ralph Angel. Last night, she met Remy for a drink at Paul’s Café and managed to put Ralph Angel out of her mind. She came home late to a quiet house, and this morning, rose extra early to decorate the living room. She didn’t feel like thinking about Ralph Angel; not today, not ever. Charley looked at her watch. In a little while, the sky would be filled with great mushroom clouds of gray smoke as farmers burned their cut cane before loading it in the wagons, and she would see, along the bayou, where the tupelo trees donned leaves of orange and yellow where they had been green before, the China rain trees ablaze in a crown of red blossoms. “We should get going. I want to beat the New Orleans traffic.”

“I’d like to eyeball that statue one last time since it’ll belong to someone else tomorrow,” Violet said.

Charley sent Micah to fetch
The Cane Cutter
from the bedroom, but Micah came back empty-handed. “It’s not there.”

“It has to be there,” Charley said. “Look again. On the dresser.”

But when Micah returned empty-handed a second time, Charley went to look herself. She looked on the dresser and in the closet and behind the door. She flung clothes and shoved aside the stack of farm catalogs. She lifted the mattress.

For the next hour, they searched the house—every shelf, every corner, every box—the whole time the voice in Charley’s head repeating over and over,
This can’t be happening
, until finally, she told everyone to stop looking.
The Cane Cutter
was gone. Charley collapsed into a chair. She laid her head on the table. She cried and didn’t think she would ever stop.

•   •   •

Three hours after Charley discovered
The Cane Cutter
was gone, she still sat in Miss Honey’s kitchen, clutching a wad of paper towel after having cried until she was spent. Hollywood still looked a little crestfallen after learning about her date with Remy, was trying, Charley could see, to put on a brave face. He had stopped by to say hello to Miss Honey and to wish Micah happy birthday, and heard about
The Cane Cutter
disappearing. Now he held Charley’s hand and tried to comfort her. He refilled her water glass and encouraged her to drink; whispered, “Don’t worry, Miss Charley, I won’t leave you,” which was sweet and kind, but Charley barely heard him. Meanwhile, Violet and Miss Honey debated whether to call the police. Like Charley, Violet was sure Ralph Angel had taken
The Cane Cutter.
She was sure that if they called the police right now, they could get it back. But Miss Honey kept saying, “No, Ralph Angel didn’t take it; leave the police out of this.”

“But he did!” Charley said, and blew her nose into what was left of the paper towel, looking for a piece that wasn’t shredded. “No one else knew it was there. No one else had a reason to steal it.”

“No police,” Miss Honey said, like she was directing traffic. “No police. I won’t allow it. No police. No.”

“Mother.” Violet’s voice was calm, reasonable. “We have to call the police. If Ralph Angel is innocent, calling the police won’t matter.”

“Ralph Angel didn’t take it,” Miss Honey snapped. “He is a lot of things, but he’s not a criminal. We had a house thief is what we had.”

Charley leaped up from her chair. “Why wouldn’t he take it?” She pounded her fist on the table. “I fired him, remember? Why wouldn’t he get even?”

“You were brave, Miss Charley,” said Hollywood. “It took guts to stand up to Ralph Angel.”

“I’m calling John,” Violet said, taking out her cell phone. “He’ll know what to do.”

“Call John if you want to,” Miss Honey said, “but we’re keeping this in the family.”

“By tonight, he’ll be across the Mexico border,” Charley said. “He’s probably a hundred miles from here already.”

“The day you call the police on Ralph Angel,” said Miss Honey, her voice low as tires on gravel, “is the day you are dead to me. Police don’t ask questions. They just shoot. We’re giving Ralph Angel till tonight and that’s the end of it.”

•   •   •

In the evening during grinding, the sky took on an orangey glow. As night approached, out in the fields, farmers continued to burn their cane before loading it in the wagons, so that it looked to passersby as though long red whips were snaking over the ground. And without the noise of daily life, without the
boom boom boom
of car stereos, and people calling across the street, Charley heard the mill chugging away in the distance—the low drone of the boilers and a faint whistle signaling the end of each shift. It was a comforting sound that meant people were doing the right thing. It meant life kept rolling forward.

It was six o’clock when Miss Honey’s front door slammed. Brother stormed into the kitchen like a category three hurricane, all howling winds and thunder. “I knew it would come to this!” He threw his keys on the table. “I tried to warn you. I told you there’d be trouble.” He wore his fast-food uniform—white shirt, white pants with a blue stripe down the side, a little button pinned to his chest that said “Service with a smile.”

Violet punched Brother’s arm. “Quiet. You’ll scare the kids with all that noise.”

Seconds later, John stepped into the kitchen. He looked handsome and serious in his prison guard uniform. He hugged Violet, said hello to Hollywood, then knelt down to Charley. “How you doin’, cuz?”

“I want him arrested,” Charley said. “Why aren’t we calling the police? You know people, right?”

“What took you so long?” Violet said.

“Cut us some slack,” Brother said. “We drove as fast as we could. Even stopped at some bars where we thought he might be.”

John laid a comforting hand on Charley’s shoulder. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“Around seven last night. I kicked him out of my car.” Charley consulted her watch. “We’ve wasted enough time.” She picked up the phone.

Miss Honey, in her pink robe and slippers, emerged from the hall. “Hang up that phone, Charley. I told y’all before. No police. They’ll only hunt him down.”

“Hello, Mother,” Brother said.

“And don’t come in here with a lot of foolishness, Brother.” She went to the refrigerator and took out a Coke, poured in her Stanback. “I don’t know what crazy scheme y’all are cooking up but I don’t want to hear it. Can’t none of you prove Ralph Angel did this.”

“But Mother—” Brother began.

“And shame on y’all for judging when Ralph Angel’s not here to defend himself.”

“That’s the point,” Violet said. “If he were here, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“Don’t be fresh, Violet. ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged. Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the
beam
that is in thine own?’” The scripture made everyone stop.

Charley went to the cabinet. She flung the doors open. She pushed the glasses over to the corner and pulled out Miss Honey’s money jar, held it up to the light. Nothing in it but air. “What about this? How do you explain this?”

Miss Honey regarded the empty jar like she’d never seen it before.

“For God’s sake,” Charley said. “How much proof do you need?”

“Well, well. Would you look at this? The gang’s all here.” Ralph Angel stood in the doorway.

He looked, to Charley, as if he’d been rolling around in the woods the way his old sweat jacket hung open. Under it, his T-shirt looked like it could use a good bleaching.

Charley went over to Ralph Angel, stood right in his face. “Where is it?”

“Well, hello, sis. How are you? Fired anyone lately?”

“There, you see?” said Miss Honey. “Ralph Angel doesn’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, you mean that statue?” Ralph Angel held up his hands. “I have no idea what they did with it. It was beautiful though, a real masterpiece. I see why our daddy gave it to you.” He started to cross the kitchen. “Now I need to talk to my boy.”

“One second, cousin.” John reached for Ralph Angel’s arm.

“Take your hands off me, John. I’m not fucking around this time.”

“Where’s Charley’s statue?”

“I said let go.”

That was when everything got scary, scrambled like eggs and grits and bacon all mixed together in one pot. It happened fast. And so slow. One minute, John had Ralph Angel by the arm and Ralph Angel was pushing him away. There was lots of shouting, rolling on the floor, and John had Ralph Angel pinned. He smashed his fist into Ralph Angel’s face and Ralph Angel’s cheek split open. And for a second it looked as though John had won. But then Ralph Angel slipped away, and Charley heard popping like firecrackers, and she saw that Ralph Angel had John’s gun. He waved it around as he stood up, breathing hard, yelled, “Get the fuck back! Get the fuck back!” Violet and Brother were pressed up against the cabinets, and Miss Honey was saying, “Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy.” And then Micah and Blue ran in, saying, “What’s going on? Why is everyone yelling?” and then they stopped too, when they saw Ralph Angel waving the gun. Charley dropped the Kerns jar then, because the kids had run in, and because John was lying on the floor and blood, like a big dark flower, was blooming across the side of his uniform.

And then everything got quiet, except for the ceiling fan’s soft whirling.

“Ralph Angel,” Charley said, her heart pounding so hard she could hear it. “Put the gun down.”

Ralph Angel looked at Charley. He still breathed hard, but not, Charley realized, from wrestling with John. “How come you always got everything?” He sniffed, wiped his eyes. “Who said you got to have Dad
and
the farm
and
the family?”

Charley looked at Ralph Angel—at the grimy stripe that ran down the arm of his warm-up jacket, which sagged across his shoulders, the pockets gaping like fish mouths; at his worn-out sneakers and the outdated cut of his jeans; at his hair, which was short when he first arrived, but had grown out unevenly because he couldn’t spare the money to keep it cut; and finally, into Ralph Angel’s face, which was a kind face, actually, and hadn’t changed all that much since he was a kid, but looked so very tired now. Charley looked at her brother and for the first time saw just how broken and desperate he was.