CHAPTER 21

Alice-Ann missed the entire week of work. Monday through Friday. No work and that meant no pay.

By Saturday morning, after the sun had borne down with cool intensity on Bynum’s fields for all of the previous day, Nelson announced at the breakfast table that he believed he could get the truck down the driveway and into town and back.

“Seems awful dangerous to me,” Aunt Bess said. She speared a sausage link from a blue-and-white Currier and Ives platter and dropped it onto her plate.

“Dangerous or not,” Nelson countered, taking the platter from their aunt, “I’ve got to. I need to see if any of the prisoners are in town, ready to work.” He passed the platter to Irene, who passed it on to Papa.

Irene couldn’t abide eating pork, especially after helping feed the pigs in the sty. “How am I to know which one I’m eating?” she once asked, her nose drawn into a wrinkle.

And Aunt Bess —always quick with a comeback —had supplied the answer. “I don’t see you feeling the same about the cows.”

Not that Irene fed the cattle. And not that she wanted to feed the pigs. But she’d signed on as a farmer’s wife when she married Nelson and —one way or the other —Aunt Bess and Papa seemed determined to make her into one.

“Can I ride along?” Alice-Ann asked as Papa extended the platter to her. She took it, speared the last piece of meat, and dropped it to her plate.

“Going to see our boy?” Papa asked. “I imagine you’ve missed seeing him this week.”

Alice-Ann’s mouth dropped open, and she shot her father her best what-are-you-talking-about? stare. “We’re friends, Papa.”

“Could do worse,” he said, reaching toward Irene for the matching Currier and Ives serving bowl filled with fluffy scrambled eggs. The spoon clanked against the china as he scooped a dollop onto his plate. “Can’t do much better, in fact.”

She blinked several times, then looked at Nelson again. “So? Can I? Hitch a ride?”

“All right by me.”

Alice-Ann sought permission from her father and aunt. “Do either of you need me for anything here?”

Little Mack’s cries came from upstairs, and Irene slid her chair away from the table. “The prince has returned from dreamland,” she said, then left the room to retrieve her son.

“I’m sure I can make do without you,” Aunt Bess said. “I’m sure you’ve about gone stir-crazy out here all week.”

“It’s not that —”

“I think,” Papa added, “whether she wants to admit it or not, she misses Carlton.”

Outwardly, Alice-Ann groaned, but inwardly, she admitted —at least to herself —that Papa’s words held a modicum of truth. She had missed Carlton. She’d missed their chats. The way he teased her. She missed —well, everything about him. Even the scent of him. The way he smiled and made her smile in return. Without even trying.

“Papa,” she said, keeping her voice steady, “do you or do you not need me here on the farm today?”

Papa shook his head. “No, I reckon not.”

“Then I can go?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“What’s on your mind today?” Carlton asked as they stepped off the curb and onto Cooper Street.

Alice-Ann slipped her hand into the crook of his arm as they crossed the street to the sidewalk stretching in front of the bank. “What makes you think I have something on my mind?”

He stared down at her, their steps slow and methodical, his cane tapping in a familiar rhythm, before answering. “You have that look about you.”

She bit back a smile. “And what look is that?”

He chuckled low in his throat. “Just a look I’ve come to recognize.”

A sigh escaped between her lips. “Okay, Sherlock.”

Carlton placed his hand on hers. She flinched —she knew she did —not because she found his touch unpleasant. In fact, the opposite. If he noticed, he didn’t indicate it. “Does that make you Watson?”

Alice-Ann chose not to answer. Instead, she asked, “Do you feel like walking all the way down to the house next to Nancy and Harry’s? The one I promised to show you?”

This time he laughed heartily. “Oh no,” he said when he’d sobered. “You’ll not get away with it that easy. Tell me what’s on your mind, Watson.”

With a shrug of her shoulders, she said, “I think Papa is an anomaly.”

Carlton stopped. He looked at her as she gazed at him. His hair seemed less groomed than usual, what with the sunlight skipping off the strands and then finding a place to dance in his eyes, which today —in spite of the brightness —were unshaded. In fact, a casualness lay over him like an old coat, as though their special friendship had settled between the two of them, and they’d lost the need for impressions. “An anomaly?”

“Yeah. You know. Someone who is one thing one minute and then in the next minute he’s completely different.”

Carlton resumed their walk, bringing her with him. “I know what an anomaly is.”

She squared her shoulders. Kept her focus on the cane, which —in her observation —seemed to be less of a support and more of a crutch. “Oh. The way you said it . . .”

“Why is your father an anomaly? And this I have to hear.”

“What do you mean?”

“If ever a man was the Rock of Gibraltar, it’s your father.” They stopped at the next curb, both looking toward the only traffic light in town to gauge if it was a good idea to cross. “Look at us,” he added. “We made it all the way past the bank and the post office without a single soul stopping to rave about my service to our country or yours to me.”

Alice-Ann glanced behind them as butterflies skipped along the walls of her stomach. Hers to him.

Other than the two of them, the sidewalk stood empty. “Well, Carlton,” she said, turning back to him and willing the butterflies to cease their nonsense. “Today is Saturday, so the post office and the bank are closed.”

“True. Light’s red. Let’s cross.”

They kept the same pace as before —slow and easy. When they reached the opposite curb, Alice-Ann answered with “I don’t ever remember my father being playful with me.”

Again, he peered at her. “Go on.”

“I remember him and Nelson playing ball in the front yard.”

“Daddy told me once that there was no better sportsman than your daddy back in their school days. And of course, I remember him throwing the ball around with Mack and me in the cool autumn evenings, after coming back from grinding corn over at the mill.”

“Yeah, well . . . I mostly remember him leaving me to Aunt Bess.”

“Seems natural.”

“Some days —since the war —he’s been as tight as a twisted rubber band, ready to snap.”

“Can’t blame a farmer for that. Not these days. Not any days, really.”

Her fingers flexed against the flesh of his lower arm, where tiny beads of sweat broke through, and her gaze shot down the sidewalk. Old oaks and magnolia trees with thick green leaves kept it shaded, for which she was grateful. Carlton didn’t need to get too warm, especially as they were embarking on a longer walk than usual.

“I know,” she said. “But lately he’s been —teasing —when he talks to me. And not too long ago, he shared with me about —well, about when he dated Mama. He never talks about Mama. Or at least so rarely it doesn’t really count.”

Carlton walked in silence for several moments, his cane’s clicking drowned out now by the songs of cicadas rising from the trees. Occasionally he waved to folks working in their front lawns, picking up sticks and moss knocked to the ground by the previous week’s storm. Usually they called only to him, but some of them greeted her as well. Otherwise, Alice-Ann kept her eyes on the sidewalk, counting the cracks, careful not to step on them, all the while wondering what people really thought of her and Carlton walking along together. Especially with her hand looped into the crook of his arm.

Yet, more than anything, she couldn’t get over the feeling that she didn’t really mind what they thought. Not a bit.

Carlton stopped, raised his chin slightly, and said, “Is that it?”

“Well, yeah, I guess so.”

“You guess so? You don’t know?”

Alice-Ann pulled her hand from his arm and planted both hands on her hips. “Well, Carlton Hillis, what more do you want me to say? Papa is suddenly becoming friendly in his old age and I, for one, find it creepy. Well, maybe not creepy, but at the very least unnerving.”

His brow furrowed, and then as understanding dawned, he laughed. “No, silly girl. I mean . . .” He pointed across the street with the end of his cane. “Is that the house?”

The cottage she’d so often dreamed of stood silent and alone. Forlorn, almost. A square box with three columns instead of four, and a front porch that appeared nearly as deep as it was wide. “Oh. Yes. That’s it.”

“Not many cars out today. What do you say we take a chance and jaywalk?”

She nodded and they crossed the street together, walking a little faster than they had up until then. “I think,” she said when they reached the other side, “that you’re not really using that cane for support so much anymore.”

Carlton glanced from the cane to her and back to the cane again. “You may be right. But I think that it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.”

“Makes sense.”

He looked at the house again. “So this was the place of the gruesome murder.” He made a dramatic “woo-oooh” sound and widened his eyes.

Alice-Ann punched his arm. “Stop it.”

“All right, all right. Seriously, it could use some paint.”

They climbed the three cement steps from the sidewalk to the walkway cutting the lawn into two patches of dark-green weeds. “And the lawn could use some reseeding,” she added.

They stopped at the base of the front porch steps. Carlton used his cane to test them. “And some new boards here.”

“I’m going up,” Alice-Ann said as she studied the splintered wood.

“Up where?”

“To the porch.”

“Careful, now.”

She took the first step, turned, and looked at him. “Coming with me? Or are you going to let a little rotten wood frighten you?”

Carlton’s lips formed a round O as he shook his head. “Oh, young lady,” he said. “You may not know it, but I’ve met the enemy, and it ain’t some two-by-fours in need of replacing.”

She giggled as she jogged up the remaining steps, hoping none of them collapsed beneath her —how embarrassing would that be? —and turned to look down at him. “Oh, really?”

Carlton took each step carefully, his cane steady against the boards until he made it to the porch. “Glad you could join me,” Alice-Ann teased, then crossed to the picture window on the right side of the porch, cupped her hands around her face, and peered into the house. “This is the living room,” she said. Her eyes swept both the emptiness and the details. “Come over here and look at the woodwork, Carlton. Look at the gingerbread accents in the corners of the door leading to that room there. I think it’s the dining room.”

Carlton stood beside her, imitating her stance. “Nice. And nice crown molding and baseboards,” he said. “And only about an inch of dust on the floorboards.”

“That’s probably not all that’s on the floors,” she added with a frown.

“Come,” he said, stepping away from her and walking over to the smaller window on the left side of the front door.

She joined him and studied the glass as she came closer. A hairline crack ran diagonally across the top right corner. “This window would need fixing.”

“Yes’m.”

They looked in as they had before —hands cupped, faces against the pane. “I think this is the front bedroom,” she observed.

“Kinda small.”

Alice-Ann smiled. Compared to the tiny box he called his bedroom, the room was palatial, but she elected not to say anything. Since Carlton had been able to get out of bed, she’d not been in the intimacy of his room, and it felt awkward now talking about such things. “Well,” she said, her breath fogging the glass, “the whole house is small.”

“A cottage, really,” he said.

Alice-Ann pulled her face away from her hands to look at him. “You remember,” she whispered.

He studied her without answering and she did the same, noting the tiny dimple in his chin. The crinkles around his eyes. The fullness of his lips.

Oh . . .

“I remember,” he said, and her eyes came back to his.

She struggled to find her voice as she faced him fully. “How —how did you remember?”

He shifted the cane from his right hand to the left, then raised a finger to tap the tip of her nose. “I remember pretty much everything you say.”

“You do?” Her voice squeaked, and inwardly, she cringed.

Carlton leaned forward. His lips —those full lips she’d noticed only a moment ago as though she’d seen them for the first time in her life —brushed against her cheek, found her ear, and sent tiny gooseflesh down her arms. “I do,” he whispered. “Miss Alice-Ann.”