Sweet Hush

  She smiled bitterly and shook her head. “How many heterosexual career army officers know their French fabric prints the way you do?”

  “I’m retired. I may become a decorator. I need a job.”

  “Oh, no. You’ll never really retire, Nicholas. You’ll die fighting for some good cause far from home and trying to prove something that can’t be proved. What the hell were you trying to prove with this?” She indicated the gift basket.

  “Mrs. Thackery sent you a gift basket. I don’t care what you do with it, but I’m telling her you like it.”

  “Will she believe you?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t bother. I hate the woman. And she hates me.”

  I nodded. “Let’s talk about Eddie. What does Al say?”

  “He’s tearing his hair out, naturally.” She groaned. “Our pregnant daughter is in Georgia, non communicato. And you’re the only pipeline of information we have. So you tell me what I should say to Al about these people who’ve taken my daughter away from me, Nicholas. Tell me about Davis Thackery. And about her. His mother.”

  I held out the last bite of apple. “Try this.”

  She frowned at the sliver of white-and-red fruit on my palm. “In an hour I have a photo session with the United Women’s Independence Coalition or the Save The Marine Mollusks Foundation or whatever the fuck I have to do, next. I don’t keep track of half the pose-and-smile appointments on my party schedule. But my lips are ready, regardless.” She pointed to her perfectly outlined mouth. “I can’t eat. Not hungry, anyway.”

  “You want to know what Hush Thackery is made of? Who she is and what her life’s about? It’s all there.” I nodded to the slice.

  She stared at me. “They’re brainwashing you.”

  “Try the apple.”

  Edwina placed the nibble between her teeth, bit down without passion, and chewed. Her eyes brightened then narrowed. She spit the chewed pulp into her hand and dropped it in a crystal vase of white roses. “What’s your point?”

  “These people care about what they create. They work hard and seem honest. I’m just telling you. The apple. It’s good.”

  “My daughter is pregnant and married and I want to crawl in a hole and scream. Don’t give me a slice of apple and tell me you’ve had a blinding flash of insight and her choices are all right.”

  “Eddie thinks she’s following her heart. Whether she’s right or not, she needs you and Al to support her choice.”

  “No. She has to come to us.”

  After a long moment, I said, “She’s your kid. She’s pregnant.”

  Edwina swayed, her eyes wet, her mouth hard. “My mother didn’t admit me to her home or speak to me for two years after I married Al. It was excruciating. This isn’t easy for me.”

  “Then why do you want to treat Eddie the same way?”

  “My mother was right. At the time. Right that I was making a foolish choice, marrying beneath me, endangering my reputation and my future. Thank god, she was wrong about Al. Do you think I understood her wisdom at the time? Not at all. I loved Al, but when I married him it was for the wrong reasons—sentimental romance, idealistic dreams, and frankly, the joy of getting laid. I was lucky he turned out to be more than just good-hearted and good in bed.”

  “Eddie’s your daughter,” I repeated. “A kid needs a mother’s loyalty.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” Edwina put her face in her hands. “What am I supposed to do? Encourage her to ruin her life?”

  “Maybe she hasn’t. Davis Thackery might be worth the trouble.”

  “Oh? So far he’s only demonstrated a knack for luring one of the smartest, most sensible, most career-oriented young women on the face of this planet into bed—and getting her pregnant. And she let him. My daughter—who I taught about birth control from the time she was old enough to understand the show-and-tell routine using anatomically correct dolls at the women’s clinic. My daughter—who at twelve years old sincerely came to the philosophical conclusion that virginity and chastity are empowerment issues worth defending.

  “Any young man who is manipulative and sly enough to confuse her on issues that were bedrock values in her life and in the community of family and friends Al I surrounded her with—any apple-farming stud who could wreak havoc on my . . .” her voice quavered . . . “my wonderful baby’s common sense . . . and sidetrack the future that meant everything to her—”

  “That meant everything to you,” I corrected. “If you cut Eddie off you’ll be sorry. You’ll be wrong.”

  “No. She’ll come home. You’ll see. On my terms.”

  “What does Al want to do?”

  “We’re discussing it. I told you, he’s letting me handle things.”

  I thought: This is the man who tracked me down in a Mexican hospital when I was fourteen. This is the man who brought me home and made me feel welcome. He won’t leave his daughter out in the cold. “Meaning he’s mad as hell at your attitude.”

  Edwina advanced on me with manicured nails up like claws. “He wasn’t there that day in the park when we nearly, when you . . . she is my daughter, and I can’t forget—” Edwina’s voice rattled, and she paused to collect herself—“goddammit, she agreed to make something of her life. Goals, Nick. Specific goals. We agreed she’d put off marriage and children until she’d established herself in public office. What is she going to do with a baby at her age! And some unproven nobody for a husband—Nicholas, this marriage isn’t even legal. If she’d only come to me the moment she found out she was pregnant. I’d have helped her avoid this mess.”

  “If you’re talking about bullying her to have an abortion,” I said slowly, “maybe that’s why she didn’t come to you, and maybe that’s why she won’t talk to you, now.”

  Edwina froze. “I’m not sure what my counsel to her would have been,” she said in a low, even voice, “but I don’t deserve your insinuations. I am pro choice, Nicholas. Not pro abortion. Pro choice.”

  “My mother had no choice. I vowed I’d make that up to her.”

  “It’s not the same situation.”

  “To me,” I said very quietly, “it is.”

  I STOOD. THEY SAT. Edwina and her advisors, a mafia of Habersham cousins and smart friends and political aides with nice hair and polished fingernails—twenty people filling a small conference table in the west wing of the White House.

  The topic: Hush Thackery and son. Pros and cons. Their mixed-race background had potential. “Lt. Colonel, does she look Caucasian or can you tell her grandmother was Native American? Is that an issue we need to address? Or perhaps we can exploit it to our advantage.” A black staffer asked the question without a trace of irony.

  “She has red hair and green eyes,” I said. “She smokes a Cherokee pipe, earned a degree in business at night school, and raised a son who was willing to get his ass kicked for Eddie’s sake.”

  “A smoker,” one of the minions said, and wrote the information down, frowning.

  “Religion?” another said, reading some notes. “Davis Thackery attended something called The Gospel Church Of The Harvest as a kid. His mother was and is a big contributor. Non-denominational. Self-styled, unaffiliated. A woman pastor.”

  “Snake handlers?” someone asked, nervously twisting a two-hundred dollar gold ink pen. “Speaking in tongues? Faith healing?”

  “Singing,” I put in. “Yesterday the Reverend Betty and her gospel band were at the pavilion singing Will The Circle Be Unbroken? Hush Thackery sings with them. And plays the washtub bass.”

  “The what?”

  “Overturned metal washtub, heavy cord attached to the center of the bottom, stretched tight to a pole. Put one foot on the washtub to anchor, pull the pole back with your left hand, pluck the cord with you right hand. Sounds like a bass cello if you know the te
chnique. Hush Thackery knows the technique.”

  “Appalachian hillbilly music,” someone said, and made a note.

  “We need a photo op. We have to get you and the President together with the new in-law, Mrs. Jacobs.”

  Edwina nodded. “All right. I need to assess her in person. Rattle her cage. Show her who she’s dealing with.”

  “I don’t think she cares who she’s dealing with,” I said.

  “Nicholas, you’re no judge of women. This is one who doesn’t need rescuing. She’s no Cinderella.”

  I turned from the window where I’d been watching gardeners cut the green grass on the lawn. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Attack me, Nicholas. Go ahead and tell me I’m an evil bitch and I’ve violated some code of honor by scrutinizing every bit of information I can learn about her. Consider the fact that she can easily access excruciatingly detailed public information about our family, Nicholas. Besides—why are you defending her?”

  “Because she’s given you no reason to attack her, and for better or worse, Eddie’s part of her family, now. So you’re attacking Eddie’s mother-in-law. It’s not good for Eddie.” Because I’m tired of being cynical about people, I added silently. Because Hush Thackery is no ordinary person. Because I want to believe in her.

  Edwina stood. “I won’t let my daughter be blindsided by shabby in-laws. I’ll make a deal with you. You get Hush Thackery to meet with Al and me, and we’ll see if her reputation holds up under a little gentle interrogation. If she’s as righteous as you seem to think, she’ll come through with flying colors.”

  “You’re on,” I said.

  “EDDIE JACOBS DOESN’T really want to stay here,” I told Smooch. We stood outside the back windows of my house, looking up at Davis’s windows. “She’s not an apple farmer. And Smooch, it’s not as if she’s homeless and destitute. Her parents run the country.”

  Smooch leaned close and whispered, “But think about the publicity this farm would get if she stays for good.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  We heard a rustling noise in the shrubs at the corner of the house. A Secret Service agent worked his way around the edge of my wicker-filled back porch, peering into large clay pots filled with yellow mums, then parting the limbs of the huge hydrangeas that sheltered several windows. “They’re like raccoons,” I whispered to Smooch. “You turn your back and they creep right up to the door.”

  The agent waved at us. “Just a routine assessment, ma’am,” he called. Continuing to move along the back of the house, he scrutinized all the first-floor windows. “You need locks on those windows,” Smooch whispered back anxiously. “He doesn’t like that they don’t have locks. Look, he’s making a note on his pocket computer.” She clutched her chest harder. “They have a file on you. And your house. You need locks.”

  “I don’t need locks. I have deer rifles and a shoot-to-kill attitude.” Big talk. I wiped my mouth with the back of one hand. All that day I’d tasted fear like a sour kiss. How much would these people want to know? How much did they already know? What might they tell, if they did know? What would Jakobek do?

  Smooch, steeped only in ordinary terrors, grabbed my arm, “Hush! All the guns are locked up in Davy’s gun cabinet, aren’t they? The Secret Service will ask! And they’ll want to see the licenses!”

  I chewed my tongue. “Let them look. I don’t give a damn.” Like most of the respectable citizens of Chocinaw County, Davy had been a card-carrying member of the NRA and a rabid foe of gun licensing. His arsenal hailed from local gun shows where crewcut men with skull tattoos took cash money under the table, no questions asked. I looked at Smooch grimly. “I guess this means I better hide the Uzi and the anti-aircraft missile.”

  “Don’t joke!”

  “Eddie Jacobs won’t be here long enough for her people to squabble with me over the Second Amendment.”

  “I’m telling you—”

  “Sssh. Look at him, now. I swear.”

  The agent had discovered the doors to my root cellar. He stood with his hands on his hips and frowned down at their aging oak frame. He even toed the wood and tapped the shiny, corrugated tin covering it. Smooch sighed. “He doesn’t like crawl spaces and cellars and hidden holes under old farm houses.”

  “Then he can go to hell. This house was built by Liza Hush over one hundred years ago of hard chestnut and creek stone and tough oak planks. I’ve put a new roof on it and re-done the plumbing and the electrical and that’s even new tin on those cellar doors. This house is solid.”

  “Hush, the Secret Service doesn’t care about any of that. You’re talking about decoration, not security.” She wrung her hands. “They want bullet-proof glass and infra-red sensors and reinforced titanium doors and satellite tracking systems and implanted ID chips and antibacterial—”

  The agent opened the cellar door then looked over at me. “Mind if I take a look down there, ma’am?”

  “Go ahead. But pull out your gun in case you’re jumped by giant spiders. And keep an eye out for falling jars of canned applesauce, because the shelves are overloaded. I don’t think you’ll find anything else sinister, but then again, a cousin of my great-grandfather’s disappeared around here in the 1930’s and the old folks still claim his wife killed him for cheating on her. They say she buried the body somewhere here in the Hollow. So yell if you spot a skull.”

  He nodded without a trace of humor, then disappeared down the heavy wooden steps. Smooch had turned pale white. “Don’t talk that way! It’s like at the airport security check-in. You’re not supposed to joke with them!”

  “How can I take these guys seriously when they think terrorists are hiding in my mums and stalkers are holed up in my cellar?” I shook my head. “Save us from the government.”

  “If you read thriller novels like I do you’d know all the things evil, crazy people try to do to the President and his family. Somebody could sneak up here and hide a bomb in your flowers. Or shoot us all with a high-powered rifle through the old wavy panes of your downstairs windows. Or hide in the cellar and grab Eddie when she walks out to the back yard to watch the sunrise over Ataluck. Hush, the world outside Chocinaw County is just filled with loonies who think of those things, and we can’t be too careful, even for one day!” Smooch’s blue Thackery eyes radiated sincere concern and filled with tears. “I spent all these years thinking up ways to lure customers to this farm, and I’ve set up the best fall marketing campaign we’ve ever had, and I don’t want it ruined by terrorists!”

  I put an arm around her. “Now, look here. We’ve survived early frosts, late harvests, stem fungus, recessions, kitchen fires, broken-down delivery trucks, the years when we worked for nothing and had nothing in the bank at the end of the season, and the bad wishes of all those folks who said we’d never convince people from Atlanta to drive up here from September to January to buy apples. We’ll survive Eddie Jacobs. And I promise you, we won’t tangle with any terrorists and we won’t get in trouble with the Secret Service.”

  “You forgot the worst thing.” Smooch dabbed her eyes and sighed. “You survived losing Davy.”

  I froze, then recovered with a quick nod. “That goes without saying.”

  Smooch sighed again. “I wish I had a man right now. Someone who’d tell me not to worry my pretty little head.”

  “No, that never works.”

  She nodded wearily. Small and curvy and fluffy and still desperately needy even at the seasoned age of 36, she’d rejected every man who’d wanted to marry her. It was my fault, in a way. Like everyone else, she thought my marriage to her brother had turned out to be a match made in heaven. We’d inspired her high standards, she said. I gave her a guilty hug. “We’re survivors. And we have too much work to do to waste time on this kind of teary chitchat.”

  She drew herself up. “You’re right.” Smooc
h trudged inside then returned hugging her laptop computer with a phone cord dragging behind it. “I’ve been doing some research on Eddie.”

  I groaned. She sat down on a wooden garden bench with apples carved on the back, then hunched over the laptop computer like a brown-haired poodle searching for treats. Gold crosses and fake diamond studs flashed in her earlobes as she typed and thumbed the mouse button. A late summer butterfly lit on one of the dozen delicate gold necklaces she wore. Smooch looked like she ought to be managing a dime store, but she was, in fact, a marketing and computer wiz. “She’s a role model,” Smooch said in a conspiratorial drawl. “That’s what Eddie Jacobs has always been called. Role model. Look here.” She pointed at the laptop’s screen. “Voted the most admired collegiate female by the readers of Independent Girl e-zine. And when her parents were campaigning for the White House? ‘Hand the votes to daughter Eddie,’ the New York Times said. ‘Eloquent, smart, and serious. A role model for—’ there’s that role model thing, again.”

  “I get the picture.”

  “She wrote a book when she was nineteen! I mean, really wrote it, not just put her name on it. ‘Chick Power’ was the title. ‘A book-length essay on the value of chastity, independence, education, and self-determination for young women.’ Chastity! With her folks being liberals and all. Chastity! Who’d have thought it! My God, Hush, that book was on the bestseller lists while her folks were running for the White House! She was a hit author. At only nineteen!”

  “Some ideas are only worth a penny a bushel even when they’re written in a book, Smooch.”

  “She’s a role model,” Smooch insisted. “Picture this.” She spread her hands as if framing a headline. “Son of Famous Apple Farmer Rescues First Daughter From Life in Fishbowl. Read the delicious details at www.sweethushapples.com.”

  I looked at her until she blushed. She bent over the computer and refused to look at me again. “It’s my job to advertise our apples. Anything that sells apples is okay by me. I’ll say no more.”