Will nodded solemnly, noting the absence of self-pity in her voice.
'Another thing.' She concentrated on Thomas’s hair, stroking it differently, distractedly, her cheeks turning pink. 'Having three babies under four years old, well-don’t get me wrong-I love ’em something fierce, but I wouldn’t want any more. Three’s plenty to suit me.'
Lord a-mighty, the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. She was almost as sorry-looking as her place, and pregnant to boot. He needed a dry bed, but preferably not one with her in it.
When she glanced up, Will Parker glanced down. 'Ma’am…' His voice croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. 'Ma’am, I didn’t come up here lookin’ for…' He swallowed, glanced up, then sharply down. 'I need a place is all. I’m tired of movin’.'
'You moved a lot, have you?'
'I been movin’ since I remember.'
'Where’d you start from?'
'Start from?' He met her eyes, puzzled.
'You mean you don’t remember?'
'Texas someplace.'
'That’s all you know?'
'Yes, ma’am.'
'Maybe you’re lucky,' she commented.
Though he shot her a glance, the remark went unexplained. She merely added, 'I started from right down there in Whitney. Never moved farther than from the town to the top of this hill. I reckon you’ve been around, though.'
He nodded silently. Again, she found herself pleased by his brusqueness, his lack of curiosity. She thought she could get along quite well with a man like him.
'So you’re lookin’ for a dry bed and a full plate is all.'
'Yes, ma’am.'
She studied him a moment, the way he sat on the edge of his chair, taking nothing for granted, the way he kept his hat brim pulled low as if protecting any secret she might read in his eyes. Well, everybody had secrets. Let him keep his and she’d keep hers. But she sure as shootin’wasn’t going to strike up an agreement with a man whose eyes she hadn’t even seen in the clear light. And besides, suppose
He was a vagrant ex-con; she poor, pregnant and unpretty. Who was the bigger loser?
'Mr. Parker, this house ain’t much, but I’d appreciate it if you’d take your hat off when you’re in it.'
He reached up slowly and removed the hat. She lit the kerosene lantern and pushed it aside so they need not look around it.
For long moments they studied each other.
His lips were chapped and his cheeks gaunt, but his eyes were true brown. Brown as pecans, with blunt black lashes and a pair of creases between well-shaped brows. He had a nice knife-straight nose-some might even call it handsome-and a fine mouth. But so sour all the time. Well, maybe she could make it smile. He was quiet-spoken- she liked that. And those arms might be skinny, but they’d done their share of work. That, above all, mattered. If there was one thing a man would have to do around here it was work.
She decided he’d do.
She had fine-textured skin, strong bones and features that, if taken one by one, weren’t actually displeasing. Her cheekbones were slightly too prominent, her upper lip a little too thin, and her hair unkempt. But it was honey- brown, and he wondered if with a washing it might not turn honeyer. He shifted his study to her eyes and saw for the first time: they were green. A green-eyed woman who touched her babies like every baby deserved to be touched.
He decided she’d do.
'I wanted you to see what you’d be gettin’,' she told him. 'Not much.'
Will Parker wasn’t one for fancy words, but this much he could say: 'That’s for me to decide.'
She didn’t fluster or blush, only pushed herself out of the chair and offered, 'I’ll get you more coffee, Mr. Parker.'
She refilled both their cups, then rejoined him. He wrapped both hands around the hot cup and watched the lamplight play on the surface of the black liquid. 'How come you’re not afraid of me?'
'Maybe I am.'
His glance lifted. 'Not so it shows.'
'A person doesn’t always let it show.'
He had to know. 'Are you?'
In the lanternlight they studied each other again. All was quiet but for Donald Wade’s bare toes bumping a rung of the chair and the baby sucking his gooey fingers.
'What if I said I was?'
'Then I’d walk back down the road the way I came.'
'You want to do that?'
He wasn’t used to being allowed to speak his mind. Prison had taught him the road to the least troubles was to keep his mouth shut. It felt strange, being granted the freedom to say what he would.
'No, I don’t reckon so.'
'You wanna stay up here with the whole bunch of them down there thinking I’m crazy?'
'Are you?' He hadn’t meant to ask such a thing, but she had a way of making a man talk.
'Maybe a little. This here what I’m doing seems crazy to me. Doesn’t it to you?'
'Well…'
She sensed that he was too kind to say yes.
At that moment a pain grabbed Will’s gut-the green apples catching up with him-but he wished it away, telling himself it was only nerves. Applying for a job as a husband wasn’t exactly an everyday occurrence.
'You could spend the night,' she offered, 'look the place over in the morning when the light is up. See what you think.' She paused, then added, 'Out in the barn.'
'Yes, ma’am.' The pain wrenched him again, higher up this time, and he winced.
She thought it was because of what she’d said, but it’d take some time before she’d trust him in the house nights. And besides, she might be crazy, but she wasn’t loose.
'Nights are plenty warm. I’ll make you a shakedown out there.'
He nodded silently, fingering the brim of his hat as if anxious to put it back on.
She told her older son, 'Go fetch Daddy’s pillow, Donald Wade.' The little boy hugged her shyly, staring at Will. She reached for his hand. 'Come along, we’ll get it together.'
Will watched them leave, hand in hand, and felt an ache in his gut that had nothing to do with green apples.
When Eleanor returned to the kitchen, Will Parker was gone. Thomas was still in his high chair, discontented now that his biscuit was gone. She experienced a curious stab of disappointment-he’d run away.
Then, from outside she heard the sound of retching. The sun had gone behind the pines, taking its light with it. Eleanor stepped onto the sagging back stoop and heard him vomiting. 'You stay inside, Donald Wade.' She pushed the boy back and closed the screen door. Though he started crying, she ignored him and walked to the top of the rotting steps.
'Mr. Parker, are you sick?' She didn’t want any sickly man.
He straightened with an effort, his back to her. 'No, ma’am.'
'But you’re throwing up.'
He gulped a refreshing lungful of night air, threw back his head and dried his forehead with a sleeve. 'I’m all right now. It’s just those green apples.'
'What green apples?'
'I ate green apples for lunch.'
'A grown man should have more sense!' she retorted.
