Page 131 of The Reformatory

“What do you mean ‘you’? We can get Robbie to Chicago.” Miz Lottie clicked on her turn signal, with its regimented rhythm matching Gloria’s heartbeat. Miz Lottie didn’t answer, so Gloria said, “You’re still coming to Chicago too, aren’t you?”

Miz Lottie sighed. “Pumpkin…”

Gloria felt as if she were melting through the truck’s warm floor to the road below. “You have to come! We’re all supposed to go together.”

“Gloria, you know how much I love Robbie, but he’s your responsibility now,” Miz Lottie said. “That’s what you told me that day you packed him up and moved back out to your cabin, ain’t it?”

“I didn’t mean that! I was just—”

“No, pumpkin, you was right,” Miz Lottie said. “Robbie is yours. And June and Waymon are grown, but they’re mine. I can’t jump on a train with no one left behind to see after them, make sure they get out in one piece. Besides… child… I don’t got but a few years left. No sense in me going up in all that cold when my life is here in Gracetown. That’s not so for you and Robbie. Your life is as far from this place as you can get, with your papa.”

Gloria knew better than to argue; if anything, Miz Lottie had never planned to take that train and leave behind the house she had stuffed with memories. And Gloria had worried that Miz Lottie might not be strong enough for the challenges of the trip—that moving away might cut her life short. But she might never see Miz Lottie again, an idea that hurt so much that she sobbed until she gasped for air.

“Let it out,” Miz Lottie finally said. “I already cried enough for the both of us. But when you’re through crying, we gotta go over the plan. We’ll get it just right for your brother.”

Gloria’s breath hitched as she wiped her face against her dress sleeve. “Do we have enough gas?” Gloria whispered. She couldn’t make out the gas gauge from her angle on the floor, but Miz Lottie’s truck usually hovered right near empty.

“That’s my girl,” Miz Lottie said, smiling down at her. She lurched to a stop at a traffic sign, flinging Gloria back against her door. “Filled up Ole Suzy last night.”

The Hatchetts sent a traveling suit for Robbie that looked fresh-bought, just his size.

Since all of his other clothes had burned with the cabin, Gloria just packed his new suit, an old pair of Waymon’s dungarees that might fit him if he rolled up the cuffs, and a faded mill shirt Miz Lottie thought might have belonged to Papa. It wasn’t much to begin a new life.

Once the suitcase with their meager belongings was safely stored under the tarp in the bed of the truck, Gloria set her attention on ways she could be helpful to Miz Lottie: washing and drying her dishes, cleaning old food out of her icebox, pinning her laundry on the clothesline…

When she’d lived at Miz Lottie’s house while she was working for Miss Anne, her days had felt like one long set of chores. Miz Lottie rarely asked for help, but Gloria had never been able to stand spending so much effort making Miss Anne’s life easier while Miz Lottie had no one to help her. Waymon and Uncle June were good about fixing whatever was broken, but Miz Lottie did her own cooking and washing, although it took her more time and forced her to spend long parts of her day dozing. If Uncle June and Waymon got sent to Raiford for a long prison sentence, Miz Lottie’s life would be twice as hard.

But the plan was set, so there was nothing left to talk about. Miz Lottie’s kitchen radio played Fibber McGee and Molly while Miz Lottie shook chicken pieces in flour and seasoning in a paper bag before putting them in a skillet to fry. Gloria watched her at every stage, memorizing the amount of flour, how much salt and pepper, the dusting of paprika. Miz Lottie had never written a recipe down for her, but Gloria wanted to remember them all. Gloria savored the scent of the grease as it heated. Only then did it dawn on her that Miz Lottie’s kitchen was her favorite place left standing in the world.

They would not head out to the railroad trestle so early that they would be more likely to be spotted before Robbie made it to them, but they could not arrive too late, when he might have dogs and guards at his heels. Five o’clock, they had decided. They would make sure the burners were off and the curtains were drawn and they would drive out to the old railroad trestle that stood over the creek near the county line to wait. The time was six hours away when they set it, but the day whittled away an hour at a time until it was only four hours, and then three.

For now, grease from the skillet was popping halfway to the ceiling and Miz Lottie was laughing at Fibber McGee and Molly fussing on the radio and Gloria was torn between her eagerness to rescue Robbie and her wish that she could root time still, each drive equal and ferocious inside of her, slowly sawing her to the bone.

36

4:30 p.m.

Henry Jackson came moaning back to the spot where Boone put his powder down like it was nothing, a further insult after Thursday’s failure in front of Warden Haddock. After Boone had carefully swept up his ashes, he looked back at Robert as if to say, Too bad you couldn’t do that yesterday, and Robert wanted to kick him. No one else witnessed the appearance of the ash hill, not even the boys at the butcher’s. Robert missed Redbone so much that his insides ached. He hid tears while he replaced the lace of his boot, yanking it tight.

His boots would need to be tight for running. The boots from Papa.

Boone didn’t ask about putting down dust where Redbone had died, although maybe he had already tried on his own. Redbone hadn’t been a haint yet when he was in the Box, so it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, and at least Redbone was safe from Boone’s traps in Robert’s dreams. But Boone said Robert could spend the rest of the day hunting for haints if he wanted to, so Robert walked back and forth across the campus making sure everyone saw him in case Haddock asked about him later. He passed the schoolhouse where Owl and other boys from the dorm were copying from the chalkboard, and Owl smiled at him through the window. He passed the doorway of the band room, where he saw Mrs. Hamilton writing music on the chalkboard, and he only said “Fine!” when she asked how he was doing before he hurried away because he didn’t want her to see his escape plan in his mind. He was proud of himself for never telling her, although he had wanted to—but Gloria would have been so disappointed. Besides, he’d told Redbone and then Redbone had died, so telling was bad luck.

He was too close now for mistakes.

The dormitory was mostly empty and unlocked during the day, except for a couple of boys who had earned privileges in the rec room, so Robert snuck into the locker room to organize his supplies. He found a small satchel in a locker piled with junk at the far end, which seemed fine except for a small tear in the corner. Blue must have known it was there.

When Robert opened his own locker to stash the satchel until later, he found a drawing on a sheet of paper: Redbone! The likeness was so good that Robert recognized him from the part in his hair and the tip of his nose. The goofy grin on his face captured him too. At first he thought Blue might have drawn it, but it must have been Owl. A cloud sketched behind Redbone’s head implied that he was in heaven—but Owl didn’t know about haints. Robert slipped the drawing into his satchel and hoped it wouldn’t wrinkle too much. Now he could show Gloria a picture of his friend. Owl rarely spoke, but that boy could draw! Maybe if the Reformatory shut down, Owl might get out and be a famous artist one day before somebody beat him too bad and broke his drawing hand, or just broke the part of him that liked drawing.

He checked for the jar of Vaseline he’d hidden at the rear of his locker, under his tie, and found it untouched. The jar might fall through the hole in the satchel, so he would stuff that in his pocket instead. He would need it when he got out of Haddock’s office, crouching in the bushes. All over, even your hair, Gloria had said. Redbone had said the dogs would chase him, but that didn’t mean they would find him. His uncle June had been a soldier for real. He had help from the living, not just the dead.

When Robert heard footsteps in the hallway, he slammed his locker shut—too loudly.

Since it didn’t have a lock, the door flew back and almost hit him. He was pushing it closed tight again when he heard boys’ voices passing in the hall. No one stopped. No one noticed him.

No one knew.

“Blue?” he whispered. “What time you gonna set the kitchen fire?”