Let Me Die in His Footsteps (7 page)

Like every other girl after she has looked down into the well and seen the face of her intended, Caroline is all the sudden acting like she’s a grown woman. It’s in the tone of her voice and her posture. Both of them so altogether proper. But in truth, Caroline’s been proper for most of her life, so maybe it has nothing to do with intendeds and wells and first kisses. Annie’s voice is the same as it was yesterday. She has no desire to tie on an apron or brush her hair, and because Mama is frowning at Annie and poking her thumb toward the ceiling, Annie is certain her posture is no better either.

“Are they all gone?” Caroline says. “Will someone new move into the house? What does it mean?”

“It means nothing,” Mama says. “Means nothing to us. The town will see to it she’s buried. She was an old woman, and it’s a sad day. That’s all that needs said.”

“But it does mean something, Mama,” Annie says, straining to hold her shoulders back and studying that rocker.

“The child is right,” Grandma says, tapping the side of her head with one finger. “Should have been listening to her all along.”

“There’s no more Baines,” Annie says before Mama can scold Grandma again. “No more anywhere. We won’t never meet up with one of them in town, and Mrs. Baine won’t come here ever again. No more Baines, ever.”

•   •   •

ONCE A YEAR
or so it happens. Usually on a Friday or Saturday night. That’s the night folks partake, Daddy would say when trying to explain. Don’t try to make sense of a person partaking. Mrs. Baine would usually walk because her truck never ran so well. She would holler from the drive for Mama to come on out. Mama would send Annie and Caroline to their bedroom and tell them to close the door and stay put until called to come out again.

When they were young, the girls would do as told. They would close the door and then the windows and sit side by side on the edge of Annie’s bed. Caroline would cry because even though they couldn’t make out who was saying what through the closed windows, they could make out the hollering and screaming and most certainly they could make out Daddy’s voice. He didn’t start out yelling, but by the end, by the time Sheriff Fulkerson pulled up the drive, loaded up Mrs. Baine, and drove her home, Daddy would be yelling. As they sat on the bed, Annie and Caroline would hold hands, their feet dangling, not quite touching the floor, and they’d not move until Mama tapped on the door and invited them to come on out again.

As the girls grew older, they still did as they were told, but Annie stopped closing the front window and if it was already closed, she would open it. Even when Caroline begged her not to, Annie would unhitch the latch and slide the window up at least a few inches because just as she had soaked up Aunt Juna being her real mother somewhere along the way, she had also soaked up that Mrs. Baine came to the house yelling and crying and carrying on because she wanted to see Annie. Not only was Aunt Juna Annie’s mama, Joseph Carl Baine was her daddy, and that’s largely the reason he took his last breath while hanging from the end of a rope.

“No more Baines in Hayden County, Mama,” Annie says. She is almost close enough to Grandma’s rocker to reach out and touch it. “No more. No more crossing the road or skipping church. Mrs. Baine won’t come no more and yell at you, Mama. No more Baines.”

“Enough,” Mama shouts. “Not another word about the Baines.”

And then Annie remembers.

“Stop that rocking, Grandma.”

Grandma looks at the hand doing the nudging. She looks at it like it’s someone else’s hand, and she doesn’t have the first idea what that hand is doing. Not sure why but certain she has to do something, anything, Annie drops down in the rocking chair, grabs the wooden armrests, one in each fist, and holds on tight.

“Oh, good Lord,” Grandma says. “I done it now.”

“Mother,” Mama says, “language.”

Annie keeps a good hold on the chair, digs her toes into the floor so there will be no more rocking, and looks back at Grandma. The expression on her face—mouth hanging open, pale-blue eyes stretched wide, chin drawn in much like a turtle might do—makes Annie wish she’d stopped that rocker sooner.

“Out,” Grandma says. “Out of that chair right this instant.”

Annie leaps to her feet. “Is it too late?” she says once she is outside of what she figures is striking distance.

She starts sidestepping, putting more and more distance between herself and that chair, and doesn’t stop until she bumps up against Daddy.

“Take it away,” Annie says, jumping behind Daddy.

“Yes,” Grandma says, her blue eyes darting from the chair to Daddy and back again. “Outside, quick as you can.”

“Mother,” Mama says, “stop your nonsense.”

“Take it away, John,” Grandma says, ignoring Mama. “Out on the porch’ll do. Maybe we caught it in time.”

Daddy scoops up Annie with one strong arm and drops her in the center of the living room. He believes in facing fears. When Caroline was afraid of swimming, Daddy rowed her into the middle of the lake and dropped her in the cold, dark water. Every time she got to crying hard enough that she coughed and choked, he yanked her up by the forearm, let her rest until she stopped spitting out water, and then let go. It was not a pleasing thing to watch, but Caroline is a strong swimmer now. It occurs to Annie as she lunges to the right in hopes of taking cover again that this is her deep, murky pond, and sure enough, Daddy wraps his two large hands around her shoulders and makes her face the rocking chair square on.

“Chair ain’t going nowhere,” he says. “I don’t know what’s got you two riled, but you stop all this damn foolishness.”

Mama exhales long and loud. There is nothing Mama hates more than language defiling her home. It’ll root itself, she always says. If one of us takes liberties, other forms of nastiness will follow and then what’ll we have?

“I’ll see to it,” Grandma says, grabbing the rocker by its wooden headrest and dragging it toward the door that leads onto the front porch. “It’s my doing, so I should set it right.”

“Enough,” Mama says. The tone of her voice stills everyone in the room.

Mama’s eyes have taken on a blurry look like she’s near to tears, and she doesn’t bother brushing away the strands of hair that hang in her face. Mama doesn’t think much of the know-how, but she must know enough, remember enough from all her years growing up with Aunt Juna, to know what that empty rocking chair means.

“That chair is just fine where it is,” she says. “Go on, all of you. I want every one of you out right now.”

“Sarah,” Daddy says. That’s Mama’s name. Grandma gave it to Mama before she was even born and it means princess. Daddy’s usually the only one in the house to use it. She’s mostly Mama to everyone else. Daddy says it again in his deep, scratchy voice. At the sound of her name, Mama, Sarah, takes a deep breath and blows it out long and slow.

“My apologies,” Mama says. “Mother, why don’t we see to some breakfast for everyone, and then let’s us mix up a cake for Annie’s day.”

The sizzle in the air was Annie’s first inkling something was lurking. First inklings aren’t so troublesome, and for a week, she’d labored to convince herself Grandma was right. The charge in the air was the lavender coming into bloom. But that empty rocking chair is a second inkling. Second inklings are more dependable still. That chair was rocking forward and backward. Forward and backward. Coming and going. Someone is coming. Someone is going. When an empty rocking chair rocks, someone is coming home again and someone is going to die.

Every Christmas, a card comes, a handwritten letter tucked inside. They arrive in mid-December. Mama keeps the letters to herself and hangs the cards from the refrigerator with a magnet. The signature inside each card is always penned in the same flattened-out, slanted letters. As a child, before she learned her cursive alphabet, Annie couldn’t read the name written inside the colorful cards, but always she knew they had come from Aunt Juna. Annie had hoped when they moved from the north side of town to Grandma’s house that the cards and letters wouldn’t follow. But they did.

While the cards from Aunt Juna hung on the refrigerator for several days, not until Christmas Eve did Mama read the letters. Over supper, after grace was said and before the first fork was raised, Mama would pull the most recent letter from her apron pocket and read it aloud to the rest of the family. These letters grew longer as the years passed. Aunt Juna wrote of her life. She wrote of living in California, where the sun always shone, and of oranges hanging from a tree where a person could pick them and eat them right where she stood. She wrote of pasturelands in the middle of the country that stretched to the horizon and farther still, so far they looked to roll right off the edge of the earth. She wrote of trains and cars and of streets in the northeast where buildings rose up as tall as those California mountains.

And always Aunt Juna wrote of how beautiful Caroline and Annie had grown. When they were children, she said they were precious. Last year, they were lovely young women. Each Christmas, she wrote how wonderful it would be when she could finally, after all these years, see them in the flesh, touch them, hug them, tell them she loved them. And then Mama would refold the letter, press out each seam, tuck it into that same apron pocket, and say what a shame she couldn’t write back. Annie always wondered, but never asked, was afraid to ask, how Aunt Juna knew Annie and Caroline were precious when they were young and lovely now as young ladies. Mama never wrote back, never sent pictures. How could Aunt Juna know the girls were precious and lovely if she lived so far away?

“Aunt Juna will come home now, won’t she?” Annie says. “Now that every Baine is dead, she’s coming home.”

1936—SARAH AND JUNA

DADDY CARRIES JUNA
home, up the gravel drive and toward the house. I run ahead, and when I near the front porch, I slow to a walk because someone is sitting on the top step. I draw in a few deep breaths and think to holler at Dale to go inside before Daddy gets ahold of him. Daddy will whip Dale for causing all this fuss. Taking a few more steps and glancing back to see if Daddy has seen Dale yet, I hurry ahead so I can warn him without Daddy hearing, but as I walk another several feet toward the house, I see it isn’t Dale sitting there on the step. It’s Abigail Watson.

Still wearing her long-sleeved dress and the same white cap, Abigail stands. A white apron is tied at her waist, and her skirt is stained at the knees, most likely from working in her grandma’s garden. “Something’s wrong,” she says. “Ain’t it?”

“Did you find him?” I ask. “Did you ever see Dale today?”

Her face is small enough to hold in one hand, and she’s reached that stage where her arms and legs have grown too long and thin for the rest of her body.

“I didn’t never see him, Miss Crowley,” she says, taking a swipe at her small, teary eyes with the heel of one hand.

“You go on,” I say to Abigail as I run up the stone stairs. “Go on and bring Abraham. Tell him to come right away.”

I throw open the front door and call out for Dale. The air inside is stale, smells of warmed-over coffee and Daddy’s cigars. In another house, folks might not concern themselves so with a boy Dale’s age staying out past dark. But Dale is sweet and soft, so sweet and soft he shames Daddy. Dale is meant to carry on the family name long past the day Daddy is dead and buried, something Juna and I can’t do. A soft man might not be fit to do so either.

I look for the pail I packed with Dale’s lunch. He is as tidy as he is clean. He would have hung it on the hook near the door where it belongs. The hook is empty. The spot near the stove where he always sets his shoes, side by side, is empty.

Daddy walks through the door, pauses long enough to see in my eyes that Dale is not here. He walks with his head turned off to the side so as to not look at Juna and carries her through the kitchen and into the bedroom where she and I sleep. In bed, she sinks into the feather ticking, rests her hands on her chest, runs the tip of her tongue over her cracked lips. Daddy looks down on the bed, but not into her eyes, and then, remembering his hat, he pulls it from his head and slaps it against his thigh. He is waiting for Juna to tell us where Dale has gone. He slaps that hat against his leg. Slapping it harder and harder. The smell of him, sour and salty, rises up with each slap. Already, he’s asked Juna four times where Dale has gone off to, screaming at her the last time.

“Won’t do no good,” I say. “She’ll come around.”

Daddy shudders as if to rid himself of whatever blight Juna might have left behind and, without speaking another word, walks from the room and closes the door.

“Let’s sit you up,” I say, sliding one hand behind Juna’s head. “Too much sun, is all. Be feeling better soon.”

I strip her of her limp dress, leaving her to lie in her cotton slip, its straps frayed and yellowed from too many washings. Then I help her lie back again and drape her with a sheet. Outside, the orange light has faded. Shadows dart past the window, bats frightened from under the sill. I leave and return with a saucer. I douse a stiff gray rag and twist it with both hands. Water drips through my fingers and into the saucer. Outside, insects buzz. Trucks crunch over the gravel. Footsteps pass by. I pat the cool cloth to Juna’s cheeks, chest, and forearms. The sharp smell is vinegar—vinegar water to soothe her sunburned skin.

“You need to drink as much as you can manage,” I say, pressing a tin cup to her mouth.

The cool water makes her lips shine. Her face is burned to a dark red, and a white streak cuts across her forehead where she had been wearing a hat. Her hair, which usually hangs in loose waves well past her shoulders, now hangs like twisted straw. Her fingers are stained brown. Each time I try to clean them with my rag, she cries out. After she drinks the water, I feed her cornbread dipped in cane syrup. The yellow pieces crumble as I press them into her mouth, and bits fall to her chest and onto the sheets.

“You’ll tell us what happened when you wake,” I say, but Juna’s eyes are already closed.

They find Dale’s hat straightaway. Daddy stomps up the stairs, waving it in the air and then in my face. John Holleran follows. He removes his hat and dips his head in my direction. I try never to think much about John Holleran even though I know he has a liking for me. His mama gave me my name, and she has the know-how and is all the time saying John and I have a clear and bright future together. John is a good man, much kinder than Daddy, but he can only offer me the life I’m already living. I take the hat from Daddy and look from one man to the other, waiting for one of them to explain.

“You wake her,” Daddy says, pointing at the closed door. “You see to it she tells us where the boy has gone, or I damn sure will.” Even as he says it, Daddy fades from the door. He’s weighing what’s before him. Juna already took his wife, his crops, and now she’s making it clear she can take his boy too, if she’s so inclined.

John Holleran takes the hat from me, lays it in the center of the table, and sets about lighting more candles. I motion toward the pot of coffee and walk into Juna’s dark room. With nightfall, the air has turned damp and cold. To warm my hands, I rub them together before wrapping one around her shoulder and shaking her awake.

“They found Dale’s hat,” I say when her eyes flicker open. They’re like black stones looking up at me. “Daddy found it. That’s good.”

I sit next to the bed on a small round stool I brought in from the kitchen, dip the rag in the cool water still tangy with the vinegar, fold it in half, and drape it across Juna’s forehead.

“You have to tell me what happened,” I say, hoping I don’t sound afraid. “You didn’t leave him? Little as he is, you must have been with him, must have seen what happened. You’d never leave him to his own.”

Most boys Dale’s age would fare just fine on their own, but not Dale. He should have been born in the city, where life is easier on a body. His coming into this family was a mistake. Dale’s kind of softness can’t be beaten out of a boy.

I pause then, waiting for an answer. Juna’s black eyes stare up at me. When the silence stretches and she says nothing to fill it, I nod, urging her along. I stroke the back of her hand, lightly, brushing the tiny hairs against the grain. The small lantern, the only one in the room, dims, and the glow shrinks and falls lower on the walls. Overhead, the ceiling is black. I try to smile, always the one to smile.

“I know you’d not leave him,” I say again. “Can’t you tell me what happened?”

Another pause as I wait for Juna to tell the truth.

“You must know something,” I say. “You have to tell. Daddy, he thinks you know. He thinks it for sure, that you know and you’ll not tell because he loved Dale best. He says you’re punishing him. He thinks you’re wicked and that this is proof of it. He says he’s always known it. Tell me it’s not true. Tell me what happened.”

Juna closes her eyes, but opens them again when I grab her by both arms. She has always been leaner and stronger than me. Daddy says a man will be tempted by a beautiful girl and she’ll make him do things he ought not do. A man doesn’t need a beautiful girl; he only wants one. It says something about a man if he walks with a beautiful girl at his side, but a man will eventually get his fill. Eventually, he’ll leave her for a pleasing girl. A man will always come home to a pleasing girl because she doesn’t think so much of herself as a beautiful girl. This is what a man needs. A man needs something soft to bring him joy, something to rest his head against, something to sink his fingers into. I am all of these things. You’re lucky, Daddy will sometimes tell me when the house is dark and quiet and we’re alone, to be one who’s not so tempting. In the end, a man can’t help what he needs.

“You have to know something,” I say, clinging to Juna’s hand. I lift it, press it to my mouth. “Daddy says you’ll not be long for this house if you won’t tell. Surely you seen what became of Dale.”

•   •   •

ABRAHAM PACE GETS
word of what’s happened from Abigail Watson, and his heavy boots and the sound of his voice soon fill the house. I still sit with Juna in the small, dark bedroom, waiting for news of Dale. The door opens. Daddy steps into the room. Abraham Pace and John Holleran follow, all of them staring at Juna in her underthings. Abigail stands at Abraham’s side, her small hand clinging to the edge of his jacket. Abraham is always saying he hopes to have children of his own one day, God willing, but if not, he’ll always have his Abigail. I can see straightaway because of the way not one of them will look me in the eye that if there is news, it’s not good.

“I’m hot,” Juna says, staring at the three men and Abigail but speaking to me. “The window. Open the window.”

Abraham starts to step into the room to lift the window’s shutter, but I stop him with a raised hand and by shaking my head. Daddy won’t have it, another man in his daughters’ room. Understanding this, Abraham pulls Abigail’s hand from his jacket and nudges her toward me. She grabs at him again, holding on with both hands this time. She’s frightened that whatever became of Dale will soon become of her. Abraham strokes her head and tells her to get on. She stares at him for a moment and then lets loose and steps up to help me. Using both hands, I lift the wooden shutter, hold it overhead with one straight arm, and with my free hand, I point to the two-by-four we keep for just this purpose. When a nice breeze is blowing or the house needs airing, Juna and I do this together because the shutter, made of solid oak, is too heavy for one of us to manage alone. With Abigail’s help, I jam one end of the board into the sill and let the shutter rest on the other end.

“You men don’t belong here,” I say, placing a hand on Juna’s shoulder.

John Holleran lowers his eyes, pulls the hat from his head, and disappears from the doorway. He’s always one to do what’s right. It’s probably why, despite what Mary Holleran says about our bright, clear future, he’s not so tempting as Ellis Baine.

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” Juna says as I press a tin cup filled with milk to her lips.

She needs nourishment most of all. Water, some sugar, meat if only we had any. She’ll come around. She’ll remember, but as she’s done all day, she pushes the milk away. I suggest again that we send for the doctor. She refuses.

“It’s too rich,” she says. “Take it. Save it for Dale.”

I should pour it back in the jug and hope it doesn’t turn before Dale comes home, but I can’t leave Juna, so I send Abigail instead. She looks to Abraham, who nods his head and gives her a wink, and then she takes the cup and leaves the room. When she is gone and the front door has opened and her footsteps have crossed the porch, I reach out to pull the sheet over Juna, but she slaps my hand away.

“You,” Juna says, pushing herself into a seated position and pointing a single finger at Daddy. “You brought this on us.”

Daddy’s head and shoulders jerk as if he’s been slapped.

“It’s your evil thoughts,” she says. “I know. I see how you look at Sarah.”

“Juna,” I say, “stop it. Stop what you’re saying.”

“What with no wife in this house, I know what you’re thinking.”

“Ain’t no curse of mine,” Daddy says.

“Just waiting for her to be woman enough,” Juna says. “It’s evil, and it’s come to this. Your son. You’ve cursed your own son.”

“You hush, Juna,” I say.

John Holleran reappears, and behind him Abigail. John steps into the room and stands alongside Daddy. He’s a head taller than Daddy and thick through the chest, while Daddy’s chest sinks in as if he’s all the time too tired to hold himself up.

“We should be looking for Dale,” John says. He’s talking to the men, but he’s looking at me. He’s wondering if he heard Juna right and if he understands her meaning. “Let’s all leave this to another time.”

Daddy pushes past Abraham Pace. “Don’t suppose you belong in a young lady’s room,” Daddy says.

Abraham dips his head to look down on Daddy. “Soon enough be my wife,” Abraham says.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Abraham squares himself to Daddy. Daddy presses his chest up and out and looks up at Abraham, who is not so much younger than Daddy.

“Ain’t waiting no more,” Abraham says. “Ain’t pretending to wait no more.”

Juna reaches for my hand still resting on her shoulder. She wraps her fingers around it and pulls her knees to her chest. We’re watching Daddy’s face, both of us wondering if he understands what Abraham is saying. Juna squeezes my hand and draws herself in, tries to make herself small. She knows for certain, and so do I. No more pretending. No more pretending because Abraham and Juna have been doing plenty of pretending.

Daddy looks from Abraham to the ground and back again. He’s trying to work things out. They don’t come so easy for Daddy. The thinking takes him some time. It’s probably why his crop is always a little late going in and a little late coming out. It’s why things go too long before getting fixed and then can’t be fixed. Daddy’s boy is gone, his wife is gone for many years now, he can’t grow a decent crop, his house is rotting away beneath his very feet. He’s tired and he finally understands. A person, most any person, would believe Juna is helpless and weak, lying there in that bed, her hair hanging in matted strings, her black eyes sunk in and tired, her skin burned red. Most any person, except Daddy. He knows better.

“Good enough,” Daddy says.

He’s leaving her to Abraham Pace. The push and pull is over. Juna has worn Daddy out. Maybe he’s not afraid anymore, or maybe he’s afraid but figures it can’t get any worse. No matter which, Juna’s days living in this house are over, and soon enough, I’ll be alone.

Abraham waits until Daddy is gone, and once Abigail has slipped back into the room, he closes the door, shutting us all in the room together. It’s as good as saying “I do.” He is telling everyone, not just Daddy. He is telling Juna and me and Abigail too. He and Juna aren’t just passing time anymore. Juna is his now. She can never again tell him no, and he’ll never again beg for a yes. Juna will have to leave Daddy’s house. She is Abraham’s and will be his for the rest of her life. There will be babies. There will be as many babies as Abraham can father, as many as Juna’s body can mother. She will live in a small house with a loosely woven ceiling and floors that are hard and cold. They will eat greens and pone, she and Abraham, and Juna’s clothes will always be worn and faded and they’ll never fit quite right. She will be closed up in that house and turn soft like me, but not a pleasing sort of soft. Her arms will grow thick; her breasts will fill up and sag more with each child; her hips will flare and dimple. I know these things because it’s what would become of me if I were to promise myself to John Holleran.