The Bean Trees

“You put us up just fine. You know her, it wouldn’t make no difference if it was the Queen a Sheba a-putting us up, she’d be crosspatch. She just don’t sleep good out of her own bed.” Ivy untied the borrowed apron and smoothed down the front of her navy-blue dress. Lou A

“Mama,” she said, and then started over because her voice was too low to hear. “Mama, when Daddy was alive…” She was not sure what she meant to ask. Did you talk to each other? Was he the person you saved things up to say to, or was it like now? A houseful of women for everything, for company. Ivy was not looking at her daughter but her hands were still, for once. “Did Gra

Ivy peered into the brown bag and then rolled the top down tightly. “Not her with us. We lived with her.”

“Is that how you wanted it?” Lou A

“I guess I always thought it would have been something to go off on our own, like you done. But there was so much work in them days, no time for fun, and besides I’d of been scared to death out someplace all by myself.”

“It wouldn’t be all by yourself. You would have been with Daddy.”

“I s’pose,” Ivy said. “But we didn’t think about it that way.” She turned back to the sink to wash her hands, then pulled the dish towel down from the wooden ring over the sink, refolded it, and hung it back up. “I want you to run on in there now and tell Mother Logan we’ve got to get ready to go.”

Ivy and her mother-in-law were not speaking, on account of one thing or another. Lou A

“Gra

“It was just my eyes, needed a rest. I weren’t sleeping.” She held tightly to the arms of the chair until she knew where she was. “I told you, the heat’s done put that baby into a colic. He needs a mustard plaster to draw out the heat.”

“Mama says tell you it’s time to get your grip packed. She says you all are fixing to leave tonight.”

“My grip’s done packed.”

“All right then. You want a bite of supper before you go?”

“Why don’t you come on home with us, honey? You and the baby.”

“Me and Angel and the baby, Gra

“Angel’s got good work at the bottling plant,” she told Gra

“I don’t see how a body could like no place where it don’t rain. Law, I’m parched. Get me a glass of water.”

“I’ll get it for you in a minute,” she said, switching the baby to her other hip, knowing that in a minute Gra

Lou A

“I don’t see how a body can grow no tobaccy if it don’t rain,” Gra

“They don’t grow tobacco here. No crops hardly at all, just factories and stuff, and tourists that come down here for the winter. It’s real pretty out in the mountains. We could have showed you, if you hadn’t had to go back so soon.” The baby coughed again and she jiggled him up and down. “And it’s not usually this hot in January, either. You heard it yourself, Gra

“You talk different. I knowed you was going to put on airs.”

“Gra

“Don’t talk back to me, child, you do. I can hear it. I expect you’ll be persuadin’ the baby that his people’s just ignorant hill folks.”

Ivy brought in the bags of food and her suitcase, which was held together with a leather belt. Lou A

“Honey,” Ivy said, “tell Mother Logan not to start in on you again. We’ve got to git.”

“Tell Ivy to mind her business and I’ll mind mine. Here, I brung you something for the baby.” Gra

After a minute the old woman produced a Coke bottle filled with cloudy water. The bent metal cap had been pushed back on and covered with cellophane, tied around and around with string.

Lou A

“That’s Tug Fork water. For baptizing the baby.”

The water inside the bottle looked milky and cool. A fine brown sediment stuck to the glass bottom when she tipped it sideways.

“I remember when you was baptized in Tug Fork, you was just a little old bit of a thing. And scared to death. When the reverend went to dunk you over, you hollered right out. Law, I remember that so good.”

“That’s good, Gra

“Doll baby, I reckon we’re all set,” Ivy said. “Oh, I hate to go. Let me hold my grandbaby again. You see he gets enough to eat now, Lou A

“I’m as fat as a hog since I had him, Mama, and you know it.”

“Remember you have to use both sides. If you just nurse him on one side you’ll go dry.”

“Don’t expect I’ll see him again a-tall,” Gra

“Mama, I wish you’d wait till Angel gets home and we could drive you down to the station. You’re going to get all confused if you try to take the bus. You’ve got to change downtown.” The way they had both managed to avoid Angel he might as well not have moved back in.