Shiloh and Other Stories (13 page)

“I just don’t know,” says Rita Jean. “Don’t look at this mess,” she says as she leads Cleo to the back room, where Dexter is sleeping in a box. “The vet said there’s not a thing wrong with him. He’s just wearing out. He said keep him warm, have food for him whenever he wants it, and pet him and talk to him. It might be that I kept him in too long and he’s just pined away. Do you think that was right, to keep him in like that all this time?”

“If you had let him out he would have just got run over,” says Cleo. She strokes Dexter and he stirs slightly. His fur is dull and thin.

“I’ll just have to accept it,” says Rita Jean.

“Maybe it will be good for you,” says Cleo, more harshly than she intends. “I’ve about decided there’s no use trying to hang on to anything. You just lose it all in the end. You might as well just not care.”

“Don’t talk that way, Cleo.”

“I must be getting old.” Cleo laughs. “I’m saying what I think more. Or younger, one. Old people and children—they always say what they think.”

Over coffee, Cleo talks Rita Jean into going to trade day at the stockyard.

“Linda said we’ve got to get out, keep up with the times,” Cleo says. “Just what I need—more junk. But it’s the style.”

“Maybe it will take our minds off of everything,” says Rita Jean, getting her scarf.

Most of the traders at the stockyard are farmers who trade in secondhand goods on the side. Cleo is shocked to realize this, though she knows nobody can make a living on a farm these days. She recognizes some of the farmers, behind their folding tables of dusty old objects. Even at the time of Jake’s death, feeding
the cows was costing almost as much as the milk brought. She cannot imagine Jake in a camper, peddling some old junk from the barn. That would kill him if the heart attack hadn’t.

Cleo and Rita Jean drift from table to table, touching Depression glass, crystal goblets, cracked china, cast-off egg beaters and mixers, rusted farm implements, and greasy wooden boxes stuffed with buttons and papers.

“I never saw so much old stuff,” says Cleo.

“Look at this,” says Rita Jean, pointing to a box of plastic jump ropes. “These aren’t old.”

They look at hand-tooled leather belts and billfolds, made by prisoners. And paintings of bright scenes on black velvet—bullfights and skylines and sunsets. A man in a cowboy hat displays the paintings from a fancy camper called a Sports Coach.

“He must have come from far away,” says Rita Jean.

“I used to have a set of these.” Cleo holds a tiny crystal salt shaker, without the pepper. There is a syrup holder to match.

“You could spend all day here,” says Rita Jean, looking around like a lost child.

Cleo doesn’t hear her. All of a sudden her blood is rushing to her head and her stomach is churning. She is looking at a miniature Early American whatnot, right in front of her. It is imitation mahogany. She holds it, touching it, turning it, amazed.

“If it had been a snake it would have bit me!” cries Cleo, astonished. But Rita Jean is intent on examining a set of enamel canisters with cat decals on them and doesn’t notice.

The whatnot cannot be the same one. Cleo cannot remember what happened to the little whatnot that sat on the dresser, the box in which Jake kept his stamps, his receipts, and his bankbook.

This whatnot has a door held in place by a wooden button, and on the top, like books on a shelf, is a series of tiny boxes, with sliding covers like match boxes. The little boxes have names: Book Plates, Mending Tape, Gummed Patches, Rubber Bands, Gummed Labels, Mailing Labels. There are pictures on the spines of the boxes, together forming a scene—an old-fashioned train running through a meadow past a river, with black smoke trailing across three of the boxes and meeting a distant mountain. A steamboat is in the background. The curved track extends
from the first box to the last. The scene is faded green and yellow, and there are lacy ferns and a tree in the foreground. The boxes are a simple picture puzzle to put in order. Cleo’s children played with the puzzle when they were small, but her grandchildren were never interested in it. It cannot be the very same whatnot, she thinks.

“I’m going to buy this!” Cleo says.

“That’s high,” says Rita Jean, fingering the price sticker. The whatnot is three dollars.

Cleo looks at the train. Two of the pictures are out of order, and she rearranges them so that the caboose is at the end. For a moment she can see the train gliding silently through the pleasant scene, as quietly as someone dreaming, and she can imagine her family aboard the train as it crosses a fertile valley—like the place down by the creek that Jake loved—on its way out West. On the train, her well-behaved sons and their children are looking out the windows, and Linda and Bob are driving the train, guiding the cowcatcher down the track, while Tammy and Davey patiently count telephone poles and watch the passing scenery. Cleo is following unafraid in the caboose, as the train passes through the golden meadow and they all wave at the future and smile perfect smiles.

On Christmas Day, Carolyn Sisson went early to her parents’ house to help her mother with the dinner. Carolyn had been divorced two years before, and last Christmas, coming alone, she felt uncomfortable. This year she had invited her lover, Kent Ballard, to join the family gathering. She had even brought him a present to put under the tree, so he wouldn’t feel left out. Kent was planning to drive over from Kentucky Lake by noon. He had gone there to inspect his boat because of an ice storm earlier in the week. He felt compelled to visit his boat on the holiday, Carolyn thought, as if it were a sad old relative in a retirement home.

“We’re having baked ham instead of turkey,” Mom said. “Your daddy never did like ham baked, but whoever heard of fried ham on Christmas? We have that all year round and I’m burnt out on it.”

“I love baked ham,” said Carolyn.

“Does Kent like it baked?”

“I’m sure he does.” Carolyn placed her gifts under the tree. The number of packages seemed unusually small.

“It don’t seem like Christmas with drawed names,” said Mom.

“Your star’s about to fall off.” Carolyn straightened the silver ornament at the tip of the tree.

“I didn’t decorate as much as I wanted to. I’m slowing down. Getting old, I guess.” Mom had not combed her hair and she was wearing a workshirt and tennis shoes.

“You always try to do too much on Christmas, Mom.”

Carolyn knew the agreement to draw names had bothered her mother. But the four daughters were grown, and two had children. Sixteen people were expected today. Carolyn herself could not afford to buy fifteen presents on her salary as a clerk at J. C. Penney’s, and her parents’ small farm had not been profitable in years.

Carolyn’s father appeared in the kitchen and he hugged her so tightly she squealed in protest.

“That’s all I can afford this year,” he said, laughing.

As he took a piece of candy from a dish on the counter, Carolyn teased him. “You’d better watch your calories today.”

“Oh, not on Christmas!”

It made Carolyn sad to see her handsome father getting older. He was a shy man, awkward with his daughters, and Carolyn knew he had been deeply disappointed over her failed marriage, although he had never said so. Now he asked, “Who bought these ‘toes’?”

He would no longer say “nigger toes,” the old name for the chocolate-covered creams.

“Hattie Smoot brought those over,” said Mom. “I made a pants suit for her last week,” she said to Carolyn. “The one that had stomach bypass?”

“When PeeWee McClain had that, it didn’t work and they had to fix him back like he was,” said Dad. He offered Carolyn a piece of candy, but she shook her head no.

Mom said, “I made Hattie a dress back last spring for her boy’s graduation, and she couldn’t even find a pattern big enough. I had to ’low a foot. But after that bypass, she’s down to a size twenty.”

“I think we’ll all need a stomach bypass after we eat this feast you’re fixing,” said Carolyn.

“Where’s Kent?” Dad asked abruptly.

“He went to see about his boat. He said he’d be here.”

Carolyn looked at the clock. She felt uneasy about inviting Kent. Everyone would be scrutinizing him, as if he were some new character on a soap opera. Kent, who drove a truck for the Kentucky Loose-Leaf Floor, was a part-time student at Murray State. He was majoring in accounting. When Carolyn started going with him early in the summer, they went sailing on his boat, which had “Joyce” painted on it. Later he painted over the name, insisting he didn’t love Joyce anymore—she was a dietician who was always criticizing what he ate—but he had never said he loved Carolyn. She did not know if she loved him. Each seemed to be waiting for the other to say it first.

While Carolyn helped her mother in the kitchen, Dad went to get her grandfather, her mother’s father. Pappy, who had been disabled by a stroke, was cared for by a live-in housekeeper who had gone home to her own family for the day. Carolyn diced apples and pears for fruit salad while her mother shaped sweet potato balls with marshmallow centers and rolled them in crushed cornflakes. On TV in the living room,
Days of Our Lives
was beginning, but the Christmas tree blocked their view of the television set.

“Whose name did you draw, Mom?” Carolyn asked, as she began seeding the grapes.

“Jim’s.”

“You put Jim’s name in the hat?”

Mom nodded. Jim Walsh was the man Carolyn’s youngest sister, Laura Jean, was living with in St. Louis. Laura Jean was going to an interior decorating school, and Jim was a textiles salesman she had met in a class. “I made him a shirt,” Mom said.

“I’m surprised at you.”

“Well, what was I to do?”

“I’m just surprised.” Carolyn ate a grape and spit out the seeds. “Emily Post says the couple should be offered the same room when they visit.”

“You know we’d never stand for that. I don’t think your dad’s ever got over her stacking up with that guy.”

“You mean shacking up.”

“Same thing.” Mom dropped the potato masher, and the metal rattled on the floor. “Oh, I’m in such a tizzy,” she said.

—

As the family began to arrive, the noise of the TV played against the greetings, the slam of the storm door, the outside wind rushing in. Carolyn’s older sisters, Peggy and Iris, with their husbands and children, were arriving all at once, and suddenly the house seemed small. Peggy’s children Stevie and Cheryl, without even removing their jackets, became involved in a basketball game on TV. In his lap, Stevie had a Merlin electronic toy, which beeped randomly. Iris and Ray’s children, Deedee and Jonathan, went outside to look for cats.

In the living room, Peggy jiggled her baby, Lisa, on her hip and said, “You need you one of these, Carolyn.”

“Where can I get one?” said Carolyn, rather sharply.

Peggy grinned. “At the gittin’ place, I reckon.”

Peggy’s critical tone was familiar. She was the only sister who had had a real wedding. Her husband, Cecil, had a Gulf franchise, and they owned a motor cruiser, a pickup truck, a camper, a station wagon, and a new brick colonial home. Whenever Carolyn went to visit Peggy, she felt apologetic for not having a man who would buy her all these things, but she never seemed to be attracted to anyone steady or ambitious. She had been wondering how Kent would get along with the men of the family. Cecil and Ray were standing in a corner talking about gas mileage. Cecil, who was shorter than Peggy and was going bald, always worked on Dad’s truck for free, and Ray usually agreed with Dad on politics to avoid an argument. Ray had an impressive government job in Frankfort. He had coordinated a ribbon-cutting ceremony when the toll road opened. What would Kent have to say to them? She could imagine him insisting that everyone go outside later to watch the sunset. Her father would think that was ridiculous. No one ever did that on a farm, but it was the sort of thing Kent would think of. Yet she knew that spontaneity was what she liked in him.

Deedee and Jonathan, who were ten and six, came inside then and immediately began shaking the presents under the tree. All
the children were wearing new jeans and cowboy shirts, Carolyn noticed.

“Why are y’all so quiet?” she asked. “I thought kids whooped and hollered on Christmas.”

“They’ve been up since
four,
” said Iris. She took a cigarette from her purse and accepted a light from Cecil. Exhaling smoke, she said to Carolyn, “We heard Kent was coming.” Before Carolyn could reply, Iris scolded the children for shaking the packages. She seemed nervous.

“He’s supposed to be here by noon,” said Carolyn.

“There’s somebody now. I hear a car.”

“It might be Dad, with Pappy.”

It was Laura Jean, showing off Jim Walsh as though he were a splendid Christmas gift she had just received.

“Let me kiss everybody!” she cried, as the women rushed toward her. Laura Jean had not been home in four months.

“Merry Christmas!” Jim said in a booming, official-sounding voice, something like a TV announcer, Carolyn thought. He embraced all the women and then, with a theatrical gesture, he handed Mom a bottle of Rebel Yell bourbon and a carton of boiled custard which he took from a shopping bag. The bourbon was in a decorative Christmas box.

Mom threw up her hands. “Oh, no, I’m afraid I’ll be a alky-holic.”

“Oh, that’s ridiculous, Mom,” said Laura Jean, taking Jim’s coat. “A couple of drinks a day are good for your heart.”

Jim insisted on getting coffee cups from a kitchen cabinet and mixing some boiled custard and bourbon. When he handed a cup to Mom, she puckered up her face.

“Law, don’t let the preacher in,” she said, taking a sip. “Boy, that sends my blood pressure up.”

Carolyn waved away the drink Jim offered her. “I don’t start this early in the day,” she said, feeling confused.

Jim was a large, dark-haired man with a neat little beard, like a bird’s nest cupped on his chin. He had a Northern accent. When he hugged her, Carolyn caught a whiff of cologne, something sweet, like chocolate syrup. Last summer, when Laura Jean brought him home for the first time, she had made a point of
kissing and hugging him in front of everyone. Dad had virtually ignored him. Now Carolyn saw that Jim was telling Cecil that he always bought Gulf gas. Red-faced, Ray accepted a cup of boiled custard. Carolyn fled to the kitchen and began grating cheese for potatoes au gratin. She dreaded Kent’s arrival.