Another knock. And then another. He stands at the back door a full five minutes, knocking and calling out. More and more, Ryce favors his daddy, not so much the look of him but in other ways. Ryce is already taller than his daddy and is more lean than stout. He gets that from his mama. He shares something different with his daddy, something subtle and not so altogether easy to name. Certain words he strings together, a way he nods his head while at the same time puckering up his lips, the posture he takes on when standing with his feet planted a shade too wide and his arms crossed.
Folks must see the same in Annie. Those who knew Juna Crowley must see Annie growing into her mama, taking on her ways and inclinations. Annie likely stands in a particular fashion that reminds folks of Juna, probably molds her face into an expression that is so like something Juna once did, must utter some phrase Juna was prone to uttering. Or maybe all that similarity comes from living with a person, soaking up a person, for all of sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen years. Sounding just like his daddy, Ryce keeps calling out, but no one except Annie is home to hear.
Daddy left early to make a run to the lumberyard. He’s picking up wood for cheap to build a few makeshift tables. Grandma is expecting more people than ever to come on Sunday, and late last night she decided they didn’t have enough seating and couldn’t Daddy find a way to give her more. Mama, Caroline, and Grandma went into town with Miss Watson to shop for something new and something blue and to stop her from worrying that Aunt Juna is back to ruin all her plans for a happy life. Annie had told Daddy she would be going to town with Mama and Grandma, and she told Mama and Grandma she’d be going to the lumberyard with Daddy. Everyone believed her, and now she finds herself home alone.
The sheriff, Abraham Pace, and Daddy searched Miss Watson’s house. They checked every window and rattled every door to show Miss Watson her windows were shut tight and her locks were working fine. After searching for half a day, Daddy came home to say Miss Watson might have a taste for whiskey, same as Abraham, although they did find a few cigarette butts outside the house. Annie asked were they snapped almost in two. Daddy said yes.
“Jesus Christ,” Ryce shouts from the drive.
Though Annie can’t see him, she imagines he’ll have laid his head back and is shouting up at her open window.
“What the hell do I have to do, Annie?”
Annie sits under the window, her knees bent up, arms wrapped across them and her face buried there, as Ryce walks around the house, shouting out the same. Eventually, Ryce will tire of Annie. He’s a good enough boy—that’s what Daddy’s always saying as if he’s somehow, for some reason, bracing himself for a lifetime of Ryce Fulkerson at the family table—and so Ryce will do what’s polite. He’ll try to soothe Annie by pretending it never happened, or maybe come right out and say he’s already forgotten it. But Annie will never forget. It’s no longer the memory of Ryce Fulkerson seeing her everything because of a rain-soaked shirt that is causing her this pain. Now Ryce is all tangled up in the lie Annie told about seeing Jacob Riddle down in that well and the hurt Annie caused Caroline by telling it. Ryce standing outside, shouting for Annie to please come out and talk to him, is nothing but a reminder of what a hurtful, selfish thing Annie has done.
Another five minutes pass, and finally that front tire of Ryce’s starts creaking and whining and slowly fades away. Ellis Baine, however, is still leaning up against that well, waiting for Annie.
21
1936—SARAH AND JUNA
THE ROOM IS dark except for the glow of a single kerosene lantern that sits near the bed. Juna lies on her back, the round bulge in her stomach straining her skin until it’s taut like a stretched hide. She coughs—a deep cough that rattles in her chest. It’s the cold air that burns her lungs. Outside, the wind rushes down the hill and past our small house, whistling through the cracks in the walls and the ceiling and around the one small window. Every night, rushing and whistling and it never stops.
The wet cloth on Juna’s forehead has turned stiff with the cold. I douse it in water kept warm by the fire, wring it, blot it to her face. At the end of the bed, near Juna’s feet, I fuss with a wooden stool until it’s positioned just so. As I move through the lantern’s smoky light, I throw long, dark shadows. Placing one hand under Juna’s right knee, I lift it and, with the other hand, push on her shin until her leg is bent. I do the same with her other leg, help her to sit up, and show her how to hook her arms under each knee. It’s what the women told me I should do. None of them would come but instead taught me what to do and how to do it and wished me well.
“God damn this cold,” Juna says.
I press Juna’s knees up and out. Strands of her long yellow hair have pulled loose from the cotton kerchief she wears. Even in the dim light, her cheeks and forehead shine and have the same pink glow she’d have after a day walking the fields under a full sun.
“Push now. Don’t stop until I say.”