by Rhonda Riley
“Don’t go.” I took her arm. “Why are you going? What are you going to do up there?”
She rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know what I’ll do. But I need to go.”
Her eyes had the focused, faraway look of someone already on her way. She caught me staring at her, worried, and snapped back into the present.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be okay, Evelyn. I’m coming back. Just tell everyone I’ve gone hunting.” Then she laughed that staccato laugh that reminded me of Joe.
I did not want to, but I let her go.
Two days later, she came back as she had left, without explanation, herself again.
I felt the pressure to marry and have a family—that was the expectation of my community, my family, and my body. I was content with Addie. But the ripeness of my body was not something I could resist or suppress.
After I held little Bud, I thought of these things more often. I couldn’t see how I would fit a man into the house Addie and I lived in. We would each have to find someone at the same time or share a single man. The former was unlikely, the latter seemed impossible. But that is just how it happened. We found a man.
Four
Adam
The morning sun shone bright and unseasonably warm, though it was still winter, with no sign of buds on the trees yet. Addie and I had just come from Sunday dinner at Momma’s. Logy from overeating, I chose an easy but prickly task for the afternoon—pruning dead stems off the blackberries. I perched high up on the bank where it began its drop from the road to the railroad track, my clippers in hand, when I heard whistling and then the crunch of shoes on the gravel skirting of the tracks below.
A man’s voice called out, “Hello! There a place around here I could get a drink of water?”
I glanced down, expecting to see one of the local boys, but a stranger peered up at me. The brim of his hat shaded his eyes. Too nicely dressed to be a hobo, he held a small, battered suitcase and a wrinkled, grease-stained brown paper sack in one hand. He needed a shave. His jacket was slung over one shoulder and his sleeves rolled up.
“Ma’am, is there a place nearby where I could get a drink of water?” he repeated. “That’s all I want is a drink of water.”
He pushed his hat back farther on his forehead, exposing his face. He was not much older than I. A lock of dark hair fell forward over his brown eyes.
“If you go down the track about another fifty feet there’s a path up the bank. Be careful you don’t get scratched by the blackberry briars. There’s a pump in the back of the house.” I pivoted and swept my hand toward the house.
“Thank you very much.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him climb the bank. His shoulders and head were visible above the brambles. I judged him to be six foot two, maybe three. He reached the crest and paused. Silently, I pointed toward the house. He grinned, the grin of a man used to smiling at women, and continued. I followed, watching his shoulders move under his cotton shirt.
He set his suitcase down immediately and took a long drink from the ladle at the pump. After a second deep drink, he bent lower, scooping up the cold water with his hands, and rubbed it on his face and into his hair. Addie leaned out the back door, her arms folded across her chest.
The stranger pulled a white handkerchief out of his pocket and slowly dried his face, letting us watch him. He carefully folded his handkerchief and put it back in his pocket before regarding us.
“You two must be twins?” he said after he had taken us both in.
I shook my head.
“Sisters then?”
We both shook our heads. “Cousins.” I said.
He glanced quickly from me to her. Addie nodded.
“Must surely be more to it than that,” he said, grinning again and combing his wet fingers through his hair. A current went through me; I wanted to have my hand in his hair. Then he held out his hand and announced, “Roy Hope from Kentucky. On my way home from Jacksonville, Florida.”
Addie and I introduced ourselves.
He leaned back against the watering trough, resting his hips on the lip of it. “I should be sitting in a train on my way to Kentucky instead of walking the tracks. But some lucky bum is sitting in my place.”
We nodded our interest and he launched into his story. “I’m not a mining man and where my people come from in Kentucky is nothing but mining. I was gonna make something of myself. Jacksonville, Florida, seemed to be the place for that, but it didn’t work out that way. So I’m heading back home for a while. Then I think I’ll go out West.”
I studied him—the width of his wrists, the span of his neck where it joined his shoulder. He turned his hat in his hands, smoothing the brim as he told us about his brother in Jacksonville, who fought with his wife, and their baby, who woke up at all hours of the night. His opportunities and savings that had dwindled.
“The Florida beaches, though.” He whistled his amazement. “Clean white sand, fine as powder.” He rubbed his fingers and thumb together and laughed. “And on Saturday afternoons, girls. Girls everywhere in bathing suits.”
He was even younger than I had first thought—early twenties, maybe his late teens. He had not been in the war.
I watched his beautiful mouth and straight white teeth while he relayed the details of being robbed of a suitcase and train ticket when he napped in the Charlotte depot. “So, I’m broke now, with nothing left but this.” His foot nudged the little suitcase at his side. “Nothing to do but hoof it home.” He glanced at the chopping block. “If you ladies could use some help around here, I’d be happy to split some wood for my supper . . .” He paused and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket.
Addie looked at me and raised an eyebrow as he bent his head to light his cigarette. I smiled at her and she offered him some supper. I handed him the splitting maul and a wedge.
While Addie cooked, I stood at the kitchen door watching Roy split wood. She came and stood behind me. “You just gonna stand around and watch him?”
“There are worse things a girl could do,” I said.
“And I imagine you are thinking of at least one of them.”
“I don’t think he’s real smart,” I answered, then pitched my voice up into that high scratchiness of Granny Lou’s and quoted what she had said that day at church when she saw the Clemson boy making eyes at me and Addie. “He’s a fine example of a man. A woman could get good, healthy children off of him.” I giggled.
Addie snorted back at me and I repeated the phrase, pointing at him. I pulled her closer so she could get a better view. He put the maul down and headed toward the outhouse.
“Look at him, Addie. He is well-built: good shoulders, strong arms. Good-looking, too. For once, Granny would be right.”
Addie watched him till he disappeared behind the outhouse door. “Yep, she would be right about this one.”
Later, when we sat down to dinner, he ate quietly, all of his attention on his food. The lamplight made the slight cleft in his chin more apparent. He wiped his plate clean with the last of the corn bread as Addie and I cleared the serving bowls off the table.
Roy pulled a flask out of his back pocket. “You ladies mind?”
We shook our heads. He unscrewed the cap and took a long swallow, tilting his head back, exposing the movements of his throat.
When I came near the table where he sat smoking and drinking, I could smell the warm liquor on his breath and feel the heat of him. His situation grew darker and more dramatic the more he drank. By the time he finished the whiskey, he was railing against the mines, the unfriendliness of Jacksonville, and his sister-in-law. Even through my stupor of attraction, I could hear the bitterness in his voice. He caught my eye, tilted his shoulder my way when I passed by.
We let Roy sleep on the couch in the parlor. In the morning, he did not seem to be in much of a rush to leave. Addie and I discussed things and decided to offer him some money for his labor—not much, just two dollars, but it would have taken him pret
ty far back then. We worked him hard, dragging in some fresh-fall logs for firewood and replacing some boards on the back porch. In the afternoon, the three of us mucked the barn. All day I was aware of where he was and what he was doing.
After supper, when I returned from the outhouse, he stood on the back porch, his cigarette glowing in the dark. I passed him as I went up the steps and he pulled me toward him. His breath smelled of moonshine.
“Evelyn is a pretty name,” he said. “I’ve never known a girl named Evelyn.” He traced the line of my lower lip with his index finger, and I felt it all the way down my body. My hips curled involuntarily up and toward him.
“I can see it’s just the two of you out here all alone,” he whispered close to my face. Then he took my lower lip between his teeth and bit very gently, pressing his hips tight against me. I shuddered, and then pushed him away. It was too much, too fast.
Roy stumbled backward a step. “Go on then,” he said and patted me on the rear as I walked away from him. “I don’t need it no how.”
I rushed inside, trembling. Not from fear or anger, but from what I wanted to do.
“You all right?” Addie asked and took me by the wrist.
“I’m all right, but he’s getting pretty drunk. Did you show him where the whiskey was, the pints of shine Uncle Otis left us?”
“No, he must have found that on his own. I guess he figured we weren’t paying him enough. I’ll make sure he doesn’t get more than one.”
“Good. I’m going to bed,” I told her.
From where I lay trying to calm myself and sleep, I heard them—at first very faintly, then louder when they came inside into the parlor. The trace of his touch lingered on my lips.
I must have fallen asleep. I woke sometime later and reached across Addie’s side of the bed. My hand slid over cool, empty sheets. I heard some noises, faint voices, but no recognizable words. I tiptoed softly down the hall. The noises from the parlor became rhythmic as Addie’s voice rose in excitement. My heart jolted, then clattered in my chest till I could hardly hear. Numbly, I took the last steps up to the parlor door. Through a crack of the door, I saw the middle of Addie’s bare back, the curve of her behind, and, below her, the tops of Roy’s thick, open thighs. She moved up and down on him. I watched, my fist jammed into my mouth, the burn from my belly to my crotch doubling me over. Then they slid from the couch to the floor. He shifted to the top. I could see only his feet sticking out past the couch. Their rhythm increased until he sputtered and groaned to a stop.
I crept backward down the hall as quietly as I could, crawled into bed, and curled up under the covers.
A few minutes later, Roy began to snore and I felt Addie slipping into the bed behind me. I pretended to be asleep, but Addie snuggled up and laid her arm across my waist. “I know you’re awake,” she said.
She smelled of his sweat, of whiskey, and of sex.
“Why did you do it?”
“Because I never had. It’s good. It’s different, too. Is it something you thought I would never do?”
“I just never thought of you with a man.”
“You just thought of yourself with a man? I saw how you watched him. He’s not as nice—not as good a person—as you.”
“He smells like whiskey.”
“I know.” She pulled me closer. “You want to marry and have children, right?”
“Yes, but not with someone like him.”
“I know.” She kissed me until the tightness in my belly eased, then reached around my waist, touching the sweet center of me until I climaxed and slept, dreaming she was in and around me, her voice humming through my bones.
I woke before dawn to find the bed empty again. The first thing one of us usually did when we woke was light a lantern. But I didn’t stop for that. I searched the house. Moonlight through windows was enough to tell me: Roy, his suitcase, his hat, jacket, and shoes were gone. Barefoot and still in my nightgown, I lit a lantern and ran to the outhouse, then the barn. Nothing but surprised livestock. Becky and Darling neighed when I climbed up to the hay loft.
Outside, I scanned the horizon, hoping for any sign of them. I called Addie’s name into the cold predawn air.
They were gone.
Mechanically, I dressed and forced myself to eat. I listened for their return as I finished the morning feeding and milking. Mid-morning, I found myself sitting at the kitchen table, hollow and stupid as I waited for them to return. Then I saw that the big peach-shaped cookie jar where we kept our egg-and-butter money had been moved. The money was gone, all fifty-three dollars.
I threw the jar against the kitchen wall, shattering it into a spray of pink and green shards. I regretted it immediately. The jar had been Aunt Eva’s. I cried as I picked up the pieces. Twice, I cut myself.
I checked the closet and the bureau drawers. Some of our clothes were missing, too. I flung everything off the bureau, stripped the closet, and emptied every drawer. I collapsed on the heap of clothes and wept. I kept going over everything that happened since Roy Hope had walked up and asked for a drink of water, but I couldn’t imagine why she’d gone with him.
Eventually, I unfolded myself from the mess of clothes and got up to finish my work for the day. Stunned and puzzled, I tried to think of anything I’d ever seen in her that would lead her to disappear, abandoning me. That was what her fictional mother had done, just disappeared after a boy. That was all I could think of. Was she doing what her “mother” had done, following a fictional lead? Why had I lied? I banged my head against the barn wall.
The house and barn seemed too quiet without her. I consoled myself by giving Darling a long combing. Then I moved on to Becky and the cows. Numb, I watched my hands move over their haunches and withers. Hands identical to hers.
No, hers were identical to mine.
I went outside to the place past the apple tree where I had found her, knelt there, and pressed my hands to the ground. Nothing. No depression, no puddle, no warmth. The red earth was its simple mysterious self, fertile and relentlessly dumb. My innocence shamed me.
That evening, as I picked up the clothes I had hurled around the bedroom earlier, I felt the crumple of paper. On a small brown bag torn open and flat was a note in Addie’s handwriting, sloppily written, but clear: “Back as soon as I can. 2 weeks? I love you. —Addie.”
I headed straight back outside and lay down on the same spot. The sky stretched endless and blue above me. Peripherally, I saw the fields, the apple tree, and the barn. This had been Addie’s view when I pulled her out of the ground. She was coming back! But what was she doing? Why leave me for two weeks? How was that love? Still, she was coming back. I spread my arms and moved my legs, making an angel in the dirt.
Kept busy with chores, both hers and mine, I managed to pass the rest of the week. I checked the road and the tracks every chance I got, hoping Addie would appear. Her absence loomed everywhere. I’d lost my talent for being alone. I was unmoored, awash in recollections of Addie’s first days with me. In her absence, her extraordinary qualities seemed even more present.
That time of year my family did not come up to help unless they heard from me. But Addie and I often went into town to run errands on Saturday. On Sundays we met them for church. They would be expecting us. Saturday morning, I walked down to Mildred’s to call Momma. Rita answered and I told her that I wasn’t feeling well, and we wouldn’t be coming to town. No, we weren’t that sick, just that time of the month. We’d be okay. We had everything we needed.
Sunday evening I heard steps on the back porch and ran to the door, flinging it open. Cole, his hand raised to knock, laughed in surprise. Then, quickly, his face dropped, mirroring my disappointment. I stood speechless in the open door, trying to recover.
“I’m sorry . . .” Cole stuttered. “You and Addie . . . your momma said you weren’t at church.”
“Everything’s okay. I’m not feeling well . . . Can you come back later?” I pulled the door nearly shut.
“You d
on’t look so good. Is there anything I can do? Where’s Addie?”
“She went away on a trip, Cole.”
“A trip? Where?” He stepped up closer to the door.
“I can’t talk now. You need to go. Please.” I didn’t want him to see me cry.
“Wait, Evelyn.” He slipped his hand around the door frame. “Is Addie okay?”
“There was this boy. She left with him. There was a note. That’s all I know.”
He shook his head in disbelief, his face screwed up in concern. “Evelyn, let me . . .”
I waved him away and bit my lip to keep from crying. “It’ll be okay, Cole. She said she would be back. I know she will. I’ll let you know if I need anything. Okay?”
He nodded and took a step back, but didn’t seem convinced.
“Thanks for coming by.”
He nodded again and walked away, his shoulders hunched and his hands jammed down in his pockets.
The next weekend, I didn’t bother calling Momma’s. Suppertime Saturday, Momma showed up. She held a plate of scones wrapped in wax paper when she got out of the truck. Immediately, she knew something was wrong. “Evelyn?” she called as she came into the kitchen.
I had prepared answers to the questions about Addie if anyone else came by. Addie was on another mountain trip. Or she was out on a long horseback ride. But as soon as Momma set the scones down on the kitchen table and turned to me, I started to cry.
Weeping into her shoulder, I told her everything about Roy, except, of course, how he had touched me, what I had seen through the parlor door, and the missing money. She held me and did not scold or tell me that we should not have let a strange man stay in the house.