Face the Winter Naked (10 page)

Daniel
trudged over hill and dale, through clouds of insects, blistering heat.
Breathing dust and wiping sweat. Stumbling over stones in the road, his feet
aching so much he could almost cry. He rested often to catch his breath and
sort out his feelings. He considered the farmer who unknowingly had fed him
corn. Was it stealing to swipe food when your body was chewing on itself? When
the time came for reckoning with God, he had a reasonable argument.

Well,
Lord, you designed my body to run on food. It's like my old truck can't run
without gas. What's a man to do? Sit by the side of the road and let his arms
and legs rust off?

The
truck reminded him of home; everything reminded him of home.

Damn
politicians.
What do they care about
children going to bed hungry? Or the sacrifice of parents wringing twenty-one
meals from the seventy-five cents meant for coal to heat the house?

By
God, he'd not have his babies crying or begging for food. With him out of the
way, LaDaisy's mother would surely see they were fed. If he knew Vera Baker,
she'd enjoy rubbing it in when he came home.

Earl
had just turned six, old enough for school if his mother could afford to send
him. Catherine was four, and little Bobby twenty-one months, not yet housebroke
when his daddy left.

Daniel
wondered if his kids would someday forgive him for leaving them and their mama,
never mind part of the reason was so he wouldn't make another baby. The last
thing he wanted was for LaDaisy to carry another youngin' when she had barely
enough to feed herself. At twenty-five, she'd already had more than her share
of troubles. Married at sixteen, she hadn't even reached her seventeenth
birthday before their first child came along, and died less than two years
later.

Well,
she'd get help faster without him moping around and scaring his family half to
death when he woke screaming from a nightmare.

He
hauled his weary body over to a small stream running parallel with the road and
set his pack on the ground. He noticed the wide cracks in the rock-hard soil;
rain kept promising, but rain wouldn't come.

Finding
a shady spot, he slipped out of the banjo strap, laid the instrument next to
his pack and sat with his back against the bark of a black walnut tree. His load
was becoming heavier and heavier to bear. The only thing keeping him going was
the thought of earning enough money to pay the back rent on their little house
and to finish off the doctor for Bobby's birth.

That
bastard brother-in-law of his was mean enough to take the rent out of Daniel's
hide. But LaDaisy would probably find it easier making promises she couldn't
keep.

Tears
came, and when they'd flowed out of his heart, he dried the salt from his
lashes and picked up George's old banjo and looked it over. The bridge had been
broken and glued back together. He could whittle another if he found the right
wood. Part of the tailpiece had chipped off. The strings looked about to break.
The metal rim around the head was dented, like old George himself.

He
patted the instrument affectionately. It seemed unlikely George could be
mended. When a man got busted, you couldn't just run out and buy him a new
string or mend his frets.

He
tuned the banjo and played a few chords, stopped to adjust the pegs and played
again. Now the sound came nearly perfect as he sang about his grandmother.

"Oh
she fed my daddy turnips / made him peel and made him slice. / She made him eat
them dadgum things all through the night. / But daddy don't hate turnips now. /
He loves 'em boiled and fried. / I'll never understand it if I live until I
die."

The
music was sweet, the words filled with homesickness. When he was done singing
for George, he sang for his children. He sang for his wife. He sang for a past
too far gone to make a difference anymore. He sang for two hours, making up
verses and stopping to dry tears with his shirttail.

When
the fifth string sprang loose and hit him in the chin, he laid the banjo aside
and threw the string in the gunnysack. He brought out the catcher's mitt, sniffed
the soft old leather and held it to his chest, remembering Frankie. From his
bib pocket he took his penknife and a sharpened crochet hook, and examined his
unfinished walnut-wood carving with a critical eye: a three-inch-long chain
with movable links, each barely an eighth of an inch long.

Daniel
had tested his woodworking talent early in life. When his first child was born,
he built a cradle. As babies arrived one after the other, each claimed the
cradle for his own.

Then,
after Bobby's birth, the sheriff's wife, Fannie Gudgell, stopped by to see
LaDaisy about buying tickets to a flower show, and when she tiptoed into the
bedroom to see the new baby, she saw the cradle and offered him fifty bucks to
build one for her own expected child. Daniel fancied the idea of earning so
much money at one time. But he told the woman flat out, the cradle was a
one-of-a-kind piece of furniture made for his own offspring.

"I'll
mend your screen door or fix the busted boards in your back steps. But the
cradle is a special kind of love I built for my own kids."

"You'll
wish you'd made each of your children one when it's time to settle your
estate," the disappointed woman had replied. "They'll scrap like
wildcats over that furniture. Mark my words."

Daniel
told her he didn't plan on being around to help settle his estate. Besides,
when his kids got done with the cradle, it wouldn't be fit for kindling.

"I
reckon when I'm gone, they can fight over it if they have a mind to. If they
do, then I wasn't no account for a daddy in the first place if I didn't teach
'em better."

He
thought that was the end of it. But Fannie wouldn't take no for an answer and
pestered him at every turn. He was sick and tired of her persistence, and half
afraid to upset the sheriff's wife for fear it'd come back on him. He sure
didn't need an enemy who wore a gun and holster on his belt. What could he do? The
darn woman was possessed with that cradle.

Then
one day, after he'd painted her back porch railings, she led him out to her
gardening shed behind the house and showed him some beautiful pine lumber.
Nice, smooth boards just waiting for a carpenter's talented hands.

"This
is for you," she exclaimed. "I even bought nails and screws."

"Now
wait just a minute, Mrs. Gudgell. Didn't I say I wasn't building a cradle?"
He could not take his eyes off the wood, and his hands itched to create a work
of art.

She
smiled. "You like it, don't you, Mr. Tomelin? I can see it in your eyes."

Daniel
shook his head. "Now see here ... this is a dirty trick." How did she
know he was a sucker for a nice piece of wood?

He
glanced quickly at her swollen waist, thinking he'd better hurry up and get the
thing built before little sheriff junior arrived, which looked like it could be
any minute. What would LaDaisy think after he insisted he'd never build the
woman a cradle? The way women gossiped, he was surprised she never found out. But
he felt like a skunk for keeping it from her.

He
whittled contentedly. Trimmed. Picked. He gently gouged the wood, imparting a
delicate shape and curve to a tiny link. Thoughts of LaDaisy forced themselves
into his mind. He reckoned she'd consider their marriage over, since he wasn't
there to claim his half. He closed his eyes and held her in his arms, brushed
his lips against her soft, kissable mouth. Next, he sat in the rocker holding
his little girl as his wife sat sewing on the davenport …

… Catherine
settled herself on his bony knees. "Tell me a story, Daddy!"

He
stuck his nose in the fine blond curls freshly washed with homemade lye soap and
soft water from the rain barrel.

"Did
you eat your pap, little mouse? I can't tell you a story 'less you ate your
pap."

LaDaisy
looked up from the sock she was darning.

"Pap's
the only thing she does eat, Daniel. I'll swan, she's thin as a broom. Mama says
she ain't healthy."

"Your
mama's right, LaDaisy. Your mama ain't healthy."

"Oh,
that ain't what she meant. She meant
Catherine
."

Daniel
poked a special spot over the child's ribs till she squealed.

"Thin
as a broom you say? Why, shucks, Mother, then you must sweep the kitchen clean
with her."

He brushed
the hair away from his daughter's ears. Yes, she had inherited a small crease
in the right earlobe, passed from generation to generation in the Tomelin
family.

LaDaisy
looked up.

"Mama's
coming by later." She stretched a sock over the wooden darning egg and
wove the needle back and forth across the hole in tiny, neat stitches.

Daniel
hugged his daughter, then stood her on the floor and straightened the cotton
shift over her bloomers. The story forgotten for now, the girl scampered off.
He rose slowly. Stretched. Removed his cap. Rubbed his head. Replaced the cap ...

...
refolded his pocketknife. Replaced it in his bib pocket. The wood-carving went
into a matchbox with a whittled acorn and a miniature outhouse with a hinged
door and a seat with two holes.

He
sighed, and allowed his thoughts to fall in the invisible muck.

Chapter 6

Daniel's
cousin Rose kept the older children overnight. Mary was sound asleep, the house
quiet for a change. After the late breast feedings, LaDaisy had put Bobby to
bed and dropped exhausted into the four-poster she'd shared with Daniel since
their marriage.

But
tired as she was, she could not fall asleep. Her mind replayed past events, but
she found no reason Daniel would leave his family. It seemed he'd simply
dropped off the earth.

Maybe
he got hit on the head and has amnesia.
Sometimes she thought if he showed his face again, she'd do more than cause
amnesia. She missed him, but there were times she felt like knocking his brains
out. What on earth had possessed him to leave? Most of the time, she hurt so
badly she couldn't think.

Her
restless mind suddenly remembered something. She jumped out of bed, grabbed the
flashlight from the night table to save electricity and not wake the baby, and
hurried to the dresser to find the skeleton key in the top drawer. Crossing the
room in her bare feet, she hesitated before Daniel's private closet. This was
where he stored things he didn't want the kids into.

She'd
never thought to look in here all the months he'd been gone. The closet was
full of junk, and she'd be damned if she was going to clean it out. She
inserted the long brass key in the keyhole and opened the door. Standing in one
corner was Daniel's 12-gauge shotgun. She'd always hated the sight of the
weapon. But its appearance now called to mind a gruesome idea she'd refused to
consider.

Thank
God he didn't take that thing.

She
relaxed, and remembered a time Daniel had asked what she'd do if he left her
for another woman. "I'd track you down," she'd replied, "and
shoot your ass full of holes with your own shotgun."

They'd
collapsed on the bed in a fit of laughter, hugging and kissing and stroking
each other's bodies. She'd pulled off his cap, held it at arm's length.
"You can't have any if you wear the cap."

"Give
it back." He swatted her on the butt. "You know I'm naked without
it."

She
threw a leg over his hip and planted a long, wet kiss on his mouth, ran the tip
of her tongue teasingly across his lips. She pulled away and gazed down at him,
caressing his face with her warm breath. "Take your choice. A naked head
or my naked body." She'd dropped the cap on the floor beside the bed as he
groaned and urgently worked the buttons of her dress.

LaDaisy
backed away from the gun, intending to close the door. Then she stopped, her
eyes drawn to a small metal box on the closet shelf. Shotgun shells? But no,
she saw the box of buckshot at the back of the shelf.

She
carried the metal box to the bed and sat down.
What's in here? Old papers? Snapshots?
The flashlight flickered off. She shook it a few times to get it going again.
Damn,
it's either batteries or light bulbs, and I can't afford either one.

Why
had Daniel hidden part of his life in his closet? The gun she could understand.
But if there'd been family pictures from his childhood, she would loved to have
seen them. Pictures of his mother, Saul's wife, Martha, whom she'd never had
the privilege of knowing. Daniel in a lace christening gown? Short pants and
ruffled collars? She smiled, unable to imagine him dressed so fancy. Daniel
wearing knickers. Yes, she could see him in those. A favorite cap. Scores of
aunts, uncles, cousins. Maybe a pet terrier with a spot on its shoulder. His
whole childhood could be in this rusty metal box. Things his own kids would
like to see.

A
small keyhole indicated a way to unlock the box, but where was the key? She
tried to remember if she'd seen such a small key around the house. Maybe it's
why he let everything rust; he couldn't open the box.

I
can.

She
placed the box on the bed, got up and peeked in the cradle, then tiptoed to the
closet and closed the door. She didn't want Bobby to wake and see the shotgun,
or ask questions she couldn't answer. She locked the door before tiptoeing
through the darkened house to the kitchen.

A
few minutes later she returned with an ice pick, but found it was too big to
pick the lock. She thought for a moment, then went to her sewing basket on a
chair next to the dresser, shone the light in and found a slender crochet hook.
Perfect.
After a few seconds of twisting the hook in the keyhole while
trying to hold the flashlight, she heard a small click.

The
cover opened easily despite the rusty hinges. She shined the light in the box.
There were only a few items. She drew them out one by one and examined them.
Daniel had been in the Army, she already knew. In Europe. But he hadn't wanted
to discuss his experiences in the Infantry, and she'd respected his feelings.

Here
were his draft papers and I.D. card with his picture, a good-looking
seventeen-year-old in an Army uniform. No discharge papers? She thumbed through
the items but didn't find any. He would've been nineteen when he was discharged
two years later. By then the war was winding down.

Weight.
Height. Hair?
Prematurely bald.
She couldn't help smiling a little at
the description, for Daniel had been practically hairless from the day she met
him. As with his uncles and father, Saul, there was only a fringe of hair
around the back of his head and above the ears.

She
laid the papers on the bed beside her and removed a yellowed envelope with
water spots on it, addressed: To my darling Daniel.
A love letter?

Feeling
like the lowest of snoops, she pulled two items out of the envelope. Reading by
flashlight, she saw one was another military document. She dropped it on the
bed beside the other papers. Her curiosity got the better of her and she
unfolded the letter.

For
Daniel Tomelin. To be opened after I pass over.

"Wh—?"

She
ran the light over the page, realizing the date was only a few months before
Daniel's mother had died. These were Martha's last thoughts to her son.

I'm
such a hypocrite.
Tears collected in
the corners of LaDaisy's eyes. Unable to stop herself, she read words meant
only for her husband, the beam of light moving slowly across the page.

My
darling son, you have always been the joy & pride of my heart. Oh my dear
boy, I would give my life for my children gladly. Keep your life pure &
good that I may look down and rejoice and be sure I will recognize and welcome
you with open arms when your work on earth is done.

Your
loving mother.

LaDaisy
wept quietly, her tears falling onto the page.
Why didn't he show me this? I
needed to know.

Her
heart breaking, she kissed the dead woman's signature. It seemed hours had
passed by the time she finally folded the letter and slipped it back in the
envelope. Laying it on top of the military documents, she remembered the other
paper and opened it. A "Certificate of Merit"?
What on earth?

Reading
further, she discovered Daniel had received a merit award for at least three
months of overseas duty, and—LaDaisy almost dropped the paper—he was wounded?

She
read the document, though new tears blurred her vision. Daniel had lied about
his finger. The "accident" he claimed happened when he fell from a
tree as a kid never happened.

No.

She
continued reading, her stomach tightening with each word.

Wounded
from a round of machine gun fire. Shrapnel in his right shoulder. One-third of
his ring finger blown off. LaDaisy choked back a sob. He'd worn his wedding
band on his middle finger. He made up stories about the stub for his kids.
"God
gave me just part of a finger because He needed the other piece for someone
else."
Or a coon bit it off. Some such nonsense. And the kids believed
anything their daddy told them.

All
lies.
Why, Daniel?
Why couldn't you own up to a war injury?

Mary
stirred in her sleep. LaDaisy rose and looked in on her, then returned to the
box and searched some more.

Another
envelope contained a scrap of folded paper and a snapshot—four Army buddies,
with Daniel in the center, his arms around their shoulders and grinning for all
he was worth.

The
picture was captioned:
War Brothers.
She gazed at the soldiers for a
long time, noting the signatures penned underneath each one.
Leonard. Frank.
Milt. Big Woody.
Nice looking American boys still in their teens. Certainly
not men when they were drafted; definitely men after they met the enemy.

Where
are they now?

She
caressed her husband's face with a thumb, feeling paper instead of whiskers.
She kissed his image and pressed it against her cheek. But there was no
sensation of warmth, no pulse. No odor of sweat from his hard labor. Just a
dead sheet of paper.

She
laid it aside and found more pictures: a pretty young woman, soft and virginal
in a loose white dress, white cloche and gloves, a strand of pearls decorating
her bosom. An orchid pinned to her shirtwaist.

All
my love, Jenny.

She
turned the photograph over and recognized Daniel's squiggly handwriting:
Give
to Paul McMillan's family
, and below it the words: "Moved to Scotland."
Who's McMillan?

Unanswered
questions.

She
picked up the piece of paper she'd cast aside earlier. Carefully unfolding it,
she saw penciled at the top in an almost illegible scrawl:
Proverbs.
The
words were so faint she could barely make them out. Part of an edge was torn
off. She turned it over, but there wasn't any name. Whose? Daniel's? Saul's?
Words were missing where the paper had been creased. Only one sentence stood
out from the others:
Proverbs 19-18. Chasten thy son while there is still
hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.

She
shrugged, returned the note and prints to the envelope and placed it with the
awards. She picked up a faded sepia print of another pretty woman:
Your
loving mother, Martha.

She
laid it aside, too, and removed an envelope from the metal box. Inside was the
wound chevron, awarded to Daniel James Tomelin in the line of duty for his
country.

Damn
wars. Damned old men who start them. Cowardly old men who found ways to avoid
fighting. Mostly poor men were called to war, bribed with the scent of money.

LaDaisy
sniffed and wiped her eyes. She replaced the items in the box and shut the lid—except
for the chevron and her mother-in-law's letter. These she placed on top of the
dresser.

She
locked the box with the crochet hook and put it back on the closet shelf.

Hesitating,
she stared at the shotgun, thinking how Daniel must've felt taking lead in his
body, feeling the pain. Or worse, putting lead in someone else's body. She
shuddered, then locked the closet and returned the skeleton key to the drawer,
the flashlight to the night table.

She
picked up her jar of Pond's cold cream and spread a thin layer on her face. The
jar was almost empty.

Back
in bed, she hugged her pillow, listening to crickets through open windows and
doors. A breeze stirred gently through the window, across the bed, bringing in
the sweet scent of honeysuckle and iris. A poor woman's orchids. She pulled the
sheet up to her neck as an owl screeched nearby.

A
screech owl—was it an omen?

She
stared into the darkness, thinking, wondering, worrying. What would become of
them all if Daniel never returned?

Why
hadn't he told her about the wounds? About his award?

"Where
are you?"

From
the other side of town came the long whistle of the late train crossing the
high wooden trestle—on time for a change. Daniel always said he could set his
watch by the train. But with the Depression, the freight had been late more
than once.

What
if he never returned? Her lips moved in silent prayer.
What's become of my
good man? Please send him home.

What
am I saying?
Though she'd uttered the
words, she really didn't think Daniel would suddenly appear one day. After all,
more than a year had passed. If God had wanted him to come home, He would've
answered her prayers months ago.

Some
days she couldn't even bring up the image of his face, or remember how nice he
smelled after shaving. Confused and unhappy one day, LaDaisy was infuriated the
next. She couldn't stay this way forever. But could she move on? Remarry? What
man would want a worn-out, used-up woman with four kids? Another man's
leftovers. No, she'd never find anyone willing to do that.

But
waiting for Daniel seemed a hopeless dream. If he left, it was obviously
because he didn't want her anymore—why would he come back? And if he did, what
would she say?

Welcome
home, it's good to see you. Did you have a good time pretending you weren't a
married man with kids? Maybe you were out making babies with some other woman.
How many little boys have your bald head? And how many girls the Tomelin birthmark
in their ear?