“That’s what my daddy calls them,” Fran said. “Except, when he gets religious, he calls them devils come up to steal his soul. It’s because they supply him with drink. But he weren’t never the one who had to mind after them. That was my mother. And now she’s gone, and it’s only ever me.”
“You take care of them?” Ophelia said. “You mean, like the Roberts?”
A feeling of tremendous well-being was washing over Fran. Her feet were warm for the first time in what seemed like days, and her throat felt coated in honey and balm. Even her nose felt less raw and red. “Ophelia?” she said.
“Yes, Fran?”
“I think I’m going to be much better,” Fran said. “Which is something you done for me. You were brave and a true friend, and I’ll have to think how I can pay you back.”
“I wasn’t—” Ophelia protested. “I mean, I’m glad I did. I’m glad you asked me. I promise I won’t tell anyone.”
If you did you’d be sorry, Fran thought but didn’t say. “Ophelia? I need to sleep. And then, if you want, we can talk. You can even stay here while I sleep. If you want. I don’t care if you’re a lesbian. There are Pop-Tarts on the kitchen counter. And those two biscuits you brung. I like sausage. You can have the one with bacon.”
She fell asleep before Ophelia could say anything else.
The first thing she did when she woke up was take a bath. In the mirror, she took a quick inventory. Her hair was lank and greasy, all witch knots and tangles. There were circles under her eyes, and her tongue, when she stuck it out, was yellow. When she was clean and dressed again, her jeans were loose and she could feel her hip bones protruding. “I could eat a whole mess of food,” she told Ophelia. “But a cat-head and a box of Pop-Tarts will do for a start.”
There was fresh orange juice, and Ophelia had poured it into a stoneware jug. Fran decided not to tell her that her daddy used it as a sometime spittoon. “Can I ask you some more about them?” Ophelia said. “You know, the summer people?”
“I don’t reckon I can answer every question,” Fran said. “But go on.”
“When I first got there,” Ophelia said, “when I went inside, at first I decided that it must be a shut-in. One of those, you know, hoarders. I’ve watched that show, and sometimes they even keep their own poop. And dead cats. It’s just horrible.
“Then it just kept on getting stranger. But I wasn’t ever scared. It felt like there was somebody there, but they were happy to see me.”
“They don’t get much in the way of company,” Fran said.
“Yeah, well, why do they collect all that stuff? Where does it come from?”
“Some of it’s from catalogs. I have to go down to the post office and collect it for them. Sometimes they go away and bring things back. Sometimes they tell me they want something and I have to go get it for them. Mostly it’s stuff from the Salvation Army. Once I had to buy a hunnert pounds of copper piping.”
“Why?” Ophelia said. “I mean, what do they do with it?”
“They make things,” Fran said. “That’s what my momma called them, makers. I don’t know what they do with all of it. They give away things. Like the toys. They like children. When you do things for them, they’re beholden to you.”
“Have you seen them?” Ophelia said.
“Now and then,” Fran said. “Not very often. Not since I was much younger. They’re shy.”
Ophelia was practically bouncing on her chair. “You get to look after them? That’s the best thing ever! Have they always been here? Is that why you aren’t going to go to college?”
Fran hesitated. “I don’t know where they come from. They aren’t always there. Sometimes they’re… somewhere else. My momma said she felt sorry for them. She thought maybe they couldn’t go home, that they’d been sent away, like the Cherokee, I guess. They live a lot longer, maybe forever, I don’t know. I don’t think time works the same way where they come from. Sometimes they’re gone for years. But they always come back. They’re summer people. That’s just the way it is with summer people.”
“And you’re not,” Ophelia said. “And now I’m not, either.”
“You can go away again whenever you want,” Fran said, not caring how she sounded. “I can’t. It’s part of the bargain. Whoever takes care of them has to stay here. You can’t leave. They don’t let you.”
“You mean, you can’t leave, ever?”
“No,” Fran said. “Not ever. My mother was stuck here until she had me. And then when I was old enough, she told me I had to take over. She took off right after that.”
“Where did she go?”
“I’m not the one to answer that,” Fran said. “They gave my momma a tent that folds up no bigger than a kerchief, that sets up the size of a two-man tent, but on the inside, it’s teetotally different, a cottage with two brass beds and a chifforobe to hang your things in, and a table, and windows with glass in them. When you look out one of the windows, you see wherever you are, and when you look out the other window, you see those two apple trees, the ones in front of the house with the moss path between them?”
Ophelia nodded.
“Well, my momma used to bring out that tent for me and her when my daddy had been drinking. Then my momma passed the summer people on to me, and one morning after we spent the night in the tent, I woke up and saw her climb out that window. The one that shouldn’t ought to be there. She disappeared down that path. Maybe I should have followed on after her, but I stayed put.”
“Where did she go?” Ophelia said.
“Well, she ain’t here,” Fran said. “That’s what I know. So I have to stay here in her place. I don’t expect she’ll be back, neither.”
“Well, that sucks,” Ophelia said.
“I wish I could get away for just a little while,” Fran said. “Maybe go out to San Francisco and see the Golden Gate Bridge. Dip my toes in the Pacific. I’d like to buy me a guitar and play some of those old ballads on the streets. Just stay a little while, then come back and take up my burden again.”
“I’d sure like to go out to California,” Ophelia said.
They sat in silence for a minute.
“I wish I could help out,” Ophelia said. “You know, with that house and the summer people. You shouldn’t have to do everything, not all of the time.”
“I already owe you,” Fran said, “for helping with the Roberts’ house. For looking in on me when I was ill. For what you did when you went up to fetch me help.”
“I know what it’s like when you’re all alone,” Ophelia said. “When you can’t talk about stuff. And I mean it, Fran. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
“I can tell you mean it,” Fran said. “I just don’t think you know what it is you’re saying. I ought to explain at least one thing. If you want, you can go up there again one more time. You did me a favor, and I don’t know how else to pay you back. There’s a bedroom up in that house, and if you sleep in it, you see your heart’s desire. I could take you back tonight and show you that room. Besides, I think you lost something up there.”
“I did?” Ophelia said. “What was it?” She reached down in her pockets. “Oh, hell. My iPod. How did you know?”
Fran shrugged. “Not like anybody up there is going to steal it. Expect they’d be happy to have you back up again. If they didn’t like you, you’d know it already.”
Fran was straightening up her and her daddy’s mess when the summer people let her know that they needed a few things. “Can’t I just have a minute to myself?” she grumbled.
They told her that she’d had a good four days. “And I surely do appreciate it,” she said, “considering I was laid so low.” But she put the skillet down in the sink to soak and wrote down what they wanted.