Oakley and Ida

FICTION Oakley and Ida Lou Martin I went out on the back porch and sat on the concrete step to get some air. Washing and drying supper dishes for nine people had left me hot and sweaty. After a bit, I walked around the house, stopping at the basement door to look in at the playhouse. My best friend, Loree, and I had played in here all summer, carving windows and doors in the hard clay basement walls, using scraps of cloth for curtains and old lumber to make furniture. Every bit of glass or anything else we could find we hoarded to use to make a home for our dolls. We spent every minute we could steal from chores playing here. Now that school had started there'd be hardly any time for play. I walked on across the street and called to Loree. We sat on her porch waiting for it to get dark enough to catch lightning bugs. The little lights flickering on and off in my jar grew brighter as it got darker. Suddenly, lights came on in the windows of my house across the road. I saw my father come into the living room and sit down with the newspaper. My mother moved from the bedroom to the bathroom and back as I watched. Sitting there, looking at my house, I felt like I had spun loose from my family. I was a stranger looking in. It was pitch dark by now. "I've got to go," I said, and ran across the road. I hurried to get in the house. I went into the living room and stood by my father's chair. "Where you been?" he asked. "Outside ." I knew he wouldn't stop reading to talk to me, but it felt good just to stand there beside him. After a while, he reached up and rumpled my hair. "Better get on to bed," he said. Besides my four brothers and parents, my grandpa and my aunt lived with us. It was crowded, but we made room for others, like Oakley and Lou Martin was born in Harlan County, Kentucky. She says, "I have always wanted to writefiction. My life as the daughter ofa strong unionist, wife ofa civil rights activist, and mother of three very independent children hasgiven me plenty ofgrist for the mill . . ." 45 Ida, who came around pretty often. My father said his nephew, Oakley, had never settled down. He and Ida, his wife, moved from place to place looking for work. We were always glad to see them coming. They had funny stories to tell about places they had been, and they teased and played with us. One day Oakley and Ida came up the road carrying their old suitcases —grips, grandpa called them. Oakley's had a rope tied around it to keep his clothes in because the latch was broken. They said they wanted to stay a few days and try to get some work at one of the three factories in Easton. "That's good, Oakley," my father said, slapping him on the back. "You came at a good time. They're hiring over at the mill. Come on in—you're just in time for supper." Work was just about the most important thing in my father's life. We never saw his job, never saw anyone he worked with, but his job was the biggest thing in our lives. We ate and slept by when he had to go to work. Whether he was happy or sad seemed to have something to do with his work. When I ran to meet him in the afternoon, if he walked quickly and swung his lunch bucket, I knew he'd had a good day. When he walked slow, and dragged the leg that was a little bit shorter than the other one, I knew not to run and grab the lunch bucket looking for a leftover cookie. On those days, I just walked along beside him, thinking how tired he looked. His tall body stooped a little. Every now and then he'd lift his cap off his hair to wipe off the sweat. "Nobody can...