Wayfaring Stranger (Holland Family Saga 1)
“Maybe you should mind your own business,” said the woman eating the sandwich.
The only sound was the wind blowing in the trees. I felt like I was in the middle of a black-and-white photograph whose content could change for the worse in a second. I couldn’t have cared less. “Could y’all bust into an asylum?” I asked.
“Why would we want to do that?” Raymond said.
“To get somebody out. Somebody who doesn’t belong there.”
The woman with the strawberry-blond hair took a brush from her purse and stroked the back of her head. “Somebody in your family?”
“My mother.”
“She was committed?”
“I don’t know the term for it. They took her away.”
She began brushing her hair, her head tilted sideways. “You shouldn’t fret about things you cain’t change. Maybe your mama will come home just fine. Don’t be toting a gun around, either, not unless you’re willing to use it.”
“I’d use it to get my mother back. I wouldn’t give it a second thought.”
The injured man laughed. “Keep talking like that, you’ll end up picking state cotton. Can you forget what you saw here? I mean, if I asked you real nice?”
“They’re going to give her electroshock. Maybe they already have,” I said. “You think that’s fair? She’s an innocent person, and she’s getting treated worse than criminals who deserve everything that happens to them.”
Leaves were dropping from the oak tree, spinning like disembodied wings to the ground. They were yellow and spotted with blight, and they made me think of beetles sinking in dark water.
The woman eating the sandwich turned her back and said something to the injured man. It took me a moment to sort out the words, but there was no mistaking what she said: Don’t let him leave here.
“Mary, can you get me a cold drink from the ice chest?” said the woman with the strawberry-blond hair. “I want to talk to our young friend here.”
“I say what’s on my mind, Bonnie,” Mary said. “You like to be sweet at other people’s expense.”
“Maybe there’s an ice-cold Coca-Cola down in the bottom,” Bonnie said. “I don’t remember when I’ve been so thirsty. I’d be indebted if you’d be so kind.”
She took my arm and began walking with me along the riverbank, back toward the house, never glancing over her shoulder, not waiting for Mary’s response, as though the final word on the subject had been said. She was wearing a white cotton dress with pink and gray flowers printed on it and lace at the hem that swished on her calves. “I want you to listen to me real good,” she said close to my ear. “Pretend we came with the dust and went with the wind. Tomorrow when you get up, you’ll still be you and we’ll be us, and it will be like we never met. Your mama is gonna be all right. I know that because she reared a good son.”
“Who killed the guard, Miss Bonnie? It wasn’t you, was it?”
“Go home, boy. Don’t come back, either,” she replied.
I RETURNED TO THE house and replaced Grandfather’s shotgun in the kitchen closet. A few minutes later he came downstairs, walking on his cane. I fixed oatmeal and browned four pieces of bread in the skillet and put a jar of preserves on the table. I filled his oatmeal bowl and set it in front of him, and set his bread next to the bowl. All the while, I could feel him watching me. “Where have you been?” he said.
“I took a walk down by the river.”
“Counting mud turtles?”
“There’s worse company,” I replied.
“I guess it’s to your credit, but you’re the poorest excuse for a liar I’ve ever known. I heard a car out in the woods last night. Did that same bunch come back here after I told them not to?”
“They’re not on our property. The driver was hurt. The fellow named Raymond was fixing a tie rod.”
“Did the driver have a gunshot wound?”
“No, they were in a car accident.”
He had tied a napkin like a bib around his neck; he wiped his mouth with it and set down his oatmeal spoon. “Did those people threaten you?”
“The lady with strawberry-blond hair said my mother was going to come home and be okay. I think she’s a good person. Maybe they’ve already took off. They’re not out to cause us trouble.”