C. Morgan - All the Living

God almighty, he said and he wiped at the snot with the back of his hand. She could smell the musked scent of the cow on his skin. He patted her head once and then she felt the mattress spring up as his weight lifted and he left the room. She lay there for a while, feeling herself being talked down by the quiet of the room and the warmth his hand had transferred and left, briefly, on her hair. Her breathing slowed, hiccupping and faltering its way into evenness and then she slept.

When she woke, the sun was strong and she knew it was midmorning. Aloma turned her head and found the high light, confused for a minute as to why she had slept through its rising and why the day had pressed on without her. Then she remembered the cow. Orren was not in bed beside her. She sat up in confusion. Behind her, the sheets on the bed were stained with earth where she had lain, all in the shape of her. With her mind still fragile and fogged, she changed into clean jeans and a tee shirt that belonged to Orren and went downstairs. The coffee was still hot. Aloma poured a cup and then opened the back door and spied Orren down in the cow pasture, bent at the waist over the newborn calf, but she could not determine what he was doing. She slipped her feet into a pair of his work boots, which were far too big for her, and clomped down the sloping hillside until she stood at the board fence.

What’s that you’re doing? she said to Orren’s curved back. He started a bit and turned around, all the while holding a hobbing bottle to the calf’s mouth and when he turned, he was smiling. The lines at his eyes rayed down onto his cheeks and she saw the color of his eyes very clearly, their depths irrupted the way sun strikes and illuminates water of considerable depth, and the shot of blue startled her and pleased her. The look of him made her laugh out loud.

Wrestling, he said, smiling, and she laughed again and it was an airy, just-woken sound. Then she quieted and said, Where’s the cow? and he said, I got Jack Talbridge to come out with his dead wagon. She’s took care of. She’s gone. And he turned again to the calf, whose face tilted up for Orren’s mothering.

Watch this, he said and he struggled the bottle out of the calf’s mouth and took a few fast paces backward and the calf rushed forward, stiff-legged and maniacally reaching for the nipple and Orren tossed back his head and laughed so hard his fresh cap fell off his head. By all rights he should look like hell, Aloma thought. He’d taken a two-day harvest, he’d midwifed this calf, not slept at all last night and yet here he was, better than daylight. She shook her head.

Do it again, she said and he complied and the calf did its little trick of need, but she was not watching the calf.

You’re all smiles, she said.

He looked at her, squinting in the morning sun. I’ll be all smiles tonight, dear, he sang in a rising voice, I’ll be all smiles tonight. Though my heart may break tomorrow, I’ll be all smiles tonight.

She shook her head again. Heaven help that voice, she said and took a sip of her coffee. He checked her face with a glance and then he stuck the bottle in the back of his pants and came at the fence, vaulting it with one foot on the second board. Aloma screeched, tried to turn and run and said, No, I’ve got coffee, but he took it from her hand and tossed it to the ground, coffee spilling black onto the pale mud and the chipped cup landing on its side and he grabbed her, lifted her up against his chest. No, she demanded, but she was already being worked over his shoulder like a feed sack. You smell like shit, she said and struck against his back with her fist. You smell like cow shit, she said again into his shirt and then gave up and let him carry her slack weight. At the steps, he dropped her to her feet and staggered for a moment to catch his breath. They God, he said, his face red. He bent over at the waist and wheezed. They God, woman. She went to strike at his shoulder, but then he stood up abruptly, so that he stood over her and her hand raised up with him, still on his shoulder.

Aloma, I want you should marry me, he said.

She blinked at him, blinked as though the sun were now in her eyes.

Let’s get married, he said.

When? she said slowly.

Today.

What?

Marry me today.

She laughed and then sobered. Her eyes narrowed.

We’ve been about to kill each other, she said and looked down, remembering yesterday suddenly, thinking of Bell’s words.

That don’t make no difference. You can kill me when we’re married.

But things aren’t exactly in order, she said and looked out over the land, the pulled cones of drying tobacco that lined the fields and still more fields lying fallow. Isn’t that what you’ve been waiting for all along? Orren followed her gaze outward. The late-morning sun was shortening shadows all over the yard. They stood in the shadow of the house, but it was declining also.

No, things ain’t so much in order, you’re right.

Well, she said.

But, he said, I’ve not had a right understanding.

Of what? she said, suspicious.

Of all of it, he said. How it comes and goes.

They stared at each other. Then he shut his eyes as if he’d grown so sleepy he couldn’t hold the weight of his eyelids and he said, I don’t know how come it is I got to do everything so alone. I’m tired. But it is what it is.

Orren, getting married’s not going to make you not alone, she said. And I’ve been right here the whole time.

I’m alone so long as you got one foot half out the door, he said.

Oh, she said slowly, I see. And she did. Her arm was still raised, her hand still on his shoulder. She slid her fingers up farther and rubbed at his neck and he let her do this for a minute. He opened his eyes. Blue still.

Alright, she said.

He smiled. He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead and they stayed like that until Aloma could feel the heat of his body mingled with the heat of the day, though it was not yet touching them, sheltered in shadow as they were. She listened to him inhaling and exhaling and when she closed her eyes, she saw again the cap falling from his head and his face tilted up and his open mouth like that. She wanted to keep her eyes shut and hold him there in the amber of her mind’s eye. But he straightened up and said, How about you call the preacher down at the church and see if maybe he’d do it today.

Oh. She pulled away and tucked her hands in her pockets. Oh. I don’t know.

Why not? he said.

She placed a finger up against the inner corner of her eye and wiggled it while she sought out a reason. She screwed up her face. Oh shit, Orren, I don’t think he was going in today. I’m not sure.

But he knows my people, said Orren. And then she apprehended in advance what he was going to say so it was almost as if she had scripted the words herself — why had she not realized it before now? He said, He preached over the funerals, and her heart cramped with his words, but she was not surprised, not really. A grief settled onto her breast and it tugged at her so heavily she wanted nothing more than to sink down to the grass and sit in order to bear its weight.

I see, she said again. You sure you don’t want to call him? she said hopelessly.

Why don’t you, he said and it was settled, because it was not a question. It was Orren getting his way. Then he enfolded her in his arms so that she could hardly breathe. He kissed her on the mouth this time and looked into her eyes for a moment and she smelled the sweat of the long night on him and she found it difficult to hold his gaze. Then he went upstairs to shower.

Aloma remained in the dark patch on the grass. All the spirit had fled from her now. She turned the thing over in her mind and was sickened by it. So strong was the feeling that she turned and faced the house, gripping her belly, afraid she would be ill standing there. She looked up to the sky as if her salvation was there, but it was not. It never was, she thought bitterly. It was not there the day she said, Yes, yes, I’ll come, it wasn’t in the cold pasture last night, it wasn’t in the car when the sheet metal arced and opened the windshield so that it rained glass. It was not up or down, it was not in a location. It just wasn’t like that. The sky above looked to her now like the palm of a great empty hand, never moving any closer, never touching the earth. She sighed.