The Truest Pleasure

by Robert Morgan

  “No!” I said. But my voice turned into another cough. I was too weak to cough and yet I had to. The cough come from deep in my guts and heaved through me in a wave. I was so weak I couldn’t hold on to Muir, and Florrie lifted him out of my hands.

  After I had coughed a few minutes I spit up more hard clots on the handkerchief. It was like everything I spit up left holes in my chest. When I stopped coughing I felt emptied out and ready to sink back into myself.

  “Here, drink this,” Florrie said. She held a cup to my chin.

  “No!” I said. It was the same concoction of whiskey and lemon juice and warm honey they had give me before. The spirits smelled up the room and spread right into my chest.

  “You need this,” Florrie said.

  I took a sip and it felt as if a hot wire run across my tongue and down my throat. But the warmth soaked out in my belly and chest and made me feel a little stronger. I took another sip.

  “You always was a fool, Ginny,” Florrie said.

  I didn’t say anything else. I didn’t want to talk anymore until I had time to think. I drunk all the whiskey and honey. It seemed to loosen up my chest more than anything else had. Nothing else made as much sense as the whiskey, and I drunk it all.

  “Do you want some mush sweetened with sugar?” Florrie said when the cup was empty.

  “No,” I said, and turned my face away on the pillow.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Late that night after the house was quiet Tom come into the bedroom carrying a lamp. “It’s snowing again,” he said. “I seen the snowlight this morning and Pa said it was coming again.”

  I listened and could hear the tinkle of flakes on the window. It sounded like somebody was throwing fine sand at the glass. Tom stood by the bed holding the lamp, as though waiting for something. He had brought the heated rocks in earlier and put them in pans under the bed. The room was warming up a little. “Are you warm enough?” he said. He had his red plaid shirt on, the one I had ordered from St. Louis. It was open at the throat and his flannel underwear looked orange in the lamplight.

  “Is Florrie gone?” I said.

  “Florrie went a long time ago, before dark,” he said.

  I had forgot how strong his neck was. His shoulders looked wider than before. He had been using the ax a lot lately and pulling the crosscut saw with Joe. In the lamplight he stood thick and powerful. The lamp throwed shadows behind him. The flame stroked like a tongue in the glass chimney.

  “Close the door,” I said. “Don’t want to wake the house.” Tom shut the door slowly. He looked at the floor solemn as somebody does at a funeral.

  There was a spark in me. I had been cold so long it didn’t seem like there could be any life in my body. I had forgot what it felt like to be warm. It was like a match struck somewhere far inside me. “Are we out of wood?” I said.

  “We cut a tree today,” Tom said, “on the pasture hill.”

  Snow tinkled and brushed on the window. I couldn’t see anything there but blackness and the reflection of the lamp. The house was so quiet I heard the fire snap in the next room.

  “Is the baby asleep?” I said.

  “He’s been asleep since supper,” Tom said.

  “Then you might as well come to bed yourself,” I said.

  He stood like he was trying to make up his mind. Tom was never one to do anything in a rush.

  “Are you well enough?” he said.

  “I’m almost well,” I said.

  Tom put the lamp down on the stand. Then he cupped his hand over the top of the chimney and blowed it out.

  The spark that had been lit in me traveled along my bones and veins. It was a little flame that tried to search every corner of my fingers and elbows, toes and knees. The light worked its way closer, up my legs and through my arms. It was as if I was waking from a deep cold sleep in joints and places I had forgot about.

  When Tom laid down the bed tilted and quaked. I had been sleeping by myself since before Muir was born. The bed trembled and shook on its springs like we was sliding out on a current.

  “What are we going to do if it keeps snowing?” I said.

  “Keep cutting more wood, I guess,” Tom said.

  “A fireplace takes a lot of wood,” I said.

  Snow sprinkled on the window like little feet running in the dark. The snow sounded blue to me, the blue of a star. I was so weak I couldn’t hardly move, and at the same time it felt like I was waking up from a long dream and seeing it was just a dream. There was voices in my toes and hands and echoes running back and forth through me. One part of me was speaking to another.

  “Is the branch froze over?” I said.

  “Most places,” Tom said. “In the fast spots you can still see water.”

  There was a sweetness approaching from way off. It was like the minutes on the Sunset Rock when the sky shone side to side. The seconds was flavored in a way I had forgot. I remembered how mad I had been at Tom, but couldn’t exactly recall the feeling.

  “How long is it going to snow?” I said.

  “It ain’t never going to stop,” Tom said. But he said it like he didn’t care, and we was safe and warm in the house and it could snow all winter and not hurt us.

  “Has the newspaper come?” I said.

  “Two has come,” he said. “I saved them for you on the mantel.”

  Wind hit the house with a jolt. I closed my eyes and imagined us sailing on a wide river. Wind pushed us over the top of a great wave. The house soared into the storm on deep blue light.

  “Can you breathe?” Tom said.

  “My breath is a little short,” I said.

  “You’ve been sick a long time,” Tom said.

  “I will feel better soon as I get my strength back,” I said. My breath was so short I could barely whisper.

  Now the bed felt long as a ship, and my feet went way down under the cover for miles and miles. The room was stretched out like a hallway or tunnel. The feeling in my toes and legs lighted the way. They reached all the way to the end of the dark.

  I wondered if my fever was coming back. I wondered if the bed was going to stream away into the tunnel through the mountains and beyond. The bed was so long it touched the sky. As I breathed I imagined stars swirling through my head and pouring out of my mouth. I had a mouthful of light and was breathing it out.

  Never have I felt so relaxed as later that night. There was still a trickle of milk in my breasts, even after all the fever, and it wet the sheets. I was flowing with milk, and in milk. I remembered the talk in the Bible about a land of milk and honey. I was in a river of milk and honey whipped to a foam. Sweet bubbles broke on my skin as the river poured through and over me.

  The next day I got up and set by the fire for an hour. I held Muir, and Moody come cautious up to me. “You was sick,” he said.

  “I was bad sick,” I said.

  “You ain’t going to die?” he said.

  “No, I ain’t going to die,” I said. I took him on my knee and held both him and Muir. Jewel come and leaned on my shoulder. I was too weak to do more than just set there. But it was like I had been washed in boiling water and was clean. I felt stiff as a rag that had been boiled and dried by the fire.

  After an hour of setting I was so tired I had to go back to bed. My arms was trembly and my legs sore. I put Muir down, and just as I started to stand up Florrie come in the door. The cold air that entered with her reached me across the room.

  “Let me help you, Ginny,” she said.

  “Don’t need any help,” I said. I stood so she wouldn’t see me tremble. The blood run from my head and the room got white.

  “It’s snowing again,” Florrie said. There was flakes on her scarf and she shook them off in the fire. “It’s snowed every Thursday for the past month.”

  I started toward the bedroom, taking short steps so I wouldn’t stumble.

  “Here, let me help you,” Florrie said.

  “No,” I said. I turned toward her and was going to s
ay more. But I stopped myself. I knowed if I said anything it would be the wrong thing. “Thank you for all your help,” I said.

  “It’s good to see you up,” she said.

  By the time I got to the bedroom I was so tired I dropped on the bed and got under the covers without taking my shawl off. I was shivering and just wanted to wrap up in the quilts and lay still as long as I could. When I quit shaking I went to sleep.

  That night Tom come into the bedroom again. By then I was rested and warm. He brought me some canned peaches and blackberry juice. “It snowed five more inches today,” he said. “It’s wet mush that stands tall on stalks and fence wire.”

  He said the snow was so heavy it had broke down the pines and hemlocks. He said the Lindsays’ barn had fell under the weight of snow. Joe’s traps was froze under ice and he hadn’t got to them for a month. Snow was so deep in the woods it was hard to walk to the traps anyway. Joe’s trapline went way to the head of the river and through the Flat Woods into Transylvania County, then swung around to South Carolina and Dark Corner. It took him a full day to walk it when the ground was clear.

  “I seen the snowlight again this morning,” Tom said.

  Night was my favorite time over the next few weeks. To be in bed with Tom warmed me up the way nothing else did. As he laid in bed he told what he had done that day, how he had got up on the barn roof to clear the snow away, how he had run out of leaves and pine needles for cow stalls. The wood on the porch and in the shed was gone, and he had cut two more trees on the hill. He was always better at talking in the dark than in daylight.

  As I laid with Tom in those nights I thought how precious it was to be married. It was like we was new to each other, yet knowed better how to please each other. Sometimes I drawed him to my breast like he was one of the children. He was surprised at the pleasure I took as I laid soaring on the bed. I had heard women say you wasn’t supposed to show pleasure, or a man would take advantage. But I didn’t care. I was thirty-six and felt like a girl. When I was a girl I wouldn’t have believed middle-aged people could act so. I didn’t care how much pleasure I showed.

  The next week it snowed again, and the next. We heard of houses in Saluda that caved in under snow. The worst danger was fire I reckon. Chimneys overheated; they got clogged with soot in the long nights and caught fire. At least three houses at the lower end of the county burned, including the McCalls’ at Cedar Springs. Chimneys caught fire and roared like trains into the night sky. The masonry cracked and spilled flames into attics.

  When I was well enough to set up I watched the flames in the fireplace. I felt they might have a message for me, but I couldn’t tell what it was.

  The fifth snow come when it was almost warm enough to thaw, and big wet flakes fell until there was eighteen new inches. Everything I could see out the window was hid by white. The hemlocks was piled and stooped, slumped and twisted under their loads. Their tops tilted like they had broke. Tom said the drifts now reached to the eaves of the springhouse.

  The second day of that snow Florrie come over to do washing on the kitchen stove. The boiling pot filled the house with steam. She hung wet clothes on strings over the stove and made the air even damper. The wetness made me irritable.

  Jewel and Moody got bundled up and went out to play on the bank behind the house. I watched them through the window. They tried sliding down on a board from the shed, but the snow was so deep the board just sunk and stuck. Then they laid on their backs and made angels in the yard. They rolled down the slope and the snow caked in layers on their clothes. That give them the idea of making a snowman, and Jewel begun to roll up a big ball. But she would not let Moody help, and that made him mad. He run away and sulked, until Jewel almost had the snowman made. But after she set the head on top, and while she was looking for sticks or rocks to make its eyes, he knocked the top two balls off.

  When Jewel saw what he had done she took a handful of snow and rubbed it in his face. Moody tried to kick at her, but she throwed more snow in his eyes, and backed out of his reach. He started kicking the balls she had rolled up until they was just mush and trampled snow. She pushed him down the bank and kicked him. Moody never had a chance, and come running to the house, caked with snow and dripping, his face red with cold and anger.

  “Moody, look what you have done,” Florrie said, and pointed to the snow dropped on the floor. She had swept the floor before she started washing. He throwed down his wet cap on the floor.

  “No!” she said, and smacked him on the behind.

  “You can’t hit my younguns,” I said.

  “I will if I have to clean this filthy house,” Florrie said.

  “You ain’t looking after this house,” I said.

  Florrie stopped in the middle of the room. She had a wet rag in her hand and she put both hands on her hips. Moody was howling. I reached out for him. He was covered with melting snow.

  “That’s a fine kiss-my-ass,” Florrie said. “I come here for a month to do the washing and cleaning and that’s the thanks.”

  “Nobody asked you,” I said, though I knowed that wasn’t strictly true.

  “Tom asked me,” Florrie said.

  “I didn’t ask you,” I said.

  Florrie tossed the rag into the kitchen and went to get her coat. I think she expected me to ask her to stay, but I didn’t. She went out just as Jewel come in all flushed and covered with snow. Florrie slammed the door.

  “Where is Aunt Florrie going?” Jewel said.

  “She’s going home,” I said.

  The children made a mess with their snowy things by the hearth. The drying frames was loaded with washing, and diapers and underwear hung on strings in the kitchen. The house felt damp and dark. Water was boiling on the stove, and wet diapers, wrung out and twisted, laid on the table. The windows was fogged over.

  When Tom come in from the barn he looked around and saw the pot still bubbling on the stove. “Where is Florrie?” he said.

  “She went home,” I said. He looked at me like he saw what had happened.

  “Who’s going to do the washing?” he said.

  “I will,” I said.

  “You’ll have a set back,” he said.

  “Who cares?” I said.

  It took me all day to finish the wash. I had to stop and rest every few minutes. Pa and Jewel helped me lift the water to pour in the pot. It was hard to wring out sheets, and scrub underwear on the washboard, but I did a little at a time. By supper I had the washing hung on strings, and on the frame by the fire.

  As we worked, Moody run around the house shooting Indians or outlaws. “Bang, bang, you’re dead,” he shouted.

  “Shut up,” Jewel said, and pushed him away.

  “You’re dead,” Moody said.

  “Stay out of the way,” I said.

  I don’t think Tom ever forgive me for running Florrie off that day. We did not quarrel about it anymore, and I never said any of the things I thought of, like “Do you wish you was sleeping with Florrie?” or “Did you marry the wrong sister?” But I was thinking them. And Tom knowed I was thinking them.

  There come a day of thaw, and I walked out and stood on the porch for several minutes, watching the drip from the eaves and scabs of ice tear one at a time from the hemlocks. A chunk would begin to slide with a whoosh into the heaps on the ground, leaving the limb it had stuck to twitching and dark. The chunks reminded me of the lumps I had been spitting up. My chest was almost clear, but when I breathed deep there was a rattle down there, and when I coughed something always come loose.

  I wanted to walk out in the mushy mess and see how the stock was doing, and I wanted to see the branch covered with snow. There was rabbit tracks in the yard, and the thousands of rabbit trails around the hill would lead to sinkholes along the branch. There was all kinds of tracks in the snow, bird and possum, coon tracks. Way across the river I saw somebody walking the road with a sack on their back. The mill must have been running again.

  Just then I started to cough
, and the thaw air cut into my lungs. With a shiver I went back inside. I set by the fire the rest of the evening, holding Muir in my lap.

  That night it snowed again, and cold returned. The slush set in a seal and made travel impossible. It was the week of that last snow that people suffered most, from lack of wood and coal oil and staples. Nobody could have been ready for such a winter.

  “I ain’t never seen nothing like it,” Pa said, “since the winter of ’65, when I was a prisoner at Elmira.” He stood in front of the window and looked out for hours at a time.

  Some people in a cabin beyond Pinnacle froze. They was found weeks later still huddled to their fireplace, a jug of liquor on the floor beside them. The cabin was almost covered with snow and the door was in ice. The bodies had froze and hadn’t even started to rot, though it looked like mice had been gnawing their hands.

  Because I had been sick so long it was like I had dreamed the bad weather. If I hadn’t seen the last two snows myself I’m not sure I would have believed the others happened. The quarrel with Florrie, the sight of her and Tom standing close, the irritation of not being able to work, at the mercy of others, all blended in memory to a special mixture I would not forget, reminding me of the light at the window and the smell of congestion in my breath. There was some kind of bookkeeping going on and all accounts balanced each other. As the final thaw set in I thought how everything always come out even, or maybe only a little behind.

  The effects of the pneumonia lasted longer than I would have dreamed. Even after it was spring I still wasn’t able to work like I used to. I tired quick, and needed long spells of rest. I felt a lot older, and by May I knowed I was expecting again.

  Tom got Joe to help him put in a garden that year, because I wasn’t much use. He said there was some advantage from the long hard winter: the cold had killed a lot of bugs, and rabbits, and the soil was loose and airy from all the freezing and thawing.

  “Snow will fertilize the ground,” Pa said.

  “Snow ain’t nothing but water,” Tom said.

  They had took to disagreeing more than they used to. Tom tended to argue with everything Pa said.