Chapter 28

Elspeth

I drove northward along the lakeshore. I’d done a little research on Finn’s computer and found the parking lot of the Lake Express ferry easily. It left Milwaukee daily, crossing Lake Michigan to Muskegon.

I grabbed my backpack and small suitcase, stuffed the cash I’d extracted at the twenty-four-hour teller deeply into the pocket I’d quickly sewn into the lining of my jacket, locked the car, and left. Using the throw-away phone I’d purchased at Wal-Mart, I ordered an Uber ride to the bus station. I was headed south—out of the land of ice and snow.

I stayed aboard as it pulled into Chicago, my eyes glued to the window as the skyline faded into the tenement buildings of east Chicago and eventually became southbound to Indianapolis. From there, I headed east.

I knew he would look for me; Finn was that kind of man. He’d look northward in Michigan, figuring I’d go back to what I knew best. He was wrong. I had no home. I didn’t belong anywhere, least of all with him. So, I chose east.

I’d ridden most of the day and finally crawled off in a sleepy little town in northern West Virginia. I couldn’t go back to southern Ohio—he’d find me there eventually. West Virginia was clannish, but that was because strangers had no business there. I knew I would stick out like a sore thumb, but sometimes people would leave you alone just for that reason.

I did, however, do one thing that came naturally. I headed for the first café I came across, hoping to find a job that would pay in room and board. I had enough cash in my lining pocket to support myself in the meantime.

Sadie’s Café was just that sort of place. Sadie was a heavyset black woman with a heart of gold and a steady business. She was getting on in years, though, and couldn’t be on her feet all day long. She had a small room overhead with a bath and said she’d pay me all I could eat and $50 a week for “pocket money.” It was perfect, and I started the moment I set my bag down.

I knew how to cook; God knew for all the restaurants that Mother and I had lived over, I’d learned to cook almost every cuisine… except that eaten in the deep South. Under Sadie’s tutelage, I learned to bread and fry catfish, hush puppies, and to bake peanut butter pie. I mastered the art of buttermilk biscuits and sausage gravy and eventually could flip a pair of eggs in a cast iron skillet by tossing them in mid-air. Sadie would sit on the stool at the counter and talk me through most of the preparation; her feet were swollen and painful to stand on.

Sadie hung around to talk to her customers. Her charm was in her personality, and she knew everyone by name. Perhaps the best feature of that charm was she never asked questions or pried into your personal business when you didn’t offer anything up. She knew I was on the run, so to speak. She didn’t care, saying that I’d been a gift from God just as she was about run out of blessings. That gave us a sort of comradery, and we clicked immediately.

To say I stuck out in town was an understatement. First, most of the community was African-American and I was a petite brunette with waist-length hair and an innocent look that screamed of anxiety. As far as they knew, I had no family, no man in my life, and very, very little money.

I’d told Sadie I wrote blogs for a living and while she wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, she knew it was a time when I needed to concentrate, and she left me alone. I carried a spiral notebook and made notes from time to time to keep up the pretense.

I had a twin-sized bed and one of Sadie’s quilts to cover up with at night. I hung what clothes I’d brought on hooks along one wall and alternated between two bath towels. I’d bought a small fan for the window and other than that, had nothing. There was no lake house, no Escalade, and most of all, no Finn. To say I was miserable was an understatement, but then I was used to misery and welcomed it like a black-sheep family member who was worthlessly predictable.

To be on the safe side, however, I gave Sadie Mother’s phone number and address and asked that if anything ever happened to me, that she contact her. Sadie didn’t ask any questions and knew better than to send out any inquiries at the moment or that her star employee would walk. She needed me as much as I needed her.

Summer was fully underway and the heat in my little apartment and hanging over the grill was hell itself. I could barely breathe, and my stomach was constantly in turmoil. I felt horrible and twice had to run for the bathroom in the middle of making someone’s lunch. Sadie watched me and finally confronted me.

“You’s gonna have a babe,” she said simply.

I whirled around. “What?” I shrieked in a mock, horrified voice.

“I seen it afore and I knows what I lookin’ at. Girl, don’ you know nothin’?” Her eyes were knowing and she was wagging her head, clicking her tongue in a manner that made me feel ridiculously afraid. Had I managed to fool her?

“You going to fire me?” I asked her the next morning.

“Why would I do a fool thing like that?” Sadie was wise and had seen many things over the years. An unwed mother ranked pretty low on her scale of life’s tragedies.

I shrugged.

“I takes it you don’ want da daddy to know?”

I shook my head vociferously. “No!”

She didn’t ask the details, and I didn’t offer. “Don’ you worry none. I raised my share of babes, and we’ll raise this one, too. At least as long as I’m ‘round to help ya.”

“I can’t ask that of you, Sadie,” I told her, ashamed at the predicament I’d gotten into. I was having flashbacks of my mother and realized I wasn’t any better than she was.

“Don’t wanna hear that, now. Not like you come in here ‘spectin’ the help – you didn’ know. Anyhow, I got myself in a fix coupla times and we all help one ‘nother.”

I hugged Sadie, and she patted my arm. “Now get in there and cook!” She shooed me away.