The Sleeping Night (15 page)

“How did you come to be friends with Isaiah? It seems .
 . .
uncommon.”

“Not if you knew my daddy.” Angel put a cake of yeast in a little warm water, then leaned on her elbows on the counter. “See, Isaiah’s daddy and mine were the only men from around here who went to the First World War. And evidently, Jordan—Isaiah’s father—ended up being a hero. Saved all kinds of people.” She turned her lips down. “‘Course he didn’t get a medal cuz they don’t give medals to colored soldiers much, but my daddy knew about him. They got to be real close.”

“As you and Isaiah became friends.” Gudren inclined her head, putting her collarbones in sharp relief. “He is your good friend?”

“Not now. Not really. It’s too hard.”

“I see.” Gudren traced a pattern on the oilcloth with her fingernail. “Perhaps you will be again.”

Angel straightened. “Maybe.” But privately, she doubted it. Briskly, she turned toward the bowl of yeast and found it dissolved. Pouring it into the bowl of flour, she said, “You know what I’m tired of?”

“What?”

“Being so sad and serious all the time. When I get this bread going, you want to play some cards?” Angel gave her a wicked grin. “I’m not, strictly speaking, supposed to play the Devil’s games, but if my daddy could, I reckon I can, too.”

“Yes,” Gudren said, smiling. “I wish to be young again, if only for a day.”

Angel nodded. “Yeah. Young.”

Geraldine High blinked
against the headache in her temples, blowing a pesky fly away from her nose. In the front room, Denise chatted with her friend Florence Younger, who had brought along her two children. The older one wasn’t so bad—almost three and cute as a bug—but the baby had been fussing for thirty minutes. Geraldine knew it was likely a little heat rash or something, and the baby sure couldn’t help it, but she just had no patience with babies anymore. Not any of them, especially not after all day with the Hayden children.

Deftly, she chopped strawberries for the jam she’d been canning this afternoon. She had never seen such a rich crop. It was also hot for so early; naturally, since she had a mountain of fruit to put up. At home, and at work, too. In the other room, the girls were slicing strawberries while they talked, which was the main reason Geraldine pushed the baby’s noise out of her mind.

Strawberry pie, strawberry jam, strawberries in Jell-O, strawberries in cake. Strawberries everywhere. She’d give them away, but everybody else had the same problem. Strawberries, tomatoes and squash, she thought with a grimace, then shook her head. Shameful to complain about any kind of bounty.

A blue jay quarreled with its mate in the tree just beyond the window, and Geraldine thought of Angel. Maybe she could use a few strawberries—seemed like that was an item the Corey gardens had never boasted. She’d send some with Isaiah in the morning.

As if her thinking had conjured him, her son came in the back door carrying a thick bunch of flowers. “Hey, Mama,” he said, and kissed her cheek. “Miz Pearson let me cut these just for you.”

“Ain’t you sweet! Put them in water for me, will you?”

He fished a tall green vase out of the cupboard, filled it with water and shook the flowers gently until they fell in a manner he was satisfied with. “What else you need, Mama?”

The baby wailed in the other room and Geraldine blinked against the sound. “Will you see if you can soothe that child?”

He gave her a wink and left the kitchen. She heard his big voice rumbling through the door, murmuring something to the baby. The fussing slowed.

After a minute, Isaiah returned to the kitchen, holding the baby, talking softly. “You tell them, hear?” he said, rustling through the cupboard. “Tell them you hungry. A boy gots to chew on something just about all the time.”

For an instant, Geraldine was transported back, way back in time, to her husband Jordan holding the baby Isaiah while she cooked, murmuring almost the same phrases. She paused to look at her son, a genuine smile easing the tense muscles in her face. The baby took the cracker in one fist and tasted it, his luminous eyes fixed intently upon Isaiah’s face. Somberly, he sucked the cracker.

Isaiah grinned, his dimple flashing. “That’s it, huh?” He kissed the baby’s smooth brown cheek. “Just hungry, ain’t you? These women don’t know a man’s got to have his food.”

The baby gurgled seriously in answer. With one tiny hand, he reached out to touch Isaiah’s mouth. Isaiah pretended to gulp it.

The baby laughed.

“C’mon,” Isaiah rumbled in a mock whisper, “let’s go outside and I’ll tell you some more things about being a man.”

As they left the kitchen, Geraldine shook her head. He needed a wife, and a half dozen children making a ton of noise. A family would ease the restlessness that sent him pacing like a housecat in the evenings.

But he wasn’t going to take a wife. Wouldn’t even let a woman close. She thought, after the long years away, years in which adulthood had claimed him and women found him and taught him the power of his natural way with them, he would understand the uselessness of loving Angel Corey.

Pure waste of a good father and husband. Geraldine could look out the door and pick out six women for him right now, good women. Good looking women to give him good looking children.

But there he was, stuck on some foolishness. He thought she didn’t know that he’d written to Angel all through the war, that he wasn’t still crazy for her after all these years. It made her stomach burn.

She cut the last strawberry in the pile with a sigh. Damn Parker Corey, anyhow. She wanted to damn Angel, too, but had no heart for it. God had laid his hand upon that child from the beginning, had given her some special task.

The worrying burn worked into her chest. Not for her to know God’s way. It was for her to accept it in all its wisdom. What made her fret was the simple truth that God sometimes didn’t see things the way folks did. His reward had nothing to do with life on the planet He had created, beyond doing his work, but everything to do with the right work that had to be done.

She could pray for mercy, she thought, and did. But she couldn’t stop herself from adding a prayer that Isaiah would never see what Geraldine saw in Angel’s clear green eyes, something even Angel herself had probably hidden and no longer knew.

Please, Lord.

V-Mail

February 6, 1944

Dear Isaiah,

I just read your letter about your trip to the castle, and I
loved
it! Please, please send me more of your travelogues! You have such a good eye for detail and you may not realize it, but your writing is getting better and better. It makes me want to work harder on writing good letters back.

Mainly, I ache to see what you’re seeing. I know it’s not all roses and we’re at war and all of that, but while you’re walking around that ruined castle with a new friend, I’m scrubbing the floors or stocking the shelves or figuring out the new ration books and how to make the whole thing work out properly. Not exactly the most exciting thing in the world.

I can hear that you’re changing with all these things you’re seeing and thinking about. You’re getting an “education abroad,” aren’t you? After you told me about the Romans in Britain, I went and looked it up at the library, and learned all kinds of new things! There are ruins of villas all through the country, and they built many of the original roads. Amazing to think about, isn’t it? Romans in togas and sandals building villas in England, so long ago.

V-Mail #2

(you’re so clever—I kept thinking I had to limit myself to one page. I’m still worried it might get lost, but today, I’m all fired up and don’t want to stop writing yet)

Sometimes, I wish I had a time machine, like HG Wells, and I could jump in it and go visit whatever time I wanted. I’d go to the time of that castle (I believe it was King Edward the first who built those castles, but don’t quote me) and see what it looked like when it was new. I’d love to hear it and smell it and taste it. Eat roast pig at a big table and drink mead, like Guinevere. Then I’d hop back in it and go to the time of Ancient Egypt and watch them build the pyramids. Maybe I’d go to England at the time of the Romans.

I’m reading science fiction lately. You never liked it, but I do. It’s fun. A person has to get adventures somehow! (wink!)

Take care, and tell Mrs. Wentworth I’m finishing up a long letter to her, too. (She thinks Texas is interesting! I also think she might imagine that I’m colored. Imagine that. haha.)

Your friend,

Angel

V-Mail

February 22, 1944

Dear Angel,

If I had a time machine, I would go back to being six years old and reading books on the porch of the store with one father or the other rocking us to sleep. Or maybe to that one day in the tree house, remember? Or .
 . .

[Never mailed]

February 20, 1944

Dear Angel,

I’m so glad you enjoyed the tour around the castle. Wish I could give you another one, but we’ve been
[
CENSORED
]
. So tired I can’t hardly stand up some nights, but the boys in the RAF are making some real headway. Maybe this war will be over before much longer.

Though not, of course, before the big fight, whatever it is, whenever it comes. You can feel the anticipation in the air, the sense of planning, but all I can figure is [CENSORED] and [CENSORED]. Not a lot I can say, anyhow, because they’re getting so careful about every little thing we say. I reckon I understand it.

If I had a time machine, I would go to a Sunday morning breakfast my mama made, and I’d eat 12 eggs, a pound of ham, fried up in grease, and bacon, too, and then 16 biscuits with fresh cold butter and apple butter left kinda chunky with a bunch of cinnamon. Then I’d wash it all down with a gallon of milk and 7 cups of coffee, every last one with 3 spoons of sugar. Then I’d lay down on the floor and die happy.

You should write me a story about one o’ your cakes.

Your friend,

Isaiah

V-Mail

March 6, 1944

Dear Isaiah, Pls. disregard my cake story, which I mailed regular, not V-Mail. I got carried away. Angel

V-Mail

March 17, 1944

Dear Angel,

You got me so curious now! Can’t wait for the cake story.

Working hard here. Rumors afoot.

Isaiah

March 3, 1944

Dear Isaiah,

A Cake Story

First, I have to put on an apron. It’s my favorite, white with a bib to keep my top from getting all splattered, and little cherries embroidered all over it. I tie it and turn on the radio because I like to dance along as I measure things. I’m flipping through my best recipes, trying to decide what you’d like best. I consider chocolate, but as I recall, you’re a pineapple upside down cake man, so that’s the recipe I pull out. They just had some fresh pineapples at the market downtown, and I picked up a beauty—I can smell it right now, all sweet and juicy. When I slice off the outside, juice pools on the counter, and I’ve just got to have a little slice to test it, so I cut off a nice juicy sliver, all yellow and glistening, and pop it in my mouth, and it’s like an explosion of sunshine, all over my tongue and down my throat. It’s going to make a very good cake. I slice off rounds of it and put them in the bottom of a big cast iron skillet. I sprinkle it with brown sugar, which sticks to my fingers, and I lick that off, too, and the flavor of brown sugar with slightly tart pineapple makes the saliva glands in my mouth pinch just a tiny bit. Over the sugar and fruit goes a layer of butter. It’s my special trick that butter—I slice it real, real thin and lay it down like leaves over the sugar.

Then I make the cake, which is a simple thing, just flour and sugar and eggs and baking powder and a tiny bit of vanilla all blending together to make a golden batter. I beat into a nice airy froth, and then pour it over the pineapple, and pop it in the oven. Of course, then I have to lick the spoon, which has sweet, sloppy batter all over it. Some gets on my chin, but I don’t care. It’s delicious. If you were here, I’d let you have the bowl, but since you’re not, I scoop the batter out with the spoon until there’s nothing left.

Meanwhile, that cake is baking, filling the air with that sugar scent, and I know the pineapple is getting all caramelized, the juice from the pineapple mixing with the sugar and the butter to make a hard, sweet crust. When the cake is baked, I take it out and let it cool just a little bit, then I put a plate on top of the pan, and flip it. This takes some doing, because that pan is pretty heavy, and I want it to land on the plate just right. So I wrap the handle up with a dishtowel and pick it up and turn it over and feel the cake settle. This is the test. Ever so easy, I pull on the pan, and there, on that crystal plate, is the pineapple upside down cake. I slice a piece for you, a
big
ole piece, with rings of pineapple soaking into the cake, and dark brown sugar caramelized on the edges, and the smell of heaven in every single molecule.

Enjoy it.

Angel

April 14

Dear Angel,

Your letter took a long time, but it was worth the wait.

I’m taking that plate from you, and for one long, long minute, I’m just looking at it, smelling it. My mouth is watering, but the anticipation is worth it. The smell is like a summer afternoon, and I can almost hear cicadas whirring in the branches, feel the humidity making my skin sticky. It’s a beauty, this cake. The pineapple is juicy, and the cake has those tiny, tiny holes in it that means it’s gonna be light and heavy all at once. I break off a piece of the sugar and the taste fills up my whole mouth, and I make myself take one small, small bite—cake and pineapple and sugar and summer and Texas and home—and put it in my mouth and close my eyes. The pineapple is still kinda hot against the roof of my mouth, and the cake is falling apart against my tongue, and then they all blend together sugarfruitflourheatbutter. And then, I just can’t help myself—I gobble it down, that whole piece, and then another, and another, until the whole cake is gone and I’m full. For once. For now.

Mighty
good cake. I knew it would be, from you.

Thank you very much, my friend.

Isaiah