Flora

“What’s in there, handkerchiefs?” I asked.

“Sanitary napkins. You know what those are, don’t you?”

“Good grief, yes,” I said, offended. “My grandmother told me about all that stuff years ago.”

Presently I saw Nonie’s pile of letters go in the top drawer and determined to have a secret look at them as soon as an opportunity arose.

“Are those all the clothes you brought for the whole summer?”

“Oh, no, honey, Juliet is mailing me the rest. We decided it was more important for you to have the right meals for the weekend.”

When the phone rang in the hallway, I was sure it was my father calling from Oak Ridge to see how we were getting on. Adopting Nonie’s ironic deadpan, I would be able to tell him about all the food in the luggage without Flora knowing we were making fun of her. But it was Lorena Huff.

“Helen! Guess what Rachel just found under your bed in her room. Your new blue Keds!”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Not at all, sweetie. Don’t you know when you leave something behind, it means you want to come back? I’ll bring them over. Do you need them today?”

“Not really.”

“Oh.”

“I’m helping Flora get settled in.”

A pause. “Everything’s going okay, then?”

“Yes, ma’am, we’re doing just fine.”

“In that case”—a shade more formal—“I’ll drop them off tomorrow.”

“We might not be home. Tomorrow’s church.”

“Well, look, Helen.” Now there was a chilliness, a touch of hurt. “I’ll drop them by when I’m over that way next. No need for anyone to be home. I’ll just leave them inside the screen door, okay?”

“Okay.” Then, realizing I had forgotten to say the proper things when she and Rachel had brought us home, I burbled out my thanks for the week at their house. “Everything was just wonderful, Mrs. Huff. Thank you for having me.”

“You’re welcome, Helen.” She sounded tired. “If you need us, you know where we are.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Please give my best to your father next time you talk to him.”

“Yes, ma’am, I will.”

V.

When I returned to Flora, she had changed out of her traveling outfit into some wrinkled pedal pushers and a sleeveless blouse that showed where her tan stopped just above the elbows. “You know what, Helen?” she said, wriggling her bare feet into scuffed brown loafers with pennies in them. “After I give you a light lunch, why don’t you show me that shortcut of your grandfather’s anyway? Maybe it’s not completely out of the question. When was the last time anyone used it?”

“I have no idea. I’m not supposed to mess around down there by myself. But we can walk down and look at it now if you want. I’m really not hungry. Just remember I said it’s dangerous.”

As we tottered down our horrible driveway, she acted pleased each time I grabbed for her hand, but I did this to keep my balance. (“Everyone still on board?” Lorena Huff had cried as her new Oldsmobile bucked a nasty rut today.) I had grown used to hearing Nonie complain about the ruts (“Goddamn sinkholes,” my father called them), but I was in the car at those times. After several of Flora’s apologetic little yips when she stumbled, I did a pretty fair imitation of Nonie’s voice reassuring her that we were going to get this road seen to as soon as the war was over.

At last we reached the paved road. Then you had to walk down Sunset Drive until you reached the big curve, which doubled back on itself and was so dangerous that the town had put up hairpin curve signs in both directions and a streetlight, which unfortunately got shot out at least once a month by ruffians. They came from the other side of town to shoot out this streetlight, Nonie said. When I asked her why they didn’t shoot out the streetlights on their own side of town, she said wryly, “They already have, darling.”

Just before that curve, in the woods sloping off to the right, began the shortcut that my grandfather had made to take his Recoverers down to the next paved loop of Sunset Drive, and then down a continuation of the path through more woods to the final loop, which opened onto the street of neighborhood shops if you turned south, and toward our church if you turned north.

“This is it?” asked Flora, when we reached the shortcut. “But I don’t see any path at all.”

“I told you, it’s grown over.”

“How odd. Your father made it sound—”

“Well we’re here now,” I said irritably, “so we might as well look for where it used to be.” I plunged ahead into the overgrowth, exulting in every clawing bramble and slapping branch that came my way, a yipping Flora following close behind. Something ripped at my arm, but I crashed on, hoping it would bleed. At last I found a few of my grandfather’s descending steps, which ended abruptly at a crater deep as an open grave, bristling with roots and wild vegetation. The crater looked perfectly terrifying, and I was elated.

“Well, there’s our shortcut to church,” I said.

“Oh dear,” said Flora, coming up beside me. She was breathing hard, and I could smell her underarm perspiration. “My church shoes certainly wouldn’t make it down that. But, I mean, when did your father last use this path?”

I was on the verge of relenting about Willow Fanning when Flora wailed, “Oh, no! Your arm is bleeding!” First she tried to doctor it with a leaf and some of her spit, and then she went into what I would come to recognize as a typical Flora flagellation. It was all her fault, she should never have suggested this outing, what a fool she was —“and on the very first day of my taking care of you!”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. “It’s just a little blood. It’s good we saw it up close. I needed to see it, too, instead of just driving past it. My father was probably thinking of how it was a while ago.” Though it was gratifying to hear my voice reassuring her, I was feeling less reassured myself. Beyond my resentment at the idea of her “taking care” of me rose an unsettling thought: what if there were ways I was going to have to take care of Flora?

As we walked back to the house she asked what kinds of things I had done while staying with the Huffs.

“Oh, they had all their activities. Rachel had her tennis and her riding and her piano lessons and Mrs. Huff had her sunbathing and her magazines and her spiked lemonade.” Nonie or my father would have picked up on my sarcasm at once and joined the game, but Flora went earnestly on.

“But what did you do, Helen?”

“Oh, I swam with Rachel and things, but mostly I just thought about being back home.”

We walked uphill some more. I could feel her working up to her next question. “And, what things were you wanting to do back home?”

While I was at the Huffs’, the life of our house was going on without me. I needed to be there to register it. I felt the longer I wasn’t there, the more of myself I would lose.

Of course I didn’t say this. While I was still concocting a normal-sounding reply that would satisfy her, Flora jumped in with “Helen, I know everything has changed for you since your grandmother passed away, but it would help if I knew what in particular you like to do.”

She had interrupted my concocting process. I couldn’t come up with a single thing to say I liked to do.

When we got back to the house, Flora observed almost regretfully that it was still too early to start supper. “What did you usually do on Saturday afternoons, Helen?”

Well, if Nonie hadn’t “passed away” she would be taking her nap on her three pillows about now and I would be upstairs on the Recoverers’ west porch, reading a book or gazing at the non-view of hectic branches. But now, for the whole summer, Flora’s room opened onto this porch and so it was off-limits to me.