Recap: The men from KKK are looking for Hope. She spots them when she’s in the park with Bonnie and Rivkah and her sister. She quickly pulls everyone into the playhouse and doesn’t explain. She’s hiding from the men. She hears them talking about not finding her and their determination to keep looking. After they finally leave, she rushes back with Bonnie to the Bowers’ house.
The next morning, I woke to Bonnie parading around my room. “You better go back up. Your Mama doesn’t let you down here.”
“She’s not my mama.” Bonnie crinkled her nose. “Grandma Claire is babysitting. She doesn’t care if I come downstairs. She’s watching TV.”
I glanced at the little clock I’d bought. It was a half hour before I had to be at work.
Bonnie held out her little hand. “Do you like my bracelet?”
A diamond bracelet sparkled on her wrist. “Where did you get that?”
“It’s from Mama’s jewelry box.”
I sat up in bed. “She let you play with it?”
Bonnie ignored me. “I’m a princess. You be the queen.”
“I can’t play now.” I saw she was wearing a two-stranded pearl necklace, and a diamond ring was sliding up and down her finger.
“You have to put all that back right away.”
Bonnie twirled around. “I’m a pretty princess.”
As she twirled, something clinked on the floor.
“What fell?” I asked.
She kept twirling.
I scrambled down on my hands and knees and scoured the floor. Some precious jewelry had just fallen down here. I couldn’t find anything.
I laid my hands on Bonnie’s shoulders. “You have to go upstairs right now and put that jewelry away. I gave her a gentle shove towards the stairs.
Thankfully she obeyed. “Come upstairs,” she called over her shoulder. “I want you to play with me.”
Poor Bonnie with no one to play with her. I dressed and made my bed, folding back the stiff sheets that smelled of mildew, and covering it with the thin, worn, woolen blanket. I had only five minutes to gulp down breakfast and rush to the store.
The television was blaring from the den. An older woman with wisps of dyed platinum hair was sitting on a reclining chair, snoring.
I found Bonnie in the kitchen struggling to pour cereal into a bowl. She was still wearing the pearls and the diamond bracelet. “Put the jewelry away and I’ll make you breakfast.”
She ran upstairs and then she came back down minus the jewelry. I boiled some water and cooked oatmeal for both of us.
“Don’t leave,” Bonnie said.
“I wish I could stay, but I have to go to work in the store.”
“Take me with you.”
I hesitated. No, that would never work. Besides, I needed permission. “I’ll be back at three and then we can go to the park.”
She started crying and stamping her feet, which woke her grandmother. Grandma Clara waddled into the kitchen. “There you are,” she said. “
“Nice to meet you,” I said. “I’m Hope...Tikvah Henner.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I’m...my mom is second cousins to Violet.”
“To whom?”
“Mr. Bowers’ first wife.”
She just stared at me.
“I have to go now.”
….
After a long afternoon and evening at the store, I headed back to the Bowers’ house. There were stars shining in the sky and the moon was a thin crescent. That same moon had shone on me when I lived in South Carolina, I mused. What did it think now seeing me in such different circumstances? I thought about my old house. Could a house miss its occupants? I wondered if our beautiful mansion missed us. What about the palmetto tree in our front yard – the one I climbed since I was little? Would the tree miss me? I missed the house, and I missed my life in South Carolina. Here I was being treated like an indentured servant – well, no, a slave – there was no payment here. What would my mother and father say if they saw how I was being treated? Well, they left me here. What did they expect?
When I stepped inside the house, I could feel the tension in the air. Mrs. Bowers was screaming. “My jewelry. Someone got into my jewelry.”
Mr. Bowers had just arrived home. His suitcase was in the hallway.
“I want to call the police.”
“Wait, Dayla, it could be you just misplaced it. What is missing?”
“My diamond ring. The big diamond. It was in my jewelry box and it’s not here.”
“Look on your dresser.”
She stamped her high-heeled foot. “It is not on my dresser. I want it now.”
When she saw me, she yelled, “Do you know where it is?”
I shook my head.
“Things disappear when you are around.”
Her accusation stung like a slap.
“I wouldn’t take your things or your money,” I yelled back.
“Go look downstairs, Edward, I want to see if it’s in her room.” She pointed at me.
I felt my face burn with anger. How dare she. What a lowlife person she was.
To be continued…
Susie Garber is the author of the newly released historical fiction novel, Flight of the Doves (Menucha Publishers, 2023), Please Be Polite (Menucha Publishers, 2022), A Bridge in Time (Menucha Publishers, 2021), Secrets in Disguise (Menucha Publishers, 2020), Denver Dreams, a novel (Jerusalem Publications, 2009), Memorable Characters…Magnificent Stories (Scholastic, 2002), Befriend (Menucha Publishers, 2013), The Road Less Traveled (Feldheim, 2015), fiction serials and features in Binah Magazine and Binyan Magazine, and “Moon Song” in Binyan (2021-2022).
