“That was a child bled out on the floor of that shed?”
No one answers. Mama turns away. Aunt Ruth looks down at her stomach. Grandma Reesa tips her face to the sky like heaven is up there and she can almost see it.
This time, Uncle Ray shouts as loudly as he can.
“That was a child?” His voice booms across Julianne’s grave.
Mama presses a hand over her mouth, which means she is about to cry. Grandma Reesa turns to leave, and Dad starts toward Uncle Ray but Aunt Ruth grabs his coat sleeve, stopping him.
“Yes, Ray,” Aunt Ruth says quietly, but the wind is to her back and it carries her voice for her. “That was a child, he or she-a baby.”
Uncle Ray steps back when Aunt Ruth says it, almost like she slapped him, slapped him hard right across the face. Then he looks up at Dad. He looks directly at Dad and points at him. “And you did it,” he says. “You killed my Eve.”
The two of them stare at each other, waiting for something.
“Yes,” Dad says. “I did it.”
Uncle Ray’s hat is cocked high on his forehead, showing off his tired eyes and gray skin. His face is thin and his cheekbones, like his hat, are cocked a little too high. His coat hangs on his shoulders and his pants bag around his boots as if he must have shrunk since he bought them. Dad once said too much drinking will wear heavy on a man. It looks like it has weighed Uncle Ray down about as far as he can go. After staring at Dad for a few more minutes, long enough that the Negro man with the shovel takes a few steps toward him, Uncle Ray walks away, down the cleared path, toward the station wagon where Elaine sits inside with Evie and Jonathon. He walks past the car without saying anything to Jonathon, who has stepped out probably because he heard all the shouting. He walks away, until he disappears down Bent Road without ever looking back.
Chapter 29
Celia takes Reesa’s coat from the hook near the back door, hands it to Jonathon and steps aside as Reesa walks by. She fills the small hallway leading from the kitchen to the back porch, fills it with her size and with a sweet yeasty smell from the cinnamon rolls she mixed up that morning, intending to take them to the Robisons after the funeral. Now someone else will have to bake and deliver them to Mary Robison. Reesa says nothing as she sets her suitcase at Jonathon’s feet and extends one arm so he can help her on with her coat.
“I’m sure the road home will be fine, Mrs. Scott,” Jonathon says to Reesa. “Plows have had plenty of time to do their work.”
Reesa makes a grunting sound and, after buttoning her top two buttons, she walks out onto the porch, leaving her suitcase for Jonathon to carry.
“She made her bed,” Celia says to Jonathon. “Now she’s got to sleep in it and try to make it again in the morning.”
Jonathon shakes his head, signaling that he doesn’t understand.
“Just a saying my mother liked to use.” Celia swallows, something she does when she feels guilt. “And we have to think of them now, Ruth and the baby. They’re most important.”
Jonathon nods.
“You’ll see to it that the house is warm before you leave her?”
He nods again. “Sure thing.”
“Thank you, Jonathon,” Celia says, reaching up to hug him. “And I know Arthur thanks you, too.”
Overhead, footsteps pound across the roof. Arthur and Daniel climbed up there almost the instant they got home from the funeral to shovel more snow.
“He always goes to work when he’s feeling bad. We’ll have the cleanest roof in the county before this all settles.” Celia hands Jonathon his coat. “You drive careful and come back for dinner.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll see Mrs. Scott home safe. Safe and sound.”
Hearing the screened door open, Daniel stops shoveling and looks over the edge of the house. Behind him, Dad continues to scrape his shovel across the black roof.
“Grandma’s leaving,” Daniel says, slapping his leather gloves together. He looks over the edge again, the wind sweeping up and catching him in the face. He squints into the white sunlight bouncing off the snow below. “Jonathon’s taking her.”
Dad nods, lifts his shovel and begins to chip away at a patch of ice.
“Jonathon’s carrying a suitcase,” Daniel says.
Specks of ice sparkle as they fly off the end of Dad’s shovel.
“Grandma’s going home.”
Jonathon’s truck chokes a few times, rumbles, and then slowly starts down the driveway. Daniel watches, waiting for the truck to disappear, because once it’s gone, he has to tell Dad. He has to tell because the weight of it is too much. Maybe a man could carry it around, but not Daniel. At the top of the hill leading toward Grandma’s house, the truck fishtails.
“Dad,” Daniel says. “I hit Ian Bucher. I hit him in the nose.”
Dad stops hammering the ice.
“At school. In the cafeteria. I hit him.”
Dad leans on his shovel. “You have good reason?”
Just like that. The weight of it is gone.
“Yes, sir. He said Aunt Eve was murdered. He said she was bloodied up between the legs and killed like Julianne Robison.”
Dad nods, and lining up his shovel to take another whack at the ice, he says, “Bloody nose between friends never hurt anyone. But you be mindful of Ian’s size. The boy can’t help his size.”
Daniel nods. “Sir,” he says, and Dad stops again but doesn’t meet Daniel’s eyes. “I’m sorry Aunt Eve died. I’m sorry that happened.”
Dad nods. “Yep,” he says. “Me too, son.”
Ruth sits on the edge of her bed, tulle draped across her lap and a small box of pearl beads on the nightstand to her left. She glances up when Elaine and Celia walk into the room, then continues trying to thread her needle.
“There’s no hurry with that,” Elaine says, sitting opposite Ruth on the other bed.
Ruth pulls the white thread through the eye of the needle. “The light’s good today,” she says. “Especially in here. We don’t always have such good light.”
Celia sits next to Ruth, lowering herself slowly and scooting close enough to drape part of the tulle over her own lap. “It is good,” she says of the sunlight shining through the window. “This is beautiful work, Ruth. Did you see, Elaine? She’s started to bead the pearl flowers.” Celia lifts one edge of the veil so Elaine can see it, then lets it fall across her lap again. “Elaine, would you excuse us?”
“Certainly,” Elaine says, standing. “It’s beautiful work, Aunt Ruth. Beautiful.” And she walks out of the room, leaving Celia and Ruth alone.
“Reesa is gone,” Celia says, running her fingers along the veil’s scalloped edge.
Ruth nods.
“She took her things. Jonathon is seeing her home.” Celia pauses. “She’ll be fine. Hardheaded as she is, she’ll be fine.”
“Why do you suppose we did this? Why so much hiding?”
“People get used to things,” Celia says. “Without even realizing. We get used to the way things are.” She reaches for the box of beads, plucks out one of the smooth, oval pearls between two fingers and passes it to Ruth. “Too afraid of the truth, I guess.”
Ruth lays her hands in her lap and closes her eyes. Deep inside, Elisabeth shifts and flutters.
The elderberry was in full bloom by early June 1942. Ruth’s father, Robert Scott, was due to plant his soybean, and Ruth woke, thinking it would be a fine morning to make elderberry jam. Before the day turned hot, she decided to wake Eve so they could walk a quarter mile down the road to the ditch where the plants grew best. The exercise would do Eve good, maybe chase away the blue mood she had been carrying around for a few months. Whether it was a touch of dropsy or a lingering flu, the elderberries would clear it right up. Mother always cooked with too much salt, and the summer heat could make a person swell and feel out of sorts. That’s all that troubled her-too much salt and humidity. That’s all it was. After a day of fresh air, Eve would get her color back and feel like finishing the blue satin trim on her latest dress. Mary Robison said she could sell it if Eve would finish it, said she could sell all the dresses she and Eve had made together, but Eve never wanted to part with them. Until now. Now she said that once she felt well enough to stitch on the blue satin trim, she’d sell it and the rest, too.