Rae Lynn stopped pulling the yellow threads off the kernels.
“Somebody beat him up?”
Cornelia snorted. “That would be too good for him.”
Peewee rubbed his head and then shook it as if he still couldn’t believe what he’d heard.
“Naw. Sounds like he got more’n he bargained for by about fifteen feet worth. Some old gator out there in the Okefenokee.”
Incredulous, Del said, “It got him?”
“Apparently he was doing the usual, chasing some poor colored feller through the swamp. They heard it more’n saw it. Said he went to screaming, carrying on, and he stopped sudden-like. By the time they got there, all that was left was that hat a his floating in the water, crow feather still in it. Nothing else.”
Del said, “I sure didn’t care none for him, but what a helluva way to go.”
They sat quiet for a while until Del pulled out his harmonica. He played several slow, melancholy tunes, and everyone, the children included, sat quietly, reflecting on the lonesome notes. He finally stopped and stared around the table at the faces of the people he cared about most in this world, and knew if he were to die in his sleep this very night, he would go a contented man.
Chapter 36
Rae Lynn
Rae Lynn drove her old truck down the dirt road and pulled it under a large pecan tree by the farmhouse to keep it in the shade. The men had taken the boys to Rockfish to unload barrels of gum into the warehouse, and Rae Lynn expected them back anytime, hungry as a pack of wolves.
She hurried into the house, calling out to Sudie May, “Yoo-hoo!”
She dropped her purse and keys on the table by the door, kicked off her shoes, and walked barefoot across the worn floorboards and into the kitchen.
Baby Belinda, who everyone had taken to calling Beebee, was in the high chair, and Norma was attempting to help her teach herself to eat. Beebee had chicken-n-dumplings on her face and on the floor. She waved a chicken leg happily at her mother and gave her a newly sprouted toothy grin.
Norma said, “I tried to help her get it in her, not on her.”
Rae Lynn smiled.
She said, “You should’ve seen her when I tried to feed her beets,” and to Beebee, “Look at you! I need to put you in the bath.”
Sudie May came in from the pantry off the kitchen and said, “Despite what’s on the floor and in her hair, she still ate a lot. I saw what was in the bowl before she started.”
“She takes after her daddy. Well, me too, ’cause I feel like I could eat that whole pot of dumplings right about now. I can’t seem to eat enough lately.”
Sudie May set the jars she’d retrieved on the table, and said, “Huh. Sounds a lot like last time you were pregnant.”
Rae Lynn gave her a sage look, a hand on her belly. “That’s because I am.”
Sudie May’s eyes flew open, and she rushed over to Rae Lynn and hugged her.
“Oh my. I’m so happy for you.”
Rae Lynn said, “Funny, Del only mentioned the other day he was going to start building the extension onto the house. We’re gonna need it. It seems a peculiar thing to say. When we first come here, there was so many rooms I’d get lost.”
Beebee hiccupped, and the women turned to her as she hurled the chicken leg on the floor.
Rae Lynn said, “I reckon you’re done.”
She wiped off the baby’s face and carried her outside. The men and boys were back from town, and she watched from the porch as Delwood and Jeremiah jumped out of the back of the truck, along with Joey and Darren. Del blew her a kiss, before going to help Amos unload the new barrels they’d picked up. Rae Lynn’s heart trembled at the sight of them. Her husband, and sons. Del showed the boys different ways to roll the barrels so they’d be easier to maneuver while standing behind them, helping guide small hands. He was an excellent father, patient and loving. She squeezed Beebee to her, sniffed at the soft hair on the top of her head, her baby smell coming through despite the fact she’d practically bathed in her dinner. She and Del had agreed they wanted a big family, and they were well on their way, though Del had his doubts in the beginning.
Right before they married, he said, “I need to tell you something.” He acted in a way he never had. Nervous, preoccupied.
He sat her down, took hold of her hands, and said, “There’s things about me you need to know.”
He told her about his past, how he’d been, what he’d done. He told her what happened to him in the grain bin, and how it had affected him.
He said, “I tried to be with anything in a skirt. All kinds a women. Other men’s wives. I didn’t care. That is, until this farmer I worked for, named Moe Sutton, caught me with his. Had me work in his grain bin, and I think . . .”