The Morning and the Evening

by Joan Williams

  “Bound to,” said another. “He’s bound to’ve looked into her room. They say it’s been several days.”

  “But I mean, do you think he understands?” said the other.

  They were all silent, looking at him. Finally one said, “Come on out on the porch, Jake, and get some fresh air.”

  He got up and followed her. The others came behind. “We could take his mind off it,” said one, “if only we knew whether it was on it or not.” She looked back at the near-empty polka-dotted bread wrapper.

  Miss Hattie McGaha, a thin little birdlike lady, said, “Well, there’s no sense fixing him something to eat,” and she followed the others, fluttering her hands helplessly.

  From the porch he could see others coming, clouds of dust preceding and following the various cars, horses, trucks; some came on foot at a half-run, shielding their faces as vehicles passed them and arriving covered with a gold-colored film. They came through the gate, subdued, and greeted one another on the porch in quiet tones. Jake sat in a rocking chair in the midst of them, staring out at the front yard. Everyone looked at him but no one spoke except two or three men in shirtsleeves who patted him on the back and said, “It’s okay, boy. It’s okay.”

  The ladies stood off together in a little cluster, just not knowing this time what to do at all.

  Whenever there had been a death, he had gone too; now it had come home to him; the people were coming here. Brother Patrick came, wearing a suit even though it was summertime. People stepped aside as he came up and shook Jake’s hand, the way he would have done with anyone. Then he opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but nothing seemed to come, so he closed it and just shook harder. Someone whispered in his ear, “She’s inside, Brother.” Then he let go and went into the house.

  Things moved on through the afternoon like that. People were all over the porch and the yard, in groups now, talking louder, laughing if they wanted. Once someone brought him a glass of iced tea, and once someone brought him a bowl of homemade ice cream. It was then a long car came down the road and pulled around to the side of the house. By the time he finished the ice cream, it had gone slowly away, and a man near him remarked that it was a relief to get that done. Someone touched him on the shoulder to go to the bathroom, and when he passed through the kitchen he saw more cakes and pies on the table than he had ever seen all together before. He sat on the porch again later, thinking of them. The sound of talking went on around and above him, rising and falling like bee hums; he rocked with the rhythm, warm air falling over him and falling away again, the smells of grass and clover so intense, he knew how it would feel to have his face in them.

  For a while all he knew after that was the far-off hum of speech and the sweet smell of clover; and after that, for a long time, all he knew was the look of the black car going away.

  When he woke, he saw a group of people standing at the gate, shaking hands all around. Carrying cakes and pies, everyone left but two men. The one he knew best, Wilroy Sheaffer, said, “He’s awake,” as they came back across the porch.

  The other, Cotter May, said, “You want some supper, Jake?”

  There were still a few people in the yard, and he could hear someone in the house. The day had lessened, and with it the heat. He stretched his legs out and rocked a little bit, and then he nodded. Just as the two men were turning away, Jake got up suddenly and caught Wilroy by the sleeve. He told him and told him about the chickens, pointing at the hen house until finally Wilroy understood. “You hear that, Cotter,” he said. “He knows it’s time to feed them chickens. It’s been done, Jake,” he said. “It’s all done been taken care of. Everything.” He called into the kitchen to his wife, who had been a friend of Jake’s mother, “Mary Margaret! Woman, fix this boy some supper.”

  When his wife came from the kitchen, he said, “Do you know this boy knew it was time to feed them chickens?”

  Mary Margaret beamed at Jake. “Well, now, I declare. Your supper’s on the table, Jake. Table,” she said, raising her voice and her finger to point at the same time.

  Everybody watched him as he went inside. “That boy is near ’bout old as I am,” Cotter said from the swing.

  “Oh well, you know,” Mary Margaret said, in a hushing tone.

  Cotter’s spinster sister, Ruth Edna, who had been closer to Jake and his mother than anyone, had come onto the porch from the kitchen now. She gave Cotter a swat on the head with one of the cardboard fans the undertaker had left. “Now we don’t know how much he does know,” she said.

  Mary Margaret said, “We ought to go in and see about him. We’re the ones to, now.”

  “Well, then we got to get on home,” Wilroy said.

  They all went down the hall, single file. “I hate to think of all we got to do when we get there,” Mary Margaret said.

  The Mays lived together, and Ruth Edna looked over her shoulder at her brother. “Us too,” she said meaningfully.

  “Now I don’t no’m,” Cotter said, grimacing. He rubbed his hand across his back. “This day has been about all I can take. I’m wore out.” He coughed lightly, ignoring the thin set of his sister’s lips.

  Jake was seated at the table carefully picking the lima beans out of his bowl of succotash: popping them into his mouth and sucking his fingers loudly. They all huddled around him making little sounds, offering a spoon and tucking a napkin under his chin. Finally they decided to leave him alone. “Let be what’ll be,” was the way Wilroy put it; and they were all anxious to get home.

  The last stragglers, who had been on a little inspection tour of the house and yard, came around to the back of the house just then and yelled up that they were going. “Wait a minute,” Mary Margaret said. “Did you all bring the chocolate cake or the banana pudding?”

  “Pudding and a little pan of fudge,” came back the answer. “Eloise says leave that.”

  Mary Margaret carried them out onto the porch. “No sense leaving them here for him to get sick on eating them all up at once.”

  She came back into the house and when her somewhat broad expanse had cleared the doorway, Jake saw the two being carried away as the others had been. The little tin pan of fudge caught a last glint of afternoon sun and shone for a second like silver. The succotash was tasteless in his mouth tuned for sweetness. The two women, who had looked around their dead friend’s house to see that everything was all right, came back now, bustling themselves together, ready to go. “Well, boy,” Wilroy said.

  “Well,” Mary Margaret said.

  “There’s milk in the box,” Ruth Edna said. “Milk.”

  “I hate to leave him,” Mary Margaret said. “Dark coming on. You think he knows how to light the lamp?”

  “Sure,” Wilroy said. “He knew about them chickens, didn’t he? Don’t forget to feed the chickens tomorrow now, boy,” he said, louder. “And if you don’t know what to do with that cow, put a rope around her neck and bring her into town. Somebody’ll help you.”

  “He can’t understand all that,” his wife said.

  “Shoot,” Wilroy said, as if somebody were deaf, “that boy can understand more’n we think he can. Come on. We got to get home, woman.”

  The women stood at the table, looking down at the last two cakes. Between them, Jake looked up at them and then down at the cakes. “You reckon we ought to leave one?” Mary Margaret said.

  “Oh, I reckon one,” Miss May said. “It seems so funny giving all those others back like that.”

  “Well, we couldn’t have left them here for him to eat all up at once,” Mary Margaret said.

  “No,” said the other. “And wasn’t there a lot! Wouldn’t she have been proud?”

  “Bless her heart,” Mary Margaret said. “Do you want to leave yours or mine?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Ruth Edna said. They studied the two. “Mine’s not much. Just something I did up as quick as I could when I heard. Fell a little. Didn’t give it good time to cool.”

  Mary Margaret put her head on o
ne side. “Hmn, a little,” she said. “Not your best.” They looked at hers; angel food with a perfect rise, and sworls of white icing lapping each other all over it: all the ladies had exclaimed. “I did put a little into mine,” she said. “I tell you. I could take mine on up to the cake sale at the Baptist church tomorrow.”

  “Well, go ahead,” Ruth Edna said. “Mine’s littler anyway. Here, Jake. Here, honey. Eat this nice cake.” She cut him a piece and put it on the side of his plate. “I’m going to put the rest up here,” she said, and put it in the top part of the cupboard.

  “He’s watching,” Mary Margaret said.

  “Well,” Miss May said, hesitantly. “Oh come on, they’re blowing the horn.”

  Mary Margaret took her cake and followed her out of the room; then she suddenly came running back in and said, “Bye-bye, Jake, honey. Bye-bye. You come uptown soon now, you hear.”

  It was going to be evening. There was quiet in the chicken yard and quiet out over the garden. Beyond it, dark had come into the gullies, and a row of little wild persimmon trees stood out black on the horizon. He could see all the way across to them from where he sat in the kitchen, and two birds, black as ravens against the red-and-gold sky, hovered over them an instant, then settled out of sight. In the silence of outdoors, he heard a walnut fall from the old tree in the side yard and break open against the hard ground. And in the silence of the house he heard only the clock in the bedroom and the sound of his own breathing. He was alone and he knew that.

  Presently he ate the cake. His fingers dug into and out of the dark sticky chocolate, and he sucked them loudly, glad of his own noise. He had no hunger for more when he finished the piece and did not move from the table. He could feel that beyond him the house was dark, knew that, sitting in the doorway, he was watching the last of daylight. Occasionally, from a good distance away, he would catch the sound of a car horn. He thought of the dog and wished that it had not left him. He remembered the whole afternoon and was glad of the noise and the people as they had moved about him. He wished they had not gone away.

  When the kitchen had grown dark, he moved his chair out onto the old lean-to porch where there was still light enough to see a little ahead of himself. His hands hung down empty and still between his knees, and he wondered if it was time for him to go to bed.

  A flashlight suddenly shone on and off at the bottom of the steps like a giant mosquito. Then a voice said through the dark, “It’s Jurldeane, Mister Jake.” He heard her approach, and presently she was right by him and had turned the flashlight on underneath her chin. “See,” she said. “Jurldeane. Your momma’s wash girl.”

  She flashed the light around inside the kitchen. He watched it bounce ball-like from one wall to another; then it lit on the lamp. “Come on inside, Mister Jake, and let’s get us some light,” she said. He followed her and stood quietly while she lit it. In the dark he could smell on her clothes Clorox and a clean starchy smell; when she moved he smelled her body, warm with the effort of her walk; then, with the sudden yellow light making dark hollows in her face as she bent over to turn up the wick, he smelled kerosene. “You eat supper, I see,” she said, looking down at his used dishes. He followed her glance and looked down at them too. Then when she raised her eyes, he raised his and they looked at each other across the lamplight. “I knew they wouldn’t be here now,” she said. Her full bottom lip, opening, was shiny with snuff. “Here you are. Here I am. Where are they?” she said. “Leaving you all alone the first night they took her away.” Her mouth closed with a clamp, and she sat down heavily in the rickety kitchen chair. “Po’ thing,” she said, watching his face as he sat down opposite. Suddenly she leaned out and brought his plate across the table toward her. “What’s this? Choc’late cake? Whose, you reckon?” She licked her finger, then slid it across the plate where the cake had been and licked it again. “Not Miss Mary Margaret’s.” She considered, running her tongue all around her lips. “Don’t recognize that,” she said, finally. “Is they mo’?” she said.

  He followed her arm as it motioned the plate about. “Mo’?” she said.

  The plate rested on the table again and she tapped it with a large forefinger. “Cake?” He looked up and met the eyes that asked him something. The woman looked back at him for some seconds, her head cocked to one side. “Hmm-um,” she said, finally. “Po’ thing,” and put her hands on the table and pushed herself up. She looked behind the old curtain covering the shelves on one side of the room and then crossed over to the cupboard and opened that. She turned grinning at him, the cake plate in her hand. “Here it is,” she said, coming back to the table. “We going to have us some cake eatin’ now, Mister Jake. It going to be me and you.” She pushed his plate back to him and set one down in front of herself. She cut two large pieces and placed one on each plate; then she broke off a piece of hers with her fingers and ate it. Her tongue curled around each fingertip afterward, licking it. Jake watched, and when she said, “Eat that cake up,” he began to eat. She smiled at him when he licked his fingers, and he opened his mouth wide showing his teeth. Once she stopped chewing and said, “Huh, oleo,” and then began to chew again. Jake finished first, and she cut him a thin sliver to eat on while she finished. He did not understand at first, and the woman said again, “Go ’head.” He ate, and when they had both finished, she put slices on their plates again. She got up once and went into the next room; he sat without chewing, thinking she had gone; then she reappeared, a pitcher of milk in her hand, and poured them glasses full. They sat back in their chairs, alternately eating and licking and drinking, with no other light in the house, and no other sound save that of the clock. Her face was shining and dark in the pale light, and he did not once take his eyes from it. Whenever she looked at him, she smiled or refilled his glass or his plate. She caught a lightning bug in her hand, then released it for him to see; they watched it flicker away into the dark of the house beyond them. “No noise. No light. Nuthin’,” Jurldeane said. She was quiet a moment, listening. Jake stopped chewing, watching her. “I use to pass by on the road upside this house some evenin’s,” she said. He watched as a sweat bead slid from her forehead down the side of her face, watched as she leaned over and lowered the wick of the lamp. “And we would wonder what goes on inside that house when night comes. What does he do. It always so quiet, so still like. Only sometime we see your momma passing up and down before the light, going from one room to another. Never did see you, Mister Jake. We would wonder—do he go to bed soon as dark comes, or do he set around and make some kind of talk with his momma so she have some company?” She was quiet a moment, thinking back; then she looked up at him, her eyes wide and wet. “Now I know,” she said. “Now I know.”

  She sat back, her arms crossed beneath her breasts. “We all got some kind of cross to bear,” she said. “Your momma had hers. But what I don’t see, though the Lord has His ways, is who else going to take it up now.”

  By the low light of the lamp her eyes looked deep in their bright, white sockets. He watched them, listening to the soft singsong of her voice. And suddenly she was saying, “Oh Lord, hush now. Hush, Lamb of God.”

  She came around the table and pressed his head against her skirt. Once again, and for the last time, he had the warm body smell of a woman’s lap for his head.

  She held him until he was spent, murmuring, “Po’ thing, po’ old man child,” and finally lifted his head and said, “Now blow your nose.” And he took the paper napkin she handed him and tried to do it.

  “I don’t know what you going to do, Mister Jake, I declare to my soul I don’t.” She stood looking down into the lamp as if it might hold an answer. Then she looked at him and said, “You know how to light this thing? Turn it down and blow it out?” He looked at her eagerly, silently, his mouth hung open. “You don’t any more know what I’m talking ’bout than the cat flies,” she said. “Here.” From the curtained shelves she took a box of old candle ends, lit one and let it drip into a saucer. Then she secured the candle
in the hot tallow and put it on the table before him. “You know how to blow that out?” she said. He leaned forward and did it with a little puff of spit. “Now I’m going to light it again,” she said, “and when you get into bed, you be sure and blow it out, you hear? Can you nod your head if you hear?” He did that.

  “I got to go now,” she said. “It’s on about nine o’clock.” She collected the dishes from the table and rinsed them in a bucket of water sitting in the sink, then laid them on the drainboard. “Eat from these tomorrow,” she said. She looked back at him, feeling that his eyes had never left her.

  “I declare to my soul I don’t,” she said. She picked up her flashlight and tested it. His eyes blinked with the on-and-off of the light. Then she came across the room and began turning down the wick bit by bit. But suddenly she stopped when it was almost out. They were still, looking at each other, their faces shadowed with the wick’s final fluttering. “I don’t want to,” she said, “but I got to.” Then she blew out the wick, and they were alone by the thin light of the candle.

  He knew that now she was going.

  She stood in the doorway and looked back at him. “Get into bed now,” she said. “Blow out that candle.”

  He made no movement, no sign. His arms lay along the table encircling the empty plate, his hands were still. Suddenly the leg bent up under his chair gave an involuntary jerk and straightened out before him with a scrape of his heel. He jumped and ran his thumb under his overall strap, pulling it back up on his shoulder. He stared straight ahead of himself for a while. Then he put his fingers in his plate and slowly began to eat again.

  “Something will happen,” she said, quietly. “Something will happen, Mister Jake.” She stood hesitantly, weighing the flashlight in her hand. “And I tell you,” she said, “I will be over myself to see to yo’ wash.”

  She looked once over her shoulder at the dark, at the direction in which she would go. The sky was lightened a moment by heat and she saw off as far as the persimmon trees. There was no sound in all of the countryside and then she heard him. The sound evoked a rush of her own tears, and she gasped to keep them back for now. She almost went, but then she took one more look at the thin, straightened legs in their dirty, creased overalls, and at the bent shoulders in the once starched shirt so carefully turned at the collar, and she came back into the room. She stood just behind him—in all instinct yearning to touch him again. But this time she did not. She bent low toward his back and whispered in a voice just before sobbing, “It ain’t right. I know that. The Lord knows it too. And if I didn’t know folks, Mister Jake, I’d stay. I would.”