Silva returned to the house with an empty glass and saucer just as Mr. Kern barged in. The two circled each other before Silva finally eased away inside the pantry, placing the Missus’s bussed tray within the cupboard.
“I swear there’s no beating this heat,” Mr. Kern complained.
Silva rolled her eyes then calmed her face before she continued.
“Well, I fixed some cold lemonade if you’d care for some,” she offered.
“That there’s too sweet,” he said without even tasting it. “I can’t stand it syrupy.”
“I can fix you one separately,” Silva said.
“No, don’t bother,” he scoffed. “It’d probably come out the same way. Just have the Missus come in from that porch. Last thing we need is another sickness on our hands.”
“Yes, sir,” Silva said.
Silva walked stubbornly to the porch with a slow, tiresome gait that seemed more like an ornery child set to some unwanted task than a servant charged by her employer. We all dreaded disturbing Miss Lula during these moments of contentment, as her joy brought peace to the house that did not exist otherwise. There Miss Lula sat, her eyes the deepest blue, her dress the color of sunshine as it clung to her slender frame. Upon hearing Silva’s footsteps, the Missus looked up and smiled.
“I swear I can’t eat or drink no more,” she said kindly.
“No, Miss, I ain’t here for that,” Silva said.
“Good, ’cause I thought you were gonna make me, I swear,” Miss Lula joked, chuckling at her own bit of humor, which was rare to say the least.
“Mr. Kern was just wondering if you wanted to sit inside for a bit, rest your eyes for a blink before supper.”
“No, I’m quite fine out here,” she said. “This heat’s not nearly as bad as what’s inside.”
“Well, I can’t force you, but Mister’s real concerned you might grow ill again and I must say, I can’t blame him.”
“Tell him I’m not coming!” she yelled. “And that’s final.”
It turned out that when she did return to the house, she was pleasant again and smiled just as brightly during dinner, to which Mr. Kern looked away and focused on the lack of seasoning in his food, smacking his lips loudly as he tried to distinguish the source of that bad taste.
“Silva!” he called nastily, watching as she turned the corner into the dining room. “Something just don’t taste right here.”
“It tastes fine to me,” Miss Lula chimed in before Silva could apologize. “In fact, it tastes even better than it normally does. I loves Silva’s fried chicken.”
Mr. Kern scowled as Miss Lula grinned bigger than a naughty child, holding her cup to her mouth to keep from completely laughing out loud.
“I told her she should start a business,” Miss Lula continued. “Call it ‘The Best Darn Fried Chicken This Side of the Delta.’ Sure did.”
Mr. Kern smiled a slow grin that cracked along the lines of his face and seemed altogether sinister once it was completed.
“I guess you’re right, Lula,” Mr. Kern assented.
Possibly he’d hoped his agreeableness would deflate her ego or maybe this trick would get her to shut up and quit that foolish behavior, but either way, he did not add to her childishness, saying simply, “That’ll be all,” and watching Silva leave the room.
Miss Lula’s eyes brightened, the repetition of her fork hitting the plate seemingly awakening her thoughts in the silence that crept over and under and through.
“I tell you, you’re sure on a rampage,” Miss Lula said looking solely in Mr. Kern’s direction. “This food got good flavor. It’s probably something in you that’s spoiled.”
She waited.
“Anyhow, I thoughts you liked Silva,” she said. “Guess I was wrong.”
Mr. Kern ate his meal quietly, poking his tongue with his fork yet never delivering a word in opposition or giving her a reason to continue. He lit his pipe then sighed a loathsome expression that covered his face and eventually faded into lasting fatigue.
“I just never understood it,” the Missus said. “You been good to her for years, and now you can’t stand her. You know, George?”
She looked into his eyes but gave up when he remained silent.
Following supper, Silva and I cleared the table and washed the remaining dishes. The boys had returned to the house from the fields and waited by the side door for their mother just as they did each night. Silva gathered her hat and purse as well as a small bag of leftover cornbread and chicken from dinner, which was always allowed by the Mister and Missus if there was enough, when suddenly Miss Lula appeared at the doorway.
“Miss!” Silva jumped. “What ya need?”
“Don’t worry, Silva,” Miss Lula said. “Just thought I might rest on the porch tonight and figured I’d stop here for a bit of coffee to take with me.”
“Sure thing,” Silva said, removing her hat and purse while grabbing the pot from the stove.
“You go on home,” Miss Lula instructed. “Bernice can manage.”
Silva looked at me fearfully then placed on her hat once more and took her purse from the nail and her bag into her hand as she opened the door to the sounds of her boys’ laughter.
“You have a good night, Miss,” Silva said.
At that moment, a spark reawakened inside the Missus as she looked out toward the sound of that laughter and caught sight of the passing culprits just as the door closed, their silhouettes crossing before her like flashes amongst the shadows at dusk, as brought about by those occasional cars that did pass along the isolated road. She turned to me and smiled, a contentment having built in her that replenished with each breath she took then gave away in heavy sighs. It all seemed so childish, yet with her it was often this way, and we all dealt with it. She giggled and twisted in her chair until I finally presented her coffee, which she marched outside like some teenager who had been given extended curfew for the evening. There she sat for only a few minutes before dumping the coffee in the grass and returning to her quarters. Still, at breakfast the next morning, she remarked on how great it was to sit outdoors at night, how the air was much cooler and the crickets just dazzling as they croaked and hopped all around her, how the Southern summer was like no other, not that she had ever experienced another. She bade Silva to sit with her a while longer, since Mr. Kern was not keen to listen to her ramblings, leaving me to command the regular household duties in Silva’s absence. Needless to say, Mr. Kern did not like it one bit, yet he tolerated it for as long as he could, as long as that season allowed or his stomach could manage the turmoil of her content, until alas, the cold came once more to that small town.
CHAPTER 5
By November the harvest neared its end and so did the collection of pickers. Only a handful of workers remained, although they, too, would soon be gone. The fields were once again as bare as that eternal damnation that spread during this time of year, where the long running of a picket fence met the sparseness of trees and their bald exteriors cast out over the plains and that flatness. Fletcher worked beside me in the barn, feeding the hogs and collecting whatever eggs the chickens reluctantly laid, while Jesse remained in the fields with Floyd. There was increasingly less work to do, and the boys would soon move on just like the other workers, to farms farther out that still held scattered blooms in the fields or find work in town if it was indeed available. Fletcher had grown fond of me during those weeks following the harvest and took to calling me “Miss Bernie” like his brother, relinquishing that formal title of my first and last name that he’d held to so firmly.
Fletcher had been at my side the majority of the day, his young mind troubled with questions that, if only a year or two older, he would surely never ask. Still, I indulged his curiosity, as he was a sweet boy and meant no harm, and there was no need to break his inquisitive spirit so early in life, though any other adult would surely
have him mind his manners.
“Miss Bernie,” he started on this day, his hand twirling a piece of yarn he’d found amongst the stash of hoes and rakes. “Where’s your husband?”
I stared into his young eyes for a moment, allowing the shock of his question to settle into a smile before I continued.
“Someplace far from here,” I said, picturing him now.
“Heaven?” he asked honestly.
“Not that far,” I laughed.
“Well, why aren’t you with him?” He scrunched his face as he pulled apart the yarn into strips.
“That’s a good question, Fletcher. But only God knows.”
Fletcher found a stick to break once the yarn was completely torn apart. He looked down and used the stick’s pieces to scoop a metal shard into his hands then flipped the jagged square into the air from the perch of those twigs.
“So do you stay once the picking is over, too?” Fletcher asked, now using the shard to scratch lines into a piece of wood, having left the stick on the ground.
“I reckon I’ll be here for a long time,” I said.
“Me too,” he smiled. “Mama says both me and Jesse can work here from time to time as long as Mr. Kern don’t mind. And as long as we stay outta his way and be nice to Miss Lula.”
Fletcher dropped the shard and returned to the stick as if it were something new.
“Well, if you wanna stay, you gotta do less talking and more working,” I said, patting him on his bottom and sending him inside with a basket of eggs. “Take it straight in,” I instructed. “Then come back.”
His shadow followed him as he ran, that stubby stranger that knew not the height the young boy would soon obtain. A rustling grew in the trees and stirred the chickens inside the coop, yet nothing so unsettling as to warn me of approaching trouble, as within minutes of Fletcher’s departure the Missus’s screams made their way from within the house. The Missus had been in one of her moods lately, and I feared I’d sent the boy smack dab in the middle of her tirade. By the time I’d entered, Fletcher was already in tears.
Miss Lula stood near the sink where Silva dabbed her dress with a damp rag. Broken eggs covered the floor and seeped along the tinted caulk between square tiles while the basket sat upside down at Fletcher’s foot, the smoking gun resting in plain sight for everyone to see.
“Bernice!” Miss Lula shrieked once she saw me.
“Yes, Miss?” I answered, fully aware of my crime.
“Don’t you ever send someone inside the house for something you should be doing yourself! If you don’t want the job, then we’ll take it away.”
“Yes, Miss,” I replied even quieter than before, merely gathering the eggs and their yolks into the basket.
Just then Mr. Kern entered, his hands at his side like a gunslinger and eyes poised for the draw. He surveyed the calamity in silence then watched Silva’s efforts with the rag. Yet in the corner where the culprit stood was where his eyes remained the longest, locked on Fletcher and the boy’s tiny sniffles, which wavered in their intensity like a puckering flame when caught in the wind. For indeed Fletcher’s entire face burned a deep red, his fair skin unable to hide the surge of emotion that built and burst through in long sobs that left his nose somehow redder than his face as he nearly rubbed it off in his fits. Given the boy’s innocence, no one could dare stay mad at him for longer than a second, although Miss Lula seemed quite intent on doing so.
Mr. Kern observed the boy closely, a look in the old man’s eyes that seemed more wistful than angry, a kindness toward the youngster that I was sure stemmed from that ripe beauty the boy possessed.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” Mr. Kern finally said.
He continued to watch the boy, ending the standoff with his final decree, saying, “Bernice, clean this up.”
The Missus gathered the soiled parts of her dress from Silva’s hands and shoved her way past Mr. Kern.
“Fletcher, go on, get out now,” Silva said to the boy.
Mr. Kern watched him leave, turning to Silva once Fletcher was gone with nothing more than a squint of his eyes as he left the kitchen for Silva and me to clean.
“I swear he just don’t pay attention,” Silva fussed once we were alone. “Sometimes I don’t knows how’s he gonna make it in this world. I swear they eats folk like that alive. Don’t make it past the start line.”
Silva and I both knew the world she spoke about and the dangers it held for those who were unaware of its malice. We’d seen it in the land and men’s hearts and our dreams and now our nightmares.
After taking several deep breaths that staved away whatever thoughts or images she had just seen of her son adrift in this world, Silva took to her duties once more in restoring the kitchen to its previous sheen. Then, when the area was tidy, she went to find Fletcher, eventually spotting the boy near the stables, where he sat alone. She lectured him for nearly an hour before returning to the house and placing the tree switch by the door. Floyd heard of the mishap and lectured the boy as well, taking that same switch in his hands and leaving the house right when the sun sat as a red afterthought in the western part of the sky and the stars had started to sprinkle upon our heads in light showers.
CHAPTER 6
Dinner was quiet that night, the Missus’s glare as sharp as a prick from a rosebush thorn. Her eyes remained on the table where her food sat unconsumed. She constantly resettled in her chair, that noise being the only sound other than Mr. Kern’s fork falling to his plate. The old man was the gentlest I’d ever seen him.
“Thank you, Silva,” he praised as if the meal was prepared in a more extravagant manner than it was every other night. “This sure is good,” he commented. “Got any more of them rolls?”
Miss Lula dropped her glass to the table, sighing a strained breath as she watched him fiercely. Her stare was capable of chopping off his head if he met her eyes even once. Silva returned with more sweet tea and lemonade, which Mr. Kern accepted, swearing it was the tastiest drink he’d ever had, insisting it must have taken hours to prepare, and proclaiming how lucky they were to have a servant like Silva in the house. They couldn’t pay her enough, he insisted. Silva, however, showed no extra care toward his benevolence, merely bowing courteously before gathering their empty plates and returning with slices of pound cake for dessert, which Miss Lula only nibbled at, turning up her nose and frowning distastefully. As Silva left the room with their glasses, one empty and the other not, Mr. Kern cleared his throat, an act that gathered the attention of everyone seemingly in a mile’s radius and indeed Silva as well who returned to the dining room to see what was the matter.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Mr. Kern said to Silva, “I think we’ll have your older boy stay on and help out throughout the winter if he wants.”
“Thank you, sir!” Silva replied graciously.
“He’s a good worker,” Mr. Kern said. “And Floyd likes him.”
Surprisingly, this bit of news saw not one sad expression as I looked around to find smiles on everyone’s faces including that of Miss Lula, who was never one to smile simply because of a happy ending.
“I know Fletcher was hoping to come by after school and maybe help out as well,” Silva soon added.
Yet before Mr. Kern could reply, Miss Lula had already quit that bit of joy and protested quite fervently, saying, “It’s already too much noise around the house as it is! Now, two servants is enough. This place ain’t no schoolyard, everybody’s children and brothers and sisters coming whenever they please!”
Mr. Kern acquiesced. “Lula’s right. Should be enough work for the one but maybe not the other. But if he wants to stop by sometime, he can.”
Mr. Kern watched the smile return to Silva’s face. They both watched each other, their eyes indulgent and irrevocably joined. I looked to Miss Lula’s eyes, which were quite different.
“No, Ge
orge,” she said. “You make your exceptions all you want, but this is not one.”
The young woman had never appeared so grown up in my presence, staring without blinking, folding her arms across her chest while waiting for any sound to slip past his lips that she might pounce on it.
“What do you know of my exceptions?” he said meanly. “I’m not a man of even one.”
She steadied her eyes. Her body was stiff, and her voice lowered to a snarl.
“I can sure think of one,” she said. “And what I remember, it’s the only thing you love.”
The room fell quieter than any disagreement or typical reversal of mood, the Mister’s fork tapping his plate in the same vibration as his trembling body, which made for the only movement in the space around us. Seated there, he appeared to inflate like a growing balloon made taut with venomous air, possessing a mass that could crush any person, place, or thing if it got in his way. Silva left the dining room without a further peep in the Missus’s direction, gathering her hat and purse and meeting the boys at the fields instead of the kitchen door as usual, leaving the tension inside the house to persist like a surging wave that built in size as it traveled.
“What’s the darn meanin’ a this?” Floyd argued when she arrived, knowing he had at least another hour with the boys before their work was done.
“Boys!” she shouted, taking Fletcher by the hand and leaving Jesse to apologize to Floyd.
Floyd’s explanation of these events was simple as we sat in the backhouse with a cup of coffee between us and the remnants of our meal scattered about the table.
“A house of cards,” he began, “they bound ta fall down eventually. Ya see, the Missus was promised ta Mista Kern. Although she loved him, problem was he didn’t love her. Married her at seventeen when she was still a child. Both her an’ Silva pregnant at the same time. Gave birth almost together, Silva wit’ Fletcher an’ Missus with Elizabeth. Practically raised the boy in the house till the girl fell ill, ’bout age three. Then Missus never wanna see Fletcha agin. Can’t stand the sight a him. Buried Elizabeth up at the church. Missus was never the same agin.”
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