“Mama was so careful to be sure no one knew I was pregnant. And even if Ronald suspected something, he wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with me or the baby.” She watched melting snowflakes slide like tears down her car windows, reliving their breakup, feeling foolish all over again.

But then she remembered Kaylee and how she alluded to Ruth’s having been pregnant in high school. Mama used to say, Nobody in this town can hold water. Did Ronald know they shared a child? She hadn’t told him, but maybe someone else had.

“Okay, so you didn’t sign any papers,” Tess said. “You say your high school boyfriend didn’t make a play for the kid. If he didn’t, that leaves your grandmother, who was your legal guardian. However, it doesn’t sound like she had guardianship of your baby. And even if she did, parental rights supersede those of the guardian. This was still your decision to make about what to do with your child.”

The cold of the afternoon, or maybe a sense of dread, crawled under Ruth’s skin. It coursed through her as she listened to her friend confirm her suspicions. Something wasn’t right. And she knew it. Then Tess offered another unthinkable possibility.

“You know how we do, especially the old heads. In a small town. Or down South? They’ll give the baby to family or a neighbor to raise and it’s all hush-hush. You just never know.”

Dropping her cell phone on the car seat, Ruth just barely heard her friend’s voice. Had Mama handed her baby off with no paperwork? If so, without a legal document, Ruth could still claim her son. Not that she was sure that’s what she wanted. She didn’t know what she wanted. But if, just if, she chose to be a mother to her baby, there was a good chance she still had rights to her child.

Sixteen

Ruth

The next morning, Mama’s house creaked like old people’s bones, a bit rusty and resettling with the fluctuations in temperature. As much as Ruth wanted to confront Mama and demand answers, it was best not to tip her hand and let Mama know her suspicions. Somehow, she needed to find proof that the handover of her son had been off the books.

When Ruth walked down the dim hallway toward the kitchen, she heard a scraping sound. Sunlight streamed through the narrow kitchen window and illuminated Mama kneeling on the linoleum, grating a bar of soap like a block of cheese, her fingers knotted from arthritis. Her lips pressed together and the veins in her forearms bulged with each scrape. That fresh, clean smell reminded Ruth of her cotton church dress flapping in the summer breeze on the clothesline next to Papa’s work shirts.

Mama poured washing soda and borax into the five-gallon bucket of cloudy white water.

Standing in the doorway to the kitchen, Ruth cleared her throat.

Without looking up from her work on the floor, Mama said, “Morning, Ruth.”

“You know I can get you a deal on detergent through work. You don’t have to do this.”

“No need,” Mama said, breathing heavily as she continued her soap-making.

Strangely, it made sense. The woman who had forced Ruth to give birth at home in a little room of shame like some scene out of the 1950s didn’t believe in store-bought laundry detergent.

Ruth thought of the stories parents told their kids about scrappy childhoods, walking five miles to school in the snow wearing shoes with holes in the bottoms. Skepticism kept Ruth from fully buying into that as a kid, especially when more than one grown-up had the same hard-luck tale. And today, no one besides hipsters and homeschoolers would believe her if she told them her grandmother made her own laundry soap in the twenty-first century.

“I work on these formulas. You only need to use a little bit of detergent. You could save yourself some money and not have to do it by hand.”

Mama stirred with more vigor, her breaths coming faster with each rotation of the giant wooden spoon. She stopped to wipe her forehead with the back of her hand. Then she smiled up at Ruth.

“Oh, listen to my chemical engineer talking. I love it, but don’t forget I was washing clothes before you were born, Miss Thing. I don’t need you schooling me on it now. And before I forget, look what I left for you on the kitchen counter.”

Beside a scrub sponge and a water glass sat a roll of toilet paper. Ruth asked, “Why is the toilet paper in the kitchen?”

“Because somebody doesn’t know how to hang it on the roll right. I got up and went to the bathroom this morning and like to have a fit. You know it goes over, not under. Didn’t we teach you that?”

Ruth wanted to laugh, but she didn’t dare do it with Mama’s scolding eyes boring into her like she was nine instead of twenty-nine. When they first married, Xavier hung the toilet paper the wrong way and Ruth didn’t want to fuss over little things. Instead of nagging over something so minor, she joined him by going rogue with the toilet paper rolls.

“You tell her, Mama.” Eli walked into the kitchen wearing a blue-and-white pin-striped suit. He tugged at the tie choking his neck.

No one said a word. Too shocked to craft a smart comeback, her mouth opened in amazement. Her big brother had worn a suit to her wedding. Yet he hadn’t even worn one for his own nuptials, having skipped the ceremony and taken Cassie to the justice of the peace instead. The only other time she’d seen him in a getup like this had been Papa’s funeral.

“What? Y’all never seen a brother looking clean before? You need to get out more.”