“Been worse.”
“Yes,” I said. “Still, I’m sorry for it. Perhaps next year will be better.”
“Up to the good Lord.”
“As is everything.” I longed for the scent of rain-wet North Carolina dirt, of leaves slowly mulching beneath sturdy trunks. Or perhaps it would be snowing up there already. “But as my father used to say, God helps those who help themselves. And I think—”
Adeline came in with the coffee: not mugs this time but white china cups and matching saucers, decorated with tiny red roses, and a silver-plate set of pot, creamer, and sugar bowl. The teaspoons did not match. She poured, handed out the cups carefully. Once everyone was settled again, I went on.
“Mrs. Carpenter, I was just about to say to your husband that I think Luz is going to need your help. Yesterday was a very hard day. For you and Mr. Carpenter, yes, and Button, but especially for Luz.”
“Yes,” Adeline said, “but she does seem to have come through it nicely. She’s a hardy little thing.”
“She is,” I said. Jud turned his sticky eyes to mine. “But I think in a little while—maybe a few days, maybe as long as a few weeks or even months—she won’t be so fine.”
“Nightmares,” he said. “Had them when she first come.”
“Miz Thomas, there aren’t so many childish fears that a good hugging and a bit of prayer can’t fix.”
“Her fears aren’t so childish. A lot happened yesterday that she won’t have had time to tell you about yet.” I looked from her to Jud. “When she’s afraid, let her tell you what she’s afraid of. And don’t tell her it can’t happen because some of the things that will be in her nightmares have happened.” I would probably star in a few of those nightmares.
“They won’t happen again,” Jud said with certainty.
Adeline shook her head vehemently. “Not while there’s breath in our bodies.”
“No.” I sipped my coffee. “It might help, when she’s scared, to tell her that she’s very brave. She was very brave—very resourceful. There aren’t many children her age who would try to defend themselves against an adult.”
“Brother Jerry,” Jud said, nodding.
“Luz mentioned a Brother Jerry yesterday,” I said. “Apparently he told her that god works in mysterious ways.”
“Brother Jerry was in the army or the marines or some such—” Adeline began.
“Navy SEAL,” Jud said. “Doesn’t much hold with the notion of turning the other cheek. Mite troubling to begin with.”
After a startled pause, Adeline continued. “As my husband says, the elders didn’t share Brother Jerry’s point of view at first, but then after a lot of soul-searching, it was decided that Brother Jerry might have a point. Man, after all, only has two cheeks, and once you’ve turned both of them, it might be reasonable to fight back. So since September, the church has been sponsoring a self-defense class for the children. They seem to like it. I went to the old back field to watch once, lots of healthy yelling and kicking. Brother Jerry does nothing but good for those youngsters.”
“When he doesn’t try to teach scripture,” Jud said.
“Brother Jerry seems to believe that ‘Do unto others …’ means do unto others before they can do unto you,” Adeline explained. “More coffee?”
Early morning frost smells different in Arkansas: like cold straw. With Adeline’s permission, I invited the children to eat breakfast with me in the trailer before I left.
They arrived, brushed and scrubbed to within an inch of their lives. Luz seemed different. Not exactly hostile, but wary. When they were seated, I put the kedgeree on the table. She sniffed at her plate suspiciously.
“What is it?”
“Breakfast.” She stared at me, I stared back. “It’s kedgeree. Smoked fish and rice all mixed together,” and boiled egg and nutmeg, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Fish,” she said. Button was already tucking into his. She shook her head.
“Try it.”
She put a tiny amount on her fork and ate it. “It doesn’t taste like fish.”
It certainly didn’t taste like fish sticks. “That’s because it’s smoked. Try some more.” She did, a bigger portion this time. Button munched happily. Luz took another forkful.
When I put three mugs of Irish breakfast tea on the table, Luz looked but was too proud to ask. I let her suffer. It’s important to learn that if you want information you have to ask for it. I turned back to the bowl on the kitchen counter. I had made a fruit salad, but I could see how that would be received. I filled a plate for myself and sat down.
This time she couldn’t resist. “What’s all that?”
“This is papaya, this is litchi.” She watched each spoonful, from my plate to my mouth and back. “Do you want some?” She shook her head. “There’s also apple, and orange, and banana.”
“Banana!” said Button.
“Would you like some banana?”
“Banana!”
Luz smiled at him indulgently. “He likes banana.”
I got up again and chopped some banana into chunks and slid the plate in front of Button.
“Have you ever seen papaya before?”
She shook her head.
“You could look it up in your encyclopedia. But that wouldn’t tell you how it tastes.” I got up again and filled a small glass plate with fruit salad, which I put next to her bowl. “Just in case you want to try a bit.”
Button took a piece of banana in one hand and squashed it with the other, slowly, almost experimentally, and when it was mashed to pulp, he examined it with great deliberation and then licked it off. “Banana,” he decided, and calmly put another piece in his mouth. He chewed and nodded. “Banana.”
“Yes,” I said. “It tastes the same no matter what shape it is.” Luz gave me that birdlike look from one eye, then the other. I sipped my tea and applied myself to the fruit salad.
When everyone had eaten as much as they were going to, I stood to clear the table. Luz automatically picked up some dishes. “Thank you. I’ll do the rest.”
“Thank you for the breakfast it was very nice,” she said in one breath. “Please may we be excused?”
“No. I have a present for you, and for Button.”
“A present?” More wary than excited.
I had no idea what she was thinking. “Yes.” She perched on a recliner while I got the presents. The TV blared and chopped from one station to another: Button had found the remote again.
I’d bought four of the boxes in Little Rock yesterday morning; one, wrapped in heavy silver paper, I’d had shipped from San Francisco via Delta DASH at a cost that would have made Adeline pass out. One large box, two medium, and two small.
“This big one for Button first,” I said.
Luz and I watched while he ripped his open and pulled forth a scale model of a fire engine, with working ladder, unspoolable hose, and flashing light. “This,” I said, pointing to the tiny manual pump, “will actually suck up water and squirt it out here.” He seemed not to hear me, but I was beginning to suspect that Button heard and understood a lot more than I had at first thought. He touched everything methodically, and found that all the firefighters came off, too. It would keep him happy for a while.
I passed her a medium box. “This one’s for you.”
Although she opened the wrapping carefully along the seams, her chest was beginning to rise and fall more quickly. She lifted the lid. It was a cell phone and charger. “Oh,” she said, in the same tone she’d said “Fish.”
“This is a serious present, Luz.”
“It’s a phone. A funny phone.”
“Yes. But there’s something else in the box.”
She lifted out the phone and charger, and when she saw what lay beneath, her eyes positively glistened. A beautiful calfskin pouch, in natural brown, and a belt to go with it.