Strange to think of that. The song of an ordinary life. Mine would be in these letters to you.
A rain song, these months since the storm. A song of placing buckets and emptying buckets, and placing-emptying-placing-emptying-placing-emptying. A melody of drip-drop-drip-drop-drip-drop. I suppose I should try again to have a carpenter come to fix the roof, but it seems too large a task. If they see the shape of things, I’ll find myself in the county home, and then who will empty the buckets?
But still, it is a wearisome task. You have left this big house in my charge for so long. I wonder if there may have been another way.
I took time with the newspaper today, other than just to sop water with it. There was a boy on the front page in a photo. I knew him. He brings the groceries every week in the rusty blue truck that sounds like an ailing farm tractor coming up the drive.
I write to you because of this boy. The newspaper told of families on Hatteras struggling in the aftermath of the storm. The boy’s father lost his employment when the bridge was out and no commerce could come to the island. The father left to find work and never returned. Now there is only the boy, a mother, a little sister, a brother, and a grandfather. The boy’s name is Jeremy. Sad to say that I have exchanged the payment for my grocery bill with him each week for six months now since the storm and never asked. He colors his hair an unnatural black and wears rings in both ears and one pinched in his nose, like the warriors in a photo from National Geographic. I suppose this is my reason for never having inquired.
I’ve tucked fifty dollars into an envelope and left it on the kitchen counter to remind myself. Before he comes next, I will write his name on it and set it out with the bill. But I wonder if you might do something for him as well? My ways of helping are small, but your resources are boundless.
I am left to ponder what else I could have done, had I looked sooner, had I opened my door and seen not a boy, but a warrior with his fearsome hair and his rings of gold. I, more than most, should know that the most difficult battles are not the ones fought outside the armor, but the ones within it.
Those like Jeremy will breathe life into these scraps of land cast among sea. Theirs will be the task of repairing the damage wrought by the storm, rebuilding what lies in tatters. My time for fighting is running dry. I feel it.
I pray that this boy might have strength for his battle. A warrior’s strength. I pray also for the Mulberry Girl.
We are all warriors in our own time.
Your loving daughter,
Iola Anne
CHAPTER 5
BINK’S VILLAGE MARKET was quieter than usual. The midday air was warm and pleasant, the fishing boats still out. Old man Bink looked up from the counter and squinted, trying to place me as I came in the door.
Usually, if I had to go into Bink’s, I tried to slip in when the place was busy so I wouldn’t be noticed, but after a day and a half of scrubbing dirt and piling up trash at Iola’s house, I needed more supplies, and I couldn’t go over to Buxton to get them. I’d burned up a quarter tank of gas last night, driving around to see if I could track down Ross, so using more fuel for a shopping trip was out of the question. I hadn’t even thought of picking up cleaning supplies while I was out, because my mind was on Ross. At this point, I was seriously nervous about the fact that he hadn’t called back since he’d hung up on me and headed for Captain Jack’s. If I hadn’t been busy with Iola’s house, I would’ve been in a complete panic by now.
“Afternoon.” Bink rested his elbows on a counter covered with taped-on yard sale flyers, along with advertisements for lost dogs, live music, and free kittens.
“Hi.” I hurried to the half-dozen aisles of groceries near the meat counter. The few times I’d stopped in before, the store smelled like fish and salt water, but today the air was a rich mix of spices, peanuts boiling in a Crock-Pot of brine, and food frying on a griddle behind the meat counter. The scents reminded me of something, but I couldn’t quite place it. The feeling was warm, though. Soothing, like knowing that your favorite comfort food is cooking on the stove.
Behind the counter, Bink’s wife, Geneva, was tending the griddle.
As I passed by, she waggled a gloved finger, sloppy with what looked like raw meat. “Try that sausage.”
I glanced over my shoulder, but there was no one else around.
“See if it’s good,” she added, again without looking at me. “It’s always a guessing game, getting the mix right. If I ask Bink, he’ll have it so hot it’ll fry your noggin.”
I knew now why the aroma in Bink’s was familiar today. It reminded me of Pap-pap and Meemaw’s house.
I tasted one of Geneva Bink’s sausage patties, and it was as good as it smelled. “It’s wonderful,” I told her. “Really good.”
“Super. Go ahead and eat up the rest of it. Lord knows, my rear end doesn’t need it.” She gave the plate of sausage a backhanded wave. When I reached for another piece, she was watching me, though. “You’re little J.T.’s mama, aren’t you?” The meat-covered finger wiggled again, and behind her glasses, hazel eyes lit with a look of interest that struck off a warning in my head.
Apparently J.T. had been hanging around town even more than I thought. He and Geneva Bink were well acquainted.
“Tandi,” I said, by way of not confirming or denying anything.
Geneva seemed to like the sound of me. “That boy of yours is somethin’ else. What a sweetheart. Stronger than he looks, too. He’s been hauling my trash for me after he gets off the school bus every day. I imagine he told you that.”
“Oh . . . sure.” I tried not to seem completely dumb to the fact. Our first couple weeks in Iola’s cottage, I’d been too sick to know what the kids were doing. Getting off painkillers isn’t a smooth process. Since I’d met Ross, I’d been with him or out looking for a job so many afternoons that I wasn’t sure what time J.T. was actually supposed to get home from the bus.
“He can clean out a doughnut case too, I’ll tell you!” Geneva laughed, her cheeks rounding into two plump red globes that pressed against her eyeglasses. “I’m amazed what he can eat. But that’s kids. They’re starving after school.”
The sausage coagulated in the back of my mouth, and my throat went dry. I tried to swallow, but I couldn’t. Now I knew why J.T. never complained about the lack of food in the cottage anymore.
“But it works out, because by that time of day, I’ve got a lotta trash built up, and whatever’s left in that doughnut case is history, anyhow. Pretty fair trade —trash hauling for leftover doughnuts.” She turned away long enough to flip several sausage patties on the electric griddle but kept right on talking. “Bet by now, y’all are tired of all those doughnuts coming home, though. I asked him about that, and he said you didn’t mind him having them.”
I could feel blood creeping up my neck and washing into my cheeks. I forced the sausage down in one big gulp.
Bink joined in the conversation from across the room. “He’s been helping some of the guys wash decks and cull out junk fish on the dock too. I think you’ve got a natural-born fisherman there. That boy’s got a love of the water. Hung around here half the day, couple weeks ago Satur-dey, just workin’ on the boats. Got himself a free lunch for it.”
“Oh . . .” A couple weeks ago Saturday, I’d been in Raleigh with Ross. We ate at a steak house and went dancing at a place he liked. J.T. was with Zoey. I’d thought. Did she tell him he could come down here?
“I’m glad he hasn’t . . . been any trouble,” I choked out.
“Oh no, ma’am,” Geneva assured me. “He’s a cute little rascal.”
Bink nodded in agreement.
I thought about leaving without even buying cleaning supplies for Iola’s house. I just wanted to get out of here.
“So you’re in the rental at Iola Anne Poole’s place.” This time, Geneva gave me more than a shootin’-the-breeze look. “So sad that she passed away alone like she did. She’s been a good customer a long time.”
Bink made a disgruntled noise under his breath and pushed off the counter, watching as a skiff motored to the dock out back.
“I heard you found her,” Geneva pressed. “Poor old thing.”
Bink spit air through his teeth and crossed his arms over his belly.
“For heaven’s sake, Bink. The woman laid there in the bed for who knows how long and passed away all alone.”
Bink adjusted his cap lower and slouched over his belly bulge, turning his face away.