Oh, God ... God...
Will raised his free hand and forced himself to turn, stalk away.
Think about coming back, he recited like a litany. Think about how lucky you are you got them four waitin' under a sourwood tree. Think about how pretty that little place is you're leaving, and what it's gonna be like to see those boys come runnin' when you walk back up this road, and what it'll be like to hold Elly again and know you won't have to let her go, and how you're gonna smile when Lizzy P. calls you daddy for the first time, and how you're gonna have one of your own someday just like her, and you and Elly'll watch all four of 'em grown up and get married and get grandbabies and bring 'em back home on Sundays and you'll show 'em the old sourwood tree and tell 'em all how you marched off to war and left their grandmama and mama and daddies sittin' under it wavin' you goodbye.
By the time he reached Tom Marsh's place, he was calmer. He stood at the edge of their property, looking up at the neat white house, the empty clothesline in the backyard, the stump where the kettle held only dirt, no petunias. A new white picket fence surrounded the yard; he opened the gate, clicked it shut behind him and approached the house with his eyes fixed on it. A shaggy yellow dog came off the porch, barking and sniffing his calves, a half-grown pup, more inquisitive than threatening.
"Hey, girl..." Will bent and scratched her neck. "Where's your folks, huh?" When he straightened, a woman had opened the door and stepped onto the back stoop. The same young woman as before, dressed in a trim red dress with a white mandarin collar, shrugging into a white sweater.
"Hello!" she called.
Will approached slowly and removed his hat. "Mrs. Marsh?"
"That's right."
"My name's Will Parker. I live up on
She came down two steps and extended her hand. She was a pretty woman, thin and leggy, with bouncing black curls, cheek rouge and lipstick that made her look sweet, not hard like
"Yes, ma'am. I work at the library for Miss Beasley. I mean, I did. I'm..." He gestured toward town with his hat. "I'm on my way to
Parris Island
."
"The Marine camp?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"You got drafted?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"So did my husband. He'll be leavin' at the end of the week."
"I'm sorry, ma'am. I mean ... well, it's a heck of a thing, this war."
"Yes, it is. I have a brother, seventeen. He quit school and enlisted in the Navy already. Mama and Daddy just couldn't keep him at home."
"Seventeen ... that's young."
"Yes ... I worry about him so." A brief silence passed before she inquired, "Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Parker?"
"No, ma'am. Somethin' I had to do for you before I leave." Holding the paper sack against his stomach, Will reached in, pulled out a quart jar of honey and handed it to her. "A few months back I stole a quart jar full of buttermilk from your well. This here is it. Buttermilk's gone, of course, but that's our own honey—we keep bees at our place." Next came the towel. "Stole this green towel off your clothesline, too, and a set of your husband's clothes, but I'm afraid they're about worn out—"
"Well, I declare," she breathed, accepting the honey.
"—or I'd've returned them, too. I was hard up then, but that's no excuse. I just wanted to apologize, Mrs. Marsh. It's been on my mind a long time, is all, and it bothered me, stealin' from good people—Elly, she says you're good people." He backed away, pointing at the jar. "So there. Honey's not much, but—well—it's—" He donned his hat and rolled the top of the sack down tightly, still backing away. "My apologies, ma'am, and I sure hope your husband makes it back from this war."
"Just a minute, Mr. Parker!" He paused near the gate and she hurried down the walk.
"Give me a minute to let this sink in—nobody's ever—well, if this isn't the darndest thing." She chuckled as if in surprise. "I always wondered where those clothes went."
Will turned red to the ears while she seemed pleasantly amused.
"I got no excuse, ma'am, but I'm sorry. I'll rest easier now that I got it off my chest."
"Thank you for the honey. It'll come in handy with sugar being so dear."
"It's nothin'."
"It'll more than pay for those old clothes of Tom's."
"I hope so, ma'am." He pushed the gate open and the pup tried to slip through. She leaned down and grabbed its collar as Will closed the gate between them.
"I'm impressed by your honesty, Mr. Parker," she offered, rising.
He chuckled self-consciously and dropped his gaze to the gate while absently fingering one of its pointed slats.
"I appreciated the buttermilk and jeans at the time."
They studied each other, strangers caught in the backlash of war, considering the possibilities of death and loss, amazed that those possibilities could so swiftly create a tie between them. She reached out her hand once more and he took it in a prolonged handclasp.
"I hope to see you passing on the road again—soon."
"Thank you, Mrs. Marsh. If I do I'll give a holler and a hello."
"You do that."
He dropped her hand. "Well ... goodbye."
"God bless you."
He tipped his hat and headed for the road. Several paces away he turned back. She was dipping her finger into the honey. As she stuck it in her mouth she looked up and found him watching, grinning.
"It's delicious." She smiled broadly.
"I was just thinkin', ma'am. You asked if there was anything you could do and maybe there is."
"Anything for a soldier."
"My wife, Elly—she's got a new baby just two months old plus two others, and she doesn't get out much. If you should get—well, I mean, if you needed a friend, or someplace to go visit, I know you got kids of your own and maybe y'all'd like to walk up to our place and say hey sometime. Kids could maybe play together, you two ladies could have tea. Seein' as how your husband'll be gone, too."
Her pretty face puckered in thought. "Eleanor ... Elly—your wife was Elly See, wasn't she?"
"That's right, ma'am. But what they say about her ain't true. She's a fine person, and brighter than some who spread rumors about her."
Mrs. Marsh recapped the quart jar, held it as a bride holds a bouquet and replied, "Then I'll want to thank her for the excellent honey, won't I?"
He smiled, gladdened, and thought how Mrs. Marsh's prettiness went deeper than skin and hair and cheek rouge.
"Enjoy that honey," he said by way of farewell.
She raised a hand and waved. "Come back."
As he turned away they both hoped fervently they'd meet again, felt a vague sense of deprivation, as if they might have been friends had they met when there was more time to explore the possibility.
* * *
The railroad station seemed to be the busiest building in town these days. Two young recruits—one white, one black—already waited with their tickets in hand, surrounded by their families on separate sides of the depot. A troop of Girl Scouts in uniform broke into two factions—the black girls to present the black recruit with a small white box, the white girls to do the same for the white recruit. A contingent of local DAR ladies waited for the train with juice and cookies for any war-bound men who might need a snack. A thin young man in a baggy suit and felt hat interrupted the family goodbye of the white recruit to get a last-minute interview for the local paper. A black minister with springy white curls rushed in to add his farewell to those of the black family.
And Miss Beasley was there, too, dressed in her usual puce coat, club shoes and a hideous black straw hat shaped like a soup kettle with netting. In her left hand she held a black purse, in her right a book.
"So Eleanor didn't come," she began before Will even reached her.
"No, ma'am. I said goodbye to her and the kids on our own road, where I want to remember them."
Miss Beasley shook a finger beneath his nose. "Now you stop talking so fatalstically, do you hear? I'll have none of it, Mr. Parker!"
"Yes, ma'am," Will replied meekly, warmed immediately by her stern demeanor. "I have decided to give your job to a high school student, Franklin Gilmore, with the express understanding that it is a temporary arrangement until you return. Is that understood?" She gave the impression that she'd get any Japanese soldier who dared fire a bullet at Will Parker.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Good. Then take this and put it with your things. It's a book of poems by the masters, and I want your assurance that you'll read and reread it."
"Poems ... well..."
"A man, it is said, can live three days without water but not one without poetry."
He accepted the book, looked down at it with a full heart.
"Thank you."
"No thanks are necessary. Only the promise that you'll read it."
"I promise."
"I can see your dubiousness. Undoubtedly you've never thought of yourself as a poetic man, but I've heard you talking about the bees and the boys and the boughs—they have been your poetry. This shall stand in lieu of them ... until your return."
He gripped the book in both hands as if swearing upon it. "Until my return. "So be it. Now..." She paused as if putting aside one subject before attacking another. "Do you have money for your fare?"
It was a question a mother might have asked, and it went straight to Will's heart. "The draft board sent me a ticket."
"Ah, of course. And decent meals while you travel?"
"Yes, ma'am. Besides, Elly packed me some sandwiches and a piece of quince pie." He hefted his bag.
"Why, of course. How silly of me to ask."
They paused, trying to think of something to fill the awful void which seemed impacted with hidden emotions.
"I told her to come to you if she needs help with anything. She don't have nobody else, so I hope that's okay."
"No sense in getting maudlin, Mr. Parker. I'd be insulted if she didn't. I shall write to you and keep you informed of the goings-on about the library and town."
"'Preciate it, ma'am. And I'll write back, tell you 'bout all them Japs and Jerries I get."
The train steamed in on a billow of smoke and noise. They were at once relieved and sorry it had finally arrived. He touched her arm and moved toward the silver car with the black and white families and the Girl Scouts and the DAR ladies and the local reporter, all who politely nodded and called Miss Beasley by name.
The sun still shone in an azure sky pocked with bundles of clouds a shade darker than the smoke spouting from the locomotive. A flock of pigeons dropped down in a flurry of wings to settle on the baggage dray. The black family kissed their boy goodbye. The white family kissed theirs. The conductor said, "Booooard!" but Will Parker and Gladys Beasley stood uncertainly before one another—a portly old woman in an ugly black hat and a rangy young man in a battered felt one. They looked at their feet, their hands, her purse handle, his brown paper bag. And finally at each other.
"I shall miss you," she said, and for once her sternness was gone, the dry-pudding lines relaxed about her mouth.
"In my whole life I never had anybody to miss—now I got so many. Elly, the kids and you. I'm a lucky man."
"If I were a sentimental woman I might say, if I had a son, and all that."
"Booooard!"
"I imagine conductors these days get hoarse calling that word," she ventured, and suddenly they pitched together, his book pressed against her back, her purse thumping his hindside. Immersed in her spicy scent, he closed his eyes a moment, thinking of how grateful he was that she'd come into his life.