could stand a wake and a funeral for Mr. Boatwright, too. “It won’t look right if you ain’t there. Everybody thought of him as part of our family,” Muh’Dear said when I told her I wasn’t going. “I know, but these cramps are killing me,” I lied, feigning a moan.
That Saturday there was a brief funeral service in Reverend Snipes’s church with the same grief-stricken crowd.
It was hard to look at Mr. Boatwright lying in that coffin with his paws resting on his chest, looking like somebody’s harmless old grandfather. It was hard to believe that this was the same man who had abused me for so many years.
The night before the funeral I had dreamed that Mr. Boatwright had come into my room, stood over my bed, and told me, “I’m sorry, possum.” For reasons I didn’t understand, I forgave him in the dream.
Now I was scared to death that somebody would find out that Rhoda had smothered Mr. Boatwright with one of his own pillows and that I knew all about it. Both of us could go to jail.
I didn’t know how, but I had to keep this mess a secret until I died. My conscience was what I was worried about. How long would it be before I broke down and spilled everything? How long would I be able to continue attending church and facing our preacher and Muh’Dear knowing what I knew? What if Rhoda snapped one day and thought that I’d tell. Would she kill me, too?
CHAPTER 37
Rhoda wasn’t available to help me pack up Mr. Boatwright’s stuff until three days after the funeral. She finally called and came over around six that evening.
“Let’s get this stuff boxed up as fast as we can,” she suggested with a deep sigh. We were drinking tea in the kitchen while Muh’Dear was visiting Scary Mary.
I didn’t like Rhoda’s tone of voice or the fact that she had taken three days to come over again. “You know you really don’t have to help me if you don’t want to,” I whined even though I was terrified of being in Mr. Boatwright’s room alone with his things still there. “Florence said she would help me. And I bet Pee Wee would, too, if I asked him.”
“I never go back on my promise, and I did promise your mama and my folks I would help you.” She smiled, but I questioned her sincerity.
“You should be the main person who would really want to get this thing over and done with,” I said angrily, giving her a hard look.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she gasped. Her mouth remained opened after she had finished talking.
“You’re the reason he’s dead!” I snapped, shaking my cup in her face.
“No, honey! You are the reason he’s dead.” Her voice was hard and even. She spoke stabbing me in the chest with her finger and shaking her head so hard her curls fell from the side of her face to the front, almost covering her mean eyes.
“What?”
“You should have told somebody on him.”
“Is that what you would have done?”
“Hell yes! The first time he put his hands on me I’d have gone straight to my mama.”
A great sadness came over me, and suddenly it was hard for me to speak but I did. “I was scared of what he would do to me,” I rasped, staring at my empty teacup.
“Well, he can’t do anythin’ to you now. How come you won’t tell your mama now? She’s got a right to know. Maybe if she did, she and everybody else would stop goin’ around talkin’ about him like he was some saint. The man was a rapist, and he didn’t deserve havin’ all these people around here feelin’ the way they did about him,” Rhoda snarled.
“I can’t hurt my mama by telling her what I went through. What good would it do now? She would die of guilt for putting me in that position in the first place. She would never get over it. I want her to be happy. And you know how people treat rape victims. What about that girl you told me about down South that ended up killing herself because people blamed her for getting raped? Who would believe some man would rape somebody that looks like me?”
“Rape is not about the way you look, Annette. You know that.”
“Well, I am not going to have people whispering behind my back blaming me for it. Mr. Boatwright said I brought it all on myself.