Annie steps into the room and pulls back the blue-and-yellow patchwork quilt. From Mama’s bedside table, Annie pulls out the witch-hazel-and-lavender spray Grandma makes certain is kept at everyone’s bedside and gives three squirts to each of Mama’s two pillows. Not believing in the know-how or the goodness of the lavender or the sweet dreams it’ll surely deliver, Mama shakes her head as Annie pumps the small bottle, but smiles all the while. Then Mama slides between the sheets, lays her head back, and rolls on her side.
Taking Mama’s seat on the edge of the mattress, Annie looks out the window where Mama had been looking. Daddy and the sheriff are out there again. They’ve reached the top of the hill and are walking along the rock fence that separates the Baines from the Hollerans. They’ll be talking about the cigarettes they don’t believe Annie ever saw and the odd coincidence that Mrs. Baine would die on Annie’s day and isn’t it strange that a girl so fair as Annie would have those black eyes.
After a few minutes, Mama’s breathing turns heavy and slow. Leaning toward Mama’s nightstand but not lifting her weight from the mattress so as to not disturb Mama, Annie pulls open the small drawer. Inside is Mama’s copy of the Bible, its binding split, an embroidered kerchief Mama’s mama made, and a stack of envelopes tied off with a piece of white string.
When Annie was in third grade, her teacher visited the house on a Tuesday afternoon, and that’s when Mama and Daddy told Annie about Aunt Juna. The teacher, Mrs. Johansson, visited because Annie had been skipping rope and singing about Juna Crowley with eyes black as coal and counting how many Baines would die this day. Annie hadn’t known Juna Crowley was her Aunt Juna. Caroline was too young yet to hear these things, but Annie had to know. Their own Aunt Juna was the one with evil living in her eyes, the one who turned fields to dust. She was the one all the folks of Hayden County feared. But Aunt Juna loved her family all those years ago, Mama had said. She didn’t want to leave, but she did, packed up her bags and left so peace could be made. It wasn’t like people say. She was peculiar, is all. She was good, and she is your aunt, and one day she’ll come back because she loves us all.
After that day, the girls kept on singing about Juna Crowley and twirling their ropes and telling their tales, but Annie never again joined in. The other girls learned too. They learned Juna was Annie’s aunt, and when they grew older, they learned Juna was Annie’s mama and that Annie had her black eyes and evil ways. Lastly they learned Joseph Carl Baine, the man who lies at the crossroad into town, was her daddy. Annie listened with a different ear after that Tuesday afternoon, and every story she heard, every tale she was told, made her worry more about the last thing Mama said the day Mrs. Johansson visited: Aunt Juna loves you, and one day she’ll come home.
Annie slides a finger under the twine tied loosely around the envelopes, looks down at Mama to see that she’s still sleeping, lifts the stack of envelopes, pushes the drawer closed, and walks from the room.
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DOWN IN THE kitchen, the watermelon has been cleaned out and the smell of cloves and cinnamon has faded, though Annie’s cake still sits in the middle of the table. Or, more likely, the spicy smell has been crowded out by the lavender that always swells when the clouds burn off. Now that the sun has returned, the day will be particularly unpleasant. The air will be thicker, enough to catch in a person’s throat. Grandma will walk around the rest of the afternoon, patting at her chest with a kerchief; Daddy will strip down to his undershirt; and Mama will pin up her hair and fan the back of her neck with last week’s church bulletin.
“What are you thinking, child?” Grandma says when Annie walks into the kitchen.
Using a dish towel instead of her kerchief, Grandma blots the crease where the two sides of her large chest press up against each other.
“Ma’am?” Annie says, slipping into a chair at the kitchen table, her arms still crossed tight over her chest. For the third, maybe fourth time today, her face turns hot and surely red too. Grandma has a way of knowing things, and her asking Annie such a question means Grandma knows Annie stole those letters.
From out on the porch comes a laugh, a giggle really. It’s Caroline, and from the sounds of the other voice, she is out there with Jacob Riddle. Annie stretches to the right until she can see them through the back door. They’re sipping tea, Grandma’s sweet lavender tea. Caroline is sitting on the bench swing, while Jacob Riddle is leaned up against the railing, one leg draped over the other. He’s looking at Caroline like most fellows look at Caroline, like he can’t quite believe she’s sitting right there in front of him, close enough he could reach out and touch her. Annie grabs the bottom of her chair with both hands and scoots back to the table, where she won’t have to see that look on Jacob Riddle’s face.
“What are you thinking wearing that heavy sweater on this Godforsaken muggy day?”