All the Forgivenesses

by Elizabeth Hardinger

  Before I knowed it, my mind was making a list. A couple cots and bed linens for the boys, and clothes and shoes. Plant more squash and potatoes—it was past spring and the garden was already in, but it was worth a try. Maybe set one of the hens to brood. Get the children to a doctor, they was like to have worms. Later on, school, books, pencils, boots, coats—but for now, first things first.

  Now I slipped out of bed and tiptoed into the front room. It felt cool in there for early summer, cooler than you would have thought, and then I seen the front door was open. I looked over in the corner where the boys was, and it was just Hiram laying there sleeping with his mouth open.

  I went outside. There was a thin line of orange and gray along the horizon. The birds was peeping, but otherwise things was hushed. I walked a ways from the house and softly called, “Trouble? You out here? Trouble?” I remembered Hiram saying he’d made Trouble’s hidey-hole out by the woodpile, so I walked around back. The dew soaked my bare feet and drug down the hem of my nightdress.

  We kept the wood stacked in a line that jutted out from the back of the house and down a little slope over to a handful of trees. I walked to the woodpile and peeked over it. In the corner where it met the house, Hiram had stacked a couple dozen logs to make a three-sided hideout about three or four foot tall. He’d made a roof over half of it with crisscrossed branches. I wondered, when had he done all this? Must’ve been after me and Sam went to bed.

  There was Trouble setting there, panting. He had a fork in his hand, and it looked like he’d been digging a hole. He must have saw me—he scooted underneath of the branches to where I couldn’t see him.

  I realized it was him I’d heard scratching when I was laying in bed. I wondered, had he been there all night? He had to be cold, and his pants must be wet from the dew. I fretted he’d catch his death, but I didn’t say nothing for fear of spooking him.

  I took aholt of a fat log and put it on end and set on it, just to think what to do. I pictured myself luring him out of there with a fried egg and jelly on a plate, the way you’d do an animal.

  It took a while for me to notice he was saying something. Not saying exactly—half-singing, half-chanting. At first I couldn’t make out the words. The firewood was soaking up his voice, which was wavering like he was rocking. Then I realized he was keeping waltz time—oom pah-pah, oom pah-pah. After while the words come through. What is a, pickle spoon. What is a, pickle spoon. What is a, pickle spoon.

  It all come crashing down on me at once. I recalled the night before Dacia run off, the picture show in El Dorado, the doll with its ruined hair, Dacia saying Mama’d eat rat poison, me beating Dacia with the pickle spoon. Of course she’d told the children all about it—she would. She’d told them what their cruel aunt Bertie done to her, how I’d drove her away from home. And of course this one, the odd one, the mystery child, he would be the one remembered it, told himself a fantastical story about it. Wasn’t no telling what he pictured in his mind. The truth was awful enough.

  I wondered, how could Dacia possibly have sent them to me, hating me like she done? How could I possibly mother them? And how could I not?

  Then somebody walked up behind me and said, “Oh”—Hiram—and I jumped up.

  Fearful he’d hear Trouble, I said, “You hungry? I’m about to fix breakfast, come help me.”

  “He all right?” Hiram said.

  I took his arm. “He’s fine, let’s go eat.”

  Wasn’t long before the house filled up with the smell of eggs and biscuits and gravy, and pretty soon everbody was at the table except Trouble.

  I stood at the stove. Opal swallowed a bite and said to me, “The kids at school’s gonna tease ’em over them names.”

  “What names?” Hiram said.

  “Slow down there,” I said to him. “Them eggs ain’t going nowhere. You want some more breakfast meat?”

  He nodded, his mouth full, and I forked some bacon out of the pan for him.

  “Trouble and Sorrow.” Opal rolled her eyes.

  “What?” Sorrow said. She was setting on Sam’s lap, and he was putting egg in her mouth with his fingers.

  “Don’t you know nothing?” Opal said to her. “Don’t you even know what ‘Sorrow’ means?”

  “Opal!” me and Sam said at the same time.

  “How’d you like it if somebody made fun of your name?” I said.

  “I wouldn’t! That’s why we got to change it!”

  Sorrow had a worried look on her face, but she kept eating. “Don’t pay her no mind,” I said to her. “Me and you’s going to go feed the chickens after breakfast.” I clucked like a chicken and flapped my arms, and a smile, a very little smile, stole over Sorrow’s face.

  “Can I help?” Hiram said.

  “Sure you can,” Sam said. “You like horses?”

  “Only ever seen the one that I remember.” Seemed like Hiram was a thinking person and not likely to say nothing he wasn’t for sure about.

  “You’ll like them, if I know boys,” Sam said.

  Later that day me and Sam decided on “Sarah” for Sorrow and “Travis” for Trouble. Sarah’s new name took, but Trouble always stayed Trouble. I called him Travis for a while, but nobody else ever did. Didn’t seem to fit him.

  * * *

  The next day I took the three of them to the doctor, and he told me to expect them to grow aplenty in the next year and give them aspirin powder if they complained of pains in their legs. He calculated Sarah was three year old, and Trouble probably about five. He reckoned Trouble would outgrow his affliction, but then he might not. He might be simple, but we ought to wait a while and see how the boy done. He might have rickets, too, so I should give him a spoonful of castor oil ever day. It was the latest thing for rickets, he told me.

  Hiram was eight, he figured. Not an albino, just a Swede most likely.

  Now I’d took castor oil as a child, and I knowed it was nasty. When I tried it with Trouble, he raised holy hell and started frothing at the mouth. Scared me half to death, and I throwed out the whole rest of the bottle.

  * * *

  A lot happened in the next couple weeks. Trouble slept in his fortress a couple of nights, and the rest of the time he slept in his cot. We’d set two of them up in the front room, him and Hiram meeting head-to-head in the corner. It never seemed to bother Trouble, sleeping outdoors. I guess they was all used to it, though Hiram preferred his cot and Sarah liked sleeping with Opal in her bed.

  Sam, most mornings he left the house before the children was up and didn’t get home till six o’clock or later. He was taking all the draying work he could get, so he usually worked six days. Me and him, when the children was finally asleep at night, we was wore out. For weeks we didn’t talk again about the children’s future. Wasn’t no point, seemed like. I felt sure Dacia would show up any day, and meanwhile me and Sam would see they was looked after. Wasn’t nothing else to do.

  Me and the children worked out a routine—get up, eat breakfast, do chores. Hiram, he was crazy about the horses, so he’d curry them down just for fun and then lead them out of the barn and turn them loose on the slope to pasture. We had Bluebell and Clarence then, both geldings, which we mostly used to pull the buggy, so we didn’t give them no grain except to call them in. We’d slap the bucket, and here they’d come running. That tickled Hiram. When he wasn’t doing chores, he liked to spend time in the tack room, mending and oiling harness, and he’d do whatever I asked him to. Didn’t bother him to scrub floors or wash windows.

  Sarah, she tagged after me, wanting to do everthing I done. When I done dishes I made up a bowl of soapy water for her, and she splashed around and talked and laughed. Besides dishes, she copied me sweeping the floor, dusting, ironing, things like that. She loved feeding the chickens.

  Trouble, now, he tagged along with one or the other of us, ten foot back. He favored the chickens, too, and he never got tired of watching them. After me and Sarah let them out of the chicken house in the mornings, he’d perc
h somewhere and watch them wander around the yard. I got the feeling, watching him, that he was pretending to be one of them, talking and gossiping, pecking around for bugs and gravel—that he knowed each one like you know a person. I don’t know that for a fact, but it sure looked like it. He never said nothing more about the pickle spoon, which I was grateful for, though ever little bit I wondered if he was thinking about it and, if so, what he was thinking. Wasn’t no way to tell.

  This being summertime, there was time to play, too. Sam showed Hiram how to ride, and Hiram, he’d put Sarah on Bluebell, bareback, and then climb up behind her and ride her all around the place. She loved that. Trouble was deathly afraid of the horses, but he’d set on the fence and watch them. Or him and Sarah would play tag, hide-and-go-seek, things like that.

  The three of them run from morning till night, sure enough, each in their own way. They ate good and slept good, which I was glad for.

  On Tuesday after they come, we all went to meet Mrs. Whiteside. She already knowed they was there—you can’t keep a thing like that secret in a town the size of Wiley—and, to my surprise, she opened the door and let us all in the entry hall. I told her each of their names, and Sarah and Hiram nodded. Mrs. Whiteside give me a look when it come to Trouble, but she never said nothing even though he was staring at her crippled hands and twisting his own to match. I told her my sister had sent them to stay with us, and she just nodded. She give each one a cookie, and they looked at me for permission. They knowed I had a rule against piecing. I told them it was all right, and they stood there and wolfed down the cookies, and then we said our goodbyes. Soon’s we was outside, they all three took off running down the slope to home.

  I’d been inside the Whiteside house a couple times, but I never noticed before how deathly quiet it was and how it smelled of old people and medicine.

  * * *

  I sent Alta Bea a little note, and in a couple days I got one back. It started out, My God, Bertie! Can this be true? She said she couldn’t hardly wait to meet Dacia’s children, her and her girls. They’d be there Thursday after lunch, which was what she called dinner.

  Alice was nine, I reckon. Ruby was seven, Pauline was six or so, and Gladys was three, same as Sarah.

  When Thursday come and I heard the car pull up, I walked out of the house carrying Sarah on my hip. Three of Alta Bea’s girls jumped out of the car. Alice and Alta Bea, them two stood by the car, watching.

  When Sarah saw the three girls, the thumb flew out of her mouth, she got loose of me, and she run right up to them. When she got there she hardly knowed what to do, seemed like, and she come to a stop and stared at them. They stopped, too, the three of them lined up hand in hand. Maybe Sarah never seen other little girls before. Maybe she thought she was the only one in the world.

  Gladys said to her, “I got a scab on my ankle.” She reached down and pulled up her skirt past her waist. Sarah stepped back a ways, but then dropped down and put her finger on the scab.

  “Ow!” Gladys hollered, but then she just stood there and stared at Sarah over the hem of her skirt. “It doesn’t hurt,” she said, her eyes big.

  Then they all started jabbering at once, talking about how Gladys scraped her ankle sliding down the stairs, how their car got dented, what their daddy said, what their mommy said, and all about their dolls, their clothes, their books, their rooms, their kitten. Pretty soon Alice walked over there and started bossing everbody around.

  Me and Alta Bea looked at each other and laughed. It was like they’d knowed each other all their lives.

  After a little bit Sarah took them to see Trouble’s hideout—he was in there but never said nothing—and then she led them over to the barn. Hiram called the horses in, and the girls took turns being led around.

  Me and Alta Bea, we set on the porch and visited. She asked me, how did I feel finding out Dacia was alive, how did I feel about the children, how did I feel about Dacia sending the children, how did I feel about this and that and the other? I told her I always liked being busy, and then I changed the subject. She kept poking at me, like she done, and I kept bringing up Harold and the girls and their house and her permanent wave and the new sack dress she had on, things like that. I didn’t want to talk to her about Dacia. I felt different ways about her, and that always unsettled me.

  After while the girls come over to the porch, and one by one they drunk water out of the dipper, their back turned to their mother like they was getting away with something. They stood there and listened to us talk for a while, and then they run back out in the yard, where Alta Bea’s girls taught Sarah how to play ring-around-the-rosy. After while they just set in a circle and talked, like girls will.

  This was how I’d pictured it—me and Alta Bea’s children playing together. It tugged at my heart to watch it actually happening. Then I reminded myself, we was only looking after them till their mama come for them.

  I rose up and said, “All right, girls, time to go home, Sarah needs her rest.”

  “What are you angry about?” Alta Bea said.

  This surprised me. “I ain’t.”

  She got up and gathered her things. “Have it your way.” She touched my arm. “We’ll have to plan an outing, just us and the girls. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  Sarah pitched a fit when they got ready to leave. I tried to pick her up, but she pushed me away and run bawling out to the barn, calling Hiram’s name.

  I set down on the chair and thought about what Alta Bea’d said. How come she thought I was wroth? Was there something on my face I didn’t even know there was? In my voice? After while I noticed I’d twisted the hem of my dress almost into a knot. I set there and finger-pressed it, waiting for Sarah to get over her fit.

  * * *

  Around the house I started finding food scraps in odd places, and seemed like there was more mouse tracks than usual. I put two and two together, and one day I lined the children up in front of the cupboard. “See them glass jars? Them tin boxes? See that food inside there?”

  Hiram and Sarah nodded. Trouble was looking at my mouth, like he usually done. I had to stop myself from feeling my teeth with my tongue to see if there was food in between.

  “You know why that food’s in jars and tin boxes?” I asked.

  They shook their heads.

  “’Cause I don’t want to feed all the field mice in Creation, that’s how come.” I looked from one to another. “When people takes food and hides it in their clothes or underneath of their pillow or underneath of their covers, we get mouse tracks all over the house. You know what mouse tracks is?”

  Again they shook their heads.

  “It’s like what people drop in the backhouse, only it’s from a mouse. Little black pellets that stink. You seen them on the floor?”

  Hiram and Sarah made a face.

  “Well, then, don’t go squirreling away food. You want something, tell me. You can have it.”

  “But you said no piecing,” Sarah said.

  “I know. But for now, if you’re hungry you can piece, just ask me first.”

  “Yes’m,” Hiram said.

  Sarah, why, she got out of the habit, being so little. But as long as them two boys lived in the house, they hid food, even Hiram. You don’t never forget being as hungry as they used to be, I reckon.

  That night before I fell asleep I got to thinking about the life them children had been living, and I went over Hiram’s story in my mind. I wondered what might’ve happened to his folks.

  Next morning I left Hiram in charge, went to the library in El Dorado, and found a map of the way west, and I copied down the names of the towns along the route. Then I took to writing letters to the sheriffs, one or two ever day. I told them we had this boy name of Hiram and what he looked like and when he got lost, and did they know anybody looking for such a boy. One by one I marked them off my list. Sarah and Trouble, I figured, their mama knowed where they was at. But Hiram—his folks, if they was alive, I reckoned they must have been out of their minds
with grief. Nothing never come of it, though.

  * * *

  A month went by, and one July night after the children was in bed, why, Sam told me he’d been talking to Dick Murphy about a job. I’d just put away the last supper dish, and we was setting at the table drinking coffee.

  “Murphy Oil?” I said. “Since when?”

  “Pays good. And you get a company house, and free gas. And a telephone.” He stretched out his neck till it popped. “I can haul in my spare time.”

  “Tarpaper shack, you mean.”

  He poured his coffee into the saucer like he done. “I need something I can still do when I get old, something where you can work your way up to pumper. Something with a pension and disability.”

  I didn’t know what a pension and disability was, tell the truth. We never had nothing like that when I come up. I got up from the table and fetched the cream pitcher.

  “Something happens to me, insurance gives you and the children money to live on,” he said. “Opal, looks like she can make out on her own, need be.”

  I set back down and poured cream in my cup. “We don’t know if they’ll be here next week.”

  He put a mild look on his face. “Free rent, free insurance—that’s worth a lot.”

  “I can’t think of nothing we need that we don’t have.” I had a feeling he was talking sideways, like he done, wanting to act like this was my idea.

  “Well, for one thing, I want to get you a car.”

  I busted out laughing.

  “I mean it,” Sam said. “You shouldn’t be so far from town without no car. What if one of them needs a doctor?”

  “I got a picture of me driving a car.”

  “You just wait,” he said. “Once you start driving, you won’t know how you got along without one.”

  “Ha! Me and Alta Bea, just alike, gallivanting all over the county.”