These were the small things, however. She would love a daddy like Catherine’s, who asked about her day, inspected her homework. A ma who reached over to rub her back or kiss her good night, as Catherine’s mom did. A family who encouraged her to broaden herself and told her how well she was doing when she tried something new. Being at Catherine’s house had made her even more grateful to be living with Papaw and Mammaw, but it pointed out all the more clearly just what she had been missing back at the house with Ma and Daddy. It made her feel guilty that she was special to Mammaw and Papaw, and sad for Howard and Ezra and Danny.
For the next few days, when Ivy June stopped by her ma’s after school, she stayed an hour or more and made herself useful, hemming up a pair of Howard’s outgrown pants for Ezra, scrubbing the worn linoleum in the kitchen, pushing Danny on the bag swing hanging from the beech tree, or—most hated job—breaking open the hardened lima bean pods that the family had picked the summer before and let dry in the sun. Even though she had put batches of them in an old pillowcase and stomped on it, many of the pods hadn’t split open. Their sharp points pricked her fingers as she tried to extract the beans, but she managed to shell half a bag before it was time to go back to Mammaw’s and read to Grandmommy.
On this particular day, however, Grandmommy wanted to talk, not to be read to. Not even her birthday message. She was holding one of the postcards Ivy June had sent instead.
“They nice to you, Ivy June … in the city?” she asked. “Or they … goin’ s’fast… they ain’t got time … to take up with you?”
“Most of the time they were nice,” Ivy June told her. “Had plenty of time for me.”
“I hear … you knock on a city folk’s door … they don’t even ask you … to come in,” Grandmommy wheezed. “You got to … stand right there … and tell ’em what you want. And goodbye? They come to visit … and they take it in their minds to go … they jus’ up and say goodbye … no ifs, ands, or buts. Why … you say goodbye to me … it’d be a while ’fore I let you … out the door. But those city folk … they value their time more’n … they value their neighbor.”
Ivy June smiled. “Well, they treated me fine, Grandmommy. And I know you’ll be nice to Catherine when she comes.”
“She don’t quarrel us out … I ’spect we’ll git along,” said Grandmommy.
The following afternoon, as Ivy June was dusting the windowsill above Ma’s sink, lifting the accumulated bric-a-brac and wiping off the collected dirt and grime, her mother asked, “Why are you after every little speck? Don’t know why you’re beautifying our place. Not as though that Catherine girl was staying here.”
“No, but we’ll be coming by now and then,” Ivy June said. “I want you all to meet her.”
“Well, don’t think I’ll be changin’ my clothes and sittin’ down for a chat. There’s some of us don’t have maids and kitchen help, and if I got time to blow my nose, I’m doin’ good,” her ma said.
“I don’t expect you to be anything other than you are,” Ivy June told her. “I know you work hard.”
“Huh!” said her ma. “Had to go all the way to Lexington to find that out?” She clunked a pan on the stove and dropped some hamburger meat in it.
Ivy June dusted off a little ceramic cat and set it back on the windowsill. More cheerfully, she asked, “What were you like when you were twelve, Ma?”
Ruth Mosley paused a moment, surprised at the change of subject. “Oh, like everybody else, I suppose,” she said, jabbing at the meat with a fork as it began to sizzle in the pan. “We looked at movie-star magazines and thought maybe someday that would be us.”
Ivy June smiled. “I sure never thought of me as a movie star,” she said, half hoping her mother would disagree, but she didn’t.
“Well,” her mother continued, “most of us didn’t have the sense we were born with. Figured things like that just happened. No thought at all of how to make it real.”
“Yeah, who would?”
“Then Russell, he comes along—I was fifteen, he was going on twenty. He’s a shy sort, see, and once I could tell he was sweet on me … why, what girl wouldn’t go for a young man already out in the world? By then, I suppose I figured that me being a movie star wasn’t about to happen, but we could still be in love like in the movies. And at fifteen, I figured that was as good as it was going to get.”
Ivy June remained silent, knowing her Mother would say more.
“Day I reached sixteen, Russell and me just off and got ourselves married. Jessie come along about a year later, and that’s the story of my life.” She picked up the shaker and generously salted the hamburger.
“I don’t know about that,” Ivy June said. “There’s a few more kids to account for.” She pulled out a chair then and sat down, waiting for the rest of the story.
Her mother sighed. “And one I lost between you and Jessie. Never knew that, did you? Miscarriage. But once your children come along, you can kiss your other plans goodbye.” She stopped suddenly when she noticed Ivy June’s startled face. “You know,” she said, “those are the same exact words my ma said to me after my three sisters were born.”
Ivy June felt moisture in her eyes. “And how do you suppose it makes me feel?” she said, her voice trembling.
Mrs. Mosley put down the fork and sat across from Ivy June. This time her voice as well as her face had softened. “Same way I felt when I heard it from my ma, I suppose. I’m sorry. My movie-star dreams, that’s all I meant. Sometimes life just pushes out words better kept inside.”
Ivy June blinked back tears. “You could have done something else, though. Why didn’t you finish high school?” She glanced shyly at her mother, then down at her hands. “There’s ways to get your diploma, even after you’re married.”
“I did go back for a semester. But then I got pregnant, Russ took sick—his lungs, you know—and he only worked off and on at the lumberyard. I had to get me a job as cashier at the Stop-and-Go, and that was the end of my schooling. Papaw built us this house here in the hollow. I suppose we never would have made it without him.”
Ivy June didn’t answer. It was hard in the mountains, but some people made it. Miss Dixon had made it. The preacher had made it. The manager of the Walmart down in Harlan, the librarian up at Hazard. But of course, not everyone married into sickness. Not everyone had babies right away.
Her mother must have sensed what she was feeling, because she suddenly reached across the table for Ivy June’s hand and gave it an affectionate little shake. “It don’t have to happen to you, Ivy June,” she said. “You take care and see that it don’t. And don’t go tellin’ your brothers any of this. Shirl, neither.”
“Jessie knows, doesn’t she?”
“About the miscarriage, not my dreams. Jessie never seems to stand up for herself. Didn’t ever ask for the day shift till they up and gave it to her. Compares herself to everyone else and always comes up short. I get tired, sometimes, keepin’ others down just so Jessie’ll seem taller herself.”
Ivy June sat wordless, astonished. Did Ma even realize what she’d said? Despite her attention to Jessie, maybe it wasn’t the older daughter Ma thought of as an example for the boys. Could Ma possibly be jealous of her?
If only Ma knew how shaky Ivy June felt some of the time. If only she knew how Ivy June had compared herself to Catherine, her family to Catherine’s, and how nervous she was about Catherine’s coming here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The Saturday Catherine was to arrive, Grandmommy was upset. Ivy June had hidden the worn slippers with the hole in the toe and the soles coming apart. She had taken the new slippers Jessie had given Grand-mommy last Christmas and tried to put them on the old woman’s feet.
Grandmommy couldn’t see what was happening, but she obviously felt something different.
“Them ain’t the ones!” she cried, kicking at the hands that were trying to guide them on.
“They’re prettier on your feet, Grandmommy!” Ivy June insisted.
“They make you look like a princess with those little bows on their tops.”
“Take ’em off!” Grandmommy wailed. “Take ’em off!”
Mammaw came to the door of the room, where Grandmommy sat on the side of the daybed, thin legs dangling.
“Ivy June, will you stop aggravatin’ that woman!” she scolded. “She starts out like this in the morning, she’ll be all nerves by afternoon. And her with a sore toe.”
Ivy June reluctantly put the new slippers back in the box. “Just wanted her to look nice,” she said.
“What you’ve been tryin’ to do this past week is make us change our ways, and I guess we got Lexington to thank for that. ‘Put on a different apron, Mammaw!’ ‘Let me give you a manicure, Papaw!’ ‘Can’t we toss out that old frayed rug?’ All we’ve been hearin’ from you is making things different. They was good enough for us a month ago and way many years before that, so they’re good enough for us now.”
Ivy June listened, her face warm with embarrassment. Mammaw’s words felt like sandpaper against her ears. Was that the way it was in the mountains? If it was good enough once, it was good enough always? Never a need for change?
“I thought you wanted me in that exchange program” was all she managed to say.
Mammaw was still angry as she retrieved Grandmommy’s old slippers and slid them on the elderly woman’s feet. “Wanting you to see how other people live their lives isn’t the same as wanting you to turn us inside out. Maybe you ought to go up into the mountains awhile and get your head on straight. Give us some peace.”
Stung, Ivy June turned away and went to the kitchen, thinking there would at least be a few kind words from Papaw. But he silently ate his oatmeal, eyes on the bowl, and she fled out the door, letting the screen bang behind her.
What had she been thinking, letting a Lexington girl come here? It would have been better if Catherine had come to Thunder Creek first, before Ivy June had seen the Combses’ house with the polished floors and the linen tablecloths, before she’d shared Catherine’s room with the white shutters, the matching curtains and spread, and a computer in the corner. Better for Ivy June to be humiliated later in Lexington in front of people she didn’t know than to be embarrassed in front of family.
She started up the path in such turmoil that the wind didn’t bother her; it helped her cool down. But as the path grew steeper and she slowed, the wind tossed her hair and she wished she’d worn a jacket. She couldn’t go back now. And when she got to the Whistling Place, she sat beneath the three saplings, which were still leafless, and hugged herself, hands gripping her upper arms.
Down below, through the bare branches, she could see at least halfway up the hollow—the long stretch of field between Papaw’s and the few houses up near Vulture’s Pass, land used for farming in summer. And then, in the opposite direction, her family’s little tin-roofed house, close to the swinging bridge.
Across Thunder Creek, where a road came winding through, the hills seemed to go on forever, layer after layer, with mist rising among them. Their cover of leafless trees appeared ghostly gray, but the tips of the branches had turned a faint lavender-pink, the first whisper of spring.
Wheeeeooooo, the wind whistled in Ivy June’s ears. A crow glided by over the hollow, its wings barely moving. From somewhere behind her, farther up, a blue jay gave a territorial warning, and sparrows gossiped from a bush nearby.
Ivy June sat still as a rock, watching the valley below come to life on a Saturday morning: a car moving slowly on the road beyond the creek; a man in a field, attacking weeds with a hoe; shadows of clouds sweeping across the valley floor.
Cautiously, taking its time, the sun edged out from behind a cloud, and the landscape grew lighter, then brighter still, until suddenly the sun was out full, warming Ivy June’s face and arms, and the dew on the grass around her shimmered like beads of glass.
Was the opera house any grander than this? Ivy June asked herself. Could one thousand red-cushioned seats upstage the Whistling Place in early spring, with the countryside coming to life around her as far as the eye could see? Was even the front-row balcony as grand as this, the very edge of the ridge, where you could look down like God himself, almost, seeing everything?
A half hour later, her heart quiet, her face calm, Ivy June got up, brushed the dry leaves from her jeans, and started back down to Mammaw’s.
After making Papaw’s favorite grilled cheese sandwich for him at noon and cleaning up the kitchen, Ivy June went down to Ma’s. Daddy was on a ladder, nailing up a sheet of tin that had come loose from the roof during the heavy rains a few weeks back. Howard was holding the ladder steady.
“What time’s she comin’, Ivy June?” Howard called when he saw her.
“Sometime around three. That’s all they told me,” she replied. “We’ll know when we see her.” Ivy June went on inside and Ezra immediately cried, “Is she here?”
“Not yet,” said Ivy June.
“You’d think this was a circus coming, all the excitement,” said Ma.
“It’ll be a circus, all right,” said Jessie, who was sitting on the old sway backed couch polishing her nails. “Whole project’s a circus, you ask me.”
Ivy June was determined to ignore her. If she could deal with Rosemary, then Catherine could deal with Jessie. Sure would be interesting to get those two women together. Send them off on a trip or something. Alaska, maybe.
Ma seemed determined to ignore Jessie’s remark too. Despite her previous complaining, she had put on a clean shirt today, and had changed from those baggy-kneed sweatpants into a more presentable pair.
“The boys are begging to carry her suitcase up to Mammaw’s,” she said.
“Fine with me, long as they don’t go looking inside,” Ivy June said. She sat down at the end of the couch, careful not to bounce and disturb the nail polishing. “How do you like working the day shift now?” she asked her sister.
“Sure took ’em long enough to let me have it,” Jessie said. “But it’s nice to have my evenings free. Not that there’s anything much to do with them, except drive on down to the Tic Toc.”
“Shirl and Fred Mason were dancing out in the parking lot at Earl’s store over vacation,” Ivy June hinted, “and she said lots of folks came by.”
“Yeah, well, Shirl’s going on thirteen and I’m going on twenty, so it’s a whole lot of difference there,” said Jessie, blowing on one hand, then giving her attention to the other.
“I keep tellin’ her about this supper club I hear they got up at Hazard. Barbecue place with live country music on weekends,” said Ma. “All for the price of supper. And a nice kind of people who come.”
“Yeah, I’ll feel real fine sitting there all by myself like I’ve never been asked out in my whole life,” said Jessie.
“You get up some girlfriends and go, Jessie Mosley!” Ma said impatiently. “You don’t sit around here waitin’ for some Prince Charming to ride up and carry you off. You wait for that, and next thing you know, you’ll run off with the first man smiles your way at the Tic Toc. Get up a crowd of girlfriends and go have yourselves a good time. Meet different people. The Deep Well Harley Boys, that’s the name of the band going to play on weekends.”
Jessie grunted. “Next you’ll be wanting me to go to Lexington.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Ma snapped. Then, more earnestly, “There’s more to you than you realize, Jessie Anne. You meet some nice people, see what they’ve done with their lives, give you some ideas.”
“Yeah, I move out of here with my paycheck, then what’ll you do?” Jessie asked.
“Then we’ll cope,” Ma said determinedly. “We’ll cope, Jessie. But I want you to have a chance. And maybe we oughtn’t be so hard on people who are tryin’ to broaden themselves.”
“Well … maybe,” Jessie said.
“She’s here!”
The screen squeaked when Howard stuck his head inside, then banged as he raced off down to the footbridge.
&
nbsp; Ezra and Danny came running from the kitchen, where they’d been eating crackers spread with peanut butter, and the screen door slammed again as they ran after their older brother.
And then it was Ivy June who was hurrying outside and down the path to the creek, where Catherine and Miss Dixon were getting out of the car on the other side.
Catherine was looking all around her—up at the mountains, down at the creek, and then at the welcoming committee swarming toward her. Miss Dixon waved at Ivy June, then pulled Catherine’s bag from the trunk, while Catherine reached for the two smaller bags in the backseat. It was obvious she had brought more clothes with her than Ivy June owned in her whole closet.
“Hi, Ivy June!” Catherine called.
“You’ve got yourself your own personal porters,” Ivy June called back, smiling. “They want to carry your bags on up to Mammaw’s.”
“I’ll carry the big one till we cross the creek,” Miss Dixon told Howard as three pairs of hands reached for it. “How you guys doing? Everything all set for your visitor?”
“We’re ready and waiting,” Ivy June said, giving Catherine a hug. “Catherine, the tallest here is Howard, then Ezra, and this little fellow is Danny. Miss Dixon already knows them.”
Howard gave a shy smile, a lock of brown hair hanging down over his eyes; Ezra, the round one, grinned broadly, arms dangling at his sides; while Danny beamed up at Catherine, his chubby cheeks dimpled, eyes squinting in the sun.
“Hello, hello, hello,” Catherine said. “I’ll get your names straight after a bit.”