Someone Like You (15 page)

I saw Harriet Van Meter at the opera last week. She asked about you and said to please tell you hello next time I wrote. I don’t know if you remember but she’s Alana’s mother. She said Alana’s rich husband had hired some New York lawyer and was getting a divorce. Harriet was reminiscing about the days when you and Alana were sweet on each other. She wanted your address so Alana could write. Forgive me for taking the liberty of lying, but I told her we didn’t have an address where we could write you. She truly seemed disappointed.

Mrs. Harrison Brewer returned from a trip to South America, sick with malaria. She died three weeks after she arrived home. A pity. Your college friend, Jackson Haggerty, just had his fifth daughter. Our former neighbors, the Morisettes, now have seven sons. I wonder if they’d be interested in a trade?

I hear that Adam Copley is in poor health (it couldn’t be poor enough to suit me). I pray that once he’s gone things will settle down a bit. It would be wonderful to have you back home where we could see you frequently. I miss our Sunday afternoon visits more than I can say. I rarely go into the library without expecting to see your long legs resting on the ottoman and you in the chair with a book in your hands. This old house retains your memory, just as that dilapidated leather chair by the fireplace in my study still holds the imprint of the last time you sat there. Next time you’re in a town large enough to have a photographer, have your picture taken for your mother and myself.

Speaking of your mother, she is standing beside me now, wringing her hands and telling me to hurry. Seems she has a few things she wants to say to you, so I’ll end with just a reminder of all the love and affection I hold for you.

God bless you,

Your father

Reed swallowed back the emotion that lodged, thick and painful, in his throat. A thousand memories of special times spent with his father came rushing back. Of all the things he regretted in life, being separated from his parents was the most difficult to accept. He took a deep breath and looked down at the familiar hand of his mother.

My dearest son,

I cannot tell you how thankful I was to see your physician’s scrawl across the envelope that came the other day. It seems as time passes that I grow more and more anxious for your letters. Separation does indeed make the heart grow fonder—if it were possible to love you any more than I already did.

I just read over what your father wrote. He is always such a dear to write you the news so that I might spend my precious few lines telling you how terribly we continue to miss you. The gardener unearthed an old top of yours in my rose garden. When I saw it, I cried. I was worthless for two days. The metal tip is rusted and the paint is gone from the wood, which is cracked and split, but that precious top now occupies a place on the bookshelf, along with your great-grandfather’s pipe, my mother’s spectacles, and the old family Bible.

I know you have always trusted my woman’s intuition, and pray you will not scoff when I tell you that I have been having the most blessed assurance whenever I pray for you of late. I truly feel that God is tempering my pain by this assurance that your present circumstances are not permanent. I hope this is true and that we may all be together soon. Even more, I pray that you will find someone to love, that you will no longer be denied that richest of blessings.

My darling son, your father tells me he must leave now if he is to post this letter today, so I must end, as I do with all my letters to you, with the feeling that there were so many more things I wanted to say. Since time does not permit, I ask you to simply remember that you are always in my thoughts and that there is hardly a day that goes by that I don’t remember the warmth, the joy of how your little-boy’s hand felt in mine. May the Lord bless you while we are apart, one from the other.

As always,

Your loving mother

An hour after Daisy left, Jess Oliver drove the last nail into Milkweed’s shoe. When he finished, he released the horse’s foot and straightened up, grimacing as he stretched out his back. “Lord-a-mercy! I sure am glad that’s the last of them. Don’t think I could shoe another horse today. I’m getting too old for this.”

“I don’t think age has anything to do with it,” Reed replied. “Even a young man would have trouble working for hours all hunched over like you do.”

Jess stretched his back once more, then began putting his tools back into his wagon. “I guess you’re right. Maybe my back doesn’t hurt any more than it used to. I just like to complain more.”

“You could always let your son take over some of the more strenuous jobs for you.”

Jess tossed the used horseshoes into the back of the wagon. They landed with a clang. “I’ve thought about that, but then I’d miss all the nice things the ladies give me to eat, like Miss Susannah’s pie.”

“Her pie?”

“You ain’t never eaten any of Miss Susannah’s pie?”

Reed thought back. He’d had pie on several occasions, but it was always Aunt Vi’s pie or Dally’s. To his knowledge he’d never eaten one of Susannah’s. He shook his head. “Not that I remember.”

“Then you really missed something. Her pies have won prizes at the fair for the past five or six years. Come to think on it, I believe my wife said she also won a prize last year for her sour pickles.”

Reed could believe that.

Jess glanced toward the house. “You don’t suppose she’s upset with me for not coming to shoe the horses last week, like I intended, do you?”

“No, I don’t think she’s upset with you at all. Why would you think that?”

Jess scratched his head. “Well, I don’t rightly know, but she’s always brought me a cup of coffee and a nice slice of pie before I finished, and today I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her.”

“She’s putting up tomatoes.”

“Heck! That ain’t no excuse,” Jess said as he removed his shoeing apron and tossed it into the wagon. “She’s been busy before—tomatoes, squash, okra, corn, you name it. She would leave it for a spell and come to say hello.” He shook his head and glanced fondly back at the house once more. “I must have done something to make her mad at me, although,” he scratched his head a bit, “I don’t rightly know what it could have been.”

“You know women. They don’t always need a reason, at least not one any man can understand. I’m sure it isn’t anything you’ve done.”

“I can’t think of any other reason for her to act so standoffish.”

Reed had a feeling he knew the reason, but he wasn’t going to tell Jess Oliver. He simply figured that if Susannah was ignoring Jess, it was because Reed was helping him.

“I bet she’s so busy she doesn’t realize you’re almost finished. Why don’t you go wash up, and I’ll see about that pie?”

“I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”

“No trouble. I’ll drop Milkweed off in the barn as we go.”

The kitchen door was partly open, and the warm, pungent smell of cooked tomatoes drifted out to greet him. Reed rapped on the wood and pushed the door open.

“Come in,” Susannah called out.

She kept on working, saying nothing until she’d finished. “Is Jess gone?” she asked at last.

“No, he’s washing up.”

She straightened and looked at him. She seemed different. Her whole face looked different…rather solemn, or perhaps severe, as if something were weighing on her mind. The look in her eyes had changed, too, more private, as if she resented his coming here.

She turned back to what she was doing, leaving him standing there like an extra shoe. He stared at a knothole under the table leg. The floors were scrubbed and oiled. Three rows of jars full of tomatoes lined one end of the table. The sunlight coming through the window glinted off the shiny tops. She dabbed at her damp forehead with her sleeve. “Did you need something?”

“Pie.”

She gave him a curious look. “Pie? You came in here in the middle of the afternoon looking for pie?”

“For Jess. Seems you’ve always given him a cup of coffee and a slice of pie whenever he came out here to shoe the horses. Now, after sixteen years of coffee and pie, poor ol’ Jess can’t understand what he did to make you stop.”

Her face seemed to melt and rearrange itself into a softer, kinder version. She glanced at the half-eaten pie sitting on the top shelf of the stove. “I—”

“Didn’t want to go out there when I was there,” he said, knowing that was the reason, and wondering if she would admit it.

“It would take more than you to make me a prisoner in my own house. I go where I want to.”

“But not if I’m there.”

“I wouldn’t want you if you came rolled in gold dust.” She clapped her hands on her hips. “Now, what makes you think I would give a fig about being around you?”

He grabbed the dipper and dipped it into the water bucket. “I don’t know, but I’ll think about it,” he said, and took a long drink.

“You do that,” she said, going to the stove and taking the pie down from the shelf. “And while you’re thinking, you might be thinking about marrying Daisy Hitchcock.”

He choked on the water. “Marry Daisy Hitchcock? What on earth would make you think I’d want to marry Daisy Hitchcock?” He stomped across the kitchen. “What possessed you to say a thing like that?”

“Have you been seeing Daisy?”

“Hell! I see her every time I go into the post office, but that doesn’t mean I want to marry her. I just go in there to mail letters.”

“You haven’t been…you know…intimate with her?”

“Good God! Is that why she came out here? Is that what she told you?”

“She’s going to have a baby.”

“Well, it sure as hell isn’t mine.”

Relief washed over her, wave after wave, until she was saturated with it, to the point of going weak in the knees.

“Did she tell you I was the father?”

“No, she wouldn’t say who the father is. I just naturally assumed—”

“I’m getting fed up with everyone around here accusing me of things. I suggest that if you want to know who the father is, you start with Tate Trahern.”

“Tate? What makes you suspect him?”

“Because he’s low enough to do something like that. Because I see him sweet-talking her every time I go in to mail a letter.”

Susannah was certain he was telling the truth. She felt terrible. And joyous that he wasn’t the father of Daisy’s child. “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions. I hope you will forgive me.”

“Forget it. Just give me the damn pie, and I’ll get out of your way.”

“No need to trouble yourself with the pie. Tell Jess to come on up.”

“I’ll deliver the message,” he said, walking to the door. “Don’t bother to cut any of that pie for me.”

“I wasn’t.”

Reed went straight to Jess and delivered Susannah’s message, which seemed to cheer him. It didn’t do much for Reed, and the more he thought about the encounter in the kitchen the more frustrated and angry he felt. He had to get off the farm…for a litle while at least.

Susannah was in her bedroom when she heard the sound of a horse and looked out the window to see Reed riding toward his place. He brought a bottle to his lips and tipped back his head. Then he tapped the cork back into the bottle as if he intended to save it. But he didn’t. He tossed it into the air and drew his pistol. He fired at it twee and missed.

Under other circumstances Susannah might have laughed. But not now. Reed was drunk as a skunk. And she was at least partly to blame because she’d jumped to conclusions.

Reed’s bottle rolled a few feet before coming to a stop. He shot at it a few more times until he finally shattered it.

She shook her head and turned away. She unbuttoned her dress and was about to change into her nightgown when she remembered the food she had put away for him. More than likely, he had not had anything to eat, and if he needed anything right now, it was something in his stomach besides liquor. She buttoned her dress again and wondered if she was doing the right thing, but guilt over the hostile way she had treated him was disturbing her. The plate of food she had saved him from supper might not do him any good, but taking it to him would ease her mind a bit.

Carrying the plate of fried catfish, hush puppies, and turnip greens covered with a kitchen towel, she picked her way over the uneven ground. All her courage vanished the moment she reached his door. She started to turn around and go back, but she looked down at the plate of food and decided she could knock and leave it outside.

She knocked twice. She bent over and was about to place the plate on the step when the door opened. She raised her head. “I…” The sight of him sucked the words right out her throat. He was obviously undressing, for he was wearing only a shirt. It was a long-tailed shirt, so everything major was covered. She glanced down. His feet were bare. His legs were well shaped, the muscles hard. She looked away.

“It’s a little late in the evening to be making social calls, isn’t it?”

He slurred the words, and the alcohol fumes were strong enough to loosen paint. “I saved your dinner. I thought you might like something to eat.”

He stepped back, motioning for her to come in. “You can put it on the table.”