JEWEL

by LOTT, BRET

  Dr. Beaudry came in to check on her every other day or so, and each time Brenda Kay let out a scream, her eyes gone open wide, her red mouth a perfect O as she turned her head from him, the memory of his face and the shots still heavy with her, though Dr. Basket’d stopped prescribing them a year and a half before, when it’d come clear to him her bones were as strong as she needed.

  Because Brenda Kay had walked everywhere, fearless, it would seem, but not that. She just knew no better, she’d left the house on more than one occasion without any of us knowing, just’d walked. She never got far, always to the edge of the woods out the back door, or a few yards from the road out the front before one or another of us would holler out, take off through the door and turn her back inside.

  But we’d been thankful for the walking, because it meant no more carrying her, no more toppling of chairs as she tried to pull herself up, no more climbing of the stairs up to Dr. Beaudry’s office, where we still went once a month for him to have a look at her. The pall of carrying her everywhere had become so a part of our lives that when suddenly she’d took to walking and that gray shroud’d been lifted, I’d seemed to see more daylight, find better colors in the sunset, hear rain outside where I’d heard nothing before. Brenda Kay was growing up, and it seemed there might be some sort of light at the end of this long tunnel.

  One morning late last August, not long before Burton moved out and long enough after she’d learned to walk she was eight now, eight years old she’d simply left the breakfast table and her plate of eggs and bacon, and gone to the back door. Every one was out the house except Burton and me, Billie Jean already to work at the bank, Leston in the woods, Annie already done with the morning chores and now in town with her girlfriends, Wilman to summer football practice at Purvis. Burton was at the table, shoveling in his food like always.

  Brenda Kay had on denim overalls and a pale blue blouse with a little lace collar, these as everything else she wore old clothes from Annie, who’d now started in to wearing some of Billie Jean’s old things, except that she’d get out the scissors and sewing basket and make her own changes to those clothes. She’d sheer off a few inches from an old skirt, fuss up the shoulder seams of a blouse so the sleeves looked fuller, puffier, all of this without a word to me. She was learning on her own, me thankful for that, though sorrowed at it, too. Every day I felt there’d been years lost to my children growing up, there were things I’d have loved to teach Annie, even if it was just the trick of cherry Lifesavers and lips I’d shown Billie Jean a Christmas morning too long ago.

  Burton had on only a T-shirt and blue jeans, his face puffed and tired and needing a shave. He worked the four to midnight shift over to the ice cream plant, and so I never rousted him out of bed, only let him come on down when he’d finished his sleep. The three of us here in the kitchen was no different than any other morning spent in our house.

  The radio was on, too, like every morning, turned to my favorite program, “Sunrise Serenade” out of New Orleans. It was a program I’d listened to for years, had even on occasion danced a little to in the kitchen with Annie when she was smaller, Brenda Kay in her high chair and watching, mouth open for a while before she’d smile at us, wave her arms. Every care of a day fell away when I’d listen to that program and the gospel songs by the The Stamps Quartet and Mother Maybell Carter, everything from instrumentals of “Amazing Grace, ” violins thick and sweet filling the air, on down to “Jesus Loves Me” on a simple, lonesome guitar.

  Maybe it was because for a moment or two on that morning it’d seemed somehow that things were on the mend, that the world and this child we’d been given weren’t so very heavy a load. Maybe it was the music, or the good knowledge my children even my Brenda Kay were healthy, as far as I knew happy, and that I had a grandchild. There was one more life on the face of this earth that I could lay claim to, and I knew I’d never be a grandmother like the only grandmother I ever knew. And maybe, just maybe, the good feeling was because my second son was here at the table, his plans to move to California already laid clear to us all. He was our foot in the door, even though Leston still sat across from me late nights, his face blank while I still tried to persuade him we had to move to California. For the good of us all.

  Maybe it was all that together the music, my children, the prospect of California suddenly shinier than it’d been in a long time that made me let Brenda Kay walk out the back door. I just watched her from the kitchen window as she made for the woods, her arms loose at her sides, her steps careful and precise in a delicate way, strange steps that involved her lifting one foot, placing it flat on the ground before her, then lifting the next foot and doing the same, steps so gentle I couldn’t imagine she’d break eggs walking like that. I let her walk.

  “Momma? ” Burton said behind me, and I heard his chair scrape against the floor. It was still August, the morning air heavy and thick, edged already with a piece of the heat that would descend on us later in the day. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was seeing my baby daughter, Brenda Kay, making for the woods in her awkward orthopedic shoes, shoes that cost twice as much as the shots had, shoes she grew out of every few months.

  She was on her own out there. Brenda Kay was outside, surrounded by that green, that sweet smell, that heavy air. Walking on her own.

  “Momma? ” Burton said again, and stood next to me at the sink, watching.

  From the corner of my eye I saw him turn to me once, then look back out at his sister.

  I said, “You do me a favor, honey, and you go out there and follow her.”

  I smiled, but didn’t turn to him, didn’t want to take my eyes off what I saw. “You hang back aways, ” I said, “and you just watch her. See where she goes. Watch out she don’t tangle up in any poison ivy.” I paused. “I just want to see where she goes, is all.”

  He didn’t move for a moment, and I saw him turn to me again. Then he kissed my cheek, a small little peck, but enough.

  He went to the back door, quick put on his workboots without even tying the laces, and he was out the door.

  I watched them both now, two of my children, one about to take out to California and a new world out there, the other into a world just as new for her, just as strange and different. Burton did as I said, hung back ten yards or so from her, and as a huge pipe organ played through “Onward Christian Soldiers” on the radio behind me, I smiled. Burton was walking slow, looking down at the ground, hands in his pockets, his steps easy. Brenda Kay was at the edge of the woods on the old trail now, her arms still at her sides, still with her gentle steps. Then she disappeared.

  Burton made it to the edge, and stopped. He tapped his toe to the ground, turned to the house. He waved at me. I waved back, and he was gone.

  A half hour later here they came, hand in hand, Burton huge and strong, his black hair still tossled with sleep, his face still in need of a shave, but his eyes suddenly brighter than I’d seen them before. And for all the size Burton’d seemed to take on in those thirty minutes, Brenda Kay’d seemed to grow as well, suddenly a little girl and no more the baby I’d had here for eight years. She was smiling the biggest smile I’d seen on her, her top two front teeth missing, most every other tooth showing.

  I’d missed that face the last half hour, my morning routine of care so deep in me that I’d gotten absolutely nothing done in the silence of those last thirty minutes. Because that was what stopped me, silence.

  The silence an empty house makes, even with a radio going. There was nowhere in my house a single person other than me, and while I’d stood at the kitchen window wringing out a cold dishrag again and again, searching out the trees for signs of my two children returning, I thought I knew something of how Leston could stand here at night, stare out at darkness. I thought maybe there was some comfort he found here in the dark of a house asleep, as close to quiet and empty as he could get.

  Maybe that silence was what he needed to help him solve what was crushing in on him from out in the dark.

/>   California was what would solve his life, I knew, California was what would change things for Leston. But he’d still have none of it, fresh in my head even two and a half years later the image of his half-smoked cigarette shot out into the water, his whispering “California” with all the disgust he could muster.

  Brenda Kay’s hand was tight in Burton’s as they came toward the house, and I turned from the window and went to the table, picked up as many plates as I could and brought them to the sink.

  I went to the back door, stepped out, my hands in fists at my side.

  “You two, ” I said, and shook my head, made like I was all bent out of shape over them. “You two.”

  “Momma! ” Brenda Kay said, still smiling, and with her free hand she pointed a thick white finger at her brother. “Burton, ” she said, “Burton! ” His name came out more like Button than anything else, every word she spoke choked off as they were in her throat, each utterance forced and quick. She could say all our names now, could ask for water or milk or more food, could tell me when I needed to take her to the bathroom, tell me if she was cold or too hot, “Momma, cold! ” she’d say, or holler out, “Momma, potty! ” “Momma, food! ” For l some reason her mouth couldn’t form the sound of anor an R, and her words came so fast they seemed fallen in on themselves, shrunken up and urgent no matter what, so that the children’s names became Nee, Wimn, Button, Bijen, James still no one she knew yet. Sometimes during the day she’d holler out “Miss Wimn” or “Miss Bijen” to let me know she might be feeling lonely, and I’d have to go to her, pick her up, hold her. She hadn’t yet attempted Cathe ral’s name, and only called out “Daddy! ” now and again on those few nights he’d pick her up in his arms, walk through the house with her, set her back down, his touch with her always out of duty, I thought, the father’s task.

  “That’s right, ” I said there on the porch, still shaking my head.

  “Burton came and got you, now didn’t he? I sent him out to get you, and you two take off who knows where. What am I supposed to do with you two?

  ” Burton squatted, picked her up, settled this suddenly big girl on his hip, and I could see the mud on her white shoes, grass stains at the toe.

  “This here’s my sister, ” Burton said, “and she went on an adventure, and I had to save her before she crossed the raging river.” Brenda Kay’s eyes were on his mouth as he spoke. The words meant nothing to her, I knew, but it was the speaking of them that mattered, just for her to be in his arms and listening. She lifted a hand to his mouth, touched his lips as if they were ice, just tapped them as he spoke, and when he stopped she left her fingers at his lips. Then he snarled a little, his eyes on her, and barked, made like he was going to bite her fingers.

  “Huh! Huh! ” she laughed, and hit his nose. “Huh, Momma! ” she said, and turned to me, then to Burton. “Huh! Huh! ” “Now you two, ” I said.

  Inside, Burton set her down on the kitchen floor. She got on her knees, crawled beneath the table, picked up one of the boys’ old baseballs I hadn’t even known was there. She crawled out, went to the larder door, leaned her back against it. She held the ball with both hands, her fingers so short and thick they hardly seemed big enough to hold it at all.

  Burton and I’d watched every move, me at the sink, eyes on her, Burton leaning his back against the counter, his hands on the edge. We hadn’t said anything, only watched as she set the ball on the floor, put a hand on top of it, trapped it.

  “There’s a bit more coffee, ” I said, and lifted out of the dishwater the first fork, wiped at it with the same rag I’d twisted to death.

  “Just heat it up a little.”

  I was waiting for him to talk, waiting for his report. I wanted his words on where she’d gone, but he didn’t seem to want to part with them.

  His eyes hadn’t yet met mine since we’d come in here, and the place was silent except for the radio again, “How Great Thou Art” on now, George Beverly Shea’s voice deep and warm through the kitchen.

  We were watching her again, Burton now leaning against the counter as before, when Brenda Kay started in to her singing. There were no words she sang, only her mouth open and moving, changing the pitch and shape of those sounds so that what came was more a joining of moans up and down, Brenda Kay oblivious of anyone around her. And she sang.

  “Tell me, ” I said, and lifted out my own coffee cup, rinsed it, set it on the drainboard.

  “Momma, ” he said, his head turned to his sister. “Momma, ” he said again, “it’s going to be hard to leave here.”

  “I know, ” I said. “But if it’s something you have to do, then it’s something you have to do.” I paused, held the rinsed cup in my hand.

  “And we’ll be seeing you sooner than you think.”

  He turned to me. There was my second son’s face, and no matter how old he would get there’d never disappear from that face the baby he’d once been, the face I’d known at my breast, the face I’d known at his first steps at ten months. There were his dark brown eyes my eyes his fine chin and jaw. And there was the thin line of a scar back near his left ear where Wilman’d hit him with a piece of wood from thirty feet, back before Burton’d learned the trick of standing just out of Wilman’s range so that his little brother would be the one to lose. That was Burton.

  Here.

  He said, “I hope that ain’t just a dream of yours, Momma.” He paused, his eyes on me. “You coming out to California.”

  “It’s not, ” I said. “You just know it’s not.” I lifted out a soapy plate, ran a rag across it. “Once you let it turn into a dream, ” I said, “then it won’t ever happen on you. I’m not letting it turn into a dream.”

  He looked at me a few moments longer while I held the plate in my hand, rinsed it, held it.

  Brenda Kay hit a note high up, hit it hard and loud and long, and I quick looked to her, surprised I wasn’t yet able to hear the difference between her singing and a wail of pain. She still had the baseball trapped beneath her hand, her eyes hard on it, and let her voice drop down low and soft.

  “She didn’t look back or side to side or anywheres, ” he finally said.

  He was staring out the window. “I just followed her. All the way back to the pasture. She just looked straight ahead and was walking.” He stopped, and I said nothing to urge him on, knew he was build . E Jrdwll I, ) ing his words to something here. It was in how he looked out the window, how he stared as if there’d be some answer out there.

  He said, “When we got to the pasture she just walked right out into the middle of it, on across. Her walking like she does, it’s a wonder grass even bent beneath her feet.” He gave a small laugh, shook his head. “I was only a few feet behind her. I didn’t want her coming up on no snakes, you know.”

  “Good, ” I said. I rinsed my hands, done by this time with the dishes except for the skillet.

  “Then we were headed into the woods back of the pasture, off towards Casey’s place, the back end of his property.” He stopped again, swallowed hard. He took in a big breath, held it.

  “Burton, ” I whispered, “what is it? ” “It’s nothing, ” he said, too quick, and let out the breath. “That’s it, ” he said. “She just walked. She was walking right on back into the woods, walking the straightest line I ever saw. She didn’t look much at the ground, and when she came up to a bush or old stump or tree or something she just went on around it.” He paused. “But then she’d get right back on track, ” he said. “I finally stopped her when she hit the creek. She was going to walk right into it, shoes and overalls and all.

  She would’ve gone right on in if I hadn’t come up behind her, took a hold of her hand. That’s when she turned to me. She looked up at me, and it took her a minute or so before she recognized me. Before she smiled.”

  He ran a hand back through his hair, in the move more of his daddy than he’d ever recognize himself. He turned to me. “And while I was following her back there, ” he said, looking right into my eyes, �
��I got this picture in my head of her walking for the rest of her life, right on in a straight line, just walking as long as she lived. And it give me the shivers, Momma. That picture.” He blinked, tried to give me a smile, though I knew that wasn’t what my boy really wanted to give me.

  I could see he wanted to cry, to give in to that, but him figuring he was too much a man.

  So I took him in my arms, held him close to me, my hands still wet with dishwater, and I held him, and I said, “You just say what you have to say, Burton.”

  “Momma, ” he said, and he’d started to cry, my boy about to head out to California and a life none of us could now imagine. “Momma, there’s somebody going to be following her the rest of her days, Momma. And I feel like I’m leaving y’all to do that. That’s what I feel like.”

  “You just go on, ” I said right away, “and you lead your life, and then we’re going to come on out there and you’ll be serving as our welcoming committee.”

  I pulled myself away from him, held him by the shoulders. Tears had fallen down his cheeks, and he cleared his throat, wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand.

  Already I was thanking God for him, and for every other of my children, even the one singing there on the floor, and thanking God, too, for her voice, the chance and confusing beauty of it. I thanked God for this all, even though I knew it was me would be following her all the way through her time on this earth, unless I took to heart the task before me, the one set up by the same God who’d given her to me, find a way to fix this, not simply watch from behind as she walked straight across the face of her days. l BUT WHATEVER I D BEEN THANKING HIM FOR THAT DAY SEEMED NOW A hundred years ago and lost to the smell of her dead skin, lost to the prospect of Brenda Kay’s not walking, lost to the perfect O of her terrible screams. Lost to the point I’d finally turned my face from Him, and took things into my own hands.