I held the cake box and my pink pajamas until the old Packard disappeared around the curve.
Chapter 5
As we walked toward the house, Grandmother Clark put her arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head. “How lucky we are you’ve come to visit us.”
I caught my breath.
“Oh, Harold, we’ve not seen enough of her,” Grandmother Clark sighed, wiping tears off her cheeks with her fingers. “She’s half grown up and the spitting image of her mama. Some days I can’t believe Treva’s gone.”
I gaped at Grandmother Clark. Didn’t she know that nobody ever mentioned my mama’s death outright like that?
“Me neither, Mom,” Daddy said, the hoarseness of his voice making me stare. His hand reached out as if he was trying to touch something that wasn’t there, and the pale, drawn lines around his eyes pulled me over to stand by him. My arm brushed against his.
“Mama’s happy in heaven,” I said, swallowing, knowing Grandpa would be proud of the way I didn’t cry. “We don’t have to be sad.”
I held the cake box out to Grandmother Clark. “Look. Nana sent angel food cake.”
Grandmother Clark blinked. Then she smiled. “That was nice of Mae.”
She took the cake from my hands. “Come on in,” she said, turning to lead the way.
Grandfather Clark studied me, his lips curved around his pipe. Aunt Belle had an expression on her face like she’d found a fairy among the hollyhock roots. And my daddy was staring now as if I were a Cracker Jack toy and a fancy valentine all rolled into one. He put his hand on my head.
Butterflies started an uprising in my stomach. As I followed Grandmother Clark toward the house, I wished Aunty Rose had stayed a while to keep me company.
Tall trees, their limbs tossing in the wind of the oncoming storm, loomed over the house.
My feet remembered the sandstone path, exactly how far it was from one rock to the next and the wobbliness of the third rock from the porch.
Inside, the air was stifling from the cookstove, and so many things cooking threw their spices and sweetness into the air that my nose couldn’t make sense of them.
“Been a long time since I’ve smelled food that good,” my daddy said, taking a deep breath.
“Did they feed you in the navy, son?” Grandfather Clark asked.
“Not much.” My daddy winked at me, then laid his hand on my head again.
“Well, your mother and sister would be sorry to hear that,” Grandfather Clark said. “They’ve cooked enough to make up for several years of starvation.”
“Oh, Dad, hush,” Grandmother Clark said, opening the oven and lifting out a bubbling pie.
Daddy and I just stood in the middle of the kitchen, the others moving around us. Daddy’s eyes flicked from one place to the next. He rocked on the balls of his feet, his hands inside his pockets.
“Is it just like you remember it, Harry?” Aunt Belle asked, drying a glass and setting it on the table.
“Well.” My daddy shrugged, words not coming at first. “A person kind of forgets.” Then, his eyes acknowledging he’d said the wrong thing, he told her, “But it’s sure good to be home. Better than you know.”
“Harold probably wants to wash up,” Grandmother Clark said. “He looks dry and dusty.”
“That’s the truth,” Daddy agreed. “I walked through Dinsmore Woods and came out north of the Shannons’. The country looks about the same. Except for the highline wires.”
Aunt Belle started setting plates on the square oilcloth-covered table. I remembered eating here, right in the kitchen, by the window that looked across the yard to a henhouse, watching the red chickens peck for bugs.
“I’ll clean up on the back porch.” My daddy walked through the room and out the door on the other side. “Still got that old straight razor, Dad?”
“Where it always was,” Grandfather Clark said, following Daddy.
“I got out your civilian clothes, Harry,” Aunt Belle called over her shoulder. “Starched them all up the way you like them.”
My daddy tweaked a lock of her hair as he passed by. She laughed and elbowed him away, but I could tell she was practically shaking with joy to see my daddy.
“It’ll be a while till the meal is ready,” Grandmother Clark told me, wiping her hands on her apron. “Why doesn’t Belle cut you a piece of Mae’s cake so you don’t get hungry?”
My stomach felt about as hard as a walnut, but I nodded. At least eating would be something to do, though Nana would say I shouldn’t spoil my appetite.
When Aunt Belle handed me the little plate, she said, “You’re almost as tall as me now. The last time you came here, you were just a little thing.”
“I’m twelve,” I said. “Today.”
She smiled, showing buckteeth. “I know. Happy birthday.”
“Thank you.”
I sat down at the table with the slice of cake, but I scooted the maraschino cherries aside because right now my stomach rolled at the idea of their syrupy sweetness.
The sounds of Daddy’s splashing and Grandfather Clark’s voice came from the back porch.
What was I supposed to do? At home, I would have been helping Nana or Aunty Rose, but Grandmother Clark and Aunt Belle didn’t seem to need my help.
A red hen squawked through the grass as Daddy tossed his wash pan of water into the yard.
“We’ve got kittens under the front porch,” Grandmother Clark said.
“How many?” I asked.
“Four, last time I looked. The mama won’t care if you take a peek.”
I stood up, glad for an excuse to get out of the house.
“Just look behind the rain barrel,” Grandmother Clark called.
Outside, the wind blew my hair back, and thunder rumbled steadily. Kneeling on the ground at the corner of the sloping porch, I made out the furry balls in the shadows. But the mama watched me with wary eyes, so I moved away.
On the south side of the house, my old rope swing still hung from a high tree branch. Half my life had passed since I’d twisted round and round in that swing.
Wisps of images snuck up on me—Mama sitting on the porch, stroking a gray cat, watching. I flipped up the seat of the swing. WMC was carved in the bottom just as I remembered.
I sat in it, twisting around, winding up the ropes. Then I leaned back and spun, my legs outstretched.
When the rain began to fall in hard drops, I darted for the house.
Inside, Grandmother Clark had already lit oil lamps, though the clock on the shelf said only four-thirty. Daddy was coming in the back door with his hair slicked and his face fresh and clean from shaving. In his gray shirt and trousers, he looked like the daddy I was starting to remember.
He picked up a chair and sat it down by me. “Cake pretty good?”
I took a bite. I was having cake with a stranger, and I was having cake with my daddy. I guess it tasted good.
“I remember Mae’s cooking,” my daddy said. “She still make biscuits and gravy for breakfast?”
“Every morning,” I said. “Biscuits and gravy and bacon and eggs.”
“Only sometimes she made steak back then.” He polished off his piece of cake before I had taken three bites of mine. “After a butchering.”
I gazed at the three uneaten cherries on my plate. If Daddy had been there for Nana’s breakfasts, it must mean that there had been a time when Grandpa liked my daddy.
“Do you hate my grandpa?” I asked, meeting Daddy’s eyes.
Maybe he would talk to me about important things and answer some of my questions.
His face bunched up, and he caught Grandmother Clark’s eyes. She and Aunt Belle had frozen in place like they were playing statue. Only Grandfather Clark, who was in the back of the yard doing some chores around the henhouse, kept on with his business.
“Did Will tell you that?”
“No, sir,” I said. Nobody told me anything. That was the problem. “I just wondered why I didn’t hear
from you for so long is all. I figured you must have hated somebody.”
“I didn’t hate anybody,” my daddy protested.
Grandmother Clark and Aunt Belle started moving again.
“It’s just.…” And my daddy broke off when Grandmother Clark passed behind his chair and squeezed his shoulder.
“It’s just that we sure are glad to have you here, honey,” Grandmother Clark said to me. “And everything will be all right now your daddy’s home.”
I didn’t exactly see how my daddy’s coming home made everything all right.
Grandfather Clark came in, and for an instant, his eyes widened at the sight of my daddy and me sitting at the table. Then he dropped his cap on the peg inside the door. “I opened up the flaps on the brooder house. It’s a dry storm.”
“We needed the rain,” Grandmother Clark said.
The shower had wetted down the grass some, and a robin in the backyard worked at tugging a worm out of the ground. The air had a sweet smell. But the rumble of thunder was passing off to the southeast.
The table got more and more full as Grandmother Clark and Aunt Belle set steaming bowls and platters on it.
“I think we should have some wine, Mother,” Grandfather Clark said. “To celebrate.”
From a back bedroom, he brought a glass jug, twisting the top off as he came, and Grandmother Clark set out five glasses.
Five? Did they think I would drink wine? Grandpa said liquor was the devil’s own trade. And Aunty Rose was fond of saying, Lips that touch wine will never touch mine.
“To Harold and Willa Mae,” Grandfather Clark said, raising his glass.
Sitting on my hands, I stared at the glass of wine. Liquor was bad. Even the church wine used at the communion table was really just grape juice.
My daddy swallowed a mouthful, smacked his lips, and swallowed again.
“Good batch, Dad,” he said.
I wondered if Daddy and the others would fall down drunk.
“I wish Les were here,” Aunt Belle remarked.
“Les is my brother,” Daddy told me. “You might not remember him. He went to Oklahoma before the war and stayed there.” Then he noticed my untouched wineglass. “It’s just Dad’s dandelion wine, Mae Bug. It won’t hurt you.”
I felt my face flaming redder than the dots in Aunt Belle’s apron, but Grandfather Clark smiled at me across the table and began to talk about the peach trees he’d set out.
Grandfather Clark’s eyes were flecked with green just like my daddy’s. I remembered once when I’d sat close to him and he’d read me a story about an eagle carrying a baby away to its aerie. The baby’s mama had climbed the rocks and found her baby safe in the eagle’s nest.
Over the years, I’d thought about the story, knowing how glad the mama must have been to have her child back in her arms.
“Do you remember the story about the eagle’s nest?” I said.
He nodded. “I do. That’s a good story.”
We worked our way through the food, everything tasting better than I expected.
Finally, when pieces of cherry pie steamed in front of us and ruby-sweet juice oozed from the crust, Grandfather Clark lifted his hand and everybody sang me a birthday song.
At home, we didn’t sing because we all sounded like sick cows, as Nana said. But the Clarks sounded almost as good as the radio.
I stared at my daddy, watching his face as the music bubbled up in him and overflowed onto me.
“Thank you,” I said when they were done. “That was the prettiest song I ever heard.”
They laughed as I blushed, but I didn’t mind.
Everybody raved about Grandmother Clark’s pie. When we were finished, I helped clear the table and wash dishes. By the time everything was put away, it was nine o’clock. Nobody had gotten drunk, but they’d laughed a lot, and now my daddy had tired lines carved in his face.
“I made up a cot for you in your daddy’s room,” Grandmother Clark said.
I told myself nobody died of sleeping in a strange bed as I followed Grandmother Clark to a bedroom not much bigger than Nana’s cedar closet. A narrow bed occupied one corner and a sewing machine the other. A round table with claw feet, heaped with stacks of books, took up all the space in a third corner. A curtain that stopped several inches short of the floor covered the doorway we’d come through.
Grandmother Clark set the lamp on the sewing machine and turned back the covers on the cot. She smoothed the pillow. My new pajamas lay folded at the end of the cot.
“I hope you’ll sleep all right,” Grandmother Clark said.
I couldn’t see her face very well. When I swallowed, my throat hurt.
“I will,” I said, remembering Nana’s instruction not to be any bother.
I had to sit on the cot and pull up my feet for Grandmother Clark to get past. She looked back at me, uncertainty clouding her face. Nana always gave me a hug and kiss before I went to sleep, but I hoped Grandmother Clark wouldn’t.
“Good night,” she said. “Call if you need anything. We’ll all be turning in soon. I think your daddy is about ready to fall over.”
I dimmed the lamp real low so nobody could see my silhouette through the curtain as I pulled off my clothes and slipped on the pajamas. Then I crawled between the covers on the cot.
Beneath the pillow, something hard-edged touched my hand. Exploring with my fingers, I knew before I pulled it out that it was the book Grandfather Clark used to read to me.
I got out of bed and turned up the lamp.
Happy Birthday, Granddaughter was written inside the cover. Now you can read your own stories.
It was quiet in the kitchen, as if they were waiting. I felt dizzy with too many feelings, and my pajamas clung to my back.
Daddy and the Clarks were nice, but I wanted to go home.
I put out the lamp, slid the book safely under the cot, and lay back down.
In the other room, the grown-ups took up their conversation about rural electrification.
I pressed the corners of my eyes to stop the tears from staining Grandmother Clark’s company pillowcase with the pretty embroidery. I lay still, not wanting to move on the cot, and my left foot fell asleep from where the cot frame pressed my ankle.
After a while, my daddy came back. I pretended to be sleeping as I listened to him taking off his clothes and hanging them on the pegs on the wall. Grandmother and Grandfather Clark and Aunt Belle made rustling sounds like birds bedding down for the night.
Finally it was so quiet, my ears ached, and I jumped when a fox yipped across the fields. My daddy groaned in his sleep and turned over. Wisps of memory stirred and I suddenly felt safe, but I missed Mama.
As I fell asleep, the cot seemed to sway and I floated into dreams. I couldn’t remember them the next morning, but I woke up happy to see the sun’s patterns on the wall. After breakfast, Daddy borrowed Grandfather Clark’s old Model A Ford to take me home. I told the Clarks thank you for the book and said I’d enjoyed my visit. As I started to climb in the car, Grandmother Clark slipped her arm around me and planted a quick kiss on my head.
“Come back soon,” she said. “When you can stay a while.”
Things looked better in the sunshine, and I liked bouncing along the rutted roads beside Daddy. He didn’t hardly slow down for the rough places and explained all the electrical stuff we passed.
“What I’d like to do, Mae Bug, is get a few jobs wiring houses right here. Folks around Panther Creek have known me since I was born. So it shouldn’t be too hard finding work. Then soon as I get some money saved up, I can find us a place to live.”
“But I’ve already got a place,” I cut in, hoping it wouldn’t hurt his feelings.
He nodded, but I couldn’t tell if he was really listening.
Grandpa was in the field when we got home, and Nana was at the well, pumping a bucket of water. She stopped squeaking the pump handle and asked my daddy if he’d like a glass of tea.
But he said he needed to
go talk to some people about finding work.
“I’ll be back soon,” he told me. “And we’ll try to find some trouble to get into.”
Nana made her mouth smile, but her eyes darkened. I could see her hand itching to reach out and draw me to her.
I felt like a little metal ball being pulled between two magnets.
“Bye,” I said. “See you later.” It was the best I could do with Nana standing right there.
As he turned toward the car he told Nana over his shoulder, “I’d be glad to fix that pump, Mae. It’s just a worn-out valve is all.”
I didn’t understand why Nana looked so sad when Daddy said that.
“That’s all right,” she replied after a minute.
Daddy got in the car, and I waved. I waved again as he pulled onto the road, but he wasn’t looking.
In the kitchen, Nana smoothed my hair behind my ears and cradled my face in her hands, which smelled of lye soap.
“Just making sure you washed behind your ears,” she said. I hugged her, burying my face in the front of her soft old housedress.
Aunty Rose wanted me to hand her clothespins while she hung the sheets on the line, something she could do very well for herself. She had at least one question for every clothespin I put in her hand. I thought about telling her that Grandfather Clark made wine and the whole family drank it but me.
When Grandpa came in at noon, he seemed to wash my hands extra good between his, like he was trying to wash my daddy off. After dinner, we went across the road to see my livestock.
I kind of kept waiting for my daddy to turn up again that day, but he didn’t.
What did he mean when he said he’d be back soon?
At dusk, I lay on my back in the grass, watching the chimney swallows circle, then drop into the chimney one by one. After the last swallow had disappeared, I gazed into the flat blue sky. The longer I looked, the deeper the sky got, and I could feel the earth moving.
Heaven was up there somewhere. But Nana said it was so high, we couldn’t see it from earth. Still, I kept looking. I wouldn’t mind catching a glimpse of Mama. I wished I knew what she thought about Daddy’s being home.
Over the River Page 5