The Sweet Gum Tree (5 page)

“You won’t be able to go to school tomorrow.”

24

The Sweet Gum Tree

“I have to.” He shifted restlessly, wincing as the movement hurt his back.

“No, you don’t. We never do anything the first day. I’ll find out who your teacher is and get the list of school supplies for you.”

“I don’t care about that.” He watched me from under drooping eyelids. “But I have to be there for Lindsey. She’ll be scared if I don’t go.”

“I’ll tell her you’re okay. I’ll even play with her so she won’t be worried.”

“She won’t play.” He hesitated. “She’s not like you, Peewee. She doesn’t talk to anybody except me, and only then when she has to.”

“Is she retarded?”

“No. Maybe a little slow, but it’s not her fault. Nobody’s ever cared about her or tried to help her.” His voice was little more than a whisper, and I could see he was barely awake.

“Go to sleep,” I told him. “I’ll make sure Lindsey is fine tomorrow and I won’t scare her.” I was still sitting on the floor, but I leaned over until my head was on the pillow beside his, our foreheads almost touching.

“You’re something special, Peewee,” he murmured.

“So are you,” I answered.

I must have fallen asleep there, because when I next woke it was morning and I was in my own bed.

25

Katherine Allred

Chapter Three

Nick couldn’t have gone to school the next day no matter how determined he was.

It was all he could do to lift his head from the bed, and he still ran a fever off and on. I did what I told him I would, getting the list of school supplies from his teacher and keeping watch on Lindsey. Her big owl-eyes brimmed with tears when I told her Nick wouldn’t be there, so I sat with her each recess, assuring her he was fine and would be back in school as soon as he could. She never said a word, just stared at the ground like I wasn’t there.

Normally, I piddled my way home after school, stopping to play or talk to the other kids who walked with me, but that day, I ran all the way.

“How is he?” I asked the Judge.

“Sore, but he’s going to be okay.”

Relief flowed through me. “Can I go see him?”

“I reckon. He’d probably like some company besides mine.” So I spent the whole evening in Nick’s room, telling him about the first day of school, about Lindsey, feeding him supper when he couldn’t move his arms without gasping from pain. I even retrieved the books I’d loaned him, found the place he’d marked, and read to him until he dozed off. I would have stayed there all night if the Judge hadn’t shown up and sent me to the house.

The next morning Mama halted my headlong rush to the barn and hustled me into the car for our annual trip to buy school supplies. I took both my list and Nick’s. If Mama noticed that our basket was quite a bit fuller than usual, she didn’t protest.

To my surprise, our second stop that morning was at the used clothing store. Mama went through it in a very business-like manner, picking out jeans, shirts, underwear, and shoes. All of the items were obviously used but still in excellent condition. She even bought a warm winter jacket. When we got home she cut all the string tags off the garments, folded them neatly, and looking me straight in the eye, held the pile out.

“I cleaned the closets this morning, Alix, and found a bunch of your Uncle Vern’s old clothes. Would you take them out to Mr. Bob’s room and put them in the chest for me?”

I think I loved my mother more at that minute than I ever had before. “Thank you,” I whispered, hugging her hard.

It was a week before Nick recovered enough to do more than sit up. During that week the bare room was transformed into a cozy nest. First an old desk appeared, then a bookshelf which I promptly filled for him. Next a braided rug covered the bare floor and the single window was adorned with new plaid curtains.

26

The Sweet Gum Tree

According to the Judge, my mother and aunts had gone into one of their cleaning frenzies and were tossing out everything in the attic. Since he hated to throw away anything still useful, he put it in Nick’s room. I doubt we fooled Nick for a minute, but he never said anything, and I lost count of the times I’d catch him touching the books or clothes with an expression of wonder on his face. No one had ever cared about him before either, except maybe Lindsey, and he wasn’t sure how to take it.

We never heard a word from Frank Anderson while Nick recuperated, and I don’t think he ever hit Nick again, but Nick kept his promise to the Judge. The room in the barn was undisputedly his. Many nights over the next ten years I’d look out and see the gently glowing light spilling from the window and know he was there, safe. Sometimes, if it wasn’t too late, I’d sneak down and we’d talk or read together. And I finally got to ask Nick my question about babies.

It was late in the evening on a Friday, about two weeks after Nick’s return to school.

I’d seen the light come on in his room and, taking the new copy of
Dune
I was reading, went down to join him. While our school housed all the grades from kindergarten to senior high, I rarely had a chance to talk with him during the day. During recess, he would stand behind Lindsey, arms crossed, glaring at anyone who came too close. I had been admitted to this closed circle, but Nick didn’t talk much when other people were around. He would acknowledge me with a small nod, then return to his “on guard” position.

We were sitting on his bed that night, legs crossed as we used the wall for a back support, our shoulders touching companionably as we read. He had finished all of
Lord
of the Rings
, and was working his way through
The Chronicles of Amber
.

I put my finger under an unfamiliar word and looked up. “What’s a concubine?” Maybe I should mention here that my mother monitored my reading very carefully, so while I was advanced in reading skills, I was also incredibly naïve and overprotected. I now suspect that she steered my interest toward science fiction because it had so little in the way of sexual references. She hadn’t discovered my copy of
Dune
yet. I’d slipped it into the basket on my last trip to town with the Judge, and since he was so used to my hunger for books, he’d never commented on it.

Nick glanced up from his book at my question. “I think it’s a woman who’s kind of like a wife, but isn’t really married.”

Aha! Had I inadvertently stumbled on the answer that would explain Liz Swanner’s six kids? “Can concubines have babies?”

“Sure.”

That had to be it, but I wanted to make sure I got this right before I reported back to Jenna. “Is Liz Swanner a concubine?”

His eyes narrowed. “No.”

Drat. I’d been so sure. “Well, then how come she has six kids? Jenna says you have to be married to have babies.”

“Jenna is wrong.”

27

Katherine Allred

A vague tingle of alarm went through me. If you didn’t have to be married, that meant any female could have babies. Including me. And I darn sure wasn’t ready to be a mother yet. When I told Nick as much, he shook his head.

“You can’t have one alone. It takes a man and a woman together to make a baby.

Besides, you aren’t old enough.”

Now this was getting interesting. “How old do you have to be?”

“I think it’s different for everybody. You’ll know when you’re old enough.”

“How?”

His chest lifted in a long-suffering sigh. “You just will.”

“Are you old enough?”

Red tinted his cheeks. “Boys aren’t the same as girls.” Well, even I knew that. I’d been around enough mothers who were in the process of changing diapers to determine the plumbing on boys wasn’t like my own. I had even checked once, after my first glimpse of a baby boy, to make sure there weren’t any surprises lurking down there. “But are you old enough?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not gonna make any woman have a baby.”

“You mean you don’t ever want to have any kids?”

“It’s not that.” He hesitated, staring across the room. “It’s just that it’s better for the kid to have two parents who are married and who love them. I won’t have a kid unless I’m married to its mother, and I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”

“Why not?”

His shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I’m Frank Anderson’s son and I live in a junkyard.

Who’d want to marry me?”

“I’ll marry you,” I told him decisively. “That way, we can both have kids someday.” He grinned, those dimples emerging in a blaze of glory. “Yeah, you probably would. But I don’t think you should go around telling people you’re going to marry me.

They might get the wrong idea.” Draping an arm around my shoulders, he gave me a little shake. “Now shut up and read. I just got to a good part.” I snuggled down next to him, happily sure that our future had been settled. There were still some blank areas in my knowledge of where babies came from, but I knew that together we could work it out. How hard could it be when Liz Swanner had managed it six times?

Of course, I didn’t pay much attention to Nick’s admonition about telling people I was going to marry him. It was almost a week later when I was sitting at the kitchen table doing my homework while Mama and my aunts cooked. Nick hadn’t used his room since the weekend before and I was constantly jumping up to look out the back door, hoping he’d show up.

After the last check with no sign of him, I sighed mightily and resumed my seat.

“Alix, you’re going to wear that chair out if you don’t sit still,” Mama said.

28

The Sweet Gum Tree

“She’s watching for that boy.” Leave it to Aunt Darla to point out the obvious. “She spends entirely too much time holed up in that room alone with him. Aren’t you the least bit worried, Ellie?”

“Why should I be?” Mama stirred a pot of soup beans on the stove, then opened the oven door to check the cornbread. “There are no other children in the family for Alix to play with. I imagine he’s like an older brother to her.”

“No, he’s not,” I told her earnestly. “I’m gonna marry him and we’re going to have kids together.”

All three women stopped what they were doing and gaped at me. Aunt Darla’s hand went to her heart, her face turned red, and sputtering sounds came from her lips.

Aunt Jane was the first to find her voice.

“Whose idea was that, Alix?”

“Mine.”

“And just how did the subject come up?” Mama’s face was nearly as red as Aunt Darla’s.

“I asked him what a concubine was.”

Mama lowered herself weakly into the chair across from me. “I think you better tell me the whole thing. From the beginning.”

I have an excellent memory. I repeated the conversation verbatim. Mama took it pretty good, except for the parts about Liz Swanner, then she did some sputtering that put Aunt Darla to shame. When I finished the tale, her lips thinned to a straight line.

“I want to see that book.”

“Okay.” I’d already read it, anyway.

As I was leaving the room to get it, I heard Mama tell Aunt Darla, “At least Nick behaved like a gentleman. That child is too curious for her own good sometimes.” I wanted to stop and listen to the rest of what they said, but I suspected Aunt Jane would be checking to see if I were doing just that. Instead, I trudged upstairs, got the book, and trudged back down. I’d always thought being curious was a
good
thing. How else was I going to learn if I couldn’t ask questions? At least Mama didn’t seem to be blaming Nick.

She took the book from me and thumbed through it, reading a passage here and there before looking up at me, a puzzled frown wrinkling her forehead. “Alix, did you understand this story?”

“Sure. It was really good. Especially the parts about the giant sandworms.” Mama shook her head and rubbed a hand over her cheek. “Maybe I should have listened to Mr. Viders and let them move you up a grade,” she murmured.

This was news to me. Mr. Viders was the school principal and I hadn’t known he’d talked to Mama, much less wanted to move me up a grade. The thought didn’t thrill me. Leave Jenna and all my friends? Not if I could help it.

29

Katherine Allred

“I don’t want to move up, Mama. I like my grade. Mrs. Wade is my best teacher yet.

She’s real nice and smart, too. She always answers my questions and never tells me to be quiet.”

Mama’s gaze sharpened. “Have your other teachers told you that?”

“Sometimes.”

Her chest lifted in a sigh. “Okay, you can stay in Mrs. Wade’s class. But from now on, Alix, I want to see your books before you read them, and if you have any questions about what you read, come ask me.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“And as for marrying Nick…” She hesitated. “You’re only eight. You’ll change your mind a dozen times before you’re old enough to get married. It wouldn’t do to get Nick’s hopes up and then have to hurt his feelings, would it?”

“No, Ma’am.”

Mama could be tricky when she wanted to, but her tactics failed this time. I knew I would never change my mind about marrying Nick. But from now on I was going to take his advice and keep that tidbit to myself.

* * * * *

Things settled into a routine that first year. Nick would stay in his room on the weekends, with occasional weeknights thrown in when Frank went on a binge. At first, he refused to go anywhere near the house, but eventually I coaxed him into joining us for meals. My mother and aunts fussed over him until it got downright embarrassing, and I knew he was uncomfortable with the attention. Nick was not a herd animal.

Whether by choice or by the hard lessons forced on him though life, he was a lone wolf determined to make his own way in the world.

I finally had a long talk with my mother, and the next time Nick ate with us he was treated as any other family member would be. Nick and I were both relieved.

Once, I asked him about his room in the trailer that sat at the back of the salvage yard.

“I don’t have a room.” He was concentrating on the cards in his hand. I had taught him to play gin rummy the night before, and he was determined to beat me this time.

“Where do you sleep?” I surveyed my cards, then discarded a seven. I was trying to form a picture of what he did when he wasn’t with me, but I’d never been in a trailer before.