by Amy Greene
Me and Clint decided to have the wedding on the first of May. It took a while to get to Mr. Thompson’s house, little and white at the end of a long driveway. Mr. Thompson’s wife met us at the door. She said, “You can call me Zelda, honey.” She led me through the hall to the bedroom. It was cool in there, with thick carpet and roses on the wallpaper. There was a dress laid out on the bed. “Now, this is new with the tags on it,” Zelda said. “I bought it for my daughter-in-law to wear to church, but she was too big for it.” She held it up to me and frowned. “It might be loose, but we could safety-pin it.” It was long and cream with scratchy lace. I didn’t care if it was loose. I liked it anyway.
Louise, the cashier from the grocery store, set me down on the toilet seat and fixed my hair with a curling iron. She put some lipstick on my mouth and rubbed a little on my cheeks to make them rosy. She dusted my face with powder and said, “Your skin’s so pretty, you don’t need much.” Then Zelda and Louise led me through the kitchen out to the deck, where Zelda had arranged her begonia pots in a circle. All of Clint’s friends from the grocery store was gathered around. Somebody had brought their children, two little girls and a boy dressed up in bright colors. They whispered and giggled when I came out but they got shushed. All the talking stopped. Clint was standing with the preacher, a short man with glasses. When I stepped out on the deck in them too-big shoes that belonged to Zelda, Clint turned and looked at me. His face lit up with a grin. Then he did something I didn’t expect. He busted out with great big sobs. They was like sobs of relief, the way somebody might cry if they made it through a bad accident. The preacher patted Clint on the back while he tried to hush. I was embarrassed, but I was happy.
I didn’t cry myself because I wanted to be tough for Clint. I went to him and wiped his tears while his hiccups went away. I tried to listen to the preacher when he read from his book, but all I could hear was blood rushing in my ears. I looked at Clint in that ring of begonias and all them people crowded around to watch us get married. The sky was so blue and the grass so green, and down at the end of the yard a creek was running over rocks that was round and furry with moss, like the ones I used to step on at home.
We had to use the Thompsons’ rings, but that was okay. Clint was saving up for the rings we really wanted. When the ceremony was over, we had a kiss that seemed too short for the mountains that was moving inside of me. Zelda took pictures and the flash was bright. Clint led me down the deck steps and everybody else poured into the yard behind us. The kids chased each other off looking like butterflies in their summer clothes.
Mr. Thompson was done firing up the grill for hamburgers. I closed my eyes and drunk in the charcoal smell of the rolling black smoke when he opened the lid. The others gathered up for a game of horseshoes. I drifted down the creek a little ways, to where I could breathe and take it all in. The wind picked up and blowed the smell of the grill toward me. The children came running along the bank and before I knowed it one of them, a girl with plaits, crashed into my knees. The shock ran all through me. I looked down and her face was like a little sun. She hugged my legs hard before she ran off. I shut my eyes and felt hot tears. I hadn’t been touched by a child in a long time. Someway it made me think of Johnny. It seemed like the Lord’s way of saying the day was blessed.
It was getting evening by the time I walked back toward the house. Clint had left me alone, even though I seen him looking for me. He knowed I needed to take it all in by myself for a while. Everybody else was full but there was plenty of food left over. I was too tired to eat. I sunk down in a lawn chair on the grass beside of Louise. Me and her watched Clint up on the deck. He was talking with Mr. Thompson and drinking iced tea out of a plastic cup. I could tell Louise cared for Clint by the way she looked at him. “That boy’s had a hard time of it,” she said. “But he’s been better since he found you.” Louise reached out for my hand to squeeze. Her fingers shocked me, like the touch of that child had done. She looked back at Clint and said, “He’s like one of my own sons. You know, I gave him my youngest boy’s clothes after he got killed on that motorcycle. It makes me cry just about every time I see Clint wearing something of Randy’s.”
I didn’t say anything, but I hated the thought of Clint in a dead boy’s clothes. I wondered which ones belonged to Louise’s son. Was it that knitted sweater I loved to see in winter, with deers leaping in a line across the front of it? Or them corduroy pants with a tiny hole in the knee that gave me little peeks of Clint’s curly leg hair? It bothered me something awful to think about. All of them fabrics, wools and flannels and cottons, that I touched and pressed and ran my hands over when I kissed Clint, wasn’t even his. They belonged to a dead boy. Then I thought of the worst thing of all. Clint said that silver rope chain I loved came from Louise. He wore it all the time, even in the water. I loved to see it shining on his collarbone. Now that chain would make me sick every time I looked at it, like a noose around Clint’s neck. I wanted to throw it away and burn all them clothes. Maybe he was even wearing some of them right then. That white dress shirt that was yellowed at the armpits, them jeans that was faded at the knees, that old belt threaded like a poison snake through the belt loops might have belonged to Louise’s dead son. I didn’t want to ask. I couldn’t stand to know. Clint was the only one that ever loved me right. Then I seen him laughing under the porch light with moths in his hair. His eyes shined whenever he smiled. I couldn’t believe I was his wife. Finally, I had a family again.
JOHNNY
I hitchhiked from the detention center to Millertown with everything I owned in a duffel bag, the books from the woods, my notebook, the silver lighter, and an address written on a scrap of paper. On the highway I watched the shopping centers and motels and rest stops go past, taking in how the scenery had changed while I was gone. When the man who had picked me up let me out of his truck, I paused in the street to look at the Odom house. It was tall and weathered and seemed to be leaning. A spring wind picked up and flapped the shingles, a few scattered over the rotten roof. I went up the porch steps and stopped at the door listening for movement. I heard the slow creak of floorboards somewhere inside. I had decided on the way to the house that if nobody was home I would break in, but it sounded as though someone was there. I reached toward the doorbell and then changed my mind. I went to a moldering couch under the window and sat down to rest instead, dropping the duffel bag at my feet. I had waited a long time. I could take another minute to catch my breath. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
When I opened them there was a station wagon pulling up to the curb, its engine dying with a rattle. A heavy woman struggled out from behind the wheel with a grocery bag in her arms. She came up the walk breathing hard, frowning up at me. She was wearing what looked like hospital scrubs, the top patterned with teddy bears. I couldn’t see her eyes for the shine off her glasses. I rose from the couch and looked down at her.
“Didn’t you see the sign?” she asked.
“Pardon me?”
“Sign right yonder over the doorbell. Says no solicitors.”
“Oh,” I said, putting on a smile. “I’m not selling anything.”
She smiled back, still sizing me up. “What do you want then?”
“I’m looking for Frankie Odom. Is this the right house?”
“Depends on what you’re after him for.”
I came down the steps to her. “Let me get that for you, ma’am,” I said.
“I can get it,” she said, letting me take the bag. “What do you want with Frankie?”
“We’re kin,” I said, climbing the porch steps ahead of her.
“Kin? I been taking care of Frankie two years now and I never laid eyes on you. You’re awful handsome. I believe I would’ve remembered.” She snorted laughter.
“Are you Frankie’s daughter-in-law?”
“Lord, no. I wouldn’t have none of them turkeys. I just set with Frankie while his boys are gone to work. Name’s Diane.”
“It’s nice to mee
t you, Diane,” I said, shifting the bag to offer my hand. She looked down at it, flustered, then gave my fingers a quick, moist squeeze.
“What kind of kin are you?”
I smiled again, standing close. “I’m Frankie’s grandson.”
“Huh. I thought I done met all of Frankie’s grandkids.”
I only paused for a second. “Did you ever hear of Frankie’s son named John?”
Diane stepped back and studied me. “I’ve heard tell of him. From what I know, none of the Odoms has seen hide nor hair of him for going on twenty years now.”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s him.” I willed the smile to stay on my face.
“You saying you belong to John?”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
She looked at me for a long time, lips pale and nostrils flaring. “Now, you didn’t come over here meaning to cause any trouble did you? I reckon they had trouble out of some of their people back a few years ago, before I started coming around.”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “Did Hollis tell you something bad about me?”
Her face flushed. “I don’t pay much mind to anything that comes out of that man’s mouth. I reckon I can judge anybody for myself.”
“All right,” I said. “Can I see Frankie then?”
She paused, looking me over again. I tensed, waiting. “If you start anything, I’ll put the law on you in a heartbeat. County jail is right down the street.”
“I promise you,” I said. “I just want to visit my grandfather one time.”
“Well,” she said, eyes softening behind the glasses. “I reckon anybody can understand that. If you’re John’s boy, Frankie will want to see you. But I ought to warn you, he’s been getting senile these last few years. He might go to talking out of his head.”
She pushed open the door and we stepped into a dim foyer onto humped and scarred linoleum. There was a stack of damp-looking newspapers against one wall and a smell of ancient cooking grease. I followed Diane down the hall into a kitchen with a ceiling so bowed it looked in danger of caving. In front of the sink there was a hole in the floor showing chewed-looking boards. Sun-faded curtains hung limp and mildewed on the window above it. Sitting in a wheelchair near the table was a birdlike man with tufts of hair standing up in corkscrews, wearing a yellowed undershirt and a pair of boxer shorts that bagged around his skinny thighs, holding a cigarette with a long ash.
Diane said, “I brung you somebody, Frankie.”
Frankie Odom blinked at her and coughed wetly. “Did you get my cigarettes?”
“There’s somebody here to see you,” she shouted. “This here is John’s boy.”
I gave Diane her grocery bag and crossed the floor to stand before the wheelchair. His eyes were black and somehow familiar. Closer up, I saw dark threads left in his hair.
“John?” he said, bushy eyebrows lifting.
“Yes, this is John’s boy. Your grandson,” Diane said.
“I didn’t bet on you ever coming back.”
“He ain’t never been here before, Frankie,” Diane shouted patiently. “This is the first time you ever seen him.”
“Some of them thought I might ort to report you a missing person but Hollis reckoned you didn’t want to be found.”
“See, I told you,” Diane said to me. “He ain’t all there.”
“Eugene and Lonnie wanted me to call the sheriff,” he went on. “Said she might have done something to you.”
“Now, Frankie,” Diane scolded. “You’re talking about this boy’s mother.”
“It’s all right,” I said, not looking away from his eyes.
“She was a pretty girl. Sweet little old girl. But some of them that come in the store said it might surprise you what a woman will do.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Frankie,” Diane said, “this is your grandson. This ain’t John. If you don’t behave, you ain’t getting these cigarettes.” She put the bag on the counter.
“It’s all right, ma’am,” I said. “Can I ask you a favor?”
She paused, brows knitting together. “I reckon.”
“Do you know if Frankie has any pictures of John?”
She hesitated. “Let me think. They’re not much of a picture-taking family. I believe he might have some pictures in a box back here in one of these closets.”
“Would you mind finding me one?” I asked. “Not to keep, or anything. It would mean a lot to me just to see what he looked like.”
I waited, careful to keep my face relaxed. “Okay,” she said. “There might be one of all the brothers together. But it’ll take me a minute to locate anything in this mess.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll just stay here and wait.”
I watched her leave the kitchen, footsteps heavy on the rotting floorboards. Then I went to Frankie Odom and knelt before his wheelchair. The stench of him was powerful.
“Dad,” I said. “It’s been a long time.”
“Hollis figured you run off, but some of them said you might be killed.”
“What did you think?”
“I never did think that little old girl would kill anybody.”
My jaw tightened. “So you thought I was alive somewhere.”
He took a puff from his cigarette. “She made good coffee.”
“Where did you think I would run off to?”
“She always done a good job on the bathroom, made them faucets shine.”
“Where did you think I was for all these years?”
He plucked a shred of tobacco from his fat, purplish tongue. “I figured you went up north. You always did think you was borned in the wrong place.”
“Did you ever try to find me?”
“No, I never did try to find you. None of the rest of them did neither. They probably figured they’d divide your share. Greedy sons of bitches.”
“What about you?” I asked softly. “Why didn’t you look for me?”
“Shitfire, boy,” he said, fumbling at the baggy lap of his boxers where the ash of his cigarette had fallen. “You know you always was the meanest one of the bunch.”
I heard the creak of Diane’s feet and turned to see her watching us warily from across the room, holding a square of picture. “This is the only one I found,” she said. She came to me and I reached up from where I knelt to take it. I paused for a long time staring down at the creased black and white, a young boy with pitch hair and eyes, not smiling. I couldn’t tell if he looked like me. I tried to hand it back but she said, “You can keep it.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate it.” When I tucked the picture into my pocket I felt something else there, carried with me for a long time, its metal warm against my hip. “There’s something I’d like to give Frankie before I go. I believe it belongs to him anyway.” I pulled out the dogtags. “The chain was broken but I had it fixed.” I rose to my feet, the chain dangling suspended between us, and dropped it over Frankie Odom’s head. He blinked up at me with owlish surprise. The dogtags hung limp from his neck, down his stained and rumpled undershirt. He stared at me for a long, uncomprehending moment. Then he said, “You can’t let a woman run over you, son. She gets to acting up, you got to straighten her out, just like we done your mammy.” He paused, still blinking up at me. “I ain’t never told nobody what we done to her. By God, you better not either.”
LAURA
Clint’s daddy was right. He should have been born a fish. I never knowed before how Clint loved to swim because we started out so far from the lake. All summer long, he swimmed every morning before work at the grocery store. At night when his shift was done, he pulled hisself with long strokes under the moon. Once me and Clint went out to the lake and took off our clothes. We got in the water and sunk like rocks. I wasn’t scared, even though I can’t swim. My hair floated up like a sea plant. I opened my eyes and it was dim. Clint had murky light all around him. His long legs and arms waved like tentacles. I wanted to live down yonder with him forever. Finally he took my
hands and we floated back up. I was sad when we broke the surface. I could tell he felt like plain old Clint again, sputtering water with his hair plastered down. I missed him when he was out swimming, but I never made any fuss about it. I knowed he needed his time in the lake, like Mama needed her time in the woods. When he was ready to come in he’d dry off and climb in our bed smelling like fish and muddy water, the smells I like best in the world.
At the end of June, Clint asked me to quit my job at the hamburger place because he wanted to take care of me. We made out all right on his salary and I didn’t mind staying home. While Clint was at work I buried Mama’s box under a cedar tree in the woods beside the lake. I didn’t want to risk Clint finding it in the trailer. I hated keeping a secret from him, but showing anybody that box would have seemed like betraying Johnny and Mama. Sometimes I’d take the shovel and dig it up because holding it made me feel closer to Mama. Them’s the times I’d cry for her and Johnny. But then Clint would come home and we’d wrestle all over the trailer. He’d make me laugh so hard I couldn’t breathe.
Pretty soon, summer was gone and fall had come again. At the end of September, when it was too chilly to swim, Clint got nervous. Every night after work he paced around the edge of the water. When Mr. Thompson said he had a junked car for sale, I told Clint he ought to buy it. It was three hundred dollars, but I thought fixing it up might occupy his mind. It was an old orange Pinto that barely ran enough for Clint to drive it back to the trailer, but he loved it. He was always coming home with a new part for it. He’d stay under the hood some nights until way after dark. I’d get bored while he was working on the Pinto. There was a sadness growing in me and I couldn’t pick one thing that caused it. I’d set on the cinder-block steps for hours looking out at the water, feeling lonesome.