Under the Mercy Trees (12 page)

“Nell, don't let us put you out,” Liza's father said.

“You're not putting me out.” She set the cups down on the uneven table and they fell over, clanging like bells. Martin grabbed them and set them upright. Mrs. Owenby poured water for Liza's father and Mr. Samuels and raised her eyebrows at the young people to see if they wanted any. They shook their heads.

To make room for Liza's father and Mr. Samuels on the far side of the table, Hodge moved so that he and Liza flanked Martin on the opposite bench. Mr. Samuels and Liza's father slid into their bench, their knees jostling the table. Mrs. Owenby took a chair facing the door, as if she didn't feel entitled to more space. Her hands played in her lap. “Rory will be along directly.”

“We're not in a hurry,” Liza's father said.

“I hope we're not imposing,” Mr. Samuels said.

“I appreciate you coming. I just don't know what Rory is going to say.”

Liza's father sipped his water. “That rose of Sharon in your garden is the finest I've seen, Nell.”

“My grandmother brought it with her from Virginia, it's that old.”

“I'd love a clipping someday when you have time.”

“Get you one on the way out.”

A silence ensued that even the doctor's good manners couldn't break. Liza, Martin, and Hodge all stared down at their books.

Footsteps pounded on the porch. Mrs. Owenby jumped. The door banged open. Mr. Owenby held onto the doorjamb with one hand and used the threshold to wipe mud off his boots. He was a balding version of Leon, but whereas Leon's face sometimes gave up a smile, Liza had never seen Mr. Owenby smile. He worked, he went to church, he worked some more. He had no time for foolishness. He looked up and saw Liza's father and Mr. Samuels. “Somebody sick?”

Under the table Liza grabbed Martin's cold hand.

Her father was up, headed toward Mr. Owenby with his arm outstretched, shaking Mr. Owenby's hand before the man could think to refuse.

Mrs. Owenby stood up behind her chair.

Mr. Owenby looked at the crowd of people in his kitchen. “What's all this?”

“Rory, Martin has something to tell you.” Liza's father nodded to Martin.

Martin's face flushed pink. He kept his eyes down. “I got into college, Pop.”

“College?” Mr. Owenby repeated the word as if Martin had spoken French.

“The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,” Mr. Samuels said.

Liza's father spoke up. “Rory, I want you to understand what this boy has achieved. Not every student can get into the university. He has a fine mind. There's no end to what he might accomplish if he goes.”

While Liza's father talked, Mr. Owenby shook his head, shaking off the words. “He ain't going to no college.”

Mr. Samuels struggled to get his legs out from under the table so he could stand up. “Sir, if cost is the issue—”

“I don't care if it's free. He's already had more schooling than a man needs.”

“Rory, I know you never had need of an education yourself—you're a self-made man,” said Liza's father. “But times are changing. Young people today need an education to compete.”

“I believe the doctor's right, Rory.”

Liza was so unused to Mrs. Owenby speaking in Mr. Owenby's presence that at first she didn't recognize her voice.

Mrs. Owenby's hand fluttered from her throat down the front of her dress. “Martin's smart. He can make something of himself.”

“You saying I ain't made something of myself?”

Mrs. Owenby shrank back, holding the back of a chair in front of her, as if its slats could protect her. Eyes down, she said so softly they could hardly hear, “I believe he ought to go.”

As quietly as she said it, the fact that she spoke at all made her words resound. Then, as if she had used up everything she had to speak up that once, she receded, brown and gray, almost invisible against the floor boards and furnishings of the unlit room.

“He ain't going. And I'll thank y'all to leave now.”

Liza heard Martin let out a breath he'd been holding. He looked at his father. “I am going. I am going, Pop.”

Mr. Owenby stared at him. Martin didn't flinch. Hodge moved closer to Martin, shifting the bench. Wood screeched on wood, deciding something. Mr. Owenby's hands dropped to his sides. “You'll get no help from me. You're no 'count, boy.” He turned and stomped toward the door, dirt clods from his work boots leaving a Hansel and Gretel trail behind him.

“I'll work the summer for you,” Martin called after him, but Mr. Owenby didn't turn around.

Mrs. Owenby sat down at the kitchen table, blinking, trying not to cry. Martin reached across the table and put his hand over hers. “It's all right, Mama.”

“Nell, you've got a special boy there. You've done the right thing,” Liza's father said.

“Y'all best be going,” Mrs. Owenby said. Hodge scrambled to obey.

Before standing up, Liza whispered in Martin's ear, “Meet me at the bottom of your road at ten.” He nodded.

She and Hodge followed her father and Mr. Samuels outside. The yard was completely quiet and still. Not even a chicken clucked.

“Do you think he'll be safe?” Mr. Samuels asked in a low voice. Liza's father just shook his head.

That night Liza pulled the Sunliner over to the shoulder at the bottom of the road that led to the Owenby farm and turned off the engine, leaving the headlights on. She opened the car door and stretched her legs out. The Owenbys were all in bed. No one else would come up this road.

What humans called silence was really layered sound. The rustle of leaves in light wind, a bark from a dog up the hill, insect scrapings that overlapped like the mixed-up radio signals her car antennae pulled from air coming up Bostic Mountain. The smells, too, were layered—first fetid undergrowth, then, with a lift of the wind, the open smell of new mowing in a field to her left, a hint of crab apple blossom.

She sat watching moths play in the dusty beams of her headlights until Martin came into view, moving slowly down the hill. She turned the lights off, making the car invisible, and walked toward him on the dirt road.

She couldn't see well in the dark. When she kissed him his lips were swollen and she tasted blood.

He yelped and held his hands up to keep her away. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It hurts. Please don't touch me.” He reached out a finger and trailed it down her arm. “It wasn't too bad. I'll be all right tomorrow. That's the last beating I'm taking from him.”

She stood two inches from him. The heat from their skin formed a magnetic repulsion, allowing them to get only so close. He was a voice in the dark.

16

Martin

Martin woke up hungover, mouth dry. Another gray winter morning in the city. Behind the shade of his tiny bedroom window pigeons elbowed the glass. He threw a pillow, and their stupid cooing stopped. He checked his alarm clock. Ten-thirty. Dennis would be at work at his antiques shop. The apartment was quiet, except for a rush of water when the tenant above flushed the toilet. He swung his legs off the bed and sat up, checking his image in the mirror over his dresser. It wasn't pretty. His eyes were puffy, whiskers grew in patches, he suffered from bed head. He stood up, turning away so he wouldn't have to look at himself, and made his way to the kitchen, feeling every stiff muscle.

The light on the answering machine blinked—seven new messages. He hit the play button. One collection agent after another, wanting to know why he hadn't paid his credit card bills. He deleted them, knowing there would be more before the end of the day. Yesterday he had finished the only freelance job to come in since his trip to North Carolina two months ago, an updated edition of a manual he'd edited before, the changes so slight he'd actually finished it on schedule without having to make excuses. He had nothing else lined up, and the dry spell was starting to worry him. His plan for the day, his only plan, was to deliver the edits to his client in person in the hope of rounding up more work.

He opened the refrigerator. Dennis had taped a big note to the top shelf. “Buy your own food!” He ignored it and poured himself a glass of Dennis's orange juice, the only thing he could stomach. He washed the glass and put it away to hide his crime, then took a shower to get the smell of Scotch off and got dressed to pay a call on his client.

He caught the subway at Fourteenth Street. Ever since his return from North Carolina, he'd felt as if his train face had atrophied. He was marked. Odd people singled him out for conversation. An old man whose speech he couldn't understand tried to say something to him and handed him a card proclaiming Saturday the true Sabbath. A nicely made-up woman with her hair tied back in a classic bun told him that aliens were speaking to her through her wisdom teeth. He was glad when the train reached Fifty-third Street and he could escape.

The Christmas tree was up at Rockefeller Center, and the tourists were in for the season. The software company he did most of his work for had two floors in a modern glass office building on Forty-ninth Street with an option to expand to a third. They were growing and had kept Martin fed the past few years, translating their user manuals into plain English. His contact, Arnie Lloyd, was on the eighth floor. Martin got off the elevator. The receptionist and another woman were using a ladder to hang evergreen garlands around the reception area. Someone had laid out a long table of holiday food and bowls of green and red punch. The receptionist waved a sprig of mistletoe at him from up on the ladder. “Hi, Martin. Can I interest you?”

“Sorry, I'm afraid of heights.”

“Oh, well. Go on back. Arnie's expecting you.”

He walked down the hall. The offices on either side had glass windows, so anyone could peer in and see the occupant working. Or not working. He wondered what they did when they needed to put a head down for a nap or pick a nose. Were they really reading official reports, or had they tucked a
Mad
magazine inside? He reached Arnie's office. Arnie sat at his neat desk, engrossed in reading a document. A real document, not a
Mad
magazine. Martin tapped on the glass, and Arnie waved him in with a smile.

“Season's greetings, Martin!” Arnie was tall and slender. He looked like an old book jacket photo of J. D. Salinger but without the angst. His cropped hair and dark suit were more 1950s ad man than 1980s anything. He performed a valuable service for his company, as a liaison between the public and the hackers that came up with new products for the expanding personal computer market.

He got up and Martin shook his hand. “Arnold. Got all your holiday shopping done?”

“Gift certificates, my boy. Gift certificates are the way to go. Have a seat.” Arnie motioned to one of the sleek black leather chairs that faced him.

Martin handed him the floppy disk with his edits and sat down. “Let me know if there's anything else you need on that.”

Arnie put the floppy in his inbox. “I'm sure it's fine.”

Martin marveled again at the absolute cleanliness of the office, the lack of a single fingerprint on the glass top of the desk, and yet Arnie didn't wince when, without thinking, Martin picked up a glass paperweight and examined it. Martin put it back down.

“Your roommate told me about your brother. Terrible, terrible thing,” Arnie said.

Martin made an appropriate grunt, not wanting to talk about Leon. “I have some free time, Arnie, if you have any other projects for me. I'm not planning to go anywhere over the holidays.”

Arnie got a pained look on his face. “Actually, I need to talk to you about that. The company is making a change. We're getting so big, the higher-ups have decided to take editing in-house. No more freelancers, unless we really get buried. I might have something for you once in a while, but I wouldn't want you to count on it.”

It was a blow. Martin came back as best he could. “Have you hired your in-house people yet?”

“Two gals fresh out of school, anxious to get to the city, willing to work for nothing. You wouldn't want to work for what we're paying them.”

Martin couldn't be mad at Arnie. He wasn't really interested in working for anybody nine to five. The hours would interfere too much with his hangover recovery schedule. He had a feeling Arnie knew this.

“I'm really sorry, Martin. It wasn't my choice. I'll make sure we get you paid for this last job before Christmas.”

“Don't feel bad.” Martin stood up and shook Arnie's hand. “Do keep me in mind if anything comes up.”

“I will, you'd better believe it. And anytime you need a reference, have them call me. I mean it.” He came around to Martin's side of the desk and clapped him on the back. “Hey, our holiday party starts in fifteen minutes. Why don't you stay?”

The offer of free refreshment was tempting, but Martin couldn't see introducing himself to strangers as the technical editor the company just canned. “Thanks, but I have a few more clients I need to see today.”

Arnie wished him luck, and Martin saw himself out. On the street, he stopped and breathed cold air. Arnie's firm wasn't just his biggest client. It was his only client. If he had been a more ambitious person, he wouldn't have allowed himself to become so dependent. He didn't have the energy or initiative to round up new work. No one hired this time of year anyway. They were all too busy clearing the decks for their Christmas vacations.

People passed him on the sidewalk, noses red and dripping from the cold, shopping bags full of Christmas gifts. A bag lady stopped a few feet away, singing to herself. A dirty pink Barbie suitcase held her worldly goods. Her skull showed through the parchment-thin skin of her face, no fat left to humanize her deep eye sockets and sharp cheekbones. She rocked as she sang.

Martin's mother had grown thin like that toward the end, but he had been too self-absorbed to notice.

*  *  *

The week before he left for college, as he repacked his duffel bag for the tenth time in the attic room he shared with James and Leon, he could hear his mother downstairs with Eugenia and Ivy, trying to reason with Shane.

“Those biscuits are for supper,” she said.

“But I
want
one,” Shane wailed.

“Honestly, Mama, if one of us had acted like that, you would have tanned our hides,” Eugenia said.

“He's just little,” Martin's mother said.

Martin closed his bag and went downstairs. Shane was sitting on the floor, kicking his legs. He started to scream.

“Stop that,” Eugenia said, without going near him. Eugenia was married but had been coming over to help their mother around the house.

Ivy moved from the corner where she was peeling potatoes and bent over Shane, murmuring softly. He rolled away from her but stopped squalling. “Let me take him outside,” Ivy said.

“You know I can't do that.” Martin's mother reached down for Shane's arm and tried to pull him up, then gasped and grabbed her side. She let go of Shane and leaned on the back of a chair, her eyes closed. Pain carved lines at the corners of her mouth.

“Are you all right, Mama?” Eugenia said.

“I'm fine.” His mother spoke without opening her eyes. “Martin, can you play with him for a while?”

“I'm supposed to meet Liza and Hodge. It's my last chance to see them before I leave.” His voice sounded almost as whiny as Shane's.

“Eugenia?” Mama said.

“Oh, all right.” Eugenia stomped over to Shane and hoisted him up. “But I hope when I have children I don't have to depend on other people to take care of them.” She dragged Shane by one arm toward the door, his bare feet sliding along the splintery floor. Shane began to screech again, reaching out his free arm to Ivy. She started toward him, but their mother stopped her. “Potatoes, Ivy.”

Afternoon sunlight beckoned Martin. He followed Eugenia and Shane outside and then half-ran down the road, not stopping until he had rounded the bend at the bottom and was safe from anyone else asking him to do anything.

*  *  *

The bag lady finished her song, and gave Martin a hopeful smile. Her teeth were terrible. “Spare any change?”

He patted his empty pockets. “Wish I could.”

She shrugged and rolled her suitcase down the street.

He put his hands in his coat pockets and began walking, lowering his head against the wind. There was nothing for it but to go home and have a drink.