Excerpt
Wait for me, Donne, Link shouted into the fog. Im coming to find you! Her laughter persisted even when he pressed his hands over his ears; because her voice came from the world inside his mind.
The fog hunkered down in the trees at the top of the logging road. He scrambled past the spring and stumbled across the pasture. Wait for me! he shouted. Im coming to find you, Donne! The outhouse door bumped shut with a dull thud. Footsteps that could only belong to Mabel Jean scurried towards the porch. Link waited until she was on the porch and whistled.
Is that you, Link? she called. The fogs so thick I cant see.
Its me all right, he answered.
Who are you shouting at? she asked.
Im not shouting, he defended. Nobody could know he talked to Donne. The inner half of his fractured mind belonged only to them.
Thank the Lord, its you, Mabel Jean said as he stepped in from the mist. Mama sent me for the shovel. But I cant find it.
Youre having a nightmare. Go back to bed before you catch your death, Mabel Jean. Mama wouldnt want a shovel at this hour. Nobody digs in the dark.
She does too, Mabel Jean said. She watched Link scrape the mud off his boots. He looked up to see Amelias shadow spread over the kitchen table. She had pulled a sweater over her nightgown, as she did when she went to the outhouse. Her bedroom lamp sat on the table. Her skinny arms held out the small bundle wrapped in its brown plaid quilt.
I sent for the shovel all right, she whispered. Rose is gone, God rest her soul. Reed ran inside and eased his Mama into the chair nearest to the stove.
Make her some coffee, Mabel Jean, he said. Ill find the shovel.
Hurry, Amelia said. Its better if shes already in the ground when Pap wakes up. Seeing us digging will just start him ranting about Donne. She stopped talking long enough to draw a few raspy breaths. She choked as the air wheezed its way in. Im not strong enough to dig a hole this morning, son. We need to put her down deep so some animal wont dig her up.
Yes Mama. Link hung his head so as not to look at the bundle in the plaid quilt.
Its a hard thing to do, she said. Id do it myself, if I could.
I can do it, Mama.
The rasp of that spade pushing through stony ground haunted Link Parker all of his life. When he shoveled coal into the steam engines that ran through the mining towns of Western Pennsylvania, when he cleared overburden in the Nelly Coal Mine and when he snipped barber scissors and shot pool balls across Railroad Street from Rosewood Station, he heard the rasp of that shovel. Twenty years after that ghastly burial, when he ran the milkshake maker in the canteen of the state mental hospital, the grating of that shovel came back to him just as clear if it had been yesterday.
|