Clover (15 page)

I dropped my head. I couldn't stand to look at either one
of them. I was so glad Daniel was with his daddy, I didn't know what to do. I would have been so ashamed if he'd been there.

Finally I said, “I apologize, Sara Kate. I'm sorry for the way I acted.” But then under my breath I said, ever so softly, “But you shouldn't have tried to make me eat the lunch.” And dag, they both heard it.

Everleen's voice had softened, “Try to look over her little fast cutting remarks, Sara Kate. She really didn't mean any harm with that last remark. The poor little thing has just not been herself here of late.

“You see, Sara Kate, sometimes the child has to hear more around this peach shed than I'd like. I wish I didn't have to keep the kids here. Every bad word that's used sticks to their brain like a suction cup. But Lord knows, I don't know what I would do without them.”

Sara Kate smiled at Everleen. “Oh, I'm beginning to learn how to handle things like that. I treat those kind of sayings, coming from a small child, like small fish. You simply toss them back into the water.”

I can clearly see that Sara Kate is no longer angry with me. And it gives me a good feeling. I think just having Everleen not dump on her, plus take her side, did her all the good in the world.

Maybe Sara Kate became so happy after her talk with Everleen because she knew she was planning to clamp down
tight on me. Now I imagine she believes Everleen will side with her if I get the least bit out of line.

For a few days, I have halfway been thinking that, just maybe, I will tell Sara Kate about my leg. “Sara Kate,” I've made up my mind to say, “I was just thinking that, maybe, well, maybe you should take me to see that old doctor about my leg.”

As usual, like with everything else, I didn't do it. I sure didn't plan for things to turn out the way they did yesterday.

Like always, I was home for lunch. It was not too bad for a change. Hamburgers on crusty seed-topped buns with pink juice running out the meat. I'm getting so I like them that way, now. Sara Kate gave me a small dish of pork-n-beans, and of course a salad. She always makes salads. She didn't eat any of the beans. She seldom does.

When we finished, she put a small plate of cookies on the table. Can you believe that just for the two of us, no company or nothing, she put a lacy paper doily under the cookies.

Well, anyway, you know that funny feeling your mouth gets when you are eating, and your mind keeps telling you, you still have half of a cookie or something left to eat. Yet you can't find it anyplace.

It's hard to explain that feeling, but the thing itself is
very, very real. That was in my mind, so I was looking everywhere, all around my plate, under my napkin.

“What are you looking for, Clover?” Sara Kate asked.

“Nothing,” I said. I was looking for something and she knew it. I wouldn't say what it was, because it was too hard to put into words why I was looking so hard for half of a butter creme cookie.

I must have twisted my leg or something when I got ready to leave, because the thing started hurting me so bad, I couldn't help myself. I started crying like a newborn baby.

Sara Kate rushed behind me. Her eyes wide. “It's your leg, isn't it, Clover?”

Like I said, I wasn't ready for her to find out. Daniel and I were supposed to go fishing. Daniel was right when he said you can't hide anything from her.

“How in the world do you think my leg can keep from hurting, Sara Kate? I have to run and carry peach baskets every morning.” I was still crying. “So what if it's hurting, it is my leg, you know.” I had promised myself to stop being a smart aleck, but that just slipped out.

Sara Kate didn't get angry. “Let's get dressed, Clover,” she said, “we are going to the doctor.”

You guessed it. I wound up in the doctor's office.

The doctor was quick to see I was not about to say anything about my leg. So he started tapping, pressing, and feeling my leg. He finally said I must have injured the leg
somehow. He sure didn't get it out of me first, though. I might even have kept him from finding out that I'd hurt it. The trouble was I couldn't help but say “ouch” when he pressed down too hard in one place.

I thought of the time, not too long ago, when Mr. Elijah Watson hurt his leg. They said gangrene set in. And you know what, they put him in the hospital and cut the dang leg clean off. See, Sara Kate doesn't even know stuff like that.

I decided on my own to tell the doctor I fell over a log and hurt my leg. He wanted to take X-rays of my leg. I've never had one before. They may hurt for all I know. Well, telling him what happened sure didn't help. I had to have the thing X-rayed anyway.

The doctor pointed out shadowy areas on the X-ray to Sara Kate. “There is no damage to the bones,” he said. “Your daughter likely tore a ligament in the beginning and doubtless kept hurting the same leg over and over.” He called me her daughter. Sara Kate had called me her daughter. She kept saying it. The only time she said Clover was when she spoke to me. Now that was really something.

I guess my leg wasn't really hurt all that bad after all. The doctor didn't put bandage one on my leg. I thought if you hurt your leg or something, they ought to bandage it up. They sure did it when Skip caught his arm in the lawn mower. Sure would have saved me from carrying peach baskets if he'd put it in a cast or up in bandages.

Since the doctor didn't make such a big deal over my leg and put me in the hospital, I figured as long as I was there it might be safe to tell him about the poison I got into my eye.

Well, that bolted Sara Kate right out of her seat. She was upset that I hadn't told her about it. She fastened her eyes on me. I do believe her eyes change color when she is angry. They didn't move. It was like they were held in place with scotch tape. “Why didn't you tell me, Clover?” she asked.

I hung my head. “I was afraid you would take me to the doctor,” I whispered.

The doctor sat down in front of me, looked under both my eyelids and shined a bright light in my eyes. He said there was no damage to the eyes. But I should always let someone know if I got something in my eyes. He explained that sometimes you need to wash out the eye with special solutions.

I looked up at the doctor. He was smiling. “I won't be afraid next time,” I said.

Sara Kate half-smiled. “I should certainly hope not, young lady. Now thank the good doctor and let's get on home.”

I must have groaned in my sleep or something, because when I woke up Sara Kate was by my side, tucking the sheets about me. Trying to brush my hair off my forehead.
Like it could possibly fall there in the first place. She, of all people, should know that after she messed up my hair with that perm, there is no way it can fall anywhere.

My hair will fall when Aunt Everleen fixes it. She straightens it. One day at school, a little girl with her blue-eyed self had the nerve to ask me if I ironed my hair on an ironing board.

Sara Kate stayed in my room for a long time. I think she was waiting for me to fall asleep. It was a bright moonlit night. I could see her as plain as my hand before my face. She stood by the window staring into the still night.

I could also see the brown marks on the ceiling. Rain marks from a leaky roof. Poor Gaten. He fixed the roof, but didn't live long enough to paint the ceiling. I study the brown splashes and marks. If you let your eyes work on the ceiling for a while, you can make all kinds of monsters out of them.

The next morning I was up before sunup and already bright orange-colored clouds were spread out in neat rows getting ready for the sun. Right across the doorway was the biggest spider web I'd ever seen. Smack-dab in the middle was a big spider. I was all set to cream the thing, when I thought about Sara Kate. Somehow I just couldn't bring myself to kill it. That was the first time something like that happened to me. Sara Kate's thinking is rubbing off on me for sure.

Come to think of it, Gaten may not have been so keen on killing spiders, either. I remember him telling me the story of Robert the Bruce. He said, according to legend, “Bruce, hiding from enemies in a wretched hut, watched a spider swinging by one of its threads. It was trying to swing itself from one beam to another. Bruce noticed the spider tried six times and failed. The same number of battles he had fought in vain against the English. He decided, if the spider tried a seventh time and succeeded, he also would try again. The spider did try and was successful. So Bruce tried once again and went forth to victory.”

I believe I remember every single story Gaten ever told me. That man knew so much stuff, I wonder how his head held it all.

Now as far as killing goes, Sara Kate is not behind everything I don't kill. I won't kill a snail, for instance. Never have. There was one crawling on the steps right then. Its slow moving body left a nasty slimy trail. But, by dog, I didn't rub him out. I couldn't have stood the squishy mess he would have made. I watched the big spider hurry away, and went in to cook breakfast. A part of me was little by little starting to obey and care for Sara Kate without my even knowing it.

When Sara Kate came into the kitchen, I was standing on the little stool my daddy made for me, stirring a pot of cheese grits. I can solid cook grits. Gaten couldn't stand
nobody's lumpy grits. I've been cooking since I was eight years old. Sara Kate made coffee while the ham and canned biscuits finished cooking. I crossed my eyes and watched her double image sip a cup of black coffee. Gaten and I always put canned Pet milk in our coffee.

Sara Kate spread somebody's homemade peach jelly on a buttered biscuit and put it on my plate. “Please don't cross your eyes, Clover.”

When she is ready to eat, Sara Kate just lights in and starts eating. She doesn't ask any kind of a blessing for the food she's about to receive.

She dabbed at the corners of her mouth all dainty, like the women eating in fancy dining rooms in television movies. She raised her eyes and caught me staring at her. “Is there something wrong, Clover?” she asked.

It's funny how easy it's starting to get for me to tell Sara Kate exactly what's on my mind. “I was just wondering why you never, ever ask a blessing before you eat. Aunt Everleen says you should never stray away from the way you were raised up.”

Sara Kate smiled. “In my family we never offered a blessing before meals, Clover.”

I didn't say anything, but I thought to myself that was a mighty strange way to be raised up.

“Clover,” she asked softly, “did Gaten offer prayer before meals?”

“Gaten wouldn't a bit more eat without saying a blessing, than he'd eat without washing his hands,” I said.

“Does it make you unhappy that I don't ask a blessing?”

“No, I still say mine. Even if I do have to say it to myself.”

Sara Kate laid down her fork and dabbed the corners of her mouth. I have to hand it to her, like Gaten, she eats really proper. There was a sad look in her eyes. “Clover,” she said quietly, “I don't know how to say a blessing.”

Someday I'm going to teach her how to ask the blessing. For sure I won't teach her one as long as Aunt Everleen's blessing. The food on the table gets cold sometimes before she finishes. She doesn't overlook a thing about the food. She gives thanks to the one who plants, weeds, gathers, cooks, and on and on.

Sara Kate hasn't asked me to teach her the blessing yet. But she will always ask me to say it before we eat. She always bows her head and closes her eyes. I know, because I always peep up at her every single time. I don't know if Sara Kate doesn't want to learn a blessing for fear she'll have to start calling on the Lord or what. One thing about her, she is not one bit religious.

I guess I'm going to have to hold all those things that happened here of late inside for a while. Especially the spider thing. If Everleen knew that on account of what Sara Kate would have thought, I didn't kill a spider, she would declare I am natural-born crazy. Talk about having a doctor
examine your head, she would hurry up and carry me to one.

It's Sunday again. The air outside is heavy with the smell of coffee and fried country ham. Inside, Sara Kate is still in her housecoat. She is drinking coffee and canned pineapple juice, and reading the Sunday
Charlotte Observer
newspaper.

Poor Gaten would have starved to death on what little cooking Sara Kate does. Sometimes I do wonder how she keeps on living. Everleen gave her a little peanut butter jar full of peach jelly and it looks like it's going to last her forever. She keeps it in the refrigerator and will stand there with the door open, eating one tiny teaspoonful. The jelly would go good on a hot butter biscuit. I have to give Daniel credit. Sara Kate is strange, strange.

I'm really hungry. I want to make me a bologna sandwich, but we don't have any white bread. There is no peanut butter. Sara Kate's spoon-eaten every bit of it. It's for sure I will have to go to my aunt's to get something good to eat.

I take the shortcut to Everleen's house. She's got to open up the peach shed at one o'clock, but she still had time to make a fresh peach cobbler for me and Sara Kate and one for her uncle Noah.

The crust on the cobbler was so juicy and good Sara Kate and I ate off the whole top. Now we have to get Everleen to put on a new crust. Gaten and I used to do it all the time.

I hate for Everleen to send me over to Noah's house on a Sunday. It was late one Sunday when he shot his sister that time. There was a boom, boom sound at his house. Then you could hear his sister screaming, and screaming like she was about to die. She was on the floor when we got there. Bright red blood was running from her hand onto the old worn wood floor.

As it turned out his sister didn't end up hurt all that bad. At the hospital they took out shotgun pellets from her hand, but missed one in her head, and gave her a tetanus shot and sent her back home. The next morning when she saw a group of her neighbors gathered in the road to talk about the shooting, she walked right down there and said all secretive-like, “Did you all hear about me getting shot last night? My fool brother shot me with his shotgun.” Well, sir, all the snuff spit they'd been holding in their mouths flew right out. You could have knocked them over with a feather. She took all the gossip right out of their mouths. The woman should be on the stage.