* * *
We went back to school, and for the first time in a month as I went down the lunch line, I saw Daniel. He was searching for a place to sit. He carried an enormous brown bag, the size people use in the grocery store. In the old days I would have poked fun, asked him why he was carrying a suitcase for one little sandwich. In the old days he would’ve laughed, and thought of something funny to say back.These days it was better not to do that. I balanced my tray and cautiously tapped his shoulder. He spun around and the relief in his eyes told me how things had been going since I’d seen him last.
I said, “I got stuff to tell you,” and pointed at the nearest table.
He dropped into a chair and I sat on the other side, and looked at my lunch tray. Mama had only said this morning we’d have to start taking our lunches ’cause she wasn’t going to be able to give us money to eat. That was going to be fine by me ’cause today was meatloaf and the portion one of the lunch ladies plopped into my plate looked like a plastic gray square with a splat of red ketchup to top it off. I decided maybe the mashed potatoes might be okay if I mixed in the peas.
Trent came in while I was busy trying to make my lunch appetizing, and Daniel was unwrapping the wax paper around his cheese sandwich. As Trent weaved his way through the lunchroom with a couple of his buddies, Billy Perdue and Norris Delaney, Daniel’s attention strayed. It was routine for Trent to ignore me and he drifted by, his friends punching each other in the arm, and laughing a little too loud. Daniel watched with interest. I waited, wanting the right moment to tell him Mama had said he could start coming over again except he kept his eyes on Trent, and had that same wistful look from months ago when I was sure he’d wanted to learn how to drive the tractor.
Unexpectedly, and in a louder than normal voice, he said, “Hey, Trent!”
Trent froze. Billy Perdue leaned toward Trent and made the same stupid kissing noises like Junior Odom had done with me and Daniel. I frowned, confused, and glanced at Daniel, who stared at his sandwich like it was a foreign object. He held a stillness, like a startled rabbit. Trent pushed Billy, and Billy pushed him back. Norris cast a nervous look over his shoulder, looking for the lunchroom monitor, Mrs. Brown.
He said, “Hey, you two, cut it out or she’ll be over here and we’ll have to sit with her to eat.”
That was Mrs. Brown’s way of dealing with the students who didn’t obey rules. She had a table set aside, and would make those who ticked her off sit with her, a less than pleasant experience.
Billy started to push Trent again, only Trent said, “Cut the shit, Billy. I’m warning you.”
I said, “You ain’t supposed to be cussing.”
He whirled around and said, “You shut up. And tell your weirdo friend here not to talk to me.”
Shocked, I said, “What’s Daniel done? Gosh, Trent, all he said was hey.”
Trent stooped down and came so close to my face, I leaned back, unsure of what he was about to do.
He said, “I reckon you’re too stupid to see it.”
I reckon I was ’cause I didn’t know what he was talking about and said so. “What’re you talking about?”
He gestured at me with his thumb, and laughed as if my question proved his point. Norris and Billy laughed with him, and I got irritated about the little secret they thought so funny.
“Just tell your weirdo friend not to talk to me,” Trent said.
I turned to Daniel, mystified. His eyes were now focused on the big brown bag which sat crumpled and folded, much like he was, like he was ashamed, shrinking into himself. Trent impatiently motioned to Billy and Norris, signaling he was done wasting his time.
He leaned down to Daniel and said, “Don’t talk to me, creep,” while Daniel was so mortified by it all, he looked physically sick. I got madder than I’d ever been right then. I jumped up, knowing exactly what I would say. Billy and Norris quit snickering as I pointed my finger at Trent, making like I might stab it into his chest.
I said, “Daddy can see and hear every single ugly thing you do, and if he was here, he’d whip your ass up one side of this room and down the other.”
I was so mad, I was almost wheezing. The tables beside us grew quiet and those who could hear nudged one another and nodded in our direction. Trent tried to play it off. He lifted his hand and dropped it, the gesture signaling indifference, but I could tell I’d got to him by the dirty look he gave me before he drifted off, his friends following. I stared after them and then I turned back to Daniel. He hadn’t moved, and he kept swallowing, over and over.
“Daniel?”
He shook his head, unable to speak.
“Wanna go outside?”
He stood so fast he caused his chair to fall over. The noise silenced the rest of the lunchroom.
He yanked it up, and when I started to grab his sandwich, he shook his head and said, “No! Throw it out. Let’s just go!”
“Okay, okay.”
I hurried to turn my tray in, and tossed his sandwich in the trash, earning a dirty look from Mrs. Brown, who hissed at me, “It’s a sin to throw away perfectly good food!”
“Yes, ma’am. My friend, he ain’t feeling good.”
“Not. Not feeling good. And maybe if he’d eat, he wouldn’t be so sickly.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We hurried onto the playground, to our favorite spot at the chain-link fence. We leaned on it and faced the sun. It was brisk, with a slight breeze. We didn’t talk. I was beginning to understand something about Daniel; not just in the way he’d grown in the past year, but more about the ways he’d acted. It had to do with what just happened with Trent. I stared at him and thought about how he’d become less showy, less loud, withdrawing more and more, the way the evening primrose only blooms at night, like he thought he ought not be seen. Like he needed to be in the shadows, less conspicuous, as if he’d become aware of how people reacted to him whereas he’d not cared before, or it hadn’t mattered. It mattered now, for whatever reasons, though I couldn’t figure out why. He leaned against the fence, huddled tight to it like it would anchor him in place.
He said, “You know what he means, don’t you.”
His voice was light, almost like a whisper, but not, and what he’d said was like a question, but not.
“I don’t know. Maybe a little.”
He exhaled. “It don’t matter.”
“It does to me, if you’re sad, Daniel. And you seem sad, lately. A lot.”
He bounced one time against the fence. “I’m fine. I miss Sarah, even if she was a pain.”
He didn’t look at me when he talked.
I said, “You ain’t heard from her?”
“Nope.” He cleared his throat and said, “So, y’all got the cotton done?”
I wanted to talk about him, but that would only make him not talk at all, so I answered his question, my tone gloomy. “Yeah. Sort of.”
“What’s sort of mean?”
“It was a bad crop. It got a low grade. We didn’t get nowhere near the money we would’ve, so Mama’s been trying to figure out how we’re gonna get by.”
“But . . . you got some money, right?”
“It was like working for nothing by the time we finished. There’s something else, too. Two things actually. One is Mr. Fowler took Mama out to eat steak.”
Certain he would crow, smack his fist into his palm, and declare, “I knew it!” while taking advantage of rubbing it in, I was surprised when he didn’t.
He said, “What’s the other thing?”
“Mama said you can come visit again.”
I’d no more said that when the bell rang. As we walked back toward the school, I waited for him to react, to say he was happy, or act excited about it the way he would’ve before. He didn’t respond, so I didn’t either. I realized my invitation would put him in close proximity to Trent, and after what just happened, maybe he preferred not to be around him.
We were already at the double doors, and I said, “See you later?
” but Daniel acted like he hadn’t heard me.
Daniel was slipping away from me, somehow, and as he walked down the hall to his classroom, I kept glancing over my shoulder, wanting him to do some last-minute Daniel type of thing, like jumping up to tap his fingers at the very top of a classroom door. He disappeared without a backward glance. Our friendship was becoming frayed as an old rope, as weak as a rotten floorboard, and I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to compose a letter to him, only half-listening to Miss Young. I didn’t like how I sounded so needy, so I eventually tore it up and threw it in the trash can after the final bell rang. I milled about with other students about to get on the buses when I noticed him making his way toward me. I hurried onto mine, and slumped down in the seat. Guilt hit me as I watched him frantically searching the windows, trying to see where I was. I hit my hand against the glass to get his attention. He made his hand like a phone receiver. I gave him a thumbs-up and then wanted to kick myself. I concluded I had no willpower whatsoever.
The smell of supper hit me soon as I got home. Mama wasn’t in the kitchen and I eyed the covered dishes on the back of the stove with suspicion. I sniffed again. Youth Dew. Moments later she came into the kitchen dressed like she’d been before, and my heart plummeted.
I said, “Again? Geez!”
Mama said, “Oh, Sonny. It’s just supper.”
Like when she said, he’s just a man, and we’d seen how that turned out. He arrived at six sharp, and Mama’s, “We won’t be long!” floated across the chilly night air. Mr. Fowler looked as if he was about to drop an arm around her waist, until he noticed I was still standing at the screen door making sure he’d see I had an eagle eye on them both. Ross had gone to work right after school, so that left only Trent and me to eat together.
He surprised me when he said, “Hey, let’s eat in the living room and watch that new show, Gunsmoke.”
Although I was still mad about what he’d done to Daniel earlier that day, I didn’t want to eat alone, and I softened a bit more when he apparently tried to make up for it by actually helping me clean up. Afterward, I sat waiting on Mama, my head down on the kitchen table. This time Mr. Fowler came in, and it was obvious they were in a serious conversation.
Mama said, “Soon.”
The conversation stalled when they saw me sitting in the dark. I lifted my head and yawned.
Mama said, “For Pete’s sake, Sonny, what’re you doing sitting in the dark again? You ought to be in the bed.”
Mr. Fowler sat down at the table, smelling like he’d been drinking.
He pulled his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and said, “Go on to bed,” and that made me twitch with irritability. I didn’t want to be in the same room as him anyway.
I hugged Mama and said, “Good night,” certain his eyes were on my back.
When I got in my room, I shut the door, and wished I could shut Mr. Fowler out of my head in the same manner. I grabbed Dolly off the bed and told her he was “a real sumbitch.”
He showed up Saturday morning in a mood I’d never seen before, almost like he was . . . happy. I was sitting on the porch swing, bundled up against the cold, peeling apples for a pie, and listening to Mama sing in the kitchen. Ever since the other night, she’d been in a better frame of mind, as if some burden had been lifted. Maybe she’d worked out a way to pay him, and her happiness came from knowing we would no longer be so dependent.
He hopped out of his truck, and came up the steps whistling and when he spotted me, he said, “Where’s your mama at?”
He plucked an apple slice from the bowl and ate it as I pointed with the knife and said, “In the kitchen.”
He went right on in like he owned the place.
I had just picked up another apple when Mama stuck her head out the back door and in a quiet voice, she said, “Sonny, get your brothers. I need y’all to come on in here so I can tell you something.”
It was the way she said it. I stared at her, noticing she had the same expression she’d had when we understood Daddy couldn’t be saved. Resigned. I dropped the apple back into the bowl. My fingers curled into my palms and my stomach landed somewhere near my feet.
Mama said, “Sonny?”
I got up, and went down the back steps over to where Ross and Trent were working on a tractor. I simply pointed at Mama, who waved her hand in a beckoning way. Ross dropped the wrench he was holding with a clunk! He grumbled about not finishing as he headed for the house, while Trent hurried ahead, glad they’d been interrupted. I followed, looking back over my shoulder at Daddy’s grave before I went into the warm kitchen that smelled of coffee and cigarette smoke. I sat at the table, my hands folded in front of me.
Mr. Fowler said, “Might as well tell them now.”
Mama began with what sounded like a fake cheeriness. “There’s something we got to say. Frank and I”—and she glanced at him again—“have decided to get married.”
Nobody said a word. Mr. Fowler looked at Mama. I was bewildered as I processed the news of what I was sure would never happen.
I found my voice first. “But, why?”
Mama cleared her throat and said, “There’s lots of reasons, Sonny. You’re too young to understand.”
She said I was too young to understand, but I wasn’t so young as to think it made any sense. It was like my teacher trying to tell me two plus two equaled three. I hoped Ross would say something, but he appeared dumbstruck.
Mr. Fowler made an absurd comment. “Just think of me as Daddy Frank.”
Horrified, I said, “You ain’t never gonna be my daddy!”
Mama said, “Sonny!”
I said, “Mama! You can’t marry him! You don’t love him, you love Daddy! You said so just the other day!”
Mama said, “But . . . he’s not here, Sonny. He’s gone. This is best for me, for us.”
Trent said, “Neato.”
I turned on him and said, “Oh, you would think so!”
Ross rubbed his hand over his head, back and forth and back and forth.
Distressed, I pleaded with her. “Mama, please don’t.”
Mr. Fowler looked put out. “Ain’t this something.”
I’d always believed, given my parents relationship, you married somebody ’cause you loved them. Wasn’t that the way it was supposed to work? Like it had with her and Daddy? I couldn’t stop thinking about that, certain it was the one thing that ought to make this impossible between the two of them.
I insisted, “But, you don’t love him!”
Mama said, “Sonny.”
“You don’t, Mama!”
Mr. Fowler said, “Well, of course she does.”
Mama looked like something inside her hurt, her brows hinged together, and she nodded ever so slightly. Mama loved him? I didn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe it. In my mind was Daddy’s shiny blond hair, his smile as rich and warm as the summer sun. Everything about Mr. Fowler stood out in contrast to him, from his black hair, dark brown eyes, his cold smile, his features always seeming to frown. Mama was only fooling herself into thinking she could love him. Or, she was trying to fool him.
Mr. Fowler said, “I done told your mama, she won’t never have another worry. She’ll be treated like a queen, ain’t that right, darlin’?”
Mama actually blushed, while the look on his face made me sick, made me want to sob out loud. I noticed he said nothing about us and whether we were included in this blissful life they were about to start.
I faced Mama, persisting, “But, it ain’t been that long!”
Mr. Fowler said, “Time makes no difference in situations like this.”
Mama said what Aunt Ruth had said. “Trust me, Sonny. It’s for the best.”
This was like having confidence the devil would do right. Bile rose in the back of my throat, a vile bitter taste I fought to swallow. Mama hadn’t said she loved him, and I held onto that.
Ross finally spoke, and he said, “It sure ain’t what I expected.”
Mr. Fowler
said, “Women need them a husband. Men need them a wife. Simple as that.”
I got up out of my chair, and Mama said, “Sonny, where are you going?”
It was like I didn’t know my own mama anymore, like I’d lost her. She’d become somebody I didn’t want to know. With – out answering her, I left them in the kitchen and went to my room. I grabbed my burned up willow branch, and ran back outside, straight to the spot where Daddy fell. I concentrated hard, harder than I ever had. I felt silly standing there, embarrassed instead of in tune with the land below my feet. What was left of the Y stained my hands with a grayish ash. I sank down onto the freshly turned soil. My eyes filled with hot tears. I hated crying. Suddenly, I hated the blue sky too. And what nerve the sun had shining! Those birds shouldn’t be singing, neither.
I whispered, “Daddy, how could you let this happen?”
A gust of wind came, the only answer I got.
Chapter 23
I’ll never forget what Daniel said when I told him.
“Now you’re really gonna be trapped. All of you.”
I didn’t like how he said it, his voice low and spooky sounding, like the way a scary movie comes on and you know something’s about to happen, only you’re not sure what. My dilemma momentarily diverted him from his own problems.
My voice high-pitched, I said, “What do you mean?”
I could hear him breathing rapidly on the other end, as if he was already thinking about some awful thing about to befall us.
He said, “He’s family now.”
The Forgiving Kind Page 21
