Morning Glory

  Eleanor Dinsmore drew herself back to the present to find Will Parker’s eyes on her hands.

  “So, what’re your thoughts, Mr. Parker?”

  He glanced up, refocused his eyes. “It don’t matter about the kids.”

  “Don’t matter?”

  “I mean, I don’t mind that you’ve got them. Your ad didn’t say.”

  “You like kids then?” she asked hopefully.

  “I don’t know. Never been around ‘em much. Yours seem nice enough.”

  She smiled at her boys and gave each a love pat. “They can be a joy.” He couldn’t help wondering at her reasoning, for she looked tired and worn beyond her years, having the near-three she did. “Just make sure, Mr. Parker,” she added, “’cause three’s a lot. I won’t have you layin’ a hand on them when they’re troublesome. They’re Glendon’s boys and he woulda never dreamed of layin’ a hand on them.”

  Just what did she take him for? He felt himself blush. But what else was she supposed to think after what he’d revealed out there in the yard?

  “You got my word.”

  She believed him. Maybe because of the way his eyes lingered on Baby Thomas’s hair. She liked his eyes, and they had a way of turning soft when they’d light on the boys. But the boys weren’t the only consideration.

  “It’s got to be said,” she went on. “I loved Glendon somethin’ fierce. It takes some time to get over a man like that. I wouldn’t be lookin’ for a man ‘less I had to. But winter’s comin’, and the baby, too. I was in a fix, Mr. Parker. You understand, don’t you?”

  Will nodded solemnly, noting the absence of self-pity in her voice.

  “Another thing.” She concentrated on Thomas’s hair, stroking it differently, distractedly, her cheeks turning pink. “Having three babies under four years old, well—don’t get me wrong—I love ‘em something fierce, but I wouldn’t want any more. Three’s plenty to suit me.”

  Lord a-mighty, the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. She was almost as sorry-looking as her place, and pregnant to boot. He needed a dry bed, but preferably not one with her in it.

  When she glanced up, Will Parker glanced down. “Ma’am...” His voice croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Ma’am, I didn’t come up here lookin’ for...” He swallowed, glanced up, then sharply down. “I need a place is all. I’m tired of movin’.”

  “You moved a lot, have you?”

  “I been movin’ since I remember.”

  “Where’d you start from?”

  “Start from?” He met her eyes, puzzled.

  “You mean you don’t remember?”

  “Texas someplace.”

  “That’s all you know?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Maybe you’re lucky,” she commented.

  Though he shot her a glance, the remark went unexplained. She merely added, “I started from right down there in Whitney. Never moved farther than from the town to the top of this hill. I reckon you’ve been around, though.”

  He nodded silently. Again, she found herself pleased by his brusqueness, his lack of curiosity. She thought she could get along quite well with a man like him.

  “So you’re lookin’ for a dry bed and a full plate is all.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She studied him a moment, the way he sat on the edge of his chair, taking nothing for granted, the way he kept his hat brim pulled low as if protecting any secret she might read in his eyes. Well, everybody had secrets. Let him keep his and she’d keep hers. But she sure as shootin’ wasn’t going to strike up an agreement with a man whose eyes she hadn’t even seen in the clear light. And besides, suppose he didn’t want her.

  He was a vagrant ex-con; she poor, pregnant and unpretty. Who was the bigger loser?

  “Mr. Parker, this house ain’t much, but I’d appreciate it if you’d take your hat off when you’re in it.”

  He reached up slowly and removed the hat. She lit the kerosene lantern and pushed it aside so they need not look around it.

  For long moments they studied each other.

  His lips were chapped and his cheeks gaunt, but his eyes were true brown. Brown as pecans, with blunt black lashes and a pair of creases between well-shaped brows. He had a nice knife-straight nose—some might even call it handsome—and a fine mouth. But so sour all the time. Well, maybe she could make it smile. He was quiet-spoken—she liked that. And those arms might be skinny, but they’d done their share of work. That, above all, mattered. If there was one thing a man would have to do around here it was work.

  She decided he’d do.

  She had fine-textured skin, strong bones and features that, if taken one by one, weren’t actually displeasing. Her cheekbones were slightly too prominent, her upper lip a little too thin, and her hair unkempt. But it was honey-brown, and he wondered if with a washing it might not turn honeyer. He shifted his study to her eyes and saw for the first time: they were green. A green-eyed woman who touched her babies like every baby deserved to be touched.

  He decided she’d do.

  “I wanted you to see what you’d be gettin’,” she told him. “Not much.”

  Will Parker wasn’t one for fancy words, but this much he could say: “That’s for me to decide.”

  She didn’t fluster or blush, only pushed herself out of the chair and offered, “I’ll get you more coffee, Mr. Parker.”

  She refilled both their cups, then rejoined him. He wrapped both hands around the hot cup and watched the lamplight play on the surface of the black liquid. “How come you’re not afraid of me?”

  “Maybe I am.”

  His glance lifted. “Not so it shows.”

  “A person doesn’t always let it show.”

  He had to know. “Are you?”

  In the lanternlight they studied each other again. All was quiet but for Donald Wade’s bare toes bumping a rung of the chair and the baby sucking his gooey fingers.

  “What if I said I was?”

  “Then I’d walk back down the road the way I came.”

  “You want to do that?”

  He wasn’t used to being allowed to speak his mind. Prison had taught him the road to the least troubles was to keep his mouth shut. It felt strange, being granted the freedom to say what he would.

  “No, I don’t reckon so.”

  “You wanna stay up here with the whole bunch of them down there thinking I’m crazy?”

  “Are you?” He hadn’t meant to ask such a thing, but she had a way of making a man talk.

  “Maybe a little. This here what I’m doing seems crazy to me. Doesn’t it to you?”

  “Well...”

  She sensed that he was too kind to say yes.

  At that moment a pain grabbed Will’s gut—the green apples catching up with him—but he wished it away, telling himself it was only nerves. Applying for a job as a husband wasn’t exactly an everyday occurrence.

  “You could spend the night,” she offered, “look the place over in the morning when the light is up. See what you think.” She paused, then added, “Out in the barn.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The pain wrenched him again, higher up this time, and he winced.

  She thought it was because of what she’d said, but it’d take some time before she’d trust him in the house nights. And besides, she might be crazy, but she wasn’t loose.

  “Nights are plenty warm. I’ll make you a shakedown out there.”

  He nodded silently, fingering the brim of his hat as if anxious to put it back on.

  She told her older son, “Go fetch Daddy’s pillow, Donald Wade.” The little boy hugged her shyly, staring at Will. She reached for his hand. “Come along, we’ll get it together.”

  Will watched them leave, hand in hand, and felt an ache in his gut that had nothing to do with green apples.

  When Eleanor returned to the kitchen, Will Parker was gone. Thomas was still in his high chair, discontented now that his biscuit was gone. She experienced a curious stab of disappoin
tment—he’d run away.

  Well, what did you expect?

  Then, from outside she heard the sound of retching. The sun had gone behind the pines, taking its light with it. Eleanor stepped onto the sagging back stoop and heard him vomiting. “You stay inside, Donald Wade.” She pushed the boy back and closed the screen door. Though he started crying, she ignored him and walked to the top of the rotting steps.

  “Mr. Parker, are you sick?” She didn’t want any sickly man.

  He straightened with an effort, his back to her. “No, ma’am.”

  “But you’re throwing up.”

  He gulped a refreshing lungful of night air, threw back his head and dried his forehead with a sleeve. “I’m all right now. It’s just those green apples.”

  “What green apples?”

  “I ate green apples for lunch.”

  “A grown man should have more sense!” she retorted.

  “Sense didn’t enter into it, ma’am. I was hungry.”

  She stood in the semidark, hugging Glendon Dinsmore’s pillow against her swollen stomach, watching and listening as another spasm hit Will Parker and he doubled over. But there was nothing more inside him to come up. She left the pillow on the porch rail and crossed the beaten earth to stand behind his slim, stooping form. He braced both hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. His vertebrae stood out like stepping-stones. She reached out a hand as if to lay it on his back, but thought better of it and crossed her arms tightly beneath her breasts.

  He straightened, muscle by muscle, and blew out a shaky breath.

  “Why didn’t you say something?” she asked.

  “I thought it’d pass.”

  “You had no supper, then?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “No dinner either?”

  Again he remained silent.

  “Where did you get them apples?”

  “I stole them off somebody’s tree. A pretty little place down along the main road between here and the sawmill with pink flowers on a tree stump.”

  “Tom Marsh’s place. And good people, too. Well, that’ll teach you a lesson.” She turned back toward the steps. “Come on back in the house and I’ll fix you something.”

  “That’s not necessary, ma’am. I’m not—”

  Her voice became sharper. “Get back in the house, Will Parker, before your foolish pride pushes your ribs right through your thin skin!”

  Will rubbed his sore stomach and watched her mount the porch steps, treading near the edges where the boards were still good. The screen door whacked shut behind her. Inside Donald Wade stopped crying. Outside, night peepers started. He glanced over his shoulder. The shadows lent a velvet richness to the dusky clearing, disguising its rusted junk and dung and weeds. But he remembered how sorry it had looked by daylight. And what a wreck the house was. And how worn and lackluster Eleanor Dinsmore looked. And how she’d made it clear she didn’t want any jailbird sleeping in her house. He asked himself what the hell he was doing as he followed her inside.

  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 pal
ms 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.”