Sweet Hush Read online

  “I said ‘Stay home and work.’ I mean it.”

  “I’m just a hired hand to you, right?” His voice rose. “That’s the only reason you let me lay a hand on you. To get more apples picked.”

  “If you’d picked more apples and kept your hands off me, we wouldn’t have a baby coming that we can’t afford. Having a baby before we’re even eighteen years old and able to make ends meet.”

  His blue eyes went to ice. “I’ve been making ends meet since the day my old man died and my bitch of a mother left me and Smooch to fend for ourselves. You had it a lot better than me, so don’t complain. And you let me put my hands on you. I didn’t make you. Just say so: I’m not smart enough or fancy enough to be the daddy of Hush McGillen’s baby. Go ahead and say it. You don’t love me and you wish you’d had an abortion. Say so.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do. Get out of this house. I’m through talking to you. I intend to educate myself and think fine thoughts and learn about the world—even if I never get to live anywhere but this wild old ghost-dappled Hollow. And I intend to have money in the bank and nice things around me and the respect of this whole county—no, the whole state—for me and every McGillen who’s too poor to piss right now. Just like the old days. And I’ll do it with or without your help—and even with my brother Logan to raise and my own squalling baby dragging me down.”

  “See there, goddammit? You don’t care about my kid any more than my goddamned mama cared about me and Smooch.”

  “Don’t you talk to me like a redneck. I’m a McGillen, not a truck stop whore. I’m having this baby, aren’t I? I could’ve gotten rid of it, but I didn’t.” I gestured fiercely at myself. “I do the right thing! I have honor!”

  “Bullshit! Only because you’re too scared of what people might think.”

  “What people think is more important than the truth! I’m a McGillen! I have a reputation to hold up!”

  “What? God didn’t create McGillens second to Adam himself, no matter what the hell you say! You’re poorer than any Thackery and swollen up like a cow. You’ve got a loan to pay off and we haven’t even started building the apple shop or whatever-the-hell-you-call-it – and who’s gonna supervise that, while you’re laid up with our baby? Me. I’m the one who’ll take care of you now and always.” He thumped his chest. “Me. Euell Davis Thackery. And I expect some respect!”

  “You’ll take care of me? No, you’ll take care of your six-pack and your bong pipe and your cars. And your girlfriends. I’ll take care of myself.” I turned and began to walk away. We were in the farmhouse’s ramshackle kitchen at the time, a room not even an old stone fireplace could keep warm. I reached the door to the drafty back hall when Davy yelled, “At least I can scare the shit out of you,” then grabbed a pair of cheap gas station glasses off the dish rack, and threw one right after the other. The first glass cracked on the fireplace rocks and sprayed me with sharp chunks. I screamed and threw up both hands. The second glass shattered on the door’s hard oak frame, and a sliver of glass caught me just below the right eye.

  It was as if he’d cut me with a razor. I pressed a hand to my face. Blood streamed down my cheek. I turned toward him—pregnant, bloody, trembling.

  “Oh, God,” Davy said, and bounded toward me. “Hush, Hon, oh, God, I didn’t mean to—”

  “Get out of my house. Get out. And don’t call on God. He doesn’t listen.”

  “You’re hurt. Let me—”

  “Get out or I swear I’ll kill you with my bare hands. Nobody treats me this way. Nobody—not you or anybody else—threatens Hush McGillen.”

  His face went stark white and stony. “Hush Thackery,” he corrected in a low voice.

  “Only on the marriage license. Get out.”

  I went upstairs and shut myself in a bedroom. He shouted hoarsely, “You’re gonna believe in me, some day!” and slammed the front door behind him. The farmhouse shook. It was run-down, and I had no money for repairs. The floor joists sagged with termites, the doors hung crooked on settling joints, the roof leaked. I lay on the bed for an hour, holding a washcloth to the nasty gash below my eye and rubbing my enormous stomach. I stared bitterly at a water stain spreading across the slatted ceiling.

  You can either lay here and bleed and wait for the place to fall down around you, or get up and pick apples.

  I covered my wound with a rectangle of dime store gauze held in place by gray industrial duct tape, stuffed myself into a salvage-store army coat of Davy’s and a big yellow rain slicker, tied my father’s old slouch hat on my head with one of Mama’s scarves, and waddled out into a gray day misting cold rain. Anger and sheer determination gave me energy. I drove the farm pick-up truck through the orchards to the last area of unpicked fruit, parked under a tree, and hoisted myself into the truck bed. Standing there, I could reach most of the lower limbs.

  By god, I began to pick apples.

  Four hours later, the truck was nearly full. That was no small accomplishment, considering that the bed had five-foot-high wooden sides. I stood on the tailgate, reaching and plucking and groaning with effort. A mountain of apples was piled nearly to my shoulder. Rain dripped from my hat brim. My slashed face throbbed and seeped watery blood from beneath the bandage. I was so tired I choked on my own bile. My back throbbed, my ankles were swollen, and a weight like a bowling bowl settled low in my belly.

  When the labor pain hit, my knees buckled and I staggered backwards into my apple pile. Cushioned by ripe Sweet Hushes, I lay there gasping and clutching my stomach. Fluid soaked the legs of my overalls. The pain subsided, and I crawled, shivering, from the bed of the truck. I staggered toward the driver door. I had one foot on the running board when another pain put me down on all fours. I crawled under the tailgate, out of the rain, and stretched out.

  Two hours later, as darkness fell, I managed to sit up, unlatch the bib of my overalls, and shuck their soft blue denim down to my knees. Using a pocket knife, I sliced my white dime store panties at the sides and pulled them off. Then I propped myself against one of the truck’s back tires, and, shivering in the cold, began to yell as the baby slid out of me.

  “You will not destroy me! You will not!” I screamed at the top of my voice to some unknown fate, at the same time thrashing and clutching at the soggy earth. Darkness and rain covered me; my hair hung in soaking, tangled streamers around my face, and I began to sob as one last, great pain nearly tore me apart.

  And then, it was over. I was empty, heaving for breath, half-fainting, but breathing only for myself, after nine months of double duty. I blinked and wiped rain from my eyes. Something wet and warm moved between my thighs. I hunched forward and reached down. My hands formed a shield around my baby’s wet face and soft, vulnerable head. He mewled.

  And in that moment, I was transformed. What was left of my girlhood and self-pitying misery fled before a rush of love and devotion. The dim light shadowed us both; he was as alone and as needy as me, and that made him mine. The end of a wet November day in a secluded hollow of the Appalachian mountains can convince a person there’s no one else earth. But I wasn’t alone, anymore; I had this astonishing little person, this fruit I had borne in my own orchards, on my own ground, beneath one of the great tree’s children, like mine. From a random and imperfect match had come perfection, just like a Sweet Hush. I pulled the rain slicker over us as a tent, sawed his umbilical cord in two with my pocket knife, then scooped my son into my arms and held him warmly.

  “I do want you, and I do love you, and I’m so sorry I ever said otherwise.” I sobbed. “And your life will be fine and rich and full of everything I missed out on. I promise you. I promise you.”

  By the time Davy finally came home late that night, drunk, stoned, covered in mud, and waving two one-hundred dollar bills, I was burrowed upstairs in bed on old sheets smeared with my blood, our son asleep on my breasts. “I told you, I told you I
’d bring home the jackpot—” Davy began as he leapt into the room, drenched and dirty, slinging rust-colored rainwater. “I told you . . .”

  His voice trailed off. He halted in the middle of the linoleum floor, staring at me across the shadowy space lit only by a small stone fireplace and a kerosene lamp on the bed table, because our electricity had been cut off earlier that week. The year 1979 was nearly upon us, but I had built my own heat and lit my own light. Men had gone to the moon more than once, computers were beginning to hum in the world, and we were entering the era of prosperous baby boomers dependent on Volvos and Bon Jovi albums. But I had borne my son without drugs, doctors, or a hospital, just as my pioneer ancestors had. A hard but proud occasion. I learned more about my own strength, that night. And I knew what was real.

  I looked at my husband as if I were some mother animal in its winter den—not trusting even the male who had seeded this cub inside me, very still, guarding my young. My face hurt almost as badly as the rest of me. Slowly Davy tiptoed to the bed, reached down with muddy fingers, and pulled the quilt aside a few inches. When he saw our son, he uttered a low sound of awe and sat down beside us as if his legs had given way. He touched his fingers to the baby’s face. Tears slid down his muddy cheeks. “We got us a kid,” he whispered. “I got me a boy.”

  No, he’s mine. I brought him into the world all by myself, I almost said, but the tender look on Davy’s face stopped me. I had important battles to fight for my child, and I was stuck with that child’s father. Davy wanted his son. I could manage him, but I had to pick the battles very carefully. “We’ll name this little boy after you,” I said. “Davis, Junior. But on one condition.”

  Davy went very still, his dark, drunken eyes boring into me. “Name it.”

  “You swear on the head of your son. You swear. That however you live your life—no matter what you do when you’re away from this farm—he’ll never have reason to be ashamed. He’ll never hear anything but the best about you.”

  Anger and defense and disappointment rose in Davy’s face, but he was no fool. He didn’t argue. He knew his own weaknesses and my strengths. He sealed my expectations of him—and his expectations of himself. Davy laid a muddy hand on our son’s head. “I swear it.”

  Then he bent his head to mine, and cried.

  So did I.

  “THE NEXT PHASE of Sweet Hush Farms’ apple business is about to commence,” I announced. It was a windy April day the next spring; the fertile air soothed and excited me. Logan and Smooch sat stoically on cheap lawn chairs, her a nervous, energetic little teenager, him a chunky seven-year-old with rusty hair and green eyes, holding my handsome, cheerful baby, his nephew, Davis. Davy Senior was off at a dirt track somewhere. Four of my somber, polite, McGillen and Thackery elders sat in their own lawn chairs. I lifted the silver pitcher and poured a ceremonial splash of apple cider on the pine siding of a small, barn-like building surrounded by a small parking area of red clay and fresh granite gravel. The building was squat and simple; a metal vent marked the side where the small kitchen waited for apple pies and apple fritters and other manner of baked products to be made. The building’s other end would be a market and gift shop, selling apples and apple crafts. Dried Apple Granny dolls. Applewood thimbles. Apple-scented candles.

  I explained my plans to my kind but worried-looking relatives, trying not to give up on fake calm and twist my hands the way Smooch was doing. I was young enough to be these people’s daughter or even granddaughter. “I’m asking y’all to work for me,” I blurted. “Part time at first, full time later. I’ve got no money for salaries this spring or summer, but if the harvest is good next fall I’ll catch you up with back pay and a bonus.”

  Silence. I was just seventeen years old. They needed real jobs, not promises of future paychecks. “I know it’s a big chance to take this year, and I’ll understand if y’all tell me you just can’t—”

  “Are you going to make us rich or just proud?” My Gruncle Thackery stood. He was only in his late fifties then but squinted and leaned like an old man, bent more by his quirky mind than his years.

  I blinked. “Pardon?”

  “Rich or just proud?”

  “Not rich, Gruncle. But well-off. And proud, yes, the way our families were in years past.”

  “Then I’ll work for you. And so will these others.”

  As if they’d just been waiting for his signal, the rest stood and nodded. I put a hand to my heart in wonder. Sweet Hush Farms had its first commercial building and its first employees. I gathered Logan and Smooch to my side and held Davis in my arms but did not shed a single tear of joy. Not then. I let the hard, cold truth settle down deep inside me, where it lived its own sad life, without Davy’s support. I bowed my head to my son’s. I’ll make you and everyone else proud of your father and me no matter what. I’ll give you what I wanted from him—all that love. But none of the pain.

  I kept that vow as long as I could.

  God help me.

  Twenty-Three Years Later

  Chapter 4

  DAVY HAD BEEN DEAD for five years, that autumn. And yes, I mourned him. But over time he’d done worse to me than even at the beginning, and the secrets I had to hide about our life together weighed me down. I had become the seasoned incarnation of the tough, ambitious girl who’d do anything to be somebody, who loved apples more than her own husband, and so I mourned Davy but couldn’t swear I missed him.

  We’d built Sweet Hush Farms together, people said, and that was true when I considered Davy’s knack for showing up when I needed him—most of the time—and putting on a good display of hard work. Sad to say, but there had been people who wouldn’t have done business with me in the early years without my husband in the mix. As Davy polished himself into some semblance of a businessman—even investing in a local truck dealership as long as the partners agreed to put his name on it—people assumed he actually managed the farm’s accounts, thought up the new promotions, and supervised our employees. He didn’t, and we both knew it.

  For one thing, I’d sent Smooch to marketing classes down at a university in Atlanta, and she handled our promotions. I’d helped a McGillen cousin get training in accounting, and he handled the books for me. A Thackery cousin went to commercial cooking school on my nickel, and she managed the farms’ kitchens. A Halfacre cousin, from my grandmother’s family, taught himself all about the mail-order business, and set up our shipping department. And Davis, my own brilliant son, had early-on proved himself a savvy little businessman and a computer programmer, to boot. He’d designed an inventory tracking system that won awards.

  As for me, I’d worked like a dog at every chore on the farm, while getting a bachelor’s degree in business over the years at night school. I drove an hour-and-a-half through the mountains over to North Georgia College at Dahlonega with Davis beside me. By the time he was ten years old, my son had sat through so many college classes that I awarded him a certificate: Bachelor Degree In Watching Mother Learn.

  “I like college,” he proclaimed solemnly. “I’m going to Harvard someday.”

  He said that at only ten-years-old. And he meant it. And for the past five years, he’d done it. I was so proud. His father had been proud of him, too, though they shared little in common except a love of cars, thank God. No son and father had been closer over a hot engine or a rebuilt chassis.

  And no son had ever been loved more. No matter what else I could say about the deteriorating state of mine and Davy’s marriage as the years passed, he never wavered as a kind and devoted father, and he never gave me any doubt that he worshiped the ground Davis walked on.

  But he never let me forget that I hadn’t wanted our son, at first. That raw wound never healed. We hid it for Davis’s sake, and the miracle was, he never suspected that we fought behind closed door, that we often slept on opposite sides of our big bed, and that his father slipped father every ye
ar into a separate life at the race tracks and the bars and the casinos far from the Hollow. Because when Davy Thackery was at home, all anyone saw—including our own son—was a happy family.

  When Davy died, I thought Davis would grieve himself into the grave with him. Nothing I did could help. Only one discipline kept Davis centered during that dark time: A curt but loving rule his father had hammered into him all his life.

  Never let your mother down. She’ll need you, some day.

  Davis hadn’t glimpsed the pain or sarcasm in his father’s words. And Davy, to his credit, had never said it to our son that way.

  On that cool September dawn, the first day of what should have been an ordinary fall apple season for Sweet Hush Farm, I knelt in the heart of my orchards, unaware that the next few minutes would change my plain, everyday worries into an extraordinary drama. We live most of our lives in those quiet times just before tragedy or victory up-ends everything we thought we knew about ourselves and the people and the places we love. Sweet Hush Hollow was still one of those places.

  Bathed in long morning shadows that receded like soft fingers into the earth, I poured apple wine from the small silver pitcher onto the grandmotherly roots of the Great Lady tree. I steepled my forehead to one fist, and I prayed a private prayer for my dead husband’s soul and my own. I prayed to keep our secrets from our son, and I prayed for forgiveness. Then I raised my head and opened my eyes. “Please, let this be the best season, yet,” I finished. An old ritual, a smaller prayer, a ceremony.

  There was nothing prettily ceremonial about me, however. As owner, company president, and chief apple polisher of a family business that grossed two million dollars a year, I was dressed for hard work. My standard apple-season uniform consisted of jeans, a red pullover sweater embroidered over the left breast with a small Sweet Hush Farms apple logo in white, and thick-soled hiking shoes. I would be on my feet eighteen hours a day for the next few months. On my red braided belt I carried a cell phone, a pocket calculator, and the keys to an old-fashioned iron safe I’d bought from the Bank of Chocinaw County at a charity auction. There are two kinds of business in a small Southern town. One is personal. The other is more personal. My fellow merchants prospered. My neighbors prospered. My family prospered. And so did I.