The Personal History of Rachel DuPree_ A Novel - Ann Weisgarber [5]
I’d been waiting to hear those words for a week. I said, “I’ll get a list together.”
“I’m not going to Interior,” Isaac said. “Last time Johnston’s prices were sky high. Hard times is no excuse to gouge honest people. I’d rather go to Scenic. Prices can’t be any worse there.”
That meant he’d be gone overnight, but I’d get by. The baby was probably two weeks off, give or take a day or so. But even if the baby was just a few days away, I wouldn’t have stopped him, not with supplies running out and five children to feed. I tied rags on the pot’s handles and said, “You’ll go tomorrow?”
“First thing.”
“I’ll cut your hair after supper then.” I tried not to think about all the money it would take to buy supplies. I carried the pot of stew to the head of the table where the children were quiet, still smarting, I figured, from my sharp tongue.
“Now come on and eat,” I said to Isaac.
He gave his neck one more wipe with the rag as he looked at the children. Then all at once, he pulled in a deep breath, put his shoulders back and his head up. He clicked his heels together and snapped a salute to me.
“Troops, supper’s being served. Bow your heads.”
They all giggled. Except for Liz.
It was still full light when supper was over, but most always you could count on the day’s work easing up after the dishes were washed and put up on the cupboard shelf. Out on the porch, Alise and Emma played on the floor with their rag dolls. Liz was there too, but she wasn’t playing. She just sat, her head down, her knees drawn up under her chin. Nearby, Isaac was on the kitchen stool he had carried out. I put a cloth around his broad shoulders and began combing his hair, working out the grit and knots. Usually, I took pleasure in cutting his hair; it wasn’t anything like mine. His was wavy and brown, and only his sideburns showed white. Mine was just the other way: springy, tight, and black with gray showing up in too many places. But tonight I couldn’t stop looking over at Liz. It was wrong what we’d done.
Isaac said, “Up there on the barn roof, over on the east corner. Looks like a few shingles are working loose. The wind catches them wrong and they’ll be gone. I’ll fix them as soon as I get back.”
“Always something,” I said, working the scissors around one of his ears, but in my mind I was seeing Liz tied to the plank, the wind blowing her over the open well. We needed the water, but that didn’t make it right. Still, we did it and there was no going back.
“Rachel,” Isaac said. “You all right?”
Put your mind to your work, I told myself. “Yes,” I said. “It’s the light—it’s hard to see.”
I worked at the back of his neck. Mary took the girls—Liz, Alise, and Emma—to the outhouse, and when they got back, Mary went off to the barn to tend to the milk cow. Caring for Jerseybell was her favorite chore. Mary had been two when Isaac got Jerseybell. She liked the cow right off, and when she got bigger, Isaac told her the cow was hers to care for. Mary took that to heart. She was the one what did the milking and she was the one what fed and watered Jerseybell. When Jerseybell’s stall needed cleaning, Mary did that too.
I blew the cut hair off of Isaac’s neck and shook out the cloth I’d put around his shoulders. I gathered up the comb and scissors and took the girls inside. Liz and four-year-old Alise unhooked each other’s dresses, stepped out of them, and hung them up on the wall pegs. I undressed Emma, but I couldn’t keep from watching Liz. Her eyes were too wide, giving her a startled look. She was afraid to close them, I realized all at once. The well had made her scared of the dark.
I stood the girls in a row and dusted the grit from their hands and faces with a dry rag. They sat on the edge of their low bed and stuck out their legs so I could get to the