Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver [134]
“What’d y’all do?” Hannie-Mavis asked, clicking her lighter.
“Well, first we mowed. Then we looked at old junk in the storeroom, and then we caught bugs for a couple of hours. I taught her how to identify insects, if you can believe it. Does she make good grades in school? She’s very sharp.”
“She makes grades when she feels like it. Which is not very often.”
“I’ll bet. So then we made a bonfire and weeded the garden in the dark, which was actually fun, and then we came in and ate eggah bi sabaneh at ten o’clock.”
“Well, mercy. That sounds fancy.”
“Not really. Just greens and hard-boiled eggs.”
“You got that child to eat greens? Good God in Heaven.”
“It was the purslane and pigweeds we pulled out of the bean patch. Weeds for dinner, she thought that was just dandy. She said, and I quote, ‘This here’d make Aint Lois shit her britches.’”
Hannie-Mavis clucked her tongue. “Oh, boy. No love lost between those two.”
“Listen, do you know what Lois did to make her so mad?”
“Made her try on a dress, is what I heard.”
Lusa rested her elbows on the table. “Yes, and while she was at it she took Crys’s favorite corduroys away from her and cut them up for rags.”
“Oh, now, that’s bad.”
“Crys had made some deal with Jesus about wearing those clothes till her mother got better. Poor kid.”
“Oh, no. That is bad. Lois should not have done that.”
“No, she shouldn’t. That kid needs all the love she can get right now, and that’s just hateful.”
Hannie-Mavis smoked in silence for a minute. “It is. But it’s Lois all over for you. Lois is just mad at the world, and she takes it out on anybody.”
“Why? She’s got a good husband, nice kids. Ten million knickknacks. What’s her complaint?”
“Law, honey, I don’t know. She was always that way. Mad she wasn’t born prettier, I guess. Mad because she’s big-boned.”
“But Mary Edna’s big-boned, too—even more so.”
“Yes, but see, Mary Edna don’t know it. And Lord help the poor soul that ever tells her so.”
Lusa hazarded a weak laugh, rubbing her eyes. She suddenly felt exhausted. These were serious revelations, though. Even without having known their parents, she could see the two different bloodlines: Hannie-Mavis, Jewel, and Emaline were sensitive and fine-featured; Mary Edna and Lois were confident, big-handed, long-jawed, hefty. Cole was all these genes come together perfectly at last, the family’s final measure. Cole Widener, adored by all, won by Lusa, stolen by death. No wonder this family was still quaking in the aftermath. It was a Greek tragedy.
The two women sat looking at each other across the table, then dropped their eyes and sipped their tea. “I’m fine to keep Crys till tomorrow or the next day, even,” Lusa said. “Truly, it’s fine with me, if Jewel needs the rest. Tell Lois she can send Lowell up here, too. I think they’d be better off together.”
“Those poor children,” Hannie-Mavis said.
“They’ll be all right. Whatever happens, they’ll be OK. Big families are a blessing, I can see that.”
Hannie-Mavis looked at her, surprised. “You think we’re all right?”
“Who, your family? I think you’re a hard club to join, is all.”
She laughed a little. “That’s what Joel said for years after we got married: ‘Going to a Widener get-together is like a gol-dang trip to China.’ Why is that? We don’t seem like anything special to me.”
“Every family’s its own trip to China, I guess. For me it’s been extra hard because of everything. I know it must have been a shock when he took up with me so fast.”
“Now, that’s so. He was hightailing it up to Lexington ever chance he got, and for a while there we didn’t even know why. Mary Edna was worried he was going to the racetracks. We all just about dropped our drawers when he sets right there in that chair one Sunday supper, I think Jewel and me were cooking for everybody, and he says, ‘Next Sunday you get to meet the smartest, prettiest woman ever to walk on top of this world, and for some reason she’s agreed to be my wife.’”
“It was