Fading Thunder

by Sheila Hollinghead

  I paused from my shelling. “It’s hard for me to keep it a secret since I throw up all day. People begin to suspect.”

  “I’m sorry you have it so rough.”

  Michael looked up at our words and glanced at me but didn’t speak. James Colton came to me, crying and rubbing his eyes, getting sand in them. I tried to blow it away but it didn’t help, and his cries increased.

  I put my pan aside. “I’ll be back in a minute. Let me go wash James Colton’s face.” I took my son’s hand and led him to the back porch.

  Even after I washed his face, he was fussy and wanted me to hold him. He needed a nap. I took him inside and got him settled after a few minutes. When I started back out, I decided to check on Momma again. I quietly opened her bedroom door and peeked in. She still slept soundly.

  I went back outside and picked up my pan. Momma’s cries reached us before I even sat down. I ran back in. Momma was still in bed, her eyes round and unfocused.

  “Ezekiel! Where’s Ezekiel?”

  “He’s not here, Momma. What’s wrong?”

  She blinked at me. “Something terrible has happened to him. Where is he?”

  Michael had come in behind me and laid a hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong, Mrs. Hunter?”

  She ignored Michael and screamed Zeke’s name over and over. While I debated what to do, James Colton pulled on my hand.

  He rubbed his eyes. “What’s wrong with Gammy?”

  I smoothed his hair. “She had a bad dream.”

  Momma’s screams died down at the sound of my son’s voice. Her eyes landed on him. “There’s my Ezekiel. There’s my little man.” She held out her arms to my child.

  James Colton took a step toward her. I wanted to stop him, but I hesitated. James Colton climbed on the bed with her, and she wrapped her bony arms around him, crooning to him as if he had been the one who had had the bad dream. After a minute or so, I walked over to her.

  “Momma, you ready to eat breakfast?”

  “If Ezekiel is, I am.”

  I didn’t tell her that he was not Ezekiel. I helped James Colton down, and Momma called after us. “Let me get my clothes on. I’ll be there in a bit.”

  Michael had gone into the kitchen, and my son and I followed him. My hands were shaking as I poured glasses of buttermilk.

  Michael spoke quietly. “What do you think we should do?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. I’ll talk to Dr. Burch. Do you think I need to call him now?”

  He tilted his head and contemplated me. “She seems calm enough. Let’s keep a close eye on her. If she’s all right, I guess you can wait until Monday.”

  “Yeah, I hate to disturb Dr. Burch on the weekend unless it’s an emergency.”

  Momma came out of her room. She had made an attempt to comb her hair and pull it back into a bun, but it was an untidy bun with hairs escaping in every direction.

  She smiled at my son. “Good morning, James Colton.”

  “Good morning, Gammy.”

  Michael and I exchanged a look. Her confusion over Zeke and my son had not lasted long. Michael went back out alone. I decided to cook Momma a fresh egg. “Do you want an egg, James Colton?”

  He shook his head, so I fried Momma’s quickly and heated up the biscuits and sausage. She talked to James Colton while I cooked but did not confuse him again with Zeke.

  James Colton was still sleepy and laid his head on the table. After I gave Momma her food, I took my son to his room and put him back to bed. He complained, but I convinced him to stay in bed and went back outside.

  Chapter 38—Fire

  We shelled butterbeans for another hour or so, and then I decided to check on James Colton. But when I got to the back door, I found it locked. We never locked our doors.

  I knocked. “Momma? Momma?” There was no response. Fear began to beat at the base of my throat. I turned toward the pecan trees where Michael and Laurie still sat. “Michael!”

  In a second, he had vaulted up the steps, Argos beside him. “What’s wrong?”

  “The door’s locked.”

  He slammed the door with the palm of his hand. “Mrs. Hunter? Mrs. Hunter?” When there was no answer, he leapt off the steps and ran to our rooms on the side of the house. He jiggled the knob and cursed when the door didn’t open. His eyes rose to mine for a split second before he sprinted to the front. I was on his heels when Laurie ran to me, and I slid to a stop.

  “Jay! I smell smoke.” We both stepped back and saw the smoke seeping from the eaves of the house.

  I raced to Michael as Laurie headed to the truck. She lay on the horn, and I prayed Uncle Colt, Walter, or anyone would hear.

  When I reached the front, I grabbed Michael’s arm. “The house is on fire!”

  Michael jumped from the porch and scrambled to the woodpile. “Where’s the axe?”

  “You put it in the shed.”

  He covered the ground and yanked on the shed’s padlock. He yelled in frustration.

  Breathing heavily, I clutched his arm. “Where’s the key?”

  “In the house, in my other pants.”

  The back door was closest, and we headed there, Argos behind us. Michael rammed his shoulder into the door. The door was almost as hard as rock, made from the heart of pine. It didn’t budge. The only window was five feet off the ground and long and narrow. Michael slammed his fist into the glass, shattering it. It was too narrow for him to climb through. He lifted Argos to his shoulder. The dog instinctively flew as straight as any arrow, into the house.

  We raced back to the front. The windows were lower here. When Momma had locked the doors, she must have closed and latched the windows also. Michael smashed them with his heavy work boots and barreled through. I followed.

  Low flames leapt from the kitchen, blocking our path.

  “Go back,” Michael told me. “I’ll get James Colton.” Fear had me grasping his arm, but he pried my fingers loose.

  I placed my hands over my stomach and stayed rooted to the spot as he moved low and disappeared into the smoke. For another moment, I could not make my feet move. Only the fear for my unborn child made me finally turn. The flames licked closer as I went out.

  My legs were weak. I stumbled around the house to our rooms, hoping James Colton was there and not in the kitchen. Laurie still leaned on the horn, and Coby barked. I heard excited shouts but didn’t turn to see from whom.

  Thankfully, it was only seconds until our door opened. James Colton held Argos’s ruff, and I grabbed my son, covering him with kisses, thanking God.

  Michael had Momma in his arms. He brought her down the steps, into the yard, away from the burning house, and he lowered her to the ground. She moved slightly, and I knelt beside her, still holding James Colton.

  “Momma?”

  She blinked slowly. “Sarah Jane? Is that you?” Her voice was weak, barely audible.

  “Yes, Momma.” Tears streamed down my face, and the words croaked through my constricted throat.

  “Where’s Ezekiel?” Her eyes alighted on James Colton, and she reached out to him. “There’s Ezekiel. There’s my boy.”

  James Colton wriggled in my arms, and I released him. He laid his head on Momma’s chest and she reached a bony hand to touch his hair.

  She closed her eyes, her breathing ragged. She spoke, her eyes still closed. “Sarah Jane, you take care of him.”

  “Always, Momma,” I choked out.

  Uncle Colt, Walter, and others were fighting the fire, but their shouts and cries barely registered.

  Michael knelt beside me. For the first time, I got a good look at him. Blood streamed from his elbow and angry red patches blotched his arms. I touched him gently. “Michael, we need to get to the hospital.”

  I pulled James Colton away and stood. Without speaking, Michael lifted Momma, carrying her to my car and laying her in the back.

  Thankfully, the keys were in the ignition. “I’m driving.” I said. I put James Colton between us. Argos
jumped in, next to our son, and we drove from the chaos.

  Momma did not speak again. She died at the Andalusia Hospital, in the room next to where Poppa had died.

  Michael had a couple of third-degree burns. He didn’t need stitches in his arm, and we were thankful for that. James Colton had no injuries at all.

  Neither did Argos. Michael told me that Argos had gone straight to James Colton, kept Momma from him, and led our son to safety.

  I was surprised when Marla and Dan both brought Zeke home for the funeral but I had no chance to talk to either. A large number of people came by to offer condolences, at Mr. Paul’s house where we went after the fire.

  At the funeral, as I sat beside Zeke on the hard wooden pew, I struggled to focus on the words of the preacher. One image kept replaying over and over in my mind — Momma breaking the switch into small pieces and stuffing them through the floorboards of the corncrib.

  Wasn’t that proof of something? Momma had been a fixture in my life for so long that it would take me a while to adjust to her absence. In so many ways, she had been a burden to me, demanding more than I could give, withholding her love from me, criticizing my every move. Yet she had been the only mother I had ever known. Perhaps she had done the best she was capable of. She had taken care of us when we were younger.

  James Colton loved her. A child knew when a person had some goodness, didn’t they? Most importantly, Poppa had loved her, and she had been a link to him.

  Despite her faults, despite the problems, despite the heartache, I would miss her. James Colton and Zeke would miss her more.

  I squeezed Zeke’s hand as we stood to view her body one last time.

  Chapter 39—The Remains

  We moved in with Uncle Aaron and Mr. Paul until we could build a new house. Momma’s bedroom, our bedroom, and James Colton’s room had been saved, but the rest of the house was destroyed. We never knew if she had set the house on fire on purpose or if it had been an accident. We decided it would be best for all concerned to pretend it was an accident, although the locked doors and closed windows said otherwise.

  The day after Momma’s funeral, Michael and I left James Colton with Mr. Paul and took Zeke with us to the burnt house, to see what could be salvaged. When we got there, my tears fell, and I wrapped my arms around Zeke, holding him close. All of Poppa’s handiwork was gone, had been destroyed in a few short minutes. But the stone slabs from the river were under the debris. They were the first things Michael dug out.

  “We’ll use these in the new kitchen,” he said.

  I nodded, although I had no idea how we could afford to rebuild. We climbed through the ashes and debris into our bedroom and soon had a couple of boxes filled. While Michael climbed into James Colton’s room, Zeke and I went to Momma’s room. Only two walls still stood. The wall where her headboard had been was burned halfway down, scorching the top of the headboard. The sheets and bedspread had been singed. Her chifforobe, though, was still intact. Zeke and I pulled out her clothes, folded them carefully as if she would wear them again, and placed them in the box. I remembered how she had burnt all of Poppa’s things and sighed. I still had his old Bible, scorched as it was.

  “Do you still have Poppa’s pipe?” I asked Zeke.

  “Yeah, I have it.”

  “Don’t lose it.”

  “I’m not planning to.”

  Over in the corner was Momma’s old chest. I pulled it away from the wall so we could throw the lid all the way back. Here were her coat and the gloves and knitted scarf I had worn after the thundersnow, Momma and Poppa’s marriage certificate that had led me to the truth, the newspaper cutting that told of the fire that had killed her first husband.

  This fire had not killed Momma. The doctor believed she had overdosed on aspirin. I had shown Dr. Burch the bottle of pills I’d put in my apron pocket. A few of the lithium pills were missing, but he told us that even if she had taken them all at once, it would not have caused her death. It was enough for me to let go of that guilt.

  I handed the papers to Zeke and watched as he read the article.

  He nodded his head. “This explains a lot of her psychological disorder. She must have always felt guilty over this.”

  “I think Poppa felt guiltier.”

  There were other papers at the bottom of the chest. I pulled them out and looked through them, frowning.

  “What is it, sis?” A lock of hair had fallen over his forehead, and he pushed it back, leaving a smudgy smear.

  “Stocks.”

  “Stocks?” He knelt beside me. “In what companies?”

  “Coca-Cola and something I’ve never heard of.”

  “Let me see.” He quickly scanned the paper. “Oh. IBM.”

  “What’s IBM?”

  “Stands for International Business Machines.”

  “Are they worth anything, do you think?”

  His eyes sparkled in the rays of the late afternoon sun. “Maybe. Anyway, I can find out.”

  “Do you know someone?”

  “Grace’s father has a good deal of knowledge.”

  “But he’s a district attorney, not a stockbroker.”

  “He’s invested in a lot of stocks. At least that’s what Grace has told me.”

  “Oh?”

  Zeke rubbed his grimy hands on his jeans. “As a matter of fact, I have to talk to you about something. I was going to wait, but since we need to check on this, I’ll tell you.”

  “What?”

  “Mr. Phillips has offered to pay all my school expenses. He wants me to go into law enforcement.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Matthew Drake is dead.”

  I frowned, shocked at his words. “What! When? What on earth happened? And what does that have to do with you?”

  “I can’t talk about it now. There’s an ongoing investigation into his murder.”

  I grabbed Zeke’s arm. “Murder? He was murdered, and you were in the house?”

  “Don’t get so ruffled. Dan, Marla, and Grace were there too.”

  Heat rose to my cheeks. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you with Marla!”

  He let out an angry breath and glared at me. “It’s a good thing you did!”

  Michael had finished and made his way over to us. Ash whirled about as he walked toward us. “What’s going on?”

  I crossed my arms. “Mr. Drake was murdered, and we’re only now finding out about it.”

  Zeke rolled his eyes as if I were hysterical. “There’s an ongoing murder investigation.”

  Michael’s eyes widened with interest. “Really? What happened?”

  I held the papers in one hand and stood, brushing the dust from me. “Zeke wants to go back. He will not be going, and we will not discuss this further.”

  Zeke shook his head in exasperation, but when he caught Michael’s eye, he did not argue. Instead, he nodded at me. “Tell Michael about the stocks.”

  I showed Michael the papers. He, like Zeke, rubbed his dirty hands on his blue jeans before taking the documents from me. “Hmm. The Coca-Cola is probably worth a little. I’ve never heard of IBM.”

  “Me either. Zeke has.”

  “Mr. Phillips can help us find out if they’re worth anything,” Zeke said.

  “Why go all the way to Plainsville? I’m sure someone around here —”

  Michael cut me off. “Why don’t we take a trip to Plainsville? We can meet with Mr. Phillips and see what he says.”

  I glanced suspiciously from Michael to my brother. Somehow Zeke had managed to get Michael on his side without saying a word. Maybe Marla or Dan had spoken to Michael about Zeke’s offer from Mr. Phillips.

  I shook my head stubbornly. “We cannot both leave. Someone has to be here at the office.”

  “Jay, do you mean we’re never going to be able to take a vacation together? We can never go away for a day or two?” He stuck his hands in his back pockets, watching me intently.

  He had backed me into a corner. “I didn’t say that.
I guess we could leave Friday and come back Saturday. But only if Richard Short can cover for us.”

  Michael and Zeke showed no expression at my words. Michael simply indicated the box. “Is this all of it?”

  I looked into Momma’s old wooden chest one last time. Something glinted in the sun, and I reached for it.

  “What is it?” Zeke asked.

  I opened my hand to display the object on my palm. “Poppa’s wedding ring. Momma kept it.”

  Momma had burned all of Poppa’s things, but she had not been entirely heartless. She had kept his ring, the symbol of their love.

  “Do you want it?” I asked my brother.

  He shook his head with a smile. “No. You keep it for me.”

  I didn’t argue but gave him a hug. “I’ll keep it, and I’ll have it if you want it when you get married. But that’d better not be for a long time.”

  Michael and Zeke both laughed, and each grabbed a box to carry to the shed. Michael had found the key, just where he’d said it would be. We stored the boxes in the shed along with what little furniture could be salvaged, and we left, taking the stocks with us.

  Chapter 40—Uncle Aaron

  Mr. Paul had a small bathroom connected to the back of his house, and I took a shower, washing away the ash and grime. Neighbors had brought over food, and we ate leftovers and cleaned up before we went to the front porch where it was somewhat cooler.

  Night was falling. Michael and I sat on the swing, and I leaned into him, curling my legs under me. I had come so close to losing him and our son in the fire. James Colton climbed on the swing, and I wrapped my arms around him. We swung in silence, listening to the chirping of the crickets. A tear fell as I kissed the top of my son’s head. Michael rubbed my arm with his thumb, and the small motion calmed me, contented me.

  Uncle Aaron cleared his throat. “This may not be the best time to mention this, but maybe we need some cheering up.”

  I was too tired to move or even to speak. Mr. Paul was the one who leaned toward his brother. “You have some good news?”