Asked For

by Colleen L. Donnelly

  The smoked pork she’d heated was just the right temperature, the gravy perfect and without any lumps. Lana hurried the last dish to the table, boiled potatoes, already soft with age even before she’d cooked them. The wood oven had warmed the house considerably, but Cletus didn’t seem to mind. She chose one of the two remaining chairs and sat near him, realizing there were no plates or utensils on the table.

  “I’m sorry, I forgot.” She rose and peered through the increasing gloom of the room, wondering where Cletus kept his dishes.

  “Over there.” He nodded toward a bureau alongside the door they’d come through from the back porch.

  She hurried and grabbed what they’d need. She glanced over the plates and silverware, making sure they were clean, then placed one set in front of him and the other where she was to sit. “I hope you like what I fixed.” She smiled, took her seat, and dug a serving spoon into the boiled potatoes. His fingers, long fingers, appeared over her hand. She stopped, amazed at their size, and how rough his skin felt as it brushed against hers. “I’m sorry, you want to pray first? We always prayed at home, me and Grandma. I guess I forgot.”

  He shook his head. “I’m only religious about eating on time,” he said. “But I do have a certain way I like things done when I eat.” He aligned the plate and silver she’d slid in front of him, everything symmetrical, each item in its place. She watched, looked down at her own scattered utensils, and aligned them as he had his. “And you should always pass the dishes to me first.” He nodded at the dish of boiled potatoes near her hands.

  She slid the potatoes his direction. She reached for the platter of meat and the bowl of gravy, sliding both in front of him also. He said nothing as he filled his plate. She watched, the aroma of what she’d cooked filling the air. Everything looked good, it smelled good, and she could tell he was satisfied as he took his first bite. She settled into her chair and watched him eat.

  “I’m not really very hungry,” she said.

  “You the nervous type?” he asked. “Been a big day,” he said without waiting for her to answer.

  He continued to eat, his head bent over his food, his big hands raking his spoon and fork across his plate. She really wasn’t the nervous type. Grandma always said Lana ate like a farmhand, often giving Lana her own small portions, claiming she was old and didn’t need that much anyway. Maybe Cletus was right. It had been a big day. She’d married him and stopped being a child, was all on her own. She’d left Grandma and her friends behind, left the only place her parents knew where to find her. But her father would figure it out. He and her mother would come see the new her, the grown up her, the one who was going to make them proud by being a good wife.

  ****

  Lana lay in the dark, colors drifting through her mind. Bright colors, like tinted clouds pierced by brilliant rainbows, the muted paleness of her wedding dress accented by the yellow of her belt. Fanciful parts of childhood—school, friends, the parents she’d dreamed of. She watched them drift, and she let them. Reality was a bit of a shock, but Grandma had warned her. She accepted the shock and the little bit of pain that came with it. She was a wife now, and both would eventually go away.

  Cletus had set an old wooden box in the corner of the bedroom for her few clothes to go in. He’d said she could use it as a dresser. She and Grandma had shared an old two-drawer dresser, each of them folding their day clothes and draping them across the top for the night. Cletus saw no point in draping clothing across a dresser or a box. His clothes were in piles, some hanging out of an old chest of drawers he used for himself. She’d glanced at his clothing, snaking out of open drawers and clumped in wads around the room as she held her clothing, Grandma’s dress, pressed against her body earlier. The top of his chest of drawers was different from everything else, almost bare; it was the neatest place in his house. A framed picture of an older woman stood in its center. She looked like Cletus, tall, slender, fair-haired and fair-skinned. To the side was another photo, a younger woman with a boy on her lap.

  “Who are these people?” Lana had edged toward the chest of drawers, keeping her dress between herself and his eyes as he lay in bed watching her. She knew what she was supposed to do, she knew husbands and wives saw each other without their clothing, but she wasn’t ready yet. She was still thinking about everything Jeanie’d described.

  “My mother,” he grunted. His eyes flickered across the photos and then back to Lana.

  She peered at the picture of the younger woman. “So that’s your mother when you were a boy?”

  He didn’t respond, so she turned. He was staring at the ceiling, a thin blanket molded over his long form. She looked back at the photos, and the other items he had arranged around them. Medals, war medals, were lined up precisely, the same way he wanted his plate and silverware aligned at the table.

  “You fought in the war?”

  “I did. Then I came back.”

  “But you must have been a hero.”

  “I survived. Sometimes living’s heroic enough.” He looked at her then. He looked tired, and older than she’d thought when she first saw him. “I built roads and bridges after I got back. Then I bought this farm, and I do welding in town.” He paused, his face looking almost mummified. “And now I’ve taken a new wife.”

  “A new wife?” She glanced back at the young woman in the photo, then at Cletus. “Are you sure? I mean, no one told me…”

  “You ask a lot of questions. Guess I should expect that from someone your age.” He ran a hand over his face. “Kind of wanted someone uncomplicated. That’s why I picked someone so young, someone who’d just do what a wife’s supposed to do, keep the house and give me sons.”

  Lana was young, still a child herself, and she felt like one compared to him and compared to the woman in the photo. She should apologize for acting like one, curious and full of questions, pesky, like Grandma always said she was. But no one had told her there’d been a wife before her. A real woman, not a child, like she was, standing here in Cletus’ bedroom, hiding her shapeless body behind Grandma’s dress. She pulled the dress tighter against her, ashamed she looked and acted so young, wishing she were fuller, the way Jeanie said she should be.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll do, and you’ll get used to things.” He nodded toward the picture. “It was fever,” he said. “I buried the two of them together.”

  “A boy,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  “Son.” His brows pinched together. “Not just a boy. Sons matter. They’ll work the land, help with the welding, and pass on what I build. What a father leaves a son is important. My father died and left us with nothing.”

  “Fathers want sons…I’m not your first wife…”

  Cletus ignored her. He stared at the picture of his wife and his son. “I want a son again. For a long time I only wanted him back. Would’ve gone to him if I could. Got the medals to prove it.” He leaned back against the headboard and looked at her. “You need to know that nothing scares me anymore. Nothing can hurt me worse than I’ve already hurt. And there’s nothing I want except a son. I’ll have one—I’ll have dozens of them. And I’ll do right by them.”

  Lana tried to shake away her shock as she stared at the determination on her husband’s face. A chill ran over her nearly naked body as she grasped what he’d said. Make babies. Mothers don’t matter. Daughters didn’t either. Cletus only kept his first wife’s picture because she was holding his son.

  “My dad only had me, but my mom said he loved me.”

  Cletus frowned. “You have a dad?”

  “Of course I do, he just never was around.” It came out childish, her voice sounding high and screechy. She cleared her throat, drew in a long breath. “He was supposed to be there today. He was going to watch me get married.”

  Cletus frowned again, then shook his head like she was wrong.

  Her heart pounded and she tightened her jaw. Don’t sass him. She wanted to. She wanted to shout how wrong Cletus was, that her father was busy
and tired and always far away, but she had one. Cletus still stared at her, the frown on his face making her feel like a child. She wasn’t a child, not anymore. She drew herself up. She’d become a woman today. “You’ll have sons.” She looked her new husband straight in the eye. “Lots of them.” She dropped the dress. The slip followed, and then her undergarments.

  He looked her up and down. “You’re awfully thin.” He rolled onto his side and waited for her, facing the place she was to sleep.

  “I can still carry babies. You’ll have sons. Lots of them.” She fought back the childish blush, the shock of womanhood, and the path it carved through her thoughts, the worry over having no noticeable hips or breasts. She’d seen his nakedness before he climbed into bed. He had no embarrassment or shame, not for himself or in front of her. He was her husband, her prince, and this is what princes were supposed to do. His eyes stayed on her as she climbed in beside him, the lamp at his side of the bed glowing, illuminating her lithe form.

  He had been quick to pin her beneath his long body. She didn’t cry out when he loved her, tried not to inhale the thick scent of his sweat, the aroma of something burnt emanating from his skin. She’d stayed quiet as labored breaths spouted from him. She’d gripped gritty handfuls of blanket and sheets and held on.

  She lay in the dark and let go of the bright colors of childhood. Cletus was snoring, his back to her. She removed the blanket and let the night air cool his perspiration from her skin and dry the stickiness of her body. Had they made a baby just now? If what he’d done was making love, surely it wasn’t supposed to have hurt so. She patted her belly. The hurt would pass, the shock would go with it. Surely they’d made a son.

  Chapter 5

  James 1948

  “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

  James glanced at Alex. His brother’s voice was low, and the expression on his profile stern as he stared to the left, past Harold and out the driver’s side window. Harold gripped the steering wheel with both hands and glanced to the left also, steering blindly, easing down the main street of town. James pivoted in the back seat, scanning the buildings and sidewalk, looking for the smoke his brother was talking about. No one was running, no one was screaming, everyone was quiet, minding his or her own business, just strolling along downtown.

  “That Rick?” Harold asked while looking out the side window and then glancing ahead, checking where the car was going and straightening it a little.

  “Uh-uh.” Alex shook his head, craning to watch behind them as Harold drove on.

  “Bases loaded. She’d better be careful. She’s likely the one to be thrown out.” Harold shook his head back and forth, his shoulders sagging. Alex said amen to his brother’s sentiment, but his look was more fiery and his shoulders taut, his eyes riveted on whatever had their attention behind them.

  James wheeled around once more. He looked for “she,” he looked for “smoke and fire,” and he looked for someone not named “Rick.”

  “You better drive by Pop’s work. That’s one fire we don’t want started,” Alex muttered.

  “Better.” Harold blew out a breath as he veered to the left, heading one block off Main, then back the direction they’d come. The rear of Pop’s welding shop butted against the back side of Main Street businesses, store owners often complaining about the noise and stench of a welding shop so near. Pop never cared. He ran his business the way he wanted and where he wanted, just like he did everything else. “Then we gotta get this car back to Ben, next door. Said he and his wife need it right after lunch, and I sure don’t want him hesitating on loaning it to us again.”

  Alex nodded. “Hopefully this will be quick.” Alex glanced ahead, then left and right as if looking for someone. “Pretty close to lunch time. He usually sticks pretty near the shop for lunch, but you never know.” Harold hit the gas, hurrying toward Pop’s shop.

  James’ stomach tightened. Lunch was supposed to be waiting for them at home. He had his ball shoes on, his ball shirt, and his glove. Pop would make some comment if he saw him this way. “Can you drop me off? I’ll walk home.” He put a hand on the back of the front seat.

  Alex and Harold exchanged a glance. Alex looked back at James and the ball clothes he was wearing. “Yeah, sure,” he said. Harold yanked the car to the right and pulled along the curb. “Meet you at home,” Alex said as James opened the back door. “We won’t be long. If you see Ben, tell him we’ll be there in a jiffy. You can help mend the fence while I fix that gate Pop wants fixed, after we eat.”

  James nodded. He snatched his glove and closed the car’s door behind him. He stood on the sidewalk and watched his brothers pull into the street and drive on. Pop’s shop was a few buildings down on the left. Pop would be inside, probably having his lunch. If James headed back to Main Street the way they’d just come, he’d likely avoid being seen if Pop had gone out. The red brake lights of the car his brothers were in flared as Harold moved it into a parking spot across from the welding shop. James ducked his head, for once glad he was small, and headed the opposite way.

  James rounded the corner and headed down Main Street, pausing in front of Andy’s dad’s hardware store. Andy had been at the baseball practice also, the one Harold and Alex held on Saturday mornings. When they finished their practice, Andy’s mom had dragged him off to a haircut, Andy scowling and yelping he was about to be scalped. James grinned, thinking about Andy. He caught the grin in his reflection in the window. He looked different when he smiled. He looked good. Maybe that’s why Andy always made him laugh.

  “You been out practicing?”

  James jumped. He thrust his glove behind his back and wheeled from the hardware store’s window. Mr. Morgan was there, a sandwich sign on the sidewalk in front of him advertising his daily lunch special. James let the wind out of his lungs as Mr. Morgan toed the sign into place. He had an apron on, something Pop said was sissy. Mr. Morgan brushed his tan hands together and walked over to James.

  “Yes, sir,” James said. “I was.” He brought the glove around in front of him, relieved it wasn’t Pop, and slipped one hand inside. He socked his other fist into it.

  Mr. Morgan eyed the glove, watching James jab it with his fist. “With your brothers or with the coach?”

  James stopped pounding the glove and looked up. “My brothers. How’d you know?”

  Mr. Morgan grinned, and it made James grin back. He liked Mr. Morgan’s eyes, especially when he smiled. He’d seen Mama in them the time Mr. Morgan showed him how to bat better. He thought he’d seen himself in there too, but his eyes didn’t dance or talk the way Mr. Morgan’s did. Mr. Morgan shook his head, a slow jovial wag, his dark hair glinting in the noonday brightness. “Small town. News travels fast when it doesn’t have far to go. Good news, bad news, even fake news. It gets around.”

  James tapped his fist into the glove and squinted at Mr. Morgan, wondering if it was good news or bad that his brothers helped him and some of the boys. James ground his fist into the leather. “They always helped me a little. They used to use sticks and dirt clods when we were out doing chores. That was when I first started playing, though.” That was when he was six. When Pop had said baseball wasn’t in James’ blood. He ground his fist deeper, remembering the thrashing Pop had given him one night, whipped him with his belt for not getting chores done on time when a game went into extra innings. Alex had stepped in and Pop thrashed him too. Alex didn’t cry, but James did. “I quit once for awhile. But then Harold and Alex started helping some of my friends play, so I decided to join them.”

  “You’ve got good brothers.” Mr. Morgan’s eyes were on him. James hit the glove hard. It felt right, he felt like he owned it. “You keep up the good work. You’ve really improved.”

  James stopped pounding the glove. Mr. Morgan came to a lot of the games… He must be watching him if he noticed how James played. “Thank you, sir.” He cleared his throat. “I will.”

  “Well, I need to get back into the restaurant. Noon rush and all.�
�� Mr. Morgan stayed where he was instead of walking away. “I wondered…would you tell your...” He put a hand to his mouth, ran it over his lips, then dropped it. “Tell your brothers they’re doing a fine job with you and the boys.” He turned toward his café.

  “Mr. Morgan?” James stopped him. “Was there smoke down here a little bit ago? A fire or something?”

  Mr. Morgan stopped and looked back, his brow furrowed. “No. No smoke. No fire, either, that I know of. Thank God for that, right? Some would probably think it was coming from my kitchen.”

  Or from Pop’s shop. Mr. Morgan could have said that, but he didn’t. He raised his eyebrows in pretend alarm instead.

  James smiled. “Just wondered. Good day, sir.”

  Mr. Morgan disappeared through the restaurant’s door. James moved in front of the café’s large front window and watched Mr. Morgan as he made his way to the back. Ida, Mr. Morgan’s sister, was watching him, too. Mr. Morgan hesitated halfway and glanced to his left. His hand came to his chin. James watched him scratch it pensively before he resumed his trek toward the kitchen. He passed his sister, and Ida turned toward James, staring at him, a solemn gaze that didn’t let up.

  James had stepped back from the glass and started to walk on, his fist hitting the glove, when he spotted the smoke. There in a booth along the left wall inside Mr. Morgan’s restaurant. Magdalena. Her back was to him, her right elbow at the edge of the table, a long cigarette, balanced between her fingertips, sending smoke snaking toward the ceiling. A man sat across from her, a man James had never seen before. James pressed close to the glass and stared. The man was tall, he looked rugged, and his eyes were fixed on James’ sister in a funny way. Rick never looked at Magdalena that way. That’s who Magdalena was usually with.

  James watched his sister, wondering if that was the fire Harold and Alex were trying to put out before it started. The man who wasn’t Rick stood and moved to Magdalena’s side of the booth. The smoke thinned and disappeared along with her arm when the man slid in next to her, scooting her out of James’ view. Pop would be furious if he saw Magdalena this way. She shouldn’t be in Mr. Morgan’s restaurant, since Pop was at war with all the downtown merchants, and she shouldn’t be smoking and sitting with a strange man. Pop would rage, and it would feel like a fire had struck when he was done. But not to Magdalena. She’d make sure she didn’t care. It was Mama who’d suffer. Whatever heat Pop sent Magdalena’s way would make Mama melt.