The Dry Grass of August(49)

I backed away from the window. With the blinds closed, the cabin was hot and dim; the only light came through the screen door. I didn’t want to say hello to Daddy, because I would have to act tickled to see him. I wanted it to be as if he had been with us all along, so we wouldn’t have to make over each other. I was sitting on the bed when Mary came in with Davie, bringing the sunlight with her. The screen door clattered shut.

“Why’s this place closed up, hot as it is?”

“I shut the blinds so I could put on my bathing suit.”

“Why didn’t you put it on?”

“Daddy’s here.”

“Your daddy never seen you in a bathing suit?” She sat beside me, rocking Davie. He had his thumb in his mouth and his eyelids drooped. Perspiration dotted the curve of his nose, and I touched it with the back of my finger. He put his head on Mary’s shoulder and closed his eyes. She rocked, humming, rubbing his back. I smelled Davie’s baby powder and her soap. My eyes got heavy. Maybe we’d all fall asleep and Daddy wouldn’t want to wake us.

Mary stopped rocking. “He gone to sleep?”

“Uh-huh.”

She lowered Davie to the bed, putting him down on his back, smoothing out the cotton bedspread under him. She unglued his hair from his damp forehead and picked up a magazine from the floor. “You didn’t come say hey to your daddy.”

“I will, after he sees Mama. Did he ask about me?”

She fanned Davie.“I said you was swimming. Thought you was.”

The screen door opened. Daddy stood in the doorway, blocking the light.

I got up. “Hey, Daddy.”

He hugged me.“Hey, Junebug.” He held me at arm’s length and looked at me. “You’ve grown another foot.”

“Nope, I’ve still only got two.”

He laughed. “Mary told me you were swimming.”

“I will be, soon’s I get my suit on.”

He touched me on the shoulder. “You doing okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

Daddy rubbed Davie’s tummy.“I wish I could sleep like that.”

“Bill?” Mama called from the yard.

“Hey, Pauly!” Daddy’s face lit up. He went outside. Mama stood by his car, her arms folded across her bosom. Daddy reached in his pants pocket and offered her a gift-wrapped box. “Wanted to bring some joy back in your life.”

Mama took the gift, not looking at Daddy. She tore it open. “Joy!” Mama’s favorite perfume. She shook her head.

“We’ve got to get past this, Paula.” Did he mean Aunt Lily?

“I need time.”

“It’s almost a year.” He put his arm around her shoulders and she didn’t pull away. As they turned to walk toward Mama’s cabin, he asked, “The Packard, is it a mess?”

“It’s a mess.”

I went into the bathroom to change so I wouldn’t be naked in front of Mary. When I took off my blouse, I thought about what Mama would say if she noticed the hair in my armpits. There wasn’t much, and it was so light sometimes I thought it was my imagination, but I knew Mama would make me shave, just as she’d made me wear Stell Ann’s old training bras as soon as I started getting bosoms. I put on my suit and draped a towel around my shoulders, the way lifeguards do in the movies, and left the bathroom.

Mary looked up. “That a new swimsuit?”

“What do you think?” I twirled, trailing the towel.

“I think you growed up while I wasn’t looking.”

A pencil of sunlight coming through the broken blind played across my thighs and I looked down at the same time Mary did. She put out her hand and smoothed my upper legs as if to wipe away the faint blue and yellow marks.





I’d seen Davie with my comic, so I went to see if it was in Mama and Daddy’s cabin. I opened the door and smelled Daddy’s aftershave. The bed was made, with the tufted spread hanging just to the dust ruffle. I knew if I looked under the pillow on Mama’s side, I’d find her pink nightgown. I tripped over Daddy’s white ducks. His seersucker jacket was on the chair back, his khaki slacks folded over the arm. My comic wasn’t with Davie’s things. Not on the bedside table or on the dresser with Daddy’s pocketknife and change. I looked under the dresser and saw Daddy’s Zippo gleaming in the dusty shadows. I pushed it behind a leg of the dresser and left it there.

In the bathroom, his Dopp kit was by the sink, and Mama’s slippers were on the floor, but no Wonder Woman. I stood in the middle of the cabin, ready to give up and go to the pool, when I saw a Tinkertoy beside the night table. I lifted the dust ruffle and there was my comic book, pushed against the wall behind Daddy’s brown leather suitcase. I crawled under the bed, grabbed it, and heard Mama and Daddy on the path outside.

“Oh, Pauly, she just wanted to look at the new paint job on the breezeway.”

“Linda Gibson has her eyes on you, and you don’t discourage her.”

“I’m only being neighborly.”

The cabin door opened. I pulled my feet up so that I was lying on my side, wrapped around Daddy’s suitcase.

“You stare at her breasts.”

“The day I don’t notice a nice figure, you can put me under.”

“I wish that’s all you did.You don’t even bother to be discreet. Ye gods, my brother’s wife . . .”