Nether Regions (12 page)

Nab looked doubtfully at his mother, and Sophie thought for a moment that he would cry. With Pyree’s encouragement, however, he moved one plump thigh toward Sophie. She spoke soothing words as she examined the patch of skin where his buttocks met his leg. The skin there was inflamed, but not cracked like a fungal infection. She sweet-talked Nab into laying on his stomach using an orange lollipop as incentive and, peering closely, saw that the inflammation had been made worse by repeated scratching with dirty fingernails. Stretching the dark skin, she noted that the pale risings had substance and her diagnosis was confirmed.

“He’s got a patch of chiggers,” she said. “You need to keep the kids away from wherever he was playing yesterday or the day before.”

“Chiggers?”

“They’re little bugs. Your mama must have told you about them. Hell, you’ve probably had them a time or two yourself.”

“Yeah, I think so. But they never looked like that,” she protested, pointing to Nab’s skin.

“Well, he’s two. They ganged up on him. You got a cucumber?”

Pyree looked puzzled. “A cuke?”

“Yeah, I need one, best fresh out of the garden.”

“But it’s early in the season. They’re not ripe yet.”

“Where they growin’?” She handed Nab back to his mother.

“Out back. Mary, show Miss Sophie the garden.”

Mary looked up from the library book she was reading. “Yes, ma’am.”

She led Sophie around the front of the house to a long strip of cultivated land between the river and the back of the house. There were eight cucumber hills. Sophie chose the nearest one and knelt down. She found a baby cucumber, barely free from its blossom and covered in bristles. She picked it, careful not to disturb any of the sister cucumbers on the vine and, after brushing it off, popped it into her mouth. She chewed it thoroughly, not swallowing, allowing saliva and cucumber juice to mingle in her mouth. She spit it into her palm and led the way back into the house.

“What’s that for, Miss Sophie,” Mary asked, her voice a serious whisper.

“Nab,” Sophie whispered back just as seriously.

“I mean, what does it do?”

Sophie laughed. “I’m just picking on you. It’ll help his sore place feel better. We’ll put that on for a while, then we’ll put another medicine on to smother out those old chiggers.”

“Will it work?” Mary asked.

“It better. It has before.”

Inside, Nab was riding his mother’s hip as she packed lunches for the other children. Fifteen-year-old Kylie had come out of the bedroom and was helping. Ada and her brother Tim, twelve, were finally dressed and filling their bookbags beside the front door.

“Mary, get yourself ready now. The bus’ll be here in just a little bit.”

“I’m ready. I just gotta get my bag.”

“I’ll take him,” Sophie said, shifting Nab from Pyree’s hip to her own. She stood him on the table and pulled apart his diaper. She checked him for other chigger signs, awkwardly holding him with one hand. She would have asked for help with the wiggling, fretful child but knew Pyree was plenty busy getting the older kids off to school. Sophie would manage Nab.

There were no other chigger sites, and Sophie smoothed the cucumber paste across the four-inch by four-inch patch on his upper thigh. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a large gauze patch and surgical tape.

“Can you stand real still?” she asked Nab as she found his gaze with hers. “I want to put a picture on you.”

He watched her warily, so she tore open the gauze and showed him the white square. “You know what this picture is?”

He sniffled, unwilling to be pulled in completely, but she could tell he was curious. “Let me put it on and I’ll tell you.”

She quickly pressed the patch on his skin and showed him the tape. “Now I’ve gotta put the frame around it. It may tickle, but don’t you laugh, okay?”

A smile touched the corner of his plump lips, and his dark eyes twinkled.

“This here is a picture of a white rabbit in a cotton field. See how white it is?” She taped the gauze on with a loose taping, then refastened his diaper. “Later on, we’ll see if we can find his eyes.”

She stood him on the floor and he ran to Pyree, grabbing hold of her leg and babbling about rabbits.

The bus pulled up outside, brakes squeaking. The annoying tick of its safety lights sounded loud inside the kitchen. Moments later there was only Pyree, Nab and Sophie in the house.

“You done already?” Pyree used a paper towel to swab at her perspiring face.

“For now. I’ve got to hang around for twenty minutes or so.”

Pyree smiled for the first time that morning. “Good. Let’s have something cold.”

Chiding Nab, who’d become fretful again, Pyree poured two glasses of sweet iced tea from a cracked ceramic pitcher and handed one to Sophie. With a sigh, Sophie settled herself at the table and took a long pull off the tea. “Ahh, that’s good.”

“I like it strong,” Pyree said as she sat and pulled Nab onto her lap. “So tell me how Miss Beulah is feelin’ these days.”

“Vinegary as ever. You know nothing will keep her down for long. The stroke weakened her some, but she can get around on her own.”

“Good to know, that is. You tell her Pyree said hello.”

“Has he eaten?” Sophie watched the boy as he pressed and studied what he could see of the bandage. She knew she’d have to tape the next one on better if it was going to last any time.

“Yeah. He had breakfast early. Had to do something to quiet him down.”

They talked about mundane things for a while—new babies that Sophie had delivered, the death of the Witter baby, problems with Pyree’s oldest girl who had recently become sexual with her young boyfriend. They also talked about Pyree’s birth control shots, delivered at the health department in Redstar every six months. She was happy to report no side effects other than feeling sick to her stomach some mornings.

“And that’s a small price to pay. This one is more than enough to keep me busy for a while,” Pyree said as she tickled Nab until he squealed. His flailing loosened the bandage, and Sophie moved to get more gauze and tape from her bag. She also brought over a tube of zinc oxide.

“Okay, Nab. Time to put on a new rabbit picture. You ready?”

Nab hid his head in his mother’s chest, but Sophie, with Pyree’s help, soon had the chigger inflammation smeared with zinc and tightly rebandaged. The cucumber paste had eased the irritation somewhat and the zinc further soothed the area. He was a much happier baby.

“Leave this on all day,” Sophie directed as she washed her hands at the sink. “We want to keep that white stuff on to smother any larvae and the bandage on to keep it all clean. He could get a nasty infection if we’re not careful, okay?”

Pyree nodded. “I can’t thank you enough, Miss Sophie. He’s acting better already.”

“Good.” Sophie smiled at Nab and rubbed his rough, tightly curled hair. “I’ll leave the rest of this tube with you. You’ll need to put some more on tomorrow evening after you give him a bath. He can just stay dirty till then. He’ll probably get the bandage dirty when he messes and wets his diapers. Just clean it off the best you can. I’ll be by tomorrow to check on it.”

She tidied the kitchen area where she had worked and gathered her supplies, preparing to leave. Pyree let Nab slide to the floor, and she walked to the refrigerator. “Listen, I have some good leaf lettuce Samell picked yesterday evening. It’s still sweet as sugar, though it’s getting late for lettuce. I’m gonna give you a good mess of that and a bottle of my icebox pickle.”

“Why, thank you kindly, Pyree. Are you sure y’all can spare it? You got a good group to feed here.”

“Naw, Samell’s good in the garden, always has been. There’s plenty to spare.”

Sophie looked around at the small frame house, built years ago by Habitat for Humanity. It was clean, well-maintained and cluttered, of course, with the debris of five active children. The Larsens were doing okay. They had a good supply of groceries scattered around the kitchen. Sometimes Sophie felt as though she took the last bite of food from some tables, and she often refused offerings if she felt accepting them would cause hardship on a family. Today she accepted the full grocery bag graciously.

“Well, you’ve made Grandam’s day. There’s nothing she likes better than fresh leaf lettuce,” Sophie said as she approached the kitchen door. “I’ll be on then. You tell Mary I said to draw some rabbit eyes on that bandage. Nab will be expecting it.”

She walked out into the brilliant day, already planning her next visit.

Chapter Sixteen

They were getting embarrassingly loud. She was a big girl with that compact, dense fat some girls harbor. Her face was round, red now with anger, and Delora found herself waiting for the girl to bust loose and knock her husband’s head off. It wouldn’t be an easy feat, however, for he looked as shriveled and tough as beef jerky and just as ugly. Especially with his face twisted in rage as it was now. He made Delora feel as though she was staring into a pot of boiling water. She was not a bit surprised when the pot boiled over.

With a blurred snap, his hand was in his wife’s hair, jerking her head back and pulling her toward him, almost out of her chair. The girl’s fury brought her right fist around in a roundhouse punch and connected solidly with the side of his head. He blinked his eyes, probably seeing stars, and shook her until her heavy arms flopped loosely on the wooden tabletop. She glared up at him through a mass of disordered hair. Hatred radiated from her entire body.

“I told you to shut up. I’ve had just about enough of you today. The boy is going fishing with me Tuesday and that’s all, you hear me?” He grabbed her chin in his free hand and made sure she heard him by talking with his face only three inches from hers.

Delora was glad the club was mostly empty although the few rummies at the bar were enjoying the show.

She looked away. Once when she and Louie had been fighting about how to cook a Thanksgiving turkey, he had grabbed her hair just like this husband. Only Louie had used the fistful of hair to drag her down the hall and into the bathroom. He’d then stuck her face against the cold, clammy porcelain inside the toilet, making sure she got a good mouthful. He said it was to wash out her mouth for the way she was smart-mouthing him.

She realized now that was when she had stopped talking to him. Beyond the normal daily requirements, she did not seek him out. She lost interest. Gone was the fantasy that he would be the man she wanted him to be. A man who would treat her in such a way could never be what she expected.

Seeing the man and his wife made her heart thump in her chest. The man had let go, but a swirling air of humiliation and anger hung above both of them. He was pretending he was cool, only doing his husbandly duty. She was wishing him dead and gone from her life, the wish written on every molecule of her body. Delora felt sad for her. Had been her. Was her.

Maybe being burned the way she had been burned was a good thing overall. Louie seldom had anything to do with her now and this was a blessing. She no longer had to feel that way about anyone. These days it was a gentler emotion, a “when my ship comes in” type of longing for his disappearance instead of the harsh craving she’d once had.

“Shame, isn’t it?” Esther said.

Delora turned, caught off guard by the heavy woman’s quiet approach.

“Sure is. And you just don’t know who to blame.”

Esther pushed back her sandy, graying curls with one hand as she straightened liquor bottles with the other. “When it gets to this point, everyone is involved,” she replied.

“She needs to get away from him,” Delora added.

“Nope.” Esther looked squarely at Delora. “She likes it. I mean subconsciously, of course. Egging him on gives her a sense of power. She knows just what to do to push his buttons and that’s power. Of a sick sort.”

“But look what he did to her.”

“Look what she did to him. He’s wrong, dead wrong, but so is she. He needs to learn to mind his temper, and she needs to back off. It’s a no-win situation.”

“That’s for sure.”

Had she egged Louie on? Had she provoked him? She felt sure she had, but it was easy to do with Louie. He was a quick trigger and her very existence seemed to irk him.

They watched the grumbling duo. Watched them lift their drinks and converse in a stilted manner.

“So what do they do?” Delora asked finally.

Esther checked the ice bin and found it lacking.

“They get on. Day after day. Until one gets hurt beyond repair, whether physical or emotional. Then they divorce. Those two have a baby—a one-year-old. She’s the one that’ll pay. Her and her brother. Either way they’ll pay, whether they stay together like this or separate.”

“And the sad thing is, both of them will probably grow up thinking this is the way people should live.”

“Right.”

Esther disappeared through the kitchen doorway. Delora reached into the fridge below the bar and pulled out a jar of maraschino cherries. She filled the cherry section of the garnish tray. There’d been a run on Manhattans earlier.

“You know what’ll happen. Kristen, that’s the baby, will grow up thinking that it’s okay to let a man beat on you, to disrespect you. Then she’ll marry a man just like dear old dad.” Esther dumped the bucket of ice into the bin hard as if punctuating her prediction.

Hinchey entered and paused just inside the door to allow his eyes to adjust to the dimness. He saw Delora and his face brightened.

“Your boyfriend’s here,” Esther muttered.

“Hey, Delora. Esther,” Hinchey said with a nod of welcome as he took a seat at the bar.

“Hinchey, how you doing?” Esther asked with fondness. She’d once babysat him while his mom played bingo.

“I’m good, Ess. You all right today?”

“Good. Can’t complain. Jeb finally got that vinyl siding on the house. You need to come on over and see it.”

He grinned boyishly and rubbed his hands together. “Is that a dinner invitation? If so, I’m there.”

Esther laughed and said, “Then consider yourself invited. You come over Sunday afternoon and you’ll get the best pot roast you’ve ever set your teeth into. It’ll make your tongue slap your brains out trying to get to it.”