Bent Road

Chapter 20

Celia leans against the kitchen sink and rubs her tailbone. Two days since she fell in the hospital and it’s still sore. The aches and pains won’t last much longer but every time she kneads a sore spot, she feels Ray on top of her again, pressing into her thigh, smiling down on her. Wishing she had never suggested they meet Ray at the café, she swallows and tightens the belt on her robe. When Ruth asks if Celia is feeling all right, she smiles, embarrassed that Ruth would be worried about her, and turns to face her family. Arthur, wearing his denim coat and work boots, reaches up and catches the kiss that Evie throws from across the kitchen.

“You sure enough about me leaving today?” Arthur says, tucking the kiss in his pocket. Evie giggles.

“We’ll be fine,” Celia says and follows him to the back door. “Not much choice really.” Standing together at the top of the basement stairs, she kisses him and, as he climbs into his truck, she calls out, “We’ll lock up tight.”

Before walking back inside, Celia looks toward Ray and Ruth’s house. Ruth says he’ll drink for a good long time once he gets started but eventually he’ll remember there’s a baby to contend with, and he’ll come again.

Back in the kitchen, sitting at the table, Evie breaks off a piece of biscuit and shoves it in her mouth. “When will the poppy mallows bloom again, Aunt Ruth?” she says before her mouth is empty.

Celia frowns and shakes her head at the bad manners.

The poppy mallows were the first flower Ruth taught Evie about because a thick patch grew every year in the ditches alongside their new house.

“We’ll start to see them as early as April,” Ruth says, snapping the lid back on the box of oatmeal with her good hand while keeping the sore arm tucked closely to her body. “But sometimes not until May. Depends on the rain. And how early spring comes.”

Celia shouts for Daniel to hurry along or he’ll miss the bus, and then she gently touches Ruth’s hand. Ruth nods that she is doing fine.

“They’re Aunt Eve’s favorite, right?” Evie says, stirring her oatmeal and testing the temperature by touching a small spoonful to her upper lip.

“They were her favorite,” Celia says. “A long time ago. Remember?”

Evie closes her eyes and takes a deep breath as if smelling a bouquet of flowers.

“You do remember, Evie. Don’t you? You remember about Aunt Eve being gone?”

Evie smiles. “Sure,” she says. “May I be excused?”

“You may. But hustle along or you’ll miss the bus.”

“Thanks,” Evie calls out as she skates across the wooden floor and slides into her room.

Daniel pulls out his lunch and lays it on the cafeteria table. Ian does the same. Both boys have similar lunches except that since Aunt Ruth came along, Daniel has better desserts. He slides an extra oatmeal raisin cookie to Ian’s side of the table even though he knows Ian won’t eat it.

“Did you hear?” Ian asks, pulling the waxed paper off his sandwich and holding one half to his mouth. “About Nelly Simpson’s car?”

Daniel shakes his head.

“Police found it near Nicodemus. It’s all over the newspapers.” Ian glances around the crowded cafeteria and whispers, “You know about Nicodemus, don’t you?”

His mouth full of ham and cheese, Daniel shakes his head again.

“It’s where all the coloreds live. Every one of them in the county. Proof positive Jack Mayer took that car. Took it and drove to Nicodemus where he must know pretty much everyone.”

Daniel takes another bite.

“Folks there will help hide him.”

“My mom says I can still come tomorrow,” Daniel says because he doesn’t know anything about Nicodemus and doesn’t know what else to say.

Ian takes a bite of his sandwich and sets it aside. “You going to bring your dad’s shotgun?”

Daniel nods.

“Your.22 won’t do you any good. Not for pheasant hunting. My brothers say if you have a shotgun, we can be the pushers.” Ian pokes his elbow into the center of an unpeeled banana. Its guts squirt out both ends. He does the same thing every day and throws it away so his mom will think he ate it. “You know about pushers and blockers, don’t you?”

Daniel shakes his head.

“Blockers stand along the road, blocking the pheasant, and the pushers walk across the field, pushing the birds so they get squeezed between. Being a blocker is no good. Blockers get hit by buckshot if they’re not careful. Pushing is best. Pushers flush out the pheasant, take an easy shot. We want to be pushers.”

Daniel holds up a hand and shakes his head when Ian slides his uneaten sandwich across the table. A few months back, when Ian first started giving Daniel his leftovers, he took them. Ida Bucher made her sandwiches with double mayonnaise and extra thick slices of cheese, but when Daniel began noticing that he could see Ian’s backbone through his shirt and that he wasn’t growing like everyone else in the grade, he stopped taking Ian’s sandwiches, no matter how much mayonnaise Mrs. Bucher used.

Ian wads up the sandwich in its waxed paper wrapper and drops it into his lunch bag. “My brothers say we’ll be hunting late-season pheasant. They’re the hardest to shoot. Early-season pheasant are stupid. They get shot straight away. But late-season pheasants, they’re the smart ones. You got to be tricky to get the late-season birds. My brothers say that if we’re smart enough to get us some late-season pheasants, we’ll go hunting for Jack Mayer.”

Daniel starts to ask why early-season pheasant are stupid but stops because a group of kids breaks out laughing. At first, he thinks they’re laughing at Ian, but the kids are sitting two tables over and couldn’t hear Ian talking about Jack Mayer and Nelly Simpson and late-season pheasant.

“What are they all laughing at?” Ian asks, putting the rest of his lunch back in the brown bag his mom packed it in and squishing it down with both hands.

“Don’t know,” Daniel says, thinking Ian looks a little blue. Or maybe it’s the gray light from an overcast sky. He turns toward the laughter as a couple of kids at the next table stand. He leans to the left and sees her.

Two tables down, sitting by herself as she always does at lunch, Evie is wearing one of Aunt Eve’s dresses-the blue one, the one with ruffles and a satin bow, the one she said was her favorite. The dress is too big and falls off her small, white shoulders. She tugs at it, gathering up the collar where it has torn away at the seam. She smiles as if she doesn’t hear the kids laughing. She smiles as if Aunt Eve is sitting across the table from her. Daniel throws down his sandwich, jumps up and runs two tables over.

“Hi, Daniel,” Evie says.

Turning to the kids sitting at the other end of Evie’s table, Daniel says, “Shut up. All of you, shut up.” Then he looks back at Evie. “What are you doing?”

“Eating lunch,” she says, laying out two napkins-setting a place for two people.

“Why are you wearing that dress?”

Evie smiles and shoves a piece of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in her mouth. “It’s my favorite. Aunt Eve’s favorite, too.”

“You shouldn’t be wearing that, Evie. It’s all torn and it’s not yours.”

Two tables away, Ian is watching them. He still looks blue.

“You’re going to get in trouble.”

Evie takes another bite and dabs one corner of her mouth with her napkin. “No, I won’t. Don’t be silly.” She stands to show Daniel how she rolled up the middle of the dress and tied it off with the sash. “See, I made it fit. I fixed it myself.”

Daniel stands and holds out his arms, blocking the view of Evie modeling her dress. “Sit down already. Does Mama know you’re wearing that?”

“Aunt Eve said I could.”

“Aunt Eve said?”

Evie nods. “Yes, Aunt Eve said.”