Things slowly settled down. Mama went back to Cold Rock. Verna picked up Austin and they went on home, too. He’d been staying at Miz Bailey’s and like to drove her nuts is what I hear from the ladies at church. Willa Mae got busy with her vegetable garden. Murphy was taking care of his chicken business and helping me with mine. He was thinking about building houses on some of the land. The carpet mills were booming.
“People are going to need homes nearby,” he said. “Maybe call it Spencer and Sons Construction,” he said. “Teach the boys the business as they grow. Maybe add a few more and a couple of girls for Grace Annie. What do you think?”
“I think it’s too soon,” I said. “Not about the business, but—”
“No rush, Adie,” he said. “Take all the time you need. I got plenty to do.” He motioned with his arms and directed his fingers at the vast expanse of earth laid out before us, pretty as a painting on a canvas. I watched him climb in the truck, Sam on the seat beside him, Worry in the truck bed.
“See you in the morning,” he said and drove off.
I got up as the sun was creeping along the horizon. Andy was eager to nurse. I carried him out to the front stoop and marveled at how good the morning smelled. The chicken coop scent was nowhere about. It would make its way to the front of the house when the day warmed up and grew heavy. The odor would cling to the air like lint on a sweater, the way pieces of sadness cling to our hearts.
I thought about the words Willa Mae had told us her mother had given her when their world had changed forever, when their grief was raw as uncooked meat.
“My mammy say, ‘You gots to stir dat pot of sadness up real good,’ she say. ‘And keeps it stirred so the happy times don’t git lost in dat stew. ’Cause you gwine eat dat stew for all yore life. See da good part in dat stew? Eat all dat up and keeps doing dat.’ She do, she say dat. My mammy Tempe be reals smart mammy,” Willa Mae said, her face full up with pride.
Tempe’s and Willa Mae’s English was poor, but their sentiments were richer than good potting soil. To think that the entire time I’d been poring over the diary I was reading about Willa Mae’s own family. Willa Mae was Heart. I should have known. I mean, why else would she have the journal? I guess I was too caught up in it to take the time to wonder.
The screen door opened and Grace Annie wandered out, her nightshirt no longer covering her knees. She’d grown another two inches. Her dark hair, still baby fine, was tied in pigtails, but sleep had pulled them out of place. They dangled, lopsided, on the sides of her head. One curly little tail was ready to lose its rubber band. She had an open box of Cheerios clutched tight against her chest, an arm lost inside, her hand digging in for another handful.
“Mama will get you some milk in a minute, sugar,” I said. She plopped the box on the stoop and started down the steps. Murphy’s truck crunched on the gravel as the sun spread a thin blanket of light on the ground. Grace Annie sailed down the last two steps but lost her footing and toppled over onto the hard clay when she reached the ground. She let out a howl and plunked down on her bottom as she inspected her knees: two angry red little bulges. One started to bleed.
“Ooweeee, oooweee,” she howled. Murphy got out of the truck, plucked Sam from the interior and put him down. Sam toddled over to Grace Annie and watched as Murphy knelt beside her.
“Boo-boo,” she said and pointed.
“Let me see, sugar,” I said. Grace Annie’s face was a picture of sorrow, her eyes pinched tight and spouting tears, her mouth twisted sideways, her bottom lip curled outward like a fat little worm inching out of the earth. She started to wail. Sam started in, too.
“I think you’re gonna live, guys,” Murphy said and swung Grace Annie up into his arms. He pulled out a clean white handkerchief from his back pocket, turned on the water spigot next to the garden patch, wet the kerchief, and placed it gently across her knees. Sam toddled along after him, rubbing at his tears.
“How we doing, pardner?” Murphy said and patted Sam’s head. Grace Annie peeked under the handkerchief, her eyes big as cantaloupes.
“Well, would you lookie here,” Murphy said. “I believe I brought breakfast on a stick.”
He pulled two red suckers from his shirt pocket, each one looped on a string. Grace Annie reached for one, her skinned knees forgotten. Sam clutched Murphy’s pant leg and clambered for the other. Murphy removed the cellophane wrappers and passed out the morning treat.
I placed Andy on my shoulder and patted his back. He let out two little burps.
“Hey, little guy,” Murphy said and took hold of one tiny finger. “You doing okay?”
Andy’s head wobbled about. He wasn’t strong enough yet to hold it up on its own. I laid him back down in my lap. He curled his legs up and yawned, ready to sleep until the next feeding. Murphy smiled like a proud father, a proud husband, which was what he said he intended to be.
“If you’ll let me, Adie.”
He plopped one leg up on the steps and rested his arms crosswise on his knee. Our eyes followed Grace Annie. She took Sam’s hand and led him to a small patch of grass next to the garden. They sat facing each other, giggly-silly with their suckers, smacking their lips and showing off their red tongues. Every few licks they’d yank the suckers out of their mouths and click them together, sometimes missing their mark, other times not, enjoying each minute, regardless. Tired of that game, Grace Annie started another. She held her sucker up like a trophy and Sam, shaking with a fit of the giggles, did the same. They turned their faces up to the sun and stuck out their tongues. By now they were redder than mama’s roses.
Baby Andy was cradled in the curve of my lap, sound asleep. Murphy settled in on the step beside me and slipped my hand into his. He curled his long fingers around mine and squeezed the way a man’s supposed to—nice and firm so you know it’s there, but not hard enough to scrunch your finger bones.
And we sat there, me holding Andy and Murphy holding me. We watched Sam and Grace Annie, their laughter doing all the talking, red spittle dribbling down their chins, their gooey suckers and sticky faces still hoisted up to the sun, their happiness a badge for us to behold, their joy in the moment a tribute to the goodness that’s there if we take it.
I laid my head on Murphy’s shoulder, content with the morning, our children, each other, and the simple process of breathing.