What I Came to Tell You (16 page)

“You did?”

“At lunch today. Was the only time he could work me in.”

So that was why his father hadn’t been able to come to the Thanksgiving lunch at Claxton.

“I was hoping I might talk him down,” his father said.

“You offered to buy it?” Grover’s fork clattered onto his plate.

“With your mother’s life insurance money coming soon,” his father said, “I thought maybe we could afford it. If he’d come down to a reasonable price.” He looked at Jessie. “I told him how it had meant a lot to the neighborhood kids over the years and how my son did his art work there but he said he couldn’t afford
to go any lower. He said he was sorry but he really needed the money for his grandkids’ college.”

Grover started to eat, but then set the fork back down. The Bamboo Forest was definitely going to get sold. Somehow, up until this moment, and even with the For Sale signs piling up, a part of him had believed it might not happen.

“Then Lunsford gave me a funny look and said, ‘You wouldn’t happen to know who’s been pulling up the surveyor’s stakes over there, would you? Or my signs?’ ” His father rubbed his forehead, looking at Grover and Sudie. “Y’all have to stop pulling up those signs. That’s all I need is for him to find out we’re behind that.”

“I stopped when the police started coming by,” Grover said.

“The police?” his father said. “I know the Bamboo Forest means a lot to you two. But Lunsford probably wouldn’t mind getting rid of me. So you have to be on your best behavior here on in or the Bamboo Forest might not be the only thing we lose.” Grover’d overheard his parents a few years before, when Mr. Lunsford had started talking again about demolishing the Wolfe house, that if their father lost his job and they needed money, they could sell their house. It was paid for.

“Maybe the Bamboo Forest won’t sell,” Sudie said.

“He’s asking about three times what that land is worth,” said Jessie.

“Look how it’s coming down!” a man said in the booth behind theirs.

The snow fell so fast and thick it looked like the windows had been covered with white sheets. Grover thought how his father
had gone to Mr. Lunsford, a man who was as close to an enemy he’d probably ever had, and asked to buy the Bamboo Forest. His father hadn’t forgotten him. The sight of all the snow sent a vaguely familiar lightness up through his chest. It had been so long since he’d felt this way that at first Grover didn’t recognize what had crept up on him. It wasn’t happiness exactly but it was in the neighborhood.

As they were walking out the front door, Matthew happened to be heading in. He stepped back and held the door open for them.

“Thanks,” Jessie said.

“Sure thing,” Matthew said. He nodded to their father, but didn’t look him in the eye.

“Matthew,” their father said, smiling a strained smile.

Matthew’s eyes lit briefly on Sudie and Grover, then he walked on inside.

“How’s he working out?” their father asked Jessie as they squeezed into the truck.

“He’s dependable,” Jessie said, cranking the engine and turning on the windshield wipers, which wiped away the blanket of snow already on the windshield. “I ask him to do something, he does it.”

“Then you did right,” their father said. “Hiring him, I mean.”

“He says he’ll be finishing up his degree this semester,” Jessie said.

“That’s a good thing,” their father said, looking out at the snow. He sounded miles away.

As they made room in the refrigerator for the turkey, the lights flickered.

“I’m wondering,” Jessie said, “if we might should go ahead and cook this bird in case the power quits on us.”

There was a pause when it seemed to Grover everybody must’ve been thinking the same thing: Their mother had always been the one to cook the turkey.

“They print directions on the turkey,” Sudie said.

Jessie lifted the turkey out of the refrigerator and set it on the counter, reading the little square box full of cooking directions on the wrapper.

“What does it say to cook it on?” Grover’s father said, turning on the oven.

“Let’s see,” Jessie said, squinting at the wrapper. “Three fifty.”

Grover’s father set the dial on the oven.

Jessie rolled up his sleeves as Sudie handed him a pair of their mother’s kitchen scissors, then cut off the plastic wrapper and set it aside with the directions facing up. Checking the directions a couple more times, he pulled out the gizzard, the neck and the giblets too, rubbed some olive oil and salt and pepper onto the turkey and started to slide it into the oven.

“Mama always put on a little tinfoil tent to keep it from drying out,” Sudie said. Jessie pulled the turkey back out of the oven. “Reckon you can make us one?”

Sudie had already gotten out the tinfoil and was tearing off a section. She folded it neatly into a little tent and set it on the turkey. Then Jessie slid it into the oven.

“Says you want to cook him fifteen minutes per pound,” Jessie said, squinting at the directions. “And he’s a nineteen pounder, so let’s see …”

“Two hundred and eighty-five minutes,” Grover said. “Or four hours and forty-five minutes.”

“Mama takes the tent off an hour before it’s done cooking,” Sudie said, and then like she’d heard herself use the present tense with their mother, her face darkened a little.

“In three hours and forty-five minutes we’ll want to take the tinfoil off,” Grover said. “So we’ll need to do that at one thirty.”

“I’ll set my alarm clock,” their father said, stifling a yawn.

“I could cook it at my house, Walt,” Jessie said, “if you don’t want to get up. Cause once you’re up, you’d have to wait another hour after you take the tinfoil off.”

His father groaned. “I don’t know if I can manage that. It’s been a long day.”

“I’ll do it,” Grover said. “I’m not tired.” The possibility of a big snow was one of the most exciting things that had happened in a while, and Grover was wide awake.

“I’ll stay up with him,” Sudie said.

“I don’t know,” his father said.

“Please, Daddy,” Sudie said, putting her hands together. “Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. It’s not like I have to get up to go to school.”

“I guess it won’t hurt anything for you to keep Grover company.”

“Yes!” Sudie said, pumping her fist.

Jessie went home, saying he’d be back tomorrow to start cooking, and their father stoked up the stove in the living room, then went to bed.

Sudie got into her pajamas, dragged a quilt in from her room and settled onto the couch with a new Ramona book. Biscuit jumped up beside her. Grover pulled a chair to the front window and watched the snow. He studied Jessie’s rental house across the street. Before the Roundtrees had moved in, it had seemed a kind of shell that college students, like hermit crabs, moved into and out of. With the Roundtrees over there, it had started to feel different. Tonight, with the white lines of snow collecting on the eaves and along the roof ridge, and the stubborn candle burning in the dark center, there was no denying that Jessie’s rental house had become a home.

Grover woke to his watch beeping. He sat up, yawned and stretched. The first thing he noticed was the sweet smell of turkey. He checked his watch. One thirty. Sudie was asleep on the couch with Biscuit. The TV was still on, some BBC news program. The woodstove ticked with heat. Outside, it was snowing, still. He couldn’t ever remember a snow like this. The trees and shrubs in the front yard bowed with snow. It must’ve been close to a foot by now.

He turned off the TV, pulled the quilt up around Sudie and went out to the kitchen. He started to open the oven, remembered
the oven mittens, put them on, then slid the turkey halfway out, pulled off the tinfoil tent and slid the turkey back in. He set his watch for one hour, when the turkey would be done.

He stood at the window, looking at all the snow. He had an hour he could actually get some work done. He dug snow boots out of the back of his closet, put two flashlights in his coat pockets, pulled on his gloves and a wool hat and closed the front door quietly behind him. The first thing he noticed was the silence. No sounds of traffic, no barking dogs, no distant sirens. Nothing except the occasional snap of a branch or limb somewhere, giving under the weight of the snow. The snow absorbed house lights, streetlights and lights from downtown, so that it looked like it glowed from within.

Grover started out, but heard Biscuit bark inside. He opened the door, and without looking, the dog took his usual flying leap off the front steps and with a little poof sank out of sight. Now his bark sounded panicked. Grover dug him up out of the snow and held the shivering little dog in his arms. “It’s too deep.” He set Biscuit back inside the house and closed the door. He slogged his way over to the Bamboo Forest, his boots squeaking in the powdery snow. The bamboo bent over with snow. Some shoots bent all the way over, but when he knocked the snow off they sprang up like catapults, showering him with snow. His studio didn’t look like itself. Just a bunch of white mounds. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the weaving he’d been working on bent nearly in half with the weight of the snow. He hurried over, shook the snow off, and as he did, it sprang back into shape.

He pulled out the flashlights, set them in little holders he’d made by lashing some bamboo together. Then he turned them on to the weaving. He dragged a pine limb from underneath a snowy pile, and started weaving it in. He’d never worked in the snow before. He’d never worked at two in the morning before. He’d weave the end of the limb into one side, then walk around and weave it into the other. It was much slower than when Clay helped him, but pretty soon he had the hang of it. He’d weave, walk around to the other side, then weave and walk around again. He liked working this way, in the snow, in the dark, in all the silence. After a while, he became so warm walking back and forth that he ended up unbuttoning his coat and taking off his hat.

As he did whenever the work went well, Grover lost himself. Forgot about place, forgot about time, forgot about himself. He’d finished the limb and was starting on another when his watch beeped.

“Uh-oh!” He grabbed the flashlights, stuffed them into his coat pockets and ran toward the house, but running in the deep snow was like running in slow motion. He’d turned up his walk when he noticed the candle flickering in the Roundtrees’ window. Had they meant to leave it burning all night? He remembered a few years ago how a family over on Pearson Street had all burned to death when their Christmas tree had caught fire in the middle of the night.

He crossed the road and walked down their front walk. The yard dipped right in front of the house, so that the bottom of the window was eye level with whoever stood in the yard. Grover
pressed against their window, staring into the candle flame. It was a large, sturdy candle, and he didn’t see any curtains that might catch fire. He started to turn back when he was startled by a movement above him. A white shadow emerged in the window. The shape of a woman in her nightgown. Leila Roundtree. His heart began to pound. He felt a dry lump in his throat as if suddenly he was in a place he shouldn’t be, looking at something he shouldn’t.

How long had she been standing there? Or had she just come to the window? She didn’t seem to see him. The vague white oval of her face turned toward the street, like she was looking for someone. Who was she looking for? Her husband? His ghost? Or was she looking at Grover’s house?

Grover didn’t dare move, praying she didn’t look down. How would he explain himself? What would the Roundtrees think if they caught him at their window? Yet he couldn’t take his eyes off the womanly shape of her, the curves pushing gently against the nightgown.

His watch gave a single beep. The turkey! Grover prayed it wasn’t burning, but if it came down to burning the turkey or being caught here at the window staring at Leila Roundtree in her nightgown, the turkey could be charred to a crisp. Just as he was thinking maybe he should make a run for it, the luminous shadow above him leaned into the circle of light. And what he saw made his heart move up into his throat. Holding her long hair back from the flame, Emma Lee leaned in and blew the candle out.

T
he next morning Grover woke to a too-bright room. He glanced at his watch. Ten o’clock? He hated being late to the Bamboo Forest. He started to get out of bed, then stopped. Last night. Was it a dream? He heard kids yelling and laughing outside. He went to his window and had to squint at all the sunlight reflecting off what looked like about a foot of snow. Last night had been real, all of it: Walking around outside by himself in the falling snow. Working in the Bamboo Forest in the deep, deep silence. The flickering candle in the Roundtrees’ window. The shadow. Emma Lee in the window in her nightgown. This last he remembered with a pang of guilt and a pang of something else—a new feeling that somehow felt familiar, like he’d been away and come back into himself for the first time. Back into his legs, back into his arms, into his feet, into his hands, into his toes, his fingers, into every little cell of himself.