A Long and Happy Life

by Reynolds Price

  His hand was on his yellow hair—just smoothing—and he kept that up as he strained his eyes to the wall and said, “Papa told me I would be bald as him but I ain’t.”

  That helped a little too. (He was right. He had never lost a strand—except what was in his brush—and the sight of it now brought her the memory of when Milo was ten and came in one morning from the store with what Mama sent for, plus a nickel. Mama asked where he got it, and he said, “I was coming out the store, and Mr. Isaac was setting on the steps in the shade, and he said to me, ‘Boy, I will give you a nickel to scratch my head.’”) And when that had run through her mind like spring water, she felt she could sit again for as long as Sammy was gone and she was needed. She went to the chair, stepping careful not to jar what little calm she had made, and when she sat, knocking came from the front of the house. At first she wondered was it Miss Marina and had Sammy heard. But his footsteps passed from the kitchen to the front and opened the door. For all the quiet she still couldn’t hear who was there or what Sammy mumbled till he spoke up at last—“Step on in. She’s watching Mr. Isaac for me”—and led somebody towards her. She didn’t face the door or stand. She faced Mr. Isaac and when Sammy drew back the curtain, cold air struck her neck and Wesley spoke her name. Her legs thrust up and twisted her round to see where he stood, his face like a weapon against her.

  With the breath she had she said, “Why have you trailed me here?”

  Sammy brought him on by the arm, and Rosacoke backed till the bed stopped her. Nothing was between them but the dead air her chest refused. Wesley said, “Your Mama sent me home to get you, and Sissie said you was here. You see, Willie Duke has eloped by air with Heywood Betts to Daytona Beach, and you got to be in the show tonight so come on with me to practice.” He smiled and Sammy Ransom smiled behind him.

  Rosacoke would have run—she had already whimpered, cornered and wild, in the roof of her mouth—but something touched her coat from behind, and she flung backwards to see what it was. It was Mr. Isaac. He had slid to the edge and reached for the candy and knocked the broken bag against her back with his liverish hand and was smiling on both sides of his face, his old teeth parted, the stink of his age leaking through them. There was nowhere better to turn so Rosacoke stared on and shuddered. Then he lifted the candy towards her and whispered, “Give this to the children.”

  She frowned hard and Sammy came forward—“What children, Mr. Isaac? This is your Christmas present”—and took the candy from him.

  But Mr. Isaac pointed to Rosacoke, “That is for the children,” and Rosacoke ran past Sammy and Wesley with their grins, through the curtain, past Miss Marina hiding, to the door and the porch, towards the road, headed God-knew-where but away from Wesley Beavers who didn’t know and who wouldn’t care—hair and coat like old flags behind, legs pumping noise from her belly through her nose to drown his nearing steps (low sick whines like nothing she had made in her life, that her teeth couldn’t stanch).

  Her breath lasted halfway to the road, and terror took her another few yards before Wesley came close enough to touch her shoulder lightly. That touch—asking, not clutching—sent tiredness through her like a killing shock. She ran beyond his hand. Then she stopped. He was somewhere behind her. She didn’t know how far. She didn’t care. She just had to rest. Her head slumped towards the ground as if she would never look up, and hair fell over her face. Then he touched her again. She was too numb to feel anything but weight so his right hand stayed on her shoulder as he came round in front and rocked her chin towards him. (He had never done such a thing in daylight before.) Her skin was paler than usual, and her eyes wouldn’t meet him though they were dry as sand. But those were the only signs—why should he understand those? He said, “Sweet Jesus, what ails you, Rosa?”

  She drew her chin back towards the ground. “Nothing you can cure.” Her voice was like a croupy child’s.

  “Tell me what’s your trouble.”

  “If you don’t know by now—”

  “I don’t know nothing except you are acting mighty strange for Christmas.” He slid his hand down her arm and took her cold fingers—she let them go like something not hers—and said, “Come on now, Rosa. We got to go practice. Everybody is waiting. We’ll have a good time.”

  She shook her head, meaning No, and shut her eyes.

  “Rosa, Willie Duke has eloped and you got to take her part, else your Mama’s show will fold up.”

  Her eyes stayed shut. “Marise can do it.”

  He laughed. “Then you ain’t seen Marise lately.”

  She shook her head again but her eyes opened.

  “Marise can’t be in no Christmas show this year. She is swole-up with baby-number-five the size of that house yonder.” He pointed to Mr. Isaac’s and Rosacoke turned her head to see. Sammy Ransom stood on the porch. He had run that far with Wesley and waited to know if he was needed. Wesley hollered, “It’s all right, Sammy.” Sammy smiled and waved and went in.

  Rosacoke said “No it ain’t,” not meaning to speak, feeling it slip up her throat.

  “What ain’t?” Wesley said and reached to take her other hand.

  But she stepped back. Her hands twitched a time or two, and to calm them she smoothed one side of her hair. Then both arms went straight at her sides and the fingers clenched. “Marise Gupton ain’t the only one working on a baby.” Her voice was almost natural, just tired.

  “Who are you speaking of?”

  “I am speaking of me.”

  He didn’t come to her so they stood a long minute like that, stiller than they had ever been, four feet of day between them. Wesley was downhill from her and lower, facing the yellow house (the pecans, the guineas, Miss Marina peeping) but seeing only Rosacoke in his head—the way she had looked that November evening by flashlight in broomstraw, the way she looked now, almost the same, just tireder. But Rosacoke stared past his head (his hair grown dark and long for winter) and stopped her eyes on the road that was empty. She said one thought to herself as a test—“Wonder have many other women told him this?”—and she waited for the hurt but it didn’t come. Her mind was empty as the road. She was numb to Wesley Beavers for the first time in eight years, numb as a sleeping leg.

  But Wesley was not, not now if he had ever been. He said slow and careful, “Understand what I say—you don’t know nobody but me, do you, Rosa?”

  She said “No,” not looking.

  He took a long deep breath and let it out. “Well, come on then. We got to go practice.” His car was up by the house, and he wandered towards it, not taking her hand as he went. He had to think and he was trying, the only way he knew—by draining his eyes and his mind of everything and waiting till an answer rose to the surface. He had gone ten yards before he knew he was walking alone so he stopped and twisted one foot in dirt. Rosacoke heard that and turned her head a little. He said “Rosa?” and started again for the car. And she came on behind. It would be somewhere to rest.

  * * *

  They rode without speaking, separate. Wesley’s hands hung from the top of the wheel, and his forehead leaned almost to the glass—his eyes flat and blind—not to see Rosacoke till he knew how to speak whatever he decided. Rosacoke’s hands were palm-up, dead, on knees that had gapped apart to let her eyes bore through to the floor. So both of them failed to notice the one thing that might have helped—rare as lightning in late December, a high white heron in the pond shallows, down for the night on its late way south, neck for a moment curved lovely as an axe handle to follow their passing, then thrust in water for the food it had lacked since morning. But in no time the church had swung into view and still Wesley didn’t know. He glanced at Rosacoke—she hadn’t seen where they were—and drove on a ways with the woods around them, to wait for what he must do and the words to speak it in.

  Then the words came to him, and he pulled off the road. Rosacoke thought she was there and reached for the door handle, but he had stopped by the tracks that led to Mr. Isaac’s spring. Far as she
could see, only briars and frozen weeds stretched into thickening pines, and Wesley’s eyes were pressed against her face, waiting for something from her. He said, “Rosa, how come you ain’t told me sooner?” His voice was almost happy. It was the beginning of his offer.

  But she said, “Take me to Delight please.”

  “We got to talk some, Rosa.”

  She said, “I don’t owe you two words,” but still he looked and gave no signs of moving. So she made one try to save herself the walk—“Am I riding to Delight or have I got to go by foot?”

  He would have to finish what he had begun, but he saw she could not listen now. He knew she was tired and that seemed reason enough. Anyhow, he had never begged anybody for anything, and he didn’t know how to start at age twenty-two. He said, “You are on your way” and faced the rear window and turned in Mr. Isaac’s old tracks and drove her back slowly, guessing she only needed time to calm herself and listen. He stopped fifty yards from the church by Milo’s car near the graves. Rosacoke looked up again—at creek sand now, like snow, and the square white building—and she thought, “How in the world can I troop in yonder, smiling, and practice this part for tonight, knowing all I know?”

  In her wait Wesley reckoned he saw another chance. He said, “Rosa, why ain’t you told me before now?”

  She faced her window. “What good would that have done?”

  “It would have saved wear and tear on your nerves. You look right peaked.” He sounded as if he was smiling—“And if I had had warning, I could have spoke to Heywood Betts, and we could have flew off with him and Willie to Daytona Beach for Christmas!”

  She said, “I have not been sleeping much. Don’t joke with me.”

  He said “I ain’t” and when she moved to get out, he laid a hand on her wrist and looked to the church to see was anybody watching. “Listen here. We will drive to South Carolina tonight when the show is over. To Dillon. That’s where everybody goes—you ain’t got to wait for a license there. Then we can head on to Myrtle Beach if it ain’t too cold and collect a few shells and get back here on Christmas Eve. O.K.?”

  She left his hand in place, thinking it meant nothing now, but she said, “I am not everybody. I am just the cause of this baby. It is mine and I am having it on my own.”

  “Not a hundred per cent yours, it ain’t. Not if what you say about knowing nobody but me is so.”

  “It’s so.”

  “Then we got to go to Dillon this evening.” It was that simple to him.

  She shook her head and gave him the first reason that came—“It would break Mama’s heart.”

  “It’ll break a heap louder if her first live grandbaby comes here lacking a name.”

  “Hers ain’t all that will break.”

  “No, I reckon not. I ain’t exactly glad it happened this way myself, but it don’t upset my plans too much. I mean, I have paid up my debts. Every penny I make from here on out is mine. We can live. Anyhow, we done this together and—”

  She knew she could not bear the end of that, whatever it would be. They hadn’t done nothing together. She stepped to the ground and went on towards the church. Wesley watched her go three yards. Then he got out himself, intending to catch up beside her, but the sound of him coming quickened her walk so he followed at the distance she chose—not understanding, hoping he just had to wait.

  And she would have gone in ahead as she meant to if halfway across the grove, she hadn’t heard the choir door open, rusty, at the side and seen Landon Allgood tip down the steps and head across her path, weaving enough to show his condition and dressed for summer but with both arms full of holly—thorned leaves and berries that shined at her clean through the grove like cardinals hunched against Landon from the weather. She wondered, “What does he need with holly like that?” (It was plain he was taking off some of Mama’s best decorations. Greens like that only grew deep in Mr. Isaac’s woods, and the youngest boys had spent all yesterday gathering them.) But she had no idea of asking, and she stepped along faster not to meet him. He hadn’t noticed her and she thought she was safe till Wesley called out from behind, “You look like a holly bush, Landon,” and Landon stopped to lift his cap but seeing his arms were loaded, smiled and came on. Rosacoke told herself, “There is no way not to speak now—him this near and Christmas on Wednesday” so she stopped too, and Wesley reached her the same time as Landon. She said “Good afternoon, Landon,” trying just to answer his grin and overlook the holly.

  But Wesley said, “Where are you taking all them greens?” He was grinning like Landon. He took this meeting as a sign.

  “They is just some little Christmas greens for Mary, Mr. Wesley.” (Mary Sutton was his sister.) “She say she would give me my dinner if I find her some Christmas greens.”

  “Well, you sure found some grand ones, didn’t you?”

  “Yes sir, I did. I don’t know who she decorating for except that baby, and it don’t know holly from horses’ harness.”

  “I don’t reckon so. How old is it, Landon?” He didn’t need to know. It was just the next thing to say.

  “I don’t know, sir. It won’t walking last Tuesday though.”

  Rosacoke had to speak. “His name is Sledge and he come in late July.”

  “Was it that long ago?” Wesley said, glad she had offered something, and she nodded, looking off.

  Landon said, “What you asking me, Mr. Wesley?” He had not kept up.

  But to stop Wesley’s answer Rosacoke said, “I got to go practice, Landon. Let me just give you this.” She felt for her purse but it was at home.

  Wesley said, “What you hunting, Rosa?”

  She didn’t say, so Landon told him. “Sometimes she give me a dollar for my medicine I needs.”

  “—But I haven’t got it now,” she said. “I am sorry. Come by the house on Wednesday.”

  That was all right with Landon, but Wesley said “Here’s your dollar” and reached for his money.

  Rosacoke said, “I’ll give it to him Wednesday.”

  “You maybe won’t be here Wednesday.”

  “Where am I going,” she said.

  He smiled, not seeing she had not asked a question, and Landon looked back and forth between them, confused. But Wesley had already pulled out two old dollars. He stuffed them in Landon’s pocket. “That’ll cure a heap of toothaches,” he said.

  “Many-a-one,” Landon said, bowing deep on his holly. “Thank you, sir. Thank you, Miss Rosa.” Then as if it was his gift for them, he nodded to the side. Rosacoke knew where to look. “I been spreading new dirt on Mr. Rato where he sinking.”

  And there through the grove was her father under raw new dirt, changed to dirt himself after thirteen years, who had changed one time before—from the boy her Mama recollected, in white knee-stockings so solemn on a pier at Ocean View, to the drunk who killed himself one Saturday evening by mistake (like everything else he did) and left behind a tan photograph and four blood children (Milo with his hair, and Rato Junior with his silly name but no mind, and her with one or two awful memories, and Baby Sister working in Mama when he died)—and was sinking now by his Papa and Mama and his first grand-baby that would also have had his name if it had breathed, and someday might have passed it on. She said “Thank you, Landon” and in the church the piano started (that hadn’t been tuned in memory), seeping through the walls as if from underwater, too faint to call a tune.

  Landon said, “I wish you all a happy Christmas and many more to come” and started for the road and Mary’s, and Rosacoke started for the church. But Wesley held her—his hand on her shoulder, not so gentle now. “You know I am serious, don’t you?” She didn’t pull away but she made no sign and she didn’t look. “Well, I am. And you got all evening to think it over. Tell me tonight.” He lifted his hand and she walked on but he didn’t follow. He stood where she left him, waiting to know would she look back one time at least, wondering what had turned her against him, yet seeing how little her picture had changed since summer�
�her high legs lifting her on over sand like snow crust, working from her hips like stainless rods, steady and lovely (even now, toting their new burden) as if she was walking towards a prize.

  She got to the steps and climbed and at the top, in the door, turned and not knowing why, not thinking, looked back the way she had come—to the car and the graves and her sorry father, then a little careful, still testing, to Wesley Beavers for the first time since Mr. Isaac’s, looking down on him and thinking, the moment she met his eyes, “I am free”—a way she had seldom felt since the November day eight years ago when he rained down pecans at her request, the way she had felt for maybe ten minutes that other November evening when she struck out for Mary’s—after the hawk passed over and the music—as if her life was hers, till the wind turned and the music came back and pulled her through briars and roots to the Beavers’ clearing where she could see Wesley on the porch, leaning on a post over his brother, his hair still light from the beach, his white sleeves rolled above dark hands that shaped the music, and his face not smiling no more than the hawk—sealed off with his private pictures, not seeing her, needing nothing he didn’t have, but happy. Now everything was different. The distance between them—the space—was half what it was that evening. Now Wesley was flat on his feet with his arms pinned to his sides. His wrists had faded white and showed from the sleeves of his sailor jacket (he had grown some in the Navy), and his face was offered up towards her like a plate—with nothing on it she wanted, not any more. She told herself, “Well, I held him. I tried and I held him. I caused him this bad afternoon, and maybe I have ruined his Christmas and I am sorry. But I reckon he has learned one thing he never would have guessed on his own—that it is very lonely, donating things to people that they don’t need or even want—and he will be all right in awhile. He has paid up his debts. He can live. He hasn’t got to take no share of this load I brought on myself. I am free from him. God knows I am free.” She thought it was her right to think that, and if he had come on then when a final No seemed simple as breathing, she would have said it and saved him waiting till night. But the piano, that had strummed on alone under what she thought, crept into the first of a tune, and all at once there was a girl’s voice, riding out pure as spring water. Rosacoke knew it and went in towards it, and Wesley followed in a little. It was Baby Sister. She was practicing “Joy to the World.”