“After a while Mother got tired of babysitting. She wouldn’t do it anymore. Clio started driving you up the mountain and leaving you with your grandmother when she and Kenny went out. Thank goodness you were with her when your mother and father got killed. Once Kenny and Clio were gone it was like you were gone, too. Your granny didn’t want me to visit, and Mother never tried to. She’s a hard-hearted woman, even being her daughter I can’t deny it. I went up the mountain to see you once anyway. It was a scary place to me, so hidden up there in the woods. But I saw that you were well taken care of. You won’t be able to see this now, and you might be angry at me for saying it, but for you it’s a blessing Kenny and Clio died. Your granny was nice enough to me while I was there. We had peach cobbler and coffee. But she asked me not to ever come back. I understood. So, there’s all of it. I’m your aunt. And I’m glad to see you again.”
I sat staring at her for a long time, unable to speak. A clock ticked loudly in the silence. After a while, it seemed Imogene felt obligated to say something. She looked out the window, where the hammering was still going on at intervals. “You know I told you I’m opening a shop next door?” she asked, voice high with false brightness. I nodded numbly. “Would you like to take a look before we go? These last renters left me with a mess, but it’s a world better now.” I nodded again, feeling like a sleepwalker. “Oh,” she said, glancing toward the kitchen. “I better take Ford a glass of tea. I bet he’s burning up out there.” I waited while she rattled around in the kitchen and came out with a frosty glass. She gathered her purse and keys and I followed her outside on automatic pilot. I went behind Imogene in a daze, the dress I’d put on that morning sticking to my legs in a heat that was uncharacteristic for such an early spring day. She talked with forced enthusiasm about the sign she would have painted with her name in fancy script, and where it would hang above the shop door. I pretended to listen, but her voice was distant and hazy to me.
There was a man coming shirtless down from the roof. “I brought you a drink, Ford,” Imogene said to him. He had long hippie hair, that’s what John would have called it. His chest and belly glistened with sweat. He smiled, showing good white teeth, and drank the tea down with long gulps. “Thank you,” he said.
“How’s it coming?” Imogene asked.
“Nearly finished.” He looked at me with eyes like John’s, but kinder. Then I noticed his hand on the slippery glass. One of the fingers was missing.
“This is my niece,” Imogene said, “Myra Odom. Myra, this is Ford Hendrix.”
We nodded to each other. The sun was in my eyes. Birds twittered. I felt far away. “It’s funny how Ford and I met,” Imogene said. “We were at a garage sale down in Oak Ridge. This woman had a whole table full of old books, and Ford and I were like kids in a candy store. We got to talking and come to find out, Ford has quite a collection. I’ve been out to see them, haven’t I, Ford? You wouldn’t believe it. And Ford writes novels, too. He’s a regular celebrity these days, had a book signing down at the Plaza.”
Ford grinned. There was a silence. I realized he was staring at me, but I couldn’t concentrate on him or on what was being said. Then Imogene looked over her shoulder, toward her house. She frowned back at us. “Is that my telephone? I’d better go check. It might be Mother. Myra, I promise I’ll hurry back. I know you need to be somewhere.”
“You’re white as a sheet,” Ford said the instant she was gone. “Are you sick?”
I took a better look at him. He was older than me, at least late thirties, a handsome man. Not beautiful, as John once was, but good to look at. “No. I’m not sick.”
He wasn’t convinced. “It might be the heat. Let’s go over here in the shade.” When I didn’t move, he took my elbow. His touch startled me. I remembered the missing finger. I let him lead me under the trees. We sat down and I was grateful for the coolness.
“I didn’t know Imogene had a niece,” he said.
“I didn’t know I had an aunt,” I said. “Until today.”
“You and Imogene never met before now?”
“I wanted to know about my mother. She died when I was one.”
“I see. Did Imogene tell you?”
“Yes,” I said, looking down at the damp print of my dress. “She told me.”
“Ah,” he said. “She told you too much.”
I raised my head, startled. His face was very close.
“You have eyes like my husband’s,” I said, without knowing why.
“Well,” he said. “You have eyes like the Aegean Sea.”
“You’ve seen the Aegean Sea?”
“Yes. It’s very blue.”
“Imogene says you have a lot of books.”
“Yes.”
“Do you read poetry?”
“Some.”
“Wordsworth?”
“One of my favorites.”
“Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”
“Tintern Abbey.”
“Yes.”
Looking at him, soft hair, soft eyes, all soft, made me forget. Then Imogene was back and we stood up. She seemed hot and nervous. “That was Mother,” she said. “Uncle’s fell out of bed and she can’t get him up by herself.”
“Did she call for an ambulance?” Ford asked.
“No, he’s not hurt. He does this all the time. Myra, honey, I’m afraid we’ll have to run back by the house. I hope it won’t make you late.”
I remembered John and tried not to show my fear. “That’s okay,” I said.
“I can drive her back,” Ford spoke up. I stared at him mutely.
“Oh … are you sure?” Imogene turned to me, brow creased. “Myra, would that be okay with you? I wouldn’t dream of it if I didn’t trust Ford with my life.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said.
“I’m so sorry about this. Will you come back and see me?”
“Yes,” I said. But I didn’t mean it.
In his car I looked through the bug-splattered windshield, half sick on the smell of exhaust. When Imogene’s words drifted to the front of my mind I snuffed them like candle flames, not ready yet to sort them out. I looked at Ford behind the wheel, long legs in patched blue jeans, unbuttoned shirt blowing, one dark strand of hair trailing across his mouth. When he caught me staring he smiled but didn’t speak, somehow knowing I needed silence. I came back into myself with a start when I saw that we were close to the pool hall, turning onto the street that would take me back to John. Panic fluttered in my guts. “Don’t stop here,” I blurted as we neared the low building. “I don’t want to go home yet.” Ford didn’t seem surprised. He had slowed to turn in but kept on going. I was scared and relieved at the same time. Maybe I would never go back, should never go back, because John would probably kill me. But I didn’t want to think about that. I didn’t want to think about anything. It was easy there in the car with Ford to push it all away.
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
“I want to see your books.”
He looked at me and lifted his eyebrows. That was all. We drove for a long time with the wind blowing. The landscape reminded me of home, farmland unrolling on both sides of the dirt road and the mountains rising up in the distance, but I didn’t want to think about that either. I wanted to be someone else in a strange car with a strange man.