girls wore skirts that were far too short and picked at their food like birds. From time to time Margaret talked about how much she missed Albert, but more often it was about her childhood in West Virginia.
One afternoon when gray skies cast a covering of gloom over everything and the rain seemed relentless, Josie asked Margaret if she’d ever had chicken with homemade dumplings.
“Not since I was a little girl,” Margaret said. “I never made it because Albert didn’t care for dumplings, but I sure did love Mama’s chicken and dumplings. It was something she made for special occasions.” She talked of how they seldom had a chicken for the pot and used most any kind of wild bird they could get.
“Even crow,” she said and laughed.
That afternoon she and Josie worked side by side, talking about a dozen different things as they mixed the buttermilk biscuits and dropped them into the bubbling broth. Once it was finished, they sat at the kitchen table and ate together.
Josie was unusually quiet for a while. When a second helping of dumplings was gone from her plate, she said, “You know, I can’t help but overhear some of what you’ve been telling that Mr. Bateman.”
The corners of Margaret’s mouth tilted upward. “I doubt any of it is news. I’ve already told you most of those stories.”
Apprehension tugged at Josie’s face. “Yes, but you’ve told me a lot more than you’ve told him. The tale about your mama playing the piano and everybody singing along was nice, but you didn’t say anything about how she had to sell it to buy food.”
“No, I didn’t,” Margaret replied glumly. “I guess I don’t talk about it because it was such a terrible time.” As her thoughts drifted back to that year, she felt the muscle in the back of her neck tighten. “Mama selling the piano wasn’t the worst of it. By then, Daddy had disappeared to God-knows-where, Oliver and Ben Roland were gone, and the rest of us didn’t know from one day to the next what would happen. Mama was sick a lot and worried that the little bit of money she had left wasn’t going to carry us through another winter.” There was a lengthy pause. “That’s the year I was sent to Aunt Rose.”
“Just for the winter, right?”
Margaret turned her eyes toward the window. The rain was heavy now, coming in sheets, just as it had that day. Remembering caused her to feel the sting of it all over again.
“No, it was forever. Aunt Rose’s husband was dead and she had no children, so she needed someone to help out with the chores.”
Josie leaned in. “You left Coal Creek and went to live with her?”
As she sat watching the rain, Margaret nodded. “It was what Mama wanted. She thought I’d have a better life, but I didn’t. I missed her, my brothers and sisters, and I hated Aunt Rose. I hated her because she looked down on me and the people I loved. That first day she took me to the department store, bought me three new outfits, and threw away the flowered dress I wore to her house. It wasn’t befitting my new station in life, she said. I loved that dress because Mama made it for me, so later on I fished it out of the trash bin and hid it under my mattress. Knowing it was there made me believe someday I could go back home.”
“Did you?”
“No. Mama died a year before Aunt Rose, so I got a job, rented a furnished room, and stayed in Charleston.”
“What about the rest of the family? Were any of the other kids sent away?”
“Eventually we all were. Ben Roland and Oliver left of their own accord the year we moved back from Barrettsville. They went to Wheeling to work for a glass manufacturing company. Ben Roland worked there for a while but didn’t stay. Once he left I don’t think anyone knew where he was, not even Mama.”
“Don’t you think you need to tell Mr. Bateman this? You’re only telling him the good stuff, about your mama playing the piano and your daddy taking kids fishing. He needs to know about you kids being sent away, otherwise he’s never gonna find your family.”
Margaret didn’t agree or disagree that afternoon, but for the remainder of the day she thought about what Josie said. That night, as she stood at the window watching puffs of rain come and go, she began to remember