Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver [135]
Hannie-Mavis looked at her with a gaze Lusa recognized—that same lost, helpless, blue-lashed stare from the funeral. She’d said, I don’t know what we’ll do without him. We’re all just as lost as you are.
“We don’t resent you,” she said.
Lusa shook her head. “You resent that I inherited the farm. I know that. I know you even talked to a lawyer about it.”
Hannie-Mavis gave her a worried glance.
“Or somebody did,” Lusa dodged. “I don’t know who.”
Hannie-Mavis smoked her cigarette and poked at the edges of her polished nails, which were as shiny and red as her shoes. “It was Mary Edna,” she replied finally. “I don’t think she meant you any harm. We just wanted to know what would happen, you know, after. Since he didn’t have any will.”
“Look, I don’t blame you. I live every day in this beautiful old house you all grew up in, on the best of your family’s land, feeling like I stole it from you. But there are problems, too. This farm has debts. I sure didn’t plan on having my life turn out this way.”
“Nobody planned what happened to Cole.” She smoked awhile, letting that sentence hang alone in the stratified blue haze above their heads. Then she asked suddenly, “You want to know what I really think?”
“What?” Lusa said, a bit startled.
“Daddy knew what he was doing. He did us girls all a favor by giving us pieces too little to live off of.”
“How can you say that?”
“It’s true! We’re better off. Think about it. Which one of us would rather be up here trying to keep body and soul together with this farm? We don’t want it, me and Joel—Lord, he’s just cars, cars, cars. That’s the only work that makes him happy. I’d hate us to be tied down to this place. And not Jewel, even if she was still married and not sick. She loves the house better than any of us, but Sheldon was no farmer, honey. And Mary Edna and Herb, see, they have his family’s dairy—they’re set up just fine, they couldn’t handle another farm. Emaline and Frank, I think they’re just as happy both working jobs instead of farming. I know they are.”
“What about Lois and Big Rickie? They’re still farming.”
“Big Rickie loves to farm, that’s true. But he’s got no more call to own this place than you do. He’s married in, just the same as you.”
“Well, but Lois. They could be up here.”
Hannie-Mavis blew air through her lips like a horse. “First of all, Lois couldn’t grow a tomato to save her life, nor do the canning, either. She hates to get dirty. I don’t think Lois gives a hoot about this place, really and truly. She might act like it. But if it was hers, I tell you what, she’d tear this house down and build her something brick with plastic ducks in the yard and a three-car garage.”
Lusa could see that whole picture in a flash.
“They don’t any of them want it, really,” Hannie-Mavis said earnestly. “Here’s what it is: They just don’t want anybody else to have it.”
“Me, you mean.”
“No, I don’t mean you, honey. But see, we all know what’s going to happen. First we thought you’d leave and the farm would come back to us. Now it looks like you’re staying. Well, that’s good. That’s fine, that you’re here. But see…”
Hannie-Mavis reached for the box of tissue, dabbed the corners of her eyes carefully, and added another small white wad to the population that was growing on the table. Lusa could see that whatever she meant to say next was very difficult.
“What?” she asked gently. She felt frightened.
“Well, a few years down the line you’ll marry somebody around here. Then this farm will be his.”
Lusa let air burst through her teeth. “That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it is not. Nobody says you shouldn’t get married again. You will, and that’s fine. But see, it’ll pass on to his children. It won’t be our homeplace anymore. It won’t be the Widener place.”
Lusa was stunned. She’d never dreamed this was the problem. “How can you think that?”
“Think what?”
“I don’t know, all