Valley So Low

by Patrice Wayne

  Harry sprawled out before the fire, his suit jacket hung on the back of a kitchen chair. Any other time she’d fuss about his good shirt on the floor but Maude let it slide for now. George lay on the ancient sofa, half-eyed and curled into a ball. From the way the little boy clutched his stomach, she figured he must have a bellyache and steeled herself for the inevitable howling. Just as she sat up to see about the kid, George made a gurgling noise she knew too well. His expression shifted from sleepy to sick, and before she could cross the room he puked. The sound of the splatter turned her stomach but Maude headed for George.

  Before she reached him, Harry did. He stripped off his shirt on the way and in his A-shirt, he picked up George. The boy clung to him, crying and fretful, mumbling about his belly. “Aw, you just ate too much, buddy,” Harry said. “Let’s get you to the kitchen and washed up. Maudie, if you’ll go fetch his nightclothes, I’ll get him clean.”

  She thought she should protest so she did. “I can do it, Harry.”

  He held up one hand. “No, honey, you can’t. You don’t want to get his spew on your best dress.” Maude hadn’t thought or she wouldn’t have offered. “I’ll go change,” she said, with a deep sigh. “Then I’ll wipe up in here.”

  “I’ll get it, too,” Harry said. “I’ll do it soon as I get the little man down for the night. Whyn’t you just go on to bed, honey? I know you’re worn to a frazzle.”

  Maude was, but so was Harry. “I am,” she admitted. “But you’re tired too. I ought to take care of George. Do you think he’ll sick up again?”

  Harry’s eyes met hers and he smiled a little. “No, he just ate too much, that’s all. He gnawed his way ‘round two pieces of pie. I think I can find a peppermint candy stick to settle his belly. Go on, Maudie. I’ll be up in a bit.”

  Too tired to argue, she nodded. “All right, Harry. Thanks.”

  Any other time Maude would’ve tended her son but her weariness crept over her with such heaviness, she undressed in the dark, hung her dress up, and fell into bed. When she woke, she noticed Harry fumbling with his clothes and thought he was about to retire. “Is George all right?” she asked. “And are you coming to bed?”

  Even in the milk light she noticed his frown. “Honey, its mornin’,” Harry said. “I’m gettin’ dressed to do chores but I meant to let you sleep.”

  Morning meant she’d slept all night, something she’d seldom done since George was born. “What about my little man?” she asked.

  “He’s fine,” Harry said. “Never puked again and he’s been sleepin’ too. Lay back down, Maudie, if you want. It’s early yet.”

  “I ought to make the coffee and fix breakfast,” she said. Harry leaned over the bed and kissed her, soft and gentle. “You can do it later, honey,” he told her. “There’s no hurry. I know you’re whipped out. Go ahead, rest awhile longer.”

  She shouldn’t, Maude thought, but she did. She rose mid-morning, later than she ever remembered sleeping unless she happened to be down sick, and checked George’s room. He wasn’t there, but before she descended the stairs she heard his laughter. Harry’s so good with him. A warm rush of affection for Harry poured over her and for a moment Maude was almost happy. Then she recalled the multiple funerals, her mother’s death, and the uncertainty of the future. By the time she found her way into the kitchen, her mood darkened. She found them washing up their breakfast dishes with merriment and mess. For a moment Maude hung back, feeling as left out as a schoolgirl not asked to join in jumping rope, but Harry glanced up with a grin. “Good morning, Maudie,” he said. “I’ve kept the coffee on the stove for you if you want some.”

  “Thanks.” She needed something to get going. Despite all her hours of sleep, Maude remained tired. Her first sip of the strong brew almost gagged her—Harry’d used more coffee than she would and the result tasted bitter. Maude bit her tongue, though, and added more sugar. When he offered to fry an egg for her breakfast, she refused. “I don’t have much of an appetite,” she said. “I’ll eat at dinnertime, although I don’t know what I’ll cook.”

  “I shot two squirrels this morning,” Harry told her. “I cleaned ‘em and they’re ready to cook when you are.”

  Maude nodded. There should be enough sweet potatoes left to bake a few to go with the squirrel. She’d cut them into pieces the way she did chicken, and bread them with a mixture of flour and cornmeal. “That’ll do,” she told him. Supper she’d have to figure out on her own.

  George climbed onto her lap and she cuddled him. “Your belly better?” she asked. The boy shook his head. “And you ate breakfast.”

  “Uh-huh.” A smear of butter on his lip and brownish crumbs around his mouth raised her suspicions. “What’d Pop feed you?” Maude asked in a voice sharp enough George’s grin faltered. “Sugar bread?”

  “Soo-gar,” George said and rubbed his stomach. Maude drew breath and before she could say a word, Harry plucked the boy from her lap. “Why don’t you go play in the front room?” he said. “Start making a barn with those blocks and I’ll come help you in a bit. Stay away from the fire, though, it’s hot.”

  She waited until the boy headed into the other part of the house before Maude turned to Harry. “Why’d you give him something like that after he got sick?” she asked, cross. The sugary treat, a poor man’s dessert, wasn’t what she thought an upset stomach needed. “He’d been better off with a cold biscuit and some milk. There’s biscuits left from yesterday in the brown crockery bowl, under the dish towel.”

  Harry heaved a sigh. “He wanted it, Maudie, and I didn’t see the harm. And he didn’t puke. It bothered him you were still in bed. I think it scared him—he’s used to you being up at the crack of dawn. Things have been hard and he don’t understand. I don’t doubt he ate too much yesterday, but part of what had his guts roiled up is everything changed and he’s not caught up yet.”

  His answer made sense but she couldn’t stifle an urge to be cantankerous. My mean bone is showing today. “George ought not eat something so sweet first thing in the morning after he’s been sick,” she said. “Brown sugar’s awful rich. You’re supposed to use white sugar for sugar bread.” Her voice sounded resentful and harsh.

  Harry’s expression darkened. “I do the best I can, Maude,” he told her. “I know there’s been a lot of death and gloom ‘round here. It wears on me same as it wears on you. But we can’t start takin’ it out on each other. If we do, we’ll just cause more hurt.”

  Although his tone remained level, his words hit home. The last thing she wanted was to deliver pain, especially not to Harry. Tears burned in the corners of her eyes and Maude dashed them away. “I didn’t mean to be sharp,” she said. “I’m still just so tired, Harry, and I’m sorry.”

  “You’d feel better if you’d eat something,” he said. “C’mere.” He extended her his hands and she grasped them. He pulled her from the chair and to her feet. “Let me hold you, honey.”

  His arms provided sanctuary and she entered them with need. Harry cradled her against him as Maude drew strength from his embrace. His nearness, his familiar scent, his caring calmed her and leached some of the darkness out of her mood for now. In this moment the love he wrapped around her tasted pure as new fallen snow. Nothing sexual touched it and she savored the sweetness. Emotions on edge, body weary, soul tired, Maude needed what Harry gave. They stood together for a long time and by the time he released her, her mood soared lighter, freer. She ate two cold biscuits smeared with Granny’s crab apple jelly, drank another cup of coffee, and at Harry’s insistence Maude watched George play.

  After their midday dinner of fried squirrels, roasted sweet ‘taters, and the last of a stray apple pie Maude found, the three settled in for a quiet afternoon. Maude picked up her never-empty mending basket and began patching a pair of Harry’s overalls. George ran out of steam and Harry laid him on the sofa for a nap, covered with a patchwork quilt. Sleet pecked the windows with chill insistence as Harry rubbed grease into his worn brogans in an effort to
keep out the damp. He set the shoes in front of the fire to dry and sprawled out in a chair, half dozing. The steady work of her hands and the rhythm of the needle as she sewed brought a familiar sense of purpose. Focused on the task, Maude kept her mind quiet but when she finished the patch, she reached for another garment and then put it down.

  Restless, she rose and went into the kitchen. Supper loomed ahead but she decided she could fry a pork chop each from the just-killed hog. She could finish out the meal with a pan of cornbread and maybe some of the corn she’d put up last summer. Maude reached for her shawl on the peg near the back door and wrapped it around her shoulders. Despite the weather she stepped outside and inhaled the frigid, fresh air. Maude gazed up into the sky, the ice pellets stinging against her cheeks. Heavy gray clouds scudded above the treetops and moved with speed. The agitated churning in the heavens brought back some of her earlier unease, and the bits of sleet sticking to her shawl reminded her of frozen tears. Tears evoked her grief and although she’d managed not to cry during the graveside funerals the day before, Maude wept now for the dead—the four they laid to rest up the hill, her mother, Granpa, and Jamie.

  Fear snaked out of the silence and seized her heart. Maude counted them, seven, and shuddered. As a sharp wind rattled the bare, icy limbs of the trees, she imagined death laughing with glee. From what Harry’d said, the flu carried off many more, among them people she must know, some she knew as friends. On the heels of the world war with what some already vowed took away too many of a single generation, so much dying seemed unbearable. Back before America joined the war effort, Jamie’d taken Maude to church to hear Brother Fanning preach about the end-times at Hickory Church. He’d frightened her with his talk of devils rising from the pits of hell to torture the living and prophecies about how hard the end days would be on those unworthy to be snatched into heaven and saved. Jamie half believed the preacher but at home, Granpa—who hadn’t gone—scoffed at the talk. “If you’d lived as long as me and heard them shout from the pulpit about the end of the world,” he’d said, “you’d not believe a word of it. They said the same around the time of the Civil War and when times got hard in the nineties. My own grandfather told me doomsday prophets preached end-times after the Revolutionary War too. ‘Sides, the Bible says plain no man will know the day or hour so I wouldn’t worry, Maude.”

  And she hadn’t, not then, but now Maude wondered if she should. Then she admitted she did worry. Losing either Harry or George frightened her beyond anything she could imagine. Lost in thought, and her mind cobwebbed with anxious shadows, Maude lingered until she noticed how dark the afternoon had become. She trembled with cold, her shawl no match for the harsh wind cutting through the trees and up from the creek, and realized she should’ve gone in much sooner. Maude dashed for the house and burst through the kitchen door in a hurry. She hung her shawl and rushed through the middle room to the front of the house. George, snug and toasty, still slept, a small smile playing around his lips. A creak from the stairs alerted her to Harry’s presence moments before he descended the last.

  “I wondered where you’d gone,” he said. “I thought maybe you’d gone upstairs to sleep.”

  Maude shook her head. She must have an odd expression because Harry frowned and said, “You’re shakin’ like a leaf. Where were you?” Before she could reply, he grasped her hands in his. “Your fingers are like ice.”

  “I went outside,” she replied, realizing how lame it sounded. “It’s cold.”

  “I know,” he said. “You could’ve used the chamber pot, Maudie.”

  She hadn’t been to the outhouse but she let him think so. Easier than explaining she’d been held captive by her darkest thoughts. Instead, Maude let Harry lead her to a chair near the fire where she warmed up. He hovered with a frown crease in his forehead, but after a few minutes he relaxed. “You look better now,” he said with apparent relief. “You were white as snow when I came downstairs. I worried a little.”

  “I’m good,” she assured him. He was so dear and sweet. “I’m glad,” Harry told her. “I wanted to talk to you about Christmas for the little one.”

  “Christmas?” He nodded. “It’s just a few weeks off,” Harry said. “’Course we’ll decorate the house up. I’ve had my eye on a good, straight cedar tree all summer long and I know where some mistletoe can be found too. I’ve been carving a wooden horse for George, but I thought maybe Santy Claus might fetch him some candy and maybe a little drum or something from town. I figure to go one more time before Christmas.”

  “That sounds fine to me,” Maude said. She hadn’t given any thought to the holiday but now she would. If she remembered right, there were still some nice lengths of linsey-woolsey material in Granny’s old room. She could make a shirt for Harry, a new gown for George. “Maybe you could get a few oranges too, Harry.”

  “Sure,” he said. “I could. Our hams won’t be ready for Christmas dinner but I’ll figure something. If nothing else, maybe you’d make your chicken and dumplings. It’s always tasty.”

  Maude thought about the things she might make and bake. “I’ve got a little egg money saved back,” she told him. “Can I make a little list for when you go?”

  “Yeah, I’d be glad to fetch anything you want,” Harry said. He caught her and held her. “All I’ll ask in return is a kiss.”

  A light-hearted joy kindled within Maude. “There’s not a pinch of mistletoe around,” she said, coy. “Don’t need it,” Harry told her as he kissed her. His mouth touched hers and banished every dark thing back to the farthest corners of her soul. Harry’s lips infused hers with a slow fire that crept through her blood with delicious power. Over the past few days, they’d been preoccupied and too worn out to spoon but now Maude’s desire awakened with his kiss.

  Harry didn’t hurry. He kissed her slow and long as if time didn’t matter and she guessed it didn’t, not now. Heat moved through her body, thick and sweet as red clover honey, and Harry’s hands on her waist anchored her to the moment. When he undid the buttons on her dress, Maude shed the dress swifter than a snake’s skin. His fingers traced the fine veins on her breasts with wonder and awe, but when Harry reached her nipples he fingered each one in turn until they rose, hard and proud. Her spine tingled in response and a yawning need stretched between them. His cock came alive within his overalls. Maude felt it taut against her thigh as he stroked her body into frenzied fever. She gave over to pleasure and let everything else in her mind slide far away.

  They didn’t bother to head upstairs and Maude never worried about George waking. Instead, Harry grasped her around the waist and maneuvered her to the oldest, bottom sprung chair. He hiked her dress above her thighs and she scooted back, legs open wide for his entry. Harry dived in and Maude welcomed him, her body willing and ready. As his shaft filled her space, she thought she might burst with the extreme pleasure. His warm cock expanded and as it rubbed against the walls of her vagina, Maude put a fist in her mouth and bit to contain the sound. She didn’t want to wake George with an outcry, one which might scare the dickens of out the boy, but she needed an outlet.

  “Oh, Maudie,” Harry grunted as he rammed deeper and tighter. “That’s fine.” In response, she tightened her bottom to latch him tighter. The resulting wave of delight swamped her and she watched Harry shut his eyes with the powerful rush. He rocked her back and forth until the intensity could no longer be contained. Their bodies strained together and worked toward release. When it arrived, Maude became one with Harry, a beast with two backs united in endless pleasure. She could swear she soared out of her body to touch the moon and run her fingers through the stars. Harry claimed her body and joined it, part of it now and forever, but their souls merged into one consciousness, one love.

  Their lovemaking banished the murky shadows and the fear to a distant corner of her psyche, and after, Maude sang as she prepared a simple evening meal. George woke happy and Harry played with the boy until he headed out for chores. He took the kid along, bundled up a
gainst the cold, and after dinner Harry coaxed music from the battered piano and Maude sang a few Christmas carols with him to her son’s delight. Before long, although he didn’t know the words, George tried to sing along.

  After the child had fallen asleep and been carried upstairs, tucked into bed, Maude and Harry lingered before the fire. A rising wind buffeted the old house with enough force to rattle the glass in the windows at times. Poignant and lonesome, the train whistle reverberated as the late train rattled down the track across the creek. Maude could count the crossings by the number of times the engineer tooted, the soprano sound sharpened by the chill night air.

  “It’s gettin’ colder,” Harry commented as they cuddled together on the sofa he’d pulled over before the fire. “Christmas weather’s on the way.”

  “I think you’re right,” Maude replied. “It won’t be very merry for most, not with the flu still goin’ round, the men not back from the war, and people grieving for those who’ve died.”

  His arm around her shoulder tightened into a hug. “Aw, it may be quiet this year but it’ll be a good Christmas,” he said. “We’ve had our losses but we’re together, honey, and I’m happy.”

  So was Maude. A kernel of contentment spread warmth through her chest and down to her toes. “Then we’ll have a very merry Christmas,” she said, “Just the three of us.”

  “We will,” Harry said.

  Chapter Six

  A week before Christmas Day, Maude woke with a prickle of anticipation for the coming holiday. In recent days, she’d worked hard toward making the holiday memorable. In her odd moments and when George wasn’t around, she’d knitted him a hat, scarf, and mitten set from some royal blue yarn she’d found in Granny’s things. She’d cut out new clothes for Harry and George. Maude caught up the mending and stitched on the garments so they’d be ready in time for Christmas morning. Although Harry still slept, Maude rose and dressed in swift silence. Then she descended downstairs to poke up the fire in the kitchen and put coffee on to boil.