The Scent of Lilacs Page 11

  Zella peered over Jocie’s shoulder. “Wesley Green, if we have to run another front page, the cost is coming out of your pay,” she said.

  “We aren’t doing a new run,” David said. “The Lord mostly smudged it out for us, but Wes, there are some things you shouldn’t play around with. If church people quit buying the Banner, we’re sunk.”

  “Not to mention the danger of losing advertising dollars during Bible school and revival season,” Zella put in.

  Jocie clapped her hand over her mouth to hide her smile and smudged more black on her cheeks.

  “It’s not the least bit amusing, Jocelyn,” Zella said.

  Jocie couldn’t help it. She laughed out loud. “Oh, come on, Zella. Nobody but us will know it’s a snake, and if they do we’ll give it a close-up look and admit that if you use your imagination that ink smudge the press made might look a little bit like snake eyes.”

  Zella gave Wes a withering look. “Wesley Green, someday you’ll have to give an accounting of the ways you’ve led this child astray.”

  “Aw, Zell, it’s just a couple of snake eyes. A body’s got to have some fun,” Wes said. “If you don’t start practicing smiling every now and again, one of these days you’re going to come across something so funny you won’t be able to keep from smiling and then your face is liable to crack.”

  “Ha. Ha,” Zella said without the trace of a smile before she stalked off to wash her hands. David sighed. “Wes, you promised you’d lay off Zella for a while. I have to work out there beside her.”

  “Sorry, boss.” Wes didn’t look sorry as he began bundling the papers for delivery. Two thirds of the copies went to the post office for mail delivery. The other third went to grocery stores and the grill, any place that would put them out for sale. A few went into the stand out on the street in front of the office. For a quarter anybody could find out everything newsworthy that happened in Hollyhill the week before. Or not so newsworthy. If no news happened, they still had to fill the columns with words.

  David scanned Jocie’s Bible school article again. He could almost see freshly scrubbed kids marching into the churches, hear the pledges to the flags and Bible, and taste the orange drink and chocolate chip cookies. The girl was a natural with words, way better than him.

  Of course, he’d never planned to be a newspaperman, had never given it the first thought. Had no real training for writing other than a lifetime of reading and practice writing up reports in the service. But a job had been open at the Banner when he’d come home after the war. Henry Lyster, the owner and editor then, had taken a liking to him and let him work crazy hours so he could attend seminary classes over in Louisville. David just had to make sure he was there when the presses were rolling and that he had his stories ready to run.

  Henry had been putting out the Banner for over thirty years, and he liked to sum up his newspaper know-how by saying, “Prod the politicians every now and again and print the citizens’ grandkids’ pictures every chance you get.”

  After David had finished his seminary training, Henry had announced he was moving to Florida and selling the Banner to David. Every year since, David had sent him a percentage of the profits, which Henry put toward the purchase price. Henry had told him this year’s payment would be the last if the Banner had a good year. That didn’t exactly match David’s records, but Henry said his records were the ones that mattered.

  David opened up the paper, and the picture of the interim pastor of Mt. Pleasant Church and his family jumped out at him. Aunt Love hadn’t wanted to be in the picture, had fussed with the combs in her hair and the white collar on her purple dress until Jocie had said, “Do not tarry, saith the Lord.”

  “Prove the Lord said that with chapter and verse reference,” Aunt Love had retorted, but she’d finally let Wes take the picture. She wasn’t smiling, but she looked regal and composed. No one could tell by just looking that her memory was leaking away from her.

  Tabitha still looked pale, wan almost, but she had smiled. Her mother’s smile. The one that meant I’m here, I’m doing what you want, but you might have to pay for it later. Thank goodness she had the cheek with the rose on it turned away from the camera. He hadn’t gotten up the nerve to ask her if the rose was permanent or if there was a chance it might disappear by Sunday. He hadn’t asked her anything. She hadn’t told him anything. She just said she still wasn’t feeling well. Aunt Love kept giving her looks and then looking at David as the lines deepened around her eyes.

  Jocie was smiling like always. She’d wanted the dog to be in the picture but hadn’t pouted when he’d said no. Tears sprang into his eyes as he looked at Jocie in the picture. It was funny how you could look at a person every day and not notice how she was changing until you saw it in a picture. She was losing the baby roundness to her face and was turning into a young woman. Such a gift God had given him when she was born.

  “What you looking at, Dad?” Jocie said as she pushed up beside him to peek at the paper. “Uh-oh. Is the picture that bad?”

  “Not bad at all. No shame to a few tears falling because I get to see my two daughters in the same picture.”

  “It would have looked even more American pie if you’d have let Zeb be in it,” Jocie said.

  “It might need more than a dog to qualify as the model family photo. Say, a wife?” David said.

  Jocie grinned up at him. “I hear there are candidates actively campaigning for the position. I mean, it’s a long drive out to Mt. Pleasant Church.”

  Wes picked up on what she said right away. “Leigh found her way out there, then. I heard Zell giving her directions.” He raised his eyebrows. “Did she make any decisions?”

  “Enough, you two.” David looked back at the picture to hide the red crawling up his cheeks. “Leigh’s a nice young woman. Emphasis on the young.”

  “Who’s stuck on a certain preacher man we know,” Wes said.

  “She’s way too young for me,” David said, looking at his own picture. “When did I get so old?”

  “It’s a day-by-day kind of thing,” Wes said. “But you’ve got a few days yet to go before you start grumbling about being old.” Wes hoisted a couple of bundles of papers up into the cart they used to take them out to the car. “Wait till you get ancient like me. This job have any kind of retirement?”

  “You can’t retire, Wes,” Jocie said. “We’d never get the paper out without you.”

  “She’s right there.” David looked at Wes to see if there was anything serious behind his talk. It had been ten years since Wes had driven his motorcycle up on the sidewalk in front of the newspaper offices to get a paper. The dispenser on the street had been empty, so he’d come banging through the front door, setting the bell above the door to jingling and sending Zella scurrying to the back room to get David. All he’d wanted was an odd job to buy more gas to go on down the road. He hadn’t had a destination. He’d just been going.

  The man, in his beat-up leather jacket, with a red bandanna tied around his head, had looked used up and spent. David hadn’t been looking for help, but he’d opened his mouth and offered him a job for as long as he wanted it, be that two weeks or a year. Zella had threatened to quit when she heard about it. Every morning for a year David had come to work expecting to find Wes gone, but every morning he’d been there waiting to do whatever needed doing to get the Banner out. And to play with Jocie, because even then Jocie had been David’s shadow. She’d had to be. He couldn’t leave her at home with Adrienne. He’d found that out the hard way when he’d come home one day to find Jocie toddling up the road in search of Daddy.

  Adrienne had been on the porch, painting her toenails. “Oh, you found her,” she’d said. “Tabitha was wondering where she got off to.”

  David had exploded. When Adrienne had just smiled at him and kept polishing her toenails, he’d snatched up the jar of nail polish and flung it against a tree out in the yard. Jocie had started screaming, and Tabitha had peered out the screen door with wide, round eye
s.

  Adrienne hadn’t been bothered in the least. She’d picked up her purse and said, “Now I’ll have to go to Grundy to get some more polish to finish my toenails. I don’t know when I’ll be home. It may take a while to find the same exact color.”

  He’d said he was sorry, but of course, she hadn’t cared. She hadn’t cared since before Jocie was born what he thought or said. They’d only pretended to be married, and she’d left most of the pretending up to him. Strange what love would make a man do. Or was it pride?

  It was pride that had kept him from asking anybody to babysit Jocie, because if he did that he would have had to own up to how strange things were in his family. He was a preacher, for heaven’s sake. He was supposed to be able to figure things like that out. Of course, his mother had known, even though no words about Adrienne’s indifference to Jocie had ever passed between them. And Wes had guessed and had become babysitter, best friend, and grandfather all wrapped up in one to Jocie.

  Sometimes he’d wondered if maybe Zella was right, that maybe Wes wasn’t the best influence with his Jupiter stories and his lack of religious observance. But there was never any doubt of his love for Jocie. If the ever-present sadness sometimes threatened to leak out of his eyes when Jocie was around, Wes would shake it off and tell her a Jupiter story or teach her a silly new tongue twister. “Lupiter from Jupiter jumped through a fiery hoopiter. Lupiter from Jupiter must be stupider than Jaturn from Saturn, who jumped over a lantern.”

  So David had stopped worrying about Wes going back on the road. Had never given it a moment’s consideration till the Monday morning he’d shown up to find the note taped to the printing press. Even then he’d been unable to believe it. He’d run up the stairs to the apartment over the offices as if the letter he held in his hands didn’t exist. The letter that said thanks for everything, but it was time to get back out on the road.

  Jocie hadn’t been with David, thank goodness. She’d started first grade the week before, and he’d dropped her off at school before he came to work. He’d watched her walk into the school building, her shoulders hunched up and her head pushed forward to be ready for whatever attack might come first. He’d wanted to run after her, to protect her from every hurt. But of course he couldn’t.

  Any more than he could have protected her from the pain of her mother and sister disappearing into the night two months before. At the time, Jocie had still run to the door with hope in her eyes every time she heard a car coming up their lane, and the night before he’d found her in Tabitha’s room, standing stock-still in the middle of the floor as if she might be able to pull Tabitha out of the walls.

  David had sunk down on the dusty brown couch in the middle of the apartment and wondered what he would tell Jocie. The note had said, “Tell Jocie I’ll send her a message from Jupiter someday.”

  A message from Jupiter wasn’t going to help. Nothing was going to help. His heart had broken just thinking about telling Jocie Wes was gone. Her mother and sister slipping away in the middle of the night had been bad, but this had been worse. Much worse. Adrienne had treated Jocie like a stray cat that had found its way to her porch. Any time the stray had gotten close to her, she’d kicked it away. But Wes had taken the stray cat to his heart, and the stray had curled up and found a favorite purring place there.

  David had read the note again and then folded and refolded it while he’d prayed. His prayer had not had words, just desperation. He almost couldn’t believe his ears when he’d heard the motorcycle. In fact, he’d stayed where he was on the couch, as if going to the window to look out might make the motorcycle sound disappear.

  He’d left the door to the apartment open, and Wes had climbed halfway up the outside flight of stairs and called, “You up there, David?”

  “I am.”

  “Jo at school?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  Wes had finished climbing the stairs to the apartment, sat down on a box of books, and looked at his hands instead of at David. “I couldn’t go. I got all the way to the Georgia state line and knew I couldn’t go on. I’ve been riding all night.”

  “Are you okay?” David had asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  David had still been searching for what to say next when Wes went on. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  Again David had waited. The silence had stretched so long that David had wondered if he should just go on down to the newspaper office and let Wes have the time to himself. But just as he was about to get up and leave, Wes had started talking.

  “I swore I’d never get attached to anybody again. Not really attached. Too much pain. I had the pain with Rosa and Lydia. Still have it. Bores down in my heart every day. I didn’t want more of it. Didn’t think I could bear more of it.”

  “Rosa and Lydia?” David had asked.

  “My wife and daughter. Rosa liked to say we were the perfect family. A strong man, a beautiful woman, a good son, and a sweet daughter. We had twenty-three years. More than some folks, I guess.”

  “What happened?”

  “Wesley Jr. got married. He was happy. After the wedding, me and Rosa and Lydia went to the beach for a week. We were happy. Me and Rosa talked about how everything was changing, with Wes Jr. married and Lydia going off to college in the fall. I didn’t realize how much more things were going to change.”

  “What happened?” David had said.

  “It ain’t something I like to talk about. Fact is, I don’t know what happened. I know we packed up and were headed home. I know I was driving. I know it was raining. The police said maybe a tire blew. I don’t remember. I just know when I woke up in the ambulance the guy in there with me wouldn’t look me in the eye when I asked him about Rosa and Lydia. I tried to kill him. I don’t know why. It wasn’t his fault. It was mine.”

  “I’m sorry.” The words had been inadequate. “What about your son?”

  “It was funny. We couldn’t talk about it or anything else. The ghosts of Rosa and Lydia were always there between us. I figured if I didn’t run, he’d have to, so I signed the house over to him and tried to lose myself out on the road. I don’t know why I stopped running when I got here.”

  “You were tired.”

  “I was. That’s a fact. And I liked the smell of ink.”

  “And then there was Jocie,” David had said.

  “Yeah, Jo. I should have left the first day I saw that little face looking up at me.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. I aimed to, but I kept putting it off. You’d been nice to me and I didn’t want to leave you in the lurch, I’d tell myself. Or I’d promised Jo another Jupiter story and a man should keep his promises. There was always a reason.”

  “Then why wasn’t there a reason yesterday?”

  “I don’t know. When she was at the newspaper yesterday morning, she told me her dog got run over and she cried. I didn’t have no way of making her smile. I just sat there and cried with her. Too much pain. I needed to get out on the road again.”

  “Then why are you here now?”

  “Jo,” Wes had said, and that had been enough explanation.

  David had never told anybody else Wes’s story. Not even Jocie. He figured that Wes might tell her himself someday but that if he wanted the people in Hollyhill to think he was from Jupiter, that was his right. He sometimes wondered about the son Wes had told him about, but he never asked.

  Now Jocie waved her hand in front of David’s face to bring him back to the present. “Hey, Dad, you in there?”

  “He’s probably thinking about a certain young somebody,” Wes said. “He sure ain’t thinking about helping us with these papers.”

  “I was thinking how lucky I am to have two such willing workers to pick up the slack while I’m daydreaming.”

  “I’ll bet Leigh would help fold papers for you,” Wes said. “Just for you. Especially if it was a private
folding session.”

  “A date folding papers?” Jocie said. “She’d have to be crazy.”

  “If she’s really stuck on this old man the way the two of you think she is, that’s already established. She’s definitely got a few screws missing.” David turned away so they couldn’t see him smile. This afternoon it didn’t sound too bad having a woman ten plus years younger than him giving him the eye.

  A week passed. And then another. Two issues of the Banner off the press. Two Sunday morning sermons. Two Sundays Jocie managed not to sock Ronnie Martin in the nose in Sunday school. Every time he said something stupid, she just smiled and told herself God loved everybody. If that didn’t work, she imagined Zeb biting him.

  Not that Zeb would bite anybody. Zeb was being a model dog, not digging up the first one of Aunt Love’s flowers or chasing Jezebel. When Jezzie showed up on the back porch in the early morning hours, he just rumbled a warning growl that sent the cat scurrying back to Aunt Love’s room.

  Tabitha hadn’t gone to church yet. She said she didn’t feel up to it, and Aunt Love just looked at her and said okay instead of starting the great inquisition the way she did if Jocie ever said she was sick—“What hurts? How long has it hurt? How bad does it hurt? Are you throwing up? No? Then get ready for church.” All Jocie could figure was they were hoping the rose on Tabitha’s cheek would disappear before they had to introduce her to the Mt. Pleasant congregation.

  It was strange how little Tabitha coming home had changed anything. Nobody made her do the first thing. She slept when she wanted to. If she didn’t come to the table at supper time, Aunt Love just saved her a plate. Mostly she spent her days sitting on a blanket in the sun, plaiting her long hair, and painting her toenails different colors. Nobody seemed to mind that either. It was as if coming home from California gave her special freedom. Aunt Love didn’t even bombard her with Bible verses. She saved all of those for Jocie.

  A couple of times Jocie went out to sit on the grass beside Tabitha’s blanket. She always intended to ask about her mother, but somehow the questions got stuck in her throat.