Over at the Nickle place, Harriet baked up a mountain of corn bread, while her sisters Jubilee and Rosalie baked so many pies Tuesday could smell the sweetness all the way to her corner of town.
Everyone turned out for Christmas at the Starlight. This year, anewcomer, Mr. Giovanni Esposito, volunteered all the gelato they could eat. Such a treat. Then, last night, Mr. Milner delivered so many oranges the volunteers stuffed two into every child’s stocking.
The Depression lingered along the Panhandle, but with the Works Progress Administration and some ingenuity, the citizens of Sea Blue Beach prospered, sharing from their abundance, or perhaps their lack, but thriving all the same.
All week long, folks passed on the street, calling out to one another, “Meet me at the Starlight on Christmas Eve,” their arms laden with packages from the shops and the post office.
“Ma, you have to come. Now.” LJ tugged on her again.
“I thought I was the mother around here. Dupree, hand me that crock by the door. LJ, did you do like I asked and pick up the dishes from Miss Harriet’s church? Is Burt at the rink? He’ll need to let folks in.”
“Ma!” Dupree shoved the crock into her arms, his man-boy voice amplified in the small space. “It’s Pa. He’s hurt bad.”
“What? Your pa?” She handed the crock back to Dupree. “Fill this with chili.”Leroy, what have you gone and done now?“LJ, stoke the stove. We don’t need no sparks burning the place down.”
The wet December chill felt good on her skin, while the hammer of her heels against the pavement sent vibrations through her limbs and around her heart. One block, two blocks, three blocks ... yet the Starlight seemed farther away. When she gasped for a breath, the air’s icy edge cut up her lungs.
She burst through the back door into a cluster of men in work trousers and suspenders hovering against the wall, hats in hand.
“You Tuesday?” One of the men pointed to the closed room. “In there. Doc’s with him.”
She shoved into the room, where stacks of presents, and a mountain of stuffed stockings, awaited the evening’s festivities. And where another family down on their luck had recently vacated. A relative came through with a job and wired money for them to drive home for Christmas.
Leroy lay on the floor, his shirt soaked with blood, a strap of leather between his teeth as a man with a knife worked his shoulder, using a candle for more light.
“Nearly there.” He gingerly sank the tip of the knife into an open wound. Leroy writhed in pain, and Tuesday fell against the chest of drawers, clinging to it as her vision began to fade. “Mac, bring a couple of the boys in to hold him steady. Sorry, Lee, but this is the only way. You Mrs. Knight? I need antiseptic.”
“W-what?” She tried to gather some strength.
“Antiseptic.” Doc sank the knife deeper in the wound, and Leroy swooned. “I’ll need bandages as soon as I get this bullet out.”
“Bullet?” she whispered.
LJ burst into the room. “Is he dead? Is he? Ma?”
“LJ, get the antiseptic.” She grabbed his shoulders and turned him out. “In the office ... Medicine cabinet.”
Leroy remained unconscious, thank goodness, while Doc worked. After a minute, or maybe an eternity, he rose up with a small piece of metal in his hand. “Got it.” He wiped his knife with the edges of Leroy’s torn shirt. “We need clean bandages, Mrs. Knight.”
“Of course.” But she was a statue, unable to move from the bureau. When LJ returned with the bottle of Listerine, she told him to run to the house and get a set of clean sheets. She’d taken the ones she used for the Starlight’s guests home to wash.
Doc poured a generous amount of antiseptic over the wound, using Leroy’s shirt to mop up the excess and the blood. Lee stirred with a moan.
“You want him in here?” Doc tipped his head toward the bed. “To recuperate?”
“No, no, take him to the house. After you’ve doctored him.”
“You going to be able to take over?” He regarded her for a long moment as if deciding Tuesday’s competency. He was handsome, with salt-and-pepper hair, hazel eyes with flecks of green, and an intense scar down his right cheek. “I can show you what to do.”
Tuesday swallowed and nodded. “I-I can.” She resented feelingweak, resented the residue of the scared fifteen-year-old girl standing on the side of Gulf Road South as her mamaw, the only mother she’d ever known, drove off in a loaded wagon, leaving her behind.
“Can’t take you with, Tooz. The town folkswill tend to you. Go to school and behave yourself.”
“Ma?” LJ shoved a set of sheets against her middle. “These the right ones?”
“Um, no. Yes. They’ll do. Thank you.” She clutched the linens like a life vest before handing them to Doc. LJ brought her good sheets. The ones she’d purchased from Montgomery Ward after saving for two years. Now they’d soak up her husband’s blood. “I’ll get the scissors.”
She crossed the rink in a haze.Don’t you die on me, Leroy Knight.
