The Gods of Green County by Mary Elizabeth Pope

Author:Mary Elizabeth Pope
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blair
Published: 2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The next morning, Little Earl and me made the long drive to Little Rock. We had to check in and wait, and the longer I sat there, the more nervous I got. Finally a nurse named Miss Etta came to get us and walked us outside, down the sidewalk to the building where they were keeping Coralee. It was a pretty place. Trees and grass and nice brick buildings, and as we walked I began to feel hopeful that all this might actually be doing her some good.

When we reached the building, Miss Etta said, “Wait here,” before she disappeared inside.

Little Earl was looking at the ground. He had hardly said a word on the drive.

“You okay, son?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he said, but I could tell by his voice that he wasn’t.

And suddenly, there was Coralee, wearing one of the dresses and a pair of shoes I’d packed for her the day Lewis Hopkins took her away.

“I’ll leave you now,” Miss Etta told her. To me, she said, “Bring her back by half past two.”

“Hello, Coralee,” I finally said. “It’s nice to see you.”

“It’s nice to see you too,” she said, but the words, I could tell, took effort.

“Give your mama some sugar, now, son,” I told Little Earl, and the boy hugged her.

“Hi, Mama,” he said.

“Hi, son,” she said. And even though I could see the hint of a smile on her face when he hugged her tight, and even though she lifted her arms to hold him in return, her reaction was so slow and weak that Little Earl backed away from her then, hurt. But Coralee kept her eyes on him. I could tell she was struggling to say something.

“You’ve grown,” she finally said. “You look like your daddy.”

I was afraid she might still be mad at me, so I didn’t hug her myself. Instead I put my hand on her back and held up the basket of food Trudy had packed.

“They said we could have a picnic, Coralee.” I tried to sound cheerful, but when she turned to look at me, there wasn’t anger in her eyes. There was only emptiness, like the Coralee I loved had gone somewhere else and this person who looked like her had come with us instead.

We walked a ways until I found some shade under a pretty tree and spread out the blanket and helped Coralee sit down.

When we were all seated, I said, “Son, why don’t you tell your mama about school?”

But instead he said, “Did you get my letter?”

“I surely did. A while back.”

When Little Earl didn’t respond to this, I said, “Tell her who your teacher is.”

When he didn’t answer, I said, “He likes Miss Cooper. And tell your mama what your favorite subject is.”

But he didn’t even look up, so I said, “He likes arithmetic. And how about those marks on your last report card, son? Why don’t you tell your mama how well you did?”

But Little Earl just pretended to scratch at a mosquito bite.

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