Clover Read online

  He looked at Gaten. “We sure well remember who set this one out.” Gaten looked at me. My mother set the bush out, just before she died. She had planted lots of things, but it was the only one that lived. She called it a marble bush.

  Jim Ed made a play in the hopscotch game I’d drawn in a sandy spot at the edge of our yard. “TV hasn’t changed the playing pattern of our little Clover too much,” he said. “She still plays some of the same things we did when we were growing up.” He shook his head sadly. “I can’t pry that kid of mine away from the tube.”

  Gaten smiled. “Clover may be a child of the eighties, but the same person of the twenties that raised us, raised her also.”

  “I’ve got to get a move on,” Jim Ed said, stopping to take one last look at the old brick house with shutters and dormer windows. “The house is still in great shape. I only wish mine was half as fine.” He frowned and looked directly at Gaten. “I know it’s something else that’s really bothering you, younger brother. I can tell, you are hurting, man.”

  When Jim Ed called Gaten “younger brother,” Gaten knew he meant for him to listen because he was older. They said as soon as Gaten could talk, he told everyone not to call him baby brother.

  It didn’t seem to bother Gaten one bit that I was listening to every word. He must have wanted me to hear.

  “I’ve never been able to handle hurt, Jim Ed. Especially when it involves people I love so much,” he said.

  I climbed out on a limb on our old chinaberry tree. “Look, Jim Ed,” I laughed, swinging from my legs, “no hands, no hands.”

  “Get down out of that tree this minute, Clover,” Gaten ordered. There was a sharpness in his voice that even shocked Jim Ed.

  “Let her play,” he said, “she is still only a little girl.”

  “That’s exactly the point,” Gaten snapped. “It’s high time she started acting like she is a little girl. Clover has gotten out of hand here of late. I am not proud of the kind of person she is becoming.”

  Jim Ed studied my daddy for a long time. “It’s that woman, all right,” he finally said. “She has changed everything about you. You have changed the way you feel about your very own child. Up until you met her, Clover could do no wrong in your eyes. If you are not careful, that woman will wind up destroying you.” My uncle was stepping on his brother’s toes all right. Gaten’s face showed it.

  “I don’t care, younger brother, if it makes you mad or not. To tell you the truth, I don’t give a . ...” he glanced at me and stopped short. He and Gaten both know how to curse as good as a drunk sailor. Gaten doesn’t curse in my presence, and he sure won’t stand for someone else doing it.

  “I am just going to come out with it, Gaten,” Jim Ed went on. “That woman is about to drive you storm crazy. What you don’t know is, unlike our womenfolk, those women don’t part easily with something they want. You happen to be a pretty good catch. And, in spite of all the odds, that woman wants you.”

  Through closed jaws, Gaten is gritting his teeth. His jaws are working like a chainsaw cutting through maple wood. “Do you care to tell me how you happened to become so experienced in this kind of situation, Jim Ed? Have you gone through a similar thing before?” His voice was hard and cruel. He did not try to hide it, either.

  “You don’t have to cut me up,” Jim Ed said quietly. “If you want to get tied up with someone like that woman, it’s your business. All I can say is, it’s a heavy, heavy load to dump on our little Clover. She has had so much sadness in her short lifetime. Now that she is barely, just barely, getting over her grandfather’s death, she sure does not need some stranger in her life to have to get used to.”

  “Whew,” I thought to myself. Jim Ed better back off. He is making Gaten some kind of mad. If he keeps on, Gaten is going to blow his stack. I also think, perhaps the reason it’s so hard for me to get over stuff is because people keep telling me that I can’t, or am not, getting over it.

  Jim Ed did not back off. “Nowadays, women like her are starting to set their hooks to catch any black guy that’s worth a little something. Especially now that so many are starting to make their way up in the world. As far as they are concerned, all they ever need to see is the dollar sign. I’m not saying that you have anything, but there is no denying that you have always been an achiever. A ‘first.’ The youngest winner ever, of a statewide oratorical contest. Also the ‘first’ black to win that honor. The ‘first’ black principal at a Round Hill school. I have yet to learn if ‘what-you-may-call-her’ even has a job.”

  Gaten is still as mad as a striking rattlesnake. He has always known how to keep it in. I am not quite sure how he does it. It might be in the way he keeps his voice down.

  He eyes his brother. “Sara Kate Colson is a college graduate. Yes, she does work. She is a textile designer.”

  I can see Jim Ed sure didn’t know what kind of work that was. I didn’t, either, and Gaten sure was not about to tell us. I’m not sure, but I think Jim Ed was not too pleased to hear that, on account of his wife Everleen not having too much schooling.

  “If you are thinking Sara Kate is some fly-by-night I just happened to bump into, you are dead wrong, Jim Ed.”

  Gaten and my uncle seemed to be heading for yet another round in their fight.

  “How could I have known,” Gaten said, “that posting one little note, ‘Math Tutor—Affordable Rates’ would have led to this. Sara Kate Colson was the first and only one who called. I must admit I was kind of taken with her. Unlike most of us at Clemson University, she didn’t really seem to belong there. It was not all that unusual, though, that after a term at Parsons School of Design she would choose Clemson. She was so into textiles and design, and Clemson happened to offer one of the foremost textile programs in the country.”

  Jim Ed looked at Gaten. He seemed to know that Gaten wanted to talk, so he let him go on.

  Gaten pulled his face into a serious frown. “I guess I was drawn to Sara Kate when in time I realized she actually didn’t need help with math. I hate to admit it, but she was just as good as I was in math, if not better. Now, to beat me at that time was saying something.

  “I decided she only sought help in order to free her mind to cope with an unpleasant turn of events. Her very reason for coming to Clemson turned sour. The guy she cared enough about to follow there ended up getting engaged to someone else. To this day I cannot understand how anyone could have given her up. She is so special.”

  A wide grin crossed Jim Ed’s face. “So you decided to move in?”

  My daddy shook his head. “I didn’t even try it. I think we both were aware that something beyond just friendship could have developed between us, but we consciously avoided the possibility. At least I did. The time was not ripe for us. Not in South Carolina at least. So, after college, we went our separate ways.”

  Gaten turned his gaze towards the flower bush my mother had planted. He’s thinking about my mama, I thought to myself. I was right. He was. “Besides,” he added softly, “I was hopelessly in love with Berenda.”

  Gaten loved my mother all right. But now she was gone, and a new woman was taking over his life. He couldn’t stop talking about her.

  “Maybe she was drawn to me,” he went on to say, “because I listened to her pour out her heart, and did her homework. Can you believe that sometimes she corrected me, her tutor?”

  Gaten looked directly at Jim Ed. “You know something, she paid me anyway.”

  Jim Ed grunted, “And of course you took it.”

  Gaten’s voice was sad, really sad. “I had to, Jim Ed. You know how badly I needed the money. I was living on a shoestring.”

  Jim Ed propped his leg upon the tongue of the spray machine, and leaned an elbow on his knee. “How well I remember,” he said, looking across the land. “That’s why Boot Ellis’s house sits on land that used to belong to us. Papa sold him that land to help pay your tuition. Those were pretty hard times back then.”

  Gaten agreed. “In spite of it all, Papa st
ill seemed to have a Midas touch. When everyone else was losing their crops and farms, he held onto his. The very fact that he could not afford to buy fertilizer one year was the reason we turned to organic farming. When that Clemson county agent checked my 4-H farming project, he couldn’t believe what he saw. And Papa couldn’t believe it when I got that scholarship, either. He wanted me to learn how to farm in the summer, and hold a job in the winter. Teaching school was the answer.”

  Jim Ed laughed. “Papa always did say there was nothing finer for farming than an old-fashioned horse-and-cow-manure mixture.”

  It seemed that no sooner had the two of them started getting along so good, than they quickly changed courses and started arguing again. I believe my uncle hated to see my daddy get tied up with the woman worse than I did.

  It all ended up with them fussing over money. Uncle Jim Ed claimed that Gaten’s education had not only cost him money, but his own education as well. I hated to hear them fuss over money.

  Miss Katie said money was a bad thing, and according to the good book, it was the root of all evil. There had to be a lot of truth to that because money sure caused Gaten and Jim Ed to turn mighty evil.

  Gaten seemed all tired out. His mind is all messed up, I can tell. Gaten sighed. “We all know what the real problem about Sara Kate is. Even in the eighties, we are still reluctant to address it. You know something, that is a sad, sad thing.”

  Jim Ed kicked the dusty ground. “I guess the thing that bothers me most is what people around here will say.” He looked directly at Gaten. “And you know what they will say. We will never know how Berenda would have felt about this.”

  It hurt Gaten when he mentioned Berenda. It hurt me too. She was my mother. “Berenda is dead, Jim Ed,” Gaten finally said in a quiet voice. A voice now drained of all its anger.

  Jim Ed still had to stir the pot again. To have the last word. “If you ever allow your mind to free your thoughts to think over what you are about to get into, you will find the answer, and make the right choice, Gaten.”

  I never thought I would see the day Jim Ed and Gaten would turn against each other. Yet it was happening. Miss Katie said one of the signs of the end of the world would be when brother would turn against brother. Right before my very eyes, a wall had gone up between them. The end must be near. If I had a brother, or a sister for that matter, I would stick with them, through thick and thin, no matter what.

  It ended up bad between them. They parted mad, two brothers set apart by anger. Separated, all because of a woman named Sara Kate.

  “That old rain crow keeps on hollering,” I said to Gaten after Uncle Jim Ed left. “I think I am going to look for him. Grandpa said this time of day is a good time to look for one, if you ever hope to spot one.”

  An old stray dog had wandered into our yard. He followed me as I started to walk away. Down the path a piece of way I stopped but didn’t turn around to look back at Gaten. “Could be a big, big snake down there for all I know,” I called back.

  “Listen, Gaten,” I continued, “there goes the rain crow again. It’s a good thing Aunt Everleen took her wash off the line. We might get a gully-washer, right?” When Gaten wouldn’t open his mouth, I couldn’t help myself. I had to fuss at him. “If you would swallow some of that anger all swelled up inside your mad self, Gaten, you would be able to talk to somebody when they talk to you.”

  I started to walk away again. Every now and then I’d turn my head a little to see if, by chance, he’d decided to come with me. He didn’t.

  Near the edge of the woods, when I took a path through a shallow gully, overgrown with creeping kudzu vines, I heard Gaten call out, “Hey, little stranger, wait up.”

  “I’m looking for my little girl,” he said when he caught up. He looked at the tears streaming down my face. “She wasn’t crying when I saw her last. Perhaps you may have seen my little, smiling daughter?” I broke into a wide grin. I loved my daddy when he was playful. “What does she look like?” I asked.

  Gaten frowned and made a serious face. “Well, now, let me see.” With his hand he measured height. “She’s about this tall,” he said. “Her face is a little chocolate chip with big velvet brown eyes. There is a haunting beauty in the way her eyes seem to tease the lips of a perfect little mouth into an ever ready smile. She has a little button nose. Even though she is always too eager to turn it up in disgust, it’s still perfect. She is a very beautiful little girl.”

  “What was she wearing, Mister?” I asked.

  “A pair of blue jeans, torn on both knees, and a little blue tee shirt with strawberry popsicle stains all over the front.”

  I started to giggle. “That’s me, Gaten, you’ve found me.”

  Gaten looked closely at me. He brushed dirt from my face, then with make-believe surprise said, “Oh, it is you, Clover.” He grabbed my hand. His strong hand held it tightly. It was a father’s hold. I was safe with him. In the evening twilight we walked hand in hand in search of the very-hard-to-find rain crow.

  Everleen is whispering something I cannot hear. Not that I want to. If in the beginning it had been news to her that her husband Jim Ed didn’t want his brother to get tied up with Sara Kate, I sure couldn’t tell it when I told her what had happened between the brothers. All she said was, “People need to be accepted and judged by the kind of person they are inside, not on the basis of the color of their skin.”

  In a way, it seemed like she was kind of in favor of Gaten and Sara Kate getting together. But then you can’t always guess Everleen. Lots of times she says what she doesn’t mind hearing repeated in the streets. That does not mean it is necessarily what’s in her heart. At least that’s what my daddy always said about her.

  Right now I can’t stand having to sit here and listen to two people put down my daddy. It’s too soon to tell if talk about Sara Kate will in time hurt me as bad. Even now, there is a little tinge of hurt or sadness when they talk so bad about her.

  I get up to leave, but my leg really hurts a lot, so I limp a little and sort of drag it along. “Pick up that leg and walk right, Clover,” Everleen calls out after me. “I heard once there was a little girl who dragged her leg like that. Just sliding it along like you are doing. I’ve asked you time and again if that leg was aching you, and every time you’ve said, ‘No, Aunt Everleen,’ then you pick it up and walk.

  “Well anyway, don’t you know, one day that very child turned into a snake, crawled into the bushes and vanished.”

  My leg still hurts, but I pick it up and walk on it anyway. I don’t care how bad it hurts when I bear down on it. I can’t stand having Everleen tell me that turning-into-a-snake story.

  If my daddy had had any idea how much sadness his marrying Sara Kate, then up and dying, was putting me through, I don’t believe he would have done it. Just living with Sara Kate is strange enough, much less having to listen to everybody talk about your daddy.

  I’m not calling my daddy a fool or anything like that. All I’m saying is he up and did a fool thing when he married Sara Kate. It’s true what everyone says, “Gaten just turned a fool when he met Sara Kate.”

  6

  An unfinished jigsaw puzzle is spread out on our dining room table. Sara Kate has arranged fresh cut flowers real pretty and placed them throughout the house. Sunlight cuts through half-closed curtains. There is the smell of food cooking, the sound of good music fills the house.

  At a glance the house seems to be just a warm, ordinary household. Like the kind you see on television, a house filled with pretty things and a happy family. But after a little while what is real sweeps through, like the smell of Sara Kate’s perfume sifts from room to room.

  It becomes real that there is something about our house that is not all that happy. It kind of reminds me of a thick morning fog. It’s there, you can see it, yet you can’t put your finger on it. Like the fog, a strange, uneasy feeling has filled the house, and settled down upon us.

  There is just the two of us. A stepmother and child. Two p
eople in a house. Together, yet apart. Aside from the music, the house is too quiet. We move about in separate ways. We are like peaches. Peaches picked from the same tree, but put in separate baskets.

  I guess you would call me a scared little girl, all alone with a scared woman. I suppose there is nothing all that strange about a stepmama and a stepchild living alone. In our case, I guess it’s just how we happened to end up together.

  People get killed every day, get stepmothers all the time. But in this case it all happened on the same day. Only minutes after my daddy married Sara Kate he was killed.

  So here we are. Two strangers in a house. I think of all the things I’d like to say to her. Think of all the things I think she’d like to say to me. I do believe if we could bring ourselves to say those things it would close the wide gap between us and draw us closer together. Yet the thoughts stay in my head—stay tied up on my tongue.

  Maybe my stepmother has the same fear I have, a fear of not being accepted. In a way it reminds me of a game of Monopoly.

  If Sara Kate and I ever forget who we are, and sometimes we do, then we are at ease with each other and we have a pretty good little time together. Sometimes we even laugh.

  Just maybe we could learn something from each other. Especially Sara Kate since she’s the one new to the house. At least she will learn that the sound that sometimes goes boom in the night is only a shutter slamming shut. All houses have their own creaky sounds.

  Right now there is hardly a sound in the house. It is so very, very dry. The drought has sucked up all the wind. Just like in the poem . . . “No wind, no rain, no motion.” It’s been so hot, Mr. Barnes’ old rooster has stopped crowing. It seems it’s even been too hot for the crickets and insects to join the nightly choir and sing.

  You just wait until the fall comes. Sara Kate is going to be scared out of her wits for sure when the hoot owl cranks up. It even gives me the chills. My grandpa couldn’t stand to hear the hoot owl. He used to turn a boot upside down on the fireplace hearth to quiet it down.