Mittman, Stephanie (28 page)

Soon,
she promised herself. Soon she would have a dry air refrigerator and sideboard
complete with water cooler attachment. Miller loved his water cold, with a
little lemon, when it was available. And instead of selling her home-churned
butter she would be buying someone else's. No more bartering under Mr. Hanson's
distrustful eyes.

"Sissy?
That you down there?" Bart's voice called from the top of the steps. He
was up early, considering what she'd had to listen to the night before.

"It's
me," she answered. "Somethin' wrong?"

She
heard his heavy feet on the steps and watched as he crouched down and made his
way toward her. Like many of the cellars in Van Wert, theirs was low-ceilinged
and only the smallest women could stand erect in them.

"Need
any help?" he offered.

Well,
Willa might not know how to bake or cook or milk a cow, but she knew how to
turn a man into a husband, all right.

"Just
gettin' some beef," she answered.

"For
breakfast?"

"No,"
she said as though he were a small child, "for supper."

He
took the lantern from her and held it over the bags of ice, freeing up her
hands to find the cut of meat she wanted. There was less to chose from than she
would have hoped, but on the brighter side, it didn't take all that long to
look.

"That
mean you're goin' out
there
again?" He said
there
as if he
didn't like the taste of the word in his mouth.

"You
know I am." But that wouldn't stop him from starting another argument, she
was sure.

"How
does it look, you goin' and takin' care of his kids?"

"To
who?"

"To
everyone," he said, though he meant
to Miller.

"If
anyone's lookin', I suppose it looks like I'm doing the same thing Francie did
all summer—with your blessing, as I recall."

Bart
hit his head softly on the ceiling and grumbled. They were making their way
back to the stairs, each step squishy and cold now that her feet were wet.

"That
was different, Sissy, and you know it. Francie wasn't engaged or nothin'."

"Well,
Bart, I ain't—I mean, I'm not engaged or nothing either. And if Miller don't
like me helping out at Mr. Eastman's, he can say so."

"You're
pigheaded," he said flatly. "You know that, don'tcha?
Pigheaded." He clumped up the stairs behind her, keeping time to their
steps with his words. Left— right. Pig—headed.

There
were only eight stairs. That fact had never made Sissy so happy before.

"You
get up just to call me names?" she asked him when he followed her to the
kitchen. By rising early and preparing his supper before she left, Annie had
hoped to avoid fighting with her brother. But since he was already up, she
thought the best path might be just to make him his breakfast. If there was one
thing that seventeen years of cooking had taught her, and taught her well, it
was that a man's anger ebbed with his hunger. She put the meat on the counter
with a thud and reached for the frying pan that hung over the old wood box
stove.

"Fried
this mornin'?" she asked him as she reached into the icebox for the eggs,
"or scrambled?"

"Scrambled,"
he ordered. "With potatoes. But Sissy, feedin' me ain't gonna shut me
up."

"Isn't,"
she
said.

"Huh?"

"Ain't
is
not a word, Bart."

"Don't
be ridiculous," Bart said with a laugh. "I just said it, so what is
it if it ain't a word?"

She
didn't know, but she couldn't wait to get to Noah's so she could ask him. The
man knew everything! And he had a way of explaining it all that made her feel
smart for asking instead of foolish for not knowing. He never sighed and seemed
sad the way Miller did when she asked him to explain a word she'd never heard.
And he never lost his place in what he was telling her, either. Miller always
had to begin again, and sometimes he lost his patience along with his thought.

"It's
not a proper word. Noah says—"

"Noah?
You're callin' him Noah now? Jeez, Sissy, the next thing you know you'll be
washin' his drawers."

She
turned away quickly, stirring the eggs as if she were whipping up cream, and
hoped Bart couldn't see her scarlet cheeks. She'd been washing men's drawers
since she had taken over the role of mother to her siblings. It hadn't occurred
to her when she started in on the Eastmans' laundry yesterday that it would be
improper for her to wash his underthings.

It
wasn't until she was hanging them on the line that she realized she was
touching parts of his clothing that had been intimately touching parts of him.
His form-fitting Derby ribbed underwear had bulges and bumps that, despite the
boiling and wringing, still revealed the man whose body they had been keeping
warm. When a leg teased her face in the breeze and then wrapped itself around
her, she had been so unnerved that she swatted at it as if it were a swarm of
bees and the girls had convulsed in giggles at her feet.

Without
consciously doing it, she pulled down four plates from the shelves and began to
dish out the eggs.

"We
havin' company for breakfast?" Bart asked.

She
looked down at what she had done. Two plates contained just enough eggs for
small but growing girls. One plate held her usual amount, and one was a
farmer's portion. Quickly she scraped the two smaller portions together into
one.

"Is
Willa up yet?" she asked. "Or should I cover these?"

"She
ain't feelin' so good this mornin'," Bart said, his eyebrows knit together
with worry. "That's just normal, ain't it?"

She
could have corrected him, but she chose not to. Just knowing about using the
right words gave her a confidence she'd never felt before. Why hadn't Francie
corrected her? Or Charlie? Were they all afraid to hurt her feelings? And what
about Miller? He must have just thought it was hopeless. But Noah took the time
to correct her gently, and he never failed to praise her with a smile or a nod
when she corrected herself. Soon, she thought, she wouldn't be making mistakes
at all.

"She's
not having any pain, is she?" Annie asked. "And no bleeding?"

Bart
blanched at the question. He hadn't turned as white when he'd caught his hand
in a thresher and the doctor said he might lose a finger.

"She
seen Dr. Randall yet?" Annie asked when he refused to talk about so
delicate a subject with her.

"A
woman doctor!" he said. "Fat lot of good seein' Emma Randall ought to
do. Why she—"

"How
many of your men doctors have been in Willa's condition, Bart?"

"You
don't gotta be a cow to treat a sore teat."

"No,"
Willa said as she came through the door, her hair a mess, her complexion a
little green, her smile wan. "But I bet the cow would appreciate it if you
were. Morning, Sissy."

The
smell of breakfast cooking on the stove, the smoky bacon, the melted butter for
the fried eggs, the onions sizzling with the chunks of potato, overwhelmed her
all at once and she covered her mouth with her hand and ran from the room.
Annie chased after her with a bowl and held it in front of her while she had
the dry heaves.

"I
bet you can't wait for this to all be over," Annie said in her most
soothing voice, while she rubbed Willa's back.

The
woman turned around and looked at Annie like she'd lost her mind. "Bart's
baby is growing inside me, Sissy. A piece of him is with me all the time,
getting bigger and bigger every day. Oh, I don't like the morning sickness
much," she admitted, "but I wouldn't change my condition for anything
in the world."

Well,
Annie thought, she never did credit Willa Leeman with much in the way of
brains.

***

Someone
was stomping on his porch. He looked out his bedroom window and saw Annie, half
blue with cold, rubbing her hands up and down her arms and stamping her feet.
But was she knocking or coming in? No. And why? Because she knew he was still
inside.

He
hurried to the door, pulling his shirt on over his long johns as he went.
"Get in here," he ordered. "It's colder than a witch's—uh—nose.
Now come on in."

He
stood with the door open and waited while she considered his invitation. She
took in his open shirt, the overall straps which hung around his hips, and
didn't take long to decide. "I'll wait here," she said.

"That's
just ridiculous. You'll catch your death. I won't go anywhere near you. Just
come in."

She
crossed her arms over her chest. Even under her shawl he could tell it was a
nice chest. Her breasts stood out proudly, the buttons straining slightly at
the fullest point. "I'd rather wait," she said.

"Oh,
for heaven's sake," he said, letting his irritation show. He came out onto
the porch and stood very close to her. "Now will you go in? I'll stay out
here."

"Now
who's being ridiculous?" she asked. "At least finish dressing and get
your coat."

She
smelled of yeast and something sweeter. Vanilla? It made his mouth water.
"I'm not cold," he said honestly, warming at just being near her.
"Now go on inside."

"Men,"
she huffed under her breath. "They're all happy to tell you what to do as
long as it's what suits them!"

"So
then I'm not the only one you're—" he was going to say
annoyed with,
but
she shut the door in his face, so there was very little point.

With
her gone, he was freezing. What ever happened to autumn? Used to be a nice long
time between summer and winter, he remembered. Russet and orange days with mild
temperatures just right for hiking or catching a frog or hooking a fish.
Nowadays, he just blinked and summer had turned to winter.

And
winter would mean that any day now people would be going down and turning on
their furnaces. And maybe more than their coal money would go up in smoke.

He
opened the door and glanced around for Annie. The banter of happy children came
from the kitchen and so he called out, "I'm getting my coat. Anyone who
wants to kiss me good-bye should come now."

Hannah
came running through the doorway with Julia shouting after her to wait. He
could hear Annie telling the littler one not to run. And then he heard a clunk
and a cry.

"Oh,
Julie!" Annie said. "Poor baby!"

He
picked Hannah up on his way and entered the kitchen to find Annie kneeling down
and checking a tearful Julia for bruises. She kissed the palms of both of
Julia's hands, one of her knees when she could find it under all the layers of
clothing, and an elbow right through her sleeve.

At
that one Julia began to cry again, and Annie took a closer look at the arm of
Julia's dress.

"I
think it's bleeding a little," Annie told him.

"Bud!"
Julia exclaimed. "I got bud!"

"Blood,"
Hannah corrected. "Let me see."

He
lifted Julia from the floor and sat her on the counter, making room for Annie
to help ease the child's arm out of her sleeve. As Annie turned Julia's arm
slightly, he saw two small drops of blood hardly worthy of more than a kiss,
and so he bent to kiss her elbow and somehow wound up kissing Annie's finger
instead.

It
was an honest mistake, but she reacted as if he'd tripped his own child and
bloodied her just so that he could get the chance to graze her finger with his
lips.

"You
can't do that. I told you already." She shook her head. "This won't
work. I can't stay here like this. I just can't."

A
pin was slipping from her silky hair, but he didn't dare touch it. He watched,
fascinated by its torturously slow trip, as the weight of her hair eased the
fastener lower and lower until it slid out of her hair altogether and fell to
the floor. One hand balancing Julia as if she couldn't trust him not to let his
own daughter fall, eyes sending daggers as if he had caused her hair to come
undone, she bent to pick up the pin.

The
curve of her back was something to behold. Her white shirtwaist was well worn,
and beneath it he could see the straps of her chemise. She was so very lovely,
and he knew that his next words, while they cut him to the quick, would please
her very much.

"I
may have found someone to watch the girls."

Her
head jerked up. Her hold on Julia tightened. For a fleeting moment pain crossed
her face and he thought she might tell him it wasn't necessary to replace her
after all.

Instead
she raised her eyebrows and said, "Really? Who?"

Mrs.
Webb hadn't mentioned her name, when he thought about it. "I'm meeting her
tomorrow," he said. "Someone in town asked me to have a look at their
furnace and I inquired as to whether they might know of anyone fond of
children. Unlike yourself, of course."

She
bristled at that but refused to bite. "Good," she said curtly.