“Hey, what’s the matter? You’re not leveling with me,” I said, gripping his upper arm and trying to look him in the eye. I had not seen Hal cry half dozen times in all our growing-up years: it was scaring the hell out of me.

“I … I don’t want to go into it now, in front of the kids,” he managed to stammer in a poorly-controlled voice. Kip stood stock-still in the hall, his face a scared, stark question mark.

“Yeah … I understand. Hey, Kipper,” I said, turning to him, “do you think you could go in the den and look under the tree for a red package tied up with bright green ribbon? Get it and take it to Kris, so she can read the label and make sure your name is spelled right. Could you do that for me, partner?” Kip wandered doubtfully into the den, glancing back now and then at us as his dad and I sat beside each other, silently groping for words.

I cleared my throat. “So … maybe we should save this until after dinner?”

“Yeah, when we get the kids down for the night we’ll have some time to talk.”

“Just tell me this: is it you and Gail?”

“Oh, no, we’re … at least I think our marriage is okay.”

I felt the vise in my throat loosen a notch. I loved Gail like a sister. In fact, I guess she was the sister I had never had. She had seen me through the morass of puberty, giving big-sisterly advice about things Mom didn’t live long enough to tell me. I knew if it came down to it, I would have to put my emotional chips on my brother; I was just glad I didn’t have to make the choice.

“Okay, Hal, we’ll save it till later. But no more hedging. I want to know what’s going on. Got it?”
He nodded his head as he swiped a massive forearm across his eyes. “Yeah … it’ll be good to get it off my chest.”

We stood there for a couple of minutes while Hal got his face straight. I listened to the sounds of the household: Gail bustling in the kitchen, clanging pans and utensils; two of the kids fighting noisily about some inconsequential catastrophe; the sound of a game show on the television no one was watching. And I thought maybe I didn’t want to know whatever it was I would find out after dinner. I wasn’t sure I could deal with a tragedy striking so close to the center of what was precious to me. Hal was a sort of gravity for me. He was the farm and my childhood distilled into flesh—a human lodestone.

He sniffed and blinked rapidly, struggling to regain a façade of control. He straightened up and we walked into the den, arms around each others’ shoulders. We talked around the lumps in our throats until Gail called us to the table.

Dinner was a minuet of harmless conversation, accompanied by the uninhibited obbligato of the kids’ stream-of-consciousness jabber. Jimmy, the oldest, wanted to know how long I’d had the sports car, how fast would it run, did I get any tickets on the way here, and he made all A’s this quarter. Kris, the classic middle child, picked at her food, giggled, and got repeatedly grossed out by Kip’s clowning with his entree. Gail alternately dealt discipline and glanced back and forth between Hal and me, sensing the silences between words, feeling the presence of the invisible guest at the table.

It announced its presence in unanswered glances, in half-sighs falling feebly into silences which should have been filled by robust, chaotic, vigorous talk of family and the season and the crops. Not for the world would I broach any subject which might spill the wrenching pain of my brother’s grief out onto the table. But how could I know what raw nerve I might strike with the most innocuous reference? It was like walking on glass shards, barefooted and at night and without a flashlight.

So I answered questions, talked to the kids, and complimented the food that I barely tasted. For some reason, a line from a song kept running through my head like a litany. It was a song we used to sing in church: “Troublesome times are here / filling men’s hearts with fear … ”

With dinner eaten, and the children shooed down the hall to begin stalling bedtime, we shuttled the dishes by degrees to the side of the sink, then went into the den and sat down in the glow of a dying fire. Hal and I looked at each other with bleeding eyes until he glanced down, looked at Gail, cleared his throat and, after several false starts, hoarsely gasped, “I’m losing the farm, Frank.”

(To be continued)

So Fair and Bright (a weblog) by Thom Lemmons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

The place looked different. Not surprising; I hadn’t seen it since Reagan was president. Not the house so much—I expected that. It was more the land itself: flatter, if you can imagine it. More uniform. I’d noticed it on the drive in: fewer trees, and what little contour the terrain used to possess now laser-graded and scraped into the uniformity needed for irrigation. The few sloughs and sinks I remembered from the days when I used to hunt rabbits and squirrels had yielded to the implacable need for increased rice yields. It was just business—I understood that. But I still missed the sight of those old-growth cypresses and sweet gums.

I got out of the car and corralled the store-wrapped packages in and under my arms, turned and walked across the winter-browed front yard. Steam feathered in front of my face in the cool December evening. Through the kitchen windows I could see Gail bent over the sink, peeling or scrubbing or slicing or some such. I reached the front porch and started to nudge the doorbell with a knuckle, but before I did I paused, letting the silence of the darkened countryside seep into me.

The stillness out here was of a completely different quality from that which passed for quiet in the city. It was like being in a closet: one the size of the universe. No whine of truck tires on a freeway, no passing thump of car stereos, no distant music or laughter spilling from the open door of a nightclub or restaurant. Just an elemental hush that I could almost feel on the back of my neck.

I pressed the button and almost instantly heard the pounding of multiple sets of juvenile feet, stampeding toward the door. The door jerked open and a tangle of blond hair, denim, and arms and legs of various sizes flung itself about my waist. “It’s Uncle Frank! He’s here!”

“Hey guys! Take these packages before they’re destroyed.” I parceled the boxes out with a hug and a kiss for each of them. I looked up just in time to see Hal come out of the den, just off the entryway. He smiled. “Hey, bud. Glad you could make it.” We hugged tightly, slapping each other on the back.

I had seen Hal twist steel bolts in half, trying to snug them down just one more notch. And I had seen him rocking his babies, his hard, nicked hands cradling them as gently as a feathered nest.

“How was the drive?”
“Long and uneventful.”
“Still liking your Miata?”
“You bet. Made it here from Dallas in just over eight hours.”

Hal shook his head and smiled. “Well, come on in and put your stuff in Kris’s room. Gail’s still working on supper, so it’ll be a while.”

On my way to the kitchen, I glanced at the small tree in the den. The five-foot spruce struggled gamely to bear up under the weight of all the decorations, clustered as thick as chain mail. The few packages I had brought had just about doubled the volume of parcels under the tree.

Gail scurried between the stove and the refrigerator, choreographing the three-course meal and looking like a utility percussionist during a performance of the 1812 Overture. She finally glanced up and saw me.
She gave me a grin. “Hey, Frank!” She reached for me, a paring knife in her hand. “Oops, sorry,” she said, seeing my mock dodge. She tossed the knife on the counter beside the sink, then turned and gave me a good, tight squeeze. “Good to see you.”

“Likewise, kiddo. Glad to be here. Smells delicious.”
“Well, I hope it is. I got started late, as usual.”
“I’ve already been so advised. How you doing?”
“Oh … okay.”

I searched her eyes for the source of the delayed response, but she looked away.

“So, you can either help me slice potatoes or go in there and chase the kids and visit with your brother,” she said with a quickly summoned smile. “Your choice.”
“With my culinary skills, I can probably make the best contribution by getting out of your way.”
“That’s kind of what I was thinking. Dinner will be ready before you know it.”

I wandered back through the house, looking at everything. This was the same house my parents had brought me home to from the hospital. Through the years our folks had made additions here and there, and Hal and Gail had continued the process during their tenancy. The dwelling had started out as a very simple living room/kitchen/two bedroom crackerbox. Then, as times got a little more prosperous, Dad and Mom had added another bedroom, a carport, and enlarged the kitchen. Hal and Gail had added a den, an upstairs playroom, and a master suite.

So many joinings of timber and time, so many layers of memory … The house existed both Now and Then. The construction of my life had started with the building of this house. By the time I graduated from high school, I was pretty sure I’d outgrown this place. Turns out it had grown into me.

I felt Hal’s hand on my shoulder. “Whatcha doing?”
“Oh, just remembering stuff, I guess.”
“Yeah. Me, too.”
The tone in his voice pulled my head around to look at him.

“Something going on, bud?”
He stared into the middle distance for a second or two, then shook his head. “Nah. Let’s go sit in the den.”

There was a comfortable fire in the fireplace. The TV was on with the volume down; General Schwarzkopf was standing in front of a bank of microphones while stock quotes crawled across the bottom of the screen. Hal aimed the remote and the picture disappeared. I settled into an armchair and rested my feet on an ottoman, and Hal sank into his recliner. We both stared into the fire for a few seconds.

Kip, the youngest, scampered into the room. “Know what Santa’s bringing me, Uncle Frank?” he said, crawling into my lap.

I smiled down into his intent blue eyes. “No, Kipper, what’s that?”
“He’s bringing me a red tractor, just like my daddy’s.”
“No kidding! You going to help your dad plow?”
“Yeah. Just like my daddy.”

“Sounds good, pal. I bet your dad could use another good tractor driver.”
I ruffled Kip’s hair as he scooted out of my lap and trotted toward the stairs leading to the playroom. I grinned at Hal.

Tears gleamed on his cheeks as he stared into the fire. His mouth was twisted into a grimace of anguish.

“Hal? You okay?”

He just kept staring straight ahead.

(to be continued)

So Fair and Bright (a weblog) by Thom Lemmons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Mama was in the kitchen, flour up to her elbows, kneading and rolling out dough for pie crust.

“Mama, Kate broke her promise! She said if I washed dishes for her she would—”

Mama spun around to look at her. Perspiration was beaded all along her forehead. “Honey, I don’t have time to listen to this right now. I’m right in the middle of making pies for the singing school this week, and I’ve got to get this done. Now run on and play, and we’ll talk about this later. Run on, now.” Mama turned quickly back to her task. Annabelle felt her words catching in her throat as she looked at Mama, her back turned to Annabelle, working the dough as if it were the only thing she could ever think about.

A sob burst from her as Annabelle raced outside. She went down to the creek behind the pasture and sat for a long time on a smooth rock under a large black oak, sobbing into her hands and feeling like her heart was about to break. Over and over again, she pounded her small fist against the unyielding stone on which she sat. Between sobs, she said, over and over again, “It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not fair…” The words came out of her like some kind of angry song she was singing to nobody but herself.

Finally, drained of tears, she stared blankly into the ripples of the creek and considered what she should do. She was sure about one thing: Kate was going to be sorry.

Later that morning, Annabelle found Kate seated in the shade of the big horse chestnut tree behind the house, frowning and biting her lip as she tried on Jenny a new scarf she had just snipped from a bit of chintz she had found. Annabelle had scrubbed all traces of tears from her cheeks, and she carried Susan jauntily by the waist, smiling as she strode up to Kate.

“Say, Kate, why don’t you and me go get a board out of the barn and make us a teeter-totter with one of Papa’s saw-horses? We could really have fun seesawing, don’t you think?”

Kate gave Annabelle a wary look. “You’re not still mad at me?”

“Shucks, no, I’m not mad. I’ll get Mama to make me some doll clothes sometime. Come on, let’s take Jenny and Susan and play on the teeter-totter. It’ll be fun.”

Gus wandered over from where he and Teddy had been playing with toy soldiers in the dirt by the back steps. “Can we play too, Annabelle? Me ‘n Teddy want to seesaw too.”

“No, Gus. This is girls only; no boys allowed. Me and Kate are going to seesaw, aren’t we, Kate?” She looked at Kate expectantly.

“Yes. That’s right, Gus,” said Kate, instinctively siding with Annabelle against their little brothers. “It’s gir1s on1y. Me and Annabelle are going to play seesaw with our dolls, and when we’re through, you and Teddy can play. Let’s go, Annabelle,” she said, rising and dusting the grass off the back of her cotton shift.

“Okay, let’s go.” They ran to the barn, where Papa had stacked a large pile of rough-cut oak and hickory boards, and selected a ten-foot length of one-by-twelve that suited their purpose perfectly. Each carrying one end of the board, they hauled it between them to a nearby section of split-rail fence.

“Here, Kate,” said Annabelle, handing Susan to her sister. “You hold the dolls while I get the board fixed up.” Annabelle laid the board across the lowest rail of the fence and scooted it back and forth until it seemed centered.

“All right. Kate. You can hand me Susan now, and we can see-saw.”

“Here,” said Kate, handing over the doll, “but let’s not go too high; it scares me.”

“All right.”

They began to go up and down. “This is fun, isn’t it. Kate? Don’t you like this?”

Kate smiled as if she thought so, but wasn’t real sure. “Yes, it’s… it’s fun.”

“Wouldn’t you like to go just a little higher? Not much. just a little bit. We could put the board on the middle rail and make the board go faster. Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Well… I guess… I guess it would be okay.”

They got off the board, and Annabelle handed her doll to Kate again. She dragged the heavy, rough board off the rail, then picked up one end and set it on the middle rail. She slid it to the center and retrieved Susan. They got back on the board and started seesawing.

“Oh, this is just so much fun, Kate. I’m glad we decided to do this. Let’s go a little faster, all right? Don’t you think that would be fun?”

“All right,” Kate said, but her face said she wasn’t too sure about it. Annabelle pushed hard off the ground anyway, sending Kate’s end of the board thumping down. Annabelle soared into the air higher than before.

“Whee! That’s really fun! Push hard, Kate, and let’s go really fast.”

Gradually, Kate started to get more into the spirit of it, laughing and grinning as the seesaw lifted her up and set her back down again.

When Annabelle judged the time was right, she said, “Oh, Kate, this is so much fun, what if we put the board all the way on the top rail?”

By now, Kate had forgotten her earlier hesitation. She scooted off her end of the board and held out her hand to Annabelle to take Susan so Kate could make the adjustment. When Annabelle had hefted the board onto the top rail and retrieved Susan, she raised her end of the board so Kate could climb on. By now, though, the plank’s opposite end was too high for Kate to mount from the ground, so she had to clamber up the fence and make a careful, backward-scooting journey out to her end of the board. The coarse, unfinished surface of the wood snagged her pantaloons and Kate had to be really careful to keep from getting splinters in her behind, but she made it.

Soon she and Kate were levering each other up and down, the added height giving Annabelle a giddy, tumbling feeling in her belly with each quick ascent and drop. Annabelle watched her older sister, now with the sky at her back, now the grass of the pasture. She was smiling at Jenny, cradled in the crook of her arm.

And then, as Kate launched herself into the air and reached the upper limit of her ascent. Annabelle quickly hopped off her end of the board. Kate came crashing to the ground. She screamed and threw out her arms in an attempt to maintain her balance. Jenny flew, skirts fluttering. through the air, and landed against a rock. Her beautiful china face shattered into tiny shards. Kate landed hard on her backside. She let out a howl that made it sound like she was being skinned alive, and her cry doubled in volume when she realized that Jenny was no more.

Annabelle stood off to one side and watched, eyes slightly squinted. She felt a little bit bad, now that things had happened the way they had—but not too much, since Kate had it coming.

Mama came dashing out of the house, clutching a can of soda to treat the bee sting or whatever other hurt had prompted Kate’s howl of pain. She rushed up to the girls. Kate was yelping like a scalded dog; Annabelle was watching and waiting.

“What happened, honey? What’s the matter?”

“Annabelle… she … she made me fall … she … she did it on purpose … and … and I fell and hurt myself … and … and now Jenny’s broken!”

When she said the last part, Kate lost what little bit of control she had left; it dissolved into a gushing cry of grief and anger that sounded like it was never going to stop.

Mama looked hard at Annabelle. “Is this true? You did this to Kate on purpose?”

Annabelle looked at Mama, then away. The words came out of her in a rush.

“Yes, ma’am, because Kate promised me if I washed dishes for her last week, she would make me some doll clothes for Susan, and I did the dishes all week, and then Kate broke her promise, and … and I tried to tell you so, but you…” She began to run out of steam as she felt twinges of guilt threatening to spill in burning droplets from her eyes.

Mama stood, her hands on her hips, looking from Annabelle to where Jenny lay, her face a jagged, dark cavity surrounded by shiny brunette curls. Tight-lipped, she pondered how to remedy the situation, when a crash from inside the house reminded her she had left Teddy and Gus playing in the kitchen where she was working. Quickly she reached down and snatched Susan from Annabelle’s arms and placed her in Kate’s hands. “Since you made Kate break her doll, you‘ll just have to give her yours.” Mama wheeled about and strode quickly back to the house.

For the second time that morning, Annabelle felt a knot closing her throat. She turned and raced away, leaving Kate sniffling on the ground. She spent the rest of the day beside the creek, grieving for the loss of her beloved Susan; she felt as though Mama had ripped away a piece of her chest when she took Susan from her. She did not return to the house even for lunch, so great was the ache in her heart. She decided she’d rather stay in the woods and starve than go to the house and see Kate dressing Susan in the clothes that had belonged to Jenny.

As the evening sun came slanting through the trees and the air cooled with the breath of coming night, Annabelle decided to appeal to the only other authority she knew; she would go and talk to Papa.

******

“Whoa, there. Whoa,” called Papa in a low voice as the team reached the pasture gate. As Papa put his hard hands gently around Annabelle’s waist to place her on Sally’s back, he said, “What’s the matter, honey? You been crying?”

Annabelle spilled the story of the dolls in a teary-voiced torrent. By the time she finished, she was sobbing again; just telling the story made her remember how she had felt when Mama yanked Susan away from her and gave her to Kate.

Papa, the muscles working in his jaws, was looking down at the ground. After a little while, he raised his eyes, took a deep breath, and lightly flicked Tom’s flank with the end of the reins. “Giddup.” The team resumed ambling toward the barn.

When Papa and Annabelle, hand in hand, came into the kitchen, Papa said, “Clara, I want you to make sure Annabelle gets a bath tonight. Tomorrow morning she’s going into Manchester with you and me.”

Mama stared, uncomprehending. “What do you mean? Tomorrow’s Tuesday, and you’re right in the middle of plowing the corn. We can’t take half a day in the middle of the week to go into town and back.”

“Well, we’re going anyway. We’re going to get Annabelle a new doll and some cloth for you to make her some doll clothes.”

“Do what? We can’t afford that! I don’t have time … and—” Mama glanced around at Annabelle and Kate, standing wide-eyed, listening. “You girls go outside and wash your hands. Go on.”

As they left the kitchen, they could hear Papa’s low voice begin, “Clara, you get down that sugar jar and get some of your sewing money out, because we’re going to do just what I said…”

When the children, a few moments later, trooped into the kitchen for supper, Mama and Papa were already seated at the table. Papa had a hard look about his eyes, and the muscles in his jaws were working in and out. Mama was staring down at her plate, a resigned, angry look on her face. No more was said about dolls, or much of anything else, that evening.

******

Early the next morning, Papa came into Annabelle and Kate’s room and called out, “Annabelle! Roll out of bed and get dressed, honey. It’s time to go!” She needed no further admonition; she had scarcely slept that night. A few minutes later, she went into the kitchen where Pete, the oldest of the five children, sat at the table, yawning and rubbing his bleary eyes. Papa was giving him instructions.

“Mama’s got eggs fixed for you and the others. Make sure the little boys get something to eat, then get your hoe and start weeding the cotton along the fencerow beside the barn. Tell Kate to watch the boys and not let them get into mischief. We’ll be back by mid-afternoon. All right?” Pete nodded sleepily.

Papa held out his hand to Annabelle. “Come on, sugar. Mama’s got you some breakfast, and she’s already on the wagon. Let’s go.” Annabelle and Papa went out into the yard where Tom and Sally stood stamping and champing at their bits, hitched to the flatbed wagon. Mama sat primly on the seat, looking straight ahead and nowhere else.

Papa gave Annabelle a hand up into the wagon bed. Mama turned and handed her a Mason jar filled with cornbread crumbled into milk, a teaspoon protruding from it. Papa climbed onto the seat, picked up the reins, and flipped them. “Giddup. Let’s go.” They slowly rolled out of the yard and down the lane toward the Manchester road.

Annabelle’s mind was running around in circles for the whole ten-mile drive into town. Part of her was a little bit afraid: Mama and Papa never disagreed in front of the children. For Papa to override Mama in this way was, to Annabelle, scarcely short of a miracle. And then, she remembered why Papa had done what he’d done, and her heart felt as if it might break wide open with gratefulness.

They stopped the wagon in front of Henderson’s Dry Goods, on the dusty little main street of Manchester. Mr. Henderson, with his bushy, white beard and wearing his shopkeeper’s apron, carne out to greet them with a somewhat puzzled smile on his face.

“Howdy there. Leland. Good morning, Clara. What can we help you with today?” Mr. Henderson’s voice sounded like he was thinking of another question, but deciding not to ask it.

Mama dismounted from the wagon without a word and stomped into the store past Mr. Henderson without saying anything to anybody.

The storekeeper turned his head to watch her, then looked a question at Papa, who gave a sad little smile and a half-shrug. Mr. Henderson went back into the store .

Papa helped Annabelle down from the wagon. “You best go in there and tell Mama what you want. I’ll wait out here with the horses.” Annabelle floated into the store.

******

That night, Annabelle sat on the bed, still unable to think of sleep. Once again, just to make sure, she leaned over, reaching under the head of her side of the bed, and felt around in the darkness of her hiding place until her fingers traced the shape of Mary, her new doll. As Annabelle’s fingertips brushed the lacy outlines of Mary’s beautiful yellow gown, Kate, lying on her side with her face turned away from Annabelle, spoke.

“Annabelle? I was just thinking… Maybe sometimes we could trade clothes for our dolls. You know, like I could let you put some of … some of Susan’s clothes on Mary, and you could let Susan try on some of the things Mama made for Mary. What do you say?”

There was a long pause in the flickering near-darkness. Annabelle smiled to herself. “Maybe so, Kate.” Another long, quiet spell. “Maybe if you would do some of my chores…”

So Fair and Bright (a weblog) by Thom Lemmons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License

Annabelle could hardly believe her eyes. She was afraid to close them, in fact, for fear that she might be dreaming.

She cradled in her arms a china doll with rouged cheeks. beautiful blue eyes, and silky blond hair just about the identical shade of her own. “Susan,” Annabelle said to her doll in almost the same voice she used when she was saying her prayers. “Your name is Susan.” The dolls were the only things she and Kate had wanted for Christmas this year. Mama had said, “I don’t know… we’ll see” they way she did when she was trying to say yes without letting them get their hopes up. But somehow it had been done, and to Annabelle it seemed like a miracle.
“What’ll you call your doll, Kate?” she said to her sister.

“I think I’ll name her Jenny,” Kate said, when she could tug her eyes away from her own doll. “Yes, I believe I’ll name her Jenny and she’ll have the most beautiful clothes anywhere. Since her hair is the same brown as mine, I’ll make her a dress just like my blue gingham one.”

Annabelle eyed Kate and her doll, a wish trying to get started somewhere inside her. It was true; Kate could sew all by herself, and she would make Jenny a dress that would make everyone forget the plain muslin shifts the dolls had worn home from the store. Annabelle looked hopefully at Mama, hoping she would notice, hoping she would offer to make a trousseau for Susan, but Gus had gotten into a quarrel with Teddy over one of their barely unwrapped toys, and Mama was busy handing out thumps and jerks to make the little boys stop squabbling amid the wrapping paper.

Maybe a little later, I can ask her, Annabelle thought, and as she held Susan in her arms and gently stroked her shiny blonde hair, she forgot about everything except how much fun she and Kate were going to have, playing with their dolls.

As winter began to yield grudgingly to spring, the bare switches of the trees standing in the soggy bottoms and along the steep hillsides began to swell at their tips with buds straining to burst. The ash, hickory, oak, and sassafras started to show the hints of green so faint that Annabelle thought they were only her imagination. By the time the tender, new leaves were big enough to flutter in the cool breezes of spring, Papa had started leaving the house with the sunrise, turning the soil of the bottoms in four-foot widths as he followed Tom and Sally up and back, up and back.

Each day, when the morning’s chores were done, Kate and Annabelle would play dolls. Kate was the older and usually dictated the terms of the day’s play, but Annabelle didn’t mind that so much. Sometimes they would climb with Susan and Jenny into the apple trees behind the barn and play at having a millinery shop. Jenny and Susan would be their customers and the girls, proper, attentive shopkeepers, would assist the ladies in choosing the perfect apple-leaf-and-morning-glory hats to set off their outfits to best advantage. Other times, they would shop for groceries, helping Jenny and Susan select the supplies they needed to cook meals for their families.
True to her word, Kate had made several outfits for Jenny, using the same material Mama bought for her to make her own clothes. Jenny had a blue gingham sundress and a lovely blue-and-white polka dot skirt with a matching jacket. She even had a little white bonnet Kate had fashioned from a scrap of silk Mama had left over from making a wedding dress for a neighbor girl. Susan had nothing to compare with Jenny’s wardrobe. She still wore the plain white muslin frock, now grimy from frequent handling, that she had worn the day Annabelle unwrapped her.

Each time Annabelle tried to approach Mama about sewing Susan some nicer clothes, something pulled Mama away. She was always busy, it seemed. Nor could Annabelle convince Kate of the necessity of clothing the doll. Kate was wrapped up in Jenny, and when she did have some spare time, she could always find something more important to do than work on a dress for Susan. “I don’t have time to do that right now,” she’d say. “Mama says I have to help her finish the quilt she’s making for Gus’s bed, so don’t bother me with that now, because I don’t have time for it.”

Except for when she and Kate had finished their chores and could start playing dolls, Annabelle’s favorite time of day was in the evening, when she waited by the pasture gate for Papa to bring in the team. The horses would be walking slow, their heads down as they dragged their trace chains with Papa walking behind them. He would reach her, softly call out “Whoa” to Tom and Sally, then pick Annabelle up and put her on Tom or Sally’s broad, sweaty back. She could talk to Papa without having to share him with anyone else. Bathed in the salty, warm smell of the lathered horses, she could almost forget about Kate bossing her around and Mama never paying her any mind.

One day, swaying atop Sally on the way to the barn with Papa walking along beside, she decided to say something about the doll clothes.

“Papa, you know Kate’s doll has lots of nice clothes.”
“Yes, honey, she does, I guess.”
“And you know I can’t sew like Kate.”
“Yes.” Papa was using his slow, thinking voice.
“Could you talk to Mama and get her to make me some clothes for my doll?”
“Well, now, sugar.”

For a minute, Annabelle thought Papa had forgotten she was there.

“I don’t rightly know,” he said, finally. “Your mama has an awful lot of things to do right now, and I’m not too sure. We’ll see…”

When Papa said “We’ll see” it was different than when Mama said it. Annabelle did her best to be patient, though; she waited all through supper that night, listening carefully to see if Papa would say anything to Mama. But he didn’t, and Annabelle knew better than to ask Mama directly at the supper table. Besides, when Mama was busy, which was all the time, her patience was in short supply.

The next day was Sunday, and what with going to church and Sunday school and visiting, there wasn’t time to talk to Mama or Papa. But sitting on the quilt in the wagon on the way home, Annabelle decided to make a deal with Kate. That night, as they dressed for bed by the flickering light of their coal-oil lamp, Annabelle said, “Isn’t it your turn to wash dishes this week?”

“Yes. I guess so. Why?”
“Well, I was just thinking. If you’d sew me some doll clothes for Susan, I’d wash dishes for you all week, and you’d have more time to play.”
“Then when would you do your chores?”
“I’d get my work done, and wash the dishes too. And you wouldn’t have hardly anything to do. Come on, what do you say, Kate?”
“Well… I guess it would be all right. As long as everything got done… and I do hate washing dishes so. I’d rather do almost anything than wash dishes… All right. I’ll do it. But you have to wash after every meal, and for the whole week.”
“I know it. So … do we have a deal?”
“Yes. I guess so.”
“You promise?”
“All right. I promise.”

Annabelle went to bed that night with visions of beautiful doll clothes dancing in her head.
The next morning after breakfast as Mama was clearing the table, Kate skipped toward the door, cradling Jenny in the bend of her elbow.

“Mama, Annabelle said she’d do the dishes for me,” she said over her shoulder as she ran outside. Mama looked at Annabelle, saw her quick nod, and turned back to her work.
Annabelle, a dish cloth wrapped around each hand, dipped hot water from the stove reservoir into the tin pail, then carefully carried it to the kitchen table, where the two dishpans sat side by side. She had to stand on a chair so she could raise the pail up high enough to empty it carefully into first one pan, then the other, trying to keep from splashing herself with the near-boiling water.

When the dish pans had water in them, she began stacking the breakfast dishes beside the pans. She put the dishes, a few at a time, into the left-hand pan to begin soaking. After rubbing lye soap onto a wet dishrag, Annabelle carefully scrubbed the plates, saucers, and cups from breakfast, rinsed them in the right-hand pan, and set them aside on the table. After all the dishes had been washed and rinsed, she dried them and replaced them in the cupboard.

When this was done. she paused a moment to push the sweaty strands out of her eyes, then poured the hot, soapy water from the dish- pans into the tin pail and lugged it out behind the smokehouse. She set it heavily on the ground and tipped it over, letting the steamy, greasy dishwater soak slowly into the soil, leaving a residue of bacon rinds. bread crumbs, and the brown, lacy edges of fried eggs. Puffing out her cheeks and wiping her face again, she carried the pail to the cistern and refilled it, took it back into the kitchen and , heaving with all the muscles in her arms and shoulders, poured its contents into the stove reservoir. She wiped the table and swept the floor.

Now that she had finished Kate’s chores, she could take up her own assigned task for the morning, which was to scatter the grain-and-table-leavings mixture for the chickens. In the evening, she would go into the henhouse to gather the day’s eggs. Egg-gathering had to be done only after supper, but for the other two meals of the day, Annabelle would have to haul water from the cistern to refill the stove reservoir after dish-washing, besides making sure the stove had adequate fuel to keep the water hot. Right now, though, her work finished until shortly before noon, Annabelle was free to join Kate in play.

This pattern repeated at each mealtime for a week. Along about Thursday, Annabelle, while wearily struggling with the heavy pail full of water on her way to the house from the cistern, happened to glance toward the barn to see Kate chattering at Jenny under one of the apple trees. For a moment she doubted the wisdom of the bargain she had made. Kate had practically had a week’s vacation from chores and had not failed to make sure Annabelle knew just how much she was enjoying the extra time she had to play. Each evening at bedtime Annabelle had to listen to Kate’s account of that day’s adventures with Jenny.

As much as Kate’s ways annoyed Annabelle, she knew her older sister too well to act put out; Kate might change her mind about the deal they’d made. So Annabelle quietly bided her time, swallowed the words she felt like saying to Kate, and kept on doing her work and Kate’s, too.

At last, the end of the week came. Annabelle reminded Kate, as they dressed for church, that she had held up her side of the bargain. Although Annabelle still had to wash dishes for the corning week in her normal turn, Kate would again share the chores. And besides, Kate now owed her some doll clothes.

Kate said nothing. She wore a sulking look as she finished brushing her hair and slouched outside to board the wagon.

That morning at church, when the sermon was finally over, the congregation rose and began to sing: “ Beautiful robe so white, beautiful crown of light…” All Annabelle could think of were the lovely dress and bonnet she had planned for Susan.

After lunch, as they lay on their feather-stuffed ticking mattress, where they were supposed to be napping, Annabelle, whispering so Mama and Papa couldn’t hear, reminded Kate again about the doll clothes.
“When you make the dress for Susan—”

“Oh, for goodness sakes, Annabelle! It’s Sunday! We’re supposed to rest on Sunday. Can’t you leave me alone about your doll clothes at least until tomorrow?” Kate turned her face away from Annabelle and tried to act like she was asleep.

When Annabelle finished sweeping the kitchen the next morning after breakfast, she ran outside to find Kate sitting on the fence beside the henhouse, fiddling with Jenny’s hair and staring down the slope behind the house toward the tree-lined creek.

“Kate, I did what I said I would do, and now it’s your turn. I want you to make Susan a dress and bonnet out of that scrap of yellow Mama saved for me.”
“Well, I’ve changed my mind,” Kate said. “I’ve decided I don’t have time to make your silly old doll clothes.”
Annabelle stared at Kate. “But you promised! And I washed dishes for you a whole week besides doing my own chores. You promised.”
“I told you I changed my mind, and besides that, you can’t make me do it, ‘cause I’m the oldest, so there!” Kate jumped off the fence and ran away.

So Fair and Bright (a weblog) by Thom Lemmons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

“He ought not to have said that about you,” she heard Francis saying. “Homer gets mad, he don’t even listen to himself. But he had no call to—”

“What he said was true,” she blurted, forced by her hurt and her disgrace into a sudden need to bludgeon Francis with the blunt instrument of an admission. “I’ve done some things I’m not too proud of. I let a man get. . . familiar, and. . . I had a doctor take the . . . take it out. You might as well know it now as later.”

The blacktop road unwound slowly before them. A light shower had begun to fall and Francis flicked the lever and sent the wipers squawking across the moistened windshield until a little more rain accumulated. They drove on in silence for a mile, then two.

“It don’t make no difference,” he said, finally, just as they passed the sign marking the Monroe city limits.

“What?”

“What you done—it don’t matter.” He turned the steering wheel, hand-over-hand, and pulled the truck onto Center Avenue, heading for her street. He turned onto the street and rolled slowly to a halt in front of Aunt Darlene’s house. Only when he had shifted into neutral and switched off the engine did he turn and look at her. “It don’t matter to me, Loretta. I still feel the same.”

Time was when she might have been crying, right now…

****

That night, Homer’s chest pains flared up again. At three in the morning, Deke had to drive him to the hospital in Pikeville. By noon, he had been transferred by ambulance to the big hospital in Cape Girardeau, his condition listed as critical.

Loretta borrowed Aunt Darlene’s ancient DeSoto and drove the six miles up into the hills to the farm. She parked and walked around to the kitchen door, which was unlocked. No one was inside. On her way back out, she noticed the pile of dirty dishes beside and in the sink, the crumbs and smears of food on the kitchen table.

She found Francis down at the hog pens, standing in the mud and pouring feed into the trough while trying to keep his feet among a swirling horde of apparently ravenous feeder pigs. He finished pouring the contents of his bucket and glanced up. He saw her and looked away, like she’d caught him doing something bad. Then, as if resolved to take his medicine, kicked his way through the mob of swine and walked slowly toward her, his eyes on the ground in front of his feet.

“He’s your brother. Why aren’t you there?”

He rested a hand on the top rail of the fence and looked at a vacant place over her left shoulder.

“You won’t do me any good by turning your back on him now,” she said.

“Who’s gonna feed the pigs?” He sounded like a little boy with his feelings hurt.

She waited.

“What he said wasn’t just about you,” he stated in slow words. “It was about me, too. I reckon I just ain’t ready to forgive. Even if. . .” He took in a deep breath, let it slowly out. “Even if he is sick. Sick don’t take back what he said.” He managed a glance at her, then turned and slogged back across the hog pen, the bucket swinging forlornly at the end of his arm.

****

When Loretta walked into the waiting room, Deke looked up in surprise. “Can I see him?” she asked.

Deke shrugged. “Not sure. Doc says he needs rest right now. He ain’t out of the woods yet.

“All right.” She sat down beside Deke. “I’ll wait.”

An hour or so later, the doctor entered the waiting room. He had a clipboard tucked under his arm and he wore a neutral expression. Deke glanced at him and immediately stood. “Doc? Is he—”

“He’s awake,” the doctor replied, his eyes flickering from Deke to Loretta. “I think he’s a little stronger, but not much. If you want to talk to him, go on in, but don’t take long. I don’t want to stress him at all right now.”

Deke turned at looked at her. He stoked his chin a time or two and reached around to rub the back of his neck. “Why don’t you go in?” he said, finally.

“But . . . Are you sure?”

A faint grin curved his lips. “Yeah. You go in. You need to more than I do.”

She stood, nervously smoothing the back of her skirt. Taking a final look at Deke, she asked the doctor, “Which room?”

The doctor was looking at Deke. “She family?”

Deke looked at her and smiled gently. “Yeah, Doc. Let her go in and talk to him.”

“Two-thirteen,” the doctor said, inclining his head in the direction of the room. “Across from the nurse’s station, third door on your left.”

The door swung shut soundlessly behind her as she walked into the dimly lit room. Homer was propped up slightly, and an oxygen mask was clamped over his face. An IV tube ran from his arm up into a bag of clear fluid, hanging from a rack above his head. His chest rose and fell in a ragged rhythm. She walked slowly forward, until she stood at the foot of his bed. At first she thought the doctor had been mistaken, that Homer was still asleep, but then she detected the thin line of glimmer beneath his drooping eyelids. “Homer?” she said.

His head stirred slightly on the pillow and his eyelids fluttered open. For a moment, it looked as if he was struggling to pin down the location where the voice had come from, but then he focused on her. His eyes widened slightly, then narrowed.

She thought perhaps she ought to leave. It wasn’t as if a man who had just had a heart attack needed another jolt to his system, as a visit from her must surely be. And then, she thought again about why she had come and what she had to tell him, and she stood her ground and began to speak.

“Homer, Deke told me I could come in here. You don’t have to talk to me. The doctor says you probably shouldn’t, anyway; says you need lots of rest.” Self-consciously, she began to toy with the snap on her purse. His breathing was slower now, but his eyes were still on her face. “The things you said about me the other day. . . They were all true. About my past, I mean, and the mistakes I’ve made.” Setting her purse on the bed, she hugged herself and took two paces toward the curtained windows. “Whether you believe it or not, I care a lot about Fran— I mean, Skeet, and that’s the Lord’s truth.”

Her insides were skittish, as if she’d been called to the blackboard during math class. Drawing a deep breath felt risky. She glanced over her shoulder. His eyes were still open, but they no longer watched her. Homer appeared to be looking at a spot on the ceiling of the room. He might be listening to her or he might not, but she made herself keep talking anyway, knowing if she stopped she’d never be able to finish. “I haven’t had much happiness in my life, Homer. Fact, I’ve had mostly the other, seems like.” She moved from the window to a spot near the foot of his bed. “I can tell you’ve had your share of the other, too.” His eyes glittered toward her, then back to the safe place on the ceiling. “We don’t get many chances, I don’t think,” she said, “and it’s easy to be afraid of the ones we get, specially folks like me… and maybe you.”

She unfolded her arms and placed her hands on the footboard of his bed, leaning over it like a pulpit. “Skeet’s giving me a chance, Homer. I’m scared of it, but . . .  You may not can ever trust me, but I hope you’ll at least try to understand.”

She picked up her purse from the foot of the bed. “Well, the doctor said I shouldn’t stay too long.” She turned to walk out, then faced him once more. “I’m sorry, Homer. I really hope you get to feeling better. I think he’d say the same, if he knew how.”

On her way out she passed Deke. He was still standing in the waiting room, hands in his hip pockets, smiling and nodding to himself.

****

They got married two weeks later, in the office of the Justice of the Peace in the courthouse at Pikeville. Deke signed the license as one witness, and the JP’s secretary signed as the other. Skeet wore his one and only suit, a blue serge with sleeves about an inch short of stylish.

Deke drove them to the station in Cairo and carried Loretta’s cardboard valise to the gate where they were to board the afternoon train to Memphis. They handed their bags to a porter just as the last call was announced. Deke shook hands gravely with his twin brother, then with Loretta. “Don’t worry about anything,” he said in his quiet voice, “just have a nice time.”

Loretta mounted the steps, but Skeet lagged behind, his hands jammed in his hip pockets. He was looking at the ground in front of Deke’s feet. “I’m sorry about . . . not goin’ to see him.”

“It’s all right,” Deke said. “Let it go. Doc says he’ll be able to come home in a week or two.” Deke risked a glance at his brother. “You might could tell him yourself.”

Skeet nodded slowly, not looking at Deke. “Maybe I will.” He glanced over his shoulder, to where Loretta waited for him on the steps of the car. “Well, I better go on, I guess.”

Deke nodded. Skeet climbed the steps and followed Loretta down the center aisle of the parlor car. The train began moving slowly. Looking back, they could see Deke grinning and waving as the platform slid away behind them.

****

They had just reached their hotel room and set their bags down when a knock came on the door. Skeet went to the door and opened it to find a bellhop standing in the hallway, holding a Western Union telegram. “Mr. and Mrs. Francis Collins?” he was asking.

“Yeah, I guess,” Skeet said in a puzzled voice. He took the wire and fished a quarter out of his pocket. “Thank you, sir,” the boy said as he left.

Skeet tore open the envelope, shaking his head. “That Deke. He didn’t need to waste his money on—”

He fell silent. After a minute, Loretta came up beside him, reading the telegram over his shoulder.

REGIONAL MEMORIAL HOSPITAL CAPE GIRARDEAU MO

TO MR. AND MRS FRANCIS COLLINS

KING COTTON HOTEL MEMPHIS TENN

GOOD LUCK STOP HOMER

–End–

So Fair and Bright (a weblog) by Thom Lemmons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Then there was the difficulty of what to call him. She imagined his brothers called him “Skeet,” and she wasn’t sure what their reaction would be to hearing her refer to him as “Francis.” She had visions of the ridicule they might heap on him, the not-so-sly glances they might aim at him and at her. “Francis” just didn’t seem to fit, somehow, even if it was the name he preferred her to use. She made up her mind to ask him about it when he arrived—if she could remember.

Finally, the red pickup hove into view. Though she longed to dash down the steps and wait for him by the side of the street, Loretta made herself stay in the house and wait for Skeet to knock at the door like a gentleman. “He’s here, Aunt Darlene,” she called over her shoulder, just as Skeet rapped at the door.

***

It was a gray day, but the clouds weren’t ominous, as they might have been before a summer thunderstorm. Rather, they formed a sort of indistinct, gray dome over the day; gave it a kind of all-around, diffused light, rather than the direct, straight-line glare that came on a clearer day. The blacktop road wound up the flank of Crowley’s Ridge, then dipped down into the hollow on the other side. Skeet turned in to a red gravel driveway beside a battered gray mailbox teetering precariously atop a weather-beaten post, the family name slapdashed in black paint on the mailbox’s side. The driveway angled up the side of a hill toward the large, two-story frame farmhouse where the brothers lived.

He stopped the truck, got out, and went around to open her door, as he always did. Today she was too nervous to wonder, as she usually did, where a forty-year-old, bachelor hog farmer had learned such manners. He held her elbow as they went up the steps onto the large front porch. Their footsteps seemed to echo through the empty space beneath the wide planks as they approached the screened front door. The wooden door on the other side of the screen was closed. Skeet twisted the doorknob, but it was locked. Muttering under his breath, he knocked loudly.

After what seemed a long time, they heard footsteps approaching the door from inside the house. The knob jiggled as someone unlocked the door, then it came open with protesting squeaks of the door against its frame. Standing in the doorway was a shorter, stockier, older version of Skeet—Francis, she corrected herself. Their greeter looked dourly first at her companion, then at her, then back again at him. “What’s the matter?  Kitchen door not good enough for company?”

Instead of answering, Francis turned to her. “This here’s Homer, my older brother,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the man in the doorway. “Reckon Deke’s inside, somewhere.” He stood aside, motioning her toward the entrance. For a moment, it looked to her as if Homer intended to block her way into the house, but he stood aside, even nodded gruffly to her as she approached. She gave him her best imitation of a sincere, easygoing smile, and stepped cautiously in. “Loretta,” he heard Francis say to Homer as they followed.

Just inside the entry, a dark, pine-paneled stairway rose to a landing, then turned at a right angle and ascended into the dark upper reaches of the old house. To the right of the entry opened the parlor, which they entered. Francis escorted her to the only upholstered chair in the room, an overstuffed armchair with glimpses of horsehair  showing at some of the seams in the faded, brown-and-green tapestry covering. She sat down, and Francis sat beside her on a straight-backed, cane-bottomed chair. Homer sat across the room in an old-looking mission rocker, beside a smoke-stained brick fireplace.

The older brother had on new-looking blue denim bib overalls and a white dress shirt, buttoned to the neck. His thinning hair was straight and steely gray—the same color as his eyes—and parted razor-straight down the middle of his skull. He wore scarred black brogans and his hands, though appearing freshly scrubbed, bore countless nicks and scratches with the dirt of his vocation rubbed indelibly into them. He looked everywhere in the room but at her, rocking slowly with his hands on his knees.

She cleared her throat, and to her the sound was as loud as Gabriel’s trumpet. “Your house is certainly nice,” she said. “Lots of room.”

Homer grunted. “Too hard to heat in the winter. Damned ol’ place is fallin’ down.”

She thought Francis stiffened beside her when Homer used the swear word, but she forced herself to keep a pleasant expression. “Well, I hadn’t thought of that,” she said, “but I guess you’re right.”

Homer stared straight ahead.

“You brothers certainly keep a clean house, though,” she tried again, looking around brightly. “Not a speck of dust anywhere, that I can see.”

“Just ‘cause there ain’t no woman here don’t mean we have to live like the pigs.” Homer said.

Loretta felt her cheeks burning, but she nodded and smiled anyway. She tried to think of an agreeable reply, but nothing came to her. She felt herself slumping down in the armchair and the strange thought crossed her mind that perhaps she could just disappear into the deep, faded cushions, to pop back out when this ordeal was over.

Footsteps clomped down the hall and another man came into the room. Despite knowing that Francis had a twin brother, Loretta was still startled to see a middle-aged carbon copy standing before her, smiling bashfully and sweeping a seed company cap off his head. Somehow, she wasn’t ready for men the age of Francis and his brother to still look so much alike—as if the years should have weathered them differently, made their appearances more distinct from each other. And as she studied Deke’s face, she did begin to notice subtle variations; something about the way he held his eyes, the way his face moved when he talked. He nodded at her, as if agreeing with himself about something. At least one of Francis’s brothers liked her.

“Dinner’s ready,” Deke said in a soft voice, “ya’ll better come on in.”

“That’s Deke,” Francis mumbled to her as the four of them trooped down the hall to the kitchen and surrounded the sturdy oak pedestal table. The food was plain—ham, mashed potatoes, purple-hulled peas stewed with hamhock, corn on the cob, and cornbread—and the bowls in which it resided and the plates at each place setting were chipped and mismatched. Again, though, Loretta noticed that the kitchen, though lacking any hint of adornment, was very clean.

Francis was to her right, Deke to her left, and Homer across the table from her. Without ceremony, the two other brothers slung themselves into their seats and reached for the steaming bowls of food, then suddenly froze, staring as Francis shuffled awkwardly behind her and held her chair. As they continued to gawk, he gently scooted the chair beneath her before seating himself. Loretta ducked her head, abashed, but from the corners of her eyes she watched as Deke and Homer tried to digest their brother’s unexpected outbreak of etiquette.

***

Homer ate with his head down, saying nothing and looking at no one. Every so often the woman across from him would make some useless remark, but he saw no need to answer. He heard Skeet’s mumbled replies and he knew Deke probably had that stupid grin plastered across his face, but Homer refused to allow himself to be drawn any further into this foolish dress-up party than he already had been.

The woman had finished her tea and the pitcher sat on the table between Skeet and him. “Francis, could you please pass me some tea?” she asked.

Homer’s face jerked up to stare at her, and his mouth dropped open. “Francis?” His disbelieving eyes swung toward his younger brother. “Did she call you ‘Francis?’”

Skeet’s chin jutted defensively as he handed her the tea pitcher. “I like to hear somebody use my real name. Ain’t no crime in that.”

Homer made a derisive sound and shook his head. “Damn fool.”

***

Embarrassment stung Loretta’s eyes, made the top of her head feel hot. She’d been afraid of something like this and was mortified to realize she had forgotten to ask Francis what she should do about his name. Beside her, he picked up his fork and started to stab a piece of ham, but from the corner of her eye she saw him lower the fork. He sat very still now, sat so still for so long that despite her mortification she risked raising her eyes enough to look at him.

He was staring at the top of Homer’s head, bowed busily over his plate. Francis glared at his older brother and his jaw clenched and unclenched, the muscles in his cheek rippling like a boxer flexing his biceps for the crowd before a match. Homer must have felt his younger brother’s gaze, for he looked up in mid-chew. His eyes flickered back and forth between Loretta and Francis. “What?”

“She ain’t like that Naylor woman, Homer,” Skeet said in a low, dangerous voice. “Loretta ain’t gonna do me like that woman done you. She ain’t that kind. You got no call to treat her like this.”

Deke ducked his head and scraped the last of the mashed potatoes off his plate and shoveled them into his mouth. Francis stared, unmoving and unblinking.

Homer’s jaw sagged and his cheeks bloomed pink. Then he gritted his teeth and his lips clenched close and white as he raised a hand and aimed the first two fingers of his right hand like a double-barreled pistol at his brother’s face.

“Well—let—me—tell—you—something,” he sputtered, jabbing the air with each word, “you—just—better—watch—your—mouth—with—me.”

Deke sat very still with his head down and his hands clasped in his lap, a look of resignation and embarrassment on his face. Loretta wished hard to simply disappear.

“You keep your nose out of my past,” Homer went on, “‘cause it’s got nothin’ to do with her.” He jabbed in Loretta’s direction. “If you want to chase some damn fool woman around on the weekends, that’s none of my lookout. I don’t give a hoot in hell if the whole town’s laughin’ at you behind your back, runnin’ around with some floozy that got herself knocked up and come up here to live it down—”

Skeet’s chair fell backwards as he vaulted to his feet. He took two large, quick steps around the table and his hand shot to Homer’s shirt front, grabbing it like the loose skin on a dog’s back. Homer seized his brother’s wrist and struggled backward to his feet, knocking his own chair over in the process. “Let go a me, you damn fool!” he said between clenched teeth. Slowly, Skeet released his older brother, slowly he stepped back a pace and allowed his arms to drop to his sides, his fists to unclench.

“You got no call to talk about her like that,” Skeet pronounced in a solemn voice. His tone was odd; less like anger and more like regret. “No call.”

Loretta’s throat suddenly felt like she’d just swallowed a peach seed sideways. She had to get out of here, right now. She scooted her chair back from the table and ran in quick steps out of the kitchen and down the hall toward the front door.

“No call,” she heard Francis say one more time, just as she reached for the rusty doorknob.

Francis caught up with her on the front porch, managed to get enough in front of her to open the pickup door. She yanked it out of his hand as she slammed it. As he started around to the driver’s side, Homer stomped out onto the porch. “Go on! Get the hell outta here and never come back, for all I care!” he yelled, stabbing the air with the first two fingers of his right hand. “You’ll get no good from the likes a her, I’ll promise you that!” He stared angrily after the truck as it swung around and fishtailed in its hurry to get down the driveway.

(To be continued…)

So Fair and Bright (a weblog) by Thom Lemmons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

The following Saturday morning, Skeet announced at the breakfast table that he’d be needing the pickup that evening to go into Monroe.

“What do you need in town?” Homer asked his little brother.

Deke ducked his head, intent on sopping up the last of his egg yolk with his toast. Skeet didn’t look at Homer. He just shrugged, slurped his coffee, and mumbled something about the pickup being as much his as it was Homer’s, and he guessed a man who was nearly forty-five years old didn’t have to tell anybody else his business if he didn’t want to.

Homer was annoyed. It was plain to him that Skeet was up to something, that Deke knew about it, and that neither of the twins were going to tell him. It had been this way ever since they’d been boys: the twins always siding against him, even though he was only trying to look out for them and keep them out of trouble. “Well, I might need the pickup this evenin’ too. You ever think about that?”

Skeet scooted his chair back from the table and tromped to the sink, clanking his dishes down and running a little water on them. He pulled his cap from the back pocket of his overalls. “I asked first,” he said, headed for the door. “I’ll be cuttin’ brush down by the silo.”

Before Homer could say anything else, Deke was scooping up his dishes and heading for the sink. “I’ll go start feedin’,” he said over his shoulder as he hustled outside.

Homer fumed while he washed the breakfast dishes and stacked them in the cupboard. A bottle of bay rum and the sudden need to go to town on a Saturday night could add up to only one thing. Well, if Skeet wanted to go and make a fool out of himself, that was up to him. But why couldn’t he answer a simple question from his older brother?

No woman had lived here since Mom died, back in ‘51. Now and again one of them would make a solitary drive through the hills to Cape Girardeau and purchase an hour or so of companionship, but nothing was ever said about it. There was no need.

But this business of Skeet’s was different, and Homer didn’t like the look of it. He dried his hands on a dish towel and put on his cap. Skeet might be going soft in the head, but there were still pigs that needed to be pulled off the sows in the farrowing house and moved to the feeder pen. Somebody had to keep things running around here.

When Homer came into the house that evening, the place fairly reeked of bay rum. Skeet had on his white shirt and his black dress trousers and had exchanged his brogans for a pair of shiny, uncreased, black lace-up shoes. Homer had never seen such footwear on any member of his family, and from Skeet’s ginger gait it looked like he was not much accustomed to it, either. Skeet’s face and neck were freshly shaved, bearing several red nicks as proof. His hair was wet and steam was still rolling down the hall from the bathroom doorway.

“Well, did you leave any hot water for anybody else?” Homer said as Skeet paced into the kitchen.

“Deke, where’s the Vitalis?” Skeet asked his twin brother. “I looked in the cabinet above the sink, and it ain’t there.”

“Is too.” Deke was peeling potatoes into a small dutch oven. “Right behind the aspirin bottle, same as always.”

Skeet headed back down the hall. As he passed, Homer sniffed dramatically. “Hell, that gal’s gonna smell you soon as you open the pickup door, much bay rum as you’re packin’.” If Skeet heard him, he gave no sign.

“Time she lays eyes on you,” Homer went on, “she’ll probably pass out from the fumes.” Skeet vanished into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. Homer shook his head. “What’s for supper?”

“Stewed potatoes and ham. I think there’s still some mustard greens left, too.”

“Fourth time this week we’ve had stewed potatoes. You lose the fryin’ pan?”

Deke gave him a sidelong glance, but made no reply.

“I’d like to wash my hands sometime before supper,” Homer mumbled. Jerking a thumb down the hall, he said, “That is, if Lover Boy ever gets done in there.”

A minute or two later, Skeet came down the hall. Homer wolf-whistled at him as he passed the kitchen table. Skeet took the pickup keys from the peg by the kitchen door.

“Reckon I ought to wait up for you?” Homer said.

Skeet stared at his older brother a moment, jingling the keys between his fingers. “I wouldn’t.” He went outside, and a moment later they heard the truck engine roar to life. Gravel spattered against the side of the house as Skeet gunned the vehicle down the driveway and onto the two-lane blacktop to Monroe.

***

Loretta waited in the living room by the picture window, positioned so she could peer out the gap between the wall and the drapery without being seen by anyone on the street. She glanced at her watch. Still only seven-twenty. Dark was settling down; the mercury-vapor lamps were fluttering to life up and down the block. Sergeant Bilko was on TV in the next room.

She heard Aunt Darlene’s soft footfalls behind her. “He here yet?” she asked in her abrupt, brittle voice.

“No, ma’am. He’s not supposed to be till seven-thirty.”

“Why you starin’ out the window, then?”

Loretta had no civil answer. As Aunt Darlene shuffled back toward the bluish, flickering light of the television screen, Loretta gritted her teeth and reminded herself how grateful she was for Aunt Darlene’s offer of free room and board until, as their informal agreement discreetly put it, she had “gotten on her feet.”

Loretta hadn’t thought that gaining a sure footing would be difficult in a place as small and uncomplicated as Monroe, but she hadn’t fully reckoned on how hard it was to leave one life behind and launch a new one. Sometimes it seemed like she’d been trying to get on her feet for as long as she could remember.

Loretta was under no illusions: she was plain and she was pushing forty. Those were the simple facts. She was also too acutely aware of how these circumstances had made her oh, so vulnerable to the easy promises of a man like Kyle Dewalt…

She told herself to quit picking that old scab. The operation had salvaged some of Daddy’s pride, and sending her here to Monroe had done all else that could be done. She made enough from her teacher’s aide job to pay a little each month on the medical bill, and pretty soon she was going to start thinking about going back to night school.

She saw a pair of headlights pivot off Center Avenue and turn their beams down the middle of her street. It was no more than a block from anywhere in Monroe to the main drag, and Aunt Darlene’s house was about halfway down. The pickup was moving slowly, then turning into her driveway. Loretta forced herself to take several deliberate paces away from the picture window and wait for him to get out of the truck and knock on the door. After a slightly longer time than she thought necessary, the knock came. “I’ll get it, Aunt Darlene,” she called in the direction of the tinny laughter from the studio audience. She walked slowly to the door and opened it.

“Evenin’,” he said in that bashful, eyes-averted manner of his that she, for no good reason she could understand, found so appealing. “Hi, Francis,” she replied. She locked the door and closed it behind her. He took her elbow as if it were a piece of Waterford crystal, and they walked down the steps, then down the driveway toward the shiny Ford pickup.

He’d let her know, very early, that he didn’t much care for her calling him “Skeet,” like everyone else in town. His mother had named him Francis, he said, and he’d just as soon someone used the name that was on his birth certificate. She’d agreed, even though she thought “Skeet” sounded kind of cute.

Ernest Tubb belted out “Walkin’ the Floor over You” from the radio as they drove slowly out toward the main highway. “How about a hamburger and a shake?” he asked without looking at her. That phrase, she had learned, was Francis’ code for Wanda’s Cafe, seven miles up Highway Twelve on the outskirts of Pikeville. Loretta wondered if he’d hold her hand tonight; she was scooted well more than half way across the vinyl bench seat, and was even leaning slightly toward him. But he just kept his ten-and-two grip on the steering wheel and stared down the highway as if he were all alone in the truck cab. “That sounds fine to me,” she said.

***

“Hi, Homer,” called Phil as Homer sauntered through the glass door. He nodded at the burly proprietor of the barber shop, picked up a dog-eared copy of Field and Stream, and sat down in one of the chrome-and-vinyl chairs. He shifted about uncomfortably for a moment; Phil’s chairs were all high-mileage numbers with numerous cracks in the vinyl that allowed the cotton batting to leak through. He’d been after Phil for over a year to spend a little money on his customers’ comfort, but Phil just laughed at him.

“Say, Homer,” said Lem Dycus, the man whose face Phil had just lathered, “what’s this I hear about ol’ Skeet takin’ up with Darlene Claypool’s niece?”

Homer flipped a page of Field and Stream and tried to act as if he hadn’t heard anything.

“Yeah, Homer,” chimed Phil. “My daughter and her boyfriend was at Wanda’s this last weekend and saw ‘em there eatin’ together, and she said that wadn’t the first time they’d been there, either.”

Homer began to grind his teeth. He could feel the eyes of the barber and the other two or three men in the shop boring into him, waiting for his answer. Damn that Skeet, anyway, for making them all look like fools! “Well, Skeet’s a grown man, I guess,” Homer said. “I don’t tell him where to go or who to go with.” He flung aside the Field and Stream and reached for a grimy, six-month old issue of Progressive Farmer.

“I heard she come up here from Memphis ‘cause she got herself knocked up or somethin’,” put in Will Klinger, seated a couple of chairs down from Homer. “My wife she goes to the beauty shop same time as Darlene, and she said Darlene let as much slip one day.”

“What about it, Homer?” asked Phil as he troweled the lather off Lem’s face with his straight-edge razor. “Reckon ol’ Skeet’s sweet on this gal?”

Homer got up and tossed the magazine into his seat. “If you boys are so dad-blamed curious about it, why the hell don’t you ask Skeet?” He stomped out the door. He didn’t need a haircut all that bad, anyway.

***

By the time another month had elapsed, it was plain to Loretta that something was happening between herself and Francis. He had shown up each Saturday evening at seven-thirty, regular as clockwork. They had consumed eight or ten hamburgers and nearly a gallon of milkshake, between them. He had never asked if she would be available the following weekend, and she had never offered the information. There didn’t seem to be any need.

But the clincher, the item that put her on certain notice was his terse question, asked last night just before she placed her key in the lock of Aunt Darlene’s front door.

“Reckon you’d care to meet my brothers?”

She had turned and looked at him. Unsure she’d heard correctly but deciding to chance it, she said, “I sure would. When?”

He’d shifted from one foot to the other, careful to keep his eyes averted. “Tomorrow’s Sunday. Don’t reckon we’ll be too busy. How about noon?”

“Tomorrow?” She hoped the giddiness she felt hadn’t gotten into her voice. “Well. . . sure, I guess so.”

He had nodded, shoving his hands into his hip pockets. And then, he had leaned awkwardly forward and planted a hasty kiss on her forehead, just before retreating down the steps and across the driveway to his pickup.

She went inside, feeling a warm glow in her cheeks. It was the longest conversation they’d ever had. She thought she might be falling in love.

(to be continued…)

So Fair and Bright (a weblog) by Thom Lemmons is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.