A Parchment of Leaves (25 page)

“And he did, cause he put his arm right down. I just walked on up the house with the baby. Saul was still in the bed, asleep, him not big as nothing. I laid the baby in the bed with him and changed its rag. Its little tail was blistered with the rash. I balmed him good and wrapped him back up; then I set down on the porch and sung to him. That night I cracked the Bible and seen the name Aaron. And I took him as my own.”

“Why?” I said.

“You don't think about helping a child,” Esme said. She jerked around in her seat real fast and fretted her eyebrows together. “You just do it. Later, I wondered if I was a fool, to raise another woman's baby. A woman that had laid down with my man. But there wasn't nothing else I could do. And by the time it really hit me, I already loved him. And a funny thing: what I done killed Willem's soul more than anything else I could have done. That galled him, seeing how calm I was about all of it. But I never laid with him again, and a good thing that was. I reckon she drowned herself in the river not long after, on account of having a bad disease. I don't know what happened to the rest of her younguns.

“Aaron's mine as much as if I did have him,” she said. “I've loved him his whole life. He don't know no difference. Hain't no use in telling him or Saul. But I had to tell somebody. I've carried that many a day. I guess some people knowed—they had to. But they're all dead and gone now.

“I'll tell you what, now. I grieve over Aaron ever day of my life. Just like when he run off, when he found Aidia. I cried myself to sleep ever night, and now I don't more know than a goose where he's at. Good as I was to him.”

I just looked at Esme. I felt as if I couldn't look away.

“I always knowed they was something wrong, though. They was a look that could come into Aaron's eyes. I never was scared of no man, but I was of Aaron. And it was his daddy in him, or that woman. I don't know which. But that made me love him that much more, Vine.”

There was so much hurt in Esme's voice. I got up and wrapped my arms around Esme, but she set there without moving. She didn't bring her arms up to put around me. She felt so little in my arms, little enough to break if I held her too tight. She smelled of talcum and earth. I had never loved her more, had never loved another woman as much, besides my own mother.

For the first time since Aaron had died in my own house, I cried. I tried to contain myself, but still the tears come. I would have liked to have crawled up onto Esme's lap and sat there like that for a while, but Esme could not have stood the weight.

Esme remained quiet. She let me cry but did not weep herself. When finally I pulled away and turned to look out onto the morning, Esme said in a whisper, “I know you'll not tell it. This is our secret between us.”

I nodded.

After a minute, Esme stood and picked up the long basket for our Christmas greenery. She hung her hatchet in the drawstring of her apron and placed the two big knives in the basket. She got the shotgun that was leaned up against the house and handed it to me. We would use that to shoot mistletoe out of the trees. We walked up into the mountain without a word, scanning the treetops for mistletoe, searching the woods for big-leafed holly and mountain laurel. When
Esme found a holly bush that was full and dotted with red berries, she had to get down on her knees to chop it down, as the branches growed low to the ground. I squatted beside her. I put my hands through the thicket of sharp leaves so I could hold the middle of the bush. When she swung the hatchet through the air, I held the limb tight, watching the concentration in Esme's kind eyes.

Dream of deep woods,
High purple hills, a small cool sky.

—Jane Hicks, “Gershoem”

W
hen I heard Saul's truck coming up the holler, I started crying and couldn't stop. I felt like throwing my apron over my face and running off. Up until then, grief had been swelling in my chest like a plume of smoke looking for air to push out on. I heaved so much that my stomach ached from crying.

Aidia had invited everybody up there to wait on him, and even though I hadn't wanted them there at first, I hadn't told her as much. I thought it might help me to face him. As soon as they heard him pull up, they all run outside—everybody except Serena, who stood over me for a good long minute until she grabbed me by the arm.

“Straighten up, now,” she said. “Get hold of yeself.”

I ran to the dishpan and splashed cold water on my face. I could hear them out there, talking loud and laughing and going on. His friends had come up to play music and they was guffawing and slapping him on the back. I raised my head up and there was the mirror, right on the washstand. I couldn't look at myself for fear of seeing the guilt burning in my eyes.

He come in, and Serena slipped out the door—to make sure nobody else come in, I guess. He strolled in, big as you please. He had Birdie on his hip and they was both looking at me like I was a lunatic. I was still bent at the washstand and I stood there looking at him in the mirror. I couldn't make my expression change.

“Hain't you even going to say hello?” he said, smiling.

The words bubbled up in the back of my throat. I had to tell him what I had done. But all I could get out was, “Saul.”

He come to me and wrapped one arm around me while he held Birdie with the other. I put my face into his neck and there was his same good smell. He smelled of lumber, clean and smooth. Birdie put her little hand on the back of my head and he leaned his face down and kissed me on the forehead.

“I never thought I could miss nobody so bad as I've missed my two girls,” he said. He stepped back and held my chin with his hand, then laughed at me a little. “I'm home,” he said. His voice boomed, louder than I had ever heard him speak before.

Outside, somebody run a bow down a fiddle. It would be like old times tonight. Since it was so cold out, they were all heading up to Esme's house. They'd push the front room's furniture into the back to clear a space for the party. Serena and Aidia had been working up there all day to get everything ready. They had built a big fire from hickory that would crack and pop throughout the night. Later we would eat the ashcakes and potatoes that we'd bake in the red coals. We would dance in Esme's house, and Serena would step out into the circle to sing.

I kissed him on the mouth until Birdie put her hand between our faces. She never could stand for us to make over each other. She didn't know who to be more jealous of. Saul laughed at her and rubbed his nose against hers. “You old polecat,” he said to her, and she put her palms flat on either side of his face. He pecked kisses across her forehead.

Looking at them, I felt certain that I never would be able to tell
him. There was too much at stake. This is what I had wished for on my wedding day: my own family. A man who would love me, and a baby who called out for me when she needed something. That is all I had ever wanted, to have people love me and need me. I felt so full that I thought I might bust. This was too much to lose. I would carry my guilt like a ghost.

I saw that night that Saul was a different man. I sat and watched him as he ate. The language of his long limbs, the way he leaned into the food on his plate. “There is nothing in this world good as a baked potato,” he said. “It tastes like the earth.”

I could not say exactly how he was changed, but he was. There was an ease about him that I hadn't seen before. He had realized some things while he was gone. I guess he had seen how much he loved his life on God's Creek, how much he loved me and Birdie.

I knowed for sure that he was different when he asked me to dance. The caller from the war celebration had come up to call our dancing. He patted one leg to the music and picked his guitar, leaning back to call out, “Swing to your left!” or “Bow to ye partner!” Esme's big front room was full of people dancing. They made a living circle that moved in and out, changing hands, twirling about one another.

Aidia had lined up a couple beds in the room, and me and Saul were laid back on our elbows on one of them. He jumped up fast and offered his hand. “Come dance with me,” he said.

“I didn't think you danced,” I said, not giving him my hand.

“I do now,” he said. “Come on.”

We joined the circle, the music getting faster and faster, the people swirling around, hands going in every direction. There was a big-enough crowd to fill the room, and every once in a while couples would crash into one another, but they would just laugh and take right back off to dance. The house fairly shook with stomping feet. Men grabbed hold of me and pulled me through the tunnels of bodies until I met up with Saul again. He danced like he had been
doing so his whole life. I caught sight of Aidia, whose curls bobbed all about her head. I could hear her laughter even over the music. She laughed as if she couldn't stop, her head thrown back, her hands reaching out for the next partner. I watched her as Saul took her hand. She looked up at him and her chin pointed skyward. I scanned the crowd standing around us. They were all watching her, too. But I was happy for her now. I didn't care what they thought of any one of us. When the music slowed, she was slung into the arms of Dalton. He held her tightly as they box-stepped, and she did not try to pull away, but this time I noticed her glancing about. She knew better than to be too wild in Esme's own house.

When the circle had been completed and I was back in Saul's arms, he pressed his chest against mine, breathing into my ear. I felt dizzy with grief and joy and could not pick which was the most overpowering. “A man never was so glad to be home,” he said.

Esme made her way out into the middle of the circle. “I ain't got much a voice,” she announced to the room, “but I feel the need to sing.”

I had never heard her sing before except when she hummed around the house. She looked broken and pale. I had been noticing this awhile now, but tonight it was more evident than ever. She had gone downhill fast. Some of her fire had been took; life was seeping out of the tips of her fingers. But then she opened her mouth, and she sounded so alive. She sounded so free and young, so light that she might float right off the floor.

I've been a foreign lander

For seven long years and more.

Among the brave commanders

Where the wild beasts howl and roar.

I've conquered all my enemies,

Both on the land and sea.

But you my dearest jewel,

Your beauty has conquered me.

The fiddler walked slowly across the floor and stood close behind her, so that there was nothing but the sawing on his strings and her voice. She closed her eyes and made her hands into fists at her side. The song came from deep within her, like it was something she had been dying to say.

I can't build a ship, my love,

Without the wood of tree.

The ship would burst asunder

If I prove false to thee.

If ever I prove false, love,

The elements will turn.

The fire will turn to ice, my love,

The sea will rage and burn.

She opened her eyes and looked around, smiling. “Well, I've hurt your ears enough. I'm laying down.” There was a scattering of good-natured laughter. “You all have a big time, now, and don't worry about keeping me up. This old house goes off in so many directions I probably won't even hear you.”

Esme come and got Birdie by the hand. “Go lay down with Mamaw,” she said.

“I'll help you get her situated,” I said, starting to get up.

“Naw, Aidia can. She has to bring Matracia in there to me.” I wondered if this was her way of getting Aidia away from Dalton. She waved good night to everybody and led Birdie through the house.

The fiddler started right in on a fast tune, so that people jumped up to dance again. But I had to get away from the crowd for a little while. I wanted to breathe the night air and collect myself.

I let my fingers trail out of Saul's hand. “I'll be back in a minute,” I said.

I went out the back door, looking behind me every now and then as if I was doing something I shouldn't. I could hear the hens clucking and
stirring about inside their house in the corner of the yard. I walked away until the music was just a thudding sound far behind me.

A group of men stood in the front yard as I come around the side. They were out there drinking, as they knowed Esme wouldn't allow anything in her house. There was a woman out there with them, too, her laughter loud and high on the winter night. I eased by them in the darkness. One of the men said something in a snickering voice, and the woman slapped her thigh when she laughed.

I went down the road past my own house and into the backyard. I stood for a moment in the garden. The swelling moon lit the ground in silver and shadows. There was nothing here but fodder shocks and some turnips that had gone to rot. Come spring, this patch of earth would be bushy and tall and I would be able to lie in my bed and hear the plants rubbing against one another in a midnight breeze. The scent of the soil was fragrant on the cold air. I hoped that by the time spring came, I would be able to keep my marriage, too. That I would be able to give it the same nurturing that I found easy to give to the corn and the tomatoes. Raising a garden and keeping a marriage in shape are not that different, I realized.

I walked on to the mountainside and up onto the path. I was dying for spring to come and put these hills back to their right shape. I could see the outlines of the mountains, blacker than the black sky. They seemed small and squat without leaves. Come April, these trees would be full of bud, fat with life. But for now there were only bare branches, as thin and knotty as finger bones. I breathed in winter air and imagined it was spring. I conjured up the smell of dogwoods and redbuds, the warmth of an April rain upon my face. It had been so long since I had felt the sun on the back of my neck, but I nearly wished it into being. I felt that once spring came, I might be saved. All my grief and guilt would be taken from me and soaked up by the leaves.