“You look just fine, Miss,” I said, not sure which person she was trying to impress, as no one downstairs wanted or anticipated her arrival.
Although the house was fairly large, one could still hear voices from downstairs in the upstairs quarters where the Missus and I resided during those months of her illness. The house seemingly underwent a transformation during that time, as there was a sudden increase in the frequency of both Floyd and Jesse roaming the halls, yakking some foolish nonsense that came across as mere murmurs to our ears. The Missus never acknowledged their presence, although her eyes did seem to elate at the idea of newcomers, her stare fixed on the door, as if she’d hoped they’d enter. She’d wait until the voices passed then once again work whatever puzzle or needlework she had at hand. More often than not it was Jesse’s voice we’d hear, as he had a gentle tone that caroled softly and faintly throughout the house.
Once the Missus finished dressing on this evening and felt certain she was flawless before the mirror, she defiantly wrapped her shawl about her and went charging for the downstairs area. Silva looked up from the porcelain set with surprise, the first to see the Missus as that scarlet vixen turned the corner, her ruby shawl like that of a seductress’s whips and ties as it billowed listlessly around her collar.
“Miss, you’re better,” Silva said, drawing the attention of Mr. Kern, who looked up immediately.
The young woman indeed looked remarkable. Although she had not fully regained that previous summer’s color and her hair was not as danced upon by the sun, she still exuded a heartiness that made her appear supple and as beautiful as the next. Mr. Kern rushed to her side, taking her hand as he eased her into the chair. She accepted his assistance, though she was not as impressed as me by his efforts, as was evident in her strict glance around the room at the subjects she had not glimpsed in months. I first thought I saw inattentiveness in her gaze, but upon closer inspection I soon discovered it was more of a discarding of those objects that had been placed there at one point, to appease her, as if the woman no longer needed anyone or anything. Truly, it seemed no trifle bothered her, no word stuck upon her tongue, her thoughts set on some specific idea that she mulled over without need for company.
“Let me fix your plate,” Silva said, as the Missus had indeed entered in the middle of dinner when Mr. Kern’s meal sat mostly consumed.
Silva rushed to the kitchen as I followed, their voices trailing us from that brief distance away, choppy conversations where neither answered more than sufficiently necessary to respond to the other or complete their own thoughts. The Missus laughed loudly on several occasions, although we hadn’t heard the precipitating joke. These haughty snickers seemed greatly exaggerated, though no one knew what to expect from the Missus now that she had returned from the dead. One might so easily believe without a second thought that the young princess had indeed morphed into a pleasant being overnight, as if that knocking at death’s door had made her want to live again.
“What miracle brought this?” a voice soon said. “I never thought I’d git the pleasure agin.”
Before any thoughts were with me, I fled the kitchen and made my way inside the dining room. When I arrived, both Floyd and Jesse stood at the opposite door, Floyd with that look of startled joy still upon his face and Jesse unmoved by the unfolding situation, although he still smiled politely in the Missus’s direction. Astonishingly, that good spirit the Missus had developed was not short-lived, and she now smiled and even blushed before Floyd and the boy.
“Thank you, Floyd,” she said, her eyes far from him. “I feels much better thanks to your sister and her care.”
Mr. Kern glanced up with a look that was neither grateful nor relieved, for the first time making it easier to decipher his wife’s emotions than his own.
“I just thanks God that ya here,” Floyd said, clasping his hands together and looking up toward the sky.
The Missus kept her eyes stayed on Jesse, this powerful creature before her, a boy of such substance that he commanded stares and forced even the bravest soul to cower in fear if, upon accident, he or she stepped too close. To touch his frame was to meet a structure so solid that it seemed almost indestructible, fully encased in flesh that burned warm on contact and hinted at the fire that blazed within. Indeed, he was always warm, even in winter when all around had the protection of heavy coats and gloves, he wore none.
Miss Lula seemed not to breathe in his presence, as if she feared some type of retribution for these actions, and I feared the poor soul would surely faint from having held her breath for so long. If before there was said to be a lack of purpose in her eyes from that day I’d first met her, then today she was a woman renewed, for from that wretched spirit now came compassion and kindness and, dare I say, love.
Remembering his business inside the house, Floyd called to Jesse who turned and followed him down the hall without a second glance toward the Missus. Miss Lula seemed unaffected as well, turning her attention toward the door as Silva brought forth a plate of okra, lima beans, and pork chops. The Missus ate quietly with no need for attention, her supper acquiring all her thoughts as she examined the beautiful porcelain that showed at the end of her meal. And though I didn’t condone it, part of me understood the Missus’s wrath for Mr. Kern, recalling that tidbit Floyd divulged to me that evening before he slouched off to bed muttering half awake and half asleep. “Mister didn’t even cry when young Elizabeth died. I don’t think he ever cried a day in his life since tha day he was born. Never will.”
The Missus, however, had cried on several occasions in my presence. Woefully, she’d sunk her head into her pillow and sobbed, then muttered lonely words and cursed the Mister’s name, but not tonight. No, tonight she wrapped her shawl tightly around her neck as she delighted in the evening’s chill, trapped here like some princess inside a tower, lost in a luxury that came at such an expensive cost, yet she did so with a smile and a conviction that needed no words to define its cause.
CHAPTER 8
“Bernie, be pleased,” Miss Lula said as we sat together on the front porch some days following her recovery, her eyes taking note of my repressed tears as I’d glanced at the newspaper she read and noticed the front-page article: Burning.
Her with her needlework and me with a basket of snap peas that I’d picked and washed, the sun burning hotter every day as summer approached in just-noticeable increments over the cooler morning, drowning it slowly in shorter nights. Darn hummingbird came by, and we watched it for nearly ten minutes, Miss Lula resting her head on the cushioned part of the rocker while I sat directly on the ground with the basket to my side.
“Seems like every day there’s something new,” she said with the newspaper opened, her thoughts having careened like this for several days as we’d sat together on that porch. “Don’t make no sense. Wish they would just end it all and everything go back to normal. That’s what I pray.”