Chester knocked off work as the sun’s slanting rays cast long golden shadows. He drove through the square, stopping to double-check at the hardware store. Trudy was locking up her husband’s jewelry store. He looked in the other direction. Since that painful night of the air raid he had only spoken to her to end the affair.
For a long time he felt like a dead man. Everyone’s attentions had been focused on Juts. No one paid attention to his grief. He had no doubt that Trudy, too, felt dreadful for a time—and hated his guts. When she married Senior Epstein he felt both jealous and relieved. Jacob, a good man, would no longer be lonely and Trudy would have a solid husband.
Chester had never imagined the marriage vows would be so hard to keep. He vacillated between being ashamed of himself and believing he wasn’t so horribly wrong in trying to grab more happiness out of life. He didn’t bargain on that happiness causing equivalent sorrow.
Whatever else, he loved his little girl. He opened the door, Buster rushed up, Juts called out from the kitchen, and Nicky ran up to him as fast as her legs would carry her. “Daddy!” It didn’t exactly sound like “Daddy” but he knew what she meant.
“How’s my scout? How’s my best girl?” He kissed her and swung her around. She squealed. Buster watched with interest. He kissed her again and put her down but she hung on to his leg. So he walked into the kitchen with the two-year-old plastered to his leg. “Have you ever seen such a big bug?”
Juts laughed. “Your big bug was a naughty girl today.”
“Oh?” He shook his leg to more delighted squeals.
“Walked down to the corner and sat smack in the middle of the road, and Chessy, I swear—Louise can be my witness because she was here—I took my eyes off her for about a skinny minute.”
“Did you do that?”
Nickel shook her head no.
“Scared me so bad I had to come in and take two aspirin. I’ve still got the headache, though. She needs a leash.”
Chester reached down and picked up Nicky. “You’re not a big bug. You’re a doggy. How about if I get you a leash to match Buster’s?”
She nodded yes to that, then put her arms around his neck and laid her cheek next to his.
Chester had never known love like this existed. He only knew that being a father had changed his life forever. He finally felt like a man. He avoided conflict when he could, but if he couldn’t, now he met it square on. This fact did not escape notice by his wife, mother, or his friends—nor did his radiant happiness whenever anyone happened to mention Nickel’s name: Chester, fastest draw in Maryland, whipped out a photograph of his daughter, the most wonderful, the most beautiful, the smartest little girl in the universe. She was also, occasionally, the baddest. And she brought him and Juts back together.
“No playing in the road, scout.”
She stared at him with solemn eyes. “Uh—” Her conversational skills hadn’t advanced far enough for her to say why she wanted to go into the middle of the road.
“How about chicken corn soup for supper?”
Juts thought a minute. “Well, it’s kind of warm for that, isn’t it?”
“I don’t care, honey, you know me. I’ll eat anything that doesn’t eat me first.” He put Nickel on the ground but she stuck right to him.
Julia put her finger up alongside her nose, a curious gesture, borrowed from Celeste Chalfonte. “I’ll fry some chicken and—”The phone rang, distracting her. “Damn, my hands are wet.”
“I’ll get it.” He listened for the two rings, their signal on the party line, then hurried to the landing and picked up the phone. He listened intently for a moment. “We’ll be right over.”
“Juts, Hansford’s—” he considered his words, “collapsed.”
She dried her hands on a dish towel and threw it over her shoulder, quickly turned off the stove, and stared at Nickel. Juts didn’t know what to expect when they got to her mother’s. What did “collapsed” mean?
“Maybe we’d better not take the baby. I wonder if Ramelle would watch her.”
His voice soft, he said, “I don’t think there’s time, honey.”
They drove to Cora’s. Afterward Julia had no memory of the trip at all. She felt as if she were underwater but she didn’t know why. She thought she didn’t care about Hansford. Seeing Louise’s car already there reassured her, yet frightened her also.
Chester carried Nickel inside. Her eyes widened. She sensed the emotion. He handed the baby to Mary, who was sitting with Extra Billy, little Oderuss, and Maizie in the parlor, and followed his wife into the small bedroom. Hansford, propped up in bed, struggled to breathe.
Cora dabbed his brow with cool cloths. Juts sat on the other side of the bed while Louise stood at the end, facing him.
The racking sound of his labored gasps for air reverberated in the room. Despite his pain and hunger for air he was alert. He held out his hand to Julia Ellen, who took it and burst into tears. He patted her hand.
“Don’t worry, Pop,” she cried. “You’ll be all right.”
He smiled at her. It was the first time she had called him Pop.
Chester stood alongside Juts. Paul took the bowl of water to the kitchen and brought back another one with ice cubes floating in it. Louise remained rooted to the spot.
“The children!” Hansford gasped.
Louise snapped to at last, fetching Mary, Maizie, Oderuss, and Nickel.
Maizie knelt by her grandfather’s side, next to Cora. He touched her head as though anointing her. Mary wouldn’t kneel but he reached for her hand and she gave it to him. Oderuss hid his face behind his hands. When Nickel started to whimper, Chester lifted her from Mary. Hansford motioned for the baby, and Chester got down on one knee, the baby perched on the other knee so Hansford could reach her. He touched her smooth cheek.
“PopPop’s going bye-byes.” He smiled at her sad face. “No!” She startled everyone with the volume. “Sh-sh.” Chessy bounced her on his knee but she’d have none of it.
“No! PopPop stay.” She burst into tears. She may not have liked PopPop’s beard and his odor of chewing tobacco, but she liked him.
For the first time tears rolled down Hansford’s cheeks, disappearing in his beard, which Cora had carefully combed. He shook his head, his eyes cast over his family. He had squandered his life. He had abandoned Cora, Louise, and Julia. His return, drenched in need and suppressed sorrow, had taught him how much real love was worth but also how some fences could never be mended. And now it was too late to tell someone else, some other man fleeing from claustrophobic responsibility. Not only must a man have the courage to stand in battle, he needed the courage to stand at home. Hansford’s greatest fear as a young man had been entrapment in this go-nowhere town. He’d feared missing out on the world. Instead he had become trapped by his own selfishness and missed out on love.
“Hansford, let me carry you to the hospital,” Chester said.
Pearlie whispered to Chessy, “There isn’t time.”
Hansford pointed to Louise but she wouldn’t come closer.
“Louise, for the love of God,” her mother implored.
“Who truly owns this land?” Louise asked coldly.
Hansford pointed to Cora.
“Louise”—Cora spoke firmly—“make peace with your father lest it rest heavy on your heart for the rest of your days.”
“My father?” Louise’s voice dripped with poison from that old wound. “My father would have taken care of us, Momma. What about the times there wasn’t enough to eat?”
“Celeste never let us go hungry.”
“You didn’t go to work for Celeste right off.”
“This is no time for that kind of talk. Relieve his suffering and forgive him. Someday someone may have to forgive you, Daughter.” Cora wrung out the cloth.
“I guess I’m not as good a Catholic as I thought.” Louise turned on her heel and left.
Mary and Maizie, horrified, quickly kissed Hansford’s hand and followed their mother.
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“I’m sorry,” Pearlie said to the man shrinking before his very eyes. “She’s upset. She doesn’t mean what she says.”
Cora grabbed a dry cloth to wipe his cheeks and beard. Hansford blinked and reached for Pearlie’s hand. Pearlie squeezed it, then let go of Hansford’s hand.
Pearlie joined his wife in the parlor. He had his hands full with her.
Hansford reached for Julia’s hand. “Forgive—?” was all he could rasp.
“I forgive you, Pop. I wish you hadn’t left us. But I forgive you.”
He squeezed her hand again, then released it. He smiled at her, then he reached for Chester, who held the baby in one arm. He held Hansford’s hand in the other.
“She … needs … you.” Hansford pointed to the baby with his other hand. He made stabbing motions with his finger, trying to communicate further.
“I’ll do my best, sir. I’ll die for them both if I have to.” Chester started crying, too.
Hansford smiled again and spoke his last words. “Live … for … them.”
Then he sat bolt upright with a burst of energy. He reached for Cora, who held him with all her might as he surrendered his spirit to whatever adventure beckoned beyond.
“Safe journey,” Cora sobbed.
Juts and Chessy left her alone with him for a few moments. Juts walked past an angry, choking Louise, already justifying herself. Juts paid her no more mind than if she were a goat barking. Chessy followed after his wife, clutching Nickel, who was crying again.
The sun was setting and near the house a redheaded woodpecker tapped into a bark alive with juicy insects, one last meal before packing it in for the night.
The idea flashed across Juts’s mind that the woodpecker was signaling in Morse code, Hansford Hunsenmeir is dead. Juts lost her father—twice. She shook her head and buried her face in her hands, overcome with sorrow. She reached for her husband and he was there.
Late that night, after the undertaker had come, after Wheezie had screamed and hollered at everyone, after Cora had composed herself with remarkable dignity, after Mary and Maizie had accompanied their mother home, after Juts had finally fallen asleep and the baby was dreaming in her little bed with slats on it and Yoyo snuggling up to her, Chester walked the floors.
No peace came to him. He finally clucked to Buster, threw on a coat over his pajamas, and walked outside, up one side of the tree-lined street and down the other.
He thought about life. When he was a boy he dreamed of heroic physical exploits, glory in war, and fast cars. He still dreamed of fast cars but he was mature enough to know there is no glory in war and heroic exploits are few and far between. A steady refusal to cave in to despair or self-indulgence now seemed heroic to him. Doing your job seemed heroic to him. Caring for those who need you seemed heroic to him. He would live on this earth and then die and, like Hansford, be forgotten when those who knew him also died. As a youngster that knowledge would have seemed terrible to him. Now it was just a fact. Fame, fortune, and power, those fantasies of youth, were not to be his. Life wouldn’t be a daily diet of large victories. It wasn’t like that.
He walked and walked, Buster by his side, and said aloud as the morning star appeared brilliant and clean, “Life isn’t like that—it’s better.”
55
Showers of white cascaded over Juts’s back fence. The crape myrtle bloomed. She struggled to put up a sturdy white trellis of four-inch squares against the garage. Nickel ran around the yard pursued by Buster.
The far end of the trellis leaned forward.
“Nicky, come to Momma.”
“No.” Nickel ran faster.
“I need you to help me.”
The word “help” captured the child’s attention. Small though she was, the idea of being useful appealed to her. She ran over.
Juts pointed to the far end of the trellis. “Can you lean against the wall?”
Nickel walked over and flattened herself bellyfirst against the wall, which meant she pressed the trellis to it.
“That’s good. What a strong girl you are.” Juts quickly tapped in a holding nail on her end, then hurried over to tap one in where Nickel stood. “Thank you.” She popped open the stepladder and climbed to the top, where she tapped in another nail. Then she carried the stepladder to the other end, repeating the process. When she’d climbed down she admired the trellis. She could picture seashell-pink tea roses trailing over it. Or did she want ruby-red roses? Then again, yellow made her smile. “The hell with it, I’ll plant them all.”
A heavy footfall, a squeal from Nickel, and joyous barking from Buster alerted her to Cora’s arrival. Cora had put on weight these last few years. She breathed heavily.
“Momma, why didn’t you call me? I’d have come over and carried you here.”
“With what car?” Cora fanned herself. In her generation fans were fashionable as well as useful.
“I’d have borrowed Wheezer’s.”
“In a pig’s eye. Hello, my wild Indian.” Cora reached down to kiss Nickel and then to pet Buster.
At the sound of her voice, Yoyo climbed down from the red maple tree. She waited a few moments. It wouldn’t do to run. Then she sauntered over and rubbed the old lady’s leg.
“That cat.” Juts laughed. “She loves you. How about a Co-Cola or lemonade?”
Juts ran into the kitchen and returned with a huge pitcher of lemonade on a tray. Nickel carried the napkins. She walked over to her grandmother. Cora pretended to inspect the different colors. She picked red. Then she put it back and winked. She picked out a green one because she knew Nicky wanted the red one.
When Nickel sat down for her lemonade in a tin cup, Cora placed the red napkin on her lap. “Red’s your color.”
Nickel giggled.
“Julia, you have a green thumb. Always did. Louise has a black thumb.” She half smiled. “But Louise can organize.”
“She likes to tell people what to do. Here, Momma, put your feet up.” Juts put her drink on the table and brought over a painted milk carton. “Don’t you find your feet swell on such a hot day?”
“If I swell any more I’ll burst like a balloon.” She held the wet glass to her forehead. “A stinker.”
“Dog days.” Juts called to the terrier now under the crape myrtle, “Don’t you think, Buster boy?”
Cora inhaled and exhaled, closed her eyes, then set the glass down. “Summer—fireflies and fishing, thunderstorms and rainbows. Did you know that it takes both rain and sunshine to make a rainbow?”
“Yes.” Juts knew her mother was working toward something. “Life’s a rainbow. I never knew how much I loved life until I got near the end of it.”
“Momma—” Juts was alarmed.
“Oh, settle yourself. I’m not sick but I’m old, honey. Most of my living’s behind me. It went by so fast. I get up in the morning and my knees hurt and I don’t know why. Then I look at myself in the mirror and see this old woman’s face. I have to laugh. I wake up every morning expecting to be twenty with two little babies running around Bumblebee Hill. Guess I’m selfish. I don’t want it to ever end.”
A big lump stuck in Juts’s throat. “Oh, Momma, you’ve got good long innings left.”
“Well, I hope so.” She drank, then held out her hand to her daughter. “Enjoy every minute, honey, and enjoy her. Well, I visited Edgar Frost last week and I signed over the house to you and to Louise. We fixed it up so I can live there until I die and he didn’t charge me a penny. I don’t remember him being so tall before the war.”
“He was pretty tall.”
“Guess it’s me. I think they all came back changed. Those that came back.”
“Vaughn amazes me.”
“Yes.”
Vaughn Cadwalder, legs amputated below the knee, asked for no sympathy and got around surprisingly well. Everyone said how lucky he was that he still had his knees because he could strap on wooden legs and use canes. That was one way to look at it. The doctors kept tinkering with the fit
of the wooden legs. They were often painful and caused ulcers on his stumps. He didn’t complain. For moving fast he used a wheelchair.
“Momma, I love Bumblebee Hill—but I love you in it, and I wish you wouldn’t talk this way. I mean, you could have waited to deed over the house and the fifty acres.”
“Wait for what? By the time I know I’m leaving, it will be too late.” Julia remained quiet and Cora continued. “I’ll tell Louise this evening. She’s over in Littlestown. Has she said anything to you?”
“About what?”
“About the way she treated her father?”
Nickel raised her legs straight out. “Uppie-do. Mamaw, uppie-do.”
“Nicky, hush.”
“That’s all right, Julia, she’s been sitting so quiet that I thought she was a little mouse.” Cora spoke to the child. “Darlin’, if you want to play you go on ahead. Mamaw and Mommy are chewing the rag here.”
Nickel glanced at her mother.
Juts confirmed Cora’s suggestion. “Why don’t you get your truck?”
“No.” Nickel bounced off the little chair. She walked over to the trellis and imitated her mother, inspecting it, walking to one end and then the other. She made hammering motions.
Juts returned to her mother’s question. “Wheezie doesn’t say anything. Usually she runs her mouth a mile a minute but about Hansford—”
“Carrying around those feelings is like carrying a stone. I don’t know why I didn’t see it.”
“Louise believes things are black-and-white. You know that. Hansford left us, so he’s flat wrong. Maybe things hurt more when you’re little. I don’t know, Momma, ’cause I hardly remember.”
“You weren’t much bigger than Nickel.” She finished her glass. “Has Josephine Smith come round at all?”
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