The Long Road Home. Mary Monroe Alice

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СКАЧАТЬ are you gonna move back?”

      Esther scored a direct hit that left Nora speechless. Looking at her, Nora saw the peachy skin and sweet features of a country girl—and the brittle cool of a seasoned New York socialite. Nora’s face colored, then flushed as she watched a small smile of victory ease across Esther’s face.

      “People like you come and go from New York all the time,” Esther charged. “Dreaming of the good life. Then you learn that life is life, and up here that life is pretty tough. Next thing you pack up and go. Leavin’ us behind.” She sniffed and looked away, squinting. When she turned back, her eyes were hard.

      “We don’t take much to people who come and go.”

      Nora stared back with eyes wide, affronted by the hostility she did nothing to inspire.

      “Speaking of which,” Esther swung on her heel and grabbed her bag off the floor, “I gotta go.”

      Nora counted Esther’s steps across the plywood. “It’s not like that,” Nora called to her back.

      Esther turned. “We’ll see,” she said, then left.

      Nora walked out onto the deck to watch Esther as she backed away in her Impala, turned, then drove out of sight.

      She had remained standing on the deck; she stood there still, recalling Esther’s words as the clouds grew heavy in the heavens. Nora gripped the deck rail tightly and fought off the dark, dull cloak of depression.

      “Yes, Esther,” she spoke aloud in the autumn hush. “We will see.”

      6

      MAY JOHNSTON STIRRED UP a potion of baking soda and warm water and set it before Seth, giving it a final spin at the table.

      “Drink every drop. You need to burp.”

      She stood, one hand on the back of Seth’s chair, the other on her ample hip, hovering like a hen as her brother grunted and slowly reached out for the brew.

      “You know I won’t budge till it’s gone.”

      Seth looked up at the formidable figure of his sister. Only her stubbornness was bigger than she was.

      “Don’t I know it,” he muttered. With a sigh of resignation, he took the cup and swallowed it down in three noisy gulps. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he grimaced. Soon after, a loud raucous burp exploded from his girth.

      “Good!” exclaimed May. “See, I was right. Nothin’ but indigestion.”

      Seth rubbed his sore chest and smiled weakly. “Yeh-up, that’ll be it.” Another smaller burp offered him more relief.

      May took the chair opposite Seth and slowly lowered herself into it. She was no stranger to ill health but always seemed to tend to others’ ills more than to her own. Diabetes had made her obese, gum disease had taken a number of her front teeth, varicose veins kept her off her feet, and every spring and fall the flowers that she adored kept her sneezing and tearing.

      She cast all that off as “her ailments,” and nothing more. Just crosses to bear, time off purgatory. Nonetheless, her own ailments kept her on the alert for the ailments of others. No flu bug could creep in her family’s house without vitamin C and orange juice being rushed out. If a sore throat stung, a spoonful of honey, some lemon juice, and a splash of whisky flowed.

      May had come to Seth’s house soon after his wife took sick. She bathed, fed, dressed, and nursed Liza during the final months the doctors let her stay home. Then, after cancer claimed her sister-in-law, May stayed on awhile longer to help her brother and his five motherless children. She rented a trailer, parked it across the road from Seth’s house, and in typical fashion, rolled up her sleeves and focused on “the babies.”

      That was twenty-two years ago. May had long since bought the trailer, planted her beloved perennial bed, and paved a small walkway from her trailer to Seth’s back door. Her “babies” were grown up now, and “her ailments” kept her boxed up in the trailer most of the time. Still, she never let an ailment pass by without speaking on it.

      “You sure that doctor came up and checked on Mrs. MacKenzie?” she asked Seth.

      “Yeh-up. Saw his car come and go.”

      “How big did you say that lump was?”

      Seth offered as detailed a description as he could between burps, knowing his sister would settle for nothing less.

      “Strange, her coming back here. Thought for sure they’d put that land up for sale once he died. The Vermont Land Trust already made inquiries, you know. Nice piece a land. You sure she ain’t selling?”

      “Didn’t sound like it. She wants to live here, so she says.”

      “Live in that big, unfinished house all alone? Without help?” Her meaty hand slapped the table. “That’s just crazy.”

      “Don’t I know it. Told her so but she’s got her mind set. Me and the boys are gonna work on the house. They can use the work. Lamb prices are down again.”

      “I just hope she don’t end up breakin’ up the land into ten-acre parcels and selling them off. Like Widow Nealy’s done.” May made loud clucking noises. “Leaving her kids with nothin’.”

      “The widow’s gonna be lonely someday…real lonely.”

      “MacKenzie’s got some beauty views. Them out o’ towners like the views.”

      “Like I said, she ain’t selling. Not right away anyway. She’s a funny thing. Stick-to kinda person. Remember how she planted all them blueberry bushes on the slope, then came over to get fresh manure?” He chuckled and wiped his mouth.

      May laughed and slapped her hand again. “Lord almighty, I do too! I about died when I saw them nylon bags full of manure hangin’ off them tiny little bushes. Bowed them right over.”

      “Deer came and ate them bushes anyway.” Seth’s eyes twinkled. “But she went and planted another batch.”

      “Yes, she did,” said May, remembering now. “Deer ate them too, though.”

      Seth scratched his head. “Yeh-up. Hungry, ain’t they?”

      May picked at a muffin, gummed it awhile, then sneaked a quick glance at her brother. He seemed comfortable enough now that the burping stopped. She decided to venture a new topic.

      “How’d Esther take Mrs. MacKenzie coming back?”

      Seth’s face pinched and he drummed his fingers a moment. Then his eyes met May’s. They spoke in a silent code established early in childhood and nurtured over fifty years of devotion. May interpreted his pain, his worry, and his hesitancy to discuss the subject.

      Seth knew she understood. May was a good listener and an even better observer.

      “She’s up there now,” Seth finally muttered. “I guess she’s all right.”

      “Don’t be so sure, Seth. СКАЧАТЬ