CHAPTER 10
The cooling winds of late August withdrew their promise. Indian summer dropped its torrid days over the land, the house, the verandahs. Emily lifted a worn palmetto fan from the porch table and offered one to Belinda.
“No, I have my own, thank you.” From the pleats of her plaid silk skirt, Belinda produced a folding fan of the latest fashion, its tips ending in silk leaves embellished with dark feathers. Belinda flipped it open, fanned herself, the feathers fluttering in its artificial breeze. Emily attempted to hide her astonishment at such a fan in addition to the extravagant plaid of Belinda’s dress. Trade was shaky, as was the future, and Will, always frugal, tended to preserve his resources.
“A gift from Will,” Belinda said. “He ordered it from New Orleans because I just fell in love with it in the catalog. He didn’t seem to love it like I did, but I begged and then he said he would. But, of course, it is never certain if things will actually arrive these days. Like my letter saying I would marry him, but, of course, that had nothing to do with anything except some devilish vandal, pulling his antics at the expense of my life.” Belinda fanned herself, flicking the feathers against her cheek. “And what if I hadn’t got so upset I couldn’t help myself? We would never have known my letter went missing. It would be the great unsolved mystery of Choctaw County. But it isn’t. And what if we’d found it all out after Will was married to that woman from Winona?” She flicked the fan closed, then open again. “But he’s not. And now I am married to Will and have my beautiful fan. I hope I never have to use one of those horrid old palmetto fans again. I cannot abide to lay eyes on them.”
Emily put her fan aside.
“No, no, Emily.” Belinda leaned across, her hand outstretched. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean you. All I have to do is open my mouth and I wind up putting my foot in it. But you know that from school.”
“Well, Belinda, I—”
“Don’t say that isn’t true, Emily. I was always saying something foolish or hurting someone’s feelings. Over things I never thought mattered, anyway. Just trifles. But they must matter to some folk.” Belinda sat back and fanned at her neck. ”Truth is, Emily, you were my only friend I could actually talk to. And then I open my mouth and say something stupid to you.”
“Belinda, it is only a palmetto fan—”
“I know. And it shouldn’t matter, but it does. It makes me think of Pa when he was all the time trying to get religion. All those tent meetings in the heat! And those old fans going back and forth, back and forth. It’s enough to make a girl crazy!”
“How could a revival be—?”
“Well, it was. You haven’t ever had to go to the likes of these. But I have. Pa wanting to get born again, so he could be different. And him dragging me with him every time. I reckon he hoped if I could get born again, maybe he could, too. But that didn’t work. I did not need to get born again. I needed to get over being born the first time and get on with the living part.” Belinda closed her fan again.
A loosened feather from the fan quivered onto Emily’s lap. The blue-black iridescence of it shifted as Emily pulled it through her fingers.
Belinda paused. “I hated those meetings, everybody hollering and shouting and the preacher bellowing on about hell.” Belinda half rose, then sat again. “I went down front with Pa, more than once. If he went, I went. I certainly did not stay on that bench all by myself. Scared to death sitting there in that forest of folks, waving those fans, all whipped up by the Holy Ghost. Now, isn’t that enough to scare a girl? If you don’t have hell, you have the ghost. No other choices.”
Emily laughed out loud, head thrown back. Belinda too.
“Well, Pa did not get saved, at least not from himself. And neither did I. If being born the first time doesn’t work quite right, there is not much chance for the second time or the third or the tenth. My pa loves to talk about me being born, but Mama, she does not. Mama will walk right out of the house when he starts in, even if it is black dark and the moon not up. You know about me being born?”
Emily shook her head. Belinda tucked a perverse loop of curls behind her ear.
“Mama must have been so scared when I got born, what with baby Lillie dead just weeks before from the croup, so I don’t blame her all that much. I don’t guess Pa was scared. I don’t know rightly what he was. Are you sure I never told you this?”
“No, Belinda, you never told me.” She took Belinda’s hand, so small and thin and slightly rough.
“I was born too soon and Mama gave me up for dead. She could not bear it. So, she just went straight out to grief. I was her newborn grief. But Pa, he wrapped me in hot towels. Put his steaming whiskey mouth on mine and blew. For hours, to hear him tell it. Of course, I don’t remember that.” Belinda laughed and folded her fan. “But Pa has told me so many times, it seems like I do. He went desperate, I reckon, for me to live. Without it, he said once, life wouldn’t mean much anymore. Without it, I was dead. And I am not. I am here alive with Will.”
“Yes, you are here with Will. And me.” Emily rubbed her thumb across the top of Belinda’s hand.
“Pa doesn’t go to meetings anymore. I reckon he gave up, figured he’d settle for hell. He doesn’t need to die to be in hell. I’m not right sure there is one, anyway.”
“Do you talk to him, Belinda?”
“Sometimes he talks to Charles and Hammond, but he and Mama hardly say a word. He sleeps out in the shed. If I’m around, which isn’t much, and the weather is dropping, I take a quilt out to lay over him. Most times, there is one already there, tucked in careful-like. And I know Mama has beat me to it.”
Belinda stopped, looked around. She waved her fan, the feathers fluttering in front of her face. “It sure is hot today,” Belinda said. “Did that come off my fan?” She pointed to the feather Emily still held.
“We can get some thread and put it back,” Emily said.
“No, here, I’ll get Will to do it. That will make him happy. He likes to do for me. At least I think he does. Sometimes he’s cross with me, but then that farm is very hard on him.” Belinda tucked the feather into the pocket of her skirt. “Sure is hot today.”