"Did you call a doctor?" I asked.
"Doctor? What for? She's dead as last Christmas. Ain't nothing a doctor gonna do for her now," he replied.
"You still have to call a doctor, Luther. She has to be declared legally dead, and you have to make arrangements for the burial," I said.
"No arrangements necessary. I'll dig a grave in the family plot on the grounds and drop her in," he said.
"You can't do that without first calling a doctor, Luther," I stated, even though I didn't think that hateful woman deserved any better.
"I don't know where she kept her money for such things," he told me.
"Don't worry about money. I'll see to that. How's Charlotte?"
"She's all right. She's singing in the kitchen and making herself some eggs," he said, not hiding the joy in his voice.
I would have laughed, but I recalled the Spartan meals Miss Emily prescribed for all of us: that horrible oatmeal with the vinegar in it so we would taste bitterness and know hardship, that single apple for lunch, and those measured portions for dinner. Even the drinking water was rationed.
"But I guess you people got to come down here to see about things," he said.
"We people?" Yes, I thought. We do have to see about things, especially about poor Charlotte. "All right, Luther. We'll be there right away. But you call that doctor," I ordered.
"I'll do it, but it's good money thrown down a gopher hole," he remarked.
After I hung up I went to tell Jimmy and Philip. We decided that Jimmy and I would go to The Meadows. Philip wanted to remain at the hotel. He hadn't seen Aunt Emily or Aunt Charlotte for years and had little interest.
"Don't worry about Christie or Fern," Mrs. Boston told us. "I'll look after both of them and make sure Miss America behaves herself or else," she promised, winking.
Jimmy and I smiled at each other. It was practically my only smile during this trip, for I couldn't help but recall the nightmare of my incarceration at The Meadows. Grandmother Cutler had sent me there to give birth to Christie in secret. Her sister Emily was a midwife, but more importantly, she was a religious fanatic who was determined to see me suffer for my sins.
I still had nightmares in which I saw her looking down at me with those steel-blue, icy eyes set in a narrow face. She had a pasty and sallow complexion with thin, colorless lips. She would hover over me like a bird of prey, hoisting her shoulders and spouting her threats of hell and damnation.
How could I ever forget that horrible little dark room she made me sleep in; the hard chores she forced me to perform; those weekly baths in water she had already used; and the overdose of laxatives she made me drink, trying to cause a miscarriage.
Grandmother Cutler must have known all this would happen when she sent me there, I thought. After all, she and Emily had conspired behind my back to give away Christie shortly after she was born. If it hadn't been for Jimmy's arriving to save me, I might have withered away there myself.
Now we were on our way back to that old plantation, which was a shadow of what it had once been. We made our travel arrangements as quickly as we could and set out, neither of us eager to make the trip. But I did feel sorry for Charlotte. She wasn't more than a little girl in mind and heart, yet she was a soft and gentle person who had been Emily's whipping post.
We rented a car at the airport when we arrived and drove out to Upland Station. I was surprised at how well I remembered the exact route. I guess that escape was implanted in my mind forever and ever. We bounced over the long and narrow cracked macadam road and turned down the dirt road where the property of The Meadows began, and once again the tips of the brick chimneys and the long, gabled roof of the great plantation house loomed over the treetops.
Nothing had changed. The marble fountains were still dry and broken, some leaning over precariously. The hedges were just as dead and scraggly, and the stone walks were still chipped and battered. In the dark shadows of the late afternoon sun the leafless vines that ran over the columns of the full-facade porch looked like rotting rope. After we got out and approached the porch I looked up at the roof that seemed to touch the clouds. The windows in the gabled dormers resembled dark eyes peering down angrily. This was still a cold, dark house.
Our footsteps echoed on the loose porch floor. We tried the brass knocker and waited. Moments later we heard the scurry of footsteps within, and then the door was thrust open and Charlotte gaped out at us, her blue eyes bright with curiosity. She wore her simple shift and her father's old slippers. Her gray hair was still tied in long braids. Aside from the fact that she looked even plumper, she seemed unchanged from when I had last seen her.
"Hello, Charlotte," I said. "Do you remember me?" She nodded, but I didn't think she did.
"Emily's dead," she announced. "She's died and gone to heaven on a broom, Luther says."
"On a broom?" Jimmy asked. He smiled at me.
"1 know what Luther's saying," I replied. "Has the doctor been here, Charlotte?"
She nodded.
"Where's Luther?" I asked.
"He's at the family plot
digging a grave. He said it's the first time he's enjoyed digging," she added.