good.
He spotted Cyl and Lashanda, did a double take and then squatted down so he’d be level with the child. “Well, well, well! Who’s this pretty little thing we got here?”
His words were for Lashanda, but his eyes were all over Cyl, who had changed into the jeans and T-shirt I’d brought her. Both were a trifle snug on me, but she had room to spare in all the right places.
“Behave yourself, Reese,” I scolded and introduced him to our guests.
“Oh, yeah, Uncle Robert told me about Miz Freeman. I’m real sorry.” He straightened up and looked at Cyl and me. “If y’all’ll give me your keys, I’ll go move your cars.”
“Why?” I asked. “We’re not blocking you, are we?”
“No, but they’re right under those big oaks and the way this wind’s blowing, you might be better off out in the open.”
We immediately handed them over. By the time he came back, soaked to the skin, we were putting the food on the table. He quickly changed into some of Daddy’s clothes and put his own in the dryer.
Daddy likes to pray about as much as he likes talking on the telephone, but with Maidie and the children sitting there with bowed heads, the rest of us followed their example and he offered up his usual, “For what we are about to receive, O Lord, make us truly thankful. Amen.”
“Amen,” we said and passed the bowls and platters.
The biscuits were hot and flaky. The chicken was crisp on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside—ambrosia from the southern part of heaven.
Stan was a little more polite about it than Reese, but both ate as if it was their first meal in three days.
“Did you know that Edwards woman that got killed in Cotton Grove last night?” Reese asked Maidie as he spooned a third helping of potato salad onto his plate.
I was sitting next to him and I gave his thigh a sharp nudge.
“Let’s don’t talk about that right now,” I said warningly.
Luckily, Lashanda had been distracted by Ladybelle, who knows better than to beg food from any of us, but couldn’t be prevented from sitting near any newcomer in the hope that she might not know the rules. Stan had heard though, and his eyes widened. He turned to Cyl, who sat on the other side of him, and she nodded gravely.
Suddenly he didn’t seem to be hungry any more and when he asked to be excused so he could go check on what Fran was doing, Cyl went with him.
Reese and Maidie picked up that something was going on and they kept Lashanda laughing and talking and plied with honey for her biscuit till Cyl came back to the table.
* * *
We were more than halfway through the dishes when the power went off, plunging us into darkness deeper than most of us had seen since the last power outage. What with security lights and even streetlights popping up all over the area, we don’t get much true darkness anymore. Daddy had a flashlight to hand and once the candles and lanterns had been lit, Maidie insisted we go ahead and finish washing up while the water system still had enough pressure to do the job.
Power failure rules immediately went into effect: boys in the upstairs bathroom, girls in the downstairs and no flushing unless absolutely necessary, using water dipped from the full tubs.
Daddy and Cletus had moved into the den recliners and were regaling Stan with well-worn memories of Hurricane Hazel. Maidie’s only about fifteen years older than me, so her memories of Hazel are pretty vague, but Cletus has another six or eight years on her and can match Daddy tree for fallen tree.
The candlelight soon took Daddy even further back, back before electricity came to this area.
“We didn’t even have radio when I was a little fellow,” he reminisced. “I was near-bout grown ’fore I heared it the first time. Seventy-five years ago, they was no weather satellites and the weather bureau did a lot of its predicting by what ships out at sea telegraphed to shore about the weather where they was. Way back here in the woods, we didn’t know it was hurricanes stomping around out off the coast yonder. Old-timers used to call ’em August blows, ’cause most years, come late August, we’d get days and days of wind out of the northeast and sometimes we’d get a bunch of rain with it. A lot of times though, the sky’d be just as blue as you please, and that wind a-blowing.”
As he spoke, the wind was blowing again, rattling the old wooden windows in their loose-fitting casements, and Lashanda tugged at my shirt. “Did you bring my baby doll, Miss Deborah?”
It was the first time I’d thought of it since I put the damp doll dress in my dryer. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I went and left it at my house.”
“Is that far away?” she asked plaintively.
“Not too far,” I said brightly. “Why don’t I just run over and get it for you.”
“Here now,” said Daddy. “I don’t think that’s a real smart idea. Wind catch hold of that little car of your’n and no telling where you’ll fetch up.”
“I’ll carry her in my truck,” said Reese, who seemed to have taken a shine to the child. “It’s heavy enough. We won’t be more’n a minute.”
Before Daddy could order us not to go, Reese and I had grabbed flashlights and were out the back door, dashing across the yard to his truck. Umbrellas were useless in this wind and neither of us bothered with one. The ground was soft and soggy and squished with each running step I took. Reese’s white truck has such oversized tires that I almost needed a stepladder to swing up into the cab. There was a time when he wouldn’t have let my wet clothes and muddy shoes into his truck. But that was before a deer tore the living bejeesus out of his beautiful leather seat covers and headliner last fall. Vinyl replacements were all he could afford and nowadays he’s not quite as particular about water and dirt.
