OUT OF THE DARKNESS CHAPTER 8
Chapter 8
On the road again
It was a warm afternoon in early July 1919 when a shiny Buick roadster convertible pulled up to Allie’s gas station — the only gas station in Musquash. It was the first time Allie had seen a Buick roadster. It was a real beauty—fire engine red with black leather interior, black fenders, black running board, black spoked wheels with white wall tires.
He’d never seen one before, and surmised it was hot off the assembly line. From what he could see, these were a highfalutin couple. Both dressed in the finest attire, fancy shopping bags stencilled with the famous MRA insignia from the most expensive department store in Saint John, sitting on the back seat.
The young woman, he guessed, was sixteen or seventeen. She looked too young to be with the guy behind the wheel. These older guys with money always seemed to get the pretty young ones, he thought. Yes! She was a real knockout. Eyes that you just couldn’t stop staring at. When she turned toward the sun, they looked like freshly polished silver. But they were filled with a sadness so profound that he wondered what lay behind them. Was this guy treating her badly? Maybe she’d found out that money couldn’t buy everything. Too many pretty girls looking for wealthy men usually found out they would pay the price in the end.
He struck up a conversation with the man behind the steering wheel, who turned out to be George — Captain George James, no less — and the girl beside him was his daughter. They were headed for Bangor, Maine. Just a sightseeing trip, the captain told him.
Allie considered himself a great judge of character and thought he picked up something strange about the captain. Was he telling the truth, or was he up to no good with this pretty young thing? He didn’t believe for a minute she was his daughter. This guy, he thought for sure, was hiding something. Well, it was really none of his business, he thought. Nothing he could do about it anyhow.
When the gas tank was filled, he filled up the spare five-gallon gas can that George said he always took along in case of an emergency.
The captain had asked if there was a Diner in town where they could get something to eat. He told them there was a one in St George, the next town ahead.
Allie watched the roadster pull out of the yard and turn onto the road. He caught one last glimpse of the girl and said a silent prayer for her.
George was in deep thought as they moved along, dreading the confrontation that would take place in just a few hours. His stomach was in knots, and he wondered how he could eat anything without getting sick. As it turned out, Annabelle had gotten sick even before they reached the Diner.
She had him pull over to the side of the road, then dashed out of the car and ran into the gutter. There she threw up until George thought her insides would fall out. When she returned, she was as white as a ghost and trembling.
“God Annabelle!” George said. “You'd better not eat anything spicy or greasy when we get to the Diner.”
“I don’t know what came over me, Papa,” she said, but she did know; it was the sickness most pregnant women suffered. It had happened during the night, and in the morning, before they left the Admiral Beaty Hotel. But she had been able to hide it from her father by sticking her head in the toilet bowl as far as she could and flushing it while she threw up all the popcorn she had eaten at the movie, and the next morning, throwing up her breakfast. Why they called it morning sickness, she would never know.
George, feeling his blood pressure rising, pushed the gas pedal to the floor. Even at the top speed, he felt they were barely crawling along. God! He wished he were aboard his schooner, cutting through the Great Atlantic, driven by the wind, in some faraway exotic place.
Looking at Annabelle, he felt his rage begin to boil. It was all he could do to keep the car on the road and not throw her out into the gutter. With the stench of the puke that hadn’t made it to the gutter assailing his nostrils, and the dust in his eyes that had come from the side of the road when he nearly ran into the ditch, and with his white knuckles gripping the steering wheel, he continued on down the road.
She hadn’t fooled him for one minute. At this moment, he wanted to choke her, choke the life out of her; his mind was in such turmoil with the little voice inside him telling him it was she—Annabelle, that had brought him nothing but heartache. If she’d never been born, he would still have his sons, and Elizabeth— dear sweet Elizabeth would be sitting at his side right now.
The rage was more than he could bear. It had drained him completely. He felt himself begin to crumble— his extremities going numb, his mind shutting down as a state of calmness fell over him like a blanket.
Annabelle had confronted her father when he nearly drove off into the ditch, but he had assured her it was nothing to worry about. He told her he had done it to avoid running over a barn board lying on the road directly in his path. He said it probably had nails in it and would puncture his tire. He thought it had probably fallen off a farmer's wagon.
Annabelle felt a chill run down her spine when he told her this. He had looked at her with the strangest look in his eyes, and the grin on his face didn’t seem to match what he was saying. Her stomach began to churn again. She prayed she would not have to pull over to the side of the road again.
By the time they got to the Diner, neither of them was in the mood for food, but they ordered up anyway, neither having much to say to the other, both pushing the food around on their plate and eating only a few bites.
Annabelle kept her head down, looking at her plate after catching her father staring at her with bloodshot eyes that still blazed with a look of what she perceived to be insanity as he grinned at her with a frozen smile.
Her father had grown increasingly distant since they left Saint John, and she had a bad feeling— a fear, a fear of what, she didn’t know. With that thought, she felt her body grow cold, causing her to break out in goosebumps. At different times in her life, she had these feelings. Gut feelings, someone had told her, and for the most part, they had always been right. She began to feel sick again, and raced to the ladies' room and threw up the few bites she had just eaten.
She stayed in the ladies' room, going over everything that had happened since they had left home, and was certain something was terribly wrong. Why had her father not wanted to have lunch with Aunt Gertrude? Why was he acting so strangely?
She stayed in the ladies' room for as long as she could until her stomach calmed down, and then washed up and tried to make herself look presentable. She pinched her cheeks until she nearly drew blood in order to bring some colour back into her face, then returned to her table and sat down, trying to stifle the trembling in her hand as she picked up her fork and ate a cold French fry.
By the time they left the Diner, the heat of the day was waning. Annabelle took her father's sweater from the back seat of the car and pulled it over herself, covering her bare arms. Then she settled back into the seat, trying to make herself as comfortable as she could in hopes of falling asleep.
The minute they were back on the road, the calm that had fallen over George earlier began to lift. The further they travelled, the more agitated he became. Looking over at Annabelle, he felt the urge to stop the car and tell her to get out, but in reality, he knew he wouldn’t do that. He would carry through with his plan.
What does she take you for—a fool? His inner voice screamed. I don’t know what came over me, Papa, she had said to him. What a lie that was. She knew exactly what came over her. Did she think he hadn’t heard her throwing up the night before and early in the morning before they left the hotel?
Yes! She could fool him into believing her throwing up on the road ride was motion sickness; he knew other people who suffered from the same malady. Well, he would show her what kind of a fool he was when they reached Bangor. The Salvation Army orphanage had a room waiting in the ward for foolish girls like her. They would keep her through her pregnancy and then find a good home for her baby.
This was the unspoken conversation he had with himself as the roadster sped at full throttle through St. Stephens, as the sun began to descend from the sky to earth, leaving the road ahead in a blaze of gold and fuchsia hues as the night began to fall.
Having left Saint John later than planned, taking into account the time spent gassing up and the Diner stop, George figured it would probably be late at night by the time they reached their destination. But the people at the Salvation Army had assured him that it wouldn’t be a problem. Just ring the bell, and someone will be there to let you in, they assured him.
It was dark when they finally arrived. George pulled up as close as possible to the entrance and, finding Annabelle asleep, quietly took Annabelle’s purse and put the bag of money for her room and board in it. Then, he gathered the shopping bags from the back seat and walked them to the entrance. Then he returned to the car and woke her up.
“Wake up, Annabelle, your home,” he shouted as he opened the car door.
Annabelle awoke, startled and confused, her mind still half asleep as she desperately tried to grasp what was happening in reality, seeing the fire in her father’s eyes and the look of rage on his face. Paralyzed with fear, she couldn’t speak, she couldn’t move. He pulled her from the car, pulled her to her feet, and shook her until she thought her neck would break while he screamed at her—
“Do you think I am a fool? Do you think I don’t know? Unwed and impregnated by a bloody Catholic. How could you? You’ll stay here until you give birth to that bastard child and give it up for adoption,” he screamed, spewing spit all over her face.
“Do you think for a moment I would allow you to bring that bastard child into my house to remind me every day of the dastardly thing you have done? Never! Never! he wailed as he dragged her along the gravel path toward the entrance.
Annabelle, finally realizing where she was and what was happening, fought back.
“I’ll never give my baby up,” she cried,” never! never!” she screamed and bit his hand as hard as she could, breaking free of his grasp, and running toward the woods, behind the orphanage.
Still unsure of her footing, her body and mind still returning from a dream to reality, she stumbled and fell on the gravel path. Looking back, she could see he was not following her; he was returning to the car. Out of breath, with her heart nearly beating out of her chest, she managed to regain her footing and ran into the woods.
“You're no longer my daughter,” he screamed into the night. “You're dead! You’re dead! Go away and never come back! You hear— never!” Those were the last words Annabelle heard him say as she hid in the woods, shivering and shaking and sobbing uncontrollably.
There, in the dark, dank woods, standing on trembling legs, her body pressed against a tree, she saw the bright headlights and heard the squeal of tires as the roadster turned onto the main road and drove away. Then she saw someone step out of the orphanage and call, “Is anyone there, is anyone there?” several times before the door closed and the porch light went out.
Annabelle slid down from the trunk of the tree she had rested against and lay down on the forest bed, crying until her eyes were dry and her soul had drained itself of all it had to, in order to survive. The shock and terror of what had just happened, little by little, gave way to a calmness unlike any she had ever experienced before. But unlike her father’s, it had not been born of rage but of necessity. Then she fell into a deep sleep, where for the first time in her life her mind was at total rest, devoid of any thoughts or dreams.
She awoke to the trill of a White Throated Sparrow and calmly came out of the woods and quietly made her way to the orphanage entrance, where George had placed her belongings. She emptied all the bags onto the porch floor, took off her fancy shoes, and put on the new walking shoes—navy blue sneakers. Then she picked out one of the new sweaters and put it on, as the early-morning air was cool. Then, she riffled through the rest of the items, took what she thought would be most useful to her, put them into one bag, put what remained into the other bags and left them on the porch, along with her discarded shoes. Then she collected her purse and bag and, as quietly as possible, walked down the gravel driveway into the breaking dawn.
CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 9
Comments