Читать книгу Down to the Potter’s House - Annette Valentine - Страница 10

“Happy Birthday, Father. What a handsome sixty-year-old you are, too.”

“And you’re looking well, Millicent,” Father said. “How’s that Jim? In good health and prosperous, I trust. Haven’t gotten into the store lately. I will. I will.”

“Busy there, as you might guess. Ownership has its demands. Long hours, you know, but Jim’s quite well. Do come in, both of you. Gracie, how radiant you look.”

Father and I shed our wraps in the parlor before moving to the kitchen and seating ourselves at the table. A tea kettle gurgled on the stove. It had been awhile since the three of us had been in a room together when Francine wasn’t close by. Even so, neither Millicent nor I would consider rehashing the past with our father.

“Sister! I have been dying to see you. Even in the short couple of weeks since I was here!” I was completely bursting at the seams. “You’ve been more than gracious. Jim too. I love being here.”

Father seemed to squirm at the mention of my landing place being at Millicent’s rather than my childhood home, but now was not the time to count the cost of treachery or calculate the price of greed.

“And where’s our little Louise?” I gave Millicent a look, hoping the scars we’d endured were soothed by the salve our bond had provided, that our being sisters had helped us make it through the tumultuous years.

“She’ll be along after church tomorrow. Gets to spend the night at her Granny Carver’s. I wanted you all to myself for once! So now, tell me what’s happened since I last saw you!”

“I’ll visit only a short spell,” our father said, perhaps sensing the urgency of our desire to catch up or, better yet, his need to attend his esteemed thoroughbreds. “Truly, I must be on my way soon. Gracie, however, does have a mysterious bar of chocolate . . . and, shall we say, ‘lifted’ horehound?”

He was amused. His inference that I had some explaining to do had Sister on alert.

Sheepishly, I admitted I’d come with horehound candy that I had not paid for and nothing for Louise. “But I do have a gift from a gentleman. May I emphasize ‘gentleman’? Simon Hagan.” I felt the color explode on my cheeks as I went to the parlor and retrieved the bar of chocolate I’d stashed in my pocket. I plopped back down at the kitchen table. “Happy to share this with anyone interested.”

I continued. “You know the Hagan family’s farm, Millicent. It’s north, Father said. Half dozen boys, couple of girls, I think. Geoffrey Hagan married Zack Peterson’s widow—”

“Yes, I know the connection. They’re in the store, of course. Jim thinks highly of them, I’m sure,” Millicent said.

“And there’s more. The elder Mr. Hagan is responsible for my teaching job. Don’t think the particulars of that ever came up for discussion. Otherwise you’d have known. He was on the school board, and I met him. Guess it’s been three years ago now . . . the summer of ’28. Mr. Hagan appreciated the fact that I was getting my degree from Athens College. Anyway, enough about me. I have him to thank for my first teaching job.”

“Millicent’s right, Gracie. Geoffrey Hagan’s a well-respected man. I was merely teasing you a mite about the chocolate, odd as it is for Simon to . . . Well, anyway, a piece of news was associated with his farm. Interestingly enough, the skeletal remains of a Shawnee Indian turned up on the property. Been ’bout two years ago.” Father relaxed with his account of the story. Smoke from his cigarette curled in the air between us. “My understanding’s that it was discovered very much intact.”

“That is fascinating! Had I been living here at the time instead of Alabama I would have been extremely interested! I’d love to hear more!”

“The find attracted a good deal of chatter through these parts, and—”

“Humph!” Millicent rolled her eyes indignantly. “Is there any possible chance of my getting in a word, edgewise or otherwise? Fine, fine on dead Indians. What about Simon Hagan?”

Apparently Father took the mention as his cue to leave certain discussions to the women. Draining his cup, he stood. “Listen, ladies, I’m gonna head on. Just making sure, now, your plan is for Jim to get you back to Russellville. Correct, Gracie?”

A fragment of his smile remained, clinging to the charisma that had him suited up for more important things than sticking around to talk with two of his daughters.

I shrugged and turned to my sister. “Will that work out for Jim?”

“Of course, and Father,” Millicent said, “please let Francine know that we couldn’t have come out last night even if she’d invited us to celebrate your sixtieth birthday with you.”

Father looked deliberately at her and crushed his cigarette in a nearby ashtray, perhaps deciding he had misinterpreted the inflection. He pushed his chair from the table and smoothed his tweed vest as he stood. “Good to have you back, Gracie.”

I kept my seat as if a weight held me there, simply stirring more cream into my coffee. After what seemed forever I raised my head to look up at him. “You’ll always be my father. Always. It’s just probably best if it don’t go back out to—”

“Yes, I know,” Father said, and his dark, lamenting eyes sought to pierce my thoughts with a constant glare. Then came his attractive smile. He bent over to kiss me on the cheek, and the few small lines in his brow eased and vanished.

I waited in the kitchen as Millicent walked Father to the door.

“Well, Gracie?” she said with him gone. “Was my sarcasm terribly unbecoming?”

There was not a reason in the world I couldn’t speak my mind to my older sister, but moments passed and I did not answer. Her self-affirming nod said she was ashamed, but a twinkle in her eye said she was justified. Thick black waves in her hair framed the youthful face that held back a grin.

“Not really, but I think he’s past our disapproval of Francine.” I sipped the last of my coffee and gently set the cup down, part of me wanting to applaud her. The other part wanted the past to just heal itself, like a crab regenerating its lost leg. “There is a very high wall between me and Father. Rightly so. Maybe.”

“How was it?” Millicent sat down across from me, her mirth diminished. “Being there again. Be honest.”

“If you want my opinion, I don’t believe Father could ever have calculated the cost. Seems to me he was blinded . . . incapable of knowing what diminishing returns lay hidden beneath the surface.” I walked to the window, wiping away tears that brimmed from my eyes.

Being honest meant looking at the past, not running, not cowering, neither letting injustices destroy the essence of my core, nor come close to ripping apart the fiber of a family in the way Francine had Moe Lee’s.

“I’m hesitant to ask again, but has anyone heard from Moe Lee?” I turned to face Millicent.

She was wagging her head. “Not a word that I’ve heard,” she said, and my heart seemed to swell beneath the flattened hand I laid over it.

“You know my direction changed the day Henry told me Moe Lee and his family were run off the farm. There, behind the great white facade we call Hillbound, upstairs in my room, I made my decision to come here in the middle of the night. Remember?”

She hadn’t forgotten. None of the Maxwells could have, and in my remembrance I still credited the episode with my calling to go to the mission field.

“It was a terrible time, Gracie. I’m so glad you came here.” Millicent reached across the table and patted my arm. “And we’ve loved every minute you’ve spent. When you went down to that potter’s house in Madison County that year—even then you could have been here with us if we’d only been aware of what was happening.”

“I don’t know what I would have done without you and Jim giving me a place to live. My having your home to come back to during those four years of college was so generous of you. And I’m sure Emma would have been glad to have me except for lack of space and the children. She’s a wonderful sister, too.”

Talking provided some relief. I smiled. “Y’all are bound to have seen it yourself, just how Francine’s influence is trickling like a slow drip over a pile of stones, etching in Henry a visible erosion. That’s just what occurs over time. Do you know what I mean, Sister?”

I gave her a little space to answer, trying to get my concern in the open before it burned a hole in my heart.

“Whew . . . I’m thankful you intended to spend only one night there,” she said. “You’re right, though, Gracie. But who knows if, given the chance, Father would roll back events and do things differently. She’s pushed everything and everybody, starting with Father, and I suspect he will never give up his—what? Obsessions? Addictions . . . if that’s what horses and betting are.”

“I think you see it on a regular basis, in bits and pieces. But for me to come back and witness firsthand Francine’s callous regard for our brother is almost obscene. The rest of it? Yes, most anything can become an obsession.” I had to breathe deeply. “On that note, I do have to say things work out. Interesting, isn’t it? Because it was that very trip to Madison County that gave me a new beginning. Actually, it instilled in me a confidence in God’s grace and a way to climb to new heights.”

“But who doesn’t have the family celebrate a sixtieth birthday?” Millicent gave me a sly look that said we’d covered the rough spots on the subject of our stepmother. “Maybe she’s just a teensy bit too young yet. You’d think she would enjoy having some folks around the place, and close to her age—like us!”

We both burst into laughter. I had to cover my mouth. Millicent wiped tears. A good laugh helped everything.

“We do have a lot of wonderful memories, Gracie, and a lot of goodness to carry us on,” she said. “Things never stay the same, do they? Enough! Tell what you think about Mr. Hagan. Simon Hagan. Might he be a very interesting topic?”

“Get in this house, James Carver! Gracie and I have bones to pick with you. Come sit at the table and start talking. We want details. Simon Hagan. Start at the beginning.”

“Sister, please. You’re embarrassing me.” I couldn’t fool myself. I definitely wanted to know what my brother-in-law had to say. “And I do need to apologize, Jim. I rushed out today without speaking . . . and I owe you some money, too.”

“Ah, no worries. Millicent may put you to work washing dishes to cover for yourself.” Jim laughed and gave me hug, then peeled off his jacket and hung it on the hall tree. “Would seem,” he said, taking plenty of time to position his hat on the hook above the row of coats, “I’m getting caught right in the middle, aren’t I?”

“Indeed! Spill the beans! Gracie told me she left him talking to you. Or starting to, anyway,” Millicent said, dragging him by the arm into the kitchen. “Fess up.”

I caught the wink he sent in Millicent’s direction. “Stop it, Sister. There’s probably nothing to tell. Is there?”

“So happens, young Mr. Hagan’s gonna be working for me. I offered to let him take my old truck. Don’t know how he was gonna get out to his homeplace without it, but he took it and headed out there.” He took a seat, put his elbows on the kitchen table, and laced his fingers together. Millicent and I stood over him, waiting. “Come Monday morning he’ll be back in for work. Been away from these parts for quite a while—ten years, I believe he said. Frankly, I didn’t recognize him. Geoffrey’s got six boys and a couple o’ girls. Simon’s the oldest of all of ’em.” He laughed and started to fiddle with the corner of the stack of napkins in the center of the table. “Gonna give his folks quite a surprise, from what I understand. This is his first day back in Todd County. They don’t know he’s arrived. Other than that, I’m afraid I don’t know much. Oh! Well, now, I guess I did forget this one thing, Gracie. As I mentioned, I don’t know anything about Simon Hagan past the time when he used to come into the store for supplies . . . eighteen years old, probably. But—” He paused, long enough for me to squirm.

“Heaven’s sake, honey. What?” Millicent yanked apron strings around her waist. “What?”

“Simon did ask if I thought it would be alright if he called on you . . . here at the house.” Jim said. “He is most interested in meeting you. Again.”

Millicent squealed.

“You told him I would be staying here?”

“I did. That’s all I’m saying.”

Millicent and I talked into the night before we finally pried ourselves apart. “Get a good night’s rest,” she said, following me to the small room, an enclosed porch that had become mine whenever I had a break from school.

“I hope I’m not wearing out my welcome. It is so exciting to think where I’ll be this time next year. Well, really in seven months. Then you’ll be rid of me.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re always welcome here, and you know it. Now go. Sleep tight.” Millicent closed the door. “A lot can change in seven months,” she said from the other side.

I was too keyed up to sleep, so I sat instead by the lamp and scrawled some thoughts in my journal:

October 18, 1930

This is where I belong, back in Todd County, teaching the children until May when my world will broaden into a purposeful mission to places unknown. Every day that goes by, my commitment is confirmed, but I’m here at Sister’s for a time—the closest thing I have to home. And with God’s help I will overcome the loss of all I’ve held dear.

I will rise, forgetting those things which are past and reaching forward to what lies ahead, the upward call.

The hardest burden to bear is knowing Henry has been crippled, with no strength for living. Praying the viciousness that Father has directed toward Henry will stop—and that Henry will be embedded with hope.

Simon Hagan is the man I met today at Jim’s. Nice gentleman. His wanting to call on me is a lovely thought. Very lovely.

It must have been sometime after midnight before I dropped off to sleep, having kept myself awake with vivid images of my previous day at the farm. And meeting Simon Hagan. Even as I buried my head in my pillow and lay in darkness in the room Sister had prepared, I could see the dreadful events that had altered the course of our family.

I could see, too, the tall figure of Simon Hagan.

With morning only hours away and a big day ahead, beginning with church, I rolled over and tried to get some sleep.