I settled on the back stoop with rags and shoes. Spit and elbow grease do the job, Daddy says, and I like a reason to practice spitting as much as anyone might. For want of any trouble to get into, or anyone to blame it on if I did, I decided to polish up all the shoes in the house, which would be a grand total of four, or one pair each of mine and Daddy’s. ’Sides, I did my best thinking when I was polishing shoes, and I had some important thinking to do.
I’d been to school for one entire week of days and was no better for it that I could see.
Only thing I could say for certain I’d learned was I could shave twenty minutes off the hour-long walk home if I climbed Hefty Rock and went around back.
That and that—apparently—some folks call a baby frog a tadpole.
I couldn’t figure why Teacher hadn’t told Daddy I was too clever for school after the very first day. I was sure my smart pants were making the other students feel sore about their sad learning. When I tried to point these things out to Daddy, he said the matter wasn’t up for discussion. Maybe he’d missed the lesson on democracy back when he was in school, or his head was just so full of Momma and Baby and the sorrow that there weren’t no room left for reasonable thoughts. That’s why I needed to be home taking care of his sad self. Every day we were apart, he seemed to droop more, like a seedling in parched earth thirsting for somethin’ to keep it on growing.
Shaking the sad from my head, I twisted a rag tight around my knuckles. Having wasted the best piece of five precious days away from Daddy and the home place, I set to doing my chores as bigly and loud as I could to make sure Daddy noted what all was being neglected and how hard I was forced to work in the little time we had together. I was partway through fifty percent of Daddy’s shoes when I felt his shadow on me.
“What’s got into you?” Like he’d never before seen me do a lick of work.
“What do you mean, Daddy?” I made my eyes all big. That only lasted a second, though, because he was in the sun, so I gave him the sunshine salute and went back to my work.
He sighed real heavy and turned to leave again, so I blurted, “What say you and me go into town?”
He stopped like stone but didn’t face me. “Possum, honey—”
“We need flour! And I been thinkin’ about makin’ Momma’s apple pie.”
Still he didn’t turn.
Since Momma died, it seemed to me that me and Daddy about had got so we knew what the other was thinking. Still, it took me by surprise, Daddy practically ignoring me this way. It would have been a rare thing indeed, for he never could say no to me or Momma when it came to important things like ice cream socials and taffy pulls.
“Daddy?”
I’d decided I could forgive Daddy for sending me to school long enough to enjoy a market day. Every Saturday, when all the folks in these parts gather by the dirt lot just this side of town, it’s like a church picnic. They swap sundries and stories. The smells alone can swoon a stone.
“I been hankerin’ for apple pie for nigh on a week now,” I said. “We can meander and keep an eye out for apples.”
There are a whole lotta reasons to go to town depending on the sort of person you are. For most, it’s as social as church, maybe more even, because the people with money in their pockets tend to be more interesting than the ones with sin in their hearts.
Daddy doesn’t hold with gossip, and there’s lots of it goes on in this holler. Folks like each other so much, they seem to get into everybody else’s business. But he is known for his woodcraft and has picked up supplies and sometimes even work by showing up in town. I hoped the thought of a job might lure him now. ’Sides, he enjoys talkin’ a bit of politics now and again.
And the orange Nehi treat that came at the end. We always shared one for the walk home, an orange Nehi with three straws.
“I’m positively positive apples’ll be right next to the Big Orange Nehi place, don’t you think?”
“Quit worrying ’bout that sodee drink,” Daddy said, but he broke a tiny smile so I knew he was agreed.
Thinking about orange soda all of a sudden made me mad for no reason, like a wasp gets. (Bees always have a reason; they’re more civilized, I reckon.) I stamped a foot to try to shake the bitter-tonic feeling out of me. “Maybe I don’t want any dumb old Nehi. And maybe I’ll make a PEACH pie instead.”
Daddy lifted his hat and scratched at his head. “Peach pie ain’t near as tangy as apple.”
Oh, for pity’s sake, what does he mean peach ain’t—
I looked up at him, and then we smiled for a blink, remembering the way we pretended with Momma to quarrel over what kind of pie nearly every week of every summer ever.
We took our usual path to town, passing where I’d break off to go to school, but I didn’t see any need to bring up that old place on such a sunny day.
Seemed like Daddy and me on that path we three had taken so often before could walk it with our eyes closed, so surely we could share our memories without opening our mouths.
As the road wound lazy left, the carts and cars on Ferguson Field came into view.
Daddy said, “I got to see some people ’bout some things, and I guess you could use you a pair of proper shoes, now you got a proper teacher. I’ll see you back here in an hour.”
His face was open, but in a flash, I felt hot and slapped. He wasn’t going to walk around with me like we used to with Momma? Why bother coming at all?
I reached for the closest mean thing. “How can you say that, Daddy? How can you stand so close to Momma’s own footsteps and say she wasn’t a proper teacher?”
His smile melted. His whole face seemed about a foot closer to his neck. “Possum, you, we both have to forget what we don’t got and focus on what we do.”
Wind roared in my ears, and one of those ugly toads jumped from my mouth, words I didn’t know were there till they came out. “I know I can’t be as good as Momma at anything, but it seems like you can’t wait to make changes. Why, before you know it, it’ll be like we never even had Momma.”
I was running before Daddy could call “Wait!” but my feet couldn’t stop if they wanted to. I tore down the road, my brain screaming what my mouth was trying to keep in.
Eventually it got shoved down into my feet. On the dirt road, they slapped out, “Come back, Momma. Come back, Momma.” I wished I could just keep running till she heard me and did.
At last, my chest felt full of fire, like when I beat Tully for the breath-holding swimming-hole record two summers back. I slowed, then bent and put my hands on my knees while I caught my breath. Traveler, who had been at my heels the whole way, plopped under the shade of a tree by the side of the road, and I joined him.
“Did I ruin it for us, Trav?”
Much as we love trapping and frog gigging, me and Traveler loved going to town best—the way it used to be. Town days had their own music.
I’d wake early and eat breakfast and do my chores and sit on the stoop till Momma and Daddy were ready. I did what I could to help them along, asking useful questions like “Are you ready yet?” and “When are we going?” At first, every time I stood, Traveler got up too. Even the birds seemed excited, to judge by their flit and flicker. Usually, by the time Momma and Daddy were ready, the sun was full up and Traveler snoring.
On those trips into town, Momma and Daddy turtle-walked the whole three miles, holding hands, whisper-giggling. Trav and I ran off the road, exploring, and back, and off again, like playing tag and always having Home Free to come back to.
We’d follow where the dirt road rambled lazy left. Me and Trav crashed into thickets and hid behind trees. If I thought pirates lurked nearby, I only had to whisper, “Trav, ‘ya, bo’,” and he’d appear right by me. He and I were pups together, and we had our own language.
“Possum, you heard a word I said?”
Traveler tugged on one leg of my coveralls. Looking up, I squinted into a Daddy-shaped silhouette against a robin-egg sky.
“No, sir,” I said. How long had I been sittin’ that Daddy had time to catch me up?
Daddy’s shadow spread and shrank along to the sound of a loud sigh. Then he turned and proceeded toward town once again.
He didn’t say another thing, so neither did I. Still. I followed.
All I can reckon is that Daddy knew me well enough to know that me running away once was rarer than a blue moon and not about to happen twice in a row, much less twice in one day.
The second time that walk was longer than ever with the weight of all that had been said—or not said. Yet somehow at last we arrived back at the noise and news, smells and sights of the market.
Market days bring together town folk, farmers, and country people like nothing else but a church social could. Everyone took the chance to trade or shop, bringing carts and packs full and leaving with them just as full. Plus, of course, everyone had to catch up on as much news as they could carry.
“Market looks to be bigger this time,” Daddy said. “Folks done puttin’ up summer gardens and crops are ready to barter out. Got anything in mind?” From where we stood, I could see jars of molasses, lumpy sacks of potatoes, bales of hay. The smell of fried chicken and fried catfish and fried who-knows-what all hung in the air. “Marbles, maybe.” I wasn’t sure if I was still mad at him.
“Again? You sure you wouldn’t like you some toilet water or something else a young lady of your age should want?”
Who was that asking? Sun didn’t seem that hot. “Dumb, frilly stuff? No, thank you.”
“Lotta girls your age don’t think it’s dumb,” he said.
Like he would know.
“Maybe a pretty little school dress?” He pointed the way we’d just come, and my eyes followed his point past a few tied-up saddle horses, two trucks, a car, and a buggy, all the way to—wouldn’t you know?—that Mary Grace Newcomb, stepping from around the buggy and looking like she was drowned in pink snow.
“I ain’t gonna walk around like no … ice cream sundee.”
“What side of the bed you get up on this morning, girl?”
I ignored Daddy’s question by focusing my ears on the sound of a wagon rattle-rolling over the hard-packed road somewhere behind me and trying to guess whose it was and whether it was coming or going. Behind and over the sound were others, people greeting and bickering, bartering, farewelling, and laughter, and—
“Hel-lo there, Lem.”
Miz Pickerel! Last we’d seen of her, on church Sunday, she’d looked like any one of those old Crows that always seemed to be tormenting me and Daddy. But alone here, in a soft hat the color of June sky, she looked different. Kind of sparkly.
“How do, Miz Pickerel.” Daddy smiled small but genuine.
How I loved that smile. And wanted it for just Momma and me.
“And Possum Porter. My, how you are growing! Are you and your daddy having a good time?” She sounded like she was cooing to a litter of kittens. It was hardly the look or the voice she’d used in front of Miss Nagy on the day of the sweet tea rebellion. I blushed then, not so much at the thought of my little trick, but at the thought that Miz Pickerel might be thinking about it at the same time that I was thinking about it.
I shrugged and stared at the hem of her dark-striped dress. It looked to me like she’d wrapped herself in a preacher’s tent. But forcing myself to look up at her, I had to admit that the color in her cheeks beat the cracked and powdered pale of most of the Town Ladies.
“Market’s a little bigger this time, isn’t it?” she asked, her voice then suggesting that it was Daddy, not me, who was the baby.
“Cannin’ time,” Daddy said, nodding. “I was jis’ telling Possum it looked bigger. Don’t you think so, sweetheart?”
I shrugged again. I couldn’t believe I’d thought she was nice. ’Course, that was alongside the likes of Miss Nagy. At least Miz Pickerel’s face wasn’t as sour as old Miss Nagy’s. But still.
“Did you see where they’re selling apples?” he asked her. I perked, as I wanted to get apples for Daddy’s surprise pie, even if I was a tad cross with him yet.
“Keep going, and you’ll run right into them. Possum, you the one likes apples?”
Shoot! I didn’t want anyone catching on to my plan, especially not her. I shrugged. My shoulders were getting their work done.
“Noralee made a fine pie,” Daddy said, watching his feet as he shuffled up some dust. “We both of us miss that.”
“Well, which one of you is the baker now?” Miz Pickerel asked gently.
Daddy smiled. “I was gonna take a hand at it. You know—”
“Why go to all that trouble? You’re talking to the best apple-pie maker there is. Fine cobbler too.”
“I don’t want you to go to any—”
“Trouble? It’s a pleasure.” She was blinking her eyes like she had dust in them. “I’m fixing to bake tomorrow, and I won’t hear another word against it.”
“We sure appreciate you being so neighborly,” Daddy said.
Was I hearing right? Did he just give away my job?
“Don’t we, Possum?” He took my hand and squeezed it.
Sure, I appreciated having my Daddy’s care and feeding taken from me and given to nearly complete strangers. I shrugged and took back my hand.
“I’m heading over to the rooster pen, picking me out a nice fryer. I don’t suppose—”
“Good-bye, Miz Pickerel,” I said, pushing Daddy away. “We got to go now.”
“What’s got into you?” he asked when we were a few feet and one mule-cart from that pie-baking devil.
“You wouldn’t be visitin’ and carryin’ on so if Momma was here.”
Daddy rubbed his eyes with one hand.
“You want me to forget about Momma?” I asked, fearing the answer even though I needed to hear it.
“Possum! Don’t you ever say that again. You hurt me and you hurt yourself speaking such wickedness.”
We passed washtubs full of Nehi and Co’Cola. My feet stopped like of their own accord, but Daddy kept on. “I’m not sure this is turnin’ out to be a Nehi kind of day,” he said.
And getting worse all the time, for coming up behind Daddy I saw Miss Arthington, all done up like a chocolate bar, but with brown flowers on her blouse. Aren’t brown flowers the dead ones?
“Good afternoon, Mister Porter.”
Daddy raised an eyebrow at me and put on a smile as he turned. “Hello there, Miss Cordelia.”
“Miss Cordelia”? When did Daddy take to calling Teacher by her Christian name?
“Say hello, Possum.” I managed the kind of wave that wouldn’t scare a butterfly.
“We’re makin’ the rounds and runnin’ into neighbors right and left,” Daddy said. His voice was smooth, but I noted his eyes bouncing like rubber balls from me to her and back.
That was when I saw Miss Arthington signaling to Daddy, like trying to send him secret messages. Like if she thought I was a stump named Mary Grace instead of a person with eyes and sense.
“LizBetty,” Teacher said of a sudden, “would you please get me a Coca-Cola?” She reached for the clasp on her handbag.
“Please, let me,” Daddy said, digging into a pocket of his coveralls. Daddy was the handsomest man there. Still, I was glad to see he wore the ones patched on both knees, including the crooked one I’d re-sewed myself not long before.
Miss Arthington smiled. “If you’d like, bring three straws, and we can share.”
I didn’t know my face could burn hot and cold at the same time, with prickles in the tip of my nose and ears like they were on fire.
Daddy handed me five cents, still warm from his pocket, and they felt heavy as lead. I closed my hand around them.
I had no intention of getting a soda pop. I needed to get away. I shoved my fists deep into my pockets till I got to Guernsey’s pig pen. I threw the pennies into the slop trough hard as I could. “Take that, and that, and that,” I muttered, picturing Teacher’s face on each bitter-odored coin.
Then I walked back toward Daddy and ducked behind a barrel of Bill’s Pickles.
Daddy was leaning in toward Miss Arthington. Leaning in a bit too close, far as I could see. The breadth of Elliott County might have been close enough, to my mind.
I strained to hear.
“—so nice for school. How—?”
A commotion in the rooster pen drowned out Daddy’s reply.
“A lady—pretty as a picture,” Daddy said.
He thought she was pretty? That mushroom? I couldn’t hear what Teacher said next.
Then Daddy said something about our house.
“Why don’t I come by when she’s not there?” Miss Arthington said. “She won’t suspect.” That I heard clear as church bells.
I expected Daddy to get red-faced mad and tell her to mind her own business and stay away. Instead he nodded. “After school,” he said. “She and her dog usually take off into the woods till she gets hungry enough to come in. If you’re sure it’s no trouble, you could easily come by before she—”
Too much for me. I bolted, a dam full to bursting behind my eyes. I couldn’t decide who I was madder at: Daddy for conspiring against me, Momma for dying, or me for crying like a sissy. Again.
What I knew was I had to get away, and I didn’t want to be found for a while. I went out to GrandNam and GrandPap’s tree and sat in the clearing where nothing would grow. Every time I closed my eyes, I pictured things I didn’t want to see, but at last I must’ve slept.
When I woke, I spotted Venus, first gal at the sky ball as usual. I lay on my back, hands laced behind my head, and looked up. I remembered something that, as usual, hadn’t made any sense at the time. Like black night turns into mere dark once your eyes are used to it, memory shadows shaped themselves into understanding. Mary Grace was right. Daddy was courting Miss Arthington. Clearly, I had to get done with school as quickly as possible, if nothing else, to keep those two apart.
But at last I was cold and hungry enough to go home even though I didn’t want to be home.
Home was supposed to be where people cared about each other. My daddy and his daddy built our house of rough-cut lumber. He taught me how they’d smoothed all the door casings and baseboards with a hand plane.
Since I could remember, whenever Daddy was bothered, he’d go to his shop and work a piece of wood, sometimes sanding for hours. Used to be I’d run my hands over some of his sweet-smelling wood, knowing the sweat and sadness he put into it. After Momma died, some wood got sanded down near to paper.
Usually, I loved the feeling of heading toward home, but on that evening, it felt about as familiar as watermelon in winter. The smell of sawdust and varnish reminded me only of what was missing, of what we had lost.
Watching Venus glide toward the horizon, I walked home by myself and was in bed well before she turned out her own lamp.
That night, instead of my usual post-town dreams about candy and show horses and distant friends, I dreamt about the day we buried Momma and Baby. Parts of it were like it really was, only nightmarish. Other parts were like cotton candy and not near so bad as the real thing.
In the dream, it was raining on people in our backyard. They were all huddled around Momma’s pecan tree, next to the hole that would be her final resting place. Inside the hole was the box Daddy made. Inside the box, only we couldn’t see them, was Momma, with Baby in her arms, wrapped in a clean flour sack. Preacher’s mouth moved, but there was no sound in my dream, not raindrops on pecan leaves or hymns or my screams, which were tied up inside my head and throat and stomach like some long, twisted, wet sheet making all the pain wind together till it hurt in my teeth.
Trav wasn’t allowed at the ceremony, so I leaned into the man at my side. He was old, almost thirty, the handsomest and saddest man there. He put a hand on my back, and the coffin was lowered into the ground, as if his touch made it go down, even though I could see the men working the ropes.
I held a small bouquet of wildflowers and dropped them onto the coffin. What I wanted was to drop myself and go with them to wherever God had in mind. It must be pretty there, not raining, and we’d all be together, the three of us. I could get to know my little brother. But I knew I needed to look after Daddy. It’s what everyone kept saying, and it’s what I promised.
My sleeping self watched my dream self close her eyes and shudder. Then I woke on the floor, Trav licking my face.
I climbed back into bed and did the same thing I had just watched myself do at the end of the dream. I took my sorrow, all wet and raw like a chew bone straight from Traveler’s mouth, and buried it deep inside myself. I closed my eyes and shuddered. Then I tried to forget where I put it.
After that I fell back asleep and dreamt nothing.