Мэри Элис Монро – Sweetgrass (страница 16)

“Elmore and I, we were sorry to hear Mr. Preston took sick and wanted to bring something. From our house to yours.”

Mama June was more touched by the sentiment than she could express. She took hold of the intricately sewn bread basket made of coiled sweetgrass, rush and pine needles with the same reverence she would an olive branch. Inside the basket, tucked neatly in a blue-checked napkin, were Nona’s homemade buttermilk biscuits.

She felt her heart shift and pump with age-old affection. “Nona, this is so kind of you. It’s been a long time since I’ve tasted one of your biscuits. Morgan was saying how he longed for them. Please, won’t you come in? We just had dinner, but I have pecan pie. And coffee.” She grinned wide. Nona’s love for coffee was well known.

“Maybe just for a coffee. It’ll give me a chance to catch up with that wild boy of yours.”

Later, after coffee and pie were finished and Morgan had gone off to tend to Blackjack, Mama June spoke in confidential tones to Nona about what had transpired that afternoon.

“Good riddance,” Nona said, her lip curled in disgust. “That woman is a real pain in the you-know-where. Always has been.”

“What have I done?” Mama June asked, staring out with dismay.

“You showed some backbone, that’s what you’ve done. Praise Lord!”

Mary June placed her fingers to her brow. “A lot of good it did me. I’ve alienated my family. Now I’m alone.”

Nona pursed her lips, then said, “No, you’re not. You have me.”

Mama June dropped her hand. “But…”

“I realized I was no kind of friend to let you go through this alone. Not after all we’ve been through together. Now, I can’t do all I used to—and neither can you. But together we’ll manage. I’ll come by to make sure the house is running smoothly and make certain you’re not starving while you tend to your husband. And I’ll lend an ear when you need it. It’s the least any friend could do.”

Mama June’s hands squeezed around Nona’s. “I can’t thank you enough. Just knowing you’re here…”

“Let’s not get all weepy. Lord knows, we’ve got our work cut out for us!”

6

Skill, craftsmanship and long hours of work are involved in making sweetgrass baskets. A simple design can take as long as twelve hours. A larger, more complex design can take as long as two to three months.

NONA SIGHED HEAVILY as she brought her van to a stop at Sweetgrass. She looked through the shaded windshield at the handsome white house. It sure was a picture, she thought, cloaked as it was in the pink light of early morning. She’d spent the better part of her life working in this old house and a part of her was happy to come back to it. Maize couldn’t understand such feelings—and that was okay. Nona prided herself on the choices she’d made in her own life and didn’t care to change her ways now. The wind did blow when Maize heard she’d decided to come back to work at Sweetgrass, but it was up to Maize to accept what was.

Nona pulled herself out from the shiny white van, stretching a bit after landing in the soft gravel. She’d bought the car after years of saving her basket money, and every time she looked at it, a ripple of pride coursed through her. Usually it was stuffed to the brim with her baskets, but she’d removed the treasures to store safely in her house until things were settled here at Sweetgrass. She pulled from the van a large canvas bag filled with grass, palmetto fronds and her tools. Every spare minute, her fingers sewed the baskets.

Blackjack greeted her in his usual manner, a grayed muzzle at her thigh and his tail waving behind like a tom-tom drum.

“Hello, you ol’ hound dog,” she exclaimed with affection, bending to pat the fur.

Morgan’s voice caught her by surprise. “’Morning, Nona! You’re here early. What? You can’t stay away?”

His tall, lanky form came from around the side of the house. He was dressed in a faded old T-shirt that was torn at the neck, paint-splattered jeans and worn hiking boots caked with mud. His face was as yet unshaven, and his thick brown curls tumbled askew on his head. He looked like the eight-year-old boy she remembered running in from the field, blue eyes twinkling, to show her a robin’s egg or a snake skin or some other treasure he’d unearthed.

Nona clucked her tongue. “What you got in your hands there?” she asked, indicating the towel he was carrying. “A frog?”

He lifted a paintbrush from the towel. “I’m fixing up the kitchen house. Mama June wants the new aide to stay there. I’ve patched up a few leaks in the roof, put in a window air conditioner in the bedroom, new screens on the windows and now I’m finishing up a fresh coat of paint. You know,” he said, scratching his jaw, “it’s looking pretty good. I’m thinking maybe I should move in, instead.”

“Oh, no you don’t. That girl’s going to want her own space. So’s your mama. You just be a good boy and finish fixing that place up for Miss…what’s her name?”

“Kristina Hays.”

She acknowledged this with a nod. “Well, I’ve got things to get done before Miss Hays arrives, too.”

“I hope she works out.”

“You and me both.” She looked over to the house. “Seems quiet in there.”

“Mama’s sleeping now, or was last time I checked.”

Her brows rose. “Your mama’s still asleep?” She glanced quickly at her wristwatch. “She always rises with the sun. She’s not sick, is she?”

He shook his head. “Just exhausted. I didn’t bother her, and frankly, I’m glad she’s catching up. She’s been going non-stop.”

“That’s just her way. When she’s got herself a project, she gives one hundred percent. And given that this project is your daddy, she’s straining all her gears.”

“Yeah, but she’s sixty-six years old.”

“I’m sixty-eight! What’s your point?”

Morgan laughed. Nona was one of those people who was ageless. She seemed to him today to be the same woman she was when he was a boy. She still stood straight-backed and full-breasted, like some Wagnerian princess. Her hair still gleamed, too, though more like the black-and-white osprey’s wing than a raven’s. She wore it in much the same, short-curled style. Most of all, her spirit had not aged one whit.

One of his first memories of Nona was when he was three or four. Her finger was wagging and her eyes were flames as she scolded his older brother, Hamlin, within an inch of his life. Ham was much older, around thirteen. Yet there he was with his head bowed, filled with remorse. Up till that time, his big brother had seemed to him like a prince among men, a hero beyond reproach. Certainly his parents had never laid down the law like that. Morgan never figured out exactly what it was that Hamlin had done to rile Nona so, though he knew it had something to do with Hamlin taking Morgan out on the boat. Ham had taken him out lots of times without permission, but Morgan was too young to understand why Nona would be so upset about that. Only in retrospect did he see that it was an omen. Nonetheless, his earth had shifted that day as he witnessed her power over his brother.

Morgan put his hands up in mock surrender. “No point made.”

Her dark eyes gleamed in amused triumph. “She’ll get herself up before too long. You eat yet?” she asked him.

“Grabbed some orange juice and a Pop-Tart.”

Nona wrinkled her nose in disgust. “It’s no wonder you’re looking like a scarecrow. I’m amazed you managed to live so long all alone.”

“Who said I was alone?”

That caught her off guard and her face showed it. She quickly recouped, delivering a no-nonsense glare at his smirk. “Don’t you just wish. What woman is gonna hitch her star to someone as dog-ugly as you? Come back inside in about half an hour. I’m fixing to roll out some biscuits and fry up some bacon. And coffee,” she added, her body yearning for her beloved brew.

Morgan smiled as he watched Nona climb the stairs to the house. It wasn’t often he could render Nona speechless.

Hours later, Morgan was applying the last coat of Charleston Green paint to the kitchen house front door when he heard a car pulling up to the house followed by Blackjack’s gruff bark of alarm. The dog’s arthritic legs strained under the effort of rising. Feeling like an old dog himself after a long morning of painting, he slowly straightened with one hand anchoring the small of his back. His gaze followed Blackjack’s rush toward the sound of crunching gravel.

From around the house, a tall, lean woman dressed in bleached jean lowriders and a cuffed white shirt walked toward him with a straight-backed, confident, hip-swaying gait. Her oversize, scuffed brown leather purse banged against her slender hip in steady, seductive rhythm. Morgan watched her, squinting in the noonday sun. Against the glare, her long, wildly curly hair seemed an aura around her head that captured and held the golden light.

“Hi there,” she called out as she approached. Her voice lilted at the end, like a song.

“Hello,” he responded with more reserve as she breezily sauntered near. “Can I help you?”

Up close, the force of her personality dominated his first impression. The young woman vibrated with life. It sparked out from her bright blue eyes and shone from her very white, no-holds-barred smile.