Stinson_Martha-ebook by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-12T20:47:43+00:00

As I walked into Moody, a wagon pulled past me on the road. The horse was old and slow. The bearded man holding the reins nodded gravely. He was hauling a load of children, who were punching each other’s arms and throwing handfuls of feathers out the back of the wagon. I recognized the girl Ruth as she swung an empty feed sack at one of the boys in overalls. He grabbed it out of her hand when she stopped to stare at me.

When I got to Moody’s, the boys were on the porch. Ruth and the farmer were nowhere to be seen. The smallest was bent over to kiss Martha’s cat, Bathsheba, his overalls gaping open to show his skinny ribs. I could see Mr. Balm in the window, standing behind the cash register with his thumbs hooked in his vest.

The boys pushed open the door. I stood on the porch behind them. I heard them saying rock candy, birch beer, Buffalo Bill. I knelt down next to the cat and rubbed her warm side. She purred, and I felt absolved of throwing her in Mr. Balm’s face. I looked through the plate-glass window, between the two Os in MOODY’S, as Mr. Balm stared at the boys, watching their hands as they walked up and down the candy aisle. He picked up a feather duster and followed.

I took my chance and walked into the store. The little brass bells in the doorway jingled over my head. I marched down the center aisle, past the barrels of beans and grain and the onion bin and bolts of cloth, with my cheeks burning and my head full of the time Martha and I had walked slowly across the back of the store with her finger inside me. She had caressed my legs as we climbed the stairs. At each stair I had stopped and pushed back against the ledge of her breasts as she climbed behind me.

Her office door was closed, but the light showed through the yellow glass panel with OFFICE painted on it in gilt. I knocked, then turned the knob. Mr. Balm hadn’t seen me. I heard a boy say, “Corset stays make great pea shooters.”

Martha looked up from her desk. I saw grief loose in her cheeks before they tightened and gladdened. I shut the door behind me, and stood out of view of the glass. She rose and walked over to me. “Amanda. How good to see you. But what are you doing here?” I remembered the shape of that hill, and took a deep breath. “I wrote about you.”

Martha put her hand to the jet buttons on the front of her dress. “What?”

I lost the hill, reached, and ran my palms over the buttons. Martha leaned into my hands and said, “I don’t understand.”

I wanted to keep her leaning towards me and wondering what I had to tell her, but I answered. “I’ve been writing about you every night. I have to, or I can’t sleep.

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