"How long's he been dead?"
"Oh, don't you worry none, the baby is his."
Will colored. "I didn't mean that."
"Course you did. I watched your eyes when you first come up here. He's been dead since April. It was his dreams killed him. This time it was the bees and his honey. He thought he'd get rich real fast making honey out in the orchard, but the bees they started swarmin' and he was in too much of a hurry to use good sense. I told him to shoot the branch down with a shotgun, but he wouldn't listen. He went out on a branch, and sure enough, it broke, and so did he. He never would listen to me much." A faraway look came into her eyes. Will watched the way her hands lingered in the baby's hair.
"Some men are like that." The words felt strange on Will's lips. Comfort—either getting it or giving it—was foreign to him.
"We sure were happy, though. He had a way about him." Her expression as she spoke made Will sure it had once been Glendon Dinsmore's hair through which she'd run her fingers that way. She acted as if she'd forgotten Will was in the room. He couldn't quit watching her hands. It was another of those soft things that got him deep in the gut—the sight of her leafing through the baby's airy hair while the child continued with its biscuit and made gurgling sounds. He wondered if anyone had ever done that to him, maybe sometime long before he had memory, but he had no conscious recollection of ever being touched that way.
Eleanor Dinsmore drew herself back to the present to find Will Parker's eyes on her hands.
"So, what're your thoughts, Mr. Parker?"
He glanced up, refocused his eyes. "It don't matter about the kids."
"Don't matter?"
"I mean, I don't mind that you've got them. Your ad didn't say."
"You like kids then?" she asked hopefully.
"I don't know. Never been around 'em much. Yours seem nice enough."
She smiled at her boys and gave each a love pat. "They can be a joy." He couldn't help wondering at her reasoning, for she looked tired and worn beyond her years, having the nearthree she did. "Just make sure, Mr. Parker," she added, "'cause three's a lot. I won't have you layin' a hand on them when they're troublesome. They're Glendon's boys and he woulda never dreamed of layin' a hand on them."
Just what did she take him for? He felt himself blush. But what else was she supposed to think after what he'd revealed out there in the yard?
"You got my word."
She believed him. Maybe because of the way his eyes lingered on Baby Thomas's hair. She liked his eyes, and they had a way of turning soft when they'd light on the boys. But the boys weren't the only consideration.
"It's got to be said," she went on. "I loved Glendon somethin' fierce. It takes some time to get over a man like that. I wouldn't be lookin' for a man 'less I had to. But winter's comin', and the baby, too. I was in a fix, Mr. Parker. You understand, don't you?"
Will nodded solemnly, noting the absence of self-pity in her voice.
"Another thing." She concentrated on Thomas's hair, stroking it differently, distractedly, her cheeks turning pink. "Having three babies under four years old, well—don't get me wrong—I love 'em something fierce, but I wouldn't want any more. Three's plenty to suit me."
Lord a-mighty, the thought hadn't crossed his mind. She was almost as sorry-looking as her place, and pregnant to boot. He needed a dry bed, but preferably not one with her in it.
When she glanced up. Will Parker glanced down. "Ma'am..." His voice croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "Ma'am, I didn't come up here lookin' for..." He swallowed, glanced up, then sharply down. "I need a place is all. I'm tired of movin'."
"You moved a lot, have you?"
"I been movin' since I remember."
"Where'd you start from?"
"Start from?" He met her eyes, puzzled.
"You mean you don't remember?"
"
"That's all you know?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Maybe you're lucky," she commented.
Though he shot her a glance, the remark went unexplained. She merely added, "I started from right down there in Whitney. Never moved farther than from the town to the top of this hill. I reckon you've been around, though."
He nodded silently. Again, she found herself pleased by his brusqueness, his lack of curiosity. She thought she could get along quite well with a man like him.
"So you're lookin' for a dry bed and a full plate is all."
"Yes, ma'am."
She studied him a moment, the way he sat on the edge of his chair, taking nothing for granted, the way he kept his hat brim pulled low as if protecting any secret she might read in his eyes. Well, everybody had secrets. Let him keep his and she'd keep hers. But she sure as shootin' wasn't going to strike up an agreement with a man whose eyes she hadn't even seen in the clear light. And besides, suppose
he
didn't want
her
.
He was a vagrant ex-con; she poor, pregnant and unpretty. Who was the bigger loser?
"Mr. Parker, this house ain't much, but I'd appreciate it if you'd take your hat off when you're in it."
He reached up slowly and removed the hat. She lit the kerosene lantern and pushed it aside so they need not look around it.
For long moments they studied each other.
His lips were chapped and his cheeks gaunt, but his eyes were true brown. Brown as pecans, with blunt black lashes and a pair of creases between well-shaped brows. He had a nice knife-straight nose-some might even call it handsome—and a fine mouth. But so sour all the time. Well, maybe she could make it smile. He was quiet-spoken—she liked that. And those arms might be skinny, but they'd done their share of work. That, above all, mattered. If there was one thing a man would have to do around here it was work.
She decided he'd do.
She had fine-textured skin, strong bones and features that, if taken one by one, weren't actually displeasing. Her cheekbones were slightly too prominent, her upper lip a little too thin, and her hair unkempt. But it was honey-brown, and he wondered if with a washing it might not turn honeyer. He shifted his study to her eyes and saw for the first time: they were green. A green-eyed woman who touched her babies like every baby deserved to be touched.
He decided she'd do.
"I wanted you to see what you'd be gettin'," she told him. "Not much."
Will Parker wasn't one for fancy words, but this much he could say "That's for me to decide."
She didn't fluster or blush, only pushed herself out of the chair and offered, "I'll get you more coffee, Mr. Parker."
She refilled both their cups, then rejoined him. He wrapped both hands around the hot cup and watched the lamplight play on the surface of the black liquid. "How come you're not afraid of me?"
"Maybe I am."
His glance lifted. "Not so it shows."
"A person doesn't always let it show."
He had to know. "Are you?"
In the lanternlight they studied each other again. All was quiet but for Donald Wade's bare toes bumping a rung of the chair and the baby sucking his gooey fingers.
"What if I said I was?"
"Then I'd walk back down the road the way I came."
"You want to do that?"
He wasn't used to being allowed to speak his mind. Prison had taught him the road to the least troubles was to keep his mouth shut. It felt strange, being granted the freedom to say what he would.
"No, I don't reckon so."
"You wanna stay up here with the whole bunch of them down there thinking I'm crazy?"
"Are you?" He hadn't meant to ask such a thing, but she had a way of making a man talk.
"Maybe a little. This here what I'm doing seems crazy to me. Doesn't it to you?"
"Well..."
She sensed that he was too kind to say yes.
At that moment a pain grabbed Will's gut—the green apples catching up with him—but he wished it away, telling himself it was only nerves. Applying for a job as a husband wasn't exactly an everyday occurrence.
"You could spend the night," she offered, "look the place over in the morning when the light is up. See what you think." She paused, then added, "Out in the barn."
"Yes, ma'am." The pain wrenched him again, higher up this time, and he winced.
She thought it was because of what she'd said, but it'd take some time before she'd trust him in the house nights. And besides, she might be crazy, but she wasn't loose.
"Nights are plenty warm. I'll make you a shakedown out there."
He nodded silently, fingering the brim of his hat as if anxious to put it back on.
She told her older son, "Go fetch Daddy's pillow, Donald Wade." The little boy hugged her shyly, staring at Will. She reached for his hand. "Come along, we'll get it together."
Will watched them leave, hand in hand, and felt an ache in his gut that had nothing to do with green apples.
* * *
When Eleanor returned to the kitchen. Will Parker was gone. Thomas was still in his high chair, discontented now that his biscuit was gone. She experienced a curious stab of disappointment—he'd run away.
Well, what did you expect?
Then, from outside she heard the sound of retching. The sun had gone behind the pines, taking its light with it. Eleanor stepped onto the sagging back stoop and heard him vomiting. "You stay inside, Donald Wade." She pushed the boy back and closed the screen door. Though he started crying, she ignored him and walked to the top of the rotting steps.
"Mr. Parker, are you sick?" She didn't want any sickly man.
He straightened with an effort, his back to her. "No, ma'am."
"But you're throwing up."
He gulped a refreshing lungful of night air, threw back his head and dried his forehead with a sleeve. "I'm all right now. It's just those green apples."
"What green apples?"
"I ate green apples for lunch."
"A grown man should have more sense!" she retorted.
"Sense didn't enter into it, ma'am. I was hungry."
She stood in the semidark, hugging Glendon Dinsmore's pillow against her swollen stomach, watching and listening as another spasm hit Will Parker and he doubled over. But there was nothing more inside him to come up. She left the pillow on the porch rail and crossed the beaten earth to stand behind his slim, stooping form. He braced both hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. His vertebrae stood out like stepping-stones. She reached out a hand as if to lay it on his back, but thought better of it and crossed her arms tightly beneath her breasts.
He straightened, muscle by muscle, and blew out a shaky breath.
"Why didn't you say something?" she asked.
"I thought it'd pass."
"You had no supper, then?"
He didn't answer.
"No dinner either?"
Again he remained silent.
"Where did you get them apples?"
"I stole them off somebody's tree. A pretty little place down along the the road between here and the sawmill with pink flowers on a tree stump."
"Tom Marsh's place. And good people, too. Well, that'll teach you a lesson." She turned back toward the steps. "Come on back in the house and I'll fix you something."
"That's not necessary, ma'am. I'm not—"
Her voice became sharper. "Get back in the house, Will Parker, before your foolish pride pushes your ribs right through your thin skin!"