Lila

the child, “What a day that was.” Him out there in the field picking sunflowers for her. After she told him she wouldn’t marry him. Maybe someday she’d be saying, Once, back in Iowa, your papa gathered flowers for me, from a field that was all gone to weeds. Before you was even born. She never thought a preacher would act that way. Every morning when he left for the church she stood on the porch and watched him walk down the road. He’d turn around to wave at her. If she kissed her fingers and held up her hand — she had seen women do that — he would clutch his hat to his chest and tilt his head to the side like a lovestruck boy in a movie. And she’d hear herself laughing. It would have been nice to give him a present. He wouldn’t expect that.

She was sitting on the stoop in the sun, just for a minute, thinking about things. How good the sunlight felt on a chilly morning, and how familiar that old parched wood smell was, and how strange it seemed to be at peace where she had been so lonesome before, to be more at peace than in the old man’s house, kind as he always was. She opened her coat to the sun so the baby could feel it warming her lap. She might even have fallen asleep, because there was a boy standing at a distance watching her, there for a while at least without her noticing him, she could tell by the way he was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, shifting a little bundle he had from one hand to the other. When she saw him he looked away. She said, “Morning.”

He said, “That there’s my shack. I been using it. Got my stuff in it.” He was small, but he had hair on his face. He looked like something that came up in a drought and bloomed the best it could and never got its growth. There was a crack of sadness in his voice, or worry, and that made it seem like a boy’s voice, younger than the rest of him. Still, you never know. He looked pretty desperate. Best let him have the money.

She said, “I was just sitting here for a minute, catching my breath. I was going down to the river to look at them birds.” She stood up and found her little bag of groceries. “I’ll be going. Didn’t mean to trouble you.”

He said, “Mainly folks don’t come here.”

“I know. I was using this shack most of the summer.”

“Oh. You was using it. Why’d you come back? Maybe you left something here?”

“This,” she said. She took the handkerchief out of her pocket. “I know it don’t look like much. But since I was walking by.”

He glanced at the shape of her now that she was standing, and then he looked away. “Maybe you ain’t done resting. Don’t matter to me. Nothing here I need. I was going to be doing something else anyways.” He took a few steps back.

“Well, I was tired a little while ago, so I rested. And now I’m hungry. I got some cheese and crackers here. Plenty for both of us, if you’d like to join me.”

“No,” he said, “I best not.”

Maybe he thought it was all she had. She said, “I’m real hungry, and I never could eat in front of folks. So I guess you’re just going to let me starve.”

He laughed, and he came a few steps closer to her. She could tell he hoped she would persuade him.

She said, “Sit here on the stoop. The sun is nice.” No point saying he looked cold. She flattened out the paper bag and put the cheese on it and unwrapped it and opened a packet of crackers. She broke off a piece of cheese, and he came close enough to take it from her fingers. His hands were as dirty as could be, too big for him and brown with callus. His pants didn’t reach his ankles and his shoes were all broken down. He was the kind of people Doane used to tell them they were not, the kind that didn’t wash. Doll was after her with a wet rag all the time so she wouldn’t slip away into that tribe, the ones who never touched a comb to their hair and who always had shadows of grime on their necks and wore unmended clothes till they were falling off them. They probably were her tribe, and that was why Doll kept such a close eye on her and never even told her where she came from. They ain’t people you want hanging around. That’s what she’d have said about a boy like this. No matter. Here he was licking his grimy fingers. She said, “Take some more.”

And he said, “Don’t mind if I do.” He was happier than he wanted to be, with the food and the kindness. He sat down on the lowest step and put his little bundle on the ground beside him.

He had wandered there from somewhere south, probably Missouri, maybe Kansas. “I guess I’m heading the wrong way, this time of year. I shoulda thought about that, I guess.” He laughed and glanced at her, shy of her. “I don’t want to go back the way I come, that’s for sure. So, I don’t know. I’ll do something.” He laughed. He said, “There was some trouble down there, so I guess I won’t be going back.” He shook his head, but he looked up at her as if he wouldn’t entirely mind her asking him about it. Maybe he was just surprised by