Finding Home (4 page)

Phoebe believed she had so much gumption it threatened to spurt out her ears.

“You got a phone I can borrow? I want to call an ambulance for Willie-Boy, seein’ as how I ain’t got no bumper or tag, I can’t drive him there myself. Seein’ as how you ain’t got the heart to let him recover afore you run us off. I imagine the folks at the hospital will want to know how he come to be so bad off. Don’t think I won’t tell them. How you run into us, how you wasn’t concerned about nothin’ but your old truck and gettin’ money outta poor folks.”

Maydean started to cry.
“I want to get outta here, Phoebe. We’re gonna be in big trouble. We could go to jail. Welfare will get us and separate us. You know what Ma said—”

“
Go sit in the truck until you can get your wits about you, Maydean. This minute!” Maydean shuffled a few backward steps, refusing to budge farther.

“
You’re trying to lay a scam on me,” said Gage Morgan. “It’s not going to happen. People like you are always sniffing around for a hand-out. You came to the wrong place this time.”

Phoebe skewered hi
m with her see-all look, pondering the quality of G. G. Morgan, trusting to her backwoods instinct. Stubborn and tight-fisted, she figured. One thing she knew about a tight-fisted man: he craved an image of being generous in spirit while keeping his purse strings double-knotted. The mill owner back home had been exactly the same way, oozing nice words to Ma’s face, when behind her back he was asking the sheriff to evict them. That picture recalled, Phoebe carried on, all acting fury and spewing Hawley history.

“
Hawleys don’t accept charity. Never have, not once, not since Cuthbert Hawley indentured himself to James Oglethorpe to Georgia and worked seven
hard
years for a bed rug, a fellin’ axe, a bag of oatmeal, three shirts an’ a fiddle. We always give fair value for anything we get. So you can just take back what you said about us grovelin’ for a handout. It appears to me that you’re so used to sellin’ junk you think you can grab what belongs to other folks and sell it back. You think—”

“
I’m going to throw up,” said Willie-Boy.

Phoebe let up on G. G. Morgan. She tucked her skirt between her legs and knelt down beside her brother, holding his head over the side of the porch.
Skittering a glance at the junkyard owner over her shoulder she watched his face go pale. It was something, she thought, how a man could bear up under a show of blood and fair faint at the sound of a dab of gagging. One thing she knew certain. She was riled and aimed to perch right here until Willie-Boy got better and she got her bumper back.

“
If you’re not up to paying the hospital for Willie-Boy, I reckon I can nurse him like I always done. That is, if you got a quiet place I can lay him down.” She wiped Willie-Boy’s mouth, then picked him up. His head lolled weakly against her shoulder, his legs draped over her arm, twitching. Expressions were fleeing across Gage Morgan’s face. Phoebe could see him deciding about a sure thing—in favor of his purse.

“
How long will it take him to recover?”

Phoebe thought:
Until I find a job and make seventy dollars.
“An hour, maybe two.”

Scowling, G. G. Morgan
opened the screened door and waved her through. Sharp-eyed, Phoebe took in the kitchen, the wide central hall beyond and the doors leading to hidden sanctuaries and all good things in life—she hoped. “Where can I put him?”

Gage pointed. Phoebe went. It was a cramped and musty little room with spider webs draped and barely hanging on in the
corners. It had a dresser and a double bed with the mattress rolled up exposing old iron springs. The dust was terrible, not at all good for Willie-Boy. The room’s only redeeming feature was the butter-yellow sunshine shining through the window. Phoebe called to Maydean.

“
Lay out that mattress.”

“
You reckon it has bedbugs?”

Phoebe shot a look behind her but Gage Morgan was gone, in his place stood his daughter.
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Maydean.” She lay Willie-Boy down on the bare ticking, stretching out his legs. To Dorie she said, “You want to show me where you keep a bucket and soap? And a sheet?”

“
What’re you going to do?”

“
Clean this room. If I don’t, Willie-Boy won’t get well.”

“
This was my mama’s room.”

Phoebe
’s pale brows shot up. “Your pa’s, too?”

“
No, just my mama’s. She didn’t like my daddy.”

“
Marriage can be a terrible trial if you ain’t married to the right person,” Phoebe allowed.

“
Mama liked me, though.”

“
You miss her, don’t you? It’s a sad thing when a mother is taken up and leaves young’uns behind.” She followed Dorie into the kitchen. The child pointed out the pantry.

“
If Mama had taken me with her that day, she wouldn’t’ve drowned. I can swim real good. I could’ve saved her.”

“
I’ll just bet you could’ve.”

Phoebe didn
’t know where all this was leading. That the girl was troubled was plain. Later she could worry on the child. Just now, getting settled was the main thing. She looked up at the ceiling. Lor, but having a roof above one’s head was a precious thing.

From somewhere at the other end of the rambling old house, Gage Morgan called for his daughter. Before the child went to answer his summons, Phoebe saw the way Dorie
’s face tightened. A hornet’s nest, that’s what she’d stepped into, Phoebe thought. Digging around in the pantry for the things she needed, she amended the thought. Dern
dirty
hornet’s nest! She put her hand around the mop handle and sighed happily.

~~~~

Standing at the foot
of the bed Phoebe turned slowly and admired her work. The small room gleamed clean and cheerful. Not even a vagrant dust mote hung in the air for the sun to illuminate. Maydean was polishing the mirror on the dresser with yellowed newspaper and vinegar. What with Maydean’s love affair with her mirror image, Phoebe figured that’d keep the twelve-year-old content and out of harm’s way for an hour or two. What was pressing down on Phoebe now was hunger.

She could feel the pangs, stabbing and fixing to get noisy.

“I feel good now, Phoebe,” said Willie-Boy from the bed. He was lying on a clean pink sheet and propped up on a pillow they’d discovered in the closet. “I can get up now.”

Phoebe was thinking hard. Everything she had in mind—survival, for today anyway—depended upon Willie-Boy being ill.
And staying that way. Looking at the five-year-old, she struggled with her conscience. She had to decide between two-hundred-fifty years of inbred Hawley scruples and one hour of dire need. Need won out. She sat on the bed and touched Willie-Boy’s forehead. “You’re not better yet, Willie-Boy. I can see it in your eyes.”

“
You can?”

“
Sure I can. You know anybody with better eyesight than me?” She put her face right up to Willie-Boy’s. “I can look into your eyes and see everything that’s going on inside you.”

He squeezed his eyes closed.
“Don’t look inside me, Phoebe. I got secrets. You’re not supposed to know secrets.”

“
I have to look inside you so I know when you’re well. But when I’m looking you can put your hand over your heart. That way I won’t come upon anything you got to hide.”

“
You’re sure?” Childish skepticism layered each word.

“‘
Course I’m sure. You put your hand over your heart and it makes a dark shadow in there. You know how hard it is to see into shadows.”

“
Lemme get up, Phoebe. I feel okay. My chest don’t hurt none.”

“
That’s because it’s numb. When the feelin’ comes back I reckon I’ll have to sit up with you all night.”

“
Here?”

“
Right here in this room. Would you like that?”

“
I like layin’ on a mattress. It’s softer than the back of the truck. But what about Mister Morgan?”

“
I’ll handle him,” Phoebe said, wondering how. One thing was certain. Every word spoken to the man had to count. She suspected Gage Morgan had a fair amount of sense. Her idea was to not let him catch on that she knew it. With a word of caution to Maydean not to leave the room, she went to find the man who was her reluctant host.

The hall was wide, high and dim, the windows at each end so fogged with grime little light found its way inside. Of the six doors along its length one was slightly open. Phoebe peeked in.
The bathroom. It needed a good scrub down. Another door was gaping. Dorie lay upon an unmade bed, coloring. Phoebe stood on the threshold.

“
Where’s your pa?”

Scowling, the girl looked up.
“Out to the shed.”

“
What shed?”

“
The welding shed. He fixes boat motors and propellers.”

“
Where is it?”

Dorie
raised up and pointed out a window hung with once-white curtains gone gray and limp. “It’s on the other side of the junkyard, facing the canal.” Her eyes stayed hard on Phoebe for a few seconds then returned to the coloring book.

Phoebe ignored the child
’s dismissal. “How long’s your ma been in heaven?”

The narrow face went dark.
“Since last summer.”

“
Who does the cooking and cleaning for you and your pa?”

“
Daddy does it.”

Thinking on the state of the kitchen, Phoebe thought
:
No he don’t.
Ideas raced so rampant in her head she was out the back door and across the junkyard before she had any good speaking words fixed solidly in her brain.

The wielding shed
was a great barn of a building constructed of metal. It was open at both ends so that standing at the landward end Phoebe could look straight through to the bay bathed in the sky’s yellow haze. She glimpsed a fishing boat, nets dark with water and draped on a boom. At its stern, a flock of seagulls fluttered and dived in wondrous profusion. Phoebe slipped inside the yawning opening and stood there, giving her eyes the moments needed to adjust.

Propellers, large and small, lined the walls or hung suspended from ceiling beams on pulleys and chains— chains as thick as Gage Morgan
’s biceps. Phoebe could make the comparison because he was working on a propeller hung from just such a chain. He’d changed from his laundry-creased clothes into oil-stained khakis and a shirt with the sleeves cut out. The muscles in his arms rippled as he bore down on a bolt with a wrench.

Watching him caused a good-feeling sensation to spread warmth inside her. Lor, but it was fine to see a man work! Leastways, she now knew the source of those calluses on his palms. They
’d be fair scratchy on a woman’s tender skin though. She paused on the thought and caught herself running her hands up her arms.

Her midsection began to actively protest its hunger. The borborygmus issuing from her lower regions caught her off guard. The growling quaked so in her ears she misplaced the words she
’d rehearsed. She cleared her throat as loud as she could.

Gage Morgan spun around and she noted the expression he wore didn
’t come anywhere near being kindly.

“
Don’t ever come sneaking up on me like that!”

“
I’m no sneak.” Offended, Phoebe regretted her good thoughts and the admiring of his body. “It’s what’s in your mind that makes a sneak. If I was aimin’ to be sly, I could’ve slipped in and been here hours afore you discovered me.”

“
I’ll give it to you that you’re a sly one,” he said acidly. “What do you want now?”

Pride went racing
up and down Phoebe’s spine looking for a way out. Before it got loose and did damage she said, “I just came to tell you Willie-Boy is some better.”

“
You’re clearing out?”

He sounded so much like he wanted her to that Phoebe had to bite back the urge to say yes.
“Willie-Boy’s not up to bein’ moved yet. He’s fair weak what with throwin’ up his breakfast and all.” She paused, waiting to see how much sympathy that elicited. None! All the calluses in the world couldn’t make up for a hard heart in a man. The dark, tightly wound knot under her ribcage that harbored hope shrank painfully.

“
I came to see if I could buy a can of beans off your shelf or a couple of those near-to-rotten potatoes in that bag in the pantry. I figured some soup’d give Willie-Boy back his strength.” For good measure and to jolt his conscience, she added, “If it comes to having to take Willie-Boy over to the hospital I want to be able to say you done all you could for him.”

Gage made a noise in his throat.
Phoebe was certain his gall was rising. Prob’ly he could taste it, too.

“
There’s some women who can drive a man to drink or worse,” he said, his jaw muscles going so tight Phoebe feared he might break a tooth. “You’re one of them. Sly-tongued, manipulative harridans like you ought to be tarred and hung up to dry. Know this: there’s not a woman in the world that can best me. Not after all I been through with a woman. You can just quit trying.”

Phoebe had a flash of
clarity. He was telling on himself without knowing it. No doubt a woman had gotten to Gage Morgan where it hurt the most—his purse. She tossed her head, which had the effect of making her curls fly.

“
I don’t take to slurring on my person. God made me a woman. You got problems with that, you take it up with Him. You gonna sell me a potato or not? I got to get some food in Willie-Boy lest he goes to faintin’ with weakness.”

Gage
’s fist tightened on the wrench. He waved it in the direction of the house. “Take what you want from the pantry. And the potatoes aren’t rotten. I just bought them.”

“
Just did?” oozed Phoebe, ignoring the easy manner in which he was flailing the heavy tool about. Calling her names like that was unjustified. She wasn’t going to back down just because she had brains and the man didn’t like that. She ought to leave well enough alone. She had what she came for, but gumption overrode her practicality. “Well, the market put one over on you, mister. Those potatoes are sproutin’.”

“
No one puts anything over on me,” he reiterated.

Phoebe ducked her chin and shoved her hands into her skirt pockets.
“I reckon they don’t,” she crooned so smoothly, the sarcasm didn’t catch. “You appear to be about the smartest man I ever met.” On the outside. On the inside, he appeared to own a lacking she couldn’t put a name to—yet.

His pupils dilated.
“I’m not giving over to flattery from the likes of you. Get your brother up and about and get off my property. The sooner the better.”

“
I aim to,” Phoebe answered forcefully, lest he pick up on the idea she meant to plop down like an old-time squatter spying the unprotected edge of a fine stone-free meadow.

Her feet itched to move but she didn
’t want to turn her back and allow him to watch her leave the shed. She knew she didn’t have a hip-swaying walk that men kept on about. She pretended interest in her surroundings, gazing about the shed, above her head, along the walls until she spotted the bumper to her truck lying against some machine parts. Her eyes narrowed.

Tracking her gaze, G
. G. Morgan alerted the instant her eyes alighted on the bumper. “Don’t even think it,” he said. “When I’m not working in here, this shed is locked tighter than an unopened drum. You want that bumper you come up with some cash.”

Dern.
The surprise on her face must’ve hinted the way her mind worked. Phoebe knew it wasn’t in her nature to give up the last word. But just this once she was going to allow it on purpose. Let Gage Morgan think what he wanted. If he was so loose-minded he couldn’t see that returning her bumper would turn her out of his house, she wasn’t about to disabuse him.

She filled up her face with belligerence to hide her elation and let him get a good glimpse of it before she turned and exited the shed. On the
off chance that taking mincing steps was how a woman achieved the hip rolling men admired, Phoebe tried it. She stumbled over her own feet. Behind her, Gage Morgan snorted.

Picking herself up, she shot a comment over her shoulder.
“A body could break her neck on the clutter you keep.”

Gage grinned. Phoebe was taken aback. Lor! He looked wonderful when he smiled.

“The only clutter in your path is at the end of those sticks you walk on,” he said.

Phoebe drew herself up so still and tall she gained two inches. Gutter-minded man, she thought, smile or no. Inspecting her legs like that. Just went to show what kind of woman Gage Morgan would hook up to,
if
he got the chance. Which no doubt he wouldn’t, considering how insufferable he was. Aggravation and mean thoughts occupied her all the way across the junkyard to the house and into the pantry.

The potatoes were Idaho, the prettiest Phoebe had held in her hand in many a week. She took them to the sink and cleared out
a place to peel them. Gage Morgan’s words had stuck in her craw. If ever she’d met a man who needed undoing, he was it. He needed to be unlaced so severely that everything he was just spilled out at her feet. Not feet. She didn’t want to think about feet. There were a few things besides hip rolling that could set a man to thinking right about a woman. One of them was the smell of good food cooking. No doubt she’d figure out others as opportunities arose.

A closer inspection of the pantry shelves revealed condensed milk, sugar, packets of yeast, corn meal, dried beans, crackers and all manner of canned goods. Phoebe frowned at all the manna. It was just sitting there getting dusty and going to sinful waste.
For shame. A woman trying to live right in God’s eye wouldn’t tolerate such. Phoebe grouped together the makings of a rich thick soup, corn fritters and fried potato doughnuts. If a body looked on it right, she was undoing sin and waste. God was probably looking down on her right this minute and beaming His approval.

Phoebe looked out the
salt and grime-streaked kitchen window and saw prosperity: Ma weeding bean and tomato plants that marched in neat rows down to the estuary. She saw Erlene scattering corn to chickens, Pa in his rocking chair on the back porch. Willie-Boy on his lap listening to Pa’s old time stories of wild boar hunts, alligator skinning and fearsome snakes—none of which Pa had done himself, but his pa had and his pa before him—all the way back to Cuthbert Hawley. Listening to Pa you’d think Cuthbert lived around the corner and was coming to Sunday dinner hauling a deer haunch over his shoulder instead of being dead nigh on two hundred years.

Once the potatoes were boiling and the sugar yeast rising, Phoebe called Maydean and ordered her to clean the bathroom.

“Do the mirror last, Maydean, lest it get a hold on you.”

“
I ain’t in the mind to clean somebody else’s house. How long we gonna stay here?”

Phoebe
spied the top of Dorie Morgan’s head just beneath the window sill. The scamp was eavesdropping. At the behest of her own pa no doubt.

“
Just until Willie-Boy’s well enough to travel,” she posed with studied casualness.

“
He’s almost that now,” claimed Maydean.

Phoebe could
’ve throttled her. “He is not. He’s weaker than I’ve seen him in a month of Sundays. If I was to move him now it’d have to be to a hospital.” She shoved a bucket and a can of cleanser at Maydean. “Get in that bathroom and make it shine.” Louder, she said, “I wonder where that Dorie got off to? Like as not, bedridden as he is, Willie-Boy’d like some company.” She turned away from the window and began to clear the table. The screened door squeaked. “Oh, there you be,” Phoebe said. “I was just—”

“
My daddy said to stay away from you.”

“
Why?”

Dorie shrugged.
“He just said, is all.”

“
If you lived in Cottontown where we come from, you’d be proud to associate with a Hawley. We got the reputation for being law abidin’ and church goin’. Howsomever, I don’t want you to go against your pa’s word. So you can just clear outta this kitchen. I got floors to scrub, dishes to wash and doughnuts to fry.”

Dorie hesitated.
“Are you cooking for me, too?”

“
You and your pa, if he’s so-minded.” Which Phoebe reckoned he would be once he got a whiff of her crisp-fried doughnuts. A right-minded man appreciated a woman who could cook. Phoebe didn’t hold with all the other things men appreciated, mostly because she knew she was so thinly endowed with any of them. If she ever found a man who could look beyond body parts she’d latch on to him so quick...

“
Daddy eats at the restaurant in town.”

“
What about you?”

“
He brings me hamburgers. I like hamburgers.”

“
Maybe tomorrow I’ll make you a hamburger,” Phoebe said. “That is, if Willie-Boy don’t recover well enough to travel by dinner time. Howsomever, there’s one thing I don’t tolerate. That’s a dirty face at my table. Once Maydean’s got that bathroom clean, you scrub up.”

The child bristled.
“That’s our table, not yours. I can sit any way I want.”

“
You can sit at it. You can own it. But I won’t put no fried doughnuts on it lessen the faces around it are scrubbed and hair’s combed. That’s my final word.”

Dorie stalked out. Phoebe started to call her back, but stopped. She didn
’t know what more she could say, or how much saying she could get away with. Anyway, at the moment the refrigerator needed her attention. It was big and solid and a light flashed on when the door was opened.

On the first shelf were good-quality milk, butter, cheeses and jellies. The lower shelves were crammed with bits and bowls of food gone rock hard or growing things. Lor! But this house needed constant seeing to by a woman. Most espe
cially it needed a fine upstanding, hard-working woman who had lots of patience, a strong back, nice teeth and a frugal outlook to match its owner’s. Phoebe thought she had all of that and a good heart to boot.

She had more than a good heart. It was ready to be filled with love. Th
ough she had no evidence to support the idea, Phoebe told herself the junkyard owner appeared to need seeing to as much as his house. The bold thought sent a tingling up her spine. Having a house, having a man to call her own, especially a man as powerful and worthy of admiration as Gage Morgan... She shook her head as if to clear it of such foolishness.

But her good heart went to pounding like a jack- hammer, speeding so that she felt compelled to clutch her chest to slow it down. The idea of pairing up with Gage Morgan wouldn
’t go away. It entertained her until she went to rummage for a sick-bed tray and dished up soup and corn bread for Willie-Boy.