Whisper Town

by Patricia Hickman

  “Jeb, I wish I had known.” Fern took a breath and then cried like she’d come from a funeral.

  “I’ve made you cry.”

  “It’s just the situation in general.”

  Jeb came down to his knees and scooted across the hardwood of her floor. “Fern, here’s the deal, the way I see it. Before you decide whether or not you’re going to trust me again, in the way I want you to trust me, I want you to know me as I am. I want you to see me after I’ve been under the house and smelling like manure. I want you to know what I look like when I wake up in the morning.” He pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Come to think of it, I want to know what you look like before you comb your hair in the morning. I want to know that you’re seeing me at my worst and yet still loving me.” He took both of her wrists and pulled her next to him. Her softness and the way she looked at him caused him to breathe harder. “First off, I don’t really ask permission to kiss.” He kissed her, maybe too hard, but she didn’t seem to dislike it. “I do it because I want to or because I don’t know any better. But it’s what I want, so I kiss you and that’s that.”

  Fern didn’t try to speak. She kissed him back, but another tear streamed down her face, dampening the faint line around her mouth.

  “The truth is that I want to carry you back to that sweet bed of yours and give you everything of mine I have to give. It takes everything in me not to do that very thing.” When she didn’t act surprised, he said, “I want to love you and show you that I love you. But I want to do that with you as my wife.” He pulled out his mother’s old gold wedding band from the chain around his neck. After slipping it off the chain, he slid it onto her index finger.

  “Jeb, wait, I—”

  Jeb kissed her again, sliding his hands down her back and around her hips. “I love you, Fern.” He pulled her against him. She felt like a part of him that had been missing.

  Fern burst into tears. She sobbed so hard that Jeb reached for a handkerchief from her stack of white linens. He slipped it into her hand. She wiped her eyes and nose and then laughed as though a little embarrassed.

  “I know I’ve hurt you beyond words.”

  “Jeb, I couldn’t tell whether or not we were going to, well, be us. That is, a couple. So when a job offer came from Hope, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to check things out, give the job a shot.” She hesitated as though she were reading the pages of his life. “Stanton School has six teachers now here in Nazareth and Hope is desperate for teachers.”

  “Hope?” He sat back on his feet. “Oz Mills lives in Hope.”

  “I wasn’t following him there, if that’s what you mean.”

  “He had something to do with it, someway, somehow, he did.”

  “The letter came from the school committee in Hope, so I wouldn’t know if Oz had a hand in it.” She started sobbing again.

  “You’re not taking that job, Fern. I took my time with you because I thought that’s what you wanted. I see now that I took too long. You’re not leaving, Fern. I won’t let you.”

  “They’re desperate, Jeb. If you could see those poor kids’ faces—”

  “I don’t care about the poor kids, Fern!” He grasped her shoulders.

  “I think you do. I know that much about you.”

  “We can live somewhere in between. You teach in Hope and I’ll preach here in Nazareth.”

  “Jeb, I want to say so much.”

  “Come here, girl. Say what you want to say.”

  “What if I say something I’ll regret?” She looked at the ring on her finger.

  He could not think of a single poetic phrase that would make things right. But the quiet between them seemed to have a good effect.

  “I love you, Jeb.” She wiped her eyes and then moved her face near his. They kissed and Fern stopped crying; she touched Jeb’s face with her ring hand. Jeb pulled her onto the couch, where she could get to know him better.

  Belinda nursed Myrtle out in the bright sunlight of afternoon. The sky blued better than a wash of ink, crisp and perfect without a single fold of cloud. The day was almost like summer, like a day full of kites and blankets spread out on the grass, the last dabble of warmth before winter.

  Willie took his studies out onto the porch. Angel watched him from inside and then followed him out. His gaze followed the V of Belinda’s open blouse. “Willard, I know what you’re doing,” she said through the open door.

  “This baby’s almost asleep. Can’t the two of you fight somewhere else?” asked Belinda.

  “I’m studying for my spelling test, that’s all,” said Willie.

  “He ain’t hurtin’ nothin’, Angel,” said Belinda.

  “Where’s Jeb anyway?” asked Angel.

  “Off doing his preacher chores, whatever they may be,” said Belinda. “What is it preachers do anyway?”

  Willie wrote down a word, then scratched it out, his eyes still trained on Belinda.

  “Preachers go around town talking to everyone, kind of like he’s making sure they’re going to be in church on Sunday and such. You say he said he was doing errands?” Angel asked.

  “He said he was headed to Long’s Pond.” Belinda popped Myrtle loose from her bulldog grip. Myrtle nuzzled next to Belinda, still asleep.

  Angel glanced up the road. “Long’s Pond. Miss Coulter lives out that way.”

  “I noticed he smelled good this morning. Washes up real purty, like no preacher I ever seen. He ever date anyone serious? Not that I’m asking for any reason. I have a boyfriend.”

  “He likes one of our teachers, Miss Coulter,” said Willie. “But she’s been a hard one to pin down on account of she’s rich and he was nothing but a cotton picker.”

  “And a murderer.” Ida May appeared at the doorway. “But not really.”

  “Willie, you don’t know diddly squat about anything. Hand me your spelling words and I’ll give them to you just to shut you up,” said Angel.

  “Yonder comes someone from up the road,” said Belinda.

  The old squad car from downtown Nazareth turned into the churchyard drive. Deputy Maynard drove past the church and around to the circular drive in front of the parsonage.

  Belinda got up out of the rocker with Myrtle to take her inside. “I don’t have no business with cops. Angel, you talk to him.” She disappeared into the house before Maynard could reach the front porch. He walked less leisurely, like he had some business to address.

  “You looking for Jeb, I guess?” Angel asked Maynard.

  “Got some news about the apple orchard incident. Is he about?” Maynard stood at the foot of the steps with his hat in his hands.

  “Not for another hour or so. I can give him a message.”

  “You’re old enough, I reckon. He was interested, so I thought I’d let him know. The word out is that some high-school boys skinned a cat down in the orchard. So that bloody shirt was left behind by one of the boys that got the worst of the deal handling that cat.”

  “Who told you that?” asked Angel.

  “One of those banker boys, Frank Pella. Said that he caught wind of it when a group of teenagers got drunk down on the lake. He was down on White Oak Lake with a date and heard the whole confession.”

  “I’ll tell Jeb then,” said Angel.

  Maynard climbed back into his automobile and drove away.

  “What was that all about?” Belinda appeared again, fully dressed and carrying her own baby on her hip.

  “Boys been skinning cats down in the apple orchards, I guess,” said Angel. “According to Frank Pella. Ain’t he one of those college boys that runs with Oz Mills from Hope?”

  “That’s a lie if I ever heard it.” Belinda called her two older boys to join her out front.

  “Why you say that?” asked Willie.

  “I went to school with Frank Pella. He wouldn’t tell the truth if you tied him up and left him on the railroad tracks. Why would he care, anyway, if boys was skinning cats? It don’t make no sense. I’m done, I reckon. Please ask R
everend Nubey to remember to pay me tomorrow. I owe a wad of money down at the Woolworth’s. They can’t hold my bill past Friday, they told me.”

  “You take care, Belinda,” said Willie. He watched her drive away.

  “You’re sick in the head, Willie.” Angel picked up a dropped baby blanket and went inside.

  Jeb helped Fern peel off her sweater. She let it drop onto the rug. “Come here,” she whispered, and then held out her arms.

  Jeb ran his fingers down her arms and then leaned over her with one knee against the sofa. Fern kissed him and she tasted faintly like molasses, as though she had eaten some on bread before Jeb arrived. Jeb touched the buttons on the back of her dress and then touched his fingers to the strands of hair that hung over her shoulders. The tendrils were soft, like a woman’s hair feels when it’s washed in rose water. He pressed his lips against her neck and then nuzzled the locket that hung on the chain around her neck, lifting it with his nose and then kissing the spot where it had rested.

  Fern kissed the crown of his head, and then proceeded to press her lips against his brow, the side of his face, and then his mouth.

  Jeb finally confessed about the nights he had lain awake wanting to come to her house and wake her from sleep.

  “You should have,” she said.

  They talked about how they had allowed too many nights to pass without spending them in the company of one another. Jeb’s shirt fell open just as a loud knock shook the front of Fern’s house.

  She sighed and said, “Don’t answer it.”

  The knocker persisted.

  Jeb roused but reluctantly. “I’ll get it, but you wait here just as you are.” He kissed her once more as the pounding persisted. When he opened the door, his eyes locked with Oz Mills’s. Oz glanced at Jeb’s open shirt and then blurted out, “What’s going on?”

  Fern appeared in the doorway. She straightened her blouse and leaned against Jeb, pressing her face into his shoulder. One hand came up and clasped his upper arm. “We weren’t expecting company.”

  Oz slapped what looked to be a telegram into the palm of his hand. “So it’s like this, is it, Fern?”

  “From now on,” said Jeb. “May we help you?”

  Oz snapped, “Fern has a telegram, if it’s anything to you, preacher boy.” He held it out and Fern took it. Jeb read over her shoulder. Fern’s daddy had taken a turn for the worst and passed away.

  Fern pressed her face into Jeb’s chest and sobbed as though she had been orphaned. He could not hold her in the same manner he had for the last half hour. So he turned back into a minister. He rested the palms of his hands against her shoulder blades, let out a sigh, and said, “I’ll help you pack.”

  Angel fixed a supper of boiled oats and a side of eggs with a piece of crisped bacon dropped into the skillet to add flavoring. She burned the toast and the fog from charred bread hung over the stove like a storm. Myrtle cried relentlessly from her bedroom. Angel finally let out a tidal sigh and told Ida May to either go and close the door or try and rock the baby into a stupor until Belinda showed up again for the evening feeding.

  “I can’t stand the screaming of that kid. Day and night she torments me like a crazy woman.” Willie paced back and forth by the back door like he would run out of it any minute.

  Ida May pulled a chair up to the stove and then climbed onto it. “I’ll finish supper, how about, and you go and rock the baby,” she said to Angel.

  “Supper’s finished. Willie, go for jam in the cellar. Ida May, bring her in here and lay her on a blanket. Maybe if she’s where she can see all of us, she’ll not feel so left out.” Angel spooned eggs into the plates donated by the women’s committee. The plates were plain and stamped with lettering that no one could decipher, but they were by far the best plates for keeping the food warm.

  “Babies don’t know if they’re left out. That’s the dumbest thing you’ve said yet,” said Willie.

  “Count us out four bowls, Willie,” said Angel. “You want sugar in your oats, then it’s best to keep your opinions to yourself when you’re talking to the cook.”

  Ida May walked with measured steps when she carried Myrtle. Her shoulders were too small for carrying a baby over, so she cradled the little girl as though she might fold in two. “Willie, make us a little bed out of that blanket Angel left on the chair. Right h’yere on the floor, but not too close to the doorway.” She talked to Myrtle the whole time in a whisper, as though the two of them carried on in a mutual language only they possessed. Myrtle let out a breathy “aaahhhh” when Ida May laid her in the blanket, the kind of sound made by hot-air balloons when they land.

  The sound of the front door opening caused all of them to react with a common relief. “Jeb’s finally home,” said Willie, and he stepped toward the doorway to let Jeb know how bad Myrtle had been.

  “Eggs again.” Jeb could smell supper. He tossed some mail on a table in the parlor. “Does anyone care this place smells like an outhouse?”

  “Myrtle filled her britches,” said Ida May. She meandered around Willie and down the hall, muttering about some schoolwork to which she should attend.

  “I don’t clean up baby’s messes,” said Willie. He followed Ida May.

  Angel called them back to supper and then said, “You look flush, Jeb. You all right?”

  “Fern’s leaving for Oklahoma. Did you make bread?”

  “Not for good?”

  “Her daddy passed away in the night. I don’t want her driving alone. But she’ll have to drive herself all the way to Ardmore.”

  “She must be sad.” Angel yelled down the hallway again for Willie and Ida May.

  “Maybe Florence Bernard and Josie could ride with her. That wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  “Josie’s husband couldn’t do without her.” Angel served up the eggs and set a canister of salt on the table. “Maybe I could go,” she said.

  Jeb tried to imagine caring for Myrtle without Angel. The baby flailed and let out a yelp. “Maybe you should,” he said.

  8

  YOU HAVE TO WATCH CAREFULLY. IT’S NOT LIKE it’s a big deal. You have to take care of the whole diaper business like you’re cleaning out the stove. Just hold your nose and get it done.” Angel lectured Jeb, Willie, and Ida May while she showed all three of them how to change Myrtle’s diaper, a task she labored over, shaking her head and sighing.

  “I’m not standing for this,” said Willie. “Me and the boys got ball games to think about. They’d never let me hear the end of it if they saw me taking diaper duty.”

  “Willie, you’ll listen to your sister. Now the three of us together can handle this baby until Angel returns from Oklahoma.” Jeb squared his shoulders and studied the matter like he would figure out the engine of a truck.

  “I don’t want you to go, Angel.” Ida May teared up. “I’ll be the only girl.”

  “Always use a warm, damp rag, and a clean one. You see all those towels and rags drying out on the clothesline? I do those up at least twice a day. If you pitch them in the can out back, you won’t smell up the house so bad. That’s bleach water I keep them soaking in. Boil the water before you wash them.” She brushed drool away from Myrtle’s mouth.

  “Why don’t I go to Ardmore and you stay and bleach baby butt rags?” Willie cupped his hands to his face.

  “You’d get too behind in school. Miss Coulter will oversee my studies and I won’t miss out on a thing,” said Angel. She wrapped the diaper expertly around Myrtle’s bottom. “Clean as a whistle.”

  Someone rapped against the new glass of the door window.

  “It’s Miss Coulter,” said Willie.

  Ida May ran to the door. She hugged Fern around the waist. “I’m sorry you’re sad, Miss Coulter. I wish I could go with you.”

  “My daddy’s with God, Ida May.” Fern did not carry the conversation any further, as though to do so would unleash too much.

  “Fern.” Jeb took her in his arms and held her next to him. “I want to go with you too.�
��

  “I wish you could. It’s unbelievable you’re sending Angel. I know how badly you need her. Florence Bernard should be here shortly. Josie’s dropping her off.”

  “Mrs. Hipps said she was jealous of me being your escort and all,” said Angel.

  “She was downright green. But her husband is too reliant on her on account of his bad leg,” said Fern. She counted the bags of clothing Angel had placed by the door. “We can fit these in fine, Angel.”

  “You’ll be gone for months,” said Ida May.

  “Only two weeks, Littlest.” Fern took Ida May by the shoulders and spun her around to refashion her braids. “The thing of it is, I haven’t been home in two years. This will give me some time with my brothers and our aunts and uncles. It’s a shame that funerals are the only reunions we have anymore.”

  Jeb said, “Ida May and Angel made you ladies a basket of food and I have something else to give you.” He led Fern away from the Welbys and into the kitchen. He pulled a pistol out of his pocket. “I think you should carry a firearm. That road to Oklahoma is known for attracting bad seed.”

  Fern sighed and stared at the pistol. “Big difference between hunting deer and shooting a man.”

  “Come out back and I’ll give you a lesson. I’ll not send off a bunch of women unarmed.”

  “I can’t drive and shoot, now can I?”

  “Please, Fern. I won’t worry so much.” He placed it back into her hands and closed her fingers over it.

  She examined it.

  “It’s locked.” He showed her how the device worked, even though she rolled her eyes. “Let’s take it out back.”

  Angel yelled from the parlor, “Mrs. Bernard just pulled up.”

  Jeb led Fern out back past the clothesline with its colony of white flapping linens and over into a clearing. He showed Fern a tree he had used for target practice. “Hold your right arm straight and look down this sight with one eye. Then squeeze the trigger.”

  Fern lifted the pistol and aimed. When the gun fired, it caused the children to pour out onto the back porch while Florence Bernard shouted, “My lands!”