I drape the rag over the back of my chair. “Did you find cards on Dale?”
John is standing at the end of Dale’s bed, looking down on him. “What do you mean?” he asks.
“The cards Joseph Carl says he gave Dale. I didn’t see them, didn’t find them in his pockets.”
John stretches his head from side to side as if loosening a tired neck. “Probably just washed away. No telling.” Then he presses a hand to my shoulder and turns me toward the door. “Go,” he says. “We need to get on with it.”
From out in the kitchen and through the closed door, I hear them. Hold him here. Brace your feet. Use the wall to steady yourself. Don’t stop. Not even if he wakes. Not even if he cries out. Keep on until it settles in. Juna sits at the table, Daddy stands out on the porch, where he smokes a cigar, and Abraham and Abigail huddle together in the farthest corner, Abigail still hanging on to Abraham’s jacket. And the doctor counts off . . . one, two, three.
By the time John opens the door, the kitchen is as light as it’ll get. The sun has risen full in the sky, but already, we lie in the shadows. The smell of damp wool follows him from the room.
“It’s done,” he says, running a hand through his hair and causing it to bunch up on him.
I cut John’s hair for him once. His mama and daddy had gone to Owensboro, so he came to the house on a Sunday afternoon and asked would I cut it for him. I told him he should wait for his mama, but he said he had no patience for hair that needed cutting and his mama didn’t do such a good job anyway. So I sent him to have a seat out on the porch and rummaged in the kitchen drawer until I found the scissors.
First, I drew my fingers through John’s hair to get the lay of it. I stood close and leaned into him because I knew he was feeling the way Abraham felt to have Juna arch her back and press all of herself against him. As I worked, moving from side to side and front to back, I let the silky part of my arm brush against his rough cheek, let my breasts nudge the back of his head. I stood near enough that my shoulder or hip might brush up against him and so he could smell the gardenia-scented face powder he bought for Juna and me this past Christmas. And all the while, I watched the rise and fall of his chest. It moved faster and faster and never, not once, did he open his eyes.
John is a man built for the country. He is tall, thick-chested, and has sound footing. For the past almost two years, he’s done most of what needs doing around the house. He brings sugar for our coffee when no one, but no one, has sugar. He’ll answer yes ma’am or no sir when asked a question and say just enough to get by when he plays poker with Daddy and the others. He never has stories to tell. Always so quiet. Always so polite.
“It’s straight again,” John says.
Unsure of what he means, Juna and I look at him and then at each other. Daddy is still on the porch with his whiskey and cigar. His chair creaks, and his boots hit the floorboards. He pushes the door open but doesn’t step inside.
“The leg,” John says. “It’s straight again.”
I stand from my seat. John has a kind enough face, pleasant enough to look at. More pleasant as the years have gone by. He’s grown into himself, broadened the way men eventually do. His hair is the oddest thing about him. It’s too thick. On a wet morning like this, it swells up on him, makes me see what a son of his would look like, just stumbling out of bed, eyes swollen with sleep, hair mussed from a restless night. John’s eyes are brown, ordinary brown, and he does too much staring with them, but he’s a good man and I should want him. I brush that brown hair from his brow and lay a hand on his chest.
“You’re a good man, John Holleran,” I say, and there, in front of Daddy and Juna, Abraham Pace and Abigail, and the few other men who have lingered, I touch John’s chin with two fingers, lift onto my toes, and kiss him.
His lips are stiff in the beginning, and when he shifts, ever so slightly as if to pull away, with only the tips of my fingers, I hold him to me. I hold him until his lips soften and one hand slips around my waist, cinching me in. Behind us, one fellow slaps another on the back. John’s tongue presses into my mouth as he rolls his head from one side to the other. Someone says it’s a damn good day. First the boy is found, is going to be fine, and now this. John’s other hand presses into the spot between my shoulder blades. Daddy’s rocker creaks as he settles in again. Abraham Pace and Abigail follow Daddy out the door, and then a truck engine starts up and tires roll across the gravel. Juna watches them through the front window.
My first kiss is with John Holleran.
14
1952—ANNIE