Morning Glory

never proved it was Lottie See drew it, but she was always drawin’, and who else’d be crazy enough to do a thing like that?'

Harley stepped from the tub and began drying his legs. Suddenly he stopped and stared at the hairless insides of his thighs. 'Damn it all, Lula, how’m I gonna explain these mustard stains to Mae?'

Lula explored the evidence, giggled and turned to the mirror, tightening one of the combs that held her upsweep. 'Tell her you got the yellow jaundice.'

Harley guffawed and slapped her fanny. 'Hey, Lula, you’re all right, kid.' Abruptly he sobered. 'You’re sure tonight was okay to do it-I mean, you couldn’t get pregnant or anything, could you?'

Lula grew piqued. 'You’re a little late askin’, aren’t you, Harley?'

'Jesus, Lula, I depend on you to tell me if I need to use anything.'

She dabbed Evening in Paris behind her ears, between her thighs. 'How dumb do you think I am, Harley?' She capped the bottle and slammed it down. He was always asking the same question, as if she were too ignorant to use a calendar. She’d answered it scores of times, but it always left her feeling empty and angry. So, she wasn’t his wife. So, she couldn’t have his babies. Who’d want ’em? She’d seen his kids and they were stubby, ugly little brats that looked like bug-eyed monkeys. If she was ever going to have a kid, it sure as hell wouldn’t be his. It’d be somebody’s like that Parker’s, somebody who’d give her handsome, brown-eyed darlings that other women would envy.

The thought of it gripped her with a sense of urgency. She was thirty-six already and no marriage prospects in sight. She’d live the rest of her life in this stinking little dump where she’d probably die, just like her mother had. And when she got so old Harley didn’t want to do it on the kitchen table anymore-or couldn’t, for that matter-he’d retire to his rocking chair on the front veranda with his precious, boring Mae. And all those homely little monkeys of his would turn out more homely little monkeys and old Grampa Harley’d be happy as a tick on a fat sheep.

And she-Lula-would be here alone. Aging. Going to fat. Eating beef and mustard sandwiches by herself.

Well, not if she could help it, Lula vowed. Not if she could by God help it.

Chapter 4

Eleanor awakened to a pink sunrise creeping over the sill and the sound of an ax. She peeked across her pillow at the alarm clock. Six-thirty. He was chopping wood at six-thirty?

Barefoot, she crept to the kitchen window and stood back, studying him and the woodpile. How long had he been up? Already he’d split a stack waist-high. He had tossed his shirt and hat aside. Dressed only in jeans and cowboy boots, he looked as meaty as a scarecrow. He swung the ax and she watched, fascinated in spite of herself by the hollow belly, the taut arms, the flexing chest. He’d done some splitting in his time and went at it with measured consistency, regulating his energy for maximum endurance-balancing a log on the stump, standing back, cracking it dead center and cleaving it with two whacks. He balanced another piece and-whack! whack!- firewood.

She closed her eyes-lordy, don’t let him leave-and rested a hand on her roundness, recalling her own clumsiness at the task, the amount of effort it had taken, the length of time.

She opened the back door and stepped onto the porch. 'You’re sure up with the chickens, Mr. Parker.'

Will let the ax fall and swung around. 'Mornin’, Mrs. Dinsmore.'

'Mornin’ yourself. Can’t say the sound of that ax ain’t welcome around here.'

She stood on the stoop in a white, ankle-length nightgown that exaggerated her pregnancy. Her hair hung loose to her shoulders, her feet were bare, and from this distance she looked younger and happier than she had last night. For a moment Will Parker imagined he was Glendon Dinsmore, he really belonged here, she was his woman and the babies inside the house, inside her, were his. The brief fantasy was sparked not by Eleanor Dinsmore but by things Will Parker had managed to miss in his life. Suddenly he realized he’d been staring and became self- conscious. Leaning on the ax, he reached for his shirt and hat.

'Would you mind bringin’ in an armload of that wood so I can get a fire started?' she called.

'No, ma’am, don’t mind at all.'

'Just dump it in the woodbox.'

'Yes, ma’am.'

The screen door slammed and she disappeared.

He hated to stop splitting wood even long enough to carry it into the house. In prison he’d worked in the laundry, smelling the stink of other men’s sweat rising from the steaming water as he tended the clothes in a hot, close room where no sunlight reached. To stand in the morning sun while the dew was still thick, sharing the lavender circle of sky with dozens of birds that flitted from countless gourd birdhouses hung about the place-ahh, this was sheer heaven. And gripping an ax handle, feeling its weight slice through the air, the resistance as it struck wood, the thud of a piece falling to the earth-now that was freedom. And the smell-clean, sharp and on his knuckle a touch of pungent sap-he couldn’t get enough of it. Nor of using his muscles again, stretching them to the limit. He had grown soft in prison, soft and white and somehow emasculated by doing women’s work.

If the sound of the ax was welcome to Mrs. Dinsmore, the feel of it was emancipation to Will Parker.

He knelt and loaded his arm with wood-good, sharp, biting edges that creased his skin where his sleeve was rolled back; grainy flat pieces that clacked together and echoed across the clearing. He piled it high until it reached his chin, then higher until he couldn’t see over it, testing himself again. This was man’s work. Honest. Satisfying. He grunted as he stood with the enormous load.

At the screen door he knocked.

She came running, scolding, 'What in heaven’s name’re you knockin’ for?'

'Brought your wood, ma’am.'

'I can see that. But there’s no need to knock.' She pushed the screen door open. 'And y’ got to learn that around here y’ can’t stand on that rotting old porch floor with a load so heavy. It’s likely t’ take you right through.'

'I made sure I walked near the edge.' He felt with the toe of his boot, stepped up and crossed the kitchen to clatter the wood into the woodbox. Brushing off his arms, Will turned. 'That oughta keep you for-' His words fell away.

Eleanor Dinsmore stood behind him, dressed in a clean yellow smock and matching skirt, brushing her hair into a tail. Her chin rested on her chest, and a checkered ribbon was clamped in her teeth. How long had it been since he’d seen a woman putting up her hair in the morning? Her elbows-pointed toward the ceiling-appeared graceful. They lifted the hem of her smock, revealing a crescent of white within the cutout of her skirt. She snatched the ribbon from her teeth and bound the hair high and tight. Lifting her head, she caught him gawking.

'What’re you staring at?'

'Nothing.' Guiltily, he lurched for the door, feeling his face heat.

'Mr. Parker?'

'Ma’am?' He stopped, refusing to turn and let her see him blushing.

'I’ll need a little kindling. Would you mind breaking off a few smaller pieces?'

He nodded and left.

Will had been unprepared for his reaction to Mrs. Dinsmore. It wasn’t her-hell, it could have been any woman and his reaction would probably have been the same. Women were soft, curvy things, and he’d been without them for a long, long time. What man wouldn’t want to watch? As he knelt to tap kindling off a chunk of oak, he recalled the checkered ribbon trailing from her teeth, the white flash of underwear beneath her smock, and his own quick blush.

What the hell’s the matter with you, Parker? The woman’s five months pregnant, and plain as a round rock. Get that kindling back in there, and find somethin’ else to think about.

She’d scolded him once for knocking, but returning with the kindling, he paused again. Even before prison, there had been few doors open to Will Parker, and-fresh out-he was too accustomed to locks and bars to open a woman’s screen and walk right in.

Instead of knocking, he announced, 'Got your kindling.'