The Personal History of Rachel DuPree_ A Novel - Ann Weisgarber [54]
“My handkerchief,” I said to Liz. Just as she was reaching to pull it from my sleeve, a bitter stink filled the kitchen.
I slid Emma off my lap and onto the floor. She let out a wail. I got up, tears now running down my face. Grabbing the potholders, I pushed the pot of mush off the cookstove’s burner.
Too late. The mush was burned and stuck to the bottom of the pot. Supper was ruined.
I stood over that pot and let myself cry. There were supplies for four weeks, and I had let some of it burn. I had let Emma burn her hand. I hadn’t been watching; my mind had been wandering. Now the pan needed a hard scrubbing, Mary wasn’t home to help, and I had to start over on supper. I cried all the harder. Liz and Alise had their arms around Emma, all of them making whimpering sounds, watching me. They weren’t used to seeing me cry.
I wiped my face with a rag, ashamed of myself, a grown woman bawling like a baby. I said, “It’s all right, girls, it’s all right.” They blinked back their tears, even Emma with her hurt hand tucked close to her. I wiped their faces. I got a fresh rag, wet it, and this time Emma let me wrap it around her hand.
“You’re my good girl,” I said. “Mama’s brave girl.”
Liz picked up the compound jar and the bottle of soothing syrup for me. It was a wonder, I thought, that the bottle hadn’t overturned. I held it up. It was two-thirds full. Emma, I knew, was going to need more in a little while and again at bedtime.
“Come on out on the porch,” I said to the girls. “It stinks in here, hot too. Can’t hardly breathe. You can have your naps out there.”
“I’m too big,” Liz said.
I gave her a warning look. “Get the red blanket,” I said.
I put the compound and the syrup on the shelf. On the label of the syrup bottle was a picture of a smiling white woman. Her lips were red and she wore a frilly blouse, just like Mrs. DuPree and the Circle of Eight ladies. The white woman’s yellow hair was piled high and there wasn’t a strand out of place. She has a maid, I thought. In one hand she held a bottle and in the other she had a big spoon filled with what I took to be the soothing syrup. She leaned toward her little boy. He had yellow curls like hers. He sat up against crisp, clean pillows. His round white arms rested on a turned-down blanket. He smiled up at his mother. He didn’t look the least bit sick.
I looked over my shoulder. Alise and Emma weren’t looking; they were studying Emma’s wrapped hand. The white woman on the bottle didn’t have the first worry. I picked it up and unscrewed the cap. I heard Liz coming down the hall with the blanket. I took a quick swallow. Then I took another. Just the taste of it on my tongue made me feel better. I’d get to the burned pot in a few minutes; supper wouldn’t be all that late. I put the cap back on the bottle.
I gathered the girls, and we went outside to let our nerves settle.
10
JERSEYBELL
I sat in my porch rocker with Emma on my lap. It was hot, but I wanted her close. It was going to take a long time for her hand to heal, and even when it did, she’d likely have scars. What kinds of stories, I wondered, will Emma tell about them.
I rubbed her back, making big circles. She looked up at me and then put her head on my big belly, stuck her good thumb in her mouth, and held her burned hand close to her chest. Liz and Alise, on the red blanket, laid on their bellies with their heads propped up in their hands.
An easy breeze had come up. The high clouds overhead had a pink cast along the bottom, and off to the far west, they were dark. I couldn’t let myself hope, though. The sun was as bright as ever, and to the north, there wasn’t the first cloud.
“Which way’s Daddy and the others?” Liz said.
I pointed northeast toward Vulture’s Pinnacle. Liz and Alise strained their eyes. “Can’t see them,” Liz said.
“Maybe they’re behind a table somewhere,” I said.
Tall squares of flat-topped grass rose up everywhere in the Badlands.