Bent Road - Lori Roy [91]
“You know your mother doesn’t like you doing that,” Aunt Ruth says.
Evie glances at Aunt Ruth, offers no response and the bed continues to squeak.
Aunt Ruth misses the needle’s eye with her thread for a second time and smiles. “Light’s not so good today,” she says. “Would you like to try?”
“Daddy says Olivia won’t die all the way until spring.”
Aunt Ruth lowers the needle and thread. “What do you suppose he means by that?”
“He said things don’t all the way die when it’s so cold outside. He said she’ll finishing dying in spring. He said she’ll sink into the ground and come back as a tree or something.”
Aunt Ruth rests both hands in her lap. “I guess I understand that.”
Evie nods. “Yeah, me, too.” She stops swinging her feet. “Was it cold outside when Aunt Eve died?”
Aunt Ruth wraps her thread around the small bolt and lays it and the needle on her bedside table. “It was warm,” she says. “A beautiful time of year.”
“Is she all the way dead now?”
“Yes, she is.”
Evie leans back on both arms and begins to swing her legs again so that her feet bounce off the box frame. “I saw Uncle Ray at church,” she says. “He was visiting a grave.” She stops swinging. “Is Aunt Eve’s grave there? Was he visiting Aunt Eve?”
Aunt Ruth flips on the lamp near her bed, opens the small drawer in her nightstand and lifts out two round stones.
“Perhaps,” she says, holding the stones in the palm of her hand. “I suspect he was.”
Daniel stops at the top of the stairs where a long hallway leads to the far end of the house. While the downstairs felt like a barn because of the wind blowing through the broken window and the leaves and dirt scattered about the wooden floors, the upstairs feels like a home, like he might find Mrs. Brewster living right behind one of the five doors that line the hallway. He takes a step toward the first room, slowly, carefully, leading with his toe and only rolling back onto his heel when the wooden floor doesn’t bow underfoot.
Grabbing the knob on the first door with two fingers, he gently pushes and pulls, testing the hinges. They creak but swing freely. He takes one step closer, testing the floors again with his toe, and inspects each hinge. They are tarnished and black but Jonathon will want them. He’ll scrub them with acid and a toothbrush and by the time he hangs them in Elaine’s and his house, they’ll be like new. Before continuing, he knocks on each of the door’s six panels, happy to be doing something that doesn’t involve Mama’s rubber gloves and a bucket of soapy water. Solid. Yep, Jonathon’ll want this one.
Pushing open the second door, Daniel coughs at the dust kicked up and squints into the light that spills across the hallway. A bathroom. Better paint job on this door. Frame is in good shape. Hinges look the same. The third and fourth are keepers, too, making Daniel wonder how many doors Jonathon needs for his new house. The biggest bedroom, which was behind the first door, was empty, but the smaller two still have furniture in them—dressers, a rocking chair, two single beds—all covered with white sheets.
Daniel steps into the second small bedroom and carefully pulls the sheet from a rocking chair. He coughs and waves away the rising dust. Evie would like the red-checkered seat cushion, even if the rocking chair might be too big for her. Maybe, if Norbert Brewster doesn’t want it anymore, Dad will come back with his truck after the snow melts and take the chair home for Evie. It might make her forget about Olivia rotting away in the back pasture and Aunt Eve being dead and Julianne Robison still missing. Before draping the sheet back over the chair, Daniel looks at the ceiling and hopes it won’t cave in on Evie’s chair before they can come back for it. Black mold seeps out from each corner and a single crack runs the length of the room. He backs away from the rocker, watching the snowfall through a dirty window.
Once outside the room, Daniel looks down the hallway to the last door. All of them are fine, and after Jonathon gets through with them, the hinges will be fine, too. Taking a