On Blue Falls Pond Read online

  Glory’s eyes lingered on the bag. Since Pap died, Granny had been supplementing her social security income by selling her quiltwork. For years folks had encouraged her to do it, but Granny had always insisted that her quilts were just to be shared with family and friends—that’s why she enjoyed it so much. Every newlywed couple, each new grandchild and great-grandchild received a quilt lovingly made by Granny. But necessity had won out, and Granny now sold quilted place mats, tote bags, and bed coverlets in touristy places around Gatlinburg.

  The bag riding on Granny’s shoulder as they left the house was one of Glory’s favorite patterns, done in colors that reminded her of the hills in October.

  Before Granny stepped out the door, she put on her ancient sunglasses with lenses the size of headlights. They made her look like a praying mantis, all long, skinny arms and legs and giant eyes.

  They would be walking through the woods the entire way; there should be plenty of shade. Glory must have given Granny an odd look, because Granny said, “Been wearing them outdoors lately even on cloudy days. Just more comfortable.”

  Glory paused, contemplating the significance of this revelation. It hadn’t hit home until this very moment that if Granny’s sight deteriorated to the point that she couldn’t quilt, how would she make ends meet? That just added another stone in the “reasons to stay in Dawson” basket.

  “Awww, stop lookin’ like that. It don’t mean my eyes are worse. Let’s get goin’.” She led the way down the back steps.

  Glory followed along behind Granny and Scott, leaving plenty of space between her and the toddler.

  Surprisingly, Scott walked along at a reasonable pace, clinging not to Granny’s hand but to the tail of the baby quilt she had draped over her arm. That quilt was definitely Gran’s work. Had Scott rated up there with Granny’s own grandchildren, or had his parents purchased it? For some reason, the answer mattered to Glory.

  “That quilt, it’s beautiful . . . is it Scott’s?” She tried to sound offhand.

  “His favorite. Sleeps with it all the time.”

  “Gosh, it looks pretty new to have been dragged around by a baby for a couple of years.” She was almost ashamed of herself.

  “He’s only had it ’bout six months.”

  Glory let go of the fishing line. The answer obviously wasn’t going to come without a direct question, and she wasn’t quite ready to resort to that yet. She felt petty enough already.

  The trail was fairly even, well-worn with only slight rises and dips. Scott didn’t once ask to be carried, just trudged along in silence, neither asking questions, nor pointing in curiosity, nor looking beyond the path immediately in front of his feet.

  Halfway to the meadow, a narrow, fast-moving stream cut across the path, tumbling around a cluster of smooth gray rocks. Granny shifted the tote and reeled in the blanket, as if to pick up the toddler. For a moment, Glory stood motionless. Then she stepped up.

  “I’ve got him.” She grasped Scott under the arms and held his sturdy body away from hers. Then she stepped carefully from the dry top of one rock to the other. Immediately when she reached the other side, she set him back on his own little feet. Then she shoved her hands in her pockets. It was no more personal than lugging a bag of potatoes over the obstacle.

  When Granny joined her on the far side, she gave Glory an odd look, slightly puzzled yet slightly reproachful.

  Again, Glory felt almost ashamed of herself. What kind of woman was she that she was so resistant to physical contact with this little boy?

  She turned away from the question, fearing what she’d see inside herself. She walked on ahead, leaving Granny to set Scott up with his quilt once again.

  The raspberry bramble was probably within two hundred yards of Granny’s house, yet felt as isolated as Blue Falls Pond. It sat on the edge of a small clearing, a patch of brilliant sunlight in the green gloaming that covered most of the hollow. Here there was nothing but the still heat of the afternoon and the rustle of foraging squirrels.

  Glory blinked against the brightness as she stepped into the clearing. Even with Granny wearing sunglasses, Glory noticed that Granny paused behind her and waited for her eyes to adjust before leaving the shadowy trail.

  Immediately the heat of the sun mixed with the heavy humidity, making Glory pluck her T-shirt away from where it clung to her chest. A butterfly flitted in front of her, black wings glistening in the sun, bright blue tail shining like a beacon. She felt Scott’s presence by her leg and wondered if his brown eyes—Eric’s eyes, she realized—followed the flighty course of the butterfly too. She didn’t glance down to see.

  “Whew!” Granny fanned herself. “Hot one. Let’s put Scott in the shade over here.”

  She spread a blanket under a tall yellow buckeye tree near the thicket. Then she pulled out his toy ship.

  Scott soberly walked over and plopped down. Beads of perspiration dotted his forehead.

  “Maybe we should give him a drink,” Glory said.

  Granny smiled, rummaged in the canvas tote, and brought out a Sippy Cup. She poured water from a bottle into it and handed it to the boy. Then she lifted the bottle toward Glory. “How about you?”

  Glory took a long drink, then gave it back to Granny.

  When she looked down at Scott again, he was moving the boat in the same tedious circles as he had earlier in the day. He still hadn’t said a word.

  “Alrighty. Let’s get to pickin’.” Granny handed Glory a small galvanized bucket. “I’m thinkin’ cobbler.”

  Glory grinned and nodded. Berry cobbler and ice cream. The remembered taste sprang onto her tongue. At least once every year during berry season, she and Granny would pick berries and make a cobbler. Then when Pap came home from work, the three of them would eat the entire thing while it was still warm, melting the ice cream into a pool of creamy sweetness. It was always Glory’s favorite day of the summer.

  She moved closer to the berry bushes with her mouth watering. Her first few attempts to pluck berries were marred by sharp stinging scratches from the thorns, but soon she remembered her technique and fared better. Granny was picking four feet away with her back to Scott.

  Glory gave frequent sideways glances in their direction.

  Every two- and three-year-old she’d ever been around had been out of one thing and into the next, little whirling dervishes. She’d seen mothers exhaust themselves at a park trying to keep their children from eating sand, chasing squirrels into the street, and climbing to dangerous heights.

  Again she looked at Granny, who was picking berries with her mouth pursed in concentration. Glory bit her lip, considering.

  Granny had always been so vigilant—covering outlets, locking doors, using wire ties on the cabinet under the sink that held the cleaning supplies—when her cousins’ children had been babies. Maybe age had begun to impair her judgment; her seemingly careless nature with this boy finally prickled too much.

  “Aren’t you afraid he’ll slip away, get lost out here?” If he ran into the underbrush, he’d be awfully hard to find. There were rock ledges, steep slopes, a dozen streams for drowning, and poisonous plants aplenty here.

  Granny cast a quick and casual glance over her shoulder at Scott. “Nah. Once he starts with that boat, he’ll keep at it until you take it away from him.”

  Glory could hardly argue the point; there he sat, not even looking at the squirrels as they became braver and grew gradually closer. “Odd.” She was surprised when she realized she’d said it out loud.

  Granny sighed. “Reckon it is. He didn’t used to be so . . . so focused.”

  “He seems, I don’t know, disconnected. Like he doesn’t really care what’s going on around him.”

  “Just try to take the boat away. He’ll throw a hissy that’d wake the dead.”

  Glory couldn’t imagine this silent, impassive child reacting that strongly to anything. She went back to her berry picking but kept a sharp ear out for the patter of tiny Nikes making for the woods. All s
he heard was the steady friction of that boat on the blanket.

  Once the buckets were filled, they both sat on the edge of Scott’s blanket to cool off before walking home. Just as Granny had predicted, Scott had stayed in one place, turning his boat the entire time they picked. He didn’t stop when they joined him.

  Glory lay on her back, watching a bushy-tailed squirrel jump from branch to branch overhead, chittering loudly.

  Granny’s gaze followed hers. “Buckeyes from this tree make a right fine paste.”

  Glory’s gaze shifted to her grandmother.

  “Pa used to make all of our school paste,” Granny said. “Didn’t know you could buy it at a store ’til I was ten.”

  Glory closed her eyes and thought of the jars of white paste with the flat plastic spreader built right into the lid that she’d used in grade school. Paste was cheap. That single statement brought into sharp focus just how poor Granny’s family had been. The kind of poor that even Clarice could never imagine.

  But Granny never spoke of being poor, of doing without. Her stories of childhood were all about adventures she and her brothers had had in the hollow. How once they’d actually roamed so far that they’d been lost overnight and her father had whipped the boys for endangering their little sister, when in reality it had been Tula that had led the way. Of the wounded baby bird she’d found in the yard that she’d nursed back to health; of the barn cat’s litter of kittens Tula had taken into Dawson to find homes, then visited on a regular basis to make sure they were being treated well—a feline protection agency of one; of Fourth of July parades and watermelon-eating contests. Never of threadbare, outgrown coats or winters without enough coal for the furnace.

  Granny had what couldn’t be bought; she was happy in her own skin, with whatever life gave her.

  A bee buzzed nearby. Glory opened one eye to see if it was too near Scott.

  Granny said, “You tell your mama you were coming back here?”

  Glory shook her head. She really couldn’t explain why she hadn’t called her mother in Florida. Since Glory had left Dawson, she’d been avoiding speaking to her mother as much as possible. Clarice was like a counterpoint to Granny; chased by her own unhappiness and insecurity for years. It was suddenly startling to realize that Glory herself had fallen into a similar mind-set—but at least Glory had just cause. Her mother had lived with a chip on her shoulder most of her life. From grade school on, the driving force inside Clarice Baker had been to divorce herself from the hollow.

  The first step in that transition had happened the weekend after high school graduation when she had married Glory’s father, Jimmy Johnston, a town boy in her class whose parents both held respectable jobs with the telephone company and had a nice new ranch-style house on the outskirts of Dawson. But Clarice soon discovered that her new husband had no intention of following in his parents’ footsteps by finding a job that offered security and a pension, and buying a nice house on a quiet Dawson street. Jimmy loved dirt-track racing as much as he loved anything in his life. Clarice had settled for a mobile home on a city lot and a husband gone every weekend. But at least it was out of the hollow.

  When Glory was four, her dad had been killed in a motorcycle accident. The thing Glory remembered most about him was the smell of Goop, the hand cleanser he used after working on engines.

  After he died, his parents, Glory’s other grandparents, retired and moved to Florida. Clarice had gone to work at the bank as a teller. She was trapped in the mobile home, but she spent her salary proving to the town that she and her daughter were respectable—Girl Scouts, ballet lessons, and brand-name clothes for Glory; manicured nails and bridge club for herself. She had encouraged Glory to run for student government and try out for cheerleader. Clarice was fifteen times more excited when she made both than Glory had been.

  The icing on Clarice’s cake had been Glory’s marriage to Andrew Harrison, son of the most prominent family in Dawson. But even in that moment, the hollow had reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. At the garden wedding reception, Glory had been standing beside her mother when they overheard someone say through the meticulously manicured boxwood hedge, “She seems like a nice enough young woman, especially considering where her people come from.” Glory had had to grasp her mother’s wrist to keep her from reaching through the hedge and grabbing the woman by the throat.

  Clarice had moved to Florida the next month.

  When Glory left Dawson after the fire, her mother had been insistent that she come to stay with her. After all, Florida had saved Clarice from her world of slight and unhappiness; surely it would do the same for Glory.

  But Glory had needed to be alone, not coddled in a way that reminded her every day of her loss. She’d struck out first for Asheville, then to a small town in Ohio, then to Kansas City, and finally St. Paul.

  She had yet to forget her loss.

  On their way back from berry picking, they took a fork in the trail that took them past a plain white clapboard church with a row of clear-glass-paned windows lining either side. In the churchyard stood an old iron fence that surrounded the graveyard where Bakers and Prathers (Granny had been a Prather before she married Pap) had buried their dead since long before the Civil War. From here they would follow the gravel road the rest of the way to Granny’s house.

  It had never struck Glory before how limited the geographic scope of Granny’s life had been. She’d been born on a farm not three miles from where she now lived. She’d gone to school a mile from that farm in a building that housed first through twelfth grades—before the days of consolidation. She and Pap had been married in this church, her seven children had been baptized here. And she’d buried her parents, three siblings, a husband, and one child in this graveyard.

  Carrying the tote and berry pails, Glory walked just ahead of Granny and Scott as they passed the front of the church.

  Granny said, “I believe I’ll stop for a minute.”

  Glory turned around. Granny was standing beside the cemetery fence. “Okay,” Glory said, and started toward the gate.

  “You and Scott go on ahead. I have some things to discuss with your granddad.”

  Glory didn’t know which alarmed her more, being alone with Scott or her grandmother thinking she could converse with the dead.

  It must have shown on her face because Granny was quick to add, “I ain’t crazy. It’s what keeps troubles from weighing you down—sharing them with someone. Always did run things past Sam.” She winked at Glory. “Now he can’t disagree with my conclusions.”

  “We’ll just wait here.” Glory cast a furtive look at Scott, who was in the end sniffles of the tantrum Granny had accurately predicted when they put the boat away. They hadn’t been able to leave the meadow for ten minutes after; he howled, stiff-legged, reacting to Granny’s soothing touches as if they were hot pokers against his skin. Getting him moving back toward home had been an exercise in patience. But Granny had done it, one hard-fought step at a time. Now he was moving along fairly well. Glory wondered why Gran insisted on upsetting the apple cart.

  Granny seemed to be sizing up the distance from Pap’s headstone and the path, as if gauging whether Glory would be able to overhear. Finally, she said, “All right.”

  Glory and Scott stood at the front of the little church as Granny walked over to Pap’s grave. Glory continued to hear Scott’s quivering breaths and sniffles, but didn’t dare do or say anything for fear she’d set him off again.

  Granny laid her hand on Pap’s headstone, keeping her back to the gate. Glory saw Granny’s hands gesture and her head move as she spoke, as if she were sitting across the table from him.

  After a few minutes, Granny returned, a look of serene composure on her face. Glory hadn’t thought of Granny as tense, but there was a definite change in her as she stepped out of the cemetery.

  Glory had not returned to Andrew’s grave since the funeral. After seeing Granny’s renewed calm, Glory wondered if a visit to his graveside would offe
r a new perspective on her own life.

  Instead of calm rising from that thought, dread crept over her skin like a damp humid night in August.

  Scott was taking a nap on a quilt on the floor of Granny’s living room. The afternoon temperature had continued to climb, and Granny’s house didn’t have air-conditioning; the floor was the coolest place. And for some unthinkable reason, Granny had decided to fry chicken for dinner.

  “Really, Gran, let’s just do tuna salad or something,” Glory said, then leaned against the kitchen counter and took a long swig of sweet tea. She hadn’t realized until now how much she’d missed sweet tea while living up north. She rested the dewy cold glass against the side of her neck and welcomed the shiver it gave her.

  “I won’t have your first dinner back home come from a can.” Granny turned from the stove to deliver one of her “don’t argue with me” looks. The entire end of her nose was a flour blotch—definitely counteracting the bad-ass look she was trying to deliver.

  Glory’s heart nearly burst with love. Tula Baker was probably the only woman in this century who would fry chicken in ninety-degree heat just because her granddaughter had come home. Laughing, Glory stepped closer and wiped the spot from Gran’s nose. “In that case, what can I do to help?”

  Granny took a swipe at her nose, as if shooing a bothersome fly, replacing the flour Glory had just brushed away. “Go out and pick the ripe tomatoes from the garden.” Then, as Glory headed for the door, Granny added, “You do remember how to tell a ripe ’un?”

  Glory shoved her hands on her hips. “No need to get nasty just ’cause I’m tidy and you can’t keep the flour off your face. I hear some of the best cooks are slobs in the kitchen—have to have people like me to clean up after them.”

  Granny dipped her fingers in the flour and flipped them at Glory, who ducked the puff of white and ran out the door giggling.

  She muttered as she entered the garden, “Do I remember how to tell a ripe tomato? Really.”

  She could feel taut red skin under her fingertips just thinking about it. Twenty years of working with Granny in the garden had left her with the touch for things ripe. That oddly phrased thought made her giggle to herself. The laughter started somewhere beneath her breastbone and bubbled right up through her lips. The late-afternoon sun was warm on her head, she smelled dinner cooking through the open kitchen window, and her toes dug into the warm, rich earth beneath her feet. She would never have guessed she’d feel this good ever again, especially in Tennessee.