by Ann Patchett
I opened my mouth and she slipped it inside. If you don't see the color there's no telling what flavor it's supposed to be. Fay was in the dining room now. They were all sitting around that big table. Carl's arm was in a cast and his head was down. The uncle was talking. I could see it from the window, but I couldn't make out what he was saying.
"You go to sleep," Mrs. Woodmoore said, and picked up the tray. "We can talk about this some other time. I just wanted to let you know. It was so important to her that you didn't think she just never showed up. She was a sweet girl. I could sure see how a person would want to help her."
I eased myself down into the bed and closed my eyes. There were her little hands and the curve of her neck. She was walking away from the bar in a knit cap. She was standing in the light at Shiloh and everything was behind her, the monument and the tombstones and the Tennessee River.
I couldn't keep track of time. When I woke up I didn't know if I'd been asleep fifteen minutes or three hours. It was a sleep so heavy and dreamless that my mouth felt thick with it. I wondered if Marion had put something in that last pill. My neck was stiff but maybe not quite so sore and when I pulled up my hand to touch it I brushed somebody next to me, sleeping in the single bed. I hoisted myself over on my side, but I already knew. There was only one person small enough to fit in that little bed without waking me. Franklin's head fell back over the top of the pillow and his mouth was open. I could see all of his teeth. Not a single filling. Franklin didn't mess around with sleeping. He did it fast and hard. He must have gotten into bed with me to see how I was doing and then conked out himself while he was waiting for me to wake up. Franklin never could watch anybody else sleep. That's how we used to get him to bed when he was little, me and Marion would sit in our chairs and let our eyes close, fake soft snores and drop our chins. Franklin would go out in no time.
But he was a big boy now, he'd caught on to those baby tricks. Asleep in that little bed that had been his mother's, he didn't look too old. Big, bigger than maybe I would have liked, but he wasn't gone from me yet. His blue and red striped T-shirt had ridden way up past his stomach and I ran my hand over his warm skin before pulling it down. There was never anything so smooth. I took hold of his wrist. I could feel the little bones. I could smell his warm breath.
Without waking up, Franklin rolled in towards me. He pressed himself against my arm. He crossed a leg over my leg. Then we were quiet for a while. We stayed there, just like that. When he was with me there was nothing bad that could happen. That was the only way to make sure someone was going to stay safe, you had to keep them with you, close, where you could keep an eye on things. It wasn't possible for me to look after all of them, not every day, every minute, the way they needed looking after. The thing was, you had to choose. Pick one job and do it right. I was picking Franklin.
I had had enough of sleeping for a while, but that didn't mean I was going anywhere. It hadn't been bad not going to the hospital. I'd tell that to Marion when she came back in. Where was I going to find a hospital room like this? A good view and my boy right up in the bed with me.
Taft pulls a green sweater over Carl's head. He's always afraid he's going to tear his ears off, the neck fits so close. Taft's wife never seems to mind the ears. She doesn't worry about things the way he does. Taft is watching the children while she makes the trip to the big grocery in Oak Ridge. "Put your arms out," he says. Carl raises one arm and Taft threads it through the sleeve. "Other arm now," Taft tells him.
Fay has gotten her own sweater, a cardigan. She has buttoned it up by herself. Fay likes to do things herself now, she's at that age. Taft calls her a big girl and big sister and she likes that.
It's a Saturday, the last part of February. For just less than a month, both of Taft's children are four years old. Carl turned four the first of February and Fay will be five next week. She has been telling people she was five since Christmas. Taft puts on a denim shirt over his T-shirt and rolls up the sleeves, checks the laces on Carl's shoes.
"I'm going outside," Carl says.
"In a minute," Taft tells him.
"In a minute," Fay says.
He doesn't like Fay saying she's five. He's still wondering how he got to be twenty-six and he thinks it's partly his own fault. He rushed himself, saying he was older when he was sixteen so he could go get a beer with his friends, saying he was older to the draft board who turned him down anyway on account of a hernia, getting married right away, before there was any thought of other girls or other ways things could work out, but that was fine. Look at these babies. Even if he did rush himself, it isn't a bad place he's rushed to.
Taft sits back on his heels, hands Fay a Kleenex. Every body's ready. It's cool outside. In March there's no telling. One day it's seventy-five and the next day there's snow. He takes the kids out the back door, watches them down the steps, though they can do that fine. They rent a two-bedroom house at the end of the street and the street borders on a field. The edge of the field takes a sharp slope down to a creek. Fay and Carl love the creek. They'd stay down there all the time if Taft would let them, but there are strict rules, no going without a grown-up, no putting your feet in when the water was high, which it was now from the snow melting off in the mountains. The creek makes Taft and his wife nervous, the way it gets deep in the middle, gets fast once it starts to turn. There are always other people's kids playing down there alone and Taft wonders what those parents are thinking.
"I can get there first," Fay says, and takes off past the end of the gravel and into the grass. Carl runs after her on automatic, doesn't even think, just runs. Taft lets them go. It's a long field, let them run themselves out a little, he thinks, then they'll be easier to rein in. His children are blond, the way Taft had been as a child, though he isn't now. They are running, running, gaining on the water.
Taft watches them, but he's thinking about the washer he's been meaning to change in the bathroom sink, wondering if there's one in his toolbox that will fit. He's thinking about work and wishing he had been able to get some overtime this weekend, but he doesn't have enough seniority for overtime. When he looks up again the kids are farther away than he'd like. "Fay," he calls, "mind your brother. Wait till I get there before you go down."
Fay stops and turns and smiles. Just the sound of his voice brings her around. She waves while Carl shoots past her.
"Carl." Taft tries to make himself sound stern. He moves a little faster, into a kind of horse trot. He isn't afraid of anything. As close as he is, from here to there, nothing can happen. He is twenty-six. His hair hasn't started to thin and his hearing hasn't been damaged by the noise of the machines in the carpet factory and he hasn't had that partial bridge yet. He is still fast enough to outrun any sort of trouble and there is no trouble because Fay has stopped in the middle of the field and Carl has stopped at the edge before the slope down to the water and they are both waiting for their father. They are doing exactly what they've been told.
Carl raises both of his arms over his head and his green sweater pulls up, showing a sliver of stomach. Taft passes Fay and is almost to Carl. He isn't running because he doesn't need to. From where he is now he could practically catch him if he were to fall.
"Hey," Carl yells. "Watch me."
