The houses in this area were big and comfortable, although most of them were poorly cared-for. On some of the lawns the trees were so old and thick that there was a little whitening of frost on the grass beneath their limbs, even now that most of their leaves were gone. Ben Joe began shivering. He walked more quickly, past the wide, deserted porches and down the echoing sidewalk. Then he was on the corner, and across the street was his own house.
A long, low wire gate stood in front of it, although the fence that went with it had been torn down years ago when the last of the children had left the toddler stage. The lawn behind it had been allowed to grow wild and weedy, half as high as a wheat field and dotted here and there with little wiry shrubs and seedy, late-fall flowers. And the sidewalk from the gate to the front porch was cracked and broken; little clumps of grass grew in it. Towering above such an unkempt expanse of grass, the house took on a half-deserted look in spite of the lace curtains that hung primly in all the windows. It was an enormous white frame house, in need of a little touch-up with a paint brush, and it could easily be the ugliest house in town. Round stained-glass windows popped up in unexpected places; the front bay window was too tall and narrow, and the little turret, with its ridiculously curlicued weather vane, looked as if it must be stuffed with bats and cobwebs. People said — although Ben Joe never believed them — that the first time his mother had seen the house she had laughed so hard that she got hiccups and a neighbor had had to bring her a glass of peppermint water. And all the while that Ben Joe was growing up, little boys used to ask him jealously if his room was in the turret. He always said yes, although the truth was that nobody lived there; it was just a huge hollow space above the stairwell. The only thing that saved the house from looking haunted was the front porch, big and square and friendly. A shiny green metal glider sat there, and in the summertime the whole porch railing was littered with bathing suits and Coke bottles and the lounging figures of whatever boys his sisters were dating at the time. In front of the door, Ben Joe could just make out a rolled-up newspaper. That brought him to life again; he crossed the yard cheerfully, stopped on the porch to pick up the paper, and opened the front door.
Inside, there was the mossy brown smell that he had been raised with, that seemed to be part and parcel of the house and was a wonderful smell if you were glad to be home and an unbearable smell if you were not. And mingled with it were the more temporary, tangible smells — bacon, coffee, hot radiators, newly ironed dresses, bath powder. He was standing in the narrow hallway and looking into the living room, which was stuffed with durable old ugly furniture that had stood the growing up of seven children. On the walls hung staid oil paintings of ships at sea and summer landscapes. The coffee tables were littered with things that had been there as long as Ben Joe could remember-little china figurines, enameled flower pots, conch shells. Periodically his mother tried to move them, but Gram always put them back again. On the floor was an interrupted Monopoly game, a pair of fluffy slippers, a beer can, and a pink baby sweater that reminded him of Tessie. It must belong to Joanne’s baby now. He set down the suitcase and the newspaper and crossed into the living room to pick the sweater up between two fingers. It seemed to him that every girl in the family had worn that. But had it really been that tiny?
In the kitchen a voice said, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll tell you what, Jane. Every time I even pick up a glass of frozen orange juice, it makes me think of vitamin pills. Does it you?”
Someone answered. It could have been any one of them; they all had that low, clear voice of their mother’s. And then the first voice again: “I’d rather squeeze oranges in my bare hands than drink my orange juice frozen.”
Ben Joe smiled and headed through the hallway toward the voices, with the sweater still in one hand. At the open doorway to the kitchen he stopped and looked in at the five girls sitting around the table. “Anybody home?” he asked.
They all turned at the same moment to look at him, and then their chairs were scraped back and five cheeks were pressed briefly to his and questions hurled around his head.
“What you doing here, Ben Joe?”
“What you think Mama’s going to say?”
“How’d you get in, is what I want to know.”
“Sure, a burglar could’ve walked in. We’d never even heard him.”
“Would anyone be a burglar before breakfast? And what’s to steal?”
“Where’s your luggage, Ben Joe?”
He stood smiling, unable to get a word in edgewise. They were circled around him, looking soft and happy in their pastel bathrobes, and if they had been still a minute he would have said he was glad to see them, even if it would embarrass them, but they didn’t give him a chance. Lisa reached for the baby sweater in his hand and held it up above her head for the others to see and laugh at.
“Why, Ben Joe, you bring us a sweater? Isn’t that nice, except I don’t reckon it’ll fit us too well.”
“He’s been away so long, forgotten how big we’d have grown.”
“Aren’t you exhausted?”
“I am at that,” said Ben Joe. “Feels like my head’s come unscrewed at the neck.”
“I’ll get you some coffee,” Jenny said. She was the next-to-youngest — it was only last spring that she’d graduated from high school — but, of all of them, she was the most down-to-earth. She went to the cupboard and took down the huge earthenware mug that Ben Joe always used. “Mama didn’t know if you meant it about coming home,” she said, “and says she hopes you didn’t, but she changed your bed, anyway.”
“I’m going to it, too, soon as I’ve had my breakfast. Hello there, Tessie. You’re so little still I damn near overlooked you. Maybe it’s you this sweater’s for.”
“Not me it’s not,” said Tessie. “It’s too little for Carol, even.”
“Who’s Carol?”
“Carol’s our niece.”
“Oh. Where’s Joanne?”
“In bed. So’s Carol.”
“I forgot about her being named Carol,” Ben Joe said. “One more girl to remember. Hoo boy.” He took off his jacket and turned to hang it on the back of his chair. “Ma gone to work already?”
“Yup. This man’s bringing a truckload of books real early.”
The mug was set before him, full of steaming coffee. Tessie passed him a plate of cinnamon buns and said, “You notice anything different about me?”
“Well …” Ben Joe said. He frowned at her, and she frowned steadily back. Of all the Hawkes children, she and Ben Joe were the only blond ones. The others had dark hair, which they wore short and curly, and their eyes were so black it was hard to tell where they were looking. They were almost round-eyed, too, whereas Ben Joe and Tessie had their father’s too-narrow eyes. And there was something tricky about their coloring. At one moment they could seem very pale and at the next their skin would be almost olive-toned. But all of the girls, even Tessie, had little pointed faces and small, careful features, a little too sharp; all of them wore quick, watchful expressions and their oval-nailed hands were thin and restless. People said they were the prettiest girls in town, and the ficklest. Thinking of that, Ben Joe smiled at them, and Tessie tugged at his arm impatiently and said, “Not them, me.”
“You.” He turned back to her. “You’ve gone and gotten married on us.”
“Oh, Ben Joe.” Her giggle was like Joanne’s, light and chuckly. “I’m only ten years old,” she said. “Don’t you see anything different?”