Before We Were Yours(107)

“Easy, buddy…” Trent moves forward, grabs Jonah’s arm, and shifts him back to me.

The dog raises its head and bays, then scratches at the bottom of the door, trying to cram its nose through the torn corner.

Not far off, some sort of engine rumbles. A lawnmower maybe. It’s coming our way. Trent and I have no choice but to wait. I don’t even dare to close the front door to the house behind us. If the dog breaks through, we’ll need an escape.

We’re like felons caught in the act. Actually, we are felons caught in the act.

Only Jonah, who’s innocent of any crime, is excited. I keep a hand on his shoulder while he bobs up and down, trying to see what’s making the engine noise.

“Oh…tractor! Tractor!” He cheers when a man in overalls and a straw hat comes chugging into view on a red-and-gray tractor of inestimable age. A faded two-wheeled cart rattles in tow with a Weed Eater and a few twigs inside. The sun slides over, dappling the man’s burnished brown skin as he pulls up near the gate and kills the engine.

On closer inspection, I see that he’s younger than his garb makes him look. Maybe about my parents’ age…in his sixties, perhaps?

“Sammy!” His voice is deep and demanding as he steps off the tractor and calls the hound. “You cut that out, now! Hush up! Come outa there!”

Sammy has his own mind. He waits until the man is almost within reach before obeying the command.

The stranger stops halfway up the steps, but he’s so tall we’re almost eye-to-eye.

“I help you folks?” he asks.

Trent and I look at each other. Clearly, neither one of us has planned for this moment.

“We were talking to May in the nursing home.” Trent is salesman smooth. He makes that seem like an explanation, even though it really isn’t.

“I— Is this is hers…her…her house?” I babble, making us look even more guilty.

“You got a tractor!” Of the three of us, Jonah has the most intelligent comment.

“Yes, sir, I do there, li’l fella.” The man braces his hands on his knees to talk to Jonah. “That there was my daddy’s tractor. He bought her when she was brand-new in 1958. I just come start her up when I get time, knock down the weeds around the farm, pick up the branches, and look in on Mama. The grandbabies love comin’ with me. I’ve got one over there right now who’s just about your size.”

“Oh…” Jonah is properly impressed. “I’m fwee.” He works hard to hold up the three middle fingers on one hand and fold down the pinky and thumb.

“Yep, Bart’s just about your age then.” The man agrees. “Three and a half. Named after his papaw. That’s me.”

Big Bart straightens back up, studying Trent and me. “You relatives of May’s? How’s she doin’? Mama told me her sister died and they had to take Mrs. Crandall off to the rest home. Said the grandkids put her in a facility all the way over in Aiken, thinking it’d be better if she wasn’t so close to home. Sad thing. She loved this place.”

“She’s doing as well as can be expected, I guess,” I tell him. “I don’t think she likes it very much there. After visiting her house here, I can see why.”

“You a niece or granddaughter?” He zeroes in on me. I can see him searching his mental catalog, trying to decide who I might be.

I’m afraid to lie to the man. No telling whether May even has a granddaughter. Bart might be testing me.

A lie won’t really solve my problem anyway. “I’m not…exactly sure, to tell you the truth. You said your mother lives nearby? I wonder if she might know anything about the”—the secret my grandmother was keeping—“pictures in the house and the painting above the fireplace? My grandmother is one of the women in it.”

Bart gives the cottage a clueless look. “Couldn’t say. Haven’t been inside in years, myself. Mama’s been the one to take care of the place here for a long time. Since before the big house got burned down by lightning in ’82, even.”

“Could we possibly…talk to her? Would it be too much of an imposition?”

He tips back his hat, smiling. “My mercy! Not a bit. She loves it when anybody comes to visit. Just be sure you’ve got time to kill. Mama can talk.” He leans back and looks around the edge of the cabin. “Did y’all walk down here on foot from the old house? There’s an easier route out right through there. Little driveway up to the farm lane. May kept her car parked in the garage by Mama’s place.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.” But that explains a few things, like the overgrown condition of the front entrance and the rough trail that led us here. “We walked in from the old iron gate.”

“Oh slap, you’ll have chiggers by tomorrow. Remind me to give you some of Mama’s chigger soap. She makes it herself.”

I immediately start itching.

“Y’all hop in my li’l box trailer there. I’ll give you a ride over to Mama’s house. Unless you’d just as soon walk?”

I look across the way, and all I see are billions of chiggers waiting to attach themselves to me and make me itch for all eternity.

Jonah is already vibrating in place and tugging his daddy’s pant leg and pointing at the tractor.

“I think we’ll ride,” Trent decides.