Maude Brown's Baby (20 page)

He
woke, as always, with the first light of day. Elton snored in the adjacent bed, but otherwise slept soundly. Donald slipped on his glasses, sat on the edge of his bed and reached out to pull back one side of the white lace curtain. The morning was overcast and cool. Dew hung on the leaves nearest the screen.

He let the curtain fall and rubbed sleep from his eyes.

Wednesday.

Just three days in Galveston. What a whirlwind: meeting Clara, finding Elton, Sergio
’s cold threats, Maye’s figure—don’t think of that now—and Beno, most likely, in the seawall.

And then, the photographs! Three of them. A duplicate of his baby
picture and two more, all made in the same room. Photographs of a man, a little girl and a young woman—his family? Did everyone die in the storm?

“Humph,” Elton said in his sleep. As he rolled over, the last of his covers slipped to the floor. Donald retrieved them and placed the sheet and blanket back over his friend. By the time he gathered his toothbrush and straight razor, Elton was snoring again and Donald was eager to get next door.

“Good morning,” Clara said, “you’re just in time to grind the coffee.”

The
early clouds were gone. Clara had tied the curtains back, and now her white cotton blouse glowed in the morning light. This is beautiful, Donald thought as he crossed the kitchen to retrieve the coffee mill and bag of beans from the pantry. Simply beautiful.

“Did you sleep well?” he asked.

“I’m afraid I read too late. Do you know the play,
Cyrano de Bergerac
?”

“By Edmond Rostand? I’ve been meaning to read it.”

“I’m surprised you know of it at all.”

“One of Mrs. Carhart’s suggestions,” he called over the noisy coffee grinder. “It’s a play about a soldier with a big nose.”

Clara laughed. “Right, but there’s more to it than that. You’ll like it.”

Donald smelled fresh rolls in the oven.

“Eggs?” she asked.

“Yes, thanks.”

He tapped the wooden sides of the mill and pulled the drawer from its base, leaving it on the counter beside the coffee pot. Next to it, Clara’s garden basket already held fresh tomatoes, a cucumber and several apples.

“I didn’t see an apple tree in your yard.”

“Anything I don’t grow myself, one of my neighbors will have. Almost everyone has a garden and a few chickens. We share everything, and sell what we can’t eat ourselves. Mr. Lowman even keeps bees, so we often have fresh honey. He left a jar by the back door just this morning.”

Donald heard glass clinking behind him. He turned quickly, startled to see a thin middle-aged man standing at the screen door. His white uniform hung on his meager frame like a scarecrow. No telling how long he’d had been there, just watching.

“Mornin
g, Miss Clara” the man said, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Two quarts t’day?”

Now the fellow couldn’t stand still. He shifted instead on bowed legs, one
foot to the other, as if desperate for a bathroom. The bottles in his wire carton clinked each time he moved.

“Hello
, Claude. Make it three. We have extra guests this week.”

Claude touched the black patent le
ather bill of his white hat, opened the screen door and quick-stepped across the kitchen to the icebox. He added three quart bottles of milk and took the two clean empties Clara had left by the door.

“Thanks, Claude. S
ee you Friday.”

Claude risked another peek
at Donald, bobbed his head, mumbled  “g’bye” and left.

Donald followed as far as the screen door. He watched Claude’s narrow shoulders swaying back and forth as he scurried down the shell driveway. Claude loaded his empt
ies on a side rack of his wagon and returned the full bottles to the large icebox bolted to the bed. Finally, he turned to his waiting mule. Stroking the animal’s nose seemed to help the milkman relax, and the mule seemed not to mind.

“So this is what Mrs. Carhart meant,” Donald thought. She had been teaching him lately
about photographs that tell complex stories. “Picture essays,” she called them. Claude had a story, but how could he approach such a shy man without terrifying him?

Clara noticed Donald’s intense gaze. She came to stand beside him, watching from the window as the wagon pulled away.

“Claude is a simple man,” she said. “It makes him nervous when anything is different from what he’s used to. Seeing you here confused him.”

“I understand,” Donald said.

“Are you hungry?”

“What can I do to help?”

“Do you mind washing the fruit in the basket? You could slice the tomatoes and the cucumber. Knives are in the middle drawer and there’s a cutting board on the counter.”

The first knife Donald took was dull. He brushed his thumb lightly across a second blade, then a thir
d, but every one was dull. He pulled the drawer out farther and found a whetstone in the back. Clara watched as he set the stone on the counter and expertly sharpened one of the knives. He rinsed the blade and dried it, then quickly turned the first tomato into six neat slices.

“I’m afraid I’m not good with a whetstone,” Clara said. “I didn’t know that knife cut so well.”

Donald liked the way they worked together; she at the stove, he at the cutting board. Close, but not in each other’s way. They anticipated each other’s moves. Clara handed him two banana peppers and a squash as Donald reached for a small bowl. A minute later, she emptied the chopped peppers and squash into the raw eggs in her large measuring cup. He got the butter from the icebox and set it beside her. She dropped a spoonful into the mix, added pepper, then stirred and poured it all into the skillet on low heat.

“These will be ready in a few minutes if you’d like to get the biscuits from the oven.”

Donald had them on the table, along with the butter and two kinds of preserves, just as Clara came with the steaming platter of scrambled eggs.

“Elton told me something last night that bothers me,” Donald said halfway through their meal. “Jake brought him to Galveston last April
expressly to meet women like Maye.”

Clara sipped her coffee before answering. “That doesn’t surprise me. Do you think Jake feels responsible for what happened?”

“He acts troubled, but I don’t know why.”

“Troubled?”

“I don’t know how well you know him, but Jake never doubts himself. He’s the most confident person I’ve ever met. When he offers an opinion, it’s always a pronouncement. No discussion. No exchange of ideas. He just tells you the way things are, and that’s it.”

“But now?”

“Pass the butter, please. Thanks. Now? I think this business with Elton has shaken Jake’s confidence. Maybe he does feel responsible. He might see his cousin differently as well. Could be Jake is wondering about things he never questioned before.”

“I remember when he came with Elton in April. Elton was like a boy at his first carnival. Jake was the big brother, showing him around. More coffee?”

Clara went to the stove, returned with the pot and refilled their cups.

“Donald,” she said, placing the pot back on the stove and turning off the burner. “I need to do some laundry now, but before you leave today, I’d like to talk to you more about the photographs we found in Mama’s collection.”

“I’d like that very much. It’s still early. I’ll help with the laundry. Would you like to go to the beach this afternoon?”

“Did the mysterious Mrs. Carhart teach you to wash clothes as well?”

Donald laughed. “No, Ma taught me that.” He began running water in the sink. “I’ll wash, you dry, then we’ll start the laundry.”

Clara kept a large tub and wringer outside under the arbor. Donald carried it into the back yard, near the clothes lin
e, and set the heavy tub on the small concrete slab that had been poured for that purpose. Next to the legs of the tub, on the side with the clothes wringer, he placed the low table that Clara said they’d need.

“There’s a bucket in the mud room and a rain barrel in the yard,” she called through the open kitchen window.

Donald opened the tap, and rain water filled the bucket. Clara’s indoor plumbing used city water, but all of it was piped in from the mainland. Many houses kept rain barrels as a backup. Donald poured water into the larger tub. He was just filling the second bucket when Clara came with a kettle of hot water, adding that to the tub along with a cup of Rinso powered soap.

“When I’m here alone, I have to leave the tub where it was. This is much more convenient.”

Donald hooked his thumbs in his belt, lowered his voice and did his best vaudeville cowboy accent.

“Why, glad to be of help, ma’am.”

Jake watched from the carriage house window as Donald and Clara hung the last of the wet sheets on the clothesline. He turned back to Elton to continue his thought.

“Well,
that’s your decision.”

“I’d like to stay a couple more days here in Galveston. By Saturday or Sunday I’ll be strong enough to come back to Houston on my own.”

“Then Don and I are going back tonight,” Jake glanced out the window again, “if I can pry Mr. Brown away from Miss Barnes.”

Elton laughed and immediately paid the price. He breathed hard and hugged his sides.

“At least let me buy you some clothes. The things you were wearing Monday night were just rags.”

“That would help,” Elton said, still favoring his broken rib. “Thanks.”

“Nothing to it, pal.”

Elton turned hi
s head to see the full clothesline. Donald and Clara had gone inside. Elton was still looking toward the garden when he spoke.

“Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

“What do you mean?”

Elton turned to face Jake.

“I made a mess of things.”

“No
, you didn’t.”

“Yes. All the trouble now, between you and your cousin. Maye’s hurt. I even got her husband killed.”

“You didn’t do anything. Beno got himself killed.”

“You wanted me to have some fun, something to remember before I went into the Army.”

“Aw, you’re just …”

“No, Jake, you don’t understand. I wanted it too. But I wanted more than that. I wanted to be like you.”

“Stop it, El.” Jake looked away.

“It’s true, Jake.
You’re a magnet for women.”

“It doesn’t mean anything, El. It’s just for fun. I don’t care about any of them. Believe me, you don’t want to be like me.”

“How can you be with a woman and not care about her?”

“Come on. Are you telling me that you really liked Maye?”

“I didn’t have anything to compare it to, Jake. She was the first one who paid attention to me. She’s wild, but yeah. I cared for her. Maybe I liked her just because she liked me. I’m not used to that.”

“From the pictures you took, I’d say you were getting used to Maye pretty fast.”

“What about Rebecca? Don’t you care about her? Gosh, Jake, you spent two of the last three nights with her.”
             

“Only one,” Jake corrected. “I spent the first night with Jenny.”

“Wow. I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be. It doesn’t mean a thing.”

Elton eased back on his pillow, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Jake studied the floor between his feet.

“How can that be?”

Jake was quiet so long that Elton thought he was ignoring the question. When Jake spoke, Elton almost didn’t recognize his voice.

“Look, El, I’m
going to tell you something I don’t want you to repeat, not to Don or anyone.”

“All right.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“I won’t tell.”

Jake sat forward on the side of the extra bed, facing Elton, elbows resting on his knees. He looked down at his own hands before going on.

“Even in high school, I could see that girls liked me more than the other guys. I liked them too, but none of them meant anything special.
Maybe that’s what attracted them, I don’t know. Maybe they’re interested in me now because I don’t go crazy the way other fellows do. Men become idiots around women. I don’t, and that’s because I simply don’t care. For me, women are just playmates.”

“But how can you
…”

Jake held up one hand. “Let me finis
h. I never thought about it much, and certainly never told anybody. This isn’t easy for me.”

“Go ahead, Jake, it’s just between you and me.”

“I’ve been thinking these last couple of days. Thinking a lot. Worrying about you, seeing Clara again, and seeing her with Don.”

“Clara? What does she have to do with it?”

“When I first met her, it was a couple of years ago ...”