by Anne Lovett
This would be just right for a baby, I said, not understanding the clutch in my heart. Are you—
No, she said, giving me a look that meant I was not to pursue this line of conversation.
So where will I stay?
Back by the kitchen, in Elzuma’s old room.
I picked up my suitcase and followed Ava down the hall. She waved her hand in the direction of the second spare room. This will be a guest room before long, she said. Old sheets covered the furniture and white plaster patches splotched the walls. Paint cans were stacked in the corner.
We passed Duke’s paneled office and I peered in. Papers cluttered his old roll-top desk, and books crowded into a bookshelf on the far wall. Pictures covered the walls, and a leaping marlin hung above the books.
Ava, steps ahead of me, looked back. Duke won’t let me touch it. It’s such a rat’s nest, I don’t know how he stands it. Come on, quit lollygagging, Mae Lee.
I stumbled down the hall, remembering the house the way it was, sad for the memories that had been lost, but maybe Duke didn’t care. I wouldn’t have wanted our old house to change. I would’ve felt safe there with Momma’s things all around me and the old garage behind me, where, if I closed my eyes, I could still believe that Chap was whistling away while he painted and patched on that plane, which, in my dream, would never take off.
We went through the kitchen and out to the room behind the laundry room. Ava pushed open the door. Dusty sunlight filtered through half-closed blinds, patterning bars on the chenille bedspread and faded patchwork quilt. So I was to sleep in this high old bed, its varnish black with age, and store my clothes in that tall chifforobe. The heat was stifling in the musty room, and I said so.
Ava walked over to a window and creaked it open, scattering dust. I’ll get you a fan. Then she left me.
I lowered my suitcase to the floor and opened the doors of the chifforobe. The right half was for hanging clothes and the left side had drawers. It would be big enough for the few things I’d brought. I drew a finger through the dust and sighed.
Ava brought the fan and set it on the floor. I asked her for a dust rag, which she furnished with bad grace, and told me she’d see me in the kitchen to help with supper.
I dusted the chifforobe and stowed my clothes, and was just about to close the door when, on a whim, I opened the small drawers at the top. They’d never been emptied when Elzuma moved out. The one on the left held pencils, safety pins, receipts, scraps of cigarette tobacco, an empty snuffbox, and a tin aspirin box rattling with straight pins. The one on the right held nothing but a worn pack of cards with an oriental pattern on the back. I picked them up and riffled them. They might have been the same cards Elzuma had used that dreadful afternoon.
Two details came back to me in sharp focus: the look in Duke’s eyes when he’d seen the pack of cards by the bed, and the way he’d held me, comforting me.
Ava hollered at me, interrupting my train of thought. I shut the cards in the chifforobe and walked into the kitchen. Ava had changed into jeans and was standing at the counter, sandwich fixings spread out in front of her. I asked her about Elzuma.
You know she’s back in the bungalow, she said. She can’t work like she used to, the arthritis has gotten her, but Duke lets her stay there, says it’s the least he can do after all those years. One of her grandkids comes here to do cleaning once a week, but I do most of the cooking. Every once in a while Duke gets her to come up here and cook him some catfish or fried chicken. She pulled a face at me. Imagine me frying chicken.
I can’t imagine, I said. I didn’t remember her ever lifting a finger in the kitchen when she was home. She dug her knife into a bowl of pimento cheese and spread up a sandwich. Get a jar of soup down from the pantry, she ordered.
I found it and set it on the counter beside her. I’d like to go see Elzuma, I said.
The knife stopped in midair. Why?
Just want to ask her some questions.
About what?
Stuff. Old tales, you know. I set the table and poured the tea while Ava heated the soup. Take my advice and stay away from there, she said.
Why?
I never got an answer. The back door swung open with a squeal, and we both turned at once. Duke filled the door frame, giving me a big grin. Mae Lee, he said, holding his arms wide. Looking so pretty. Come here, honey. How’s your momma?
I fell into his bear hug, comfort washing over me like a healing wave.
She had a small stroke, said Ava.
Duke released me, frowning. What do the doctors say?
It’s the lupus complicating things.
She’ll get better soon, I insisted. She just needs to rest. She won’t quit. I told the story of how she insisted on hanging out the wash that day.
Duke went over to scrub his hands at the kitchen sink the way Chap used to when he got home from work. Ava handed him a dish towel. We hope and pray, she said. We sat down to our supper of soup and sandwiches, and Duke said a long grace.
He looked up. So is Mae Lee staying with us?
Maybe a week, said Ava.
Duke winked at me. Those horses have been mighty lonesome. I was beginning to think the girl had deserted us.
I’ve been real busy, I mumbled. Friends, you know? It had been a pretty good summer with the other kids, despite having to look after Momma. And I had a crush on a basketball player named Glenn Dorris, tall and dark-haired, who didn’t know I was alive.
Uh-huh. Duke winked at Ava. Yep. Boys will do it every time.
I felt the red creeping up my neck. I’ll ride every day, I said. I’ll feed them too, if you want.
Good, said Duke, if Cyrus lets you. You remember Cyrus Pennyman, Willie’s brother? He’s my new hand.
I felt my eyes go wide. The one who—
Yep. And he can barbecue chickens just like his daddy.
How does he manage with just one arm?
Better than you think. Duke bit into his sandwich.
A little after seven o’clock, I finished with the supper dishes, hung my apron on a nail, and ran down to the pasture. The horses were standing by the fence waiting, along with a mule. In the glow of evening, the rich smell of horse manure mingled with the sweet scent of hay.
Dandy was glad to see me, her white-streaked muzzle sniffing for the apple I usually brought. Sorry, girl, I said. No apple today. I snapped a lead onto her halter and took her to her stall. I was going back for Duke’s big gelding, Nimrod, when I saw a cocoa-skinned man, one sleeve of his work shirt pinned up, leading the mule my way.
Hey, missy, he said, and grinned.
Cyrus?
Yes’m.
I’m Mae Lee Willis. I used to know your brother Willie, I said, and reached up to stroke the mule’s silky nose. What’s his name?
We call him Francis, but he don’t talk. Cyrus grinned like he’d made such a joke.
So what does he do?
He good for all sorts of jobs.
I’ll get Nimrod, I volunteered.
No need, missy. They’s used to me.
He was telling me he didn’t want any help, and I knew Nimrod could be ornery. More power to him if he could handle him. Okay, I said. See you later.
See you, missy.
I turned back toward the house and met Duke coming across the yard, dragging that leg of his. I remembered the first time I’d seen him, how straight and tall he’d been, and it pained me for him. I met Cyrus, I said. And Francis.
Duke grinned and tossed aside the sprig of hay he’d been chewing on. Mules are good in places where a tractor can’t go. It’s pretty swampy down at the creek, you know. I nodded, and, with a chill, thought of the night Duke had spent in the swamp on the Fourth of July.
Cyrus let me know he didn’t need any help, I said.
He leaned against the rail fence and looked over at the barn. He’s a fighter, determined not to have people look at him as a cripple. Elzuma told me about him. Said he’d been at Pearl and couldn’t find a job wit
h that arm. I decided to take him on, seeing as I have this bum leg. He’s become a good buddy. You know, we were all there together in Burma—black, white, Gurkha, Kachin, Brit, Aussie. You forgot about colors after a while. And he’s a damned wizard with mules.
That’s a funny talent, I said.
Duke laughed. Yeah. You know, I never really appreciated mules until I was in Burma. They used them a lot because machines couldn’t get through in the jungle. They used elephants too. It took machines and animals both to build that road over there. I’m glad that job wasn’t mine. God, it was hard. Jungle’s thick with weeds that slice a man’s skin. Week’s work could be washed away in a monsoon. His voice had taken on a faraway, almost wistful tone.
I dug my toe in the dirt. You sound like you miss the war.
His eyes met mine, those golden eyes. No, honey. I don’t miss the fighting and the killing. The part I miss is feeling that what I did made a difference. What difference would it make if I worked at the plant or not? To make a better pair of pants?
What was your job? I asked. In the war, I mean?
He looked at me for a long time as if deciding whether he could trust me with the answer. Spying, he said. Sabotage. We parachuted behind the enemy lines. It’s the kind of work that takes your beliefs and turns them inside out. He paused for a few moments, then wiped his hand across his face. Somebody had to do it. It was us or them. That’s what war is. He dusted his hands as if he could dust the war off them. Let’s go see Cyrus. I’ll tell him you’re good with horses.
I followed him over to the barn and found the animals snug in their stalls.
Guess he’s gone home, said Duke. You can get better acquainted tomorrow.
Where does he live?
I leased him one of the old tenant houses. He’s fixed it up and is talking about buying it from me, along with a few acres. I’ve got a mind to sell him some. Then he scooped a handful of corn out of a croker sack and gave it to me.
Go on, make friends with Francis.
I held the corn flat on my palm and let the mule take it, his rubbery lips tickling, and then I stroked the soft nose and the long black ears. I didn’t mind Cyrus, if he didn’t mind me. We could share the horses for the short time I’d be here.
That night I stared in the mirror of the chifforobe as I peeled the sweaty shirt and jeans off my body, thinking of how beautiful Ava had looked today at the hospital. I felt more gawky than ever. My reflection swam in the cracked and spotted old glass. Looking so pretty. Just one of those things Duke would say to be polite, never mind how lank my hair hung, or how skinny I remained—my bosoms had just started to fill out—or the freckles that pestered me every summer.
The house was quiet as I brushed my teeth in a bathroom with a sloping floor, its boards creaking. Then I mounted the steps to the high bed. I felt lost there, and the door to the chifforobe kept flapping open. I finally stuck a piece of gum on it to keep it shut, knowing that Ava would give me hell if she found it. The summer night sounds—the cicadas and the bobwhites—filled the darkness, and I could hear an owl’s haunty call far away in the woods. The smell of late honeysuckle drifted in through the window. The old room seemed to be full of the spirits Elzuma had once talked about.
The fan whirred and turned for a time, and just as I was getting sleepy it stopped. I tugged the old frayed cord out of the socket and got back into bed. Muggy air settled around me. I pushed the white chenille spread down to the foot of the bed and lay on top of the sheets, then I peeled off the top of my pajamas. I lay back in the dappled moonlight, watching the shifting shadows of the trees on the wall. The chifforobe seemed to loom and grow.
The dry dusty way Momma had smelled bothered me, and a feeling of dread kept hanging over me. I didn’t want to be here. But Momma would get better. She had to get better, and I would go home. I clung to that thought until I fell asleep.
In the middle of the night I woke up with a start, shaking, out of a dream that someone was screaming. Shivering, I clutched for the covers and found they’d slipped to the floor. I wriggled into my pajama top and leaned down to retrieve the faded chenille spread.
From the hall, the ancient boards squeaked. I lay still, telling myself it was the settling of an old house. But old houses groaned and flapped and creaked, they didn’t make footsteps. Something rustled. Someone coughed.
I slipped out of bed, tiptoed to the door and peeked out into the dimness. Cigarette smoke hung in the hall, floating from the living room. I crept across the cool pine boards of the hallway and flattened myself beside the wall. I peered in.
Duke, hunched on the edge of the white sectional sofa with a cigarette between his fingers, stared out the big front window, where the first signs of dawn lightened the sky behind the pines. I stood and watched until he finished the smoke.
He jabbed his cigarette into the ashtray, got up, and limped through the other doorway. I crept back to my room and lay awake until the sun threw bars of light across my face, thinking of the way Duke’s big hands had cupped his cigarette. Like he was protecting it.
From the wind. From the rain. From the enemy.
I didn’t know then that the enemy was all around us.
Chapter Seventeen
Morning sun slanted in over the high bed, and the smells of bacon and coffee and biscuit wafted in from the kitchen. For a moment I stretched, my eyes closed, thinking I was seven years old, back home, breakfast waiting on the oilcloth-covered table. Chap would be hiding behind his newspaper, Ava would be heading off to school, and Momma would be stirring grits while the radio played and everyone pretended there would never be another war.
My eyes opened to the pale blue wainscoting around the room, the brownish stains on the ceiling. Momma was at the hospital and I was out at Sweetbay and Duke sat up at night and smoked, and my world was all whompy-jawed.
I pulled on jeans and a striped T-shirt, splashed water on my face, ran a comb through my hair, and slipped my feet into my old tennis shoes. In the kitchen, Ava was sitting in her place with both hands wrapped around her coffee cup, but Duke’s plate was empty, streaked with strawberry jam.
Morning, I said.
Help yourself. Ava gestured vaguely toward the stove.
No eggs?
If you want to cook them.
I put Duke’s plate in the sink, and then I took two biscuits from the pan and buttered them. The grits had gone cold, and I didn’t feel like reheating them. I took the last strip of bacon, sat down, and roped syrup over the biscuits.
Ava, I began, something happened last night.
Oh? She raised an eyebrow and sipped coffee.
I thought I heard a scream.
Probably a screech owl, she said. She twisted a stray hair back into place and slowly got up from her chair. You’re in the country now, kiddo.
It sounded like a person. And Duke was up smoking.
He gets up with the chickens, remember? That’s farm life.
But—
At the door, she glanced back with the hint of a rueful smile. Do the dishes, okay? And don’t forget the dogs. And then she walked out. I ate my biscuits. I dumped the leftover grits and biscuits and bacon grease into the big speckled pan they kept for old Mr. Dulany’s hounds. Duke didn’t hunt; he just let other people use them. From time to time he would sell one.
I stacked the breakfast dishes beside the sink and filled it with scalding hot suds, then washed the way Momma had taught me—glasses first, then plates, then silverware, then pots and pans. Outside the window over the sink, I saw Duke out at his truck. He waved when I went out with the dog scraps.
The hounds poked their noses through the wire fence of their kennel, tongues lolling, tails wagging. They were not pets, and I didn’t stay long with them. It just didn’t seem right.
That was no screech owl last night.
I walked over to Elzuma’s bungalow and knocked. Maybe she’d tell me what was going on. Nobody came to the door. I peered in the window. She always kept the shades t
ightly drawn, but I could tell it was dark and empty.
Duke walked over. You looking for Elzuma, punkin?
Yeah, I said. I just wanted to ask her something.
Well, guess it’ll have to wait. She took the bus yesterday afternoon to go see her daughter in Macon. There’s a new grandbaby.
Oh. Where are you going?
Got to run into town for some feed. Want to go with me?
Sure, I said. I’ll tell Ava.
I went running up to the house but Ava was waiting on the back porch and before I could get the words out of my mouth she said, I need you here today. I want you to help clean the pantry and some closets.
I ran back and told Duke what she’d said. He shrugged. Better do as she says, he said. Another day you can go with me. Let’s keep the lady happy.
I’d hoped he’d stick up for me, but he didn’t want to upset the apple cart. To me it was already upside down with apples rolling all over the place. Ava sent me into the room with the paint cans stacked in the corner.
Once we get those closets cleaned out, we can do the painting, she said. She gave me a broom, a rag, and a bucket, and I got to work.
Cleaning, Momma always said, is good for the soul. For me it was the opportunity to do some serious thinking while I sorted all the old stuff piled up over the years. I never understood why some people kept everything they ever had. Chap had told us if you had ever lived through the depression you would understand. Still, it was just old junk now. I unplugged the radio from the kitchen wall and took it into the spare room.
Duke wanted to be here, Ava didn’t want to be here, and I just wanted to go home.
I grabbed a handful of wire hangers and poked them into a cardboard box. Lord, here were some of Duke’s mother’s old housecoats and a box full of empty jars and powder boxes. I pulled out a broken lamp. I found some old books and paged through them, losing myself in a story before I got back to work.
I was taking a box out to the back porch when I heard their raised voices. I hadn’t heard him come back. Lord, how long had I been working? I stopped. Interrupt them or not? And then I heard my name.
Mae Lee can clean your office next, Ava said.