Bent Road - Lori Roy [100]
Standing by the mound of dirt that will bury Julianne, the two Negro men see Uncle Ray. One of them is leaning on a shovel and he pulls it out of the snow like he’s ready to hit Uncle Ray with it if he needs to. The other man throws back his shoulders but doesn’t have anything to hit with. Dad sees the men bracing themselves. He sees Uncle Ray.
“Ray,” Dad says, which stops Uncle Ray. “Not today, Ray. This isn’t the place.”
“You knew all this, Ruth?” Uncle Ray says, ignoring Dad and looking straight at Aunt Ruth across Julianne’s grave. “My Eve was pregnant?”
Aunt Ruth doesn’t answer but instead wraps her arms around her baby.
“She did it to herself?” Uncle Ray asks.
“I said, not now, Ray,” Dad says, louder still.
Again, Uncle Ray ignores Dad.
“That was a child bled out on the floor of that shed?”
No one answers. Mama turns away. Aunt Ruth looks down at her stomach. Grandma Reesa tips her face to the sky like heaven is up there and she can almost see it.
This time, Uncle Ray shouts as loudly as he can.
“That was a child?” His voice booms across Julianne’s grave.
Mama presses a hand over her mouth, which means she is about to cry. Grandma Reesa turns to leave, and Dad starts toward Uncle Ray but Aunt Ruth grabs his coat sleeve, stopping him.
“Yes, Ray,” Aunt Ruth says quietly, but the wind is to her back and it carries her voice for her. “That was a child, he or she—a baby.”
Uncle Ray steps back when Aunt Ruth says it, almost like she slapped him, slapped him hard right across the face. Then he looks up at Dad. He looks directly at Dad and points at him. “And you did it,” he says. “You killed my Eve.”
The two of them stare at each other, waiting for something.
“Yes,” Dad says. “I did it.”
Uncle Ray’s hat is cocked high on his forehead, showing off his tired eyes and gray skin. His face is thin and his cheekbones, like his hat, are cocked a little too high. His coat hangs on his shoulders and his pants bag around his boots as if he must have shrunk since he bought them. Dad once said too much drinking will wear heavy on a man. It looks like it has weighed Uncle Ray down about as far as he can go. After staring at Dad for a few more minutes, long enough that the Negro man with the shovel takes a few steps toward him, Uncle Ray walks away, down the cleared path, toward the station wagon where Elaine sits inside with Evie and Jonathon. He walks past the car without saying anything to Jonathon, who has stepped out probably because he heard all the shouting. He walks away, until he disappears down Bent Road without ever looking back.
Chapter 29
Celia takes Reesa’s coat from the hook near the back door, hands it to Jonathon and steps aside as Reesa walks by. She fills the small hallway leading from the kitchen to the back porch, fills it with her size and with a sweet yeasty smell from the cinnamon rolls she mixed up that morning, intending to take them to the Robisons after the funeral. Now someone else will have to bake and deliver them to Mary Robison. Reesa says nothing as she sets her suitcase at Jonathon’s feet and extends one arm so he can help her on with her coat.
“I’m sure the road home will be fine, Mrs. Scott,” Jonathon says to Reesa. “Plows have had plenty of time to do their work.”
Reesa makes a grunting sound and, after buttoning her top two buttons, she walks out onto the porch, leaving her suitcase