Deep in the Heart of Me (8 page)

"I think it's broken," I say tenderly touching my nose.

"Did it knock some sense then?" Dad says at a glance. We have just dumped Tillo and Utz at the school so they can begin the long task of cleaning.

"What if they don't do it?" Joseph asks.

"They are out," Dad says backing up the truck. "As it should be."

My dad is a hard-driving man. He must be, I know this. The family depends on it, and there is nothing more important than the family. Maman says this, too. But for Dad, it's the land. So they check each other, they pull at each other the way the river pulls at the black bottom soil. Some years the land wins and we can farm those rich sections. Other years the river won't budge, and we give up hope of planting a crop. But it's close like that. It's life.

"Did Shaun come on time?" I ask. We milk at four on the dot. Morning and evening. If milking time is missed production changes, and not for the good. With school starting Dad has to hire more help. Hence Shaun, the young married man that lives on the edge of our property. Shaun lost his wife last spring. Her and the baby. She was nice. I don't want to think about it, but maybe I think about it too much.

We should have been home on time. Ebbie would have been there to bring in the cows, but milking forty head takes young and strong shoulders. And young and strong knees.

Dad leans forward and looks past me at Joseph.

"Had a day boyo."

"Yes, Sir," Joseph says, then he looks at me with sympathy. To be the oldest son means to take the brunt. The others learn from it.

"I've no time for this," Dad says next, shifting the truck. "I told you both you're better off in the fields. Boy gets old enough he's too grown to sit in a desk all day when he should be working. Everything you need to know is on the farm. Did I not say that?" he repeats like he's speaking to an argument in his head, one that was waged by Mom wanting her boys to have more school.

"Yes, Sir," I say.

"Yes, Sir," Joseph says.

"I have to leave Tibby in harness…."

It is my job to tear up the front field, not Dad's. I am failing him.

"Well?" Dad says looking quickly at me. Oh, so now I can talk I guess.

I'm not sorry, that's the thing. Maybe he should apologize first…for what he did to Mom.

"I'm sorry Dad," I say. We don't have to ask Dad forgiveness. We just do that around Mom.

"Sorry, Dad," Joseph echoes.

"Well, we're all a sorry bunch here. A sorry bunch." He straightens up and shifts again.

"Well…I fought two," I say.

He looks at me. "Should I give you a medal then?"

I refuse to deflate. "I don't want a medal," I say.

"He did Dad. He fought hard, and he had those two," Joseph says, and it's a bold thing.

Dad looks at the road. "Two on one?"

"Yes, Sir," I say, hopeful even though I don't want to be. I'm mad at him. Very angry.

Dad sniffs. "Tell me."

We tell him then, every scrap as we remember. Joseph knows more than me. He's uncanny that way, for details. I think it's one of the ways he's learned to best me, but if he were oldest, he'd understand I have to look at everything very quickly for the good of us all.

"Well, I'll be damned," Dad says when we're done. I can't help grinning at Joseph even though it hurts my lips and starts fresh blood.

Then he spoils it like always. "Imagine what we could get done on the place if you put that strength to good use."

I do deflate a little. Maybe I'm tired in spite of my nap in the gaol. I work hard on the farm. I always have. Since three years old when they started me pulling weeds in the garden.

But nothing is ever enough for him.

"Did you break your right hand?" he asks.

It is rather large. I make a fist.

"It'll be all right," he says.

"We're sorry about the trouble Dad," Joseph says again.

"Sorry is as sorry does. You'll work in the dark tonight boyo."

"Yes, Sir," Joseph says, and he deflates too. I don't know why. We work in the dark morning and night.

"One more mess and you're both out of school. Way I see it that shouldn't be hard for two knuckleheads like youse."

I sneak a look at Joseph. He's as befuddled as me.

We ride a little bit, but we've already reached our lane. The milk sits in the cans waiting for the truck to pick it up.

"Dad, are you saying…," I try.

"I'm not saying anything but this. I went to the sixth grade. You've both gone past. I sit on that board because…your mother. But they kick you out your mother can't argue with that. One more mess they said. Well, show them you've outgrown school, my boys. We've work to be done for the family."

I look at Joseph again. There's nothing in his face but hope. He doesn't like school at all, and you think he would, but now that we're separated it seems worse than before. If I do this, he would be happy. He'd have the farm and his books and me in his sites. It's all he wants.

But is it all I want?

That Sobe Bell. She makes me want more. She makes me want…her.

"Antonio, Antonio." She holds my chin by the tips of her fingers. My plate of supper is on the table. I have worked through time to eat. Normally missing supper is only allowed for planting or harvest, but tonight is an exception. I am anxious to see how straight I've cultivated that field comes morning.

She should be in bed, my Maman. But she has waited up for me. Her hair is gathered in a bun but the rest poofs around her face like a greater bun, a pin-cushion of hair, thick and to her waist when she lets it down, and the girls fight to brush it.

My Maman is beautiful, but she looks worn out as she peers in my face and says my name.

Sobe also calls me Antonio sometimes. I don't think Mom will like it. But I won't tell her.

The skillet is on the stove, and she has a rice bag heating. I remove my shirt and my undershirt and my secret flutters to the ground, and it takes me aback because I'd forgotten it was there, but just seeing it I remember.

Maman looks at it with me.

I bend slowly and clumsily snatch it up.

"It's…."

"You put this in your shirt my son? So special?"

"I…have to return it. It belongs to…."

"It's hers. The pretty Sobe. She is all I hear about—Sobe this and that…my son is…?"

"You were thirteen when you met Dad."

"It was different."

"How? I just like her."

"But…you are too young to court."

"I don't…."

"Is she Catholic? I hope not."

"No…I…don't know," I say.

"She will want things."

"Want…what things?"

"A girl like her…does she know farming?"

"I like Sobe."

"Give it to me. It will have to soak. You can't return it like that."

I put Sobe's hankie in my pocket. I look at Mom, then I sit on the chair like an old man. Like my old man who is snoring beyond the door to their room.

"So it's that way, eh?" she says.

I act like I don't hear.

My arms are so tired from fighting and plowing I let them hang at my sides. I'd like to put my hands in my lap, but I don't think I can. Not this minute anyway.

She has given me aspirin and looked me over from the waist up. I have hurt my knee, but it will be mine to fix for I am too old to be dropping my pants in front of her like I'm Pee-Wee. She is upset over my clothes, their state, but I am her bigger concern. A hot wet rag for my face. I am happy to let her boss me. I tip back my head and let the heat seep into my brain.

She pulls a chair close either side of me and two bowls of hot water with dissolved aspirin, and she takes my hands, one then the other and places them in the bowls and I hiss it feels so right.

I fall asleep. I realize this when she pokes me, and I catch myself before falling off of the chair. I pull my hands from the water and rip the rag from my face. "Maman," I say. I thought I was suffocating.

It worries her. It worries me. I've had a bad dream before, but this was quick and frightening as if the dark feel of it has followed me into our kitchen.

"Tonio?" she says. "When did you eat last?"

"Breakfast," I say. I'd missed lunch for obvious reasons, and I'd been in the field during supper.

She pushes the plate to me. "Eat. Your body plays tricks when you're hungry."

I lift the fork and the pain is dulled, but not the effort to move my arm. My shoulders feel the horse. Many a day I spend in the field. We put up hay all summer long, by Sunday church my arms are sore, and all I can do is thank God there is no work but the milking, and feeding. It is a rest for Monday when it all starts over even though it never stopped.

So I know what it is to be too tired to bring my fork to my mouth. But tonight, when I do, my mouth is another problem with a cut on my lip and open sores inside my jaw from Tillo's fist.

She watches me eat. "You're almost a man," she says.

I am a man. She needs to catch up.

"
Ragazzino
," she says.

"No," I say, shake of the head as I finish my gravy.

"Always," she says, but it isn't true. I am grown, and she has a passel of others.

"I am staying home the rest of the week to help Dad. I went back too soon," I say.

Her fingertips on my sore chin again.

"It looks worse than it is," I say bravely, but in truth it can't look as bad as it feels, or she'd be screaming.

"You'll go back on Monday?"

"Saturday. I have to paint," I say.

I have to get word to Sobe. I'll be at the school house for many long hours. The work will go better if she is there. That's what I might say.

"You have secrets my son," Mom says.

I look at her as well as I can with one tired watery eye. It's been a long time since I told her everything.

I have sent a note by Ebbie's hand. I know he keeps nothing from his twin without great effort, but I have warned him in this case it is to go to Miss Sobe and no one else first for a reading.

I had labored over the simple message, ruining the paper Mom gave me and having to get more. So finally it was ready, Dear Sobe, it read, then Dearest Sobe, then Sobe, then Sobe Bell. Then, To Sobe Bell.

I wrote: I have ruined your handkerchief, but if you can meet me at the schoolhouse Saturday where I will be painting all day, I will pay you what you think it is worth so you can buy another.

Then, Sincerely yours, Tonio Clannan, then Your Friend Tonio, then Yours Truly, T. Clannan, then Tonio.

By Saturday, I am painting and watching. For Sobe. I have thought the note was stupid, not the sending it, but the wording.

She knows I will see her on Monday at school. But maybe she doesn't know that. Not unless Elsie told her. And they are becoming fast friends, those two, and what Sobe Bell has heard by now is anyone's guess.

So here I am painting. Utz has shown, and Tillo is late. Utz hitched a ride on the milk truck like Joseph. When Tillo comes, he'll hear my mind on it. It was my punishment first, but his second, added by the school board.

Dad needs us in the field, and here we are Joseph and me, but Tillo is not carrying weight. I have assigned each of us a side. I told Dad my plan. The paint was dropped off the night before but I rode Tibby so I could milk and clean pails as Shaun must have tied one on he was that late.

And Dad said my plan was right, and Tillo's side is sitting naked as Adam before sin.

So I'm painting away already, and it's not bad work but my shoulders are sore, and I'm working quietly on a wooden ladder which is squeaking against the siding.

Joseph comes around the corner, paint splattered on his bibs. "Tillo is here."

"He get started?" I say.

"I showed him."

I just keep going, no wish to waste this trip up the ladder. Joseph disappears. I am setting an example, a relentless pace. We get this done today because tomorrow is Lord's Day and Monday I plan to be back in school.

They have given Mr. Halloran an absence. An old teacher was brought in but come Monday there is a new one coming from Springfield. It doesn't matter to me. Halloran was drunk like Sobe implied with the smell of wine. Maman says we must have compassion, he had a loss or something.

So I am painting and wondering again if Sobe will come. In truth, the hankie is stained with my blood still, and I've made no attempt to wash it. But I want to keep it. That's all. And I will buy her another. I hope to.

If she ignores my note, well I'll never mention it or bother her again. Come Monday I already know I'll show not one care. I won't make a fool of myself more than I already have.

I am thinking like this as I jump the last few rungs from the ladder, holding my smaller pail that is empty of paint.

And there she is, just like that. She scares me actually, but I don't jump. I just stare.

She is dressed in britches. Her legs are…there. She is cute and beautiful. Her hair is braided, and she wears a jacket, old and threadbare like one of the migrant's. It is so large, sleeves rolled up, it must be her father's.

She is holding a brush. She lifts this and waves it at me. "Good morning Tonio.

"Tonio?" she says because I lose words I'm that surprised.

"I'm going to paint," she says.

"I ah…I didn't mean…."

"I didn't bring a pail."

"I have another," I say, not meaning I want her to do this. But I do.

We go to the big bucket, and I get the pail meant for Tillo, but since he never came around and asked for it, it's Sobe's now, though I doubt she can paint as much as he might if he puts himself into it.

I carefully pour paint from the big bucket into the smaller one. I don't give her too much, and she says, "More than that." So I increase it, but still not as much as I'd give myself or the others.

"You'll get paint in your hair," I say. I go to the rail where I've laid my jacket and get my hat out of my pocket. I don't want paint on this hat, but it's old, and the knights in the stories laid their cloaks in mud. So I bring her my hat, but I sniff it along the way because I've never thought about it smelling or something. But it is fine.

"Here," I say.

She takes the hat and grins at me and puts it on her head. It's only a little big, well it goes over the tops of her ears, and it only makes her more…whatever she is, which is…appealing.

"Thank you Tonio," she says.

Well, we're not getting anything done this way. So I carry her pail near where I work. "You can do low, and I'll do high," I say.

She laughs a little. I want to ask what's so funny, but I ignore it and just wonder. Is she laughing at me? I don't know.