The Sisterhood of Blackberry Corner by Andrea Smith

Author:Andrea Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780440337096
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-07-31T04:00:00+00:00

PART III

NINE

Canaan Creek, 1986

“Mrs. Wilder?” The bass in his voice seemed to make the phone receiver vibrate. “Bonnie Wilder?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Joseph Randall, ma’am. Augusta, my wife, wrote you a letter a few weeks back.”

Bonnie sat in the seat beside the window. It had been a month since she had heard from Augusta. Bonnie had hoped that the girl had abandoned her search and moved on with her life.

“Yes,” Bonnie said. “Has she…have the two of you had yo’ baby yet?”

“She’s only in the second trimester,” he replied.

“I see,” Bonnie said. “What can I do fo’ you, young man?”

Joseph Randall sighed. In the static that crackled on the line, Bonnie could feel his frustration. She had heard it in Naz more than a few times: the frustration of trying to live with a determined woman.

“When Gussie contacted you a few weeks back…”

“Yes?”

“I can’t tell you the…courage it took for her to actually call you. And she’s as tenacious as most…” Joseph Randall sounded like a man who kept his head in books—big, brown, musty books that made no sense to most folks. “I adore my wife,” he went on, “but since I first met her, back in college, there’s always been a piece missing from her life. Not a large piece, and, to me, not an essential one,” he quickly added, “but as the years go on, it just grows bigger and bigger. And I know it has everything to do with her mother.”

“I’m sorry?”

“She’s strong, Mrs. Wilder,” he said. “But just like anything else, not knowing is worse than finding out something she might not like.”

Bonnie looked out of the window toward the woods. She noticed that the blackberry bushes were bare and the bramble filled with tiny thorns.

“Did you hear me, Mrs. Wilder?” Joseph Randall asked.

“Yes.”

“Ma’am, if you know anything about her birth mother, please tell her. I’d love for Gussie to be a full and confident mother to our child…please.”

“Mr. Randall,” Bonnie started, “I’m afraid that I can’t help her.”

“Tell her something,” he said. “A nice little story about a nice little lady that brought you a nice little baby girl. Just tell her something.”

“I ain’t in the habit of lyin’, Mr. Randall.”

“Then tell her the truth!” Bonnie could hear that he was beginning to lose his patience. “That’s the point, ma’am. I don’t have a problem with the truth and neither does Gussie.”

Naz had claimed that Bonnie was selfish. He contended that taking in the babies had more to do with filling something inside of her than it did with helping the children. Maybe not talking to Augusta had more to do with Bonnie herself, than sparing the girl any pain.

“Have her call me,” Bonnie said.

“You’ll talk to her?”

“I suppose…”

His voice elevated. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “She’ll call. And thank you, Mrs. Wilder. Thanks a lot.”

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