The next day at school, I could think of nothing but the scrape of his stubble, the hot flesh of his stomach under his shirt, the trail of his hand moving up my leg. I had to close my eyes and put my head down on my desk. I didn’t understand what had happened between us. If the rumors were true, John Odom was no gentleman. It made no sense the way he ran off and left me. I knew that my feelings for him were dangerous, but after what had happened at the springhouse, nothing could have kept me away from him.
After school let out, I walked over to Main Street. I don’t remember getting there. I only remember standing in the shadows of an awning across the street as dark came early, the sky turning sunset orange between the buildings. I watched the door of Odom’s Hardware for him to come out and when he appeared, stepping onto the sidewalk and turning to lock the door behind him, my chest went heavy and tight. I crossed the street without feeling the ground underfoot. As I drew close to him everything came into sharp focus, his carved face, his shining eyes, his black hair. He stopped when he saw me and drew in a breath. Somewhere distant I heard voices and traffic, but on Main Street we were alone. We stared at each other for a long while in silence. I felt everything inside me threatening to rise to the surface, but I knew it was important to be calm and still. His coat collar was turned up on one side. Without thinking, I reached to smooth it down.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
I tried to smile. “I need a ride.”
He smiled back. “Mountain’s a long way off.”
“Yes,” I said. “But it’s a pretty drive.”
He looked past me into the street. “You shouldn’t be out here by yourself.”
I stepped closer to him. “Why’d you run off like that?”
“I don’t know. I guess I came to my senses.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I can’t be with somebody like you.”
“Somebody like me?”
His eyes returned to my face. “Somebody good.”
“Well,” I said. “I think you’re somebody good.”
He paused. “You don’t even know me.”
I took another step closer. “I don’t care.”
He opened his mouth to protest but I didn’t want to hear it. I took a deep breath, mustering my courage, and did what I had wanted to the minute he stepped out of the hardware store and locked the door behind him. I grabbed his coat and stood on tiptoe to kiss him like before. In those long seconds, something happened that I can’t forget. A strong wind came howling down Main Street, a cold blast whirling with dead leaves and trash, whipping my hair and plastering a sheet of newspaper to John’s shoulder where it clung before flying off toward the stoplight. I remembered stories of banshees Granny had told me, Irish witches who wailed outside houses at night to warn families of danger. To hear a banshee was always a bad omen. That night in my dreams, when I broke away from John’s kiss, the banshee’s veiled face floated inches from mine, the wind from her scream taking my breath. But on Main Street it was John who broke our kiss. The wind died as fast as it came, letting go of my hair and John’s coattail. He held me for a moment at arm’s length. “Are you sure about this?” he asked. “Because once I get ahold of you, I ain’t turning you loose.” I said yes without a second thought and followed him to his car.
I wasn’t ready for Granny or anyone else to know about us at first. John continued to park at the bottom of the road, a little inside the tree line, and we took long walks on the mountain. I was careful to choose paths I hadn’t explored. The going was harder, briars clawing at our ankles, but I didn’t want to risk running into Mr. Barnett or Doug Cotter. I wanted to climb to the top of Bloodroot Mountain with John, to stand in the secret meadow with him. I hadn’t tried since I was fourteen, when I caused Doug to fall. But John and I never made it that far. He always wanted to stop and sit, on fallen trees or rocky bluffs, anywhere he could kiss me. Sometimes I smelled another woman’s perfume on his clothes, but I didn’t say anything. I knew I hadn’t fully claimed him. At first I thought if I could be with him the way those other women were, I would have all of him. But each time we got close, his hands under my dress and mine tearing at his shirt, he pulled away again. Then one day, lying on the ground beside the springhouse, he said, “I’ve had plenty of whores, Myra. That ain’t what I want out of you.” His words stung but their meaning made me hope I was different than the ones who left perfume on his clothes. Whenever he got quiet I held my breath, praying that he would propose to me.
Every second he was out of my sight, my stomach churned with worry about what he was doing and who he was with. I sat on the back steps chewing my nails, stood at the bottom of the road and looked for his car even when I knew he wasn’t coming, took to my bed sometimes before dark and buried my face in my pillow. I knew Granny saw my misery, but she didn’t comment on it. Sitting at the kitchen table, tension hung like smoke between us, choking our conversations. Finally, I couldn’t take keeping the secret any longer. As scared as I was that she’d deny John and me her blessing, I had to confess.
At the beginning of winter, we were taping sheets of plastic over the house’s old windows to keep in the heat. It was already cold and drafty in the front room. I stood holding the thick silver tape roll for her, realizing how old it seemed she had grown overnight. I tried to memorize the seams and creases of her face, soft and wrinkled as brownish crepe paper. I charted the constellations her age spots made, took in the black brogans she wore for outside chores, Granddaddy’s dingy socks rolled down around her ankles, and the faded flowers of her dress, thin from hundreds of washings. I ached for her then as much or more than I did for John, thought of choosing her and the mountain and never getting married or moving away. But she turned to me, as her fingers smoothed a long strip of tape down the window frame, and said, “I believe my girl’s got something to tell me.” I wasn’t expecting to burst into tears. The flood startled me more than it did Granny. She came and held my face in her arthritis-knotted hands. “I’ve got cataracts,” she said with a sad grin, “but I ain’t blind yet. Now, I done decided I ain’t going to meddle. You’d just end up resenting me for it. But you better be careful, Myra Jean.”
I understand what Granny meant. Like her, I let my twins make their own mistakes. I don’t make them wear shoes, even when locust thorns have blown among the weeds. I don’t stop them from climbing trees or robbing beehives or swimming with snakes. I let them go, as Granny did me, only without warning them to be careful. I know they wouldn’t listen. But I protect them from a distance. I used to spend weeks without John or any of the Odoms entering my mind. I saw my twins out from under a cloud. I taught them how to count and hunt and clean fish. One day lying in the grass I flew them, lifting them up with my feet on their hipbones, holding their hands with their hair hanging down and their small faces shining. They took turns, the girl’s homemade dress swaying over me and the boy’s floppy shirt filling with wind like a sail. They laughed and I laughed with them, until tears leaked out of my eyes. I know they won’t remember it. They might never know me again that way. Lately it’s been hard to think of anything but the past. I carried a disease with me out of that house by the tracks and pieces of me are still coming off. It’s unfair how my fear has grown over time and begun to take me over. Sometimes it feels like John has won. But I’d rather die than trap the twins as I was trapped while I was with him. That’s why I’ll always give them their freedom.