Sweet Hush

by Deborah Smith

  “I want you to know how sorry I am,” I told her.

  “I can take the heat,” Hush said, but didn’t look happy. She was standing in the middle of a warehouse-sized storage barn at the time, surrounded by big wooden crates full of her apples, one square, strong hand on the controls of a mechanized pallet mover, the other palming a walkie-talkie. Cool air hissed from big refrigeration units on the ceilings. The crisp scent of apples by the thousands surrounded us. Her commerce and command of that whole apple world hypnotized me. “Two-point-five pounds per unit at 35 per case,” she drawled into the phone. Click. To another question: “I’ll double-check our contract with the U-Market Phone Order People on that.” Click. And to someone else: “Eighty-six the caramel-dip station until we test the propane line under that kettle.”

  Every five seconds one of her employees called with another question. She talked into the phone and worked the pallet and looked at me with exhausted hospitality. “I can take the heat,” she repeated. “You didn’t twist my arm.”

  “Maybe people think I did. How is your arm?”

  “Fine.” Hush said nothing else, just studied me with her haunted green eyes, the thin crescent of the scar showing pale against the ruddy color of her cheeks. A chill went down my spine. The arm. I’d keep that subject in the back of my mind. Something about it worried me. “So I’m persona grata, at least with you, these days?”

  “I take the bees’ judgment seriously. And Puppy likes you. She’s no pushover.” She paused. “And then there’s the baby goat.”

  Which had followed me into the barn.

  A good distraction. I looked down at the little black-and-white kid. It nibbled my pants leg. “Animal magnetism,” I said, feeling the need to diffuse some things going on inside me. “It’s a gift.”

  “Yes, it is,” Hush said without joking. I looked at her seriously. She frowned and looked away. Davis’s voice came over her walkie-talkie. “Mother. I’ve asked Aunt Smooch to field media calls. They’re coming in on an average of one per minute. From all over the world. Uncle Logan has turned away two satellite trucks, but that won’t stop print journalists from slipping by him disguised as customers. They’re probably already roaming around the barns. I’m telling everyone to say ‘No comment’ if a stranger asks about Eddie. That includes you, Mother. Agreed?”

  “No comment.”

  “All right, you hate this. I’m sorry. The chaos is going to be worse than we expected. But Jakobek’s stunt didn’t help. The President’s sociopathic relative shouldn’t threaten to shoot down a cameraman.”

  Hush met my eyes with unblinking challenge, knowing I could hear every word she and Davis said. “I think Jakobek knows it wasn’t good public relations,” she said to her son, “but it sure was effective. Jakobek’s the least of my worries. And he should be the least of yours.”

  “I’ll ask him to leave, if you want me to. It’s what Dad would do, I suspect.”

  “If I want Jakobek to leave, I’ll ask him, myself. Thank you, though.”

  She clicked the walkie talkie off. Swoops of root-red hair dangled from a clip on the back of her neck. Her body shifted in waves of breasts, hips, long legs. She swayed like a tree hit by a strong breeze. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. “At least you know where you stand with him.”

  “Was your husband proud of you for not needing him?”

  Her back stiffened. After a long pause, she spoke. “You already know the answer to that. But Davis doesn’t, and I intend to keep it that way.”

  “Consider it done,” I said. And I left her there, steeped in the privacy of her apples.

  WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED to think when I drove up from the front barns one afternoon to unload stacks of paper files and computer discs for an evening in my log-house office, and there was Jakobek on the front walkway with some tall, scruffy, gray-bearded stranger dressed in faded overalls, a floppy green army jacket, and a tractor cap with a logo for the Chicago Bears on it?

  “This is a friend of mine,” Jakobek said. “I picked him up outside town today. He could use a meal. Do you mind if I bring him into the house?”

  Jakobek didn’t have any friends that I knew of, and he wasn’t the turn-the-other-cheek type who assumed the goodness of his fellow men. Nor had he demonstrated any interest in letting strangers waltz up to my house or my family. And certainly not a disreputable old bum, and certainly not near Eddie. I was speechless. Lucille stood on my veranda, and I looked at her.

  “Eddie’s not here,” she said. “So I have no problem with giving this gentleman some limited access to your house.”

  Knock me over with a feather. This was not typical Lucille behavior, either. Still, I had no reason to think up wild scenarios and suspect other goings on. Plus I had been raised by a father and mother who quoted the Bible on entertaining angels unawares and lived by the ‘do for the least of men as ye would do for me’ rule.

  So I stepped up to the visitor and held out a hand. “I’m sorry for hesitating. Our situation is a little unusual right now, but I’ve never turned away a guest, so welcome to my home. I’m Hush McGillen Thackery.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, for your kindness.” He solemnly shook my hand. Clean hand, for a bum, I thought.

  About that time, Eddie and Davis drove up in a farm truck. They had worked all day in the kitchens. They were dusty with flour, and smelled of apples and cinnamon. Both wore old jeans and soft t-shirts under heavy sweaters. Eddie’s stomach made a gentle mound under her clothes, and her face glowed. Davis smiled and pulled a blue bandana from her soft brown hair. Flour poofed in the cool air. She smiled.

  The old-man stranger—who hadn’t given me the courtesy of his name, I was about to point out—went as still as a stone and watched them as they came up the path between my azaleas, holding hands. She looked like a sugar-dusted angel.

  I didn’t know what to make of the old bum’s interest in my son and his famous wife, but it was too intense for my comfort. “Jakob?” I said to Jakobek in high-pitched warning. But he watched the old man and Eddie without any apparent worry, and so, I noticed, did Lucille.

  Eddie smiled at the visitor politely, but then her smile froze. One hand rose to her throat. She made a soft, happy, crying sound. Davis turned to her, frowning. “What’s wrong, Honey—”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. I should have known Nicky would find a way to . . .” Crying, smiling, she rushed toward the lanky, bearded old man in overalls and threw her arms around him. He made a soft noise and wrapped her up in his own arms, and they swayed.

  She plucked at his fake beard. “Dad,” she cried. “You look like the guitarists in ZZ Top.”

  I almost sat down in the azaleas. Jakobek took me by one arm and held me up. His mouth curved in a quiet, satisfied, wolf smile.

  The President stood safely and secretly in my yard.

  Tears were shed, tender, private conversations were held, Edwina was discussed, and Al stiffly told Davis he had a major deficit of good will and respect to overcome.

  “I know that, Sir,” my son answered quietly. “But the path to the highest good for a family, a community, or a nation is not necessarily the simplest one, nor is it likely to win easy praise.”

  “Are you quoting to me from my own speeches?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Which one was that?”

  “Your speech to the National League of Families. Two years ago.”

  “How many of my major policy speeches have you read?”

  “All of them, Sir.”

  “Why?”

  “Your Eddie’s father. I wanted to understand your view of the world.”

  “And?”

  “I’d like to take the Fifth until you decide you like me, anyway, Sir.”

  Al laughed.

  It was a good meeting. I was proud of Davis. But as fo
r the rest of the conversation, and our childrens’ future . . .

  “I think I’ll go back to Tel Aviv and work on world peace,” Al said wearily. “That would be simpler.”

  Al could only stay an hour before Jakobek took him back to a helicopter somewhere Jakobek didn’t discuss. “The media starts to get itchy after a few hours corralled in the press area at Camp David,” Al explained. “I’m supposed to be spending the afternoon in consultation with the Chinese trade minister. We’ll make an appearance together tonight at a press conference and announce the details of a new trade agreement.”

  “So . . . what’s the Chinese trade minister doing right now?” I asked.

  “Playing golf with Edwina and the Vice President.”

  “My god.”

  “Yes. Edwina’s a shark if any betting money’s involved, and the Vice President has a bad slice. I’m a little worried.”

  Al and I spent a few minutes by my goldfish pond, sitting in old Adirondack chairs, smoking. Me, my long pipe. He might as well see. Him, a cigar purloined from Jakobek. Peacepipe smoking. Curls of smoke from our different families twined together over the water.

  “Thank you for taking care of my daughter,” he said. “I wish I could explain the problem between her and her mother. I can only assure you that my wife was not always so difficult on the subject of what’s best for Eddie.”

  “A lot of water has passed under that mother-daughter bridge. You can’t change the flow.”

  “I wasn’t there the day a man almost killed Eddie and Edwina. If it hadn’t been for Nicholas . . . Edwina has never quite gotten over the fear she felt that day, and what she saw Nicholas do, and what it showed her about the realities of the world into which we’d birthed a daughter. She’s protected Eddie obsessively, ever since, and so have I. But I do it with more diplomacy, I guess.”

  “Daughters cut their daddies more slack than they do their mothers. Just as sons forgive their mothers easier than their fathers.”

  “You can be proud of your son. I have to give him a hard time. It’s my duty as Eddie’s father.”

  “I totally agree. Give him hell.”

  “Everything Eddie tells me about him seems sincere. My daughter does share her thoughts with me. We are close. Despite what this current circumstance indicates.”

  “I understand. And for the record, I’m getting them back to Harvard as soon as possible. Somehow. I swear to you.”

  “We’ll work on that plan, yes. Don’t let my wife know, but Eddie tells me she wants to attend a state college down here eventually, and switch from criminal law to civil. Needless to say, fine tuning fat-cat contracts for big oil companies is not the idealistic legal career my wife envisioned for her.”

  “I’m afraid I know where this idea of Eddie’s comes from. It’s not about working for the fat cats, Al. It’s about working for me. Or rather, working with Davis. They plan to build a ‘diverse conglomerate,’ they call it, with Sweet Hush Farm as its core company. So Eddie plans to do all the legal work for our family empire. I felt like the godfather when she told me that. Evil, but proud.”

  “I see. Do you want your apple business turned into a conglomerate?”

  “Not particularly. Apples don’t need to take over the world, Al. They are the world. My world, at least.”

  “Eddie tells me you’re a model citizen. And that your husband was beloved by everyone who knew him—most of all, his own son. I know you’re proud.”

  I changed the subject. “Tell me about Jakobek, please.” I paused. “What is he?”

  Al knew exactly what I meant. “A fighter, a loner, a lover—by that I mean a man who loves deeply—and a hero.”

  “Where’d he go all those years after he left Chicago? What did he do, exactly, for the army?”

  “He went anywhere no one else wanted to go. Places you don’t see on maps. He fought for people we’re not supposed to fight for. Alliances our government can’t discuss. People who need help below the radar of politics. I used to think he had a simplistic view of good and evil, but I’ve had to make hard decisions since then, had to send people into battle, had to send people to kill other human beings. The subtleties fall by the wayside when the consequences are life and death.”

  “But why did he leave his family behind to do that kind of military work? Why did he go so far away from people he obviously cares about?”

  “I’m not sure. After he killed the man who attacked my wife and daughter, he wasn’t the same. None of us were. I think he felt even more outcast. Nothing Edwina and I could do or say had an effect. Nicholas doesn’t talk about his feelings or motivations very often. He simply does the job he feels needs doing. He doesn’t confess his sins, and he doesn’t ask for forgiveness. Or praise. Or understanding. If he needs us, we don’t know about it. But if we need him, he’s there.”

  “He needs you, trust me. He’s got a good heart. And he is a family man.”

  “I’ve heard Nicholas called a lot of things, but you’re the only person who calls him that.”

  “I have it on good authority.”

  “Oh?”

  “From the bees.”

  “I’m not even going to ask for an explanation, Hush. But I believe you’re right. Try convincing him, though. My worst fear is that he’ll never find any place to feel at home, or anyone who can settle him down. That he’ll die alone.”

  A chill went through me. “No. That can’t be allowed to happen to him.”

  “Although, I have hope. I’ve never seen him like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Happy.”

  “He’s happy? What makes you say that? How can you tell?”

  Al just looked at me and said nothing.

  Presidents are cagey, that way.

  SEPTEMBER FADED into October. My relatives now had a collection of headlines from major newspapers and supermarket tabloids. Heady stuff for people whose main publicity had involved being blurbed in the genteel travel pages of Southern Living or the trade columns of Apple Growers Digest.

  Threatened Cameraman Seeks Trauma Counseling—

  Plans To Sue President’s Controversial Nephew. And Eddie’s Mother-In-Law

  Eddie Jacobs In Secret Marriage That Stuns Country

  Straight-Arrow First Daughter Pregnant, Hiding In Shame

  Son Of Apple Farmer Steals Miss American Pie

  Eddie’s Picture Perfect Life A Cover For Family Feuds

  ‘Jacobs Family Values Show Failed Leadership,’ Opponents Say

  President Locked In Middle East Turmoil While Family Collapses At Home

  Eddie’s New Husband A Brainy, Brawny Bubba With Race Car Legend Father

  I tried my best not to read the stories or listen to the commentary on television or, god forbid, to hear Haywood Kenney’s goddamned talk show on the radio. But I couldn’t help myself. Hotpants Eddie And Her Hillbilly Harvard Boy, he called Eddie and Davis. He aired daily skits about them, always with nasty asides about Al Jacob’s administration and personal values.

  Jakobek walked in my office one afternoon and caught me throwing my desk radio against a wall. I think being surprised in a fit of helpless rage upset me as much as Kenney’s attack on my son. But Jakobek said quietly, “Radios bounce. I know from experience.” He picked up the radio, set it back on my desk, and tuned it to a soft jazz station.

  I swayed, hands knotted, tears of fury just behind my eyes. “I could kill him.”

  Jakobek took me by the shoulders. “Kenney’s too worthless to kill. I decided that a long time ago. He’s not worth what it would take out of you.”

  “I need something to take my mind off this. I feel like screaming.”

  “I have a solution.”

  He kissed me.

  Quick and urgent, and very, very dangerous.
I didn’t need much provocation, so within five seconds I was definitely kissing him back, holding him by the shirt front as I did, pulling him closer.

  We halted in the middle of the desperate need to do worse. Self-discipline is deadly. My skin felt scalded and ripe; the details of him were seared in my body. His face was flushed and he already had one arm wrapped hard around my shoulders. We looked at each other without mercy. “We just can’t,” I whispered.

  He nodded. “But I’m not sorry.”

  And neither was I.

  Whatever Jakobek had done in his past as a trained soldier, he was now armed primarily with a flute, a camera, and my complete attention.

  He played the softest, most mellow melodies on his flute at dawn, then walked downstairs with big, quiet feet, as if tracking me in my own kitchen. He worked alongside my people from daybreak until well past dark without a complaint. He pulped apples in the bakery, loaded delivery trucks, and hoisted autumn pumpkins into the backs of SUVs for blushing soccer moms and pale, computer-company dads who stared at him the way small house dogs might watch a pit bull around their females. Most of all, he shadowed Eddie and Davis, with a pistol hidden inside his shirt. The government agents deferred to him with the subtle ease of command. Even Lucille, a fierce leader, gave him a pass.

  “He’s been everywhere in the world,” she told me. “Rumor has it we’re safe in this country today because of things he did.”

  “I feel safe,” I replied.

  Except when I thought of him over me, in bed.

  I’d had plenty of offers from men since Davy died, but not many worth the effort. I loved men, the idea of men, and I did want one, a really really good one. But that kind was hard to find, and the rest were like puppies with cute eyes and big feet; I just knew before long they’d outgrow their charm and be knocking over my furniture and barking at the moon. I wasn’t real comfortable picking and choosing; I could never turn a stray away or get rid of it once I’d taken it in. I knew that about myself, and so I avoided making a choice. Otherwise I’d have had men all over the Hollow, running around my feet, needing to be fixed.