“I’d like you to have the other,” Isabelle said.
She pulled the sock’s twin from the bag and handed it to Prentiss. He rubbed the fabric with his fingers, placed the sock against his chest, and thanked her.
She opened her arms for a hug and when they embraced she made one last point clear, her voice hardly louder than a whisper:
“Don’t think for a moment I forgot you. Your pair is back at the house. I’ll finish soon.”
He could not hold back a bit of laughter.
“Looking out for me like your own,” he said. “I won’t be forgetting your kindness, Mrs. Walker.”
They stood for a while longer, none of them wishing to hurry the proceedings, until Prentiss faced them all as one.
“If y’all don’t mind,” he said, “like to be alone with my brother for a while.”
“I’d like to help you fill in that grave. I imagine it will take you some time—”
“George,” Isabelle said.
“I can manage,” Prentiss said. “Can manage that all on my own.”
They returned to the cabin. Supper was short, and when it was over, George cleaned up alongside Isabelle and Caleb, putting dishes away in silence as they wiped off the dining-room table. When Caleb went upstairs, George found himself drifting toward the window, staring at the starless night, the miles of nothingness, the last breath of the lantern dying within the barn to which Prentiss had returned.
“What is on that mind of yours?” said Isabelle, who had crept up behind him.
“Oh,” he said. “Nothing worth mentioning.”
“Everything is worth mentioning to you, George.”
She was now standing beside him. Her hair, though elegant, seemed to have picked up some added gray, and there were wrinkles he hadn’t noticed before, constellations as beautiful as those in the sky on a late-night walk.
“Do you remember my father’s help? Taffy?”
“You’ve spoken of her.”
“We were so close,” he said. “Yet I can recall so little of her. A shadow of her stayed with me after she was sold. I cannot describe it other than to say I would still feel her running beside me as I played alone. Or hear her washing clothes outside when I woke up.”
“I had the same when my father died,” she said. “Silas and me. We’d hear him yelling up to us. A memory speaking out.”
“Isn’t it eerie?”
“You were the one who told me I’d imagined the smell of my uncle’s coffin. I suppose what you’re talking about is no different. Children bear things however they can manage.”
George sat down at the kitchen table once more. Isabelle stayed by the window, looking out toward the barn.
“Well, it felt real to me,” George said, “and it upset me more than I can speak to. I railed at my mother for days. She was not well, but I couldn’t help myself. She would only tell me that such relationships must be severed quickly. That it was best to focus on the memories of our play, and our time together, rather than her departure. But Taffy’s absence was far more acute than any memories of fonder times.” George was tapping the table now as the thoughts racked against one another in his mind. “Isabelle, Prentiss must go. And go now. For his good and for ours.”
She put a hand upon George’s shoulder. “Let him finish packing,” she said. “Let him mourn tonight. And at first light…”
“First light,” George said.
It could not come soon enough.
CHAPTER 18
It was his last night on the farm and Prentiss could hardly shut his eyes, let alone fall asleep. His pallet felt like a solid slab of rock and he tossed and turned endlessly. On his side, he faced the place where Landry had once lain. The fact was one he would confess to no one, but it had given him great comfort to be there with the body. Left with either nothing or the body, he would happily take the body—gaze upon it, speak to it, and love it like Landry himself. He’d thought of broaching the idea with George, refusing the funeral. So much had been taken from him—must the ground claim the body, too? Still, the funeral had been right. He wondered if it was the same field his brother had spoken of, the one with the dandelions, but he hadn’t seen any and didn’t dare ask George, since he’d rather have the hope that it was than learn otherwise.
His thoughts swam, and he flipped onto his stomach just to steady himself. He had money for lodging and food that would last a month at least. George had told him to go north until the sights suited him; to find a job, a wife, a home. Easy to imagine, he told George, but difficult to accomplish. Especially if he was to be alone.