Sometimes living with Buck was like living with a crazy person. He would say the strangest things. Like when I asked if he was sweet on Imelda Jane. He said, “Nope. Cross my heart and pass the whiskey.”
What was that supposed to mean, that he was telling me the truth for once, so we best celebrate? And then I asked him where he’d been all night long. And he said, “Out learning stuff.”
“Like what?”
“Like I don’t deserve you.”
“Buck Jenkins, you don’t need to be going anywhere for that! Last night I figured that very same thing out just waiting on you in this kitchen.”
I learned something else, waiting on Buck: there ain’t a whole lot of things can hurt you worse than a man you love being with another, when he’s only supposed to be with you. I was pretty sure Buck had been with Imelda Jane and planned on being so again. But, I was set to have the baby any day and was still trying to find us a place of our own. I decided to think about it later when I had more time to figure out what I could do to change it. That’s when I ran into Murphy Spencer. He owned most of the land around Hog Gap. Buck said Murphy’s pa left it to him when he died.
I was at the corner grocery store with a short list Verna gave me and was telling Miz Bailey, this kind, elderly woman who runs the place, that I was hoping to find a spot just for Buck and me and the baby.
“You had any luck?” she said.
“Not so far, and my time’s running short so it doesn’t look good.” Miz Bailey’s watery eyes lit up.
“Murphy!” she called to a tall fellow up at the front of the store. “Murphy Spencer! C’mere and meet Adie Jenkins.” He tossed a fifty-pound bag of dog food over his shoulder like it was a sack of air and came back to where we were standing.
“Willa Mae’s cottage still standing?” Miz Bailey asked.
“Sitting the same as she left it.”
“This is Adie Jenkins,” Miz Bailey said. “Married Verna’s boy.”
“How do,” Murphy said. He tipped his head and touched the bill of his cap lightly.
“They need a place of their own,” Miz Bailey explained.
“How soon you be needing it?” He looked at me, his eyes big as lakes.
“Yesterday,” Miz Bailey snapped. “That ain’t a giant turnip she’s toting around.”
“It’s not in any condition to move into,” Murphy told her and set the dog food down next to the counter.
“You got a problem with them moving in, fixing it up?”
“Well,” Murphy ran his fingers, long as rulers, across his chin. It was clean-shaven, had a cleft, and looked like it could take a good punch and not move out of place.
“How much will it be?” I asked.
“Oh, I could probably pay you—” he removed his cap and scratched his head, “say, twenty-five dollars a week.”
“Aren’t we supposed to pay you?”
“Can’t charge you with all the work you’ll be doing to get it in shape,” he said.
“Can’t work around the clock,” I said. “We need to pay for the time we’re not working and just living. How much is that?”
“Only has two rooms, not counting a bath. Plumbing’s not working. You’ll need to fix that. Roof leaks.” Murphy looked up at the ceiling tiles in the store. “Guess ten dollars a week ought to cover the living part.”
“I’ll take it!” I yelled, startling the baby. It jumped, and mostly that week and the one before, it hadn’t moved around much.
“I mean, we’ll take it,” I said and patted my stomach. “Me and Buck and the baby. We’ll take it. Just like it is!”
“Well, come on, then,” he said. “I’ll show you where it’s at. Remember now, it ain’t much. But I reckon with a bit of work, it’ll do.”
I followed Murphy out to his truck. He tossed the dog food into the truck bed, where a black Lab was running circles at the mere sight of him. Murphy reached over and scratched his ears and patted his backside.
“This here’s Worry,” Murphy said. “Say hello to your new neighbor, boy.”
“You named your dog Worry?”
“Yep.”
“What’d you do that for?”
“Suits him,” Murphy said. “It’s about all he does when he ain’t with me. Don’t you, boy?” Murphy rubbed Worry’s shiny coat. He panted and wagged his tail.
“Does he bite?”
“Only those try to hurt me,” Murphy said. “All the others he licks to death.”
“He’s got a mighty long tongue to do it with,” I said. Murphy let out a chuckle. I started to climb into the truck.
“Here, let me help you on up there,” he said. I held tight to the grocery sack while he did. Murphy climbed behind the wheel and drove down Fat Possum Road. It was gravel. He followed it for a half a mile then made a sharp left turn onto a dirt road. While we bounced over the ruts, he pointed out landmarks, who lived where and what roads led to Civil War battles that’d been fought. I sat transfixed.
There was something about Murphy. Something rare and special that spread through the truck like sunshine. His smile lingered, his words dangled when he spoke, and his movements—strong and lazy at the same time—fit his body like comfortable old clothes. I listened and watched out the window as we wound through the woods to a clearing where a small cabin with a lopsided front porch sat resting on large stones. Murphy helped me down from the truck. He was ceiling tall and a bit too thin. And about the only ones that wouldn’t notice his head had never caught up to his ears were those needing glasses and didn’t have them. I suspect some folks may have found him a bit strange looking, but I liked how his parts came together, especially his eyes. They were hazel lakes large enough to swim in. When he grinned he looked a bit like Jimmy Stewart, and when he laughed his mouth opened so wide you could see every tooth. I decided he was handsome. Not in ways that make women swoon, but fine-looking in other ways that counted. He talked about the people that lived around Cold Rock, the good, the bad, and why we needed both. He pointed to the ones who needed help and why each of us should help them.
“When you do that,” he said, “you end up giving more to yourself than you ever give to them.”
He had the best-looking heart I ever glanced on. He was a bachelor, he said, when I asked. “Not the marrying kind,” he added, when I wondered out loud, why was that?
What a shame. He’d be a fine husband, the kind a girl would be proud to take home to her family. That’s the way I’d wanted it to be that first time Buck came over, seeing as he was the first boy that ever paid any attention to me.
“What do you think?” I’d asked Mama after Buck left that day.
“I think he could charm the pants off you,” she said.
“Just make sure he don’t,” Pa said.
I never took it serious. Of course, by then I was crazy about Buck, so even if I had, it might not have made much of a difference. Buck’s the kind of guy an inexperienced girl will take one look at and say, “He can eat crackers in my bed anytime.” At least until he does and they figure different. Not to say he doesn’t have his charming side. Buck can toss you a smile that makes your knees give way. My folks didn’t see it like that. They weren’t happy when he came around and didn’t bother hiding it. When Buck started calling on a regular basis, Pa never even bothered to get up from his chair. And Mama would just yell out, “He’s here again, Adie!” Then she’d turn to Buck and say, “You better make it quick. I got plenty chores around here for her to do.”
Now someone like Murphy—if I had taken him home—it would have been an entirely different story altogether. I can just picture Mama flitting about the house. “Hon’, it’s Murphy Spencer! Don’t keep him waiting, now.” She’d crinkle up her face a bit and pat his arm. “I’ll just go get her. Won’t be a minute.” And she’d call up the stairs, “Sweet thing? You ready, sugar?” when nobody in the house called me sugar or sweet thing since I lost my baby fat and the dimples in my butt.
Maybe it’s for the best my folks sent me away. I missed them, but I wouldn’t have to hear Mama harping on what a good catch I let get away by settling on the first nibble that took my bait. She just didn’t realize Buck would be a fine catch, once he grew up. Besides, it wasn’t a fair comparison. Murphy was a full-grown man. He was probably twenty-five years old! So Buck still had time. There was plenty of years left. And I was willing to work real hard at being a good wife while he finished growing up.
This cabin Murphy said wasn’t anything special was as good a place as any to start. And it would be special enough to me. It’d be a place of our own.
“There’s a privy out back you can use for starters,” Murphy said. “Plumbing’s in, but it’s not connected to the septic tank. I can help with that. Bring some pipe. Tie it in.”
“It’ll be fine,” I said, and I meant it. I’d spent months taking orders from Verna. During the first few weeks after we got to Hog Gap, I got up every morning thinking on what I could do to make her happy, to get her to like me better. After nothing worked and she was still cross as an old toad, I mostly went around counting up the abandoned wells on the property, hoping she’d fall in one. That got me feeling guilty, so I went back to trying to please her. I’d do her and Austin’s laundry, along with Buck’s and mine. She really liked the way I did laundry, and told me so. That was nice. But eventually her criticism about everything else would wear me down again. She said I didn’t have a lick of sense so many times, I started to believe her. And the closer I got to having the baby the more tired I was from doing the long list of chores she gave me each day. I was willing to pee in a shed and poop in a privy to put an end to it, if that’s what it took. It’d be like being on vacation.
“Real fine,” I said.
“Okay then,” Murphy said. “When you moving in?”
“The day Miz Bailey said.”
“What day was that?” Murphy asked, and scratched at his forehead, dislodging his cap.
“Yesterday,” I said. “This ain’t a giant turnip I’m toting around,” I mimicked Miz Bailey and we laughed.
“Well, you’re surely not in any condition to be moving your stuff.”
“What stuff?” I said. “It’s just Buck and me. That’s it. Some clothes, but I can carry them in one basket. And I got some baby things stored up, didies and blankets.”
“There’s a bit of furniture in there. You’re welcome to it.”
“There is?” I climbed the steps up to the porch and peeked in the soot-stained window. He followed.
“There’s Willa Mae’s old dresser, a bed frame and mattress, some quilts.” Murphy said.
“There’s a table and four kitchen chairs!” I said. “Three that match.”
“That’s right, table, chairs. Forgot about them,” he said. “I got an extra sofa I’m not using stored at my place. Could let you have it. No sense going to waste.”
“That’d be nice. Guess we’d have everything we need to get started.”
“There’s no dishes or pots and pans I remember.”
“I don’t cook,” I said.
He laughed. “What you gonna eat?”
“Guess I best get a few dishes and a couple of pots and learn how to cook,” I said. “We got some money put up.”
“Willa Mae’s a fine cook. Built her a new place back of mine.” He flagged his thumb toward the right side of the cabin. “From what I toted over, she’s got more pots and pans than a body could use in one lifetime. Save that money you got put by for the baby. I’m sure she can spare a few.”
“Who’s Willa Mae?”
“She’s my mammy,” Murphy said.
“You mean she’s your mama?”
He shook his head and his bangs swung free of his forehead. “No, I mean she’s my mammy,” he said. “She raised me. Didn’t have a ma.”
“What happened to her?”
“She…she…” Murphy looked down at Worry. “I had Willa Mae,” he said and shook his head. “She’ll be by to check you out. She’s nosier than you,” he said with a grin.
“Oh,” I said and felt my cheeks flush. “This always been her place, then—”
“Hers and her mama’s before that.”
“Golly, how old is this thing?” I looked at the worn-out cabin wondering if it might fall down on our heads some night.
“Been here awhile. This land’s been in my family for over a hundred years, Adie. My pa built this place for Willa Mae’s family after the Freedom come,” Murphy said and looked at his watch.
“The Freedom?”
“For the slaves,” he said. “You do know about the slaves, Mr. Lincoln, and what happened in Dixie, don’t you?”
“Oh, sure,” I said. “Miz Lou taught us history at Jackson High in Cold Rock. Mostly she talked on Mr. President Lincoln getting shot. That was her favorite part. And she said the Yankees stirred up trouble for the South didn’t need stirring at all. ’Course I know the North fought the South to set the black folks free. I just never heard it said like that.” A patch of clouds inched over the trees shading the cabin. Murphy glanced up.
“Like what?” Murphy said.
“Like what you said. ‘When the Freedom come.’” The clouds inched apart. The sun reached through the cracks in the foliage, splashing the ground with fingers of light. Worry chased them about like they were squirrels and he was going to catch one.
“No matter. Folks ain’t familiar with a lot of things around here. The ones that are don’t want to talk on it. Reckon a good bit of it’s in that book Willa Mae totes round.” Murphy headed for his truck. Worry gave up on the dancing sun shadows and ran alongside him.
“You ready, boy?” Murphy dropped the tailgate and the dog leaped in. Then he spotted some squirrels at the edge of the woods; real ones this time. They were frozen in place, busy chomping on nuts. The dog nearly went crazy trying to jump out of the truck to get to them. The squirrels were gone in a heartbeat.
“What’s in it?”
“Nothing at the moment, just the dog.”
“No, I mean that book Willa Mae totes around.”
“It ain’t my business to say,” Murphy said. “Better ask her.”
“Oh—” I said and felt my cheeks getting warm again.
“She might read you some.” Murphy pushed in on the tailgate and it snapped in place. “Tell her I said so.” He motioned to me with his head. “We best be going.”
“Oh, I’ll walk on back to the store,” I said. “It’s not far.”
“It’s no trouble,” he said.
“I just want to tidy up a bit, get acquainted with our new home, you know, make a list of what we might need—”
“Is that okay? You being in, well, in that, ah, condition—”
“Walking is the best exercise women having babies can do. The doctor in Cold Rock told me some even keep walking the whole time they’re in labor. Speeds it up, I think,” I said.
“In that case, don’t be walking around too much till you get home.” I nodded, when I should have been listening. Murphy got behind the wheel and turned the truck around. He leaned out the window.
“You’re real sure?” I nodded again.
“Okay,” he said, and he waved. I waved back and Worry barked. I watched him drive off until the oversized tires stirred up a mushroom cloud of dirt that swallowed them whole.
I started cleaning up the cabin as best I could. I gathered wood and boiled water in an old metal bucket left out on the back stoop. Then I scrubbed the old plank floors with some borax powder I found under the sink and dusted cobwebs with a big stick I found in the yard and tied with rags. Had a burst of energy I couldn’t understand, seeing as I’d been so wore out just days before. I had a fairly long walk home and figured I best get going, but I was excited about our own place so I kept thinking, “Just a little bit longer,” “I’ll just finish this,” “I’ll just do that.” The kitchen started to look like a home. Soon as I had the baby, I was going to write Mama and get her recipe for sweet cherry jam.
“Best housewarming there is,” she said. “You cook yourself up some sweet cherry jam, let it bubble up good, and you’ll smell heaven in your kitchen for weeks.”
I stayed on working and dreaming, not knowing the danger I was in. Most likely Verna was having herself one big hissy fit, seeing as I hadn’t come straight back with her things. At the moment I didn’t much care. For once, I was using my time for something I wanted. I told myself I’d worry about the price I’d pay later.
That was foolhardy. It cost me a lot more than I counted on.