Knee-Deep in Wonder by April Reynolds

Author:April Reynolds
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

8

HALLE HAD COME and gone by 1950. After a short decade of birthing children, she grew a tumor into the size of a cantaloupe in her left breast and it killed her. Chess remembered the day well. “I need to lay down,” she had told him. “All this running around is getting to be too much.” Sure a better life could be found three towns over, for years they had moved from state to state, making babies all along the way. Halle’s mother would always arrive and rent a room nearby in time to help deliver her grandchildren. Rose, their eldest daughter, was born in Guymon, Oklahoma; Joseph and Betty in Jefferson City, Missouri; James in Humboldt, Tennessee; John L in Yazoo City, Mississippi; and then Arthur was born as they prepared to leave De Ridder, Louisiana. Their travels never took them beyond a day’s ride from Lafayette County, either by train or car. They needed to be close to Halle’s mother’s house; when fighting Chess, Halle always managed to maim her husband just shy of needing a doctor and then she headed back home.

Despite her predilection for violence, it hadn’t taken long for Chess to decide to marry Halle. That she denied him almost everything made her irresistible. Food, sex, and her kindness were strictly rationed. Waiting in the dark to stab him through the lip, however, didn’t keep him faithful. As soon as he married Halle, he met Morning. She had followed Chess whenever she had the money. Aberdeen, Monroe, Idabel: she’d rent a room no more than six blocks away from wherever Chess had decided his family would live until the lack of work moved him to another town. Otherwise, Morning would stay in Lafayette County, knowing that every six months Halle would return to her mother’s and, four days after her arrival, Chess would be back in town clutching a wound.

Often Morning wondered how long she’d have to wait until Chess came to his senses and left his knife-wielding wife. The end of every six months held the same promise: “Soon, baby.” But when Halle dropped dead at the end of 1949, Chess and his mistress were none the better for it. Without Halle to mete out punishment when Chess came home late or not at all, their affair soured. Over the years, constant adoration lost its power. Morning’s homemade pancakes, though eaten, were insulted; her birthdays forgotten. When Chess finally landed in jail for three months, she thought she had had enough. Blue, her neighbor, had tried to court her for two years, bringing her flowers and groceries for no particular reason. She overlooked the neck spasms that caused him to turn his head uncontrollably. Certain afflictions could be forgiven when a man promised the attention Chess had stopped giving. Maybe I’ve been too good to him, she thought, as she made overcooked meals for his children. With the threat of Blue, perhaps she and Chess could work things out. Get him to keep his promise and marry her.

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