by Anne Lovett
I know, I said. I cut through that street sometimes on the way home from school.
Not me, Willie said. I go the long way round so I don’t have to pass that haint house right down from her. He ate the nuts.
But that’s fun, I said.
You ever go up on that veranda?
No, I said, but I had heard the boards squeak when I looked through those dusty windows at long cobwebs. I didn’t want to hear what Willie would say about that.
You be careful now, Willie said, cracking two more nuts. Don’t let them haints get you. He walked off, and I had a feeling he was on the way to the store for his momma, because I got sent to that same little store on the corner where Mrs. Moses kept penny candy, Dr. Pepper, and a big wheel of cheese.
When I finally finished picking, I put the nut basket on the back porch and piled the leaves in a big metal trash can for Chap to burn. Then I hurried into the house, stripped off my sweater, washed my hands, and climbed up onto the dresser to the Jesus pie plate. But the letters were gone.
I searched the room like a doodlebug digging a hole: the underwear drawer, the shoeboxes under the mattress, all everywhere. I gave up when I heard the front door shut and Ava’s heels on the floor. Momma was sleeping, and no supper had been started, and now Chap was coming in the back door.
Ava sized the situation up. I’ll make grilled cheese, she said. There’s some soup in the pantry. It was tomato soup, my favorite.
The next day it drizzled, and rained for almost a week. The tags in the cotton fields sagged, and the whole town looked like it was bathed in pink light with gray, empty pecan branches against the sky. Puddles glistened in the streets, the buildings reflected in wavy patterns, and the horses in the field across the way moved through the mist munching damp brown grass.
I searched behind some loose bricks, the way Nancy Drew would, and checked to see if we had any loose floorboards, but they were all nailed down tight. The letters were not between the mattresses on any of the beds.
At the end of the rainy week Momma was feeling better, and she got up and fixed meatloaf and mashed potatoes and English peas and apple pie. That night Chap came home with the flat face he used when he and Elmo Conable played cards, and I had a feeling something was up. He waited until we were all seated around the table to tell us.
The Radford boy, he said, is in Burma.
How do you know? Ava’s voice was a little cry.
It was goin’ around the shop today. His daddy got word somehow.
I knew he was somewhere awful, Ava said.
What’s he doing there? Momma said.
It might be better not to ask, Chap said. Stilwell said he’d be back. He shook his head. Jungle fightin’. It was bad in the trenches, but this has gotta be worse.
Please don’t talk about it, said Ava.
Whatever you say, princess, Chap said, and he cut his eyes at Momma and I knew they would talk about it later.
He’ll come back, said Momma.
Maybe he won’t, said Ava.
Yes, he will! He’s got to! I started waving my arms around. Oh, Jesus help!
If he didn’t, there would be nobody to ruffle my hair and make me parachutes and call me punkin. Momma was always tired and Chap was always busy. And Duke had told me to look after Ava. I couldn’t do that the rest of my life.
You little fool, Ava said, getting up. I can’t stand it. I’m going out tonight.
Behave yourself, said Momma, looking at me.
Where you off to? said Chap.
To the office. Hardy is preparing a case.
That sumbitch doing some actual work?
Chap, please, said Momma.
He’s coming by for me, she said.
Maybe I’ll have a word with him, Chap said. He scooted back his chair and folded his arms.
Chap, it’s important, Ava said. Her voice was sharp as a knife.
Nobody said anything for a long minute.
Can I have your pie? I said.
She got home about ten-thirty, and Chap was looking out the window when they got home. She jumped out of the car and ran to the house and by that time I was sobbing about a tooth that had started paining me right after I ate that second piece of pie.
Our dentist had joined the navy. Momma didn’t know who else to call so late and there we were in the kitchen, me with cloves in my mouth and Momma crushing up an aspirin tablet and mixing it with orange juice.
Ava wanted to know what was going on and when she found out she said there was a dentist down the hall from Hardy Pritchard’s office who was a buddy of his, and he would work us in, she was sure.
Dr. Carruthers was on the third floor of a five-story building, white and shining like a steeple in the sun. The elevator inside was creaky and scary, a cage, and I was afraid it would get stuck and we would be stuck there between floors forever.
Our shoes clacked on the marble floors as we walked down the long hall to the dentist’s office. Above us, cobwebs hung from the high ceilings, and we passed doors with frosted snowflake glass panes, names painted on them in black letters. The hall felt cold, with a sharp smell of rubbing alcohol and cloves.
We passed a door marked Horace C. Pritchard, Attorney at Law.
Can’t we stop and say hi? I asked. And see what the office looks like?
No, we’ll be late. Momma hurried me on to the office of Z. C. Carruthers, DDS. Almost as soon as I got settled on the green plastic sofa, the little window at the front snapped open. The lady said the doctor will see the little girl now, and I went in and he seated me in a chair and made me breathe some air through a mask and the last thing I remember was the dentist bending over me with white hair combed up on both sides so that his head looked like a giant tooth.
I was never one to mind Momma too well. While she was making arrangements to pay the bill I slipped out and tiptoed down the long, echoing hall.
The metal knob was cold on my palm. I turned it ever so slowly and pushed the door open inch by inch, peeking through the gap. Ava sat at a desk typing, Hardy Pritchard standing behind her looking at the paper. Then he touched the back of her neck and rubbed it the way Momma did Chap sometimes when he got in from work. Ava stretched like a cat, and then he leaned down, and my nose tickled, and I sneezed, spluttering into my hands.
Is someone there? called Ava.
I pushed the door all the way open but Hardy Pritchard was gone and the door behind her was closed. Well, twerp. You saw Dr. Carruthers? Where’s Momma? she said.
Paying the dentist bill, I said, but before I could say anything more I felt Momma’s warm body behind me, a firm hand gripping my shoulder.
Do not run off like that, I told you, she said. Sorry, she said to Ava. She turned to me sternly. You must not keep Ava from her work, Mae Lee.
But—
Not another word, she said. And we left.
As we drove home, I gazed out the window at all the leafless trees and the gray sidewalks lined with cotton lint. When I turned back I saw that Momma was gripping the steering wheel like it was going to fly away from her.
I saw something, Momma, I said.
I wonder if I should take you back to school, she said.
No, I said. I saw something. In there.
Maybe I won’t take you back to school, she said. You can help me get the last of the leaves. Maybe it’ll be dry enough for Chap to burn them tomorrow.
I gave up then. Okay, I said.
And it turned out that Momma was too tired and I finished the leaves all by myself. That turned out to be lucky.
Chapter Seven
After I got the leaves all done I took them over to the big trash can and started to stuff them in, but I was careless and knocked the can over. And it rolled around on the ground before I could stop it and leaves came out. Nothing to do but pick it up and start again but when I bent down to pick it up I saw some newspaper in there. Now Chap hated for anything to be in there but leaves so I pulled at the paper and it came out and a lot of othe
r stuff came with it. The letters. She had meant for them to be burned with the leaves.
Feeling strange, I took them behind the garage so nobody could see me from the kitchen window and I hunkered down on the cold ground, my back to the wall, and I read those letters, every last one of them. The one that had arrived the night I was grating cheese said
June 15
My Ava,
I can’t say much about what I’m doing or where I am, or the censor will have this so full of holes it will look like one of my target practice cans. When you write me, make it on one side of the paper in case they cut anything out. It’s going to be a damned hard mission, harder than any of us thought. But just thinking of you over there waiting for me keeps me going. It’s hot here, muddy, bugs the size of bats, poisonous snakes, leeches, parasites, man-eating tigers. We keep busy.
I hope your job at the drugstore is going well. Dad says things are rolling at the plant. I can’t wait to get back to you and the folks and the job, in that order.
God, how I want to see your sweet face. I wish I was holding you now and loving you. One day we’ll have everything you want, sugar, a good life with our own house and kids. Keep smiling for me.
All my love,
Dulany
That last one put an ache in my heart. I was so sorry for him that she was not thinking of him at all but stupid Hardy Pritchard and what was going to happen there with him, married to Mis’ Celia? Grown people were so confusing. I couldn’t ask my friends at school, not Faye or Carol Jean or Lourdes Sanchez who had come here from Cuba, and I sure couldn’t ask Starrett Conable.
Maybe Momma and Chap were right. Maybe Ava would ruin her reputation and there would go Dulany Radford, and was she married or not?
I’d write to him myself, I would. I was writing pretty well, Momma helped me. But it would make Ava so mad. And I might be nosey, but I wouldn’t be a tattletale.
I didn’t want to put the letters back in the leaves to get burned up. I wrapped them in some of Momma’s sewing scraps and stuck them in the bottom of my school bag.
I worried and worried about Duke over there fighting that war and dreaming of Ava and her about to burn up all his letters. But there was Mis’ Celia Pritchard to think about. I wondered if she was jealous of Ava. I would just walk by her house and I would go up and ring the bell and when she answered I would tell her to watch out.
I came that way after school the next day. All the houses on that street were nice trim houses, not too big and not too small with azaleas and other bushes out front and mowed lawns of fat-bladed grass that Momma called St. Augustine, and one even had a goldfish pond with fish in it, which I thought was very fine. I wanted to have fish one day. But I didn’t know which one was the right house, and Willie wasn’t there to tell me.
I was about to lose my nerve when I saw her. She was sitting in a rocker on the front porch like she was waiting for somebody. Me? I looked at her, and she looked at me, and she got up from her rocker and came over to the edge of the porch and put her hand on the rail.
Yoo-hoo, little girl, she called, and I stopped cold.
Yes, ma’am?
Aren’t you Ava Willis’s little sister, Mae Lee? I thought I saw you in the library with your mother.
My knees turned to jelly. Yes, ma’am, I said.
She smiled. Well, Mae Lee, would you like to come in and have some cookies? I’m expecting Father Shepherd for tea and I would love it if you could join us.
My heart pounded like a galloping mule. I better be getting home, my momma might worry.
Oh, she won’t mind. They’re lovely cookies and some little cakes and some tiny sandwiches.
What’s a father shepherd? I asked. The only shepherd I knew was on the wall of my Sunday school room, and that shepherd was just a boy.
Father Shepherd is my pastor, she said.
Like Brother Ben Higgins? I asked.
You might say that, she said. Oh, do come.
I took a deep breath and thought about Duke and the letters. Okay, I said, maybe for a little bit. She smiled from ear to ear, making her earbobs dangle. She led me up the steps and into her entrance hall where there was a telephone stand and then into the living room.
Oh, my. A maroon velvet chair begged to be petted like a kitten and I longed to sit on the shiny satin sofa of maroon and gold with fringes on the bottom. We stepped on a smooth carpet that smooshed underfoot, and the sun was slanting in through the windows sprinkling the air with fairy dust.
On the side table were figurines of ladies with fans wearing robes, and she told me they were Japanese, and I said Japs? all surprised, and she looked at me with a mournful face and said, please do not say that, they have a beautiful culture and this war breaks my heart.
I’m sorry, I said, though I did not know what culture was.
Please, have a seat, she said, and she went to the kitchen and I sat down on the satin sofa and stroked it. On the other side table I saw a picture of her in her wedding gown with lace all around her head looking down at a bouquet of lilies. She was very beautiful then, and I don’t know what happened to make her so thin and worried-looking as she was now, like somebody could break her in two. And standing behind her was stupid Hardy Pritchard looking beautiful too, like a man in Life magazine, looking out of the picture like he wanted to kiss the camera.
She came back in with a tray of tea and cakes and little tiny sandwiches, and some thin cookies, butter wafers she said, and poured me a cup of tea and fixed it with sugar and lemon, and poured herself a cup. The cups had violets on them. She passed me the plate and it was full of violets, too. I took a cookie and then a sandwich and she let me eat a few, just smiling, before she said a word.
How does Ava like her job? she said.
I took a swallow and it was hot going down, but I didn’t choke.
Hardy says she’s very efficient, said Mis’ Celia.
Yes ma’am, I said, she took typing and shorthand in school.
Does she work much in the evening? Mis’ Celia asked sweetly.
I shrugged. Sometimes. I started to feel I was sliding into a big black hole of trouble and I backed up. Not very much, really, I said.
She has a boyfriend? Mis’ Celia asked.
He’s in the army, I said. A long way away. Duke Radford, I said, just to say his name.
Oh dear, she said. I know the family. She must really miss him.
Yes ma’am. He writes her lots of letters. I thought of the letters down in my book bag and I could bring them out and show her. But then she would know I had stolen them. Mis’ Celia, I said, I—
A car door slammed outside.
Oh, she said with a smile, that must be Father Shepherd, but before she could get up the door opened and Hardy Pritchard came in big as you please, looking me up and down. What’s going on?
Oh, Hardy, it’s Ava’s little sister. I invited her in for tea.
No kidding, he said. Well, little girl, he said. You do get around. You better be careful.
Why Hardy, whatever do you mean?
Nothing he said. Kids ought to be careful of strangers, that’s all. He curled his lip.
Poof. I’m hardly a stranger. What are you doing home?
I’ve got to go out of town, he said. A funeral.
Who died?
Nobody you know, he said. I’m going to pack.
I need to get home, I said. Momma will be looking for me. The phone in the hall rang and he answered it, and Mis’ Celia walked me to the door.
Thank you for the tea and sandwiches, I said.
Do come again, she said. It’s so nice to have a child around.
When she opened the door, there was a man there, all ready to ring the bell, a man dressed in black with a little round white collar. He had wavy gray hair and little round glasses and rosy cheeks like Santa Claus.
Father Leo! she exclaimed.
Cecilia! He leaned over and kissed her cheek. And who might this charmin’ young lady be?
I’
m Mae Lee Willis, I said.
Ava’s sister, Mis’ Celia said, and they looked at each other with some kind of wordless understanding.
He leaned down to shake my hand. And a lovely child you are. Shall I see you at church?
Oh, no, I said, I go to the John Wesley Methodist Church. But the way he talked made me want to giggle, and later on Mis’ Celia would explain that he had come from Ireland. I liked his smile. Maybe I can ask Momma to bring me to your church, I said.
It’s called St. Lawrence’s, Father Leo said.
Okay, I said, and started down the steps.
Wait, Mis’ Celia said, getting all excited. Why don’t I take you to church? I sometimes go to early Mass but I would wait until later for you. More like you’re used to at the Methodist church.
Now Cecilia, Father Leo said. Have a caution.
I’ll have to ask Momma, I said.
Well, do let me know, she said. We have a new child there about your age, Lourdes Sanchez, who has moved here from Cuba. Her father is a doctor and her mother’s a nurse.
She’s in my class, I said. I like her. She tells me Spanish words.
Well, then.
I’ve really got to go. Goodbye, Father Leo, goodbye, ma’am and thank you for the cookies. When I finally got to the corner and turned out of sight, I ran all the way home. Could I really go to church with Mis’ Celia?
When I got home, Momma was peeling potatoes in the kitchen and looking sleepy, like she’d just woken up from a nap.
I made some fresh oatmeal cookies, she said. Did you get kept after school?
Not this time, I said, and bit my lip. Lourdes Sanchez and I were playing on the playground after school. She told me about her church. It’s called St. Lawrence’s.
It’s a Catholic church, she said. It’s very different from ours.
Yes, I said. Lourdes is allowed to wear earrings. Her mother pierced her ears when she was just a baby.
Well, said Momma. I don’t know what that has to do with church.
What if I wanted to go? I said.
Why would you want to do that?