The Fragrance of Geraniums (A Time of Grace Book 1)

by Ruggieri, Alicia G.

  Satisfied with this last gesture, Lou disappeared up the stairs.

  Midnight had come and gone before Grace heard the kitchen door open and shut. The elderly doorknob squeaked in weak protest as it locked.

  Ben.

  Grace propped herself up on her elbows, listening for his footfalls on the stair. Her bedroom – well, hers and Lou’s and Nancy’s and Evelyn’s – lay just to the top of the curving staircase, and Grace had made sure to leave the door open just a crack before she’d turned out the light.

  The heavy scuff of his boots sounded on the wood. Grace slid her legs from under the covers and felt the chill of the September night settle over her. But no matter. She needed to talk to Ben, needed to know the truth… if he’d discovered it.

  A glance at Lou and Nancy’s bed told her that the twins slept soundly, tired out, no doubt, from their soda-fountain dates. Lou had taken the time before bed to put her hair up in rags; tonight, she might look like a sheepdog, but in the morning, Grace knew her older sister would have an enviable head of glossy curls – her consolation for not being born a true blonde.

  And Evelyn. She curled up like a flower on the other half of Grace’s narrow bed, the petals of her white nightgown billowed around her. The twelve-year-old’s pink mouth hung open in the sweet rest of childhood, her face a mask of peace. Fleetingly, jealousy stabbed at Grace. She couldn’t remember when she’d felt so tranquil. Biting her lip, Grace turned to the door and eased it open.

  No light shone in the hallway except for Ben’s flashlight. He must have heard something, carefully quiet though Grace had been. The flashlight’s beam turned toward her, blinding her momentarily with its brilliance. As her eyes adjusted, she saw Ben’s face relax.

  “Grace,” he whispered. “What are you doing up? It’s past midnight, don’t you know.” He stood, broad shoulders bowed a little, arms hanging by his sides. His voice held the weariness of an old dog, too arthritic to chase another squirrel, wanting only a soft square of bedding upon which to lay his gray muzzle.

  Grace stepped out gingerly into the hallway, chillier than her bedroom. “You went to Uncle Jack’s,” she stated softly, shivering. Her eyes went to his, open and pleading with him to tell her, to do no more lying than had already been done, was done each day, in their home.

  He met her gaze honestly, albeit reluctantly. “Yep. I did,” he said and turned his face away. The harsh scent of brandy bit at Grace’s senses, bringing with it a breath of fear.

  There was silence for a moment. Then Grace compelled herself to speak again. “You been there all this time, Ben?”

  He drew in a breath through his nostrils, tightening the corners of his mouth. “No, Grace. I went for a drink afterward. Had to cool off, ya know.”

  He’d gotten into a fight with Papa, then. She’d known that he would, and Mama had, too. Ben must have found what was going on with their father, what Mama and Aunt Mary Evelyn whispered about on the telephone every morning, Mama’s voice a fluttering, torn-winged moth.

  She laid a hand, small and quivering, on Ben’s brawny forearm. “Ben,” she whispered, “what is it? What’s going on?”

  He turned his face back toward her, and she could see the hurt ringed by bitterness in the crinkles of his eyes. “Oh, little canary-bird,” he murmured, “what is going on?” He let out his breath in a booze-tinged puff. “God help us, I wish I knew.”

  Grace started back. “But… Uncle Jack’s… Papa…” She couldn’t finish the sentences.

  Ben’s lips curled up. “Oh, yeah, I know the facts. You want those?”

  She nodded, desperate.

  He studied her a moment, then said, “You always were ahead of the game, kid. Why not here, too?” He motioned with his grizzled jaw toward the stairway. “Grab your sweater. I’ll meet you out at the barn. Can’t risk Mama hearing us.”

  Relief flooded through Grace’s limbs. “I’ll be right there,” she promised, almost happy to finally have some answers, terrible though they might be.

  “Alright.” Ben handed her the flashlight. “Here, take this. You’ll need it. It’s dark out tonight.” He turned and disappeared down the stair without another word.

  Grace clicked the flashlight off to save the battery and set it down outside the doorway while she entered the bedroom to retrieve her thickest sweater. Having done that, she picked up the flashlight again but didn’t turn it on. Her bare feet picked their way down the pitch-black stair, guided by many nights’ experience.

  Turning on the flashlight, Grace threaded her way around the dining room table and past the looming grandfather clock, ticking the minutes of her life away on its impassive ivory face. When she was just a child, Grace had shuddered to pass the towering clock in the evening, sure that he – it, rather – would reach forward with concealed arms and grab her. He – it – would open its long front and pull her inside, consuming her in the darkness. Now, however, Grace was fifteen, nearly sixteen. Certainly no child, regardless of what Lou and Nancy said. So, she raised her chin and passed the clock without a shudder.

  Almost.

  The dirt path gleamed clearly beneath the full moon’s gaze as Grace dashed from the back door to the barn. She caught sight of an owl swooping down in the meadow beyond the out-buildings; it caught hold of its helpless prey. A shiver ran through her body, adding more speed to her already-flying bare feet.

  When she eased open the barn door, its hinge squeaked so slightly but sounded awfully loud in the silent night.

  Ben sat on a hay bale, smoking a cigarette.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  She was still so small, this little sister of his with the hair of sunset gold. Fifteen-going-on-sixteen, just like she’d claimed, but she barely weighed eighty-five pounds, he was sure. Ben studied her standing there before him, his heart panging with the knowledge that he would break her innocent, sweet childishness, or what was left of it.

  No matter what way I cut the pie, the same gross outcome…

  “Canary-bird,” he greeted Grace with the old pet name from their childhood… Did we ever have a childhood? He blew out a cloud of smoke, threw his cigarette stub down, and crushed its life out. It felt good to master something, once and for all, here at home.

  “Hi,” she gave a useless greeting. She was unsure of herself, he could see that from the way she kept darting her eyes from the flashlight’s beam to his face, back-and-forth like a peeper frog. He moved over, making room for her. She gingerly took the seat, her slight weight causing the bale to release the aroma of sweet hay, laden with the ghosts of hot July days.

  “You ain’t gonna be able to get up for school, kid,” he murmured, gazing at her. His sister had a nose too big for classic beauty, but the rest of her features more than made up for that, in Ben’s opinion. Big blue eyes, softly curling hair, petite frame – the whole package. ‘Course, she was still a kid.

  “It’s Saturday tomorrow,” Grace replied, turning her trusting eyes to him and clicking off the flashlight. Darkness took utter possession of the barn, except for the large window behind them. That window let in enough of the pregnant moon’s light for Ben to make out Grace’s expression. So extremely serious, like she knew that she stood on the edge of the precipice of knowledge. Well, you gotta grow up sometime, kid. He consciously hardened his emotions. Might as well be now. Ben opened his mouth, but no words came out.

  Grace did not wait for him. “Ben,” she started softly, “what’s going on? With… With Papa and… and…” She trailed off, not knowing how to finish.

  He scrutinized her, curious. “How much do you already know?”

  “Not much,” she answered. “Not for sure. But more than Evelyn, I’ll bet. And more than Mama thinks I do.”

  Ben nodded. He’d give her the basics, then. And he’d start with the least painful. “Well, the first thing you need to know is, I’m leaving tomorrow, canary-bird.”

  She grabbed one of his arms with both her hands, her strongest grip nothing on his horse-toughened muscles. �
��No!” she gasped. “No, Ben!”

  He gently extricated himself from her hold on him. “Got to, sis. Papa ain’t gonna want me around here after what I did to him.”

  Her eyes searched his face. “What do you mean, Ben? What’d you do to Papa?”

  “Punched him good. Right in his kisser,” Ben ground out, wallowing in the hatred he could hear in his own voice.

  Grace sat silent, the dim light touching her golden strands. He had shocked her, and he knew the reason – hearing that the son of Charlie Picoletti would strike his own father. “He got me, too,” he offered after a moment of silence, turning his right cheek so that Grace could examine it. It was an olive branch of sorts, to get her to listen, at least.

  His kid sister sucked in her breath and reached out to touch the raised welt. Papa’s backhanded whack had resulted in a wound that threatened to close off Ben’s sight for a few days, if it kept swelling. “What happened, Ben?” Grace whispered, her fingers floating over the injured cheekbone before they dropped back into her nightgowned lap.

  Ben couldn’t face Grace when he told her the truth. He jumped up from the hay bale and stared into the blackness of Bessie’s stall. He could hear the mellow crunching as the cow moved bunches of hay around with her teeth. Yet the familiar sound did not comfort him tonight. He pulled out another cigarette – the fourth this hour – and struck the match hard.

  His fingers glowed orange in the small flame’s light, shaking a little. Shoot, but this was hard! How did you tell your sister what everyone in town had whispered about your papa, about her papa – for years, mind you – everyone whispering but no one saying it out loud? At last, he lit the cigarette and threw away the match. He glanced over his shoulder. Grace was still there on the hay bale, like a bowed white birch waiting for the blast of a storm.

  “What is it?” she asked, and he could see her pale fingers gripping the bale’s edge. “What?”

  “Caught him red-handed, that jerk. Caught him cheatin’ on Mama with that loose sister of Uncle Jack’s.” Ben drew in the strength of the cigarette smoke. “So I punched his cheatin’ kisser.”

  A half-laugh, strangled with pain, escaped him. “I threw him… threw him into a wall before he knew what hit him.” He risked another look at Grace. She sat fixed, eyes wide as rain puddles on March streets.

  Finally, she adjusted her position and dropped her gaze. “Is that… Gertrude?”

  “Yeah. Gertrude,” he spat out the name and mentally followed it with several choice curses he’d picked up at the racetrack.

  He’d met Papa’s brother-in-law’s sister just once, right before he’d left to make his own way a few years ago. He and Papa had never seen eye-to-eye on lots of things; that much was as obvious then as now. But Ben had thought at the time that Gertrude was just a flirty woman with whom Papa liked to play. Ben didn’t care to deny a man his toy, mind you, but humiliating Mama and the entire family was another thing entirely.

  “Did you know? Is that why you came back?” Grace asked.

  He sighed. “I didn’t know for sure. One of them Polish fellows came up to work at the track. I got into a fight with him over something stupid, and, well, he brought up Gertrude. Said that Mama was the laughingstock of Chetham.”

  He met Grace’s tear-filled eyes. “When I got back, I asked around. Seems like Papa’s been open about this love affair with everyone. Except for Mama.”

  “Does Mama know, though?” Grace traced her toe in the dust covering the barn floor.

  “Course she does!” Ben flung the words out. They slapped Grace, and he regretted his harshness.

  “Sure she does,” he said more gently. “Mama ain’t stupid, Grace. Neither is Papa. He knows that she knows. And he don’t care, you see? That’s what gets to me. He don’t care that he’s killing her.” Ben blinked back the weak tears that sprang up in his eyes. “And that’s why I’m going. I told him what I think. With my fist.” He pounded his balled-up right hand into his left palm for emphasis.

  Surely, Grace would understand. Would know that he’d done all he could. How he could use another shot of brandy right now! With a sigh, he leaned against the frame of the open barn door. He stared out at the moon, sagging in the night sky.

  Long silence reigned. Bessie crunched her hay. The crickets chirruped in their autumnal ecstasy. Far off, so distant that it could barely touch their hearing, a robin began his deep song. The sound gave Ben the urge to tell Grace what bit at his heart, young though she was. “We’re all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars,” he murmured.

  “What’s that?” Grace asked, coming to his side.

  Ben looked down into her eyes, then back out at the grassy expanse leading to the house. Would he ever return now? What was there to return for? “Nothing. Just something I read in a book once.” He forced a smile. “Promise me something, canary bird.”

  “Yeah?” She leaned against him and gazed up into his face. “What is it, Ben?”

  “Promise me that you won’t settle. You’ll do something with yourself.” His voice had grown more earnest than he’d meant it to, and he saw fear enter her eyes.

  “Whadaya mean, Ben? Do something with myself? What do you want me to do?” The words fell over each other, trembling, and, without thinking, Ben grabbed her by the shoulders and pinned her eyes with his.

  “You show Papa he can’t crush you with all this stuff,” he insisted, willing her to understand without him spelling it out. Without the words Papa had spoken exploding through this meadow and barn.

  But still Grace shook her head. “Crush us? What do you mean? What stuff? I know Mama feels bad, but…” Her voice trailed off as Ben held her gaze. “What is it, Ben? What aren’t you telling me?”

  He bit his chapped lip, feeling the rough skin with his tongue. “It might be nothing. Might just be something Papa said in the heat of a fight, Grace. You know, it’s not every day that your son punches you out.” He managed a laugh and stepped into the yard, intending to reach the house before she pulled it out of him.

  But Grace caught him by the arm before he could go four feet. “What is it? What did Papa say?” she begged, eyes wide, pulling on his scrappy shirt.

  Well, she might as well know what kind of man had fathered her. Ben swallowed and straightened his shoulders. “He’s bringing her here,” he said hoarsely, barely comprehending the statement, though he said it.

  “What?” Grace frowned, obviously puzzled. “Who? Papa? Who is Papa bringing here?” With her typical nervous gesture, Grace scraped her hair behind her ears.

  “Gertrude.” Ben nearly vomited the name. “He said he’s bringing Gertrude here. To live.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Geoffrey Kinner pushed the pile of essays to the side of his desk, neatening the stack with his aching hands. Graded at last. He smiled and leaned back, glad to have finished early enough to get the lawn mowed. One last time before winter sets in, Emmeline had reminded him today as she’d kissed him after breakfast.

  Emmeline. He could hear the old ivory keys yielding to her artistry in the room above him. Geoff’s smile widened. That instrument never cooperated with him so well as it did with his wife. But then, Emmeline queened over all she touched in life, it seemed. Even me, he thought, fully grinning now. He rose from his chair, stretching his back, hearing the joints crack into place, feeling like a dog who had snoozed too long in a sunny patch.

  The piano grew louder as he moved into the hallway, taking his time. He relished the way Emmeline embellished the old hymns, adding a little extra chord here, a long string of notes there. She played “Great is Thy Faithfulness” today; Pastor Reed probably had listed it as a hymn for Sunday’s service. Emmeline always liked to practice the hymns ahead of time.

  Geoff climbed the stairs softly, avoiding the creaky fourth step. He reached the threshold of the music room just as she came to the last stanza. He leaned against the doorjamb, thumbs hooked under his suspenders, gazing at his beautiful wife.

&n
bsp; True, Emmeline had never possessed the movie-star-vixen attractiveness that seemed all the rage nowadays. When Geoff asserted that she was, quite simply, perfect in every particular, his wife usually rolled her caramel eyes and pointed out some imperfection of which she knew. But to Geoff, Emmeline’s loveliness came from within, a rose opening to show its deep inner worth. He found her deep brown hair, flowing down her back like dark waves on the beach, and her olive complexion very pretty, it was true. But Geoff saw even deeper imprints of beauty in his beloved: her compassion for the poor and elderly, her zeal for the gospel, her unwavering commitment to the truth. These and so many other traits had drawn him toward Emmeline when they’d met so young – only fifteen – and kept him fixed to her now that they were an old married couple in their late twenties.

  She pressed the last chord onto the upright’s keyboard and paused for a moment, mouth open as if breathing in a final gasp of music. Then, whirling around on the short piano stool, she turned to face him. “Geoff.” She smiled. “I’ll get lunch ready in a jiffy. Are you hungry?”

  He nodded. “I could eat a rhinoceros. Finished grading those papers, so I can mow the lawn after lunch.”

  “Super,” his wife replied, rising from the stool. Gently, Emmeline pulled the hinged lid over the keys. “We’re having chicken salad sandwiches,” she informed him, taking her folded cardigan from the armchair near the window.

  “Sounds good,” he commented, and they began to descend the staircase together.

  “I forgot to ask,” Emmeline said suddenly. “How many children signed up for chorus? I know you were expecting a low turnout.” She gave him a sympathetic smile.

  “Oh, it wasn’t too bad,” Geoff replied as they reached the bottom of the staircase. “Maybe twenty-five.” They turned into the tiny kitchen. When they’d first purchased the house three years ago, Emmeline had sewn yellow-checked curtains for the windows and cushions for the old but sturdy wooden chairs. When Geoff’s mother heard about the cheerful color scheme, she’d sent some matching quilted potholders, too. Now the once-dismal room exuded a light-filled welcome.