Chapter 31
Now
I’d never loved Puddle Creek in that misty-eyed way that songwriters and poets waxed lyrical about “home.” But there was something to be said about the place where the people who loved me lived. Where the soil held the secrets and bodies of generations of women in my family.
Something dark, perhaps. But something nonetheless.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” Frances said.
I yawned, wiped drool from the corners of my mouth, and looked out the window.
“Looks like the old gas station burned down.” Frances pointed to the old store where Ruth had worked part-time, slowing almost to a stop, as the headlights illuminated the once familiar place.
Sure enough, the store now sat in a jumbled, charred mess.
Yellow tape wrapped around the structure, seeming to serve as both a warning and holding it together.
Someone had spray painted KEEP OUT on a piece of plywood and propped it near where the gas pumps had once stood.
The fire that had claimed the building could’ve been recent or years old.
In Puddle Creek, empty buildings became landmarks.
Frances swiped at her eyes.
“You okay?”
“Yes. It’s so stupid—after everything this is what I get emotional over?
” Her voice cracked on the last word. “I always liked the old store. When were little and Hattie-May would take us to visit Ruth at work, the men who sat on the outdoor bench would always call out multiplication problems to me, then act amazed and clap when I got them right,” she said.
“I know it’s silly, but it was a happy part of my childhood. ”
I understood completely.
“You remember what Hattie-May used to call that outdoor bench where all those old men sat and drank coffee?” she asked.
“The dead-dick bench. How could I forget?” I said.
“I thought it was called that because some guy named Dick had died there or something until my fourth-grade teacher threatened to give me detention if I said it again.” I turned and grinned at my sister.
“Aunt Ruth explaining what a dick was might still be the most embarrassing moment of my life—even worse than getting the birds-and-the-bees talk from Bunny.”
“Bunny gave you the talk?” Frances asked in disbelief.
“Yeah,” I said. “Who gave it to you?”
Frances giggled. “Hattie-May.”
“Oh no.”
“Yeah. She used words like pollinating and blossoming into womanhood. I had no idea what she was talking about, so I nodded along and then got a book at the library.”
“Ha,” I said, thinking maybe I got off easy.
Bunny was very matter-of-fact. I remember her slapping her pack of Virginia Slims against the heel of her palm, while telling me vagina isn’t a dirty word and that sex is a regular part of life.
I’d wanted to melt into the porch as she blew a steady stream of smoke from the side of her mouth.
When we pulled onto our road, the clouds had parted, and a full moon hung in the sky like a yellow thumbprint. Hills pressed on both sides, and it was almost like I’d never left. Ten years was nothing to a mountain.
Our headlights bounced over the fence posts at the end of my aunts’ long driveway, the beams illuminating sun-bleached bone. Ruth’s wards. Instinctively my hand reached into the pocket of my shorts, and my fingers curled around the slice of bone that hadn’t left my side in ten years.
There was something comforting, nostalgic maybe, in seeing that Ruth remained faithful in changing out the bones. Throughout childhood, everything from hog jaws to chicken skulls had stood sentinel over the property.
This reminded me of other bones, of the grinder whirring in Ruth’s workshop on my last night at home. Of being told in no uncertain terms that there’d be no questions about Shane’s corpse, being assured it would never be found. I hoped my aunts were right.
We were both lost in thought as Frances pulled to the end of the drive and parked in the yard.
In the glow of the porch light, the old house remained unchanged. Its peeling paint, the tangle of flowers from old window boxes and pots, and without seeing it, I knew the tin roof was still dotted with patches of rust that had once reminded me of the orange spots on a calico cat.
It was late—almost morning—and I hadn’t told the aunts we were coming. I’d figured their onslaught of questions was best fielded in person.
I’d expected them to be asleep, but the front door opened, and Ruth, tall and angular, stomped onto the porch. Her hair was still cut short, and even in the dim light, I could see her face bore new and deeper wrinkles. Her skin hung a bit looser, but the pissed-off expression was familiar.
Frances hopped out of the car and ran across the yard to Ruth, and the two embraced. I followed, more cautious. My heart thumping against my ribs.
Would they pull me in for a hug? Was I forgiven for leaving without a word? It had seemed that way on the phone, but perhaps I’d mistaken.
The same moment I stepped onto the porch, Hattie-May shuffled outside. A clear oxygen tube looped from behind her ears and into her nose, and she pulled a small wheeled tank behind her. She smiled for a moment, and it was if she was looking through me.
“Hattie-May?” I said her name softly and she blinked. Wherever she’d gone in her mind, she was back.
She reached up and lightly touched my cheek. “Milly, you’re all grown up.”
I felt the sob break free as I hugged her neck. She smelled the same—thriving things and tomato vines, faintly sweet—and it undid me.
When I’d left home, I thought I’d never return, but at seventeen I hadn’t understood how long forever was.
As months turned to years, it sank in. Hattie-May was my great-aunt, the older sister to a grandmother I’d never known.
She’d been old when I’d been sent to live with her as a child.
I’d feared she’d die without me ever hugging her again.
“Goodness.” She rubbed her hands over my upper arms. “You’re plumb damp.”
I whispered into her cloud of white hair, “I’m surprised y’all are awake.”
She stepped back and gripped my hands in hers.
“Of course we are, honey. Ruthie knew y’all would be here.
Now come on inside. Bunny’s warming up leftovers from dinner.
Y’all must be starving after that drive.
” Aunt Hattie turned toward the door, pulling her little oxygen tank behind her. “Come along, now.”
Frances followed, but Ruth hung back, catching my eye. The screen door snapped shut and only she and I remained on the porch.
“Aunt Hattie said you knew we were coming.” I asked, “How?”
The rules were Ruth’s religion, and she’d never break them. On our phone call, she’d asked to read me. Had called me hardheaded for not allowing it. But I knew she hadn’t done it, and I knew better than to ask.
“Good to see you too,” Ruth snarked, but there was no malice in it. She sighed. “I told Aunt Hattie I’d talked to you—that after we got off the phone I read my own leaves and they said to gather my family. Though I’m a bit fuzzy on what I’m gathering for.”
“I’m surprised you read your own leaves.”
“Yeah, well.” She shrugged. “I don’t make a habit of it, but your phone call made me uneasy.
I’d have asked Aunt Hattie-May to read me, but she was having one of her spells, and I didn’t think she’d be up to it.
” Ruth rocked back on the heels of her boots.
“I didn’t know you were coming at all, much less tonight—but Hattie-May got that in her head, and you can’t convince her any different.
She woke up an hour ago, and I worried she’d take to wandering.
She does that sometimes. Mostly it’s fine—but she can get outside. ”
“Aunt Hattie wanders outside at night?”
“Yeah. Sometimes.” Ruth scraped her palm over her short salt-and-pepper hair and let out a breath.
“Gets madder than a wet hen if you so much as suggest she’s not in charge of her faculties, though.
” Her lips pressed into a small smile, and she shoved her hands into her pockets.
“She seemed fine, but I didn’t want to chance it, so I went ahead and got up.
Hattie-May started tidying up the house and putting fresh blankets in y’alls’ old room, talking about y’all coming as if it were planned.
It was easier to let her run with it than to convince her to go back to bed.
Imagine my surprise when you two pulled into the yard. ”
I could imagine it—Ruth jumping to her feet and running to the window while Hattie-May continued dusting and sweeping, unbothered, pulling her little oxygen tank along like a pet. I didn’t like the wandering, though. “But Aunt Hattie’s okay, right?”
“Hattie-May’s good as anyone her age could hope for. Her memory slips. She gets confused occasionally. Otherwise—she’s the same nosy old busybody.” She smiled. “You know she’s always had that sense that told her when visitors were on their way.”
It was true, Hattie-May had always seemed to know when someone would come bumping down the driveway, though usually only a minute or two before they showed up.
I looked toward the powder blue El Camino parked next to Ruth’s white pickup.
“Bunny lives here now?” It was about damned time.
“Naw,” Ruth said. “She stays over a bit, but we like our space. She has the club and her apartment. And I can’t leave Aunt Hattie. Besides. I have it on good authority I ain’t the easiest person to live with.”
I snorted.
“Come on,” she said. “If y’all both came home together, I suspect we have a lot to talk about. I didn’t know you and your sister were in touch.”
“We weren’t,” I said. “You remember the phone call I got? Well, let’s just say Frances’s husband is no good, and he knows more than he should about certain things.”
“Is that so?” Ruth’s words were sharp enough to flay skin.
“I’ll tell you everything. But first, Aunt Hattie-May said something about leftovers.”
I turned to walk inside, but my aunt caught my arm. “Why don’t you tell me now? At least the short and sweet of it?”