Sweeping Up Glass

by Carolyn Wall

  I think, Better to have seen you Saturday night.

  I never liked Henry French. Now I know he’s no more than pond scum.

  I scurry outside. Climb into my truck, so nervous that at first I can’t start it. Drive away. The man behind the books will be easily bribed to tell French everything. In the end, these are hard times for us all.

  50

  I wonder if I’ve beat Henry French back to town. I open the grocery, set change in the till, and glance around to see if there’s any straightening to be done. But I’m accustomed to doing this at the end of each day, and things are in order. And then they aren’t.

  I have to look twice, and then again, walk over to the counter, lifting and lining up, and then looking again.

  The bolt of red cloth is gone.

  I’m growing accustomed to being afraid, to glancing into the dark corners of the store, under counters and my bed and in the kitchen alcove, although I’m not sure what I’m looking for. In the end, the bolt of cloth is still gone.

  I keep the grocery open for the rest of the day, then run some errands and pick up the boy at Dooby’s. Will’m balances the cub’s box on his knees. Carrying it with him is the only way he can work and keep the pup constantly fed. The cub has taken an intense liking to curling up behind the boy’s ear.

  “I’m fixing to name him,” Will’m says. “I didn’t before because I wasn’t sure …”

  “Wasn’t sure what?”

  “That he’d stay.”

  Words well put. We head home. But when I turn in the driveway I can tell more things are wrong than just missing cloth. A body can’t live forty years under one roof without knowing when the house has been changed. I get out of the truck. Whoever was here has left the back door open, and from the porch we see the mess of broken dishes, poured-out salt and bacon fat, the knives and forks slung around, and I know French called Phelps from the telephone office. It’s a wonder Phelps waited until I was gone. It will take me days to clean up what probably took him ten minutes to do. And when I step through the rubbish to the grocery where sacks of flour and sugar are slashed and every bin has been emptied on the floor, I know it’s time to tell the boy some things.

  First, though, I check the cash box in the drawer—six ones, a five, eighty cents in change, exactly what should be. With a razor blade I set Will’m to scraping syrup from the oven door, inside and out, so we can at least build a fire. Then I sit on the floor, still in cape and hat, pinching spilled salt into one cup and ground coffee into another.

  “That’s the best I can do,” he says after a while. His hands are a globby mess. “I’ll wash up and then throw in some kindling. It’s freezing in here, and I reckon we’re just going to smell like a candy factory for a while.”

  I nod. “Put in a small log, boy, we’re going to be warm.” On the porch are sacks I’ve made from unbleached muslin. I’ll measure flour and sugar into them, see what all I can save.

  But first I must tell Will’m what’s happened. I also tell him about how I hid in Pap’s wagon, all those years back, and what I heard.

  “You say Mr. French was nice to you today?”

  “Right there in the office he shook my hand.”

  “Maybe Mrs. Phelps was mixed up. Maybe all these Cott’ners do is hunt rabbits.”

  “And wolves. Will’m, with all the losses you’ve suffered, the things I’ve denied you, the hundreds of bowls of thin oats you’ve eaten—how is it you can still think the best of folks?”

  He turns away and begins sweeping up glass.

  “Look around you, Will’m! There’s bad in this world! Now give me the broom, and I’ll do this while you get into your nightshirt. In the morning we’ll start on the store. See what we can salvage.”

  51

  And, before sunup, we do. I heap the worst-dented cans in a crate—three for a nickel. The sacked-up flour and sugar look festive in bags tied with string. Customers will wonder what Harker’s Grocery is coming to. I have scrubbed most of the grocery floor, and I’m ready to pour myself a cup of coffee when I look out and see Junk coming up the road, carrying a pair of shovels. The bedroom’s still a mess, and we haven’t done much with the kitchen larder. I pull on my cape, wrap a scarf around my head, and meet Junk in the driveway.

  “I guess I’m ready, Miss Livvy,” he says, looking anything but ready to dig up the dead. “You want to show me first where we’re goin’ to put him?”

  I lead the way up the hill, the day bitter cold but no different from any other. The sky is gunmetal gray, and our breath freezes on the air. I up the pace because there’s already pain where my face is exposed. I adjust the scarf. Junk’s clearly wearing two pairs of trousers, and a thick Army coat with holes in the elbows. Ear flaps hang down from his knitted cap, and his lips are dry and cracked.

  I choose a spot not far from Saul’s, and Junk stabs it with the spade.

  “You don’t think we oughta wait till spring, when the ground ain’t froze?”

  I’ve got to admit, when I saw him coming up the drive, back there, I considered it. But no, I want it done and over, and we might as well. I don’t think Phelps’ men will come again right away. The boy should be safe in the store, today.

  “I don’t believe it’ll be bad, Junk. Not under the snow—it’s shady here, even in winter. These cedars—”

  He nods, and we begin to dig. It’s damned hard work. Finally, when the sun is high and he drops into the hole and measures it with six of his big steps, we declare it done. We take our shovels and go down to the house. I’m grateful for the chance to look in on Will’m, and one glance tells me he’s cleaned up the larder.

  Now he’s happy to sit at the table and spoon up soup with Junk and me. I put a whole loaf of bread out and watch Junk break several thick slices into his bowl. Then Love Alice looks in at the back door, and I fetch another bowl. We’re good company, the four of us. I wish I’d made a custard from yesterday’s eggs because I know how Junk loves them. But Love Alice has brought a tin of baking powder biscuits, and I send Will’m to the grocery to fetch jam. I make a note in my head that I owe the register another eight cents.

  When we are done, Will’m goes back to the store. I tell him, if he sees Phelps drive up, or anyone he doesn’t know, he’s to lock the front door and yell out the back.

  “Any of those Phelpses ever have kids?” Will’m asks.

  “No. But Alton and James Arnold had a little brother—Booger.”

  “Booger?” Will’m says.

  “He was one sad little boy. Four steps behind on the day he was born.”

  “Booger,” Will’m says again. “What happened to him?”

  “He died a long time ago. They buried him in the hard ground.”

  “Why’d you say it like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “The hard ground. You said it funny.”

  I don’t need him to tell me. That’s how Alton said it—or maybe James Arnold, when Pap asked if he could help with the burying.

  “Let’s get back to work,” I tell Will’m.

  Out in the yard, Junk says we need a pickax for this job. He and Love Alice and I troop to the shed. Love Alice, with her thin bones and lack of fat, shivers under her thick layers of wool. Junk digs around for an ax. “Miss Livvy?”

  There’s a knot in my stomach, and I wonder, now, if I should have waited, and what is this need for so much housekeeping. This strange business with the Phelpses is what I want to erase. On the other hand, if I hold off, Junk might have had to dig two graves, or three, instead of one. He might yet dig more. The whites of Junk’s eyes are uncommonly large, thick lips puffing circles of anxious breath.

  “What time of year Miss Ida bury him?” Junk asks.

  “Winter.”

  “Then he gon’ be on the south side, all right. Which way you think she laid him, crosswise or long?”

  I have no idea.

  Junk looks at Ida, wrapped in her blanket. “I reckon she won’t tell us, neither.”
<
br />   “Probably not.” Beneath the blanket, I hope Ida’s wearing boots. In the last week or so, she’s lost most of her hair. Great hanks of it lay on her pillow in the mornings, and what’s left is thread-limp and in need of washing. Her pipe’s clamped in her teeth, and a curl of smoke rises from it.

  “We’ll just dig, and see what we find,” I say.

  Junk nods, sets the edge of the shovel on the crusty snow, and applies his foot. I dig, too. For more than an hour, we turn up dirt, and before long there are two great earthen piles. Junk and I are in a hole to our waists. Love Alice makes tea in my kitchen and brings us a cup. We drink it fast because our feet are freezing, but the warmth feels good in our bellies. Ida, refusing hers, produces a match, relights her pipe, and sets the tobacco blazing. She draws on it mightily, and a blue wreath circles her head.

  We begin again. My back has long since passed merely aching, and my arms refuse to lift one more shovelful. Junk, heaving dirt up and over the edge of the hole, makes the noise of a great bull elephant while Love Alice, in her woolly layers, squats on the rim.

  I survey the breadth and width that we’ve dug. “Junk?”

  “Yes’m?”

  “She said nobody came to his burying.”

  “Yes’m,” he says softly.

  “So she must have dug the grave by herself. But it was winter—she couldn’t have dug any deeper than this.”

  “No’m.”

  “He—isn’t here.”

  “Seems that’s true.”

  “She didn’t dig here at all. Then where is he?” I look at Love Alice, and on past her to Ida. In that instant, sparks fly from her pipe, and the bottom of her blanket is wrapped in smoke. Flames race around the binding, find the hem of her nightgown, make a quick neat circle above her boots. Before I can climb out of the hole, the fire’s rushed up her gown and ignited her hair. Ida never even opens her mouth.

  Then Junk’s beside me—Love Alice is screaming. I knock Ida to the ground. Junk scoops handfuls of snow on her. I rip away what’s left of the gown, and we roll her, naked as the day she was born, along the thin crust of snow. She’s so light, she doesn’t even break through.

  I struggle out of my cape and wrap her in it, Junk lifting her as if she weighs nothing, and we run, me shouting for Will’m to bring the truck keys. It takes forever for the engine to turn over. Against the far door, Love Alice cradles Ida who seems to be sleeping. Junk climbs in back. My belly wrenches as I back down the driveway—leaving Will’m alone. He stands by the barn. Our eyes meet, and then he turns and hurries inside. I pray to God he locks himself in.

  It’s only a mile to Doc Pritchett’s. I pull right up to the porch steps, and by the time I get out and come around, Love Alice has run inside to fetch Doc, and Junk is lifting Ida from the truck.

  No one says a word, me holding the door, Junk carrying Ida past a few curious folks who are waiting. In Doc’s examining room, he lays her on the table. Doc peels back the wool cape, studies the burns, lifts Ida’s eyelids, looks in her mouth, puts his stethoscope to her chest.

  “Well,” he says at last. “How’d this happen?”

  “Her pipe—” I tell him.

  “Poor old Ida.”

  “Yessir,” says Junk. “She went up like kindling.”

  Love Alice stands with her hands over her mouth.

  Doc fetches a wash basin and soap. “I’ll clean these up while she’s out,” he says. “Olivia, you-all go sit in my front room. I’ll call you when I see how bad she is and get these burns dressed. Go on, now.”

  Junk and Love Alice go, but I can’t. I drop onto a stool, as numb as if I’d frozen in that hole. When Doc has pulled off her boots and is cleaning the black patches on her legs, I say, “I should’ve known it would happen, her smoking that pipe. It’s a wonder she didn’t burn up in her bed.”

  “It was one of her last pleasures, Olivia. She would’ve raised holy hell if you’d taken it away from her. You-all wouldn’t have been able to live with her.”

  “Couldn’t hardly live with her anyway.”

  “Well, this is probably going to send her ’round the bend. She won’t be able to fend for herself.”

  “What am I going to do? I can’t watch her every minute.”

  With tweezers Doc works at the bits of cotton that have stuck to her knees. He applies salve. “Well, somebody’s got to.”

  I close my eyes.

  “Leave her here tonight, Olivia. I’ll keep her on laudanum, watch her close. By tomorrow we’ll know what’s what. I heard you and Junk were digging up there by the outhouse.”

  “Word sure travels fast.”

  “When did it not?” he says. “You and the boy get some rest tonight.” He applies ointment to Ida’s forehead in a way that reminds me of myself, back in the hospital, my face rearranged.

  But Doc is saying, “Her hair’s gone, and her eyelashes, too.”

  “Doc?” I know I am talking, but my voice sounds far away. I wonder if the cold has done something to my ears. Or my tongue. “We were moving Pap today. I was putting him on the hill next to Saul, but when we dug down—there wasn’t anything there. Not a box nor a shard of bone. Do you—do you know where she put him?”

  He sighs heavily. “I reckon that’s something you’d have to ask Ida.”

  “But you said—even if she wakes up, she won’t have her wits about her.”

  “Might not,” he says. “This has been a long time coming.” “But—if she doesn’t come around, how will I ever know?” “Maybe you won’t,” he says. “Come by in the morning, and see how she’s doing.”

  52

  Will’m washes two plates, two forks, and his milk glass. Neither of us felt like eating, and although he drank the precious milk, I wound up throwing supper to the goats.

  “We didn’t accomplish one thing today,” I say, “except for digging a couple of big holes out there—and Ida setting herself on fire.”

  Will’m shakes his head. “Know what?”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t hear any shots today.”

  A shudder passes through me. Clearly, Phelps has had other things on his mind.

  “If we told Wing about Phelps,” Will’m says, hanging up the dish towel, “he’d help us.”

  “Phelps and his buddies are paying customers of Wing’s. I can’t fault him for renting them rooms.”

  “But Wing’s pretty smart about stuff like that, and he wouldn’t tell anybody—”

  I shake my head. “Wish I’d asked Miz Phelps what all those Cott’ners do, what those trials mean. But telling Wing anything would put him in harm’s way, too.”

  As if he has heard us, Wing’s station wagon pulls in the driveway. Will’m lets him in. I’m surprised that he’s come. His glasses fog over with sudden warmth. “Will’m,” he says. He nods in my direction. “Junk told me about Ida. How is she?”

  “Not good,” I say.

  Wing watches Will’m take up the cub. Will’m unbuttons his shirt and tucks the cub in. The purring is loud enough to be heard in the next room.

  “I’ll be damned,” Wing says, grinning at Will’m. He hasn’t yet looked at me. “So what’s Doc saying?”

  “The burns aren’t as bad as they might have been,” I tell him. “The worst is—”

  Then he turns to me. His glasses have slid to the end of his nose and he studies me over the top of them. When I don’t answer, he says, “Of all the damn accidents.”

  An accident. This is something I have not wanted to think about. Whether it was or not, the timing was extraordinary, for my next words to Ida would have been, Where the hell have you put my pap?

  Wing puts out a hand and strokes the cub. “Olivia—I’d be glad to help. If there’s something I can do.”

  I shake my head. The man has gumption.

  “Listen, you and the boy ought to come down to the hotel tonight. You’d be closer to Doc’s place, each have your own room. There’s the telephone, and I could drive you up to Doc’s quick
if the need arose.”

  Will’m’s eyes grow round.

  “We couldn’t—” I say.

  “Double shocks today, of course you could. Besides, you can use the rest.”

  So Junk has told him about the empty grave.

  Wing pulls out a chair and sits down, splays his legs—seems at home, and I wonder how, after our last conversation.

  Rest. At some point, I got past needing relief from Ida, and my body just kept on. Eventually, I forgot how hard it all was. But other things have worn me down, too. “Pauline was here.”

  After a minute, Wing says, “I’d like to have seen her.”

  I fetch the broom from the porch and sweep around his feet like I’ve just given him a haircut or something. “She came for the boy. I wouldn’t let her take him.”

  “Well, good for you.” I think he wants to say more, I can feel it hanging in the air. “Please come to the hotel, Olivia.”

  “Gran—”

  “You’ve got to catch the bus in the morning—if your cold is better. Which reminds me, I’ve got to make you a mustard plaster. You can’t leave the cub, and tomorrow’s Colored Day. Will’m, don’t forget to write down that Love Alice has credit—”

  “I already did.” Will’m is holding the cub and his shirt with one hand, pouring tinned milk in a pan with the other. But his eyes are on me.

  “There’s so much to be done—the hole to fill in. I’m too tired to sort all this out tonight, Wing.”

  “Then come and let me take care of you both. There’s no harm in one night.”

  The greater part of me wants him to go. I should be putting thought into Phelps’ warning. But with Wing sitting in my kitchen, running his thumb over a crack in my tabletop, the whole idea of a threat slips away. I have no idea what I feel about Wing. One minute I’m one thing, the next something else. I shake my head.

  “Well then,” he says, getting up. “You want me to stop by Doc’s, check on Ida?”

  “I’ll go down first thing in the morning.”

  He nods. “If you need anything. Will’m, Olivia.”