“Because I’m poor,” Ella said. “And they’re poor too.” She turned around, faced Kate, and walked backward for a moment. She lifted her arms as if showcasing everything around her. “And here we all are.”
Lilly had an oil lamp burning inside the cabin, and she and Rose were sitting on the floor, playing a game. Their fingers were threaded with yarn, and they moved their hands in a way that weaved some kind of pattern. Wink was asleep on one of the skids, his face turned away from the light.
“Otis is still out somewhere,” Lilly said. “I told him to be home before it got dark, but he don’t care a lick about nothing I tell him.”
“I’ll get after him,” Ella said. She smoothed down Lilly’s hair, bent and kissed Rose. She saw that Lilly stared up at Kate. Rose noted her sister’s interest in something, and she lifted her face and looked up at Kate too.
“This is my friend,” Ella said. “This is Miss Kate.”
Kate held her hands behind her back, but she lifted one of them and gave the girls a small wave. She looked over to where the baby slept.
“Hello,” she whispered.
Lilly raised her hand and waved back, but neither she nor Rose said anything.
“These are my babies,” Ella said. She put her hand back on Lilly’s head. “This here’s Lilly, my oldest. And this is Rose, and that’s Joseph over there. We all call him Wink.”
“It’s ’cause he winks instead of blinks,” Rose said. She pointed to her eyes and did her best to wink one and then the other at Kate.
“That’s right,” Ella said. “He winks when he blinks.”
Rose laughed, looked back at her sister. The girls returned to their game.
“Did you eat?” Ella asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Lilly said. “We ate what you left out.”
“Good,” Ella said.
“Did Otis eat?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lilly said.
Ella walked to the stove, found a biscuit that Lilly had left behind for her. A small cut of salt meat had hardened in the pan. Ella looked up at Kate, who was standing just inside the door. She hadn’t moved.
“You hungry?” Ella asked.
“No,” Kate said. “I’m fine. Really. I couldn’t eat a thing.”
Otis had come in a few minutes after Ella and Kate had arrived. Ella had made him introduce himself to Kate, made him take her hand “like a grown man should do when he meets a lady.” Otis was shy; he always had been. He stood barefoot, the bottoms of his pant legs damp.
“I don’t like you being out there after it gets dark,” Ella had said. “What would you do if some booger came along and tried to snatch you up and run off with you?”
“I’d punch him right in his nose,” Otis said.
“Some boogers don’t got noses,” Ella said. “So you’d be in real trouble if you met up with one of them, wouldn’t you.”
Kate had stood by while Ella put each of the children to bed, Rose first, then Otis, and Lilly last. She kissed each one of them, pulled a thin sheet up around each of their shoulders even though the night was warm. Lilly curled up beside the baby like she always did. He’d begun to snore.
“Y’all want a song?” Ella had asked.
Lilly and Rose had nodded their heads yes, but Otis hadn’t responded. He always wanted Ella to sing them to sleep whenever she was home for their bedtime, but Ella knew that now he was trying to look tough in front of Kate.
“What do y’all want to hear?” Ella asked.
Lilly turned and looked toward Kate, who’d taken off her jacket and sat down on the floor. Her legs were curled beneath her. She propped herself up with her right hand.
“Do you know any songs?” Lilly asked her.
Kate seemed surprised. She picked up her hand, dusted her palms against one another, and leaned toward Lilly, readjusting herself so she could get closer.
“I do,” she said. “I know some songs. My daughter used to be your age, and I used to sing to her just like your mother sings to you. But my little girl’s old now. She’s getting married soon.”
“What’s her name?” Lilly asked.
“Claire,” Kate said. “Her name’s Claire. And she’s marrying a nice man named Paul.”
“What songs do you know?” Lilly asked.
“‘Two Little Blackbirds’ is my favorite,” Rose said.
“That’s a good one,” Kate said. “Does everybody like that one?” Ella watched as Kate looked toward Otis. He nodded his head yes. Kate looked over at Ella, smiled. “I’d be embarrassed to sing in front of you,” she said.
“You shouldn’t be,” Ella said. “I bet you’ve got a fine singing voice.”
Kate cleared her throat, took a moment as if she were trying to recall the words. Then she began:
Two little blackbirds sitting on a hill.
One named Jack, one named Jill.
Her voice was soft and high, much higher-pitched than Ella knew her own to be. Ella joined in after the first stanza, listened as her deep tone merged with Kate’s.
Fly away, Jack. Fly away, Jill.
Come back, Jack. Come back, Jill.
A few more stanzas and, one by one, the children had all closed their eyes.
Now Ella and Kate sat in silence side by side on the cabin’s steps. They both stared into the darkness of the road that led up out of Stumptown. Ella hadn’t known what to do with her new friend after she’d put the children to bed. But then she’d remembered a near-empty Mason jar of whiskey that Charlie had hidden beneath the house. She’d found the jar and poured what was left of the liquor, which was barely enough to cover the bottoms of two jars, and she’d given one of them to Kate. She suggested they sit on the steps while the children settled themselves into sleep.
“It turned out to be a beautiful night, didn’t it,” Kate said.
It was true. Once the rain stopped for good and the clouds drifted away, a quarter moon had revealed itself. The night was full of night sounds: the chirps of crickets, the occasional frog, the gurgle of the creek off in the woods where it was fed by the spring. Ella could hear a woman’s voice somewhere up the road, but it was too far away to know who it was or what she was saying. The smell of cigarette smoke drifted past Ella’s nose before vanishing. Ella cupped her free hand around her stomach, fixed her mind on the small life that stirred there.
“You said your daughter’s about to get married,” she said. “How old is she?”
“She’s twenty-two,” Kate said. “And she’s home for the summer. It’s nice to have a child in the house again, no matter how old she is.”
The question burst from Ella’s chest before she fully understood that she had spent all night preparing to ask it.
“Why’d you want to meet me?” She looked down at the jar in her hand, turned it back and forth. “Why would somebody like you want to meet somebody like me? Let me drive your car? Follow me home? Meet my children?” She looked over at Kate. “Why?”
Kate tipped her jar up, drank what was left. She set it on the steps beside her.