The Color of the Bean

Bittersweet Home

Evan stopped the car just as a shabby wooden house came into view. It was three stories of ready to fall down, with a wide saggy porch held down by mismatched rockers, and at least one chimney that still sent out smoke signals.  In distress, probably, I thought, given the heat.

Ma, unaccountably silent, stared straight ahead though the windshield. She turned abruptly, grabbing me by the forearm, squeezing harshly. I thought she was going to smack me finally, a good one, and braced against a blow that did not come. Tiny wrinkles around her eyes were only emphasized by her dark eye makeup, this close to her.  As her clutching fingers trembled even as she gripped with all her strength,  I realized how frail she had become. 

"You know this is for the best, don't you?" she asked me, but not pausing for my answer, she kept going. "It's for the best! For you! For us! You understand? It's the best I could do! Do right and you'll be OK. Just do right, no matter what!  You'll be OK." After seeming to reassure herself with this short illogical speech, she turned away from me, letting go just as suddenly as she had grabbed me, and opened her own car door.  Evan and I clicked open ours as well, and joined her to stand on the hard packed ground. 

A wooden screen door centered above the porch steps opened creakily, creating in my mind tremors of memories, conjuring an eerie mix of childhood trick-or-treating, watching black and white tv movies with Ma, ones that starred Bela Lugosi as Dracula, a 'teen wolf'
air of romantic despair mixing with my own childhood candy hunting experiences, in unsorted swirls in my mind.  At that moment of dread and longing, through the door of the most realistic looking 'haunted house' that I had ever seen stepped two of the oddest women I would ever meet. 

They stood on the porch, quietly flanking the doors, and with Ma's post-outburst silence, I wondered if we had even been expected. In the countryside's quiet, they had to have been able to hear our car for the last several miles! I looked, but through the billowing folds of their anachronistically long skirts, it was impossible to see if either concealed a firearm. If they did, at least they weren't pointing them at any of us!

A thin woman in an ankle length tan skirt, white shirt with rolled sleeves and a navy crocheted shawl tottered down the creaky steps, and hurried over to where we stood in the grassy lawn by the car. "Land sakes!" she called out. "Don't just gawp in the sun! Come on up to the house and rest out o' tha heat!"

Her even more emaciated sister followed her down. She approached me, her blue skirt swishing around her ankles, which I saw were encased in tiny brown leather boots.  I was enveloped in clean scented cotton that hid long bony arms, in a hug that was somehow both fierce and gentle at the same time. Bony fingers grasped my shoulders and pointed me to the house.  "Git on up there and light.  Don't you worry none. We'll bring your things."

Despite my grime, and in complete disregard of the hour, a feeling of swirling morning dew seemed to surround me. As the moist, cool breeze washed over me, I stretched my cramped muscles, and started toward the porch.  I heard quiet conversation behind me but I was too tired to look back.

"Good of you..." Evan's low murmur was silenced by the two old ladies' hushed responses.

"It is we who should be thanking you," stated one. "After all, we're no spring chickens, and Jessie's help will be a blessing. And we can provide the guidance she lacks in her present circumstances."

Was that last a dig at Ma and her ways? I wondered idly. But if she had registered it as a critique at all, Ma did not defend herself. Her only response was "Please, Auntie Grace, Auntie Percy, I do hope you can avoid any of your... er, well, you know, those, those, habits..."

This did provoke a sharp response from one of the Aunts:  "Why whatever do you mean! It is not we who approached you, after all! The girl will be perfectly safe under our tutelage, you can rest easy upon that account!"
"I will just take these up," interrupted Evan. I heard his footfalls through the thick grass until he reached the scattered flagstones that led to the porch steps, where I stood, one foot poised to ascend, but with my wondering mind, almost ready to turn again, in question once more at this strange new life that had been chosen for me.

"What about school..." The question died on my lips. Evan plunked the two small cases down at the top of the steps, all without leaving the grassy yard. He smiled down at me, an uncertainty lurking in his gaze. Pulling the stub of a flat carpenter's pencil from his suit pants, he took a sales receipt from another pocket, and neatly printed some numbers on it. This he handed to me in an awkward, boyish handshake.

"Just in case," he whispered. Then louder, he stated formally, "I hope you will be very happy here."

"Well, it's better than an orphanage," I grumbled -- but quietly... Which brought a short bark of laughter from him, quickly silenced.

"Oh, my dear, you have no idea!" he exclaimed, smiling. I wondered once again whether he was laughing with me or at me.

And with those cryptic words, he turned, ambling back to his seat behind the wheel of his beloved 'Baby.'

I stopped to look when I reached the top of the steps, walking sideways until the backs of my knees pressed against a rocker that was formed entirely of grape vines in graceful curves, painted gleaming white.  As I looked on, the two angular aunts were pressing Ma back into her seat in the car.  "I know it seems almost a sin as far as Southern Hospitality is concerned," the one with the crocheted shawl was saying, "but we do know how modern timetables govern your trip. So wave your good byes, dear. Evan, dear, it was good seeing you again. You only have a short drive, once you are back to the main road. But remember, you will save miles if you take the turn at Dalton's Feed..."

"Yes, now you mention it, I remember the turn perfectly. And thank you. I'll make sure she writes with our address, once we are settled."

A chorus of homely "good byes" accompanied Baby's engine noise as Evan turned the car and nosed back down the lane, brake lights flickering fitfully as he navigated turns and bumps. As the Fairlane's shiny chassis disappeared around a clump of thorny blackberry vines, I regarded my newly met family.  The two women faced me, walking back across the lush green lawn, and as they turned their faces upward to me before returning up the porch steps, I could swear that both of their faces, as well as their whitened hands, were glowing.  Just a trick of the light, I thought. 

As they climbed the porch steps with a grace and limberness that belied the years shown in the worn creases of their skin, their eyes twinkled up at me, one pair grey as rainclouds, one pair cornflower blue.

"Welcome home, Jessie," they said in unison.  At that moment, I felt all my worries lifted, and a sense of wellbeing that I'd never felt before washed over me.

"Let's get you in, and washed. After supper, we will show you your room." The Auntie with the shawl spoke.

"Its on the top floor, I'm afraid," stated the Auntie without a shawl. 

"I know you have plenty of questions, dear."

"As we have, for you..." She was interrupted in her interruption by her sister's tut-tut.

"Plenty of time for that. Come in! Come in!"

"This way,"

The creaking screen door closed, shutting out my past and the setting sun, with a finality beyond mere words. I carried my cases inside, and didn't look back.