Chapter 16

A Visitor

“Here’s the paper, Mama,” I call out before I realize she isn’t alone.

“You know Nancy, don’t you, Ginnie Lee?” Mama tilts her head toward the woman sitting at our table, her hands wrapped around one of Mama’s best teacups.

I draw in my breath before I say, “How do, Miz Willoughby.”

“Just call me Nancy,” she says.

I’m right discombobulated at seeing Jess’s step-mama in our kitchen, and struck speechless at how young she looks close up.

“Nancy’s father-in-law passed away last night,” Mama says.

“Nellie told me.” I don’t say Nellie plunked a picture in my head of him dropping dead in his catfish stew. I don’t ask questions screaming inside me. Where’s Grandpa? Does he know she’s here? I can’t recall a Willoughby crossing our doorstep before. Ever.

Nancy’s hands twist the teacup around and around. The silence becomes so uncomfortable I feel I’m being twisted, too.

“Nancy came for flowers from the Sunday garden,” Mama says, “something to pretty up Thaddeus’s coffin.”

Like tying a flowered bonnet on a rat, I think to myself.

“Why don’t you help her find a nice bouquet.” Mama doesn’t say it like a question and hands me a small shears.

Nancy stays right with me, though I walk fast. I am tongue-tied beside this married woman not much older than me. She’s married to an old man to boot. And a Willoughby!

I usually dawdle in the Sunday garden to enjoy the scents and colors, but today I quickly fill Nancy’s arms with chickweed blooms, orange milkwort, and buttercups.

I spot a small clump of Confederate violets with lavender throats reaching into gray-white petals. I plant myself between them and Nancy, unwilling to let those delicate flowers die for One-Thumb Willoughby.

“There’s clover yonder.” I point in the opposite direction.

“These is plenty. Thank ya.” She heads toward Willoughby’s hollow. “Thank your ma fer me,” she calls over her shoulder.

I shoo away pesky bees and stoop to pick a bouquet of Confederate violets and clover for Mama. I don’t spot any four-leaf clovers—though I swear I’m not looking for one.

As I hand Mama her bouquet, I don’t break a breath about Nancy on account of Grandpa sits in the same chair she sat. I notice her teacup is already washed and sits in its proper place with the rest of Mama’s china.

“Your satchel packed and ready to leave come Monday?” Grandpa says to me.

“I started packing last week, trying to squeeze everything into Mama’s leather suitcase.”

“You’ll be a-totin’ that bag fer days on end. Don’t be packin’ things ya won’t need.”

In my room, I take my second petticoat from the suitcase to make room for my flute and more hairpins. I cram them in with my comb and hairbrush, wrapped in my spare underwear.

After my nightgown and yellow shawl, I fold in my Sunday dress, now my second best. I carefully add my beautiful new dress, only to have to squash it to close the suitcase. Both dresses will be wrinkled by the time we reach Gettysburg.