Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories (37 page)

I cross the street separating the campus from town and go into Crawford’s Diner. Professor Wardlaw’s in a booth with Professor Maher and Professor Lucas, who also have offices in Cromer Hall. Ellen brings my plate quick as I sit down at the counter. She has it ready, since I get just thirty minutes for lunch. I eat free, a perk, like Dr. Blanton letting us use his computer. Ellen pours my ice tea and gives me a fork and knife and napkin.

“Not a good morning?” I ask, because Ellen’s waitress smile looks frayed.

“It’s been okay,” she answers, speaking softer as she nods at the professors. “That one with the black hair is who said it, ain’t she?”

“Yeah,” I say, “but she didn’t mean nothing by it, not really.”

“When they came in, I had a notion not to serve them at all,” Ellen says.

“You know she does a lot of good,” I say.

“That still don’t excuse her saying such a thing though,” Ellen answers, and takes the water and tea pitchers off the counter.

I watch in the mirror as Ellen fills glasses and makes small talk, except at Professor Wardlaw’s booth. Ellen lifts her eyes as she passes so that even if they do want something she’ll not notice. I shouldn’t have told her what Professor Wardlaw said, or made it worse by pointing her out in the parking lot. Ellen’s as good a wife as a man could ask for, but she’ll hold a grudge.

I check the wall clock. It’s 12:50 so I finish and take the plate to the kitchen. Ellen’s there changing an order and we talk a minute about Kerrie’s application. I come back and the professors are going out the door, backpacks hanging from their shoulders. A five-dollar bill is on the table. I follow them back to Cromer Hall. Someone’s spilled a drink near the entrance, ice cubes scattered like dice across the floor. There’s a folding yellow caution sign by the entrance, so I set it up. I’m walking down the hallway to get my mop and bucket when I hear my name. Professor Korovich is standing by her office door, a stack of books in her hands.

“I have these for Kerrie,” she says.

I thank her and put them on the closet shelf beside the paper towels and disinfectants. I lift the mop bucket to the sink and fill it, pour in the Lysol and head down the hall. Professor Wardlaw’s office door is open but she’s alone. I think about last month when Professor Korovich gave me other books for Kerrie. When I came back up the hall, Professor Wardlaw was in her office talking to Professor Maher. Nadia doesn’t realize that he’ll just turn around and sell them, but better the flea market than toilet paper for an outhouse, Professor Wardlaw told her.

I mop the foyer and put the caution sign back up. I get my broom and dustpan and sweep the stairwells, then empty the bathroom trash cans and clean the toilets and sinks. When the 3:30 bell rings, the last classrooms empty so I sweep them. Since tomorrow’s a holiday, most of the faculty’s gone home. I get out my master key and empty their trash cans. When I get to Professor Korovich’s office, the light’s still on. She’s been at the college only since August and all her family is in Ukraine. Sometimes we talk about how hard it can be when you’re separated from your loved ones.

I knock and she tells me to come in.

“How is Kerrie?” she asks, saying the name so the first part’s longer than the last.

“She’s doing fine,” I tell her.

“Less than a month now?”

I nod as I empty her garbage can.

“Not so long,” Professor Korovich says, and smiles.

I ask about her family. She tells me her mother’s home from the hospital and I tell her I’m glad to hear that. I thank her again for the books and close the door. By the time I’ve done all the offices, the hall clock says 4:20. I check the bathrooms a last time and punch out.

There’s a note tucked under my windshield wiper from Ellen saying she’s working till five. I think about going over to the café and having a cup of coffee but decide to wait in the truck. Sometimes I’ll find a magazine in a trash can to bring home, but I don’t have anything like that so I look over the books Professor Korovich gave me. Three are about teaching but one is called
Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov
. I open it and start reading a story about a man whose child has died. He tries to tell other folks what’s happened but no one wants to hear it so he finally tells his horse. You’d think a story like that would be hokey, and maybe it is to some people, but when Ellen gets in the truck she asks if I’m okay. She says I look like I’ve been crying.

Before I can answer, Ellen raises her hands to her mouth.

“Kerrie’s fine,” I say quickly. “It’s allergies or something.”

Ellen’s hands settle back in her lap but now they’re woven together like she’s saying a prayer. Maybe she is saying one.

“Kerrie’s fine,” I say again.

“You’d figure it would be soothing that she’s made it this long,” Ellen says as I pull out of the lot, “but the closer we get to her coming home, the scareder I am.”

I put my hand on her shoulder and tell her everything’s going to be fine. When we pass in front of the quad, we both check the clock.

“A bunch of folks came in for early supper and Alex asked me to stay,” Ellen says.

“We’ll be on time,” I say.

“I did make an extra nine dollars just on the tips.”

“That’s good,” I say, and smile. “You must have given them better service than I saw some folks get at lunch.”

I stop at a crosswalk and a group of college students pass in front of us.

“They don’t deserve good service,” Ellen says.

“They complain?”

“No, but Alex don’t miss much.” Ellen nods at the books between us. “Professor Korovich gave us some more?”

“Yes,” I say. “Remind me to tell Kerrie.”

We get lucky on the lights, three greens and one red, but once we pass the city limits sign a car is piddling along and I’m stuck behind it. The road’s curvy and the driver’s going thirty in a fifty-five zone. It’s two miles before the road straightens and I can pass. By the time we pull into the lot that says patient parking, we’re running late but Dr. Blanton’s car is still outside. We hurry in and I tell him we’re sorry to be late.

“Don’t worry about that,” he says. “I’m just glad you won’t miss your call.”

He nods at the waiting room floor. There’s a red stain wide as a tractor tire.

“A logger nearly cut his arm off this morning. Tonya and I got a lot of it up but the floor needs a good scouring.”

“Yes sir,” I say, and check the clock.

“I left five more dollars, for the extra work on the floor,” Dr. Blanton says, and takes out his keys. “Tell Kerrie the man that brought her into this world says to be careful, doctor’s orders.”

“We’ll tell her,” Ellen says.

Dr. Blanton leaves and Ellen goes in to make sure the Skype camera works and that the chat is set up. I go to the storeroom and fill up the mop bucket, then add the bleach and set it in the lobby. It’s time for Kerrie to call so I go into Dr. Blanton’s office. Ellen’s in the chair and I stand behind her. When the box comes up, Ellen clicks “answer.” Kerrie appears on the screen and it’s like every other time, because a part of Ellen and me that’s been knotted up inside all day can finally let go.

Since it’s already Thanksgiving over there, Ellen asks if they’ll have turkey and dressing for lunch and Kerrie says yes but it won’t taste nearly as good as what Ellen makes. When I ask how things are going, Kerrie says fine, like she always does, and tells us she has two more days before she has to go back out. Ellen asks about a boy in her unit who got hurt by an IED and Kerrie says he lost his leg but the doctors saved the sight in one eye.

For a few moments, nobody says anything, because we all know it could have been Kerrie in that Humvee one day earlier. Ellen asks about school. And Kerrie says the head of the education department at N.C. State is matching up the tuition costs with the army’s college fund. They’ve been really helpful, she says. I tell her about the books and Kerrie says to be sure and thank Professor Korovich.

Maybe it’s because the picture’s a little blurry, but one second I see something in Kerrie’s face that reminds me of when she was a baby, then something else reminds me of her in first grade and after that high school. It’s like the slightest flicker or shift makes one show more than the others. But that’s not it, I realize. All those different faces are inside me, not on the screen, and I can’t help thinking that if I remember every one, enough of Kerrie’s alive inside me to keep safe the part that isn’t.

We stay on awhile longer, not saying anything important, but what we talk about doesn’t matter as much as seeing Kerrie and hearing her voice, knowing that she’s made it safe through one more day and night. Afterward, we clean up the office, mopping the waiting room last. The bloodstain’s a chore. We get on our hands and knees, rubbing the linoleum so hard it’s like we’re trying to take it off too. We finally get done and Ellen picks up the two twenties and the five on the receptionist’s desk. The money we get from Dr. Blanton goes into an envelope we’re giving Kerrie the day she gets home. It’ll be nearly two thousand dollars, enough to help her some at college. On the way home I turn on the radio. It’s a station Ellen and me like because it plays lots of songs we heard while dating, songs we listened to when we were no older than Kerrie.

Several stores already have their Christmas decorations up, and they brighten the town as we drive through. As I wait for a light to turn, I think about Ellen being more scared the closer we get to Kerrie coming home. It’s like Kerrie’s been lucky so long that the luck’s due to run out. I can’t help thinking that we can still get a phone call saying Kerrie’s been hurt. Or even worse, a soldier showing up with his cap in his hands.

The light turns green and I pass the clock tower, behind it Cromer Hall. The office windows are all dark, but there are lights on at the student center. Some students won’t be going home for the holidays, and because of that someone in town has a phone close by, ready if it rings. I think about a young woman who’s hurt and scared making that call, and how someone will be there to listen.

W
hen the sheriff stepped onto her porch, he carried his hat in his hands, so she knew Elijah was dead. The sheriff told how drovers had found her son’s body beside a spring just off the trail between Boone and Mountain City, a bullet hole in the back of his head, his pockets turned inside out. He told her of the charred piece of fatback in the skillet, the warm ashes underneath, the empty haversack with the name Elijah Hampton stitched into it. The drovers had nailed the skillet in a big beech tree as a marker and then buried him beside it.

“Murdered,” Sarah said, speaking the word the sheriff had avoided. “For a few pieces of silver in his pocket.”

It wasn’t a question but the sheriff answered as it were.

“That’s what I reckon.”

“And you don’t know who done it.”

“No, ma’am,” the sheriff said. “And I’ll not lie to you. We’ll likely never know.”

The sheriff held the haversack out to her.

“Your daughter-in law didn’t want this. She said she couldn’t bear the sight of his blood on it. You may not want it either.”

Sarah took the haversack and laid it beside the door.

“So you’ve already been to see Laura,” she said.

“Yes, ma’am. I thought it best, her being the wife.”

The sheriff reached into his shirt pocket.

“Here’s the death certificate. I thought you might want to see it.”

“Just a minute,” Sarah said.

She stepped into the front room and took the bible and pen from the mantle. She sat in her porch chair, the bible open on her lap, the piece of paper in her hand.

“It don’t say where he died,” Sarah said.

“No, ma’am. That gap where they found him, it’s the back of beyond. Nobody lives down there, ever has far as I know.”

The sheriff looked down at her, his pale-blue eyes shadowed by the hat he now wore.

“Mrs. Hampton,” he said, “they don’t even know what state that place is in, much less what county.”

Sarah closed the bible, the last line unfilled.

Eight months later the dew darkened the hem of her gingham dress as Sarah walked out of the yard, the cool slickness of the grass brushing her bare feet and ankles. Sarah followed Aho Creek down the mountain to where it entered the middle fork of the New River. She stepped onto the wagon road and followed the river north toward Boone, the sun rising over her right shoulder. Soon the river’s white rush plunged away from the road. Her shoulder began aching, and she shifted the haversack to her other side.

Sarah stopped at a creek on the outskirts of town. She drank from the creek and unwrapped the sandwich she’d brought with her, but the first mouthful stuck in her throat like sawdust. She tore the bread and ham into pieces and left it for the birds before opening the haversack. Sarah knew she looked a sight but could do nothing about it except take out the lye soap and face cloth and wash the sweat from her face and neck, the dust from her feet and ankles. She took out her shoes and put them on and then walked into Boone, the main street crowded with farmers and their families come to spend Saturday in town. Sarah searched the storefronts until she found the sign that said
BENEDICT ASH-SURVEYOR
.

His age surprised her, the smooth brow, the full set of teeth. Like the unweathered sign outside his door, the surveyor’s youth made Sarah wonder how experienced he was. The surveyor must have realized clients would wish him older, for he wore a mangy red beard and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses he did not put on until Sarah appeared at his door. Sarah told him what she wanted and he listened, first with incredulity and then resignation. He’d been in Boone less than a month and needed any client he could get.

When Sarah finished, the surveyor spread a map across his desk. He took off the glasses and studied the map intently before he spoke.

“My fee will be six dollars. It’ll be a full day to get there, do the surveying, and get back. I don’t work Sundays, so I’ll go first thing Monday morning.”

Sarah took a leather purse from the haversack, unsnapped it and removed two silver dollars and four quarters.