Read Online A Parchment of Leaves by Silas House - Free Book Online Page B

the harsh pulsing in her joints.
    There was no solace in Serena, either. When Serena finally started to show that she was carrying, she really showed. She was big as a cow by January but still kept right on going out to catch babies, making her way over the slick rocks. I thought she was carrying twins, her belly was so huge, but she always just shook her head and said that it was nothing more than a big old boy.
    So Aaron kept me company. I was desperate for conversation, and he always gave me that much, at least. He come up to the house every day, after he had done everything that Esme had asked him to. He didn’t have a job, even though he was plenty old enough for one. Somebody had to take care of his mother, he said. And he did—I’ll have to say that much for him. Every day he chopped the wood, shoveled coal for the stove, fed the goats, tended to the cows and chickens. He helped her stitch her quilts, since her eyesight had started to suffer. Then he’d come and talk to me while I swept the house or churned the butter or hung clothes to dry over the fireplace. He helped me stack our wood, clean the lamp chimneys, trim the wicks, shovel out the fireplace. Sometimes he even helped me cook, which was something I had never seen a man do in my life. My mama still had to pack meals to my bachelor uncle over on Redbud, as he would have died and split hell wide open before putting a skillet on the stove.
    And all the while, he talked. Most times I didn’t even acknowledge what he was saying. I’d just go about my work, nodding every once in a while. Sometimes I’d stop him to comment, but mostly I just listened.When I did say something, I don’t think he paid a bit of attention to it, as he was concerned only with his own dreams.
    â€œThey’re building a new railroad up in West Virginia. Cutting tunnels out through them big mountains. The mountains is bigger up there than they are here—can you picture that?” he’d say. “I’d like to go up there, just to watch them do that. Or I could be a photographer. I could go up there and take pictures of them building the new railroad.”
    One thing always led into another, although most everything had to do with getting out of Crow County. I never could understand why he wanted to leave, since he had it made right there. Esme watched over him like he was a little child. In many ways he was like a child: dreaming of big things, his mind never focused on nothing but having a big time. And I suppose I was a little bit of a child, too. I was young, after all, and I was still adjusting to married life and the fact that I had to act like a grown woman. I had been raised up quick, my parents never giving much time for the foolishness of childhood, but I was a young person. I dreamed, too.
    Aaron got to where he would play his banjo for me right often, but only after I had set down and stopped doing the chores. He couldn’t stand to play the banjo unless he had my full attention, so I couldn’t even wash dishes or work on a quilt while he played. He knowed all of my favorites and always played the one I loved best, “Little Sunshine.” Aaron could play the banjo better than anybody I had ever heard before, and I wasn’t the only one to say that. His fingers picked in a blur, moving so quick and light that they seemed not even to touch the strings. The music he made on that banjo was like hearing magic. It was like Aaron held God’s rhythm right in his fingertips.
    Ever once in a while I could talk him into singing a little bit, too. Mostly he just liked to play. I liked the way he sung “Charlie’s Neat.” He hunched over the banjo and looked me right in the eye as he sung, making crazy old faces at the end of each verse.
    Charlie’s a good one,
    Charlie’s a neat one,
    Charlie he’s a dandy.
    Charlie he’s a magic man,
    He feeds the girls rock candy.
    And then it was like he lit in