The Dry Grass of August(38)

I stood. “We’re talking.”

Daddy looked at Carly. “It’s best if you don’t visit the girls in their bedrooms.”

Carly jumped to his feet. “Yes, sir.”

I was too embarrassed to speak.

Stell said, “Good grief, Daddy, we’re cousins.”

But Daddy was clumping back down the stairs.

Carly’s face was red. He opened his mouth, looking at Stell and me. “Jesus!” he said. He closed the door when he left.





The next morning before breakfast, I sat on the floor in my room, looking through the Venetian blinds at Carly’s window over the garage, watching him shave at a mirror he’d hung over the sink in the kitchenette. I hated the tiny, moldy bathroom in the garage apartment and was sure he did, too. His shaving was the only personal thing of any interest that I learned, but knowing just that one private thing made me feel I was the closest to him of anyone in the family. Once he and his parents had gone blackberry picking with us, back when Carly first got his license. Stell and Puddin and I rode with him in Uncle Stamos’ car, and Carly had asked me to sit up front with him so he could show me how the clutch worked. Stell was ticked off about that. She tried everything she could to get his attention that day. But he liked me better.

I was at the kitchen table when he came down for breakfast with a full laundry bag he dropped on the floor. “Tell Mary I want a heavy starch in my shirts. If she has any questions, she can call Safronia.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and came to the table. “Where’s everybody?”

“Stell’s at Bible Club, Mama’s at the store with the kids, and Daddy’s at work. I think Mary’s—”

He interrupted me. “Would you hand me a banana?”

I reached for the fruit bowl. “Do you have any studies to do or is this a total holiday?”

“A total holiday. I’ve got stuff lined up with friends, but otherwise it’s loaf city.”

The next few days we hardly saw him. He left after breakfast and got back in the late evening, and Mama was so busy that I think she was relieved not to have anyone else to be concerned about.

Early in the morning on the Saturday before Christmas, she gave me boxes of decorations to unpack. “Before Carly leaves for the day, ask him if he’ll test the strings of lights. There’s always one that won’t work, and I’m sure he can fix it.”

I sat on the sofa in the den with the boxes of ornaments and tuned the radio to a station playing carols. I thought Daddy was in his shower, and I turned up the volume to drown out the noises from his bathroom. The water ran, then stopped. The shower curtain rings squeaked. When the door opened, I looked up to see Carly wrapped in a towel, his chest wet. He jumped back into the bathroom, called out, “I forgot my robe.”

I ran into the dining room, shouting over my shoulder, “Coast’s clear.” A while later he appeared for breakfast in jeans and a sweater. “My shower overflowed yesterday. Aunt Pauly told me to use Uncle Bill’s.”

Neither of us mentioned it again, but I couldn’t forget the black hair that ran from his chest to the towel at his waist.

After that, whenever I knew Carly had used Daddy’s bathroom, I went in to straighten up, knowing it would irk Daddy if he saw a mess. I’d thought Carly would be neater because of his military training, but he left a wet floor, soggy towels, the soap in a pool of gunk. I was in there wiping the floor and heard the den door slam. Daddy came in.

“Hey.” I pretended not to notice him unzipping his trousers.

“What’re you doing in here?”

“There was water on the floor.”

He pushed back the shower curtain. “Who’s using my bathroom?”

I stuffed the damp towel into the hamper. “Carly’s shower overflowed again. The plumber will be here tomorrow, so . . .” I pushed past Daddy.

Mama’s heels tapped on the hardwood floor. She came to the door of the bathroom. “William, if you’d fix the plumbing in the rec room, Carly wouldn’t have to use your shower.”

“I don’t have time.” Daddy closed the bathroom door and Mama shouted through it.

“You have time to fix things next door.” She meant our neighbor Linda Gibson, a blonde divorcée who was always asking Daddy for help. Mama had told Aunt Rita, “Except for calling on William, she never calls at all.”





Two days before Christmas, Carly and I sat in the living room, looking through the photo albums we kept on a shelf by the mantel. Halfway through the first one he said, “These are great. Who keeps them up?” The leather album looked small in his big hands.

“Mama.”

“I wish Mom would do this. We’ve got hundreds of pictures just tossed in shoe boxes.” He pointed to a photo of Stell, Puddin, and me standing on the pier at Rainbow Lake at Shumont. “That’s great.” I was knock-kneed and skinny. Puddin, about four in the photo, leaned against my hip. Stell had on her first bathing suit with a bra.

Mary walked through, carrying a broom, and Carly asked, “Could you make a fresh pot of coffee?”

“Yes, sir.” She opened the den door to a blast of cold air, propped the broom on the breezeway, and closed the door fast. “Sure has got to be winter. Cream and sugar?”