Eventide (Plainsong #2)(53)

What did you do that for?

I felt like it, she said.



AND ONCE HER LITTLE SISTER OPENED THE DOOR OF THE shed in the afternoon, late in that week of Christmas vacation, and found them reading on the floor with the blankets over them. What are you doing?

Shut the door, Dena said.

The little girl stepped inside and shut the door and stood looking at them. What are you doing there on the floor?

Nothing.

Let me under too.

You have to be quiet.

Why?

Because I said so. Because we’re reading.

All right. I will. Let me in.

She crawled under the blanket with them.

No, you have to be over here, Dena said. This is my place next to him.

So for a while the two sisters and the boy lay on the floor under the blankets, reading books in the dim candlelight, with the sun falling down outside in the alley, the three of them softly talking a little, drinking coffee from a thermos, and what was happening in the houses they’d come from seemed, for that short time, of little importance.





28


WHEN RAYMOND CAME UP TO THE HOUSE IN THE AFTERNOON of New Year’s Day after feeding in the winter pasture, shoving hay and protein pellets onto the frozen ground in front of the shaggy milling cattle, he removed his overshoes and canvas coveralls at the kitchen door and went back through the house to shave and wash up, then mounted the stairs to his bedroom and put on dark slacks and the new blue wool shirt Victoria had given him for Christmas. When he came downstairs into the kitchen, Victoria was cooking chicken and dumplings in a big blued pot for their holiday dinner and Katie was standing on a chair at the table stirring flour and water in a red bowl. Each had a white dish towel tied about her waist, and Victoria’s heavy black hair was pulled away from her face and her cheeks were flushed from the cooking.

She turned to look at him from the stove. You’re all dressed up, she said.

I put on your shirt.

I see that. It looks good on you. It looks just right.

So what can I do? he said. What else needs to be done here to get ready for dinner?

You could set the table.

So he spread a white tablecloth over the formal walnut table out in the dining room, where it was centered under the overhead light, and got down the old rosebud china his mother had received as a wedding gift so many years ago and arranged the plates and glasses and silverware about the table. The low afternoon sun streamed in onto the dishes from the unshaded windows. The sunlight was brilliant in the glassware.

Victoria came into the room to see how he was faring and looked closely at the table. Is somebody else coming? she said.

He looked at her briefly and turned to peer out the window toward the horse barn and corrals beyond the graveled drive. I guess you could say there is, he said.

Who is it?

It’s somebody I met.

Somebody you met?

You met her too.

Her? A woman’s coming to dinner?

It’s a woman from the hospital.

What’s her name?

Her name is Linda May. She was working nights when I was in the room there with my leg.

The middle-aged woman with short dark hair?

That sounds about right. Yes, I guess that would have to be her.

Victoria looked at the dishes and glasses ranged in order on the white tablecloth. Why didn’t you tell me?

Raymond stood with his back to her. I don’t rightly know, he said. I guess I was kind of scared to. I didn’t know what you’d think of it.

It’s your house, she said. You can do what you want.

Now that ain’t right, he said. Don’t say that. This here is your house as much as it is mine. It’s been that way for a good while.

I thought it was.

Well it is. He turned to face her. I can tell you that much.

But I don’t understand you not telling me about somebody coming for dinner.

Oh hell, honey, can’t you lay it to an old man’s mistake? An old man that don’t know how to do something he’s never done before?

He stood before her in the new blue shirt, with an expression on his face she had never seen or even imagined. She moved up beside him and put her hand on his arm. I’m sorry, she said. It’ll be all right. It’s just fine. I’m glad you asked her.

Thank you, he said. I hoped you wouldn’t take no offense. I just got the idea to ask her to dinner, that’s all it was. I never saw the harm in it.

There isn’t any, Victoria said. What time did you tell her to come?

Raymond looked at his watch. About a half hour from now.

Did you tell her how to find us out here?

She told me she already knew. She’d been asking around about us, she said.

Oh?

That’s what she told me.



THAT AFTERNOON SHE DROVE UP TO THE HOGWIRE FENCING in front of the house in a ten-year-old cream-colored Ford convertible. She got out and surveyed the gray house and the patches of dirty snow and the three leafless stunted elm trees in the side yard, then came up through the wire gate onto the screened porch. Before she could knock, Raymond opened the door. Come in, he said, come in.

I see I got the right place.

Yes ma’am.

Now you’ll have to call me Linda today, she said. You have to remember that.

You better come in. It’s cold out here.

She entered the kitchen and looked across the room at the girl holding her child at the stove.