by Ruth White
I couldn’t sleep. For hours I lay awake beside Phyllis and watched the light change outside from gray to black to dull purple as morning came, and the earth changed from gold to drab gray as winter came back to grieve me more.
I went over and over in my mind all the things Jesse and I said to each other last summer, all the things we did together, the fun we had, the way we laughed and held hands and kissed. And I imagined his coming back to me, what he would say, how we would kiss and make up.
Sometimes I saw Willa sitting quietly silhouetted in the window looking out at the sad hills. A shadowy, wispy figure she was in the dark with her hair plaited in one long thick braid down her back. She didn’t say anything because she felt sad, too. She was just hanging around in case I needed her.
The rains came down all through December. The hills dripped into the soggy bottom, and the mud thickened and deepened, black with coal.
On New Year’s Eve I was sitting listening to the radio when the phone rang and it was Jesse. I was so stunned I couldn’t speak. How many times I had dreamed of this moment!
“How’ve you been, Tiny?” he said.
“Fine,” I said.
That’s all I could think of to say.
“Well, I just called to say goodbye.”
“Where you goin’ to?”
“To the air force. I’m leaving for Harlingen, Texas, first thing tomorrow morning.”
“The air force? When did this come about, Jesse?”
“Since I broke up with Barbara. I decided I don’t want to hang around here anymore, and I don’t want to be a welder. So I’m getting out.”
I was silent.
“And I wanted to say I’m sorry for the way things turned out between you and me,” he went on.
“Forget it.”
“No, I was kinda rough on you. You would never have treated me like that.”
That was the truth.
“So maybe we can be friends, huh, Tiny?”
“Sure, Jesse. Write to me.”
“I’ll do it. You take care of yourself, and maybe I’ll see you in the spring.”
“Yeah, ’bye, Jesse.”
The next night, when I knew he was gone to Texas, I was wide awake again most of the night remembering, regretting, hurting. Every time I closed my eyes I could see us dancing around the fire on the mountaintop. And the old Red Wing song kept going around in my head.
She loved a warrior bold, this shy little maid of old, But brave and gay, he rode one day to battle far away.
Just like my real daddy, I was thinking. Running off to play war games and leaving broken hearts at home.
Now, the moon shines tonight on pretty Red Wing,
The breeze is sighing, the night bird’s crying,
For afar ’neath his star her brave is sleeping,
While Red Wing’s weeping her heart away.
“Jesse … Jesse … come back!”
Early on a Saturday morning I drifted in and out of sleep. Outside, somebody was yodeling, and I remembered those Saturday mornings when I was in the ninth grade and Bobby Lynn took yodeling lessons from Aunt Evie, and I could hear them up there. The yodeling was pretty. I fantasized that it was Jesse yodeling for me, and I saw myself go to the window and raise it, and yodel in return.
I opened my eyes. A cold, white sun was trying to come into my bedroom, and I got up and looked out. There was a light snow. The yodeling had ended and its echo bounced off the hills. No one was in sight. Did I dream it?
The house was cold and damp. I put on britches, a sweater, and a pair of socks and shoes. Then I went downstairs.
Phyllis was sitting at the kitchen table eating a fried apple pie. Nessie lay at her feet, but she came to me wagging her tail when she saw me.
“Hello, my lamb chops,” I crooned and petted her.
“Are you going somewhere today, Tiny?” Phyllis asked me.
“No.”
“Will you play with me?”
I fixed a bowl of corn flakes and sat down beside her.
She was ten years old now, nearly eleven, almost as tall as me, and as developed as a thirteen-year-old. We hadn’t talked much in a long time.
“Play with you? Ain’t you too big for that stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“Playing is little-girl stuff.”
“We could play cards.”
“Where’s Beau and Luther? They’ll play with you.”
“But I want you to play with me, Tiny.”
At that moment her hands came into view, and I was horrified. All her nails were chewed down to the quick, and all around them the skin was torn away.
“What on earth have you gone and done to your fingernails?” I hollered at her.
She tried to hide her hands, but I grabbed one hand and forced it open.
“Lordy, Phyllis. I never saw the beat!”
She jerked away from me.
“Leave me alone!” she said.
“Has Mama seen your nails?”
“I dunno.” She shrugged and stuck out her lower lip.
“Where’s Mama now?” I said. “I think she orta see what you’ve gone and done to yourself.”
“She went to the hospital again. She’s always gone with Dixie.”
It was the truth. Mama just loved to hang around the hospital with the sick people. She wanted to get a job there as a nurse’s aide, but I heard Vern yelling at her about her wanting to work for slave wages. He said people would think he couldn’t support his family. I saw Mama grit her teeth when he said that.
“Well, we’ll doctor up your nails, then I’ll play you a game of rummy or something. First, though, I’m going up to see Aunt Evie.”
“She’s got company,” Phyllis said.
“Who in the world?”
“I dunno. Some old man. He come up the road yodeling.”
I dropped my spoon. No, it couldn’t be.
“Yodeling? Did Aunt Evie yodel back?”
“She shore did. She come out on the porch and yodeled at him.”
“Phyllis!”
“What’sa matter?”
“Don’t you see? It musta been Ward!”
“Naw, Tiny. That’s just a story she tells. Ward’s never really coming back … is he?”
“Well, who else would be yodeling to her?”
We looked at each other.
“Is he still up there?”
“I reckon. I never did see him leave. Wouldn’t that be something, Tiny? I mean, if he should come back after all these … how many years?”
“About fifty years come spring.”
“And what if they get married?”
I smiled as I pictured Aunt Evie in a white wedding dress.
“I guess stranger things have happened, Phyllis,” I said. “But I don’t know what.”
For the next half hour we watched Aunt Evie’s shack out the kitchen window. Finally, here he came: an old man with a white beard and a cane. He paused on the porch, slung a pack up over his back, and turned around and said something to Aunt Evie, who was standing in the doorway. She put up her hand like she was saying goodbye. Then he left. We watched him walk down the path around our house and to the road below.
I hurried out the door and up the hill with Phyllis right behind me. Aunt Evie was still standing on the porch watching the old man. And her face looked the most peculiar I ever had seen it look. There was a whole new something-or-other in her eyes.
“Who was that man?” Phyllis and I said together.
“Hit was Ward, my man, in the flesh,” she said, then turned and went back inside.
Phyllis and I exchanged a glance and followed Aunt Evie inside.
“Well, tell us about it, Aunt Evie. Tell us everything!”
We were so excited we were hopping up and down. But Aunt Evie was as calm as a spring night. She started piddling around in a drawer looking for something.
“There ain’t a thang to tell,” she said as simply as that. “He come in and set down a
nd said, ‘Howdy, Evelyn’ … He always did call me Evelyn, and hit’s not even my name. My name’s Evie … just Evie. ‘How are ya?’ he said.
“And I said, ‘Where the hell you been?’
“‘Here and there,’ he said. ‘But now I’m here to stay.’”
Aunt Evie fell silent as she kept looking for something in the drawer.
“Did you lose something, Aunt Evie?” I said.
“My specs,” she said. “They was right ’cheer.”
there they are,” Phyllis said.”Right beside your hand.”
“Oh,” Aunt Evie said as she picked up the glasses and put them on. “If hit had been a snake, hit woulda bit me,” she said, and closed the drawer.
Then she started reading a piece of paper she had crumpled up in her hand. Phyllis and I smiled at each other.
“What’s that you’re reading?” I said.
“A pome he said he writ fer me. But he never writ hit a’tall. I read hit somewheres else before. He always was the biggest liar!”
And she tossed the paper in the stove. Phyllis and I exchanged glances again. Never had we heard any criticism of the legendary Ward before today.
“Then what happened?” Phyllis said. “You said to him, ‘Where the hell you been?’ and then …”
I gouged Phyllis. “Don’t say that word.”
Aunt Evie sat down at the table, took off her glasses, and carefully laid them down. I sat on one side of her and Phyllis on the other.
“Well, I looked at him, and I thought, Lordy, I don’t know this man a’tall. I never did know him. He’s a stranger I been pining after for fifty years. And I don’t want him no more’n I want the measles.”
“It’s because he’s old, Aunt Evie,” I said. “He’s still your Ward.”
“No, he ain’t. He never was my Ward. My Ward was somebody I made up outa my head. He never existed.”
“What d’you mean?”
“Lord, child, I mean I’ve been a fool. I could have married Clint Clevinger and been Bobby Lynn’s. grandma. But no, I said if I couldn’t have Ward, I wouldn’t have nobody. I thought Ward was my one and only. Now I know, Tiny, after all these wasted years. There’s no such thing as a one and only! No such thing!”
“You mean you think you coulda loved somebody else if you had tried to?” I asked.
“That’s the gist of hit! And he shore weren’t worth pining over—not for a month, much less fifty years!”
She sighed heavily.
Could it be true? Could it be possible to fall in love more than once? Could it be that someday I would think of Jesse as a stranger? And that I would be able to let go just like that? Was it possible?
We stayed with Aunt Evie for about an hour and let her talk about her own self for a change. She was a pitiful old thing, and didn’t know what to do with the rest of her life. She didn’t know how to do anything but wait for Ward. Then she said she had to go help Mrs. Rife do some sewing. So Phyllis and I went home.
Vern was sitting in the kitchen drinking bourbon.
“Where’s Beau and Luther?” Phyllis said.
“I took ’em up to Dad’s. Where you girls been?”
“Up to Aunt Evie’s.”
“Rosemary called you, Tiny,” he said. “Wants you to call her.”
I went to the hall and dialed Rosemary’s number. Phyllis and Nessie went upstairs.
“Hi, gal,” Rosemary said. “Want to go sledding?”
“Sledding? There’s not enough snow for sledding.”
“Over at the Breaks there is. There’s lots of snow there.”
“Okay. Who all’s going?”
“Me and you and Cecil and Bobby Lynn and Richard.”
“What about Roy?”
“I didn’t ask him.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t have to take him with me everywhere I go.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll ride over with Cecil.”
I hurried upstairs. Phyllis was sitting by the window in Willa’s spot, looking at the hills.
“Where ya goin’ to, Tiny?” she said.
“To the Breaks, sledding.”
“Can I go?”
“No. You know you’re too young to hang around with my crowd, Phyllis.”
“Please, Tiny.”
I looked at her as I wiggled into my boots. She was chewing her nails and looking at me with pleading eyes.
“No, Phyllis, you know you can’t go. What’s the matter with you?”
She didn’t answer. I put on my scarf and gloves, then slipped on my heavy jacket. I would have to dig the sled out of Beau and Luther’s closet. I looked at Phyllis again. She sure was acting funny.
“Get your hands out of your mouth,” I said to her.
“I won’t get out of the car.” She made another desperate attempt. “And I won’t say a word.”
This was not like Phyllis a’tall, and as I stood puzzling over it, I saw two big tears bubble up in her eyes.
“Don’t leave me here with Daddy!” she sobbed suddenly.
Oh God, my sister, my sister!
I went to her and took her into my arms. I held her close to my heart and rocked her and crooned to her while she cried and cried. I cried, too, as I remembered those awful days, and how I had yearned for comfort.
Oh, my sister, my sister. Why didn’t I see this coming? I was so wrapped up in my own problems.
“He said he would kill Nessie if I told,” Phyllis choked. “Do you think he will?”
“No! He will not hurt Nessie! I won’t let him. And he won’t ever hurt you again, Phyllis, I promise.”
She slumped in my arms. I would hold her as long as she wanted me to, all day if necessary. And all the while my mind was racing. I would tell. Nothing would stop me now. Nothing. It didn’t matter who knew. He would never hurt me or Phyllis again. I would tell Mama, and if she wouldn’t do anything, then I would tell Mr. Gillespie. He would do something. I knew there was a law against what Vern did. He was scared of the law.
I took off my heavy clothes.
“I have to call Cecil,” I told Phyllis. “But I’ll be right back.”
“Promise?” she said.
“I promise. I am not going anywhere today.”
“Sorry, Cecil,” I said when I had him on the phone. “Y’all go on and have a good time. Something important has come up.”
“What’s wrong, Tiny?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I have to stay here, that’s all,” I said.
“I can tell by your voice,” he went on.
He knew me so well.
“Don’t worry, Cecil. ’Bye now.”
Then I went back upstairs to our room and closed the door. We would stay there until Mama came home. As I talked to Phyllis, I found out to my relief that Vern did not actually rape her, but sooner or later he was bound to try it if somebody didn’t stop him.
Shortly after noon I heard Mama come in.
“You stay here, Phyllis,” I said. “And I’ll be right back.”
“Where ya goin’ to?” she said.
“I’ll be right back. You look after Nessie.”
Mama was in her bedroom standing in her slip and going through her closet for something to put on.
“You here?” she said when I walked in. “The house is so quiet. Where’s the young’uns?”
“Phyllis is in our room and the boys are at Grandpa Mullins’s.”
Mama found a housedress and slipped it on. I sat down on her bed.
“Mama, I got something real important to tell you,” I said. “It’s about Vern”
TWENTY-FIVE
The next evening found me, Phyllis, and Mama sitting quiet and still at the kitchen table, waiting. Mama was drinking coffee. Her eyes were so red and swollen from crying she couldn’t see good. Phyllis’s face was real pale and she felt bad. Nessie lay at my feet, quieter than usual and looking sad. The boys were still at Grandpa Mullins’s house.
We were waiting for the preacher to finish talking to
Vern. They were in the living room. Mama had called him late yesterday because she didn’t know what else to do. Reverend Kermit Altizer was from an oldtimey church in Black Gap. He didn’t know us from Adam’s house cat, but we didn’t have a regular church, so Mama picked him out of the telephone book.
My heart was heavier than it ever had been. Never before had there been so much crying and cussing, screaming and blaming in our house. Vern looked like he went back to childhood and thought his mama was going to whup him, and Phyllis wouldn’t lift her eyes from the floor. She wouldn’t let Nessie out of her sight. But it was Mama who worried me most. She seemed more helpless than ever, and I was disappointed in her. All she could do was whimper and cry. I thought she was cracking up. It was a nightmare, and I felt I was the only one who was awake and seeing things for real.
The temperature had plunged way down to freezing, and the weather man was calling for sleet and snow. It was a gray blanket all over my world.
I will take Phyllis and Nessie and run away, I was thinking. If they don’t do something about Vern. If he gets away with this, he’ll try it again. We can’t live with him anymore.
About that time, Vern and the preacher walked in.
“Well, Mrs. Mullins.” Reverend Altizer stood there smiling a crooked little smile at us. He had his dark Sunday suit and white shirt on, but his hair was greasy and he had long nicotine-stained fingernails with dirt under them.
“Let us have a moment of prayer,” he said sweetly.
We bowed our heads and Reverend Altizer told God we were having a family problem and would he bless us. Then he prayed that we would be forgiving to one another and Christian in thought, word, and deed. Amen.
We looked at him, waiting.
“This is a most unfortunate situation,” he said, still smiling.
Vern shuffled around the table and sat down beside Mama without looking at anybody.
“It appears that you and Mr. Mullins have had some problems in your marriage bed,” he said to Mama.
That smile of his was getting on my nerves. Mama just looked at him with a blank face.
“Sometimes when a married man and woman don’t get along, the children suffer,” he went on. “A man in the prime of his life has certain needs, as you must surely know, Mrs. Mullins. And if the wife does not meet those needs, he must turn elsewhere.”
