The-Hummingbird-s-Cage(21)

Sometimes images of Jim flared up, but they didn’t linger. He seemed to come on like a bloodhound fixed on a scent he couldn’t quite make out.

I thought of Terri, too. Waiting in vain at the airport, glancing at her watch. Wondering who to call to find out why I wasn’t on that plane when it landed.

But I didn’t have the strength or the will to hold on to such thoughts for long.

The room kept me quilted up and safe. I drifted in and out of sleep. When I woke, I’d watch sunbeams slant their way across the wood floor. Or listen to raindrops pinging against the roof and the windowpane in a broken staccato, like Morse code.

Laurel would visit to tell me stories of her day. Chattering on about helping Miz Jessie with the baking, the sweeping. How she went with Mr. Olin to feed the chickens and hunt for eggs. She felt bad for the hens, she said, when they discovered their eggs were gone.





Sunshine





One morning, Jessie came to help me out of bed. She laid out a white blouse with pearl buttons, a simple skirt. They fit well. She brushed my hair till it gleamed and snapped in a barrette as if I were Laurel’s age.

“Now,” she said. “Aren’t you the prettiest thing?”

I wasn’t at all sure I was ready or able to leave my little cocoon, but she led me by the hand out the bedroom door and down the stairs. My legs weren’t as wobbly as I’d expected after lying in bed for so long.

Through a big kitchen, then a rear screen door to a long trestle table under a giant oak tree. Half the table was laid with embroidered white linen and floral china. Laurel was there on a wooden bench, her slim legs kicking back and forth. She jumped up and ran to me.

“Mommy!” She wrapped her arms tight around my waist. “Come sit beside me.”

Someone had managed to clothe her in nearly every color found in a crayon box. A feather boa of pink and white was looped around her neck. She took my hand from Jessie and brought me to the table.

The sights and smells were overwhelming. Smoked ham, bacon, sausage. Sliced tomatoes, home fries, biscuits, pots of jam. A pitcher of orange juice and a pot of coffee. My mouth watered painfully.

“How’d you like your eggs?” Jessie asked.

Such plenty—I thought she was joking.

A man with a rough shag of white hair and a handlebar mustache was rounding the corner of the house. He was compact, dressed in a worn work shirt and a straw hat, wiping sawdust from his dungarees.

Jessie wagged her head at him. “Sneakin’ another smoke, I see,” she scolded. “Breakfast is on. Pour out the coffee.” She headed back to the kitchen.

The man set his hat next to his plate and took a seat. He ran his hand through hair that lifted from his scalp in thick, cottony tufts that looked fit to blow off like dandelion seeds. His face was leathery and lined.

When he reached to shake my hand, his grip was firm but gentle, his calloused fingers as coarse as pumice stones. He took me in with eyes that shone a vivid blue.

“We ain’t been properly introduced, ma’am. I’m Olin.”

“Joanna,” I said.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance. And pleased you’re feelin’ better.”

I tried to smile. He poured out the coffee and juice while I looked around at their farm. Their house nestled in a narrow green valley that ran east to west in a long arcing curve; it was bordered on the north by a crooked line of midrange hills.

I turned in my seat toward the south and couldn’t help but gasp.

At my back was a toothy break of foothills . . . and they fed into the biggest mountain I’d ever laid eyes on. I had to crane my neck to take it all in.

Its face was deeply scored, with jagged outcroppings thrusting through thick green forests that covered all but the snowbound crest. The crest jutted into a rocky, bladelike ridge that looked sharp enough to cut steel.

The mountain dominated the valley, swallowing up a quarter of the sky. It seemed out of all time and place, like a transplanted Alp.

And it seemed almost . . . animate.

Aware.

And staring back at me.

I started to shiver, the ground shifting under my feet. I felt a force pulling at me. Summoning me. I gripped the edge of the bench seat to anchor myself in place.

It was as though the mountain had its own force of gravity. As if it were pivoting slowly on its axis, reaching down to collect me in its orbit. I was sure I was about to take a tumble—but just as sure I’d be rolling up the mountainside, not down, and plunging off—