Bloodroot (21 page)

When I got in the car his blue eyes was shining. He pulled me on top of him and kissed my face all over. Backing out of the driveway he seen my feet curled up on the seat. “Lord, baby,” he said. “You ain’t got no shoes on.” The way he laughed made chills all over me. He turned up the radio and we drove off. That was the best day of my life.

“Clint,” I said halfway down the road, “what made you finally come and get me?”

His ears got red. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. I didn’t know if he ever was going to tell. Finally he said, “Well, Mama found this set of hair combs I bought for you. I had my eye on them for a long time, ever since I seen them down at Belk’s. They was carved real nice with these jumping dolphins.” Clint cleared his throat and wiggled around in the seat. I could tell he was embarrassed. “When I come in from work I seen Mama had busted them combs all to pieces. Soon as I walked in the door, she went to beating me over the head and shoulders with the box they come in. She said … she said, ‘You ain’t spending another cent on some old girl and us needing groceries.’”

I knowed Clint had cleaned up what his mama said. There was no telling what all she really called me. I didn’t care. All I cared about was me and Clint being together.

“She claimed I’m just like Daddy,” Clint said. “Why, I’d rather be like Daddy than her any day of the week. I swear, Laura, I bellered like a bull, I’s so mad. I snatched her up by the hair of the head and for once she didn’t have a thing to say for herself. I got to feeling sorry for her then and let her go. I reckon I couldn’t hurt a woman, even one as mean as her. But I ain’t never going back to that house.”

“You don’t never have to, Clint,” I said. I put my head on his shoulder. “There ain’t a thing to worry about.” I believed what I told him. I thought our worries was over.

We drove straight to that green trailer beside of the lake. The trees was thick and the water lapped right up to the grass of the yard. Clint carried me down to the sand at the bottom of the hill because I didn’t have any shoes on. He held me there for a long time looking out across the lake. “I ain’t got to swim since Daddy died,” he said. “I stayed in the water so much he said I ort to been borned a fish.” I felt sorry for him. I knowed he was missing his daddy. Then we went up to the trailer. Clint opened the door and the carpet stunk where it got damp and mildewed. We spent most of the day cleaning out garbage. A lot of it was beer cans his daddy left behind. Whenever I seen Clint getting sad I snuck up behind him and tickled the back of his neck. That always made him smile.

Mr. Thompson, the manager at the grocery store, had a cousin that’s a preacher. He said me and Clint could get married at his house, on the back porch overlooking a creek. I asked Larry to perform the
ceremony first, but him and Pauline didn’t approve of what I was doing. Clint’s mama didn’t want us to marry either, but I was eighteen and he was twenty, so we didn’t need anybody’s permission. It didn’t matter what they thought.

Me and Clint decided to have the wedding on the first of May. It took a while to get to Mr. Thompson’s house, little and white at the end of a long driveway. Mr. Thompson’s wife met us at the door. She said, “You can call me Zelda, honey.” She led me through the hall to the bedroom. It was cool in there, with thick carpet and roses on the wallpaper. There was a dress laid out on the bed. “Now, this is new with the tags on it,” Zelda said. “I bought it for my daughter-in-law to wear to church, but she was too big for it.” She held it up to me and frowned. “It might be loose, but we could safety-pin it.” It was long and cream with scratchy lace. I didn’t care if it was loose. I liked it anyway.

Louise, the cashier from the grocery store, set me down on the toilet seat and fixed my hair with a curling iron. She put some lipstick on my mouth and rubbed a little on my cheeks to make them rosy. She dusted my face with powder and said, “Your skin’s so pretty, you don’t need much.” Then Zelda and Louise led me through the kitchen out to the deck, where Zelda had arranged her begonia pots in a circle. All of Clint’s friends from the grocery store was gathered around. Somebody had brought their children, two little girls and a boy dressed up in bright colors. They whispered and giggled when I came out but they got shushed. All the talking stopped. Clint was standing with the preacher, a short man with glasses. When I stepped out on the deck in them too-big shoes that belonged to Zelda, Clint turned and looked at me. His face lit up with a grin. Then he did something I didn’t expect. He busted out with great big sobs. They was like sobs of relief, the way somebody might cry if they made it through a bad accident. The preacher patted Clint on the back while he tried to hush. I was embarrassed, but I was happy.

I didn’t cry myself because I wanted to be tough for Clint. I went to him and wiped his tears while his hiccups went away. I tried to listen to the preacher when he read from his book, but all I could hear was blood rushing in my ears. I looked at Clint in that ring of begonias and all them people crowded around to watch us get married. The sky was so blue and the grass so green, and down at the end of the yard a
creek was running over rocks that was round and furry with moss, like the ones I used to step on at home.

We had to use the Thompsons’ rings, but that was okay. Clint was saving up for the rings we really wanted. When the ceremony was over, we had a kiss that seemed too short for the mountains that was moving inside of me. Zelda took pictures and the flash was bright. Clint led me down the deck steps and everybody else poured into the yard behind us. The kids chased each other off looking like butterflies in their summer clothes.

Mr. Thompson was done firing up the grill for hamburgers. I closed my eyes and drunk in the charcoal smell of the rolling black smoke when he opened the lid. The others gathered up for a game of horseshoes. I drifted down the creek a little ways, to where I could breathe and take it all in. The wind picked up and blowed the smell of the grill toward me. The children came running along the bank and before I knowed it one of them, a girl with plaits, crashed into my knees. The shock ran all through me. I looked down and her face was like a little sun. She hugged my legs hard before she ran off. I shut my eyes and felt hot tears. I hadn’t been touched by a child in a long time. Someway it made me think of Johnny. It seemed like the Lord’s way of saying the day was blessed.

It was getting evening by the time I walked back toward the house. Clint had left me alone, even though I seen him looking for me. He knowed I needed to take it all in by myself for a while. Everybody else was full but there was plenty of food left over. I was too tired to eat. I sunk down in a lawn chair on the grass beside of Louise. Me and her watched Clint up on the deck. He was talking with Mr. Thompson and drinking iced tea out of a plastic cup. I could tell Louise cared for Clint by the way she looked at him. “That boy’s had a hard time of it,” she said. “But he’s been better since he found you.” Louise reached out for my hand to squeeze. Her fingers shocked me, like the touch of that child had done. She looked back at Clint and said, “He’s like one of my own sons. You know, I gave him my youngest boy’s clothes after he got killed on that motorcycle. It makes me cry just about every time I see Clint wearing something of Randy’s.”

I didn’t say anything, but I hated the thought of Clint in a dead boy’s clothes. I wondered which ones belonged to Louise’s son. Was it that knitted sweater I loved to see in winter, with deers leaping in a
line across the front of it? Or them corduroy pants with a tiny hole in the knee that gave me little peeks of Clint’s curly leg hair? It bothered me something awful to think about. All of them fabrics, wools and flannels and cottons, that I touched and pressed and ran my hands over when I kissed Clint, wasn’t even his. They belonged to a dead boy. Then I thought of the worst thing of all. Clint said that silver rope chain I loved came from Louise. He wore it all the time, even in the water. I loved to see it shining on his collarbone. Now that chain would make me sick every time I looked at it, like a noose around Clint’s neck. I wanted to throw it away and burn all them clothes. Maybe he was even wearing some of them right then. That white dress shirt that was yellowed at the armpits, them jeans that was faded at the knees, that old belt threaded like a poison snake through the belt loops might have belonged to Louise’s dead son. I didn’t want to ask. I couldn’t stand to know. Clint was the only one that ever loved me right. Then I seen him laughing under the porch light with moths in his hair. His eyes shined whenever he smiled. I couldn’t believe I was his wife. Finally, I had a family again.

JOHNNY

I hitchhiked from the detention center to Millertown with everything I owned in a duffel bag, the books from the woods, my notebook, the silver lighter, and an address written on a scrap of paper. On the highway I watched the shopping centers and motels and rest stops go past, taking in how the scenery had changed while I was gone. When the man who had picked me up let me out of his truck, I paused in the street to look at the Odom house. It was tall and weathered and seemed to be leaning. A spring wind picked up and flapped the shingles, a few scattered over the rotten roof. I went up the porch steps and stopped at the door listening for movement. I heard the slow creak of floorboards somewhere inside. I had decided on the way to the house that if nobody was home I would break in, but it sounded as though someone was there. I reached toward the doorbell and then changed my mind. I went to a moldering couch under the window and sat down to rest instead, dropping the duffel bag at my feet. I had waited a long time. I could take another minute to catch my breath. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

When I opened them there was a station wagon pulling up to the curb, its engine dying with a rattle. A heavy woman struggled out from behind the wheel with a grocery bag in her arms. She came up the walk breathing hard, frowning up at me. She was wearing what looked like hospital scrubs, the top patterned with teddy bears. I couldn’t see her eyes for the shine off her glasses. I rose from the couch and looked down at her.

“Didn’t you see the sign?” she asked.

“Pardon me?”

“Sign right yonder over the doorbell. Says no solicitors.”

“Oh,” I said, putting on a smile. “I’m not selling anything.”

She smiled back, still sizing me up. “What do you want then?”

“I’m looking for Frankie Odom. Is this the right house?”

“Depends on what you’re after him for.”

I came down the steps to her. “Let me get that for you, ma’am,” I said.

“I can get it,” she said, letting me take the bag. “What do you want with Frankie?”

“We’re kin,” I said, climbing the porch steps ahead of her.

“Kin? I been taking care of Frankie two years now and I never laid eyes on you. You’re awful handsome. I believe I would’ve remembered.” She snorted laughter.

“Are you Frankie’s daughter-in-law?”

“Lord, no. I wouldn’t have none of them turkeys. I just set with Frankie while his boys are gone to work. Name’s Diane.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Diane,” I said, shifting the bag to offer my hand. She looked down at it, flustered, then gave my fingers a quick, moist squeeze.

“What kind of kin are you?”

I smiled again, standing close. “I’m Frankie’s grandson.”

“Huh. I thought I done met all of Frankie’s grandkids.”

I only paused for a second. “Did you ever hear of Frankie’s son named John?”

Diane stepped back and studied me. “I’ve heard tell of him. From what I know, none of the Odoms has seen hide nor hair of him for going on twenty years now.”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s him.” I willed the smile to stay on my face.

“You saying you belong to John?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

She looked at me for a long time, lips pale and nostrils flaring. “Now, you didn’t come over here meaning to cause any trouble did you? I reckon they had trouble out of some of their people back a few years ago, before I started coming around.”

“No, ma’am,” I said. “Did Hollis tell you something bad about me?”

Her face flushed. “I don’t pay much mind to anything that comes out of that man’s mouth. I reckon I can judge anybody for myself.”

“All right,” I said. “Can I see Frankie then?”

She paused, looking me over again. I tensed, waiting. “If you start anything, I’ll put the law on you in a heartbeat. County jail is right down the street.”

“I promise you,” I said. “I just want to visit my grandfather one time.”

“Well,” she said, eyes softening behind the glasses. “I reckon anybody can understand that. If you’re John’s boy, Frankie will want to see you. But I ought to warn you, he’s been getting senile these last few years. He might go to talking out of his head.”

She pushed open the door and we stepped into a dim foyer onto humped and scarred linoleum. There was a stack of damp-looking newspapers against one wall and a smell of ancient cooking grease. I followed Diane down the hall into a kitchen with a ceiling so bowed it looked in danger of caving. In front of the sink there was a hole in the floor showing chewed-looking boards. Sun-faded curtains hung limp and mildewed on the window above it. Sitting in a wheelchair near the table was a birdlike man with tufts of hair standing up in corkscrews, wearing a yellowed undershirt and a pair of boxer shorts that bagged around his skinny thighs, holding a cigarette with a long ash.

Diane said, “I brung you somebody, Frankie.”

Frankie Odom blinked at her and coughed wetly. “Did you get my cigarettes?”

“There’s somebody here to see you,” she shouted. “This here is John’s boy.”

I gave Diane her grocery bag and crossed the floor to stand before the wheelchair. His eyes were black and somehow familiar. Closer up, I saw dark threads left in his hair.

“John?” he said, bushy eyebrows lifting.

“Yes, this is John’s boy. Your grandson,” Diane said.

“I didn’t bet on you ever coming back.”

“He ain’t never been here before, Frankie,” Diane shouted patiently. “This is the first time you ever seen him.”