The River Widow(18)

After the fields were prepared, Jesse and Buck often disappeared during the day. Adah overheard them talking one night, gleaning enough to realize that the men were going out on a boat in search of Lester. It seemed that the flame of hope, even one so tiny, was too intense to smother.

One day Buck and Jesse returned from searching, clumped inside to the kitchen, and looked past Adah to Mabel. Buck simply shook his head.

Mabel grasped the edge of the worktable in the kitchen. “I need to find my son. I need to put his soul to rest proper.”

Adah had been cutting up an apple as a snack for Daisy. Her hand stilled. So the men had been looking for Lester’s body . So they had lost hope of finding him alive.

Buck said, “We ain’t giving up.”

“We ain’t giving up, never,” Jesse added.

Mabel breathed out. “I want him to have the finest gravestone in the county.”

“Don’t you worry about it none. We’ll find him and return him to his maker, alright.” Buck turned to leave the room and suddenly seemed to realize that Adah was in the kitchen, too. She handed Daisy the apple slices on a small plate and then looked up. Buck had stopped dead in his tracks, and his back had stiffened. “This is all your fault.”

An ire she couldn’t suppress rose in Adah. Not this time. It was out before she knew it. “The flood wasn’t my fault.”

The old man caught her eyes in a stare as squeezing as a vise. “Did I ask you a question?”

“You made an unfair accusation.”

He pointed his finger. “Listen here. Don’t you never talk back to me, you hear me? It’s bad enough we have to give you a roof over your head cuz you don’t have another goddamn soul willing to take you in, but I’m sure as hell not going to listen to your comments about anything. I don’t give a rat’s ass about your opinions, neither.”

Adah zipped her lips.

Buck made as if to move away; then he spun back and laid his harshest stare on her again. “A funny thing we saw today. Looked like your old milk cow out loose roaming around down close as we could get to your farm.”

Adah almost gasped.

“Funny thing the cow you was aiming to rescue survived, but Les didn’t, ’specially since the cow was supposed to be down by the river with you.”

Adah scrambled. “Don’t cows swim?”

He squinted. “I reckon so. Maybe. But it sure casts some doubt on your story, don’t it?”

Desperate to not appear rattled, Adah asked, “Did you bring the cow back? Les and I were hoping to find her and the mules after the flood passed.”

Buck barked, “You think I care about a cow at a time like this?”

Adah simply looked away.

“I ain’t seen too much sadness from you, like one would ’spect from a grieving widow.”

Turning back, Adah met his gaze. Shakier souls would’ve wilted under his scrutiny, but Adah faced it straight on. “I grieve in private.”

“You grieve not at all,” he said. “You look all fine and dandy to me. Look like the cat that swallowed the canary, if you ask me. You’re as slinky and crafty as those barn cats out there, eking out a life from stalking mice and birds.”

“Scaredy-cat,” Daisy said out of the blue as she picked up a slice of apple and plopped it into her mouth.

The hair on Adah’s arms lifted. Where had Daisy heard that expression? Even though Adah had tried to conceal her fears and worry around Daisy, had she been too transparent?

Adah recalled one day when she’d been sewing a romper for Daisy and had lost track of the time. When Lester came in from the fields, the meal wasn’t ready. He stomped into the house and took one look at her as she abruptly remembered the time, set aside the sewing, and rose from sitting in front of the machine.

His face full of scorn, Les said, “You care more about her than you do about me.” Daisy was a toddler then and had just learned how to stand without holding on to furniture or someone’s hand. Adah glanced at the girl as she lifted herself to stand, and, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the house, the toddler beamed a smile of self-satisfaction, seeking Adah’s approval. For a moment, it was just the two of them, intertwined against the enemy. Adah had to tear her eyes away.

By then she should’ve learned to keep her mouth shut, but there were times when the urge to defend herself burst through her carefully constructed wall of reserve. “She’s a child. She needs more.”

Les’s face went tomato red, and he breathed like an inhuman beast. He looked ridiculous, and she had to tamp down a grin.

“I need more!” Les shouted. “Lately I don’t get nothing from you.”

Unconsciously she shook her head, grateful that the education her parents and Father Sparrow had provided allowed her to speak correctly more often than not. She quipped, “If you never get nothing, that means you get something.”

Les looked confused for a moment, then his expression quickly turned. “Don’t be smart with me.”

“Not to worry. I haven’t made a smart move since I met you.”

He raised his arm. And that was the first time she remembered cowering. He had taught her to cower. “Scaredy-cat,” he said, smiling deviously.

Could Daisy remember back that far? Were the most powerful memories of our childhoods the bad ones?