She was crisp and cool, I was hot and sweaty, but I hugged her anyhow. “I’m really going to miss you, girl.”
“No, you won’t. I’ll be back to visit Grandma and you can come visit me. I’m hoping to find a place in Georgetown. Think of us in all those great shops and restaurants.”
“Yeah,” I said glumly.
“It’s the only way I can deal with it,” she said quietly and this time, she hugged me.
* * *
After Cyl left, I changed clothes, then got out the pane of glass and glazing putty I’d bought a couple of days ago and began repairing my broken window. Different brothers had offered to do it, but they’re still working on bigger repairs. At least I don’t have tall trees around my house to fall on anything. And maybe I ought to reconsider where I want to plant them. Dwight’s right: it’ll take twenty years to grow them tall enough to do any damage, but I’ll probably still be here—alone—twenty years from now. Certainly doesn’t look as if I’ll be setting up housekeeping in New Bern any time soon.
I’m probably not cut out to be anybody’s stepmom.
Unlike Cyl, who would have been terrific under different circumstances.
I hadn’t seen Ralph Freeman since the day after the storm, but I heard that Clara was making a pretty good recovery, all things considered, and would probably be home before the weekend although Amy says she’s going to need a lot of physical therapy in the next few months.
Reese came by for a swim just as I was ready to jump in myself. He said that a power crew from Virginia was working its way out from Cotton Grove.
“The way they’re moving, we might get our lights back by midnight.”
“And not a minute too soon,” I said fervently as I floated on my back and let the warm water relax me.
“I’ll tell you one good thing about Fran, though,” he said, drifting along beside me.
“Yeah?”
“We’re not gonna have to listen to any more Hazel stories any time soon, are we?”
I laughed. “And fifty years from now, if I catch you telling Fran stories to your grandbabies, I’ll punch you hard.”
* * *
Darkness fell much as it did a hundred years ago, quietly and utterly. The night sky was radiant with stars undimmed by electric yard lights or the streetlights going in across the creek where a new housing development’s being built. Fireflies glowed with flicks of soft golden yellow while crickets sang to the stars.
It was the dark of the moon, yet the countryside seemed luminous to me. I blew out my candles and walked out to the pond, then skirted the edge and followed the rutted lane that was a double line of white sand against the darker grass.
Near the end of the pond, I smelled smoke and followed my nose till I saw fire reflected off bushes beyond the cut in the undergrowth. As I passed through the cut into the open field, I saw Daddy burning a brush pile and I couldn’t help but smile. Other men burn brush in the daytime but Daddy’s always done his burning at night. I watched him stir the flaming branches with his pitchfork. Sparks jetted thirty feet upwards like a fiery fountain against the velvet darkness.
Blue and Ladybelle came out to greet me, and as I walked into the circle of light, Daddy said, “Looks like roman candles, don’t it?”
For the next half hour, we circled the fire, pushing the longer branches in as their twiggy tops burned away. It was hot, sweaty work, but the flames kept our clothes dry. The smell of green leaves burning was unbearably nostalgic. Most of the time, I’m an adult, able to bear what has to be borne with an adult’s stoicism. But there are times when I miss Mother so much it’s like a physical hurt that’s never healed. She used to love bonfires, too.
Eventually, as the fire settled down, we sat on a nearby fallen log, talking of nothing important, watching the fire burn lower.
Without really thinking, I said, “You paying John Claude to represent the Love boy?”
He didn’t answer.
“You’re still messing with whiskey, aren’t you?”
There was such a long silence that I was almost afraid that I’d made him really mad. On the other hand, if he
At last he said, “Your mama never understood why I couldn’t leave it alone. She thought it was the whiskey itself, but it won’t. You never seen me drunk, did you?”
“No, sir.”
“No, it won’t the whiskey. And after a while, it won’t even the money.”
Another silence.
“What, then?” I asked.
“I guess you might say it was the excitement. Running the risks. Knowing what I could lose if I got caught. That’s something your mama never rightly understood.”
He turned and looked at me a long level moment by the dying fire. “You understand though, don’t you, shug?”
Now it was my turn to sit silently.
