The Women of Jacob’s Mountain Boxed Set

by Hining, Deborah;

  “Thank you for coming,” she sang out to John as he limped onto the porch. “I’ve noticed he does seem a little feverish. What do you think?”

  John looked at her with a stern, solemn face, so different than the one he had greeted her with less than two weeks ago. Geneva’s face prickled with anxiety. He was not the sort of person to let her worry needlessly. Surely there must be some terrible prognosis for Dr. Zhivago, and he was hiding it from her in order to spare her hurt. Gently, he picked up the cat and checked his blood pressure, wrapping the cuff around and around his foreleg once again. There was a long silence as he listened intently into the stethoscope. Geneva held her breath until he released the pressure.

  “Well, what it?” she demanded.

  The light came on behind John’s eyes. “Just as I thought. He’s perfectly fine. I guess he was a little nervous around me yesterday.”

  Geneva almost sobbed with relief. Although she did not like cats in general, she had favored Dr. Zhivago ever since she had found him, a shivering, ice-covered kitten sitting by a city gutter, the sleet coming down hard on his tiny head. He had mewed so pitifully at the passersby who ignored him that Geneva could not help but stop and pick him up. Despite the fact that he was nearly frozen, he had begun to purr loudly the moment she held him under her coat, and he had snuggled so wonderfully that she resolved then and there to take him home with her, despite the fact that her apartment already was home to three other stray cats.

  That had been his last grateful moment. Once he got into her home, he had taken over as alpha male, thoroughly intimidating the other cats, demanding the best spot on the bed and the best cat food available. But Geneva never forgot that initial purr, and she always felt a special softness for the fat, greedy adult tom that he had become. He had remained her favorite to this day.

  She turned her shining eyes to John’s and breathed, “I’m so grateful,” and then, because she knew she could stop worrying about Dr. Zhivago, she turned her attentions to the charming veterinarian. Certainly, this latest development had caused him to become even more attractive.

  John sat heavily in a chair and exchanged pleasantries for a while, then he looked intently at her and after a short pause cleared his throat. “Say, er, Geneva,” he began earnestly. “I don’t know if you’ll feel up to it by Saturday night, but if you aren’t busy, maybe we could do something.”

  Geneva’s heart leaped; a flush warmed her to the scalp. Her arm troubled her so little that she was ready to yank the sling off then and there and ask John to dance, but instead she looked at her lap and said demurely, “I think I’ll feel just fine by Saturday. What would you like to do?”

  “Well, there’s a new stock theatre in Tucker, and they’ve got a pretty good repertoire. I think tomorrow night they start Midsummer Night’s Dream, and they’re staging it at the amphitheatre in the botanical gardens. Would you enjoy that?”

  Geneva glowed at him. She couldn’t imagine a more wonderful evening than sitting among the flowers in the clear mountain night, watching a play about magical love with the devastatingly handsome John Smith. “I’d love it,” she sighed.

  “Good,” he smiled. “Rachel told me you majored in theatre. I sort of minored in it, at least I hung around as much as possible. As a matter of fact, I once played Oberon.”

  Geneva laughed. “I played Puck.”

  “I think the role was written for you! I’ll pick you up about six for dinner.”

  She walked him to his Jeep, watching as the engine roared to life and the car spun out of the driveway the way she had hoped to do instead of driving into the ditch. Muted thunder grumbled softly in the west; a flash of lightning lit the clouds building black against the pink and silver sky. Rain all you want tonight, she said to herself, but please, please give us a clear night Saturday! And she took the porch steps more sedately than she felt.

  The first part of the new week crawled by like a sloth. Geneva combed through her wardrobe, debated about cutting her hair, and rode more than usual, hoping to catch a glimpse of John near his house. She never did, and soon she began to think she would grow old and die before Saturday arrived. She thought about manufacturing some ailment for her cats so she would have an excuse to go see him in the middle of the night. Ooh, wouldn’t that be romantic? She would bang on his door, perhaps in the pouring rain with a gasping cat in her arms. Her nightgown would cling provocatively, and she would be fainting with anxiety. And he would come, shirtless, of course, and resuscitate the cat, and maybe her, too… Her mind went feverish with possibilities.

  Sometime during the night, Evangeline’s kittens were born. Geneva found the five greedy newborns in the barn, and she was just calling Rachel to come admire them when their parents arrived, full of news and excitement. The quilt had placed third in the prestigious competition, and the Gunter’s boy and his bride would come home to a fine house after the November Amish wedding. Not seeing the need to stay when they were anxious to see their errant daughter as well as their pregnant one and their grandchildren, they had cut their visit short.

  “I’m going to stay for a few days,” said their mother. “Missed my babies and thought I’d come up and spend some time with you.” She put her arm around Geneva and hugged her. “Besides, I bet you could use some help canning beans. Are they in up here?”

  “You’re a godsend,” smiled Rachel. “We’re inundated with them.”

  Their father, Ray, stayed through dinner, and afterward they all sat on the porch to be entertained by a thoroughly satisfying thunderstorm. Evangeline left her voracious babies long enough to snuggle in Geneva’s lap; the rest of the cats scattered themselves about the porch, batting at the ghostly moths fluttering in the golden pool of light from the porch lamp. Wayne and Rachel sat in the swing, Hannah’s downy head between them, while Phoebe snuggled in her grandfather’s arms.

  Geneva surveyed the scene, remembering her own childhood and the silken cocoon of her parents’ love. Thunderstorms, where the lightning fractured the sky and reminded mortals of their frailty, were special to her because, like Phoebe, she had watched many of them from the warm safety of Ray’s hard, capable arms. She sat quietly, watching the fire split the sky, wishing she were three years old again and life was not so demanding or hurtful. But then she thought about next Saturday and amended her thoughts. Life could still be pretty good.

  When the storm passed, Ray rose to look at the washed sky. The striated sun was already half sunk into the nearest mountain, its long rays slanting horizontally through the clouds. “I’d better get on back down the mountain and open up the homestead,” he said. “Get the dogs back from over at the Wilkenses’. Gaynell, you take care of these girls, and keep them out of trouble. Wayne, don’t let these women gang up on you.” He hugged both his daughters and his wife, then caught his granddaughters up to snuggle with them for a moment. They squealed and giggled as he rubbed his rough chin against their baby cheeks.

  “Granddaddy! Don’t beard us!” laughed Hannah, her face bright red from rubbing against his whiskers. Ray’s family crowded around to watch him as he climbed into this car and waved as he drove out of sight.

  “Well,” said Gaynell after he had turned the corner.” I reckon Geneva and I’ll work on the dishes. Rachel, you’re strictly ornamental from now on. All you have to do is lie around on that porch and love on the children. Wayne, you just sit right there. We don’t need you in there messing things up.” Wayne smiled gratefully at his mother-in-law, and Rachel blew her a kiss as they headed for the kitchen.

  Once apart from the others, Gaynell turned to her daughter. “Geneva, honey, we came on home because the family wants to throw Rachel and Wayne a surprise shower Sunday afternoon. You and I have to get the house in shape and negotiate all the business of getting them away from the house and so forth.”

  “What fun!” exclaimed Geneva. “It’s about time something exciting happened around here.”

  “You’re going to think exciting once those twins get here.
There won’t be a good night’s sleep among you!” But Geneva did not hear her. At the word “exciting” her thoughts had turned once again to the small farmhouse on the other side of the flowery pasture.

  For the rest of the week, Gaynell rose early and scoured the house while Geneva and Rachel stood aside helplessly and watched their seventy-two-year-old mother haul around chairs and sofas. Geneva’s injured arm prevented her from doing much more than getting in the way, and Rachel was absolutely forbidden to work. At last, feeling too guilty to watch another minute, Geneva went outside to gather wildflowers from the fields, then made huge arrangements for every available table in the house. Afterward, she sat on the hearth and scrubbed out the fireplace with one hand.

  Rachel felt equally purposeless, but finally, after she and Gaynell had fallen into a half dozen altercations concerning the state of each others’ health, Gaynell finally relented. “If you have to do something, polish the silver,” she instructed. “You know everybody in the county will drop in to see the babies after they’re born, and you’ll need something to serve them with.”

  Rachel sighed and donned her gloves. “I feel like a queen termite. Totally useless, except for procreation,” she grumbled.

  By lunch Saturday, the house was spotless, but then Gaynell went to work in the garden. Geneva gathered more flowers and straightened the pictures. Rachel, caught up in the frenzy, polished their glass surfaces. Wayne, not interested in housecleaning, took the girls out to look at the lambs.

  Late in the afternoon, Geneva threw down her rag and declared, “Time for someone to wave a wand and turn this sooty lass into a princess. Wish me luck, fat, ugly sister!”

  Rachel sneered, snapping at her with a towel. “Okay, poof!” she said. “Oops, wrong spell. You’ve turned into a hippopotamus. But it is an improvement.”

  “Har har. Just wait until you see my spell. I shall create such a vision, you poor, dowdy, enormous thing! You cow! You blimp!” She darted to the bathroom, barely avoiding another snap from Rachel’s towel.

  Geneva spent an hour bathing and styling her hair. After several false starts at dressing, she finally selected a simple, pale blue, flowing cotton dress with a lightweight jacket, and she knew she looked perfect. Tonight was going to be special for the country twin. She could tell by the way the arteries in her temples throbbed.

  John arrived in a bright red vintage Mustang convertible. “Where did you get this?” Geneva asked, delighted at the prospect of flying under the waxing moon, the wind whipping her hair and brightening her face.

  “Borrowed it from a friend. I’m thinking of buying it,” replied John, looking smug, but Geneva barely noticed his expression. She couldn’t wait to jump into the car and be off. “I figured the occasion warranted more than a shockless old Jeep.”

  “Excellent idea,” smiled Geneva. This John Smith seemed to be clairvoyant, or else he had exactly the same ideas as she for a romantic evening.

  The evening was, indeed, perfect. They drove into the haze of the dying day, up to the top of the mountain, then through the glorious sky along the ridges until they turned to descend into Tucker. Despite his immobile right leg, John managed the straight shift well, handling the switchbacks, straightening the curves as one irons a silk ribbon. They drove to a small restaurant with a terrace high atop a hill overlooking the town and sat there, eating and talking, but never ceasing to admire the mountains and the mist as it crept into the valleys and softened the sky’s maiden blush. Geneva leaned her head on her hand and gazed out over the royal mountains. She sighed happily, but even as the breath escaped her, the tears sprang into her eyes.

  “I know how you feel,” said John softly, reaching across the table to take her hand. “It is heartbreakingly beautiful. Sometimes I feel like we really haven’t the capacity to absorb the intensity of how the sky wants to make us feel. It’s like having a god for a lover. It’s wonderful, but sometimes it just provokes too much feeling.”

  Geneva sighed again and sipped her wine, enjoying the respite from the eternal struggle between the reality of who she was and what she was supposed to be, or what she thought she wanted to be. Right now, she felt complete, her soul mended by the healing mist lying low in the purple valleys and the life in John’s eyes. She looked at him with renewed appreciation. She liked the way he took her nebulous romantic ideas and shaped them into form and clarity. But then she found herself wondering if she were allowing herself to be foolishly led into a fresh heartbreak, if John might at this moment be laying plans for her conquest and rejection. Then she remembered that she was the one who had toyed with such a plot, and she felt herself blush with shame. He did not deserve the treatment she had surely planned to hand to him, and she resolved that she would not be so manipulative, that she would treat him with respect for his transparent integrity, his obvious sensitivity.

  They talked about the goodness of the green mountains around them, about the aura of mystery of the more distant blue ones. They talked about their families and what each of them hoped for. Like Geneva, John had grown up in a backwater to working class parents, and like Geneva, he had decided early on that he would break away from the ignorance and poverty he saw in his small, western North Carolina hometown.

  “I got away, or at least part of me did,” he admitted, “but not for long. After I graduated from vet school, I joined the army and managed to get out of going to Vietnam. They didn’t need vets there, but I got to go to South America to work with cattle. Don’t ask me why the army was interested in cattle. Anyway, after my discharge—gosh, three years ago, in nineteen seventy-four—I joined a small animal practice in New Orleans, which was a lot of fun, but something always bothered me when I was there. I kept feeling like I was going to fall off the edge of the world. It was too flat, too loose in so many ways. And I got sick of french poodles and society ladies after just a few months, so I ran away and volunteered as an adjunct to the Peace Corp for a year and got to travel around to a lot of different places.

  “It wasn’t until I came home for a visit in the fall that I realized that I missed—.” He laughed apologetically. “What I needed was the mountains, and not just this,” he said, indicating with a wide sweep the vast, foreboding hills around him, “but the people, the values, the spirit and stoic soul.”

  “Yes, the stoic soul and the redneck attitudes,” replied Geneva, understanding his speech more than she cared to admit. “Sure it’s great being here if you don’t mind being brain dead. I come home only to rest, but I go berserk if I stay too long. It suffocates me.”

  “I felt the same way when I left home. Then I realized that what I was choking on was my own excessive ambition. Once I got what I thought I wanted, it seemed like pure smoke. Smoke and ashes.”

  “So what do you want now?” Geneva asked, leaning intently into his gaze, sensing the parallels along which their lives lay.

  “Reality. Living a real life and not just an advertisement of one in Forbes.”

  “So what is reality for you, Mr. John Smith, god of fire and iron, visionary, beloved of Christ?”

  He dropped his eyes with a smile, then returned her mocking gaze with candor and humility. “Reality is knowing God. It’s working with your hands. It’s walking the ridges as the sun comes up.” He paused, then added quietly, “It’s the love of a good woman.”

  Geneva had partly expected such an answer, but she had not expected the reaction it would cause in her. At his words, she felt as if a thunderbolt had shot across the table, striking her violently in the chest. She experienced a physical pain, followed by bewilderment, for she felt a sudden desire to leap from her chair and run, but she was rooted as surely as the ancient willow oak from which she had swung in the tire as a child. She sat very still and silent, something deep in her heart verifying the truth of John’s words.

  “I envy Rachel and Wayne,” John continued, oblivious of Geneva’s apocalypse. “Horses in the stable, dog at the hearth, children in the garden. Even when I was living it up in
New Orleans, I never really liked being a bachelor. Freedom isn’t all the playboys insist that it is.”

  Geneva studied him, remembering Howard’s “need” for freedom. “So why aren’t you already married? I can’t believe you haven’t had at least forty or fifty offers by now,” she said.

  He laughed. “I guess I’ve been unlucky. Back when I was surrounded by possibilities, I had the stupid notion that love could tie you down in ways that I wouldn’t like, and now that I’ve grown up enough to think straight, I can’t seem to find a lady who appreciates me enough to put up with all my quirks. You know, this one resents the time I spend around stables, that one says, ‘forget children, I’m going to have a career.’ One girl I dated for four months and then blew it because I didn’t know she’s afraid of heights.”

  “What happened?”

  “Took her up to Buttermilk Knob and tried to get her to climb the granite outcroppings. She hasn’t spoken to me since.”

  Geneva smiled, “I know what you mean. I made the mistake of taking my college roommate up there. Thought we’d have to call the National Guard to get her down. But surely there are lots of women around here who like dogs and horses and children—and heights. I could name a dozen of my cousins who would lasso you if they could get close enough.”

  “Yes? And how many of them have read War and Peace? No offense to your cousins, but it seems that all the smart ones leave. The first girl I met here, real pretty, big blue eyes, sweet smile. I took her to see Hamlet, and she hated it! Came out of the theatre declaring that Shakespeare wasn’t all he was cracked up to be. His plays are full of clichés! You know, ‘To thine own self be true,’ ‘I smell a rat.’”

  “‘And ‘it smells to heaven,’” countered Geneva.