Mudbound (24 page)

“Didn’t it?” Jamie said. “Seemed to me it came out pretty easy, like you’ve been thinking it for a good long while.”

“I just think you need a fresh start somewhere,” I said. “We both know you’re no farmer.”

“I’ll leave tomorrow, if that’s soon enough for you.”

I didn’t want him going off mad and half-cocked. “There’s no need for that,” I said. “Besides, I’m counting on your help with the planting.”

He acted like he hadn’t heard me. “I’ll catch the first bus out of here in the morning,” he said.

“I’m asking you to stay a little longer,” I said. “Just till we get the seed in.”

He considered me for a long moment, then gave me a bitter smile. “Anything for my big brother,” he said. He walked out then, back straight and rigid as a soldier’s. Jamie would deny it but he’s just like our pappy in one respect. He never forgets a slight, or forgives one.

LAURA

I
F
H
ENRY HADN
’
T
been so stubborn.

If there hadn’t been a ball game on.

If Eboline had taken better care of her trees.

It was the twelfth of April, a week after the incident with Ronsel. Henry, Jamie, Pappy and I were having dinner at Dex’s. The girls were at Rose’s, celebrating Ruth Ann’s seventh birthday with a much-anticipated tea and slumber party.

Halfway through the meal, Bill Tricklebank came in looking for us. Eboline had called the store, frantic. A dead limb had cracked off her elm tree that morning and caved in her roof. No one was hurt, but the living room was exposed and there was a big storm headed our way. It was expected to hit Greenville sometime Monday.

“Damn,” said Henry after Bill had left. “Wouldn’t you know it’d be right in the middle of planting season.”

“I’ll go,” Jamie offered.

“No,” said Henry. “That’s not a good idea.”

Jamie’s mouth tightened. “Why not?” he said.

Things were still tense between him and Henry. I was staying
out of it; the two times I’d tried to talk to Henry about it he’d practically taken my head off.

“You know why,” Henry said.

“Come on, it’s been six months. Charlie Partain’s not gonna do anything even if he does happen to see me. Which he won’t.”

“That’s right,” said Henry, “because you’re not going.”

“Who’s Charlie Partain?” I asked.

“The sheriff of Greenville,” said Pappy. “He ain’t too fond of our family.”

“After the accident, he told me to keep Jamie out of town,” said Henry, “and that’s exactly what I aim to do.”

“This isn’t about Charlie Partain,” said Jamie. “You don’t trust me to go. Do you, brother?”

Henry stood, took a ten-dollar bill out of his wallet and set it on the table. To me he said, “Telephone Eboline and let her know I’m on my way. Then get somebody at Tricklebank’s to take you all home. I’ll be back in a few days.”

He bent and gave me a swift kiss. When he turned to leave, Jamie grabbed his arm. “Do you?” he asked again.

Henry looked down at the hand on his arm, then at Jamie. “Let the tenants know there’s a storm coming,” he said. “Get the tractor inside the barn and fix that loose shutter in the girls’ bedroom. And you better check the roof of the house, nail down any loose edges.”

Jamie gave him a curt nod, and Henry left. We finished eating and walked over to Tricklebank’s. Jamie and Pappy stayed on the porch while I went inside and called Eboline. Afterward
I bought a few groceries from Bill. When I came out with them, Pappy was at one end of the porch, listening to a ball game on the radio with some other men. Jamie was sitting alone at the opposite end, smoking and staring moodily out at the street. I went over to him and asked if he’d found us a ride.

He nodded. “Tom Rossi’s going to take us. He went to the feed store, said to meet him over there.”

Tom owned the farm to the west of ours. He was also the part-time deputy sheriff of Marietta. I found it oddly dispiriting, living in a place whose citizens only misbehaved enough to warrant a police force of one and a half.

“You about ready to leave?” I called to Pappy.

“Do I look like I’m ready, gal? The game just started.”

“I’ll bring him,” said one of the other men.

“Supper’s at six,” I said.

Pappy waved us off, and Jamie and I left to go find Tom.

I sat between them on the ride to the farm, making awkward small talk with Tom while Jamie brooded beside me. As soon as Tom dropped us off, Jamie took the truck and drove off to warn the tenants about the storm. When I heard him return, I went outside. He was striding angrily toward the barn, his hair ablaze in the sun. I called out to him.

He kept going, calling back, “I need to fetch the ladder and see to the roof.”

“That can wait a little while,” I said. “I want to talk to you.”

He stopped but didn’t turn around. His body was rigid, his hands balled into fists. I went and stood directly in front of him.

“You’re wrong about Henry not trusting you,” I said.

“You think so, huh?”

“Don’t you see, that’s what he was trying to tell you, when he asked you to warn the tenants and all the rest of it. That he trusts you.”

“Yeah,” Jamie said, with a harsh laugh, “he trusts me so much he wants me gone.”

“Don’t be silly. He’s just sore at you over the Ronsel business. He’ll get over it.”

Jamie cocked his head. “So, he hasn’t told you yet,” he said.

“I didn’t think he had.”

“Told me what?”

“He kicked me out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He asked me to leave yesterday. I’m going as soon as we’re done planting. Next week, most likely.”

I felt a sharp pain somewhere near the center of my body, followed by a draining sensation that made me a little dizzy. It reminded me of how I’d felt when I used to give blood for the war effort. Only now it was all going, all the life and color in me, seeping out into the dirt at my feet. When Jamie left and I was emptied, I would be invisible again, just like I’d been before he came. I couldn’t go back to being that dutiful unseen woman, the one who played her roles without really inhabiting them. I wouldn’t go back.
No.

I realized I’d spoken the word out loud when Jamie said, “I have to, Laura. Henry’s right about one thing, I need to make a new start. And I sure as hell can’t do it here.” He waved his
hand to take it all in—the shabby house and outbuildings, the ugly brown fields. And me, of course, I was part of that dreary landscape too. Henry’s landscape. Fury gathered in my belly, rising up, scalding my throat. I truly hated my husband at that moment.

“I’d better get busy on those chores,” Jamie said.

I watched him walk to the barn. At the door, he stopped and looked back at me. “I never thought my brother would turn against me like this,” he said. “I never thought he was capable of it.”

I could think of nothing to say in answer. Nothing that would comfort him. Nothing that would keep him here.

I
LISTENED TO HIM
move the tractor, hammer the shutter, climb up on the ladder to check the roof. Mundane sounds, but they filled me with sadness. All I could think of was the silence to come.

When he was finished he popped his head in the front window. “The roof looks fine,” he said. “I’ve taken care of the rest.”

“You want some coffee?”

“No, thanks. I think I’ll take a nap.”

He’d been asleep for maybe twenty minutes when I heard him moaning and shouting. I hurried out to the lean-to, but at the door I found myself hesitating. I looked at my hand on the latch and thought of all the things it had proven capable of since I’d been at Mudbound, things that would have frightened
or shocked me once. I looked at the ragged nails, the swollen red knuckles, the slender strip of gold across the fourth finger. I watched my hand lift the latch.

Jamie was sprawled on his back, his arms flung wide. He was still dressed, except for his shoes and socks. His feet were long, pale and slender, with a blue tracery of veins in the arches. I had the urge to press my mouth to them. He cried out and one arm flailed upward, as if he were warding something off. I sat on the edge of the bed and took hold of his arm, pushing it down against the sheet. With my other hand I smoothed his hair back from his damp forehead. “Jamie, wake up,” I said.

He tore his arm from my grasp and grabbed my shoulders, his fingers digging into my skin. I said his name again and his eyes opened, darting around wildly before settling on my face. I watched sense come into them, then awareness of who I was, and where we were.

“Laura,” he said.

I could have looked away then, but I didn’t. I held myself very still, knowing he could see everything I felt and letting him see it. It was the most intimate act of my life, more intimate even than the acts that followed. Jamie didn’t move, but I felt the change in the way his hands gripped me. His eyes dropped to my mouth and my heart lurched, slamming against the bone. I waited for him to pull me down to him, but he didn’t, and I realized finally that he wouldn’t; that it was up to me. I remembered the first time Henry had kissed me, how he’d taken my face in his hands as though it were something he had a right to. That was the difference between men and
women, I thought: Men take for themselves the things they want, while women wait to be given them. I would not wait any longer. I bent down and touched my lips to Jamie’s, tasting whiskey and cigarettes, anger and longing that I knew was not just for me. I didn’t care. I took it all, no questions asked, either of him or myself. His hands pulled me on top of him, undid the buttons of my blouse, unsnapped my garters. Urgent, impatient, speeding us past whether and why. I went willingly, following the path of his desire.

And then, suddenly, he stopped. He rolled me to one side and got up out of the bed, and I thought,
He’s changed his mind. Of course he has.
He took my hand and drew me up to stand in front of him. Mortified, I looked down and started to button my blouse back up. His hand reached out, raised my chin. “Look at me,” he said.

I made myself look. His gaze was steady and fierce. He ran his thumb across my mouth, stroking the bottom lip open, then his hand dropped lower. He brushed the backs of his fingers across my breast, once, and then again in the opposite direction. My nipples stiffened and my legs trembled. My body felt dense and heavy, an unwieldy liquid mass. I would have fallen but his eyes held me up. There was a demand in them, and a gravity I’d never seen before. I understood then: We wouldn’t be swept away by passion, as I’d always imagined. Jamie wouldn’t let us be. This would be a deliberate act. A choosing.

Without looking away from him, I reached out with my hand, found his belt buckle and pulled the leather from it. When I released the catch he let out a long breath. His arms went around me and his mouth came down on mine.

When he was poised above me I didn’t think of Henry or my children, of words like
adultery, sin, consequences.
I thought only of Jamie and myself. And when I drew him into me I thought of nothing at all.

H
E FELL ASLEEP
on top of me, as Henry sometimes did when he was tired, but I felt none of my usual irritation or restiveness. Jamie’s weight on me was sweet. I closed my eyes, wanting to shut out every other sensation, wanting his weight to imprint the shape of him into my flesh.

It was the thought of Pappy that got me to move. By the golden tint of the light coming in the window, it was late afternoon; he’d be home any time now. Carefully, trying not to wake Jamie, I extricated myself from beneath him. He stirred and moaned but his eyes stayed closed. I picked up my clothes from the floor, dusted them off and got dressed. I went to the mirror. My hair was disheveled, but apart from that I looked like myself: Laura McAllan on a normal Saturday afternoon. Everything had changed; nothing had changed. Astonishing.

I heard the cot springs creak slightly behind me and knew that Jamie was awake and watching me.
I should turn around and face him
, I thought, but my body refused to do it. I left the room quickly, without looking at him or speaking. Afraid I would find shame in his eyes, or hear regret in his voice.

About half an hour later I heard the truck start up and pull away.

HAP

T
HAT
M
ONDAY AFTERNOON
I was out by the shed hitching the mule to the guano cart when Ronsel finally come back from town. By that point I was mighty vexed with him. He’d went in to run an errand for his mama but he was gone way too long for that. Mooning around again, I reckoned, thinking bout going off to New York or Chicago or one a them other faraway places he was always talking bout, meantime here I was trying to get the fields fertilized and needing every bit of help I could get.

“Where you been?” I said. “Half the day’s gone.”

He didn’t answer, it was like he didn’t hear me or even see me. He was just staring off with this funny look on his face, like he’d had the stuffing knocked out of him.

“Ronsel!” I hollered. “What’s the matter with you?”

He jumped and looked at me. “Sorry, Daddy. I guess I was off somewhere else.”

“Come help me load this fertilizer.”

“I’ll be right there,” he said.

He went in the house. Bout a minute later he come charging
out onto the porch, looking all around like he’d lost something. “You seen a piece of paper anywhere?” he said.

“What kind of paper?”

“An envelope, with writing on the front.”

“No, I ain’t seen nothing like that,” I said.

He looked all around the yard, getting more and more worked up every second. “It must a fell out of my pocket on the road from town. Goddamnit!”

“Ronsel! What’s in this envelope?”

But he didn’t answer me. His eyes lit on the road. “I bet it fell out in that ditch,” he said. “I got to go fetch it.”

“I thought you were gone help me with this fertilizer.”

“This can’t wait, Daddy,” he said. He took off running down the road. That was the last time I ever heard my son’s voice.