Home Fires

24

God has planted us a garden

Man must keep it weeded.

—Atherton Memorial Presbyterian

I didn’t know if Cyl DeGraffenried was avoiding me since Monday evening or whether Doug had legitimately assigned her elsewhere, but Tracy Johnson prosecuted on Tuesday and Wednesday and she was there again on Thursday.

Tracy’s tall and willowy with short blonde hair and gorgeous green eyes that she downplays in court with oversized, scholarly-looking glasses. Even though she loves high heels as much as I do, she’s savvy enough to wear flats when arguing before vertically challenged male judges.

Thursday is usually catch-up day, but I’d worked hard to keep things moving the first three days and there wasn’t all that much to catch up on.

“Be nice if we could finish early enough for me to get my hair done this afternoon,” said Tracy during our morning break. “I’m driving down to the beach tomorrow afternoon.”

“Suits me,” I said. “Forty-five minutes for lunch?”

“I could be back in thirty.”

We disposed of the last case at three-seventeen.

By four o’clock, I was on my way out of Dobbs, heading for the farm. The sun was finally shining again and after three days of rain, the air felt so hot and steamy I wanted to wring it out like a washcloth and hang it on a line somewhere to dry.

Passing Bethel Baptist, I almost ran off the road trying to see if I’d read their sign right:

Let the main thing

Of the main thing

Be the main thing

Now what the hell did that mean?

I was almost tempted to stop at the parsonage and see if Barry Blackman could explain it to me. (Barry’s the first boy I ever kissed and sometimes I have trouble taking him seriously as a preacher.)

As I turned off Forty-eight, I had to slow for a tractor pulling a long line of empty tobacco drags, getting ready for the start of barning season. When the way was clear, the child who was at the wheel waved me around and I gave her a wave back even though I didn’t recognize her.

I was driving tractors back and forth between fields and barns when I was eleven and too little to do much else to help get the crop in. I remember the first time I was allowed to take an empty drag back to the field without one of my brothers along—a touch of nervousness about rounding corners too fast or having to pull the drag into a tight space, but also a vaulting pride at being trusted with that much horsepower. By the end of the summer, I was slinging nasties with the empty trucks and maneuvering the full ones right up to the bench.

Never turned over but one the whole summer, either.

I passed the King homeplace without seeing Mrs. Avery, but down at the ashes of Burning Heart of God, three black men were tossing debris into the back of a large truck. The site was already looking neater, and if I knew Mrs. Avery, that whole slope would be blooming in azaleas come next spring.

At my house, I was thrilled by how much had been done since Saturday. All the Sheetrock was up and the men were trimming out the doors and windows. The kitchen cabinets had been delivered and a plumber was installing my new washer. He’d already hooked up the bathroom fixtures and the sound of flushing was loud in the land when Will demonstrated. I couldn’t say enough in praise.

“You still want everything painted white?” my brother asked.

“Everything except my bedroom,” I said.

That was going to be a dark hunter green. With white organdy curtains and shades, it would feel like a cool woodsy glade in the summer. Heavier, darker drapes would make it cozy in winter.

Since the only major pieces of furniture I actually own outright are a chest that came from my mother’s mother and a headboard that I’d bought when I was over at the High Point Furniture Market in the spring, I planned to start with a solid white interior and see what stood up and saluted once I acquired more furniture.

“April says she’s got a desk and a sleeper couch if you want to come by and take a look.”

I told him I’d run over there for a few minutes and be back before he left.

“Not unless you get back by five-thirty,” he said. “Oh, and here. From now on, you’ll need these.”

He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and for the first time, it registered on me that the outer doors now had knobs and locks.

An official house.

And me the chatelaine.

It looked as if everyone had gone when I got over to Andrew’s house. April’s car and both trucks, too, were missing from yard and carport. I banged on the back door, stuck my head in and called, “Anybody home?”

“In here, Deborah.”

I followed the sound of April’s voice back to the den, where I found her sorting through boxes of papers. Her curly brown hair was cut short for the summer, and summer freckles sprinkled her face and arms and legs.

Her white shorts and blue shirt were both dirty, but her face glowed as she gestured proudly to the wall behind her. “What do you think?”

“Hey, it really came out nice, didn’t it?” I complimented.

April’s as bad as Julia Lee. If she didn’t love teaching so much, she could make a living at interior design and she is personally handy with a circular saw and hammer.

This house, for instance, began life as a 1920s bungalow that her uncle owned over in Makely. When he died, his son sold the lot to a supermarket and told April that she and Andrew could have the house as a wedding present if they’d move it. Since then, they’ve raised the roof to add a second floor and she keeps shifting walls the way other women rearrange furniture. Will doesn’t think she really appreciates the significance of load-bearing walls and swears that one of these days, she’s going to move one door hinge too many and the whole place is going to cave in. She just laughs and hands him a screwdriver.

Her latest project was making herself a real work space in the den. Before, she’d used a wooden desk, a metal file cabinet and some old mismatched bookcases. Now the space was filled with a sleek built-in unit that stretched from floor to ceiling and covered the whole wall. Below were file drawers and cabinets, above were bookshelves. There was a workstation on the countertop for the family’s computer and printer and more counter space where she could spread out to grade papers.

“I want it,” I said.

She laughed. “Can’t have it. What you can have is my old desk.”

The old desk was imitation mahogany and had looked okay before. Standing out in the middle of the room against the new backdrop though, it was pretty shabby.

“Give it a coat of red enamel or decoupage it and it’ll look fine for now,” said April.

She was right, of course, and besides, beggars can’t be choosers. I pulled out one of the drawers. It seemed to be stuffed with sixth-grade spelling papers. “Do all teachers save this much paper? You’re worse than Mrs. Avery.”

“Is she a paper saver, too?”

“You better believe it! When I was over there the other day, she pulled out a note that I’d tried to pass to Portland when we were in her sophomore English class.”

April gave a rueful laugh. “I would cluck in superior horror if I hadn’t just found an absentee excuse from the mother of a student who graduated from college last month. I keep thinking I’m going to sort through and keep selected samples—you do like to see how the children compare from one year to another—but look at all these cartons! I’m tempted to just close my eyes and have A.K. take them all to the firehouse.”

“Firehouse?”

“They have a recycling bin there for white paper. The dump recycles newspapers, magazines and corrugated cardboard but they’re not into copier paper yet.”

For a minute I hesitated, almost feeling a connection somewhere.

Then it was gone.

“How’s it been going?” I asked. “With A.K. and everything?”

“Okay.” Her bright face dimmed a little. Then she shrugged. “It kills me that he’s going to have a record, but I keep reminding myself that it’s not as if I had serious hopes of his going to Harvard or becoming a brain surgeon. All he’s ever wanted to do is farm just like his daddy and a jail record certainly didn’t hurt Andrew’s ability to farm. So all in all…”

“A.K.’s a good kid,” I said.

She smiled. “Oh, Deborah, honey, I do know that. But he doesn’t always think. These three weekends may truly be what he’s needed. A taste of what can happen if he’s not more careful. He’s going to be just fine.”

“Okay,” I said briskly. “Will said something about a sleeper couch?”

“Right. You may not have seen it before because we’ve had it up in the spare bedroom. Ruth’s decided she wants to switch rooms, so we’re going to get rid of it. It’s one my Aunt Mildred had. The fabric’s awful but it has good lines and the mattress is very comfortable.”

I winced when I saw the blue and purple stripes with little pink morning glories twining in and out.

“We can reupholster it,” she said brightly.

“Aunt Zell probably knows somebody.”

“So do I, but it’s a lot cheaper if we do it ourselves. Anyhow, let me know when you’re ready for these things and I’ll have them sent over.”

I hugged her hard. “Thanks, neighbor.”

Will was gone when I got back and I used my new keys to get inside and walk through the empty rooms. I noted how the late afternoon sunlight fell through the windows, looked at the view from the sunroom, saw from my screened porch how the pond reflected the willows and overhead clouds.

Nothing is certain in life and heaven knows the county is changing out from under our feet, but I thought how I might very well live out my life here. Fifty years from now I could be an arthritic old woman who sits on this very same porch to enjoy afternoon sunlight and to watch summer clouds float across a mirror-flat sheet of water.

Enter into thy kingdom and take possession.

I will plant pecan trees, I promised myself. I will have daylilies and gardenias, azaleas and irises, and all the flowers of my mother’s garden. I will take cuttings of Aunt Zell’s lilacs and Miss Sallie Anderson’s pink roses and Daddy’s figs. I’ll dig dogwoods out of the woods and maples and willow oaks.

Deep inside my head, the preacher and the pragmatist nudged each other in the ribs and began to laugh. I ignored them. I would too make the time.

And yes, Haywood was going to have to move that damn greenhouse or I’d move it for him. It was just like—

“Ah,” said the pragmatist, halting in mid-laughter. “Do you suppose—?”

The preacher sat very still, and then he nodded.

Parallel construction, I thought, remembering Mrs. Avery’s English classes. Or did I mean math? If A is to B as C is to D, then A equals C?

More like C squared, I decided, as everything I’d observed over the last few weeks began to line up and make sense.