Jewelweed (20 page)

They talked in muted voices about relatives and places in their memories, circling each other in ever-narrowing spirals until they found the courage to speak of the real things near the bottom of the reservoir, moth-souls circling the Holy Flame.

“After your wife ran off, you stopped coming around, Natie. No one ever heard from you,” said Bee, peering into the scalding water.

“I know it.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I don't know,” said Nate. He stepped onto the back porch to open a noisy tray of ice and dump the cubes, clattering, into a red plastic bowl. Looking through the screen, he noticed the squadron of lawn ornaments again. A barred owl cried wildly from a nearby tree, adding more insanity to the scene.

“Did you think I gave a hell-hello whether your marriage worked out?” asked Bee when he came back inside.

“I hoped not, but you didn't come to the wedding.”

“I know it,” said Bee, turning away from him.

“Why didn't you?”

“I just didn't.” Silence. “All I could ever think about was you out there driving in that old truck of yours. I never knew where you were or how you were doing,” she said.

“The water's ready,” said Nate, staring into the scalding pan. He had read somewhere that when water came to a boil there was a transitional state between liquid and gas in which the binding energy of water molecules was released in the form of light, causing the steam just above the water to appear slightly luminescent. Since then he'd always watched for it, and tonight in Bee's kitchen he was sure he could see it. He tried to get his cousin to see it as well.

“Red rubbish,” she whispered. “If that were true, I would have noticed it a long time ago.”

They lowered two peaches into the boiling water, where they jiggled around on the bottom of the pot, bumping into each other. Streams of air bubbles rose around them. After one minute they scooped the peaches out with a slotted spoon and placed them in the bowl of ice water. Then they peeled the skins off, leaving the peach meat round and slippery. The kitchen filled with a humid fruity smell.

In the saucepan on the back burner, the yellow-gold lids rattled like a confined earthquake.

The kitchen grew warmer and warmer. Nate and Bee took off their sweatshirts. Bee's arms were round and firm, pale near the shoulder. Perspiration dotted her forehead. Nate could smell her and a cherished shame darkened inside him again. His heart beat so fast it began to cloud his vision. He came up behind her and stood close. He knew he shouldn't, but he placed his hands on either side of her waist.

His fingers and palms fit against her as if they had been sculpted from the same material. A compelling hollow space between her hips and spine made him feel as if he were grafted onto her. Every contour beckoned him to follow. He drew her back toward him and pressed his face into her neck. The taste of her skin leaped up inside him. She gently pulled his hands away and they stood for a moment like birds drying their wings.

“If we open that door now there's no telling what might come out,” said Bee. She stepped to the sink and placed her hands in the soapy water.

“I'm sorry,” said Nate, her taste still living inside him.

“Don't be.”

Nate stepped closer. His passion made it hard to think, hard to be sure he understood what she meant, hard to know what she wanted, and impossible to know what he should do. He'd carried this same desire inside him most of his life. And now he was unsure if he really wanted to act on it. He feared falling out of balance with himself, of losing the Bee he knew. He wanted more of her, yes, but there was danger in that as well. He also felt somehow complete in his yearning, grateful for the moment, loyal to the present scene, needing nothing yet filled to bursting with his dark longing.

“People say Blake is getting out of prison soon,” she said without turning around.

“He'll be out in two weeks,” said Nate, moving to the counter and
cutting up the peeled peaches. “But I'll believe it when I see it. So far, they've done everything they can to keep him inside.”

“Where's he going to live?”

“With me.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“Good. I feel good about that.”

“I can only imagine what this has been like for you, Natie.”

“Everything will work out, as long as he stays away from that Workhouse girl.”

“Dart?”

“If it wasn't for her he never would have been in trouble, and he wouldn't be in prison.”

“How do you know that?”

“She's from a rotten family. It was her fault.”

“You might be wrong about her, Natie. I worked with her for several years at the plant.”

“I'm not wrong,” said Nate. “I know I'm not. God, I missed you, Bee.”

“Slice those thinner, Natie. What are you thinking?”

“Why didn't you get married, Bee?”

“I guess no one ever asked,” she laughed, drawing two more peaches out of the scalding water with the slotted spoon and placing them in the ice water.

“I don't believe that.”

“Well, those who did weren't the right ones. I always knew I'd never marry.”

“Why?”

“I'm just strange.” As if to demonstrate, Bee stepped out of one of her shoes and danced, pivoting around on her left foot, kicking up her right leg behind her.

Nate joined in, dancing in the opposite direction, twirling his paring knife in the air. To his surprise, he knew the steps, understood the dance. Then they stopped, laughing self-consciously, looking into each other's eyes like two suns in the same solar system.

“We'd better get those jars cooking,” said Nate.

“Here,” said Bee, “measure out the sugar. And try not to spill. I despise ants.”

“I never spill,” said Nate.

“Right,” scoffed Bee. “You used to spread your peanut butter with a fork.”

One by one, she lowered the canning jars into the boiling pot on the stove.

“What's going on out here, Beulah?” asked her mother, following her aluminum walker into the kitchen.

“Mom, I thought you were asleep.”

“I heard someone,” she said, scowling, staring at Bee's bare foot. “Natie, what are you doing here? Does your mother know you're over here? You're always hanging around Beulah. It's late and she has work to do. Go home now.”

Nate turned toward a shriveled face he'd recognize anywhere. She looked like his father before he died.

“He's helping me can peaches, Mom.”

“Stop making excuses for him, Beulah. No one said anything about this to me. I'll call his mother. You two are always up to something.”

“Here, let's get you back to bed.”

“As soon as I turn my back you two start up something. What a mess this kitchen is. Your father will be furious when he gets home.”

“Not too likely, Mom.”

“What's Natie going to do when that wife of his takes off? Because she will, I can feel it. She's not the sticking-around kind. Her whole family is cut from the wrong cloth.”

“Mother.”

“And it wouldn't surprise me if that boy of Nate's ends up in the slammer, either. Not the way he's going. That boy's going bad, I tell you.”

“Mom, this is embarrassing.”

“I'll show you embarrassing, young lady. Where's your other shoe? Put it on right now.”

“Mom!”

“Natie, what are you doing over here? Do you know what time it is?”

“I'll be going soon, Aunt Nadine,” said Nate.

“Well, the sooner the better,” said Nadine, as Bee led her into the other room.

By the time Bee came back, Nate had filled the sterilized jars with
sliced peaches. They poured in the sugar-honey-lemon syrup, wiped the mouths down, and fastened on lids. Then they lowered the jars back into the cooker.

“Sorry about that,” said Bee. “She doesn't know what she's saying.”

“She reminds me so much of Dad in his last years—an old guard dog keeping the moon out of the yard.”

Finally, they ate all the peaches and syrup that wouldn't fit into jars, with ice cream. Nate watched Bee guiding her spoon into her mouth, listened to the purled sound of her swallowing. When the timer went off, they took the sealers out of the cooker and set them on the counter.

After the first lid snapped, Nate stood up and said he should leave.

“It's early,” said Bee, letting a childlike sorrow glide through her voice.

“I'd better be going.”

Bee turned on the porch light. When she turned around, Nate was right behind her. They brushed together, and he smelled her again.

“Bee,” he said, but couldn't find a way to continue.

“I know, Natie. I know. It's just—well, never mind.”

“Can I call you again?”

“Why would you ask?”

“I wanted to be sure.”

“Here, take one of these,” she said, and shoved a hot jar of peaches into his hands. Then she pushed him out the door, closing it behind him.

The evening was clear, all the way to the stars, the moon half-cocked. Nate walked through the lawn ornaments and stood beside his pickup on the empty street. He felt a hollow place open up inside him, waiting for Bee's return, closed his eyes, and remembered the sensation of his right arm brushing against her. Her smell was still inside him, and he tried to herd it into a room of his memory, where he could easily find it again.

He bought a cold six-pack to go at a tavern on the edge of town.

Along the road pairs of animal eyes lit up in the headlights, raccoons mostly, along with a few cats and a deer. The drive seemed to take no time at all, filled as it was with his thankfulness for the several hours he'd spent with Bee. He felt decades younger, and he was determined to do nothing—to will nothing—that would burden their renewed friendship.

At home, there was a message on his answering machine from the
dispatcher—a load in Milwaukee to pick up and deliver to Columbus, Ohio. Tomorrow morning.

He folded the laundry and packed some clothes.

When he went outside again, the moon hovered just above the dark horizon, casting silver light across the backyard. The grass was still wet from the previous night's rain. At the wooden post on the corner of the back fence, both the cabbage and the canvas bag were gone.

Not knowing exactly why, he pushed down the top strand of barbed wire and crossed over it. He walked through the pasture and climbed the rock outcropping where the Wild Boy had stood that morning. The birch trees seemed thin and spectral in the moonlight, the bark stretched as tight as snakeskin over the trunks. He remained a long time, listening. Once, he felt sure someone was nearby, but then he lost confidence in the feeling. In the distance, the windows of his house cast yellow into the yard, and he imagined what it might be like to look at his house while he was inside it. The stars reminded him of Bee and his son and the future's gravitational pull.

He climbed back down and walked across the pasture, keeping close to the fence. He crossed into his yard and once again checked the wooden post. This time, three smooth stones about the size of quarters rested on top. As he picked them up, he looked in all directions, but could see nothing. In his palm, the stones felt warm, almost alive. Nate put them in his pocket.

Returning to the house, Nate found the jar of peaches, carried it outside, and put it on top of the post.

T
he prison van arrived on a warm evening in June. The vehicle moved heavily along the narrow roads, mashing gravel. As if prepared for the visit, the moist air in Words marshaled its fragrances into separate zones.

Blake Bookchester sat stiffly in the passenger seat, breathing carefully and wearing a new plaid shirt, creased denim pants, and shiny brown medium-duty work shoes.

Long-forgotten smells entered the open window: clover, litter, and duff from the woods, river mud, late purple lilac, compost, burning brush, road tar, honeysuckle, two-cycle exhaust, and freshly mowed grass. As he reclaimed each sensation, an alarm of sad familiarity rang inside him, a dark beckoning to return to someone he could no longer be.

Blake hadn't expected this much difficulty reentering the free world, but to stay alive in prison he'd allowed his spirit to drink from the shallow well of the future, and now all the joys of the unfolding moment were gone, treasured earlier in a thousand imagined scenes of returning. Anticipation had drained the lifeblood of the present. I don't regret it, he assured himself. I don't. Otherwise, some nights never would have ended.

As the dark van came to a groaning rest before the Words Repair Shop, the odor of oil, grease, and diesel fuel established provisional sovereignty around it.