Willow Springs

by Jan Watson

  “Oh, I know. I know.” Marydell waved her arm. “Can I tell the rest of it?”

  Copper’s eyes met Simon’s twinkling ones. Whatever would Marydell say?

  “Then,” Marydell stood and pronounced, “the shepherds came with their sheep, and the smartest men rode on camels and followed the brightest star. They brought presents for baby Jesus. I reckon Santa gave them to the smart men to put under the baby’s tree.”

  Surprised, Copper said, “That is beautiful, Marydell. Who told you the story of baby Jesus?”

  “Sometimes Andy takes me to Sunday school. Andy says girls who don’t go to Sunday school grow up to be heathens. I don’t want to be no heathen.”

  Lord, Copper prayed, protect these precious children. Close to tears, she busied herself tucking a clean dishrag under Dodie’s chin as Searcy put serving bowls on the table.

  “You’ve got lots of utensils,” Marydell said from where she sat primly on the edge of her chair. “We use spoons.”

  “You’re right.” Copper picked up Simon’s and her forks and knives and placed them in the silver cabinet. “No one needs all this extra stuff. Now, bow your head for grace.”

  “God, our Father,” Simon began, “bless this food as You bless Your servants gathered here. Help us do Thy will in all things and in all ways. In Jesus’ blessed name, amen.”

  Dinner was satisfying after all the sweet treats. Copper and Simon exchanged smiles as they chased roast beef and potatoes around their plates with spoons while Dodie gummed peas and Marydell ate daintily from her fork.

  Children are good for a home, Copper surmised as she readied herself for bed that night. Marydell with her funny ways brought back memories of her brothers, especially Willy.

  A letter had arrived yesterday with Mam’s Christmas box. The twins were excited about the holiday. Daniel was growing and nearly as tall as his brother. Willy liked school, and Daddy was working in a dry-goods store. His cough was nearly gone now that he no longer went down in the mines. Mam wrote nothing of herself; she never did. Would she forever remain a puzzle, like Alice, with a piece always missing?

  After removing her hairpins and combs, Copper pulled the navy blue dress she’d worn all day over her head and put it on a wooden hanger. She’d never liked navy—made her think of funerals. Oh, dear, she’d lost a button. A foreign weight in the pocket caused the dress to sag when she shoved it in the back of the closet with the other clothes needing repair. She’d get around to them eventually; it was just that she hated to sew. Maybe she should take them to the dressmaker. Would that be lazy? Mam would say so.

  Leaving her hair free, as Simon liked it, she settled at her dressing table and rubbed Pompeian Massage Cream on her elbows. The cream had cost a fortune—one dollar for the squat blue bottle. It seemed wrong somehow to waste money on such a frill, but it sure smelled better than the concoction of mutton tallow, gum camphor, and turpentine she and Mam had used at home.

  Something nagged her. She slathered more cream on her hands and searched her mind. It must be the button. Such a silly thing to worry about.

  The long winter had come and gone, and the first warm day was welcome. Puffs of white smoke drifted heavenward from fires under numerous washtubs, and laundry flapped on lines as far as the eye could see. It seemed all the maids on the street vied to get their wash out first, but Searcy’s rival, Mallie, nearly always won. Searcy swore Mallie got out her washboard at the stroke of midnight on Sunday just to be first to the clothesline on Monday morning.

  Copper held the screen door half-open, enjoying the April air. A pot of soup beans simmered on the stove. A round of corn bread waited in the warming oven. Beans and the chicken left over from Sunday dinner and maybe some green onions from the garden would make for an easy meal on such a busy day. It was a wonder they had any chicken left since Benton and Alice had visited with them after church. Benton was a hearty eater. Greedy, Copper thought. Benton is greedy about everything.

  The screen door slapped softly behind her as she stepped out onto the still-wet grass and made her way to the lines. The sheets won’t be dry yet, she thought. Still, she reached out and pulled damp linen to her face, inhaling the fresh, clean smell.

  Could it really be almost a year since she came to Lexington? Seemed like ages since first she’d seen Searcy at the washtub scrubbing clothes. It bothered her a little that Troublesome Creek was fading in her memory, blurred round the edges like a distant tree at twilight.

  Other folks seemed more real than her own family now: Alice replacing Mam, Andy and his sisters stealing Willy and Daniel’s place. And what of Daddy? She had to think hard to see his face, couldn’t imagine him living in the city, but he seemed to prosper in Philadelphia. Mam wrote that they had found a church where Daddy was a deacon, and he liked helping people in the store. And, she surmised, Mam was happy. She had what she’d always wanted—a place away from the mountains she despised.

  With absent mind, Copper resettled the clothespins on the sheets, smoothed the pillowcases, and shook wrinkles from a cotton towel as she took stock of all the changes in her life. She assisted with most of Simon’s deliveries now and did much of the follow-up care. Simon teased that soon there’d be no need for him. She had a way, he said, a natural way with women in labor.

  Simon had left this morning to go to Cincinnati for another medical meeting. She missed him already. Their partings were getting harder and harder. The taste of his last kiss lingered on her lips.

  She sidestepped Old Tom, who pounced right in front of her, just missing the mouse that scurried down a chipmunk’s hole. The sun raised itself a notch in the cloudless blue sky. The warmth of its searching rays was welcome among the wet laundry. Contentment settled in her heart as she surveyed her day dresses hanging next to Simon’s shirts, shirts so white that sunlight bounced off them. All was right in her little world—for a moment anyway.

  Copper raised her hand, a shield against the sudden glare, and noticed Searcy, a clutch of clothespins in her fist, standing at the fence listening to Mallie. Odd that either of them would take even a moment’s rest on washday. Mallie’s hands flapped, and she cut her gaze in Copper’s direction. The wooden pins scattered on the ground at Searcy’s feet.

  “What is it?” Copper asked. “Is Mallie’s daughter having her baby?”

  “It be Miz Alice,” Searcy replied, her eyes rounded in fear. “Mandy told Mallie that Beulah said Jenny told her that Joseph say Miz Alice been in the closet all last night and this morning and won’t come out. Joseph, he don’t rightly know what to do, and Mr. Benton be gone since yesterday late. Mallie say Mandy say Beulah say Jenny say Joseph wants you to come.”

  This is better than the telegraph, Copper thought as her scalp prickled with alarm. “I’ll go right now. It won’t take me but a few minutes to walk over there.”

  “You’d best let Reuben fetch Dr. Thornsberry,” Searcy said.

  “Alice won’t like it if we make a fuss. I’ll send Joseph for the doctor if need be.” Copper looked down the long row of connecting yards. “Meanwhile, Searcy, do what you can to put out these smoke signals.”

  A gloom as thick as clotted cream settled around Copper as she ascended the spiral staircase; even the sparkling chandelier seemed to cast only a feeble light. A clock somewhere in the vast spaces of Alice’s house chimed the hour like a portent of doom.

  Taking a deep breath to steady herself, Copper turned the heavy glass knob and cracked the door. “Alice?” she asked, unsure of her welcome and more than a little afraid. Alice would have her head on a platter for invading her private place.

  “Lord, what should I do?” she asked in reverence. Clearing her throat, she pushed the door farther and stepped in. “Alice,” she squeaked.

  Something was amiss. The curtains were still drawn and the room lay in shadow, but Copper could easily see the disarray. The covers were pulled back, the bedspread neatly folded on the bench at the foot of the bed, but Alice’s gray robe lay in a heap on the floor a
long with several pieces of writing paper and a book of poetry. Wordsworth, Copper noted, stepping closer. A gash in the wall marked the landing place of a wooden jewelry casket that now lay at the baseboard, its trays slid out, disgorging all manner of gold, diamonds, and pearls upon the floor. What in the world?

  A keening whimper pricked her ears. Joseph had said Alice was in the closet, and it sounded like she was. But why? Once again Copper found herself in a place she didn’t need to be. She’d go back downstairs and send for help. This was clearly none of her business.

  At the staircase, she clasped the rail, her hand shaking like a palsied old woman’s and her knees threatening to give way. She collapsed on the top stair and covered her ears against the whimpering sound that followed her out the door. As soon as she could trust her legs, she’d go find Joseph.

  Searcy was in a dither. Seemed like she couldn’t pull herself together enough to finish the laundry. But she had to, didn’t she? Had to stop the prying eyes and gossiping voices that came at her over the fence. Miz Alice wouldn’t like other folks knowing her business.

  Sliding wooden pins into her apron pocket, Searcy made her way down the line. The day was fast heating up. She had to hurry so the ironing pieces wouldn’t overdry. Searcy fretted as she worked. Poor Miz Alice. Was she sick? Had Mr. Benton hurt her feelings again? She thought about the first time Miz Alice had come home after she married that mean man. She’d flung herself on the floor at her mother’s feet and sobbed about mistakes.

  Searcy remembered Miz Lilly’s words to her only daughter as if it had happened yesterday. “When you dance you have to pay the fiddler.” Like that made any sense to anybody. Like that took any of Miz Alice’s pain away.

  Searcy tightened the kerchief on her head and wiped a bead of perspiration from her face. Worrying herself didn’t do any good, but it seemed like Miz Alice was not meant to find happiness. As a girl she was forever trying to please her mother with flowers plucked from the garden or some such thing, hoping to garner a little praise from a woman who had none to give. She was a pretty little thing, Miz Alice was. But pretty didn’t make happy.

  Searcy thought she’d try a prayer like Miz Corbett had taught her. Now how’d it go? Bend your head and close your eyes and talk to the Lord. Let’s see. Father, it be Searcy asking You to lift up Miz Alice’s sorrow. It be all right if You settle it back down on these here shoulders. Amen.

  There, that felt better. Made a body walk a little taller. Funny—as much as Searcy had seen white folks pray around the dining room table over food she herself had cooked, she’d never known that God would listen to her, too.

  If she hurried with the wash, maybe she’d have time to figure out a little of the Scripture in her Bible. Last evening she’d puzzled out a piece from Luke: “Mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” That was a pretty word: salvation.

  Searcy raised her eyes to see a second pair of hands as brown as her own neatly folding dried laundry into a willow basket. Mallie was doing Searcy’s work while her own clothes were still hanging on the line.

  Light-headed, Copper held fast to the railing as she took the steps down ever so carefully. She’d been sick after breakfast, and her stomach still felt funny. But she was also more than a little afraid. Something was terribly wrong in that closet upstairs. She’d reached the curve in the open, S-shaped stairway before she could see Joseph standing below, looking up at her.

  “Miz Alice?” he asked and started up.

  Copper could see concern on his face. Her backbone stiffened with resolve. She was being a ninny. “I was just coming for you, Joseph. Would you mind to wait in the hall while I see about Mrs. Upchurch? I might need you to go for Dr. Thornsberry.”

  “Yes’m.” He positioned himself like a sentry outside the bedroom door.

  Copper’s rap at the closet sounded tentative even to her own ears, so using the heel of her hand, she pounded with authority. “Alice! It’s Copper. Open the door.”

  With her ear pressed tight to the door, she thought she could hear a body shifting about, but the door did not open. “I’m coming in.” Easing the door, she stopped when it caught on something. “Alice, if you don’t let me in, I’m having Joseph take this door off the hinges! You know I will.”

  Hot air smelling of stale cedar met her when the door swung open. The closet was a good size, as big as Copper’s dressing room. Men’s suits and shirts hung neatly on wooden rods. Well, some did; most were piled on the floor, where Alice nested like a deranged bird. A pair of scissors glinted wickedly in her hand. “I fell asleep,” she said, “or I would have finished.”

  “Finished?”

  “Buttons, Laura Grace.” The scissors snip, snip, snipped, and several buttons lost their purchase. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  Copper saw she had indeed been busy. There must have been a hundred buttons, not to mention a few dozen shirtsleeves and collarless jackets, in Alice’s nest. Copper sank to her knees and reached for the scissors. “Are you hurt?”

  Alice released her weapon and turned away from Copper. “It’s nothing,” she said, but the keening cry started again.

  Has a night in the closet unhinged Alice? Best get her out of here. “Come, Alice, let me help you up.”

  Alice acquiesced, leaning unsteadily on Copper as they made their way to the bed.

  Copper nearly gasped when she saw Alice’s black eye, her puffy lip, and the dried blood from her nose. With gentle fingers she probed the damage until Alice slapped her hand away. “I’m going to send for a doctor.”

  Alice drew herself up in bed. “You’ll do nothing of the sort.”

  “Forevermore, Alice. I just want to help you. You could have a broken nose for all I know.”

  “Hand me a mirror.”

  Copper handed her a silver-backed hand mirror, then poured water from a pitcher into the washbowl. Holding a dampened towel, she watched as Alice surveyed her damaged face.

  “Oh,” she yelped as the mirror fell to her lap. “Benton never did this before. He never hit me where it would show.”

  Copper dabbed at the crusted blood. “Why did Benton do this?”

  Alice crumpled against the headboard like a rag doll leaking stuffing. “It was all my fault.” Tears fell from her swollen eyes. “He never would have done this if I hadn’t made him mad.”

  “Nothing you could have done warrants this.” Copper’s voice rose in anger.

  Somewhere in the house a door slammed.

  Alice nearly jumped from the bed, her eyes wide with fright, and Copper’s heart beat wildly. Rushing to the closet, Copper grabbed a valise from the high shelf. “Oops!” she cried when an errant button caused her to slip and slide across the hardwood floor. Her ankle turned dangerously, and she nearly fell. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she limped back to the bedside.

  Copper opened the case and put Alice’s slim volume of Wordsworth into its yawning mouth. “You’re going home with me.” She emptied the contents of a dresser drawer atop the book. “Nobody has to live like this.”

  “Who asked for your opinion? Or your presence, for that matter?” Alice flung the mirror across the bed. “Life is so simple for you, Laura Grace. Like a game you always win.”

  Copper’s face stung with the slap of Alice’s words. Upending the valise, she dumped cotton undergarments back into the dresser drawer and plopped the volume of poetry to the floor where she’d found it. Were it not for her aching ankle, she’d have kicked the valise across the room. Instead she snapped it shut and stretched to set it on the closet shelf. She was finished with Alice Upchurch. See if she ever darkened this door again.

  “You need to put a beefsteak on your eye, Alice,” she said as she headed for the door. “That will cut the swelling.”

  She nearly made it. Nearly severed the tenuous tie that bound her to a woman who would never be her sister. She grasped the doorknob between duty and freedom. But something she’d never thought to hear called her back.

  “I’m sorry,” Alice
croaked, as if the words had been stuck in her craw for a very long time.

  “Pardon me?” Copper replied, her back to Alice, though she’d heard well enough.

  “I said I’m sorry, Laura Grace.” Alice’s voice broke on a sob. “I’m so sorry.”

  Copper wiped the smile from her face before she turned around. “Thank you.”

  Alice whipped her head back and forth on the bolster pillow. “Nobody could ever love me. I’m a wretched, ugly woman.”

  Copper’s triumph was short-lived as she witnessed Alice’s humiliation. Lord, she petitioned, will You ever let me bear a grudge? You know I have a right. Why, Alice is as mean as a striped snake. If she bit her tongue she’d poison herself. Must I always turn the other cheek? How many times must I forgive her?

  Her knowledge of Scripture pierced her angry satisfaction. “Seventy times seven,” Jesus had told Peter when he asked the same question as they tarried in Capernaum. Seventy times seven and beyond.

  Copper pinched her lower lip between thumb and forefinger and paused in front of Alice’s dresser to study the situation. Was she any better than Alice, really? How many times had Mam cautioned her to mind her tongue? Once she’d had to print Psalm 140 verse 3 until her slate was full only to have her stepmother erase it with one swipe and make her write it yet again.

  The mirror over the dressing table caught her eye, but she turned away. She didn’t want to see a hypocrite. “I’ll be right back, Alice. I’m going to need a few things.”

  Joseph waited patiently right outside the door.