Wesley
Dew sparkled on the grass as I crossed the lawn to the vegetable gardens. Gus ran ahead of me, leaving tracks. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Dax alone and wanted to ask him about Luci. Although I was embarrassed, my need to know outweighed my reluctance to seem a fool. I found him in the fenced-off vegetable beds watering his tomato plants. Spring vegetables were ready to harvest, including clumps of lettuce, carrots with tall tops, and peas that crawled up wooden spikes.
He straightened at my approach and looped his thumbs through the straps of his overalls. “Good morning. What a sight for sore eyes you are.”
“You too.” I adjusted my hat to get a better look at him. Gus walked along one row, sniffing as he went.
“You sleep all right?”
“Not really.” I’d tossed and turned in my old bed. It was too short for me now, so my feet dangled over the end. Unwanted memories had been my bedfellows.
“He’s gone, lad. We’ll put him in the ground, and you can go on with your life.”
“Have you and Mollie talked about coming with us?”
“A tad, yes.” He scratched under the collar of his shirt. “She’s proud, you know.”
“I know.”
“But how she feels about you and your sister might win over the old pride. I can’t yet tell.”
A fat robin fluttered over and landed on a fence post. Gus barked, and the bird flew away as quickly as it had landed. “The invitation is open. Whenever she decides.”
“Will you stay and wait to see your mother?”
“Yes, I’d like to. Lillian wants to as well. So we’ll be here a few weeks, anyway.”
“Good, good. Mollie will want to stay and do whatever needs doing for Mrs. Ford. Perhaps after everything’s settled and sold, she’ll see that this change could be good for us.”
I nodded as I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.
“Something you want to ask me?” Dax’s eyes twinkled.
“What? No. I mean, not really.”
“You want to know how Luci’s getting on?”
“Well, yes. How is she?”
“She’s done fine. Just fine.” He smiled, pride in his eyes. “Hardest-working girl you’d ever meet in your life. Clever too.”
I nodded and looked up at the sky, already a deep blue despite the early hour. “I’m glad to hear.” Gus flopped down in the middle of the row between beans and squash and rested his head on his paws.
“She asks about you,” Dax said, almost as if it were an afterthought. I knew better.
“Yes?” My shoulders rose and fell. I wanted to beg him to tell me every detail, but I refrained. Although Dax would never mock me, I felt embarrassed over my schoolboy hopefulness that I’d remained in her thoughts as she’d remained in mine. “How, exactly?”
“Similarly to you—as if it didn’t matter one way or another when I know sure as anything that it’s the opposite.”
I shrugged my shoulders and grimaced as I turned my gaze toward the direction of the woods. “These feelings might just be a romantic notion.”
“Might be. Might not be. I knew the minute I set eyes upon my Mollie. She was the one for me.”
“I’ve thought about her more than I should.”
“How much is should? Can we measure it?”
I chuckled. “You think I should call on her?”
Dax adjusted the brim of his hat. “Well, now, how else will you know?”
“I suppose.”
“They’ll be wanting you inside,” Dax said. “To go out to the cemetery.”
“Right, yes.” I hesitated, wishing I could remain here with Dax and the scent of tomatoes ripening on their vines. It occurred to me that he wasn’t dressed for a burial. “Aren’t you coming with us?”
Dax shook his head. “No, lad. I can’t watch them lower him in the ground and not spit on his coffin.”
I stared at him, aghast.
“When I think of all that went on in this house.” Dax stuck his hands in the pockets of his overalls. “To you, especially. I cannot pretend. I’m happy he’s gone and hope he burns in hell.”
“He can’t hurt me any longer.”
“That’s right. You can bury all the memories with the man, lad, and never think of him again.”
I called for Gus. He rose from the warm ground and shook himself clean. As I crossed the lawn toward the house, an image of Father’s face when he reached for the strap told me that no amount of time would erase my memories. I could only use them to shape the man I wanted to be. Isn’t that the only thing we can do after someone has harmed us? Ensure that something good comes from our suffering?
What would my good be? Only time would tell.
We were home by lunch. The burial had been a paltry gathering of five. After the preacher tossed the first handful of dirt over the coffin, he said a few prayers and took our money, and we returned to our cars. There were no mourners to invite back to the house. After a meal, Roland and Lillian went out to the back porch to play chess. I wanted to be alone and wandered restlessly around the sitting room.
Finally, not making a decision so much as my feet leading me in that direction, I went into Father’s study. My gaze lifted immediately to the painting of him that hung over the fireplace. I did not look at the strap, but I felt it there as if it were a poisonous snake ready to strike. I stared at the painting. The artist had captured him well. His cold eyes stared back at me. I shivered as the sounds of the strap against my skin echoed between my ears.
Gus bounded in through the open door. He leaned against my leg and barked at the painting.
“You remember him, old boy?”
He growled.
“Don’t worry. He can’t hurt me now.” I reached down to touch Gus’s head.
“You didn’t take everything from me,” I whispered to the painting. “Your cruelty made me stronger. Better.” A man had emerged from my broken pieces.
Perhaps I’d not been fully free until now. No longer confined by his presence, I could soar. Was it time?
Time to find Luci?
In the late afternoon while Lillian and Roland rocked on the front porch swing together, I took Gus out for a walk. I’d left my jacket and tie at the house and rolled up my sleeves. A straw hat provided shade for my eyes.
Gus, as Atlas had done, took the lead. Wildflowers were in full bloom in the meadow. Tall grasses swayed in the breeze. When we reached the woods that led to Luci’s house, I hesitated. It had been years since I’d roamed these woods. Would I get hopelessly lost?
Gus barked and twisted his head to show me which way to go.
“You know the way?”
He barked as an answer that could only be interpreted as yes.
The pine needles crunched under my feet as I wove through trees, making sure not to twist an ankle on roots, rocks, and dips in the ground. Fifteen minutes later, Gus had led us right there.
I stopped just outside the clearing. The shack looked better than the last time I’d been here. New boards had replaced the rotted ones. A log enclosure that I assumed was a vegetable garden had been built on the flat parcel of land before it angled downward toward the creek. Smart, I thought. Less distance to carry water than if she’d set it nearer the house. Chickens pecked in the grass outside a repaired henhouse. Bedsheets flapped in the breeze on a clothesline hung between the house and coop.
Dax, I thought. This was all Dax. My heart ached with love for the man who surely hadn’t needed more work than he already had. I imagined him here during his days off, helping a stranger because I’d asked him to.
I heard a rustle of leaves and looked over to see a young woman emerge from behind the garden structure. She carried two buckets. A little girl with hair so fair it was almost white trailed behind her. The baby, I presumed, now a girl.
Despite her shabby clothes, Luci had grown into a great beauty—tall, slender, and straight-backed. Shiny honey-colored tresses had been gathered into a bun at the back of her long neck.
From inside the shack, a man in a dark hat, dirty trousers, and a gray shirt that had once been white stumbled onto the porch. He held a flask in his left hand.
“Luci, where’s my dinner?” He had the gravelly voice of a man who smoked and drank to excess.
Luci set the buckets on the bottom step of the porch. The little girl hid behind her skirts. “We’ve nothing left. When I take the sheets to Mrs. Webb, she’ll pay me and I’ll go into town to get supplies.”
“What happened to last week’s money?” He took a long swig from his flask.
“You spent it on booze. I know you took it from my hiding place.” Her tone was cold and brittle. “And now we have nothing left but flour and lard.”
“Well you best get on with it. I’m hungry.” He sat weakly on the steps. “Come here, Sadie girl. Let me look at you.”
“Sadie, go play,” Luci said.
Sadie. She’d named the baby Sadie.
Sadie ran away to the side of the house and plopped onto the ground, drawing her knees to her chest and burying her face. Hardly a game, I thought. The leering way he’d looked after her chilled my blood.
“You have no need to look at her,” Luci said.
“I like pretty things,” he said, slurring his words.
“You stay away from her, you hear me?” Luci drew closer to him.
He waved his hand as if she were a fly bothering him. “Be quiet now. I’ve got an aching head.”
Luci called to her sister. “Come on, Sadie. We’ll go see if we can catch a fish.”
Sadie rose from her position and took Luci’s outstretched hand. They walked back to where they’d just come from. To the creek, I presumed.
Gus and I waited until her father went back into the house. Then, careful to stay in the woods rather than the clearing, we headed toward the creek.