“Whatever Juna tells him,” I say into the door, both hands and my cheek pressed flat against it, “he’ll believe her. You have to let me in.”
The door opens. For all the years I’ve ached for Ellis Baine, I’ve never passed over this threshold. I see him in town, at church some Sundays, walking a field, driving past me in his truck, and still it’s enough to root him in my thoughts every day. In one of his three letters to me, Joseph Carl said my wanting Ellis wasn’t at all about Ellis. He said I was wanting something that would take me away from the life I was living and Ellis was the least common thing among so much commonness. Ellis shaved himself while most others didn’t. His hair was more black than brown, and brown hair was most ordinary. Ellis was tall and so were others, but his back was still straight. You like that he knows a thing for certain, Joseph Carl had written. You want someone who knows things, doesn’t hope for things, because hoping is common. Hoping is easy.
After opening the door to me, Mrs. Baine slips back to her stove, where she pokes at the fire going inside. It doesn’t draw quite right, or something is stuffing up her pipe, and smoke hangs off the ceiling. Joseph Carl sits at a small stool pulled up to the kitchen table. He wears a blue plaid shirt that’s too big through the shoulders and its sleeves have been rolled up. He starts to stand, but because he presses his hands to the table and rocks forward, I see it’ll be an effort, a painful effort, so I wave at him to stay put.
“It’s good to see you, Joseph Carl,” I say.
The small house isn’t so different from ours. It’s tidy enough, what I can see of it, and keeping it such with all those boys living here is why Mrs. Baine always has a worn-out look about her. Her cast iron hangs from nails driven into the wall, and a set of three square tins, one larger than the next, sits on a small wooden shelf near her stove. They’re the palest of green and rusted at their seams. She must think they’re pretty, maybe they’re her only pretty thing, and she keeps them there so they’ll be handy when she’s cooking, though they’re likely empty. A pot sits on her stove. She’s brewing goldenrod and wintergreen, the smell seeping into the air as steam begins to rise.
“Afraid it ain’t so good to see you.” Joseph Carl smiles and begins patting two flat hands against the tabletop.
Just as Juna said it would be, Joseph Carl’s nose is bent off to the side. It wasn’t that way before he left home, so it must have happened while he was living out west. It won’t be a good story, so I won’t ask.
“Didn’t do nothing to your brother.”
“Did you see him? The two of them together?” I ask, staring at his hands. He stops patting the table, looks toward his mama.
“Sure, I seen them. Seen the both of them. Forgot about the little one. Not much more than a baby when I left.”
“She says you took Dale.”
“Give the boy my cards,” Joseph Carl says. “He was there with her. They was picking worms in your daddy’s field. Give him my only deck. Had it for years. Had it since I was a kid, but was almost home. Figured Mama’d have new cards. Didn’t need no deck of my own. Give them to the boy. I was happy to be home. Real happy. Give that boy the only gift I had. Then went on my way.”
“Did you take that shirt, Joseph Carl?”
“Borrowed it,” he says. “Borrowed it, is all. Thought to wear it a few days. Then return it.”
“Where are your brothers?”
“Looking for your boy, I suppose. Some of them, anyway.”
“Don’t tell no one about the shirt,” I say to both of them. “Not even that you borrowed it.”
“I told her I was a Baine,” Joseph Carl says. “She remembered. Joseph Carl, she said, and I told her yes. She knew me. She’s just confused, is all. Won’t tell no one I took that boy.”
“She already did,” I say.
We don’t hear the trucks until they’ve turned off the road and have started up the drive. It’s the hickories and elms that have muffled the sound. There are two trucks, at least, maybe three. Mrs. Baine leans to look out the window, and two headlights fan across her, lighting up her face for a moment. The window goes dark again. I slide onto one of the stools at the table.
“Not a word about that shirt,” I say again.