The last week of April brought a visitor.
“Just twenty minutes, Lovett.” The guard stood close by as I sat at a table while Doc gave me the news of Loretta’s death. Despite her being ninety-two, it still came as a shock. My dearest patron and friend in those hills was gone. Honey was left without a guardian.
“Since the child no longer has one, the lawyer is seeking her emancipation,” Doc continued.
“Emancipation?”
Doc squeezed my hand. “Jackson has given his permission. Honey’s doing well. She’s back at the Carter homestead and has a reputable job with the library. So we’re hoping the judge grants it.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, a headache taking hold as I tried to learn more.
“No need to worry,” he chatted on. “I’m keeping an eye out for Honey, along with Devil John and others.”
“Could you give her a letter from me, Doc?”
He snapped at the guard, demanding paper and pen.
The officer returned with a Big Chief writing tablet and a stubby pencil.
I looked around for a calendar.
Doc glanced at his wristwatch and then over to the locked and barred door, growing uncomfortable. “April twenty-six.” His eagerness to leave rested in his shifting posture.
I didn’t blame him. He wanted to rip off the collar of prison as soon as possible and hightail it far away from here.
“Five more minutes,” the officer announced.
Quickly, I dated the paper, let Honey know I was well, and added a word about my new job as prison librarian.
Doc stood, patted my shoulder, and called me by nickname: “Bluet, it’s sure good to see that you’re better than when I saw you last. Any female troubles since they performed the”—he lowered his voice and smoothed his disheveled shirt—“surgery?”
“No, sir.” I flushed but not from embarrassment, only a gnawing bitterness.
The guard stepped up to our table. “Visiting time is over.”
Doc grabbed the letter and stuffed it into his shirt pocket, turning toward the door. He looked back with sympathetic eyes and said, “Take care of yourself. I’ll stay on the governor about your pardon. I promise.”
***
Two weeks went by, and book donations and reading materials began to trickle in. At the end of May, more arrived, and Buttermilk built new ladders that he put in storage until the painters could come. Each time, I’d carried a folded letter in my prison dress and tried to build up the courage to ask him to pass it for me.
At the end of the day, the note would still be in my pocket, wrinkled from my talking, damp hands as fingers fidgeted over the page. When I finally poured some starch into my bones, I asked, “Buttermilk, would you give my husband a note from me?” I lifted the crumpled paper from my dress and held it out to him.
He stared at me long and hard, then shook his head. “Mademoiselle Coosee, I’m searched each time I go back overto the men’s, and if I’m caught, I wouldn’t be able to come back. I would be locked in the hole for this. Tell me instead what you want me to tell your fine man, and I will get word to him.”
Embarrassed for asking him to risk his freedom, I could only say, “Please tell him I miss and love him and am doing well.”
“Coosee, he asks of you each time, and I tell him what words have not been spoken but I see in your heart. He knows you are well and he is loved and missed.”
I’d been too bold, and I quickly thanked the gracious handyman, apologizing for my misstep.
Over the days, Buttermilk replaced shelves on several bookcases. Another morning, he brought in an old-world globe and installed an American flag on the wall. Last week, he’d built a bookcase after putting in new windowpanes inside Warden’s office. As always, his work was precise and detailed.
It started to feel more like a library, and I grew fond of his visits, enjoying our conversations, with him sometimes teasing out sentences in French. Me, reminiscing about the old lessons and songs from my youth; him, regaling me with tales of medieval fortresses, abbeys, Normandy history and food, and the hint of a young French woman who’d stolen his heart but he’d regrettably left behind.
Buttermilk confided that, after the war, he’d become a prisoner of the bottle and it had made him short tempered. Drunk, he had fought a lawman and it landed him behind bars.
Today, Buttermilk taught me a few more words in French. He was working on a busted file cabinet while I organized stacks of books, when Warden Sanders stopped by unexpectedly, interrupting our light conversation in French.
