CHAPTER 11

After news of Marty Dibble’s death on foreign shores had come to Bynum months before, his mother —Miss LuAnn —had taken to her bed. Most folks thought her melancholy would fade with time. But from what Alice-Ann could reason, her depression had only grown worse.

A few weeks after the town grieved for the first time, Aunt Bess had served a simple meal for supper, and —as the mashed potatoes were passed from one hand to another —she’d cleared her throat and pointed her eyes at Alice-Ann.

“LuAnn Dibble is not returning to her position at the church,” she said. “Teaching the three- to five-year-olds during the Sunday school hour.”

Alice-Ann reached for a serving bowl rounded by snap peas Aunt Bess had canned back in the summer. Instinctively she knew Miss LuAnn’s decision was somehow about to affect her. “Somebody taking her place?” she asked, her hand gripping the spoon shoved beneath the mound of green.

“Reverend Parker came round this morning, asking if you’d be interested in taking the role.”

Alice-Ann spooned the peas onto her plate, then passed the bowl, never once taking her eyes from Aunt Bess’s.

“Quite an honor to be asked,” Aunt Bess continued.

Alice-Ann took the bowl of potatoes from her father. “What’d you say?” she asked, even though she knew the answer.

“Well, of course, I told him you’d do it.”

Papa coughed a little. “Maybe LuAnn won’t stay down too long,” he said.

“Well, let’s hope not, Brother,” Aunt Bess said. “But not because this might mean Alice has to help out on Sundays.”

“Alice-Ann has enough to do,” he retorted, “what with working five days a week and being out in the fields most Saturdays with her brother and me.”

Aunt Bess bristled. “How hard can it be, Emmitt? Teaching little ones?” she asked, using his given name. The rarity of it caught Alice-Ann off guard.

Truth be told, Alice-Ann took to her new role like pats of butter on hotcakes. She’d come to look forward to those Sunday mornings when she sat with the little ones around her, all dressed in their Sunday best. And being the sons and daughters of hardworking farmers and their equally-as-hardworking wives, their Sunday best was the same, every Sunday. Not that anyone cared. Folks weren’t making too much of a fuss about what the big people wore, much less the children. Besides, freshly scrubbed and eager, they all looked adorable.

The little girls wore simple flour sack frocks and frilly white socks, the lace lying gently against black patent shoes. Most wore their hair in long braids tied off by wide ribbons. The boys —a few donning clean overalls, but most wearing pressed black slacks, white shirts, and their older brothers’ cast-off suspenders —had washed behind their ears the night before, some for the first time since the previous Saturday. Alice-Ann often thought they smelled like their fathers’ aftershave, leaving her to speculate on how such things played out.

Would her sons —hers and Mack’s —stand next to their daddy as he shaved, pretending to do the same, rewarded by a slapping on chubby cheeks with aftershave that lingered on his fingers and palms?

Her favorite part of the Sunday school hour was when, after singing an a cappella hymn or two, she told the children to take their seats. Then, opening her Bible Story Time for Young Readers book —the same one her mother had read from so very long ago —she brought the stories to life, using the same voice techniques her mother had.

“Miss Alice-Ann?” The children practically sang her name as they spoke it, requesting her attention. “You’re the best teacher ever.”

Of course she wasted no time writing Mack about her experiences with the children each and every Sunday afternoon. Though, in recent weeks, she wondered if he’d read her words at all.

The Sunday afternoon after Carlton returned home, Alice-Ann begged Nelson to take her into town.

Irene —who’d grown more miserable as the days added up to forty weeks —lay stretched across the living room sofa, her back to Alice-Ann. Her feet were bare —for who could find nylons anymore —and propped up on a stack of throw pillows Aunt Bess had brought in for her.

“What do you need to go into town for?” she whined, her chin resting on her shoulder as she peered toward the foyer, where Alice-Ann stood in the archway.

Lately, whining had been about the only way Irene talked. Whiny and so high-pitched only ole Sniffer next door could make out her words. But that day, she had to manage to raise her voice over the music coming from the stereo —the Andrews Sisters singing “Shoo Shoo Baby” —to make her point, loud and clear.

Alice-Ann entered the room fully, walked over to the Zenith, and turned the volume down enough to keep from shouting. Without looking at her sister-in-law, she directed her answer to her brother. “There’s a matinee Maeve and Ernie and I want to go see.” She gave him her best little-sister smile. “Cary Grant and Janet Blair in Once upon a Time.”

Irene moaned. “Maeve and Ernie . . . you’d think those two would be married by now the way they goo-goo-eye each other all the time.” Then, without missing a beat, she added, “Have Claudette and Johnny Dailey set a date yet?”

“Later this year,” Alice-Ann answered, her face still pointed at Nelson. “Please?” she asked. “You know how much I love Cary Grant, and I promise Ernie will bring me back.”

He glanced at his wife. “Why doesn’t Ernie come get you?”

“Come on, Nelson. Ernie’s not a farmer. His gas is rationed and you know it. Besides, he’s trying to save his money.” She shot a look at Irene. “Maybe he is saving up for a ring or something.”

Nelson ran his hand along the back of his neck. “Yeah, well . . . What if Irene needs me and I’m not here?”

Alice-Ann tapped her foot. “She’s a month out, Nelson. Besides, if anything happens, she’s going to be wanting Aunt Bess and Doc Evans. Not you.”

“Oh, how would you know?” Irene all but barked. “You’ve never been in my shoes, Alice-Ann. Fat and round and perfectly miserable.”

Her father walked in about that time, stopping just inside the doorway, his hands shoved into his pants pockets. He looked worn-out. Beat, really. And his brows had come together in the middle —a sure sign that he wasn’t to be messed with. “What’s all this about?” he asked in such a way that let everyone in the room know there was no option when it came to answering.

“Papa, I —”

“Alice-Ann asked for a ride into town to see a matinee,” Nelson intervened.

“I’ll take you,” he said, his voice a staccato. “Get your purse and gloves and I’ll meet you in the truck.”

Alice-Ann knew her eyes had grown large. She certainly didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but . . . “You, Papa?”

Nelson rested his hands on his hips. “Pops? You feeling all right?”

Papa had already started to leave the room. “I feel just fine.” He stopped, turned, and looked at both Nelson and Irene. “She pulls her weight around here,” he said. “I figure one good turn deserves another.”

Alice-Ann wasn’t about to argue. “I’ll go get my things,” she said, darting out of the room, up the stairs, and into her room before he had a chance to change his mind. She returned so quickly, her shoes tapping down the stairs at such a rate, she nearly lost her balance. She grabbed the banister to right herself, took in a deep breath, and finished the flight like the lady she hoped she had become.

Papa already had the truck running when she climbed into the passenger side. “Thank you, Papa. Really.”

He shoved the gearshift to first and eased on the gas. “Figured it would give us some time to catch up. We rarely get to.”

Alice-Ann looked out the window as her hands clasped each other. She shook her head at the reflection she saw in the glass. In all her life, she’d never known her father to want to talk to her about anything, much less “catch up.” The thought of such a conversation sent a wave of both fear and shock through her. Had he guessed about Mack? Had someone told him? Maybe Mack’s father had mentioned it in passing. But . . . did Mr. MacKay know she wrote to his son? She couldn’t imagine.

“Work is good,” she said finally, hoping to steer the conversation in a general direction.

“What do you do with yourself there all day?”

She turned and smiled at her father. Had he grown genuinely interested? The few times he’d come in on banking business, he never said a word to her. Whether she had a customer in front of her or not. He simply came in, conducted business with the bank’s president, and walked out. “Oh, you know. People come in and put money in and I log it. People come in and take money out, and I log that too. It’s not very exciting, but I’m not complaining. I enjoy working with Nancy and Mister Dooley.”

He gave her a half grin. “Not Portia?”

Alice-Ann turned a little more fully in her father’s direction. “Oh no. I didn’t mean that. I guess —I, um —well, you see, Papa, Miss Portia more or less keeps to herself. Does her work and leaves us to ours as long as our figures come out right.” Alice-Ann giggled, thinking how distant Mister Dooley’s secretary remained, even while keeping a maternal air about her. “Barks out her orders, but in a motherly fashion. Nancy says that if we were in a private girls’ school, she’d be our schoolmarm.”

He shifted gears as the truck rambled along toward town, then reached up and flipped the radio switch. Tommy Dorsey’s band singer crooned the lyrics to an old standard. Papa bobbed his head to the beat, which caused Alice-Ann’s to tilt in bewilderment.

Who was this man?

“She ever tell you we was sweet on each other once upon a time?”

Alice-Ann blinked. “Who?”

“Portia.” He spoke the name so matter-of-factly, Alice-Ann forced herself to say it back.

“Miss Portia?”

He chuckled again. “She and your mama got real close at a summer camp way back when. Used to be, when you saw one, you saw t’other. She ever tell you that?”

Alice-Ann felt her frown clear to her toes. Mama had told her there’d been a little complication when Papa asked her to the Spring Fling. Had the complication been Miss Portia? “No, sir.”

“Portia and I went out a time or two. A little sweet on each other, but then . . . That day I saw Earlene —really saw her —and then the dance I finally got to take her to. Oh, boy. And of course, Portia was there. I felt sort of sorry for her, but by then your mama had caught my attention and my heart.”

“You saw her at the church, practicing.”

Papa’s face softened as though he was reliving the moment, right there in the truck. “Didn’t want to hurt Portia, but after that day, I wasn’t about to give up in my quest to get your mama to go out with me.” He took his eyes off the road momentarily. “She was something else, your mama.”

“I know, Papa. I remember.”

He rested his wrist against the hard steering wheel, allowing his hand to flop down on the other side. “You remind me of her sometimes.”

“Me?” She looked at her reflection in the window again in wonder. Earlene Branch had been soft and fair. Even as Alice-Ann had grown into womanhood, and as she’d tried every way possible to fix herself up a little, she’d not been able to quite capture a semblance of beauty. “I sure don’t see that, Papa,” she said. “I mean,” she added, looking at him, “I don’t think I’m an ogre or anything, but . . . well . . . don’t you think I look more like Aunt Bess than Mama?”

Papa squared his shoulders; his left hand slid down the steering wheel as the right reached for the gearshift. They neared town. “I didn’t say you look like her, Alice-Ann. I said you remind me of her. You’re good and kind. You have a caring nature. You’re a hard worker.” He slowed the truck to a stop at the edge of town. “I went to the feed and seed the other day. Saw Anson Hillis in there. He told me about you coming over to see his boy after work on Thursday.”

Alice-Ann took in a breath. “He looks pretty beat up, Papa. I felt sorry for him.”

Papa nodded. “Well, I think that was right nice of you to do that.”

Alice-Ann opened her mouth to speak, but only air came out.

“Think you can walk the rest of the way in?” He glanced out the dust-splattered windshield.

Alice-Ann opened her door. “Thank you, Papa.”

“See you after the movie,” he said as she closed the door behind her.

She hurried across the street and onto the sidewalk leading to the theater, hoping she’d easily find Maeve and Ernie inside. She took deliberate steps, her thoughts whirling. Portia Ivey had once been smitten with Papa. But Papa had been crazy about Mama.

Poor Miss Portia. Before she’d gone to work at the bank, Alice-Ann thought Miss Portia looked at her as though she were missing an appendage. Perhaps not. Perhaps she looked at Alice-Ann, wondering, if things had gone differently . . . if Papa hadn’t heard Mama singing in the church that day . . . they would be mother and daughter instead.

“The heart loves who it loves and no one else,” she remembered Aunt Bess saying. “And it makes no excuses for it.”

Alice-Ann reached the ticket window of the theater, opened her purse, and pulled out her quarter. “Have you seen Maeve and Ernie?” she asked the attendant.

“Got here about five minutes ago.”

She nodded as he handed her the ticket through the tiny opening at the base of the glass.

Alice-Ann stepped into the carpeted lobby, and as she inhaled the aroma of buttery popcorn, she made a decision that surprised her. The ride with Papa had been a special one. A rare treat. She wouldn’t divulge the conversation they’d had to anyone.

Not even Mack.