Ford showed off his collection proudly, like a father. “Look,” he said, holding up one of the books. “This is a first edition, John Steinbeck’s Burning Bright. It’s in good condition, still got the dust jacket. It’s probably worth around two seventy-five, but I couldn’t part with it.” He replaced it carefully and took the next book off the pile. “Here’s another first edition. Harriet Beecher Stowe, We and Our Neighbors. I had somebody offer me eighty dollars for this one.” I began picking through the books myself, turning them over, enjoying the weight and heft of them in my hands. Finally, I lifted a thick hardcover from the coffee table and saw Ford’s name on the spine.
“You really are a writer,” I said, tracing the faded gold letters.
Ford laughed. “You mean you didn’t believe me?”
Then Carolina was standing in the door with a clothes basket on her hip. “He’s been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize,” she said.
Ford went to her and took the basket. “Carolina likes to brag on me, don’t you, honey?” He sat down on the flowered velvet couch and began folding clothes. I felt awkward, standing there with my hands in my pockets.
“Do you want something to drink?” Carolina asked, heading into a small kitchen divided from the living room by a bar with mismatching stools.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Have a seat and I’ll fix you boys some supper.”
Ford looked up from the clothes basket. “You don’t have to cook, Carolina. Me and Johnny had a bite to eat in town.”
“That was a long time ago,” she said. “I bet Johnny’s starving by now. I’ve got some pork chops thawing out anyway.” Reaching into an upper cabinet for the frying pan, she looked over her shoulder and smiled at me. A tingle raced along my spine.
I moved a stack of books from an old recliner and sat down. It was so comfortable that I nearly dozed, listening to the sound of pork chops frying and Carolina talking about her garden and the fruit trees she was nursing. A contented feeling washed over me, an ease sinking into my limbs as she talked and Ford sorted through his books, dividing them into piles according to those he would keep and those he would sell.
When Carolina called us to supper, we ate around a small table with our knees and elbows touching. Carolina lit candles and passed around a cheap bottle of wine. “We’re not always this fancy,” she said. “This is a special night.” It took a minute to realize she meant because I was there. I wondered how long it would take her to slip me a note or brush against me or make some excuse to get me alone, like girls at the children’s home and at school always had. I waited for the greediness in her eyes, but it never came. She was only friendly and comfortable with one leg tucked beneath her in the chair.
At some point I noticed that Carolina wasn’t eating her own cooking. When I asked about it, she said, “I can’t hardly stand to eat meat.” Ford claimed it was because her heart was too tender. He reached out to touch her hair. “It doesn’t bother me for other people to eat it,” she said. “I just can’t hardly stand to myself.” I wondered what she would think if she knew that I had skinned rabbits and squirrels for my mama to cook, ripped the greasy flesh from their small bones without a pang of remorse.
When Ford’s plate was clean, he pushed back from the table and said, “I’ve got to go check my mole traps. They’re tearing the garden all to pieces this year. Carolina, will you show Johnny where he’s bunking tonight?”
I followed her across the grass with my duffel bag slung over my shoulder. She carried a blanket and pillow in her arms. It was turning dark and the yard was a chorus of crickets and tree frogs. There was no sign of Ford checking his traps and the dogs were gone. They had probably followed him to the garden. It seemed Carolina and I were the only people for miles. There was a light burning in the shed and the door was propped open. It was tidier inside than I had imagined, the concrete floor swept with cardboard boxes and gar den tools moved to one side. There was a lone army cot in the corner.
“Ford brought this bed out here a long time ago,” Carolina said, her voice startling me. I wished she hadn’t mentioned Ford’s vision. There was an awkward silence.
“Was he really nominated for a Pulitzer?” I asked.
“Twice. I seen it in a magazine. People don’t believe it because of the way he lives, but this is the life Ford chooses for hisself. Sometimes people come out here and ask him to sign a book. Once there was a man from the newspaper who wanted to write an article. Ford talked to them, but he doesn’t like being found.” She paused, looking down at the blanket and pillow she was holding. She seemed tired, and maybe sad. “He’s got an agent that sends him letters sometimes. She wants him to write another book, but Ford’s stubborn. You can’t make him do anything before he’s ready to.”
We fell silent again, standing in the middle of the shed looking at each other. I wondered what she was doing there with some crazy old man. I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking about me. Finally she said, “Well, here’s you a pillow and blanket.” She delivered them into my arms and then, without warning, her hands were on me, moving quick and fluttery over my abdomen and ribs like butterflies. My scalp prickled at her touch. I couldn’t move. Her face was still, as if nothing unusual was happening. It was the manner of a doctor giving an examination. “You got a pain somewhere, Johnny,” she said. I could smell her hair, like the woods after a thunderstorm. Then the small hand settled on my chest. She nodded as if she had suspected all along. “It’s right in here.”
I opened my mouth, tried to think what to say. “No. I’m all right.”
“Since I was a little girl,” she said, “whenever I lay my hands on somebody, it’s like they know right where to go to help that person.”
I was about to tell her that I didn’t feel any different when I noticed a loosening in my chest, a lightening, as if someone had taken a rock off it. I took a deep breath and it was like I hadn’t been breathing at all before. Then immediately I felt foolish and weak, having fallen so easily for some kind of hypnotic suggestion. It wasn’t as much of a mystery anymore what this girl was doing with Ford. She was every bit as crazy as he was. I plucked her hand off my chest but she didn’t seem to notice. She smiled and said, “I guess I’ll go on and give you some privacy.” She paused and turned back before closing the door. “Sometimes in the spring it still gets chilly at nighttime. I’ve got a little heater I can bring out if you get to needing one.” Then she was gone. I stood in the middle of the shed for a long time, wondering what I was doing there myself.
LAURA
People said Clint did it on purpose but I think he was just trying to stay down where it was peaceful a little while longer. Maybe he sunk too far and couldn’t get back up before he ran out of breath. But I don’t believe he wanted to leave me. I think he wanted to see our baby get born and be a good father to him. Right after he drowned, I worried things had been passed down from Mama that I didn’t want. I thought I might be cursed to live out the same awful things that happened to her. I knowed from the stories she told there’s been a lot of sadness in our family. Bad times seem to follow our people around. For a minute I wished I was born to somebody else. Then I got to thinking about Mama and cried again. It wasn’t her fault that Clint drowned. It wasn’t anybody’s.