Tears welled in his eyes.
The cardinal flew away.
Across the street, Anna Belle Roper’s front door opened. She walked toward his house with a towel-covered plate of breakfast.
Too late now. Shouldn’t have hesitated.
Ellsworth plopped back down on his chair and placed the gun on the window ledge, resigned to another day of living.
He sighed. “Hope she fried bacon.”
CHAPTER 2
Anna Belle was pretty as a sunrise and always dressed to the nines.
She’d been his first kiss at twelve, planting one on him while they waded in the Atlantic. “Just so I could say one day we did, Ellsworth.” They’d all known she’d marry Calvin anyway. Now every morning Ellsworth battled the need to tell her about Cantigny, that small French village where Calvin was shot dead. About how he’d cradled her husband’s head in his lap while he bled out from the throat wound. But every time he started, he’d choke up.
Today she wore a white sweater over a pink blouse, her strawberry-blond hair pinned up in a bundle atop her head. Her beige skirt hugged her hips and narrowed at the ankles, a soft silhouette of curves he tried not to notice when she placed the steaming plate of food on the window ledge. Bacon, fried potatoes, and two eggs over easy—just the way he liked them.
Anna Belle smiled, waited for a response.
He jerked her a nod. Lately he’d taken to staring at the floorboards rather than meeting the walnut brown of her eyes. I held him in my lap, Anna Belle. I couldn’t stop the bleeding. Any more than a nod would lead to conversation and, looks aside, Anna Belle talked too much. Never could leave quiet alone.
The rest of the town might visit, but they wouldn’t stay. Ever since the night Eliza died in the fire—and with what Ellsworth had done to the Klansman after—they’d all acted a pinch leery of him, despite their innate fondness. But Anna Belle was the opposite. She brought Ellsworth breakfast and dinner every day, along with the newspaper from his porch.
He needed that daily paper even more than his morning coffee. He’d returned from war a month before Alfred and two months before his other pal, Omar, fearing more, daily, that both had died as Calvin had. He’d become obsessed with checking the news every day, even after both men had returned, each damaged in his own right.
But today Anna Belle backed away from his chair, the folded newspaper still in her grip. She didn’t leave it next to his plate like usual.
“Why do you have the gun out, Ellsworth?”
“Might be Krauts in the woods, Anna Belle.”
She grinned. Earlier, she’d knocked for two minutes before finally letting herself in his house. “A gentleman would get out of the chair and open the door for a woman.”
“A wiser woman would catch a hint.”
She huffed, looked at the gun. “So why didn’t you shoot me for intruding?”
He slid a crisp bacon slice into his mouth. “This some kind of interview?”
She began stacking all the dirty plates he’d left around the chair.
“What are you doing?”
“Eat,” she said. “I’ll clean these, and then we can have more conversation.”
“That what this is?” he mumbled, pulling the plate to his lap. The food was delicious. The potatoes were crisp. Eggs slid down like the grease they’d been fried in. He soaked the last piece of bacon in the remaining yolk and listened to Anna Belle clank dishes in the kitchen.
The sound of it brought back the urge to shoot himself. He and Eliza used to do the dishes together. She’d wash and he’d rinse. “It begins with you in their arms and ends with your arms in the sink.” If she’d said it once, she’d said it a hundred times.
Anna Belle returned and sat in a chair opposite his. “So?”
“So what?”
“You’ve got to get out of this house at some point.”
“Why?”
“To learn to walk again, for one.”
“I walk fine.”
“I haven’t seen it.”
“You don’t see me using this chair as a privy, do you?”
She thought on it. “Then let’s go for one.”
“One what?”
“A walk, Ellsworth. It’s a lovely day.”
He grunted, kept his eyes on the street outside. She was relentless. She asked, “Do you have a nest egg I don’t know about?”
“If I do it’s none of your business.”
“You’ll need a job. There’s still houses in need of painting about town, and your hands work fine.”
He laughed, a quick burst, then poked the bottom of his clunky prosthesis into the floorboard three times. “I can’t paint houses anymore.”
“How about doghouses then? You wouldn’t need to stand on a ladder to paint those. Or you could help Ned Gleeson paint those birdhouses he makes.”
She glanced at his wooden leg, then looked away.
“I was a pitcher, Anna Belle.”
For that she had no response. He had been a pitcher, one of the best South Carolina had ever seen. Before the war, the big leagues had been a certainty.
The summer after he and Eliza were married, Babe Ruth had come through Charleston between travel games to dine on fresh seafood. Ellsworth had caught wind of it and made the trip to Charleston. He’d approached the baseball star with a satchel of balls and a wooden bat and challenged him to three pitches, daring him to hit one into the harbor. Ruth took the challenge across the street at the nearby park—rolled up his sleeves and missed on three consecutive pitches. Ellsworth would later admit that Ruth had just finished his fourth pint of suds when he accepted the challenge, but he’d struck the man out no matter. When word reached the Dodgers, he felt sure his place in the minors would be assured.
Ellsworth knew that town folk whispered about the fact that now he’d never play in the big leagues like he’d dreamed. But this was the first time the tragedy had been spoken in his presence, and it felt like the air had been sucked from the room.
Anna Belle stood from the chair, opened the window. In came street noise, a subtle breeze, and the smell of blooming azaleas. “Have you noticed the hydrangeas are out? Along with the camellias?”
He’d seen it yesterday, but hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself. Typically camellias flowered in winter, hydrangeas in the summer. But this spring both bloomed alongside the azaleas and the daffodils, and the magnolia trees were blooming early too. The town square was dotted with color—stunning shades of yellow and red, white and pink, blue and violet. The oddities of the Bellhaven woods; rumors sometimes breed truths of their own. But all Ellsworth said was, “What of it?”
“Just mighty peculiar is all.” She watched out the window. “Pinch me, but everything is blooming at once.” She breathed in the fragrant air. “Another good reason to take a walk.”
Ellsworth watched Alfred feed squirrels in the distance. “Why do you care what I do?”
“Because that’s what Eliza would have wanted. For you not to become a turtle.”
“I can look after myself, Anna Belle.”
“Like all men can?” She started away, stopped, turned back. “You know, that’s what Calvin told me before he ran off and followed you to war. Alfred too. They’d follow you to hell if—”
“Don’t do that, Anna Belle.”
She looked down, fiddled with a button on her sweater. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. But Calvin did say that. Told me not to worry, that he’d take care of himself. Well, he didn’t. And here I am a widow raising a boy that I’ve come to love even though he won’t talk.” She pointed at Ellsworth. “And you don’t even have the courage to mention his name. ‘The boy. That boy.’ His name is Raphael, Ellsworth, not ‘that boy.’ So don’t be cold to me. I’m doing the honorable thing for your late wife. She’s the one asked me to watch over him should anything happen to her.”
Anna Belle folded her arms. “Are you going to say anything?”
He grunted. “Thanks for breakfast.”
> She shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder if Calvin wasn’t the lucky one for dying.” They shared a glance. “Have you noticed the cardinals?” she asked. “They’re everywhere. Saw at least a dozen on the town hall roof this morning, and the woods are singing. There was one perched on your window on my way over. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice it.”
“I saw her.”
“Her?”
“The cardinal. It was a female.” She was luring him to the past with talk of the redbirds, but he wouldn’t take the bait.
“Ellsworth?”
“Yes?”
“Stop blaming him. Raphael. He’s not the reason Eliza died.” She turned toward the door. “I’ll let myself out.”
“Anna Belle, wait.”
“Yes?” Her eyes lifted with hope.
“The paper?”
Her face sagged. She stepped toward him, but then stopped and grinned. Instead of handing him the newspaper, she walked back outside with it, slamming the door.
Halfway down the walkway to the street, she stopped to look at his window to make sure he was watching.
She dropped the newspaper in the middle of the sidewalk and walked off toward home.
CHAPTER 3
Ellsworth made it out of his chair twice and even got as far as opening the door the second time before deciding to leave the newspaper on the sidewalk.
If she wanted to play games, then fine. He’d once stared down Babe Ruth with a baseball bat. He could outlast Anna Belle Roper. The current events could wait until tomorrow. But what if she doesn’t bring me my paper tomorrow either? Current events will soon become history. And the smell of ink had now become as much of a daily necessity as the alcohol. Never should have fretted over his pals’ return in the first place. Even the survivors died over there.
He hoisted himself up from his chair for the third time to retrieve that paper.
Alfred appeared out the window, crossing the road with his right hand gripping his cane and something boxlike and clunky in the crook of his left elbow. A blind man had no business crossing the road with both hands occupied. How does Linda May let him out of the house like that?
Alfred navigated the crossing easily enough. Not too many in Bellhaven had cars yet, and it wasn’t a busy thoroughfare. And the townspeople knew to look out for Alfred, who roamed the streets like a stray mutt.
Alfred had the trip to Ellsworth’s memorized down to the number of steps it took to get up the veranda and open the screen door. It was an unspoken rule that Alfred let himself in. But since Alfred had his arms full and Ellsworth was heading to the door anyway, Ellsworth helped him inside. Alfred handed Ellsworth the contraption he’d been holding—a series of copper coils and wires, a tin can, and an antenna, all mounted to two planks of wood fastened together at a right angle. He had been a machinist before the war and still tinkered.
“What in Sam Hill is this?”
Alfred felt for the wall and then counted his steps to the cushioned chair facing Ellsworth’s wooden one. “Wireless telegraphy.”
“Come again?”
“Made my own crystal radio, Ellsworth.”
“But . . . how?”
“With my hands. Sometimes I think I can see better now than I could with eyes.”
Ellsworth didn’t think that made any sense. “Does it work?”
“’Course it works. Think I would’ve lugged it over here if it didn’t?”
“Where’s Linda May?”
“Charleston for some fresh air. She thinks I’m napping.” He motioned for Ellsworth to put the contraption back on his lap. Alfred patted it like a loving pet that had been returned. “Linda May doesn’t agree with it anyhow. She’s a little leery about anything modern and has gone all high-hat about stuff like radio. Thinks it’ll kill the, what did she call it?—oh, the cultural sophistication of the listeners. Thinks people will listen too much to the box and stop conversing.”
Ellsworth plopped down in his own chair. “Maybe Anna Belle needs one then.”
“Ha. Good one, Ellsworth.” He scratched his nose, which he had a habit of doing since he’d come home from France addicted to morphine—the Soldier’s Disease. Stuck a needle in between his toes every night after Linda May went to bed. Alfred patted the radio again and imitated his wife’s voice. “How is this radio thing gonna influence today’s youth, Alfred? That’s what Linda May said this morning, Ellsworth. Kids growing up with a radio as a given right? Like I give two trouser coughs about that. I said, I don’t know, Linda May. We don’t have any kids. And I doubt we will since you don’t lay with me anymore.”
“You said that?”
“I did. And then she stormed out for fresh air and I went to feed the squirrels.” He ran unsteady fingers through wispy brown hair that thinned daily. He’d pulled a good chunk of it out when the gas hit him in France, and it had never grown back. “I wish I wouldn’t’ve said it to her, Ellsworth, but I did. And it’s true—she won’t touch me anymore. Linda May’s a peach, and I love her, but it’s one ing-bing after another with her, and she’s convinced I’m jingle-brained enough to go see a lunatic doctor.”
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“Don’t you think you might be?”
Alfred paused and then leaned over the radio. “Let’s have a listen. Where are you? Here, bring your chair over. We’ll have to share the ear things.”
Ellsworth scooted his chair closer and held one of the earphones to his right ear while Alfred used the left. Alfred stared at the ceiling as he adjusted knobs and dials and wires on his homemade radio. “These devices are becoming commercial, Ellsworth. Pretty soon every household will have one. Not just the army and the government.” Alfred had become one of those anarchists the country was so scared of, a US-born communist and angry veteran. Thought the government he’d given his sight and part of his mind to was oppressive.
Static burst through the earphones, and both men flinched. “Ah, there it is.” After a few more adjustments a faint voice sounded through the crackle, talking about the Ford Plant in Detroit, “. . . that sprawling, modern industrial complex.”
“Who is that?”
“. . . America’s Mecca . . . a breathtaking monument . . .”
“Hush now, Ellsworth. I don’t know. Some man talking about factories.”
“I can hear that much.”
“Well I can’t hear nothin’ ’cause you won’t stop bumping your gums.” The radio voice was lost in static. Alfred adjusted another dial, maneuvered a copper coil. More static—louder, softer, louder again. “I’m going to get me one of them Model Ts. I’ll go real slow, and you’ll have to help me steer.” He tinkered with his radio box. “Everyone’s gonna have a car, Ellsworth. Heard it right on the radio here. Accidents might be on the rise. The roads are potted, cities clogged. And parking’s gonna be a national crisis. But the automobiles are boosting this economy and getting us from here to—”
Alfred stopped muttering and held a finger up. Another male voice had burst through the static, clear as a bell. Both men leaned in, pressed the earphones tight. The new voice, surreal and seemingly sounding from nowhere, spoke about the Palmer Raids back in January, when the US attorney general had arrested and deported radical leftists. The announcer said the authorities were expecting more anarchist activity in the wake of last year’s Galleanist bombings and were taking steps to prevent it.
Alfred’s face reddened. He mumbled something about the state being unnecessary and harmful. The radio voice then told the story of how a maid had opened one of the Galleanist mail bombs back in May and had her hands blown off.
“Ah,” Alfred grunted, waving it away as if he didn’t believe it.
The radio jumped to static again. Alfred slapped the side of it, and the static got worse. “What’d we fight for, Ellsworth? Huh?” He adjusted the antenna and maneuvered some wires. “So we could come back to a country where our jobs were given to women and colored folk? Where they think it proper to chisel a
man’s corn liquor and throw folks in the hoosegow for partaking in rum punch? Don’t get me started on the drys.”
Out the window, Ellsworth saw Anna Belle’s drapes move. “She’s spying on me.”
Alfred, quick as a snakebite, pushed the radio off his lap. It clunked on the floor. A dial popped off and rolled across the hardwood. He jumped from the chair with his revolver out. “Who’s spying, Ellsworth? Who’s out there?”
“Put your gun down, Alfred. It’s just Anna Belle. She’s spying on me from her window.”
Alfred stood with his back to the wall, the gun poised next to his chest. He turned his head toward the window and then back against the wall. “Why’s she spying?”
“She’s watching to see if I’ve gone out to get my newspaper yet.”
“What newspaper?”
“The one she left on the middle of my sidewalk.”
“I didn’t see any newspaper.”
“You can’t . . . Just holster your gun and sit back down.”
Alfred didn’t holster, and he didn’t return to the chair. He slid his back down the wall and sat cross-legged on the floor. Tears welled in his eyes.
Ellsworth knew not to touch him when he got like this. Last time he’d put a hand on his shoulder, Alfred had fired and nearly taken Ellsworth’s ear off. The bullet was still lodged in the wall above the couch where Ellsworth slept every night. So Ellsworth let him cry. He’d help him fix the busted radio later.
Ellsworth waited for Anna Belle’s drapes to move again, but they didn’t. His stomach growled, and he suddenly feared she’d hold out on dinner unless he went out to retrieve his newspaper. He’d never been a big eater before the war, but since his return he’d done nothing but, and his increasingly chubby body now expected food. A healthy portion of it.
This was a battle he was going to lose, so he got up out of his chair for the fourth time and hobbled to the front door. “If you hear me cussing, it means I fell down the steps.”
Alfred didn’t even give a hint he’d heard him.
All Things Bright and Strange Page 2