Sweet Hush

  Kenney flees ‘po-trash’ whipping from Eddie Jacob Thackery’s mother-in-law.

  Kenney Cowers. Can his macho big-mouth image survive?

  No charges to be filed by Kenney; Sources say he wants incident forgotten quickly.

  President’s Nephew “A National Treasure,” Says Cardinal of Chicago Arch Diocese. Condemns Kenney’s Show.

  And the best of all:

  Two radio stations pull Kenney’s show off air. More may follow.

  All great news, but cold comfort on that day after my return home to the Hollow. I shut down the farm, shooed my kin away, unplugged the wall phones, pulled the battery from my cell phone and locked it in a drawer. A chilly rain drizzled down from a gray sky. Freezing weather and ice were moving in. The most wonderful, terrible apple season of my life was over. I wanted to curl up under a blanket and hug the misery inside me.

  A call on my cell phone roused me just once. “Hush, it’s Smooch.”

  “Smooch!”

  “I’m in Miami, just sitting here in seventy-degree weather on a dock waiting to get on a cruise ship to the Bahamas, but I . . . I just can’t stop crying—”

  “Come home.”

  “I meant to forget all about the past and just find myself a good man on the cruise ship, but then Cousin Mayflo called me about Jakobek, and then I saw the news about you and Kenney, and I’ve been thinking you really need me there, I mean, you need a good public relations person more than I need a good man—”

  “Smoochie, I have no idea how I’ll get along without you if you don’t come home.”

  “I don’t know what to say about my brother. I just don’t know.”

  “We’ll talk. We’ll figure out a way to remember him, the good and the bad.”

  “Here’s the thing—can you still love me like a sister-at-heart if you never loved my brother?”

  “Oh, Smoochie. Love is like apples. Every seed is different, even if they come from the same tree. Of course I love you. Of course you’re still my sister-at-heart. Come home.”

  “All right, then, all right, Hush.” She stopped crying long enough to call across the crowded South Florida cruise-ship pier, “Bring my luggage back, por favor, Senor!”

  After I got off the phone with her I went out in the cold, misty weather and walked in the orchards, thinking how I’d managed to keep my family together despite myself. Plant well and the harvest will be good, the Great Lady whispered.

  “You reap what you sow,” I said aloud. “I do know that. But what if the only man who can charm my bees hasn’t shown any sign of coming back for the next season, or any seasons after that?”

  No answer. I was on my own.

  I walked a long time, the mist covering me. I grew soggy in my jeans and sweater, just wandering over the old orchards and the terraces of the ancient mountains and the graves of the gallant soldiers, until I made my way down the valley into the new orchards and reached the edges of their shelter. I faced the big, empty barns and empty gravel parking lots and, up the rise to McGillen Orchards Road, the locked gate. Emptiness and isolation seemed to surround me like the fading afternoon light. Barren days and nights waited for me. I sat down in the edge of my orchards among the gloom of day’s end and season’s end, and cried.

  I still had my head in my hands when I began to hear the rumble of large engines. Frowning, I got up and stared at the public road. The rumble grew louder. A parade of khaki-green military trucks crawled into view—about a dozen of them. I stared. The lead vehicle, a Humvee, pulled up to my gate.

  Davis got out of the passenger side. My Davis. My son. All right, this was his second unannounced road trip of the year—he’d started and ended the season by surprising me. He didn’t see me staring, open-mouthed, from the fringe of the orchards as he fiddled with his key ring. He opened the padlocked gates. A soldier in army fatigues helped him push them aside. Davis and the soldier then climbed back into the Humvee. The caravan—the convoy—rolled slowly down the driveway and into the graveled parking lots.

  By then, I was running to meet it.

  I slid to a stop about the same time the trucks maneuvered into a cluster. The rumble of engines faded to nothing. The soft, wet whisper of the mountains’ breath filled in the silence. Davis saw me and got out again, raising a hand in greeting. Davis gestured toward a vehicle somewhere near the middle of the group, then walked that way. My feet froze to the gravel.

  Men and women in army fatigues climbed down from the Humvees and transports, some carrying medical equipment, some apparently just along as escorts. They converged on the one Humvee where someone I couldn’t see was being helped out of the back, slowly. That slow-moving man was tall and dark-haired, weathered and scarred. Dressed in an army jacket, flannel shirt and old jeans, he waved his helpers away then turned to face me. He began walking slowly, haltingly, with great determination, toward me.

  Jakobek.

  I ran to him.

  “You shouldn’t be out of the hospital, Jakob! Oh, Jakob.”

  “I want to be an apple farmer,” he said.

  I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him, and he kissed me as he curled one arm around my shoulders and the other around my waist. I forced myself not to pull him too close, thinking of his wound, but he maneuvered me to his good side and we held each other tightly.

  “Then welcome home,” I whispered.

  One Month Later

  THE TRIP TO WASHINGTON for the birth of Eddie and Davis’s baby was Jakobek’s first big trip after the injury. He had turned out fine, healing in all the important ways. We were getting there, that is, becoming a couple. Just as Davis and I were coming to gentler terms on all that had happened, and life was beginning to settle into a new brand of normal. For Jakobek, a month of my homecooking, a lot of doting attention from me and most of Chocinaw County, and just the right mix of soulful conversations plus gentle sex, had worked wonders. On him and me.

  The next generation of the Davis Thackery branch of the family was about to be born not under an apple tree, but in a high-tech, extremely expensive, suburban-D.C. birthing center. Eddie and Davis had chosen the facility because it was near the city and the Secret Service approved. In a special room for younger visitors, Puppy was busy making friends with a half-dozen Jacobs and Habersham kids.

  The Jacobs cousins were rambunctious little nose-pickers and good-natured wrestlers, but the Habershams were way too clean for youngun’s under the age of twelve, and a little stuck up, just like Edwina. “I’m Walford Habersham the fourth,” one boy said grandly when he introduced himself to Puppy. “Are you a hillbilly?” She didn’t bat a single, dark Thackery eyelash. She had decided who she would be, and how her story should be told. “I’m Hush McGillen the Sixth,” she told Walford. “So don’t give me any shit.”

  Watching like a new mother tiger from one corner, Lucille grinned.

  Edwina and I stood in a small private waiting room. Waiting. Al and Jakobek and Logan smoked cigars outdoors in the snowy dark. I wanted to smoke my pipe, but had forgotten it in the rush to travel to Washington when the call came that Eddie was in labor. Smooch had stayed behind to answer the phones and plan the press release. She wanted to hold a contest to name a new apple product in honor of the baby. I’d told her no, but she was determined.

  Edwina suddenly linked a strong, twisting arm through mine, as if we were girlfriends. “I’m planning a late summer wedding for you and Nicholas,” she announced.

  I eyed her askance. “Well, it’s mighty nice of you to let us know.”

  “What’s the problem? You say you’re definitely getting married.”

  “Yes, but I’m not letting you take charge of our wedding.”

  “You don’t want to be married at the White House?”

  I stared at her. “Are you kidding me?”

  “I don’t
kid,” she said coolly. “I’ve already asked Nicholas if he’d mind me asking you. He says it’s your decision.”

  I was speechless. Then, “You’ll do that for me?”

  “No, I’ll do that for Nicholas. You’re just a necessary prop to celebrate his happiness.”

  “I see.”

  She haruumphed and looked away. “Then you’ll agree?”

  “Edwina, I think you’re trying to be nice to me, and all I can say is, it’s painful to watch.”

  “Either accept the goddamned offer, or don’t.”

  “I accept.”

  “Good.”

  “Thank you, your Highness.”

  “Shut up.”

  We faced forward, both watching the closed doors to the birthing suite. “You’re always busy with your apple business in the fall,” she said suddenly. “So every year, fall will be my time to spend with my grandchild.”

  “All right. But I have dibs on my grandchild for winter, spring, and the summer solstice.”

  “Winter, spring, and the summer solstice? The solstice? Why? Is it some kind of ritualistic apple holiday?”

  “In a way. It’s the day of the year when the season turns toward harvest time. We have a huge, potluck family reunion outdoors in the orchards, and we cook an old Cherokee pioneer recipe for green apple stew.”

  “Green apple stew? What happens after you eat a stew made from unripe apples? The entire clan runs the ceremonial ‘Diarrhea Road Race?’ No. You’re not feeding my grandchild the fast-trot family specialty.”

  “Oh, don’t be a sissy. I’ll send the recipe to your chef. You can test it, first. Feed it to some of your serfs or peasants. See if they live. You know. Your usual routine.”

  She sighed. “Never mind. All right, then, the baby is mine from summer solstice to autumn, and through Christmas.”

  “Whoa. Major holidays are a different negotiation.”

  “All right, we’ll alternate Christmases.”

  “And Thanksgivings.”

  “But I always get Easter. You’re practically a heathen. You don’t need Easter.”

  “If the Reverend Betty of the Church of the Gospel Harvest heard you say that, she’d put a hex on you.”

  Al, Jakobek, and Logan had walked back inside as we were talking. “Ladies,” Al said. “I need to point something out. The baby has parents who might like to tell you when you’ll get to babysit.”

  “No way,” Edwina and I said in unison.

  Jakobek took me by the arm and walked me down a nearby hall. “Relax,” he said.

  “I can’t. I’ve never been a grandmother, before. How much longer can it take? I think I was in labor with Davis for only five seconds. Or maybe five days. It was all a blur of cold rain and hurt followed by the most incredible joy.”

  “I was there when Eddie was born. I wish I’d been there with you and Davis,” he said quietly.

  “That would have been hard to explain to his father.”

  A poor joke. It quieted us. We held hands in apology, walked to a window overlooking a winter garden, and watched the way a landscape lamp made snowy shadows on a patch of holly shrubs. “I wish you’d been there with me and Davis, too,” I said.

  “You’ve always wanted another baby.”

  I squeezed his hand. “I still have Puppy to help raise. And a grandchild, any minute.” I paused. “But yes, I’ve always wanted another flesh-of-my-flesh baby.”

  “You’ll be forty this year. I’ll be forty-four. We’d be a little nuts to even think about—”

  “Let’s be a little nuts, then.” My heart raced. We faced each other, trading serious, searching, hopeful looks. “Would you?” I whispered. “Want to be a father if we could do it?”

  He nodded, never taking his eyes off mine. “And you? A mother again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  We both exhaled with relief and bent our heads together. “It may not work,” I admitted, crying a little. “But let’s plow the furrow and sow the seeds.”

  He laughed. “I don’t know whether to throw away my condoms or buy a new garden rake.” We held each other, swaying, damp-eyed, smiling, scared, excited. Baby or no baby, it was good to feel fertile again.

  “Everyone?” Davis called. “Mother? Where are you?”

  Jakobek and I hurried back to the waiting room. Davis stood there, smiling, sweaty, a little pale, his tall, lanky body swamped in rumpled blue hospital scrubs. With Al, Edwina, Logan, and Lucille, we crowded around him.

  “Eddie’s fine,” he said, “and we have a perfect baby daughter.”

  Applause. Hugs. Tears. Hand-shaking.

  “Our granddaughter,” Edwina said to Al, and kissed him.

  “My granddaughter,” I said to Jakobek, and kissed him.

  “My goddaughter,” he said to everyone, and kissed me.

  A few minutes later the nurses let us into the private room where Eddie held the sweetest baby girl, wrapped in a pink blanket. Without any dignity at all we pushed in close and whispered and gawked and put our hands over our hearts. Davis sat down on the bed beside her. “Do you want to tell them, now?” Bedraggled and exhausted but happy, Eddie nodded.

  “Davis and I decided our daughter needs a set of names to remind her of her roots.”

  “Oh, not something to do with apples,” Edwina moaned.

  “No, Mother. Something to represent the strength, and love and sheer, wonderful, stubbornness of her family tree.”

  “Anything to do with trees is fine by me,” I put in.

  “Mother, sssh,” Davis urged.

  Eddie smiled. Looking at Davis tenderly, then down at their daughter, she whispered. “Her name is Edwina . . . Hush . . . Thackery.”

  Edwina Hush. It was unwieldy, a mouthful, not musical at all. But I loved it. “Hush Edwina,” I said softly. “Perfect.”

  “Edwina Hush,” Edwina corrected. “Perfect.”

  Al began laughing. I looked at Jakobek and saw him trying not to smile. “What?” I demanded.

  Al shook his head. “I hope someone comes up with a nickname, or I may have to ask the Supreme Court for a ruling.”

  YES, EDWINA HUSH would need a nickname. For now, Davis and Eddie were calling her Little Eddie. I suspected that would stick. I didn’t mind. I made up my own version. “Little Eddie Hush,” I kept saying to Jakobek, with a smile. “Little Eddie Hush. That’s not too long a name. When she visits the Hollow, I’ll call her Eddie Hush. That’s very Southern.”

  Jakobek arched a brow. “It sounds like a jockey or a professional gambler.” Laughter spilled out between us.

  We drove to Washington well after midnight. The Secret Service had been told to expect us, and let us onto the grounds of the White House. Jakobek and I walked to a lamplit area approved by the bureaucracy that manages the grand old mansion and its gardens. And there, where it would receive good sun and rain, we planted a Sweet Hush apple tree.

  The darkness would not win against apples.

  It’s good to be famous, the Great Lady whispered to me. Sometimes we have to let our legends do the work for us, to see if they’ll really survive in the hardest seasons.

  Yes, I answered. They’ve survived. And bloomed.

  Jakobek clasped my dirt-stained hand in his. “What are you thinking about with that look on your face? Whatever it is, I like it.”

  “I’m thinking about you. You and our family and this wonderful night and our apple trees, and the bees that are waiting to come to the Hollow in the spring to be charmed by the two of us. Imagine, Jakob. You and me—two bee charmers working in the orchards, together. We’ll be knee-deep in apples and honey and good times.”

  He smiled. “We’re already there,” he said.

  Epilogue

 
Under The White House Apple Tree

  NEVER ASK TOO MANY questions when the man you’re going to marry throws you on the bed in the middle of a hot August afternoon and makes love to you so intensely your ears ring.

  “Jakobek, you sweet, reckless boy,” I teased breathlessly, wrapped in his naked arms with my t-shirt up around my neck and my denim skirt somewhere across the room on a dresser carved with apples. “You nearly walked in on me and my wedding dress. Our wedding dress, to be technical about it. I just finished packing it. It’s bad luck for you to see the wedding dress, ya know. Especially one packed in ten tons of tissue paper to keep it from wrinkling. I didn’t have a wedding dress for my first marriage, so I don’t want this one to look anything short of perfect—you know when we get to Washington tomorrow Edwina will snort at me if the dress is wrinkled—I can just hear her calling for all her toadies to come running—‘Please, someone, please come take this abominably wrinkled gown of Hush’s and prepare it properly.’” I waved a hand at the chaotic bedroom. “And just look at the rest of the mess I’m workin’ through. Suitcases strewn everywhere . . . I’ve got so much more packing to do, and I’ve still got to call Davis and Eddie to see when they’re leavin’ Boston and to find out if little Eddie Hush is still teethin’ . . .”

  “Ssssh,” Jakobek said hoarsely, pulled my head back from his shoulder, and kissed me hard.

  I rose up on one elbow, frowning, took a long look at the grim set of his face and, stopped breathing. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just got word from Al’s advisors. Mostafa bin Ottma has kidnapped a Saudi prince.” He hesitated, meeting my worried eyes with dark, quiet resolve. “He wants ten million Euros or he’ll send the prince home one piece at a time. If he kills the prince, there could be another war.”

  Mostafa was a warlord in one of those Middle Eastern countries where the old tribes were more powerful than the modern government. For him, kidnapping rich folk from the neighboring countries was a lucrative hobby. To distract myself from what Jakobek was really trying to tell me, I sat up in bed and said ferociously, “Tell Al to aim a missile right up Mostafa’s—”