by Ryan Byrnes
Jim spent more time lingering after that, at church, on the country roads, near the river and the like, wondering if he would run into her. She seemed to have a favorite spot to reflect, and that was in the same place he and Rodney had seen her on the banks of the River Leam, under the trees. Taking a deep breath, he finally approached her one day, the book in his hands.
“Hello,” he said, and sat down beside her on the sandbar.
She mumbled a casual, “Evening,” as if they spoke that way every day.
“Thanks for the book,” he said. He picked up a stick and started drawing shapes in the sand. “I’ve actually read this one before. You see, my dad had a lot of Charles Dickens books he left for me after he died. I’ve read them all. I didn’t understand most of the words and don’t remember what happened, but I read them. There’s A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol.”
“Which is your favorite?” Ethyl asked. She started drawing in the sand, too.
“A Christmas Carol. It’s an awful sad story, but at the same time a most happy story. I like Christmas stories.”
Ethyl turned to look at him. “Those are good reasons.”
“Would you like to meet here tomorrow and talk some more?” Jim blurted, heart racing. He thought it was probably asking too much of her, especially since this one conversation had taken a week to cultivate.
“I would,” she whispered before standing up and sprinting back toward her farm.
Jim watched her until she disappeared and then looked down to see a heart drawn in the sand.
~ JIM BAKER ~
Mum stopped going to church after the time Luther threw a prayer book and hit an old lady in the back of the head. The priest came to our door that afternoon and said Luther might have a demon inside him, and Mum shut the door in his face. Still she made me go every weekend with Auntie Lavinia and Uncle Mark.
Especially on Easter.
Today Father Carmichael spoke from the pulpit behind the gate with his gentle, old-man voice that echoed through the pillared cavern. His words were careful and spread out all soft and droopy, like icing on a cake.
“We began this year of Our Lord in darkness, during the winter when nights were long. That was when the Lord came to the Earth, not as a militant king in flowing vestment, but as a humble babe …”
He paused especially long, so long that everyone in the pews could think about the importance of Jesus as a humble baby. My attention wandered to the ceiling, and I imagined, like I always did, that I was Jonah and the church was a whale, swallowing me up. And then there was the kaleidoscope window that I always thought looked like a giraffe was hiding in it.
At one point, Father Carmichael started talking about parenthood, and I had no idea why. “Let us start at birth,” he said, “when the love between parents is so great that it creates life. When that child is born, its parents shower it with love and wait on it every hour of the day, oftentimes going without sleep. I cannot name a mother who would rather live in comfort while her child suffers.”
I could think of one.
A hand spread out on my back, and I shivered. I looked up to see Auntie Lavinia smile and pull me close into her side. She had freckles and black hair, just like me. She smelled like flowers, and I hugged her back, but just for a second so nobody saw. Uncle Mark looked over and winked at me. I liked him okay. He had kind eyes set in a thin face adorned with a meager mustache.
I smiled back and then looked over at Ethyl and her family. They always sat in the pew across from us. I stole a glance at her and she turned and looked at me. I could feel my cheeks redden. Luckily, the adults picked up the hymn books, turned to the page, and started singing. I looked at Auntie Lavinia’s book and sang the words from it.
Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in the dark earth many days has lain;
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.
The bells bong bong bonged, and Auntie Lavinia had to stop me from running down the aisle and out into the square, where I knew the Easter Egg hunt would soon begin. I’d never been allowed to stay for the hunt because Mum didn’t think it was fair to Luther. Because of course Luther couldn’t hunt eggs. Luther couldn’t do much of anything.
“Can I do the hunt this year, Auntie Lavinia? Please?”
“Let’s go home and ask your mother, love. Maybe this year will be different.”
Dammit. I marched back home with Auntie Lavinia and Uncle Mark holding hands. Meanwhile, the men with the mustaches and top hats gathered up all the kids in front of church. They were kids like Farmer Brand’s goats were kids, all rounded up and bleating in a circle, patches of tweed and cotton and black shoes that their mothers had tied too tight and they cried over all morning. The fat man in the top hat and mustache told the rules that I already knew and then raised his flag—a white table cloth—and flashed it twice to signal the contest. The kids radiated outward, giggling, gossiping, peeking under every flower pot and inside every bird house. One of them pulled out a blue, penny-sized egg from the bird house and put it in their pocket. That’s a robin egg, not an Easter Egg. One of the adults made the little girl put it back.
“If Luther can’t join the Easter Egg hunt, then neither can you,” Mum said once I got home. “It’s not fair for him to watch you go have fun while he can’t. So, I'm sorry, but the answer is no.”
“But Mum, please. It’s Easter. And he’s here, not out there watching.”
Behind her, I watched the cupboard door in the kitchen open on its own. Out rose Luther, yawning, making those squeaky rubbery noises to himself. How long had he been asleep in the cupboard? As he stretched and rubbed his eyes, I thought of the verses from the hymn we had sung at church.
Forth he came at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain;
Quick from the dead my risen Lord is seen:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.
Mum locked her gaze on me, and that same feeling passed between us that always passes between us. Usually at this point, if I said one more word, I’d get slapped or hit with a ruler. But Mum’s brow did not harden. She looked at Luther and then back at me and then at Auntie Lavinia, and then she sighed and started to untie her apron.
“Fine, yes. I’ll take Luther on his first Easter Egg hunt today. You go on and find your friends.”
The townsfolk had done an Easter Egg hunt in Leamington Spa every year since always. The kids would search for eggs, and the adults would eat cucumber sandwiches and look at the kids looking. Whoever found the most eggs by noon won a prize, a little metal plaque that Rodney told me was made of gold. Rodney … I wonder where he is … Wait! He would probably be good at finding eggs, and the two of us could win and walk up to the pavilion at noon with shirtfulls of eggs and get the plaque. Those other kids who sniveled and hid behind their fathers when me and Luther went around, who stole my pants and called my mother names, who made me eat dirt and gave me whoopings, they needed to be beaten and beaten good.
I found Rodney next to a tent set up in the greenspace by the river, where men drank scotch and smoked cigars and said dammit and hell. Rodney was sitting next to the tent cloth, knees folded up, chopping a stick into pieces with his dad’s knife.
He nodded at me, then put a finger to his lips.
“Hey,” I whispered. “The Easter Egg hunt started already. Wanna make a team and find them all before the other kids?”
“Jim, do you ever wish you were in the army?”
“What?”
“There’s some older boys—Tom Jansen and Michael Pinckney—smoking cigars and talking about how they joined the army. They’re in the tent right now.”
Rodney pointed his thumb at the rippling cloth wall beside him.
“Where did they fight?”
“Sounds like South Africa.”
The men in the
tent started laughing, and Rodney pressed a finger to his lips and an ear to the tent.
I heard clinking glasses and lots of coughing, and Rodney tried to breathe in the smoke from the cigars. And then I heard the voices.
“You should’ve seen the savages, running naked and pillaging indiscriminately. Elephants running wild—ivory on legs, we called them. Nasty place. Know how to hold you own there, and you’re a rich man, though.”
Savage? What makes someone savage? I wanted to ask because when I knocked over old Mrs. Highsmith’s beehive, she called me a savage and my mum gave me a whupping she said was fit for a savage. I didn’t ask though. I just crouched down next to the flapping tent cloth that stunk of cigar.
“There was a man in our regiment who was caught trying to flee from the action. He dropped his gun and ran for the nearest village. Military police found him, tried him in court for cowardice, was found guilty of desertion, and executed about a month later.”
“Come on, Rodney, I don’t like this.” I pulled on the collar of his Sunday best. “Let’s look for the eggs now.”
But Rodney’s eyes were wide and empty because his thoughts were in South Africa.
“I’ve held my dad’s gun before, you know. He let me.”
I got the feeling that the British soldiers in South Africa would have looked into his empty eyes all day if not for the sudden bustle and clinking of glass inside the tent.
“Ch—Charles dear, we were going over to the Masons’ for lunch, remember?”
Rodney’s mum. We could tell she’d ventured inside the tent unwelcome because as soon as she spoke, all the coughing and grumbling and swearing died down, and the young men went quiet when they found a lady in their midst.
“Five, Margaret. Me and Fred Mason spoke. They wanted us over at five.”
“Sorry, but why would Fred Mason host a lunch at five in the afternoon? Come on, now, please.”
Rodney’s dad was silent. Nobody laughed at his mistake, either. Except for me, that is. Pressing a hand over my mouth to hide my giggles, I leaned my ear up against the tent cloth, along with Rodney. We heard a sound of swishing fabric—maybe Rodney’s dad was putting on his coat, maybe he was laying down his napkin on the table, or maybe even wiping his sweaty forehead.
“Pardon me,” a different voice spoke up to break the tension, “eh—”
“Call me Mrs. Stoker.”
“Very well, Mrs. Stoker. I’m new to Leamington, just finished serving in Africa, and I’m trying to learn the names. There’s a woman who runs the sweet shop. I gather you’re friends?”
Rodney and I met eyes, and I felt my chest tighten. Whoever this man was, his voice was swelled and puffy like a balloon. He sounded like my Uncle Peter. Uncle Peter gets sick when he drinks too much, and in the evenings, his voice swells up just like that, like when I spent the holiday at his farm over in Rugby.
“Are you referring to Constance Baker? No, I do not make a habit of socializing with her.”
Without thinking, I tore up a chunk of grass from the ground and made sure that Rodney could see me. I made a mental note to put snails or grubs or something slimy in his mum’s handbag.
“I guess what I’m trying to get at is,” the man’s voice continued to swell until he was talking over himself, “this Constance Baker, she seems a fine woman, fine and put together and pious. I gather there’s no Mr. Baker?”
Rodney’s face got red, and he shifted on his hams, crossing his arms. I scratched my head with ferocity. I’m leaving, right now. But I didn’t.
“Cut the nonsense, Tom.” another man spoke up, “That’s the whiskey talking. You wouldn’t want to court Mrs. Baker.”
“Why not? I ask again—is there a Mr. Baker?”
“No,” I peeked under the tent wall to see Rodney’s mum study the dirt beneath her feet. “Not anymore,” she said.
I swallowed.
“Sad,” Rodney’s dad spoke up, “It’s a hard thing, having a house without a father. Not good for the children. That Jim Baker especially. Call me a fool if he doesn’t end up with his head cracked open one day.”
“Boys like Jim Baker are no enigma, love,” Rodney’s mum said. “If you won’t breed a sheepdog with a tramp, then don’t breed a gentleman with a, a…”
My hands shook, and I got that feeling I usually got right before I try and fight one of the older boys always making fun of Luther. But now they were making fun Mum. I peeked under the tent to see Mrs. Stoker’s face scrunch up like her tea had turned to vinegar.
“Have you met Mrs. Baker?” she asked the newcomer. “It’d be a meeting you’d never forget.”
“Indeed?” the same man said. “Tell me.”
“You’ve seen how she paints her face. It’s ghastly. Red lips, dark eyes, I can’t tolerate it. I heard from my cousin that she’s, well, a loose woman.”
Mr. Stoker coughed. “Who told you that?”
“Maisie—you know, Maisie Collins.”
“Maybe Maisie’s right, or maybe she's just a busybody. I wouldn’t trust that woman to make my toast, and you shouldn’t be spreading gossip.”
“Yet you trust me to make your dinner.”
A puff of laughter filled the tent, and Mr. Stoker swallowed his whiskey before losing his solemn, rotisserie composure. He motioned his glass toward himself.
“No wonder the Baker boys are so …” Mrs. Stoker went on.
“I don’t think that’s fair,” Mr. Stoker said. “You know Luther can’t help the way he is. And Jim’s not a bad sort. Good friend to our boy, remember.”
“These things are inherited, and the mother seems plenty strange to me,” Mrs. Stoker said, straightening up like she was going to give a lecture. “Why one time, when I was in the store, Rodney and I saw Luther have one of his fits. It was a sight I shan’t soon forget.”
To hell with it. With them all. I dropped the edge of the tent and stood up to go, hands clenched, jaw set, when I noticed the rock Rodney was crouched on a tiny ivory shine in the grass.
“Rod—an egg! You’ve been sitting on it this whole time, you chicken!”
Rodney snatched the egg up and stuck it in his trouser pocket. Finally, I dragged him away from the tent, and within a few minutes, we were searching for eggs and having fun. Kind of.
Whoever hid the Easter eggs had a ruddy go of it because we found them all over—in birdbaths, bushes, windowsills, some even just lying in the grass where people could step on them. They were painted eggs, too, dipped in blue and green pulpy water in coffee cups in the kitchen like Mum used to. Mum.
I heard her coming before I saw her.
“Look, Luther, there’s the egg. See? No, Luther, right there—see? In the flower pot. The flower pot. Luther, look at me. Go to the flower pot.”
“Ba,” it took him so much effort to say that. He pressed his lips hard and thought deep for the syllables. The sounds came out shrill, like an out-of-tune instrument, and he clung onto Mum to hide from all the other faces staring at him, blubbering in her shoulder.
“Luther, no sounds. Use words. The flower pot, Luther.”
She sounded just as happy as she always did around Luther. I imagined she was telling herself over and over again to love him sweet. The thought made me sick to my stomach.
“Ba.”
Luther was just about as tall as Mum now, which made the other kids stop and gape when they heard his sounds. They got quiet like they always did and shrank behind their parents. They were all afraid of him. Pricks.
Mum and Luther were coming around the corner, and I didn’t want to be there when they arrived. I was standing on Rodney’s hands because he was giving me a boost to see over Mrs. Robert’s garden wall. I didn’t see any eggs, but there was a big plate of golden-sweet hot cross buns cooling on the table on her veranda and a street cat circling the table and rubbing its neck on them. Mmm. My arms shook as I pulled myself over the wall and into the yard, where I opened the gate for Rodney to come in. We tip-toed over the gravel, and the
cat stared at us. It started walking in figure eights around the tabletop, restless as we approached.
I heard that rubber-squeaking sound, the constant sound of someone inhaling in delight. Luther stumbled through the gate on his toes, flapping his hands and jumping when he saw the cat. He ran right past us, not even noticing the dozen painted eggs Rodney and I were holding in our shirts. The cat’s eyes widened into saucers; it arched its back, twitched its tail, and darted off the table and into the bushes.
When Luther saw me, he ran up and hugged me, but I kind of pushed him away because I didn’t want Rodney to see us hugging. But then Luther did the same thing to Rodney, and Rodney gave Luther a shove, too.
So I hit Rodney. What’s a brother to do? Sometimes I don’t even know why I lash out, but as soon as I’d done it, I knew I shouldn’t have. Luther froze up like he does sometimes, his face all blank.
“Luther? Luther where are you?” I heard Mum’s voice in the background.
Rod crouched over, covered his face, and got real quiet. I thought he was going to start crying and get us all in trouble. Come on, Rodney, don’t be a baby. He stayed crouched. Rodney …
I inched over and touched Rod’s back to see what he’d do, and he got up and smashed all his eggs on my shirt, giggling. They were all boiled, of course, and left yellow grainy marks like dry boogies. But he ruined my Sunday’s best. Whew. We were going to be okay.
I laughed. “Want me to do you?”
He nodded, and I smashed all my eggs on his shirt. There were a thousand tiny crack crack cracks, and he had white and yellow egg flesh all over his suit, a few pieces of shell still sticking on. The both of us stood there giggling. I reached out and poked his shoulder, and he had the same idea. Next second, we were both pretending to be tough guys. I sent my fist at him in slow motion, and he grabbed it and pretended to twist it. I went along with him, flopping on the gravel of Mrs. Robert’s garden, clutching my arm and seething.