Roxanna Slade Part 14

Only when he'd stood up, dried himself and let me be sure I'd got every tick would I feel free to go back out, examine his clothes and decide if they'd need to be boiled tomorrow in Betsy's outdoor iron pot. It was maybe more work than was strictly needed, but my mind demanded it every time. I felt I was not only saving Palmer but August too. To the best of my knowledge, August never got bitten. But just the thought of their yielding up their blood to those blind little mouths was a

horror to me. And it still is today, though Palmer at least is safe now beyond all harm this world can offer.

By late in the summer, I'd begun to think we three were charmed in a safe broad circle made out of our care for one another. No miracles happened, Palmer worked hard as ever, August grew naturally with no worse problems than occasional colic or a little heat rash, we ate a good many suppers with my family; but otherwise I was learning to cook simple dishes that Palmer liked. Toward the end of July he mentioned his mother for the first time in weeks. He said she'd appreciate the chance to see her grandson. Why didn't we drive up with him this coming Sunday? We could take a picnic and eat by the river.

I hadn't seen Miss Olivia or corresponded with her since I returned home. Still if I'd needed a reason to refuse Palmer's idea, he'd handed it to me. I thanked him politely and said he could take young August on his own. But no, I couldn't see the Roanoke River ever again for any reason.

Palmer let my few words settle in the room like a fog. And then he said very calmly "I'll take the boy then. Please have him ready."

That was long before American fathers volunteered to take their children off the mother's hands for as much as five minutes much less a day's excursion. But I well understood, or thought I did, how much Palmer loved August. And I knew Miss Olivia would know what to do if the child got sick or difficult. So I had the boy not only ready but splendid on Sunday morning in the newest outfit Betsy had made him, a white sailor suit edged in navy blue. She refused to charge us a penny for his clothes. She liked him that much and sometimes called him July or September.

When they left after breakfast, I watched them off from the little back stoop. Palmer had kissed me lightly as he picked up August. I'd brushed August's fine hair one last time. And all the way to the car in his father's arms, he kept those two dark eyes right on me, no hint of a smile. I thought I won't see them again. Somehow I thought they'd wreck the truck and both

be killed. At once I knew that was hardly likely to be the case. I'd had no prophetic powers till now. But the rest of that long day, I moved in dread every step I took. Time would eventually show I was right, though about the wrong threat.

At eleven that night they were still not back. I've mentioned that n.o.body had telephones, Betsy had no car, I couldn't imagine waking up Father or hunting for Ferny and asking either one of them to drive me to the Slade place, I couldn't even tell Betsy how scared I was when she checked in with me at her early bedtime and asked where on Earth "the boys" might be. I sat in a straight chair trying to read a book of Palmer's about how Stanley discovered Dr. Livingstone deep in Africa, but what I felt by the literal instant was an agony unlike any I'd known.

I understand it will shock good people if I say I've always felt to this day that I understood what Christ endured that terrible night when the disciples ran off and left him to face his tortured death as lonely as any green tree in a desert. But I felt my own desertion that deeply, and I won't claim I didn't.

At nearly midnight I went down the back steps silently and walked around to the shallow front porch. There was plenty of moon, and I actually stood there staring at the place where poor Arthur Straughan had sketched the true outline of his body, then blown off his head. Palmer owned a pistol. It was in our bedroom right then on the mantel. If I'd stayed alone another half minute, I don't know what I'd have been strong enough to do to myself.

But the truck turned in and threw lights on me, and the boys were back. I followed them inside. August of course was long since asleep in his same white suit that was scarcely soiled. Palmer looked entirely like himself, though I thought his eyes had gone slightly wild. He went straight to the crib and laid August down. When he turned back toward me, he stayed in place and watched me closely but offered no word.

I don't think angels with scorching swords could have stopped me asking where in G.o.d's name he'd been with my child. The my was hardly out of my mouth before I regretted it.

But Palmer ignored the claim I'd made. He answered my question about where they'd been by saying "I don't have to answer that." His voice was polite but the meaning was so unlike his nature that I could hardly hear him. Till then we'd never had one serious quarrel, though he'd occasionally frown and go silent.

So I was on thoroughly new ground now. I said "Have you seen a clock today?" I pointed to the clock beside our bed.

He said "Yes, lady. It's past midnight. I'm going to bed. Some of us work tomorrow." Then he did just that.

I had to undress August and clean him up, all of which the child slept through. It was only then that I saw the thin ring on his plump right hand. Babies with little rings were not unheard of in those unsafe days. This one was gold, scarcely more than gold wire. Since Palmer was already breathing the rhythms of his normal deep sleep, I couldn't ask him about the ring.

I was forced to a.s.sume that Miss Olivia was the source, and I wanted to ease it off right then and hurl it away. Instead I leaned to August's hand and forced myself to kiss it. Then I slipped into bed without affecting Palmer.

His silent presence felt like the North Pole at very close range.

I think I may have slept three minutes before day broke, and all those hours I was mainly thinking my life had ended and could not be renewed.

But in the morning as Palmer finished the normal sizable breakfast I'd cooked, he broke silence finally and said "You ever seen the ocean?"

"Just Chesapeake Bay which doesn't really count," I said. "I've been to Norfolk several times to see Muddie's brothers." All her three brothers had moved there years ago to work for the Navy; but with Muddie so susceptible to sunlight, we'd never even got out to the beach.

That made Palmer smile for the first time in at least twenty-four hours. He said "No, I meant the Indian Ocean."

I was still too worried about last night to join in his fun whatever he meant--if he meant fun at all. I had a child yet to bathe and diapers to wash.

Palmer said "Would you show it to me and August?" "What is it?" I said.

He said "Norfolk."

I told him I couldn't think of one thing in Norfolk he needed to see not to mention poor August.

Palmer didn't miss a beat. He said "Then Wilmington, North Carolina."

I told him he'd need another guide for Wilmington. I'd never been that far south in the state.

Palmer said "Then let's ride down next weekend and breathe a little salt air."

I said "There's not enough time in two weekends to drive from here to Wilmington and back." The roads were that bad still.

"Punkin, I'm talking about the train." He called me Punkin when I acted dumb.

I had to sit back down to believe him. People of our sort--men especially in the crop-growing months--barely ever left the land. And money. Where would Palmer get the money, strapped as we were? Where would we stay? I didn't know a soul in Wilmington, and he'd never mentioned friends. But something told me this crossroads was crucial to the health of our future. I thought I could see a fork in our road, two ways I must choose between --being Palmer's wife or just his partner. So I stood up again and warmed his coffee. "I'd want to leave the baby with Muddie and Leela."

Palmer nodded. "That's very much my feeling too."

That single sentence felt to me like water poured out on a pavement that had long been scorching my feet, and I was compelled to bend and brush the back of my husband's powerful neck with my cool mouth.

The trip lasted a full five days, one whole day on each end just for the trains. And with all that would come to light soon after, I still know they were our best days, mine and Palmer's as man and wife-- better than the honeymoon or any calm pleasure of our later years. I still wonder why. How much of the memory is just my delusion, fed by my hunger, and how much is true to the hours as they pa.s.sed? I'm not the best judge obviously. But in my opinion what flowered on that simple excursion was the absolute heart of Palmer's good soul, what kept me beside him as long as he lasted, give or take the bad hours and days.

He had never looked finer than in that old town among those live oaks draped with ghost-gray

moss in that sea air as clear as salt could make it. I'd been watching Palmer's face for nearly three years. And just that weekend it somehow cast off the boyish husk that had guarded him maybe. The full-grown face was a great deal stronger; yet at the same time, riskier. It seemed freely offered to the pa.s.sing world for whatever it chose to fling his way. Other people's looks have always mattered more to me than to women in general, the women I've known anyhow. And though that concern tricked me on more than one serious occasion, I've never been able to purge myself of the birthright instinct which steadily tells me that anything beautiful is bound to be good.

And goodness or at least open-heartedness and boundless patience seemed to pour straight toward me from Palmer's mind and heart every minute I was near him that weekend, and I scarcely left him for anything else but the call of nature. We reached our rooming house near dark on the Friday, a dry warm evening with all windows open and the white curtains moving in a merciful breeze. We cleaned ourselves up and went out to find a bountiful supper of soft-sh.e.l.led crabs which I'd never had and much enjoyed. (i've tended to bite my fingernails in worrisome times, and soft-sh.e.l.led crabs have always seemed to me like a fingernail-biter's ideal food.) Then we took a long walk through the cobblestone streets--n.o.body to scare you, though a few drunk sailors yelled compliments at me which was by no means a common occurrence in my young life--and we came back tired for an early bedtime.

If truth be told, and it's my sole warrant for telling this story of an uneventful life, I had looked forward to an opportunity to please Palmer's body on neutral ground with no chance of August calling for notice. And Palmer had hardly locked our door before he stood in the midst of the big room among shed clothes as bare as G.o.d made him. After the way he'd looked in the sunlight, I was fully confident he'd look more splendid still in nothing but his skin by soft lamplight. And he did look good enough to stall the hand of the cruelest accuser.

What was unexpected somehow was how subject to ruin--malicious damage or acts of Fate --his whole muscular frame would look once he stood near me naked. For the first few

instants, I had to restrain my wish to s.n.a.t.c.h a bedsheet and throw it around him--some form of protection however frail. But the band of extreme seriousness across his eyes, as he faced me so watchfully, held me in place. At last he broke free and moved to the window behind the curtains to stare at the street.

For the first time in my life, I was bold enough to stand where I was and strip myself not quite entirely but down to my slip. So far as I know that simple act was a novelty for good girls of my era. When Palmer didn't look back, I finally said "I owe you a lot of thanks for this." By this I must have meant the whole day and his idea to free us up and bring us here.

At first he didn't seem to hear me. Then he turned and took me in in one unblinking look. He said "Dear friend, you earned every minute."

That sentence is the kind of thing you wait for Heaven to send your way. Many never live to hear it, but it came to me in Wilmington at age twenty-three. Without looking back I took short reverse steps to the bed and sat on the edge. I plainly figured my husband would join me there and take my lead.

He stayed in place another long moment by the window, watching me. Then he gave a slow nod and circled the long way round to the bed, the opposite side to where I waited. When he'd pulled back the white spread and laid himself down, he said "This is one whipped boy-- excuse me." Then I heard him turn over.

When I stood to swap my slip for a nightgown, I saw he'd turned toward the distant wall away from me.

Which is how the night pa.s.sed. When I turned out the light, it was just past ten. I must have lain there wide awake a handspan from him till midnight at least. I recall the voices of more clumps of sailors down in the street. I finally heard a single boy's voice sing a whole verse of "Home on the Range," a truly fine tenor with a lot of Irish in it. I know when the boy got to Seldom is heard a discouraging word, I clamped my eyes shut in hopes of flus.h.i.+ng out one tear at least to ease the swarming weight of my mind. I felt more alone than I'd ever been, even at the instant Larkin Slade disappeared. Tears would have been a welcome companion. But

nothing would come, no tear at least, though sleep finally folded me in like a coal-black blanket, old heavy rough wool.

Yet that next morning, Sat.u.r.day, Palmer woke me up by stroking my hair that was loose on the pillow. I turned and looked. He'd shaved and dressed right under my sleep like a seasoned thief. It bothered me almost worse than last night, but he leaned to kiss my forehead and say he was hungry as any moose. Neither one of us had ever seen a moose; are they usually hungry? I never mentioned the strangeness of the night. He looked that well and rested again. So I sponged myself off and dressed in a hurry, my coolest housedress. The air was already close and damp.

After a breakfast that would have braced an army, Palmer had still said very little. But once we'd made a brief stop in our room, he asked me if I'd ever ridden a trolley. I had to remind him that on our honeymoon we'd ridden every trolley in the District of Columbia. That seemed to set him back for a while, forgetting so soon. But I managed to rally him, he took off his necktie, and off we went on a trolley to the beach. In no time under a lemon-colored sunlight, the dampness lifted. And the first sea air I'd encountered in years seemed to fill my head like a huge bright bowl that might drift away. It lasted till night.

And all that long day, we stayed at the beach. Not that it was anything like what people mean now by beach. It was just a broad stretch of the south Atlantic coast with a very few tall old gray-s.h.i.+ngle houses and some fishermen's shacks, maybe two little modest cafes serving seafood and a deep sh.o.r.eline of bone-white sand as clean as the floor of a well-kept church. At first Palmer rolled up his seersucker pants, I took off my hot silk stockings and we walked a total of maybe ten miles both north and south, still in the strong but breezy lemon suns.h.i.+ne.

Every few minutes I'd think to myself This is surely farther than I've ever walked. My legs will quit soon. But they didn't. I kept pace with Palmer, barely speaking a word but trying each step to h.o.a.rd every sight and sound, every feeling, for some later day when I'd have less to see and might need some cheer. Despite the

presence of the whole Atlantic cras.h.i.+ng toward us with sh.e.l.ls and driftwood, seaweed and gulls, the thing I worked at storing most truly was Palmer's profile, his whole lean body and striding legs and the dry close grip of his hand on mine.

When I gradually realized that no, I wasn't about to faint or fall down exhausted, then--again in silence and with some fear to think how dangerous it might be to call a moment happy-- I began to admit to myself that all day yesterday and today were building toward some peak of contentment that might well never be matched again, however long I lived. If that sounds strange or sad or pathetic to any young woman of the present time, then she needs to recall or learn for the first time that not one single wife of my time was ever encouraged by anybody to question her husband's lion's share of the rights in a marriage or to doubt that he--in all his soul and body--was the only target of outright physical and mental devotion you were licensed to aim for.

I'd been trained in that world. I wasn't a genius or a praiseworthy scholar, but I had fairly good sense and responded accordingly. So here and now I must also add that I didn't even question then, and still don't today, that Palmer Slade was a qualified goal for all the love I could feel and show--all that wasn't shared with our child and reserved for later children. What else could I have done with my existence, then or in the years that came after or here in this all but empty room I inhabit in my ancient dotage? And why did I never tell that plainly to the goal himself, an ordinary boy who became a good man after some detours?

After our trip up and down the sand, we ate a big bait of boiled shrimp and crabs at the better-looking of the run-down cafes. And once we'd finished Palmer finally said "You know how tired I was last night?"

I told him "Of course."

Then he said "But I'm healing fast. I think I just need one more thing."

I thought that healing was an odd word to use, but I said "What thing?" I thought it might mean lemon pie or more of the bitter boiled coffee he'd drunk.

But he said "Swimming--let's both get wet."

I surely hadn't swum since well before Lark's death. So far as I knew, neither had Palmer. I didn't mention that though. I pointed out how we both were dressed. But when his face fell, I said "You strip to your underdrawers, and I'll wait out on the porch for you." The cafe had a small shaded porch facing the waves.

Palmer looked disappointed at first and shook his head to decline my suggestion. But when I urged him, he paid for our meal and asked the man who ran the place if he'd get in trouble for swimming in his underwear.

The man, who must have weighed three hundred pounds, said "Sport, you could strip and turn your whole hide wrongside out. Not one soul out here would tell you Nay."

We laughed, then stepped out onto the porch. Palmer peeled in an instant, gave me a wave and ran toward the breakers.

As he hit the water, I actually said the word "Goodbye" more for insurance than the fear or certainty of harm. Then I sat still for a long half-hour in occasional short prayers, watching my husband demonstrate again and again how ready to live and how nearly unsinkable he was and how I wished he'd at least pause once in the shallows and look my way which he never did.

Finally after I'd tried and failed to hail him in, he did stand up in knee-deep surf facing Europe and slowly lift up handfuls of water and pour them down from the crown of his head, scrubbing himself hard with just his palms. Then he came up toward me smiling with an ease I hadn't seen on him in many months.

Yet when we got to the rooming house in late afternoon, I'd barely drawn a cool breath before Palmer shucked his clothes again, fell across the bed and was out in two seconds till well past dark.

After lying unused beside his slack body for half an hour, I went downstairs to the little bleak lobby and read old magazines till Palmer woke up and sought me out near nine o'clock, saying he was starved. Well of course he was. But since it was late, where--even in an active port in those days--were we likely to find a place to eat without razor fights and ladies of the evening on all sides of us?

Palmer just held out his hand and said "I know."

Though he told me he'd never seen Wilmington till now and though I'd been gravely confused by his failure to reach out toward my body, I followed him out.

What he did didn't take a college education. We walked half a block till an old black man pa.s.sed, impeccably dressed in a white linen suit and both his arms stacked full of corn--ten or twelve ears of fresh-picked corn still in the husk. With some difficulty he tipped his cap.

So Palmer said "Old cap'n, where can I get some supper? This lady's failing fast."

The old man looked us both up and down politely but slowly, and then he laughed deeply. "Follow me home two hundred yards, and I'll boil you this corn. Got a cooked ham too and some biscuits I made at sunrise today--make you see your grandmammy!"

That was an old expression for bliss that I hadn't heard since I was a child, so I laughed too and Palmer met my eyes with a quizzical look I didn't understand.

Thinking my laugh gave him leave to accept, he said to the old man "Lead the way."

It surprised the man as much as me. His face went solemn as any costly horse.

I felt peculiar but not so much as to make an objection.

And the old man stood astonished for one long breath. Then he said "My name is Marcus Patterson. Lived here all my life in Miss Patsy Yarborough's yard." He pointed beyond us toward a tall dark house with the pillars and iron work that crowd all Wilmington. Then he gave a graceful beckon with his chin, and we followed him home.