Over the River

by Sharelle Byars Moranville

  “Maybe you could work for the Greens,” she said. “They’re the ones who do all the wiring.”

  “I don’t want to work for the Greens.”

  When we got back to the house, Aunty Rose thanked Daddy for the ride and ran in to start dinner.

  Daddy got out of the car and we stood leaning against the fender.

  “I may not be by for a few days, Mae Bug,” he said, putting his arm around my shoulders.

  “How come?”

  “I’m going to Vincennes, Indiana, to an army surplus auction.”

  “What for?” I asked.

  “Well, I might sell this car and buy a truck,” he said. “If it works out. And if I do buy a truck,” he added, “I might have to do some work on it before I drive it home.”

  That was a lot of “mights,” but I thought I saw where Daddy was leading. If he had a truck, he could get a sign painted on it just like the Green boys, then he could give them a run for their money. But it seemed like bad luck to talk about it, so I just said okay, I’d see him when he got back.

  Chapter 7

  Mid-August was peach-canning time. So the next few days, while Daddy was away, we worked on the peaches.

  Every morning, as soon as it was light enough to see the fruit, we drove down to Neidermeyer’s Orchard. We picked two bushels each day—Grandpa going up the ladder and handing the fruit down to us. Nana fussed at Aunty Rose and me not to bruise the peaches as we laid them in baskets, but my arms itched so much from the fuzz, I could hardly wait to be done.

  At home, Nana peeled and pitted and sliced, and Aunty Rose boiled the simple syrup to pour over the fruit.

  My job was to lug up boxes of empty mason jars from the basement. The boxes were powdery with dust, and some of the quart jars had dried-up spiders and moths in them.

  Because my hands were still small enough to fit through the necks, I drew dish-washing duty, and my fingers stung from the hot, soapy water.

  The heat of the stove and the steam of the pressure cooker made the sweat pour off all of us. The only relief came from the sweet slices of peaches Nana slipped in our mouths right off the knife tip.

  On Wednesday, after two days of my being home all the time, Grandpa said at the dinner table, “Reckon your daddy has skipped the country?”

  I blinked.

  The sun seemed to pass from behind a cloud.

  “He’s just gone to Indiana to an auction,” I explained.

  “An auction,” Grandpa said, sounding disappointed and critical at the same time.

  I guess Grandpa was kind of hoping Daddy had gone away for good.

  * * *

  On Thursday, about dark, we were sitting at the table eating a light supper of corn bread and milk and listening to the radio when Daddy came up on the side porch.

  This time, Grandpa didn’t get up to leave, and hope sang in my heart that they might make up.

  “Come in, Harold,” Nana said, switching off the radio.

  I stood up, glad Daddy had come at supper time. Would Grandpa let him sit down at the table with us?

  “Willa Mae says you’ve been to an auction.”

  I caught my breath, holding it, praying they’d talk to each other.

  “Did you get a truck?” I asked, encouraging Daddy.

  “Yes, I got a truck,” he said, something warning me in his voice.

  The hair stood right up on my arms. Nana sensed something too and reached over and laid her hand on top of mine.

  “My brother, Les, thinks I can get work wiring in Oklahoma,” Daddy said. “And he’s found us a place to live. So we’ll be leaving in the morning, Mae Bug. First thing.”

  I shook my head, imagining I’d heard Daddy tell us he was taking me away. Then the oak back of Grandpa’s chair cracked as it hit the floor. He stood, seeming about twice as big as Daddy. Grandpa strode through the kitchen, slamming the back door behind him.

  The rest of us sat in our chairs.

  I waited, hoping any minute I was going to wake up and see the rosebud wallpaper on my bedroom wall instead of Daddy standing in the kitchen, talking crazy.

  Aunty Rose spoke first.

  “You can’t do that,” she said, standing up. “You can’t take Willa Mae. She’s ours.”

  Daddy shook his head back and forth, his mouth set.

  I just stared at him.

  “I’ll be here at sunup,” he said. “You be ready to go, Willa Mae.”

  Willa Mae? He hardly ever called me Willa Mae. I gripped the seat of my chair.

  Aunty Rose threw her spoon at him, splashing milk all over the door frame where it hit.

  “Rose!” Nana stood up.

  Daddy turned on his heel and was out the door before my tears came. I twined my legs through the rungs of my chair and clung to Nana, who’d come to stand beside me.

  She talked, rubbing my back, saying words I didn’t want to hear. Finally, Aunty Rose led me upstairs, and I lay on her bed, my face buried in my arms, crying. Aunty Rose sat beside me, fiddling with my hair. After what seemed like forever, I got up and went to the window. Against the lantern light in the barn, Grandpa’s silhouette moved back and forth, back and forth, like a panther pacing.

  Maybe he was fixing up a place to hide me. A place where my daddy would never think to look, so he’d have to go to Oklahoma alone.

  Aunty Rose had pulled on her old ruffled blue nightgown and sat at the dressing table. Turning up the lamp, she blew her nose, then began to brush her hair three hundred times.

  I lifted my own hair off my sweaty neck and used some of Aunty Rose’s bobby pins to hold it up.

  “Can I sleep with you tonight?” I asked, my voice not working very well. How could I spend the last night in my own bed?

  She put her arms around me, and I felt her nodding.

  Later, as we lay side by side on top of the sheets, moonlight cutting across our bare legs, Aunty Rose stared at the shadows of the tree leaves on the wall.

  For a long time, I listened to the sounds of Nana’s moving around. She said she was going to send some canned goods to Oklahoma with us. She said my daddy wasn’t a bad man. She said he sprung the news on me fast because he thought it would hurt less. She said somehow they’d get along without me. She said everything would be okay by and by. She said he was my daddy, and a child needed a daddy.

  But when would I see Nana again? How far was Oklahoma? If Uncle Les had gone there before the war and never come home, would I ever get home? Did my daddy know how to cook? What would I do when I outgrew my clothes? Who would take care of me when I got sick? How could I live without Nana? How could I grow up without Aunty Rose to show me the way? What kind of people lived in Oklahoma? Would they like me?

  My head ached from questions and tears.

  Grandpa finally came in about midnight, when the clock at the foot of the stairs had just finished bonging twelve times, and I heard voices in the kitchen, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  In the morning, I tried not to feel Aunty Rose jostling me. I wanted to crawl back in the deep, warm nest of her arms and her pillows and stay there forever.

  “Mom’s calling,” she whispered.

  I swung my legs off the bed, tugging at my nightgown. Pale light lit the room, and birds in the hickory tree made a din.

  Nana waited at the foot of the stairs. I stood in front of her, not able to meet her eyes.

  She touched my shoulder. “Did you sleep?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Well.” She cleared her throat. “I put two mason jar boxes in your room. For you to pack your things in. Best pack all your clothes, even if they’re dirty.”

  I turned away.

  In my room, I pulled clean underpants, slips, socks, and my birthday pajamas out of my drawers, then two pairs of shorts Nana had made, with blouses to match. I put those in one of the boxes. Then I folded up my hanging clothes—one Sunday dress, a dress to wear to town, and two everyday dresses that almost didn’t fit anymore. I laid those
on top and tucked in the flaps of the box.

  Into the other box, I dropped my Sunday shoes and the old pillowcase holding my dirty clothes. I tucked in the book of stories Grandfather Clark had given me and my hairbrush and toothbrush.

  Then I stripped off my gown and pulled on a pair of blue shorts and a white sailor blouse, a pair of white anklets and my saddle oxfords.

  Aunty Rose came in, standing in the doorway, her face swollen and her gown rumpled.

  I thought she might try to hug me, and I didn’t want her to because if I started crying, I might just keep on until I’d swamped the farm and drowned the chickens and washed away the pigs and sheep.

  “Excuse me,” I said, picking up a box and staring into space until she stepped aside.

  I carried my boxes out to the well curb and waited there, wishing my daddy would hurry so the pain of saying good-bye to Nana and Grandpa and Aunty Rose could be over with.

  Grandpa made his way from the barn, carrying a bucket sloshing with Old Jerse’s milk, and set it down. He’d done this every morning of my life, and he’d do it tomorrow morning. But I wouldn’t be here.

  I turned my face away, but I could still hear him rolling up his sleeves and pumping a pan of water for washing. And I smelled the cheesy warmth of Old Jerse’s milk.

  “Need to wash?” he asked. “So you can have a bite of breakfast before you get on the road?”

  I shook my head, keeping it turned away, not letting him see the tears trickling down my cheeks.

  “I reckon you and your daddy will have some adventures,” Grandpa said, making splashing noises. “Won’t you come in for a bite of breakfast?” he asked one more time.

  I shook my head again, my throat aching from trying to dam up tears.

  When I heard the screen door finally bounce shut behind Grandpa, I called Jacky. He came, blowing his hot, damp breath in my face, whining.

  “You won’t forget me, will you?” I whispered, tears running down my neck.

  Daddy pulled in just then, and I brushed my eyes with my fingers. The truck was bigger than I’d expected. The rising sun silhouetted it, black and square. He’d not got anything painted on the door like the Green boys, but the truck sure looked like it could belong to an electrician. It groaned as Daddy shifted into low and pulled up under the hickory tree. He cut the engine and climbed out.

  Despite myself, I walked out to look, trying to imagine riding hundreds of miles in it.

  Daddy opened the back, and I looked in at his metal toolbox and some packages wrapped in paper and tied with string.

  For sure, if the truck broke down on the road to Oklahoma, he would fix it. I didn’t have to worry about that.

  Nana and Grandpa and Aunty Rose came out. Nana kept hugging her arms as if she were cold. Everybody was very polite to one another. The truck bed rocked as Daddy worked in the back, loading the food that Nana was sending with us—quart jars of blackberries, peaches, beans, and corn. Pints of apple butter and grape jelly.

  “Thanks, Mae. I’m not much of a cook.”

  I saw the look on Nana’s face when he said that.

  “But don’t worry,” he said, realizing his mistake. “I won’t let her starve.”

  Finally he climbed behind the wheel.

  The time had come.

  Aunty Rose, wrapped in her blue chenille robe, blew her nose.

  I stepped up on the running board, then into the cab, surprised at how high I sat. It must be kind of like riding a camel.

  “You have a safe trip,” Grandpa said. I felt his eyes on my face, and I finally looked at him.

  “Take care of my livestock?” I asked, surprised I could make my lips move.

  He nodded. “I sure will.”

  He looked at me a while longer, like he might be trying to say something else. Then he turned and headed toward the barn.

  Nana leaned in and brushed my hair behind my ear.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “Your daddy will take good care of you.”

  I glanced at Daddy when she said that, and I saw his Adam’s apple bob.

  I could smell the garden on Nana’s hands, and the soap she washed with.

  I held my breath, trying not to start crying again.

  Then Aunty Rose leaned in the window and I threw my arms around her neck, breathing in the smell of her hair like it was the last bit of oxygen in the world.

  “Write to me every day,” she whispered. “And I’ll write you.”

  I nodded. Every day, I thought, but I couldn’t make the words come out. Finally she had to loosen my arms. Daddy leaned across me and pulled the door shut.

  Aunty Rose and Nana and I waved at each other until they vanished behind the stand of evergreens south of the house. Then I dropped my hands in my lap and stared through the windshield. The blue sky, with only two little streaky clouds in it, looked big and empty.

  Chapter 8

  The world looked different from so high up.

  “They sure are going to miss me when school starts,” I said as Panther Fork School came into view on the left side of the road.

  Maybe it wasn’t too late to change Daddy’s mind.

  A bare flagpole stuck up out of the unmowed grass, and dust and flyspecks dulled the windows.

  “Mrs. Henry won’t have an even dozen anymore without me,” I added.

  But Daddy watched the road, his left arm straight on the steering wheel as if pointing the way to Oklahoma. “There’ll be other new kids starting that school,” he offered.

  Well, sure, one of the little Miller kids would probably turn six, but that wasn’t the point.

  “You went to school there, Daddy,” I said. “And so did Mama.”

  I watched his profile, hopeful for a sign that he might turn around and take me back.

  For a minute, he slowed and stopped, and I thought I’d won. But he was just leaning on the steering wheel to have one last look at Panther Fork School. Then he gave the truck some gas and we went on.

  Up this high, I could see little sparkles of water among the roots of the ditch grass.

  “Times are changing, Mae Bug,” he said. “People don’t stay in the same place where they were born the way they used to. Look at Les. He moved off.”

  “But—”

  “And I can’t find us a place to live around here,” he continued. “And so far, I’ve not been able to find work. All the servicemen who beat me home got to the jobs and houses first.”

  “But I could stay here,” I said, trying to be reasonable. “Just until things get settled.”

  His jaw tightened, and he shifted gears, going faster despite the rough roads. I heard Nana’s canned goods clinking in the back.

  We bounced along through the countryside and I took stock of the things I wouldn’t be seeing for a while.

  “How long are we going to stay away, Daddy?” I asked.

  He shook his head, looking around at the familiar places too. “I don’t know, Willa Mae. I’ve got to make a living. And provide a home for you.”

  The road smoothed out as we moved away from the rural electrification work. But when we bounced over the railroad tracks in Mills, Nana’s canned goods clanked in the back again.

  Just a few miles past Mills, we came to the highway. Going north, it went to Huxley. Going south, the way we turned, it went to the very edge of the earth for all I knew—though I guess Oklahoma was somewhere along the way.

  “You know where we’re going, Daddy?” I asked.

  “We’re going to head down to Chester and cross the river there.”

  “What river?” I said, thinking of Panther Creek and the water moccasin Grandpa had caught.

  “Why, the Mississippi River,” Daddy said. “The one that divides Illinois from Missouri.”

  “The Mississippi River?”

  Daddy glanced at me.

  “The one and only,” he answered, the sun coming out on his face as he heard my wonder.

  “But I don’t know anybody my age who has crossed the
Mississippi River,” I said.

  In school, we studied about the great river, the bold blue line down through the continent of North America. But that line seemed no more related to our lives than the pictures of the Taj Mahal and the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Yet here I was, going to cross it this very day! So that’s what Grandpa had meant about adventures.

  What was Grandpa doing right now? And Nana and Aunty Rose? I saw them in my mind, going about the morning chores, but I wasn’t in the picture. A hole of emptiness burned inside me, and I put my hands over my stomach.

  Daddy looked at me. “You okay?”

  I nodded.

  “Just excited?”

  I looked at Daddy. His face shone with so much hope that I nodded again.

  The countryside wasn’t much different from the farms and little towns around home as we drove southwest through Illinois.

  “I want to get there by tomorrow night,” he told me, turning his head from side to side to work the tiredness out of his shoulders.

  “Where are we going to live?”

  “Les has found us a furnished apartment. It’s upstairs in the landlady’s house. He says it’s pretty big.”

  Daddy glanced at me again, his eyes searching for interest on my part.

  I had never been in an apartment. I shut my eyes, thinking of our house at the farm and trying to imagine living in the upstairs.

  The warm air blowing up through the floor vents and the humming of the truck tires on the highway lulled me. Soon images of our furnished apartment in Oklahoma got mixed up with Nana’s dressmaker’s dummy in the upstairs storage room at home.

  I jerked awake with a start.

  Daddy was singing snatches of a song under his breath about a gypsy.

  “You won’t fall asleep and run off the road, will you, Daddy?”

  “Hope not.”

  “Sing louder,” I said. “So I know you’re awake.”

  Daddy laughed, curling his fingers around my arm, the reddish hairs on his hands gleaming in the light. Daddy had square hands, like mine.

  I held my hand out in front of me.

  “What are you looking at?” Daddy said.