Chapter Seven #2
He pivoted to me, coming down the stairs behind her. “And you. Pulled along by the nose ring, as usual.”
“Sallie makes her own decisions,” Addie said.
“She does, does she?” He made a face in disgust.
I did, in fact, feel like a heifer at that moment, prodded front and back. Go. No, stay.
Grace sat on a low stool near the back steps of the kitchen house, her sleeves rolled to the elbows and her skirts spread
around her, shucking corn into a wooden bucket. The three o’clock sun cast shadows across the yard. She’d found a patch of
shade where she could work undisturbed, yet close enough to hear if she was called from inside.
I hesitated for a moment at the edge of the yard, watching her work. Her hands moved deftly, tugging the husks away with ease,
her movements precise but unhurried. Cornsilk sifted around her bare feet.
She glanced up as I approached. “Afternoon, Miss Sarah.”
“Afternoon. Could you use some help?”
“If you like.”
I stepped closer and sat down on an overturned crate beside her. She handed me an ear of corn, and I pulled at the husk, its
texture coarse in my hand.
For a while we worked in silence, the only sounds the rustling of the husks and the distant cawing of a crow. I focused on the corn in my lap, stripping it down to its bright yellow kernels. My movements felt clumsy compared to hers, and I could sense her watching me from the corner of her eye.
The pile of husks at our feet grew steadily as the bucket filled.
I often helped Grace with tasks—shelling peas on the porch, hanging laundry on the line, mending clothes. It wasn’t something
we talked about or planned, just something I did when the mood struck me. I think it was my way of pretending that things
between us were simple, that the arrangement we lived in was ordinary and fair, though she was doing the work expected of
her. Work I wasn’t asked, or required, to do.
“Sure is hot this week,” I said.
“It is. We could use some rain.”
“We sure could.”
She wiped her brow with the back of her hand. “You’re getting better at that.”
“Not by much.” I held up the unevenly shucked ear.
“It’ll do.”
Grace rarely initiated conversation and never said more than she had to.
“I’ve been wondering what you think of those Bunker twins,” I said, as offhandedly as I could manage.
Her hands stilled. “What is there to think?”
“Just . . . what’s your impression of them?”
She gazed at me as if through glass. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen them in the flesh.”
“Do you think they’re . . .” Unnatural? Freakish? I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.
“I don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I believe you do, Grace.”
Her jaw tightened. She ran her tongue over her teeth before answering. “Well, I know your daddy isn’t too happy about you
and Miss Adelaide seeing them. But you’re free adult women. I suppose you can do as you please.”
She stood, brushing cornsilk from her apron in swift, deliberate motions. “Should be enough corn for supper. Thank you, Miss
Sarah,” she said, picking up the bucket and heading inside.
Several hours later, Grace found me in my room, working on my embroidery. “Your father wants a word with you alone, Miss Sarah.”
I put the frame down.
Nodding toward the back of the house, she said, “He’s on the porch.”
The afternoon was unseasonably hot. There was no breeze, just the buzz of insects in the arborvitae. Papa sat in a rocking
chair, his straw hat dangling from a knob. A plume of smoke rose from his pipe.
“Tell me, Sallie.” Papa’s aggressive reasonableness was a flimsy veil for his temper. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I don’t . . .” I began. But I knew playing dumb would only further annoy him.
He took the pipe out of his mouth and held it in one hand. “Were you bullied into this?”
“It’s not . . . it’s not like that,” I stammered.
“You do not owe your sister anything. We weathered the—the incident.” He said the word as if it tasted sour in his mouth.
“And fortunately, you are unencumbered. You can start over.”
He took another puff of his pipe. “I appreciate that your options are limited,” Papa said. “What if we take a trip? To Savannah, maybe, or Charleston. Somewhere you can meet a young man with prospects.”
Even as he said these words, I heard his voice falter. He had no interest in traveling to a big city and no idea whether it
would even matter. Rumors traveled, who knew how far.
I felt a trickle of sweat roll down my temple.
Papa, noticing, rang the little bell on the table between us. When Grace came to the screen door, he said, “Two glasses of
cider, please.”
“Yes, Master Yates.”
We waited in silence for her to bring the cider. As she put mine down, almost imperceptibly she touched my hand.
When the screen door thwapped behind her, Papa said, “I want you to have a normal life, Sallie. You deserve someone who can
be a companion. To you alone.”
“Do you feel you have that, Papa?” I knew it was bold to ask, but I wanted to hear the truth.
“I am content with my lot.” Briefly he shut his eyes. Then he said, “I was a poor, ambitious boy trying to make his way. My
father was gone. Your mother’s family owned all this.” He gestured toward the fields that stretched from the house into the
valley. “She was willing to take a chance on me. I will always be grateful for that.”
I was quiet for a moment. I appreciated his candor, but I couldn’t ignore the missing piece in his story. “And she was pregnant
with Alston.”
He gave me a hard look.
I thought of the silence he’d kept when it happened to me. The judgment he’d leveled without a word about his own past. “Right?”
He didn’t deny it.
“And you’ve been happy?” I asked.
“Happiness is relative, Sallie. I sought security. Respectability. I have those things.” It seemed as if he wanted to say more, to unburden himself, perhaps. But instead, he reached up to the post of the rocker and put his straw hat on his head. “The road you’re considering—I fear where it leads.”