The Last Days of Summer (24 page)

A few ‘Amens', then all fall silent. Jasper sits like stone beside Lizzie on the pew. She turns back to the reverend. He's smiling that fake smile, holding up the hymnal, telling everyone to turn to
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. As one, the congregation rises. And Lizzie pops up, delayed a second behind them. Her legs feel weak. It's too warm in the church. No a/c. No fan. Just windows open along each wall, and barely a breeze blowing in through the screens.

Around her, music erupts, voices spiralling higher as they praise the Lord. She feels dizzy. Like the whole church, not merely the music, swirls around her. Like she's caught up in a twister, spinning across the prairie, too fast for even God's control. Her girls beside her look like angels, the way the light spills in and dances through their golden hair. Katie holds the hymnal open for Joanne, pointing on the page to where they sing. She tears her eyes from them, her babies, her beauties. Looks to her other side where Jasper stands beside her. He is not singing. Not quite. Jasper never was much of a singer. But his lips are moving, and it takes Lizzie a moment to decipher if he's mouthing the lyrics or his own silent prayer.

Joanne doesn't remember ever going to church. Not really. She has a fuzzy memory of Grandma's funeral, but she was only five back then, and she recalls the cold graveyard more than the church service. She remembers vaguely the reception after. How cold the old farmhouse felt. How much Mom had cried. How strange the house felt without Grandma in it. They go to Grandma and Grandpa's graves out round the back of the church a time or two each year, and they lay down wild flowers if the season's right, and Mom wipes down the headstones, keeps the graves tidy. But for Joanne actually sitting in church seems a completely new experience.

When Mom had finished braiding her hair that morning, she'd stopped in the kitchen doorway before going upstairs to change and had looked at Joanne a long moment. Joanne, rubbing her sore scalp, had had tears in her eyes, the braids were so tight and neat. ‘You all righ'?' Mom had asked her.

She'd looked up, surprised. ‘Yes-um.'

Her mother had hesitated. ‘Now I don' want you takin' all this God talk too much to heart, you hear? This Sunday thing ain't gonna become a habit.'

‘Yes, ma'am.' And Joanne had looked down again, scalp pulled so tight by the braids that she felt her forehead might be stretched tight like that for good.

Now the braids have loosened slightly, not enough to be messy but enough at least that her head no longer aches so bad. She likes the church. The quiet hush of it when the reverend's not speaking. She even likes the way the whispers seem to swirl and whirl around the room, though she doesn't like the fact that the whispers
are about them; she simply likes the sound they make. Like wind through the trees down at the creek where Katie sometimes takes her swimming. That sort of sound. And Joanne likes the smooth, polished feel of the pew beneath her. She likes it when they sing, and she likes that Katie helps her find each song in the hymnal. She wishes that she was closer to Uncle Jasper, though. She looked at his face once while the reverend was talking, and something in Joanne told her to reach out, but Uncle Jasper was too far, Mom and Katie between them, so Joanne didn't try to touch him, though she would have liked to hold his hand. She wonders if her daddy came to church when he was a boy. What pew he might have sat in.

It feels like all eyes are on them. An uncomfortable sort of feeling, like when you think a ghost might be in the closet, or a spider might have crawled right into your pillowcase. It's the feeling Joanne gets when Mom's cross with her, and she knows she's in for a spanking, except this time Joanne isn't really sure what they've done wrong. ‘Why's everyone so angry?' she'd asked Katie, when they'd first arrived and the angry whispers had swirled up all around them.

‘Hush, Lady, not now,' was all Katie'd hissed in reply.

Joanne is getting very tired of being told ‘not now'.

She twists round in the pew slightly to see who sits behind them. Katie elbows her hard in the ribs, and Joanne has to bite her lip to keep from squealing. She looks over to her uncle and finds his eyes upon her. She smiles. He stares at her as if not seeing her. As though looking through her and off into the distance at
something or someone far away. After a while, he looks back up to the front of the church, and Joanne follows his gaze, past the reverend to the large white cross stood up at the end of the church as altar. The church itself is very bare. Wooden walls whitewashed on the inside and the out. Pews old oak, just like the door. Two steps elevate the front of the church where the reverend stands, and behind him towers the huge white cross, two potted lilies with some candles at its base. To the right, the choir stands, wearing long silky purple robes that reach all the way down to their ankles. Joanne can't help but think they must be hot standing there like that, wearing those pretty robes. She's too hot and all she has on is the dress Mom forced her to wear, one of Katie's hand-me-downs, white mostly with tiny blue flowers on it. The stitching where the waist comes in itches against her ribs. Joanne doesn't like dresses. She never has.

When the sermon's ended, and the last hymn has fallen silent, Mom stands up quickly, turning to Katie and Joanne. ‘Let's get out of here,' she hisses, whisper almost too loud, even though others now have started to stand and talk as well. Around them, neighbours shake hands, families hug, friends exchange stories and laughter, but there's a subdued atmosphere in the church. An uneasiness in the way glances flick over but do not rest on them.

‘What about Sunday school?' Katie asks, smiling and waving to Kristen Maylor across the church. ‘Aren't we stayin'?'

‘Not if I can help it,' Mom mutters. ‘I think it's best we head on home.'

Uncle Jasper rises slowly. Stretches as he rises. Yawns.

Mom turns to him. ‘You got what you wanted here?'

He meets her gaze. ‘Not quite.'

They stand, eyes locked, unmoving.

‘I don't reckon it's wise to stay long.' Her eyes dart around the church then search his. She folds her arms across her like she's cold, but Joanne can see small beads of sweat running down the nape of her mother's neck, leaving trails of moisture in their wake as they race beneath the collar of her dress.

He smiles. ‘We're in God's house now, Liz. I don't aim to live free like I'm still locked in prison.'

‘I ain't controlling you, Jasper. I ain't your guard. But if you don't want to walk home, I suggest you listen when I try to steer you clear of trouble.'

He looks at her a long moment. ‘There's unfinished business here.'

‘There's unfinished business everywhere, Jasper.'

He smiles then. Nods once. ‘Ain't that the understatement of the day.' Then he turns from them and starts up the aisle, heading towards the door, the congregation parting like a sea around him, opening to let him pass.

When he's honest with himself, Jasper knows full well there are three reasons why he'd wanted to go to church. First off was the routine of it. It seems to him that coming home and going to church go hand in hand. It would feel wrong somehow not to go. He associates church with his mother. And he'd like to see her grave. Where she lies next to Daddy. He'd like to see his parents, and just sit by their graves awhile. He'd like to belong somewhere, like Mama and Daddy always belonged here. He'd thought,
maybe, that God would have him, that the church might have opened its arms to him, but sitting on the hard pew, Jasper could not block out the whispers. Most of his life, Jasper has felt unwelcome. Like he doesn't quite fit wherever he is. He had hoped that that could change.

Jasper had wanted to go to church for the freedom of it. He wanted to go because he could. Because no one could stop him. Because it was his choice freely made and because it was something as a free man that he could say he'd done. Something normal to do. He never would have guessed he'd spend so many hours in prison thinking on freedom like he had. Defining and redefining for himself all its contexts and possible meanings. Ten years is a long time to study a word's definition. He would like to feel free again. It is hard sometimes to remember just what it means exactly. To be free.

The third reason Jasper wanted to go to church was to see her. He realizes that now. Not that he'd expected her to be there. Not really. But a part of him had hoped. And now, walking back up the aisle through the church towards its exit, he feels the anger boiling up inside him, rotting his insides. But he does not want to go home just yet. He does not want to run away, to give them reason to whisper louder. He aims to live and to live a normal life, God willing.

He's nearly to the church door before he stops. Roy stands with a few other men just to the left of the exit. The church doors are open wide again, and the reverend and Regina both shake hands with all who pass, saying goodbye to those few not staying for Sunday school. He can't remember the last time he saw so many women. So many bare ankles, slender calves going up, bare knees …
It makes it hard to focus. Hard not to think of lifting up a woman's skirt and ramming himself inside her.
When was the last time he parted a woman's thighs?
He thinks of her again. That mole just below her pelvic bone. He shakes his head to clear it. Looks again to Roy.

There'd been a time, as boys, when they did not part company. Sat beside each other at elementary. Shared their lunches. Would walk out across the prairie that separated their homes and meet there in those wild fields to play cowboys and Indians or to throw a baseball back and forth. When they were older, they would walk across the prairie late at night, his daddy's old Hungerford held tight in Jasper's hands, like a torch before him, rabbit hunting, except there was no light coming from it, and most times there were no rabbits.

Roy's mother was Polish. An escapee of some war or other, she'd grown up Texan, though had never fully lost her homeland's accent, her voice an odd singsong combination of Warsaw mixed with country, her
r
s rolled in all the wrong places. That was how Roy had got his name. Named after his mother's dead grandfather – some Polish farmer, last name Roychezki, he'd never met and whose image he had always been expected to uphold. ‘Roy!' his mother had used to scold. ‘What is wrong with you? Your grandfather was Polish man, strong as bull. He lift car one hand, no problem. What is wrong with you? You weak like American. At least have strong Polish name.' And she'd pinch his cheeks, and Roy, always a slender child, would try to puff his chest out and sit up a bit taller. Jasper had always liked Mrs Reynolds. She'd been good to him. He'd never had a reason to think on her unkindly.

Roy is no longer the boy Jasper remembers. He is not the young man he used to pal around with. Jasper can see that even from a distance. Roy has the same slender build he's had his whole life; the years have not changed that. His shoulders curve up and in slightly, concaving his chest. He's grown a beard that is trimmed short and tidy. A few bits of grey streak it, but there's none on his head as yet. Jasper wonders how he must look to Roy. How much changed. He clears his throat. Approaches the other man.

‘I was startin' to think you might not say hello.'

Roy turns slowly to him. No friendly spark of recognition lights his face. ‘I wasn't plannin' on it.'

Jasper nods. Looks down at his feet a moment before raising his eyes to the other man again. ‘I would have said hello to you, you know. If things was different 'n' I was in your shoes 'n' you in mine. I'd still say hello to you.'

Silence hangs between them. The type of pause where a man might spit tobacco, had they not been in church. Roy holds Jasper's gaze, expressionless. ‘That's where you're wrong,' he says, ‘ 'cause I'd nevera done what you done.' Roy takes a box of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. Taps the bottom of the pack against the palm of his hand. Takes a cigarette out and puts the box back in his pocket. ‘I heard you was out all righ'.' He twirls the cigarette between his fingers. ‘Didn' expect to see you in a place like this, though.'

‘I'm as free a man as any.'

‘Yeah … well …'

Behind Roy, Sarah bounces a baby on her hip. She glances over at them, and Jasper just manages to catch
her gaze. Her forehead creases as she looks away. He never would have pictured them together, but he can see why Roy married Sarah. Not that she's beautiful. In fact, far from it in Jasper's eyes, but there's a sort of maternal grace to her that appeals to him. Her breasts beneath her cotton dress are swollen plump with milk. The baby weight that still clings to her hips broadens her petite frame. He wonders if he sucked her tits he'd taste her milk. Wonders what it would be like. Imagines himself there sucking. ‘I'd heard you got married,' he says at length, tilting his head towards Sarah.

‘That's right.'

Jasper nods. ‘And that's your boy?'

‘That's right.'

Jasper nods again, surveying the church around them. The hushed voices kept low enough just to whisper past him. Makes him angry, all those whispers. Like he's the main attraction and they're all just waiting for him to start the show. ‘I saw Esther the other day,' he says. ‘In town. I asked her after you.'

‘She told me.'

There'd never been awkwardness between him and Roy before. Not like this. Never anything like this. Jasper studies the scuff marks on his shoes. He'd hoped maybe they could be friends still. Even after Esther refusing him in the shop like that. He had imagined them out rabbit hunting just like they had so long ago. Jasper runs a hand through his hair, searches inside himself for the words he's after. There's so much he'd like to say. ‘I'd thought maybe I'd hear from you.' His words hang between them, rawer than he'd meant.