“What about your share?”
She looked away. “Oh, I don’t have much of an appetite these days.”
A little silence fell then, and Cousin Sarah said, “I’ll make us another pot of coffee.” I started to get up, too, but she motioned for me to sit down in the chair by the fire next to Zona. “No need for you to help me in the kitchen, Mary Jane. You stay here and keep Zona company. Reckon I’ll make some biscuits while I’m about it. We made apple butter a few weeks back, and I remember Zona was always partial to a nice hot biscuit with apple butter.” Sarah—always my favorite of the cousins—was no fool. She must have had her suspicions, same as I did, but she was willing to give Zona and me the time to thrash it out between us without trying to horn in on the conversation. She wouldn’t even eavesdrop, for as she bustled away, the door to the kitchen swung shut behind her.
I turned to Zona, still huddled in her chair, staring into the fire. We were alone, but time was short, and I hadn’t the leisure of beginning slowly with idle talk to put her at her ease. “Well, Zona. You said you were ill, and so I came to see about you. What is ailing you?”
She shivered a little and tried to smile. “I don’t reckon it’s much, Mama. The doctor—it’s George Knapp from Lewisburg—has been out and given me a tonic.”
“You haven’t been coughing, have you? Any blood in your handkerchief?”
She gave me a sad smile. “It ain’t consumption, Mama. Of course it isn’t! And no, I have not been coughing, nor feverish. I’m just tired, I reckon. Maybe the cold weather is getting me down. There’s a draft in that house, too, I do believe.”
“Why, today is as fine a weather as you could ask for, this time of year. I believe I could have done without my coat on the way over from Little Sewell.” I leaned close to be sure that I wasn’t overheard, and whispered, “What is the matter? Have you started a baby already?”
“I don’t think so.” She pushed her hand against her belly, but it was as flat as a boy’s. “Ain’t hardly had time to know that yet. The wedding was just a couple of weeks ago.”
“Yes, but if you didn’t wait—”
“Well, I ain’t known him all that long, neither. It’s like I told you: I’m just tired all the time. Seems like there’s nothing I want to do except sleep, and that makes Trout wild with me, because he’ll get home of an evening, and I ain’t done even half my chores.”
“Well, if you’re sick, it’s no wonder, Zona.”
“Try telling that to Trout. That cookstove we have is different from the one up home, and it’s taking me awhile to get used to it. I burned the biscuits the other night, and he carried on something fierce. He expects his supper to be hot and ready and on the table the minute he walks in the door, and he’s not above raising hell if it ain’t.”
“Well, stand up to him, Zona. He ought to be made to understand that it takes time to get used to new ways of doing things. And you’d better explain to him that when you’re ailing, you can’t work as long and hard as if you were well. You need to take care of yourself, especially in winter, or you may never get your strength back. If he’s impatient now, what’s he going to be like when you’re pregnant for nine months and never feel up to doing much?”
“I don’t know.” She wiped off a tear on the back of her hand. “But I don’t think standing up to him is the answer.”
“Why not?”
“ ’Cause he don’t like that, either.”
I heard the quaver in her voice, and I could see that she was determined not to cry. If we’d had more time, I think she would have told me all that was going on, but Zona was proud, and she would never admit that she’d made a mistake, or that there was anything much wrong with her handsome new husband.
I noticed then that she was wearing the same dress I’d last seen her in—the one she wore on her wedding day, a dark dress of satin brocade with a high banded collar and long puffed sleeves. That dress hid every inch of her below the chin, though it seemed to hang a little looser on her than it had before.
I didn’t say anything for a minute or two, hoping that she would come out with the rest of the story, but she just went back to staring into the fire, without saying anything at all.
“Do you like this Dr. Knapp, Zona? Would you like to see Dr. Lualzo Rupert from up home?”
She stared at me, eyes wide and nostrils flaring, and it just about broke my heart to see how scared she was. “I don’t want him coming anywhere near us. He delivered the baby, and I don’t want him to let it slip that I ever had one. I ain’t told Trout.”
“Well, you could come back to Little Sewell with us, and see Dr. Lualzo on your own. Your husband need never know. I certainly wouldn’t tell him.”
“No. I’m all right. Dr. Knapp calls out to see me when he’s making his rounds in the Richlands. Everybody says he knows his business. Well, most everybody, anyhow. I reckon he loses a patient every now and then, same as the rest of them, but he’s all right.”
“Well, what does he say is wrong with you?”
“I don’t think he rightly knows. A touch of anemia, maybe. He gave me a tonic that was supposed to help.”
“Did it?”
“It hasn’t yet.” She shrugged. “I’m just as tired as before. Dr. Knapp said it might take awhile for the medicine to start working.”
I thought about it. “Would you like to come home for a spell?” I knew that I might have to fight Jacob if she accepted the invitation, and that husband of hers might come out to the farm and raise Cain if she did come, but it worried me that she was all alone so much of the time, and feeling poorly. I doubted—knowing her cooking—that she was getting much in the way of nourishing food, either. I thought it might be a good idea to have her home until I could work out what was ailing her.
She didn’t seem a bit pleased by my offer, though. Her eyes got big, and she put her hand to her throat, as if she was having trouble catching her breath. “Go back to Little Sewell? Oh, I couldn’t do that, Mama! Trout wouldn’t stand for it. He says a proper wife’s place is with her husband, no matter what.”
I didn’t think much of Mr. Edward Shue’s opinions on anything, but I forbore to say so, because there was no point in upsetting Zona with something that couldn’t be helped. “Would you like me or your daddy to have a talk with him? He needs to understand that you won’t be much use to him as an invalid. Better to get you well than to ignore the issue.”
Zona wiped away another tear with the back of her hand. “You might as well try to explain geometry to a mule. Trout won’t listen. He says I’m lazy.”
There was some truth in that, I thought. Zona generally was an indifferent cook and a slapdash housekeeper, but it’s one thing for a mother to hold that opinion, and quite another for a husband to be saying so after less than a month of marriage. It worried me.
“And it’s best if nobody tries to speak to him about it. Trout’s got a temper.” When Zona saw the look on my face, she said quickly, “He don’t mean nothin’ by it. He just lets little things irritate him and he blows up quick. But once it’s over, he’s awful sorry about it. He hugs me, and tells me he loves me. Then he swears he’ll never get mad at me again. One time back before we were wed, he even went out in the field and picked me some wildflowers to show how sorry he was.”
“Sorry for what?”
Zona shrugged. “Oh, for losing his temper. I know he loves me. And I love him. I wouldn’t want to be married to some pantywaist that let his wife boss him around. I just have to learn to be a better wife, I reckon, so’s I won’t keep making him mad. I’m working on it.”
Cousin Sarah came in just then with the coffee and biscuits, and I didn’t get to ask Zona any more about it. We just talked about ordinary things amongst the three of us until H. C. turned up, and said we were burning daylight, and that he ought to take Zona back now.
I went into the kitchen and brought out the basket of fried chicken and apple pie that I had made for Zona and Edward, though now I grudged
him every mouthful of it. I hadn’t cared for him from the beginning, and I liked him even less after what I’d just heard. A handsome brute is still a brute, and the handsome part tends to pass away a lot quicker than the brute does.
“Are you sure you won’t come on back with us to Meadow Bluff?” I said, not wanting to let go of the basket.
Zona laughed. “Trout would go crazy if he came home and found me gone. He’s been looking forward to this chicken dinner all week. We’ll come see you when the weather’s better.”
“Today is as fine a day as we’re likely to get until spring.”
“But Trout has to work today, just like every other day except Sunday. But I’ll keep at him about letting me come see you, and I’ll write to you every now and then until we can come out to visit.”
“Has he taken you to meet his family yet?”
“Lord, no! They live twenty miles and more over the ridges in Pocahontas County. I may not set eyes on them until midsummer. Trout’s not too anxious to visit them anyway.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t ask. He seems to be happy with just the two of us. And he works so hard at the smithy, I reckon he doesn’t want to waste his time off rushing hither and yon a-visiting relations.”
“Well, try to get him to bring you to see us. Tell him we’ll feed him until he founders.”
Zona laughed. “Well, if anything would work, I bet that would, but he just wants to be with me right now. Maybe come spring, he’ll get to feeling more sociable.”
I walked her outside and waited while H. C. hoisted her back into the wagon seat. “Now you let me know how you’re feeling and tell me anything the doctor says, you hear me, Zona?”
She leaned down and kissed my cheek. “I promise, Mama. I’ll see you again as soon as I can.”
We headed west toward the mountain, trying to get there before the sun set behind it. As it neared evening and the shadows grew long, the wind picked up, and I pulled the quilt up over my coat, hoping it wouldn’t get too much colder before nightfall.
“What was their house like, son?” I asked, trying to keep my teeth from chattering as a cold gust of wind swept past the wagon.
“I don’t know, Mama. She must have been looking out the window, a-waiting on me to come fetch her, because by the time I stopped the wagon in front of their house, she was out on the porch waving at me.”
“You never went inside? What about when you took her back this afternoon?”
“You said you were in a hurry to get home, remember? She didn’t seem too anxious to have me stick around anyhow. I offered to carry the food basket inside for her, but she said she could manage it on her own. Next thing I knew she had jumped down out of the wagon, snatched the basket out of the back, and was hightailing it up the steps. So I let her go.”
“Was Mr. Shue back then?”
“Didn’t see him.”
I fretted at the missed opportunity, but there was nothing to be done about it. H. C. was right: we didn’t have time to waste with a long journey ahead of us on a winter afternoon. “Well, what does the house look like on the outside?”
H. C. rubbed his chin, trying to compose an answer. “Biggish, I guess. White frame house—could use a lick of paint. Tin roof, no shutters. And a low porch that goes all the way across the front of the house. Oh, and there’s a fence, too. White board. It wouldn’t keep chickens out, but I reckon the cows couldn’t get past it. Knowing Zona and gardening, though, I doubt there’d be anything in the yard for them to eat anyhow.”
I looked out at the brown fields stretching away to the dark shapes of bare trees along the creek. “Well, nobody’s yard looks like much in December. Maybe things will be better come spring. We could come back then and help her set a garden.”
H. C. kept his eyes on the road and didn’t say anything, but I knew what he was thinking. We had work aplenty on our own land without taking on chores for Zona, too.
I leaned back in the wagon seat and pulled the quilt up tighter around me. “Well, we’ll see how things stand in March when the winter breaks. Things may settle down between the two of them by then.”
“Maybe.” H. C. snapped the reins so the horse would pick up the pace. The light was fading. “I reckon we can ask her if she needs any help next time we see her.”
But I never saw her again. Not alive, that is.
Christmas came and went, and all we got from Mr. and Mrs. Edward Shue was a postcard with a snow scene of a white steepled church and a sprig of holly printed on the front, and on the back a scrawled message saying, “Hope you all are keeping well, Love from Zona.”
“Well, that tells us nothing!” I said to Jacob, slapping the card down on the kitchen table. “And that husband of hers didn’t even bother to sign his name.”
Jacob picked up the card and wiped off the drops of coffee from one edge. He propped it against the biscuit dish in the center of the table, with the church picture facing out.
“Do you reckon he can?”
I tried to smile. “Maybe she wrote and mailed it while he was at work.”
“Or maybe he’s about as much family to us as a cuckoo in a dove’s nest.”
Jacob went on eating stew and didn’t say anything more, so finally I said, “I’ve a good mind to go stay with Cousin Sarah in the Richlands, so I can see for myself what’s going on over there.”
“Let her go, Mary Jane.” Jacob’s voice was soft, but there was iron in it. “She’s over twenty-one and married. What’s done is done. She needs to work this out on her own, and Lord knows no man wants his mother-in-law butting in on his marriage.”
I hesitated. “Well, it’s early days, maybe. I guess I could wait awhile.”
“You’ve got a houseful of family right here that needs you, Mary Jane. Who’s going to cook our Christmas dinner and take care of the rest of the young’uns if you was to leave?”
He was right, of course. I couldn’t take Christmas away from the boys just on account of Zona, and I couldn’t be in two places at once.
“Besides, the snow clouds are hanging above the ridge like sacks of wool, so don’t get any notions about heading over to the Richlands. Let’s be thankful this Christmas for what we have and not go chasing after what we haven’t any control over.”
“Seems to me that Edward Shue could make more of an effort to be part of this family.”
“That’s Zona’s lookout, Mary Jane, not yours. Try baiting that trap with honey instead of vinegar, and see if that helps.”
“I made him fried chicken and apple pie, didn’t I? And it’s more than he deserved, I’ll tell you that!”
“And if I was Mr. Shue, I’d have been afraid to eat it in case you had spit in it.” Jacob sighed. “It’s hard to see eye to eye with somebody when you’re on your high horse, hon. Climb down.”
“It’s hard to see eye to eye with folks who are a dozen miles away, too. Let them come a-visiting, and I’ll do my best to be pleasant.”
“That would be a fine resolution for New Year’s, Mary Jane.”
Christmastime in the big city and in fancy places like that hotel in White Sulphur Springs is said to be a wonder of beribboned trees with candles in their branches, and piles of presents wrapped in shiny paper, all tied with satin bows. I heard about it from people who had traveled, and now and then I’d see a picture of a holiday scene, but that’s not how things were out in Little Sewell. There was a war on when Jacob and I were children, and families here on the outlying farms had no money to spare then or now for finery or store-bought decorations. Mostly we marked the occasion by going to church, and we sang carols and gave one another useful gifts, like warm socks. Jacob made some money by selling one of the young hogs, and he bought me a lace-trimmed handkerchief and a packet of needles for my sewing.
The wilder young bucks in the community would shoot off their guns in the air on Christmas morning. Zona, when she was little, asked me were they trying to shoot down an angel. I said I didn’t think so, but I had no
more idea than she did what the purpose of that gunfire was. To people who grew up with a war in their backyards, it certainly wasn’t a joyful noise. Women’s work went right along as usual over Christmastide, only there was more of it. I always cooked a smokehouse ham and a wild turkey for Christmas dinner to make sure that everybody got to eat all they could hold without having to fill up on vegetables and biscuits. In the afternoon we would all go over to Johnson Heaster’s place, and have dessert and carol singing with whichever of the neighbors came to celebrate.
We were content with our simple festivities, and I never wished for more, but I did wonder what would pass for a holiday at Zona’s house this year. Maybe her ill-tempered husband would get her a box of candy from Green & Bready’s store in Lewisburg to make amends for his demanding ways. Maybe by now Zona would have had enough practice cooking on that stove of theirs to be able to make him a fine Christmas dinner so that he would be happy. If there was a way to that man’s heart, it certainly did seem to pass through his stomach. But I had begun to think that Mr. Edward Shue was one of those people who runs after the things he wants, but is never satisfied with them once he gets them. When a person is like that, you can’t ever give him enough to satisfy him. Everything they get is like fairy gold that turns to ashes in the morning. You may pursue it forever, but once you touch it, it crumbles to dust in your hands.
It didn’t seem right, the two of them spending their first holiday by themselves, with nobody else around, but since Jacob insisted on me leaving the newlyweds alone until spring to fix their own troubles, I vowed that I would. Times seemed to be changing quicker as we neared the new century, and perhaps the old traditions that I was raised with weren’t the way of the world anymore. Surely, I thought, if Zona needed me, she would get word to me, and maybe hearing no news from her was all the reassurance I could hope for.
The Unquiet Grave: A Novel Page 10