Mittman, Stephanie (12 page)

Ethan
laughed at the last description of his employer. "Yeah," he said.
"Biggety. I ain't never seen anyone tell Sissy what to do."

"Well,
she was cold and wet and uncomfortable." Noah defended himself. Even a
woman as capable as Annie needed someone to tell her what to do every now and
then. Some women were so busy taking care of others they neglected to take care
of themselves.

Ethan
laughed and rubbed his cold arms. "And I'm damn sure I never seen Sissy do
what anyone ever told her, leastwise till now."

A
few pieces of coal got the stove going, and Noah rubbed his hands over it, then
signaled for Ethan and Hannah to join him. The three stood trying to warm
themselves as they waited for Annie to join them. It wouldn't be long before
he'd have to lay in a supply of coal and get the furnace fired up for the
winter. He made a mental note to check it out before the weather really turned
cold.

Mrs.
Abernathy came into the room with Julia trailing behind her. "Don't you
follow me, you bad little girl," she was saying. "You ain't gettin'
none of those cookies after what you did in that bed of yours."

Naturally,
Julia began to cry, and just as he was about to get her, Annie came into view.
She had a towel wrapped around her hair, framing a face that glowed from the
cold rainwater, his plaid shirt, the sleeves rolled several times over so that
her hands showed beyond their edge, and his overalls. The denim straps came
down over her breasts, the top edge of the bib nestled somewhere beneath them.
The waist fell across her hips, the crotch nearly between her knees.

She
shuffled into the room in bare feet and stood waiting.

"Come
by the fire," he said. "And Julia, come say hello to Miss
Annie."

Annie
came toward the stove, looking like an angel God had dropped in a hayloft, her
smile soft and warm and directed at little Julia's tear-streaked face.
"What's this?" she asked the child, touching her cheek. "Are you
raining, too?" She knelt down beside the girl and searched her eyes, her
eyebrows, her forehead.

"What
are you doing?" Hannah asked. She moved closer to Annie and watched the woman
examine her sister's face.

"I'm
looking for clouds," Annie said matter-of-factly.

"Clouds?"
Hannah asked.

"Mmm,"
Annie said, as if looking for clouds on a child's face was a serious business.
"Clouds."

"What
will you do if you find them?"

"Why,
blow them away, of course," Annie said. "Oh! I found one!" She
blew and blew against Julia's forehead until the child began to giggle. Then
Hannah started laughing and Ethan joined in. "Where's that basket I
brought, Mrs. Abernathy? I've got something for the girls in there, something I
promised them yesterday."

Both
his daughters began to bounce on the balls of their feet, their faces lit with
the kind of excitement usually reserved for Christmas or their birthdays.

Mrs.
Abernathy stood like a stone wall, her hands crossed over her pendulous
breasts. "Julia ain't allowed to have any treats, Miss Morrow. She's bein'
punished for soilin' her sheets again."

Julia's
face fell, crushing Noah's heart. The child was only two, but Mrs. Abernathy
was sure that Julia was willfully refusing to use the child-sized chamber pot
with which Hannah had been so successful, and that the only way to get her into
the right habit was to be strict with her. He had forbidden the woman from
spanking the child over the matter, but he had agreed to the punishment as a
compromise. Now he wasn't sure he had done the right thing. It was one of the
problems he had planned to ask Annie about before he met her. He was ashamed to
admit that, once he had seen her, the question had simply vanished from his
mind.

Now
she was looking up at him questioningly. When he was silent, she said, "I
made the girls a promise. Are you asking me to break it?"

"No,"
he stammered. "Of course not." Then to Mrs. Abernathy he said,
"Please get Miss Morrow's basket. I believe she's won her point."

The
smile on Annie's face was as bright as the ones lighting Hannah's and Julia's.
And all three got even brighter when she opened the basket and the girls saw
the treats that waited for them inside.

As
for Noah, his treat was sitting a few feet away from him on his kitchen floor
clad in his overalls, two small red feet close to the stove.

***

The
house was dark when Annie returned home. Bart was no doubt still at the
Leemans'. She tied the wagon out front and headed for the house. Bart would
unhitch Blackie and put him down for the night.

After
all the noise and commotion at the Eastman farm, the quiet house was lonely and
bereft. The parlor suite sat forlornly in the living room, its worn seats
calling out for the children who once sat there. "Keep your feet off the
divan," she'd told them often enough, her words echoing the ones her
mother had used until she died. Now her mother was gone and all the children
had moved on. But the divan still stood in the parlor in readiness.

If
she had it to do over, she wondered whether she would care about the children's
shoes dirtying the sofa. All her standards seemed to be knocked out of kilter
lately. Everything she'd believed all her life was somehow topsyturvy. And if
all her beliefs were at sixes and sevens, she didn't even want to think about
her feelings.

The
house smelled stale and stuffy, and Annie went around opening the windows an
inch or two despite the rain that was still coming down hard outside, all the
while thinking about the day. She was still smarting from Miller's rejection,
even while she consoled herself with the knowledge that he did care for her.
She had no doubt after today that he did want to marry her and would do so when
the time was right.

Upstairs
she went from room to room with a lamp in her hand, seeing to the windows. In
Francie's room she discovered a pile of her belongings at the foot of her old
bed. Anger welled up in her and then subsided as quickly as it had flared. Bart
had only meant to be helpful, she supposed. In a way it was kind of nice that
he was so eager to be married and get on with his new life. People in love should
be impatient to be together. Of course, it was his lack of patience that made
this hasty marriage necessary in the first place.

If
only he and Willa could have waited until spring. Then she and Miller would
already be married, and everything would have worked out the way she planned.

Through
the window she saw Bart come riding up on Paint. His collar up against the wind
and rain, he rode the horse straight into the barn, only to come out a few
moments later to unhitch Blackie and lead him in as well. For just an instant
she wondered what it would be like to be Willa, waiting upstairs for Bart to
come home to her. Not that she had any great affection for her brother. There
were times she could hardly stand him, but to be someone's wife, to have
someone to depend on and turn to and share burdens with—now that was something
she envied.

And
the fact was, she would have it herself, and soon. What was a few months when
she would be able to spend the rest of her life not just as someone's wife, but
the
Reverend Miller Winstock's
wife. A chill ran through her and she
hugged herself, running her hands up and down her arms to warm them. Always
before she had been eager at the prospect of marrying Miller and moving to
town. Now suddenly she looked out over the dark quiet farm, moved by the years
she had spent toiling there, raising her brothers and sisters and tending her
garden. Life in town would be a big change.

Her
brother ran toward the house, his feet splashing in the puddles of water the
dry earth couldn't absorb fast enough. The door smacked open below her and then
slammed shut.

"Shit!"
he shouted.

At
his voice, her common sense returned to her. She would love living in town with
Miller, she thought with a smile. Good-bye Bart, good-bye mud, good-bye
cussing.

His
heavy boots thudded on each step as he climbed to the second floor, muttering
to himself about the goddam rain and how was a man expected to make a living
from God's earth when God seemed hell-bent against giving him the right
conditions to do it.

"You
in here?" he asked, poking his head in the door of Francie's room.

"Yes,
Bart," Annie said with a sigh. "I'm in here. I see you brought in
some of my stuff for me."

"Well?"
he asked, obviously waiting for something. When she didn't answer, he said,
"You set a date then?"

"What?"

"You
and Miller. You were there long enough. I didn't leave till close to seven.
Went over to Willa's for dinner when I seen I wasn't gonna get none here. So
when is it?"

"When
is what?"

"When
are you gettin' married? Ain't that what took so long?" He stepped into
the room and tried to get a better look at her. Annie shrank closer to the
wall.

"No."

"Well,
you mind tellin' me what kept you at the reverend's house so long? He and you
didn't—I mean, you two weren't all alone? At his house? Just you and
Miller?"

Annie
didn't like his tone or his implication. Did he really suppose that she and
Miller would succumb to their baser instincts just because he and Willa had?
"Bart!" she said with a huff. "What are you thinking?"

He
shook his head as if to clear it. Annie could feel raindrops that flew from his
hair hitting her face. "I don't know." He laughed. "You and the
reverend." He laughed again.

"What's
so funny?" It wasn't as if they were too old or decrepit to share some
passion eventually. They were just mature enough to keep it reined in until the
appropriate time.

"It
just hit me, this picture of you and Miller." He was laughing so hard he
plopped down on her bed in his wet clothes.

"Well,
get them dirty pictures out of your mind. I wasn't even
at
Miller's most
of the time."

Bart
stopped laughing and leaned closer toward her. He squinted at her in the dim
light and cocked his head. "Turn the light up, Sissy. It's damn dark in
here."

"What
do you want anyway, Bart?" she asked. She left the lantern as it was.

He
reached out and pulled her arm so she stood only a foot or so from him.
"What the devil? What you got on, Sissy Morrow? Are you wearin' a man's
pants?" He grabbed the lantern and turned it up.

Annie
stuck her chin out and glared at her brother defiantly. Who did he think he
was, bellowing at her and demanding to know things that were none of his
business?

"Where
did you get them clothes?"

She
shrank away from the light and the disappointed look in her brother's eyes.
"They're Mr. Eastman's."

"You
want to tell me how you come to be in Mr. Eastman's overalls?" His voice
was tight, and she knew it was taking all the control he had not to bellow at
her.

"I
took some cookies over to the Eastman girls, if you must know. I got caught in
the rain, and Mr. Eastman lent these to me to come home in." Outside a
screech owl celebrated his find, but in the stuffy little room where Annie and
her brother stood staring at each other there was only the sounds of Bart
trying to get his breath under control.

Finally
he asked, "You don't want to marry Miller, is that it?" There was
genuine concern in his voice. "You just want to stay on here with me and
Willa?"

"No!
I don't want to stay here at all. You know what I want, Bart, as well as I do.
I want to move into that fancy house of Miller's with his plumbin' and his
'lectricity and take care of him and—"

"Listen
to me then, Sissy. You ain't pretty enough to be messin' around with what ya
got in your pocket. Miller wants to marry you. He ain't lookin' for beauty or
smarts or nothin' but goodness and faithfulness. Well, you sure got that in
abundance. Or ya did ..."

The
words stung and Annie bit her upper lip to keep her emotions under control. It
wasn't enough to tell her that she wasn't beautiful or smart. He had to imply
that she was untrustworthy simply because she had been at Noah Eastman's farm
in a rainstorm.

"Well,
I guess it's no wonder I ain't married yet then, is it?"

His
tone softened. "Aw, Sissy. I didn't mean you wasn't a good catch or
nothin'. I just don't think you ought to be nowheres near that Eastman fellow.
Don't you see the way that man looks at you? He drools like a hound dog who's
smelled a bitch in heat."

"Ugly
as a dog but the man still wants me? He must be pretty desperate there,
Bart."

He
grumbled some words she couldn't make out and then recovered himself somewhat.
"God in heaven, Sissy, don't ya know nothin'? A man's got needs and a
woman has ways of satisfyin' them. He ain't lookin' at a woman's face when he's
tryin' to bury himself inside her. And he ain't worried about the rest of her
life neither. He's thinkin' on one part of his body and hers and the rest of it
be damned until he's done. And when he'd be done with his needs, he'd be done
with you." He shook his head as if she were hopeless.