by Lisa Samson
“I don’t know what to tell you, honey.”
• 16 •
Claudius stood in the living room wearing his only suit, a charcoal gray pinstripe he’d had tailor-made in Lexington in 1940 when he graduated from high school, the style of which had come and gone, come and gone. It had been expensive, but worth it. He doubted even his mother realized what a bargain it would turn out to be.
It was supposed to get him through college at the University of Kentucky. But he had to go to war, and there it sat in the closet. Then he didn’t have the heart, after spending all that time on a submarine, to go to school. The farm seemed a fine way to make a living, already producing, a nice little house, and the animals with their breathing in and out and chewing and being let in and out of the barn … well, it was the routine of it all, he guessed. He couldn’t say there were not surprises on the farm, but the surprises were expected. And he could stretch his limbs and enjoy his own room.
“What are you thinking of?”
He looked up from his thoughts and there May stood at the bottom of the steps.
“You didn’t even hear me come down, you were so lost.”
“Well, now. Don’t you look a picture.”
“Do your church ladies wear much makeup?”
“Never noticed. You’re pretty as is, May-May.”
She rolled her eyes. “I have makeup on, Claudius.”
He laughed. “Well, it’s not Sister Racine makeup, then. She looks ready to step on the stage!”
“So the outfit is okay?”
He was going to scoff at her worries over her appearance, then realized this was her first real outing, other than the market and Dairy Queen, in almost a year. “It sure is! I’m glad it fits.”
She really didn’t have anything appropriate for church, so he brought back a magazine from Jack’s, one of those celebrity ones where he recognized absolutely nobody anymore and what’s more didn’t exactly care to. Stars just weren’t what they used to be in the days Betty Grable was strutting along pretty-as-you-please or Clark Gable burned up the screen. And don’t even get him started on music.
Wait. There he went again, his mind wandering. He felt a little odd, he had to admit. Somewhat observing life this morning, not participating. Well, that was enough of that! He cleared his throat. “I think that blue dress suits you more than fine. You clean up right nice. Fancy.”
“You picked out a good one.” She twirled, the breezy fabric tenting in a circle around her. She’d pulled her hair back into a short little ponytail and anchored it in place with some hairspray he’d purchased.
“Now you did use a little lipstick, I see.” It looked nice, a sweet pink. Very youthful.
“It was still in my backpack from Rwanda.”
A tube of lipstick from her old life—a survivor of sorts too. Well, there you go. He didn’t know why that felt so strange to him, to think of a tube of lipstick surviving a war, but it did. A tube of lipstick should be the last thing to survive.
“I like your suit, Claudius,” she said, reaching out and lifting his blue tie, feeling the soft silk. “And look at those fine shoes. Wing tips!”
She was excited about wing tips? Odd. But he’d take it.
He handed her a cup of coffee in the kitchen.
“Thanks, Claudius. So we’re going to Mass first, then the picnic?”
He practically spit out his own coffee. “Well, honey, we just call it a church service.”
She pinkened. “I’m sorry. I just … I just don’t have much experience with this kind of church.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about a thing. The folks are real nice there.”
He wished he hadn’t corrected her. Maybe it would make her stay home. He would have to keep things on track. Today was a big day. He could feel it. It would change everything for her. What did Sister Ruth call days like this?
Springboards. That was it. Today was going to be a springboard for May-May.
“And you already know Sister Ruth.”
“I like her.”
“Well, you’ll be seeing more of her. She just retired when school ended, so she’ll be getting into everybody’s business a bit more often.”
May laughed. “You two act like brother and sister.”
That sure was truer than he liked to believe.
He offered her his arm as she gulped her coffee, then set the cup back onto her place mat.
With the dogs jumping around, sensing something unusual and upbeat was going on, they slid into the Galaxy and soon were driving the mile down Route 11 into town. They crossed over the river and took a left on River Road. The church, a small white wooden building, the kind you see in model train gardens and any small town in America, was already open for business. White steps led up either side of the front to green double doors pushed open to the summer air and the sound of humming insects. Above the doors the sign Harmony Baptist hopefully proclaimed more than empty hopes for the congregation. Claudius liked to think it did.
He parked in one of about fifteen spaces, then turned off the car. “Now don’t worry, because I’ve told everybody not to overwhelm you.”
“Okay.”
“Now you just sit tight.”
He came around and opened her door, offering his arm as she slid out.
“Why some woman didn’t jump at you in your day, I don’t know.”
“Some women are just nuts, was all I could ever figure.”
She threaded her arm through his, and they walked across a thankfully unpeopled parking lot, up the front steps, and into the church. The choir was just getting up to sing.
The director said, “Well, hey, Brother Claudius.”
The entire congregation swung their faces around to get a look at May.
“Wasn’t welcomed down the street when I was a youngster, so Mom and Dad brought me here,” Claudius whispered, feeling the need to tell her why everybody was like him and nobody was like her.
Her eyes widened, her face drained of all its color at the sight of them all.
“Oh, my,” she whispered, tears now running down her face. Her knees buckled.
“She’s out!” he cried, catching her beneath the armpits as she slid to the ground.
She came to within a ring of concerned faces.
Claudius leaned over. “Honey, you all right? May-May?” He patted her hand again and again.
She pulled in a deep breath. “I don’t know what happened.”
“You give us a scare, that’s what,” Sister Racine said, on her plump knees in a red suit that matched a blazing red hat the size of his mother’s old wash pan. “Lordymercy, child. Let’s get you sitting up. Sister Ruth is fetching you a glass of water.”
She took May’s hands and pulled her up with a good yank. May’s eyes widened, and she gave out a little cry.
“She a plain little thing, but there’s a lot of love in her eyes,” she said to Claudius.
May smiled.
“See?” Racine said.
Sister Ruth ran up on her spindly bowed legs, her narrow black patent leather pumps giving her little tracking on the wood floor. How she didn’t spill the glass of water she’d grabbed from the pulpit Claudius couldn’t imagine.
“You all look ready to go to Churchill Downs,” May said.
“Here you are, honey. Drink a little. You might just be dehydrated.” She pronounced it de-hy-DRA-ted.
May let her hold the cup to her lips. It seemed everybody knew she needed a little TLC. It was written all over her face. And it always had been, Claudius realized, from the first moment he pulled his car over that morning more than two years ago.
A few minutes later they’d tucked her in the second pew from the back, Claudius on one side, big black Bible on his lap, Sister Ruth on the other, big red Bible on hers. Her black-and-white hound’s-tooth skirt—his father had once had a hound’s-tooth jacket—flared over the golden wood of the pew. Above the skirt she wore a white jacket with a big silk rose pinned to the lapel. Hot p
ink. One just like it rested above the brim of her smart straw hat.
—That woman! Such a fine woman!
“I love all the hats,” May whispered.
There was something lovely about women in hats. Maybe God didn’t require it of a Sunday morning, but Claudius thought maybe he looked down on all those hats and smiled. Maybe even had a laugh or two, if he noticed the woman near the front with a hat brim the size of the rings of Saturn.
The choir began “In the Garden,” one of Claudius’s favorites, naturally. He pictured it as the one garden on earth his toil had not brought forth, that no human toil had brought forth. God’s garden, where if there were any weeds, they weren’t really weeds at all. His heart sang along like it did sometimes when hearing a song that seemed to beat in time with it. Oh, and the looks on some of the women’s faces as they sang. Lordymercy.
“And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known.”
The pianist went right from the choir piece into the first song. “Amazing Grace.”
May knew it. She sang along in a sweet, trembling soprano. “I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see.”
Well, that remained to be seen. Hopefully today would make that line true for her too.
—Oh, Lord, help my unbelief.
He just couldn’t picture it: May-May up and around, getting a job at a magazine, enjoying life once again.
Still, hope seemed to stream in with the morning sun through the paned windows, casting squares onto the floor.
—Look at all these people come to worship God.
Perhaps they could help May remember God as good when bad times rolled around. He wasn’t fool enough to think they hadn’t seen their fair share! No, they’d had more than that. He’d sat vigil in too many living rooms and knew better. For dangling from the sleeves of their pretty dresses and suits were work-roughened hands. Above the necklines many faces were weathered and pulled down by heartache.
But there they all sat together. That was the point of it, wasn’t it? Being joined with one another? Christ at the head?
Well, it seemed that way to him, anyway.
The picnic on the grounds behind the church, in the pavilion right on the river, was, to Claudius’s estimation, a peek at the great feast in heaven. May should have thought so too. She was loved right away, gathered into skinny arms and big arms, crushed against meager chests and great big bosoms. Sister Ruth decided May was her charge; after all, she alone had actually met May Seymour. She escorted them to the father-daughter table, where she sat May next to Claudius and with three other fathers and their female offspring: Chester Frank and his six girls; John Rose, an older gentleman with a daughter in her thirties; and the youngest father of the bunch, Jason Sparks, with his three-year-old spark plug, Tillie.
The chatter was loud and laced with laughter, and the ladies served them plates filled with fried chicken, short ribs, greens with hardboiled eggs, cabbage, potato salad, and three-bean salad, canned by Sister Racine, most likely not wearing the red hat at the time.
Claudius had three helpings and whispered, “I do think I’ll barter some of our apple butter for some of her beans.”
Sweet potato pie and coconut cake was served with either hot coffee or more sweet tea.
May leaned in toward him. “I’ve never eaten this much at one time. In fact, I’d have turned my nose up at this meal, counting the fat grams in my head, saving up the calories for alcohol.”
“Welcome to the good life, May-May.”
Upon leaving the place she received so many hugs it almost annoyed Claudius.
“Now you come back!” at least half the people said. The other half said, “You’re welcome anytime. Anytime!”
When they pulled up to the house, Claudius extricated her from the car again and ushered her inside. “That was a real honor, May-May. Did you have a good time?”
“The best. It was wonderful.”
“My heart hasn’t felt so big in a long time. They all loved you.”
“I know. I mean, I could really tell. Are they all always that nice?”
They entered the kitchen, and he laid his keys on the hoosier. “Well, it’s like any church, I guess. We all have our … personalities.”
She laughed.
“I sure am tired after all that good food. I think I’ll take a nap,” he said.
“I’m going to make a cup of tea and read. I think I’ll look at those flower arranging books you brought me from the library.”
“Do you mind telling me what happened to make you faint this morning?”
She filled the kettle with water. “When I stepped into that simple little church, it reminded me of my church in Rwanda, and then all those brown faces, all swinging in my direction, looking at me … It felt like I was back there, Claudius. And then I realized, they’re dead. They’re all dead.”
“Oh, honey. Your poor mind couldn’t take it, could it?”
She shook her head. “But I’m glad I made it through. I’m glad we were able to stay and enjoy the picnic.”
“Me too.” He headed toward his bedroom, then turned. “You truly are like a daughter to me, honey. The good Lord made me wait long enough, but it was worth it.”
She ran forward, embraced him with arms grown stronger from garden work, and kissed his cheek. “I love you, Claudius.”
“And I love you too, May-May.”
Now those are words you can never hear too much, he realized as he took off his suit and shirt and climbed into bed. Wooh. He was so tired!
He arranged the pillow behind his head, amazed at the turns of life. For years it can go on in quiet sameness, and then wham! A girl enters your life, and no, maybe May wasn’t the romantic relationship he thought he’d been looking for, but that feminine presence alighted like birds on corn, and he understood something: that he could live for someone else.
A copy of his new will lay on his desk under the window. He’d taken care of her. What else could he do?
• 17 •
Claudius awakened early. May was up, probably already out in the barn. Probably talking to that silly goat, or milking Eloise. She loved that cow. Yep, that’s where she was. He found her in the barn.
She turned to him with a broad smile. “I’m still feeling a little glow from yesterday, Claudius. I’m going to make a big farmer’s breakfast. Fried potatoes, fried tomatoes, eggs, and biscuits!”
He pulled on his bottom lip. “Now I wouldn’t turn down an offer like that.”
He set about his morning chores, picturing her scrubbing potatoes for home fries (leftovers for lunch, he assumed), slicing them along with some onions. With a generous slick of butter in the skillet, she’d set them frying, onions, then potatoes, setting a lid on top. Next she’d whip up the biscuit dough, roll it out on the pastry board, flour a juice glass from the cupboard and press it down onto the dough. After arranging the biscuits on a baking pan that was nonstick from years of residue, not any Teflon coating, she’d slide them in the oven, then wash and set the tomatoes aside. She’d fry those up right before they ate.
Violet’s old recipe book had taught her well.
As he pulled the hose around to water his tomatoes, she hurried outside and took care of the chickens, a job she’d asked for a month before. Claudius hadn’t really wanted to give up tending “the ladies,” but he’d agreed. Her mental health was a real consideration in his decision, and while he knew she tried not to manipulate him into doing anything, because of the trauma sometimes it just happened that way. In the end he didn’t mind. Most likely in five years May would be on her own and he’d have his chickens to himself again.
They were loved chickens, you could tell. They ran up to the gate, ready to be petted and talked to, and they gave such nice round, golden-brown eggs. How could he refuse her that? Parma-Jean the Fourth followed her around with worried clucking the entire time she fed and watered them. She picked up the chicken and rubbed her index finger along her feathery head a
nd neck. Sweet chicken.
She waved to him as she entered the chicken coop, and he waved back. Next stop, some hay for old Bill on the Hill. But first he peeked his head in the kitchen door.
Coffee was ready, too, and she’d set the percolator on the table she’d already laid out. Life was moving forward for May. She’d even said last night that she was thinking about doing the interview with that reporter. He’d had no idea what an effect that father-daughter picnic would have!
Twenty minutes later she hollered out the kitchen door. “Claudius! Breakfast is ready!”
“Be right there,” he called back from Bill’s nearby pasture. He just wanted to return the wheelbarrow to the toolshed. He was planning on mending one of the fences near the road later on.
She headed back in.
My, he felt warm. His hands broke out in a sweat! He slowed his pace as he rounded the corner of the toolshed. Scout and Girlfriend ran up, begging for a scratch. He obliged, bending over, lights exploding behind his eyes, a red heat erasing them away, and then, blackness.
Two minutes later, as he left his body, seeing the welcoming smiles of his parents, friends, and relatives who had gone on before, he looked down, and he saw May running, running toward him, screaming and crying.
“She’ll be all right,” Violet whispered as she drew him close, his father rubbing small circles between his shoulder blades.
“Look down now,” Garland said.
May sat in the circle of her flowers, the farm burgeoning with life, life, life.
“How?” Claudius asked. “Wasn’t she just—”
“We’re not bound to time. Be at peace for her, honey,” Violet said, tucking her arm through his. “You did well. As my new friend Julian tells me here in the great cloud of witnesses, ‘All will be well and all will be well and every kind of thing will be well.’ Welcome home, son.”
PART 2
IT IS A VERY MIXED BLESSING TO BE BROUGHT BACK FROM THE DEAD.
—Kurt Vonnegut
• 1 •
Eight years later
May come in May.” The first day of May never came when May didn’t think of Claudius’s words. It was their month, their mythic month, certainly, when he seemed close, to walk beside her as she fed the chickens and Louise, also known as “the replacement cow.” She missed sweet Eloise, the large gentle dame; however, Louise was a nice cow, smaller, but with a calm temperament. She had a face May could talk to as well, and a nice warm flank to rest her cheek against when she was milking her.