The Haunting Hour

1. Tricker Lake, TN-3

Them eyes have changed too, or keep changin’ as far as I can tell. I’ve seen ‘em about every color a person can have, and it chilled me every time without fail. One day soon, he’ll be so dang tall and burly that won’t no one notice, and if they did they would be hesitant to make a comment. A body like that probably should be playin’ for a sportin’ team, but he doesn’t have the starch for it. Hank tried throwing a baseball with him a few times and he took to it alright. He could throw and hit just like Hank and Hank swore he only showed him once on how to do it. Hank called him a natural. He took him into town, down to the ball field one Saturday, and got him to go out there with the other kids and play some but that lasted about two blinks and Hank had him back in the car headed home. Said he never came close to touchin’ the ball with the bat or the glove, like he’d never even seen one before. The child lacked all social grace and skills—was the nice way I’d describe it. Hank chalked it up to some sorta stage fright. Now, when he ain’t forced to schoolin’, he just does what he’s always lived for: wanderin’ out in the hills doing who knows what. I guess he talked to mother nature as that was his special gift. Can sing like any bird or make that big flutter of a June bug with his mouth that makes me swat’ around my head, while he’s just sittin’ on the floor behind me laughin’ his fool head off. I declare that he could even sound exactly like any one of us or any ole fool he hears on the radio. If you ever could get him on a stage, the only fright would be if we could stuff all the money they’d be givin’ him in the hat boxes under the mattress.

Now Deliah—she was the struggle. First one always is, they say. That was before the doc had taken up the bottle so hard. And good thing, ‘cause he about had to set up camp in the livin’ room. I was in labor for almost two days and didn’t barely have the strength to breathe at the end of it, much less push out a baby. Hank did what he could, which was mostly pacin’ out on the deck smokin’ camels and comin’ in to fry up spam sammiches in the kitchen. Neither of them two things did me a bit a good but kept him occupied, I guess. Swear when she finally arrived, she was still grabbin’ onto my insides. I think the doc had to pry her little fingers one by one off of whatever she was clingin’ to to get her on out and into the world.

Deliah takes after my Mama from what I can remember, pretty as the day is long—got them Indian features with the high cheekbones and long dark eyes. When she’s sittin’ there still in the last light of the evenin’, she could be a statue sittin’ high in a museum. Everybody said she was like that Indian princess in that Hank Williams song, but she ain’t got that much Cherokee in her, unless there was more of it in our blood than Mama let on and there ain’t no tellin’ as to what Mama knew and how Deliah rarely spoke two words. I suppose there had to be an explanation as to why Deliah would stare into space for a coon’s age then snap right to and tell you it’s gonna rain in three days or a boat was sinkin’ fast on a lake two counties over, or where a missin’ girl was hidin’ in a truck stop bathroom stall on the other side of the state. You could sit up all night wonderin’ why my children were the way they were and why they could do what they could, or you might just shrug your shoulders, accepting it and trying to live a good, normal life.

Then there’s Lea.

Of course, Lea shot right outta me like a Shiloh cannon. I don’t even think Hank had found the doc by the time she was yellin’ her redhead clean off. Hank came to find out that doc was found floatin’ face-down by the dam that next mornin’. Maybe the good Lord had called him home as his services rendered were no longer required by this here household. Word was he had caught on fire somehow and had jumped off the bridge to put himself out. At least that’s the story the paper settled on, one fairly easy to accept and even easier to connect the dots to when the man was livin’ on shine and cheap cigars.

Once Lea had sprouted a bit you would think by lookin’ at all my children that they had different daddies. I suppose Hank had that thought cross his mind more than once, especially since he was out on the road more often than not. Now, there wasn’t no truth to it. There wasn’t nothin’ but old gristly lake rats out here that made you glad you got a shotgun handy or paunchy soft men in too tight shorts with their brood in tow for a weekend of boatin’, cheap beer, animal crackers, and bologna sammiches. Definitely nothin’ you’d want to make time with. Heck—havin’ a look at Lea, you’d think if anything I had done laid with a leprechaun. Red hair like a strawberry pie and skin like the cream you’d pour over it. The freckles on that shoulder skin pop out like the stars in a night sky in reverse. And tiny. I could just cut some holes in a flour sack if worse came to worst. She got that look in her eyes though, mischief on a rollin’ boil about all the time. Like she was itchin’ to do something she ain’t got no business doin’. Just like Stanton, I find her most of the time off by herself, probably busy plannin’ to see the end of the world.

I suppose I should be scared to death of all three of ‘em, but they were mine and they never done me a bit of harm. To beat all of that, we realized one by one they were all blessed with the gift of smarts on top of everything else. Even though we went through the motions, it was a good thing they didn’t really need the schoolin’. We tried with Deliah who wouldn’t go if you dragged her there, and if you did, she wouldn’t really be there anyway. Stanton cared more about bein’ a clown than lessons, and Lea wanted to see which of her textbooks made the best kindlin’. They always talked about things I’d never heard of, and all three would busy themselves sayin’ names and places that sound like a foreign tongue while they were still runnin’ through the house in diapers. I guess you could say it was strange, but with everything else we had goin’, I was just proud of them. They were good children for now, and the now was all you got when you pondered it lyin’ in an empty bed with just a passin’ scent of your husband, sittin’ on a lake as the moon stares right down on your face challengin’ you on what your life was even meant for.