Wiley Cash - A Land More Kind Than Home

I leaned back in my seat and looked into the living room, where I saw a little bit of light coming from under the door to the kitchen. There were people in there, but I hadn’t seen them yet. I could hear the voices of a couple of old women whispering. I could smell the coffee they’d started brewing in there too, and I figured they didn’t even know I was here, and even if they did they had probably forgotten all about me with Mama lying on the sofa over there in the front room crying like she was and Miss Lyle sitting next to her in that chair whispering, “Now, now,” and rubbing Mama’s back.

Outside, another car was coming slow down the road in front of the house, and I heard the tires crunch on the gravel when it pulled into Miss Lyle’s driveway. I heard the car doors open and slam, and then I heard footsteps in the gravel. I prayed it was Daddy coming to get me, and I sat there and listened hard. Whoever was out there shuffled their feet slowly through the gravel like they’d never make it inside. I couldn’t hear them in the driveway anymore, and I knew they must’ve been coming up the porch steps one step at a time.

The door creaked open in the front room and a man’s voice said, “Addie.” It was quiet for just a second after that, and then Mama started crying again even louder than she was before. I knew that whatever made her cry had just been brought into the house because I heard somebody walking across the wood floor in the front room like they were struggling to do it, and I turned around in my chair and looked toward the front room and waited to see what it was. Two old men from the church shuffled into the dining room, and they stopped walking and looked at me where I sat at the table. They were carrying Stump. He had his head leaned forward and his eyes closed like he was asleep, but I knew he wasn’t sleeping, and I knew without knowing for sure that I’d seen these same two men carrying him out of the church as me and Mr. Stuckey drove off in Daddy’s truck. I wanted to say something to them, but my jaws were shaking and I couldn’t get my mouth to open. I could feel tears running down my cheeks.

“Alton,” one of the old men said. He held Stump under his arms and looked at the other man.

“What happened?” I finally asked, but I was crying so hard they probably didn’t even understand what I’d said. I couldn’t hardly see them with all the tears in my eyes. “What happened to him?” I asked, but it came out worse than it had before.

“Alton,” the man said again. The one named Alton held Stump’s legs and just stared at me. When he heard his name, he looked at the man calling him. They shuffled across the floor to the bedroom on the other side of the table. It was so quiet that I could barely hear Mama crying in the next room, and I knew she had her face buried in one of the sofa cushions. I knew those old men had laid Stump down on the bed because I heard the springs creak. I could hear them in there whispering too, and then I heard the door shut. A second later I felt somebody’s hand on my shoulder.

“Son,” a voice said. I looked up and saw the old man named Alton standing over me. His eyes were bright blue and sad-looking, and his face was tan and wrinkled. “I’m sorry, son,” he said. He squeezed my shoulder just hard enough for me to barely feel it.

“Alton,” the other man said. Alton gave my shoulder another squeeze.

The two old men walked through the front room and opened and closed the kitchen door without making a sound. After a minute I could hear them whispering to the old women who were already in there. I heard the pot tap against their cups when they poured the coffee, and then I heard somebody put the pot back on the stove. I leaned back in my chair as far as I could, and I looked around the corner into the front room. All I could see was Mama’s feet, but I could tell that she’d turned over on her side with her back to Miss Lyle. Miss Lyle still sat in that chair by Mama.

I crossed my arms and put them on the table and laid my head down on them. I breathed hard and tried to stop myself from crying, and I knew my breath was probably fogging up the wooden tabletop and I knew it was making my face get wet and hot, but after a bit I knew it was wet from my own tears.

WHEN I LOOKED UP, MISS LYLE STOOD RIGHT BY THE TABLE AND I wondered how long she’d been there.

“Jess,” she said, “can I get you something to drink, maybe some milk or a little something to eat?”

My mouth was dry as a cotton ball and I was thirsty, but I shook my head no anyway because I just wanted to sit there and wait for Daddy without having to talk to nobody. Miss Lyle stood there looking at me like she was waiting for me to say something else.

“I don’t want anything,” I said, and then I put my head back down on the table. I knew she was still standing there looking at me.

“You let me know if you need something,” she said. I looked up, and she was still there. She put her hand on my head and then used her fingers to brush my hair. “Your daddy’s going to be here real soon, but don’t be afraid to tell me if you need anything.”

She turned and walked through the front room, and I watched her open the door to the kitchen. She held the door open for a second, and I could see a little table in there and some of them old people sitting down with their coffee cups. Alton and the other old man who’d carried Stump into the house leaned against the counter with their arms crossed. They all looked at Miss Lyle when she came in. She let the door close behind her and I couldn’t see nothing after that.

I pushed my chair away from the table as quiet as I could, and then I got down real slow and walked over to the doorway and took a look into the front room. Mama still laid on the sofa with her back to me and I could hear her breathing, but I could tell she wasn’t asleep. A voice came from inside the kitchen that was louder than all the others, and I could tell it was Miss Lyle. She sounded like she was angry.

“I don’t care why he was in there,” she said. “He shouldn’t have been. Not tonight and not this morning either. No way.”

“But, Adelaide,” one of those old women said, “I know what I saw this morning, and I know what I heard. It was a miracle.”

“We all heard that boy speak,” the man named Alton said. “Every one of us heard it.”

“Well, that don’t matter now, does it?” Miss Lyle said. “It don’t matter one bit what y’all heard in there this morning. All that matters is what happened tonight, and I can tell you that you’d better be ready to talk about it once the sheriff gets here.” It got quiet after that, and I pictured Miss Lyle with her hands on her hips staring at those old women and those two old men until they looked away from her. I could hear somebody running the water in the kitchen sink, and then it sounded like somebody’s footsteps were coming across the floor toward the living room.

I turned and crept back into the dining room and walked to the other side of the table and stopped at the bedroom door where those men had laid Stump on the bed. Nobody had opened the kitchen door yet, and from that far away I could just barely hear them talking in there, and I could hear the curtains stirring in the dining room from the little bit of breeze that came in the open windows now. I put my hand on the knob, and I turned it real slow and hoped the door wouldn’t make any noise, and then I walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind me just as quiet as I’d opened it.

It was dark and hot in there with the windows closed and the curtains pulled shut. When my eyes adjusted to all that dark, I found where just a little bit of moonlight was trying to get through the windows over the bed, and in that light I could make out where Stump laid in the middle of the bed with his arms by his sides. His face was turned away from me like he was asleep or just lying there and staring at the wall. I couldn’t see him as good as I wanted to, so I walked closer to the bed until I stood right beside him. The bedspread was a white quilt, and with him laying on it his face looked pale blue in the light coming through the curtains. Some buttons were tore off his shirt and it was pulled open and I could see his chest. I just stood there and stared at him, and then I crawled up onto the bed so I could look at his face. There was a speck of dried blood on his lip like he might’ve bit it by accident, and his eyes were closed like he hadn’t woke up yet, and I thought about waking up in the night and looking over at him and watching his mouth puff out air while he slept. At night the house used to be so quiet that I could hear him breathing soft beside me. Sometimes I’d lay there and listen to him for what seemed like forever, and before I knew it I’d be asleep again. But I didn’t want him to be asleep like this on Miss Lyle’s bed with the moonlight outside shining on the curtains of this hot room and Mama crying on the sofa with Daddy on his way. I wanted to tell him, “Wake up, Stump,” but I didn’t say nothing because I was afraid to see that he wouldn’t hear me.