The House You Pass on the Way (9 page)

They were left alone. Each morning, Staggerlee’s father went to the airport. His hired hands moved slowly through the fields, watering and feeding the crops there. Some afternoons, Staggerlee and Trout joined them in the fields and sat listening to the men’s tall tales of fifty-pound fish they had almost caught in the Breakabone River and money they would one day make. And once, when they had fallen asleep among the tall stalks of corn, Staggerlee and Trout woke to hear the men laughing and telling stories about different women they had loved.

And in the late afternoon, they would sit on the porch, drinking lemonade from tall sweating glasses while, upstairs, Staggerlee’s mother rested, a book propped against her growing stomach.

“I miss Charlie Horse,” Staggerlee said one afternoon as she and Trout sat going through old photo albums. “I think he’s the one I’m closest to.”

“You don’t really like Dotti,” Trout said. “I can tell.”

Staggerlee looked out over the field. Early each morning, Dotti left on her bike. Some mornings she took Battle with her. Staggerlee knew where she went—into town to sit at the drugstore drinking milk shakes and giggling over boys with her friends.

“Dotti and me—we’re real different, I guess.”

She pressed her nose into Trout’s hair. It smelled of coconut oil.

Trout lifted her head and looked at her.

“I like the way it smells,” Staggerlee said, smiling.

Trout ran her hand across Staggerlee’s cheek. “Are we gonna stay close? You think we’ll always be friends?”

In a week Trout would be leaving. Way too soon.

“Of course.” Staggerlee moved closer to her.

“I don’t want you to come to the bus station with me. I think it’d be too hard.”

Staggerlee nodded.

“I want to remember you like this, sitting on this porch waving good-bye to me.” Trout smiled. There were tears standing in her eyes. “I want to remember us together—always.”

“You promised to come back here next summer.”

“And you promised to write and call.”

Staggerlee nodded and put her head on Trout’s shoulder. “We still have a week, Trout. Let’s not talk about leaving anymore.”

IT RAINED THE MORNING STAGGERLEE SHOWED Trout the barn—a cold late-summer rain that seemed to turn the whole world gray. Staggerlee opened the door slowly, soaking and out of breath. They had run barefoot from the house, and Trout pushed past her out of the rain.

“You’re shivering,” Staggerlee said. The barn was cold and damp. She found the blue blanket and draped it around Trout’s shoulders. Trout’s teeth chattered, but she was smiling.

“All summer long you never brought me here. I always wondered what this place was.”

“My place,” Staggerlee said, climbing underneath the blanket with Trout. They sat huddled into each other watching the rain crash down through the barn’s high window.

“I come here when I want to be alone. I wanted you to see it, though—so when you go back to Baltimore, you can remember me here, playing music.” Staggerlee took out her harmonica and started playing “Moonlight in Vermont.”

Trout listened awhile. Then she started singing. And Staggerlee’s mind raced back to that first day, in the back of Daddy’s truck, the first time she’d heard Trout’s voice coming clear and beautiful over her music. They would say good-bye here, Staggerlee knew. In two days, Trout would be gone. In another week, school would start. She pressed closer into Trout. She wanted to remember this moment, remember this feeling, remember Trout.

SCHOOL STARTED ON A CLEAR DAY AT THE END OF August, and Staggerlee took to walking the six miles rather than riding the bus on pretty days. She realized, when she saw students from the year before, that she had grown taller over the summer. Some people waved and smiled, and Staggerlee waved back. Something was different at Sweet Gum High. Or maybe she was different. People spoke to her—said, “Hey, Staggerlee, what you know good?” as though they didn’t remember the year before, in middle school, when they had been silent around her. Or maybe it was she who had been silent around them. When Staggerlee found herself smiling at people in the hall, the action felt unfamiliar, and she wondered what her face had been like last year—had she never smiled or said hello? She remembered walking with her head down, watching her feet move one in front of the other, her books clutched to her chest. But she didn’t walk that way anymore—she looked ahead of her now, the way Trout had said she should.
Look forward,
Trout had said one afternoon.
Don’t you want to see what you’re headed for?
Staggerlee smiled. Around her, students were making their way into the building. She could see Dotti at the other end of the stairs, laughing with a group of girls. When Dotti saw her, she waved, and Staggerlee waved back. Someone held the door open for her. She thanked him and stepped inside the building.

Hope was born in September. It was warm and clear the day Mama and Daddy returned from the hospital with her. She had been an easy birth, coming quickly in the middle of the day, and Mama seemed rested and happier than she’d been in a long time.

“This is it,” Mama said, sitting down heavily. “She’s beautiful and sweet and the last Canan baby
I’m
giving birth to.”

Daddy smiled and hugged her, then looked over his shoulder to wink at Staggerlee.

They were sitting in the living room, Battle jumping up and down at Staggerlee’s side to get a better look at the baby. Late-afternoon sun poured in from the windows, and Mama looked beautiful in it—flushed and golden.

“You make beautiful babies, Mama,” Dotti said. “Might as well fill the world with them.”

Mama laughed and shook her head.

Hope stared up at Staggerlee, her eyes barely opened. She was pale and bald the way Battle had been. She would darken the way the rest of them had. Maybe her nose would grow straight like Mama’s. And her lips fill out like Daddy’s.

“Hey, little sister,” Staggerlee whispered. “Welcome to Sweet Gum.”

That evening, while Mama and Hope slept and Daddy sat in his study reading, Staggerlee called Trout. She had not spoken to her in a week, and her fingers trembled with the excitement of telling her about Hope.

The phone rang twice before Trout picked it up.

“Hey, girl,” she said softly. “Goodness, I was just thinking about you.”

Staggerlee smiled. They had spoken often since Trout had left, and each time she called, Trout always swore she had just been thinking about her.

“The baby came,” Staggerlee said. “We’re calling her Hope.”

“Hope,” Trout said across the distance. “That’s pretty. Hope Canan. Cousin Hope Canan.”

And they talked long into the night.

WINTER CAME EARLY. BY THE END OF OCTOBER there was a sprinkling of snow on the ground. Staggerlee walked through it slowly, heading home. In music class, she had sung “I Wonder As I Wander,” and her music teacher, Ms. Gibson, had asked if she would join the choir. Staggerlee smiled, remembering the teacher’s breathless excitement. “I remember your grandmother,” Ms. Gibson had said. “You have her gift of song.” Staggerlee had never thought she had anybody’s gift of anything.
They’re all inside of us,
Staggerlee thought as she climbed the porch stairs,
past people and present people. And probably even the people we’ll become.

She had not heard from Trout in a while. Each time she called, the answering machine picked up. Trout hadn’t returned any of her calls. Staggerlee climbed the porch stairs slowly, wondering if she’d done something wrong, and tried to think back to their last conversation. Trout had seemed distant but still Trout, and they had talked about school mostly and a little bit about last summer.

Mama was sitting in the living room nursing Hope. She smiled when Staggerlee came in and blew her a kiss.

“Any calls or letters, Mama?”

“Your friend Lilly called—said meet her downtown by the movie theater if you still want to go see the film.”

“Thanks—I’ll probably pass.”

“Between you and Dotti, it’ll soon be time to get another phone line.”

“I doubt it,” Staggerlee said. But maybe it was true. She had made some friends this year, and choir would probably mean even more people calling to make plans.

Maybe Trout was busy with school too. Maybe she’d call tonight or tomorrow. Maybe there’d be a letter in the mail soon.

The letter arrived on a cold day in January, after months and months of silence. Staggerlee read it quickly the first time, sitting cross-legged on her bed, her heart beating hard against her chest.

Staggerlee read, remembering Ida Mae’s letter—how it had arrived the same way, a surprise in April. She stared at the words, seeing Ida Mae in Trout.

That afternoon, Staggerlee folded the letter slowly and returned it to its envelope. She sat staring out at the snow, wanting to make sense of it all. She’d have to go back, she knew, if she wanted to remember. “Pull on your boots,” she whispered. “Take yourself down to the river.”

SNOW FELL SOFTLY OUTSIDE HER WINDOW NOW. Staggerlee watched it, watched how quietly the flakes moved toward the ground. She swallowed. It had been a month since the letter arrived and still, each time she read it, the words on the page stung.

It seemed like such a short while ago it was summer and she was laying her head against Trout’s shoulder. She remembered Trout’s voice—the way her mouth moved when she sang. Where was that part of Trout now? Did she still sing? When she was sitting alone with her boyfriend, did she stop to remember that rainy afternoon in the barn?