Slowly my arms slid up around his neck--how awful his eye looked now that we were inches apart-- I closed my eyes and puckered my lips, and kissed that swollen eye, his cut cheek, and finally his lips. He was trembling by this time. So was I.
I was scared to say another word, so afraid realities would spoil the sweetness of what we had. "Good night, Logan. See you tomorrow."
"Good night, Heaven," he whispered, as if he'd lost his voice. "Sure has been a great day, sure has been . . ."
In that part of the day Granny used to call the gloaming I watched until Logan was out of sight, disappearing into darkness, before I turned away and entered the cabin that immediately depressed my soaring spirits. Sarah had stopped making any attempt to keep the cabin clean, or even tidy. Meals that had been adequate before had become haphazard affairs of bread and gravy without greens or vegetables, and seldom did we have chicken or ham anymore. Slab bacon was a memory food better not to think about. Our garden out back where Granny and I had spent so much time pulling weeds and planting seeds was neglected. Ripe vegetables were left to rot in or on the ground. No salt pork or ham was in the smokehouse to flavor our bean soup or collard greens, spinach, or turnips, now that Pa never came home. Our Jane was in a finicky mood, refusing to eat or throwing up what she did, and Keith cried constantly because he never had enough to eat, and Fanny did nothing but complain.
"Somebody but me should do something!" I yelled, turning in circles. "Fanny, you go to the well and fill the bucket, and bring it in with water to the brim, not just a few cupfuls, which is your lazy way. Tom, go to the garden and pull up whatever is there we can eat. Our Jane, stop that wailing! Keith, entertain Our Jane so she'll stay quiet and I can think."
"Don't ya give me orders!" screamed Fanny. "I don't have t'do nothin ya say! Jus cause ya had a boy fight fer ya don't mean yer queen of this hill!"
"Yes, you do have to obey Heaven," backed Tom, who gave Fanny a shove toward the door. "Go to the spring and bring back really good water."
"But it's dark out there!" wailed Fanny. "Ya know I'm skerred of-edark!"
"Okay, I'll fetch the spring water, you pick the vegetables, and stop back-talking . . . or I'll be the king of the hill and give yer bottom ten solid wacks!"
"Heaven," Tom whispered from where he lay on his floor pallet that night looking at me with so much compassion, "someday, I kin feel in my bones, it's all gonna turn out fine for all of us. Ma will go back t'how she was, an start cookin good meals again. She'll clean up t'house and you won't have so much to do. Pa will come home cured, an nicer to us than before. We'll grow up, graduate from high school, go t'college, be so smart we'll make piles of dough, an we'll ride around in big cars, live in mansions, have servants, an we'll sit an laugh at how tough we thought we had it, never suspecting all this was good fer us. Makes us determined, hardy, better kids than those who have it easy--that's what Miss Deale says, anyway. The best often comes out of t'worst."
"Don't feel sorry for me. I know it's going to be better, someday." I brushed away weak tears.
He crawled over to cuddle in the pallet beside me, his strong young arms feeling good, warm, safe. "I kin hunt up Pa, an you talk to Ma."
"Ma," I said the very next evening, hoping to cheer her with casual talk before I got down to serious matters, "only a few short hours ago I thought I had fallen in love."
"Yer a damned fool if ya do," muttered Sarah, glancing at my figure, which was definitely taking on a woman's shape. "Ya git offen this mountain--git far from here before ya let some man put his kid in ya," she warned. "Ya run fast an ya run far before ya become what I am."
Distressed, I threw my arms about Sarah. "Ma, don't say things like that. Pa'll come home soon, and he'll bring all the food we need. He always comes home before we're really hungry."
"Yeah, sure he does." Sarah's expression turned ugly. "In the nick of time our dear Luke comes back from whorin an boozin, an he throws his bags on the table like he's bringin us solid gold. An that's all he does fer us, ain't it?"
"Ma . . ."
"I AIN'T YER MA!" yelled Sarah
, red-faced and looking ill. "Never was! Where's all t'brains ya think ya got? Kin't ya see ya don't look like me?"
She stood with bare feet braced wide, her long red hair in complete disarray, not washed since the baby was born dead, not combed or brushed either, nor had Sarah bathed in more than a month. "I'm gettin out of this hellhole, an if ya got any brains at all, ya'll run soon afta."
"Ma, please don't go!" I cried out in
desperation, trying to catch hold of her hands. "Even if you aren't my real ma, I love you, I do! I always have! Please don't go and leave us here alone! How can we go to school and leave Grandpa? He doesn't walk as well as he did when Granny was alive. He can't chop wood anymore. He can hardly do anything. Please, Ma."
"Tom kin chop t'wood," she said with deadly calm, as if she'd decided to leave, no matter what happened to us.
"But Tom has to go to school, and it takes more than one to chop enough wood and kindling to last through the entire winter, and Pa is gone."
"Ya'll get by. Don't we always?"
"Ma, you can't just up and leave!"
"I kin do anythin I damn well please--will serve Luke right!"
Fanny heard and came running. "Ma, take me with you, please, please!"
Sarah shoved Fanny away, backed off to stare at us all with calm indifference. Who was this deadfaced woman who didn't care? She wasn't the mother I'd always known. "Good night," she said at the curtain that was her bedroom door. "Yer Pa'll come when ya need him. Don't he always?"
Maybe it was the fruit in the middle of the table that tickled my nostrils and made me come awake.