Runny03 - Loose Lips (34 page)

“Safe journey,” Cora sobbed.

Juts and Chessy left her alone with him for a few moments. Juts walked past an angry, choking Louise, already justifying herself. Juts paid her no more mind than if she were a goat barking. Chessy followed after his wife, clutching Nickel, who was crying again.

The sun was setting and near the house a redheaded woodpecker tapped into a bark alive with juicy insects, one last meal before packing it in for the night.

The idea flashed across Juts’s mind that the woodpecker was signaling in Morse code,
Hansford Hunsenmeir is dead. Juts lost her father—twice.
She shook her head and buried her face in her hands, overcome with sorrow. She reached for her husband and he was there.

Late that night, after the undertaker had come, after Wheezie had screamed and hollered at everyone, after Cora had composed herself with remarkable dignity, after Mary and Maizie had accompanied their mother home, after Juts had finally fallen asleep and the baby was dreaming in her little bed with slats on it and Yoyo snuggling up to her, Chester walked the floors.

No peace came to him. He finally clucked to Buster, threw
on a coat over his pajamas, and walked outside, up one side of the tree-lined street and down the other.

He thought about life. When he was a boy he dreamed of heroic physical exploits, glory in war, and fast cars. He still dreamed of fast cars but he was mature enough to know there is no glory in war and heroic exploits are few and far between. A steady refusal to cave in to despair or self-indulgence now seemed heroic to him. Doing your job seemed heroic to him. Caring for those who need you seemed heroic to him. He would live on this earth and then die and, like Hansford, be forgotten when those who knew him also died. As a youngster that knowledge would have seemed terrible to him. Now it was just a fact. Fame, fortune, and power, those fantasies of youth, were not to be his. Life wouldn’t be a daily diet of large victories. It wasn’t like that.

He walked and walked, Buster by his side, and said aloud as the morning star appeared brilliant and clean, “Life isn’t like that—it’s better.”

S
howers of white cascaded over Juts’s back fence. The crape myrtle bloomed. She struggled to put up a sturdy white trellis of four-inch squares against the garage. Nickel ran around the yard pursued by Buster.

The far end of the trellis leaned forward.

“Nicky, come to Momma.”

“No.” Nickel ran faster.

“I need you to help me.”

The word “help” captured the child’s attention. Small though she was, the idea of being useful appealed to her. She ran over.

Juts pointed to the far end of the trellis. “Can you lean against the wall?”

Nickel walked over and flattened herself bellyfirst against the wall, which meant she pressed the trellis to it.

“That’s good. What a strong girl you are.” Juts quickly tapped in a holding nail on her end, then hurried over to tap one in where Nickel stood. “Thank you.” She popped open the stepladder and climbed to the top, where she tapped in another nail. Then she carried the stepladder to the other end, repeating the process. When she’d climbed down she admired the trellis. She could picture seashell-pink tea roses trailing over it. Or did she want ruby-red roses? Then again, yellow made her smile. “The hell with it, I’ll plant them all.”

A heavy footfall, a squeal from Nickel, and joyous barking from Buster alerted her to Cora’s arrival. Cora had put on weight these last few years. She breathed heavily.

“Momma, why didn’t you call me? I’d have come over and carried you here.”

“With what car?” Cora fanned herself. In her generation fans were fashionable as well as useful.

“I’d have borrowed Wheezer’s.”

“In a pig’s eye. Hello, my wild Indian.” Cora reached down to kiss Nickel and then to pet Buster.

At the sound of her voice, Yoyo climbed down from the red maple tree. She waited a few moments. It wouldn’t do to run. Then she sauntered over and rubbed the old lady’s leg.

“That cat.” Juts laughed. “She loves you. How about a Co-Cola or lemonade?”

Juts ran into the kitchen and returned with a huge pitcher of lemonade on a tray. Nickel carried the napkins. She walked over to her grandmother. Cora pretended to inspect the different colors. She picked red. Then she put it back and winked. She picked out a green one because she knew Nicky wanted the red one.

When Nickel sat down for her lemonade in a tin cup, Cora placed the red napkin on her lap. “Red’s your color.”

Nickel giggled.

“Julia, you have a green thumb. Always did. Louise has a black thumb.” She half smiled. “But Louise can organize.”

“She likes to tell people what to do. Here, Momma, put your feet up.” Juts put her drink on the table and brought over a painted milk carton. “Don’t you find your feet swell on such a hot day?”

“If I swell any more I’ll burst like a balloon.” She held the wet glass to her forehead. “A stinker.”

“Dog days.” Juts called to the terrier now under the crape myrtle, “Don’t you think, Buster boy?”

Cora inhaled and exhaled, closed her eyes, then set the glass down. “Summer—fireflies and fishing, thunderstorms and rainbows. Did you know that it takes both rain and sunshine to make a rainbow?”

“Yes.” Juts knew her mother was working toward something. “Life’s a rainbow. I never knew how much I loved life until I got near the end of it.”

“Momma—” Juts was alarmed.

“Oh, settle yourself. I’m not sick but I’m old, honey. Most of my living’s behind me. It went by so fast. I get up in the morning and my knees hurt and I don’t know why. Then I look at myself in the mirror and see this old woman’s face. I have to laugh. I wake up every morning expecting to be twenty with two little babies running around Bumblebee Hill. Guess I’m selfish. I don’t want it to ever end.”

A big lump stuck in Juts’s throat. “Oh, Momma, you’ve got good long innings left.”

“Well, I hope so.” She drank, then held out her hand to her daughter. “Enjoy every minute, honey, and enjoy her. Well, I visited Edgar Frost last week and I signed over the house to you and to Louise. We fixed it up so I can live there until I die and he didn’t charge me a penny. I don’t remember him being so tall before the war.”

“He was pretty tall.”

“Guess it’s me. I think they all came back changed. Those that came back.”

“Vaughn amazes me.”

“Yes.”

Vaughn Cadwalder, legs amputated below the knee, asked for no sympathy and got around surprisingly well. Everyone said how lucky he was that he still had his knees because he could strap on wooden legs and use canes. That was one way to look at it. The doctors kept tinkering with the fit of the wooden legs. They were often painful and caused ulcers on his stumps. He didn’t complain. For moving fast he used a wheelchair.

“Momma, I love Bumblebee Hill—but I love you in it, and I wish you wouldn’t talk this way. I mean, you could have waited to deed over the house and the fifty acres.”

“Wait for what? By the time I know I’m leaving, it will be too late.” Julia remained quiet and Cora continued. “I’ll tell Louise this evening. She’s over in Littlestown. Has she said anything to you?”

“About what?”

“About the way she treated her father?”

Nickel raised her legs straight out. “Uppie-do. Mamaw, uppie-do.”

“Nicky, hush.”

“That’s all right, Julia, she’s been sitting so quiet that I thought she was a little mouse.” Cora spoke to the child. “Darlin’,
if you want to play you go on ahead. Mamaw and Mommy are chewing the rag here.”

Nickel glanced at her mother.

Juts confirmed Cora’s suggestion. “Why don’t you get your truck?”

“No.” Nickel bounced off the little chair. She walked over to the trellis and imitated her mother, inspecting it, walking to one end and then the other. She made hammering motions.

Juts returned to her mother’s question. “Wheezie doesn’t say anything. Usually she runs her mouth a mile a minute but about Hansford—”

“Carrying around those feelings is like carrying a stone. I don’t know why I didn’t see it.”

“Louise believes things are black-and-white. You know that. Hansford left us, so he’s flat wrong. Maybe things hurt more when you’re little. I don’t know, Momma, ’cause I hardly remember.”

“You weren’t much bigger than Nickel.” She finished her glass. “Has Josephine Smith come round at all?”

“No. She won’t even let her in the door, not that we try. Chessy goes over every Tuesday, stays his two hours, and comes home. His brothers sneak by when they come to visit her, which is less and less. What a hateful woman.”

“Leave her to God, Julia. Otherwise you’ll carry around a heavy stone, too. People who are ugly act that way because something’s bleeding inside.”

“I don’t care if she hemorrhages to death.”

“Turn the other cheek.”

“Momma, I can’t. I’m not that good a Christian—course, I never pretended to be.”

“I do think if the Lord wanted us to be better people He might have made the rules a little easier.” Cora smiled. “But we can try. If you can’t forgive her then put her out of your mind.”

“I can forgive how she treats me, I suppose. Not that I want to, but to do Nicky like she does…. I want to run her over with
that tractor Celeste willed you. Yeah, I’d like to bushhog the bitch.”

“Now, Juts.” Cora shook her finger at her daughter and wisely didn’t tell her why she was really downtown.

I
t was a long walk to Josephine Smith’s in scorching heat—five o’clock steamed hot as noontime. Cora hadn’t told Juts where she was going when she left her house. Fortunately, the expansive maples, oaks, elms, and locusts that lined the pretty streets of Runnymede shaded the sidewalks.

By the time she arrived at the prim black door to the Smiths’ she had to gulp for air. The front door was open, the screen door was shut. Cora opened it, reached inside and lifted the shiny brass knocker, and rapped.

“Who’s there?” Josephine’s voice floated out through the screen door. She stopped in her tracks once there. “What are you doing here?”

“Paying you a call.” Cora sweated in the glaring sun.

“I told you I’d never speak to you again.”

“That was before the turn of the century.”

“This is 1947. You don’t look any better to me now,” Josephine barked.

Ignoring this remark, Cora patiently pushed on. “That was
such a long time ago. Whatever our troubles were, let’s not push them onto the young ones.”

“I don’t. I couldn’t stop Chester from marrying Julia.”

“That was long ago, too, Josephine. They married in 1927. I’m talking about today.”

“Today?” Josephine echoed with a snort, obviously believing she had done nothing recently.

“Your son loves his little girl—”

“She’s not his little girl.” Josephine’s voice dripped venom. “She’s Rillma Ryan’s bastard and we all know it. The whole town knows it.”

“Rillma fell in love with the wrong man at the wrong time. That ought to ring a bell.”

“Just what are you implying, Cora?”

“That the child is blameless. That Chester is a happy man and the only thing missing is you. You should accept the baby.”

“She’s not a baby. She’s two and a half. I’ve seen her—”

“From a distance.”

“Cora Zepp”—Josephine addressed her by her maiden name—“you just go on your way. I’ll not have a bastard as a grandchild.”

“Well—Nickel was born a bastard. In your case you had to work at it.”

“You get out of here!”

“You broke bad, Josephine. I feel sorry for you.”

“You get off my property or I’ll call the sheriff.”

As Cora walked away she stopped at the sidewalk, which was county property, and yelled back, uncharacteristic for her, but she was as hot as the day now. “He never loved you, Josephine, and it was your own damn fault.”

That did it. Josephine practically ripped open her screen door. She flew down the sidewalk and stopped at her property line. “Get out!”

“This here sidewalk belongs to York County, Pennsylvania.”

“Get out! He did love me. You stole him back.”