Rock Island Line by David Rhodes (most life changing books txt) 📗

“Surely not. Besides, I don’t have anywhere near that.”

“I think what he’s trying to say is that if you want to take the house back, then you’ll have to pay it. He doesn’t want us here, July.”

“Sure he does. He just seems a little gruff. It’s his way. . . . This kitchen’s a lot different, but somehow the character’s still the same. Oh, Mal, I’m so glad to be back. I’m so sorry I wasn’t more charitable toward your relationship with your folks.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” she said. A car pulled into the driveway. “Let’s get out of here, July. We’re not welcome.”

“No, no, I heard a car pull in. It must be Aunt Becky.”

The front door opened and Perry’s voice began in quick, slurred words, indistinguishable from the kitchen, followed by the cry “Praise be to heaven!” “Now wait,” said Perry, raising his voice, “there’s a way if we play it right—” “Out of my way, you old fool. Out of my way.” Something crashed and Aunt Becky ran into the kitchen, tears flowing unchecked down her large, round face. She looked at him, and when he lifted his eyes she let out a wail that filled the whole house, ran over and put her arms around his neck, fairly pulling him up out of his chair. “July, July,” she said as she cried. “In my lifetime if I see no more miracles than this, it’s enough. Give praise to the Lord. You’ve got the look of your father in you. Oh, July, July!” And she abandoned herself to deep sobbing, standing by the table, holding her face in her hands, her large breasts shaking.

“Don’t cry,” said July.

“I ain’t only crying for myself,” she sobbed. “I’m cryin’ for your folks. I’m cryin’ for your grandfolks. I’m cryin’ for the last twelve years come autumn.” And as soon as the sponge inside her dried up, she rushed to Mal and took both of her hands up in her own. “Forgive me, dear. I’m carrying on like an old fool and you must think I didn’t even notice you here. But aren’t you pretty, though. Are you a friend of July’s?”

“Yes, I guess I am,” and she laughed.

“Then you’re as welcome here as Santa Claus himself. And no doubt it’s partially because of you that July came back—for having someone to care for a person makes things work out where normally they’d just be giving up. God bless you.” She gave her hands an extra hard squeeze and gently let them go, stood up and looked at July again, drinking him into her, holding both the image of him and her memory’s picture, not caring for the moment to learn any of the details, only to be overjoyed.

“Now you must be fairly starved. Let me get you something to eat. I’m a little hungry myself. And over dinner we can talk about what you’ve been doing these years.” She flew to the refrigerator and began hauling out dishes and putting them on the counter.

“He’s been in Philadelphia,” said Perry from the doorway.

“Go back in and watch television,” Becky snapped without looking at him. “We have things to talk over here. Don’t worry, you’ll be called for dinner.” And being so dismissed, Perry receded. Becky set two large dishes of strawberries before them. “Eat this now. It might be some time before we can get along to the regular meal. So have this and perhaps a glass of milk, and begin with the evening when you disappeared and tell it all up to here without leaving anything important out.”

So July told her nearly everything he could remember, and she listened intently while paring the potatos and throwing together a salad, sifting flour over the biscuit batter, lifting pans from the wall, adjusting the four flames on the stove, peeking through the small window in the oven, chopping up green onions, pounding meat, breaking eggs into a round silver pan and doing dishes whenever she had a spare moment. July came to the part where he’d decided to come back—how he’d felt only half a person, and how he’d gotten on the train alone, but Mal had come—when she turned from the sink with the flour sifter in her hand.

“ You’ll be wanting this house,” she announced. “ You can stay up in your room until we’ve got all our things out of here.”

“We have no intention of putting you out, Aunt Becky. I was just curious to see the place. I hope I can come back sometimes.”

Perry Frunt had returned to the doorway.

“No, you’ll be wanting the house,” she said. “Of course you will. John and I felt the same way about the house across the street—but there was nothing we could ever do about that.”

“No, no. This is what I did have in mind—if it’s all right—that is, I hoped we’d do—anyway, is there anyone living in Grandma’s house?”

“Well . . . no.”

“Then I propose Mal and I live there.”

“But that old house hasn’t been lived in for years. It isn’t even modern. There were some Amish there for a couple of years and they just tore out everything. And that was five or six years ago. I tell you, I don’t think it’s fit for a person to live in at all.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m sure it’s not all that bad. I’ve had my heart set on it.”

“It’s not so bad,” said Frunt. “We’ve tried to keep it up.”

“And the old Ford. I did sort of hope that I might have Dad’s old Ford.”

“Of course, July. Don’t you understand—all of this belongs to you—legally. It’s all yours.”

“Legally speaking,” said Frunt. “Down on paper it all comes under your name. Your poor aunt’s name and mine appear nowhere. But then there’s never such provisions. Thank goodness there’s such a thing as decency, though that seems to be going out in this new day and age.”

“Enough, you old fool. Get out of the kitchen