When Walter and Eddie and Captain Cole came back from Papa’s trial in Madison County, Jim Cole was the only one who even mentioned it. Was your daddy innocent, Mis Carrie? Well, we got him acquitted, didn’t we? If I frowned, I knew, he’d guffaw even louder, thinking I’m charmed by him. The man’s so stuck on himself and so insensitive! “That old piney-woods rooter,” that’s what Mama called him.
Papa will sell his Fort White farm to pay his lawyers and return to southwest Florida for good, so Walter says. This evening I asked Mr. John Roach in front of Walter if a position could be found for Papa at Deep Lake. Mr. Roach’s tactful answer was, “Well, your dad has some excellent qualifications, we all agree.” But my own husband, interrupting, burst out, “Absolutely not!”
Walter never speaks to me so sharply. “It’s not as if my father were a criminal,” I protested later. “He was acquitted!”
That may be, Walter insisted, in that measured voice that warns me he is digging in his heels, but if Captain Jim had not pulled a lot of strings, it might have been a very different story. “Was he guilty, then? Is that what you were trying to say in front of Yankee strangers?” “If John Roach was a stranger,” Walter reproved me, “why did we name our little boy for him?” At the mention of our lost little John, I wept. Walter took me in his arms, patting my shoulder blade, that brisk little pat-pat-pat that has no warmth in it and precious little patience. “I don’t claim to know about your daddy’s guilt or innocence. All I know is, you are very cold with Captain Jim, considering all he done for Mr. Watson.”
“Did,” I said, picking the wrong moment to correct his grammar. Walter took a deep breath and let me go. For the first time in our married life, I cannot sway him. He says, “I perjured myself for your sake, Carrie. That don’t mean he’s welcome in my house.” Walter wants nothing more to do with Papa. And though I flew at him, said hurtful things-“You’re just scared your bank partners won’t like it!”-he would not relent. He went off to the bank as miserable as I was.