"You're not surprised?"
"Sure, but I found it long ago, and put it back like Granny told me to do. . . . Now quick, before Fanny comes in."
As fast as I could I pulled on the stockings, stuffed on the shoes, and rewrapped the suitcase in the filthy old quilt, and in the nick of time hid it again, only then brushing away the tears from my cheeks.
"Still cryin fer Granny?" asked Fanny, who could display grieving emotions one second and be laughing the next. "She's betta off, she is, than sittin in here all day an doin nothin but hurtin an complainin. Anywhere but here is a betta place."
My doll made up for so much. Made up, I thought at the time, for Sarah's meanness, for Pa's illness, for the fact that I hadn't seen Logan for a week. Where was he? Why didn't he wait to walk me home anymore? Why hadn't he come to say he was sorry about Granny? Why didn't he and his parents go to church anymore? What kind of devotion was he showing now that he'd kissed me?
Then I guessed. His parents had to know
about Pa's disease, and they didn't want their one and only son coming to see hill scum like me. I wasn't good enough, even if I didn't have syphilis.
Putaway thoughts. Better to think about the doll, and the secret of why my mother, at such a late age, would want a doll made to look like herself.
Nothing short of death would keep us from church, and proudly we trudged onward, wearing our old rags, the best we had, with Sarah leading the way now that Pa had the truck and didn't come to drive us there. I held Grandpa's large, bony hand in mine, and actually pulled him along, just as I had to tug on Our Jane, who held with her other hand to Keith.
Every head in the church turned to stare our way, as if one family with so much trouble had to be unworthy sinners.
They were singing as we entered, singing in their glorious voices that had so much practice when they attended church three times a week, and we only went on Sundays.
"Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee . ."
Hide, how appropriate that word was. We should all run away and hide until Pa was well again, and Sarah could laugh once more, and Our Jane stopped crying for a granny who'd gone away and didn't give her hugs anymore. But there was no place to hide.
Then, the next day, Logan showed up by my locker, smiling at me with his eyes even when his lips stayed in a straight line. "Did you miss me the week I was gone? I wanted to tell you my grandmother was sick and we'd be flying to see her, but there wasn't time before the plane left."
I stared at him with huge wistful eyes. "How is your grandmother now?"
"Fine. She had a small stroke, but seemed to feel much better when we left."
"That's nice," I said in a choked way.
"What did I say wrong? Something, I can tell! Heaven, haven't we sworn to always be honest with one another? Why are you crying?"
My head bowed and then I was telling him about Granny, and he said all the right words to console me. I cried awhile on his shoulder, and with his arm still about my shoulder we headed up the trail toward home. "And what about the baby your stepmother was expecting?" asked Logan, appearing happy that Tom and Fanny stayed out of sight with Our Jane and Keith.
"It was stillborn," I answered stiffly. "Granny died the same day . . . guess all of us went kind of numb, losing two, and on the same day."
"Oh, Heaven, no wonder you looked so funny when I said my grandmother recovered. I'm sorry, so damned sorry. Someday, I hope, someone will tell me the right words to say at moments like this. Right now I feel inadequate . . except I know I'd have loved your granny just as much as you did."
Yes, Logan would have loved Granny, even if she would have embarrassed his parents. As Grandpa would still embarrass them, if ever . . .
The next day Miss Deale beckoned me to stay after class for a few minutes. "You go for Our Jane and Keith," I whispered to Tom before I stepped up to her desk. I was eager to meet with Logan, and anxious to avoid a teacher who could sometimes ask too many questions I didn't know if I should answer.
She looked at me for long moments first, as if she saw changes in my eyes as Logan had. I knew my eyes were shadowed underneath, knew I was losing weight, but what else could she be seeing? "How are things going with you now?" she asked, staring directly into my eyes as if to keep me from lying.
"Fine, just fine."
"Heaven, I heard about your grandmother, and I'm so very sorry you had to lose someone you loved so much. I see you in church often, so I know you have the same kind of faith your grandmother did, and you do believe we all have eternal souls."
"I want to believe that . . . I do . . ."
"Everyone does," she said softly, laying her hand on mine. I sighed heavily and tried not to cry. And without meaning to be a tattletale and show lack of family loyalty, I had to speak when I didn't know what others might have already told her. "Granny died, I guess, from heart failure," I said before my tears came. "Sarah had a baby that was stillborn and sexless, and Pa's gone, but other than that, we're all just fine."
"Sexless . . . Heaven, all babies are one sex or the other."