Home
Our walking continues, but the silence is gone.
On Monday afternoon, we come to a rocky creek bed, where water is shallow and tame. Grandpa stops.
“We kin cross here and head up that trail.” He points. “Or foller this creek. Both ways gits us home.”
“Which gets us home sooner?”
“The up-trail is quicker, but goes through Rockbridge. You recollect Rockbridge, where I sold my pelts?”
How could I disremember Rockbridge? Or the boys who schemed to steal the pelt money? Or the way Grandpa tricked them. Or sneaking out of town in the dead of night. But Rockbridge is only a day’s walk from home.
I swallow back the memory of the tobacco-spitting boy and being scared witless hiding Grandpa’s money. I heft the suitcase. “Let’s go through Rockbridge, but let’s walk right fast.”
The town looks different in the sunshine, teeming with folks doing everyday things. A muledriver tips his hat, and a lady at the Dry Goods stops sweeping her porch to say, “Howdy.”
We walk past the hotel that pays us no mind, past the store steps where the boy Rawley was rude to Grandpa and me, past the cemetery where Grandpa pretended to hide his money.
Before long, we’re on our way up the slope at the far edge of town. I don’t realize how tightly I grip the suitcase handle until all that’s left of Rockbridge is a church steeple peeking over the hilltop. I rub feeling back into my fingers.
* * *
Just before noon the next day, we come over the rise near Crutchers’ cabin. A shimmer of water flows beyond the mountain’s shadow. Rebecca’s Branch! I squint. I can’t see our house for the trees, but my heart feels its nearness. I want to drop the suitcase and run clean down the hillside.
I slow my steps. Mama needs me, but I have to ready myself for the Mama I’m coming home to. A down-hearted, weepy-eyed Mama always took to her bed for weeks after a baby died, leaving it only to shed tears on the newest grave.
I almost see our house, when barking fills my ears, a sound likely heard clean down in Skitter Falls. I reckon General and Custis caught hold of our scent. Home reaches out to me.
At the branch’s shallow ford, we shuck off our shoes and stockings, and those hounds splash across to us. General licks me soundly as his tail beats a rhythm on the side of the leather suitcase. It’s better than a brass band.
Grandpa’s eyes stray to the round-topped hill north of our house. Dots of stones cluster around newly-turned earth that marks the fresh grave of a baby. Mama is not there.
No one greets us on the back porch. I step inside and set down the suitcase. The door to Mama’s room is open, and the bed is made. Where is she?
“Ginnie Lee!” Daddy’s voice reaches through the screen door. I fly to the porch and into his arms. He smothers me in a hug, then holds me at arm’s length and looks me over.
“You’re purtier’n a peach at pickin’ time.”
“Where’s Mama?” I ask.
“Down ta Nellie’s, gittin’ the mail.”
“By herself?”
“Nancy Willoughby’s with her.” I try to wrap my mind around that notion, and Daddy tells Grandpa, “Nancy’s been right helpful, sat by Lorna’s side when she was feelin’ darkly.”
I wait for Grandpa’s reaction, but he just nods.
Daddy looks into my eyes. “Your ma spent a heap o’ time with Nancy while you was gone. Done her good. I sometimes forgit she was brung up in the city with folks close by. I reckon she misses that. Fer us born and raised here, bein’ with kin is enough. It ain’t hard on us.”
Sometimes it’s not so easy either, I say inside my head.
“Ginnie Lee!” I hear Mama’s voice before I see her come up the trail, Nancy beside her.
Mama hugs me, saying my name over and over like a prayer.
“Your ma was just frettin’ on no word from ya, and now here ya are,” Nancy says. “Ain’t this better than a letter, Lorna?”
Mama’s answer is a tighter hug.
“How…?” I can’t finish the sentence. Mama’s belly is no longer round, but she’s fully dressed and was clean down to Nellie’s. “Are you all right, Mama?”
“Just fine, Sweet Pea, never finer now that you’re home.”
“What about…?” Another sentence I can’t finish.
“I’ll head along home, and let y’all git on with your homecoming,” Nancy says and disappears over the ridge like a muskrat into water.
Grandpa hasn’t said a word since Mama and Nancy got here, but now he wraps Mama in an embrace. “I’m powerful sorry about the littl’un.”
Mama pats his cheek. “Had dinner yet? Let’s go inside. I’ll cook up something, and you can tell us about your trip.”
“Let me scrub off the travel dirt first,” Grandpa says.
I hang up my bonnet and wash my face and hands at the kitchen sink. I mix dressing for greens while Mama peels and cuts potatoes.
“Greens and potatoes now,” she says, “but I’ll fix stewed chicken and dumplings for supper. I know it’s your favorite.”
I interrupt the sounds of my spoon and Mama’s knife to finally say, “I thought you’d be in bed.”
Mama takes a deep breath. “The birthing was different this time. Nancy was here when the pains commenced. Freddie was up to Crutchers’ and your daddy’d gone to fetch the mail.”
“I should have been here,” I say.
“I was scared, but when your daddy got home, Nancy fetched Dr. Foster.” Mama pushes a stray wisp of hair from her eyes. “Freddie helped birth your brothers and sisters. I never had a doctor until Rosemary.”
“Rosemary. A girl.”
“Even before she was born, we decided not to name another baby for someone dead. Except for you, we named all the babies for dead generals and kin. Except for you, they all died.”
“Mama! My middle name is for General Lee. And you don’t believe in superstition. You can’t think—”
She holds up her hand to shush me. “It’s hard not to wonder. But you know how rosemary stays green for the longest time after you pick it?”
“And it smells good,” I add.
“I thought a strong name might make her a strong baby.” Her eyes fill with tears, and her chin quivers. “Her name didn’t save her. A doctor didn’t save her. But Dr. Foster said he’s seen it before, where a first baby is healthy as spring grass and others die for no reason. He said it’s not my fault.”
“Of course, it’s not your fault.”
“I was never sure.” Mama’s eyes drop to a partly-peeled potato. “She lived most of an hour.”
