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Mack took the shotgun from his mother and gave her a hug. Feeling her softness under his hands, he remembered a time when her muscles had been taut as bedsprings. She said something about fixing him a plate and he did feel hungry enough to eat. He followed her to the kitchen, carrying the shotgun with him and taking stock of the house as he went.
He’d put some work into the place after he bought it. Jacking up a sagging foundation on the south side, putting forty-year shingles on the roof, modernizing the kitchen and bathroom. But the original builder had been a good one, using prime lumber throughout, setting the studs on twelve-inch centers, and finishing off with red oak trim. Though showing wear, the house’s bones were solid as the Rock of Gibraltar. One of a kind, he thought, comparing it to the cloned cracker boxes he now worked on.
He picked up a postcard on a table in passing, and his mind stumbled as he noted the addressee. “Grace Anderson? What’s this, Mama?”
“Lord help— Sister must’ve carried that thing in here.” Jerking the card from his hand, she ripped it to pieces and stuffed it into her pocket.
“Why’s Grace getting mail here? She’s been gone long as I can remember.”
“Don’t know and don’t care.”
Reading his mother’s mood, Mack dropped the subject. As he followed behind, he noticed a stack of cloth bags in various stages of construction. Some things never change, he thought, then frowned, thinking some things should have. For one thing, the sparse, dated furnishings in the front room.
In the kitchen, Mack made sure the safety was set on the gun and stood it by the back door. Turning the radio on, he watched his mother’s waddling gait as she bustled around the kitchen. She had looked the same to him since he could hold a memory and shouldered responsibility for that. He’d been a big baby, too large for the slender-framed woman who bore him. Even today, he held himself personally accountable for the rupture that had weakened her abdominal muscles and caused her stomach to protrude. She had never complained in his forty years on the earth of the discomfort such an imbalance to her spine must cause, or of the mental anguish from never being able to bear another child. How was a son supposed to make up for such a sacrifice?
“Didn’t I send you money for some new furniture last Christmas, Mama?”
She talked as she dished up food and filled a glass with sweet ice tea. “Yes, you did, but the car needed new tires.”
“Tires don’t cost that much,” he said, taking a seat at the table.
“Well, I got good ones, what with the need to run back and forth now to check on Pa. You know, ones with deep treads to handle the ice storms we get here in the winter.”
He remembered well the storms that turned the narrow roads into sheets of black ice. “How much they cost?”
“Eight-hundred dollars.”
He let out a low whistle. “Those would be good ones, all right.”
She paused to look at him. “You think I should’ve bought cheaper ones?”
“Water under the bridge now. You could’ve let me know. I would’ve sent more money.”
She carried the food to the table. “New furniture would just make the taxes go up on this place. Don’t need more taxes.”
“Damn, I forgot about that tax on personal property here.” He thought a bit. “Still wouldn’t matter. The hay on that back pasture would cover it. A new sofa couldn’t add that much to the tax bill.”
“No need to swear. Besides, nothing wrong with the davenport we got. It’s old but serviceable.” She gave him a look. “And I heard that building’s in a slump in the Panhandle.”
Mack felt his muscles tense. “Where’d you hear that?” He ate as he waited for her response, knowing full well where she’d heard the rumor. When she didn’t answer right away, he looked at her. “Old man Turner and Junior still hanging around here?”
“No,” she said after a pause. “Tootsie Turner gets her hair done on Fridays. You remember Tootsie, Billy Joe’s grandma?”
“Damn—all them Turners are nosy sons-a-bitches.”
“Now Mack, people around here look out for one another. You know they do.”
“Some more than they should. I thought we discussed a sleeper sofa. You said you’d like one for company.”
“That’s right, I did. But it didn’t make much sense after your grandpa went to the home. You’re the only one sleeps over these days and you can have his room now. And when we get him out of that place, you can have my bed and I’ll sleep in with Sister, like I did before.”
Mack wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “What do you mean, ‘get him out’? I thought you wanted me to come home so I could talk to him about his final arrangements.”
“Well, it does, in a way. You see, he drew up this paper saying where he wants to be buried—that’s what I want you to talk to him about. But here lately, I’ve been thinking he’s not as bad off as I thought. He could last a good while yet if I can get him back home.”
“Mama . . .” He pushed his plate away and talked slowly. “Pa hurt you, hurt you bad.”
“But he didn’t mean to. He was just out of his head and I shouldn’t have grabbed hold of him like that.” She set her eyes on his. “I’m just trying to do the right thing here, Mack. I’d like to bring him back home.”
“Hold the phone now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves—”
“Shhh, listen.” Ruby turned an ear to the radio
Mack followed suit, and together they listened to the news bulletin about two convicts being captured and returned to the state penitentiary at McAlester.
“Well now,” she sighed. “Guess we can put this thing away.” She picked up the heavy shotgun and walked to the pantry.
Mack watched as his mother removed two shells from the gun’s chambers, then two more from her pocket, and made a mental note to check the date stamp on the ammunition. Shells that got old could cause a misfire. She wouldn’t think about things like that. Then he pushed that kind of thinking aside, reminding himself of the real business that had brought him back. Soon, old ammunition would no longer be a concern.
“Looks like it’ll be an uneventful night after all.” Ruby sighed again as she made her way back to the table. “Guess we can all sleep quiet.”
Mack hoped he was tired enough to sleep quiet. What he wouldn’t give for just one full night’s rest. One without dreams. Night sweats. He watched his mother place leftovers in plastic containers and store them in the refrigerator. She looked tired to the bone and the deep circles under her eyes were an indication that she also suffered sleepless nights. One thing for sure, he thought. I’m on the right track with the business I come home to handle.
“Maybe it would be better to talk in the morning,” he said. “Let’s get on to bed now. Got some business to tend to early, but I’ll talk to Pa after that.”
She looked at him. “What kind of business?”
“Nothing to worry your head about.” He switched off the kitchen light as they headed for the bedrooms down the hall. Recalling his conversation with Luther Winslow and Billy Jo Turner at the roadblock, he paused. “You haven’t said yet just what it was Pa was wanting.”
“Oh. Well, you’re not gonna believe this . . .” She rubbed fingertips across her forehead. “But he wants to be buried next to Bill and Jack.”
“Bill and Jack . . .” Mack stared at his mother, her meaning sinking in slowly. “You don’t mean that Bill and Jack.”
“Yes, I do, I mean exactly that. The legal paper he had drawn up directs the manner his body’s to be disposed of. It’s a sworn affidavit, as legal as it can get. If you can’t talk some sense into him, I don’t know what we’re gonna do.”
“Well, hell.” Mack laughed softly. “I don’t have a problem with it. Do you?”
Redness crept up Ruby’s neck. “Well, of course I do! Folks around here wouldn’t think it proper. Why, it might even affect my business.”
“To hell with what folks think.”
Ruby’s face reddened to scarlet. “Wouldn’t be a Christian burial. Folks would think we were . . . heathens.”
“To hell with what folks think,” he repeated.
She paused, wetting her lips with her tongue. “Then there’s this other problem.”
“Other problem?” Uneasiness settled along Mack’s spine.
“He can’t remember where they’re buried.”
The tension along Mack’s spine burst like a balloon as his laughter exploded into the air.
“Well, think on it, Mack.” Ruby’s voice took on a scolding tone. “Pa sharecropped all his life. He worked different pieces of land, ‘specially in those early years.”
Still, he could not keep from laughing.
“Mack Barlow, this is not funny!”
The sound of a door opening put an end to Mack’s laughter.
“They’re on the roof again,” Sister said. “And they’re talking English!”
Mack faced Ruby. “What’s Sister talking about? Someone been on the roof?”
“No, she’s just been imagining things.” Irritation edged Ruby’s voice. “We’ll talk in the morning. I have to get Sister to bed—again.”
Ruby looped her arm through that of the frizzy-headed woman standing in the doorway. “C’mon Sister, it’s just Mack come home. Let’s get you back to bed. Tell you what, I’ll rest with you a bit. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
As Mack watched the two women disappear behind the bedroom door, a hollowness filled his chest. “You’re right, Mama,” he murmured. “This isn’t funny.”
