Swan Place (14 page)

Why, her voice was the sweetest-sounding I’ve ever heard, and we all started passing around the platters and bowls and serving ourselves. Those were the most whipped-up potatoes I ever saw, but they were certainly nice and fluffy. When the bowl of English peas came around, we were all surprised—because the peas were all whipped to death, as well. None of us dared to refuse a serving, but we waited for someone else to taste that strange-looking mess. When the bowl of whipped peas got to Aunt Bett, she put a big spoonful on her plate and didn’t even seem to notice what kind of shape those peas were in. She put a forkful in her mouth and her face never changed. She remained quiet and cool, and somehow carved out of a strong, very, very cold piece of stone.

While I ate, I wondered what to do. Maybe Roy-Ellis didn’t have a thing in this world to do with whoever was sleeping in his bed. Maybe Roy-Ellis was sick somewhere or had an accident. How long should I wait until I told Aunt Bett about him being gone for so long? Well, at least until she didn’t look so rigid, that was for sure. Then, just as we were finishing up our supper, there came a quiet knock on the front door. Aunt Bett’s head flew up and red streaks started coming up the side of her neck.

“Children, go into the bedroom.”

She didn’t have to say it twice. We cleared the room like maybe there was a bomb going to explode any minute! Even the little ones must have just felt that something dangerous was getting ready to happen. When we were all in the bedroom, we heard Aunt Bett call out in a dead-sounding voice, “Come in.”

Darlene and I opened the bedroom door just a tiny bit and watched through the narrow crack as Roy-Ellis came into the room. I was so glad to see him safe and sound, I almost ran to him. But then I remembered about someone being in his bed. And besides, Roy-Ellis was walking like he was crawling on his knees.

“How dare you!” Aunt Bett’s voice was low, almost like a growl.

“Bett, please,” Roy-Ellis’s voice was hoarse. “Please listen. She ain’t no har-let.”

“Har
lot
!” Aunt Bett corrected him, her voice rising. Darlene and I glanced at each other and shrugged our shoulders.

“Okay—she ain’t no har
lot
, Bett. She’s my
wife
.”

I guess in all this world there has never been such a silence as that one. It just went on and on, with Roy-Ellis standing with his hands held out, palms up, and Aunt Bett with her face as white as those beaten-up potatoes, and her eyes and hanging-open mouth just three dark circles in her face. Darlene and I were frozen in place, and we couldn’t even shut that little crack in the door because I guess we both felt that the least little thing could make the whole picture of what was happening begin to crack and crumble, and finally it—and we—would be nothing but a pile of dust. Finally, after ever so long, Aunt Bett let out her breath and turned her face away.

“Your
wife
?” she breathed.

Roy-Ellis let his hands drop to his side.

“Yes.”

“But what about
 . . .
?”

“I loved her with all my heart. You know that. But
 . . .
”

“But what?” Aunt Bett whispered.

“Until death do us part. Even in
your
church, Bett, a man can take another wife when he’s lost the one he had.”

“But
 . . .
so soon?”

“Bett, I’ve tried to show proper respect.” Roy-Ellis looked down at his boots. “I will always show the proper respect,” he added. Then he brightened. “Bett, why don’t you and the children come on and meet her,” he said. “You’ll like her. She’s young, but she’s the sweetest little thing you’ve ever seen.”

“I
 . . .
” Aunt Bett didn’t seem to know what to say.

“Come on, Bett,” Roy-Ellis coaxed. “Come on and see for yourself.”

Aunt Bett was struggling with herself, I could tell. Because she’d start to stand up and then plop right back down in her chair. Maybe the struggle was between being mad at Roy-Ellis and wanting to check out his new wife for herself.

“You need to talk to your children first,” she said at last. So Darlene and I closed the door without a sound and ran and sat on the beds beside the children. Aunt Bett opened the door.

“My children come on out here. Roy-Ellis’s children, stay put.”

As Aunt Bett’s children filed out of the room, she said, “Darlene, you and Cassandra get into the kitchen and help me clean up. It’s a mess, and I won’t have that.”

“But
 . . .
” Darlene started to say something, probably about how Aunt Bett herself was the one who had made the mess.

“Don’t you talk back to me,” Aunt Bett warned. So Darlene closed her mouth and followed Aunt Bett into the kitchen. Roy-Ellis came into the bedroom where Molly and Little Ellis and I were waiting and stood before us, with his hands deep in his pockets. He cleared his throat.

“I loved you all’s mama more than anything in this world,” he started and cleared his throat again. “And when she started getting so sick, she made me promise I’d take good care of you. And I always will.”

Molly said, “Mama go to Jesus.”

“Yeah, honey. I know.” Once again, Roy-Ellis cleared his throat.

“I met Crystal at Across the Line, and I fell in love with her. And I talked to your mama about her.”

“You did
what
?” My voice sounded a lot like Aunt Bett’s. “You met her while Mama was still alive?”

“No, Dove. No, honey. I know your mama’s gone, but I still talk to her because I still love her. I always will.”

“Oh.”

“But seems to me your mama would say that if she wasn’t around to take care of you all and me and to love us all, she would want some kind, loving person to do that for her. That’s Crystal.”

“That’s her name?” I asked.

“Yes,” Roy-Ellis said in the softest voice I ever heard him use. “And I want you all to come home with me now and meet her. You’ll like her. I promise.”

“Okay!” Molly hopped down off the bed and took Roy-Ellis’s hand. I got Little Ellis and we followed them out of the bedroom.

“Bett? You ready?” Roy-Ellis called, and Aunt Bett came out of the kitchen, taking off her apron and pausing before the mirror in the dining room to pat her hair into place.

“I still don’t know how I feel about all this, Roy-Ellis,” she said. “I just don’t know how I feel. You and this
 . . .
woman
 . . .
get married in a church?”

“Justice of the Peace,” Roy-Ellis admitted. “But it’s legal, Bett.”

“I know. I know,” she muttered. So we rode with Aunt Bett and followed Roy-Ellis’s truck down the road to our very own house. A house with a strange woman in it.

When we went into
the house, everything felt completely different. Even though it all looked the same, except for those two mugs I expected were still sitting on the kitchen table. But it all felt so different. Aunt Bett stood by the front door, like maybe she would need to leave in a hurry. Roy-Ellis grinned and motioned to us to stay where we were. Still grinning, he backed into the hallway and hollered over his shoulder, “Crystal? Sugar? Come on out here for a little minute.”

Well, at least he hadn’t called her darling. That was my mama’s word, and I didn’t like him using it for anybody else.

“Come on, sugar,” he called again. Then he looked toward the bedroom, and his face broke into the biggest grin of all.

“Here she comes!” he announced joyously.

A slender, short girl with long blond hair came out, tying the belt of a pink terry cloth robe. Yes, just a
girl!
About my height and my size, but a little bit older than me. With electric blue eyes and a soft mouth. Roy-Ellis clamped his strong arm around her shoulders and hugged her to him. Her head bounced against him, right about at the level of his heart.

“Bett, this here is Crystal. Sugar, this is Bett.”

“Hi,” Crystal said, smiling shyly and waving her fingers at Aunt Bett.

“How do you do,” Aunt Bett said in a flat voice, separating the words like beads on a string. And she didn’t make it a question at all. Just words you say to be polite but that you don’t mean. But Aunt Bett wasn’t a lady who meant to lose all her manners—at least not in front of a stranger—so she smiled. But only a tight little upturn at the corners of her mouth. Not a real smile, one that would have come from her eyes as well. And she held her nostrils kind of pinched together, like something smelled a little bit bad. But then, all of a sudden, Aunt Bett couldn’t hold it in any longer.

“My Lord, Roy-Ellis! She’s a
child!
” Her voice sounded like a hissing cat.

“Well, I told you she was young,” Roy-Ellis tried to defend himself, grinning even more.

“How old are you?” Aunt Bett asked Crystal point-blank. Squinting her eyes and tilting her head to the side.

“I’m eighteen,” Crystal answered, glancing up at Roy-Ellis.

“And, Crystal,” Roy-Ellis said, “these are my children.”

Crystal’s eyes grew wide and that soft little mouth fell open.

“Your
children
?”

“Yeah, sugar.”

“Roy-Ellis! You didn’t tell me you had children!”

Aunt Bett’s eyebrows shot up almost to the top of her head.

“Well, everything between us happened so fast, sugar.” Roy-Ellis tried to make an excuse. And I don’t think Roy-Ellis meant to fool Crystal at all. I think that maybe once he got to looking into those electric blue eyes, he forgot he had children at all.

But Crystal broke into a big laugh and her eyes sparkled.

“Children!” she laughed, and her delight was right there for all of us to see.

“Well, introduce us, sweetie,” she said, taking Roy-Ellis’s hand and coming toward us. Molly ducked behind me.

“This is Dove.”

The blue eyes were almost level with my own.

“What a beautiful name,” she breathed. “Hello, Dove.” The small hand with perfectly manicured nails reached out, and I took that hand in mine. It was surprisingly warm and soft.

“And hiding behind Dove is Molly.”

“Hi, Molly,” Crystal cooed, but she didn’t try to make Molly come out.

“And this is Little Ellis.” Roy-Ellis’s voice took on a prideful sound.

Crystal kneeled down in front of Little Ellis and cupped one of those small, warm hands under his chin.

“Hi, sweet baby.”

Aunt Bett cleared her throat. “I better get on home,” she said. “The children made a terrible mess of my kitchen tonight.” Aunt Bett shot a glance at me that said: Not a word! And I nodded a silent yes’m.

“Thanks for coming,” Crystal said, standing up and holding out her hand. Aunt Bett took hold of the tips of Crystal’s fingers.

“I’m just down the road, if you all need me,” Aunt Bett said. Then she shot a final, fierce glance at me as she left.

The rest of that unusual
evening was strangely usual. I bathed Molly and Little Ellis and put them to bed. Then I sat at the kitchen table, writing in my notebooks, while Roy-Ellis and Crystal sat on the couch in the living room, watching TV and holding hands. Sometimes they said things to each other, but I didn’t hear what they said. When I was done with my writing, I went out onto the back porch and put a load of clothes into the washing machine, like I usually did.

“P-s-s-t!”

The sound came from the bushes along the side of the porch, and I saw Savannah’s face wreathed in a big smile.

“I’m glad Roy-Ellis got home safe and sound,” she said. And when I went to answer her, she suddenly disappeared. Behind me, Crystal had come out on the porch.

“Thanks, Dove,” she said. “I’ll put the clothes in the dryer first thing in the morning and fold them when they’re done.”