Chapter 25
“Get the last of it added to the inventory?” Mitch asked while he finished washing his hands from putting the animals up for the night.
“Yeah.”
“Then what’s the frown for? You’re looking like you’re getting one of my headaches.”
I sighed. “Not exactly. Just … thinking and trying to figure out how to get out in front of it all. I mean all the stuff that I need to do and what is gonna start needing to be done pretty soon,” I said as I looked at notes I’d made while going over Grammy’s notebooks.
I’ll give Mitch credit. He doesn’t just hear what I’m saying but actually listens too. He leaned back against the old commercial stainless-steel sinks in the canning kitchen that were big enough to float a boat on and crossed his arms like he was ready for me to need to blow off some steam. And yeah, I needed to.
“I’m missing out on the forage. Those burdock roots are the first foraging I’ve done in a while except for the baskets of mushrooms we gather every couple of days. Strawberries are gonna be ready to pick starting tomorrow, and I gotta keep them picked every day. And I have to can them or use them in some way every day or they’ll got to waste since we are trying to run only one of the gas freezers. I need to can the collards as they come in. You said we need to clear out even more crawdads out of the creek. Nutria are still overpopulating despite the ones we’ve already taken, and they need to be knocked down a few pegs or we risk them spreading into other waterways around here. And in a week we’ll be in May and the pole and snap beans are gonna start, not to mention the limas and they aren’t going to get picked, prepped, and canned on their own. The early cabbage is going to need something done with it besides slaw at every meal. Let’s add the peaches, field peas, and Irish potatoes to that. And I haven’t even scratched the surface of the long list of spring cleaning that needs to happen like checking the linen closets and chests for dry rot or silver fish.”
“Nann …”
Ignoring his attempted interruption I kept going. “And there is the salvaging you want us to do … and don’t fuss ‘cause I can now say I’m firmly ready to follow your lead on that. Plus there’s the bees, the chickens are off their laying, and …”
He walked over and put an arm around me. “Breathe Nann. Dad always said there may only be twenty-four hours in a day, but they always seem to stretch to be just enough to get done what you have to. Maybe not for what you want to do, but for what you need to do.”
Still feeling the heebies despite his attempt at comfort I said, “I just don’t want to let you or the family down.”
He gave me a funny look and then pulled me outside to the porch steps and sat us down on them. It was a pleasant night. Lots of stars out and it was cool without being cold enough you needed a jacket. And no bugs for a change. And no planes either.
“Nann I don’t think you know how to let me down. As for anyone else, family or not, they better not have a thing that falls out of their mouths on the subject. They ain’t doing the work, we are. They can appreciate and keep a civil tongue in their heads … or there’s the gate with a road on the other side of it.”
“Mitch …”
“I’m serious Nann. Now listen to me ‘cause I’ve definitely give this some thought. Neither one of us have ever had to do what we’re doing now on our own. I’ve come closer than you, but still Dad was just a holler away if I got in a fix of some type. And still and all I don’t think we’re doing bad. We might wind up leaving a few things on the table but right now we aren’t leaving much. Granted we might run into problems we can’t overcome but then again Grammy used to say that was the way the world turned on occasion and why the Creator didn’t build us to go through it alone. What we can’t do is let our fears rule us.”
“I’m not afraid,” I told him. “You’re here. What I am is worried I might not be able to keep up.”
He pulled me in closer and I realized I fit just right against him. “You’ll keep up. So will I. We just may not get everything done we want to. And let’s get back inside. That ain’t heat lightning off in the distance.”
“Is … is it more bombing?”
“Naw. See how high up it is? If it was a bombing run it would be closer to the ground.” We walked back inside and he said, “Did you pour tonight’s milk to set for cream?”
“Most of it. I held some back in case you had to leave the morning’s milk for the little calf.”
He snorted. “He’s not a bull he’s a pig.” Knowing that to be a fact I giggled. “She’s gonna start weaning him if he keeps up bothering her so much. Tell you what, I’ll make us some butterscotch milk tonight and I’ll get a bucket fresh in the morning and let Pig have the rest while we do whatever we need to.”
Trying not to laugh at calling a little bull by the name “Pig” since it was something that Uncle Hy would have gotten a kick out of and Grammy would have rolled her eyes at (she would have called him Hamburger), I said, “I can …”
“Naw. Tell you what, you go grab your notes … and get mine too … and we’ll sit and try and work out a list of things we need to do over the next couple of days. Might not turn out exactly as planned … but at least we’ll have a plan to work from.”
I could feel myself relaxing. “Mitch?”
“Huh?”
“Thanks.
“For?”
“Listening. And then helping me not feel so … so fritzy. I know you prefer to have quiet in the evenings.”
He looked guilty for only a moment then admitted, “It wasn’t needing the quiet so much as … as just feeling too much and not wanting to go off like an artillery rocket. Losing Dad and Grammy like that. Praying my eyes would come back online and not be stuck being blind. And … er … noticing you weren’t the little kid I remembered. It … what you call being quiet … was the only way I had of dealing with it. I was … I … I just didn’t want to deal with things the way I did when I was a kid. Going back to feeling like I did then … hell of a thing Nann. That scared me worse than being blind did.”
“Do … do you still feel that way?”
“Naw. I’m … I’m not alone. And you’re why. I wanna do this right every bit as much as you do. But I’ve got enough experience to know you gotta be careful to not take on more than is reasonable. If I get topped off, I might pop off and … and I don’t want to do that, don’t want you to see me do that, be that way.”
“Are you worried that I’ll be that way?”
“You? Naw. You’re the opposite of that. Grammy used to say you keep stuff in too much, that you were gonna give yourself an ulcer if you weren’t careful. It’s why she was glad Aunt Dina didn’t fuss about you coming up here all the time. Besides the help to her I mean. It gave you a chance to get out from under … er …”
“Er?”
“She thought maybe Aunt Dina and Uncle John expected a little much from you. You know Grammy kept all of your dolls for you.”
Blushing I said, “I know. She showed me the trunk they were in last summer. I … I thought Mom had gotten rid of them all. She thought Barbie dolls were immodest or something like that.”
“Uncle John brought them out here.”
“Dad? I … thought maybe Mom …”
“Hey, I didn’t tell you to make you sad.”
I sighed. “It isn’t … sad. I just remember when …” I shook my head. “Mom had issues with her family and how she was raised but at the same time she has her own boundaries and lines in the sand. You remember Grandmother and Grandfather. No holiday celebrations. No birthday parties. No making festivals into spectacles. Everything was just supposed to be …” I stopped and shook my head. “They just took their religion real serious.”
Not meaning to be hurtful, just stating a fact as he saw it, Mitch said, “Dad said it didn’t have a thing to do with taking their religious serious, but they took themselves too serious. He said they weren’t pious so much as they wore their religion like a corncob shoved up their …”
“Mitch!”
“I’m just repeating what Dad said.”
“Trust me. Uncle Hy rarely kept his opinion on that side of the family to himself though he did try and keep quiet about it while Mom was around.”
Mitch started the butterscotch milk, and I gathered our notes and brought them to the kitchen table. Still having memories on my mind I asked, “Do you remember the year my Uncle Paul and Dad got into a fight over the fact that Grammy fixed me and Dale a little Christmas tree? Mom didn’t talk to Uncle Paul for a couple of years. They could be in the same line at church but they would even breathe the same oxygen molecule if they could get out of it. And over something just not worth that kind of behavior. Geez they are both … well … I’m not being disrespectful. Honest I’m not. But both of them could out stubborn a mountain if they put their mind to it.”
Mitch gave it a thought for a second then said, “Can’t say I ever heard about that. What was it over?”
“It wasn’t even the tree exactly. The thing was really just a branch, and Grammy had done what she could not to offend Mom and her family. Put a lot of thought into it and Mom was … well for her … just real appreciative. Everything was homemade and modest. The star was some recycled aluminum foil and it was only decorated with natural stuff like pine cones and acorns. The only other decoration was she’d found an old-timey Christmas card with the Christmas story verses and had glued it to the base part. That’s what blew Uncle Paul’s gasket … the card ‘cause it was a little gaudy like such old cards are … and the fact Mom had set it in the family room near the Creche scene.”
Mitch said, “I don’t think I ever met your Uncle Paul.”
“You haven’t missed anything,” I told him, trying real hard for Mom’s sake not to be completely disrespectful. “Uncle Paul is what you might call … uh … let’s just say he thinks Jesus is gonna make him a general or something.”
“He’s a hypocrite is he.”
“No. Not really. It’s … weird. He really and truly believes all the stuff he preaches on. And he really does practice what he preaches. I think he even means well. He’s just the kinda person that seems to think he’s got a spare set of keys to the pearly gates and is gonna help decide who gets in and who doesn’t. It’s not … um … malicious. He just really, really believes that way. He really studies the Bible. A lot. Like that’s the only thing he does if he isn’t working. And he expects the rest of the family to be the same. The Bible is all that is allowed in the house. It’s the only textbook his kids were allowed to have. And you know they don’t sing or play musical instruments either.”
“Sounds like he only studies some parts of the Bible. I ain’t what you would call a prime example of how a person is supposed to act all the time but even I know there’s parts in the Bible on like having fun at banquets and weddings and stuff.”
I sighed. It was a long-standing debate in my family that got real old, real fast; and even older and faster the older I got. “I try and not get into it too much. I saw how much it hurt Mom even when she tried not to show it. And Dad had his own hang ups because you remember his step-dad. I think people mean well … but I also think they miss the point a lot of the time.”
“Come up with that on your own?”
I looked, checking to see he wasn’t trying to joke me out of a mood but it seemed he was really asking me so I gave him the truth. “No. Dad used to talk to Dale about it. And Dale would talk to me. Then I got old enough that I had my own opinions and Dale and I talked about that too.”
“Miss him?”
I hadn’t been sad until he asked. “Yeah. But things were already changing. He’s … I missed his birthday. That’s never happened. He’s twenty now and he and Stan’s sister Charlene were getting real serious. I don’t even know how that’s going or … or any of it.”
“Hey … don’t cry.”
“I’m not … not really. I won’t pretend it doesn’t hurt but … but I think that … that so long as I can believe they’re somewhere and everyone is together and doing alright that I can be alright too. I also don’t want you to think that the only reason I’m … you know … this … whatever it is … is happening because none of them are here. It’s not like that. I think this would have happened whether Dale was here or not.”
He sighed but it wasn’t a bad sound.
“I can’t say that I would be acting on noticing you. But I don’t think that I couldn’t help but notice you even if Uncle John and Dale both were here with the rest of the family. I can’t see how no one else had noticed you before now. But …”
“But?”
“When they do get here or we get there or however it happens, I wanna be able to look ‘em in the face and say I didn’t take advantage of you and that we both used some sense and didn’t do what my bio-mom and bio-gramma did. Nann, I just can’t be that way. I think it would maybe mess me up and make me worthless.”
“Don’t worry about that, I trust you Mitch.”
He groaned then chuckled. “Tell you what, it’s time for me to say let’s change the subject. You okay with that?”
“Sure. We can take turns. Can changing the subject though mean we can get back to talking about some kind of schedule?”
“Sure can. Enough juice left in your tablet that we can have the inventory up and running?”
I looked at him and slid it over so it could sit between us. “Our tablet. And yes. I keep it on the solar charger on the desk under the window upstairs when we aren’t using it.”
“Our tablet huh.”
“Our tablet,” I repeated. “So let’s get going on our notes.”
Mitch laughed but we finally got down to planning.