Andre might like a penny, I thought. The coin purse still deep inside of my bag, I opened it. Andre was studying my face now as he popped the candy into his mouth. His gaze dropped to my purse, my hand inside of it. His eyebrows drawn, he squinted as if pondering. He knew, I thought. This five-year-old child understood that I was desperately trying to find something that might pass as a gift. Still studying me, Andre picked at a brown crusty scab on his right knee, the skin around the sore a tender pink. A small shudder crawled down my spine.
Oscar took off his hat and used it to point toward the front door. ‘I’ll show you the house,’ he said. ‘Let you get situated. Then I’ll see about Maisie.’
‘I’d like that very much,’ I replied. I closed the coin purse. Timing was vital in music, and the same was true about the giving of a gift. I’d find another opportunity to give Andre a penny.
The floor shook as we walked, and the thought of the thin stilts that held up the house unnerved me all the more. Andre came in with us but Nan stayed outside. The front room served two functions. A small parlor was on the left side and the kitchen was on the right. There was a coffeepot and a skillet on the stove, and the house smelled of onions cooked in butter. Pots and pans hung from the kitchen wall. A nail tacked a calendar to the wall by the icebox. A long table with two benches filled much of the kitchen, and on the cooking table, flies crawled over the red and white checkered dishcloths that covered dishes and platters.
Oscar said, ‘It’s nothing fancy.’
‘But it’s pleasant with all the windows. It’s bright and cheerful.’
He tilted his head toward the parlor end of the room. ‘Some of the keys stick,’ he said. ‘I’ve noticed that.’
I followed his gaze. An upright piano was up against the wall by the fireplace.
Oscar said, ‘It’s all this salt in the air. Some days are better than others.’
An upright, scorned by my professors. I walked over to it. The floorboards trembled beneath my feet, but the blue and green braided rug in the parlor dulled the sensation. Embossed scrolls decorated the upright’s front board, and the music rack was bare. The name of the manufacturer, Behning, was ornately scripted in gold leaf across the keyboard lid. Nicks and dents marred its cabinet, but the mahogany wood shone with polish.
I opened the lid, then pulled off my right glove, one finger at a time. I touched the surface of middle C and felt the grain in the ivory. In Dayton, my ability to lose myself in music had deserted me. Now, this keyboard was the one familiar thing on this island.
Without turning to look at Oscar, I said, ‘Do you play?’
‘Me? No.’
I put my hand on top of the cabinet. The upright must have been his wife’s, his first wife. I ran my finger over a long, thin gash in the wood. To my left, two long windows looked out past the porch. Beyond the sand hills, the water glistened, the ships at sea little more than black dashes. The beach strewn with debris could not be seen from here. Framed by the windows, the immensity of the gulf was diminished and felt less overbearing.
Oscar said, ‘I expect you were hoping for better.’
I turned around and saw him again as the young man who had watched me from afar in Dayton. The distance between us was immeasurable. Our backgrounds were worlds apart, and we had little in common. Now, there was the unspeakable thing that had happened between us last night at the hotel.
Andre’s arm was wrapped around Oscar’s leg. His dark eyes stared up at me, his cheeks drawing on the hard candy.
I said, ‘I believed I might never play again.’
‘It’s not like what you had. I know that.’
Oscar glanced down at Andre and then back at me. He said, his voice low, ‘You’ll get used to things.’
His words hovered in the air, the sound of the surf on the other side of the sand hills a soft steady whisper. A breeze rustled my skirt. The windows were open. I felt Nan on the porch, listening.
I said, ‘I’d like to see the rest of the house. If I may.’
Oscar’s house was plain but clean. The bare walls were painted white, and the floor was laid with wide boards of oak. He had sent Andre outside and as Oscar showed me his home, we used care to step around one another, each room feeling small and tight. In the parlor, two black-upholstered chairs faced the fireplace. A red-bound book and newspapers were on the white marble-top table between the chairs.
‘These are the stairs to the attic, for storage and such,’ Oscar said, referring to a closed door on the back wall.
‘Very convenient,’ I said. A small roll-top desk and chair were on one side of the door. A clock encased in a square block of pink marble was on the fireplace mantle, and in the kitchen there were kerosene lanterns on the table and a hand pump at the dish wash basin.
We went down a short hall. Andre’s room was on the right-hand side. There, seashells and rocks lined the three windowsills. The braided rug by Andre’s bed was shades of green, and the mosquito netting that hung from the canopy was looped back and tied to the wood bedposts. His clothes hung on wall pegs, and a shelf held a box of dominos. Wood building blocks with painted letters and numbers on their sides were stacked on the floor. A framed picture was on a small table, and over Andre’s bed, a figure of Jesus nailed to a crucifix dripped painted blood from its head, hands, and feet. What I believed to be a rosary hung from the crucifix, the white beads and silver cross twirling in the breeze that came from the open windows.
In the bedroom across the hall, the crucifix was bigger, and the figure’s crown of thorns was even bloodier. I looked past it. This was Oscar’s religion, not mine. He stood in the center of the small room while I stayed in the doorway. This was his room.
‘Settle in to suit you,’ he said. ‘Change it any way you want.’
Our room. In Dayton I had convinced myself that we would have separate bedrooms.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But I’m sure it’s fine as it is.’
The oval rug in the middle of the bedroom was a blur of blue. The rocking chair, the wardrobe, and the dressing table were heavy pieces of dark furniture, none of it mine, all of it Oscar’s. And his first wife’s.
‘This over here goes out to the back veranda,’ he said, pointing to a door at the back wall.
‘What a lovely idea.’
‘We can see the bayou from there, Offatts. It’s about a mile from here.’
‘I don’t believe that I’m familiar with bayous.’
‘It’s water that cuts into the island. Like a river, you might say, but marshy and slow-moving. Offatts looks like a lake; West Bay feeds into it. Nights it comes alive with frogs calling to their mates. The bayou’s good fishing, too, and in the winter, the goose hunting can’t be beat.’
‘You’re a hunter?’ I said, but I didn’t hear his answer.
The bed, I thought, letting myself see it for the first time. Tonight the mosquito netting will be released from the tiebacks on the posts. The summer quilt with its yellow, blue, and green squares will be turned down. Hours from now. Or sooner.
Oscar left the center of the room and came toward me where I stood on the threshold. Heat rushed to my face. The light was dim here, we were only inches apart, and I found myself looking up into his eyes, drawn.
‘No, sir,’ I heard Nan Ogden say from the front porch. ‘No more candy, won’t have it.’
I stepped back. Oscar did the same.
‘And this room?’ I said, gesturing toward another door in the hallway as though my cheeks did not burn.
‘The washroom,’ Oscar said. ‘The tub and washstand. Cistern’s in there too. Having lived up in the Panhandle those years back, I’ve learned to catch water any way I can.’
‘You’re a practical man,’ I managed.
‘Try to be. The outhouse is between here and the barn. A path leads directly to it. You can’t—’
I put my hand up to stop him. It wasn’t the kind of thing people talked about. Nor was I accustomed to outhouses. In Dayton, we had indoo
r plumbing. ‘Well then,’ Oscar said, his color deepening. ‘Yes, all right. Your trunks. They’re cooking out there in the sun. I’ll get them, that way you can get settled.’
‘I’d like that.’
‘Dinner’s at noon.’
Lunch, I thought.
‘Frank T. and Wiley’ll be back mid-afternoon. Those are Nan’s brothers. They help with the milking and run the deliveries into town. Nan’ll go home with them but she’ll leave supper for us. It’s how we’ve been doing of late.’
‘I see,’ I said.
‘But we can do different. You can do the cooking, if that suits better.’
‘No, no. This arrangement is fine.’ I paused. ‘I must admit that I don’t have much experience in the kitchen.’
‘You weren’t brought up to it,’ he said. ‘It’s why I asked Nan to stay on. I don’t expect you to run this house by yourself, and she’s glad for the work.’ He hesitated. ‘About Nan,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘She’s a good woman. Strong in her opinions, but a good woman.’
And one who did not like me, I thought, remembering her cool assessment. ‘I’ll try to remember that,’ I said.
CHAPTER SIX
The Wardrobe
I tried to remember Oscar’s words about Nan Ogden when the four of us sat down for lunch on the benches at the kitchen table. Oscar had changed out of his suit and it was as if he were a different man. He was at ease in his collarless faded blue shirt and dark trousers held in place by braces. These clothes did not strain and constrict as his suit had, but were loose, the material worn soft. This was the true Oscar Williams, I understood as I sat to his left while Nan and Andre were across from us.
His napkin tucked in at his throat, he prayed, both he and Andre touching their foreheads, chests and shoulders with their right hands as they squeezed their eyes closed. Nan watched me while they prayed, her gray eyes widening when she saw that I wasn’t a Catholic.
‘Amen, let’s eat,’ Oscar said and with that, he and Nan sprang into motion. She poured milk from a pitcher into four canning jars. Oscar passed a platter of fried fish to me. ‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘And there’s gravy.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, but there was little here that was familiar to me: the bowls of rice, the yellow beans mixed with onion, the fried flat biscuits, and Andre on the other side of the table, a bewildered look in his eyes.
‘Is there tea?’ I said.
‘Huh?’ Nan said.
‘I’m sorry, Catherine,’ Oscar said. ‘Should have thought of that, you being a tea drinker. None of us here are. I’ll have Frank T. and Wiley pick up some from town.’
‘If it’s not too much of a bother.’
‘It’s not.’
Nan pursed her lips as if I had made an unreasonable demand. I had a bite of the fish, the fried coating heavy with cooking oil.
‘Delicious,’ I said.
‘Tasty,’ Oscar said.
‘Just redfish,’ Nan said. ‘Nothing extra about that.’
‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘But it’s very good.’
‘Nothing like home cooking,’ Oscar said.
Color rose in Nan’s cheeks. Andre scooted his rice around on his plate. Oscar drank his milk in two long swallows. Nan refilled his jar.
From behind Nan and Andre, heat rose from the stove. Flies crawled on the mesh that covered the kitchen window. I dabbed my upper lip with my napkin that I kept on my lap. I imagined opening the icebox and letting its cool air wash over me. Beside me, Oscar held up the bowl of biscuits. ‘More corn pone, anybody?’
I declined. ‘Wouldn’t overly mind one,’ Nan said, helping herself, then Oscar taking two.
‘We saw a ship from Cuba,’ he told Andre.
Andre stared down at his plate.
‘It was most impressive,’ I said.
He looked up, his eyebrows drawn.
‘That means big,’ Oscar said. ‘Impressive.’
Andre’s lips moved as if he were trying to say the word.
‘Young man,’ Nan said. ‘Your dinner’s getting cold.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said. He stabbed at a piece of fish with his fork, and under Nan’s watchful eye, he ate it.
Her gaze skipped from Andre to Oscar’s plate and over to mine. I waved away the flies and had another bite of fish. Apparently satisfied with that, Nan bent over her plate as though she were eating her only meal of the day. Oscar had second helpings of beans and rice, and at the wall, the stove ticked, unmeasured beats in contrast to the constant muffled whisper of the gulf.
Oscar ran the back of his fork through a pool of thick white gravy. He said, ‘It’s mighty good to see the sun after all the rain we’ve had.’
‘Ain’t that the truth,’ Nan said. ‘But the sun surely did bring out a fresh crop of skeeters.’
Mosquitoes, I took that to mean.
‘Big enough to carry you off,’ Andre said, looking at me, his mouth full. Oscar went still, his fork over his plate. Nan turned away, but not before I saw the smile in her eyes.
Lunch ended when Oscar stood and thanked Miss Ogden, as he called her, for the fine cooking. He told me to make myself at home. ‘I’ve got some catching up to do,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in the barn.’ He paused. ‘You doing all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ and he took me at my word. He left, the door closing behind him. The three of us still at the table, Nan told Andre it was time for his nap. ‘Awww,’ Andre wailed, but she put up a finger and said, ‘No, sir, none of that.’ She stood and he did too, looking at me from the corner of his eye.
‘Sweet dreams,’ I said.
A smile showed around the edges of his mouth. Nan took his hand. ‘Day’s not getting any younger,’ she said, taking him out to the front porch. This surprised me. I had expected them to go to Andre’s room. Unsure what to do, I stayed at the table and through the long open windows. I watched her unfurl a red blanket that had been folded on the seat of one of the brown wicker porch chairs, and put it on the floor. Andre climbed up onto a chair and sat with his legs straight out.
Nan untied the shoelace of one of his boots and plucked at the long laces with her fingers to loosen them. The pack of dogs must be on the porch. I heard the click of their toenails and their loud pants. ‘Ain’t it good to have your daddy home?’ she said.
‘Yeah, but that lady, I don’t—’
‘None of that, honey boy,’ Nan said. ‘Won’t have it.’ She glanced through one of the windows and our eyes locked. I held her gaze. She turned her attention back to Andre, busy again with his boots, dropping them to the floor with a thud. He slid off of the chair and disappeared from my sight. ‘Now close them little eyes of yours,’ Nan said. ‘Go to sleep.’
On the porch floor, I thought. Outside. With flies and mosquitoes.
She came back in and without a word, she began to clear the table. On the porch, the dogs scratched at the flooring, then thumped down. Nan’s hands, red and chapped, were quick and steady, accustomed to this work. She carried the dishes, platters, and bowls from the table to the counter with a silent grace as if she had been in this kitchen all of her life.
I folded my napkin and placed it on the table. ‘Thank you for lunch,’ I said.
‘Dinner.’
‘Yes. Well. Regardless, it was delicious.’
She came to a standstill, a dirty dish and canning jar in her hands. She said, ‘You didn’t eat but a speck.’
‘Well, yes. But it was all very good.’
She put the dishes on the counter. I scooted the bench away from the table. I said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll unpack and then have a little rest.’
‘You all right?’
‘Pardon?’
Nan surveyed me as though recording my sallow coloring to her memory. She said, ‘It’s the heat, that’s what’s making you need a rest most likely.’ Her accent made each word drip as though coated in boiled sugar. She said, ‘And the excitement and all. Mr Williams said ho
w you come from up north. Ohio.’
‘That’s correct. Dayton, Ohio.’
‘His hometown. When Mr Williams first came here, we took him for being from the Panhandle. But that weren’t so, he told us.’ The table was cleared now, and all of the dishes were on the counter. Flies gathered but Nan didn’t seem to notice. She said, ‘He told us how you all grew up together.’
‘I suppose you could say that. We attended the same school.’
Nan picked up a bucket kept in the corner by the stove and put it on the cooking table. I started to stand. She said, ‘Mr Williams told me you play the piano, said you play good.’
‘That was very kind of him to say.’ I sat back down. If she and I were going to be in this house together, we needed to become acquainted. This, I supposed, was as good a time as any.
Her back to me, Nan scraped a dirty plate with a knife, the bits of leftover food going into the bucket. She said, ‘You play for your church back home?’
‘No.’
‘Dance tunes maybe?’
‘Waltzes have never been favorites of mine. But yes, there were occasions when patrons specifically made such requests. I performed, you see, at concerts and at private gatherings.’
For the briefest of moments her hands stopped and then she was back at work, the sound of her knife shrill against the plate. ‘Mr Williams, he’s been all stirred up,’ she said. ‘Last week he had me clean this house from top to bottom. Not that it needed it, I’ve been keeping it up good. But Mr Williams, his mind was made up. All last week I scrubbed floors and washed windows. I beat every rug like I hadn’t just done it last spring. Polished the stove, too.’
‘You’ve worked hard,’ I said. ‘And it shows.’
She rubbed at a piece of dried food on one of the plates with her thumbnail.
‘There are few things more pleasant than a clean house,’ I said.
‘That’s so.’ She paused. ‘He had me clean out the wardrobe.’ Her tone had changed. The drawl was still there but now there was a hard edge. A feeling of dread came over me. ‘He hadn’t been able to do it before,’ Nan said. ‘Wouldn’t let me touch Bernadette’s things. Wouldn’t let nobody, not even Sister Camillus. But last week he told me it was time. Told me to do what I thought best with her clothes, said I could keep them or take them to St. Mary’s. But if I was to keep them, he didn’t want me wearing her things here.’
The Promise Page 7