Flora

Already she was at the basket. “Oh, God, here it is!” Now she was pulling apart the brown paper from the tissue. Such a frenzy over some old wrapping paper. “Oh, I don’t believe this! The card’s still in here!”

“I didn’t see any card.”

“Here it is. Oh, my daddy’s own sweet handwriting.” The tears were at the ready. “All of us signed it. See?”

She proudly showed me the signatures on the card: a younger Flora’s, the bold scrawls of the men, and, familiar to me from her letters to Flora, the proper slant of Juliet Parker.

“It is sterling silver,” said Flora. “Juliet picked it out, but we all contributed. But why did Lisbeth stuff it away with all that junk? Still in its paper! I wonder if she even saw the card.”

“Who says it was her? It was probably someone else after she died. They saw it out on a table and said, ‘Oh, what is this for?’ and then put it in the drawer.”

“No,” said Flora, cradling the little tray like a wounded animal. “It wasn’t ever out on any table. When I stayed here that week after the funeral I looked everywhere. I understand now. I was a fool not to see it before. Lisbeth hated it. She was ashamed of it. Just another piece of Alabama trash.”

“That is just ridiculous,” I said (though suspecting she might have a point). “You really need to have more faith in yourself, Flora. And if you don’t have it, you at least have to act like you do.”

“That is exactly what your grandmother would have said,” marveled Flora, regarding me with fond respect.

“What is a yellowhammer anyway?”

“Why, it’s our state bird. It’s the sweetest little woodpecker with these bright yellow underwings. Juliet has three yellowhammer boxes in our backyard. My daddy made the boxes for her. They have to be made just so. When the babies fledge, our whole backyard is aflutter with yellow wings.”

As we went down to supper, I had to congratulate myself for deflecting Flora from her trash talk and staving off those ready tears. There had not been a single tear shed. I felt like a proud parent who, after hard work, sees her child growing into sociability and self-control.

XXII.

It was the last Sunday in July. Then there would be next Sunday, and two days after that, August seventh, would be my birthday. My father had not written or phoned since he was having his sandwich and pickle out at that lake. I chose to interpret his silence as meaning that he planned to surprise me by simply showing up on my birthday.

Today was a sultry, overcast Sunday like the Sunday Flora and I had taken the taxi to church and heard the awful news about Brian. And then Father McFall had driven us home and we hadn’t been down the mountain since.

But at least it wasn’t raining, which meant that Finn would be coming to fix the gutter in the afternoon.

Lately I had been composing scenes where my father and Finn would meet, maybe as soon as my birthday. I made myself do it two ways. First I had to imagine my father finding something in Finn to scorn, and then, before I could allow myself to go on, I had to figure out what that thing would be. Finn’s orange spikes had grown out into an acceptable head of hair, he looked less like a wraithlike outsider since he had gotten some sun weeding the old lady’s garden; and the only time he had been really silly was when he had danced for joy at the bottom of the crater, and nobody had seen that but me. Finn was friendly, but not “familiar,” which my father couldn’t stand in people, and he spoke well, even with his funny will we’s and a-tall, a- tall’s. He showed no signs of having been “a mentaler,” the type of person who would escape from a hospital and wrap himself naked around a tree trunk in order to exchange himself for a dead friend.

Having gone through the negatives and discounted them one by one, I could then move on to the Finn who would catch my father’s interest, charm him, and eventually earn his respect. This was a much pleasanter proposition, and I approached it so well that I kept getting excited and losing my place and having to start over. The consummation point I worked toward in these scenes ended with the two of them (with myself present, of course) in animated dialogue, each at his best: my father witty and slightly world-weary but without the sarcasm and Finn sweet and caring in his masculine way, without any hints of mental problems. And then Finn would say something, maybe about me, and my father would say, “Look here, why don’t you join forces with us in this crumbling old pile? We’ve got lots of empty rooms if you don’t mind a few ghostly encumbrances.” “Ah, if you mean the Recoverers,” Finn would say, “Helen has told me about them and I wouldn’t mind them a-tall, a-tall. I’d be honored, Mr. Anstruther.” “Please,” my father would say, “call me Harry.” And then they’d toast it with cocktails that I would mix. Maybe just one for Finn, if he was still on the dry. But you needed a cocktail for a toast.

And then the whole project had collapsed in a miserable heap because I had forgotten to include Flora. Flora would still be here on my birthday. She had to be somewhere in the picture, and if she were my father couldn’t be asking Finn to live with us yet. Also who could predict how she might derail things or what unwelcome bit of information she might blurt out at any time? My imaginative powers had made a serious miscalculation in timing and logistics, and I was disgusted with myself.

AT LUNCH, FLORA said, “Listen, Helen, what should we do about supper?”

“We’re still eating lunch.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Finn is coming to fix the downspout.”

“So?”

“Well, I haven’t asked him to supper.”

“You haven’t?” I had just assumed she had, even though there hadn’t been her usual agonizings over which Juliet-dish to prepare. “Why ever not?” (One of Nonie’s pet phrases.)

“Well, I didn’t want him to think we’re running after him.”

“Why on earth would he think that?” I was stalling for time, Nonie-like, until I figured out how to get the upper hand.

“Because… Oh, I don’t know. You think we should ask him?”

“Oh, no. Just let him come and fix our gutters for free, and then say, ‘Oh, thanks, bye now. Hope you’re not hungry or anything.’ “

“Oh, dear.” The tears were mobilizing.

“So he’ll climb on his motorcycle and ride away thinking, I wonder what I did to make them not like me anymore.”

“I’m going to call him right now.”

“Now, that would look like you’re running after him. Besides, the store’s closed on Sunday. Just wait until he comes this afternoon and say we’re having a light supper, nothing fancy, but he’s welcome to stay.”

“But, he’ll be all sweaty and might feel he should wash.” She seemed to have given this previous thought.

“Well, let him wash here. We certainly have enough bathrooms.”

“In that case, what should we have?”

“You’ll think of something. You always do.”

BUT FINN ALREADY had supper plans. Miss Adelaide, the old lady who was losing her memory and had bruises from head to toe, was back from the hospital and was making him fried chicken and waffles to thank him for taking care of her cat and her garden.

“Oh, chicken and waffles, I can’t compete with that,” said Flora, folding her arms and looking away to hide her mortification.

“Don’t be like that, love. If I had known—”

“No, it’s my fault,” Flora eagerly rushed on. “I didn’t ask earlier because I was afraid you would get sick of