'A long time.'
'How long?'
He didn’t want her pity. 'Five years.'
'You were in prison five years?'
'Yes, ma’am.' He buried his face in the towel-it smelled of homemade lye soap and fresh air, and he took his time savoring its softness and scent.
'You mean the water’s cold in there?'
He hung up the towel without answering. The water had been cold all his life-creeks and lakes and horse troughs. And often he dried himself with his shirt, or on a lucky day, the sun.
'How long you been out?'
'Couple of months.'
'How long since you ate a decent meal?'
Still silent, he closed two buttons on his shirt, staring out a filmy window above the sink.
'Mr. Parker, I asked you a question.'
On a crude shelf to his left a small round mirror reflected her image. What he saw mostly was obstinacy.
'A while,' he replied flatly while their mirrored eyes locked.
Eleanor realized he was a man who’d accept a challenge more readily than charity, so she carefully wiped all sympathy from her voice. 'I should think,' she admonished, stepping close behind him, holding his gaze in the mirror, 'a man that’s been roughing it might need a touch of soap.' She reached around him, picked up a bar of Ivory and plopped it into his hand, then rested her own on her hips. 'You’re not in prison anymore, Mr. Parker. Soap is free for the taking here, and there’s always warm water. Only thing I ask is that when you’re through you spill it out and rinse the basin.'
Staring at her in the mirror, he felt as if an immense weight had lifted from his chest. She stood in the pose of a fighter, daring him to defy her. But beneath her stern facade, he sensed a generous spirit. 'Yes, ma’am,' he returned quietly. And this time before leaning over the welcome warm water, he shrugged out of his shirt.
Holy Moses, was he thin. From behind she eyed his ribs. They stuck out like a kite frame in a strong wind. He began spreading soapsuds with his hands-chest, arms, neck and as far around his trunk as he could reach. He bent forward, and her eyes were drawn down his tan back to where a white band of skin appeared above the line of grayed elastic on his underwear.
She had never seen any man but Glendon wash up. Grandpa was the only other male she’d ever lived with and he certainly hadn’t bared himself to any female. Staring at Will Parker while he performed his ablutions, Eleanor suddenly realized she was watching a very personal thing, and turned away guiltily.
'Washcloth’s for you-use it.' She left the room to give him privacy.
She returned several minutes later to find him shiny faced, buttoning up his shirt. 'Got this.' She held up a yellow toothbrush. 'It was Glendon’s, but I’ll clean it with soda if you don’t mind using it secondhand.'
He did, but ran his tongue over his teeth and nodded. She fetched a cup, spooned in soda and filled it with boiling water from the teakettle. 'Person oughta have a toothbrush,' she declared, stirring with Glendon Dinsmore’s.
She handed it to Will along with a can of toothpowder, then stood and watched while he dumped some in his palm.
Will didn’t like being watched. He’d been watched for five years and now that he was out he ought to be able to do his private business without feeling somebody’s eyes on him. But even with his back turned, he felt her scrutiny all the while he used her husband’s toothbrush, savoring the toothpowder that was so sweet he wanted to swallow it instead of spitting it out. When he finished, she ordered, 'Well, set yourself down at the table.'
She served him vegetable soup, hot and fragrant, thick with okra and tomato and beef. His hands rested beside the bowl while he fought the compulsion to gobble it like an animal. His stomach seemed to roll over and beg, but he hesitated, savoring not only the smell but the anticipation, and the fact that he was allowed as much time as he wanted-no bells would ring, no guards would prod.
'Go ahead… eat.'
It was different, being told by her instead of the guards. Her motives were strictly friendly. Her eyes followed his head as he dipped the spoon and lifted it to his lips.
It was the best soup he’d ever tasted.
'I asked how long since your last meal. You gonna tell me or not?'
His glance flickered up briefly. 'A couple of days.'
'A couple of days!'
'I stopped in a restaurant in town to read the want ads but there was a waitress there I didn’t particularly care for, so I moved on without eating.'
'Lula Peak. She’s a good one to avoid, all right. She been chasin’ men since she was tall enough to sniff ’em. So you been eating green apples a coupla days, have you?'
He shrugged, but his glance darted briefly to the bread behind her.
'There’s no disgrace in admitting you’ve gone hungry, you know.'
But there was. To Will Parker there was. Just emerging from the jaws of the depression, America was still overrun with tramps, worthless vagrants who’d deserted their families and rode the flatcars aimlessly, begging for handouts at random doorsteps. During the past two months he’d seen-even ridden with-dozens of them. But he’d never been able to bring himself to beg. Steal, yes, but only in the most dire straits.
She watched him eat, watched his eyes remain downcast nearly all the time. Each time they flicked up they seemed drawn to something behind her. She twisted in her chair to see what it was. The bread. How stupid of her. 'Why didn’t you say you wanted some fresh bread?' she chided as she rose to get it.
But he’d been schooled well to ask for nothing. In prison, asking meant being jeered at or baited like an animal and being made to perform hideous acts that made a man as base as his jailers. To ask was to put power into the sadistic hands of those who already wielded enough of it to dehumanize any who chose to cross them.
But no woman with three fresh loaves could comprehend a thing like that. He submerged the ugly memories as he watched her waddle to the cabinet top and fetch a knife from a crock filled with upended utensils. She scooped up a loaf against her hip and returned to the table to slice off a generous width. His mouth watered. His nostrils dilated. His eyes riveted upon the white slice curling softly from the blade.
She stabbed it with the tip of the knife and picked it up. 'You want it?'
Oh, God, not again. His hungry eyes flew to her face, taking on the look of a cornered animal. Against his will, the memory was rekindled, of Weeks, the prison guard, with his slitty, amphibian eyes and his teeth bared in a travesty of a smile, his unctuous voice with its perverted laughter. 'You want it, Parker? Then howl like a dog.' And he’d howled like a dog.
'You want it?' Eleanor Dinsmore repeated, softer this time, snapping Will back from the past to the present.
'Yes, ma’am,' he uttered, feeling the familiar knot of helplessness lodge in his throat.
'Then all you got to do is say so. Remember that.' She dropped the bread beside his soup bowl. 'This ain’t jail, Mr. Parker. The bread ain’t gonna disappear and nobody’s gonna smack your hand if you reach for it. But around here you might have to ask for things. I’m no mind reader, you know.'
He felt the tension drain from him, but he held his shoulders stiff, wondering what to make of Eleanor Dinsmore, so dictatorial and unsympathetic at times, so dreamy and vague at others. It was only the painful memories that had transported him-she wasn’t Weeks, and she wouldn’t make him pay for picking up the food.
The bread was soft, warm, the greatest gift he’d ever received. His eyes closed as he chewed his first bite.
They flew open again when she grunted, 'Humph!'
Puzzled, he watched her turn her back and move across the room to fetch a crock full of the most beautiful lemon-bright butter in the world. She came back and held it just beyond his reach.
'Say it.'
He swallowed. His shoulders stiffened and the wary look returned to his face. His voice came reluctantly. 'I’d like some o’ that butter.'
'It’s yours.' Unceremoniously she clapped it down, then herself, across from him. 'And it didn’t hurt you one little bit to ask for it, did it?' She brushed off her fingers and admonished, 'Around here you ask, ’cause things are in
