The Black Cadillac by Mark Spencer	Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion

Then she’s on the sidewalk in front of the post office again, and her Hudson is gone. She is certain she drove the few blocks from her house today. She recalls seeing Mr. Hyatt through the dusty windshield. She recalls her smiling crimson lips in the rearview mirror.

She surely hopes she is not going mad.

Circling the square is the black Cadillac.

* * *

Walking home, Ladell realizes she must be quite the sight in her red dress, everything around her the somber colors of winter, everyone else wearing jackets or coats.

Then she finds herself in front of her house. Good lord. Cars are parked all up and down the street, and a crowd is on the porch. Mother and her endless social gatherings. Wasn’t the damn Christmas party enough?

But no old lady cackling emanates from the porch or the house. This bunch is subdued. The house is lit up against what has become a dark day. Clouds roil above the green roof. At least the third-story turret windows are not lit. She would hate for anyone to be snooping in the attic. Little chance, though, they would find the letters or her rum bottles. She’s hidden them well.

She stands on the sidewalk and for a moment recalls the house as it was in 1906 and brand new. It even seems to gleam again as if freshly painted. The porch-roof railings that rotted and were removed twenty years ago reappear. The old yard swings reappear. The trees are green again as if it were that summer they all moved in, Papa so proud as he oversaw the last workman, who was laying the tiles at the front entrance, the tiles bearing Papa’s initials: J.L.A. Papa looked small, but his chest was puffed out like a rooster’s, standing between the huge Corinthian columns.

The Burks’ oh-so-new 1949 white Buick drives up and parks near Ladell. Ladell puts on her happy face, waves. Mrs. Burk gets out of the car and is weeping. Mr. Burk takes her arm.

“What’s the matter?” Ladell asks. “Mrs. Burk? Mr. Burk?”

Mr. Burk is murmuring to his wife.

They ignore her.

Ladell wonders whether her secrets are out. Are these people here to console Mother in the midst of this profound scandal? Ladell decides she will walk around to the back. If these people are all here to judge her, she’ll just sneak up the servants’ staircase and make her way to the attic. Maybe she should have burned his letters, but she couldn’t. Those letters are her life — or at least the story of the most important part of it. She can always move to Memphis or New Orleans or... or Hong Kong, for that matter.

Before crossing the street, she looks for traffic and shudders at the sight of the black Cadillac. It has followed her. She can’t see who is in it. The windows are like slate. Despite her high heels, she dashes across the street.

* * *

She’s not sure exactly how she managed it, but she finds herself in the attic, and apparently she made it without anyone seeing her. Now she can be alone to reread Prentiss’ letters in her attempt to understand... to understand what has happened, why he is doing this to her. Her Puerto Rican rum bottle is empty. No matter — strangely enough, she doesn’t want or need it. Her ex-husband introduced her to alcohol during their courtship, and then their marriage turned alcohol into a necessity for her.

Good lord, someone has put on one of Mother’s gospel records, and she hears her sister, Lonnie, saying, “Thank you, thank you. Yes, so sudden. No, we’re not sure what it was.”

Mother didn’t mention anything about Lonnie coming down from Little Rock. With Lonnie here, all the more reason to hide. If Ladell’s secrets are out, Lonnie will only be gleeful. Ladell is certain that Lonnie has been bitter since 1912 when Papa named that town he invested in “Ladell.” How many girls had a town named after them? Mother threw a fit on Lonnie’s behalf because Lonnie was the oldest, but Papa just sucked on a cigar and exhaled a big puff of blue smoke. “Next time I build a railroad station I shall name the town after Lonnie.”

Yes, best to hide. Ladell feels safe in her refuge. Since Mother broke her hip, she can’t get up those steep steps, and if she calls from below, Ladell can freeze and hold her breath — illicit letter in hand (or rum bottle), and after a minute or so, Mother hobbles off, muttering, wondering where that bad girl has gone. Lonnie hasn’t come to the attic in years. Says the dust makes her sneeze.

Ladell reaches her small hand through a narrow space between floorboards to retrieve Prentiss’ letters but suddenly realizes she doesn’t need to read them — she remembers them all, every word.

Then she feels drawn to the window. Will she see Prentiss on the sidewalk? Come to rescue her. What she sees is the black Cadillac sitting at the curb near the front gate. It’s waiting, she is certain, but for what? For whom?

* * *

The murmurs are gone, and the gospel music is no longer playing, and she finds herself in the master suite with Lonnie and Mother, who is muttering, “Dell, Dell.” Ladell has shared the suite with Mother since she broke her brittle old hip, Mother in this room, Ladell in the next so that Mother has someone at her beck and call. If Mother needs to use the toilet in the night, Ladell is here to help her.

“Dell, Dell. My baby Dell.” Tears run in the creases of her old face.

“Yes, Mother,” Ladell says. “What is it? What were all those people here for?”

Mother is wearing black, is a thick lump of black on the love seat in front of the fireplace rather than in the massive oak bed she shared with Papa all those years. She’s usually in bed if she isn’t hosting a party. She lives for her parties.

The fire is crackling. A log shifts, collapses. Embers tumble.

Mother weeps.

Lonnie is standing, frowning at the fire. She’s heavy and looks her age — all the more reason for her to hate her younger sister, Ladell is aware. “You know those nurses at the hospital know, and you know they’ve told everyone. It doesn’t mean a thing that the newspapers said nothing.”

Mother rocks and weeps. “Oh, I don’t think I care.”

“Lord knows what they’re all making up as the reason for her doing it.”

“I’ll be gone soon myself,” Mother murmurs.

Ladell walks over to her mother, bends down close to her face, and says, “Everything is about you, isn’t it, Mother? Always feeling sorry for yourself. What have I done now?”

Lonnie says, “How could she do this to us? She probably never considered how this would affect us. Our reputation.”

Mother sniffs, sighs. “It was a man.”

Lonnie turns away from the fire and looks at Mother. “A man? That’s no surprise. You know for certain?”

Then Mother pulls a letter from her black sleeve. The Minneapolis postmark. The purple three-cent stamp.

Ladell wants to scream. The fire flares up. “Where did you get that?”

Mother looks at Lonnie. “I had Lucas check her post-office box.”

It’s a new letter. Maybe he has had a change of heart. Maybe his black heart has turned red again. Yes, that must be it. He must have realized...

Ladell snatches at the letter. “It’s mine! You’ve no right!” But she can’t grasp it. Her fingers don’t seem to have the strength to grasp the edge of the paper.

“Dell, Dell,” her mother mutters again.

“What’s in it?” Lonnie asks, her eyebrows arched.

“It wouldn’t have made any difference, I don’t think.”

“Who is he? What exactly does he say?”

“He says he’s sorry he hasn’t written in a while.”

Then Mother drops the letter into the fire, where it is instantly consumed.

“No!” Ladell cries, and a small photo of herself falls from the fireplace mantle to the floor, the frame’s glass shattering. “No!” The fire flares up. “No!” The door slams.

Lonnie shudders. “What’s happening? Mother!”

Mother shrieks, her eyes huge. She attempts to rise but Ladell shoves her back onto the red velvet love seat.

“Betsy! Betsy!” Mother cries. “Hurry, girl!”

Lonnie is out in the hall, calling for Betsy as well.

A large photo of Mother drops from the wall to the floor with a thud.

The servant girl comes running. “Yes, ma’am. What’s wrong?” Lonnie is still in the hall.

The curtains billow out from the windows. Cold air whirls through the room.

Betsy moves toward the windows to shut them, but stops. “Those windows ain’t open. Where’s that cold air— ?”

“Never mind! Help me up. Help me. Hurry!”

“Yes, ma’am.” Betsy grasps her arm and tugs.

The fire flares again.

“Hurry!” Mother cries.

Ladell trembles like a hummingbird. “I will never forgive...!”

Mother halts just before reaching the door, turns, and gawks at her. “Oh, Lord. Lord! Betsy, do you see it?”

“Ma’am?”

“It! Her!”

“Who, ma’am?”

Mother is on the move again, hobbling from the room, leaning on the girl. “Betsy, get all my clothes out of there. We’re going to shut it up.”

“Shut it up, ma’am?”

“Yes. The entire suite. Lock it. All three rooms.”

“But why, Miss Caddye?”

Lonnie grabs Betsy’s arm furiously. “Don’t ask her why, girl. Just do it.”

“What should I do with Miss Ladell’s things?”

“Leave them.”

Ladell swirls into the hallway and hovers over them. “That’s right, Betsy. You leave all my things. I will pack them myself. I’m moving to Memphis! Or better yet, New Orleans!”

“Just remove my clothes and jewelry,” Mother says. “Tell Lucas I want him to put padlocks on the doors.”

“You’re crazy, Mother!”

“I don’t want anyone to ever go in there again.”

“Did you hear me?” Ladell asks. “I’m moving to New Orleans. Maybe I’ll move to Paris!”

But Mother ignores her. Lonnie ignores her, too.

Ladell finds herself at a window and looks out at the street. The black Cadillac still sits there. Otherwise, the street is empty, and the sun has come out again.

“Go away!” Ladell shouts. She’s fed up. She’s no longer frightened by the black Cadillac. She’s just angry.

Then she finds herself on the front porch. “Who are you? What do you want?” Ladell shouts at the black Cadillac. She steps from the shade into a spot of sunlight.

The interior of the car lights up, and the driver’s door opens slowly. A figure unfolds from the car, and Ladell blinks rapidly, shades her eyes from the sun.

“Come on now, Dell, honey,” the figure says.

It is Papa. But Papa has been dead since 1917. She saw him in his casket in the dining room, his mustache brushed in such a way it almost completely covered his mouth. Then he was taken to the cemetery in the horse-drawn hearse. Her ex-husband was with her. He was drunk.

“Papa?”

The figure nods. Then he beckons her with his right hand. “Come on, Dell girl.”

But Ladell steps back into the shade.

Copyright © 2010 by Mark Spencer

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