by Lisa Samson
“Where do you sell these?” May asked, wincing each time he cut a stem.
Sitting on her chair, she looked lost in that sweater he’d bought at Rose Brothers. He had no way of knowing size and he figured too big was better than too small, so he got her a medium. At least the sky blue color complemented her overall coloring. Ah, well.
“I sell them to a market in Lexington. He sells seasonal things, pumpkins and gourds and such in the fall, Christmas trees, garlands in December.”
“The guy at Ashland and Maine?”
“He’s the one. Some decorators use my pumpkins and such too.”
“Decorators?”
He grabbed another pumpkin. “Believe it or not, May-May, there are people who are so rich they have other folk do their holiday decorating. Make a fine living at it too.”
“I dated a boy once who thought everything was about image, but I think he probably would have at least bought his own pumpkins.”
“See? It can always be worse. And, well, I don’t mean to be harsh, May-May, but what was that little car all about, the one you were driving around before Rwanda?”
She nodded and pulled her sweater around her. “You’re probably right.”
Young people. They always had to put probably on things in an effort to keep you in your place.
Finally it was time to begin loading the wagon. He gathered several pumpkins in his arms, settled them in the bed, then patted old Bill on his way to gather more.
May walked toward him carrying two pumpkins at chest level. “Looks like a big orange bikini!” She laughed. “I’ll bet people love these pumpkins. They seem a little more vibrant than most.”
Claudius stretched his back. “They’re Cinderella pumpkins. And those over there are Sugar Treats. Pie makers buy them. They do make a fine pie.”
By lunchtime they had half a wagonful. The pumpkins jostled one another as Bill hauled them back home, nice old Bill who just did his job and never complained. Claudius showed May how to feed Bill carrots, and they laughed at the appreciative look the old mule got on his face.
She waved him off as he headed into Lexington, the trunk and seats of the Galaxy filled with pumpkins. When she asked him why he didn’t get a truck, he just shrugged.
“My life is very simple, May-May. More space means more stuff to fill it with.”
On Halloween he decided to make pumpkin soup and roasted pumpkin seeds.
“Now don’t be tellin’ the people at my church. They don’t like such things. But I figured you’d appreciate a little celebration of the holiday.”
May had just come down from a nap as the pumpkin meat was coming to a boil.
“Oh, and there’s a letter for you on the table.”
She opened the letter and skimmed it, then read it aloud to Claudius. A reporter had found her, interested in her story as one of two Americans who had refused to leave Rwanda during the genocide.
She threw it on the kitchen table.
“You look upset, May-May. Maybe you should get in touch with him. Sister Ruth would let you use her phone.”
“I don’t think I’m ready.”
“Maybe talking about it would do you good. You still haven’t said a word.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry. I know you want to hear—”
“Don’t pay me no mind! I … well … I don’t know what to do. I just want you to get better.” He set the lid on the pot and turned the flame down to a simmer.
“Maybe it would be good to talk to a journalist. Maybe that would get me back to thinking something, planning something, I don’t know.”
He rinsed the pulp off the pumpkin seeds. “I noticed you don’t seem to be liking those fashion magazines anymore.”
She rested her chin in her hand. “No. It just seems kind of silly now.”
“You could write about something besides fashion, May-May.”
“I feel as much like writing as I do like sticking a fork in my eye.”
He laughed out loud, drawing the bright yellow strings away from the seeds in the colander under the spigot.
“Why don’t you just read or something, May-May? I’m heading into Beattyville to pick up a few things at the IGA. Want me to pick up the newspaper? Maybe that’ll help get you thinking about all that again.”
He wished he were better able to advise her, to help her out, but Lordymercy, he just didn’t know how to do this. Grow vegetables and feed chickens, yes. Young women? He might just as well have tried to grow pineapples there in Kentucky.
And now here was the fruit of his labor in the field and at the stove sitting ready on the kitchen table. He was a little proud of himself. While May napped, he had taken down Violet Borne’s cookbook, a three-ring binder scrapbook with handwritten recipes and thousands of clippings from Ladies’ Home Journal and Family Circle. Or the newspaper. His mother actually had The Lexington Herald-Leader delivered at the house, the Sunday edition. She was brilliant, he thought. One time he asked her what would have happened to her if she hadn’t had him. She told him she would have been a nurse, probably.
And then his father said, “Nurse? No way. Son, your mother, she would have been a heart surgeon. No less.”
Claudius didn’t know whether or not that really would have been the case, but he always felt a little bad he’d fouled that up for her, even though she told him again and again she wouldn’t trade having him for the entire world.
The pumpkin soup, originally from the Leader, was bright orange, and a little dollop of May’s butter sat on top. May’s spoon sank slowly to the bottom of the bowl as she reached for the salty pumpkin seeds and threw a couple on her tongue. When she spooned it into her mouth she closed her eyes.
Yep, he’d fatten her up some.
“And later on, well, I kept back some of those pumpkins, and we’re going to carve them up but good.”
“Jack-o’-lanterns?”
“Remember what I said about gettin’ kicked out of the church?”
She laughed. “You wouldn’t get kicked out of my church.”
“Is that right? Well.”
They carved until nine o’clock that night, lighting candles and setting them inside. Too far out in the country for trick-or-treaters, they faced the pumpkins toward their porch chairs, some faces happy, some mean, and they drank hot, milky tea until the candles burned down. Scout and Girlfriend snoozed by the rockers.
“Is your life ever lonely?” May asked.
“Naw. Not with Bill and Scout and Eloise. And Girlfriend’s fit right in with the group. But I will say it’s nice having another human being around. Guess I’d just gotten used to being one of the critters!”
Yep, that would just about describe it.
He used to really believe his little speech.
• 8 •
Claudius was proud of May. She’d come a long way there in the kitchen. She’d learned to bake bread from an old recipe of Mrs. Borne’s. Sourdough. No need to get yeast at the store with the good starter Ruthie provided her, one that had been going for over a hundred years.
“I had no idea stuff like this existed,” May said, taking the bowl from Ruth’s hands.
“You’d be surprised at all that goes on in the world.” Sister Ruth handed her a bag of flour from a Kentucky mill. “Weisenberger’s always does you just right. And the price is good too. I get mine in twenty-pound bags. Then a few of us split it up. Claudius included.”
“This makes so much sense.”
May was learning to think differently, self-sufficiently. And it sure made Claudius feel good, the way she appreciated what was grown in the earth around her and how hard he worked to bring it all forth. He had taken God’s natural goodness for granted, he saw. Not in a way that wasn’t thankful, but he’d forgotten the miracle of life in general. When you thought about the cold dark universe with splotches of heat and light, this green and blue jewel on which he grew, and food grew, was indeed miraculous! He’d even taken himself for granted, his work, that he knew instinc
tively when to put a seed in the ground. And it wasn’t the same day every year either. He just felt in his bones when it was time.
A few days before Thanksgiving, Claudius rested his rifle on his shoulder, whistled to Scout, and set out.
“Where are you heading?” May called from the yard where she was hanging out a load of clothing she’d just washed in the old machine on the porch. She actually thought running the clothes through the ringer atop the machine was fun. Hard to figure with some young people.
“Time to get us that turkey!” he called.
Her eyes widened. “I thought you meant at the store!”
“May-May, there are more turkeys in these hills than you can shake a stick at. And they’re free.”
Yep, she was coming along all right. And she was even doing most of the cooking for their Thanksgiving dinner. Her parents would be joining them, and May was nervous. Claudius had bartered several dozen eggs for a few pounds of sausage for the stuffing. Violet came through again with that cookbook she’d left behind.
May-May was still using her goop. Claudius had made up another batch. He wondered if those scars would ache forever. May wouldn’t offer up that information on her own; that was certain.
A few hours later Claudius, his old quilted plaid jacket open to cool him after all that trudging about, and Scout, larger than life with the thrill of the cold wind and the running around, crested the last hill before the house. The turkey hung like a sack over Claudius’s back, its feet held between his fingers. His jangling gait was echoed by Scout’s nimble prance, and there was May on the porch, drinking a cup of tea in the cold, a book in her lap, staring at him. She waved, and he realized he was loved.
—Lordymercy! Oh, dear! Well, oh my!
Claudius could feel that rhythm in his heart from the WPW now that he knew it was there. Mostly when he lay down at night, his book on his chest, the house quiet. And there were times he felt it start up, and he’d thwack his chest with the heel of his hand and it seemed to help. He didn’t know if it really did, but it made him feel better to do something.
He’d just given his chest a daytime whack, then turned and pulled the turkey out of the boiling pot hanging over a pit fire he’d built in the yard.
The poor creature landed on a couple of planks with a thud, and he began to pull out its feathers.
“Oh boy, that’s awful!” May held her nose.
“Didn’t know how badly it stinks when you’re defeathering a turkey? Might as well dig in. It’s not as bad if you’ve got something to keep you busy.”
They plucked and pulled. Claudius handed May a pair of pliers to pull out the more stubborn feathers. She worked up a sweat, and so did he. And they laughed at the sight of one another. Finally, he burned off the filoplumes with a blowtorch.
“My goodness,” said May. “Who knew it took all this?”
“Did you see what that bird looked like to begin with?”
She nodded.
“I’d say it was relatively easy to get it from that to this if you think about it. I mean, when we used to butcher pigs—”
“Oh, Claudius, no! Let’s not talk about that.”
She’d get used to this, he reckoned. “It makes the meat aisle of the grocery store seem a little different, doesn’t it?”
“I can’t even tell you.”
“Tell you what. We’ll finish up here, and then I’ll make us a pot of coffee and we can read for a little while.”
She said that sounded very nice.
The night before Thanksgiving, pumpkin pie baked, its top glistening sugary in the light of the overhead light, the bread drying in slices on the kitchen table, May sat in the living room and flipped through an old family photo album Claudius laid in her lap. He brought out his fiddle for the first time since she’d come, and plaintive mountain tunes drifted off the strings as faces she didn’t know slipped beneath her fingertips. His parents, so country, with square, worn faces and pillow-button eyes, looked like they were always ready to laugh. And they were. “It’s either that or cry,” his dad said more than a time or two.
“I already love these people, for some reason. Did you laugh a lot around here?” she asked.
He nodded, smiled, and kept playing, wondering if she knew she’d read his mind. She was beginning to do that a lot.
“May I have a picture of your mother to take upstairs?”
He nodded again. That was nice.
She peeled off a black-and-white picture of the tall woman, boxy of figure, with white hair and an apron with fragile floral designs splayed across its surface. He knew it was yellow, and he told May that.
“And that dress she has on is the color of periwinkles.” She stood on the front porch holding a bunch of roses she must have just clipped. “Those were pink.” On the back it said Violet, 1960.
“I’ll set her on my nightstand,” May said in the manner of a declaration.
The next morning the turkey was already in the oven, the skin beginning to brown, when May woke up. Claudius heard her scuffling up there, and then, dressed, she ran down and began browning the sausage in Violet’s largest black iron skillet. She reminded him nothing of his mother, save for the way she moved the spatula across the dark, searing surface of the pan. She swayed there at the stove, yes, but she was more graceful than poor Violet could ever have been. Violet, who should have been doing more than cooking at an old stove and raising her little illegitimate boy.
Was he overly thankful? Well, yes, he was. If a person could feel too much gratitude about that kind of love, he was guilty of it.
May began chopping up one of the onions Claudius brought up from the root cellar. “I’m not overly fond of celery, is that okay?”
“Fine by me. I can go either way.” Claudius peeled potatoes and put them in a big pot of water, the starch clinging to his fingers.
In the freezer the final green beans of the season were waiting to be part of their little celebration. May thawed them under running water and proceeded to snap them into pieces, stopping every couple of minutes to stir the sausage and onions that were browning in the pan.
Claudius felt blessed. Warm and blessed and at home in his house in a way he’d never before experienced. It had always been his mother’s house.
An hour later the stuffing was ready to bake and the beans were cooking with a piece of fatback on the back of the stove.
“How about a little reading?” Claudius asked as he washed his hands.
“All right.”
The smells of Thanksgiving filled the house, and soon his reading of Old Jack sent May into that warm place of closed eyes and contentment. Mumbling, she remembered aloud Thanksgiving at her house.
“I’d eat my fill, then watch a couple of videos while the adults sat around and talked. Then I’d sneak up to my bedroom for a nap, listening to the sounds of conversation and plates and cutlery clinking in the kitchen as my mom and the women did the dishes.”
He’d always liked that sound too.
An hour later Dr. and Mrs. Seymour arrived. Michael had obviously tried to fix his wife’s hair, but the light brown mass hung limp. She wore an ethnic caftan type of garment—something one didn’t see often around Beattyville!
May wheeled her mother up to the table, sat next to her, and cut up her food. The poor woman could hardly lift a roll to her mouth, and her speech was barely understandable. But the glisten of her brown eyes as they rested on May spoke a thousand I love yous.
The sounds of conversation mostly belonged to Claudius and Michael, but everyone tried to make it a good Thanksgiving. When they went around the table telling of that for which they were thankful, all but May said, “I’m thankful May is alive and well.”
When her turn came, she excused herself and said she needed to use the restroom.
“She must be having a hard time thanking God for anything,” Michael said.
“Lots of people do,” Claudius said, digging his knife into the butter. “And that’s a fact.”
<
br /> A few hours later, as they were about to pull away, Claudius leaned down at Michael’s car window. “She can stay here as long as she needs.”
“Are you sure? I never dreamed she would stay such a long time.”
“It’s fine by me. I like having the company.”
“Thank you, Claudius.”
• 9 •
He was sitting at the kitchen table cutting up Hubbard squash for a casserole. For dessert, apple dumplings. May had already cored the apples and loaded up the centers with a mixture of flour, sugar, and cinnamon. Next, having followed Violet’s “No-Fail Easy Piecrust” recipe, and having rolled the dough into a thin sheet, she placed the apples on top and cut the pastry into squares. After that she pulled the dough up around the peeled apples into neat little round bundles.
“Now those are right nice, May-May. I think my mother would say you did a good job.”
“That makes me happy inside.”
She slid them into the oven with an easy push, straightened, and wiped her hands against each other. “There.” She placed her hands on her hips.
“I’ll make my mother’s butter sauce just before we eat those,” he said.
“Well, she’s sure given me back my appetite.”
“You look almost normal again.”
May smiled. “Now that things are slowing down on the farm, Claudius, I think I’ll make you a Christmas present.”
“Just you being around here is enough.”
“Don’t make me anything, then,” she said.
He gave a little snort. “Too late.”
“Figures.”
Claudius put the teakettle on as she sat down and began to help him with the squash.
“I guess I never had such good food every day like this,” she said. “We ate lots of takeout. I guess everybody was always so busy.”
He never mentioned she hadn’t taken one step off his property since the end of August, so how could she have eaten anything else? Claudius took life as it came, and for him, it came slowly. But then, May-May was young and life was stuffed full of possibilities he’d never cared to dream about, not with what he had right there.
