The Green Lace Corset, стр. 36
She missed her favorite books, which lined the shelf in her bedroom: Walt Whitman, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters. Main Street, with the café, bank, and courthouse. The giant pine in the town square. She didn’t miss Pastor Grimes’s guilt-ridden sermons but longed to sing hymns with the congregation. She even had begun to miss her ma.
Weaving the last loose ends, she made sure her sewing was secure. If she used knots, Cliff would get blisters for sure. There she went again, worrying about his blisters. She folded the socks and put them on her lap to give to him to take to the barn. The fire crackled.
She looked up, and he was staring at her, his eyes bright in the firelight. “Sally Sue, read me one of your poems.”
She flushed and put a hand to her cheek. He probably thought she was embarrassed. How imprudent she was to have told him she wrote poetry. “They’re private.”
“Please.” He paused and leaned toward her. “When I was growing up, my ma used to read to us every night.”
“Us?” He’d never mentioned anything personal about his life before.
He lit his pipe again. “Ma, Pa, three brothers, me, and my little sister, Lula. She was cute as a button. Kind of reminds me of you.”
Sally Sue felt herself blush again, for real this time. “Where was that?”
“Buffalo.”
“New York?”
The fire snapped.
“How long since you’ve seen them?” she asked.
“Nigh on many years. They’re all gone now.” He sighed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Pa and my brothers died in the Civil War. I’m the only one who survived.”
“You must have been only a boy.”
“Fourteen. Lied about my age to enlist. When I finally returned home, Ma and Lula had passed from consumption.” He unwrapped the kerchief from around his neck and wiped tears from his eyes.
Sally Sue had a hankering to put her arms around him. She got up the nerve to finally ask him the big question again: “Why’d you do it? Why’d you rob that bank?”
He scowled at her. “I had my reasons.”
“What reasons?”
He shrugged sadly. “Please read me a poem. It would feel ever so good to hear you.”
Her shoulders fell. “Maybe some other time.”
“Please.”
“I could read you something from the Bible.” She picked it out of her basket. “What’s your favorite?”
“The Psalms.”
She couldn’t believe it. “They’re my favorite also.” She opened to the first verse and began, “Blessed is the man . . .”
25
The next day, early in the morning, without even eating breakfast, Cliff took off again without telling Sally Sue where he was going or when he’d be back. What did he do all day? Was he hunting again?
Most of the snow had melted, but dark clouds still hung overhead. She put another log on the fire. She sure needed a bath. She untied her braids. The matted mess, which hung down to her waist, itched like the dickens, as if it had a mouse nest in it. She tried to untangle the snarls but couldn’t get her brush through them.
It had been two weeks since she’d last bathed. Saturdays at home were bath days. Early in the morning, she’d heat water, fill the tub, climb in, and wash her hair. After she got out, Ma would brush it out, and by the end of the day, it would be dry, ready to put up for the church potluck.
The water basins in the cabin were all too small. If she told Cliff she wanted a bath, he’d probably throw her in the horse trough. How had the woman who lived here before, the one with the beautiful dress, bathed?
Rain tapped on the window and soon battered the tin roof. She scooped a handful of soap flakes from the box and ran outside. Shivering in her nightgown, gritting her teeth, she stood in the downpour, letting the cold water douse her body.
Her fingers massaged the soap flakes into her scalp for a few minutes and rubbed the rain along her shoulders, underarms, arms, stomach, back, and legs. Her feet were muddy, so she’d need to deal with them inside later. When she couldn’t take the cold anymore, she threw back her head and let the rain rinse out her locks. She rushed back inside, slipped out of her clean nightgown, laid it on the crib to dry, wrapped a blanket around her, and warmed herself by the fire. It felt wonderful to be clean.
She gripped her brush but couldn’t even begin to get it through the snarls. At that moment, she missed her ma. This would never do. Sally Sue really needed help, but there was only one other person on the ranch, and she’d never ask him for any favors.
Rain continued to pound on the roof. She found her sewing scissors in her basket, and tightened the blanket around her chest. She grabbed a knotted tendril resting on her shoulder, but her small scissors wouldn’t go through it.
“What are you up to now?” Cliff stood in the doorway with a grin on his face.
She shrugged. Bare shouldered, she wrapped the blanket more tightly around her.
“Let me help.” He pulled a chair over near the fire. “Sit here.” He found a pair of larger scissors in a drawer and put a hand on her head. “How short do you want it?”
“Get rid of it all!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He began to snip, dropping handfuls of hair on the floor.
Sally Sue kept her head still, closed her eyes, and listened to the sound of the scissors. She pictured a nice shoulder-length style, easy to braid.
He could be so kind and caring. She tried to imagine what it would be like to be married to someone like