Page 55 of The Reformatory

“What’s that she’s wearing?” the woman in the water called. “She can’t fish in that.”

The woman had not yet spoken to Gloria directly, that peculiar habit white people had of treating Negroes like store mannequins even if they were talking about you. Gloria looked down at her plain gingham dress, one of her only three good dresses, and the other two were back at her house so near the McCormacks’. She didn’t want to go wading in that muddy water, but Robbie was more important.

“I brought her straight from work,” Miss Anne said. “I forgot to have her change.”

“Have her grab Daddy’s boots and pole. We’ll make do.”

It took Gloria much longer than she wanted to arrange her bare feet and legs into the stiff, scratchy boots, which felt hot on her thighs and of course were too big for her. Her dress hem hung lower than the boots, so she gathered it and tied off the fabric as high as she could over the boots without showing her thighs. The knot was loose and sure to drop her dress dragging into the water eventually, but Gloria did her best to protect her precious clothing.

The honey-colored cane pole was new but similar to Papa’s older faded one, strung with a red-and-white lure. Gloria checked the hook, which was shiny and bare.

“You know how to bait a hook?” the woman called out, finally directing a question to Gloria, although she did not look back.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then do me a favor and teach Annie? And call me Channing. Or Chan.”

“All right,” Gloria said, thinking she would call her no such thing, even if they weren’t in Misery Swamp with hardly anyone to overhear. She never addressed adults by their bare Christian names without a “Miz,” “Miss,” or “Missus,” much less a white woman she’d just met. She couldn’t help glancing at Mister Paul, who gently shrugged and shook his head.

“Pay that no mind at all,” Miss Anne whispered behind her, knowing Gloria’s thoughts. With the bait in one hand and her pole in the other, Gloria waded slowly into the sun-warmed marsh to get closer to the fisherwoman. She nearly stumbled in the grown man’s boots, but at least her feet weren’t bare. Miss Channing hadn’t seemed so far out from the sound of her voice, but it took more than ten strides to reach her. With each step into the soft swamp bed, the water climbed higher, to Gloria’s knees. Gloria swayed, holding out her arms for balance. It would be easier to swim. By the time she reached the woman, Gloria’s face was dripping with sweat and maybe tears.

“You made it,” Channing said with a grin. The day’s sun had burned a red stripe across her forehead and matching crescents beneath her eyes. She was a young woman, no older than Miss Anne. She took the can of worms and nestled it in her large front pocket. Then she took Gloria’s hand and gave it a long, firm shake. “Good to meet you. Annie’s told me a lot about you, even before this latest horseshit from that jackass Judge Morris.”

The profanity and Judge Morris’s name nearly made Gloria drop her pole. She’d thought worse by herself, but it startled her to hear her thoughts fly from someone else’s mouth.

“What about Robbie?” Gloria said.

“Bait your hook, and then I’ll tell you what I know. I wish I could say I had good news…” Gloria’s insides withered. If it wasn’t good news, it was bad news—and Gloria didn’t have room for more bad news about Robbie. The imaginary drive to the Reformatory to claim Robbie had felt so real that a sob burned in her throat.

Channing sighed. “I know. None of this will be easy for me to say, or easy for you to hear. Get a good cry out if you want, but I personally feel like there’s too much crying. If it was me, I’d want to hear everything I could and maybe get that kid out of that hellhole. Even if it won’t be today. Or tomorrow. So—here.”

Channing dropped a fat, squirmy worm into Gloria’s trembling palm. The worm was flipping back and forth and might have slipped away if she hadn’t tightened her fist. Gloria caught her hook with her right hand and pincered the worm with her index finger and thumb. She hadn’t been fishing since Mama had taken her out on a rowboat at the church’s Founders’ Day picnic the year before she died, when her pain was only a twinge in her back from time to time and no one yet knew it was cancer. Somehow, Gloria had only let herself think about Papa today, when Mama was the one who liked fishing and had taught her how to hook a worm. Gloria picked her spot and slipped in the hook, curving the worm across the way Mama had coached her. Gloria’s bait never fell off. Mama had always been more squeamish with worms.

“Shoot, you need to do mine too,” Channing said, so Gloria repeated her technique and they both cast their lines. The water bobbed with ripples from hungry fish. One leaped out high five yards from them, its silver scales glittering in the golden twilight before it dove back down.

“See that? Told you,” Channing said. “They’re laughin’ at us.”

Gloria’s line tugged gently, but she knew the difference between a passerby’s nibble and a hooked fish. Fishing was all about waiting, Mama had said.

“Miss Anne said you talked to the social worker?”

“Sure did,” Channing said. “He’s a waste of time, but I suppose he means well enough. Jews are more reasonable on race most times, so we’d best not give up on him entirely. But he spent most of the time on the phone telling me what he can’t do.”

“What’d he say, then?”

Two lifetimes seemed to pass before she answered. Channing glanced over her shoulder, looking for listeners. “Said the sentence seemed too harsh. And he thinks Judge Morris and Sheriff Posey are too harsh on coloreds overall, like that’s a news bulletin.”

“My father’s not a rapist,” Gloria said.

“Oh, I know.”

Gloria’s heart thumped her chest. “How do you know? Who said so?”

Miss Channing glanced back at her, deciding what to reveal. “I’ll just say I know. For a fact. Nobody raped Lorraine. It’s a damn shame for the girls who do get raped when someone lies. But she had her reasons—felt like she had no choice but to lie. Quickest way to cut off a snake by its head, at least in their way of thinking. A whole lot of folks wanted your daddy strung up in a tree or at least run out of town. It won’t matter much to you, but she feels awful about it. She only knew him in passing, but she knew him enough to feel sorry.”

Sorry! Gloria’s body went so stiff that she shook. “Then she should take it back.”

Channing yanked her line out of the water to check her bait: her worm was still there. She sank her line again and went on: “She hopes he’ll stay gone, and then she can let the whole thing rest and not have to swear on a Bible. But if they catch your daddy, I’d bet Sheriff Posey’d be willing to look the other way when it comes to justice by rope. And hell, I guess a jury in Gracetown would convict a Negro if a hog snorted his way. Your daddy in particular.”