Gail sneered, with a smile. “It would probably taste like you guys smell when you come home, anyway. Who would want to eat that?”
Mama glanced up. “You’ve eaten there, James?”
“No, not really. I’m just saying anything’s got to be better than my cooking.”
“Mr. Morgan has good food,” Magdalena said, taking a bite of mashed potatoes. She didn’t sound brash like she would have if Pop had been there, she being the only one in the family who ignored his war against Mr. Morgan.
“I did have his ice cream once,” James confessed.
Mama’s brows perked up.
“He made me a sundae. Me and Andy. For playing ball well.”
Mama looked at him, but then her gaze drifted away. James wondered if it was longing he saw in Mama’s eyes, the imagination of something delectable and sweet. It certainly wasn’t ravenous lust, the look Andy had on his face when he’d devoured his ice cream.
“I know Pop doesn’t want us there, but that sundae was wonderful. Mr. Morgan covered three mountains of ice cream with melted chocolate. He put candy on each of them, too, and little pieces of bananas and cherries.” James rubbed his stomach and smiled. He watched Mama’s face as he created the sundae for her, built it in her eyes as if she’d actually been there. “Sundaes are the keys that unlock the soul,” James added. “That’s what Mr. Morgan said after I ate mine. He was right.”
Mama straightened in her seat, her fork making a tiny ping as she set it beside her plate. She raised her napkin and pressed it to her mouth, holding it there, the worn cloth covering half her face.
James stared at his mother’s eyes, eyes that led to a soul that needed unlocking with a sundae, a sundae she’d never had, never would have as long as Pop was at war with downtown.
The table noise softened. James looked at his brothers and sisters. They looked back at him. Their usual care was there, just piqued with a sheen of surprise. He set his fork aside and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Once Magdalena and Carla told me I’m different, different from Pop. You’ve all said it in one way or another, just not straight out loud.” He looked at Mama. “I understand that now. Mr. Morgan explained it to me.”
“James…” Mama’s eyes grew wide above the napkin. Harold’s chair scooted back and Magdalena stood. He saw “little brother” in her eyes as she came around the table and stopped at his side.
“Mr. Morgan said some people get talent from their parents.” James felt Magdalena near, but it was Mama he watched. “And he said some people get heart. He was talking about you, Mama, and me. I know he was. I love playing ball, but I didn’t get anything from Pop that makes me play well. Mr. Morgan said when you get talent you don’t try hard, but when you get heart, you do. I got heart from you.”
Mama’s eyes turned red and watery, and tears began to trickle down her face, half moons of darkening fabric growing where they soaked into the napkin.
“Even if Pop doesn’t want us in Mr. Morgan’s restaurant, I’m not sorry I went that day. It wasn’t just his sundae that unlocked my soul, it was him and what he said. He also said people with heart love in lots of special ways. Different ways. That’s you too, Mama. And I thank you.”
“Oh, James,” Mama said again. She scooted her chair back and stood, laying the dampened napkin beside her plate. She walked toward James, tears streaming down her cheeks. “James, if I had some ice cream to give you, I would. Every day. You’re a wonderful boy, and you deserve it.” Mama’s voice trailed off. She came close, and her arms wrapped around him as she bent to him, her tears warming his shoulder. “That special kind of love…you’re right. It’s in you, it’s in your blood.”
“I know, Mama. You put it there,” he said against her hair. He pulled back, tipped his head to the side, and looked at her, her red eyes, her damp cheeks. “Mr. Morgan said he’d make a sundae for you someday. When the time’s right. I want to be there, Mama. I want to share it with you.”
Mama held him tight. “You’re my sundae, James.”
“That’s what Mr. Morgan told me to be. But he promised to make sure you get a real one someday when the time is right.”
Chapter 21
Lana 1935
Lana swept around the table with her best imitation of a flounce. She fixed a smile on her face as she glided toward her husband, a bowl of steaming potatoes in her hands. Harold clapped. He liked the show, he liked the extra lift in her step. Alex tapped his hands together twice then laid them in his lap, watching his brother, a puzzled frown on his face.
“Potatoes for you,” she sang as she set them in front of Cletus. “For all the work you do for us.” It sounded unnatural. It was. She’d never raved about a man, not this man, not any man. It wasn’t normal for her, and she wasn’t sure how to do it. She was a quiet person, not rambunctious like Jeanie. Jeanie was merry. Jeanie had a boisterous spirit and inner confidence. Lana didn’t. Lana was like…like what Jim wanted, like he’d tried to say in her kitchen. Jim didn’t want a Jeanie.
Lana watched Cletus over the rising steam of the potatoes, waiting for him to say something. He eyed her, his brows drawing close together as he thought. Jeanie’s lack of shyness and her flattery had drawn Cletus out and mesmerized him. Jim may not want a Jeanie, but it was clear to Lana that Cletus did.
“How was your day?” she asked, trying to sound even brighter. She looked Cletus in the eye. The watery blue irises that stared back at her made her uncomfortable, and she longed to look away. Couples were supposed to look each other in the eye, it was what they did. It just wasn’t what she and Cletus did.
“My day was the same as any other.” Cletus reached for the potatoes. He looked confused.
She backed up a step, glanced around the table, wondering what to do next. There was nothing else to say. She went to the far end and grabbed her chair and dragged it near his. She returned for her plate, her silverware, and brought all of them to his end of the table. He stopped filling his plate, a spoonful of potatoes midair. He watched as she sat.
“You extra hungry?” he asked.
Her cheeks burned. “I just wanted to talk better, hear about your day, tell you about ours.” She nodded toward the children, their faces like their father’s, agog, confused. Except for Magdalena’s. Hers was fixed in a frown. Lana gave a light laugh. It was supposed to lighten the mood, draw them all out, bring their suppertime to life, but it came out flat. She tried again and it sounded stronger.
Jeanie had written several times since her visit. Over and over, the same way she talked. Her voice, her words, her style were imbedded in Lana’s head. Lana closed her eyes and rehearsed the words on the pages. She could see them, she could hear them, but so far, none of them were coming out of her mouth. How was it Jeanie was capable of a never-ending flow of verbiage, while Lana spurted only a halted comment or two, uncomfortable pauses strung together with an occasional thought?
“I fixed the fence the way you told me to. I’m not as strong as you, but I tried to get it right.” She glanced his way as she took the potatoes he’d set near his plate. She studied his reaction while she carried them to the other side of the table and began dishing them up for their older children.
Magdalena slumped low in her seat, staring at her plate, her face like stone, her usual antics absent. Lana nudged Magdalena’s chair, hoping her daughter would sit up. Magdalena slouched lower as Lana leaned close, stretching between her daughter and her husband as she dished food into Magdalena’s plate. Lana glanced Magdalena’s way.
“Don’t like Jeanie.” It was soft. Her daughter’s lips barely moved. Lana nearly dropped the spoon she’d ladled potatoes with.
It will be all right.
Lana tried to say it to her daughter without speaking, but the stoniness remained, her assurance unable to penetrate her daughter’s dislike of Lana’s rambunctious friend. Jeanie wasn’t safe to invite into their home, and Magdalena recognized her in the room.
Lana brushed one arm against her daughter’s shoulder, a touch to comfort, before she glanced up at Cletus. “Maybe you could help me in the morning. Show me how you’d do it, so I can get it right.”
Cletus piled meat on his plate and ladled gravy over the top. He nodded. “I could do that.”
Lana filled each child’s plate, pausing longest over her eldest daughter, then sat and began dishing up food for herself. She moved quickly, her hands frantic like her mind, her thoughts racing, searching for something clever to say. Something to catch Cletus’ attention without frightening Magdalena, fill the emptiness with innocent but attractive chatter. The room was like an empty cave without Jeanie’s flow of words, just the quiet sounds of eating, the same as every other night. Lana had practiced conjuring an imitation of Jeanie up, but Jeanie just wouldn’t come. Lana couldn’t create Jeanie from her own personality. They just weren’t the same. Exactly as Jim had said.
Everyone ate, spoons and forks clinking against plates. Everyone except Magdalena. She sat, pressed low against the back of her seat, and stared across the top of the table at her mother. Lana took a bite, then another, as she searched for something to say, but nothing about her day or Cletus’ was worth discussing. She glanced at her daughter. She wished Magdalena was old enough to understand Lana was doing this for her as much as for any of them. Magdalena’s childlike features looked stony, a hardening that showed from the inside as well as on the out.
“Jeanie’s learning to drive,” Lana blurted. It was about Jeanie instead of a manifestation of her, but she was desperate. Magdalena was brooding, fighting back the only way she knew as a child, envious and despising the one female who’d stolen the spotlight she felt was hers and where she belonged. “Jeanie’s mother is horrified, but Jeanie’s still determined to learn. She said she can help her father this way. Or her husband someday.” Lana couldn’t look at Magdalena. Her daughter would take this as a blow. She looked at Cletus instead, hoping and praying.
Cletus stopped chewing and glanced up. He stared at Lana. She braced herself for a correction, a one-word remark, a grunt followed by absorption with his food. But he was thinking. She could see Jeanie in his thoughts, or her antics in his mind.
“Jeanie said she sits at the edge of the seat because her legs and arms are too short to reach the steering wheel and pedals.” Lana took a deep breath and calmed herself, forced herself to speak carefully, draw each word out to give Cletus the picture of Jeanie at the wheel one piece at a time. “She uses pillows or jackets, and piles them behind her.” Lana waited, expecting Cletus to just snort and return to his food. He didn’t. The idea of Jeanie driving was more powerful than meat and potatoes.
The look on Cletus’ face made her stop, afraid to say more. He was too intrigued, more interested than she wanted him to be. She prayed he’d just return to his food. She fidgeted with her fork. She’d said too much. Jeanie was too close. Lana could see it in her husband’s gaze. So did Magdalena. One corner of Cletus’ mouth twitched upward. He rarely smiled, but this time he almost did.
“I wanna drive,” Magdalena shouted. She pitched forward on her seat and looked from Lana to Cletus. She watched him especially, waiting for his reaction. “I wanna drive a big truck,” she said even louder.
“Jeanie does, huh?” Cletus said to Lana, never looking his daughter’s way. He dipped his spoon into a pile of corn and brought it to his mouth. “I can see her driving a truck.” He engulfed the corn, chewed, and looked engrossed by the thought.
“I can drive one, too!” Magdalena shouted.
Cletus glanced at Magdalena, then looked back to Lana. “Jeanie can probably do it,” he said. “At least she’ll try. Hate to be her father if he’s the one teaching her, though.”
It was the most Cletus had ever said at the table, the closest he’d come to a conversation. It was about Jeanie, but at least he’d said something. To Lana. She bit her lip, holding back that Jeanie had promised to drive her and Jim to see them as soon as she learned. Lana only wanted Jeanie’s fire to ignite her husband and her marriage. She didn’t want Jeanie herself to do it, no more than Magdalena did.
“I’m not hungry.” Magdalena slid off her chair. She stood near her place and looked at her father. “’Scuse me,” she said a little louder.
Cletus looked at his daughter, then at her plate of food. “You ailing?”
Magdalena shook her head.
“If you ain’t gonna eat, then get on to bed. Your mama’ll be up in a little bit.” He turned back to Lana. Lana heard their daughter walk away, her gallop gone, solid footsteps carrying her up the stairs. She listened to Magdalena’s retreat, each step a nail driven into her heart. She watched Cletus. He was looking at her, his eyes alight in a way she’d never seen before. The wolfish hunger wasn’t there, but something akin to it was, the same something she’d seen when he eyed Jeanie’s fingers on Jim’s arm. “That’s some friend you’ve got.”
“You like her? I mean, she’s kind of…well, boisterous.” Lana’s voice was small, but the enormity of the question nearly choked her. She tried to look casual, as if his answer didn’t matter.
Cletus thought. He shrugged. Then he returned to his corn.
A long breath eased from Lana’s chest as she stole a glance toward the empty stairs. She didn’t want Cletus to see she might cry. He’d never understand these were tears of relief. She batted her eyes and drew in a deep breath. It had worked. She’d found a way to animate her husband, engage him in a real conversation, draw him out and hopefully back to her. It wasn’t Jeanie he wanted. It was nothing more than amusement with her antics. She could hear Magdalena upstairs, stoniness in her steps, pounding out her defiance.
“I’ll clear the table after I check on Magdalena.” Lana ventured a smile at Cletus. He nodded. It wasn’t indifferent, it wasn’t cold. “You kids finish up. I’ll be back down in a minute.”
She rushed up the stairs. Magdalena was too small to understand the sort of hope Lana felt. She’d have to convey it in a way her daughter could grasp.
Your father works hard, he is tired, there is a lot of pressure on him as a man that you’re too young to understand. You’re also too young to drive, but when you’re older he’ll help you.