“Me and John are getting married.”
“Well. I figured you would.”
She smiled and leaned into my shoulder. “How’d you figure?”
“Honey, you look about as lovesick as anybody I ever seen, except maybe for me when I first laid eyes on your granddaddy.”
We both got quiet. I knowed what I wanted to do. I wanted to give Myra her granddaddy’s ring, but I hesitated. Sometimes I still worry it’s what caused this whole blamed mess. Stealing was the worst thing I ever done and for most of my life taking that ring had been my secret. Now I had to tell on myself, because I couldn’t give it to Myra without warning her what came with it. But it felt right for her to have. I seen how deep in love she was. I got up before I could chicken out and said, “Set still here a minute.”
I went inside, the kitchen door slapping behind me, and came back out carrying the box Macon had carved. Myra had never seen it before, but she must have knowed right off it was her granddaddy’s work. I could tell by the way her eyes lit up. Then she got real solemn and traced the bloodroot flower on the lid with her fingertip.
“Open it up,” I said. The wedding ring was inside. I’d seen it many times but it looked different off of Macon’s finger, like a living thing, a beating heart. “I want you to give it to John,” I said. Myra looked up at me with her blue eyes. She opened her mouth to talk but no words came out. She settled her head on my chest and I stroked her hair for a while, the red ribbon Macon bought her a long time ago flowing through my fingers.
“Now I’ve got to tell you a shameful thing,” I finally said. Myra raised her head and I was nervous, because if my grandbaby was to think less of me I didn’t know what I’d do. “I stole this here ring off of a woman I worked for.” I studied Myra’s face close but there was no change in it that I could see. “I never believed I could do a thing like that. But I loved your granddaddy in such a hard way, I didn’t know up from down.”
She just kept looking at me. I couldn’t tell how she was taking it.
“That ain’t no excuse,” I went on. “It’s something I’ll have to answer for on Judgment Day. I’m just saying love can be too deep. It’ll make you do crazy things.”
Myra smiled at me then in a way that made my belly sink down to my feet. “Don’t be sorry, Granny,” she said. “You don’t have to explain. I know why you did it.”
All of a sudden I wanted to snatch Macon’s ring back and my blessing, too. I wondered what she had already done in the name of that deep down love.
It was two weeks later, in June of last year, that Myra and John Odom got married. They was in too big of a hurry for a church wedding, so they went down to the preacher’s house and got married in his kitchen without telling me about it until the next day. I hated for Myra to leave me, but I was relieved at least she was marrying into some money. Macon had done well enough for us and we never went hungry, but it was a struggle sometimes. I wondered if Myra was ashamed, going to school with other boys and girls that had more than we did. I knowed Odom’s Hardware hadn’t got as much business after the Plaza was built, but it seemed from the look of things that Frankie and his sons was still making a good living. That’s part of how come I was so surprised when I seen the house he had Myra in. I rode down yonder with them before they moved in their furniture and I guess it showed plain on my face what I thought of the place. Right off, Myra went to making excuses. She said times was lean at the hardware store and Frankie couldn’t afford to pay his boys as much as he used to. But I still believe John Odom could have done better by my grandbaby than that old dump by the railroad tracks. It had rained the night before and the yard was pure mud, with no trees or flowers. Soon as we stepped out of the car a train went by, big and fast enough to rattle the ground. It was all I could do to keep from squalling, thinking of Myra living in a hole like that.
Back at home without my grandbaby, the mountain looked different to me. The woods was dark and sometimes it seemed like they was creeping up closer to the house. At least when Myra and John first got married they’d come and eat dinner with me every Sunday after church. They’d set across the table and look at each other until it just about made my face red. Sometimes I’d get jealous over how much they loved one another. I’d get sad thinking about how my own youth was gone and my loving days was over.
It wasn’t long, though, before I seen John Odom turning quiet. Wouldn’t hardly look up from his plate, and every once in a while, if me and Myra got to laughing and carrying on, sharing a little bit of gossip, he’d shoot us the evilest look anybody’s ever seen. It made me uneasy, but to tell the truth, I was still trying to ignore it. Like I said, I wanted him to be everything Myra thought he was, for her sake and mine both.
Then John stopped coming to church and Myra would be there by herself. She’d slip in and set on the back pew. I could tell she was troubled. One afternoon she came up to the house looking peaked and her hands shaking. She tried to help me worsh the dishes and they kept slipping back down in the sink. Finally I said, “What is it, honey?”
She said, “John’s started drinking beer.”
“Well,” I said, trying to make me and her both feel better, “I never knowed a young man that wouldn’t take a nip every once in a while.”
“I don’t know, Granny,” she said, and wouldn’t look at me no more.
By November, Myra had quit coming up Bloodroot Mountain altogether. I cooked a ham for Christmas dinner but she never showed up. I set by myself beside of the tree Hacky Barnett drug in and put up for me, worried sick. Her and John Odom didn’t have no phone in that house by the tracks, and me and Macon never had one put in either, so I didn’t know what in the world happened to her. I had Hacky to drive me down yonder but seeing her didn’t make me feel no better. She acted spooked, kept looking at the door the whole time like she was afraid somebody was coming. We tried to talk but seemed like she couldn’t concentrate enough to carry on a conversation. I wept all the way back home and Hacky tried to comfort me by letting on like it wasn’t all that bad. He patted my shoulder and said, “She looks all right, Byrdie. There ain’t no places on her.” But I said, “Hacky, the places might be on the inside.” He didn’t have no argument for that.
Then two months passed without seeing Myra because Margaret Barnett fell off the porch and twisted her back. Hacky’s had a time taking care of her, and I hated to ask him to drive me to town. I thought of asking Bill Cotter, but since his boys are gone it’s all he can do to keep the farm running. This morning I couldn’t stand it no longer and asked Hacky to take me to Myra right away. We didn’t talk in the truck. I guess we both had a lot on our minds. We pulled up in front of the house under a big black storm cloud. It had been spitting ice rain off and on all morning and it was a mess trying to get across that old yard. I climbed up on the stoop huffing and puffing and when I finally did get situated to knock on the door, it took Myra a long time to open it. Soon as she seen me, her mouth fell open. I was shocked myself, to see my grandbaby in such a shape. She was skinny as a rail and looked like she hadn’t combed her hair in a month of Sundays.
“Granny,” she said.
She walked into my arms and we stood there for a long time with tears in our eyes. Finally I heard Hacky clearing his throat behind me. We went on in the house and I never seen such a clutter. I taught Myra better than that, but I reckon she just didn’t have no gumption left in her. She cleared a place on the couch for us. Hacky set there the whole time holding his cap with his ears red, looking like he’d rather be anyplace else.