Page 92 of Ace of Spades
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Once again, Nate sat in his car outside of the run-down house in Dunnellon. This was it, the day he’d get his answers. As he walked up to the door, he couldn’t decide if he hoped his mother was in that house or not.
Before he could knock, the door opened, and Nate recognized Harmon Baker. The years hadn’t been kind to him. Dressed in stained overalls, a good twenty pounds underweight, and with a gray beard that looked like it needed a wash, the man Nate remembered being kind to them narrowed his eyes.
“I wondered how long it’d take ya to come with yer questions,” he said in greeting as he came out onto the porch. “Expected ya years ago. Which Gentry brother are ya? Never could get ya boys straight in my head.”
So Harmon remembered them. “I’m Nate, the oldest one.” He held out his hand to the old man.
“The one got beat on the most,” Harmon said, shaking Nate’s hand. “Yer pa weren’t a good man.”
Nate couldn’t argue with that. He eyed the door that had been left open a crack, wondering if his mother was in there, watching. “Do you have a few minutes?”
“Ain’t got nothin’ but time these days. Ya finally decide to look for yer mama?”
“Yeah. Is she here?”
Harmon scrunched bushy gray eyebrows together. “Why would ya think that?”
Apparently, he wasn’t going to be invited inside. “Because I saw her leave with you that day.”
“So ya assumed? Ya know what they say ’bout assumin’, boy?”
Nate fought a grin that the old man was calling him a boy. “I do. If she’s not here, then do you know where she is?”
“Nope. I been waitin’ years to tell one of you boys what I know. Ya shoulda cared about her long before now.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, but I’m here now. What do you know?” He wished Taylor were with him. He had a bad feeling about what he was going to hear.
Harmon shuffled over to the porch rail—which, if the man had weighed any more than he did, would have given way when he leaned against it. “Ya sure ya wanna hear this, boy?”
Nate nodded. “I saw her get in your truck. I always thought she ran away with you, leaving us in his hands.”
The old man grunted. “Then ya were a fool, boy,” he said. “I took yer mama to the bus station. That’s all I did. Yer daddy woulda beat my ass if’n he ever knowed that, so I left town. I din’t want to git involved, but when she told me why she had to leave, couldn’t say no to her.”
When Harmon stared into the distance, seemingly lost in time, Nate said, “Why did she have to leave?” He already had a sinking feelingthat it was because of what Court had overheard. Their mother had been pregnant.
“Why?” the old man said, focusing rheumy eyes back on Nate. “It was ’cause of the baby. Yer daddy tried to beat it out of her belly. I was there that day. Heard her screams as he whupped up on her. I couldn’t cotton to that, so I helped her leave. Everything happened real fast. Your daddy took off in his truck, and soon as he was gone, she begged me to help git her away. So I did. Took her to the bus station. Last time I saw her.”
The air left Nate’s lungs, and he struggled to breathe. All these years he’d believed their mother had left them for the man staring back at him with disappointment. Eff him to hell. How had he let himself think that about a woman who, until she’d walked down that dusty dirt road, had never given him or his brothers a reason to doubt her?
“Do you know where she went?” he asked.
“Nope. Din’t want to know in case yer papa came callin’. She sent me a picture after the baby came. Still have it. Saved it fer when you came callin’. I’ll go git it.”
As Nate waited on the porch, he tried to wrap his mind around the fact that he had a brother or sister. What he did know was that he’d find his mother and somehow try to make things right with her.
Harmon Baker returned, holding out an envelope. Nate took it, and the first thing he noticed was the stamp and that it had been mailed from Gainesville. A starting point in his search. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a return address.
“You kept in touch with her?”
“Nope, but I kept my post-office box even after I moved so she could let me know if she needed help. Ya know, like money for the baby. But she never asked.”
That didn’t surprise him. Their mother had been too proud to ask for help, that much he remembered about her. He slipped his fingers inside, hesitated when he touched the contents, then pulled out aPolaroid photo. How long he stared at the picture, he couldn’t say. He guessed the baby to be about six months old when it was taken. She had the same black hair and black eyes as he and his brothers. He smiled at seeing the little pink bow in her hair. Standing on that rickety porch with an old man who was disappointed in him, he fell in love with the little girl in the decades-old photo.
Where was she now? Who was she? They’d searched for Wanda Gentry, but their mother’s trail had grown cold the minute she’d walked away. What name had she taken? What was his sister’s name? With all his questions, there was one thing he did know. His brothers would want to find their mother and sister as much as he did.
“Can I keep this?” he asked. If the answer was no, he was keeping it anyway.
