Wedding Ring (14 page)

“I’ll be coming back,” she said. “I won’t leave you here. You best believe I’ll help.”

“I surely do appreciate it.”

She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Leaving the bucket behind she made her way toward the house, watching for her mother as she went. She stayed out of sight of the long kitchen window and hoped that Delilah was so busy pickling her string beans that she didn’t have time to worry about her daughter.

She was nearly to the clothesline, palms sweating and breath coming swiftly, when she saw Obed and Gus. They were lying in the grass, gazing up at the clouds and laughing. Worse, there wasn’t one piece of clothing left on the line. Delilah had been and gone with the whole load.

Anger shot through her. Obed had always been her hero, and even the crumbs of attention he tossed her way were treasured. Today, though, she saw him differently. Everybody knew that Gus had a mean streak, and now she was afraid her brother was taking after his friend. She thought it was about time Obed remembered he was just like everybody else.

She straightened her shoulders and started toward them. Neither boy saw her, and she was just about to tell them what she thought of them for playing this trick, when a better plan occurred to her. If she threatened them and insisted she would tell Cuddy if they didn’t return Fate’s clothes, she was afraid it might backfire. It was just like Gus to figure out some way to make this seem like it was her fault.

This newer plan was so different, so overwhelming, that for a moment she rejected it. Then she thought of poor Fate, alone behind a tree by the creek. Poor Fate, naked as a jaybird.

“Obed!” She forced herself to sound upset. “Obed, Gus. Oh, no, you gotta come quick.”

Obed barely lifted his head. “What’re you crowing about, Lenny Lou?”

“Crowing like some silly ole banty hen,” Gus said. “Always thought you were an ole banty hen, Lenny.”

She didn’t react. “Obed, there’s a boy down to the creek, and he’s, he’s…” She paused for effect and put her fist on her breastbone. “He’s drowned. In the swimming hole, and I was just on my way to tell Mama.”

Both boys sat up at the same moment and looked at each other. “Drowned?” Obed’s deep voice squeaked back into adolescence. “Drowned?”

“Deader’n any doorknob.”

“He can’t be drowned. Said he swimmed.”

Gus hissed at him. “Silent. Be silent!”

Obed was on his feet by now, and Gus was scrambling to his. “And he’s got no clothes,” Helen said tearfully. “Not so much as a stocking.” She paused for effect. “What’ll we do? I gotta go tell Mama.”

“No!” Obed grabbed her arm. “No, you’ll scare Mama all the way to Winchester and back. No, you come show me. There’s something to tell her, that’s what I’ll do.”

Helen let him drag her along. Gus was beside him, and the two were whispering, but she didn’t care what they said. So far her plan was working just fine.

Minutes passed before they reached the creek and began to follow it toward the swimming hole. She sniffed periodically for effect, and wrung her hands a couple of times. From the corner of her eye she saw that Obed was white. Even Gus had lost his sneer, and honest fright shone from his eyes.

They reached the swimming hole. The water here was murky, and it was impossible to see to the bottom. Virginia’s good red earth had made sure of that.

“Where?” Obed demanded. “Where is he?”

Helen wrung her hands again. She was becoming an expert. “He was right over there.” She unclasped her hands long enough to point. “Hung up right there on that old log.”

A felled tree hung over the side, grazing the surface. She knew that the boys jumped off of it when the water was high enough. Obed’s eyes widened. “You’re sure, Lenny? You’re sure about this? He was really dead?”

She remembered how the hog they’d butchered in the fall had looked after her uncle shot him in the head. She gave an impassioned description. “His eyes were staring, like they was looking at something, but there weren’t nothing to see. And he was stiff, you know, like nothing would bend no more.” She cleared her throat, like she was trying not to cry.

“He’s under there somewhere, that’s for sure,” Gus said. “We can just leave him there, can’t we? Who’s gonna know how he got there?”

“What do you mean?” Helen said. “How did he get there?”

Obed was already stripping off his overalls. “Lenny, you get outa here, only don’t tell Mama. I’ll tell her, I find anything. Promise me now? Promise you won’t?”

“I oughta,” she said. “She’s gonna be so mad at me if I don’t.”

“Please?” His overalls were down to his waist and his undershirt was in a wad at his feet.

She nodded. He gave a sickly smile. “Now you go on.”

She headed away, like she was in the worst of hurries to leave the scene.

About twenty yards away she stopped behind a big hickory tree that was flanked by tall undergrowth. She could hear the boys talking, but she couldn’t hear a thing they were saying. Then she heard a splash.

“Hey…”

She whirled and saw a strange boy peeking at her from behind a sprawling nannyberry bush. She could only see his face and shoulders, but for a moment she stared. To her twelve-year-old eyes, Fate Henry was a fine figure indeed. Black curly hair, a strong, sloping nose and full lips. For a moment she couldn’t say a thing.

“What’re you doing?” he demanded.

“You’ll see directly.” Helen crept back the way she had come. Obed and Gus were so immersed in their search now that they didn’t even think to look up to the bank. When they both dove under the water again she snatched their clothes, then went crashing through the brush back to where she’d left Fate.

“Here you go,” she said, dropping the clothes just in front of the bush. “Put on whatever you want, then toss the rest way over there in the bushes. But you’d best hurry before they figure out what’s going on.”

He looked at the pile; then he looked at her. “What’ll they do when they find their clothes are gone, do you suppose?”

She shrugged. “I don’t aim to stay and find out. I just wish they’d end up in the churchyard naked as baby pigs, right there in front of everybody.”

He cocked his head. She grinned; then, before he could ask for an explanation, she grabbed her berry bucket and her shoes and headed for home.

E
arly Thursday afternoon, Helen plopped her housedress-and-sneaker-clad body on the porch swing and picked up a supermarket circular that had come in the morning’s mail.

She fanned herself with it. “If there don’t come a good rain soon, I’m going to stop moving, like an old clock that just run down and run down till there’s no winding good enough.”

Tessa knew it was just like her grandmother to find a practical use for the junk mail so that she wouldn’t have to throw it away. Tessa and Nancy had taken to waiting until Helen’s back was turned, scooping it off the rattan table beside the swing and spiriting it into the trash. They’d also secretly made a start on the huge mounds on Helen’s desk in the dining room and in half a dozen laundry baskets beside it. The mail they’d uncovered there was just more of the same.

“I heard there was rain in the forecast.” Tessa lowered herself to a chair beside the swing. Since the beginning of the week, she and her grandmother had taken breaks together every afternoon. Sometimes Nancy joined them, and sometimes she was too busy trying to run her Richmond life by cell phone or making quick trips back to the city. But the ritual was becoming important to Helen. Tessa could see that. She was someone who had spent her entire adult life pushing people away, but she was no longer keeping to the pattern.

“No rain can be enough.” Helen sounded glum. “Corn’s already gone. Even the trees are wilting. Those maples out there?” She nodded to the twin maples in front of the house. “Too many years of drought. They’ll have to come down soon enough, unless things turn around.”

“I can’t imagine the house without those trees.”

“Won’t bother you none after I’m gone. You and your mama’ll sell the old place without thinking twice anyway.”

Tessa wondered if that was still true. She hadn’t come to Toms Brook to forge new connections with her past. Most of the time she wished she could wipe the past clean and never be forced to confront it again. But in the two weeks she had been here, she had developed a reluctant attachment to her family’s history. The Whitlocks had never interested her much, but the Stoneburners, despite poverty and sorrow, had struggled to make the best of what they’d been given. From Helen’s brief descriptions, there had been love here, and strength.

“Just promise you won’t sell off the family plot,” Helen said, when Tessa didn’t reassure her.

Tessa remembered that Helen had wanted Kayley to be buried on the hill behind the house with the Stoneburners. Tessa hadn’t listened.

“There’s room for me up there,” Helen continued, her voice more strident. “Fate’s there, and I want to be with him.”

Tessa met her grandmother’s eyes. “I’ll make sure you’re buried there. Don’t worry.”

Helen nodded once, as if the deal was set. Then she sat forward and peered out toward the road. “Who’s that, do you suppose?”

Tessa followed her grandmother’s gaze. A blue pickup had turned into the driveway. It bounced over ruts and sank into potholes before it stopped about twenty-five yards away.

The driver’s door opened, and a girl came around the front, unlatching the hood and throwing it high. Steam poured from the engine, then began to dissipate.

“It’s Cissy,” Tessa said.

“Who?”

“Cissy.” She couldn’t remember the girl’s last name. “The Cissy who lives at the Claiborne farm.”

“She’s getting big as a pumpkin.”

In less than two weeks Cissy had gained weight, but Tessa thought it was only because the girl was slight and carrying the baby low. “I doubt she’s in any danger of delivering it right here.” She rose reluctantly and walked to the steps to invite Cissy to join them.

Cissy waved, then, before Tessa could call to her, she went around the back of the truck, opened the back gate and lifted something out of the truck bed.

“Peaches.” She held them out. “From Mr. and Mrs. Claiborne.” She started toward them.

“What’d she say?” Helen demanded.

“It looks like the Claibornes have sent you peaches.”

As Helen grumbled, Tessa went to meet the girl and lift the basket from her arms. “You shouldn’t be lifting anything this heavy, should you?”

“It’s not so bad. Not a full bushel, on account of the drought.” She smiled shyly at Tessa.

Tessa was struck by how appealing Cissy was. In a huge white maternity blouse and denim cutoffs that had probably belonged to a man with a potbelly, she looked tired and a bit too fragile for comfort. But her coloring was exquisite, and her complexion as fine grained and smooth as the peaches she carried. “How does all this hot weather agree with you?” Tessa asked.

“Oh, it seems worse than usual, I guess, ’cause the baby’s heating things up to start with. But I just go about my business.”

Tessa lowered her head and inhaled. “These smell wonderful. This is nice of Mr. and Mrs. Claiborne.”

“The peaches are having a hard time of it this year. Not so many set fruit, and those what did, well, they’re just shriveling up. But Mr. Claiborne says there’s a good rain coming, and he knows those things.”

“I hope he’s right. Maybe it will help.”

“Too late for the peaches, but it’ll help the apples, for sure.”

They had arrived at the porch. Cissy stepped back to let Tessa make the climb first, then she followed. Tessa set the basket on the porch. “Look at these, Gram. Aren’t they pretty?”

Helen made a noise low in her throat that could mean almost anything. “Ron Claiborne’s trying to butter me up for something. You just watch and see.”

Cissy didn’t appear to mind the insult. “No, ma’am, he told me, Cissy, you just take these peaches over to Mrs. Henry. And then he said—” She stopped. “I guess that’s all he said.”

“Ha! I just bet he said more. Gives me a bushel like this every year, just because I don’t spray my own trees no more and get good peaches from them. I know he wants something.”

Tessa understood this aversion to the Claibornes better now than she had before her grandmother had told the story of her first meeting with her future husband. “Gram, is Ron Claiborne Gus Claiborne’s son by any chance? Is that why you’re so rude to him?”

“Gus Claiborne never had a son. Ron’s his cousin’s son. Gus went off to California after the war and never came home again. Good riddance to bad rubbish. The cousins just moved on in once Sammy died.”

“Then do you have something against Ron Claiborne’s father?”

Helen grumbled.

“Then you have no real reason to dislike him?” Tessa asked. “If I’m right, Mom and I are some kind of distant relative of his.”

“Not a one of them Claibornes was as good to my Fate as they should have been.”

“Mr. Claiborne picked these himself,” Cissy said. “Wanted good ones for you, even if there ain’t so many. I can’t think what he’d want in return. He has everything he needs.”

“Probably wants my land. Figures if he’s nicey nice, then maybe Tessa here will sell it to him when I’m gone.”

Cissy shook her head. “I don’t want to argue, Miss Henry, but truth is, I heard him telling Zeke he’s already leasing too much extra land these days and ain’t got enough money to plant or graze it all. He’s afraid he’s gonna have to sell some of what he owns one of these days just to stay ahead. Lots of folks in the city want a piece of land out here to build a summer place.”

“Well now, there’s another good reason not to like that man,” Helen said. “He’ll have a fight on his hands, he tries selling bits and pieces of his land to developers. I can guarantee that. Don’t need a bunch of senators out here playing gentleman farmer. No, we sure don’t.”

“He says just about the same thing.”

Tessa tried to head off more discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of Ron Claiborne. “Everyone’s taking a beating in this economy. We’ll enjoy the peaches, Cissy. It was nice of you to bring them with you.”

“I was glad to. Can’t drive much farther than this in that old truck. It just about blows up after a mile or two.” She stood quietly, arms wrapped around her huge belly. Tessa realized she was waiting for an invitation to sit.

Helen issued it. “Well, take a load off your feet, girl. Tessa will get us some tea.”

“That would be awfully nice.” Cissy looked around the porch, as if assessing what seat might be free. She chose the right one and lowered herself gingerly into an old metal chair with a raggedy cushion.

Tessa, who knew that fetching tea was a direct order, left for the kitchen. When she returned with a tray, Helen was lecturing the girl, complete with waving index finger.

“You got to plan, and you got to be accurate,” Helen said, ignoring Tessa. “You can’t just start cutting and sewing any old which way.”

Cissy didn’t seem upset. “I just don’t know how to do it right. I decided I’d better just start somewhere or I’d never start at all.”

Tessa set the tray down beside her grandmother and immediately saw the source of this discussion. Spread out on Cissy’s lap was a square of fabric, at least it was supposed to be a square. It was longer on one side than the other, and made up of four uneven patches of different shades of gold.

Helen lifted it as Tessa watched and turned it to the wrong side. “You’re sewing by hand?”

“I don’t have a machine. Mrs. Claiborne’s is busted, or I could use that. But she says it’s older than the hills and not worth fixing.” She smiled a little. “I think she’s afraid she gets it fixed, she might have to use it. She hates to sew.”

“At least she can cook,” Helen said grudgingly. “Marian Claiborne makes the best sweet potato pie in the county, and she won’t share her recipe with nobody. She’s made an enemy or two over that, I can tell you.”

“She’s kind to me. She’s never said a bad word, not even…” She didn’t finish.

Tessa caught Helen’s eye and gave a slight shake of her head. She did not want to encourage the young woman to bare her soul. They had enough to handle as it was.

“Anyway, I’m sewing with a plain old needle and thread. But I guess I’m not doing a very good job,” Cissy said.

“What is it?” Tessa asked. She took a glass and handed it to Cissy. “Sweet tea okay?”

“Oh, yes. Thank you.” Cissy took it and held the glass against her flushed cheek. “It’s going to be a baby quilt. At least, I hope it is.”

Tessa handed a glass to her grandmother and took her own. “I like the colors. Did they remind you of Gram’s dahlia quilt?”

“That’s why I picked gold.”

Helen dropped the quilt block back in Cissy’s lap. “Well, you’re gonna have to do better than that, if you plan on being able to use it.”

“I know. I guess I’ll tear it out and try something different. I’ll keep at it.”

Helen was silent. Her mouth worked, like she was chewing the inside of her lip. “You want some advice?”

Cissy’s expression changed, like the sun coming out on a gloomy day. “Would you have time for a little?”

“I don’t give lessons. Never did, never will.”

“Yes, ma’am, I understand. But maybe you could just tell me what I should do next?”

“Well, first, I wouldn’t take out the stitches. I’d throw this away. You’ve stretched it and it’s going to fray, besides.”

Cissy looked uncomfortable, but she nodded.

“You got more fabric?”

“Zeke told me to go ahead and buy a yard of every piece I liked.”

“Good. Did you wash it?”

“Well, no, I didn’t know—”

“Then that’s what you do next. Wash it good, and dry it, just the way you’ll dry the baby’s quilt.”

“Oh. So it won’t shrink later?”

“Then you iron it good, put a little starch on it if you can, then bring it here and I’ll show you how to cut it nice and straight.”

Cissy looked like someone had just given her a week in Tahiti. “You would do that?”

“Said I would, didn’t I?”

Cissy got to her feet, clearly afraid she might wear out her welcome. “That’s so nice of you. I’ll do exactly what you said.”

Cissy turned to Tessa, but before she spoke, her gaze fell to the book beside Tessa’s chair. It was
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
, the novel Tessa intended to use with her advanced placement English class in the fall. She hadn’t taught the novel for a while, and she was rereading it so she could make lists of questions for discussion. She liked to switch books frequently to lessen the chance students would borrow notes and viewpoints from upperclassmen. That way she only had to worry about the Internet.

“Tess,” Cissy read upside down. “That’s your name. Is it a good story?”

“A classic. I teach it to my high-school classes.”

Cissy lifted it and looked at the girl on the cover. “She’s pretty, isn’t she? And old-fashioned.”

“It was written a long time ago.”

Cissy didn’t relinquish it. “That’s what I miss most about school. Reading. You know? I always did love to read, only there weren’t so many books around unless I was at school.”

“What about the library?” Tessa asked the question without thinking. “You could check out as many as you wanted.”

“I tried that, once I came here. But I couldn’t get back into town often enough to turn them in without paying a fine. And I didn’t want to bother Mr. and Mrs. Claiborne. Zeke, he’d go, but he’s so tired time the day is done, I don’t ask.”