Chapter 2 #3
Earline cleared her throat, and while I didn’t risk a peek, I could picture her gaze fixed on the mug in front of her, her lips pursed. She was probably second-guessing why she’d ever come out to see us in the first place. “I know Joyce. Why do you ask?”
Why indeed?
“Joyce is a sweet lady,” Hattie-May continued quietly. “You know, her husband recently passed away. Tragic what happened to him, but I guess it’s no wonder his heart finally gave out, with all the smoking and drinking and carrying on.”
“Yes. Tragic.”
“Right before he died,” Hattie-May continued, “Joyce confided in me that she had a pest problem. She has a big field behind her house, same as you, I think?”
“I do not have a pest prob—”
“Well, dearie,” Hattie-May pressed on. “Pests were ruining her life. Just awful. She’d all but given up solving the problem.
You see, she wanted them gone but didn’t want to use rat poison on account of how inhumane it is.
Nasty stuff. She came to me for help.” I could hear the clink of a cup on table, the shuffle of feet.
“I have just the thing to get rid of a pest painlessly. You know, I grow all kinds of plants in my greenhouse. Make all kinds of remedies.” There was a long pause, and I held my breath, waiting for them to continue. “Solve all kinds of problems.”
My heart raced.
Hattie-May, with her wiry white hair and love of floral housedresses, looked like anyone’s sweet mamaw.
She made cakes and pies for shut-ins and sold home remedies for everything from gout to glaucoma.
Pregnant women came and saw her for her knack of knowing a baby’s sex weeks before an ultrasound, and she gave away her all-natural nausea and pain remedy to anyone going through cancer treatment.
Hattie-May had a heart for helping people.
My aunts both helped in all kinds of ways. Pests one of them, it seemed.
But no, I knew that Hattie-May wasn’t a killer just like I wasn’t a witch—not really.
She couldn’t be. Witches knew spells, and killers made pancakes and sent their children off to school in the morning.
I shook my head, forcing the thought away.
I couldn’t think of Mama that way. Couldn’t blame her.
“Why are you telling me this?” Earline asked.
“I want you to know you have options, if you ever find yourself needing to get rid of a pest.”
There was a silence in the kitchen, the substantial kind that filled spaces and echoed over long distances. It pressed against me in my hiding spot. My aunt had secrets. Maybe I didn’t understand all of them, but maybe I knew more than I’d allowed myself to believe.
“Well, Earline.” The legs of Hattie-May’s chair scraped against the floor.
“It was good talking with you, honey. But I’d best go find Milly and see what’s taking her so long in the greenhouse.
Gotta find those glasses so I can pick up Frances from the library.
You know she works over there as a tutor?
Some of the kids she helps are older than her.
Can you believe it? She’s such a bright girl. ”
“I see her there in the afternoons sometimes. She’s quite a beauty. She looks exactly like Lilibet.”
My head snapped to attention. Hearing Mama’s first name would never not be a fist in my gut.
“Yes, she does. Both of my girls are beautiful.” A hand tapped the table before Hattie-May spoke again. “I mean it, Earline. If you need me, you know where to find me.”
My aunt’s footsteps snapped me out of my stupor, and I rushed back to the front door, opening it once again as if I was entering from the yard.
“You have something for me?” Hattie-May stared at me, her eyes narrowing slightly as if she knew exactly what I’d been doing. I schooled my heartbeat, my breathing.
“Ma’am?”
Her sparse brows raised, wrinkling her forehead. “My glasses, dearie?”
“Oh. Uh.” I tried for an innocent smile. “Couldn’t find them.”
“Huh. I swore I left them out there. Did you check by the bookshelf?”
“Uh. Yeah… Yes, ma’am.” The lie was sour on my tongue, and I had little doubt that Hattie-May knew I wasn’t being truthful. She let the fib slide.
She sighed. “I’ll go check. You finish up Earline’s reading.” And then she passed by me, whistling an old hymn I recognized as one she often sang while working in her greenhouse.
I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
I listened to the fading sound as she shut the front door and walked into the yard. Then I did what I had to do. I pasted on a smile as if I’d heard nothing out of the ordinary and waltzed into the kitchen to begin my reading.
Later, after Mrs. Earline had gone, I wondered over what Aunt Ruth often said.
How fate was fickle and malleable. How people could technically change the path laid out for them, though they rarely do.
I wondered about the pain I’d seen plainly in Mrs. Earline’s fortune, and about the rumors whispered about Hattie-May and how I could possibly reconcile all of these things.
Then I turned on the tap, rinsed the old woman’s fortune down the drain, and prepared for my next client.