Bent Road - Lori Roy [107]
“After I took Mother’s quilt to Julianne, I didn’t go again.” Mary Robison lays back her head and closes her eyes. “What with the weather blowing in. I worried about how long I’d be gone. Things get dusty so quickly.”
Ruth swallows. The floor is uneven underfoot, and the front door seems to slip away. She coughs into a closed fist and walks across the room, sidestepping the coffee table.
“I’ll call Arthur in,” she says. “Maybe he can get the heat going.”
“Orville, he never went. Couldn’t bring himself to it.”
“Arthur,” Ruth says. “I’ll get Arthur. He’s right outside.”
Mary lifts her head. “I threw away those nasty feed sacks. Orville left her and only I took care.”
The front door opens slowly and Aunt Ruth slips outside. She stops at the top of the stairs, grabs onto her big stomach with both hands and hurries toward the car. Daddy doesn’t look up until he hears her footsteps on the sidewalk. Then he throws open the door and jumps out. Aunt Ruth meets Daddy at the front of the truck, grabbing his arms, leaning on him. Daddy turns toward the house and, holding Aunt Ruth by the arm, he walks her to the truck and helps her inside.
“You two sit tight,” Daddy says as Aunt Ruth crawls into the truck. “I’ll go see about Mary.”
Cold air sticks to Aunt Ruth and she smells like ice and snow.
“We’ll be fine,” she says, scooting closer to Evie, her knees bobbing up and down. “Just fine. Your daddy will be right back.”
Evie scoots away, toward the spot behind the steering wheel, while Aunt Ruth watches Daddy walk up the stairs and onto Mrs. Robison’s porch.
Hoping the red truck will drive past again, Evie says, “Did Aunt Eve die because her baby came out too early?”
“Where did you hear that, sweet pea?”
The sunlight bouncing off the white snow makes Evie squint. “I heard you all at Julianne’s funeral. Will yours come out too early?”
Evie used to worry that Aunt Ruth would have a baby who was blue like Ian’s baby sister and that they’d have to put her in the oven. Maybe the baby would wake up and cry. Maybe not. Maybe she’d die. Maybe Aunt Ruth will die, too.
“No, Evie,” Aunt Ruth says. Her knees stop bobbing and she crosses her mittens on her lap. “I hope not.”
Up on the Robisons’ front porch, Daddy knocks on the door and pushes it open. Straight ahead, at the end of the street, the red truck is there again, rolling across the intersection. And then it is gone.
Chapter 31
Celia stands at her kitchen sink, her back to the conversation going on at the table, and dries the last dish from an early supper. Outside the window, as dusk falls, the light bouncing off the snow is gray. On the back porch, Jonathon is prying the wood from the window that Ray broke so he can lay in the new glass. Elaine is in her room, waiting for him to finish. Celia startles each time his hammer slams down. If only he would stop, for a moment at least, she could catch her breath. A piece of wood falls and clatters across the porch. Celia leans against the sink, and Arthur talks on, over the noise.
He called Floyd Bigler from Mary Robison’s living room, relit her heater, and while they waited for the sheriff, Mary told Arthur that she had visited the house to tidy up for Julianne who lay dead there since summer. Mary had shined the windows with vinegar-water and swept the corners. Before the weather turned, she laid a new white quilt over Julianne because the house carried a terrible chill. It didn’t seem right to bury the girl. That’s what Orville did at first. He wrapped her in feed sacks and buried her on Norbert Brewster’s land. But Julianne was too lovely, too tender, and when she was dead, first dead, still too beautiful to be buried. So Mary dug her up, carried her inside the old house, and tucked her in tight. When the sheriff arrived, she retold the same story.
“Yes,” Mary Robison