Bone's Gift

by Angie Smibert

  As her fingers grazed its wood, a happy jig filled her mind. She caught flashes of a young boy dancing as Mr. Childress played. His joy flowed through the fiddle.

  Bone wrapped her fingers around its neck. The tune changed. It was now the sweet, mournful strains of “Amazing Grace.” The cold trickle of an image splashed over her. Mr. Childress played this fiddle as a small casket was lowered into the ground.

  Bone drew her fingers back. Mr. Childress played all the funerals in Big Vein. Yet this one seemed different.

  “Did you find it, Bone?” Mr. Childress called from the porch.

  “Yessir.” She steeled herself to wrap her fingers around the fiddle again. When she did, the images and music swelled up and then broke over her as a younger Mr. Childress sank to his knees by the body of a boy, drowned by the look of him. Bone’s mama was there, too, laying a hand on the child’s chest. She shook her head. He was too far gone, she said. Mr. Childress drew the bow across the strings of the fiddle in a low, mournful wail. Bone almost let go, but she dove a little deeper, looking for the joy to latch onto again. Beneath that memory was a wedding march with one of his daughters all in white. Bone picked up the fiddle and felt around for the bow.

  The light flicked on and Bone found herself facing a picture of a woman and the same boy over the mantel. The bow lay in front of the framed photograph.

  “Daddy misses him as much as he does her,” a voice said. Mr. Childress’s middle daughter, Olivia White, stood in the kitchen doorway with a mixing bowl of corn bread batter in her hands. She could’ve been her mother in that picture.

  “How did your mama die?” Bone asked.

  “Same as yours,” Mrs. White said. “She had the influenza. Willow sat up with her. But she couldn’t save everyone.” She whipped the batter with a fork. “It’s a shame she died when some others didn’t.”

  Bone pulled her mama’s yellow sweater tightly around her. She saw her mother sitting by someone’s bed. That person was wracked with fever. It wasn’t Mrs. Childress.

  “Who didn’t?” Bone asked, not sure where it would lead her.

  “Oh.” Mrs. White blushed. “A lot of people. It was bad that year, 1936. Not bad like 1918. But bad enough.” She stopped mixing the contents of the bowl. “Some man on the train from Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, I can’t remember which, was sick when he got off in Big Vein looking for work. He died, though.”

  “Bone?” Mr. Childress called again. “Did you get lost?”

  “Keep your shirt on, Daddy. Me and Bone are talking,” his daughter yelled back. “You better get out there,” she told Bone. “He’s itching to play, and I got to get his supper made before my husband picks me up.” She ducked back into the kitchen.

  Bone longed to hear more. Both of them had lost their mothers to the flu, but Mrs. White wasn’t saying something. Who hadn’t died?

  Bone grabbed the bow and carried it and the fiddle outside.

  “Are you all right, child?” Mr. Childress asked as he took the instrument from her hands. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He slid the bow across the strings, creating an eerie, ghostly sound, and then worked it into a rendition of “Coal Miner’s Blues.”

  Questions swirled around Bone as Mr. Childress played. Who had her mother saved? Not Mr. Childress’s son or wife. Could she save someone from the influenza? Bone just didn’t know.

  A hand lighted on her shoulder, and Bone jumped up.

  It was Mrs. Price. “You better get home.”

  13

  BONE OPENED THE SCREEN DOOR and inhaled. The whole house smelled of baked ham and biscuits, with a hint of cherry tobacco and coffee.

  “You know how she is, Bay,” a male voice said from the kitchen. It was Uncle Junior. Exasperated.

  “It ain’t right,” another voice said. Uncle Ash, this time. Angry. Bone had never heard him raise his voice before. “Bone needs—”

  “I’ll be the judge of what Bone needs,” Daddy cut him off. “I’m her father. And that’s that.”

  Bone peeked past the kitchen door and saw them all gathered around the small Formica table piled high with ham biscuits. They were not looking at one another. Her father stood with his back to the door facing her mother’s brothers. Uncle Junior stared at the ham biscuits as he slumped against the icebox, and Uncle Ash was leaning his chair back with his arms crossed, staring at nothing in particular. Corolla thumped her tail against the linoleum at his feet.

  Mamaw cleared her throat as she came up behind Bone.

  Her father wheeled around and saw her. “I thought I told you not to take Miss Spencer across the river.” He jabbed an accusing finger in Bone’s direction.

  Bone stepped back, almost tripping over her grandmother’s boot. “I needed to talk to Mamaw.”

  Mamaw put a hand on Bone’s shoulder to steady her.

  “So she told me.” Her father crossed his arms and glared at both of them.

  “I told him we talked about the Gifts, Bone,” her grandmother said.

  “Why did you do that?” Bone turned to search Mamaw’s face for an answer.

  “And I told you she don’t need to know about that nonsense.” Daddy yanked Bone away from her grandmother. He immediately let go of her. “I’m sorry, honey,” he murmured.

  Bone tried to fade into the wallpaper anyhow. Her father had never laid a finger on her in anger. She didn’t know what to think. She was torn between wanting to escape and needing to find out what the heck was going on. Curiosity won.

  Uncle Ash sprang to his feet. “Bay, you know it’s not nonsense. Willow had the Gift.”

  Her father recoiled and then came back at Ash with his words.

  “Willow thought she had this ridiculous gift—and look where it got her.” He spat out the words he was so angry.

  “Bayard Lee Phillips!” Mamaw exclaimed.

  Uncle Ash looked like he’d been gut punched as he sank back into his chair.

  Bone stared at her father, confused. Did he think the Gift killed her mother—even though he didn’t believe in it? Bone looked to Mamaw, who shook her head ever so slightly.

  Uncle Junior stepped between the other two men. “Calm down now, Bay.”

  “I’m sorry.” Her father turned away. He braced himself on the kitchen sink while he took a deep breath. “But Bone is going to stay at Mattie’s while I’m gone.”

  “What?” Now Bone felt like she’d been punched. This had been what they’d been arguing about all along. “No!”

  “Not now, Bone.” Her father faced her. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  “I am not going to live with Aunt Mattie,” Bone insisted. “Why can’t I stay here? Or at Mamaw’s?” It hadn’t occurred to her that she’d have to leave the boardinghouse.

  “We’ll talk about this later.” Her father’s voice was sharp.

  Hands maneuvered Bone out of the kitchen. “Come on, Bone, honey. Go wash up for dinner and let your daddy and the boys cool down a bit.” Mamaw gave her a gentle shove toward the stairs.

  Bone dragged herself up to her room.

  Then Mamaw’s low, determined voice scolded someone—maybe everyone—in the kitchen. Bone couldn’t make out the words, but there was no mistaking the tone. Bone had a vague hope that Mamaw could make everything all right.

  Bone splashed her face in the washbasin. Then she gathered up her mother’s sweater and buried her face in it on the bed. The lavender scent made her feel a bit better. She pushed away a vision of Aunt Mattie speaking sharply to Bone’s mother and then storming off. Bone couldn’t hear the words, but they didn’t matter. The ache her mama felt did. Bone felt it, too. Her father was leaving her with someone who hated her. And the stupid Gift was no help at all. Bone curled up with the sweater and cried until she was hollow inside.

  A few minutes later she heard a scratching at the door. It pushed open and Corolla burst through. The fox terrier scrambled across the floor and jumped into bed beside Bone. Corolla tried to lick her face, but Bone hid under the
sweater, fighting the urge to feel better in the presence of the determined dog.

  “Dog, stop that.” Mamaw sat down on the bed.

  Corolla desisted in her efforts to uncover Bone, but she could still feel the comforting weight as the little dog pressed itself against her.

  Mamaw lifted the sweater gently from Bone’s face, inhaled the scent of it herself, and then laid it across Bone’s shoulders. “Baby girl, your daddy has his mind made up. But, I promise you if you need me or Ash or Junior, we’ll come running.” Her grandmother brushed the hair out of Bone’s eyes. “Sit up and let me brush your hair.”

  Mamaw got Bone’s hairbrush off the dresser and carefully undid her ragged ponytail. Bone still fought the urge to feel better, but it was a losing battle. Her mother used to do this for her every morning.

  “Your Great-grandma Daisy never cut her hair in her life.” Mamaw ran a brush through Bone’s hair. “I had to help her comb and plait that mess.” She chuckled to herself.

  “Why does he want me to live with Aunt Mattie?” Bone winced as Mamaw teased out a knot.

  “He says it’s because their house is closer to school and church and your friends. All of which is true.” The brush pulled through Bone’s hair now without a snag. Mamaw smoothed it all out until it was like corn silk.

  “But you don’t believe that’s the real reason?” Bone asked. She didn’t believe it, especially after what he’d said about her mother’s Gift.

  “Mattie don’t hold with the Gifts. Neither does your daddy, but for entirely different reasons.” Her grandmother’s strong hands divided her hair into sections.

  “Why does she hate the Gifts?”

  Mamaw began braiding Bone’s hair. Finally, she said, “Jealousy is some of it, I imagine. But there’s more to it than that.”

  “Because she didn’t get one?” Bone tried to turn but her grandmother pulled tight on the strands. “Why does she hate me?”

  Mamaw wove Bone’s hair back and forth several more times before answering. “She doesn’t hate you. But I’ll tell you a secret about grown-ups, Bone. They get scared and hurt the same as children. Only most don’t throw a fit and have done with it. They hold on to the hurt and the fear—and it festers. And it comes out in peculiar ways.” Mamaw caught the braid up in a rubber band. “There.”

  Bone did not feel comforted by this knowledge. But her stomach grumbled, and Mamaw chuckled again.

  “Let’s get you some supper, child.”

  Corolla herded Bone down the steps; Mamaw followed.

  Uncle Ash was waiting for them. “How’s my Forever Girl?” He wrapped her in his arms.

  “Are you all staying for supper?”

  Ash shook his head. “I think you and your daddy need a little time together this evening. Right, Junior?”

  Mamaw nodded. “I got a stew on the stove back home.” Then she hugged Bone, laid a hand on her daddy’s shoulder, and showed herself out.

  Uncle Junior took the hint. He gave Bone a hug, too, but not before he’d grabbed a couple ham biscuits and stuffed them in his pockets. “See you at work tomorrow, Bay,” he said as he ducked out the back door.

  Uncle Ash studied Bone, and she studied him right back. Everyone said the Great War changed Uncle Ash. But Bone had never known him any different, and no one ever said what had changed in him.

  “Bay, we’ll watch after Bone, but—” Uncle Ash tore his eyes away from Bone’s. “We’ll abide by your wishes. You don’t need to worry about home while you’re over there fighting the war.”

  Daddy nodded. Ash stuck out his hand, and Bone’s father shook it. Then Ash kissed Bone on the forehead before he headed toward the door.

  As the screen door swung shut, Bone dashed after him. “Uncle Ash?”

  He looked up at her from the bottom porch step.

  “Is it awful?” Bone whispered.

  “Is what awful, Forever Girl?” Uncle Ash climbed back up the stairs to stand beside her.

  “War,” she said even quieter than before.

  Uncle Ash steadied himself on the handrail before he answered. He took in a deep breath and motioned for her to sit on the top step. He hunkered down beside her. “I ain’t gonna lie to you, Bone. Ever.” He lit a cigarette, even though his hand was shaking. “It is. Awful. I was young and stupid when I ran off to Canada in 1914 to join up with the Expeditionary. That was three years before the U.S. got into the war.” Uncle Ash stubbed his cigarette out on his boot. “My regiment saw some of the worst battles of the Great War. But this is a different war, Bone. There won’t be trenches. And your father isn’t stupid. He knows what he’s getting into. I got a feeling he’ll be okay.”

  He unwrapped what was left of the paper and let tobacco fall into the dirt before he stuffed the rest of his Lucky Strike back into his shirt pocket. “This is one of the first things you learn how to do in the army.” Uncle Ash cracked a tiny smile in the moonlight. “How to field strip your cigarette so you don’t leave a trace of where you been.”

  His right hand was still shaking a bit, and Bone was sorry she’d asked him about the war. The tears were coming again. She loved her uncle, but she couldn’t bear the idea of her daddy being different when this war was said and done. It made her shaky inside.

  Bone pushed the thought deep down and searched for a story to make them both feel better. She was ready to feel better.

  “Uncle Ash.” Bone sniffled back some tears. “You ever hear the story of the spirit dog and the silver mine?” She knew he had; he’d been the one to tell her.

  “Aw, Forever Girl.” Uncle Ash wrapped his arm around her. “You and me will get through this war just fine. Even if Mattie is more formidable than Kaiser Wilhelm,” he added in a hushed voice.

  14

  THE NEXT DAY, Uncle Ash drove Bone and Miss Spencer to visit some folks across the river. All of them had been Mama’s patients. Mr. Harless at the Parrott Hardware store told them about Frankie Silver, this notorious woman who’d murdered her husband with an axe. Bone didn’t care for those kinds of stories. They were too often true.

  Besides, she was more interested in what Mamaw sent Mrs. Harless. Uncle Ash swapped her a small paper bag marked “Ruth H.” for some rubber tubing and other things she had set aside. While her husband told Miss Spencer the story, Mrs. H. carried the sack to the little woodstove in the back of the store. Bone followed. Mrs. H. took out a pinch of dried green leaves, sprinkled them into a chipped yellow teacup, and poured hot water over them from the kettle on the stove. A fragrant steam billowed out of the cup, but Bone didn’t recognize the scent.

  “What tea did Mamaw make you?” Bone asked, peering into the paper bag. Most of Mamaw’s herbal concoctions looked the same to Bone.

  “Stinging nettle,” Mrs. Harless said with an air of relief in her voice. She breathed in the steam and took a tentative sip, which made her scrunch up her eyes a bit. “Tastes like new mown grass,” she added with a wink. “But does my arthritis a world of good.” She flexed her fingers, and her joints crackled.

  “You used to visit Mamaw and my mother on a Sunday, didn’t you?”

  Mrs. Harless smiled. “Why yes, of course. Seems like yesterday to me, but it was half a lifetime ago for you.” Mrs. Harless eased herself into the rocking chair by the woodstove, careful not to spill her tea. She motioned for Bone to sit on the crate next to her. “Your mama could poke and prod a person a few times and tell exactly what was wrong with them. She knew my sister’s girl had an appendix that was about to burst. Had Ash drive her straight to the emergency room in Radford and got there in the nick of time. That one year of nursing school—and your grandmother—taught her more about what ails people than four years at medical school learns most doctors.”

  “Bone?” Uncle Ash called. “You ready to go?”

  Bone started to rise, but Mrs. Harless waved her back down.

  “You thinking about following in your mama’s footsteps? Or maybe Mother Reed’s?” She whispered, “Ash is fine with animals, b
ut we miss your mama around here.”

  “Me, too,” Bone admitted. She brushed the cuff of her yellow sweater against her cheek, catching the faintest whiff of lavender. And as she did, she saw gnarled hands lying in hers. Or were they her mother’s hands? The arthritic fingers relaxed and opened like a flower unfurling in the sunshine.

  “It’s okay to miss her, honey.” Mrs. Harless patted Bone on the head, and the story disappeared.

  Mrs. Harless took a long sip of her nettle tea, now having the consistency of pond scum. “That other daughter of Acacia’s sure as heck ain’t going to carry on the family traditions. Mattie always thought she was too good for this side of the river anyhow. Your mama, though, was a fine woman. That influenza was too much for anybody to handle …”

  “Handle?” Bone asked.

  “Bone?” Her uncle had come to find her.

  “Hold your horses, Ash Reed,” Mrs. Harless said. “The girl wants to know about her mama.”

  She did want to know. More than anything. Bone was hungry to hear about anything having to do with her mother. She made puppy-dog eyes at Uncle Ash to give them another minute, but he wasn’t looking at her.

  It was like the older woman had slapped him. He backed toward the front of the store. “We’ll wait for you outside, Bone.”

  Mrs. Harless shook her head. “That boy ain’t been right since the last war.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with Uncle Ash.” Bone pushed herself up from the crate. “Ma’am,” she added quickly before following her uncle out to the truck.

  Miss Spencer was already in the passenger seat, scribbling away in her notebook. Uncle Ash paused with his hand on the door handle. “Bone, you know you can talk to me about Willow, don’t you?” He wasn’t looking at her.

  Bone nodded. She figured she could talk to Uncle Ash about most anything and that he probably understood better than anyone what she wanted to know. Even if she wasn’t sure herself what that was yet, making it all the harder to ask. Bone slid across the driver’s seat next to Miss Spencer—and Corolla. But Mrs. Harless wasn’t exactly wrong about Uncle Ash.