Whatever they were saying to her, Dawn didn’t hear. She ran limping outside to discover that her angry brother wasn’t waiting for her—he’d started the car engine and was driving out of the parking lot as she pursued him crying—“Wait! Luke! God damn you—wait . . .”
It was two miles back to the house on Depot Street.
By this time she’d begun to cry but her tears were tears of anger and not sorrow or despair and long before she reached her aunt’s house her eyes would be tearless and her face dry.
SOON AFTER, news came that their father’s execution had been rescheduled for August 9, 2003—eight months away.
UNCLEAN
The first fly, so small it appeared to be a mere speck of dirt, appeared on the refrigerator door as Edna Mae was about to leave the kitchen. With a rolled-up newspaper she managed to kill it but then she noticed a second, very small fly on a windowpane above the sink, and then a third, also very small fly buzzing on the windowsill . . . Clumsily Edna Mae flailed with the rolled-up newspaper and managed to kill both flies though with some difficulty for (it seemed) her hand-eye coordination had deteriorated in recent months, or years; and there was something wrong with her vision, that flooded with moisture when she stared intently at something that was crucial to see.
Edna Mae was about to throw away the befouled and torn Mad River Junction Weekly when she saw, as in a bad dream, yet another fly on the ceiling above the stove—too high for her to reach unless she stood on a chair.
Was it a fly? Or a speck of dirt? As she stared her eyes filled with tears so that her vision was occluded.
In fact, there were two flies buzzing against the ceiling—no, three. Unmistakably flies and not specks of dirt.
“Dawn! Where are you! Come help . . .”
Dawn was uttered in a thin impatient whine. Rare for Edna Mae to utter the name of her older daughter in a voice that wasn’t whining or reproachful.
But Edna Mae recalled: Dawn was working at Home Depot and would not return for hours. And Mary Kay was working as well, and the children were in school—there was no one to help her.
It was disgusting, and made her very nervous—the sight of so many flies in the kitchen. Edna Mae recalled infestations of tiny ants in the old house in Muskegee Falls, in the spring; and infestations of field mice after the first frost. These infestations had nothing to do—(she was sure)—with the cleanliness of her household, yet she’d been very upset at the time. Luther had gone out to buy aerosol spray cans and mousetraps, and helped her rid the household of pests.
She could not stand on a chair to swat the flies on the kitchen ceiling. She did not dare—she would become light-headed and faint. Already she was feeling faint seeing more flies—three, four—five, six—ten—so many hateful flies in the kitchen and buzzing against the windows, ceiling and walls! Where were they coming from?
Had something died somewhere in the house, and flies were hatching out of maggots in the corpse? It was a terrible thought.
“Please God no.”
Nothing so shameful and frightening as an unclean house in which Edna Mae had no choice but to live.
In fact there was a faint, or not-so-faint smell in the kitchen, sour, unpleasant, which Edna Mae had noticed, as perhaps others had noticed, but had not wished to investigate. For there were other smells in the kitchen, and in Mary Kay’s house, that not even opening the windows could quite eradicate.
Her mother’s younger sister Mary Kay Mack had invited her and the children to live with her out of Christian charity—initially. This was what Edna Mae had been led to believe. But once they’d come to live in the house on Depot Street it had fallen to them—(mostly to the older children Luke and Dawn, at the time)—to keep the somewhat run-down house reasonably clean, and the small scrubby yard, and to haul trash and garbage to the curb for the weekly pickup. Anita and Noah were assigned chores as well. And Edna Mae had done what she could despite her health problems and the constant strain of Luther’s incarceration. In Muskegee Falls Edna Mae had kept a very clean house though the children had been young at the time—all of the relatives, both hers and Luther’s, had complimented her on her housekeeping, and on her cooking. Reverend Dennis had praised her for her “Christian optimism” and “Christian spirit” in volunteering at church as much as or more than women who hadn’t half Edna Mae’s responsibilities. Reverend Dennis had particularly praised Edna Mae for her full-time loving care of her youngest child Daphne. He had understood the terrible grief she’d felt when Daphne had been taken from them.
Nothing will ever be the same again, Reverend Dennis. That is what I fear.
But you have your other children, Edna Mae. You have your husband.
No. I don’t, Reverend.