“Yes, sir,” I manage to croak out.
A customer solicits Robby’s help, and he finishes wrapping my cord in paper. “Remember what I said about things coming together.”
I gulp down the lump in my throat. “Thank you, Robby.”
* * *
—
BY THE TIME I slog home, a reluctant sun has begun to coax life back into the streets. I try to hold on to my anger at Old Gin, but it is as slippery as a fish. All this time, I have had family by my side. Memories of Old Gin flood my mind, the years of patient instruction on discarded newspapers and paper cartons. Old Gin wasn’t just teaching me out of duty, but devotion. Why would he not tell me that he was my grandfather? Probably he knew I would ask too many questions, making it harder to keep the secret about my parents.
I slip carefully into the tree entrance and close the door behind me. In the basement, I step out of my boots and pull the pins from my hair, which weighs too heavily on my head. With a piece of chalk, I write the word glockenspiel on my wall before I forget it and, for comfort, unplug the listening tube.
Hearing nothing, I move to the stove. While I fill the tinderbox with newspaper, a draft from the barn entrance blows at my face. My pulse begins to trot. It is too early for Old Gin to return.
Someone is here.
Thirty-Four
I drop the kindling, scattering branches on the floor. My eyes rummage the room for our new hand ax, trying to shake off my panic.
If trouble’s coming through the barn door, I’m not running to meet it. I hurry down the western corridor to the tree exit and am soon gulping in cold Atlanta air.
But now what?
Scaredy-cat. Perhaps it was an animal. Though no animal I know can open a trapdoor, except perhaps a bear, and I’ve never seen a bear in Atlanta or anywhere.
Well, I’m not staying in this tree. Branches grab me as I dislodge myself less gracefully than usual, then casually walk toward the street. For the first time, I actually hope to see people. A pair of women with baby strollers shriek when they see me and hurry their strollers away. I must look like a demon spat up from hell, unshod, my hair like a monsoon on my head, and wielding an ax, no less. I would run from me, too.
My teeth chatter. I need to get ahold of myself. Hammer Foot would hate to see me this way—afraid, and worse, stirring up fear in people around me. I quickly twist my hair into a knot, and then tuck the ax under my arm. My socks have grown soggy with dew and make sucking sounds as I walk.
After a few more aimless paces, my fear ebbs away. The basement is our home. I might have lost my job today, not to mention my belief in the steadfast nature of motherly love, but I shall not give up my home without a fight.
I shin around to the barn entrance, the sharp gravel picking up my feet.
Hiding behind a snaggle of pine trees, I watch the abandoned barn for movement. The exterior warns people away with its blackened walls, only half standing, and caved-in roof. A margin of thistle provides a further deterrent, if you don’t note the spaces to place your feet. Inside the barn, however, the beams are solid and dry, the rotting wood long ago carted away.
Our interloper was probably a drunk making himself at home inside the horse stall, somehow finding the concealed pull that unlocks the trapdoor. Just because it never happened before doesn’t mean it couldn’t. If I make profits from the knots, I shall buy a real lock. Maybe one day, a home with a real locking door.
Mustering my courage, I tiptoe to the entrance.
A moan breaks through the hush. Blood spatters the earth, like rubies on dirt.
From the stall with our trapdoor, two skinny legs stick out. One foot is missing a boot, its flannel-reinforced sole twitching like a half-dead fish.
I rush into the barn. “Old Gin!” I cry.
The trapdoor is open, but he could not climb down into it. I bend over his crumpled form. Blood leaks from his mouth, and red bruises puff out on his face. “Who did this to you?”
“The turtle egg,” he spits. “His man caught me on walk home.”
“Knucks.”
Old Gin nods. He glances at an empty green bottle lying a few feet from his head. “He gave me that.”
I set down the ax and pick it up. Pendergrass’s Long-Life Elixir.
All feeling drains out of me, except guilt, whose sharp points stab me from all angles. Billy figured out that I double-crossed him. All this over a fifty-cent bottle of barley water. I think back to the day he asked me who the most important person in the world to me is. Now I realize why. I bite back angry tears. “Coward. Beating up an old, defenseless man.”
Old Gin grimaces. “Not so defenseless. You should see him.”
Despite his words, he is panting, and one eye oozes tears and blood.
“It’s my fault. I wanted to know more about Shang. I’m sorry.”
His good eye dribbles over me and my ax. “When you go to chop wood, please remember shoes, hm?”
“Where does it hurt?”
“Who says it hurts?”
I hiss in exasperation.
“Rib might be cracked,” he concedes. “Maybe a few other things.” He clicks his tongue at the tears spilling over my cheeks.
Pull it together! Old Gin needs me. I dash back into our basement to fetch clean water for his thirst and rags for his wounds. With cooled barley tea, I make a compress for his injured eye and then pick debris from his wounds. Fresh tears spill out again when I view the state of his torso. Bruises cover every bit of his skin in even patterns of four, marking each blow of Knucks’s brass knuckles. Old Gin has grown so thin, his ribs stick out like a pair of open shutters.
I apply more barley-tea compresses to his bruises, wishing we had pepper. Noemi said pepper solves a lot of problems you don’t expect it to, including bruises. He winces as I wash his bloodied knuckles. Perhaps he did manage to inflict some damage.
“Mr. Buxbaum told me about Shang. Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
He sighs, an invisible thing more felt than seen, like water. “Some burdens are too heavy for young shoulders.”
“Did he know about me?”
“No. That letter was the last he heard from your mother before she left for Savannah.” His voice has dropped to a hush. “I’m sorry for bringing you back. I wished for a bond between sisters, one that could outlast parents.”
Caroline’s shocked expression materializes before me, lit by the faintest glimmer of understanding. Old Gin’s eyes flutter closed.
“Grandfather,” I call, feeling the cold finger of fear press against my heart. “Wake up.”