Old Wounds (35 page)

They had bundled both girls into the truck and, pausing only to leave Rosie with Miss Birdie, had pushed the vehicle to its rattling, groaning limits for a nerve-wracking trip to the emergency room in Asheville. There had followed hours of anxious waiting, the exchanging of bitter self-recriminations, and then, finally with the dawn, the joyful news that Laurel was conscious and would make a full recovery. And somewhere in those awful, endless hours between night and morning, their marriage bonds, strained and worn almost to the breaking point, had been mended.

And now Sam’s gone…and now Mike’s back…. Did Moon tell him about Sam? Could that be why?

30.

M
ISS
B
IRDIE’S
D
AYBOOK

Monday, October 24

So the brother’s
back. And how does she feel about that? Surprised, for sure. But there’s something more going on…there’s a back story of some kind with her and this Mike Mullins.

The forty-minute drive from Marshall County to AB Tech for his 10 o’clock class had become so routine that Phillip Hawkins was free to give almost all of his attention to pondering the implications of the return of Mike Mullins. He had noted Elizabeth’s agitation at hearing from this long-lost
…friend? neighbor? lover? What the hell was this guy to her? And why is he reappearing after so many years?

The memory of the handsome figure in the old photo taunted him.
Tall, lots of blond hair, a friggin’ Aryan poster boy. And then there’s me—balding, something of a gut, just barely taller than her. Shit…what if…? It didn’t sound like there were plans to see each other…. Of course, he could call again….

The cell phone on his belt vibrated and he took advantage of a nearby exit to pull over.

“Hawkins…Yeah, I think I’ve got something…. No, it’s at the house…. I couldn’t make any sense of it but I think it could be the key. I’m going to spend some time studying it; if I can’t make any sense out of it by Thursday, I’ll express it to DC and let Del’s boys take a look…. No, don’t bother…besides, she doesn’t know you…. Hell, Gabby, she might think you were one of Landrum’s people and call the law on your ass.”

“Lizzie Beth, you don’t look so pert this evening. What’s ailin’ you? Git you a chair and come set a spell. You kin keep me company whilst I tie this quilt.”

A wooden frame covered by a bright quilt stitched from large, irregular blocks of red and orange corduroy, highlighted by a few smaller bits of purple and black, hung from the ceiling of Miss Birdie’s living room. The quilting frame was so large and the room so small that the few pieces of furniture had been pushed to the walls, and Elizabeth was forced to sidle around them to find a straight-backed chair.

“Let me help for a while, Miss Birdie.” Elizabeth reached for the ball of black crochet thread and took a stout needle from the faded red pincushion resting in the middle of the half-tied quilt. “Who’s this one for?”

She had finished her morning chores, and after lunch, realizing that she was unconsciously waiting for the phone to ring, hoping that it might be Mike, she had forced herself to leave the house.
What’s wrong with you, Elizabeth? What about Phillip? And for all you know, Mike has a wife and children—grandchildren, maybe—back in California. Get over it, for god’s sake…. But he did say he’d seeme soon.

With a last glance at the silent telephone, she had fled the house, remembering to lock the doors—a still unfamiliar task that aroused her anger each time she turned the latch.
Just do it, Elizabeth, Phillip had urged her. It won’t be forever, but for now you need to keep things locked up…take precautions. Blaine’s got people keeping an eye on the place, and I know Julio and Homero are on the alert. And you’ve got your gun.

As she drove down her road, she could see Julio and Homero, bent over the beds of frost-nipped nasturtiums, harvesting the ripened seeds for next year’s crop. She stopped the car and got out.

“I’m going down the road to see Miss Birdie, Julio.” She had to shout to make herself heard above the noise of the boom-box that was Homero’s constant companion. “You all keep an eye out, okay?”

“Sí, Elizabeta, no problema.”
Julio’s tanned face split in a wide grin and he patted the scabbarded machete at his waist. “We take care of anyone who don’t belong here.”

God help the wandering Jehovah’s Witness who makes the mistake of trying our holler. At least Julio knows the meter reader.

The needle made a satisfying
pop
as she poked it through the thick layers of the brilliant bedcovering and pulled the strong thread through the pieced top, the fluffy poly-fill batting center, and the sturdy flannel that was the back of the quilt. “Quilt” by courtesy only, as its fabric was far too heavy to allow for the intricate decorative running stitches that set off seams or traced fancy patterns while performing the mundane task of holding the three layers together. Miss Birdie’s colorful creation, a far more utilitarian product, was tied at intervals with strong square knots, and would be completed in a few hours, rather than the months that a true quilt would require.

“Now, this is fer Calven, Dor’thy’s nephew. He’s a sweet child, Lizzie Beth, fer all that he’s not had no proper raisin’.” Birdie’s gnarled fingers drove the needle relentlessly through the multiple layers.

She peered over the tops of her gold-rimmed spectacles at Elizabeth. “And looks like he’s goin’ to be on Dor’thy’s hands fer good—that sorry mama of hisn, that Prin Ridder’s run off, just like her sister done. There she was in the hospital, takin’ on like one thing and givin’ out that she ain’t got long to live—why they took up a special collection for her at church, to help with the doctor’s bill, and they was planning on holding a singin’ too.”

Miss Birdie jabbed her silver needle into a purple square with unnecessary force and continued. “Dor’thy told me that when her sister Mag went to the hospital yesterday, Prin was gone—had slipped out in the night, takin’ all that money with her. Dor’thy believes that Prin was in trouble with the law and hadn’t never been sick atall, just bidin’ her time till she could leave out of here. She’d been took up, several years back of this, fer passin’ bad checks, and Dor’thy believes that Prin was up to her old tricks again.”

“What about Calven? Surely she’ll come back for him?”

“Dor’thy don’t think so. She says Prin ain’t no kind of a mother to that poor boy. And Mag ain’t able to look atter him.”
Pop…pop…swish.
Another length of thread was set into the quilt, looped, and firmly knotted by those implacable old fingers.

“Dor’thy’ll see he’s raised right. Calven’ll be better off with her, oncet he gets over thinkin’ his mama cares a lick fer him.”

Miss Birdie cut another length of black thread and brandished her worn scissors at Elizabeth,
Like a cheerful little Atropos,
Elizabeth thought, seeing her neighbor as a rather incongruous personification of one of the Fates.

“Lizzie Beth, when you was here before, talkin’ about that Maythorn child, well, I got to thinkin’ back on that time. You know how I keep my daybook. Well, I got to studyin’.”

Miss Birdie pointed her scissors toward the silently flickering television set. “Just reach me that book that’s settin’ atop the TV, if you don’t care, Lizzie Beth.”

The little hardbacked composition book was faded and the label on the front cover was marked “1986” in Birdie’s spidery handwriting. Elizabeth knew that her neighbor had kept a kind of journal all her married life—every day she recorded the weather, what she did, who she saw…anything unusual. With her prodigious memory and this additional written record, Miss Birdie Gentry was a veritable archive of life on Ridley Branch over the past sixty-odd years.

She took the book from Elizabeth and began to leaf through it. “April 12, old Pet brought two bull-calves…July 23, put up forty-four quarts of runner beans…August 9, that was that dreadful rain…Here it is: ‘October 31, brown Ford truck passed by right before first dark. Believe it was Maythorn’s uncle, the one that took her and Rosie off to Cherokee back on October 4. Still got them old long braids, looks like two big blacksnakes.’”

As Elizabeth turned up her driveway, she was startled to see Calven sitting patiently on the big flat rock at the foot of the road. He seemed unalarmed at the sight of her, waving cheerily and coming to the side of her car when she stopped and put down her window.

“Hey there, Miz Goodweather.” He stood on tiptoe to peer into her car. “Where’s ol’ Yoursa and Molly?”

He already seemed to have put on weight and the unhealthy gray pallor was giving way to a sun-touched pinkness. A knapsack with schoolbooks spilling out of it lay on the ground nearby.

“Hey, Calven. I guess the dogs are up at the house.” She eyed him curiously. “I’ve been at Miss Birdie’s and she told me you were staying with Dorothy. What are you doing here? Won’t she wonder where you are?”

“Naw, ol’ Dor’thy said I could ride the bus home with the Robertses. Travis Roberts is in my room at school; him and me’s friends. We been playin’ in the woods up there, but I’m supposed to meet Dor’thy here at five.” Calven held out a thin wrist adorned with a wide-banded watch. “She give me this here watch so’s I’d be on time.” He gazed at the timepiece with immense satisfaction. “I ain’t never had me no watch till now.”

Elizabeth glanced at the car’s clock. “It’s only four-thirty, Calven; you could have stayed up there a little longer.”

The boy shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “I come away ’cause they was fixin’ to sneak into that big ol’ place up yon. Son, I tell you, I had me enough of that place when I was there with Bib. You know, the Robertses live just this side of that big ol’ wall, and Travis has knocked footholes in it so’s to climb it. They even take that little Asheley with ’em.”

He stepped close. In a low tone, he confided, “That Asheley, she’s just a girl, but she’s the worst of ’em all. She’s got her an invisible friend named Maydern, or some such, and her and Maydern makes play houses in the woods. Miz Goodweather, do you think there’s such things as ghostes?”