K. Weiland - Storming

“So,” he said. “You mentioned you didn’t have any family up there?”

She watched him smooth grease down the length of the burn. “Yes. I am nikto .”

“That means what? Orphan?”

“Yes, but more.”

He thought about that. “Outcast? Like other people don’t want you around them?”

“Yes, that is it.”

“Doesn’t seem like this home of yours has much earned its way to being so important.”

She looked up at him, surprised. “Where else do any people have to go except home?”

He finished with the grease, tucked the jar in his jacket pocket, and snapped out a narrow length of linen. “Whole big world out there, kiddo.”

She scrutinized him. “That is why you did not go back to your home before now?”

“Something like that. Long story.”

“But you have family. Nan Carpenter and—Griff. They seem very angry with you always. I wonder about Nan Carpenter.” She knit her eyebrows above those silver eyes of hers. “Before you were leaving, was she… belonging to you?”

He darted up a look and laughed. “You mean, my girl ? No, never. No, she’s mad because of”—he concentrated on snugging the bandage around her finger—“well, because of Celia. That’s her sister. She was my girl. They don’t quite understand why it was I had to leave her.”

“Why had you to leave?”

“The sheriff—I told you he wasn’t a custodian—he was threatening them to try to get me to do something.”

She gave him a small, encouraging smile. “You should be telling them this. That is not a wrong reason, Hitch Hitchcock.”

“No, it’s not.” He knotted off the bandage, held her hand for one more second, then gave it back to her.

He thought about Griff and Nan—and the passel of kids Nan had gone and had for herself in the past few years. That boy of hers, the silent one, seemed a good kid. He played with Taos and looked at the sky like everything was a new adventure to be discovered. It was a pleasure to see that in somebody else’s face for a change.

In some ways, it might have been nice to have someone like that through whose eyes he could have seen the world afresh. But a family would have staked him to the ground, and he wasn’t fool enough to believe that being the stake was any better a life than being the one who was staked.

He looked at Jael and put on a rueful smile. “It could be I did it for the right and the wrong reason all at once. That’s the problem.”

ARMS SPREAD LIKE plane wings, Walter careened through the kitchen, tilting to the inside whenever he needed to make a turn around the edge of the table. It wasn’t a bit like real flying. It wasn’t even as fun as seeing a real plane fly over. But it sure beat sitting in the corner, waiting for supper to be ready.

At the table, Aunt Aurelia perched on the bench. She held the tarnished sugar bowl in both hands. “I would like to have a sweet.”

Mama Nan didn’t even look up from poking at the corn ears boiling in the big pot. She swiped a dark strand of hair from her damp face. “No. We’ll eat in a few minutes. Walter, stop running around like a wild man. Sit down.”

He imagined plane noises rumbling in the back of his throat and banked hard around Aunt Aurelia’s corner of the table. A cricket crawled along the seam in the floorboards. As high as he was in the sky, the cricket might be a cow or a tractor. He bent his knees and swooped lower to see if he could spook the cow.

Aunt Aurelia whimpered and thumped the sugar bowl against the table. “I want a sweet now .”

“Wait a bit, won’t you?” Mama Nan said. “Walter, please!”

“Don’t want to wait,” Aunt Aurelia said.

“Well, you must.” Mama Nan balanced a stack of plates on her hip and carried them over to the table. She set one at Papa Byron’s place and reached to set another in front of Aunt Aurelia.

Walter rounded the corner again and clipped Mama Nan’s elbow with his outstretched hand. The plate flipped off the edge and crashed against the floor. It broke into three big pieces.

“Walter!”

Oh, no. He stopped short and clenched both fists. Mama Nan’s plates. And not just any plates. She was using company plates, because Jael was there.

“Oh, Walter.” She pushed the rest of the plates onto the table and dropped to her knees to pick up the pieces. “Good sweet angels, sit down, can’t you? And stop making that unholy racket!” Immediately, she bit her lip and flashed him a dismayed look, because, of course, he hadn’t been making any noise at all.

He couldn’t even apologize to her. Shoulders slumped, he dragged himself over to a three-legged stool in the corner and sat down.

He was stupid. He made everybody worry because he didn’t like to talk. What he needed to do was say something. He opened his mouth and tightened his throat. But he just… couldn’t do it.

Anyway, it wasn’t the talking he needed to do to make everything right again. The real problem was that he was a coward. Whenever he got that scared squished feeling in his middle, he wasn’t able to move either. Not even when other people needed his help. Not even when they were dying.

Someday he’d be brave. Maybe that would be the day he’d be able to get the words out again.

Aunt Aurelia sniffed at Mama Nan and hugged the sugar pot closer. “Serves you right. You should have let me have a sweet.”

Mama Nan kept stacking the pieces. Her eyes seemed very tired. “Just please stop.”

The porch creaked, and a shadow blocked the late-afternoon sun. Jael stood with her hands in her back pockets.

Mama Nan would say it was unladylike if she saw.

But Walter’s heart got a nice warm feeling to it. Not too warm like the stove heating up the summer-hot kitchen. Just happy warm. He grinned.

Mama Nan glanced up, wearily. “You took Hitch’s job after all?”

“Yes,” Jael said. “It was right thing to do. I hope it does not give trouble to you too much.”

Mama Nan shrugged and returned to the broken plate. “That’s your business, not ours.”

Aunt Aurelia sniffed again. “Don’t be rid-dic-u-lous.” She always said all the parts of a word when she was upset. “Of course, it’s our business. After all, Walter wants to go flying with him, doesn’t he?”

Mama Nan glared at her. “That’s enough.”

“No, it is not. I want a sweet, and Walter wants to go be with Hitch Hitchcock. And I don’t see why not. After all—”

Mama Nan’s eyes got huge in her face. “That is enough, you hear me!” She stood up fast and snatched the sugar bowl.

Aunt Aurelia let out a scream and tried to hang onto it.

But Mama Nan pulled it away and thudded it down on the back of the stove. She stood with her hands on her hips, breathing hard.

Aunt Aurelia screamed louder. She opened her mouth wide and squinched up her eyes. Once she got going in one of her fits, nobody could stop her. She rapped her knuckles together and then slapped the table and stomped her feet. Tears boiled up from the corners of her eyes. In another minute, she’d be on the floor, sobbing. Papa Byron would have to carry her up to bed when he came in.

Mama Nan heaved a sigh and turned around. “Aurelia—Aurelia, I’m sorry.” Her voice got soft, like it only did with Aunt Aurelia, softer even than with the twins. “Please stop. Please don’t do this.” She leaned across the table to take Aunt Aurelia’s hand.

Aunt Aurelia slapped her aside.

“I’m sorry, dear. I know you didn’t mean anything. Please—”

The wail rose higher. In another second, it would start hurting Walter’s ears.

The screen door screeched open. Jael walked right up to Aunt Aurelia and took her hand. “Come. Come beside me.”