Cotton Song by Tom Bailey

Author:Tom Bailey [Bailey, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-49463-4
Publisher: Crown
Published: 2009-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

BABY SPENT THE rest of her Friday afternoon getting her paperwork caught up back at the Welfare Office in Eureka, although what she'd wanted to do more than anything was to go straight home and be with the girls. They would have to wait to spend the weekend together. After the week she'd had, Baby found herself woefully behind. But she was having trouble concentrating. Sally's folder sat on the edge of her desk and even while she focused on the file of the next case before her, she kept letting her eyes wander back to it. Baby finally gave in and opened Sally's folder again. She had typed Letitia Johnson under PARENTS and checked DECEASED in the box underneath it. Baby touched the mark she'd made. Not that she was worried about Sally in the care of Reverend Beasley and Victoria, but there was something. Something even beyond her continued concern for Sally's safety nagged at her. She broke into a cold sweat. She reached quickly for the handkerchief and pulled out the trash can from underneath her desk.

Baby sat back, patting her mouth. She closed her eyes and heard the train behind her. When she'd sent him packing, Gabe had taken the 9:15 that ran north, through Ruleton and Parchman on its way all the way up to Memphis. He'd left her their car; she had to have it for her job. The father gone. The mother left with child. Men! They's a caution—Ruthie's voice.

“The father,” Baby said and felt the dawning. Sally had a father. She had a father even if Letitia Johnson hadn't had a husband, even if another man had conceived Sally. Sally wasn't an orphan. Not officially. Not yet. Baby was the official! She had the final say. Baby wouldn't sign off on her case yet. Even though she believed she'd found a good home for her, Sally's circumstances remained alive to her in a way that Baby couldn't completely explain—in a way other cases of the orphaned children she handled hadn't, heartbreaking as they often were. She saw again the grainy newspaper photo of Letitia Johnson and the hats of the crowd tilted back looking up at what had been done to her—witnesses held unaccountable, accessories after the fact.

Guilty.

At forty-one, Baby had not chosen to be left alone pregnant with this baby growing in her womb, nor had Letitia Johnson chosen to leave her daughter on her own. She and Letitia Johnson remained connected. Sally was the living connection. Their children had fathers—accessories themselves. Baby could account for that! Alfonse, Sally had called the man her mama had loved. Bigger, she said. He'd been sent to Parchman Farm. Surely Jake Lemaster would know who he was. He wasn't the father, but he could be a father to her if he chose to be. Going by an outsized name like Bigger, he ought to be easy enough to find. Baby was a parole officer at the prison; perhaps she could expedite his release. At least she could look into it.

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