LaVyrle Spencer: Morning Glory

She left him sitting in the kitchen while she put the boys to bed. He sat eyeing the room. The cabinets consisted of open shelves displaying cookpots and dishes beneath a workbench crudely covered with cracked linoleum. Between the nails that held it on, chunks were missing. The sink was old, chipped and stained, with a single short pipe to drop the runoff into a slop pail underneath. There was no pump. Instead, a dipper handle protruded from a white enamel water pail beneath which the linoleum held a sunburst of cracks. The floor was covered with linoleum of a different pattern, but it showed more black backing than green ivy design. The ceiling needed washing. It was gray with soot above the woodstove. Apparently someone had had dreams of resurfacing the walls but had gotten only as far as tearing off the old plaster on a wall and a half, leaving the wooden slats showing like the bones of a skeleton. Will found it surprising that a room so ramshackle could smell so good.

His eyes moved to the bread and he forced himself to sit and wait.

When Eleanor Dinsmore returned to the kitchen he made sure his hat was on the tabletop instead of on his head. With an effort he rose from the rung-back chair, bolstering his stomach with one arm.

"No need to get up. You rest while I get something started."

He let his weight drop back while she opened a wooden trapdoor in the floor and disappeared down a set of crude, steep steps. Her hand reappeared, setting a covered kettle on the floor, then she emerged, climbing clumsily.

When she reached for the ring on the trapdoor he was waiting to lower it for her. Her startled look told Will she wasn’t used to men doing it for her. It had been a long time, too, since he’d performed courtesies for a woman, but he found it impossible to watch a pregnant one struggling up a cellar hatch without offering a hand.

For a moment neither of them knew what to say.

Finally she glanced away, offering, "I appreciate it, Mr. Parker." And when he’d lowered the trapdoor behind her, "Never had a man openin’ and closin’ doors for me. Glendon, he never learnt how. Makes me feel a little foolish. Anyway, I thought I told you to set. Your belly’s bound to be hurtin’ after you brought them apples up for another look."

He grinned at her homey turn of speech and returned to the chair, watching as she added wood to the stove and put the kettle on to heat.

"I’m sorry about what happened out there in the yard. I guess it embarrassed you."

"It’s a purely natural act, Mr. Parker." She stirred the contents of the pot. "Besides, I don’t embarrass easy." She set the spoon down and gave him a wry smile. "And leastways, you did it before you tasted my cooking."

She gave him a cajoling grin and got one of his rare ones in return. He tried to recall if he’d ever known a woman with a sense of humor, but none came to mind. He watched her move around in an ungainly, swaying way, placing a hand to her roundness when she reached or stooped. He wondered if she really was crazy, if he was, too. Bad enough taking a strange woman for a wife. Worse taking one who was pregnant. What the hell did he know about pregnant women? Only that in his time he might have left a few of them behind.

"You’d probably feel better if you washed up some," she suggested.

In his usual fashion, he neither moved nor replied.

"There’s the basin." She gestured, then turned away, busying herself. He threw a longing glance at the basin, the soap, the white towel and washcloth hanging on nails at the front of the sink.

After a minute she turned and asked, "What’s the matter? Stomach hurt too bad to get up?"

"No, ma’am." He wasn’t accustomed to freedom yet, didn’t believe it fully. It felt as if anything he reached for would be snatched away. In prison a man learned early to take nothing for granted. Not even the most basic creature comforts. This was her house, her soap, her water. She couldn’t possibly understand what prizes they seemed to a man fresh out.

"Well, what is it?" she demanded impatiently.

"Nothing."

"Then help yourself to the teakettle and washbasin."

He stretched to his feet, but moved cautiously. He crossed behind her and found a clean white washbasin in the sink, and on the nail, the clean white towel and washcloth. So white. Whiter than anything he remembered. In prison the washcloths had been puce green and had grown musty smelling long before clean ones were issued.

Eleanor peered over her shoulder as he filled the washbasin, then dipped his hands into the cold water. "Don’t you want it warmed up?" He glanced back over his shoulder. His eyes, when they weren’t carefully blank, were questioning and uncertain.

"Yes, ma’am," he answered. But when he’d shaken off his hands and turned he made no move toward the teakettle. She plucked it off the stove and poured the warm water for him, then turned her back, pretending to go back to work. But she glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder, confounded by his strange hesitancy. He flattened both palms against the bottom of the basin and leaned forward with his head hung low. There he stood, stiff-armed, as if transfixed. What in the world was he doing? She tipped sideways and peeked around him-his eyes were closed, his lips open. At last he scooped water to his face and gave a small shudder. Lord a-mercy, so that was it! Understanding swamped her. She felt a surge of heat flush her body, a queer sympathetic thrill, a gripping about her heart.

"How long has it been?" she asked quietly.

His head came up but he neither turned, nor spoke. Water dripped from his face and hands into the basin.

"How long since you had warm water?" she insisted in the kindest tone she could manage.

"A long time."

"How long?"

He didn’t want her pity. "Five years."

"You were in prison five years?"

"Yes, ma’am." He buried his face in the towel-it smelled of homemade lye soap and fresh air, and he took his time savoring its softness and scent.

"You mean the water’s cold in there?"

He hung up the towel without answering. The water had been cold all his life-creeks and lakes and horse troughs. And often he dried himself with his shirt, or on a lucky day, the sun.

"How long you been out?"

"Couple of months."

"How long since you ate a decent meal?"

Still silent, he closed two buttons on his shirt, staring out a filmy window above the sink.

"Mr. Parker, I asked you a question."

On a crude shelf to his left a small round mirror reflected her image. What he saw mostly was obstinacy.

"A while," he replied flatly while their mirrored eyes locked.

Eleanor realized he was a man who’d accept a challenge more readily than charity, so she carefully wiped all sympathy from her voice. "I should think," she admonished, stepping close behind him, holding his gaze in the mirror, "a man that’s been roughing it might need a touch of soap." She reached around him, picked up a bar of Ivory and plopped it into his hand, then rested her own on her hips. "You’re not in prison anymore, Mr. Parker. Soap is free for the taking here, and there’s always warm water. Only thing I ask is that when you’re through you spill it out and rinse the basin."

Staring at her in the mirror, he felt as if an immense weight had lifted from his chest. She stood in the pose of a fighter, daring him to defy her. But beneath her stern façade, he sensed a generous spirit. "Yes, ma’am," he returned quietly. And this time before leaning over the welcome warm water, he shrugged out of his shirt.

Holy Moses, was he thin. From behind she eyed his ribs. They stuck out like a kite frame in a strong wind. He began spreading soapsuds with his hands-chest, arms, neck and as far around his trunk as he could reach. He bent forward, and her eyes were drawn down his tan back to where a white band of skin appeared above the line of grayed elastic on his underwear.