I woke to full sun on my face. Sitting up, I remembered I was in the room at the top of the stairs in Aunt Carrie and Uncle Gus’s house. And I remembered we were in Bliss, Michigan. I about pinched myself, it seemed too good not to be a dream.
I got myself dressed, glad Ray was already up and out of the room so I had a little privacy. My work dress had the tiniest stain on it, right on the hem. If somebody didn’t look for it, they might not even see it, but I knew it was there.
It was from just around Christmas time the year before. Beanie had knocked over Mama’s coffee, the half-full cup spilling on me. Mostly it’d hit my legs but some splatters got on my dress. It hadn’t been hot, but I’d been so mad at her I could’ve spit. There in that room in the Seegert’s farmhouse fingering that remaining stain, I couldn’t remember what it was I yelled at her. It wasn’t nice, though, I knew that much.
Regret burned right in the center of my chest and I found it hard to pull in a good breath.
I sure hoped God would forgive me for the times I was so mean to my sister.
Trying to push away the thoughts and feelings and sadness of not having Beanie, I set to work making my bed the best I knew how. Then I looked across the room at where Ray had slept.
He’d tried making his bed. I could tell he’d put in a little effort at least. The blanket was pulled up to the pillow with at least a dozen lumps all the way to the foot of the bed. I fixed it, pulling the sheets and smoothing the quilt, fluffing the pillow so it didn’t look slept on. Tugging and tucking and making it look nice.
My imagination tempted me with thoughts of being a grown-up woman and keeping house for my husband. For my kids, even. It poked at me, wanting me to see how happy I’d end up being some day.
Happy ever after.
Happy as a fairy tale.
But fairy tales weren’t real. I remembered that as I finished up Ray’s bed.
Aunt Carrie sat at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee beside her and a book in her hand. The clock on the wall told me it was after eight already. All the men would be out working the fields, making themselves useful. They’d have been at it for at least an hour already.
And there I was, just getting up. I felt like a lazybones.
Seeing Aunt Carrie there with her bare feet propped up on a chair made me feel a bit better, though.
“Good morning,” I said.
She jumped, pulling the book to her chest and laughing at herself. She had the kind of laugh that was more a hooting sound than anything.
“Oh, goodness,” she said. “Am I ever jumpy.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” I whispered, fearing she’d be upset at me for sneaking up on her even though I hadn’t meant to.
“Don’t be. I just got to the scary part of this book.” She looked at the cover. “I should know better than to get so involved in a mystery. I sometimes forget that the world is still going on around me.”
I knew exactly what she meant.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, getting up and putting a scrap of paper in her book to save her place. “I have some sausage I can warm up. Do you like toast?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered. “Is my mama up?”
“She is,” she told me. “She’s out hanging some laundry from your trip.”
Aunt Carrie bent and took a frypan out of a cupboard by her knees.
“I would offer you an egg or two, Pearl, but I’m afraid I’ve been too occupied with that silly book and have neglected my chicken coop duties.” She put her pan on the stove and dropped a couple patties of sausage in. “If you want, I could gather a few. It wouldn’t take but a minute.”
“That’s all right,” I told her. “After I eat, I could get them for you.”
“You’re sure?” She lit the fire under the pan and soon the sausage sizzled against the heat.
“Yes, ma’am.” I moved to stand beside her and watch the grease pop. “Mama had hens back in Oklahoma. I used to tend them sometimes. I don’t mind them so much.”
“That would be wonderful,” Aunt Carrie said. “But first, I want you to eat. There’s nothing worse than farmwork on an empty stomach.”
Aunt Carrie handed me the bucket of scratch for the hens. She told me to put the eggs in one of the baskets she had on a shelf there in the coop.
“Watch out for Billina,” she called after me when I walked away. “She pecks.”
Her chicken coop was three times the size Mama’s had been. And where our birds back home had been sickly and scrawny, Aunt Carrie’s were round and active, wandering free all over the yard. Once they saw me with their breakfast in my bucket, they came clucking their good-mornings and pecking at what I scattered for them.
“Y’all must be hungry,” I said to them.
The hens seemed real sweet and I was glad to feed them from the palm of my hand even. I knew it didn’t take much, getting a chicken to like me. All it took was a little food and some soothing sounds. I sang to them soft and low the way Mama had when she took care of her hens.
Mama had a voice that sounded like a fresh, cool breeze. My singing was more like a rumbling engine, especially after being sick the way I’d been. The hens didn’t seem to care too much, though.
Still, I wished I sounded like Mama when I sang.
Leaving the girls to their meal, I ducked into the coop for the eggs. I kept right on singing. It felt good and made the loneliness leave a little. I plucked the eggs up out of the nests, gentle as I could, placing them lightly into the basket.
Once my eyes got used to the dim light in the coop I realized I wasn’t alone. One yellow hen sat on a nest, watching me as I collected the eggs. That girl didn’t seem like she was fixing to move and I thought she must be the one Aunt Carrie had warned me about.
“Billina,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “May I please have your egg?”
Slow and careful as could be, I reached toward her. Soon as I got close enough, though, she jabbed at me, trying to get me with her beak.
“Now, you don’t scare me none,” I told her.
I kept going after that egg of hers and she kept trying to guard it. I wasn’t about to let a stubborn old chicken win over me. I had to get that egg. After half a dozen tries I did get my hand under her and grab the prize. I was careful as could be putting that one in the basket. It would’ve made me mad if after all that work I’d dropped it.
Putting the basket on the floor, I lowered my face close to Billina’s.
“That wasn’t so bad, now was it?” I said. “You’re a tough bird, aren’t you? But I think I like you most of all.”
I reached out to give her a pat but she wasn’t willing to make friends. Flapping her wings and jutting out her head, she opened her beak big as she could and screamed like the devil. It scared me so bad I jolted back and screamed myself.
Billina settled back on her roost, cackling like she was real pleased with herself for giving me such a fright.
“What’d you do that for?” I asked, holding both hands up to my chest, feeling my heart thud a hundred miles a minute. “You stupid hen.”
I backed up from her, hitting against the wall of the coop which made me yelp. I slid down to my backside. My skirt was all hiked up on my legs, but I just did not care. And I started to cry.
It wasn’t because of that hen or because I was alone. And it wasn’t on account I’d gotten scared by a silly old bird. I cried because the sadness burst up out of me, an out-of-control blast of awful feelings. Everything I’d tucked down deep surged up and out like a bad coughing fit.
I cried so loud I thought sure somebody would hear me.
If they did, they didn’t come, which was fine by me.
I made good and sure my face was dry before stepping out of the coop. My wailing must’ve bothered Billina enough to get her off her nest. She was nowhere in sight. While making my way to the house, a bird swooped low over my head. It wasn’t a fancy one, that bird. Just brown of feather and chirping in little peeps. Still, I watched it dart up and down all the way to the trees.
She disappeared into a forest I hadn’t noticed the day before. I wondered what it was a little bird might find in there. I imagined critters. Squirrels and deer and coyotes finding cover in those woods. I did believe if there were bears Uncle Gus would’ve warned us.
I figured a hundred years before that day Indians must’ve run among the trees, bow and arrow in hand, leather moccasins strapped to their feet, beads strung around their necks. They’d have used that as hunting ground, I was sure of it. At least they would have before the white man came and built their farms and towns and roads.
The weight of the egg basket grounded me, making me remember not to flitter off into my daydreams just then. I could’ve hovered over real life all day in my imagination if I wasn’t careful.
Trying my best not to give the forest another thought, I turned toward Aunt Carrie’s house. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t ignore the warning all my fairy tales had taught me—that the forest was a dark and wicked place where horrible things happened to children.
Even so, that old curiosity tugged at me, making me want to wander under the cover of all those trees.
Before opening the back door of the farmhouse I took one more look.