Page 130 of The Reformatory

“Yes. Now get your suitcase,” Miz Lottie said. “I’ll tell you the rest in the truck.”

“Maybe we should both stay here, Miz Lottie,” Gloria said. “She’s gone all day.”

Miz Lottie seemed to consider it, peering around the room but stepping no farther than the entryway as if she didn’t want to be tempted by its comforts. “No,” she said. “She might come home early. Leave her a nice note, but it’s time for you to go. Hurry so we can get back.”

Gloria finally saw the worry in Miz Lottie’s brow that she had been trying to hide—something more than her arthritis and sore joints—so she rushed to her room to dress from the suitcase she had not yet unpacked. When she peeked into Mrs. Hamilton’s empty room, she found a pad on her desk, so she slipped in to hurriedly write a note.

Thank you so much for all of your help during our family’s hard time. I will never forget you.

Gloria Stephens (sister of Robert Stephens, daughter of Robert Stephens Sr.)

She felt unexpectedly sad writing the goodbye note to a woman she’d just met. In Chicago, few people would know the name Robert Stephens or how Papa had tried to help families in years past. For the first time, Gloria let herself feel how hard it would be to leave a place she knew and that knew her: her family, her history. She thought about Miss Anne and how she’d never written her a note of thanks for the cash still hidden in Miz Lottie’s house, which they would use to buy the five train tickets to Chicago from the station.

“Don’t look so sad,” Miz Lottie said when Gloria emerged ready to go. But Miz Lottie looked sad and small herself.

The truck’s engine struggled less than usual as Miz Lottie turned the key, but Gloria still wondered how such a rickety, complaining truck would make it to the railroad trestle beyond the Reformatory and then all the way to the Tallahassee train station.

“June said he was gonna fix it,” Gloria said.

“June did the best he could with it,” Miz Lottie said. But her voice was thin.

“What’s wrong?” Gloria said. “There’s something you’re not saying.”

Miz Lottie didn’t answer at first as she peered out of her window to back out of the driveway. Luckily there weren’t any other cars on the street, since her swings in reverse were always wide. Once the truck was driving forward and had passed the neighborhood’s cheerful sign, Gloria said again, “What’s wrong, Miz Lottie?”

“Tonight at the railroad trestle, it’s just gonna be you and me looking for Robbie.”

“What do you mean?”

“June and Waymon can’t come with us.”

Stoically, Miz Lottie told Gloria that a deputy had seen Waymon pick up Uncle June on the road by the Reformatory and pulled them over. When he didn’t like their answers about what they were doing out there, he locked them up for vagrancy. Miz Lottie said she’d gotten a call from Waymon at the jail and had gone to try to get them out, but Sheriff Posey had threatened to lock her up too and sent her away.

Such terrible news! “But Uncle June really cut the hole?”

“Yes,” Miz Lottie said. “Waymon was at the cell door and nodded his head at me like everything was all right. Course, I couldn’t ask him on the phone. They hung up that phone on me ’fore I barely heard his voice.”

“You know for sure?” Gloria said. “If there’s no hole, we can’t send Robbie there.”

“Waymon wouldn’t have nodded like that if it wasn’t done. I know him, pumpkin. He even smiled at me. The sheriff beat him up a little, but he had a look in his eyes like he’d won.”

Waymon rarely smiled, so a smile was signal enough. Still, tears warmed Gloria’s cheeks. He always said he would end up in jail because it was the white man’s trap for him: he just didn’t know when.

She had counted on having Uncle June and Waymon with them. She hardly knew how to imagine the escape without them. And what would happen to them after the escape? Even helping Miz Lottie manage the steps from the platform to the train would be a challenge.

“Guess the Lord only wanted three of us in this truck tonight,” Miz Lottie said.

“Why would the Lord want that?” Gloria snapped, and Miz Lottie stayed silent. Gloria thought about taking it back, but she was too mad. Or scared. Or both.

“No sense turnin’ on the Lord now,” Miz Lottie said, although to Gloria it felt more like the Lord—or some other powerful force—had turned on them.

Unthinkable words came to Gloria’s throat. She could probably find a way to get a message to Mrs. Hamilton, who could get a message to Robbie. “Should we… call it off for a couple days? See if the sheriff lets them loose after the weekend?”

“No,” Miz Lottie said firmly. “Spiteful-ass crackers might kill that boy in there. Now, lie down out of sight. We’re on the main road.”

Gloria obeyed, curling her body down low so that her eyes were level with the glove box. “I’m scared with just the two of us, Miz Lottie.”

“No sense in bein’ scared. Ev’rything else is the same as before. You can get Robbie to Chicago fine. Don’t you worry. Without payin’ for those extra tickets, you’ll have money for clothes and a boardinghouse, at least ’til you find your papa.”