This Is Not the Tropics: Stories

Hyacinths

Hyacinths That night long ago, before we went to sleep in the unfamiliar bed at Ben and Gemmy’s house, my sister Christy and I talked about the hyacinths that had recently come up in our yard at home—grape hyacinth, their purple blossoms heavy with a sweet, fruity fragrance. We had helped our mother plant them in the fall. She loved flowers, as was clear from the daffodils, tulips, and iris that bordered our house. Mother had learned to garden from her Granny. “Granny” was one of the funny words she used. When we teased Mother about how she talked, she smiled and broke into an exaggerated version of the accent she’d been raised with. She called the people from her past hill people, as though she had come from some place far away when in fact her childhood home was only a short distance from the town of Broken Bow where we lived. Ben and Gemmy were hill people; Gemmy was mother’s second cousin. We felt uncomfortable in Ben and Gemmy’s house that night, and memories of hyacinths and home comforted us. 120 Hyacinths 121 The next morning Gemmy made eggs. There was no running water in the house, only a galvanized bucket setting on the counter holding water drawn from the well. We had had to walk to an outdoor toilet that morning and the night before, like we were camping in regular life. Christy and I exchanged a glance as Gemmy drew a glass of water from the bucket on the counter. Only moments earlier one of the numerous cats prowling about the house—under the table, on the countertops, rubbing against the chairs where we sat, like moving water, liquid and constant—had lapped from the bucket. We had no appetite for the oozing eggs Gemmy set on the table. She stood back and appeared to admire us for a moment. Ben came in from morning chores then. “Shut that door,” Gemmy told him. Ben had a simple, open face. We couldn’t quite figure him out. We liked him, but he seemed like a boy that might be at our school rather than a grown man, and he sounded like that now as he rushed to shut the door. “Sorry, Gemmy.” “Did you girls sleep okay?” he said eagerly as he took off his boots by the door. “Those cats . . .” Christy started, stopping as I elbowed her roughly in the side. “We slept fine. Thanks,” I said. “That’s good to hear.” Ben sat down across from us at the table and waited as Gemmy served him. “Gemmy, you’re wheezing this morning,” he said as she set a plate before him. Gemmy had started breathing Hyacinths heavily almost as soon as Ben came in the door. Neither Christy nor I had really noticed it until then. “It’s my asthma acting up again.” Her breathing became even more labored. “Why, Gemmy, you sound plumb terrible. Did you take your medicine?” Ben pushed his chair back and went to the kitchen windowsill where a small brown prescription bottle stood. “Here now,” he said as he opened it and poured a pill into his palm. “You take this now.” He drew a glass of water from the bucket and watched carefully, his face mimicking Gemmy’s swallowing motions as she took the pill. Once she had finished, he broke into a broad smile. “There you be.” Back at the chair, he chased a cat away from his plate and ate the cooling egg, its yolk coagulated and scabby on the plate. “You two ready for church?” Gemmy asked us. “Yes.” We were both dressed and ready to go. “Where could we brush our teeth?” I asked. “We’ll set you up here with a bowl of water,” Gemmy said. I had pushed the egg around on my plate, hoping Gemmy wouldn’t notice I hadn’t eaten anything. Christy had tried the same deception. “You girls sure don’t eat much,” Gemmy said. “You didn’t eat a thing last night either. You feeling all right?” “Yes, ma’am.” We nodded. 122 Hyacinths 123 “I don’t know how anyone can eat so little and still stay alive. So, you’re ready to go then?” “Yes.” “Ben, you’ll be ready soon?” “I’ll be ready soon as I finish eating.” “You won’t neither. You’re not going to church in those choring clothes.” “It’ll take me no more an...