The Well and the Mine (10 page)

Leta
THE BED WAS COOL, AND I PRESSED AGAINST ALBERT
soon as he lay next to me. In the beginning, I hated the smell of the mines on him, hated the coat of dust on his skin. Then it turned into his smell, not the mines’, and there was a comfort to it.

We sank into the mattress, with the weight of two bodies and all the tiredness and the work and the bills to be paid. Usually he’d squeeze my leg and I’d nuzzle his neck and we’d fall into sleep without saying a word. All the words and all the moving and all the thinking were used up by dark.

That night we lay there breathing, him not complaining about my cold feet sliding under his long johns. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, making a nice lullaby. But neither of us slept. I could tell by the children’s breathing that they’d drifted off already. Albert rolled toward me, lifting my hair away from my ear. His breath came from above me since he breathed better when he slept on two pillows.

“I been thinking about that baby,” he said. At night, his words blew out like smoke curling around my ear. Didn’t want to wake the little ones. “You?”

“The girls still are,” I said, looking at the ceiling. I could hear the train whistle, and I knew I hadn’t answered his question exactly.

“Don’t you wonder who could do it, Leta-ree?”

Even when we were courting, he never called me “honey” or “sweetheart.” I didn’t care for sugary words anyway. But once he heard my father call me “Leta-ree,” short for my middle name, Reanne. He didn’t say a word about it, but picked it up from then on.

“What’s the use in that?” I asked. “Wonderin’ don’t get any more food on the table than wishin’ or cussin’.”

He pulled away from me slightly, his mouth still close to my ear, but our bodies no longer touching. “It’s likely somebody we know.”

I thought about the women parading through my kitchen, picking through women they sat next to at church like they’d pick through a mess of greens looking for mites. “It’s poison, Albert. Nothin’ to come from that kind of thinkin’ but hate. Better to leave it be.”

“Don’t know how you can do that,” he said, turning on his side, his back to me. “Just put it out of your mind like that.”

He lay there grinding his teeth. Nervous habit. Liked to drove me crazy.

“Just can,” I said finally.

He only lay there, his whole body stiff. I couldn’t relax with him like that. “Don’t be blamin’ me for needin’ to get through the day,” I said.

Nothing from him, but I could feel him melt a little, body slowly settling into the mattress. Then he rolled back to me, arm against my side. My feet slipped between his calves. Warm. We just breathed for a while.

“Virgie say anything to you about that boy?” he asked against my ear.

“I don’t think she cared much for him,” I whispered. I could almost hear his smile.

“Why not?”

“Snooty. Bragged he could get all the candy he wanted. He thought that’d win her over.”

Albert shifted and stifled a laugh, maybe a groan. The ribs he’d broke in No. 5 a few years back had never healed up right, and it hurt him to lie on his left side. Didn’t have no hospital payments for that—hoped eventually UMW would get back on its feet and there might be some union insurance up at Norwood.

“Might be a boy with free candy now, but he’ll be a man with rotten teeth,” he said. “Eat nothin’ but soup by the time he’s forty.” That idea seemed to please him, and he got silent.

“She’s gone end up with one,” I couldn’t help saying. “Got to sooner or later.”

“Wouldn’t you rather it be later?”

“Why’d you let him walk her home, then?”

“Don’t know,” he said, sighing. “Couldn’t rightly say no with him asking so politely, just walking her back from church. Seemed nice enough.”

“Then why’re you lookin’ forward to him gummin’ his meals?”

“A walk from church is one thing. Her bein’ sweet on a fella—fallin’ under his sway—is somethin’ different. You don’t know what’s behind the toothy smiles and combed-back Sunday hair.”

“No, you don’t.”

“That don’t scare you?”

Albert
WHEN I FIRST SAW HER, LETA HAD HER BACK TO ME.
We were in Townley, where she’s from, on land owned by neighbors of hers. They were clearing out a field that hadn’t been used in a few years, burning all the brush in a great rush of flame you could see for a mile. It was October. I’d come with a second cousin, Emory. Fuzz, we all called him, after some rabbit hunt from when we was kids. I’d only been in the mines a few years then, still smooth-faced and easy-moving.

I walked up to the fire to warm up, along with a dozen or so others, and there was a girl standing by herself, wrapped in a shawl. Don’t remember the color. Something cheerful. She was replaiting her dark hair, and the firelight was throwing all sorts of colors on it. The waves of hair fell past her waist. That hair was like nothing I’d ever seen, and my mouth went dry at the sight.

I couldn’t believe she was alone. Townley was as rough a place as Carbon Hill, no work but hard work, and beauty was a rare thing. But I wasn’t going to question good luck—I walked over. There must have been six other single fellows around that fire, and as far as I was concerned, they must have been blind or slow-witted.

When she turned toward me, I was glad I’d hustled over. Virgie’s always been almost too pretty, nearly unapproachable-there’s a chance that’s my own wishful thinking. Leta wasn’t less beautiful, but she had this kindness in her face, a wide-openness. She made you want to make her smile.

“Evenin’, miss.”

“Hello.” She continued her braiding, her fingers working quickly and hypnotizing to watch.

I nodded toward the fire. “Ought to stay plenty warm for a few more hours yet.”

“I’d say so.” She’d meet my eyes for a second at a time, long enough to give me hope that she’d look a little longer next time.

“I’m Albert Moore, here with my cousin Fuzz, that is, Emory Beasley. We call him Fuzz. He’s from around here. One of the Beasleys.”

“I went to grammar school with Emory,” she said, acting as if I hadn’t tripped all over my tongue. Before she could say her name, an older man strode up, taking long, fast steps until he reached her side. He situated himself almost between us.

“Son,” he nodded. “I’m Rex Tobin.”

“Hello, sir.” I was slightly taken aback, wondering if this was an older husband.

“See you’ve already introduced yourself to my daughter.”

I hoped he took my smile as being friendly, not relieved. “Yessir. Albert Moore.”

Leta hooked her elbow through her father’s arm. “I didn’t introduce myself, Daddy. Leta Tobin.”

“Pleasure,” I said.

It took a month of calling on her at home until we went walking by ourselves. That night I stood and talked more to her father than to her. She was embarrassed, she told me later, that she’d let down her hair, which she’d thought was slatternly. But a spark had flown into it, and she’d mussed her braid trying to put out the spark. I mentioned that spark in my prayers that night.

Lying next to her in bed, I could feel her hair falling across my arm. Cool and heavy. I couldn’t see her face. Just the slope of an ear and a chin and the soft spot of a cheek in the dark. All shadows.

I wondered how I really saw her that first night and how much was me shaping that memory, patting it down until it was tidy. For years I thought of her sweetness as written there in the darkness of her eyes, the softness of her mouth. Remembered—imagined?—that from that first night, I knew her small hands would mend a pain in my neck as sure as a swig of whiskey, that the crook of her elbow would fit a baby like God had carved it purely for that purpose.

I’d been so sure of that always, sure of the rightness of it all. And that all of a sudden seemed like some made-up magic thing Tess would come up with. Did God really work like that, steer your woman into your life? Match you up like bookends? Did he steer that woman to our well or help Jesse Bridgeman remember where he kept the bullets for his gun?

Maybe she was just a beautiful girl with a pleasing way about her. No hand of God pulling me to her, no future written on her face. It made me cold there in our bed, layered with quilts and warm with our bodies, to think that it could have been nothing but blind man’s bluff.

“Leta,” I called to her, real quiet, hoping she’d turn to me, that I’d see her face.

“Um.” She’d breathed out her answer, not even managing a real word.

“Leta-ree.” She shifted that time, tilting her head enough that I could see her lips just barely smack together before she answered me.

“Y’alright?” she said.

Her voice was enough then. Didn’t need her face. My mind emptied, lay flat and calm. I settled, easing closer to her. “Fine,” I said.

Virgie
INSIDE MY HEAD, I REPEATED HOW I WOULD APPROACH
Lola Lowe. “Hello, Mrs. Lowe,” I’d say. “We just thought you might like some apples.”

I thought about saying that Mama thought she’d like the apples, but that would be an outright lie. She’d be pleased to get the apples anyway, and that might get us some goodwill. I was pretty sure she’d just say “thank you” and ask us in and we would see whether or not her new baby was there.

I was holding the basket tight enough that it cut into my fingers.

“You want me to knock?” asked Tess.

I’d said I would do this. That I would talk and handle things.

“I’m fine,” I said. I made my back ruler-straight and fixed a smile on my face and rapped twice.

Lola Lowe said, “Leta Moore’s girls,” instead of hello when she opened the door. Even though she wasn’t really fat, she was soft all over with loose skin hanging. The backs of her arms shook when she moved. I tried not to look at them. Children lay around, outnumbering the furniture, standing, sitting, draped across the floor playing jacks. I didn’t see the baby.

They lived in a clapboard house set up on cinder blocks, all of them packed in nothing but a big sitting room and a kitchen. If I’d put my head to the outside wall, I could’ve seen through the holes between the planks. Not that there was much to see—a stove, two rockers with the seats fraying, a table and chairs, and a small iron bed in one corner. I guessed the kids slept on the floor.

It had taken Tess and me an hour to climb the tree and get enough ripe apples to fill the basket—it’d really be another week before they started dropping to the ground ready to eat.

“Hello, Mrs. Lowe,” I said, holding out the basket. “We brought you some apples.”

“Right nice of you,” she said, just standing there looking at us, no smile at all. She didn’t look overcome by goodwill. We’d never come by before, and Mama and her weren’t especially friends. Nobody was good friends with Mrs. Lowe. She mainly stayed in her house with all those little ones. “Y’all here to see Ellen?”

Ellen was in Tess’s class. She only had one dress, worn thin like paper, with more patches than dress. We should’ve figured Mrs. Lowe would want to know why we were dropping by.

“No, ma’am,” I said. “We just had some extra apples and thought y’all might like some.”

Still no smile.

“And we ain’t seen your new baby yet,” said Tess. “But I heard he’s precious.” She grinned when she said it, dimples showing, tilting her head a little in that way that made her curls shake. I’d said I would do the talking, but I couldn’t do what Tess did. She could turn on charm like pulling the light switch, the right words coming out so bright and easy. Adults were always patting her head, laughing at her, whispering to Papa and Mama how clever she was, what a cute little thing. And it wasn’t like she even had to pull the string—it just happened. My hands were clammy and my mouth was dry and my shoulders hurt from holding so stiff, and I’d rehearsed what I wanted to say all the way over, and then Tess just turned on her light.

And I was so glad she did that I could have cried.

Mrs. Lowe looked at us awhile longer, then she stepped back and swung the door open wide. “Come on in.”

I stepped through first, followed by Tess. Lola Lowe’d had half as many husbands as she had children, and they kept on dying. Her fifth was in Kentucky trying to find work. One keeled over of a heart attack, one choked on a chicken gizzard, one got smacked by a car walking home from town one night. I couldn’t remember the fourth one.

Mrs. Lowe took the basket, carrying it over to the kitchen, which was really just one corner of the room with shelves and the table and stove. “Y’all want your basket back now? I can dump out the apples.”

It was only an old strawlike thing with the edges chewed up. “No rush, ma’am. Just keep it until the apples are gone,” I said.

“Have a seat,” she said.

There were four cane-bottomed chairs around the table, so I pulled one out. Tess did, too. Mrs. Lowe pulled out the third one, which had a piece of twine tied in a loop around two of the legs. She noticed me looking down.

“The boys kept resting their feet on the wood bar and it finally broke in two,” she said. “String does just as well holdin’ the legs together. Sorry we ain’t got a sofa.”

“We don’t have one neither,” said Tess quickly. “Just rockers. And my brother’s just like that, always tearin’ everything up. Boys are nothin’ but trouble.”

Mrs. Lowe smiled at that, probably not so much at the words as at the way Tess shook her head in such a serious, grown-up way.

Then we sat and looked at each other, and I tried to think of anything else I knew about sofas or chairs or apples. It was a different kind of quiet than at our house. When none of us were talking, it was comfortable, peaceful, like at night after the birds and crickets are asleep. This kind of quiet made me want to jump up from the table and run clear to Jasper.

“Did you say you wanted to see the baby?” asked Mrs. Lowe.

“Yes!” we both answered, too loud and too fast. She likely thought we were there to kidnap it.

He was alive and well, it turned out, a little chubby and more than a little red. Mrs. Lowe held him just like Mama used to hold Jack, and I thought how every woman seemed to know where to put their hands and how to fit the feet and knees and elbows against them so everything was tucked in snugly. Mama had told me to never let Jack’s neck snap back and never let his head jerk. It did once or twice accidentally, and I prayed for his brain not to jostle too much and run out his nose.