Mom sat and Ree sat beside her. Ree held Mom’s hand a moment, then came off the stump to kneel. She squeezed with both hands and tilted her face to look up at Mom.
“Mom, I need you. Mom—look at me. Look at me, Mom. Mom, I’m goin’ to need you to help. There’s things happenin’ that I don’t know what to do about. Mom? Look at me, Mom. Mom?”
The going sun chucked a vast spread of red behind the ridgeline. A horizon of red light parsed into shafts by standing trees to throw pink in streaks across the valley snow.
Ree waited kneeling for several minutes, kneeling as raised hopes fell to modest hopes, slight hopes, vague hopes, kneeling until any hope at all withered to none between her pressing hands. She released Mom, stood and walked away into the shadows behind the stump. She returned in a minute and looked closely at her from above, then sat on the stump again. Mom’s skin was sallow, her face was blank and her soul was sincerely given over to silence and the approximate refuge offered by incomprehension. Mom stared into the sunset, then pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around herself and held tight.
“Mom?”
During the next minutes Ree leaned to look into her face a few times. Mom’s gaze stayed unwaveringly on the glowing distance, chin to her kneecaps, hands clasped around her shins. Ree scooted away on the old stump and studied Mom’s face in profile, the rounding features and sagged cheeks, then sighed and looked west. Sunlight shriveled to a red dot beyond the ridge, night swallowed the dot in a gulp, and the vista quickly began to sink from sight. Ree stood, pulled Mom to her feet, and arm in arm they started the darkened walk downhill to home.
22
FLOYD CAME by after dark with the baby. Gail had at least three times since noon told Ree her breasts ached a little and she latched onto Ned like he was medicine and carried him to the couch. She sat back, opened up in a hurry and gave him a nipple he seemed eager to get. Ree sat in a chair by the far window and tried not to listen to the husband and wife talk, but she heard it all. Floyd wanted Gail home, his momma couldn’t keep up with a kid Ned’s age and the trailer was too quiet without the noise of her cooing at the boy, goo-goo-gooing and all. Plus her catalogue had come in the mail and she could page around and pick out something pretty for springtime and he’d likely get it for her. Gail switched Ned to the other nipple and seemed to feel less ache drop by drop. She said some shit had to change. He ain’t the boss of her every minute of every day. He said okay. But the big deal is that goddam Heather—you’ve got to quit fuckin’ Heather. Floyd didn’t say a word. Sonny and Harold slunk up close to see the tit the baby sucked, and the baby sucking was the only sound. Floyd lit a cigarette, then got to his feet and went outside. Gail bounced the baby, saying, There, there. There, there. The door opened and Floyd set down a black suitcase and the blue bag of baby stuff, then stepped backwards and pulled the door shut. Both boys leaned on the couch arm staring at Gail’s breasts and the headlight beams from Floyd’s truck swept across the window glass as he drove away. Ree went over behind the couch and began rubbing Gail’s neck. There, there. He’ll be back. He’ll be back to get you again, most likely on laundry day, I bet. He’ll be sayin’ ol’ Heather has got fat and sour of a sudden, she truly has, and god but he misses you sore. Come on home, sweetheart—soap’s under the sink. What Gail said was, At least he didn’t try to lie this time. Did you notice?
23
REE PUSHED a mulish shopping cart in the Bawbee Store, with Ned in the basket and Gail beside her. Ned slept and slobbered bubbly while she and Gail shopped as a pair. The wheels were splayed like walleyes, so the cart would not easily go where it looked to be aimed but screeched off-line in half-moon spins toward one side of the aisle, then the other. Ree hunched forward and rode the cart like she was plowing a crooked row, holding hard and muscling the thing more or less where she wanted to go. She put noodles, rice and dried beans into the cart. She had already dropped in cans of soup, tomato sauce and tuna, a full chub of bologna, three loaves of bread, two boxes each of oatmeal and grits, plus three family packs of ground beef. She paused to stare at her load, finger at her lips, then put the rice back on the shelf and grabbed more noodles. She said, “I don’t know what he done was wrong. Not for sure.”
Gail said, “With all them noodles you’ll want sprinkle cheese, won’t you?”
“It costs too much for what you get. So we always skip it.”
“Either he stole or he told. Those are the things they kill you for.”
“I can’t see Dad squealin’. Dad didn’t have no dog in him.”
“This generic here don’t cost much.”
“Naw, skip it.”
“It tastes just about the same.”
“Nope. Once the boys start likin’ it they’ll want it all the time. It’s too expensive. It costs even more’n meat does.”
“Oh, man,” Gail said, “it just hit me—I must’ve been raised up rich—we always had sprinkle cheese.”
Ree laughed and draped an arm across Gail’s shoulders. “But you turned out okay, anyhow, Sweet Pea. The sugar-tit life ain’t spoiled you none. None that I can see.”
Gail tossed two canisters of sprinkle cheese into the cart, saying, “I’ll buy those on my nickel.” She reached to the opposite shelf and grabbed a can. “Plus these tamales.”
The morning sun polished the hard road to a blinding sheen and both girls squinted on the way to the house. Mud holes were growing brown spots in the blanket of snow. The holes held water and birds pecked in the mud. A couple of saplings had roots spring loose in the wet and had fallen partway onto the road, and the thin ends of branches crunched under the truck tires.
While on the rut road to the house Ree looked across the creek. Blond Milton and Catfish Milton were standing by the bridge with a stranger. There was a parked white car that had a long antenna raised from the trunk. Both Miltons and the stranger watched the truck come along the rut. The stranger pointed, shrugged, started walking across the bridge.
Ree said, “Who the fuck is he?”
Gail said, “Somebody from town—look at the pretty shoes he’s got on!”
Ree hefted groceries while Gail hefted Ned. Both of them stopped on the porch and turned to the stranger. Ree set her sacks down, said, “That’ll do, mister. Right there. What is it you want?”
The man stood tall inside his thick coat, a hide and wool sheep coat with wide fuzzy lapels. He might’ve been thirty years old and wore mirror sunglasses and a leg holster. His Adam’s apple was big and jumpy in his throat, brown hair fell thick to his shoulders. Two inches of whiskers drooped from the point of his chin. He looked like he meant no harm but could do plenty if pushed, and said, “I’m Mike Satterfield, from Three X Bail Bonds. We hold the bond on Jessup Dolly, and he’s now a runner, it looks like.”
“Dad ain’t a runner.”
“He didn’t show for court—that makes him a runner.”
“Dad’s dead. He didn’t show in court ’cause he’s out layin’ dead somewhere.”
Satterfield stopped at the bottom of the steps, removed his sunglasses. His eyes were hazel and calm but interested. He leaned sideways against the handrail while looking at Ree.