CHAPTER 20

As if Nelson ribbing her about Carlton were not enough, she dreamed of him that night.

They walked along Main Street, him without his cane, toward Nancy and Harry’s bungalow-style home, next to the cottage Alice-Ann had so often through the years thought to be one of the most adorable she’d ever seen.

In spite of the fact that it needed work.

And had been the scene of a mythological murder.

As they walked, they spoke to each other about deep and important things. In her sleep, Alice-Ann couldn’t make out the words but rather felt the truth of them inside her spirit. They laughed easily, often poking fun without being hurtful. In the dream, Alice-Ann had been in a deep and caring friendship with Carlton her whole life, rather than only the few months since his return to Bynum. She couldn’t manage to remember life before him and couldn’t imagine a future life without him.

They neared the cottage, and as always, Alice-Ann paid attention to her feet in an effort to keep them off the horizontal cracks in the sidewalk. Step on a crack, she said, slipping her hand into Carlton’s and linking their fingers, break your mother’s back.

A scream caught her unaware and she jerked. Carlton stopped, his body rigid, his arm coming around her protectively. It’s the murderer, he said. Stay with me and you’ll be safe.

Alice-Ann looked up at him sharply. You said it was all campfire stories . . .

Stories come from somewhere, Alice-Ann, he said, the focus of his eyes never leaving the house. Most of the time there is a layer of truth in there, if you just look hard enough.

She followed his gaze, molding herself into him as she’d seen Irene do with Nelson. The front door burst open and a man staggered out, then turned toward them.

Mack!

He stood straight. He waved and she waved back, thinking to run to him and to thank God as she did so that he was alive indeed. But Carlton’s firm grip held her in place. Stay with me, Alice-Ann. Stay with me and you’ll be safe.

I told you. The voice came from behind. I told you, Alice-Ann.

Alice-Ann and Carlton turned to see Janie Wren standing there, looking like Miss America, her hair perfectly coiffed, her makeup expertly in place as though she were a cover girl in one of the magazines next to the counter at MacKay’s.

I told you, she continued, that he was still alive. Just like Tom Harmon. He’s a war hero, our Mack. Such a dashing war hero.

Alice-Ann looked again at Mack, who remained on the porch, waving. Alice-Ann, he called. Don’t be afraid of me, Alice-Ann. It was all just a story . . . about the murder . . . and the war . . . and the airplane.

But even as he said the words, the vision of him faded. Desperate, she pulled herself free of Carlton. Mack . . . I’m coming. Stay right there. Don’t leave me. Not again, Mack! Not —

Stay with me, Alice-Ann, Carlton continued to beg, rushing to catch up to her and grabbing at her arm. Stay with me and be safe.

Such a dashing war hero, Janie repeated. So handsome and brave. Just like Tom Harmon.

Alice-Ann struggled free of Carlton, rushed toward the cottage, and turned her head to look back at Janie and Carlton, then again to Mack, who grew fainter as she drew closer. She stopped. Mack, no! Don’t leave me again!

Oh no . . . Janie’s voice caught her attention, and again she turned to see the young woman pointing at Alice-Ann’s feet. You stepped on a crack . . .

Alice-Ann looked down. She wore the shoes Aunt Bess had purchased for her sixteenth birthday party. Had she been wearing them before? She didn’t think so.

Not that it mattered.

She’d stepped on the crack.

Alice-Ann woke with a start, sitting straight up. Sweat drenched her face, her back, and the sheets around her. She glanced at the open window, where the oscillating fan rested on the sill, rotating slowly, and into the gray darkness beyond. With the blackout shades pulled to just above the top of the fan, the room lay in shadows.

She blinked. The scent of rain lingered in the air. She pushed the damp sheets from her body, swung her legs over the edge of the mattress, and pattered to the window, where she sat on the floor and peered out. Light from the full moon had managed to break through the thick clouds rolling over its face, casting veiled light over the farm.

A memory tickled her. She and Mack, standing on the long driveway. Her, all of sixteen. Him, so handsome and about to leave Bynum. Leave to fight for his country. He had encouraged her to sing the song her mother had taught her, and she had.

“‘Moon, moon,’” she now whispered the words, speaking rather than singing. “‘So full and round. Moon, moon . . . don’t fall down. Stay where you are, right by that star, until moon, moon . . . my love is found.’” She squeezed her eyes together. “Mack . . .”

Alice-Ann tucked her feet under her as she switched off the fan, then set it on the floor. For a moment she thought of going downstairs to sit in her mama’s chair, then changed her mind. These days, so much as a creak in the house would wake Papa and he’d wonder if she’d lost her mind. So instead she stuck her face as close to the screen as possible and sniffed. The promise of rain blended with the smell of dust and dirt, of tobacco and corn and peanuts. “Oh, Father, please,” she prayed. “We need rain.”

And what better day for it than on a Sunday.

Growing warm again, she turned the fan back on, adjusting it so that it stopped oscillating and stayed pointed on her. Still wet from sweating in her sleep, her skin turned to gooseflesh. She shifted, pressed her back against the wall, then stretched her legs, pointed her toes, felt the pull along the backs of her legs, and counted the number of breaths she took.

Seven . . . eight . . . nine . . .

“Is he alive?” she whispered, hoping God could hear her over the prayers of the millions she knew had to be lifted to him at that very moment. Especially with the war affecting the entire world. “Is that why I dreamed about Mack? Because you’re trying to tell me he’s still alive?”

Alice-Ann rested her head against the floral-papered wall and felt the edge of the windowsill dig into her temple. She tilted her chin upward, waiting for the tears she knew would inevitably fall.

Then, as though God had both heard and answered, the thought skipped across her mind —interrupting all thoughts of Mack —that she’d also dreamed of Carlton.

Stay with me . . . , he’d begged her.

She shook her head. The whole thing was silly. She wasn’t with Carlton, so how could she possibly stay with him?

But then, why had she dreamed such a thing?

“Nelson,” she said. “I should box his ears.” She would, too, if he weren’t bigger and older than her.

Surely he’d been the culprit. All this nonsense talk about her and Carlton Hillis. About giving him a chance.

Carlton, of all people. Her . . . well, the man who had become her best friend, really.

Alice-Ann stood, carefully returned the fan to the windowsill, then thought better of it. What with so much time passing without even a sprinkle, should it rain, it would no doubt be a gully washer. The last thing she needed was water in an electric fan. That would certainly be the cherry on her ice cream sundae.

She crossed the room slowly to keep from stubbing a toe, picked up the chair at her desk and carried it near the window, cautious not to place it too close. After setting the fan on the seat, she ambled back to bed, felt the mattress rock beneath her, and lay back, pushing the sheet to the edge with her feet. A ragged breath caught in her chest and she sighed.

Alice-Ann closed her eyes, willing herself to return to sleep. To hopefully wake to the sound of rain splattering against the house.

Carlton Hillis.

The name brought an unexpected smile to her lips. She sighed one more time, then slipped into a new dream.

The rain didn’t let up for days. Thunder rolled with only a little lightning to accompany it. But water fell by the buckets in large drops that, at first, kicked up the dry earth, then muddied it.

By the fourth day, Papa had gone from praising God to muttering under his breath again about devastation to the crops. The long driveway to the main road had all but washed away, keeping Alice-Ann home. Without a phone, she’d been unable to call Mister Dooley, but she had an idea he knew where she was and why.

She missed being at work. She missed the smell of it —the aroma of marble and number 2 pencils, of ink and coffee and Mister Dooley’s cigars. She wanted to talk with Nancy. To share small talk between customers. She even missed the customers, most of whom provided fodder for the talk with Nancy as long as Miss Portia didn’t catch them at it.

And Alice-Ann ached —literally ached —to see Carlton again. She hardly meant to. In fact, she spent most of Tuesday and a good part of Wednesday morning talking herself out of such nonsense. Convincing herself that in her days stuck at the farm he had probably not missed her, not one iota. She even read over a few of Mack’s letters in an effort to stop all the wild imaginings swirling around in her head. But when they only brought a sense of impending doom —holding and rereading letters written by a dead man —she retrieved the few Carlton had written to her from Europe, only to find herself laughing at his words and his sense of humor.

Not to mention his timing.

To make matters nearly unbearable during those long, wet days, Little Mack, as they’d taken to calling the baby, had become fussy and inconsolable.

“He’s not any happier than his old grandpa,” Papa said, rising from his chair at the kitchen table, where he’d just finished off a glass of sweet iced tea. “Here, Irene. Give ’im to me and you go on upstairs and see what Nelson’s up to.” He took the child from Irene, who sighed in relief before leaving the kitchen.

Alice-Ann shook her head in wonder as her father and his grandson headed out the screen door. She imagined they shuffled to a back porch rocker, where somehow he managed to soothe the child to silence. Or maybe the sound of rain against the tin roof had simply drowned the little tyke out.

“Come on, Alice,” Aunt Bess said, drawing her from her misery at the kitchen table to where her aunt stood at the counter, arms crossed over a faded bib apron. One hand held a wooden spoon, probably the same one she used to threaten her niece and nephew countless times in their younger, more mischievous days. “I got some berries that are in need of a good pie to come home to.”

Alice-Ann smiled as she pushed herself up from the table.

Aunt Bess dropped her arms from the roll across her middle. “Land sakes, you act like you’re sixty instead of twenty.”

Alice-Ann stood upright. “What do you mean?” she asked, sliding the chair under the table.

“The way you practically hoisted yourself up. Like an old woman with the rheumatiz.”

Alice-Ann laughed. “You’re right. I suppose I just have a lot on my mind these days, and I’m letting it wear me down.”

“Now, don’t you worry any about the money you’re not making stuck out here these last few days.”

Alice-Ann nodded. “I admit it’s been on my mind.” Not as much as Mack and Carlton, but wondering how she’d make up for the money she was losing had hovered around her thoughts. She smiled. “But I’m sure making a pie will help. What do you need me to do first?”

“Go into the pantry and get me my baking tins.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She crossed the linoleum floor that nearly sparkled after Aunt Bess’s most recent attack, complete with mop and a bucket of hot water and vinegar, earlier that morning. The strong aroma of the mixture lingered, wrestling near the door with the stink of farm animals and earth unleashed by days of rain.

Alice-Ann paused on the way to the pantry, listening to the gentle voice of her father as he spoke to his only grandchild. She tilted her head, pondering as to whether or not she could remember hearing him talk to her in such a tone when she’d been a little girl.

She could not, and as much as that fact hurt, Little Mack had quieted, and for that she was grateful.

“And when you get old enough, we’ll get you out there about this time of the year and you can help us bag those peanuts.”

Alice-Ann leaned closer to the screen, wanting to hear more. Wishing, for the briefest of moments, that she could crawl onto her father’s lap —an act she had no real memory of —and be an unobtrusive member of the conversation. “Now, some of the peanuts we sell and some we keep. We’ll bring the ones we keep up to the house and Aunt Bess will wash ’em good and then she’ll boil ’em.”

Alice-Ann smiled, thinking of the days she’d helped Papa and Nelson pull peanuts. How she’d assisted Aunt Bess in the kitchen later. How the whole family watched in anticipation as Papa took a spoon, scooped a peanut out of the simmering salty water, cracked it open, and tested it for the right texture. “Another few minutes,” he’d say, time and again, until —finally —“Yep. Just right. Let’s eat.”

“And you ain’t lived,” he continued between the pattering raindrops, “until you’ve had some boiled peanuts, salted just right. Let me just go ahead and school you right now . . .”

“What in the world are you listening to out there?” Aunt Bess’s question caused her to turn. To step away from the door for fear of being found out as an eavesdropper.

She shook her head. “Papa’s talking about being a peanut farmer,” she whispered. “And Little Mack is so quiet, I guess he’s considering it.”

Aunt Bess grinned. “Little boy’s got ambition. I can tell that already.”

Alice-Ann sighed as she started again for the pantry.

“Which is a good sight more than his namesake,” Aunt Bess finished.

Alice-Ann stopped and turned. “What do you mean?” she asked, crossing the room for her aunt’s answer. The last thing she needed was a conversation about Mack broadcast to the porch or up the stairs.

Aunt Bess had exchanged the wooden spoon for a small paring knife. Two small Fiesta bowls —one filled with unsliced strawberries, the other holding a few that had been quartered —graced the counter in front of her. Aunt Bess reached for another berry, expertly jabbed the top of the knife along the hull, edging around it until it was plucked away from the berry. “Boyd MacKay was a fine-looking young man and I know he was your brother’s best friend . . .” She quartered the berry into the second bowl. “And I also know you thought the world of him.” She reached for another berry and repeated her actions. “But I was always smart enough to know that he would have let the world take care of him if he could have rather than the other way around.”

Hot breath caught in Alice-Ann’s throat. “Aunt Bess,” she managed. “I can’t believe you’d say that.”

Aunt Bess waved the paring knife in her direction, keeping it at a safe distance. “I’m not trying to speak ill of the dead. So don’t go putting words or meanings into my mouth.”

“I’m —”

“I’m only saying —” another berry fell by fourths into the bowl, joining the others in a mass of shimmering red —“even his own mama said they were worried he’d never grab hold of enough ambition to go to school and, hopefully, take over his daddy’s apothecary one day.”

Alice-Ann crossed her arms. “What if he didn’t want to take over his daddy’s apothecary? What if he wanted . . . something more?”

Aunt Bess reached for the sugar tin, scooped a tablespoon-size amount with the wooden spoon she’d held earlier, and sprinkled the granules over the berries. “Like what?” Her brow cocked. “And would you like to tell me what do you know about Boyd all of a sudden?”

Heat rose from her toes, settling in her belly. “Well . . . I mean . . . nothing really. I —”

Aunt Bess slid the sugar tin a few inches away, picked up the paring knife, and resumed hulling. “You what?”

“He —uh —” She looked down at her feet, then up again to the confused expression on her aunt’s face. Why not simply say what she knew? It no longer mattered anyway. So what if they’d corresponded? Even if word got out —not that she imagined Aunt Bess falling into gossip —the rumors couldn’t be any worse than what probably had begun to mill around about her and Carlton. “Well, he seemed pretty excited about going into the Army Air Corps. Maybe he —maybe he would have continued flying or —or serving —if . . .”

Aunt Bess dropped the knife on the counter and wiped her hands on her bib apron. “Oh, dear.” She pulled Alice-Ann into her arms. “You’re right, of course, and I can see that this has upset you.”

Alice-Ann took a deep breath, felt it quake in her chest, then released it with a furrowing of her brow. When the expected tears burning the backs of her eyes didn’t come, she pulled back from her aunt’s embrace but refused to meet her eyes. “I think he would have made a good pilot, don’t you? I mean, after the war.”

She felt Aunt Bess’s stare, knew the woman studied her for any telltale signs of hidden emotions. Aunt Bess had always been able to read her, so Alice-Ann turned toward the pantry. The last thing she needed, especially now, was for her aunt to know the truth.

“I suppose he would have,” Aunt Bess said softly.

“I’ll get the tins now,” Alice-Ann said, then set about doing just that.