Then she begins to speak again, without moving, almost without lip movement, as if she were a puppet and the voice that of a ventriloquist in the next room.
“And Eupheus was gone.
The man that owned the mill didn’t know where he had gone to.
And he got a new foreman, but he let me stay in the house a while longer because we didn’t know where Eupheus was, and it coming winter and me with the baby to take care of.
And I didn’t know where Eupheus was any more than Mr. Gillman did, until the letter came.
It was from Memphis and it had a post office moneypaper in it, and that was all.
So I still didn’t know.
And then in November another moneypaper came, without any letter or anything.
And I was that tired, and then two days before Christmas I was out in the back yard, chopping wood, and I come back into the house and the baby was gone.
I hadn’t been out of the house an hour, and it looked like I could have seen him when he come and went.
But I didn’t.
I just found the letter where Eupheus had left it on the pillow that I would put between the baby and the edge of the bed so he couldn’t roll off, and I was that tired.
And I waited, and after Christmas Eupheus come home, and he wouldn’t tell me.
He just said that we were going to move, and I thought that he had already took the baby there and he had come back for me.
And he wouldn’t tell me where we were going to move to but it didn’t take long and I was worried nigh crazy how the baby would get along until we got there and he still wouldn’t tell me and it was like we wouldn’t ever get there.
Then we got there and the baby wasn’t there and I said,
‘You tell me what you have done with Joey.
You got to tell me,’ and he looked at me like he looked at Milly that night when she laid on the bed and died and he said,
‘It’s the Lord God’s abomination, and I am the instrument of His will.’
And he went away the next day. and I didn’t know where he had gone, and another moneypaper came, and the next month Eupheus come home and said he was working in Memphis.
And I knew he had Joey hid somewhere in Memphis and I thought that that was something because he could be there to see to Joey even if I wasn’t.
And I knew that I would have to wait on Eupheus’ will to know, and each time I would think that maybe next time he will take me with him to Memphis.
And so I waited.
I sewed and made clothes for Joey and I would have them all ready when Eupheus would come home and I would try to get him to tell me if the clothes fit Joey and if he was all right and Eupheus wouldn’t tell me He would sit and read out of the Bible, loud, without nobody there to hear it but me, reading and hollering loud out of the Bible like he believed I didn’t believe what it said.
But he would not tell me for five years and I never knew whether he took Joey the clothes I made or not.
And I was afraid to ask, to worry at him, because it was something that he was there where Joey was, even if I wasn’t.
And then after five years he came home one day and he said,
‘We are going to move,’ and I thought that now it would be, I will see him again now; if it was a sin, I reckon we have all paid it out now, and I even forgave Eupheus.
Because I thought that we were going to Memphis this time, at last.
But it was not to Memphis.
We come to Mottstown.
We had to pass through Memphis, and I begged him.
It was the first time I had ever begged him.
But I did then, just for a minute, a second; not to touch him or talk to him or nothing.
But Eupheus wouldn’t.
We never even left the depot.
We got off of one train and we waited seven hours without even leaving the depot, until the other train come, and we come to Mottstown.
And Eupheus never went back to Memphis to work anymore, and after a while I said,
‘Eupheus,’ and he looked at me and I said,
‘I done waited five years and I ain’t never bothered you.
Can’t you tell me just once if he is dead or not?’ and he said,
‘He is dead,’ and I said,
‘Dead to the living world, or just dead to me?
If he is just dead to me, even.
Tell me that much, because in five years I have not bothered you,’ and he said,
‘He is dead to you and to me and to God and to all God’s world forever and ever more.’ ”
She ceases again.
Beyond the desk Hightower watches her with that quiet and desperate amazement.
Byron too is motionless, his head bent a little.
The three of them are like three rocks above a beach, above ebbtide, save the old man.