My Old True Love

by Sheila Kay Adams

  ON THE COLD NIGHT before I was to marry Zeke, exactly three months from that warm fall day, I laid in bed listening to the sounds that were as familiar to me as the sound of my own heartbeat. I heard the soft snore from Granny’s side of the room. The wood from the banked fire hissed. The wind moaned its way around the cabin. Out on the porch, Belle, the redbone pup Hackley had given Larkin, gave a few sharp barks, then was quiet. Larkin, caught in a dream, muttered something I couldn’t make out and flung a hand in my direction.

  I reached out and touched his shoulder. He rolled against me, and was still. Suddenly, scalding tears come pouring out of my eyes. I put my chin on top of his head.

  “I won’t never love nobody the way I love you, Larkin.”

  Outside, the wind stilled as though listening, then rushed up the mountainside. On its breath was the smell of snow.

  2

  THE ONLY MAN I’D felt love for was Daddy, and that don’t really count. But the thought never crossed my mind that I’d ever love a man the way I loved Zeke. I am a hardheaded woman and speak my mind whenever I take a notion, and when we first married, I had the notion often. He was so good and tender and loving. I was bad to fuss and quarrel, not at him but just to be quarreling. At first he’d try to offer advice or try to help me somehow. But he soon figured out that the best thing to do was just let me blow and then I’d be fine. Then I fussed because he never listened to nothing I said.

  But Lord, how I loved him.

  There were times when we’d be setting at the table eating and I’d just have to reach out and lay my hand on him. Many a dinner went cold because of that. And I know he felt the same for me. We was lucky people. I’ve knowed some that’s passion for each other turned to hate after they’d been married awhile or, worse yet, they growed indifferent to one another. I would’ve gladly took the hate if I’d had to choose. But they was never nothing between me and Zeke but love. Now that ain’t to say we never fussed nor quarreled. I was more than a little jealous though he tried so hard to never give me real cause. It was just that I was not blind. I saw the way women’s eyes follered him, but if I mentioned it he would sigh great big and say, “You are seeing what ain’t there, honey,” or even better, “If they are looking why would I look back when I’ve got the prettiest gal in this part of the world?”

  Zeke knew how to handle me all right.

  ANOTHER REASON I LOVED him so was that it was fine with him that I brought Larkin with me. He were five year old and I couldn’t stand the thoughts of leaving him. He stayed with us for almost two years then he wanted to go back to Granny’s. It used to make me mad as the devil when somebody would say, “You’ll feel different about your own.” I could not imagine loving my own any more than Larkin. And it weren’t so much that I did. It’s just that Abigail was born before we’d been married not quite a year and within four months I was breeding again with John Wesley. Too many babies for Larkin. He even said he wanted to go stay with Granny where it was quiet. And, truth be known, Granny was not young anymore and needed the help. I missed him and cried when he left but I was so busy. And I did get caught up in the loving of my own, but I still say I loved him just as good.

  THAT SPRING AND SUMMER after he went to Granny’s, Larkin and Hackley got to be as close as two beans in a hull. Granny said she would find them sitting facing one another, Hackley patiently singing verse after verse, Larkin with eyes shut, his face still as a looking glass, soaking up every word. They roamed the mountains in search of ginseng, singing the old songs. Hackley’s voice was clear and strong. But it was Larkin’s voice, high and pure, that seemed to have wings.

  Several man-shaped roots of ginseng decorated the fireboard of Granny’s cabin. During the long nights of that winter, the boys would often give the roots the names of people that lived only in the old songs. Lord Thomas “dressed himself in scarlet red and wore a vest of green,” and all the other roots “took him to be some king.” Little Margaret sat in her high hall and sadly watched her sweetheart, William, and his new bride come riding up the the road.

  They was in and out of my house all the time and I wish you could’ve seen the two of them—Hackley fair and hair so blond it looked white, with short, stout arms and legs; Larkin so dark, long, and lanky.

  A HEAVY FROST BLANKETED Sodom in late May of 1853 during a cold snap we called blackberry winter. The white blooms of the thorny canes covered the ground looking for all the world like snow, out of place against the backdrop of the greening-up hillsides. Granny said we’d have us a fine blackberry harvest since only the hardiest berries would survive. And by July she knew right where to find them.

  Larkin ran ahead of us as we paused to rest. The hill was steep, and this was the second time we’d stopped. He reached the top and turned, black eyes sparkling. His short hair, so black it gave his scalp a bluish tint, was damp with sweat.

  “I done beat you to the top!”

  “Your legs turned eight year old as of today, son!” Granny called out. “Lot younger than ours, for a fact.”

  “Not much younger than Amma’s,” he hollered.

  “But mine’s got a lot more miles on them and I’m hauling two,” I hollered back. I was just four months gone but already showing.

  Granny reached into the pocket of her apron and took out a plug of tobacco, bit off a chew, then put the plug back in her pocket. She chewed vigorously for a few seconds, spat, and tongued the moist chew firmly between gum and cheek.

  “Larkin?” she called, gazing at the mountains in the distance.

  His head popped up from the grass at the top of the ridge.

  I laughed. “Your head looks like a guinea fowl sticking up that-a-way!”

  He jumped up and come careening down the hill.

  Granny waited until he stood next to her, then pointed off into the distance.

  “You know what that mountain is a-way off yonder?”

  Larkin shaded his eyes and stared. “Ain’t that Little Bald?”

  “It is. And hit’s all the way in Tennessee, honey.”

  We stood there for a long time without talking as the summer breeze come flowing up the side of the mountain and, finding us in its path, teased and petted us before rushing on.

  “Well, now,” Granny said. “Them berries ain’t gonna jump off the vine and into our bucket by theirselves.”

  “And we need to make haste, Larkin,” I said. “Mommie is probably right now making you a stack cake for your birthday.”

  “Love Aunt Nancy’s stack cake, yes I do!” Larkin sang.

  The blackberry thicket had been there for as long as even Granny could remember. Some of the canes were thick as Larkin’s arm. The berries were big and sweet and it weren’t long before our hands and Larkin’s mouth were stained purple.

  Granny smiled. “Believe you put as many in your belly as in your bucket, honey.”

  “Reckon he just might have.” I patted Larkin’s stomach. “See how big it is?”

  She reached and thumped his belly. “Lordy! Tight as a tick! They might not be no room left for no stack cake.”

  He pulled up his shirt and examined his stomach with a worried look. Then his face relaxed.

  “Aw, Granny. You’re just deviling me. Anyways, Hackley says I can eat more’n anybody he’s ever seen.”

  “Ah! That Hackley is a trick, ain’t he? He’s sharp enough to stick in the ground and green enough to sprout,” she said. “Don’t believe they’s a serious bone in his body.”

  “I don’t know, Granny,” I said. “He’s serious about singing them love songs.”

  “Honey, let me tell you something. You three young’uns are some of the best singers of them old love songs I’ve heard since my Pappy passed. Now, he was a fine singer, Pappy was. Mommie would try to make him quit singing love songs. Said it was a sin! Pappy was plumb insulted, I can testify to that. Told Mommie she might want to reference the Good Book. Quoted scripture to her right then and there. ‘Make a joyful noise . . . come before his presence wit
h singing,’ he said. ‘And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.’ Said if the greatest was love and for us to come before his presence with singing, what better way than by singing a love song! Said if God hadn’t meant for us to sing them old love songs, why he wouldn’t have give us sense enough to learn the words to them. Weren’t much Mommie could say about that. Pappy knew the Bible like the back of his hand, better than anybody in this part of the country.” She sighed. “He was a fine fiddler, too. When Pappy took to fiddling, why, I couldn’t of kept my feet still if my life depended on it. And sing while he played. Now, that’s harder’n hell to do. Yessir. Could sing and play the fiddle at the same time.”

  “Hackley can, too, Granny. Aunt Nancy said she’d never heard of nobody that could play like him when they’s only a young’un.”

  “Pappy could play the fiddle when he weren’t no more than a young’un, too. Must be something in the blood.”

  “What’s that mean, Granny?”

  “What, honey?”

  “That it must be something in the blood?”

  Granny looked at Larkin. “Why, it means it must run in the family.”

  “Oh.” Larkin was quiet for a minute. Then, “Granny, have I got something in my blood? Other than the singing thing? Wish’t I could learn how to play like Hack. He’s trying to learn me but, for some reason, it just don’t make no sense to me.”

  I knew just how he felt. Hackley had picked up the fiddle when he was five and had flew right into playing. He could pick the banjo, too. But, before I could say a word, Granny answered him.

  “Why, I never could play nothing neither, son. Pappy tried to learn me too. Made no sense whatsoever. Pappy said my fiddle playing put him in the mind of two cats fighting.” She chuckled, then reached out and give his ear a tug. “Why honey, don’t fret, you got plenty of good stuff in your blood.” She rubbed her hand over his hair. “You got your daddy’s features. He was a dark-eyed, dark-haired, handsome man. You know his mama was a Indian. He was a big, stout man—and you’re a big, stout boy. And you got your mommie’s cleverness. You got a head full a sense, son. So I’d say you got plenty of good stuff, Larkin Stanton. Follow me around the side of the hill. I want to show you something.”

  I grinned because I knew right off what she meant to show him. It was one of my favorite places in the whole world.

  Granny went striding off toward a big chestnut. Larkin bent to pick up his little bucket, and when he straightened up, Granny was nowhere to be seen.

  “Go on, son. Go round the tree,” I said.

  As we rounded the big tree I heard him gasp. “A cave!”

  “I used to play all over these mountains when I was a young’un,” Granny said. “My own mommie showed me this here cave when I weren’t much older than you.” Her eyes got awfully bright. “Me and my brother Josie found all manner of stuff in here—little pieces of bowls, little purties. . . . Josie was closest to me. Lord, hit don’t seem like he’s been gone fer fifteen year.”

  We stood there quiet. We’d learned that sometimes many minutes would go by as Granny made her way back down the familiar path that was her long life.

  She shook herself, sighed, and stepped away from the memory. “Well, you know it’s here now. You and Hackley can make it your own.”

  She walked back toward the chestnut tree, leaving me and Larkin at the mouth of the cave.

  I looked down at him and couldn’t help but smile at the shiny boy-wonder look on his face, but then again maybe it weren’t so much a boy-wonder thing cause I’d seen the same look on Zeke’s face and him a man grown. And then out of nowheres come this icy finger that laid itself cold right at the base of my spine. Cat walked o’er my grave, I thought and made the X sign over my heart against it. And in a voice sharper than it needed to be, I called out, “Come on, Larkin!” And then I wanted away from that place bad. I took hold of Larkin’s hand tight and turned us both down the path toward home.

  • • •

  THAT AFTERNOON ME, GRANNY, Mommie, and Lucindy were sitting on the porch peeling apples. Lucindy had fetched them to Granny when she’d brought her young’uns to eat cake with the rest of us. The sun had been awful hot only an hour ago, but had now made its way behind the apple tree at the edge of the yard. A breeze picked up the fine gold hairs at the nape of Mommie’s neck, and I just loved the way she brought her hands up all dainty-like to tuck them back into her bun. Mommie had the prettiest hands and when I noticed them I always thought of the line from “Pretty Saro,” “My love she is handsome, all proper and neat.” Her eyes were the same color as the little flower on blue-eyed grass just like Granny’s. But they didn’t have the big life in them that Granny’s did. I’m sorry to say that but it’s the truth. They didn’t.

  “I swan, that Larkin is growing like a garden weed,” she said. “Why, if you didn’t know it, you’d not believe for a minute that they was near four years’ difference between him and Hack, would you?”

  Lucindy looked up. “You surely can’t tell my Mary is older—Larkin’s bigger than her already. Hell, he’s big as Jonah and him turned twelve. You remember the night Jonah was born?” she said to Mommie.

  “Don’t reckon I’d ever forget it. Wind howling like as to cut you in two! Papa swore the wind blowed a cow off the mountain above the house.”

  Granny laughed. “It was the truth. We heard a thump against the wall. Long as I live I’ll never forget the look on David’s face when he come back in. Never hurt the cow.”

  “Well, I was hurting!” Lucindy said. “By the time Nancy got there I was screaming bloody hell. If I could of got my hands around Andrew’s scrawny neck I’d have choked the life out of him right there on the spot.”

  They all laughed. But I never. Even though I too remembered they was a brief time when I was laboring with Abby and John Wesley that I could’ve just squeezed Zeke to death. But somehow it weren’t that funny sitting here with my lap budding another one.

  “Speaking of birthings?” Lucindy asked me as she spit a brown stream off the porch.

  “Due the end of November.” Mommie didn’t give me time to say. “Probably won’t be a year between this one and John Wesley.”

  I shot a look at Mommie and felt myself draw up inside. She had that prim, hateful look to her, mouth all pursed up and her nose wrinkled like she was smelling something bad.

  “Abby was a big baby and so was John Wesley. This one probably will be, too.” Granny tossed a rotten apple to the big rooster prancing about in the front yard. “We always did have the biggest babies, ’cept for your Marthy, Nancy.”

  Bless her for the saint she is, I thought. Trying to get Mommie off the topic she so loves nowadays. That would be the “how-many-youngun’s-Arty-has-had-in-as-many-years-talk.” Which would be three if you’re interested.

  “Aunt Hattie said Larkin was the biggest one she’d ever caught.” Lucindy examined an apple.

  “Eight year ago today. Time goes by so fast.”

  Granny laughed. “That ‘catching babies’ reminded me of something my uncle Leland said. You probably don’t remember him, but I know you remember Aunt Lily.”

  I remembered Aunt Lily. She called herself big and stout and she was both. She was a little over six feet tall and strong as a bear. Funny, that. Uncle Leland killed a sow bear and as he was skinning it out heard its cub crying off in the woods. He took it home to Aunt Lily and she raised it grown. She’d just had Little Jack and they said the two of them nursed right alongside each other. That bear follered her around just like a big dog.

  Granny must’ve been thinking the same thing because she up and said, “Now, Little Jack, when he was a boy was a pure-D fool over honeycomb. Aunt Lily had to watch him like a hawk when they robbed a bee tree. He’d git in it and have it all over him. They’s all gathered up at Pappy’s and Little Jack got into Mommie’s honey crock. Lordy at the mess he’d made. Uncle Leland never moved from his chair and Aunt Lily was just raising all mann
er of hell. Pappy was saying how Little Jack must be part bear, way he loved honey, and Uncle Leland rared back and said, ‘Why, didn’t you’uns know that’s how we got Little Jack. Baited a bear-trap with honeycomb in the Pig-Pen Holler and caught him!’” Granny laughed. “Aunt Lily looked at him, popped them hands on her hips and said, ‘Shut up, Leland, damned ole son of a bitch!’”

  I got so tickled I couldn’t stand it. I could just see all that in my mind. They said Uncle Leland was a fine fiddler and a real cut-up. He must’ve been awfully brave, too. Aunt Lily carried an awful scar above her right eye where an Indian hit her in the head with a rock. She killed the Indian with nothing but her bare hands.

  Granny looked toward the barn where the young’uns were just going through the big double doors. “But Larkin is a big young’un. Like his daddy’s people, I reckon. ’Course my Pappy was a tall man. Some of his bigness could have come through him. God knows it never come through your papa’s side.” She looked at Mommie and snorted. “They was everone little people, women, men, all of ’em.” She grinned. “Little all over, too!”

  Though I laughed with them, I was watching Hackley and Jonah heading for the lower stalls to hunt snakes while the rest of the young’uns went up the ladder into the hayloft. I knew what a fool Mary was over kittens and figured she was hunting for the newest litter. She told me what happened in the barn that day years later. Funny how I don’t need these useless old eyes to see in my heart how it must’ve been.

  The big boys wouldn’t let Larkin go with them and I doubt that he cared much. Even then he was always hunting for a chance just to be able to look at Mary. She was such a pretty thing, redheaded and freckled like her mama but wispy, delicate, and small-boned. Of course Hackley claimed her for his own. That was no surprise.

  But what happened in the barn that day did come as a surprise.

  Mary said they found some kittens in the loft and she’d picked one up to pet. She said she happened to look at Larkin and he had such a look of longing on his face that she felt sorry for him. Oh, Lord, how that makes me feel even now. It makes my belly hurt to think of him longing for something, anything. And it makes me mad as hell to know she felt sorry for him. I don’t know why, but it does.