The Scent of Lilacs (34 page)

“Not yet.”

“Are they going to fire you?” Jocie asked.

“That remains to be seen, but whatever happens, the Lord will take care of us. And Tabitha.” He backed the car out onto the road and turned it toward home.

“Dorothy McDermott brought us two bushels of beans and a bucket of tomatoes,” Aunt Love said. “You’ll have to remember to thank her, David.”

“I will on Wednesday night. They’re good people.”

Aunt Love smiled. “She didn’t know what to think of my red hat.”

“I guess you surprised us all with that,” David said.

They drove a little way in silence before Aunt Love said, “That girl, I can’t ever remember her name, but the one that’s stuck on you. She seems nice.”

“Leigh,” David said. “Yes, she does.”

“Maybe she’ll make us another chocolate cake,” Jocie said from the backseat. “Paulette told me last week that her mother always says the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Maybe I should tell Leigh that. Or even better, maybe we can invite her over to help string beans.”

David glanced in the rearview mirror at Jocie. “Maybe it would be better if you leave the inviting up to me.”

Jocie grinned. “Oh dear. I think my daddy has fell in love.”

“Well, maybe not yet, but I’m not saying it couldn’t happen. It’s been a pretty wild summer so far. Who knows what might happen next?”

“Something good, I hope,” Jocie said.

“ ‘Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Yea, the L
ORD
shall give that which is good.’ Psalm 85, I think,” Aunt Love said. “I’m thankful the truth did spring out of the earth this week, and I’m thankful for my family.”

“And we’re thankful for you,” David said.

Again there was a moment of silence as they drove along before Jocie said, “I like your red hat, Aunt Love.”

“That’s sweet of you, child. I’m thinking about putting a flower on the one I wear next week, or maybe a feather.”

David smiled out at the road and silently thanked the Lord for the blessings of the week. Even for the ones that hadn’t especially felt like blessings at the time. He even planned on working on forgiving Adrienne during his prayer times next week. After all, hadn’t he profited from some of the wrongs she’d done against him? He glanced up in the rearview mirror again. Jocie was dozing off. Again he felt that terrible need to protect her, even to make sure whatever she was dreaming was good and happy.

But then he remembered the way the tears had flowed down her cheeks when she’d talked about Aunt Love and her baby. There would be other times when life would knock her off her feet. He couldn’t keep that from happening. Not every time. He could only try to be there to help her up and make her smile again.

M
onday morning, Jocie had to help Aunt Love with the green beans. She would have rather been helping Wes set up the paper, but her father said they couldn’t very well leave Aunt Love alone with two bushels of beans and a pressure canner. Just last summer old Mrs. Cranfield out on Benson Creek had put a canner full of beans on the stove and gone out on the porch to check her flowers. She hadn’t thought about the canner again till its top blew off and jars of beans went everywhere. Her grandson had even found a jar on a rafter in the attic. David had gone out and taken a picture of the unbroken jar of beans for the
Banner
.

So there was no way they could trust Aunt Love’s memory when it came to pressure canners. When Jocie pointed out that Tabitha wasn’t having memory lapses yet, her father said Tabitha probably didn’t have the least idea how to can beans.

So Jocie sighed and accepted her fate. At least she didn’t have to grate head after head of cabbage to salt down in crocks until it rotted into sauerkraut. She still hadn’t figured out how people ate that stuff.

Actually, stringing beans wasn’t so bad except for it taking forever. They sat on the front porch surrounded by the buckets of beans. Even Tabitha helped. She said it brought back memories of helping Mama Mae years ago. Zeb lay by Jocie’s chair, ready to pounce when she dropped a bean.

“I don’t think I ever saw a dog eat a green bean,” Aunt Love said.

“Wes would say it’s because he’s a Jupiterian dog.” Jocie dropped another bean on purpose.

“Wes isn’t from Jupiter,” Tabitha said. “He’s from Illinois.”

“How do you know that?” Jocie asked.

“DeeDee told me. She said Wes was the original beatnik and that when he first came to Hollyhill, she tried to get him to tell her stories about some of the places he’d been.”

“And he told her?” Jocie carefully pulled the strings off the long green bean in her hand. For some reason, it bothered her that Wes might have told her mother things he had never told her.

“Not a lot. Said he wouldn’t talk about his past at all. She said there were times when she wondered if Zella was right and the man was running from the law.”

“He hasn’t done much running for the last ten years or so,” Aunt Love said.

“I didn’t say I thought that,” Tabitha said. “Anyway, DeeDee said about all she ever got out of him was that he used to live in Illinois. At least, I think she said Illinois. Maybe it was Ohio. Somewhere up north. I can’t remember for sure.”

Jocie broke up her handful of beans and threw them into the big kettle sitting in the middle of their chairs. She practiced what she was going to ask a couple of times in her head before she said it out loud. “Did you talk a lot about things here in Hollyhill?”

“Some. DeeDee said she didn’t plan on ever thinking about Hollyhill again after she left, but then she decided some of the stories were just too good not to tell.”

Again Jocie practiced, but her voice still sounded a little tight when she asked, “Did she ever talk about me?”

Tabitha picked a bean up off the pile on the newspaper in her lap and studied it as if it was the first green bean she’d ever seen before she answered, “I talked about you. I missed you, Jocie.”

“But what about Moth—DeeDee?”

Tabitha dropped the bean back down on the pile in her lap and looked up at Jocie. “Do you want the truth?”

Jocie didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”

“Well, okay. DeeDee didn’t talk about you. I would try sometimes to get her to write after we got a letter from you, but she always either acted like she didn’t hear me or told me to write myself if I wanted to. She said she didn’t have any claim on you, that she gave you to Daddy when you were born. She said Daddy wanted you, so Daddy could have you.” Tabitha’s eyes were moist with tears. “I’m sorry, Jocie. I know that sounds awful, but the truth was, DeeDee was never a mother to you even before we left. Surely you remember that.”

“What do you mean?” Jocie asked. “She was my mother, wasn’t she?”

“She gave birth to you, if that’s what you mean, but I never saw her holding you or feeding you or changing you. Daddy did all that. If Mama Mae couldn’t watch you, Daddy took you to the paper with him or to church, visiting, wherever he went.”

Aunt Love was the only one still breaking beans. “That’s true,” she said. “I remember everybody in town talking about what a good father he was. And he was. Nobody talked about your mother. At least, not about her being a good mother.”

“But how could she do that?” Jocie asked. Zeb stood up and put his nose on her knee.

“I don’t know.” Tabitha laid her hand on her stomach. “I can’t understand it. I already know I’d do anything to keep from hurting little Stephanie Grace.”

Aunt Love dumped her bean tips and ends into one of the empty buckets. “That’s the way the good Lord intended a mother to feel. It’s built into us to love and protect our babies, but obviously Adrienne was not a natural mother.” Aunt Love reached across the space between their chairs, laid her hand on Jocie’s, and waited until Jocie looked up at her. “But the Lord blessed you with
a father who was willing to also be your mother. And he’s been a good one. For that you can be thankful.”

“I know,” Jocie said. “Dad’s the greatest.”

“Gracious is the Lord.” Aunt Love sat back and filled her lap with more beans.

Jocie concentrated on pulling the ends off a few beans. She didn’t want to appear ungrateful for a good father. She really did thank the Lord for her father every day. Well, every time she prayed, which was nearly every day. Still, that didn’t keep her from being curious about the woman who had given birth to her. After a moment, she said, “But even if I wouldn’t change anything, I’m still curious about DeeDee. I don’t remember much about her other than what her perfume smelled like.” Jocie looked at Tabitha. “I mean, someday your baby might want to know more about his father. What he looked like or what he did.”

Tabitha tightened her mouth before she said, “Or why he didn’t stick around? I don’t know what I’ll say. There won’t be much I can tell. His name is Jerome. He played drums with DeeDee’s boyfriend’s band. I fell in love with him the first time I saw him. I thought he loved me too, but if he did, he didn’t love me enough. He didn’t want to be a father.”

“Do you still love him?” Jocie asked.

“No. I think the last little trace of love that hung on after he split on me drained out somewhere in Arkansas. I wouldn’t have yelled a warning at him if he’d been standing in the middle of the road and hadn’t seen the bus coming. I thought we’d never get through Arkansas. Twisty little roads up and down hills. I wanted to throw up every five minutes, but bus drivers don’t stop for that. And the restrooms on those buses. They’d gag a maggot.”

“As long as you didn’t push him out in the road in front of the bus,” Aunt Love said.

“I wouldn’t have done that. At least, I don’t think I would have. But I’ll be just as happy if I never see him again.”

“But isn’t there something good about him you can tell the baby when she gets older?” Jocie asked.

“I’m sure there is.” Tabitha broke up a handful of beans while she thought. “He was a good drummer. Really good. He could keep the beat going on any song. He had deep brown eyes. He laughed at stupid jokes. It was a good laugh, made other people smile just hearing it. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about?”

“I guess. It just seems like your mother or father should be a real person to you. And you’d think DeeDee would be real to me. She was here till I was five, but I can’t remember much about her. If it wasn’t for the picture in the living room, I probably wouldn’t even be able to remember how she looked.”

“She still looks sort of like that. Older, and she put some blond highlights in her hair to hide the gray, but that’s about all. But ask me whatever you want. If I know the answer, I’ll tell you.”

Again Jocie concentrated on the beans in her lap. Strange how she couldn’t think of a thing to ask. Now that she knew her mother had deserted her from day one instead of when she was five, she didn’t seem to care whether she liked red or blue the best or what her favorite flower was. Jocie shoved her mother back into a closet in her mind as if she were an old game Jocie didn’t care about playing anymore. “Thanks, Tabitha. If I think of anything, I’ll ask.”

For a while the only sounds between them were the snap of the beans and the creak of Aunt Love’s rocker. Then Zeb jumped off the porch to chase a squirrel, and the mockingbird lit on the electric pole out beside the house and began running through his repertoire. Aunt Love asked Jocie if she remembered what David had preached on the day before and whether they’d washed the quart jars for the beans yet.

They didn’t take the last canner full of beans off the stove until almost six. A whole day given over to beans. Twenty-one quarts of beans lined up on the counter to cool before she had to carry them to the cellar for storing till winter. Jocie hated going down
in the cold, dank cellar. There were no lights down there, and if the flashlight needed batteries, the way it usually did, she had to carry a candle that flickered and tried to go out every time she took a step while it cast spooky shadows on the walls.

Her father told her it built character to do things she didn’t want to do, but she wasn’t looking forward to five or six trips of character building to get all these jars to the cellar the next day. Maybe she could talk Tabitha into holding the candle or entice Zeb to go in the cellar with her to scare away any spiders hiding in and around the jars of pickles and apples left over from last year.