God help her.
Del Reese came often. She’d seen him a couple times, standing in the doorway in the early-morning hours, staring in at her. She kept her eyes closed, cracked her lids just enough so she could watch him watching her. He’d go away and the murmur of his voice and Cornelia’s would last a few seconds until the screen door at the front of their house would squeak, and he’d be gone. After he left, Cornelia would arrive with a pan of warm, soapy water and would go about the business of cleaning her while Rae Lynn stared anywhere but at her. Cornelia’s care was matter-of-fact, get done what needed doing. After a couple more days, Rae Lynn was able to stand with Cornelia’s arm around her waist. Cornelia would sit her in the chair as she straightened up the sheets, cleaned the chamber pot, and talked the whole time about nothing much. Busy chatter about the heat of summer, the song of a particular bird, what she’d bring her to eat next. Rae Lynn sat quiet, did as she was told. She didn’t want to make no trouble for her.
On her fourth morning at the Riddles, Rae Lynn offered her first words on her own. It felt good to use her natural voice.
“Kin you smell that?” she asked Cornelia.
Even to her ears, her tone sounded soft, not bearing the odd gruffness that was Ray Cobb.
Cornelia turned her head, sniffing the air. She immediately dragged the chamber pot out from under the bed to look at it. It was empty.
“I thought I forgot to empty it. It ain’t got nothing in it.”
“It’s . . . not that. It’s . . . different. Like what I smelled in the . . .”
Cornelia’s expression was bewildered. “I only smell them sausage biscuits we had for breakfast. Which you didn’t eat much of.”
Rae Lynn dropped her eyes, feeling her face grow warm. “I reckon it’s here.”
She pointed at her head.
Cornelia spoke with a soft voice. “Well, now. You don’t worry none. With all the bad you been through? It ain’t no wonder. You just wait. You gonna get better and all of that will be gone one of these days.”
She went out, and within minutes she was back with a couple vases filled with pale-yellow flowers clustered among shiny green leaves. She set one by the bed and the other on the windowsill, which stayed open, allowing in any breeze that might come.
“Smell that?”
Rae Lynn could.
“Honeysuckle’s one of my favorites.”
Cornelia said, “Mine too.”
Rae Lynn didn’t tell her the sweet aroma mingled with that other odor that seemed very real to her. She didn’t understand why it lingered so strong in her mind. The box held on to those who’d been there before her, the bits and pieces of them, their distress, their frantic will to live. She understood it, had felt it too. She was sure she’d left some part of herself there as well. Not just the blood from in between her legs, or the sweat that had poured off of her. Not just them physical things. Some other part of her had broke off and got left behind, even as she was lifted from out of it, saved by a man named Del Reese. This was punishment for what she’d done.
The fifth morning, Cornelia came in smiling, ready to start the day, but this time, she had him with her. Rae Lynn immediately pulled the sheet to her chin and stared toward the foot of the bed.
He said, “Morning.”
She felt at a disadvantage, still in bed and all. She dipped her head in greeting, barely.
He said, “I come up with this idea. Won’t take but a second.”
He went to work, fashioning a pull cord using some twine. He tied it first to her bedpost, and with him being so close made her lean the other way. He dropped the ball of twine out the window and went out. Rae Lynn next saw him holding the twine spool on his thumb letting it run out as he walked toward the commissary, where he set it on the window, a distance of about fifty feet. She leaned forward to watch, and in a few seconds he was inside the commissary and at the window, picking it up. He waved, and she sat back quick. She watched the string move, tighten a bit, and a minute later, Cornelia came into the room smiling.
She said, “He looped the other end over a hook and it’s got a bell hung off it. I’m going back over there, and when I wave to you out the window yonder, you pull on your end here.”
Rae Lynn said, “Okay.”
When Cornelia was at the window of the commissary waving like Del Reese had done, Rae Lynn reached up and gave the string a light tug. In the quiet of the morning, she could hear a faint tinny ding, ding. She watched Cornelia hurry back across the yard, and Otis stomping along right after her. Rae Lynn thought, Uh-oh.