Playing With Matches (27 page)

“The Farm is going to flood,” I say.

“Lookit you,” big Wesley says. His voice is so much deeper than the others’. “You a baby. You don’t know shit.”

I give him a long, sad look. “Wesley,” I say, “I know shit.”

His brows rise fractionally.

Frank scrunches up his face. “Ol’ Greta’s gonna go bad for me. I ain’t as big as some of these guys. They don’t take care of me, I’m done for.”

“Keep talking,” I tell them. “In fact, on another piece of paper—” I hand them out quickly. “Write it down, all of it. Tell me what you expect with this hurricane.”

They seem better about this, up and anxious. They write and write. But the guard has stepped inside the door, and they won’t read.

I don’t blame them.

Our time is up.

41

W
heezer has chosen to stay awhile at the prison. I walk home.

Uncle and Auntie are not back yet. Miss Shookie is parked in front of the TV, studying the weather, watching the swirling blues and reds of the satellite hurricane as it plows into the Mississippi coast. Incredibly, she has Thomas spreading mayonnaise on bread, making her a baloney-and-cheese sandwich, pouring her a glass of iced tea. He and Harry have, in fact, laid plates and knives and forks around, expecting God knows how many of us for lunch.

More thunder rolls, heavy bellies of sound.

Shookie has given Harry a half-dozen sets of bright-colored beads to play with. He is wrapping them around his rabbit and himself. I say hopefully, “Harry, did you think to tell Miss Shookie
thank you
?”

Harry looks at me. He looks at her. He says nothing but holds his brightly Mardi-Gras’d rabbit to his chest.

Luz is talking enough for both of them, supervising Bitsy as she ices the cake. I have never seen Bitsy do anything like this.
Luz has already told her father about the collapse of our house, our night in the hot motel room, another in the car. A shame, because I would have liked to comment that with all their fancy computers and weather watching, no one predicted that such a little storm might have such a great impact on Lilac Lane. But they didn’t know, either, that our house was unfinished, bolts loose, floors still buckled. Maybe I also wanted to wield a few innuendos about the vicious power of Thomas’s love life.

Not in front of the kids
. A line spoken, I assume, between separating parents the world over.

“I’m running in to the Family Dollar,” I say, and add stiffly, “If they get back with the plywood, Thomas, you’ll help nail it up?”

Thomas says,
Of course
.

It looks the same, just older—floors cracked, the register updated. The merchandise is the same kind of stuff, plus cell phones and earbuds, twelve kinds of shampoo. I throw my plastic bags into the car and drive to the far end of our road, park, and get out. I head back into the woods, once more toward Finn’s place. Today, it’s easier to find in this strange half-light. Somehow, the clearing even looks smaller than it did yesterday. Why isn’t Finn out here with an ax, defending his space?

“Finn?”

I knock on the door.

“Finn!”

“Go away,” he growls
—someone
growls—from inside the house. The dog barks.

“It’s me, Clea. Finn, is that you?”

“Aw, Christ.”

“Can I come in?”

No answer. I try the knob. The door opens. The dog snarls.
With the windows covered, it’s very dark inside. I can hear the wind humming through the trees and the high tangled kudzu and under the windowsill.

When I step into the house, I feel as though I’m bridging a great gap. Two parts of my life are coming together.

Sister Anne Benefactor would say,
It is what it is
.

“Crissake, Clea, get on outa here and leave me alone.”

“I—wanted to see you. It’s been a long time.”

I hear Finn breathing in the near dark, but there’s light from the doorway, not much to see by. He heaves a great sigh and turns toward me. “You’ve always been pigheaded. Why couldn’t you leave it alone?”

My eyes are on Finn, on the pink and puckered far side of his face.

“Well,” he says. “Shit.”

I take a step closer, lifting a hand that’s separated from my body. “Oh, Finn.”

“Clea, don’t you for one second get weepy. I got me this cabin, and a good dog, and I grow radishes and poke salad, and you can just go back the way you came and act like you never—”

“Shut up,” I say. “Unless you’re going to tell me what happened.”

“I didn’t ask you here. I don’t like folks snooping around.”

“But—”

“My daddy passed on, down at the prison.”

I lick my top lip. “I’m sorry.”

“Guess I shoulda stayed in the tree.”

Bad joke. “Tell me the goddamned truth, here and now.”

There’s a narrow bed, and crates with things stacked in them. A table, one chair. “I burnt down your mama’s house,” he says.

“You did not.”

“You asked for the truth; what you want me to say?”

My throat has closed up. My breath whistles.

“You didn’t set that fire, Clea. Shit, you were just a kid.”

“Like you weren’t.”

“I came in that night—”

“You came
in
?”

He looks at me with his one good eye. The other’s half closed and empty, the skin tight and terrible from his forehead, slanting back to his ear. Scars pull his mouth up and back on the left.

“I went there a lot,” he says.

I am stunned. “You went to see her—”

“Yes.”

“Oh, God, Finn.”

“I was a normal kid. Then.” His right shoulder shrugs. “She—showed me things.”

“I—”

“She smoked all the time. I told her those things were bad for her, but she didn’t listen. She didn’t listen to anybody. I was upstairs, puttin’ my pants on, and when I came down she was sitting in the middle of the floor. You were asleep on the porch, holding the damn thing. Anyway, I picked it up, took the last couple puffs.”

“No.”

“Yes. Then I dropped it on the floor in the front room, by the curtain, and I watched it take off, and I went to the porch and pulled you outa there.”

“Where did you take me?”

“Down by the river.”

I am without breath or blood, a cardboard flatness of myself.

His voice comes through a tunnel. “I tried to go back for her, but the ceiling came down, and the smoke … I couldn’t get through. I could see she was already gone. Then I ran off.”

I try shaking my head, but nothing happens. No part of me works, not one muscle or sinew or joint.

He comes to me in two strides, takes me by the shoulders and propels me out into the yard, where the air has turned green. The trees blow and bend hard. “I want you outa here, girl. And I’m askin’ you polite—”

I smack him with my open hand.

“—I don’t want you to come back.”

I pound him with both fists, angry fists, blood clouding my eyes, filling my ears, passing through me and around, red and more red.

“Goddamn you!” I yell into his face, the good side, because he keeps the bad turned away. “I’ve lived my whole life in guilt, and
you can’t come along now and make me innocent
!”

“I didn’t
come along
, girl. I’ve always been here.”

My legs want to give out.

He catches me with his hands, same hands, I remember them. And that one green eye. He says, “After the way she treated you, I knew they wouldn’t take you to jail.”

“You sonofabitch!”

“Clea,” he says. “You are innocent. You are.”

42

I
feel crooked—put together wrong—as though my joints are no longer reliable and might carry me in any direction. Auntie and Uncle are home. I barely remember driving here from the prison end of the road. I know the sky looks bad, and the wind is bad, the grass beaten down, Auntie’s salvia broken off. The parlor windows are boarded up. Two tall clay pots have fallen over and shattered against the house, and a plastic cup and other things roll around on the lawn.

It has been a summer of storms.

But there’s something more, off center, and, coming in through the screen door, I feel it and see it—even with the blocked-out light. It’s an alteration of things, like a room whose furniture has been turned around. It’s on Thomas’s face too—an honored, almost noble, look. Where has Thomas come by nobility? I try to make sense of it, but I’ve been through too much today.

Harry is wearing a new striped pullover and red tennis shoes—Auntie must have brought them from Greenfield.

Luz claps her hands. A bracelet dangles on her wrist.
Charms
, I think.
Silver charms
. Wheezer is here, having been called from the Farm, his blond hair tumbling, face grinning, grinning. There is
cake on the table, and sandwiches cut in quarters and paper napkins set out. Auntie is still in her pearls and serviceable shoes and holding a piece of paper that she hands to me.

I unfold it.

And read. “Auntie!” I take her in my arms. “A marriage license! You and Uncle Cunny! Oh, my Lord!”

I put my arms around them both, and the three of us hold on as we have not in a very long while.

“ ’Bout time you got around to it,” Miss Shookie says.

Bitsy helps herself to a deviled egg.

Auntie offers an embarrassed smile. “At our age,” she says. “We had blood tests last week, didn’t tell a soul.”

Uncle looks proud, and his handsome face and brown eyes send pure adoration Auntie’s way.
What other junk dealer
, I ask myself,
wears pin-striped suits and a white shirt and tie?
He makes the deals—his partner, Ernie Shiloh, drives the truck.

“Ernie’s on his way,” Uncle says.

His pencil-thin mustache is still so trimmed and refined. I wonder how long he’s loved my Aunt Jerusha.
Forever
. And he does not need to cover his feelings anymore.

“Got a judge to waive the waiting time because of Greta,” Uncle says, grinning.

A friend, no doubt. Everybody knows the poker-playing, guitar-picking, how-can-I-help-you Cunny Gholar. “Now that we have the license, Francis, we’d be pleased if you’d conduct the service.”

Even Bitsy smiles. Luz hugs me, all grins, all happy. Everyone’s
happy
.

I am rarely speechless. “Oh, my word. Oh, Auntie. Uncle Cunny, I’m so pleased for you.”

Ernie Shiloh comes in, roaring, “Well, if it weren’t me marryin’
you, Jerusha gal, it best be Cunny.” There’s more hugging and hand-shaking.

With her mouth full, Miss Shookie says, “Now maybe Cunny’ll park his ass in a pew at First and Last Holy Word.”

“Not on your wrinkled old life,” Uncle says. “Francis, you’ll do the honors?”

“Yes!” Wheezer says, running upstairs for his Bible. He comes down and lines us all up, Miss Shookie standing as Auntie’s matron of honor, and Ernie as the best man. Blessing of all blessings—Harry stands with Uncle too.
Gloria
. My boy’s spoon is in his right pocket, a ring in the left, and his cheeks are pink, the corners of his lips trying not to smile.

I flinch only slightly when Thomas touches my arm.

Now I know where the salvia has gone. Luz plucks a handful from a glass of water, shakes the pretty red flowers over the sink, and folds Auntie’s hand around the damp stems.

“One for yourself, child,” Auntie says. “I got to have a flower girl.”

I wonder if wedding synonyms crowd Luz’s head. Her dark Spanish eyes are lit up. I imagine it was Auntie who gave her the silver bracelet—she’s brought them presents for this special day—and it was she who wound Luz’s braids around her head, the way she used to wind mine.

I want to shout that I love them all, but that would mean Thomas too, and he’s on the outside, not deserving to be in. Still, he is here today, and privy to this priceless thing.

Wheezer asks if he can lead us in prayer. I hold Luz’s hand and bow my head.

“Amen,” Wheezer says when he’s done, still grinning. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here in the sight of God to join Jerusha Lovemore and Cunny Gholar in holy matrimony.…”

I cannot think of anything more holy.

The late lunch that Bitsy and Luz have prepared is wonderful. Never has baloney with mustard tasted so good. Thomas raves about his daughter’s cake. She is joyful, while Bitsy’s at the table with her head down, shy. Uncle kisses both their cheeks and tells them it’s the best wedding cake he’s ever had.

Halfway through lunch, Uncle rises from his chair and leads his bride to the bedroom off the kitchen, where his brown suitcase stands in the middle of the floor. The door closes, and we all look at one another and begin to clear the dishes up. Shortly we hear thumping against the wall, on the floor—then laughter, stuff falling and crashing, other loud bumps, and Auntie squeals.

Oh, my Lord!

Luz says, “Mom.”

“Oh, lawz,” Miss Shookie says.

I usher the children up from the table and we, all of us, stumble out of the house and into the yard. My hair whips my face. There are no lawn chairs because everything’s battened down and locked away. Wheezer’s admiring Harry’s new tennis shoes.

But Luz, true to her soul, is not done asking. “Commotion, disturbance, fuss. Mom. What
was
that?”

Thomas puts an arm across Luz’s shoulders. He says sadly, “Honey, that’s what love sounds like.”