Pungo Creek was encircled by Carolina Pines. They had shown up clearly in the background of the black and white picture. That photograph of a little barefooted girl in a skiff had nearly convinced her to put everything else aside and go back home. But she hadn’t gone. Trees don’t change. But the little girl had changed. She looked sad and lonely. Nothing like the lively child that Pearl remembered.
When Pearl had lived on Pungo Creek, she’d hardly noticed the pine trees, except the one that stood between her yard and the old abandoned graveyard. She had noticed it because she was afraid the roots of that pine tree could grow down into the coffins that were buried six feet under the earth, beneath the nameless markers. She knew they were exactly six feet under ground because that’s what her Mama always said. “I won’t get my rest until they put me six feet under.” How did they come up with six feet? Why not five feet or seven feet? Did the gravediggers need to measure or did the just dig to six feet automatically? There were mimosa trees by the creek bank. Their roots were visible, snaking down into the clay and then coming out again lower where they struggled to reach down into Pungo Creek. She had left her baby under one of those mimosa trees.
She’d reread her niece’s letter so many times that it was beginning to tatter. Clara had printed it carefully on the wide-ruled paper. The well-formed letters marched across the page carrying with them misery and despair.
Didn’t it make perfect sense that her own tormentor would sire a child who would continue the abuse? Didn’t it make sense that no one would notice what he was doing to the girl or, if they did notice, pretend to ignore it? Hadn’t Pearl convinced herself the letter was just the ploy of a lonely little girl hoping to bring her aunt to Pungo Creek? But now she knew it had all been true.
Pearl pulled the Studebaker over to the side of the road and picked up the letter that rested on the passenger seat. She read for the hundredth time the sentence that had almost persuaded her she should make the most difficult trip of her life.
“Aunt Pearl, please come down here and make Jess stop hurting me. I am a good girl but he is doing bad things to me and I don’t know how to make him stop. I think he killed Kate. Nobody believes me.”
She crumpled the letter. A flood of emotions washed over her. Anger at Rose for neglecting and abusing her daughters. Rage at Benjamin and the son that had followed in his footsteps. Disbelief that everyone had allowed a murderer to go unpunished. Shame that she had stayed away so long, condemning Clara to a destiny she could have prevented if only she had not allowed her shame to paralyze her.
She wiped her eyes, reapplied her lipstick and drove the last hundred yards.
The first thing Pearl did when she got to the house was to walk down to the creek. The mimosa tree was still there. She noticed an old dead tree root just where the water lapped the shore. The bottom was sandy. Blue crabs and minnows scurried and swam around the stump. It might have been the roots of an old pine tree. It was hard to identify roots without the rest of the tree attached. Pearl walked out into the creek. She was careful not to stub her toes on the roots. She also watched out for the crabs. She’d been bitten more than once as she caught them in a dip net or on a line with a chicken neck tied to it.
The memories that washed over Pearl were interrupted by excited squeals from the porch. Ivy had spotted her pink Studebaker with her red-plaid zipped overnight case sitting on the back seat.
Ivy appeared healthy and well nourished. Her sausage legs protruded from a pair of very unbecoming plaid shorts as she raced across the yard toward Pearl’s outstretched arms. Ivy may have been smiling but the little girl’s eyes were sad and old.
“You came. Oh, Aunt Pearl! You came. I knew you would.” Her words were muffled because her face was burrowed between Pearl’s breasts, her arms clasped tightly around her waist.
“Do you remember me, Ivy?”
“Of course I remember you. You lived in our house when I was little. Clara talked about you all the time.”
She allowed Ivy to take her hand and lead her into the little house that held so many memories. She warned Ivy that her visit would be short “I just came down for Clara’s burial. I need to go back home right after. You understand that, don’t you honey?”
Ivy nodded, but she didn’t understand.
Sarah met them at the door. “I’m glad you came, Pearl. Rose needs you.”
“Where is she?”
Sarah nodded toward the closed bedroom door. “She’s been in there since she and Benjamin brought the body back.”
“No, Sarah. Where is Clara?”
“They took her to Poole’s Funeral Home.”
“Ivy, I need to take a ride into Belhaven. You stay here with Aunt Sarah and help her get things ready.”
Ivy protested but Sarah put her arm around her. “Come on honey. You can help me pick some flowers to take to your sister.” Sarah went to the living room and came back with a package.
“Take this, Pearl. It was her favorite dress. I made it for her.”
Pearl went straight to the funeral home. She and Charlie Poole had known each other since they were children so he didn’t argue when she told him that she was there to fix Clara’s hair. He led her into the room where her niece was laid out on a table.
“I guess it’s time to tackle your head, Clara. You were right. Your Mama sure made a mess of your hair, but I think I can fix it.” She combed and trimmed her niece’s hair. Evened out the bangs. Massaged in some Suave. She leaned close to Clara as she worked. If Clara had been alive she would have breathed in her Aunt’s scents. There was Evening in Paris perfume. Max Factor pancake makeup. Hairspray. Coffee. Wrigley’s spearmint chewing gum. But Clara’s breathing days were behind her. When she was finished Pearl held a mirror before Clara’s face. “See, honey? Good as new.” Charlie Poole watched sadly from the other side of the room as Pearl dressed her niece for burial.
When Pearl got home, Rose was still locked in her bedroom. “Ivy, honey, why don’t you show me Aunt Sarah’s flowers.” They walked together to the side yard and stood silently for a moment admiring Sarah’s flower garden. Pearl broke the silence. “Aunt Sarah sure has a green thumb. These flowers are just beautiful. I remember when I was your age she had a garden just like this.”
“Aunt Pearl, can I go home with you?”
“Honey, I would like nothing more in this world than to carry you home with me, but I can’t do that.”
“Why not? Why can’t you?”
“Because this is your home. Your Mama and your baby sister are here. They are your family, honey. You belong with them.” Pearl tried to make herself sound convincing even though she wanted nothing more than to whisk her niece away with her.
“Mama doesn’t love me, Aunt Pearl. She doesn’t love me at all. She despises me. She said so. I just hate it here. I hate it. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Honey. I do know what it’s like. But you just have to think about happy things. You can get through this just like I did.”
Ivy turned away from her aunt. “What if Jess starts doing the bad things to me that he did to Clara? What do I do then?”
“How do you know what he did?”
“I heard her tell Mama. Mama slapped her and told her she was a little strumpet and a boy don’t do nothing that a girl don’t let him do.” Ivy was crying now. She dropped the flowers she had picked and ran toward the house. Pearl followed her, trying desperately to think of the right thing to do.
Later Ivy watched patiently while Pearl trimmed her Aunt Sarah’s hair. While she was working, Rose came into the kitchen and sat down at the table. When Pearl finished with Sarah she turned to Rose. “Come take a walk with me. We need to talk.”
They walked down to the creek.
“Rose? Did you know that Benjamin’s boy…” she paused, struggling for the right word. “Did you know he was molesting Clara?”
“What in the hell are you talking about? Pearl, you ain’t going to walk into my house after all this time and start that crap, are you? Ain’t it enough you just about tore this family apart with your notions about what Benjamin did to you?
“Notions? Rose, for God’s sake! Our brother raped me. I didn’t imagine it. That baby I buried under that mimosa tree over there is not a “notion”.
“He’s your brother, Pearl. I don’t know what went on between the two of you back then, but he is your brother and that’s all ancient history as far as I’m concerned.” She turned and walked back toward the house “Sure you don’t want a drink, Pearl? You look like you could use one.”
“Rose, it isn’t ancient history. It happened again. It happened to Clara.”
“Who told you that?”
“Clara wrote me a letter before she died.”
“She lied.”
“She didn’t lie. She was your daughter and you should have protected her.”
“Don’t tell me what I should have done, Miss High and Mighty. You made a mistake coming down here, Pearl. I’m not going to let you stir things up.”
“Then let me take Ivy back with me.”
“No way in hell you’re taking my daughter. You always thought you were better than me, but that never kept you from trying to take what was mine. You tried to take my husband. If you try to take my daughter, I’ll kill both of you.”
* * *
The little church in Sidney was full. Reverend Linton had tears in his eyes as he read from Lamentations: “...The joy of our heart has ceased. Our dance has turned into mourning. The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned! Because of this our heart is faint. Because of these things our eyes grow dim.”
After the service, Benjamin and Jess walked to the front of the church followed by the other pallbearers. They carried Clara’s casket the short distance to the adjoining cemetery. Rose walked behind them. The others fell in a line behind her. She walked unsteadily to the place where her daughter would be laid to rest; past the spot where Kate had been buried so recently that grass had not yet grown on her grave.
Sarah walked beside Pearl. “It’s a hard thing to bury children.”
Pearl slept in Clara’s bed that night. Her smell lingered on the sheets long after Ivy stood in the middle of the dirt road and watched the back of her aunt’s Studebaker disappear in the dust.
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