Deep in the Heart of Me (2 page)

Dad reads us the Bible every night before bed. I like some of the stories, the ones about war. But my favorite is about Joseph. Not my brother, but the guy in Scripture. He has eleven brothers, and they are so angry at him because he's the dad's favorite and a snitch on top of it. So one day they see the dad has given Joseph a new coat, and they are so jealous they figure they'll kill him and blame a wild animal. The oldest brother doesn't want to face the old man so he says let's throw Joseph in a hole instead so they do.

Here's the point though—they end up selling him into slavery to get rid of him. But he does really well once he gets to Egypt and ends up being the vice-president. One day his brothers show up because they are starving and Joseph has all this food so he gives them some and strings them along and finally reveals who he is because they don't recognize him.

And they think they're going to get it, but they don't because Joseph says something like he knows they wanted to hurt him but God meant it for good.

So that's it. He lets them off.

And see I wouldn't. I would have thrown them each in a hole at least and seen how they liked it.

But Dad says God was using every bad thing in Joseph's life to work a greater good for everybody.

Sounds unfair.

See, a greater good is something that is bigger than your idea of what needs to happen. So it can be really bad, but it's actually not as bad as you think.

It makes me sort of mad. Really mad.

Another thing, I don't think I'd ever want to put a baby in my wife if I really loved her. But I'd want sons. Maybe a daughter, for my wife to have help with baking and all, but I could live without that chatter.

But I try to think of what it would be like to join with a wife, or even share my bed, and her body would be mine to touch and…see.

The young married guys, they always look like men after the wedding. Even the awkward ones. It does something for them, to take a wife. But women can die having a baby.

I don't know why I'm lying awake for the second night thinking about girls. First, it was that postcard I didn't even see, then it's a real girl. Sobe.

Earlier, as we'd prepared for bed, Ebbie and Joseph mention both, the postcard lady and the real girl Sobe. Ebbie says the postcard is pretty worn out, but you can see her paps and hair where her legs meet. I should of known about it because I have that too, not the paps, but the hair and of course she would.

"Who is she, that's what I want to know," Ebbie says meaning the naked lady.

"That's dumb," I say. It's so dumb I'm exhausted just thinking of how many words I'd have to come up with to list all of the reasons why it's so dumb.

Ebbie looks ashamed. I don't want to shame him, but he needs to think before he opens his mouth. That woman is probably dead anyway. Or a granma for all we know. And I don't want to think about naked and granma. I don't.

Far as Sobe goes, I already know who Ebbie favors, but Joseph keeps things in like me, more than me even. He says, "Sobe is pretty."

I have to use all of my self-control to pretend I don't care. He knows me well. I'm often surprised by what he says like he reads my thoughts sometimes.

But I am so careful to show nothing. "What about her?" I say, and that after acting like I don't know the name.

"She's pretty," he repeats.

I want to punch him. Pretty? He doesn't know beautiful then. I knew she was beautiful when I first saw her. But bringing her back to my mind, as I've done all evening, even when filling the wagon with manure, it's like I can study her without interruption, and I am right. She's beautiful.

And then my brother's voice and his thoughts on this same girl….he does that all the time digs into my brain and says the very thing I'm thinking of. Sobe. Pretty?
Stupido
.

I say, "Go to sleep."

This morning I finish my part of the milking so quickly, and I lead some of the cows to pasture, and I'm back in time to eat my mush and drink some coffee, and I check my hair once in the mirror and smooth it off my forehead. It's long on top, but I like it so. Thank God I've got clean overalls to strap over my shirt because there's such a stain from where I dripped glue when I fixed my boot. And the polish darkened the leather some, but my fingertips too, though I've scrubbed at them.

I think I might be handsome. Granma says, well it is commonly said and girls, they stare at me and so I must be all right.

Dad says I won't break the mirror. I know I favor him, but then I have the dark skin like my mother, well dark from the fields, but I don't burn like Joseph, I go brown. Mom said she had an uncle, and Granma's nephew, the one I'm sort of named for, Anthony. He died young so thanks a lot, womenfolk. But Mom says I am his image.

But I am Thomas first, and Dad wanted that, for his father. But it didn't stick on me like Mom's Tonio. That name found me, through my granma mostly. It was Antonio until Joseph got ahold and shortened it because he couldn't speak proper.

And still can't. So just like them to let a baby figure my name.

Granma has fried us eggs on bread sandwiches. Two each for us boys and apples all around. It has been so dry the apples didn't put on like usual, but there are some small ones that are a little papery but still better than the sad ones from the root cellar.

We each take our lunch in a cloth bag, and the walk begins.

"Get away," I tell my brothers, and they take off, mad that I disrespect them. That's what they say, I have no respect for them.

The girls are dragging behind honking away.

Jim is an only child. I can't even begin to let myself covet that. But for a couple of months, I was one of those. First and only born. Then she conceived Joseph, and it just got out of hand before I could even get a taste of being solitary.

Yes, big families are the go around here. Every farm needs a couple dozen hands. But Jim is a townie, and they don't need so many. I wonder what it would be like.

I'm eager to get to school. I can't deny that. I don't think her father's car will pass me this morning as she lives in Daniel's old house, and that is in town, ahead of me. So I'll be denied the peek at her lovely face. But once I'm at school, I can approach her and talk or something.

But I won't. Not yet. Not like the others.

Maybe she'll come to me first.

It's hot, and I'm sweating by the time we reach school. I wear a cap, and I take that off and rub my forehead on my shoulder then I put it back on only to pull it off again when I get in the dark cloakroom before entering the school. I set my lunch and my cap in there. I don't wear a jacket until it's really cold.

There are three grades in this main room, seven through nine. Me being in nine means I'm almost done. I've already gone farther than Dad. But I like learning and maybe someone loves the farm but wants options. Maybe someone would like to do something else someday and hire out the work to others who didn't finish school.

Finishing school when there is work to do, it's a luxury, I know that. The work is first cause that's family so there's no discussion on it. One more year is what Mom bargained for me. "He's so smart," she told Dad when she didn't know I heard. But you hear everything in that house, you pretend you don't, that's all.

She's in her desk, I see that right off without even looking at her, and passing her desk like she's invisible. But what I feel getting that close, it's embarrassing to have so little control. But I do not appear to see her because it's not time.

So I wait, silently, while a seventh grader scrambles out of my desk. Then I put my books there, and I sit, and I notice, without looking again, that her head is turned as if she followed me with her eyes.

I can barely swallow. If she feels what I do, it's only a matter of time.

Sobe raises her hand. She knows how to spell constable. Of course, she would Miss Charlotte says, and the class laughs.

I do not laugh. After she answers, she turns her head to the side again and looks at the floor. I think she's letting me know she spelled that word for me.

I'm barely listening to Miss Charlotte go on. She hardly says anything useful. I know from two other years. I sort through her words like Mom candles eggs. I'm looking for something interesting.

Like Sobe. The girls here, I've known most since the beginning of my life. I think my first memory is of being sick. An earache.

I remember staring into the fire and sweating. I remember my father in a nightshirt though he swears he's never owned one.

And I doubt he ever milled around a sick kid, even his first. Mom and Granma do those things.

And I remember so many times Joseph crying. I couldn't believe the noise. But now he's gotten quiet, sitting other side of this room with Ebbie. We're all three in here now. They stay away from me because I'm in that mood, and I have been for most of the summer.

"Tonio," Miss Charlotte says.

Tonio what?

She turns and looks at me, Sobe does. I do not let her catch me looking back, but I feel her eyes on my face like I feel the sun in the field.

"Read," Miss Charlotte says like I'm daft.

I look at the page in my geography. I have no idea. "I," I say, and I swallow, "lost my place."

You can hear a pin drop. I never lose my place. I'm disgusted with people who do. But now I've lost it.

Miss Charlotte sighs. "Column two. The Erie Canal."

I clear my throat, and it's too loud. "The complexion of the Erie Canal…."

The class breaks into laughter.

"Completion," Miss Charlotte interrupts.

"What?" I say, angry and feeling stupid. Sobe is looking forward again. She's lost interest in me.

I realize what I've done, saying the humiliating word 'complexion,' instead of the obvious, 'completion.' I never make mistakes. I'm possibly the best reader, and I rattle it off. But not today. Today I'm an idiot.

"Class," Miss Charlotte rebukes.

I clear my throat like it's to blame and I correct the offending word and go forward, stumbling a couple more times.

Pride goes before a fall. It always does, Dad says. He says if you crack most of our troubles you will find pride sitting there looking smug.

I wait until the others are already outside for recess. I go in the cloakroom and grab my lunch, and I'm outside quickly and looking around. It's a day that would break my heart if I was afield. But I'm here instead. I see her right away, sitting on the wall that runs alongside the school. She is with other girls, two of them my blood, though I had nothing to do with it. Elsie is Ebbie's twin, but she works in the small room with the tenth through twelves. If I am smart, she is a genius I guess.

But hardly. Dad says there's that thing in the Clannan seed that makes it twice as powerful and we get twins.

Twice the chance for my wife to die birthing the Clannan magic beans.

I walk past the girls but not too close. Corrine says hello and bats her lashes like I've thrown dust in her eyes. I barely nod, and I catch Sobe's eye then, I don't plan it, I'm looking away from Corrine, and there she sits, Miss Beautiful Sobe, the sun behind her like a halo from her body, and I can barely make it out, her eyes, but I look then, at her in that light, and I don't smile or hurry I just keep going and light as she must be I hear her feet hit the ground, and I know she's jumped off that ledge and follows behind me.

She’s right to do it. I’m the one.

I go into the woods for a bit. We're not supposed to, but we do anyway. I jump lightly on the fallen tree that lies over the narrow stream. I balance there, my lunch sack in my hand. I'm looking down at her.

"Can I hide with you for a minute?" she says.

"Hide from what?" I say. She is a little thing. But sturdy. You feel that with her. She has braided her hair, and it lies over her shoulder. She's very…fetching.

"Their…," she waves the hand not holding an orange toward our fellow students back in the yard. "They stare."

"Where did you get an orange?" I say. We eat the oranges and the peels around here. We fight for the peels.

"We were given some," she says. "Share?" she holds it up.

I eye it for a minute…her. I might love her attention. I think I do. I jump lightly to the ground, then I straddle the old log. She gets the hint and moves there, sitting a couple of feet from me, her side facing me. She starts to peel the orange and drops the first of the skin into the stream. I want to take it for the girls on the walk home. But I don't think I'll say it. But it hurts to watch it wasted.

When it's peeled, she breaks it into neat halves. She holds one out to me.

"Are you sure?" I say. Then I remember I have an apple. I fumble in my bag and pull out the apple and offer it to her.

"Thank you," she says, and we awkwardly exchange the half an orange for the apple. I wish I'd of shined it on my bibs but then she might not appreciate that since we're not blood so it's best I didn't.

I put my bag between my legs and tear off the first section of fruit. She is already eating some of hers, and she licks at juice at the corner of her mouth with her little pink tongue. I can't sit like this anymore. I grab the bag and swing my leg over and sit like she is, like a lady for Pete's sake.

I go on and eat a section of the orange, and I haven't had one since Christmas. It's a bit sour and different and good.

She doesn't require that I smile or anything. She's just eating, very calmly. I am too. Then the bell sounds and I can't believe it. We just got situated. That damn bell.

"You didn't eat your lunch," she says.

"I don't care," I say. But I'm hungry. I always am.

"See you in class," she says getting on her feet.

"Wait."

She turns and looks at me, popping the last of the orange in her mouth and putting the apple in her pocket so she can dust her hands.

"Sobe."

She laughs and wipes at her chin and grins with her mouth full, and she's shifting around and laughing. Then she runs away, and I'm left there staring after.