The Wintering (42 page)

“Have a good time,” Edith said.

Dea, with her coat on, ballooned out. She had to go, and closed her eyes against the uncertain afternoon sunlight and leaned dependently upon Amy's arm. “I'm getting old,” she said, “but feel I can't do anything about it.” Amy felt surprised. To her, Dea had always been old. “You don't look any different to me,” she said.

“Well, you're sweet to say so,” Dea said. “But I can see myself.”

Behind them, in the door, Edith stood watching. As they bent together, she observed in the shape of their heads a family resemblance unobserved before. Had they been talking about Mr. Almoner when Dea had said she would not mention a word? Edith had said she dared not and knew nothing. Past the house, chimney smoke drifted in ripples, like ribbon shaken out. To everything, there was a quality of overcolor, picture stillness, the grass was even too green. The scene appeared unreal, yet this was life. This was it, Amy repeated to herself. She watched Dea climb reluctantly into her old, almond-pale Chevrolet. Her breath still warm from coffee, she kissed Amy.

Holding open the car door, Amy wished there were not lying on the front seat a little whisk broom. It lay there so hopefully over a frayed place, as men attempt to spread thinning hair over bald spots. Bravado often seems sad.

“Land, the faucet's going on,” Dea said, beginning to cry. She whispered, “I couldn't tell even your momma, but I have to tell someone. Bubba has just left out. We're pretending on a business trip, hoping he'll come back. Had to sow his wild oats, I guess. He never had. Once, my patience would have been tried. Your momma and daddy and I didn't grow up in an age of this psychology mess. When we did something wrong, our britches got set afire. But I guess he's trying to find himself.”

With Dea in her car, Amy stuck her head in the window saying, with no idea, that she was sure things would be all right. Dea said, “I don't know whether it would be good or not if we ever knew what was ahead.” Often when she put her head on the pillow at night, she wondered. Her advice now might not be the kind somebody like Mr. Almoner could give Amy, but was practical. “Honey, you may think your children are trouble when they're little,” Dea said. “But you won't know anything till they're grown.” Her face attentive, Amy said she would remember. In the rearview mirror, Dea watched Amy's much sleeker car follow her own a short distance and turn a different direction. She stuck her arm out the window to wave. At the same moment, Amy waved. Driving on, Dea thought it was necessary to existence to have these little reassurances, waving, having somebody at home waiting for supper.

“I'm glad,” Amelia announced, “to have a change from turkey for Christmas.” What she had always wanted, though, was roast beef, or goose, though everybody said it was greasy. But did Inga have to stare as if she absolutely adored this venison because Jeff had shot the deer. Jessie, stepping back after putting the platter down, waited, disapprovingly, her arms folded. Amelia had made her soak the meat in red wine for days. Jeff was carving. Latham had sat with his fork upright ever since the blessing. Sometimes, he had no more table manners than Marguerite. Amelia glanced at him affectionately, realizing she had gotten more tolerant with age. A year ago, for instance, she never would have expected to buy bar-b-ques where Negroes were sitting eating them. And though, still, she would not sit down herself when the place opened and the Negroes were the first ones in, she had made no comment. They would be served in Chester's, yet. And what she hoped, now, was only to live to see the day. Jeff looked peaked. Change seemed to have done him no good. If she had known he was coming back would she have married Latham? It was, she decided, better that she had.

“Now that, Jeff,” Latham said, handing along his plate, “is one mighty fine buck.”

“Sweet potatoes?” Inga asked from the other end of the table.

“Don't give him too many,” Amelia said. “Getting heavy may be why his ankle keeps giving way.”

“Yes, sir, one fine buck,” Latham said again. “Ain't that right, Jessie?”

“Sho
was
,” she said, eyeing the juices running red.

“It's just a rangy taste otherwise, Jessie,” Amelia said. “Now cheer up. If you eat some it isn't going to be like you taking spirits. Inga, I declare, what a nice Christmas present to have had the head mounted.” They gazed outward to the hall where it hung. “Let me tell you,” Amelia said, “that we've—that you've—needed something out there all along. That paper I picked out was too plain.”

“I'm happy with the mounting, if Jeff likes it?” Inga said questioningly.

“I thought I made that very clear when I first saw it,” he said, putting down the carving knife. Gazing at her, he said, “Have more confidence in your gifts. They're appropriate.”

She said, almost loudly, turning to Amelia, “I thought when you picked it out the paper was too plain. But you had to have your way.”

“I see I did,” Amelia said humbly.

“Can you take more?” Jeff asked, holding up Inga's plate.

“I can. I think I can stand more,” Inga said, folding her hands calmly into her lap, watching him add meat to her plate.

“Very fine,” Jeff said, after eating. The others had waited for the tasting verdict from him. Only then did Jessie carry out the platter, muttering again that the meat ought to have been fried.

The day was warm and the front door stood open. Intermittently, through the afternoon, they heard firecrackers set off along the road, then the enthralled cries of youngsters. Cows let out outraged bellows. Trees in front of the house looked unbalanced, dark and leafless, in opposition to the solid bright sun. From her seat, Inga could see down to the pine copse, where birds nestled. The house gave off a gummy smell of pine, the tree lit, wreaths at all the windows. The others had wanted candles in them. She had said, “Too dangerous,” and had won. “You hardly ate, Jeff,” she said, solicitously. There had been these moments since he came home.

“Watching the waistline boy?” Latham said.

“You ate enough for both, and I'm bursting,” Amelia said. “But, Brother, you didn't touch your nice cranberry salad.”

“It was my day to eat venison,” Jeff said. “I find I no longer need to eat much. Many things all taste the same.”

Warm air from the floor furnace swayed icicles on the Christmas tree, and sunshine, rebounding from the white walls, fell in shaking patterns everywhere. Jeff hardly touched his dessert, though it was homemade boiled custard, which Amelia had decorated with a cherry and tiny real leaves. She said, “Did I take over dinner in your house, Inga?”

“No. Look at the custard. So pretty. Only you could have gotten the meat done right.” Inga nodded toward the kitchen, about Jessie and the deer; after all, people with strong wills, who knew what they wanted, ought to be admired. Amelia had stuck by her when Jeff left home and now that Latham's back hurt, and his ankle would not heal, she had to help Amelia. After dinner, they went out, not even needing coats, and drew in the day. Brittle-seeming, but tenacious and strong, the stripped muscadine clung to supports of the porch, which seemed endless and vacated, the hammock down for the winter. With a scattergun sound, firecrackers broke the far-away quality of the country stillness, the children's voices grew remoter. “Christmas is for kids.” Amelia paused from walking off her dinner, up and down, to watch beyond the unvigilant and leafless hedges young people parking. A party was being held some distance down the road. “Still,” she said, “I love Christmas.”

“Excitement goes when you're too old for toys,” Inga said. Yet, she had anticipated this day; something filled her deeper, warmer than excitement. Jeff had worn a sense of waiting, too, which she had thought for the holiday, though evidently it had not been, for he wore still a look of waiting as the day was ending.

When Vern's green coupe appeared, its rattling outdid the clanking of the cattle gap. Possibly because it was Christmas, he had the decency to nod, passing them. That boy might be the death of us all, Amelia thought, the car going toward the back.

“Christmas gift!” Jessie called before leaving with Vern. “Christmas gift!” they called, in return. Soon Latham and Amelia went home to take naps. Inside, Jeff made a fire that was reluctant, as the logs were damp. Cleaning up Christmas debris, Inga offered balled gift wrappings, which he stuffed among the kindling. “It's not going too well,” Inga said.

“Well, I tried.” He stood staring down at the flameless fire, convinced that Amy had gone off on her own too soon. She had grown tougher, as he had wanted her to, but, damn it, this tough? “If you could be reincarnated, how would you like to come back?”

“My goodness,” Inga said. “I don't think I'd want to be.”

But if you were to have no peace. Leaning against the mantel, Jeff knew he would have none until he had seen the end of what he and Amy had started. He felt so incomplete. “I,” he said, though Inga had not asked, “might like to be a butterfly.”

Inga considered that without answering. It was not in her background, her nature, to be fanciful. Instead, she said, “No luck?” when the logs only hissed.

“None,” he said moodily.

She sifted through Christmas cards on a table. “Surprising some of the people we didn't hear from this year.”

What good does it do to be remembered, someone had asked. Who? he wondered. “People get busy,” he said. Inga, wanting to please him, tried to think of something. “Perhaps I'd like to be a mountain goat,” she said, with an eager look.

He said appreciatively, “Not a bad choice.” Looking at her, he wondered about this blonde, in the room, looking through Christmas cards. Perhaps prolonged truth was not possible between two human beings, even though married. How long it seemed they had lied to one another, by saying nothing. His heart beat warily, and he chided it: If only you had stayed out of the way! He was equally unhappy about losing Amy so soon, and that she was still a partly frozen child. Moving from the mantel, he said, “Many of these books must go to a library. I'll start cataloguing them tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” she said anxiously. As he had knelt to poke again at the fire, the door knocker fell and Inga answered it.

“Christmas gift!” Icicles shook on the tree from the night entering, though the neighbor's shout itself might have set them aflutter. “Got you first,” he cried.

Jeff heard Inga mutter something in return, the customary answer, he imagined. “Grandbabies been running over the house all day,” the neighbor said. “But we wanted to bring you some eggnog. And oh, the carrier made a mistake and left all these cards at our house. Sorry I didn't get them over sooner. But grandbabies got me run ragged.”

The night's cold crept away as the door closed, and the icicles set. Jeff had seen stars in all their magnitude before Inga shut the door. In the doorway, she held a napkin-covered bowl, her face happier. “Look! cards got left next door by mistake.” Her other hand was full. “Let me get cups, though.” The silver bowl caught roundly all the glorious color of the Christmas tree lights. And entering the dark kitchen, Inga for some reason was surprised when the reflection disappeared, though that bright warmth could not go on and on, for nothing did. Carrying the bowl and two glass cups, she took also the cards back to the living room. After setting down the tray, she said with a fluttery wave of her hand, “I forgot cookies.” She waved again, fluttery in the doorway. “There are the cards. But one is a letter.” She disappeared, leaving him before the fire. She had rather he read the letter than have it lying there between them. So, it was still going on. In the dark kitchen, remembering Jeff's face, she again had the strong sense that something had ended. She turned away, having gone close to inspect the clock. Almost, Christmas was over and Jeff still had that sense of waiting. It was not then the day's being over on his mind. Why had he had such a sense of urgency about the books? He looked toward something reluctantly. Maybe that another year was ending, she thought.

When Billy Walter gave her a puppy for Christmas, Amy could only feel that she was crazy about Billy Walter. She had opened a large box, to find inside a blond cocker, damp but ecstatic.

“Taffy,” Billy Walter had said, and touched Amy's hair.

“Billy Walter, he's adorable, and how sweet!”

Now, Christmas lights on trees along Quill Boulevard looked dim compared to car lights, but stars seemed unusually large, to shine brighter in the cold. “I know it seems silly,” Amy said, peering intently through the windshield. Lights blinking seemed swimming in the night. “I know it's silly, not to want to go to a motel just because it's New Year's. But it seems wrong.”

The fishtail wavering of the motel's too many signs muddled with light from the boxed decorated trees on the street. However, the headlights of traffic, going two ways, guilelessly outdid them. A pucker on his lips was all that showed Billy Walter found her reasoning female and incomprehensible.

“If that's the way you feel,” he said, with a shrug. “I certainly don't want to push in where I'm not wanted.”

“It's not that. I want to be with you. I just feel if we go to this crummy place the first night of the year, the whole year will be like that. I
know
it seems silly.”

Billy Walter looked at his watch, bending toward it in the light of a motel sign, his chin set. “O.K., sugar, I'll take you on home.”

Opening her mouth to protest that it was early, that she did not want to be dumped home at this hour, Amy realized she had only one alternative. As he reached for the key, she thought of being alone and said, “Oh, all right. It
is
silly. It was just a momentary feeling. I don't really know why I said it.”

“The message of Christmas get you?”