Wish You Well Read online

  Lou accepted it for what it clearly was: an old house, having gone through various reincarnations and situated in a place of unforgiving elements. But the front-yard grass was neatly cut, the steps, windows, and porch floor were clean, and she tallied the early bloom of flowers in glass jars and wooden buckets set along the porch rail and in window boxes. Climbing rose vines ran up the porch columns, a screen of dormant maypops covered part of the porch, and a husky vine of sleeping honeysuckle spread against one wall. There was a rough-hewn workbench on the porch with tools scattered across its surface and a split-bottom hickory chair next to it.

  Brown hens started singing around their feet, and a couple of mean-looking geese came calling, sending the hens off screeching for their lives. And then a yellow-footed rooster stomped by and scared the geese off, cocked its head at Lou and Oz, gave a crow, and stomped back from whence it had come. The mare whinnied a greeting from its corral, while the pair of mules just stared at nothing. Their hairy skin was cave black, their ears and snouts not quite balanced with each other. Oz took a step toward them for a better look and then retreated when one of the mules made a noise Oz had never heard before yet which clearly sounded threatening.

  Lou's and Oz's attention shifted to the front door when it was thrown open with far more thrust than was necessary. Their mother's nurse came clomping out. She stalked past them, her long arms and legs cocking and firing off rounds of silent fury.

  "Never in all my life," she wailed to the Appalachians. Without another word or grimace, flap of arm or kick of leg, she climbed into the ambulance, closed the doors, which made two modest thunks as metal hit metal, and the volunteer brigade beat a timid retreat.

  Beyond perplexed, Lou and Oz turned back to the house for answers and found themselves staring at her.

  Standing in the doorway was Louisa Mae Cardinal. She was very tall, and though also very lean, she looked strong enough to strangle a bear, and determined enough to do so. Her face was leathern, the lines creasing it the etch of wood grain. Although she was approaching her eightieth year, the balls of her cheeks still rode high. The jaw was also strong, though her mouth drooped some. Her silver hair was tied with a simple cord at the nape, and then plunged to her waist.

  Lou was heartened to see that she wore not a dress, but instead baggy denim trousers faded to near white and an indigo shirt patched in various places. Old brogans covered her feet. She was statue-like in her majesty, yet the woman had a remarkable pair of hazel eyes that clearly missed nothing in their range.

  Lou boldly stepped forward while Oz did his best to melt into his sister's back. "I'm Louisa Mae Cardinal. This is my brother, Oscar." There was a tremble to Lou's voice. She stood her ground, though, only inches from her namesake, and this proximity revealed a remarkable fact: Their profiles were almost identical. They seemed twins separated by a mere three generations.

  Louisa said nothing, her gaze trailing the ambulance.

  Lou noted this and said, "Wasn't she supposed to stay and help look after our mother? She has a lot of needs, and we have to make sure that she's comfortable."

  Her great-grandmother shifted her focus to the Hudson.

  "Eugene," Louisa Mae said in a voice possessed of negligible twang, yet which seemed undeniably southern still, "bring the bags in, honey." Only then did she look at Lou, and though the stare was rigid, there was something prowling behind the eyes that gave Lou a reason to feel welcome. "We take good care of your mother."

  Louisa Mae turned and went back in the house. Eugene followed with their bags. Oz was fully concentrating on his bear and his thumb. His wide, blue eyes were blinking rapidly, a sure indication that his nerves were racing at a feverish pitch. Indeed, he looked like he wanted to run all the way back to New York City right that minute. And Oz very well might have, if only he had known in which direction it happened to be.

  * * *

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE BEDROOM GIVEN TO LOU WAS SPARTAN AND ALSO the only room on the second floor, accessed by a rear staircase. It had one large window that looked out over the farmyard. The angled walls and low ceiling were covered with old newspaper and magazine pages pasted there like wallpaper. Most were yellowed, and some hung down where the paste had worn away. There was a simple rope bed of hickory and a pine wardrobe scarred in places. And there was a small desk of rough-hewn wood by the window, where the morning light fell upon it. The desk was unremarkable in design, yet it drew Lou's attention as though cast from gold and trimmed by diamonds.

  Her father's initials were still so vivid: "JJC." John Jacob Cardinal. This had to be the desk at which he had first started writing. She imagined her father as a little boy, lips set firm, hands working precisely, as he scored his initials into the wood, and then set out upon his career as a storyteller. As she touched the cut letters, it was as though she had just put her hand on top of her father's.

  For some reason Lou sensed that her great-grandmother had deliberately given her this room.

  Her father had been reserved about his life here. However, whenever Lou had asked him about her namesake, Jack Cardinal had been effusive in his answer. "A finer woman never walked the earth." And then he would tell about some of his life on the mountain, but only some. Apparently, he left the intimate details for his books, all but one of which Lou would have to wait until adulthood to read, her father had told her. Thus she was left with many unanswered questions.

  She reached in her suitcase and pulled out a small, wood-framed photograph. Her mother's smile was wide, and though the photograph was black and white, Lou knew the swell of her mother's amber eyes was near hypnotic. Lou had always loved that color, even sometimes hoping that the blue in hers would disappear one morning and be replaced with this collision of brown and gold. The photo had been taken on her mother's birthday. Toddler Lou was standing in front of Amanda, and mother had both arms around her child. In the photo their smiles were suspended together for all time. Lou often wished she could remember something of that day.

  Oz came into the room and Lou slipped the photograph back into her bag. As usual, her brother looked worried.

  "Can I stay in your room?" he asked.

  "What's wrong with yours?"

  "It's next to hers."

  "Who, Louisa?" Oz answered yes very solemnly, as though he was testifying in court. "Well, what's wrong with that?"

  "She scares me," he said. "She really does, Lou."

  "She let us come live with her."

  "And I'm right glad you did come."

  Louisa came forward from the doorway. "Sorry I was short with you. I was thinking 'bout your mother." She stared at Lou. "And her needs."

  "That's okay," Oz said, as he flitted next to his sister. "I think you spooked my sister a little, but she's all right now."

  Lou studied the woman's features, seeing if there was any of her father there. She concluded that there wasn't.

  "We didn't have anyone else," Lou said.

  "Y'all always have me," Louisa Mae answered back. She moved in closer, and Lou suddenly saw fragments of her father there. She also now understood why the woman's mouth drooped. There were only a few teeth there, all of them yellowed or darkened.

  "Sorry as I can be I ain't made the funeral. News comes slowly here when it bothers to come a'tall." She looked down for a moment, as though gripped by something Lou couldn't see. "You're Oz. And you're Lou." Louisa pointed to them as she said the names.

  Lou said, "The people who arranged our coming, I guess they told you."

  "I knew long afore that. Y'all call me Louisa. They's chores to be done each day. We make or grow 'bout all we need. Breakfast's at five. Supper when the sun falls."

  "Five o'clock in the morning!" exclaimed Oz.

  "What about school?" asked Lou.

  "Called Big Spruce. No more'n couple miles off. Eugene take you in the wagon first day, and then y'all walk after that. Or take the mare. Ain't spare the mules, for they do the pulling round here. But the nag will do."

/>   Oz paled. "We don't know how to ride a horse."

  "Y'all will. Horse and mule bestest way to get by up here, other than two good feet."

  "What about the car?" asked Lou.

  Louisa shook her head. "T'ain't practical. Take money we surely ain't got. Eugene know how it works and built a little lean-to for it. He start it up every now and agin, 'cause he say he have to so it run when we need it. Wouldn't have that durn thing, 'cept William and Jane Giles on down the road give it to us when they moved on. Can't drive it, no plans to ever learn."

  "Is Big Spruce the same school my dad went to?" asked Lou.

  "Yes, only the schoolhouse he went to ain't there no more. 'Bout as old as me, it fall down. But you got the same teacher. Change, like news, comes slowly here. You hungry?"

  "We ate on the train," said Lou, unable to draw her gaze from the woman's face.

  "Fine. Your momma settled in. Y'all g'on see her."

  Lou said, "I'd like to stay here and look around some."

  Louisa held the door open for them. Her voice was gentle but firm. "See your momma first."

  The room was comfortable—good light, window open. Homespun curtains, curled by the damp and bleached by the sun, were lightly flapping in the breeze. As Lou looked around, she knew it had probably taken some effort to make this into what amounted to a sickroom. Some of the furniture looked worked on, the floor freshly scrubbed, the smell of paint still lingering; a chipped rocking chair sat in one corner with a thick blanket across it.

  On the walls were ancient ferrotypes of men, women, and children, all dressed in what was probably their finest clothing: stiff white-collared shirts and bowler hats for the men; long skirts and bonnets for the women; lace frills for the young girls; and small suits and string ties for the boys. Lou studied them. Their expressions ran the gamut from dour to pleased, the children being the most animated, the grown women appearing the most suspicious, as though they believed their lives were to be taken, instead of simply their photographs.

  Amanda, in a bed of yellow poplar, was propped up on fat feather pillows, and her eyes were shut. The mattress was feather-filled too, lumpy but soft, housed in a striped ticking. A patchwork quilt covered her. A faded drugget lay next to the bed so bare feet wouldn't have to touch a cold wood floor first thing in the morning. Lou knew her mother would not be needing that. On the walls were pegs with items of clothing hung from them. An old dresser was in one corner, a painted china pitcher and bowl resting on it. Lou wandered around the room idly, looking and touching. She noted that the window frame was slightly crooked, the panes of glass filmy, as though a fog had infiltrated the material somehow.

  Oz sat next to his mother, leaned over, and kissed her.

  "Hi, Mom."

  "She can't hear you," Lou muttered to herself as she stopped her wandering and looked out the window, smelling air purer than any she had before; in the draft were a medley of trees and flowers, wood smoke, long bluegrass, and animals large and small.

  "It sure is pretty here in..." Oz looked at Lou.

  "Virginia," Lou answered, without turning around.

  "Virginia," Oz repeated. Then he took out the necklace.

  From the doorway, Louisa watched this exchange.

  Lou turned and saw what he was doing. "Oz, that stupid necklace doesn't work."

  "So why'd you get it back for me then?" he said sharply.

  This stopped Lou dead, for she had no ready answer. Oz turned back and began his ritual over Amanda. But with each swing of the quartz crystal, with each softly spoken utterance by Oz, Lou just knew he was trying to melt an iceberg with a single match; and she wanted no part of it. She raced past her great-grandmother and down the hall.

  Louisa stepped into the room and sat down next to Oz. "What's that for, Oz?" she asked, pointing to the jewelry.

  Oz cupped the necklace in his hand, eyed it closely, like it was a timepiece and he was checking what o'clock it was. "Friend told me about it. Supposed to help Mom. Lou doesn't believe it will." He paused. "Don't know if I do either."

  Louisa ran a hand through his hair. "Some say believing a person get better is half the battle. I'm one who subscribes to that notion."

  Fortunately, with Oz, a few seconds of despair were usually followed by replenished hope. He took the necklace and slid it under his mother's mattress. "Maybe it'll keep oozing its power this way. She'll get well, won't she?"

  Louisa stared at the little boy, and then at his mother lying so still there. She touched Oz's cheek with her hand—very old against very new skin, and its mix seemed pleasing to both. "You keep right on believing, Oz. Don't you never stop believing."

  * * *

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE KITCHEN SHELVES WERE WORN, KNOTHOLED PINE, floors the same. The floorboards creaked slightly as Oz swept with a short-handled broom, while Lou loaded lengths of cut wood into the iron belly of the Sears catalogue cookstove that took up one wall of the small room. Fading sunlight came through the window and also peered through each wall crevice, and there were many. An old coal-oil lamp hung from a peg. Fat black iron kettles hung from the wall. In another corner was a food safe with hammered metal doors; a string of dried onions lay atop it and a glass jug of kerosene next to that. As Lou examined each piece of hickory or oak, it was as though she was revisiting each facet of her prior life, before throwing it in the fire, saying good-bye as the flames ate it away. The room was dark and the smells of damp and burnt wood equally pungent. Lou stared over at the fireplace. The opening was large, and she guessed that the cooking had been done there before the Sears cookstove had come. The brick ran to the ceiling, and iron nails were driven through the mortar all over; tools and kettles, and odd pieces of other things Lou couldn't identify but that looked well-used, hung from them. In the center of the brick wall was a long rifle resting on twin braces angled into the mortar.

  The knock on the door startled them both. Who would expect visitors so far above sea level? Lou opened the door and Diamond Skinner stared back at her with a vast smile. He held up a mess of smallmouth bass, as though he was offering her the crowns of dead kings. Loyal Jeb was beside him, his snout wrinkling as he drew in the fine fishy aroma.

  Louisa came striding in from outside, her brow glistening with sweat, her gloved hands coated with rich dirt, as were her brogans. She slipped off her gloves and dabbed at her face with a sweat rag pulled from her pocket. Her long hair was pulled up under a cloth scarf, wisps of silver peeking out in spots.

  "Well, Diamond, I believe that's the nicest mess of smallmouth I ever seen, son." She gave Jeb a pat. "How you doing, Mr. Jeb? You help Diamond catch all them fish?"

  Diamond's grin was so wide Lou could almost count all his teeth. "Yes'm. Did Hell No—"

  Louisa held up a finger and politely but firmly corrected, "Eugene."

  Diamond looked down, collecting himself after this blunder. "Yes'm, sorry. Did Eugene tell you—"

  "That you'd be bringing supper? Yes. And you'll be staying for it seeing you caught it. And get to know Lou and Oz here. Sure y'all be good friends."

  "We've already met," Lou said stiffly.

  Louisa looked between her and Diamond. "Well, that's right good. Diamond and you close in years. And be good for Oz to have another boy round."

  "He's got me," Lou said bluntly.

  "Yes, he does," Louisa agreed. "Well, Diamond, you gonna stay for the meal?"

  He considered the matter. "I ain't got me no more 'point-ments today, so yep, I set myself down." Diamond glanced at Lou, and then he wiped at his dirty face and attempted to tug down one of a dozen cowlicks. Lou had turned away, however, completely unaware of his effort.

  The table was set with Depression glass plates and cups, collected over the years by Louisa, she told them, from Crystal Winter oatmeal boxes. The dishes were green, pink, blue, amber, and rose. However pretty they might be, no one was really focusing on the dishes. Instead, tin fork and knife clashed as they all dug into the meal. When Louisa had said
the meal prayer, Lou and Oz crossed themselves, while Diamond and Eugene looked on curiously but said nothing. Jeb lay in the corner, surprisingly patient with his portion. Eugene sat at one end of the table, methodically chewing his food. Oz absorbed his entire meal so fast Lou seriously considered checking to make sure his fork had not disappeared down his throat. Louisa dished Oz the last piece of lard-fried fish, the rest of the cooked vegetables, and another piece of cooked-in-grease corn-bread, which, to Lou, tasted better than ice cream.

  Louisa had not filled her plate.

  "You didn't have any fish, Louisa," Oz said, as he stared guiltily at his second helping. "Aren't you hungry?"

  "Meal by itself seeing a boy eating his way up to a growed man. Et while I cooked, honey. Always do."

  Eugene glanced questioningly at Louisa when she said this and then went back to his meal.

  Diamond's gaze kept sliding between Lou and Oz. He seemed eager