“Sadie, what is it? Why did you take off your nightgown? What’s wrong?”
“I wet my bed, okay? I have to change it,
I went to the foot of the bed, grabbed the quilt that was folded there, and wrapped it around her. When I turned one end up in a kind of collar that hid her cheek, she calmed.
“Go in the living room and be careful you don’t trip on that thing. Have a smoke. I’ll change the bed.”
“No, Jake, it’s dirty.”
I took her by the shoulders. “That’s what Clayton would say, and he’s dead. A little piss is all it is.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. But before you go…”
I turned down the makeshift collar. She flinched and closed her eyes, but stood still. Only bearing it, but I still thought it was progress. I kissed the hanging flesh that had been her cheek and then turned the quilt up again to hide it.
“How can you?” she asked without opening her eyes. “It’s
“Nah. It’s just another part of the you I love, Sadie. Now go in the other room while I change these sheets.”
When it was done, I offered to get into bed with her until she fell asleep. She flinched as she had when I’d turned down the quilt and shook her head. “I can’t, Jake. I’m sorry.”
On April twenty-fourth I told Deke I had something I needed to do in Dallas and asked him if he’d stay with Sadie until I got back around nine. He agreed willingly enough, and at five that afternoon I was sitting across from the Greyhound terminal on South Polk Street, near the intersection of Highway 77 and the still-new, fourlane I-20. I was reading (or pretending to read) the latest James Bond,
At half past the hour, a station wagon pulled into the parking lot next to the terminal. Ruth Paine was driving. Lee got out, went around to the rear, and opened the doorgate. Marina, with June in her arms, emerged from the backseat. Ruth Paine stayed behind the wheel.
Lee had only two items of luggage: an olive-green duffel bag and a quilted gun case, the kind with handles. He carried them to an idling Scenicruiser. The driver took the suitcase and the rifle and stowed them in the open luggage hold after a cursory glance at Lee’s ticket.
Lee went to the door of the bus, then turned and embraced his wife, kissing her on both cheeks and then the mouth. He took the baby and nuzzled beneath her chin. June laughed. Lee laughed with her, but I saw tears in his eyes. He kissed June on the forehead, gave her a hug, then returned her to Marina and ran up the steps of the bus without looking back.
Marina walked to the station wagon, where Ruth Paine was now standing. June held her arms out to the older woman, who took her with a smile. They stood there for awhile, watching passengers board, then drove off.
I stayed where I was until the bus pulled out at 6:00 P.M., right on time. The sun, going down bloody in the west, flashed across the destination window, momentarily obscuring what was printed there. Then I could read it again, three words that meant Lee Harvey Oswald was out of my life, at least for awhile:
I watched it climb the entrance ramp to I-20 East, then walked the two blocks to where I’d parked my car and drove back to Jodie.
Hunch-think: that again.
I paid the May rent on the West Neely Street apartment even though I needed to start watching my dollars and had no concrete reason to do so. All I had was an unformed but strong feeling that I should keep a base of operations in Dallas.
Two days before the Kentucky Derby ran, I drove to Greenville Avenue, fully intending to put down five hundred dollars on Chateaugay to place. That, I reasoned, would be less memorable than betting on the nag to win. I parked four blocks down from Faith Financial and locked my car, a necessary precaution in that part of town even at eleven in the morning. I walked briskly at first, but then — once more for no concrete reason — my steps began to lag.
