Earthly Vows (19 page)

“Good enough for stew,” said Angel. She hurriedly shook coffee out into the top of the coffeepot.

Edwin was still standing in the bedroom doorway.

“What was it you wanted anyway?” Angel asked him. “Claudia’s tired and we’ve got work to do. No time for company.”

“Angel, be polite,” said Claudia? “I asked him over.” She asked Edwin to have a seat, stay for coffee. She set John on the
floor and got up. “I look a mess.”

“Want to go out for drinks, Claudia?” he said. “Nothing else, I swear.”

Claudia laughed. “Angel, would you look! Edwin’s blushing. You shy, boy?”

Edwin laughed too.

“I could go for a drink,” said Claudia. “I think I deserve one.”

Angel shot her a look.

“Not long, though. Angel’s been at it all day with these two.” Claudia didn’t look at Angel when she said it.

Edwin crouched next to Claudia. He picked up one of her shoes and turned it over. He ran his finger through the small hole
in the sole. “I know a place can fix these,” he said.

Angel tossed the bacon into the icebox. She sighed, turning on her heels, and glared at both of them.

“He says he can have my shoes fixed, Angel. Ain’t it nice of him?” Claudia asked.

“I’m not watching these two so you can be with him!”

“Don’t talk like that to your sister. She’s took you in and working in a place no woman ought to have to work to feed that
big mouth of yours,” said Edwin.

Claudia held her ears. “Y’all stop! You’re going at each other like two cats!”

Angel dropped the potatoes into the sink and threw the knife down. “I’m not staying another minute with him in the house!”
She left the house and headed for the pasture. Claudia yelled after her, “Where you think you’re going?”

“Got a cow to milk.” She cut across the pasture. A briar cut into her calf. She yanked it out of her skin and kept running.
The two-story barn was in the field, a stone’s throw west of the Abercrombies’ shallow pond.

The cow ate in one of the stalls. Angel checked the udder and found it bloated. She seated herself and parked a clean pail
under the cow. A clean rag hung over the stall. She used that to wipe the teat. She closed her eyes, remembering how Jeb’s
neighbor Ivey Long had milked. She rested her forehead against the cow’s side, lifted her knuckles into soft skin, and then,
using her finger and thumb, pulled down on the udder. Nothing came out. She tried again and several more times. Finally she
pressed her face against the cow and sighed. She propped her foot against the pail so the cow would not kick it away. Ivey
had sung to his cows. She hummed and stroked the cow’s belly and then pulled on the udder again. Milk streamed into the pail.
She rotated the fingers until her whole hand gripped the udder, pull, swish, pull, swish. The pail filled finally. She milked
until only a bit of white liquid dribbled from the teat.

She hefted the pail and milk sloshed onto the barn floor. Angel carried the milk all the way back to Mrs. Abercrombie’s house,
with not much care for what spilled or what stayed in the pail. She carried the milk pail onto the back porch. The cat leaped
out of the window onto the slatted floor. She put the animal out and latched the back door. The milk would keep for a bit
while she made a telephone call.

Mrs. Abercrombie came into the kitchen holding a box of food she’d brought home from town. “Would you look! You’ve already
got that cow milked. Aren’t you a caution.” She opened her pocketbook and drew out two bits. She pressed the coins into Angel’s
hand. “You keep that now and don’t let that sister of yours take it.”

“I won’t, ma’am,” said Angel. She thanked her. Edwin had not shown his face yet, so she ran into the pasture. She watched
the house until the sun went down. Edwin and Claudia came out onto the porch, laughing and hollering for Angel to come back.
Angel kept hidden behind some scrub. Edwin got in his car and left. A sulphurous moon came out.

Mrs. Abercrombie came out onto her porch to rock. Angel ran up to the picket fence and yelled for Claudia. Claudia came to
the door red-faced. Mrs. Abercrombie called politely to Angel and wished her a good evening. Angel wished her well and then
asked Claudia, “Did you need me? Were you calling for me?”

Claudia slammed her door shut.

“Brains of a rabbit,” said Mrs. Abercrombie.

I
T’S HIGH TIME YOU TOOK UP WHERE YOUR
sister left off. Crying buckets won’t do you any good, Ida May. She’s done too much for you. I’ve got to see to church matters
and you can’t lollygag behind, you can’t. You help your brother this morning. I’ll be back after I see Mrs. Honeysack.” Jeb
was to arrive at her house, according to Freda Honeysack, for breakfast bright and early. The ladies’ Tuesday quilting bee
cooked up breakfast for the preacher. Jeb stirred a pot of mush on the stove for the little ones who had to stay behind.

Willie came in to him and said, “I want to show you the streambed first.” His upper lip was wet. The boy had already been
down to the creek. His hands rested on his hips and his shoulders jutted forward. He was panting and smelled like the creek,
a whiff of algae and tadpole. He kept shaking his head and saying, “I never seen it like this.”

Jeb told Ida May to keep her hands from the burner and not to poke her finger in the butter.

The first day of September was no better than August. The hard blue sky, the hot dry air was for the tolerant. Overnight a
wind had come up and sifted silt onto tree leaves and the hood of the truck. Jeb followed Willie down the dirt path. The creek
bank smelled rotten, like low tide to the tenth. The stream was languishing. It yielded only a trickle of water. Willie ran
up and down the bank, straining to see the hope of green flickers in the shallows, a fin breaking the water’s surface. No
such luck. Jeb took the upstream path. The water had shriveled to puddles in some places, not a good drink for a hunting dog.
He knelt near the spot where the waterline had receded. Willie whistled. He found a handful of fingerlings, three huddled
in a pool.

Jeb toed a fish bone. The large stones mothering the streambed were mud-caked. The banks cracked in rivulets. Sheets of dehydrated
algae turned pale in the shade.

“Never, ever. Have you ever?” asked Willie.

“She’ll be back in the spring,” said Jeb. “Sky can’t hold back the rain for good.” He was sorry for the boy having lost his
fishing hole.

Willie slogged up the path home, sag-shouldered.

Ida May stood in the doorway in a flour-sack slip. She closed her fist up tight, holding a button, she said. A dress was draped
over her arm. “Willie, sew on the button for me,” she said. She tried to give it to him. “Jeb won’t, he won’t.”

Willie ignored her and collected his fish hooks off the kitchen table. “You got to do for yourself now, Ida May.” He put the
hooks into a cigar box.

“You fishing or not?” she asked.

“Can’t, can I? Creek’s dried up.”

“Good, see now, you sew it on.”

Jeb took the dress from Ida May. “Let’s ask Miss Josie to give you a button-mending lesson. She won’t mind.” He thought that
having one less female underfoot would take off some of the load. He was wrong.

Ida May closed her eyes and slumped down in a kitchen chair. He wanted to thrash her. “You needing this for school Monday?”
he asked.

“The other dresses is too small,” she said.

Willie backed out of the room. “Don’t look at me like I’m the one to do it.”

“Freda Honeysack will help out. I’m going to her place this morning.” He took the button and the dress and promised to bring
home a plate of food. “Eat your mush for now,” he told them. “Ida May, help your brother do up the dishes after.” He grabbed
his brown jacket, for looks.

Ida May lagged behind him, stopping on the porch.

Jeb drove away. He would not give her the satisfaction of a look back.

Women covered Freda’s porch. They were all dolled up in Sunday things, silk flowers pinned on dresses and hats. Josie stopped
him on the steps and asked after Ida May. Jeb showed her the dress and the button. She took it and told him, “I’d best stop
by and see to her and Willie. I heard they’d be joining Angel soon in Oklahoma.” Her lips trembled. “It’s good they’ll be
back with family,” she said. Her eyes were wet. She stroked her lashes with one finger. “I know you do what’s best for the
Welbys. Never a thought for yourself.” She covered her mouth and said twice, “Excuse me.”

“Ida May’s a mess over her sister,” said Jeb. “She’d take kindly to a visit.” He commandeered a route around the women.

Freda burst out of the kitchen, her face happy. She set out a plate of eggs. The table was spread with a tablecloth on which
sat a bowl of oranges. Will got a good deal on those oranges, she said. “We didn’t plan nothing big,” she kept saying. “But
enough.”

Freda was the best of the deacons’ wives. Not once had she raised sand, not the whole time he’d known her, not like some of
the other wives. She was a rock. Will told her all the time they’d still be married in heaven. Freda worked as hard as a man,
could sit at Will’s side and put down a rug at the store or nail up a new shelf. Will could not do without her.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” said Jeb. “Why the big to-do?”

She talked about this, that, and the other. It had been too long since Church in the Dell had done something for their preacher.
The offerings were down, she said, but that wasn’t news. Jeb followed her back into the kitchen. She closed the door behind
him. “We heard you might leave,” she said. “Not everyone has heard. Don’t think they all know out there. But Will heard.”

Jeb thought first of Fern. She would never tell a deacon, but in a weak moment, a teacher or two. “Who said?”

“A little bird from up north.”

That changed things. “Philemon Gracie,” said Jeb.

“He sent Will a letter and apologized for hooking you up with that Oklahoma bunch. He’s proud for you, Jeb. Do you really
want to live in Oklahoma? I can see Fern doing that, her family being up there. Is she happy? I guess she would be. We should
have taken better care of you.”

She had no business knowing ahead of the others, especially not Fern. But the look she gave him, the simpering glances, were
hard to take. “I’m not taking the Oklahoma church,” said Jeb. It was the first time he said it aloud. The decision was made
this morning. He was up all night. Fern had not been to see him since the last afternoon two days ago when she walked into
the school and left him on the back steps. She’d not ever go back to Oklahoma. He’d not go without her. He started the letter
to Gracie to let him know. It was on his desk. He only needed to sign and post it.

“Does Fern know?” asked Freda.

“I’m telling her today.”

“You can tell her now: Josie invited her. You look surprised. Reverend, is everything all right?”

Jeb pushed open the kitchen door. The parlor was filling up. Fern stood in the doorway, holding her hat in her hands. Josie
was bending her ear about the wedding. Bernice told her how she liked her in brown, how well her shoes matched, and that hat,
how it flattered her blond hair. Fern pretended to listen, glancing once at Jeb.

Bernice kept waving her hands to get the women into their chairs. “Come in, Reverend, join us.” She put Jeb at the head of
the table, Fern next to him.

Fern was quiet, giving the churchwomen the talking rights. He started to tell her how glad he was to see her. But if she gave
him a look, the women could all read one another. Fern was smothered with wedding talk.

“You feeling all right, Miss Coulter?” asked Freda. “I’ll bet you need rest after such a long drive.”

Fern talked about the hours she and the other teachers spent getting the classrooms ready for Monday. “I’m tired from all
that,” she said.

Jeb gave thanks.

Freda rushed out from the kitchen and served sausages. The women cooed. Josie passed the eggs down to Jeb and asked Fern about
her visit with her mother.

“Good, good. I saw my sister and my brothers. We lost Angel to Claudia, though. Everyone’s heard the news, I guess,” said
Fern. “Not too many secrets in Nazareth.”

He could hand it to her, she could keep up a good front.

“I can’t bear it,” said Josie. “What will I do without Ida May?”

Freda said to Jeb, “I heard you almost up and got hitched.”

“If Donna Faye had had her way, yes, we would have. But Fern’s mother, Abigail, wants a big church wedding,” said Jeb.

“Tell us the date, then, I can’t stand it!” said Josie.

“December, on the tenth,” said Fern.

“Child, you waited long enough, I’ll give you that!” said Freda.

Fern fielded the questions about the dress, the Ardmore church. She had dressed plain for the churchwomen, it was obvious.
She was brown, head to foot, a wren.

“But we wanted you to marry here,” said Bernice. “You belong to us, not Oklahoma, no offense to your kin. Reverend, say something.”

Jeb drank the coffee. He watched Fern for any sign that she might bolt at any minute. She smiled as often as she was asked
another question. He told himself that he was imagining things out of school, such as the subtle absence of conviction in
her voice when she announced the wedding date. No matter. That was a devil in his head. He cast it down. When she told Josie,
“Donna will stand with me. Jeb hasn’t said who will stand with him,” she sounded like a woman delivering bad news about a
crop not coming in well. But he knew her better. She was obviously distressed over Angel joining Claudia. The questions from
the women were coming at her rapid-fire and she had never been like other women, coy and preening, desperate to win their
approval. He knew that. She was not sitting there politely eating her eggs while quietly hating him. He wanted to tell her
to stop averting her eyes. The others, who did not know her as well as he, might misinterpret the lackluster manner in which
she described their upcoming nuptials. Her hands stayed in her lap, but not so that she wouldn’t accidentally touch him while
reaching for her coffee. Her hands in her lap, her eyes not reaching his. It was time to pull out the show card. “I have something
to say,” he said.