Deep Water by Suzanne Hudson Publication April 2025
Binding Trade Paper $22.00 USD	ISBN: 978-1-60489-396-0, 300 pages, $22 publication April, 2025
	About The Author: A native of Columbus, Georgia, with roots in southwest Georgia, Suzanne Hudson (rps.hudson@gmail.com) grew up in Brewton, Alabama, and has been a resident of Fairhope, Alabama, for nearly forty years. A retired public school teacher and guidance counselor, she is also the internationally prize-winning author of three novels, a “fictional” memoir, and her short stories and essays have been widely anthologized. Hudson lives near Fairhope, Alabama, at Waterhole Branch Productions, with her husband, author Joe Formichella (joe_formichella@yahoo.com) and the other denizens of the Branch. She is the 2025 Truman Capote Prize winner.
	Introduction Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., were late to the party. The whole gang in our creative writing class knew Suzanne Hudson had a gift. No amount of writing practice or study or efforts at imitation could bring a new writer to that level of art and skill. Our professor, John Craig Stewart, required a writing sample from any student who wanted into his program at the University of South Alabama. I can see him now as he removed pages from his faculty mailbox and went into his office on the second floor of the Humanities Building. Sitting heavily in his swivel chair, propping up his feet for a read of this latest sample. He sighed. How many timid submissions for a chair at his table? How many manuscripts from students who’d get a handwritten note, “I’m sorry . . .” Mr. Stewart was a kind man. Walker Percy, in his introduction to A Confederacy of Dunces, confessed that reading a bad manuscript was the last thing he wanted to waste his time doing. And, further, he simply would stop, and sometimes with a single sentence. Writers would cringe knowing their blood and sweat to bring a story to life could be so grossly and easily rejected. But, like being offered a taste, say, of seafood gumbo for the very first time, you know immediately whether you like it. You don’t need to keep chewing. It would only get worse. With John Kennedy Toole’s manuscript, he knew in that first sentence as an author and editor of Louisiana State University Press, he was in the company of something good. He didn’t know it would win the Pulitzer Prize for the deceased writer. Mr. Stewart’s eyes would have brightened with that first line of Suzanne Hudson’s sample story. A tilt of his head slightly forward, as if to get closer to the story, the words. With the last sentence, he’d keep holding the page. Maybe stare out the window, trying to picture the author. Bookish like Flannery O’Connor? She wrote that well. Tennessee writer William Gay, who Stephen King said, was “an American treasure laboring in obscurity in the hills of east Tennessee,” would many years later tell her he found her writing like that of Flannery O’Connor minus God. I was also similarly arrested when I first heard Suzanne read a story in his class. We showed up on Wednesday afternoons for the three-hour, seminar-style class. Mr. Stewart sat at the head of a long rectangular table, something like you’d see in a corporate board room. His gaggle of hopefuls, these emerging authors, sat five on either side and two brave souls at the other end of the table facing him. At the start of class, Mr. Stewart might say, “Today we’ll start with stories from Kenny Hall and John Hoodless and Erin Kellen. After the break, we’ll come back in for the second half of our class and hear Blake Savell and Sonny Brewer and Suzanne Hudson.” Then he’d remind the class, as usual, when each reader finishes, “We will pause after each reading for ten seconds, and then offer comments and suggestions.” He’d lift his hands from the table in front of him and slap them down, but lightly. “Let’s get started. Are you ready Mr. Hall?” “Mr. Stewart?” “Yes, Mr. Brewer.” “There’s this short story contest, for new writers only, sponsored by Penthouse.” After the initial and not unexpected snark about the magazine, I listed some of the authors who’d been published in its pages: “James Baldwin, Philip Roth, Gore Vidal, Paul Theroux, Isaac Asimov, T. C. Boyle, Harry Crews, Don DeLillo . . .” And then I added, “The first prize is $5,000, plus a purchase fee of $500. And the winning story will be published in the magazine, so your name can be added to that list of literary lions.” Still, Erin Kellen protested, “There’re no women on that list.” “So be the first,” I told her. Mr. Stewart took over. “What have you got to lose? Everyone should send in a story. Get with Brewer during the break or after class for the mailing address.” I got my story back within two weeks. Whichever of the team of freelance editors hired to read 7,500 submissions from all over the world read mine had a hangover, I’m sure, and didn’t give my story a fair shake. But it was comforting to learn from my peers that their work, too, had been tossed aside. All except for Suzanne Hudson. Already that quarter, she’d won a contest sponsored by a New York-based literary magazine eponymously titled New Writers. Still, we were all shocked and maybe a little jealous when she brought in a letter from the Penthouse fiction editor, Paul Bresnick, saying her story “LaPrade” was one of a dozen semi-finalists. The letter also said that Toni Morrison had been one of the judges, and, further, that those twelve stories would be passed to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who would choose the overall winner. “LaPrade” won. Suzanne was notified by a telegram she keeps to this day. All in, she was paid $5,500 prize money and publication rights fee for “LaPrade,” which appeared in the December, 1977, issue of Penthouse. It was our senior year. And we demanded she take the class and Mr. Stewart to Thirstie’s Bar and Grill on Old Shell Road, just off campus, and treat us all to gallons of beer. She first bought a new washer and dryer. Then she bought rounds for whoever showed up that Wednesday night after class. Our friend William Gay, that same writer, whose novel Twilight was selected by Stephen King as his favorite book of the year 2006, and who had two of his short stories made into movies, and who won a MacArthur Fellows Genius Grant, also entered the Penthouse magazine contest. He told Suzanne he was upset about losing. “Until I saw your picture,” he confessed. “Yeah, she might be pretty,” I said to William, “but she didn’t shave her legs or under her arms.” Which didn’t bother him. They became dear friends. And he showed up for her, joining Suzanne and Frank Turner Hollon and me for a reading panel at Agnes Scott College. He never passed up a chance to boast about her writing, nor to confessing that Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., favored her writing over his. Suzanne and I both wish William were with us still, for he would likely join her when she accepts the Truman Capote Prize from the Monroeville Literary Festival in the spring of 2025. This collection of stories, Deep Water, Dark Horizons, commemorates that event. It gives strong testimony to the power of Suzanne Hudson’s writing art and the literary career that I had the pleasure to watch grow from its bright beginning into her shining legacy of Alabama letters, as conveyed in her bibliography following the stories in this collection. The crush I had on Suzanne during our days seated around Mr. Stewart’s table is none of your business. Sonny Brewer, Waterhole Branch, Alabama LaPrade The man rolled over on the ground, a patch of dirt on the left side of his face. Anyone could see that he had been crying, and he brought his fists up to rub the tears away, just as a child might. He made no move to untie the rope around his neck. The sun was just coming up—edging its way through the ribbon of haze separating earth from sky. The haziness played tricks on the old man, mixing the greenery of spring with the blue that was always above it—or did it surround it? He heaved himself into a sitting position to watch the rusted Studebaker raised on concrete blocks, a monument to a past he only remembered in distorted snippets. “Charmaine?” he whispered, then looked away, recognition lost. The night’s quiet still settled over the rotting wood and tarpaper shack, but soon he would hear Missy shuffling about, doing those things he imagined other women did in the morning. Boards would creak, then she would appear at the door. She would look at him and say, “You know you done bad, LaPrade.” He would nod yes. Next she would put on the faded blue-and-red plaid dress that hung on the doorknob every night, walk over to the car, squat down beside it, and pee, holding onto the door handle to keep her balance. Finally she would come and untie the rope around his neck. He would promise to do better. Missy was a lightly freckled mixture of child and woman, almost pretty when the light filtered just so. That same light, strained through a honey jar, birthed the color of her eyes—an eerie echo of amber. Although her hair was brown, the light sometimes found a reddish tint, and the thick waves that spread out from a ponytail hanging down her back turned auburn at sunset. She watched as LaPrade pulled some radishes for breakfast. She wore the green plastic bandeau he bought for her at the Dollar Store in Isabella. It had a flower design cut into it. That made it extra special. Over the last couple of years LaPrade had bought her more things than ever—a pop bead necklace and bracelet kit, some Romantique perfume, a ballerina pin (that was her favorite), comic books—“Archie,” “Heart Throbs,” “Richie Rich,” and lots more. Every Saturday he walked the twelve miles into the little valley community of Isabella, bringing back some small treasure to occupy her for a while. Still, she knew that one swoop of his eyelid could reveal a soul unredeemed and threatening. Missy didn’t go into town with him often—people stared so— but once in a while she would go with him to the picture show, or the Farmer’s Exchange, or to a drawing at the Sheriff’s Office. And the Dollar Store. Now that the child had come, trips to town were rare. The welfare check had to go less for Dollar Store perfume and more for baby things. Missy slid the green-flowered headband off, then on again, combing a few loose strands of hair back with its plastic teeth. “You know why I done it, don’t you, LaPrade?” The man straightened up, motions slow and deliberate, as was his speech. “It makes me sad when you tie me out like that, Missy.” LaPrade put the radishes in a metal pail and carried it towards the car. “You was pinching the baby. I seen you do it. That ain’t right. And the rope’s your doing, too. Always has been.” LaPrade set the pail on the ground by the old car, sat down in a splintery, straw-bottomed chair, and began to lick the dirt off the radishes, spitting and scraping in the cracks with his fingernails. Finally he spoke. “I believe you care more for that young’un than you do for me.” The tears came again, just as they had the day before. Missy put her arms around him, holding his face close to her chest. “I do so care for you,” she said. “And you ought to care for that young’un, but I got to purnish you if you do it harm. I just got to.” She did love him, she reckoned. She knew how to read him and how to tend to him, and he had needed tending ever since her mother died three years earlier—ran the car into the river and killed herself. LaPrade had borrowed a truck and pulled the wreck out of the water, but he never found a body, and he hadn’t been the same since. She loved her six-month-old child, too—no reckoning about it. So she took care of them both, in spite of instinctual uncertainty. At first she was sure that LaPrade would get over his jealousy of the baby, but the jealousy was fading into harsh resentment now, and what might it become next? She thought more and more often of how her father used to be, back before her mother died. “I ain’t bad,” the man sobbed. “No, you’re good, real good.” Missy stroked his bald head, unconsciously avoiding the newborn soft spot. The man turned, studied the car with a confused grimace, then reached out and ran his hand over the hood. Some rust stuck to his wet palm. He slowly brought the palm to his mouth and began to lick the rust, to make his hand clean, but he stopped abruptly with Missy’s “I got to go see about the young’un.” The man’s sixtysome- year-old eyes followed the sway of the girl’s hips, shrouded in red-and-blue plaid. His lips settled into a childlike pout. When she returned, the baby was at her breast. “LaPrade? You know tomorrow’s Easter Sunday?” Missy was smiling. She always looked forward to Easter, when LaPrade would wake up before dawn to hide eggs. Exactly two hours later she would follow, dressed in her prettiest Dollar Store things, and begin to hunt. They would play hide-the-egg for days after, until the smell of rotten eggs, whose hiding places LaPrade had forgotten, filled the house and yard. His pout became a gap-toothed grin. “What do you want me to get you for Easter, Missy? I’m going into Isabella today.” “Get some of them plastic eggs—them kind that don’t go rotten,” Missy said. “I seen them at the Dollar Store. They’re all colors. And you can take them apart and put other surprises in them. And we can play hide-the-egg all the time ’cause they won’t go rotten!” “What color eggs you want?” “Green,” Missy said. “And pink, too. I’m going to wear my pink pop beads and my pink socks tomorrow, so get pink!” LaPrade stood up, stretched, then began to unsnap his overalls. “Missy, do you reckon we can do business now? Hit’s been a spell.” His eyes showed her the shadow of malevolence that lived behind them if she refused. The woman nodded yes, put the baby in a cardboard box next to the car, and lay on the ground. It wouldn’t take long. No. Not long at all. It never did. *** The red clay road wove its way down the side of the mountain for five miles before it turned into pavement. Missy always said the county road to Isabella was ugly—no good scenery to look at—but LaPrade loved it. So skinny and gray without any of those white lines down the middle to bother a person’s eyes. The way the trees coiled themselves over the strip of concrete gave him a sense of being sheltered from the rest of the world. It was rare that a car passed, and even less often that anyone offered him a ride, but he didn’t mind. He didn’t feel at ease with people—not even the few kin he had scattered across the county. Only Missy gave him comfort now. He loved his daughter. She takes good care of me, he thought, watching with fascination as a small brown rabbit shot across the road, disappearing in the dark mass of trees and dank earth. “Yep, she shore does that. Takes real good care of me,” he said aloud. Green scents, black-eyed Susans along the edge of the road, and a feeling of Easter crept into LaPrade. Going to be a good walk, he told himself, just as he heard the soft sputtering of an engine from the hills to his back. Panic, as the old body jerked, trying to move in several directions at once; knees hitting hard on the pavement as he fell. LaPrade wanted to hide—run deep into the trees like that rabbit and hide. If only he could get far enough from the road before—but the black pickup was already in sight, beginning to slow down. Dammit, he thought, rising into a stumble. Don’t want no ride. “How you doing there, LaPrade? Want a lift?” LaPrade grimaced, rubbing nervous palms over worn denim thighs. “Well, McCall, I just—” “Oh, come on,” the voice from the truck interrupted. “Hop in. No sense in you walking the whole way.” McCall slapped the seat on the passenger’s side. They rode in silence for a long time, LaPrade staring down at his hands, strong hands in spite of age, resting on his thighs. He would hurt McCall if he had to, if the man got too much into LaPrade’s business. A car passed, heading in the opposite direction. “Welfare lady,” McCall noted, craning his neck to watch the blue convertible in the rear-view mirror. “Going to your place, you reckon?” No answer. Missy will take care of it, LaPrade thought. She always did. Smart as a whip, that girl. More silence; but finally McCall cleared his throat. “So tell me there, LaPrade—how’s everything at your place?” “Fine,” he mumbled, without looking up. “And your girl Missy?” “Fine. Missy’s just—well—” He rubbed his hands together. “Missy’s just fine,” he blurted. Silence, except for the sputtering truck, as green scents and sunshine blew through the window against LaPrade’s face, blackeyed Susans blurring along the roadside. McCall again cleared his throat. “To tell you the truth, LaPrade, I was hoping to catch you today. There’s something—well, I figure we’re neighbors and all, even if we don’t live close by and don’t talk much.” LaPrade could hear the blood pumping through his ears, a clock ticking, low and loud. “Is it so that Missy’s done had her a baby? There’s been talk of it.” LaPrade stiffened. There it was. The baby. He tried not to give McCall any sign of the hate he felt for the child. The hate he kept hidden from Missy. Maybe if it weren’t an arm baby it would be different, but the child wouldn’t be ready for the ground for a long while. He could not stand to see Missy give her touch and time to anyone other than himself, but he did not dare change expression or McCall might suspect. We’re kin, LaPrade told himself. We got our way of doing things. Why does anybody have to bother it? All because of that goddamn baby. “All right,” McCall sighed. “I just wanted you to know that there’s talk. And there’s going to be people looking into some things. Thought you ought to know. Is this okay?” he asked, stopping his truck in front of Stoner’s Hardware Store. LaPrade looked at his interrogator for the first time, mumbling a thank-you, ducking out the door, and began his attempt to blend into the little town of Isabella, Georgia. He didn’t see McCall staring after him, puzzling over such a crazy old man. LaPrade chuckled at his reflection in the window of Stoner’s Hardware. I’m going to do real good today. I been bad. I know it. But tomorrow’s hide-the-egg. Out of the corner of his eye, the man could see a young woman walking beside and a little behind him. She was pretty, he suspected, because she wore a pink dress—Missy’s favorite color—and she had red hair. LaPrade stopped walking as recognition came for the second time that day. Charmaine’s hair had been red. Is it you? I done it. Done drove you away. You come back, you hear? Ain’t going to do it no more. Ain’t going to hurt you no more. The roar of a cattle truck startled LaPrade. He felt perspiration on his forehead, the stares of passing people, and drew in his breath. Charmaine didn’t enter his mind very often anymore; it was a jolt when he did think of her. The Dollar Store loomed before him, the words “Clary’s Five & Dime” still stenciled across plate-glass windows, even though five-and-dimes were obsolete. Familiar smells hung over the store like the past it represented—month-old popcorn, stale chocolate and coconut, plastic things. The occasional ring of the antique cash register. The whir of the drawer shooting out. Wooden floor boards creaked as he made his way to the back left-hand corner where the toys were. Polka-dot balls, Yo-Yos, and hideously grinning dolls cluttered the glass shelves. Dolls. Baby dolls. Babies. Their plastic eyes laughed down at him, and he glared back. “Can I help you?” An elderly saleslady was beside him, smiling. “Yes’m. I want to buy some Easter eggs.” “Easter eggs.” “Um, yes’m. Them kind that don’t go rotten?” “I don’t think I understand,” her smile at once artificial. LaPrade exhaled a nervous whimper. “Them kind you can put other surprises in. Them—” “Oh,” her true smile back again. “Straight that way and to the right.” She pointed to a large Easter display. He stared at the pyramid of stuffed rabbits, yellow-and-blue baskets full of shiny artificial grass, marshmallow chicks, and candy— every kind of candy—and cardboard fans proclaiming, “He Is Risen!” LaPrade wished that he could take it all to Missy—make her forget about the baby. He picked up some of the plastic eggs. Twenty cents a package. He could get two green packs, two pink ones, and still have enough left for a chocolate rabbit—a little one, framed in a box with clear windows. Missy’d be happy with that surprise especially. Once outside again, the sun was bright, reflecting off the pavement in glittering patterns. He squinted, feeling very proud carrying the big green bag with “Bill’s Dollar Store” printed across it, couldn’t resist peeking inside the bag several times during his walk home. The chocolate bunny stared back from the green paper prison, from its cellophane cage. The orange candy eyes put him in mind of a demon, like the picture show scary movies, werewolf demon eyes. But knowing what a treasure he had was all anticipation, for Easter morning. *** Missy heard the automobile approaching long before it arrived. Now she and Mrs. Owens sat in the front seat. It was a convertible, looking brand-new. Missy loved the feeling of sitting in such a fancy car—even if it wasn’t going anywhere. “That sure is a pretty dress you got on, Miz Owens.” The middle-aged woman smiled. “Well, thank you, Missy. Now if we can—” “And that perfume smells real nice, too. LaPrade buys me perfume sometimes. I got some Romantique and—” “Now Missy, stop all this.” The woman leaned forward. “You know I didn’t come here to chitchat about clothes and perfume and nonsense.” “Well, that’s what ladies talk about, ain’t it?” Missy whined. “Stop it now. You’re trying to keep us off the subject. Now behave.” She paused, lighting a cigarette. Then, in a gentler tone, “I’d like to see your baby. Where is it? May I look?” “No?” It was a half question. Mrs. Owens touched Missy’s shoulder. “Oh, Missy, honey, did it die?” “No’m.” “You’ve got to show me sooner or later. You can get aid, you know.” “My baby don’t need nothing from nobody.” “Is it a boy or a girl? And is it healthy? You know, childbirth is not without hazard if you do it alone, especially at your age. And if this is your father’s—” “It ain’t his,” was the calm reply, but the green-flowered bandeau was coming off and going on again nervously. “Can’t you mind your own business, please, Miz Owens?” “Missy, you are my business. And I know you aren’t stupid— you could do so much better for yourself. The most important thing is for you to be honest with me.” “Yes’m.” The older woman took a deep breath. “Now, I must ask you this question again. I’m just as tired of it as you are. But please. Please answer it honestly this time. All right?” “Yes’m.” “Has your father ever raped you?” “No!” The tiny voice began to rise. “He ain’t never done that! And I told you—it ain’t his!” “Missy, you never cease to amaze me.” Mrs. Owens exhaled cigarette smoke through her nose, a menacing dragon with dyed hair. “Now listen to me. I may be fairly new on your case, but I’ve learned quite a bit, so don’t think you can fool me. I know you’ve not socialized with anyone or attended school for years. And your former teachers say what a good student you were, what an imagination you had. Even used words like ‘bright’ and ‘more than capable.’ I just don’t understand why you pretend otherwise. Could it be all these years of playing along with your father?” Missy said nothing. “Why did you quit going to school when your mother left? You really were such a good student. Did he make you? Did he beat you? I certainly don’t doubt that he beat your mother.” “Miz Owens, Brother Claud told you them things, but he don’t know. I swear he don’t. We quit the Church a long time ago.” “You’d like to go back to the Church, wouldn’t you?” “Yes. I mean—no! They talk about me and LaPrade. I hate Brother Claud.” Then she felt guilty, as if she had professed hate for Jesus. “But I don’t hate Jesus, “ she said aloud, tearful now. Mrs. Owens touched her shoulder. “It’s not your fault. Don’t you see he’s always been a disturbed man? And he’s getting old before his years, Missy. Feeble-minded. Could be serious mental illness, or even dementia. But we can deal with that. There are— places that we could—” “You leave! Right now!” The bandeau was moving on and off more rapidly as Missy sobbed. “Why can’t you people just leave us alone? We do just fine.” She leaned onto the car door. This was different. Mrs. Owens had never insisted that Missy should change everything. The woman pulled Missy close to her. “Honey”—her voice became softer again—“honey, if you’re doing just fine here, then why are you so upset?” “You can’t have my baby,” Missy hiccupped, disentangling, reaching for the door. “And you can’t—well, you can’t take LaPrade and send him away from me nowhere.” “Don’t you worry about that yet, honey. But do you think that he might mistreat the child?” She rested her head on the steering wheel, then raised it, looking, Missy thought, very sad. “Let me tell you one more thing, Missy.” There was a small silence, then, “We think your mother is alive. It’s not certain, of course, but she may be in Atlanta, using the name Charlotte Spurlynne. Here. I’ve written it down for you. Now why would your mother want to run away, do you think?” Missy wondered why she wasn’t surprised, and spoke without emotion. “Well, she always liked Atlanta. And she was pretty. Real pretty. Lots of boys liked her, but there weren’t nothing to it.” “Your daddy didn’t like that, did he? Especially since he was so much older than your mother. It made him mad, didn’t it?” “Sometimes. Sometimes he was mean to her, and sometimes she was mean. Sometimes LaPrade called her bad things. But she was a good Christian. Brother Claud said so at the memorial service. He said she was washed in the blood of the lamb,” pushing the door open. “And LaPrade he ain’t mean no more,” she lied. “How was he mean? I mean, years ago. Did he beat her?” “I don’t remember. Can’t you just leave? He ain’t mean!” Mrs. Owens flicked her cigarette to the ground. “All right. I’m leaving—for now, anyway. I think we’ve actually made progress today, but, Missy, if you just think about that baby of yours. Think about your mother. There’s a lot we can do for all of you. Think about that, all right?” The blue convertible soon disappeared down the red clay road. It didn’t even take much time for the cloud of dust left behind to disintegrate. She went into the house to tend to her child. It wasn’t the house she had grown up in with Charmaine. That house was further up above the creek that fed into the river. There had been a kitchen table, some nice furniture, and pictures of Jesus on the walls. After Charmaine died, LaPrade boarded up the windows, padlocked the door, and forbade Missy to set foot in it again—even though he visited it every once in a while. She had not allowed herself to miss it much until now. Their present home was an abandoned shack with a sparse kitchen, a crude shower, and a shithouse down a trail near the creek. But it was enough for LaPrade. She knew to go along with him over the years, keep him from turning on her. Be a good daughter. But I’m fifteen now—like Mama when I was born. And now I’m a mama, too. Missy sat in the doorway of the shack, the baby at her breast. She could see LaPrade walking toward her about half a mile down the road. “Yonder he comes, baby. Bringing Easter eggs. You like that?” The child replied with passive sucking noises. “He’s a good man,” she said. Then whispered, “Oh, I know he’s bad from time to time—like pinching you. He just needs to be took care of.” She reached up, touched her bandeau, and thought about how nice LaPrade was to buy her pretty things. She didn’t like to punish him. It wasn’t any easier now than it had been the first time—the day after he had given up the search for her mother’s body. She had been twelve then, confused by the man her father was becoming and the strange changes in her parents over the years. But he had begged her. “I thought some lies about Charmaine,” he had whined, like a little boy. “I’m bad. You got to purnish me, Missy.” She had been frightened. He had always done the punishing, the beating, the deciding of everything. But he was handing her a rope, begging to be punished for his wife’s death. At first Missy thought he wanted to be hanged, but she couldn’t do it, and he didn’t have enough left within him to do it himself. She’d solved the problem only by using the first thing she noticed—an old, but sturdy, fence post. One end of the rope around the post, the other around her father’s neck. Missy’s night, alone in the house, was filled with intermittent sounds of LaPrade’s guilt, occasional thuds, and cries of pain as he ran out the length of the rope and was thrown to the ground. “Charmaine, you can’t be dead!” he would scream. “You come back here! I ain’t going to say no more! Nothing about Fred Culver or Adon McCall or none of the others! I ain’t! I swear to God I ain’t!” It felt like forever for the night to dissolve into dawn. Finally she had crept out of the house and held him next to her—pitied him—done business with him. It was her obligation. She was kin. She accepted it. It was a sacrifice—a Christian sacrifice. Any guilt that reared up she learned to dissolve like the night. It was a matter of survival. “Baby, you sure are pretty.” Missy spoke aloud again. “Just like my ballerina pin. Sort of hard to tell you two apart.” The screen door squenched, slamming behind her father. “Wait’ll you see!” LaPrade cried, laughing. “Wait’ll you see!” he sang over and over, dangling the sack in front of Missy’s excited face, dancing around in crazy circles. “Give it, give it!” she squealed, laying the baby on the floor, chasing LaPrade outside and the fifty yards to the creek, where he collapsed in the weeds, hugging the bag to his chest. “You know you can’t see till tomorrow.” “Well, I reckon I will see tomorrow,” too out of breath to play any longer. “You take care of that welfare lady today?” “Told her to let us be,” she answered, wondering if she should try to share her thoughts with him. No, she decided, I ain’t going to spoil no Easter Sunday. I can let him have that, at least. “I thought about Charmaine today,” LaPrade said. “There was a red-haired woman looked just like her in Isabella.” He scratched his elbow. “Missy? What you reckon made me call her all them names? She didn’t—” “Now don’t you go feeling bad, and don’t you go crying. Tomorrow’s hide-the-egg.” He nodded, looked to the creek, mumbling in that helpless way of his. So different from the angry, accusing father of her childhood, who drew blood and defiance from her mother as Missy huddled in corners praying for God to make him stop. Missy shivered as a phantom rabbit scooted across her grave, reminding her not to think forbidden thoughts, but getting to know her mother, as a mother. “Come on, LaPrade.” Missy took his hand and led him back to the house; she would cheer him up. They would giggle and tease one another, plan for hours about Easter. Then she noticed the baby on the floor, felt the uneasiness again, and made to comfort it. *** A good day for hide-the-egg, LaPrade thought. He stole out of the little house, careful not to disturb Missy. The mist took on a yellowish cast, sun shining through greenery. Fresh dew on clumps of grass made it look like the artificial Easter kind at the Dollar Store. Pretty, he told himself, reaching for the packages in the big green bag. Missy’ll be happy. He carried some pink eggs over to the old automobile, a perfect hiding place—one egg behind a concrete block supporting the vehicle, another under the front seat. “She’ll never find that one,” he whispered. He dotted the plot of land with the plastic eggs. A green egg was situated in a clump of grass by the house, and he was proud of himself for being so smart about mixing the colors. LaPrade stood still for a long time, thoughtfully searching out a hiding place for the last egg. I done good, he told himself, wedging the egg behind a flap of tarpaper. “You just can’t figure out what that big old green thing is, can you?” LaPrade said to the termites there. “Well, this is the best hiding place ever, so don’t you go messing with it.” He laughed at himself. “Talking to bugs,” he muttered. Now it was time for the real treasure, the ceremony. He took the chocolate rabbit out of the cellophane-windowed box. He set the candy treat with the orange demon eyes in the radish patch, where a real rabbit might be. She’ll be awake soon, he thought, almost tripping over the baby. The child gazed up at him, not making a sound. LaPrade had a sudden urge to crush it—place his foot on the child’s tiny body until all life was gone. No, he told himself, that would be bad, and Missy likes it. Likes to play with it. Suddenly, LaPrade had a wonderful idea. I’ll hide the baby. He began to get more excited. Missy’s gon’ love this game. He lifted the child, stiff-armed. It still didn’t make a sound—but then, it hardly ever cried. By the time he returned, the woman was standing in the doorway— all blue-and-red plaid and pink. “I never seen you looking so pretty, Missy.” “You think so? You think my pop beads look good? I was going to mix some blue in with them, but pink’s such a pretty color all by itself.” “It’s fine, Missy. You’re prettier’n ever.” “LaPrade?” Missy walked toward him and touched his elbow. “Where’s the baby? I couldn’t find it when I waked up.” She must not show anger, must not confuse him or rile him. He smiled. “Don’t you worry. I done moved it. Right now you got to hunt the eggs!” he exclaimed. The woman hesitated, then giggled, knowing that she must, and immediately ran toward the car. “You always hide some here, fool.” Laughter. Green and yellow sunshine. It went by much too quickly to suit LaPrade. He was disappointed when, after the last egg was found, Missy again asked about the baby. “Missy, I can’t tell. You got to find it—like the eggs. It’ll be fun!” But Missy wasn’t smiling. That wasn’t supposed to happen. She was supposed to be pleased. “You better not’ve hurt it, LaPrade.” “Missy, don’t be mad. It’s a game. It’s—” He stopped. Her face wore an unfamiliar expression. “You tell me where it is. Right now, you hear me?” The man turned his face toward the car, then the creek, then back to Missy. He began to cry. “I done forgot,” he sobbed. “No,” she whispered, then screamed, “What did you do to it?” “Don’t worry, Missy. She ain’t dead. I seen her in Isabella yesterday, remember?” But Missy was running—running hard, pushing through morning-moist leaves, head whipping left and right, searching. Where you at, baby? Under that old car? LaPrade, he ain’t right, Mama, but you lied and I need my young’un. Panting, running from car to house to clumps of trees and back again. There was not enough of her to get to all the places the baby might be. She lifted the hinged door set in the floor of the shack where LaPrade stored potatoes and moonshine. But at once she realized she had already looked here, panic pushing her into a randomly repetitious search of only the most obvious places: the shithouse, the old car trunk, a kudzu-covered aluminum boat, the washtub where she had bathed her doll babies only a few months before. Frantic phrases of thought flashes kept time with her movement. Baby ain’t no doll. Baby’s real. Ain’t no plastic toy. Baby can die. LaPrade killed it? No, please. Need my young’un. Got to be it. Mama. Mama. “Mama!” At once she knew, began to run the fifty yards towards the creek, the word mama, mama, mama drumming through her head. She saw it as she approached the water. A tiny, mud-caked child, making strange little choking sounds. “Oh, baby,” she whispered, gently picking it up. “Baby, poor baby,” she cooed over and over, as she walked toward the house. Mizres Owens must be right. It must be so. Wiping mud from her baby’s face, she knew. LaPrade was exactly where she had left him, only he was sitting now, rocking back and forth, crying, “My fault, my fault.” “You could’ve kilt it!” “Oh, Missy, I ain’t—” “You could’ve kilt it! Just like—well, just like you could’ve kilt Mama.” “But she ain’t dead,” LaPrade said. “I seen her in Isabella.” Missy sighed. “You just ain’t right, LaPrade. Now you know what I got to do?” The man, all obedience, walked over to the fence post and allowed Missy to tie the rope around his neck. She sat in the doorway of the shack and stared at her father for a long time, sometimes glancing at the rusty automobile. She held her child close, reaching up every now and then to comb loose strands of hair back with the plastic headband. “You know what we got to do, baby?” she whispered. The child gazed up at her, some dark mud still ringed around its neck. The woman sighed, stood up, and went to LaPrade. She gently kissed the top of his head. “Goodbye, Daddy.” She stroked his cheek. “I got to do it. I just got to.” “Where you going, Missy?” She stopped. Turned around. “Leaving.” Tears touched the faint freckles on her cheeks. “You cain’t!” LaPrade screamed. “Where you going?” “Don’t know,” she sobbed. “To see Miz Owens. Maybe to Atlanta.” “You don’t know what you’re doing!” The man called out. “Look here, Missy. Look here what I got you. In the radish patch! Look here. A candy rabbit!” She hesitated, then continued walking. “Done made my mind up, baby. Ain’t no candy rabbit going to change it,” she mumbled. “Missy!” he yelled, running out the length of the rope, feet rushing from under him, falling hard against the dirt. “I ain’t going do it no more!” he yelled louder, pounding his fists in the dirt. “I promise! You don’t care nothing about that young’un. It ain’t even got no name! Missy!” The woman stopped, motionless except for her shoulders rising, falling, rising. She turned one last time and screamed, “William! Its name’s William!” The man lay in the dirt. She was out of sight now, had been for quite a while. He stared at the chocolate rabbit. It was melting, in the morning’s full sunlight, and those orange demon eyes had gone lower, going down to hell, he figured. He would not move, he decided, drooling a pool of spit in the dirt, thought-cursing the nothingness of the high noon and the nothingness that was him. By mid-afternoon the demon eyes were gone, the Easter confection swarming with ants and flies and even a few yellow jackets.