“Hey,” I said.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. I, uh, I just wanted to check on you.” I ate her up with my eyes, but I stayed by the door. Glory waited in the hall.
Alex studied me, then spoke to Jeremy. “Would you give us a minute?”
He didn’t like leaving, I could tell. As he neared me, he leaned over. “Don’t you upset her. The doctor said she has to stay calm and quiet or he’ll throw all of us out.” The goofy, calf-sick boy had vanished, and I glimpsed the man he would become.
“I won’t.” I squeezed his arm. “I promise.”
Then we were alone.
“What are they saying?” I asked her. “The doctors.”
“She’s going to be all right. She has to.” She put one hand over her belly. “They showed her to me on the ultrasound,” she said, eyes welling. “I saw her fingers.”
My own throat got tight. “I’d like to have seen it.” I thought I really meant it this time.
“I can’t go yet, not until she’s born,” she said. “But if you’ll wait I’ll go with you after. We will, that is.”
I frowned. “You don’t want to leave Jewel.”
“But you need a keeper.” Her lips curved a little. “Val agreed.”
I rolled my eyes. “And you’re designated?”
“He’s not here to do it.” She hesitated. “I miss him. Do you think he’s okay?”
Oh, boy. How to answer that without shattering her illusions about him?
“He thought about stealing your wallet that first night, you know, but he didn’t.” She pressed her lips together. “I wanted to, too.”
So much for thinking she was the one with illusions. “But you didn’t either.” And with that, I sent up a little prayer that Val had stayed on the straight and narrow, then consigned him to the Fates. All three of them. “You know I don’t really need a keeper, right?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “But if you’re set on searching for your sister, you shouldn’t have to go alone.”
If she knew the designs I had on that precious life she carried, would she be so quick to offer? My throat ached because this half-grown girl was looking out for me like I was the one who needed taking care of.
For too long, I saw, I had been. She was pregnant, she was barely more than a child, and she was more grown up than me. I walked closer to the bed. “You don’t want to go, Alex, and you shouldn’t. You and your baby can be a part of all this. You can make a home here.”
Hope stole from the shadows. “So could you. You’re so important to them.”
You could learn how to stay, Val had insisted.
I went very still, trying to wrap my mind around the notion. I knew how vital they’d all become to me, but that the reverse could be true floored me.
“You’re not that tough, you know. You’re lonely, just like me, like Val. That’s why you’re searching for your sister’s soul, because you want a family.”
From the mouths of babes. “I never had a home but her. I miss her so much.”
“There’s a home right here, for you as much as for me,” Alex said.
In that moment, I acknowledged that this place and these people had begun to sink roots into my heart, to send tendrils winding through my veins that would not easily be plucked out.
New life, a new Eudora, could bloom from them.
In some ways, it already had.
“Well, I can’t leave yet anyway. Lorena will need my help for awhile.” I sat on the bed beside her. “Let’s see how it goes.”
“For how long?” Her eyes narrowed, and I guessed I’d earned that skepticism.
I was surprised to actually feel playful. “At least enough time for me to convince Jeremy that you’re too young to get married.”
She spluttered in outrage, and I chuckled. Hugged her then, and she clung to me. “I’m scared, Pea.”
“Don’t be. We’re all here for you, Lorena and Glory and me. This baby is going to be fine. Anyhow, I dare any stupid contractions to beat Dark Agnes.”
Alex giggled a little, then burst into tears.
My own eyes were none too dry. I hugged her once more, real quick. “So.” I had to clear my throat. “The doctors want you to rest. I should go.”
She grasped for my hand. “Stay.” She ducked her head. “That is, if you don’t mind.”
I was, to put it mildly, flabbergasted. “I would like nothing better.” I scooched onto the mattress beside her, and I felt her relax against me. We laid our heads back on the pillow, and it was like all the air just leaked out of me. I was so tired I couldn’t move even a pinky toe.
Alex’s fingers squeezed mine. “I’m glad you’re here, Pea,” she whispered. “Please stay.”
She wasn’t talking about this room, I was pretty sure. She meant Jewel. I kept my eyes closed so I wouldn’t have to lie to her, and soon she drifted off. I lay there, comforted by the warmth of her next to me.
But even as exhausted and sore as I was, it was a long while before I slept.
Katherine Ann Porter
(May 15, 1890-September 18,1980)
Born Callie Russell Porter in Indian Creek. Katherine Anne Porter moved to Hays County with her family following her mother’s death in 1892. She left Texas in 1915 and worked as an actress, teacher, reporter and publicist in such places as Chicago, Denver, Mexico, and New York. Her first book of short stories was published in 1930. Her acclaimed 1962 novel, Ship of Fools, was followed by the Pulitzer prizewinning The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter in 1965. Upon her death in 1980, her ashes were buried next to her mother’s grave in Indian Creek Cemetery.
BROUGHT INTO THE FOLD
So I spent my days running the café and store.
With, if you can imagine, Glory’s help. She was barred from cooking, though. Some causes are just lost from the beginning. She could wash dishes to beat the band, however, and bit by bit, the townsfolk were coming to accept her presence. Bigot Brad and his buddies might not have, but since they were now guests at the county jail for vandalism and assault, phooey on what they might think.
I myself didn’t have a lot of time to ponder my interrupted journey, though I kept a map in the glove box of my newly smooth-running car, and some days I consulted it. Not often, though—Glory and I were also swapping off shifts helping Lorena tend to Ray and Alex in Lorena’s house, where Alex and I had moved in for the time being. Millie helped out when she could.
Until, that is, her baby decided to arrive. Not—after all that mopping I’d done—on the café floor, oh no. She chose Lorena’s kitchen to get things started. We stuck Millie in my bedroom, then Lorena had me call Millie’s husband and the midwife. In no time flat, the whole family had showed up.
Yep, I said midwife. A home birth, if you can believe that.
It took hours, I swear. And every time I edged toward a door to get the heck out, somebody nabbed me. Lorena, I am positive, sent Tommy with an invitation to watch, which I declined so fast the poor man hadn’t finished asking yet.
Then it was Sally, wanting to talk about her new idea to go to beauty school, followed by a sister-in-law of somebody, wondering if I knew a man she’d met from Austin. Finally, I decided I might as well cook, since my escape routes were blocked and that baby appeared to be in no hurry.
A chocolate cake was cooling and the ingredients for the icing were laid out. Potato salad was done, and I was slicing ham along with tomatoes fresh from Tommy’s garden. If that baby didn’t show up soon, I was considering making pies next. Fried okra, of course, had to be saved for the last minute.
Suddenly, a cheer went up, and I heard laughing and crying. Through the kitchen door burst Alex, eyes shining.
“What are you doing out of bed?” I demanded.
That whatever look was spreading over her features, I could see it. Since she’d left the hospital and I’d become her warden, Hallmark moments had been scarce between Alex and me. I don’t know what I was thinking, all those pic
tures in my head about soulful talks and shared laughter, accompanied by rainbows and violins.
“It’s a girl, a sweet baby girl. Want to go see?” Apparently, her delight trumped her irritation with me.
“After you lie down.”
Mutiny tightened her mouth. “I’m fine. Lorena said I could stay.”
“Alex—”
“Pea, come on. Give it a rest. Come see her.” Her eyes shone. “Lorena says she has Millie’s mouth. I wonder how much my baby will look like me.” Her expression turned dreamy.
As I watched her, it hit me, the damage I could do to her, staking a claim to her child. Hovering, hoping for signs of my sister. Even if Sister was in there, a new baby should mean a new chance. Alex had so little; didn’t she deserve at least that? Didn’t the baby?
But how could I let that hope go?
Yet even as I clutched at it, the enormity of what I’d been considering crashed in on me. I had no right.
Even if I had such a need.
If I relinquished that possibility, though, I didn’t know how I could bear it. I sought my voices, all of them, any of them.
But only silence greeted me.
I didn’t look at Alex anymore. I couldn’t. By rote, I stirred the potato salad again. Stood there, staring into a desert where my hopes had once thrived.
“You should take a look, Pea,” she said, blessedly unaware of the expectations I’d placed on her, all my fine plans in which her baby had starred.
“In a minute.” Carefully, I kept my back to her, and soon she left.
I remained in the kitchen alone, while in the next room, everyone else was celebrating, laughing, crying. Sharing stories of other births, passing on their common history.
Together. All part of one.
Oh, they would have welcomed me, I’m sure, but I was never more aware that I was the only person here who had no one on this earth she was related to, no connection by blood. I was merely filling in the spaces of others: guest boarder, temporary cook, part-time nurse. Nothing had changed for me, really. I had tried to belong, as I had promised Alex, but I didn’t, not the way they did.
Then through the open door I spotted Glory, lingering in the hall, her face aglow even as she hung around the edges. I knew the feeling. But even Glory was blood kin.
I tried to picture myself walking in there, but I couldn’t. I untied my apron, checked the burners—
And walked out into a night that seemed endless.
A future I could no longer imagine.
I sat in the front seat of my car, trying to read the map by flashlight. New Mexico seemed like Mars at that point, but I didn’t really want to go back to Austin. Maybe I’d just close my eyes and stab a finger to pick a destination.
A sharp rap on my window like to gave me a heart attack.
“Open up, big girl.” Glory’s fists were on her hips.
“Go away.”
“Don’t make me yank you out of that car.”
I snorted. “Like you could.” Except that even several inches shorter, she might manage. I wouldn’t bet the farm against her.
“What on earth are you doing, Eudora?”
I shoved the door open. “I wish to goodness everybody would stop asking me that.”
“You should be inside with the rest of us. You’re hurting Lorena’s feelings.”
Boy, she knew how to hit where it hurt. I switched topics. “Is Alex still up? She ought to get back in bed.”
“Her doctor said limited activity after three weeks. And don’t change the subject.”
I stuck my chin in the air. “Limited, yes. That does not mean a party.” I concentrated on folding up the map in my hand.
“Still having a tough time with her?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “She fights you because she’s afraid you won’t stay, don’t you know that?”
“What?”
“They all are.” I noted that she didn’t include herself. “Lorena’s got enough on her mind.”
“I’m doing everything I can to help her, but—”
“But what?” Glory’s jaw clenched. “I swear you do try me, Eudora. What exactly is it you think you’re going to find? And don’t tell me your sister. You know better than that. It’s time to get real, big girl.”
Everyone had expressed doubt of one sort or another, mostly kind and gentle nudges or benign amusement.
Typical of Glory, she smacked me right in the face with hers.
The bubble-wrap of faith I’d tucked around me popped, snap by snap by snap, until there was no more borrowed conviction to cushion me. Sister had needed the comfort of believing in reincarnation, and my guilt and despair when she was gone had made me forget the Pea who wasn’t half-crazy with grief, the one who’d once bitten her tongue half in two not to argue with Sister about her notion. Instead I had latched on for dear life to the idea that finding the eternal part of her would put me right back where we were before Sister went to the doctor and our world, the only world I knew how to live in, crumbled.
I’d operated in a fog for nearly a year now, I began to see, longer still if you counted the months of her dying. I’d tackled this journey looking for markers to light my path to her because I had no idea how to be on my own. How to settle myself . . . or to settle down.
I could hardly bear to think that wherever Sister was, the place I yearned for no longer existed.
That it never would.
The very thought knocked the stuffing out of me. “So I’m supposed to just, what, say oh well, shit happens?” My fingers were clenched into fists. “Presto, and I forget?”
“‘Course not.” She looked weary now, and old. “But if you don’t find some way to put it behind you, you get bitter and hard.”
“Like you have?” She flinched. Yes, it was a low blow, but I was fighting for my life. “Exactly how do I accomplish that miracle, huh, Glory? Tell me.”
She straightened. “Get in the car,” she snapped.
“What?”
“I have something to show you.” She rounded the car. “Well, don’t just stand there—hop in and drive.”
I started to protest, but what good had arguing with Glory ever done, and besides I was as lost as I’d ever felt. I had no idea what my next step should be.
She directed me toward the gun shop, but instead of turning in, we went a little further down to the next caliche road. She got out and opened the gate. I drove past, then waited for her to close it again, as I’d learned one did in the country to prevent livestock from getting out on the road.
Through clumps of live oaks and mesquite and around a curve, at last we came upon a small frame house that appeared deserted. “Who lives here?”
Glory didn’t answer, just looked through the windshield with the saddest expression I’d ever seen.
“Glory?”
She came to with a quick shake of her head, then opened her door and got out. “Come on,” she said, visibly steeling herself.
The full moon illuminated the ground before us, but I grabbed my flashlight, just in case. I was not a fan of walking around outside in the dark, not in a place that was clearly working its way back to wild.
Glory made it to the steps leading to the covered front porch before she halted as if she’d hit an invisible barrier. I joined her but waited silently. Something momentous seemed to be happening, but I had no idea what.
After a bit, she spoke. “What’s the longest you ever stayed in one place?”
Startled by the question, I frowned. “I don’t know . . . six months, maybe, well, except for at the end.” I had remained in the duplex where I last lived with Sister longer than anywhere else. I told myself it was to honor my promise never to budge once the choice was mine, but I recognized now that I had simply been too lost, too frightened. That I stayed because I was afraid to leave the last place she’d been.
“Running doesn’t solve a thing, Eudora. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
“I know that.” And I did. “But you had someplac
e to run from, Glory. You had a place you belonged.”
“And I had the sense to come back, even if I told myself I hated it.” She faced me then. “So you gonna take off, just because everything’s not all prettied up and happily ever after?”
“I’m not—” I stared at her. Because that was exactly what Mama always did, chased after the next better thing, the pot of gold that would vanish almost the instant she got there.
“Suck it up, big girl. Dark Agnes would kick your wimpy ass.”
“I don’t care.”
“Yes, you do.” A slow smile spread. She nodded toward the house. “You want somewhere to belong? You can have this.”
My mouth dropped open. “This? You mean the house? Whose is it? Why—what—?”
“With one condition.”
“Which is?”
“You get that bony behind of yours back to training, and you compete in June. After that, your life’s your own, but until then, you don’t even think about leaving.”
June. So many months away. A whole winter, a Thanksgiving and a Christmas and—
“I have to sit down.” I collapsed on the steps.
Gingerly she settled beside me, as though expecting an electric shock or something.
“Whose house is this, Glory?” But suddenly, I knew. It had that air of sadness I was all too familiar with, that feeling of unfinished business. “It’s Molly’s, isn’t it?”
She gripped the edge of the step. “She left everything to me, told me to sell it and keep the money, but—”
I understood. “Ghosts aren’t so easy to shed, are they?”
She sighed and shook her head. “And forgiving yourself is harder. I’m not promising miracles, Eudora.”
We sat there in silence for a while.
“You want to see inside?” she asked.
“In a minute.” I needed some time to let all this settle in. To figure out if I could handle what she was asking of me. “Am I your do-over, is that it?”
“What?” A line appeared between her brows. “Of course not.” She was gathering up her prickly persona, but I could see all the way through it now, and I was pretty sure I was right.
The Goddess of Fried Okra Page 25