Dunaway's Crossing Read Online Free Page A

do you mean?”
    “Soon as Miss Bea Dot started showing, that’s when Mr. Ben got ornery, scowling at her—and me—all the time.” Cal’s butterflies alit inside her stomach. Miss Bea Dot would probably fire her for divulging such personal information, but what else could she do? She felt partly responsible for her mistress’s condition. And Miss Lavinia could help. “Nothing suited him, not that Miss Bea Dot tried very hard. Fact, she seemed to egg him on. Once I asked her should she be talking to him that way. She tole me to mind my business. That was a week fore she lost the baby.” Cal bit her lip, stopping herself before she revealed too much.
    “Oh, Cal. I thought this recent episode was the first.” Miss Lavinia put her hand to her mouth, which must have been open as wide as her blue eyes.
    “No ma’am. Course, he never hit her when I’m around.”
    Mrs. Barksdale resumed walking. California followed close behind as she talked.
    “But it’s all different now, Miss Lavinia. Since the…accident, they act polite to each other, not like married folk. They more like two squabbling children whose parents made ‘em be nice to each other.”
    “Well, I declare.” Mrs. Barksdale held her hand to her chest as she frowned.
    When she and California had reached the Ferguson home, they stopped in front of it on the sidewalk. Miss Lavinia thumbed the envelope she held as California tacitly prayed,
Stick your nose in her business. It’s what you do best
.
    “What can I do to help her?” She spoke more to the letter than the California, who was delighted her prayer had been answered.
    “Miss Bea Dot need a change,” she said.
    Miss Lavinia sighed and turned her daughter’s letter over in her hands. “You might be right. Maybe she could come stay with me and Mr. Barksdale for a while.”
    California looked to the heavens. White women could be so simple. “Miss Lavinia, she don’t need to go up the street. She need to go away.” Moving in with her aunt wouldn’t solve Bea Dot’s troubles, only bring on a new set of them.
    “Or maybe she needs to go somewhere she’s loved and needed. I think I know just the place.” Miss Lavinia held her letter in one hand and tapped it on the palm of the other. California watched Mrs. Barksdale ascend the steps to the front door before going round to the back. “Mm, mm,” she muttered. “Thought she’d never think a sending Miss Bea Dot to Pineview.”
     
    #
     
    The scent of roast chicken permeated the house as California situated the aunt and niece in the parlor with a pitcher of lemonade and two glasses filled with ice chips. Then she returned to her work. She should have ironed the linens first, but polishing the silver kept her in the kitchen close to the chicken—and within earshot of the ladies’ conversation.
    Miss Lavinia read her reorganized letter and told Bea Dot the news of her only daughter. “She’s feeling fine, thank goodness, but to be on the safe side, she mostly stays home. She goes out only when absolutely necessary.”
    “Well, that makes sense,” Bea Dot replied in a dull but polite voice. “After all she’s been through, she has reason to feel gun shy, even this far along.”
    Like a silent participant in the conversation, Cal nodded. Three prior miscarriages justified Netta’s caution.
    “And Bea Dot,” Miss Lavinia continued, “Netta is heartbroken to hear about your loss, just as we all are. She so wanted you to have children the same age.”
    Cal paused with the silverware as Bea Dot paused before replying. Why would Miss Lavinia say something like that? Miss Bea Dot hadn’t heard from her cousin in almost a year. Then a knot formed in Cal’s stomach. She felt partly to blame for that rift.
    “Well, that is so sweet of her,” Bea Dot finally replied. “Do tell her thank you for me.”
    “Why don’t you write her yourself?” Aunt Lavinia suggested kindly.
    California chuckled quietly at Miss Lavinia’s remark. “Might