The Fragrance of Geraniums (A Time of Grace Book 1) (10 page)

Grace breathed
deeply one more time and forced her feet down the steps. She kept her eyes on
the dirt path through the prickly fall grass, not daring to raise them to see
if her father saw her coming. The night air clamped coolly on her shoulders;
she wished she’d worn a cardigan at least.

But it was too
late to turn back and retrieve one from inside the house now. Grace’s steps
brought her right up to the burning barrel before she’d thought it possible.

Papa glanced up,
his dark eyes glowing amber from the firelight. He grunted, his way of greeting
someone familiar, then gave his eyes back to the barrel’s contents.

“Hi, Papa,” Grace
swallowed. She found an ancient rotting log near the barrel and sat down,
knowing her legs were ready to give way.

Papa’s gaze shot
up again, obviously surprised to see Grace sitting down, like she planned to
stay awhile. He shifted his position, as if uncomfortable. “Milk the cow?” he
finally said, probably as a way of finding something to talk about.

“Yes, Papa,” Grace
replied. She’d milked Bessie that afternoon, just before supper.

“Fed her?” was
the next question.

“Yes, Papa,” Grace
answered. “Bessie’s all set.”

Papa grunted his
approval, and silence fell again. But it was an uneasy silence, full of
unexplained matters, brimming with questions that neither wanted to ask or
answer. Grace perched there, feeling the cold wood underneath her goose-pimpled
legs and the fire’s warmth brushing the front of her body. Heart so much
afraid, she studied Papa beneath lowered eyelids.

“Look,” Papa
suddenly burst out, giving a vicious poke at the flames. Grace jumped. “I know
Ben talked to you afore he left. Don’t know what he said, but it weren’t true.
None of it.”

Something lifted
in Grace. Funny thing was, she recognized the falseness of Papa’s words, but,
oh, they were so good to hear! They would be so nice to believe! She let
herself play-act for a moment, buoyed up by what she knew was a phony hope.
“Really, Papa?” she murmured. “None of it?” She raised her eyes to meet his,
but he kept his own gaze on the fire.

“Of course not,”
Papa replied. “You’re fourteen, Grace, big enough to recognize a slur when you
hear it.”

Fourteen…

And just like
that, the breath pulsed out of her little cherished self-deceit. “I’m fifteen,
Papa,” she stated quietly. “Turning sixteen in November.”

“Of course you
are. I know that…” Papa blushed red and blathered on, but Grace had stopped
listening. She stared into the bright flames, waiting for the train of his
words to chug to a halt.

“Why did you
bring that woman here, Papa?” The question came out baldly, ugly and harsh,
even filtered through the soft autumn night.

In the loud
silence that ensued, Grace dared to glance up. Papa’s eyes fastened on her,
expressionless. His long, blackened stick had frozen mid-poke; it, too, had
been shocked by Grace’s audacity, by speaking out loud what no one else in the
Picoletti household had dared.

No. That wasn’t
true. Ben had spoken it. Had hissed out his revulsion at his papa’s promiscuity
and encouraged Mama to split the joint, dragging her kids with her. He’d spoken
it, alright. And where was Ben now?

Gone.

Grace shuddered,
then rubbed her arms, pretending that the cold had made her shiver like that.
She licked her lips, suddenly dry as a mitten left too long on the radiator,
and dropped her eyes to the dirt.

Silence. Grace
counted out ten beats of her heart before letting her gaze flicker up again,
timed to match the crack of moist wood in the barrel. Still Papa’s eyes lay on
her, dark and burning cold. She opened her mouth, forcing out the lie. “I… I
mean, why didn’t, uh, Gertrude-” Her tongue soured at the poisonous name. “Why
didn’t she stay with Uncle Jack?” Hopefully, the question would tamp down
Papa’s anger with Grace for meddling where she had no business. Her heart
thudded painfully against her carved-out lungs.

Papa stayed grim
for just an instant longer, then relaxed. He turned his eyes away from Grace,
and the stick began to thrash at the fire again. “Told you. She didn’t have no
work. They’ve got too many mouths to feed over at Uncle Jack’s to keep her there
with no pay.”

Too many throats
to pour beer down, more’s like.
Grace’s thought surprised her.
I’m
thinking like Ben talks
, she realized, with a little shame coloring her
cheeks.

Glad that the
darkness shaded her face, Grace nodded her understanding. “She looking for work
now?” Grace heard the question leap out of her mouth before she could stop it.
She bit her bottom lip hard, wincing at the pain of the necessary action. That
should stop her wayward tongue.

Papa’s jaw
pumped angrily, and his eyes flashed over to where Grace sat. She tried to look
as innocent as possible while braving the aftermath of her query: slouched over
her shoulders, hugged her knees with white-clenched hands. From experience, she
knew that Papa’s mercy extended farther when his subject appeared submissive.
“Mind your own business, Grace,” he finally barked, the ends of his words
growling through the smoke. A moment more, then, “Dontcha have homework to do?”

“Yeah, Papa. I
got homework to do,” Grace replied, rising with shaking knees. Despite her
fear, she let her gaze fall for a long moment on her papa, taking in his heavy
but handsome jaw, the sweep of his golden hair, the deep-toned complexion that
spoke of old Italian beaches and of long hours under a blistering Rhode Island
sun.

Drawing her eyes
away, Grace started back to the house, feeling the fire’s heat fall from her
body. She felt the moisture of sharp, unbidden tears but blinked hard to drive
them back to where they belonged.
Pity… and longing… and hurt… How can they
all mix so in my heart?
She shook her head, trying to make everything fall into
place.
I don’t know what to feel!
Her feet quickened their pace, and Grace
dashed into the house, past a surprised Mama, and clattered up the stairs, as
if the devil himself nipped at her heels.

Entering the dim
bedroom, Grace shut the door, pressing her whole body against its old wood,
comforted by the solidity. She remained there at the doorway for a good long
while, waiting for her breathing to calm.

Finally, Grace regained
control. She moved away from the door and sat on the edge of her bed, tucking
one leg underneath her.
Nothing has happened that will change anything. Papa
has… has had women before.

Admitting what
everyone knew brought an internal cringe but Grace forced herself to continue
her quieting self-talk.
The only difference is that this woman lives here
with us now.
Grace sighed. If the woman – Gertrude – kept to the cottage
that Papa had prepared for her, well, then, Grace decided that she and the rest
of the Picoletti kids – Mama, too – could cope. She couldn’t understand Papa,
but maybe it wasn’t her business to do that.

Clenching her
jaw, Grace picked up her notebook and began her science homework. She had a
quiz tomorrow; she was determined to get a perfect score.

T
here were only
two left. Emmeline lifted first one and then the other from their hooks,
feeling the packed weight of the baskets transfer to her hands. The brilliant
scarlet flowers hadn’t faded at all in the crisp early autumn nights. Yet, Emmeline
knew that their season in the sun had finished for the year. She didn’t want to
risk losing the geraniums to a bad frost.

In that
September morning, she looked at the empty porch eves above her and at the
red-petaled plants cradled in her arms. Despite the cheerful wren’s call from
the nearby pine tree, Emmeline felt a heavy wistfulness draw its shroud around
her heart. She forced a small smile onto her lips to combat it. Geoff would
leave for school soon, and she didn’t want him to find her out here,
despondent. She hadn’t told him about last night’s heavy bleeding. Or the
continued cramping. Before Geoff had woken, Emmeline had drawn the bedcoverings
over the stains, hiding them from him.

Hoping against
hope…

She bent her
head over the red flowers, looking into their clustered faces. “Come now,” she admonished
the geraniums, “time for you to come inside for the winter.”

“Bringing the
plants upstairs?” asked a deep voice. Sure enough, here was Geoff now, full
satchel in one hand, lunch pail in the other. Dressed in the white button-down
she’d ironed for him earlier that week, he looked to her as handsome as the day
she’d met him as a young girl.

Emmeline sighed
despite her resolution to remain optimistic. “Yes, it’s time for them to come
inside. I’m afraid of a frost.” She smiled at her husband and placed the
hanging baskets down on the porch. “Here, wait a minute,” she said, moving
toward him. “You forgot one.” She pulled off the tiny swatch of toilet paper
he’d used to staunch the nick he must have gotten shaving this morning.

Geoff dropped a
kiss to her forehead and returned her smile. “What would I do without you?” he
asked, his eyes twinkling from behind dark lashes.

“You would have
children.” The words slipped out without Emmeline thinking about them. She let
her gaze fall back to the geraniums, embarrassed.

“What?” He
sounded incredulous.

She forced
herself to say it again. It was true, wasn’t it? “If you’d married someone
else, you’d have had children of your own.” She fingered the red blossoms,
smelling the plant’s spicy fragrance.

Then Geoff’s
hands gripped her shoulders. “Don’t say that, Emmeline. I would rather have you
as my wife than have half-a-dozen children.” He kissed her forehead gently.
“You are the Lord’s most precious gift to me.”

A tear escaped
the crack in her heart. “You’d better go to school,” she said softly, picking
up the plants, clutching them for security.

He kissed her
cheek. “Have a good day, beloved. I’ll see you tonight,” he murmured.

She watched as
he trotted down the three steps to the sidewalk. More tears rose to her eyes,
but as quickly as they came, Emmeline shook them away. She picked up the
hanging baskets at her feet, checking for any stray spiders, and brought them
inside the house. The screen door squeaked and banged shut behind her.

“M
ama.” Grace
stood in the doorway of her parents’ bedroom, picking at her cuticles so hard
it hurt.

Her mother kept
making the narrow double bed, as if she didn’t hear her middle child calling
her name.

“Mama,” Grace
tried again, taking a step into the room.

Mama glanced up
this time, her grown-out hair falling all over her cheeks. “Oh, Grace. Didn’t
see you there,” she said, tucking the bottom sheet underneath the mattress with
those rough, capable hands. “Don’t you have to get to school?”

“I got a couple of
minutes,” she answered, shrugging her thin shoulders. Grace knew that she’d
have to run all the way because she took the time for this brief conversation.

She placed her
lunch pail, battered from years of use, down on her mama’s antique dressing
table and went to the bedside opposite her mother. She began tucking the sheet
underneath the mattress, folding the top over it. All the while, her eyes kept
going to Mama’s worn-out face, wondering how to ask the question she had to put
forward.

But Mama
broached the subject first. “What is it, Grace?” she asked, her hands picking
up the pillows to fluff them. None of the soft caring resided in Mama’s tones
that Grace had heard in other mothers’ voices – Ruth Ann’s mother, for
instance. Mama’s voice always wore a practical, severe dress, uncompromising
and somber enough for any occasion.

Grace swallowed
down the anxiety that kept creeping up her throat. “Mama,” she began, “there’s
a special choir at school now. Mr. Kinner – you know, the English teacher –
started it.”

Mama didn’t say
anything, just kept fluffing those full-of-goose-down rectangles.

Grace picked up
one of the other pillows to keep herself from picking at her nails again, but
she felt too nervous to fluff it. She just clutched it and heard herself say,
“Practices are only on Fridays.” Grace held her breath, hoping Mama would
understand what she was asking. “Today is the first one.”

“And?” Mama
stepped into a patch of sunlight, let in by one of the windows. She picked up
the bedspread from where it draped over Great-Grandma’s rocking chair and shook
it, letting it unfurl over the bed.

“I thought…” Grace
hesitated, unsure of how to continue in a way that would guarantee a positive
response. “I thought maybe I could join it?” She bit her lip after the last
word, waiting for her mama’s answer.

But Mama just
sighed, quick and full, and kept smoothing out the bedspread, drawing it up and
folding down the top edge.

Grace unclenched
her teeth from their hold on her lip. “Ben said-” she tried again, appealing to
her mother’s love for her firstborn.

Mama turned
sharp eyes on her, straightening up her short, hen-like body and folding her
arms tightly across her middle. “Don’t go telling me what Ben said,” she
informed Grace. “Ben talked to me ‘bout this singing choir, and I told him what
I thought ‘bout it then.” She shook her head. “Well, I ain’t changed my mind, Grace.
I think it’s a waste of time. Yours and mine.”

Desperation overtook
Grace. “But, Mama,” she stammered. In her heart, she’d been sure that Mama’s
love for Ben would win out. “I - I thought…”

“I know what you
think, girl,” said Mama, staring at Grace with those weary, drained eyes. “You
think you’re gonna join this special choir, and everybody’s gonna make a big
fuss ‘bout how pretty your voice is.”

Grace flushed.
How did Mama know what had been in her thoughts since the day she’d heard about
Mr. Kinner’s choir? Her forefinger found its way to her mouth, and she began to
gnaw the cuticle, sweetly distracted by the sting. She wished she’d never asked
Mama.

“And then,
somehow, you’ll get a solo part. Some big whig’ll notice you and put you in a
Hollywood movie or on some fancy stage in New York City. You’ll be famous and rich
and beautiful. That’s what you think, ain’t it, Grace?”

Embarrassed at
the truth of Mama’s words, Grace twisted her toe into the floorboard. She
finally uttered, low and soft, “I just… I just want to do
something
,
Mama. It’s only one day a week, Fridays.” She ran her tongue over her dry lips
and glanced at the cuckoo-clock hanging on the wall over her parents’ bed. She
was impossibly late for school.

Mama unfolded
her arms and picked up the patchwork quilt that she always placed at the foot
of the bed. Her hands busied themselves with folding it neatly. “Yeah, well, I
was young once, too, and not so long ago,” she replied, her tone softening just
a little. “It’ll do you no good indulging in those silly daydreams, Grace.
‘Sides,” Mama’s voice returned to its usual brusqueness, “I need you here after
school, what with Evelyn going to live with Aunt Mary and Ben gone for good.”
She laid the quilt at the foot of the bed.

Mama had made up
her mind, then. Grace knew better than to argue; doing so would only irritate
Mama and put her into a silent, foul mood for days. She pushed down the protest
that wanted to spring from her mouth. “See you after school, Mama,” Grace choked
out, picking up her lunch pail from the dressing table.

She was almost
out the bedroom door when Mama replied, “Mind you shut the screen door tight. I
don’t want any flies coming in.”

Grace nodded and
escaped.