Marcus came down the quarter about seven o’clock that night. (I wasn’t there, I had gone to Bayonne with Snuke and them to see that woman again. Aunt Margaret told me what time he came home.) The next day he got up about six and went to the yard to unload the corn, and he didn’t come back down the quarter until around three that evening. He laid down on the gallery a couple hours, then he got up and took a whore bath at the hydrant. I was home then; I was in the kitchen ironing a pair of khaki pants on the table. I thought he was going to dress and go somewhere, but after he took his bath, he came inside and went to bed. The next morning he went in the field, and still he hadn’t said anything to me. Neither one of us had said a word to each other in over a week now. When we came in for dinner, he hopped off the trailer at the house and went in the yard. This was the first time he hadn’t gone up the quarter since he and Louise started looking at each other. When I went by the house, I saw her sitting on the gallery watching the tractor. When I came back down the quarter with the two empty trailers, she was looking for him again. That evening he went back in the field and pulled the sack when he got too far behind, and when he came in that night he hopped off the trailer and went in the yard. Louise was looking for him when I came up the quarter. She was standing up this time. When I was coming back, I saw her and her little girl walking across the yard. She looked at me like she wanted to ask me a question, but we didn’t even nod to each other.
That same night she sent word to Aunt Margaret—“Don’t come to work in the morning, come in the evening.” Aunt Margaret went fishing the next morning, and that evening between four and four thirty, she went back up the quarter. She and Tite were sitting out on the front gallery when Bonbon left that night. She expected to hear the dog barking a minute or two after Bonbon had gone, but ten minutes passed and she hadn’t heard a thing. A half hour, and nothing; then a whole hour, and nothing.
Aunt Margaret could hear Louise walking around in the bedroom. She went from the door to the window, from the window to the door. Then it was quiet—like she was standing at the window—then she started walking again. She came into the living room. She stayed in there a minute, then she went into the kitchen. She was in there a while, then she went out on the back gallery. Next, Aunt Margaret saw her walking across the yard. She looked small and lost under the black, moss-heavy trees, Aunt Margaret said. “Yes,” she thought. “That’s what it is. That’s what it done come to now.” Louise went to the gate. “But how?” Aunt Margaret thought. “How in the world could the Master let a thing like that happen—Ehh, Lord.” Louise held on to one of the pickets in the gate and looked out in the road. Then Aunt Margaret saw her coming back to the house. Just before Bonbon was supposed to get back, Louise told Aunt Margaret she could leave. But the next day she sent word to Aunt Margaret to come back up there again that evening. Aunt Margaret went back. She sat on the gallery, waiting for the dog to bark. But the dog was more quiet that night than he had ever been before. After Tite fell asleep in Aunt Margaret’s arms, Aunt Margaret put her in bed and came back on the gallery. Louise came to the front door where Aunt Margaret was sitting.
“Margaret?” she said.
Aunt Margaret looked over her shoulder at Louise. The light was behind Louise, throwing her shadow on the gallery.
“Tell him to come up here,” Louise said. “Tell him he better come up here.”
She went back to her room. Aunt Margaret heard her slamming the door. Aunt Margaret sat there a little while longer, then she came on down the quarter. She didn’t stop by her place, she came on down to my house. I was sitting in the kitchen at the table. I offered her a cup of coffee, but she didn’t want any. After she had been sitting there a while, telling me how Louise had been acting up there, then she told me what Louise had said.
“You want tell him for me?” she asked.
“He’s out there on the gallery, Aunt Margaret,” I said. “Didn’t you tell him when you came in?”
“I can’t talk to that boy,” she said.
“I’m not talking to him, either,” I said.
“Then you won’t tell him?”
“Why does he have to know in the first place, Aunt Margaret? Can’t you just tell Louise you forgot? At least that’ll keep him from up there.”
“And suppose she holler?”
“From what you’ve been saying, she’s not going to holler,” I said.
“How do you know?” she said.
I didn’t answer Aunt Margaret. We could go on like that all night.
“All right,” she said, standing up. “I’ll do it. I’ll do it. Remember this when you come up to my house and want eat.”
She walked away from the table. She thought I was going to stop her. She went all the way in the front room, then she came back.
“You still refuse to do it?” she said.
I didn’t answer her. I was looking out of the window. It was pitch-black outside.
“Say yes or no,” she said.
“I said no already, Aunt Margaret.”
“Look at me when you say no,” she said.
I turned to her.
“Say it now,” she said.
Aunt Margaret looked so pitiful standing there, I knew I couldn’t turn her down again. “There you go, James Kelly,” I thought, “there you go. You’re letting that soft heart of yours get you into trouble again.”
“I’ll do it, Aunt Margaret,” I said.
I saw a great relief come on her face. She would rather do anything in the world than say one word to Marcus. She told me good night and left.