Candles Burning by Tabitha King Page A

temtayshun but
deliverus fromevil
forthineistheking dumb
and thepowr and thegory
forever
amen.
    Â 
I mumbled so that Miz Someone would not notice any errors on my part.
    Ford hid his disgust until Miz Someone went away again and then muttered, “Goddamn it, I am not going home until Daddy comes back.”
    I did not need to tell him that I did not want to go home to Montgomery, and not with Mamadee, and not to her big house, Ramparts, in Tallassee.
    Ford tried to give me orders. “Dumbo, you have to be invisible. You have to keep your mouth shut. If Mamadee decides she’s got to run the show here, she’ll ignore us.”
    I knew sense when I heard it, even if it came out of Ford’s usually lying trap.
    Ford had his own strategy for himself. He stayed at Mama’s side, holding her hand, or fetching her cooling drinks, cool cloths for her brow, dry handkerchiefs when she wept, BC or Goody’s when she had a headache. She ate it up.

Eight
    MAMADEE did not arrive alone. With her was Daddy’s lawyer, Winston Weems. Lawyer Weems was even older than Mamadee, who had once in my hearing pronounced him the soul of rectitude. He certainly looked it. He was a grey man, all the way through. For no reason I have ever understood, people associate the dour, the humorless, the anemic and the old with rectitude.
    Mamadee tried grimly to take the situation in hand. Her first demand was that we be sent home. She would have Tansy, her housekeeper, come for us.
    Mama recovered enough to spar with her. “I will not send my children away, Mama.” She pulled Ford close and he let her, something he would normally never permit. “Ford has been my little man!”
    What with Ford being so much more Carroll than Dakin, Mamadee could hardly disagree.
    â€œWell, Calley’s just underfoot. Surely you do not want the nuisance of her, do you?”
    Mama had to think about it. Ford said nothing, provoking me out of my discretion.
    I laid out what I felt was compelling evidence of how utterly unjust it would be send me away before we got Daddy back.
    â€œI am not underfoot! I am not a nuisance! I found the ransom note!”
    Lawyer Weems fixed me in his toadish glare.
    â€œYou see?” Mamadee asked Mama. Then she frowned. “Did you say it was on Calley’s bed?”
    The four of them looked at me. Mamadee’s eyes got cold and scary. I backed away.
    â€œStop that ridiculous cringing, Calley!” Mama said sharply. And then to Mamadee, “Mama, you know that Calley prints like a little typewriter. And where would she get that horrible paper and a green ink pen?”
    Mamadee pointed out that anyone, even a child, could obtain such items at the nearest dime store. As always, she was more than willing to credit my intelligence for no-good.
    The house phone rang, saving me from incipient conviction of all charges against me. Ford answered. Uncle Billy Cane Dakin and Aunt Jude were in the lobby of the Hotel Pontchartrain.
    Mamadee and Ford and Mama couldn’t figure out how they had learned that Daddy was missing, as there had been no reports on the radio or in the papers.
    Later, Mamadee would discover in the hotel bill the record of a call made from Penthouse B to Uncle Billy Cane’s home number. She accused me of making it but I never owned up.
    If anybody was to try shipping me anywhere, I was not gone just go along with it. If I had had a phone number for Ida Mae Oakes, I would have called her too. I needed somebody—if not Ida Mae, then Uncle Billy and Aunt Jude. The three of us cared more about Daddy than anybody else did. In my heart, I was convinced that the combined strength of our desire for his return would somehow make that wish come true. I cannot remember now if I had seen Peter Pan or not at that time, or even if Disney had released it yet, but to a certainty I had lived my going-on seven years among people who believed as a matter of faith beyond religion