by Pamela Morsi
“Repentance? For what? Not attending?”
“We don’t know what happened,” Brother Chet said.
“But it must have been something horrible,” a woman with tightly coiffed hair and a tighter mouth piped in. “Witchcraft or demon worship, maybe.”
There were murmurs of assent on the suggestion.
“That’s ridiculous!” Jesse told them. “I’m sure there are people who’d believe that the herbs and roots Aunt Will uses to help the sick come from something evil. But I would expect the people of the church to take no part in those superstitions. Nature is a gift to us from God’s creation.”
As a science teacher she was not unaccustomed to defending herself against those whose vision of God was as narrow as their own small minds. But this felt very personal. Her ire on Aunt Will’s behalf was far greater than if she, herself, were being attacked.
“Aunt Will is a loving, giving person who has dedicated her whole life to helping people in this community.”
Brother Chet raised a hand to indulge her. “We all know that, Miss DuJess. Whatever this is, it’s long in the past, but that doesn’t mean that it mustn’t be settled. She must be cleansed from whatever stain she carries to have her name written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”
“I don’t think—” Jesse began, only to be interrupted by the sniffing woman.
“Her name was blacked out.”
“What?”
“On the church rolls,” the woman continued. “Sixty years ago. Old Pastor Trace marked through her name in ink, just like he would do for the dead. But instead of ‘gone to Jesus’ and the death date he wrote ‘cast out.’”
“Eunice,” Brother Chet said sternly. “I’ve asked you to quit telling that.”
“It’s the truth! I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
“As long as we are here on earth, there are none cast out that can’t be brought home,” he said. Brother Chet turned once more to Jesse. His patronizing look soured her stomach. “You can see that with Aunt Will so close to damnation and the ‘lake of fire,’ we are required to make every possible last effort to snatch her from the clutches of Satan while we still can.”
Jesse had had enough. She rose to her feet. “Well, I’ll be sure to let her know,” she said. “And thank you very much for coming. Goodbye.”
The group was a bit startled by their abrupt dismissal. But they did gather up their coats and their bibles and head back down the mountain. They’d hardly made it out of sight before she heard Aunt Will stirring in her room.
“Are they gone?” she asked.
“Yeah. Do you want to go back to your rocker?”
“I believe I do.”
Jesse helped her as Aunt Will apologized. “I would have faced them down myself,” she said. “But I wasn’t sure I was up to the battle.”
“What is that ‘cast out’ business about?” Jesse asked. “Was it the burned rapist guy?”
“Who? Oh, you mean Rupent Favor,” she said. “No, no. That was years later. No, this was something else. It was my pride, I suppose, which is a mortal failing. But nothing that’s happened since has ever tempted me to ask forgiveness from those I never sinned against.”
They heard another vehicle pull up and Aunt Will urged Jesse to see who it was. She peeked out the porch door and spied a bucket truck with the logo of a major cell phone provider on the door.
“Do you know somebody that works for the phone company?”
“I’m sure I do,” she answered. “But I’ll have to see their face to know who it is.”
It turned out to be Bryan Broody, a cheerful twentysomething guy who claimed kinship. Aunt Will tried to explain it to Jesse.
“The Broodys and the Bests were all Piggotts,” she said. “And the Winsloes married into the Bests.”
Jesse nodded vaguely.
Bryan laughed. “Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “My gram is, like, totally into genealogy and she says the ancestor lines on this mountain are knotted together worse than a pigtail dipped in molasses.”
“How’s your family doing?” Aunt Will asked him.
“Great,” he answered. “We moved over to Mountain Home because we thought the school would be better for us. Cherry is, like, PTA mom of the year. Katy is as pretty as a picture and in the gifted and talented program. And Eric’s in second grade now. He’s doing well, making progress.”
Aunt Will nodded as if she knew that already.
Bryan turned to her to fill in the detail. “My son was born with Down syndrome,” he said. “My wife and I were both pretty freaked about it. Aunt Will came to see us and talk to us. There was this guy, who was he, Aunt Will, your grandpa or something?”
“My daddy’s stepfather,” she answered. “He was a fine, decent man. I loved him. He’s the one you’re named after, DuJess.”
Bryan nodded. “She made us realize that if a mentally handicapped guy could live a full, productive life on this mountain a hundred years ago, that there was no telling what a lucky kid like our little Eric could accomplish.”
Aunt Will was nodding at the man as if he were a prized pupil.
“So, anyway,” Bryan went on, “when we were up here last Sunday at Cherry’s mom’s and I heard that folks were trying to do a few things for you, to help, I asked myself, ‘What can I do?’ and I realized I could get you plugged into the universe.”
Aunt Will chuckled. “I’m thinking this bad liver is going to plug me into the universe soon enough on its own.”
“I sure didn’t mean it like that, Aunt Will,” he said. “I thought it might help if you had some cell reception on this hill.”
Jesse could have jumped for joy. “Yes!” she declared adamantly. Of course, it wasn’t her decision; she turned to Aunt Will to plead her case. “If we had cell reception up here, I could use my phone. If we needed somebody, we could call them.”
Aunt Will smiled at her. “Truth is,” she told Bryan. “I’ve never really had a problem getting folks to come to me when I needed them. But it would be nice for Jesse.”
Bryan grinned. “I was hoping you’d say that. I’ve got a repeater in the truck. I thought I’d clamp the antennae to your chimney. I may have to do some electrical updates to get your amp working, but I can do it.”
To that end, he got busy immediately, even foregoing lunch when it was offered.
In the afternoon, two cars of older, retired couples showed up. The men were delighted to discover outside construction work going on and made quick work of their hellos before hurrying to help the telephone man. How much help they actually were was hard to judge, but if enthusiasm were being gauged, it was a lot. Their efforts were punctuated by wives taking turns stepping outside with admonitions like, “If I catch you on that ladder, Bullfrog, be expecting nothing but cornflakes for supper!”
Aunt Will seemed delighted to see them and happy to converse, but took to her bed for her regular naptime.
The ladies didn’t need her company for conversation. Earline and Madge had gone to school together, and Jesse had met Walter Lou earlier. They spoke at length about Aunt Will’s health.
“She’s looking plainly yellow now,” Walter Lou said. “You wouldn’t notice it so much since you see her every day. I haven’t seen her since the basketball game and she was near pink as roses then.”
“It’s good that you’re getting a phone,” Earline told her. “If things go south in the night, you’ll need to be able to send a cry for help.”
Walter Lou agreed. “With the road so much better, Doc Piney can be up here in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
“The way I’m hearing it,” Madge said, looking at Jesse closely, “he’s near to beating a path to the door every day.”
Earline giggled.
Walter Lou scolded, “Now don’t be putting so much in what you hear, Madge. You know how gossip gets away from us.”
Madge humphed. “The gal is blushing. I’d say that speaks as much truth as anything else.”
Pe
rhaps it was caregiver exhaustion plus the onslaught of constant visitors. Or maybe it was too much close association with Aunt Will. But somewhere down inside Jesse, her native gumption overrode her well-trained manners.
“Don’t speak about me as if I’m not here,” she said.
All three women looked up surprised.
“If you’ve got a question, ask me.”
Madge did the honors. “Are you…keeping company with Doc Piney?”
Jesse answered carefully. “We are not dating, but we are seeing a lot of each other.” Factually true. Revealing nothing.
The three women sat silently for a long moment, sharing glances with each other.
“You know he has a sad history,” Walter Lou said finally.
“Of course she knows,” Madge said immediately. “Everybody knows. The question is are you planning on breaking that man’s heart again?”
The suggestion was not at all what Jesse expected. She stuttered out an answer.
“I…I don’t…I don’t think Piney knows me well enough to get his heart broken,” she managed finally.
“Oh, Lord, girl,” Madge said. “He’s a Baxley. A more lovelorn line of men never graced the earth.”
“That’s the truth of that,” Walter Lou agreed. “Those men dote on their women something fierce.”
Earline was nodding. “Piney’s own parents could be caught holding hands in church when they were nearly sixty.”
Madge shook her head in disapproval. “And when that poor woman died,” she said, “Erwin plumb lost his will to live. Piney and the boy right there at his side. And he couldn’t stir himself. We buried him beside nary six months later.”
“And that Shauna,” Earline said, shaking her head. “She’s my own niece and even I could see it weren’t going to come to no good for him.”
“So,” Madge stated firmly. “If you’re not staying around here, leave the man alone. He’s suffered enough.”
“And if you are staying,” Walter Lou added, “let me know. Both my brother-in-law and my nephew are on the school board. With all the comings and goings of outlanders, I’m sure there’s some kind of job we can scramble up for a local girl like you.”
Jesse managed not to drop her jaw.
By late afternoon, the couples were all gone. And Jesse was cooking dinner when Bryan came inside.
“Check your phone for a signal.”
She clicked it on to see five big towers gleaming on its face.
“This is great, Bryan. I can’t thank you enough. Do I owe you something? Can you bill me?”
“I was happy to do it. Take care of Aunt Will for us.”
“I’ll do my best,” she answered. “At least stay for dinner.”
He shook his head. “I’ve got at least an hour on the road to get home.”
Jesse nodded, understanding.
He went over to Aunt Will in her rocking chair and kissed her on the forehead. “Take care of yourself,” he said. “You know that we love you.”
“Oh, of course you do,” she said. “Now you be safe on that old road.”
“I will.”
“And don’t let Cherry take on much more of that volunteer work. Before you know it, she’s going to have her hands full with another baby.”
Bryan made a kind of choking chuckle. “We’re not planning to have any more kids, Aunt Will.”
“Well, not everything in the world goes according to plan,” she said.
Bryan nodded uncertainly and headed out. Jesse turned the fire down under the pot on the stove and followed after him.
Outside she walked him down to his truck. She explained about Aunt Will’s intermittent foggy brain problem.
“I hope you weren’t offended.”
“Oh, no,” he assured her. “Surprised. We’ve really decided no more kids. I mean…that’s what we’ve said anyway.”
Jesse was still shaking her head when she got back to the cabin. As she cooked, she couldn’t quite let it go. When they sat down to dinner she finally asked.
“Why did you say that about another baby?” she asked Aunt Will. “Was it a guess or a hint or a premonition?”
The older woman took a bite of Jesse’s vegetarian version of shepherd’s pie before answering.
“Oh, I suspect it’s a bit of all of that,” she said and winked. “You know, DuJess, you’re getting to be a fair cook. Men set quite a store by a gal who serves a good dinner. You can take that as a hint.”
36
The phone ringing at nine o’clock at night was never a welcome sound for Piney. It almost always meant bad news, an emergency visit, a late-night drive through dark, unwelcoming roads. But it was part of his job. People expected it of him. There were enough things in Ozark life that could let you down. He didn’t want to be one of them.
He picked up on the second ring. “Piney Baxley.”
“Hi.”
His heart soared.
“Where are you? Is everything okay?”
“I am in the sleeping loft,” she answered. “And the fire is banked, the dog’s on the porch and Aunt Will’s all tucked up asleep for the night. Big news for those of you living in the twenty-first century. We now have cell service at Onery Cabin.”
“How did that happen?”
“One of Aunt Will’s fans showed up here this morning and put some kind of thing on our roof and now I’m amazingly global.”
Piney was grinning into the phone. “Who knew that it was that easy?”
“I don’t know,” she teased. “I’ve found the guys on this mountain amazingly easy.”
“I can imagine,” he said. “Lonely, horny, desperate, but then I’m just speaking for myself.”
“Of course.”
“I’ve never heard your voice on the phone before. Nice voice. I like it.”
“I’d never heard yours, either, but I would have recognized that ‘medical professional’ tone anywhere.”
They both laughed.
Piney glanced into the living room to see his son, ostensibly watching TV, was eyeing him curiously. He carried the phone into the bedroom and shut the door.
“So, now,” Jesse said, “I can call you all the time. I can interrupt you when you’re working, tie up the line when your patients are desperate to contact you, bore you for hours on end with tales of my exciting life here on the mountain.”
“Sounds fascinating,” he told her.
“We could have phone sex.”
“Absolutely my first thought,” he admitted. “But I’d better not.”
“No?”
“My son has already warned me that I’m behaving irresponsibly. It is a slippery slope. I’m sure I’d start out content with talking dirty, but then I’d quickly move on to requesting that you text photos of unclothed body parts.”
“It’s too cold in this cabin to unclothe anything,” she assured him.
Piney stretched out on the bed. “Okay, then I guess we’re doomed to mundane conversation,” he said. “How was your day? Besides cell service, I mean.”
“Busy,” she said. “Aunt Will is doing pretty good. She’s tired and the fluid in her belly gets larger every day, I know it’s uncomfortable. She hasn’t had another one of those brain fogs. I’m being careful to make sure she doesn’t sit up too long. Mostly she’s in high spirits. Chatty and all that. Except for Brother Chet and his Bible thumpers. They came to see her today and she left them all up to me.”
“How did that go?”
Jesse gave a hilarious description of the encounter including the sour expressions that he could see on the faces of Eunice Blakemore and Celia Beth Plum.
“You really did well to stand up to them,” Piney told her. “They are bullies and bullies only respond to strength. And please don’t think that they truly represent the people of the church. With Brother Chet as pastor, the leadership has become harsh and pretty much holier-than-thou. Most of the congregation isn’t like that at all.”
“So why don’t they get rid of Bro
ther Chet?” she suggested.
“He sort of inherited the position from his father. Ozark people have a tendency to try to wait it out on things like this. On him, however, we may have to wait a very long time.”
Jesse also mentioned her afternoon with Madge, Walter Lou and Earline, though she didn’t provide a lot of detail.
“What about you?” she asked. “Tell me everything that’s happened since we saw each other. With no TV to watch Grey’s Anatomy, I’m desperate for the medical drama.”
Piney laughed and picked out a couple of humorous episodes of clinic comedy to share. But once he got started, he couldn’t stop. He hadn’t realized how much he needed to talk. How much he needed a friend.
“I think Tree and Camryn are back together, but I’m not sure,” he said. “They seem to be texting again, anyway.”
“Hopefully not sharing body part pics.”
Piney laughed. “I don’t think so. Tree is definitely the grown-up in this household. I really hope that he gets a scholarship somewhere great. A scout came down from Mizzou, but he wasn’t really looking. Right now it feels like we’re crossing our fingers and hoping he’ll get noticed at the tournament.”
“Where has he applied?”
Piney sighed heavily. “Basically every Division II school in the South. Last year we sent out a dozen packets with his grades and stats and DVDs of video highlights and game play. We got almost no response, but I guess we’re still waiting.”
“What does his coach say?”
“Coach Poule has never had a team this good or a player this good. He knows less about it than I do.”
“Okay,” Jesse said. “Do you still have the stuff for the packet?”
“Sure.”
“Then send out another round,” Jesse said. “Hit all the Division II schools and the Division I’s that he’d like, as well. I’ve had one semester of Educational Guidance Counseling and I know nothing about sports. With that disclaimed, I’d think casting a wider net might not make any difference, but it couldn’t hurt, either.”
“What if he ends up at Albany State or Hawaii Hilo? I’d never get to see him play.”
“Maybe not,” she agreed. “But it might give him some choices that he wouldn’t have had.”