The First Lie Read online

  Mary Ella suddenly squeezed her eyes shut and let out a scream like somebody stuck her with a knife.

  “Oh, Lord!” Nonnie said, smoothing Mary Ella’s hair back from her forehead. “You poor, poor baby!”

  As terrible as the scream was, I was so glad to hear it. She was alive! I wanted to hug her and kiss her cheeks, but she would of thought I’d lost my mind.

  We pulled into the hospital parking lot and stopped right under the emergency sign. Eli got out of the cab and jumped into the truck bed to lift Mary Ella into his arms again. He climbed out of the truck, fast but careful. Me and him and Nonnie was walking to the entrance when a nurse came out of the building pushing a wheelchair. She stopped when she saw Eli.

  “You can’t come in here, boy,” she said.

  He nodded like that was no surprise and set Mary Ella, moaning and scared looking, down in the wheelchair.

  Nonnie turned to Eli. “You better pray to God she’s okay,” she snapped.

  Eli shrugged and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Don’t seem like God’s done much for her so far,” he said, and I thought Nonnie would of hit him if he hadn’t turned so fast to go back to the truck.

  * * *

  They put me and Nonnie in a waiting room. We felt right out of place sitting there with three men who was waiting for their babies to be born. One of them read a book, one flipped the pages of a Life magazine, and the third just sat and stared into space. Me and Nonnie didn’t say a word to each other. She pretended like she was looking at a Good Housekeeping, but I knew she wasn’t seeing nothing on the pages. I didn’t even bother pretending. I was too nervous about what was happening on the other side of the waiting room door.

  I felt like I already knew what Nonnie didn’t know: Mary Ella’s baby wasn’t going to make it. My eyes kept filling up with tears while we sat there and I brushed them away as quiet as I could because I didn’t want her to see.

  After a long while, a doctor came through the door wearing a white coat and a big smile. He walked straight over to the man who was reading the book and held out his hand.

  “You have a fine son!” He pumped the man’s hand up and down.

  “A son!” The man jumped to his feet. “Finally!”

  “Everyone’s doing well,” the doctor said. “You can see your baby in the nursery in a few minutes.”

  The man grinned as he watched the doctor leave the room. Then he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a handful of cigars. It was just like you always hear about. He handed the cigars to the other two men in the room and they told him, “Congratulations!” Then he turned toward me and Nonnie. He looked straight through us like we wasn’t there. His smile disappeared for a minute, but he was whistling as he walked out of the room.

  “Guess we don’t get no cigar,” Nonnie muttered so only I could hear.

  I didn’t say nothing. Inside my head, though, I was plenty busy. I was praying to God to let my sister live.

  After a while, a nurse came into the room and walked over to us. I could tell she wasn’t going to make no big loud announcement like the doctor done with the cigar man, and I tensed up. She sat in the chair next to Nonnie and leaned close.

  “She had a boy,” she said. “She had a difficult time and lost a lot of blood, but she’s going to be okay.”

  Nonnie closed her eyes. “Thank you, Jesus,” she said.

  I clutched the arms of my chair. “The baby—?” I asked.

  “He’s doing just fine.” She smiled.

  I could hardly believe it! Nonnie grabbed my hand and squeezed it. It felt like the happiest moment we had in a long time.

  “Did they take out her appendix?” I asked.

  The nurse raised her eyebrows at Nonnie, who nodded like she was giving permission to talk to me.

  “Not yet, honey,” the nurse said. “They’ll do that later today or maybe tomorrow.”

  “But it could bust!” I said.

  She chuckled, winking at Nonnie. “I promise you we’ll keep an eye on it,” she said, like it was no big deal. Then she turned all serious. “Is your granddaughter keeping the baby?” she asked Nonnie.

  Nonnie looked shocked by the question. “Of course!” she said.

  “You want to see him, then?” the nurse asked. “The girl’s still asleep, but the baby’s in the nursery.”

  Nonnie hesitated so long, I had to answer for us. “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “We want to see him.”

  We followed her down a long hallway to where some windows was cut into the wall. The man with the cigars stood there, puffing away, grinning. “That’s my son there.” He pointed through the glass. There was a bunch of little metal cribs in the room and I followed his finger to a baby I could hardly see, he was in a crib so far from the window. “He’s cute,” I said, trying to be polite, but I hardly noticed his baby. I was too busy looking for ours.

  The nurse went into the nursery and put a white mask over her face. She reached into one of the cribs, lifted a tiny bundle into her arms, and brung him over to the window. I couldn’t get a real good look at him, he was so bundled up, but I could see his face was pink and his head was covered with lots of dark curls. I forgot all about worrying what color he was. He was the cutest baby ever. That was all I saw. The cutest baby ever.

  I looked at Nonnie and she was smiling wider than I ever seen before. She pressed her hand to the window, her lower lip shivering and her eyes filling up. She could surprise me sometimes. She acted mean, but maybe she was just scared. Scared this new baby would be half colored and no one would want it around. Scared we’d get kicked out of our house and have nowhere to live. Scared, like I was, that Mary Ella would die.

  “Well,” she said after looking at him for a minute, “I reckon I ain’t never seen a baby so handsome.”

  * * *

  Five whole days passed before Mary Ella came home, on account of her losing a lot of blood. They even had to give her somebody else’s blood, but the doctor said she’d be fine. She was alive; that was the important thing. I couldn’t wait to see the baby again. I hadn’t seen him since that first day in the nursery when all I got was a peek. Nonnie’d seen him again when he was three days old, though. She got a ride to the hospital from one of her old church friends while I was at school.

  “What’s he look like now?” I’d asked when I got home from school that afternoon. She was scrubbing the kitchen counter and I watched her face carefully for the answer.

  “Like a baby,” she said. Scrub, scrub.

  “Did they take a picture?” One of my friends said the hospital always took pictures of new babies.

  “They don’t take no pictures of bastard babies,” Nonnie said, working the sponge into the corner.

  I wasn’t sure what that word meant but I knew it wasn’t good. I worried it was another word for Negro. The same friend who told me about the pictures also told me colored babies could come out light and then darken up. “But,” I said to Nonnie, “you saw him, right?”

  “Of course I saw him.” She was in a right awful mood and she went on talking, but not really to me. “More curly black hair than a baby has a right to, but he’s okay. Ain’t nobody going to know.”

  “We don’t even know, Nonnie,” I said, trying to get her to look at me. “It might not of been … what you’re thinking.”

  She glanced up from the counter to give me a look like I was living in a fairy tale, then went on with her work. “She named him William. You know anybody with that name?”

  I thought about it. There was a real short boy named Bill in my class at school, but I was a thousand percent sure he didn’t have nothing to do with Mary Ella’s baby. I thought of all the day laborers Mr. Gardiner brung into the fields over the last year. I didn’t know most of their names. Any one of them could be a William.

  “I don’t know no William,” I said. “Maybe she just likes that name.”

  * * *

  The day Mary Ella was coming home, I tried to fix up the bedroom real nice
for her. Eli’s mama, Lita, had a baby last year and she brung over a bassinet she didn’t need no more and I made it up with little sheets and blankets Mrs. Werkman brung us, then set it up next to Mary Ella’s side of the bed. I’d washed our own sheets and then worried they’d freeze on the line, it was so cold out. My hands went numb making up the bed with them. I hoped they’d warm up some before Mary Ella got home.

  I put away all the baby clothes Mrs. Werkman brung us and all the little diapers and pins that had blue and yellow ducks on them. That was my favorite thing, them little ducks. She brung us bottles and formula and a big box of sanitary napkins. She said Mary Ella would need a lot of them when she got home. I was only getting used to using them things myself, since I just started my monthlies around Christmas. I wouldn’t of known what was happening if I didn’t have an older sister. Not that Mary Ella exactly explained it to me, but I knew how every month she used them napkins. At least, until the month she didn’t need them no more. That’s when Nonnie figured out she was going to have a baby.

  “You go wait by the road now,” Nonnie said after we fixed the house up as good as we could. “They’ll need help coming through the woods, what with Mary Ella still healing up and trying to carry a baby.”

  I walked through the woods, feeling excited. I knew it was a terrible thing, Mary Ella having a baby, but we needed something good to happen in our lives and a little kid was always a good thing.

  I sat down on the scrubby dirt at the end of Deaf Mule Road, right near the spot Mrs. Werkman always parked her car when she came to see us. I could feel the cold ground through my dungarees and I buttoned Daddy’s coat up to my neck. I looked out over the fields. It wouldn’t be long before we’d all be working out there again, getting the earth ready for the tobacco plants. I hoped Mary Ella could still help even though she had a baby to watch over.

  From where I sat, I could see the Gardiners’ house down the road, Henry Allen’s bicycle leaning against the tree in the side yard. On the school bus that morning, he said he talked Desiree into getting rid of the Ouija board.

  “You told her we used it?” I asked, shocked.

  “Nah,” he said. “I couldn’t tell her I took it. I just told her a friend used one and let a spirit loose and he’s had no end of bad luck since. House burned down. Father died. Dog got run over.” He laughed. “I almost overdone it,” he said. “But her eyes got big and she said she was going to get rid of that thing. She always knew Lucifer was inside it, she said. I don’t know what she done with it, but it’s gone. I checked when she was hanging up the wash.”

  “Good riddance,” I’d said. I knew he was still shook up about what happened in the church, but I wasn’t afraid of Ruby no more. Mary Ella and her baby was both alive, and whoever Ruby was, she was dead and gone.

  * * *

  I must of sat there a half hour before I saw Mrs. Werkman’s car coming down the road in a cloud of dust. I got to my feet and brushed off the back of my coat and my dungarees. Mrs. Werkman stopped the car close to me and got out.

  “Happy to see you here, Ivy,” she said. Even though her car was a dusty mess, Mrs. Werkman always looked perfect. She had real pale-colored hair tied back at her neck and she wore pants, but they was always clean and pressed. Nonnie said she looked like a movie star. She was probably the same age my mama would be by now, though I had the feeling my mama, locked up in a mental hospital, didn’t look like no movie star.

  I took a few steps toward the car, weeds crackling beneath my feet. I couldn’t see Mary Ella real good behind the window.

  “You can carry William while I help your sister,” Mrs. Werkman said. “She’s still a bit sore.” She opened the door and I watched Mary Ella turn her body carefully till her feet was on the ground. The baby was in her arms and before she stood up, she pressed her cheek to his little forehead. I’d never seen that softness in her before. That love. I could feel the power of it. I didn’t know this new part of my sister, but it choked me up.

  “Hey, Mary Ella,” I said. “Glad you’re home.”

  She raised her head from her baby to look at me. Her face was whiter than I’d ever seen it. White as bone. It gave me a chill, but then she smiled the most beautiful smile ever. “You want to get a look at him?” she asked.

  I nodded, and she moved aside the blanket where it covered his face. His eyes blinked open, squinting a little, and I figured the sun was too bright for him. He had really long black eyelashes that was stuck together in little points, like he’d been crying. “I ain’t never seen nothing so tiny,” I said. He didn’t look a thing like Mary Ella, but he didn’t make me think of Eli either. He didn’t make me think of nobody I knew and that was a good thing. He’d just be his own little self.

  “Give him to Ivy to carry, Mary Ella,” Mrs. Werkman said. She’d strung the old clothespin bag over her shoulder along with her purse.

  I reached toward Mary Ella and for a moment I thought she wasn’t going to hand him over, but then she set him softly in my arms. He weighed next to nothing and the clean smell of him filled me up.

  Mary Ella leaned on Mrs. Werkman’s arm and we walked real slow and careful through the woods. I watched out for roots and stones on the path, not wanting to fall with that sweet bundle in my arms.

  Nonnie stood on our porch in her raggedy old housedress, but she’d put her pink “special occasion” sweater over her apron. She looked right old standing there, hugging her arms because of the chill, or maybe because of nerves. All morning she’d been fretting about how long it’d been since she took care of a baby.

  “He’s so perfect, Nonnie,” I said when I got near the porch, but I kept my voice hushed. I didn’t want to stir him up when he was being so good. I wanted her to love him.

  * * *

  Mrs. Werkman helped us get settled in. She made everything smooth and easy and I was nervous about her leaving. Mary Ella sat on the sofa to give William—she called him Baby William—a bottle, while me and Nonnie and Mrs. Werkman sat nearby, watching like we was seeing the most amazing thing in the world. To me, it really was. My sister a mama. It was hard to believe.

  Mary Ella was real tired, though, and after she fed him, we put her to bed on those fresh sheets that had warmed up good.

  “Remember you have to eat, Mary Ella,” Mrs. Werkman said from the foot of the bed as Nonnie raised the blanket to Mary Ella’s chin.

  I didn’t think my sister even heard her. She was too busy watching me tuck William into his bassinet.

  “I’ll make sure Nurse Ann stops by in the next day or so to check on William and take a look at your incision,” Mrs. Werkman said to Mary Ella. She let go of the footboard and turned to the door. “She can take the stitches out when it’s time,” she added.

  “It’d be good if she could come tomorrow,” Nonnie said as she followed Mrs. Werkman out of the room.

  I sat down on the bed facing my sister. I wanted to tell her I was happy she was healthy and had a perfect baby, but me and Mary Ella didn’t talk that way to each other, so I just smiled at her and she smiled back with her nearly white lips. I wondered how long it would take to get her blood built back up. I didn’t know if it was the appendix operation or having the baby that made her go white like that. Probably both.

  Then I asked her the question I couldn’t figure out no matter how I tried or how many times I asked Nonnie about it.

  “How did Mrs. Werkman know you needed your ’pendix out?” I asked. “Did you tell her it was hurting you?” Mary Ella must of been so scared when she found out her appendix was sick. She knew all about that girl at our school who died when her appendix burst.

  Mary Ella lowered the blanket and lifted her nightgown so I could see where the doctor cut her. It was a puckery-looking line by her belly button, and it was sewed up with black thread that stuck up at the end. “It didn’t hurt me at all,” she said. “Mrs. Werkman just knew somehow.”

  I admired Mrs. Werkman so much. “I think she saved your life,” I said.

>   Mary Ella nodded. “She’s like God,” she said. “God’s the only one who knows things like that.” She shut her eyes and I knew she would fall asleep any minute. I leaned over and wrapped one of her crazy curls around my finger. “I’m glad you’re still here, Mary Ella,” I whispered.

  She smiled but kept her eyes shut. “I got the most beautiful baby,” she said.

  “Yes, you do,” I said.

  I sat with her and the baby until I was sure they was both asleep. Our bedroom door never quite shut all the way and I could hear Nonnie and Mrs. Werkman talking by the front door as I pulled down the shades at the windows and started to leave the room. My hand was on the doorknob when something made me stop moving, and I stood there listening to them through the crack in the door.

  “And I know you feel overwhelmed right now with a new baby to look after,” Mrs. Werkman was saying. From the sound of her voice, I thought she was halfway out the door already. I couldn’t quite make out what Nonnie said back to her. It sounded more like a mutter than actual words.

  “Well,” Mrs. Werkman said, “Mary Ella will be up and around and able to take over much of the care soon enough.”

  “Oh, she don’t know nothing about taking care of a baby,” Nonnie said.

  “Nurse Ann can teach her what she needs to know,” Mrs. Werkman said. “And the best part is, you won’t ever need to worry about this happening to her again. I’m sure that’s a relief.”

  “Thank the good Lord for that!” Nonnie said.

  They was crazy if they thought this could never happen to Mary Ella again. Not unless they locked her up.

  “I’m sure Ivy will help out, too,” Mrs. Werkman said.

  “Ha!” Nonnie snorted. “That one’s a baby herself. Ornery. Does whatever she wants. She just makes more work for me.”

  My cheeks burned. Was I that useless? I thought of all the nights I snuck out with Henry Allen doing stupid things like messing with the Ouija board or riding our bikes through the woods pretending we was cowboys.