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Chapter 3
- University of Arkansas Press
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Chapter 3 Although she tried to hide it, it was clear that our chance encounter with Tom Jefferies had deeply affected Mother. She underwent an immediate shift in mood, leaving the oranges in the trunk and sailing into the kitchen, where Ruby Jean was pulling a chicken from the ice box. “No chicken tonight, Ruby Jean!” Ruby Jean blinked in surprise. “What you gone eat?” she asked. Mother dropped her pocketbook on the counter and slid the coat from her arms in one fluid movement, as if she were discarding a dancing partner and freeing herself to embrace another. “I’m going to go pick up some of that aged beef from Mr. Carter.” She slipped an apron over her dress and tied it behind her back. Ruby Jean knitted her brows and peered at Mother as if she’d lost her mind. “Aged beef? You gonna use coupons in the middle of the week?” Strict wartime rationing had reduced us to limiting beef to special occasions. Mother grasped Ruby Jean by her sleeve. “We have an army officer coming for dinner tonight.” Ruby Jean shook her free and grumbled. “Ain’t no cause to use no coupons. You ain’t got but a few left.” Mother opened the ice box and leaned into it. “Oh, you’ll change 35 your tune, Ruby Jean. You will, you’ll see. ’Course,” Mother said loudly, her head in the ice box, “I don’t have a thing for dessert.” Seeing Mother in such a playful mood was an unexpected treat. But she loved to bait Ruby Jean, and she knew exactly how to do it. “I raised you better than to have company with no dessert, Miss Carrie.” Mother closed the ice box. “Oh, we’ll make do,” she said airily. “It’s only Tom Jefferies. He won’t know any better.” The mention of Tom’s name took a moment to sink in, but when it did, Ruby Jean thrust her head forward in surprise, then set her jaw firmly. “Tom Jefferies? I thought we was all done with that man.” Mother’s eyes darted furtively in my direction, and her voice took on the tone of some formality. “Ruby Jean, he’s away from home, over at Camp Nine. I just want to be hospitable.” Ruby Jean muttered under her breath, a habit she had to indicate her disagreement about something she knew she had no say in. But the spring in her step belied her complaints. Whatever Tom had done, she could not hide that she would not hold it against him for long. “You don’t know company from a hole in the ground,” she grumbled, pulling a clean apron from a drawer. “Tom Jefferies’s eaten my cooking long enough to know better, too. I’m gone get you a pie going before you embarrass yourself. You better get on over to Dante ’fore Mr. Carter close.” The fact that now, not just Mother, but also Ruby Jean, knew this strange man who it seemed had fallen suddenly from the sky into our lives deepened his mystery. But up to their elbows in flour and sugar, they said no more about him, so I left them in the kitchen to play their affectionate parts, and headed into the tiny addition on the side of our house that had once been my father’s old study. The room had been our favorite place to spend time together when we weren’t riding in his truck or on our horses. I recall him sitting at the desk underneath a crackled glass lamp, crouching over a fly-tying clamp, tying bits of horsehair and feathers around a fish hook. The contraption was long gone, but I still loved the lamp and the desk and the chair that remained. 36 — Vivienne Schiffer [3.238.161.165] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 23:43 GMT) I gathered memories of him in secret, careful not to pain Mother with his mention, but anxious that he not disappear forever. How she coped with his loss, I don’t know, for we almost never spoke of him. It was odd that although she shared so much with me, her only companion, the subject of my own father was strangely, albeit tacitly, off-limits, and her relationship with Grandma and Grandpa was so strained it seemed impossible that he could have been loved by them and by her at the same time. The answer must have...