Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver [132]
“A stupid thing. Jewry.”
Lusa was startled for an instant. Jewelry, she must mean. “Nope. It’s a kind of rock. Hard, sharp, and shiny. There are a lot of different kinds, actually. Salt is a crystal, even.” She sat up. “Hey! Our bugs got away.”
Crystal sat up, too, looking desperately disappointed.
“It’s OK,” Lusa said, laughing. “We were going to let ’em go anyway. We can catch more.” She waved at the pasture. “All the bugs you’ll ever need, right there. Can you believe people spray insecticide all over their fields?” She shook the last stragglers out of the two nets. “Look at all the beautiful creatures that die. It’s like dropping a bomb on a city just to get rid of a couple of bad guys. See, that’s what’s so great about my goats—I don’t have to use any chemicals to grow them. I only have to kill fifty animals, not fifty thousand.”
Crys frowned through the fence at Lusa’s goats. That field was shaping up, Lusa noticed. All the gangly thistles left standing by the cows were getting mowed down evenly, pretty as a Lexington lawn.
“For real, how come you got all them goats?”
“Well, it’s true what I said, I hate pesticides, and I have to raise something here to make some money. Plus, I said some bad words about tobacco, so that’s out. And I don’t like sticking my hand up a cow’s butt.”
The child’s mouth flew open and she laughed a beautiful laugh.
“Well, you asked. That’s one thing you have to do if you want to raise cows.”
“Yuck!”
“I’m not kidding. You have to make a fist and stick it way up in there and feel if they’re pregnant. And that’s not even the worst of it. Cows are big and stupid and dangerous and nothing but trouble, in my opinion.” She laughed at the face Crys was making. “Why? You been hearing your uncles talk about me and my goats?”
The child nodded, looking slightly guilty. “They said you was a dope.”
Lusa leaned over toward Crys, grinning. “Your uncles took over my cows. So who’s the dope?”
Sometime near midnight, Lusa was surprised to hear a car in the drive. She’d fallen asleep on the parlor couch reading a W. D. Hamilton article on monarch mimicry and kin selection. The knack for sleep must be returning to her—she hadn’t conked out on the couch since before Cole died. She had to sit up and think for a minute to get her bearings. It was Tuesday night. Crys was settled on the daybed upstairs. Jewel was supposed to call tomorrow, as soon as she felt up to having the kids back. Lusa smoothed her shirttail and went to the window. It was Hannie-Mavis’s car. She hurried to the front door and flipped on the porch light. “Hannie-Mavis? Is it you?”
It was. The engine stopped and her small figure got out. “I just come up to see if y’all was all right. I figured if all the lights was out, fine, then, I’d go on home.”
“You haven’t been home yet? Goodness.” Lusa looked at her wrist, but she wasn’t wearing her watch. “What time is it?”
“I don’t even know, honey. Late. I’ve been down there with Jewel, she’s bad this time. I couldn’t leave her till she was good and settled. But she’s asleep now. If you’re all right with the young’un, I’ll go on home. I just thought I better check.”
“Oh, we’re fine. She’s asleep. I was just reading on the couch.” Lusa hesitated, worried by the strain in her sister-in-law’s voice. “What is it? What are you saying, then—that Jewel’s been sick all afternoon and evening? Ever since you got back from Roanoke?”
Lusa heard a long, strange exhalation in the darkness. “We couldn’t even get in the car to come back for three and a half hours. Even then we had to make a stop ever ten miles for her to up-chuck.”
Lusa shivered in the chill air. Tiny moths whirled around her head. “My God, you’ve been to hell and back. Come in for a minute. Let me make you a cup of tea.”
Hannie-Mavis hesitated on the walkway. “Oh, it’s late. I hate to pester you.”
“It’s no trouble.” Lusa came down the steps to meet her sister-in-law and was surprised when the small woman nearly tumbled into her arms. Lusa held her for a minute, there on the steps under the porch light. “She