There it is. An animal maybe, suffering something. Or a moan of some sort, a whimper. I sit up. It’s louder, or I’m hearing it better for having righted myself. It’s a moan, and there’s crying too, and the way the sound is growing louder, the cry will soon become a sob. It’s a strange sound, and crying isn’t altogether strange to me. But that’s the cry of a man.
Ellis Baine is gone. Juna made Cora Baine send him away. Soon the other brothers will go too. Cora Baine came to the house two weeks ago and stood on our porch, a gray scarf covering her hair. When Juna stepped into the doorway, Mrs. Baine stared at the swell in Juna’s stomach. Keeping one hand tucked under the shawl wrapped around her slender shoulders, she reached out with the other as if to lay it on Juna’s stomach.
“She’s my grandbaby,” Mrs. Baine said. “You said so yourself.”
Juna swatted Mrs. Baine’s hand away. “Your boys will kill me,” she said, “and this child too.”
The floor is cold on my feet, even through my wool socks, and the floorboards rattle because the wind crawls through the hollowed-out space under our house. I lift onto my toes as if someone or something might hear my footsteps. The door’s latch is cold in my bare hands, almost too cold. Using a single finger, I push, and the draft rushing through the house is enough to open the door.
Mrs. Baine thinks it was her idea to make her boys go. She must have loved them once. When they were boys, not men. They would have been like Dale. Not so tender and sweet as Dale, but they would have had soft cheeks and slender, smooth lips. They would have hung from her neck like Dale used to hang from mine. Maybe they’ve turned out too much like Cora Baine’s husband, and somewhere during those years of growing up, they stopped being her boys and started being reminders.
Juna’s baby was a way of starting over, and if there was one boy Mrs. Baine still loved, it had been Joseph Carl. She said she’d level a gun at her sons before letting them near Juna or that sweet child. Folks say Ellis was the first to leave. They say he wanted to go, couldn’t stay here knowing he was crossing over his own brother every time he made his way into town. Like Joseph Carl, he took a train. He went away so far, he had to take a train.
“You didn’t really love him anyways,” Juna said to me after Mrs. Baine left that day.
The front room is as dark as my bedroom. The fire has gone out. Since Juna sleeps there now and since she’s all the time up and down throughout the night, it’s her job to tend it. My job is to fill the wood box every night, taking over for Dale.
I still find bits of him around the house. Under his bed, I found a stray sock, the one with a hole in it he was supposed to mend. I told him even a man should know how to do a bit of mending, at least enough to get by. There was also the core of an apple, dried up and left to rot because he never liked the core even though Daddy said that was the best part and would have whipped Dale for throwing it away. I boxed up the most of him-his shirts and britches, boots and coveralls. But the bits of him keep popping up.
The sobbing is steady now but muted as if by a hand over a mouth. I hold the door open so the same draft that pulled at it doesn’t push it closed. There is another sound. Quiet words, loving words. A mother talking to a child. A whisper.
“I’m here.” It’s Juna. “Right here, Daddy. Calm yourself. Can’t you see?”
And then I notice the thing I should have noticed straightaway. Daddy’s light is out. The lantern we keep burning, all night, every night, is dark.
I listen for Daddy’s answer but hear only more muffled sobs. And then a single cry rises up. It’s nearly a scream, and I slap a hand over my own mouth.
“Daddy, stop,” Juna says. “I’m right here. Clear as day. You can see me. You can see, Daddy. I’m looking right at you.”
“But I can’t.” Yes, that’s Daddy. “I can’t see you. I can’t see nothing.”
Juna’s voice lowers. I can hear she’s still talking but can’t make out what she’s saying. It’s a murmur, almost a hum. I’d like to think she’s speaking sweet words, but I know she’s not. Something always simmers just beneath everything Juna does and says, something that tickles the back of a person’s neck or makes the heart pound quicker. Some part of Juna always lies in wait.
Daddy’s sobs slow. Juna continues to whisper. She wants Daddy to promise her. Promise he’ll do as she asks. Promise he’ll take care of her. Promise her. He can make it all good again. Just promise me. Promise me, is all. The sobs turn into words, Daddy saying yes to Juna. Yes, Juna. Yes.
A tiny speck of yellow floats in the dark room.
“You have to promise me, Daddy,” Juna says. “Promise you’ll make things good again.”
Daddy has been drinking ever since Joseph Carl was lowered into the ground. Every day, from the moment he opens his eyes to the moment he closes them. Other men cut our tobacco, hung it to dry. They propped open the barn doors to keep the air moving. Closed them when the air turned damp. And when Daddy still didn’t come, they stripped the tobacco, sorted it, took it to town.
One Sunday in early winter, Mrs. Ripberger, who had asked that I bring something fresh-picked to the potluck, delivered the money our tobacco brought at auction. Mr. Ripberger drove her in his black truck and waited outside, the engine running. She came with canned asparagus and cloth bags filled with seeds for next year’s garden.
“We missed you,” she said, remembering we never came that Sunday afternoon. “It ain’t much, but it’ll see you through.”
From the truck came a quick blast of the horn, but before Mrs. Ripberger turned to go, she handed me a box, cradling the bottom that had nearly given way.
“Clothes for the little one,” she said, drawing out a thin cotton undershirt that looked as if meant for a doll. “Some is for boys; some, girls.”
As Juna sat at the kitchen table, her hands hanging at her sides so they didn’t happen upon her bulging stomach, I sorted those clothes. We should wash them, I told her. We’ll wait for a sunny day so we can dry them on the line. Some for boys. Some for girls. But I think she’ll be a girl, don’t you? I’m certain of it.
There was plenty of mending to be done among all those tiny clothes-loose bits of lace dangling from a collar, buttons that drooped and needed a stitch or two to tighten them up, snaps that were missing their other half. And as I sorted and folded and stacked the clothes on the kitchen table, I found myself hoping Abraham Pace would see something in Juna’s baby he didn’t like or that worried or frightened him because I wanted Juna’s baby here with me.
Every dream I ever had was gone. Ellis Baine was gone for good. He would never tire of his cavorting and see me and want me. We would never ride off in a train like Joseph Carl once did and live where wheat grew taller than a man. Every dream was gone except for this new dream of mine, the dream of a baby girl living in this house, filling it up with all the sweetness I imagined a little girl brings with her when she comes into the world. We would clean this house and fix this house like we’d never bothered for just ourselves.
We’d break open the walls, put in a window or two. Maybe John Holleran would come back if I asked nice and pretended I never knew a man named Ellis Baine. And the baby would sweeten up Juna. She was softer and rounder and plump in all those places a man does love. She’d keep her sweetness even after the baby came and the softness melted away. The baby girl, who would wear these clothes so tiny they looked to be meant for a doll, would soften up every one of us. She’d soften up our lives, and so I had a new dream for myself.
In the front room, the speck of yellow swells. The glow trembles and grows larger. That’s Juna’s hair falling over one shoulder. She’s leaned over Daddy’s bed. The circle of light grows larger. That’s the curve of Daddy’s back. He has drawn himself up into a ball, his knees bent and pulled up to his chest, his arms probably wrapped around them. Still stroking Daddy’s forehead with one hand, Juna reaches the other toward the lantern. I can’t make out what she’s doing, but because the light keeps growing and its glow keeps spreading, I know she’s turning up the flame. And I know she’s fooling Daddy.