The McPheron brothers had been watching for them. They came out of the house at once onto the little screened porch and stood waiting for the women to come up to the house. But they neither spoke nor made any gesture. They looked as stiff and motionless as if they’d been shaped out of plaster and then stood up on the porch like two lifelike statues of minor saints.
When she got out of the car the wind had wrapped the girl’s hair across her face so that her first view of the McPherons was obscured by her own thick dark hair. But the old men had dressed for the occasion. They wore new shirts with pearl snaps and had on clean Sunday trousers. Their red faces were clean-shaven and their iron-gray hair was combed down flat on their heads with a considerable excess of hair oil, leaving it so heavy and stiffened that even the gusting wind couldn’t move it. The girl followed Maggie Jones up onto the porch.
Maggie made the introductions. Harold and Raymond McPheron, she said, this is Victoria Roubideaux. Victoria, this is Harold. This is Raymond.
The two brothers stepped forward one after the other in a kind of vaudeville drill, without yet looking directly into the girl’s face, and both shook her hand, each in his own turn, giving her one quick brisk hard-clenched squeeze and release, feeling her hand so small and soft and pliable in their own big hard callused hands, and then stepped back. Then they did look at her. She stood silently beside Maggie Jones in her winter coat and blue jeans, a young girl with long black hair and black eyes, carrying a red purse over the shoulder of her dark coat. But they couldn’t tell whether she was pregnant or not, she seemed so young and slight.
Well, Harold said. I guess you better come on in the house. It’s a booger out here.
They let the girl enter the kitchen ahead of them. Then Maggie followed and they followed her. Inside, it was apparent at once that the McPheron brothers had made an effort. The sink was empty of dishes, the table was scrubbed clean, the kitchen chairs were free of the mechanics’ rags and the pieces of machinery they had held the day before, and the floor looked as hard-swept as if an immigrant woman had used her broom on it.
This here is the kitchen, Harold said, what you’re looking at. Over here’s the sink. Next to it there is the gas range. He stopped. He looked about him. I reckon all that’d be more or less obvious to anybody. It don’t require me to tell you. In here’s the dining room and parlor.
They moved farther into the house, into two larger rooms which were intersected by shafts of daylight since the cracked brown shades bracketed above the windows had been rolled up at some point years ago, leaving both rooms filled with unshaded light as in a country schoolhouse or a rural train depot. In the first, the dining room, positioned under a hanging light fixture was an old square walnut table supported by a heavy pedestal, with four wood chairs gathered about it. The table had been cleared only very recently and the sunbleached outlines of books and magazines were still visible on its surface. Beyond, in the next room, were two worn-out plaid recliner chairs placed like housebroken outsized animals in front of a television set, with a floor lamp located at exact equidistance between the chairs and piles of newspapers and Farm Journals spread on the linoleum at the chairs’ feet. The girl turned and looked, taking it all in.
I expect you’d like to have a idea where your bedroom’s at, Harold said. He motioned toward the small room off the dining room. They entered it. It was almost completely filled by an old soft double bed covered by an ancient quilt, and standing against the inside wall was a heavy mahogany chest of drawers. The girl walked around the foot of the bed and opened the closet door. Inside were dusty cardboard boxes and the dark clothes of a man and woman hanging from a silver rod, the clothes so old that they were no longer black but almost purple.
All this here was theirs, Harold said. They used to sleep in here in this room.
Your mother and father? Maggie said.
After they was gone, he said, I expect we got use to thinking of it as storage space. He glanced at the girl. Course, you move things around however you want.
Thank you, the girl said.
Because we don’t come in here, Raymond said. This’ll be just yours alone. Our bedrooms is upstairs.
Oh, she said.
Yes, he said.
Well, Harold said. And out here’s where you step out.
The girl turned toward him, questioning.
Right next door to you. Convenient.
The girl looked puzzled yet. She turned to Maggie Jones.
Don’t look at me, Maggie said. I don’t know what he’s talking about.
What? Harold said. Why hell. You know. The commode. The indoor outhouse. Well, what do you call it?
That’ll do fine, Maggie said.
Our mother always called it where you step out.
Did she?
That’s what she always called it, he said. He scratched his head. Well, damn it, Maggie, I’m just trying to be proper. I’m just trying to get us started off on the right chalk. I don’t want to scare her off already.
Maggie patted his smooth-shaven cheek. You’re doing just fine, she said. Keep going.
They went out of the bedroom. And while the others waited in the dining room the girl stepped into the bathroom. Another small room, it had a sink and toilet and a freestanding enameled tub with a red hose and showerhead coiled under the faucet at one end. On the shelves above the sink were various half-used jars of liniment and salve and Cornhuskers handbalm, and tubes of back-rub and sore-muscle ointment, and there was also tooth powder and denture adhesive and shaving equipment, and hanging over one of the drying rods next to the bathtub, together with two old towels, was a single fresh new pink towel that still had the store tag stapled to it. The girl came back out of the room. Should I get my suitcase now? she said.
I think that would be a good idea, Maggie Jones said.
You need any assistance? said Raymond.
No thank you. I think I can do it, the girl said, then went out through the kitchen to the car.
When she had gone Harold said, She ain’t very big, is she. Why, she’s just a little thing. She don’t even show the baby any that I can see.
Not much yet, Maggie said. Some of her clothes are beginning to get tight. You’ll notice it more when she takes her coat off.
Is she scared of us? Raymond said. She don’t say much.
What do you think? Maggie Jones said.
Raymond looked out the window toward the car where the girl stood at the trunk gathering her belongings. She don’t have to be, he said. We wouldn’t hurt her. We wouldn’t do her a harm for anything in this world.
I know that, Maggie said. But she doesn’t know it yet. You’ll have to give her time.
The girl returned to the house carrying a single cardboard suitcase and dragging a plastic trash bag. These she took into the bedroom. They could hear her in the room, moving about on the wood floor, temporarily arranging things, then she came back out.
I’m afraid this is a hard trial for you, Raymond said to the girl. He was not looking at her, but peering past her into some distance of his own. But we want to hope. . What I want to say is, Harold and me, we want to think that you might come to feel a little at home out here. In time, I mean. Not right away, I don’t guess.
She looked at him, then at his brother. Thank you, she said. Thank you for letting me stay here with you.
Well, you’re welcome, Raymond said. You sure are.
They stood awkwardly inspecting the floor.
Very well then, Maggie said. I believe I’ve done my part. So I think I’ll just go home and let you three souls get acquainted.
The girl looked startled. On the McPheron brothers’ faces there was the look of panic. Do you have to leave already? the girl said.