Morning Glory

Chapter 2

She left him sitting in the kitchen while she put the boys to bed. He sat eyeing the room. The cabinets consisted of open shelves displaying cookpots and dishes beneath a workbench crudely covered with cracked linoleum. Between the nails that held it on, chunks were missing. The sink was old, chipped and stained, with a single short pipe to drop the runoff into a slop pail underneath. There was no pump. Instead, a dipper handle protruded from a white enamel water pail beneath which the linoleum held a sunburst of cracks. The floor was covered with linoleum of a different pattern, but it showed more black backing than green ivy design. The ceiling needed washing. It was gray with soot above the woodstove. Apparently someone had had dreams of resurfacing the walls but had gotten only as far as tearing off the old plaster on a wall and a half, leaving the wooden slats showing like the bones of a skeleton. Will found it surprising that a room so ramshackle could smell so good.

His eyes moved to the bread and he forced himself to sit and wait.

When Eleanor Dinsmore returned to the kitchen he made sure his hat was on the tabletop instead of on his head. With an effort he rose from the rung-back chair, bolstering his stomach with one arm.

"No need to get up. You rest while I get something started."

He let his weight drop back while she opened a wooden trapdoor in the floor and disappeared down a set of crude, steep steps. Her hand reappeared, setting a covered kettle on the floor, then she emerged, climbing clumsily.

When she reached for the ring on the trapdoor he was waiting to lower it for her. Her startled look told Will she wasn’t used to men doing it for her. It had been a long time, too, since he’d performed courtesies for a woman, but he found it impossible to watch a pregnant one struggling up a cellar hatch without offering a hand.

For a moment neither of them knew what to say.

Finally she glanced away, offering, "I appreciate it, Mr. Parker." And when he’d lowered the trapdoor behind her, "Never had a man openin’ and closin’ doors for me. Glendon, he never learnt how. Makes me feel a little foolish. Anyway, I thought I told you to set. Your belly’s bound to be hurtin’ after you brought them apples up for another look."

He grinned at her homey turn of speech and returned to the chair, watching as she added wood to the stove and put the kettle on to heat.

"I’m sorry about what happened out there in the yard. I guess it embarrassed you."

"It’s a purely natural act, Mr. Parker." She stirred the contents of the pot. "Besides, I don’t embarrass easy." She set the spoon down and gave him a wry smile. "And leastways, you did it before you tasted my cooking."

She gave him a cajoling grin and got one of his rare ones in return. He tried to recall if he’d ever known a woman with a sense of humor, but none came to mind. He watched her move around in an ungainly, swaying way, placing a hand to her roundness when she reached or stooped. He wondered if she really was crazy, if he was, too. Bad enough taking a strange woman for a wife. Worse taking one who was pregnant. What the hell did he know about pregnant women? Only that in his time he might have left a few of them behind.

"You’d probably feel better if you washed up some," she suggested.

In his usual fashion, he neither moved nor replied.

"There’s the basin." She gestured, then turned away, busying herself. He threw a longing glance at the basin, the soap, the white towel and washcloth hanging on nails at the front of the sink.

After a minute she turned and asked, "What’s the matter? Stomach hurt too bad to get up?"

"No, ma’am." He wasn’t accustomed to freedom yet, didn’t believe it fully. It felt as if anything he reached for would be snatched away. In prison a man learned early to take nothing for granted. Not even the most basic creature comforts. This was her house, her soap, her water. She couldn’t possibly understand what prizes they seemed to a man fresh out.

"Well, what is it?" she demanded impatiently.

"Nothing."

"Then help yourself to the teakettle and washbasin."

He stretched to his feet, but moved cautiously. He crossed behind her and found a clean white washbasin in the sink, and on the nail, the clean white towel and washcloth. So white. Whiter than anything he remembered. In prison the washcloths had been puce green and had grown musty smelling long before clean ones were issued.

Eleanor peered over her shoulder as he filled the washbasin, then dipped his hands into the cold water. "Don’t you want it warmed up?" He glanced back over his shoulder. His eyes, when they weren’t carefully blank, were questioning and uncertain.

"Yes, ma’am," he answered. But when he’d shaken off his hands and turned he made no move toward the teakettle. She plucked it off the stove and poured the warm water for him, then turned her back, pretending to go back to work. But she glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder, confounded by his strange hesitancy. He flattened both palms against the bottom of the basin and leaned forward with his head hung low. There he stood, stiff-armed, as if transfixed. What in the world was he doing? She tipped sideways and peeked around him-his eyes were closed, his lips open. At last he scooped water to his face and gave a small shudder. Lord a-mercy, so that was it! Understanding swamped her. She felt a surge of heat flush her body, a queer sympathetic thrill, a gripping about her heart.

"How long has it been?" she asked quietly.

His head came up but he neither turned, nor spoke. Water dripped from his face and hands into the basin.

"How long since you had warm water?" she insisted in the kindest tone she could manage.

"A long time."

"How long?"

He didn’t want her pity. "Five years."

"You were in prison five years?"

"Yes, ma’am." He buried his face in the towel-it smelled of homemade lye soap and fresh air, and he took his time savoring its softness and scent.

"You mean the water’s cold in there?"

He hung up the towel without answering. The water had been cold all his life-creeks and lakes and horse troughs. And often he dried himself with his shirt, or on a lucky day, the sun.

"How long you been out?"

"Couple of months."

"How long since you ate a decent meal?"

Still silent, he closed two buttons on his shirt, staring out a filmy window above the sink.

"Mr. Parker, I asked you a question."

On a crude shelf to his left a small round mirror reflected her image. What he saw mostly was obstinacy.

"A while," he replied flatly while their mirrored eyes locked.

Eleanor realized he was a man who’d accept a challenge more readily than charity, so she carefully wiped all sympathy from her voice. "I should think," she admonished, stepping close behind him, holding his gaze in the mirror, "a man that’s been roughing it might need a touch of soap." She reached around him, picked up a bar of Ivory and plopped it into his hand, then rested her own on her hips. "You’re not in prison anymore, Mr. Parker. Soap is free for the taking here, and there’s always warm water. Only thing I ask is that when you’re through you spill it out and rinse the basin."

Staring at her in the mirror, he felt as if an immense weight had lifted from his chest. She stood in the pose of a fighter, daring him to defy her. But beneath her stern façade, he sensed a generous spirit. "Yes, ma’am," he returned quietly. And this time before leaning over the welcome warm water, he shrugged out of his shirt.

Holy Moses, was he thin. From behind she eyed his ribs. They stuck out like a kite frame in a strong wind. He began spreading soapsuds with his hands-chest, arms, neck and as far around his trunk as he could reach. He bent forward, and her eyes were drawn down his tan back to where a white band of skin appeared above the line of grayed elastic on his underwear.

She had never seen any man but Glendon wash up. Grandpa was the only other male she’d ever lived with and he certainly hadn’t bared himself to any female. Staring at Will Parker while he performed his ablutions, Eleanor suddenly realized she was watching a very personal thing, and turned away guiltily.

"Washcloth’s for you-use it." She left the room to give him privacy.

She returned several minutes later to find him shiny faced, buttoning up his shirt. "Got this." She held up a yellow toothbrush. "It was Glendon’s, but I’ll clean it with soda if you don’t mind using it secondhand."

He did, but ran his tongue over his teeth and nodded. She fetched a cup, spooned in soda and filled it with boiling water from the teakettle. "Person oughta have a toothbrush," she declared, stirring with Glendon Dinsmore’s.

She handed it to Will along with a can of toothpowder, then stood and watched while he dumped some in his palm.

Will didn’t like being watched. He’d been watched for five years and now that he was out he ought to be able to do his private business without feeling somebody’s eyes on him. But even with his back turned, he felt her scrutiny all the while he used her husband’s toothbrush, savoring the toothpowder that was so sweet he wanted to swallow it instead of spitting it out. When he finished, she ordered, "Well, set yourself down at the table."

She served him vegetable soup, hot and fragrant, thick with okra and tomato and beef. His hands rested beside the bowl while he fought the compulsion to gobble it like an animal. His stomach seemed to roll over and beg, but he hesitated, savoring not only the smell but the anticipation, and the fact that he was allowed as much time as he wanted-no bells would ring, no guards would prod.

"Go ahead… eat."

It was different, being told by her instead of the guards. Her motives were strictly friendly. Her eyes followed his head as he dipped the spoon and lifted it to his lips.

It was the best soup he’d ever tasted.

"I asked how long since your last meal. You gonna tell me or not?"

His glance flickered up briefly. "A couple of days."

"A couple of days!"

"I stopped in a restaurant in town to read the want ads but there was a waitress there I didn’t particularly care for, so I moved on without eating."

"Lula Peak. She’s a good one to avoid, all right. She been chasin’ men since she was tall enough to sniff ’em. So you been eating green apples a coupla days, have you?"

He shrugged, but his glance darted briefly to the bread behind her.

"There’s no disgrace in admitting you’ve gone hungry, you know."

But there was. To Will Parker there was. Just emerging from the jaws of the depression, America was still overrun with tramps, worthless vagrants who’d deserted their families and rode the flatcars aimlessly, begging for handouts at random doorsteps. During the past two months he’d seen-even ridden with-dozens of them. But he’d never been able to bring himself to beg. Steal, yes, but only in the most dire straits.

She watched him eat, watched his eyes remain downcast nearly all the time. Each time they flicked up they seemed drawn to something behind her. She twisted in her chair to see what it was. The bread. How stupid of her. "Why didn’t you say you wanted some fresh bread?" she chided as she rose to get it.

But he’d been schooled well to ask for nothing. In prison, asking meant being jeered at or baited like an animal and being made to perform hideous acts that made a man as base as his jailers. To ask was to put power into the sadistic hands of those who already wielded enough of it to dehumanize any who chose to cross them.

But no woman with three fresh loaves could comprehend a thing like that. He submerged the ugly memories as he watched her waddle to the cabinet top and fetch a knife from a crock filled with upended utensils. She scooped up a loaf against her hip and returned to the table to slice off a generous width. His mouth watered. His nostrils dilated. His eyes riveted upon the white slice curling softly from the blade.

She stabbed it with the tip of the knife and picked it up. "You want it?"

Oh, God, not again. His hungry eyes flew to her face, taking on the look of a cornered animal. Against his will, the memory was rekindled, of Weeks, the prison guard, with his slitty, amphibian eyes and his teeth bared in a travesty of a smile, his unctuous voice with its perverted laughter. "You want it, Parker? Then howl like a dog." And he’d howled like a dog.

"You want it?" Eleanor Dinsmore repeated, softer this time, snapping Will back from the past to the present.

"Yes, ma’am," he uttered, feeling the familiar knot of helplessness lodge in his throat.

"Then all you got to do is say so. Remember that." She dropped the bread beside his soup bowl. "This ain’t jail, Mr. Parker. The bread ain’t gonna disappear and nobody’s gonna smack your hand if you reach for it. But around here you might have to ask for things. I’m no mind reader, you know."

He felt the tension drain from him, but he held his shoulders stiff, wondering what to make of Eleanor Dinsmore, so dictatorial and unsympathetic at times, so dreamy and vague at others. It was only the painful memories that had transported him-she wasn’t Weeks, and she wouldn’t make him pay for picking up the food.

The bread was soft, warm, the greatest gift he’d ever received. His eyes closed as he chewed his first bite.

They flew open again when she grunted, "Humph!"

Puzzled, he watched her turn her back and move across the room to fetch a crock full of the most beautiful lemon-bright butter in the world. She came back and held it just beyond his reach.

"Say it."

He swallowed. His shoulders stiffened and the wary look returned to his face. His voice came reluctantly. "I’d like some o’ that butter."

"It’s yours." Unceremoniously she clapped it down, then herself, across from him. "And it didn’t hurt you one little bit to ask for it, did it?" She brushed off her fingers and admonished, "Around here you ask, ’cause things are in such a mess it’s the only way you’ll find it most of the time. Well, go ahead, butter your bread and eat."

His hands followed orders while his emotions took additional moments to readjust to her quicksilver mood changes. As he bent over his soup, she warned, "Watch you don’t overdo it. Best if you eat slow till your stomach gets used to decent food again."

He wanted to tell her it was good, better than good, the best he remembered. He wanted to tell her there was no butter in prison, the bread there was coarse and dry and certainly never warm. He wanted to tell her he didn’t remember the last time he’d been invited to sit at somebody’s kitchen table. He wanted to tell her what it meant to him to sit at hers. But compliments were as foreign to him as crocks of butter, so he ate his bread and soup in silence.

While he ate she brought out her crocheting and sat working on something soft and fuzzy and pink. Her wedding ring-still on her left hand-flashed in the lanternlight in rhythm with the hook. Her hands were nimble, but work-worn, and the skin looked like hide. It appeared all the tougher when contrasted against the fine pink yarn as she played it out from one calloused finger.

"What you watchin’?"

He glanced up guiltily.

She adjusted the yarn and smiled. The smile transformed her face. "Never seen a woman crochet before?"

"No, ma’am."

"Makin’ a shawl for the baby. This here’s a shell design." She spread it out on her knee. "Pretty, ain’t it?"

"Yes, ma’am." Once again he was assaulted by yearning, a sense of things missed, a desire to reach out and touch that soft pink thing she was creating. Rub it between his fingers as if it were a woman’s hair.

"I’m makin’ it in pink cause I’d sure like a girl this time. A girl’d be nice for the boys, don’t you think?"

What did he know about babies-girls, boys, either one? Nothing except they scared him to death. And girls? He’d never found girls to be especially nice except maybe when they were older, when a man was sinking his body into them. Then, for a few minutes, while they stopped harping or threatening or tormenting, maybe they were nice.

Mrs. Dinsmore’s silver hook flashed on. "Baby’ll be needing a warm blanket. This old house gets plenty cold in the winter. Glendon, he always meant to fix it up and seal up the cracks and such, but he never got around to it."

His eyes lifted to the walls with the missing plaster.

"Maybe I could seal up the cracks for you."

She glanced up and smiled, unrolling more slack from the basket on the floor. "Maybe you could, Mr. Parker. That’d sure be nice. Glendon, he meant well, but somehow there was always something new he was going to try."

No matter what her mood, when she spoke the name Glendon a softness crept into her voice, a smile, too, whether there was one on her face or not. Will supposed there’d never been a woman in the world who’d looked so sentimental when speaking his name.

"Would you like some more soup, Mr. Parker? A little might be okay."

He ate until his stomach felt hard as a baseball. Then he sat back, rubbed it and sighed.

"You sure can pack it away." She tucked her piece of handiwork into the basket and stood up to clear the table.

He watched her move across the kitchen, thinking if he lived to be two hundred he’d never forget this meal, nor how nice it had felt to sit and watch her work fine pink yarn into a shell design and believe that tomorrow when he woke up, he might not have to move on.

She carried Glendon Dinsmore’s pillow and quilt and led the way to the barn. He found himself again performing uncustomary courtesies, carrying the lantern, opening the screen door, letting her walk first through the littered yard.

The moon had risen. It rode the eastern trees like an orange pumpkin bobbing on dark water. The chickens were roosting-somewhere in the junk, undoubtedly. He wondered how she ever found eggs.

"I tell you what, Mr. Parker," she told him as they walked through the moonlight, "tomorrow morning when you look the place over you might decide it’s not such a good idea to stay. I sure wouldn’t hold you to it, no matter what you said when you first come up here."

He watched her waddle along in front of him, hugging her husband’s patchwork quilt against her stomach.

"Same goes for you, Mrs. Dinsmore."

Just before they reached the barn she warned, "Be careful, there’s a pile of junk here."

Apile? That was a laugh. She sidestepped something made of black spiked iron and opened the barn door. Its unoiled hinges squeaked. Inside there were no animals, but his nose told him there had been.

"Guess this barn could do with a little cleaning," she noted while he raised the lantern over his head and surveyed the circle of light.

"I can do that tomorrow."

"I’d be grateful. So would Madam."

"Madam?"

"My mule. This way." She led him to a wall-mounted ladder. "You’ll sleep up there."

She would have begun climbing but he grabbed her arm. "Better let me go first. That ladder doesn’t look too dependable."

He slipped the lantern over his arm and started up. When his foot took the third rung it splintered and dumped him flush against the wall, where he dangled like a puppet with a broken string.

"Mr. Parker!" she shrieked, grabbing his thighs while he pedaled for a toehold.

"Get back!"

She leaped back and held her breath as the lanternlight swung wildly. At last he found a solid rung, but tested the rest before putting his weight on each. She pressed a hand to her heart, watching him climb until he safely reached the loft with his elbows. "Lord, you gave me a fright. Be careful."

His head disappeared into the dark square above, then the lantern went up with him, gilding the underside of his hat brim. Only when he stood on solid planking did he look back down. "You’re a fine one to talk. If I would’ve come down I’d have taken you right with me."

"I reckon this old ladder’s about as rickety as everything else around here."

"I can fix it tomorrow, too." He raised the lantern and checked the loft. "There’s hay." He disappeared and she listened to his footsteps thud overhead.

"I’m sorry about the smell in here," she called.

"It’s not as bad up here. This’ll be fine."

"I would’ve cleaned it if I’d known I’d be havin’ overnight company."

"Don’t worry. I slept in much worse in my day."

He reappeared, knelt, and set the lantern at his knee. "Can you toss up the bedding?"

The pillow went up perfectly. The quilt took three tries. By the third, he was grinning. "Ain’t got much for muscles, have you?"

It was the first lighthearted thing he’d said. She stood with her fists on her hips, gazing up at him while he held the patchwork quilt. It might not be so bad having him around if he’d lighten up this way more often.

"Oh, ain’t I? I got those up there, didn’t I?"

"Just barely."

The grin softened his face. The cockiness sharpened hers. For the first time they began to feel comfortable with each other.

He flopped to his belly and hung over the edge of the hatch. "Here, you take the lantern."

"Don’t be silly. I been walkin’ in this barnyard since before you owned that thing you call a cowboy hat."

"What’s wrong with my cowboy hat?"

"Looks like it’s been through a war."

"It’s my own. It and my boots." He waggled the lantern. "Here, take it."

So that was why he kept that sorry-looking thing on his head all the time.

"Take it yourself," she said, and disappeared from sight. He knelt on his haunches and listened for her footsteps, but she was barefoot.

"Mrs. Dinsmore?" he called.

"Yes, Mr. Parker?" she called from the opposite end of the barn.

"You mind my asking how old you are?"

"Be twenty-five on November tenth. How about you?"

"Thirty or so."

Silence, while she digested his answer. "Or so?"

"Somebody left me on the steps of an orphanage when I was little." Will hadn’t told that to many people in his life. He waited uncertainly for her reaction.

"You mean you don’t know when your birthday is?"

"Well… no."

The barn grew silent. Outside a whippoorwill called and the frogs sang discordantly. Eleanor paused with her hand on the latch. Will knelt, gripping his thighs.

"We’ll have to pick you out a birthday if you decide to stay. A man should have a birthday."

Will smiled, imagining it.

"G’night, Mr. Parker."

"G’night, Mrs. Dinsmore." He heard the barn door squeak open and called again, "Mrs. Dinsmore?"

The squeaking stopped. "What?"

Five seconds of silence, then, "Much obliged for the supper. You’re a good cook." His heart thumped gladly after the words were out. It hadn’t been so hard after all.

In the dark below she smiled. It had been good to see a man at her table again.

She made her way to the house, prepared for bed and eased into it with a sigh. As she straightened, a faint cramp caught her low across the stomach. She cradled it, rolling to her side. She had chopped wood today, though she knew she shouldn’t have. But Glendon had scarcely managed to get the day-to-day tasks done, let alone stockpiling for tomorrow. The seasoned wood needed splitting, and next year’s supply should be cut so it could start to dry. Besides the wood, there was always water to carry. So much. And there’d be more when the new baby came and she’d have two of them in diapers.

She stretched out on her back and rested a wrist on her forehead, picturing the veins along the inside of Will Parker’s arms, the cluster of wiry muscles. She remembered how hard his legs had been when she’d touched them as he hung on the ladder.

Stay, Will Parker. Please stay.

In the hayloft, Will sank his head into a pillow made of real feathers and stretched out on a soft handmade quilt. His belly was full, his teeth were clean, his skin smelled of soap. And somewhere out there was a mule, and beehives and chickens and a house with possibilities. A place where a man could make a go of it with a little hard work. Hell, hard work came easy.

Just give me a chance, Eleanor Dinsmore, and I’ll show you.

He remembered her standing barefoot in the yard with her two boys, her stomach round as a watermelon, eyeing him warily. He remembered the detached look on her face when she’d questioned him and the momentary flash of shock when he told her about Huntsville. She was probably mulling it over right now, having second thoughts about keeping a jailbird around. And by morning she’d have decided he was too much of a risk. But in the morning he’d show her. First thing, before she had a chance to put him off the place he’d show her he intended to earn his keep.