Amy Greene - Bloodroot

Myra showed him off to me like a prize she’d won. “Granny, this is John. You know his daddy, Frankie, that owns Odom’s Hardware.”

“Why, is that your daddy?” I said. “Me and Macon done a lot of business with him down through the years.” I hate to admit it, but it crossed my mind that Myra had snagged a good one. I figured she’d be set if she married into the Odoms. I thought when Frankie Odom passed on that store would fall to his boys and she’d be taken care of.

John Odom reached out for my hand. I dropped the corn in the tub and wiped dirt on my apron. His hand was so clean and white, I didn’t want to sully it.

“Daddy speaks well of you and Mr. Lamb. Said you all was good people.”

“Well. We always tried to be.”

John looked down in the tub at my feet. “You got an awful good-looking crop of corn this year, Mrs. Lamb.” He reached out and plucked an ear, held it in his hands. “I like the smell of a garden,” he said, turning to Myra, “don’t you?” She took an ear herself and said, “Let me and John help you get this in, Granny.”

I started to tell them to go on and have a good time, but I didn’t want them to leave me. All of a sudden I felt old and lonesome. It was good to have them working alongside me, the evening sun pouring between the cornstalks and the smell of garden dirt, even the smell of sweat. It had been a long time since I smelled a man’s sweat.

When the tub was full, me and John Odom went to pick it up at the same time. We bumped heads and got tickled. When we looked at each other across that tin tub, there was something about his black eyes that bothered me. I tried to ignore it. I wanted him to be good for Myra. But I should have listened to that small voice inside of me.

Next evening I came upon Myra setting on the steps as I was headed from the barn with a bucket of eggs. “Where you been, little lady?” I asked, gumming my snuff.

“For a walk.”

I looked at her for a long time with my hand on my hip. I could tell her whole self was yearning toward town and the hardware store where John Odom was working. I put my bucket down and she made room for me to sit. I touched her cheek with my finger. Next to the smoothness of her young skin, I seen how old and crooked it was. When she turned to me I searched her eyes for the words it seemed like she couldn’t find.

“Your face is hot,” I said. “Reckon you’ve caught a cold?”

“No. I’m just sitting here thinking.”

“What about?”

“Something I got to tell you.”

“All right,” I said. But I wished she wouldn’t say anything. I looked out across the yard at the shadows gathering under the apple tree.

“Me and John are getting married.”

“Well. I figured you would.”

She smiled and leaned into my shoulder. “How’d you figure?”

“Honey, you look about as lovesick as anybody I ever seen, except maybe for me when I first laid eyes on your granddaddy.”

We both got quiet. I knowed what I wanted to do. I wanted to give Myra her granddaddy’s ring, but I hesitated. Sometimes I still worry it’s what caused this whole blamed mess. Stealing was the worst thing I ever done and for most of my life taking that ring had been my secret. Now I had to tell on myself, because I couldn’t give it to Myra without warning her what came with it. But it felt right for her to have. I seen how deep in love she was. I got up before I could chicken out and said, “Set still here a minute.”

I went inside, the kitchen door slapping behind me, and came back out carrying the box Macon had carved. Myra had never seen it before, but she must have knowed right off it was her granddaddy’s work. I could tell by the way her eyes lit up. Then she got real solemn and traced the bloodroot flower on the lid with her fingertip.

“Open it up,” I said. The wedding ring was inside. I’d seen it many times but it looked different off of Macon’s finger, like a living thing, a beating heart. “I want you to give it to John,” I said. Myra looked up at me with her blue eyes. She opened her mouth to talk but no words came out. She settled her head on my chest and I stroked her hair for a while, the red ribbon Macon bought her a long time ago flowing through my fingers.

“Now I’ve got to tell you a shameful thing,” I finally said. Myra raised her head and I was nervous, because if my grandbaby was to think less of me I didn’t know what I’d do. “I stole this here ring off of a woman I worked for.” I studied Myra’s face close but there was no change in it that I could see. “I never believed I could do a thing like that. But I loved your granddaddy in such a hard way, I didn’t know up from down.”

She just kept looking at me. I couldn’t tell how she was taking it.

“That ain’t no excuse,” I went on. “It’s something I’ll have to answer for on Judgment Day. I’m just saying love can be too deep. It’ll make you do crazy things.”

Myra smiled at me then in a way that made my belly sink down to my feet. “Don’t be sorry, Granny,” she said. “You don’t have to explain. I know why you did it.”

All of a sudden I wanted to snatch Macon’s ring back and my blessing, too. I wondered what she had already done in the name of that deep down love.

It was two weeks later, in June of last year, that Myra and John Odom got married. They was in too big of a hurry for a church wedding, so they went down to the preacher’s house and got married in his kitchen without telling me about it until the next day. I hated for Myra to leave me, but I was relieved at least she was marrying into some money. Macon had done well enough for us and we never went hungry, but it was a struggle sometimes. I wondered if Myra was ashamed, going to school with other boys and girls that had more than we did. I knowed Odom’s Hardware hadn’t got as much business after the Plaza was built, but it seemed from the look of things that Frankie and his sons was still making a good living. That’s part of how come I was so surprised when I seen the house he had Myra in. I rode down yonder with them before they moved in their furniture and I guess it showed plain on my face what I thought of the place. Right off, Myra went to making excuses. She said times was lean at the hardware store and Frankie couldn’t afford to pay his boys as much as he used to. But I still believe John Odom could have done better by my grandbaby than that old dump by the railroad tracks. It had rained the night before and the yard was pure mud, with no trees or flowers. Soon as we stepped out of the car a train went by, big and fast enough to rattle the ground. It was all I could do to keep from squalling, thinking of Myra living in a hole like that.

Back at home without my grandbaby, the mountain looked different to me. The woods was dark and sometimes it seemed like they was creeping up closer to the house. At least when Myra and John first got married they’d come and eat dinner with me every Sunday after church. They’d set across the table and look at each other until it just about made my face red. Sometimes I’d get jealous over how much they loved one another. I’d get sad thinking about how my own youth was gone and my loving days was over.

It wasn’t long, though, before I seen John Odom turning quiet. Wouldn’t hardly look up from his plate, and every once in a while, if me and Myra got to laughing and carrying on, sharing a little bit of gossip, he’d shoot us the evilest look anybody’s ever seen. It made me uneasy, but to tell the truth, I was still trying to ignore it. Like I said, I wanted him to be everything Myra thought he was, for her sake and mine both.

Then John stopped coming to church and Myra would be there by herself. She’d slip in and set on the back pew. I could tell she was troubled. One afternoon she came up to the house looking peaked and her hands shaking. She tried to help me worsh the dishes and they kept slipping back down in the sink. Finally I said, “What is it, honey?”