A Death On The Wolf (7 page)

I took a bite of pork chop and stared at Mary Alice. I swallowed and said, “How long have you been at the home over there in Poplarville?”

“
Since last November.”

“
What happened to your parents?”

“
They were killed in a plane crash when I was two. My grandmother up in Natchez raised me until she passed away last year.”

“
I’m sorry,” I said.

“
Your aunt reminds me of my grandmother,” Mary Alice said. “She’s been very good to me. I always look forward to her visits.”

“
I’m glad she invited you to spend the summer with us,” I said.

“
So am I. Your aunt said I would like you.”

“
She did?”

“
Yes.”

“
And do you?”

“
Yes.”

I smiled, and it pained me that Mary Alice could not see that smile. “You can’t see at all?” I asked.

“
I’m totally blind now,” she said and reached for the glass of tea again.

“
Now? You mean you used to could see?”

“
Yes, I started losing my sight when I was ten. By the time I was twelve it was totally gone. I have a genetic condition called Leber’s Optic Atrophy.”

I had never heard of that disease, but I later learned just how rare it was, especially in girls. What made Mary Alice’s case rarer still was her total loss of vision. We ate the rest of our dinner in silence, me ever mesmerized as I watched her finish the plate of food in front of her with no more trouble than I had with mine.

“
That was delicious,” Mary Alice said as she took one of Aunt Charity’s linen napkins from her lap and wiped her mouth.

“
Aunt Charity is a good cook,” I said just as the grandfather clock down the hall struck seven o’clock. “You met my sister when you got here. Have you met my dad yet?” I asked.

“
No.”

“
Would you like to come over to my house and meet him?”

“
Yes, I would.” She pushed the chair back from the table and stood. The throw fell from her shoulders, and she stooped to pick it up.

“
I’ll get it,” I said. I went over and picked up the throw and laid it across the back of the chair. “Do you want me to help you to the door?”

“
No, I need to learn this house,” she said. I watched as she touched the table with her left hand to get her bearings, then she turned to her right, almost a perfect ninety degrees. She reached over and put her right hand on my arm, I think just to see if I was still standing beside her. And then, slowly, she moved her hand up my arm. It sent chills through me. She continued until she had reached my shoulder, where she let her hand come to rest. “You’re very tall,” she said.

“
Almost six feet,” I affirmed.

Mary Alice walked forward slowly. I stayed by her side, and she kept her hand on my shoulder. I looked down at her face, and I could see the concentration there as she was calculating, remembering the distance and the steps. When we got to the doorway that led into the hall, she reached out and touched the facing. She knew right where it was supposed to be, and there it was. We stepped through and she started to turn to the right.

“
Let’s go out through the garage,” I said. “It’s the other way.”

“
I know, but I will need my walking stick.”

“
No, you won’t,” I said. “You’ve got me.”

Chapter 6

Fly Me to the Moon

On the morning of July 16, 1969, I was sitting on the floor of Aunt Charity’s den in front of her color TV. Sachet was sitting in the rocker and Mary Alice was on the couch. It was a little past seven o’clock and Walter Cronkite had just said good morning and announced that in just an hour and a half the Apollo 11 astronauts would lift off from Pad 39-A at Cape Kennedy and their next stop would be the moon. Sachet and I had come over to Aunt Charity’s to eat breakfast so we could watch the launch in color.

I was trying to work up the nerve to go sit beside Mary Alice on the couch. I don’t mean sit with Mary Alice on the couch; I mean actually sit beside her—right beside her. She had been a part of my summer for almost forty-eight hours now, and already I was dreading the end of August when she would have to return to her world. I had six weeks, and I intended to make every second count between now and then.

As it turns out, that whole episode Monday evening, with Mary Alice eating over at Aunt Charity’s alone, was cooked up by my aunt and my father. Aunt Charity had given Daddy the rundown on my reaction to the news that Mary Alice would be staying with us, as well as my seemingly miraculous turnaround when I actually met her. Apparently, Daddy and Aunt Charity thought it would be great fun to see how I would react to our summer guest being forced to eat alone, since I’d made it quite clear that morning such arrangements would no doubt be my preference for this unwelcome visitor from the Masonic Home for Children. I was still unsure just how much prep work Aunt Charity had done in furthering my attempts to win this girl’s heart, but I did learn that she had told Mary Alice that Monday evening to be expecting me to join her for dinner.

Just as Walter Cronkite was saying that Neal Armstrong would be the first human to touch the moon next Monday, take that first step, and that things would never be the same again, I got up and took my first step to initiate a relationship with Mary Alice Hadley. And somehow I knew, from then on, things for me would never be the same again.

Mary Alice was wearing pale green knee-length culottes and a white blouse. She had a pink sweater draped over her shoulders and the same sandals on her feet she was wearing the day I met her. She appeared to be listening intently to Walter Cronkite talk about the Apollo 11 mission, but I wasn’t sure just how interested she really was. I was surprised that Sachet was glued to the TV because I knew she wasn’t interested. The one time she went with Uncle Rick, Daddy, and me to a test firing down at MTF the noise scared her to death.

My moon walk had just begun and ended as I was now standing at the edge of the couch in front of Mary Alice. Rather than say anything, I just sat down. Close. Close enough that her bare leg was almost touching mine. (I was wearing shorts.)

“
Hello, Nelson,” Mary Alice said.

How the devil did she do that? I hadn’t said anything, so I knew she couldn’t say she recognized my voice. “Okay,” I said, “how’d you know it was me this time?”

She smiled and said, “Well, you’re awfully close. I recognize your smell.”

I was mortified and embarrassed. I had taken a bath the night before, and I had used my Right Guard. Without thinking, I lifted up my arm and sniffed.

Mary Alice burst out laughing. It startled Sachet over in the rocker and she turned to look at us. Mary Alice said, “I didn’t mean that kind of smell, silly.”

“
Why are you sitting so close to Mary Alice?” Sachet asked me.

“
Why don’t you go outside and play?” I said.

“
I don’t want to.”

I just rolled my eyes and pretended to be watching the TV. I was still trying to figure out what Mary Alice meant about my smell. When I was sure my sister’s attention was back on the TV, I leaned over and whispered to Mary Alice, “Do I really smell?” She didn’t say anything. She just held her hand over to me and I took it in mine. “I use deodorant,” I said.

She laughed again, this time softly—that enchanting laugh that had bewitched me at the dinner table Monday night. “Nelson, I’m not talking about body odor. Everyone has their own smell. You have yours and that’s what I meant.”

“
So I don’t stink?”

“
No, you smell nice. I like the way you smell.”

“
You do?” I said as I finally realized we were holding hands. I looked down at her small hand in mine. We sat there, me watching Walter Cronkite and various other reporters discuss the moon mission, while Mary Alice listened. I finally got tired of seeing my sister staring at us. “Let’s go sit on the front porch,” I said to Mary Alice.

“
Don’t you want to watch the launch?” she said.

“
That’s still half an hour away.”

We got up, and I held Mary Alice’s hand as we made our way to the front door of Aunt Charity’s house and onto the front porch. It was a gray day, and much cooler than it had been for the past two weeks. There was the threat of rain in the air.

“
Let’s sit on the swing,” I said, and led Mary Alice over to the big hanging bench swing. When we sat, we were still holding hands, and Mary Alice had resumed the same position she had on the couch: sitting next to me, very close.

“
You know, you’re the only person I’ve ever let lead me around like that,” Mary Alice said.

“
What do you mean?”

“
I don’t mind you doing it because you’re not doing it because you feel sorry for me.”

I thought about Mary Alice’s comment. She was right, sort of. Except for how I felt when I thought Aunt Charity had abandoned her to eat alone, I had not felt sorry for her at all. My ministrations toward her were not grounded in pity, but rather courtly affection and I think she could sense that. It goes without saying that there was no self-pity on her part. She was the most poised and self-confident person of my age group that I’d ever met.

I had just launched us into a gentle back and forth swing when Sachet opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. She was barefoot and carrying one of her dolls. “Go back inside,” I said to her sternly.

“
Why?”

“
Because I want to be alone with Mary Alice.”

“
Why?”

I started to get up, but Mary Alice squeezed my hand. “It’s all right, Nelson,” she said.

Sachet stuck her tongue out and gave me a nana-nana-boo-boo look, then went over and sat in one of the chairs on the opposite end of the porch. She was wearing a short red sundress and when she picked her feet up and drew her knees to her chin, I said “Put your legs down, Sash.”

“
Why?”

“
Because I can see your panties. You’ve got to learn to sit right when you’re wearing a dress.” I might as well have been talking to one of Aunt Charity’s azalea bushes for all the good it did. My sister just ignored me, so I decided to do the same for her, and gave another push with my foot to keep the swing moving.

“
You have a very pretty name,” Mary Alice said to Sachet. “It’s very unusual.”

Sachet knew the story behind her name, so I waited to see if she would respond. When it appeared she was more interested in staring at me holding Mary Alice’s hand, I said, “Our mother—”

“
I’ll tell it,” Sachet said, cutting me off. She finally put her legs down.

“
Well, tell it,” I said. My sister was getting on my last nerve.

“
Be nice,” Mary Alice said.

“
You don’t know what it’s like sometimes having a little sister.”

“
No, but I know what it’s like having a big brother.”

I turned to look at Mary Alice. “You have a brother?”

“
Yes; now let your sister tell me about her name.”

I got the nana-nana-boo-boo look from Sachet again and resigned myself to the fact that this morning was not going to go as I had hoped.

“
Mama used to make lavender sachets to put in Daddy’s closet with his clothes because of the creosote smell,” Sachet said.

I knew that explanation was likely to confuse Mary Alice. “She used to put them in his pants pockets, too,” I added. “Daddy works down at the creosote plant and the smell gets in his work clothes and it won’t wash out. He used to say that those little sachets were like carrying Mama around with him all the time. She died when Sash was born and Daddy named my sister Sachet because she was the last sachet that Mama left him.”

“
That is so sweet,” Mary Alice said.

“
You don’t know my sister,” I said, and stuck my tongue out at Sachet. She stuck hers out at me in return.

Mary Alice let go of my hand and gave me a little slap on the leg. “I said be nice.”

Sachet giggled and I let out an exasperated sigh.

“
What’s wrong?” Mary Alice asked.

“
Nothing,” I said, and took her hand again. “Tell me about your brother.”

“
He’s ten years older than me, just like you are to your sister.”

“
How do you know how old Sash is?”

“
Your aunt told me.”

“
Oh.”

“
My brother will graduate from law school up at Ole Miss next year.”