CHAPTER 26

That Mr. Kern lived long enough to see the Missus die inside that hospital room was a reality that surprised us all once we’d found time to digest the events some years later. Those Arkansas relatives returned home shortly after the funeral, although there had been some talk late at night of the Missus being buried in her hometown of Little Rock. Mr. Kern had objected strongly, saying she would want to rest beside Elizabeth even if that meant her staying in Greenwood forever, putting an end to that conversation just as quickly as it began.

With her death came a constant looking over our shoulders, as the Missus’s presence in that home extended far beyond anything physical and could now be seen in the distrust we each had for one another. Nevertheless, that bit of cathartic relief from her passing did still persist, a proverbial weight lifted from our shoulders, although it still remained in the things we did and did not say, as I would see the Missus at night in visages that came to light quickly, woke me, then fell away into nothing just as soon as they’d appeared. She would taunt us from the grave, I feared, her face just as lovely as it was in any of her schemes.

Our hearts were heavy during that time with crying and laughing and screaming all in lieu of those same pains we’d endured at the Missus’s hands and that eventually came of our own with enough time. Her life remained only in the projects she’d ordered around the house, thoughts of her coming to mind only when I’d notice Jesse’s work on the kitchen or fixtures in the downstairs bathrooms. These projects were the one good thing anyone ever attributed to the Missus even if they were born of her spite.

Neither Jesse nor Silva nor Fletcher attended the funeral, but Floyd and myself took a seat near the back where a few other stragglers had congregated, Floyd in his suit coat and brimmed hat with a silken thread around the base that tied into a flattened bow and me in my finest Sunday dress from that time in Clinton. Not many people showed for the event other than those few older churchwomen, who showed at every funeral that was close enough for them to pay their respects. They brought with them crumb cakes and pecan pies and dressed in their gaudiest Sunday hats, gossiping all the way from the house to the sanctuary doors, as these were the only times those women ever left the front porch.

I had not seen her nephew Matthew since that earlier time of the family’s visit, as his mother shielded him from the Missus’s decline and only sent for him once the Missus had passed. He was eleven now but still had not met that growth spurt that would level him off with the other boys, although his maturity showed in other ways. His face displayed a firmer jawline, and those large eyes and large head had grown proportionally with the rest of his body. Although thin, he was built solid and his boyish features, a button nose and wide forehead, that once made him appear so innocent and sweet were now the early signs of handsomeness. He didn’t remember me like the other two who came rushing up to greet me, not necessarily in a loving manner but in the way children often do when there’s activity and they look to be a part of it in any way possible. It was clear to them I was an easy target as they talked of Little Rock incessantly. Matthew was a spitting image of Miss Lula, a similar version of how I imagined Elizabeth would be had she grown to be his age. He was fair-skinned and easily bothered by the sun, as his ears sat red at that very moment and his mother fussed at him not to pester them. However, he possessed a temperament that was altogether different from the Missus, for he was kind even if easily affected. He was soft-­spoken and peered around the room shyly where, if caught, he’d look down immediately until the threat was over and he could once again spy unnoticed. This led the boy’s father to comment just after the service ended that his boy was so similar to Sissy when she was a child, a fact I tried hard to forsake when I thought of that boy’s future and how easily one’s life could change if given the right set of circumstances, just how quickly that humanity could fade and return us to those primal ways.

The family departed soon after the service, loading their arms with whatever mementos they could gather—their spree lasting hours as they picked through hats, scarves, dresses, pictures, and the Missus’s needlework—the absence of those items creating a strange sense of disorientation that lingered inside the house where the void left by their previous placement seemed more off-putting than their presence ever could—that idea once taught to me, to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

After the Missus’s death, those letters from Jesse had been a priority pushed to the forefront of my mind, as I had searched to destroy any knowledge of their existence. Those Arkansas relatives had left the room ransacked and impossible to navigate for days, keeping me at a distance as they stripped it piece by piece, and I feared they’d find the letters and disclose that information to Mr. Kern as soon as they’d come upon it, or even worse, they’d handle it themselves. Yet as luck would have it, their eyes remained on loftier prizes and so on the day of their departure when Mr. Kern had settled in his parlor, I snuck into the room.

I removed the first dresser drawer and started there. These drawers remained cluttered with items no individual, not even a family member, would ever want to take, things like the Missus’s old brushes and powders and lipsticks. There were a few hair clamps and claws that still held strands of the Missus’s hair. Inside her wardrobe I found mostly the same. There were a few old dresses the family had not gobbled up and some scarves that were not as extravagant as the ones they’d found in pearl boxes atop her vanity, and so they left them tossed at the bottom of the cabinet along with some of the Missus’s less exquisite shoes and purses, cheap items left tucked in the corners, stacked on top of each other to either scratch or bend out of shape.

I turned from the closet and in my line of sight was that one drawer of the wardrobe where the Missus’s pills were kept. Aware that the letters were not inside, I moved toward it anyway and indulged my curiosity. The seals of the drawer were of a certain firmness that made them harder to open and when they finally did break it came with a pop as if opening a jar of pickles for the first time. The pill bottle was just as I’d left it. The Missus’s ghost was there, I could tell. Her presence watched me as I opened the bottle and spilled its contents inside my hand. The normal pills had been returned to the bottle, their size and color just slightly different than those impostors. I buried the look of surprise from my face, not wanting to tempt that ghost into fury, merely replacing the pills and bottle back inside the drawer and resuming my normal duties outside the house in silent resignation that Silva had controlled the Missus’s downfall from the very beginning and had tied up any loose ends now that it was complete.

Still, there were certain variables that Silva could not so easily control, like Mr. Kern’s reaction if he found those letters. I’m quite sure she’d tried to find them just as fervently as I had, eventually settling for the joy of the Missus’s death without them once she failed to recover a single one.

Jesse arrived at the house on the second day following the funeral. Mr. Kern was in tolerable spirits, and so I was released to sneak outside for a breath of fresh air. Jesse stood at the wide-mouth barrel with his hands cupped as he drank. He’d grown more cautious over the years although never impolite or mean-spirited in his vigilance. He was still a gentle giant although his affection remained reserved for his wife and no one else. And as such, he gave nothing more than a wave in my direction when he’d spotted me by the side door.

“You gotta do better than that,” I chided.

He laughed, now sending another wave with both hands.

“It’s nice to see you too,” I said.

Jesse walked to the side door where I stood, wringing his hands of water as he walked.

“Good morning, Miss Bernie,” he said. “I would hug you but my hands are still wet.”

“It’s fine, Jesse,” I replied. “How’s Elise?”

“Real good,” he said. “She might be pregnant, but we don’t know yet.”

“That’s excellent news at a time like this,” I said.

“There’s no other time I’d want my child born than with that woman gone,” he insisted. “I never want it to know that type of evil can exist.”

“But that type of evil is all around, Jesse,” I warned. “Life causes us to do some strange things sometimes.”

“If it ain’t of God,” he said, “then I don’t want it.”

Elise belonged to one of those evangelical churches on the outskirts of town, one of those ‘speaking in tongues, throw you into the river’ type of places where they met in a tent some five to six nights a week, and their shouts could be heard for miles in both directions, always with that sign out front that read in blazing red letters: Sinners Welcomed! She was in no way lukewarm about her faith and refused an engagement with Jesse unless he be fired up too, confessing his devotion to that church just as she had done years before. And so one night during that summer’s revival, the confused boy rose and took hesitant steps down the aisle through the crowd of staring, praying faces, as Elise nudged him with the back of her heel and caused his feet to get to moving. Jesse had come to the Lord some several months after Fletcher refused that church’s invitation. Fletcher in fact had been the one to tell Jesse about the tent and its followers and encouraged him to attend to see for himself. Jesse spoke like them more often now, although we all were of a different spirit, good or bad, following those years with the Missus.

“I won’t see the horrors,” Jesse continued. “I won’t see it come to pass again.”

“And Fletcher?” I said. “How’s he?”

“He’s just fine,” Jesse replied. “He won’t come back here, but he won’t tell me why either. I know it got something to do with that woman. Always has. He spent a few nights with me and Elise but now he back home with Mama. I guess they had a falling out or something. He don’t talk much now. Just sit around looking.”

“You take care of him like you always do,” I told him.

“Yes, Miss,” he replied.

There were hints of warmer weather to come yet none had arrived, leading Jesse to return to his work in the stables as I returned to the house to find Mr. Kern seated in his parlor with a cup of whiskey in his hand. The sky was of such a gentle shade that I suggested we sit outdoors and enjoy the color, but the old man refused.

“You go ahead,” he barked. “Then tell me about it later.”

I had experienced many moments like this with Mr. Kern as of late, depressing encounters where the old man seemed to have no spirit left in him, sitting there with that God-awful expression like he was ready to die but God just wouldn’t take him. It was what the Missus had always wanted for him: a life of desolation and agony where each day his heart grew lonelier and he hated this home even more than the pits of hell, if he could ever reach it. In those coming days, he saw no sun from the outside unless it came through those parlor windows. He heard not a shuffle of the wind’s fuss and was not of decent enough mood to even bear a visit from Floyd, whom the old man adored more than any of us, save for Fletcher.

One day the Missus’s ghost must have roused him, as he stood from his rocker and left the parlor quickly. Mr. Kern walked with a drunken lurch into the Missus’s former quarters. His presence had not touched that room in all of its existence yet now he walked amongst it with a familiarity that led him from the dresser to the wardrobe to that veiled window that allowed no light or obstructions from the outside world. Mr. Kern rested in the Missus’s old chair. He stroked its arms affectionately even though he still appeared as grumpy as a child given a sweater on Christmas. His breathing remained heavy although consistent enough to lull him into a gentle sleep. He did not wake from this condition for several hours when a cradle, mahogany-laced and strapped tightly with shiny casings of plastic that mirrored its form, caught his attention from the corner of the bed. This was its lot, this shell that served no further purpose, placed now amongst those other items also stored and locked away inside this very room, a corner of one of its four legs bearing the initials ELK that over time had weathered to just faintly show the indentations of that gold-plated mass. One leg appeared to be of a smaller diameter than the rest and served as the weaker side that respectfully sat propped against the wall for support. It was tragic to witness, holding my attention like an accident that is impossible to turn away from. It broke my will to be angry anymore. Still, Mr. Kern remained unbothered by this monstrosity, his nature now akin to those monsters that had, over the course of time, beaten him into this most helpless of states, his eyes downward cast, his tail tucked between his legs, that flinch appallingly noticeable whenever the master cracked his whip.

Mr. Kern abandoned these sights when a chest once belonging to young Elizabeth caught his attention from beneath the bed. He stood and bent painfully at the edge to retrieve the item that sat partially tucked beneath the bed skirt. The chest was small and within it were some of Elizabeth’s old dresses and infant shoes. There was a rag doll and teddy she could never sleep without, once given to her by that uncle in Little Rock, Miss Lula had told me. There were photographs but none of Elizabeth, more clothes, then at the bottom a strange pouch that Mr. Kern dug at until he’d pried it from its locked position and it rested flat in his hands. I’d seen this pouch before in Miss Lula’s possession but never thought much of it. Many times I’d observed it inside her carrier or upon her nightstand, then it’d be gone within a matter of minutes.

Once he’d removed the pouch, Mr. Kern returned to the Missus’s chair, where he sat and opened it. The light fell heavily over his brow, which blackened his eyes and made his entire face grim. His stare remained steady, his color an instant change from pale to red to scarlet to some shade that appeared to be the intensity of fire, it burned so brightly. One-by-one he pulled the sheets of paper from the pouch, stacking these items on the floor each time he had finished one, his chest heaving a ruckus up and down that sounded much like the grinding of gears. Then, after he’d read each one, he sighed, picked up each unfolded page and moved with deep breaths across the room where he refolded them gently. His expression was toxic and he grunted once more, moaning quite miserably as he quickly grabbed hold of the bed frame and used both his hands to prop himself up. He stood there with weak legs, feeling that unquestionable pull at the back of his knees that threatened to topple him at any moment. He replaced each of the letters inside the pouch and returned it to its original position within the chest then closed it, positioning the box beneath the bed in its former resting place before he stood and left the room. Downstairs he found Silva just as dinner was halfway to the table. He sat in his usual chair, and the food was placed before him like always. There was no one to talk to, and so silence prevailed as if that nonexistence of sounds were actual conversation. There was no place to look other than down or around, although it was the same sight he’d already seen over hundreds of meals. He ate quickly, just to get it over with, leaving his plate and the dinner table before dessert was ever served.

Silva returned to the dining area and scoffed at the sight of that empty table as she held a bowl of Jell-O in her hands. Still, she couldn’t blame him for being the man he was, just like the dust in the air couldn’t help its constitution and so often became stuck in one’s eyes and irritated them. Just like the sun that sometimes burned too hotly or the nagging cockroach whose presence in the house sent shivers down her spine. So was Mr. Kern a man whom she had grown to love and accept over time for the man he was and not someone she’d hoped he’d be.

If Mr. Kern was angry or had plans to seek his own revenge, I couldn’t tell, although I was sure he’d pondered every option. The days of an eye for an eye were not long gone from this place, and to expect a change in his heart would be to wait for the earth to rotate in a different direction, I knew. Those letters likely burned a hole in his mind as he considered that negro’s declaration of love to the Missus, and he now plotted a swift revenge.

Mr. Kern was a pigment of death as he wandered the halls, a cursed soul left to dawdle and wait in insatiable hunger. He entered the downstairs area, where he stumbled inside the kitchen. He passed the preserves atop the newly built shelf, rubbing his fingers over the jars contemplatively. His body rose a little higher. Inside the dining room he looked upon the lacquered floor, its shine like that of new pennies. Then, with that shine in his eyes, he crept past the accented doorway and his body seemed to raise even higher. He stopped inside the living room, where those curtains made the entire space appear like a floral garden from the boldness of their prints. He watched it longingly and, although he still slouched just slightly from that inability to stand completely upright, his muscles seemed to work harder than they had in months as they reawakened from the coursing of his blood within his veins burning hot, and he stood as erect as he could. He boiled, and that sweat on his upper lip returned to prominence within minutes. All of a sudden he was a man of color, a pink complexion that arose on his cheeks, similar to that color those servants down in Louisiana saw in the shrimp they cooked. In his parlor, a globe sat atop a rusted cabinet of nicks no Pledge could remove. The wall was a water-damaged stain that dripped from the top of the ceiling to the very bottom, stopping at Mr. Kern’s foot as he stood in anger, tapping his sole to the ground.

He looked like a man about to conquer the world or see it fall, roused and vicious as ever and ready for anything these peasants could throw his way, when suddenly the Mister fell into a fit that landed him on the floor in the most precarious position. His legs spread in opposite directions, and his mind seemed to be anywhere but here. And with this silent revolt he was defeated, spending the next month at Greenwood Leflore Hospital in a room dangerously close to where the Missus had spent her final days, laid in a bed with trays of cornbread and buttermilk served to him by nurses in powder-blue scrubs and triangle hats. Following his stroke, Mr. Kern was left without the ability to walk or talk, partially paralyzed over most of his body, his care left to Silva and myself, as if the old man were a beggar inside his own home.