“Consuela,” Mitchell said. “Duermes donde?”
She turned and pointed at the barn.
“Okay,” Russell said. “You coulda told me.”
Mitchell shrugged his shoulders. “I coulda.”
“How long she been out here?”
“About a year or so.”
“She just walked up the road one day?”
“Maybe she did.”
“Maybe she didn’t.”
Mitchell shifted in his chair. “If I tell you got to promise you can’t tell nobody.”
“Who am I gonna tell?”
“I don’t know. That’s something I had to say.”
“Fine. I won’t tell anybody.”
“She came from your uncle Clive’s sugarcane farm down in Bogalusa. He’s got a ton of them. Living in shacks and shit. Kinda rotten if you ask me. A modern-day plantation. I went down there to see him and we was looking around and I saw her. I asked her if she wanted to come up here and she said yeah.”
“You asked her?”
“In a manner of damn speaking. You know what I mean. I told somebody to ask her and they did and she came on with me.”
“So she’s a slave,” Russell said.
“No. She was a slave. You should see how Clive has got them piled on top of one another. And pays change from his couch, seems like.”
“You pay her?”
“Some.”
“So you pay her to work and whatnot and she lives in the barn and I’m guessing she’s not exactly a voter but she’s not a slave.”
“If you don’t shut the hell up I’m gonna call the damn sheriff and tell him to take you back.”
Consuela finished with the peas and she set down the basket and wiped her hands on her long denim skirt. She then stood up and said something quick and Mitchell nodded and she walked toward the house.
“It got quiet out here,” Mitchell said when she was out of earshot. “I don’t know what else to say about it. Your momma gone and all.”
“I know. You don’t have to explain anything.”
“Some nights I’d sit out back and sounded like it might sound if the world came to end and there was nobody else walking around.”
Mitchell reached down and picked up the fishing rod and sent the hook across the pond. “I didn’t figure I’d have to explain it much to you. I tried to quit feeling bad about it. I don’t know if your momma understands.”
“Mom’s been gone awhile. I think she’d get it.”
“I hope so.”
“She would.”
“Cause Consuela sleeps in the house sometimes.”
“It’s okay. You damn dog.”
A fish took the hook and the sinker bobbed and Mitchell let the fish run a little and then he reeled it in. This one was plenty big and he stood up to bring it on in and he unhooked it and Russell made room in the cooler. They sat back down and Mitchell handed his son the rod and told him to have a turn but Russell said no thanks. Mitchell set the rod on the ground.
Russell leaned back in his chair and said, “I appreciate the truck.”
“I figured you could use her. Needs a tune-up, though,” Mitchell said and he opened the whiskey and took a sip and then he chased it with the cold Coke. He handed the bottle to his son.
“And the house,” Russell said and he took the bottle. “You sure you don’t need somebody living there who pays for it?”
“That little house has been bought and paid for twice. I don’t need it.”
“Well. All right.”
Mitchell looked at him sideways. “You growing a beard?”
“Yes sir.”
Mitchell felt at his own smooth face. The sun hung above the trees and he squinted as he looked across the water.
“Looks like it’s still some big ones in here,” Russell said.
“Pretty big. Thought we’d get us a few and fry them up tomorrow evening. If that’s all right with you.”
“Sounds good.”
“What happened to your eye?” Mitchell asked and he pointed at Russell’s head.
Russell touched his fingertips to the redness and twisted his mouth. “A going-away present from one of the boys.”
“Hope that’s all you got.”
“It was. It’s okay. Got worse than that a hundred times working on one of your houses.”
“Yeah. You didn’t believe much in staying on ladders.”
Russell drank the Coke and then the whiskey and the Coke again and handed the bottle back to his father. But he felt better once it was down so he waved his hand and his father gave the bottle back to him. He drank again and then passed the bottle over and his dad put the top on and dropped it back into the cooler.
“It was them boys, wasn’t it?” Mitchell said.
“Them boys what?”
“That smack on your eye. It was them boys.”
“Yes sir.”
“Don’t guess they believe in waiting around.”
“Guess they figure they been waiting long enough. How’d you know?”
“There’s a bunch of new buildings around here but that don’t mean it ain’t the same place. People talk like always. I was sitting at the café downtown and heard one of them old friends of their daddy running his mouth about coming to see you.”
“Their daddy there, too?”
“Naw. He’s been dead a pretty good while. Since before your mother.”