"What's goin' on?" she asked us.
"Nothin'," I said.
"What's this 'bout a flour sack got burned in the fire?"
"Just a sack with some papers in it's all," Ray said.
"What kind a' papers?"
"Shoot, just papers on the truck, the deed to yore ma's house, just some stuff," he said.
"I got the deed for Mama's house right in the bureau drawer," she said. "Won't do us no good. It weren't insured."
"Well then, we don't gotta worry 'bout no papers burned up in the fire. We be done with it," Ray said. He give me a dirty look and got up off the sofa and walked outside. I sure hoped we was done with it. We would be, too, if I could get that money back to the mill. That was the only problem I had in the whole world. That and Little Irl being so sick. Everything else was going right good for us.
In fact, having our trailer parked next to Lexie and Melvin's worked out mighty fine. At night Mama and Lexie and I got down on our knees and prayed for God to heal Little Irl and bring him back home to us. But poor little Alice, she was fretting all the time, not having her brother there with her. We all missed him a bunch. He was a real special little rascal, he was. I would of rather me got the polio than him, but Mama said that's not how it works.
"We don't get to choose our crosses, Lori Jean," she told me.
"Well, that's real sorrowful, Mama," I said, "'cause here I've had me near ten whole years and Little Irl he ain't even had hisself three. Don't seem right."
"There ain't no wrong or right to it, Lori Jean. That's the way it is. You just gotta accept it is all," she said.
"Well, I'm not gonna," I said. "I'm not gonna and that's that."
'Course there wasn't much I could do, so I just prayed some more for one a' them miracles. And I drew Irl more of them little pictures of trains and boats he liked so much. The trains was his favorite. And I even read him a story one time. I had to climb Melvin's ladder and stand on my tippy toes outside the hospital window to do it. It was his favorite book in the whole world; a picture story 'bout a little train that thinks he can't, 'til he finds out that he can. I bought it with some of the money Mz. Hawkins give me for helping out. Irl liked it real fine and he never got tired of it, no matter how many times we read it to him. Uncle Melvin and Aunt Lexie usually done the reading, but that one day I got to.
"Climb on up there, Lori Jean," Uncle Melvin said. "Stand real still when you turn them pages, now. I got your legs," he said. It was a pretty short book, but even so, it took me a while to read 'cause I wanted Irl to see the pretty pictures, best he could, so I turned them around and held them against the screen before I went on to the next page. Them hospital folks had him in this isolation place called a ward. I'm not sure how good Irl seen them pictures through that mesh, and I keeped thinking his neck must been sore having to turn it toward the window all that time, but if it were he didn't fuss none about it.
"Read me agin," he said, and I did, and two times more after that even. But then my legs, right below the backs of my knees, cramped me so bad I had to reach down and rub them and I dropped the book. Uncle Melvin handed it back up to me, but them cramps got to hurting me something awful. I rubbed at them again; all the while Irl begged me to read some more.
"Agin! Agin!" he said. But I couldn't. The pain was worse than a pack of wolves having my calves for their dinner. I tried to be brave like Little Irl and not pay the hurting no mind, but I didn't do a good job of it. Tears was gathering in the corners of my eyes, fixing to be a river I couldn't stop, like the ones flowed all them times Ray whipped me with his big-buckled strap. I surely didn't want Little Irl to see me bawling, feeling sorry for myself when he been so brave over all his suffering. No sirree. I needed to get me down off that ladder lickety-split before I started howling like a baby got a bad diaper rash.
"I'm sorry, Little Irl," I said. "I'd sure like to, but my legs ain't gonna let me. They's tighter than a rubber band been stretched too far. Maybe I kin come back tomorrow after school, okay?"
"Okeedokee, okeedokee…" he said. Isn't he something? He didn't complain or nothing. I blew him a kiss as best I could through that metal screen and barely made it down the ladder steps 'fore I started shrieking. I wanted to be brave, but I was a coward for sure.
"Uncle Melvin!" I said. "I got me these powerful aches in my legs. I think I done caught the polio!" I jumped around in a circle like a chicken got his head cut off and don't know it yet.
"You got one a' them charley horses, Lori Jean," Uncle Melvin said, "from standing on your toes so long. Let me help ya'."
"You sure it ain't the polio, Uncle Melvin?" I cried. "It hurts bad, reeeeaaal bad!"
"It's a charley horse, sweet thang," he said. He set me on the ground and started to rub the back of one a' my legs that had a knot big as his fist in it.
"Yep. It's a charley horse, all right. Had me plenty a' them," he said.
"They's two a' them, Uncle Melvin," I said. "And if they's horses, they thinks they's wolves. They sure enough do."
"Here, let me rub the other one, too," Uncle Melvin said. "Have you fixed up in no time." Like always, he was right. Them horses took off for parts unknown, just like he said they would. But they came back a few times on me in the middle of the night, and I jumped out of bed and stomped up and down, howling like I's the wolf. Then I rubbed them good like Uncle Melvin showed me and they took off for wherever it was cramps come from. Fancy that! They hurt me a bunch before they leaved, but I tried to think on what MeeMaw always said.
"Everything's a blessing, Lori Jean. You remember that. All things work for the glory of God, so praise His name in all things, ya' hear?" she said, or something like that, best I recall. So I'm glad I got me them charley things that day at Grady Hospital while I was standing on that stepladder too long. If I wouldn't a' got me them charley pains that day, whilst I read that story over and over to Little Irl, then I wouldn't a' knowed what to do with 'em when they come at me in the middle of the night, when there weren't no one close by to help me. So MeeMaw was right. Everything's a blessing, I guess. Exceptin', I couldn't see how Irl's polio was a blessing. That part had me real confused. I figured MeeMaw could of explained it, but it was beyond me. When I asked Mama, she didn't have no answer. She said she wished she did. And I couldn't hardly ask Uncle Melvin and Aunt Lexie how it was a blessing for Little Irl to suffer. Didn't seem right. So I put that question in my heart in a spot with all the others I'd saved up. I planned on asking Jesus for the answers once I growed old and died and went to heaven like MeeMaw.
All them months Lexie grew the new baby in her tummy, we watched Little Irl get worse. It hurt so bad to see him stuck in that iron lung machine. It got so I hated looking through that mesh window when I climbed the stepladder every Sunday after church. Mama'd climb up first, then Uncle Melvin, and then me. Aunt Lexie couldn't climb it much in the end. Her belly got too big and Melvin was sore afraid she'd fall. She'd stand below the window and yell out, "It's Mama, sugar! Can you hear me, honey?"
"Mama…Mama…" Little Irl called back that first time Uncle Melvin wouldn't let Lexie up the ladder no more.
"See me! See me!" Little Irl said. "Climb up, Mama, see me!"
"I can't, baby," Lexie said. Her voice cracked. "But I will, honey, soon's this new little brother or sister you got comin' gets here, okay?" she yelled. "Mama loves you, punkin. Be brave, okay?"
"Okeedokee…" Irl said, no crying or complaining. He was a special one, I'm telling ya'. That day when I watched Lexie call out to Little Irl, knowing they couldn't hold each other like mamas and little childrens is supposed to, and knowing how much Lexie loved hugging and kissing on her childrens every chance she got, some more pieces of my heart got broke off.
"How many parts can I lose…" I asked God, "and still have me one left?" He must of thought I was funning—and I wasn't— 'cause he didn't answer. Then one a' them miracles happened. Irl, he started getting better. The doctors said they couldn't rightly explain it. Somes got better, somes didn't, and somes died.
So we had ourselves some really good news what with Irl getting better. It wasn't long after that the doctors let Uncle Melvin and Aunt Lexie bring him home from the hospital. What a day that was. First we all got down on our knees and thanked God for the miracle he give us. Even Ray. Exceptin' he didn't move his lips with the rest of us when we said the big prayer named after the Lord, but still he kept on his knees all the while we prayed it, so I figured it counted. Then we had ourselves one fine party with store-bought cookies and Co-Cola, even. And the days that followed kept getting better. I was mighty happy, I'm telling ya'. Nothing wrong with that. I figured God wants us all to be happy or why'd he make us? Even so, I should of knowed to be prepared for when the bad days come, 'cause MeeMaw showed me in the Bible once where it's promised we get a equal share of each, but I forgot about that part. Made the days to come even tougher to take, not being prepared and all. MeeMaw said the bad times was to make us kinder people.
"Suffering does a heap bit a' good, child," she said. "Makes us privy to the pain of others. Helps us appreciate all the good the Lord sends our way, 'cause then we got something to compare it to. Always remember, Lori Jean, when it's over, we're better people for it." And I believed her. All the same, it was hard to take when the bad come calling, especially the way it chose to do it.
I was helping Lexie with the twins after school. She was fixing to have the new baby any day and her belly was popped out front like a watermelon shoulda already burst.
"Doc Crawley says it's gonna be a big'un," she told Uncle Melvin. "Honey, I jist don't think I can take the pain again."
"Now, sugar, the second time is gonna be a whole lot easier. Don't you fret none, ya' hear?" he told her. She was still pretty much having herself a hissy fit each day it got closer. It was pretty much getting me upset, too. All that blood and screaming last time.
"What's it like havin' babies, Mama?" I asked that night after supper when we was washing up the dishes. We was having one of them girl talks, getting closer all the time. I was almost ten. Ray was sitting out on the steps leading up to the trailer, acting real strange, all peaceful like, which weren't like him a'tall. Hadn't had a drop a liquor we knowed of in a month of Sundays. He was like Chester Britt's yo-yo, he was. 'Cepting Melvin said this time Ray's being sober might could be permanent on account he near died in the fire.
"Did ya' hear me, Mama?" She was lost in her daydreams, I guess, and didn't answer.
"What?"
"That pain ladies have when they's havin' babies, what's it like?"
"No sense frettin' yourself over that none, Lori Jean. It'll come soon enough, I reckon."
"I'm not frettin', Mama. I jist want ta' understand is all. How come it hurts so much? And why can't them doctors give Lexie somethin' so she won't have to suffer so bad?"
"'Cause there just ain't nothin' strong enough to kill that kinda pain, Lori Jean, and there never will be. It's in the Bible. It's our punishment for Eve givin' Adam that apple to eat when the Lord done told her not to."
"But Mama, that ain't fair. Lexie wouldn't give nobody a apple they wasn't s'posed to have, nohow," I said.
"Well, life ain't fair, Lori Jean. It's spelled L-I-F-E. If 'n it were fair, it'd be F-A-I-R. You best git used to it," she said. I guess there weren't no arguing that. Lexie was on her own.
The very next morning it happened. It was still dark when Uncle Melvin dropped the twins off at our place and hauled Lexie off in the Chevy to the hospital clear over in Decatur. I ran outside in my nightie to tell Lexie I'd be praying for a miracle, so's God would forgive Eve what she done, but they was clear down the dirt road 'fore I could.
"Lori Jean," Mama called out, "git back inside 'fore you catch a shiver." It was right cold that winter morning at that. March 12. I remember 'cause late the next night Melvin and Lexie had themselves a baby girl on March 13. It was a Friday and Mama said it was bad luck; that the baby was born with a cloud over her head for sure and only bad things would happen to her. They named her Iris Anne. She weighed eight pounds and had black hair like Melvin and a whole lot of it, too. It took Lexie near two days trying to get that baby out and after all that she had herself one of them cereal sections where they cut her belly open. Her and little Iris near died. It's the only time I recall ever hearing Melvin curse.
"Why in the hell them jackass doctors couldn't a' done that golldang operation to begin with instead a' puttin' her through all that sufferin' is beyond me," Melvin said. He was fit to be tied. "I oughta kick ass and take names a' them sons-a-bitchers," he said.
Later he found out why they waited so long and then he really started cursing, and I ain't gonna repeat them words he said nohow, being so close to heaven and all. The reason was they wanted ta' make sure he had hisself the right kind a' assurance or something from the cotton mill so's it would pay the bill. It cost over one hundred dollars! Seems rich folks git that operation 'fore they pay, but poor folks gotta pay first. In the end Melvin said the only reason they done the operation at all was to save her life.