Page 17 of Junie

Chapter Seventeen

When Junie, Muh, and Granddaddy cross the threshold onto the main grounds of Bellereine, Caleb is sitting on a nearby tree stump, using a pocketknife to coax the brown bark off a stick. He’s taken off his jacket from church, and rolled the cuffs of his sleeves to bare his lower arms, which flex and relax as he carves into the wood. Seeing him makes Junie burn like a slow, flickering flame. She starts to turn away, hoping to cut through the woods instead of going near him, but he spots her first. He flicks the wood dust off his pants before placing his carving on the stump and walking over to meet them.

“Caleb, you waitin’ for us?” Muh asks, wrinkling her brows.

“Yes, ma’am. Miss Marilla asked me to stay here and tell you that the master split his trousers real bad, and he’s gonna need ’em stitched up.”

“Great day,” Muh says with a sigh. “Tom, you go on and collect ’em from the house and bring ’em to me in the cabin. I’ll see to fixing them up with some extra fabric.”

“All right, then, well, thank you, Caleb,” Granddaddy says, nodding toward Caleb before taking Muh’s hand and continuing on. Junie’s cheeks are hot; from anger or excitement, she can’t discern. He is the boy who told her she deserves more, who distracts her from saving Minnie even if he doesn’t know it, who saves her when she falls, who sees through her too deeply. He’s the sort of danger she used to run into the woods to find, wild, affirming, and hopelessly doomed.

She follows Muh and Granddaddy, not slowing down despite Caleb calling her name.

“Junie!”

He says it loudly enough that there’s no way Junie can pretend she hasn’t heard him. Granddaddy and Muh continue ahead, and she turns as Caleb walks toward her with a tentative half-smile on his face.

“Called you a few times, but you were so deep in thought you must’ve not heard me. That is, unless you’re ignoring me.”

“I’m not ignoring you,” she lies.

“Well, you didn’t say a thing to me at breakfast.”

“I was hungry.”

“ And, you were hangin’ as far back as you could the whole walk to church.”

“I don’t like church, so I’m not so inclined to rush to get there.”

“Well, I hope you have some holy water on you, otherwise there goes your immortal soul. Good to know it’s your love of eternal damnation and not your hatred of me that’s keeping you back here. So, you get to see old Sam Hill?” Caleb asks with a smirk.

“Excuse me?” Junie lifts her eyebrows.

“Well, you see,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest, “everybody said you must’ve been touched by the Lord when you fainted. But I know the truth. You were just talkin’ about how much you hated church, so I supposed the Lord must have taken it upon himself to strike you to Hades and teach you a lesson. So, what was Sam Hill like?”

“Not as bad as they all say. He let me hold his pitchfork.”

“You’re somethin’ else.” Caleb laughs, tilting his head to look at her. Her mouth goes dry and her chest starts to tighten.

“I better get going,” Junie says, starting toward the cookhouse. She can’t stand the feeling of bareness she has looking into Caleb’s eyes.

“You ran off this morning,” he says, his voice lowering. Her stomach knots.

“I didn’t…It wasn’t because of you, it was—”

“Just one of those secrets in your head?” he says. “You can talk to me, you know. You ain’t got to leave me high and dry.”

Those eyes. The same walnut brown the dawn light had played in this morning, when their fingers touched, when he leaned close enough that she could smell the scent of tobacco and grass that lingers on his neck.

No, she admonishes herself. He’s a current. He’ll pull you under.

“I ain’t got to share nothing with you, Caleb,” Junie says, her tone hardening. “I’m sorry if you thought I left you high and dry but I don’t owe you nothing.”

“I didn’t mean nothing by it, I’m just trying to be your friend, Delilah June.”

“All you’re being is a nuisance,” she barks. She regrets the words as soon as they leave her mouth.

Caleb’s expression recoils in an instant before setting again.

“Fine then, if I’m a nuisance, I’ll be on my way,” Caleb says.

Before she can answer, he runs toward the house without looking back, leaving Junie on her own next to the road.

She stumbles away from it, crumpling against the wall of the cookhouse.

Caleb, lost. She couldn’t just let him go, she had to hurt him, too. Her dream this morning feels foolish in the hard light of afternoon. She is a ruiner, a person only capable of breaking things.

Junie feels the grip of Auntie’s hand on her arm, looks down at the water pail swinging from her free hand, and sees the pleading worry in Auntie’s eyes. Has Auntie always been this small? The excuses won’t come. She crumples into Auntie’s shoulder, tears and snot dripping on her muslin dress. Auntie wraps herself around Junie’s body like a shield, pulling her in to quiet her sobs.

“Baby, you’re all right now, you’re all right now,” Auntie repeats, running her hand over her shoulders. “The white folks are already back from church. C’mon, get into the cookhouse before somebody sees us.”

Junie nods, wiping her nose to follow her inside. She sits on the dinner bench, fighting the urge to curl her knees into her chest.

“Here,” Auntie says, tossing her a damp kitchen cloth. “Wipe off your face, you got tears and snot on you.”

Junie complies, rubbing her skin into the weathered fabric.

“Where’s your uniform?”

“Back in the cabin.”

“You’ll need to fetch it.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Junie says, pushing herself to stand.

“Not yet, Baby. We got time before then, now sit. I started the master’s coffee, but I always make too much. I’ll fix you a cup.”

Auntie pours the black liquid into a chipped mug, filling it to the brim with canned milk. She sets it on the table before taking a seat across from Junie.

“What happened in church today, Baby? You’ve got your shoulders all tensed up; I know you ain’t feeling much better.”

Junie stares down into the swirling brown drink. “I…I ain’t sure.”

“You thinking about Minnie again?”

Junie takes a sip of the coffee, the heat burning her lips. The question is both too simple and complex to answer. She nods. Auntie lays her elbows on the table before resting her head in her hands.

“Baby, do you remember your Uncle George?”

Junie shakes her head. Uncle George was Bess’s father, but besides that, Junie has hardly heard his name mentioned over the years.

“I suppose you wouldn’t, you were only a baby. He got sold round the same time as your mother, just before the old Mr. McQueen died and the new one took over. Old Master was almost as bad a spender as his son, and twice as mean by the end. None of us were ever sure why he did it, but we guess he sold George to pay off his debts. Anyway, I was real broken up after that. I tried to keep a smile on for Bess and the white folks, but it didn’t take much for me to fall out boo-hoo crying when I was alone.”

Junie wrinkles her eyebrows with apprehension. Auntie laughs.

“Anyway, back then I was a housemaid like you, and the old cook found me crying just over there against the back wall. She pulled me aside, and she told me the same thing I’ll tell you now. ‘Looking for comfort in the past is like looking for a needle in a haystack; you can search forever and see a whole bunch of things that almost look like that needle you’re missing, but the truth is, you’re never going to find it and you’ll drive yourself mad trying. Best to leave that old needle and get on with the needles you got.’ You understand?”

“But I can’t just find a new sister, Auntie.”

“No, Baby, just like I ain’t gonna find a new husband. I loved George with all I am, just like you loved Minnie. But no matter how much we keep on loving, they ain’t coming back. Grief will make you want to waste every breath on prayers that don’t get answered. Use that breath on the people you still got.”

They ease into silence, and Junie takes another sip of coffee.

“What do you think of that boy? The one the Taylors have with them?” Auntie asks suddenly.

“Caleb?” Saying his name out loud makes Junie’s mouth go dry.

“Mhmm.”

“I don’t think much of him, I guess.”

“Really?”

“Why’d he be any more than that?” Junie answers, her heart beginning to pick up speed.

“No reason. I just thought you might think a little of him. Seemed like you spent time together.” Auntie runs her fingers through Junie’s hair, dragging her fingernails over Junie’s scalp. “I think he might think of you.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, he sure likes to linger around the cookhouse, like he’s looking for you.”

“Did Granddaddy linger around after Muh?” Junie asks, desperate to change the subject.

Auntie laughs. “I suppose he did, in his own way.”

“How’d he do it?”

“Well, you know Muh was sold here when she was about your age. Your Granddaddy and I were already here. Anyway, he just saw her was all. Started hanging around, finding her little flowers and things. She wasn’t too sure about him until he caught ill, though. Your Muh learned all the old ways with medicines as a girl, so she took to curing him and taking care of him. It was when he was sick that she knew she didn’t want to lose him, even though I could say long before then. They went and jumped the broom as soon as he was well. That’s the way boys are, though; if they find a good one and they like ’em, they ain’t gonna go nowhere.”

“If you’d known that Uncle George would be gone, that you’d never see him again, would you still marry him?”

“It’s like I said, Junie. There’s no sense thinking about things like that.”

“But would you?”

Auntie looks down into her coffee mug.

“Yes, yes, I reckon I would.”

“Even with all the hurt?”

“Baby, everything in this life ends, most times in a bad way. We got as much say in that as we got in the color of the sky. Uncle George was my choice, and I don’t regret loving him for one minute. It’s what we can choose that makes this life special.”

—

Night comes like smoke, plunging the landscape into a sudden and early darkness. Junie passes dinner counting the crystals on the chandelier until Mrs. McQueen calls the party to move to the parlor. How they haven’t gotten bored of this routine, Junie cannot fathom.

She follows, not even bothering to overhear Violet’s conversation with Miss Taylor; any news, good or bad, is out of her control. Instead, she focuses on staying paces ahead of Caleb, to ensure their eyes never have to meet. She tries to focus on the tray of after-dinner drinks balanced on her arm, but she still catches him leaning against the back wall of the parlor, his face dimly lit by candlelight, like their first night in the cotton fields. He’s dressed more formally tonight, still in his valet’s suit but with his hair combed and face shaved. Despite being near one another all day during Violet and Mr. Taylor’s outing, Caleb hasn’t said a word, a sure sign that her thorny words stung him. Junie bites down on her lip anxiously.

Maybe she didn’t need to be so harsh with him. But it’s for the best if he leaves her alone. Now they’ll just be servants, crossing paths when necessary. No matter what Auntie says, there’s no sense getting attached to somebody who’s bound to leave you.

You deserve more than a pretty view, Delilah June. He’d said it so casually this morning, like a breeze that feeds a fire.

Violet plays her way through half of an Italian opera, to the enthusiastic applause of Mr. Taylor. Miss Taylor never claps, but listens with intensity. At the end of the night as they prepare to retire, Junie slinks from the wall to begin collecting the dirty cups when Mr. Taylor clears his throat and taps his fork on his glass. She jumps back out of view in confusion; he’s never called the room’s attention before.

“I wanted to say a few words tonight to everyone. It has been such a pleasure to stay here this last month, a pleasure I’ve enjoyed far more than I could have ever imagined.”

Violet shifts nervously on the piano bench, smoothing her hair. Mrs. McQueen’s eyes strain as a smile threatens to split her lips.

Is this it, the proposal Junie’s dreaded? She resists the urge to run out of the room so as not to bear witness to her own undoing.

“I raise a toast to Mr. McQueen, Mrs. McQueen, and the lovely Miss McQueen. Mrs. McQueen, I know you pride yourself on your incomparable garden, but your most beautiful rose is your daughter walking among us.”

Violet blushes, and Junie digs her nails into her palms.

“May all our paths cross again one day,” Mr. Taylor finishes. He lifts his glass before taking the final sip of his whiskey.

“?‘Paths cross again one day’?” Violet says. The color fades from her cheeks. “Where y’all going?”

“Miss Taylor and I have been called back to New Orleans by our father. It seems our great-aunt has passed, and Father wants us home to comfort Mère as soon as the horses can get us there. We will leave here before dawn.”

“Oh, you can’t possibly have to go already? And so quickly?” Mrs. McQueen says, her eyes darting to Violet.

“I’m afraid there’s no other way. But you will always be counted as our friends.”

“When will you return?” Violet blurts. The mistress cuts her an angry look.

“Well, by the time the services are complete, it’ll be long after the cotton harvest. I’ll be of no use to my uncle then. I suppose we may return next year.”

Violet turns sheet white as she clutches on to the edge of the piano to hold her balance, forcing a smile. Even Miss Taylor’s face betrays a shock before she restrains herself.

The Taylors are leaving, with no hint of a marriage proposal. Junie is staying at Bellereine, the outcome she’s been fixed on for weeks. Why won’t the acid in her belly dull or the stiffness in her neck relax? Why doesn’t this feel like a relief?

Caleb has straightened at his spot by the wall. The chandelier overhead casts prisms of rainbows on his stoic mask. His words from this morning repeat in Junie’s head like the slow drip of water from a tap.

You deserve to take all the beauty of this world and hold it in your hands.

Deserve.

It is an unspoken concept, one that pulls at everyone in Junie’s family like a desperate toddler they’ve all agreed not to indulge. Acknowledging what they deserve is a transgression, one that Junie has implicitly learned isn’t worth the fight.

What gave Caleb the mettle to speak about what she deserved, what any of them deserved? He seems to her so uniquely capable of stating the most liberating truths—his, hers, and the world’s.

And he’ll be gone by morning.

“As a parting gift, I thought it might be nice to have my Caleb play a song for y’all,” Mr. Taylor says. “See, he’s quite the piano player, though of course not as lovely as Miss McQueen. Caleb, won’t you come play for us?”

Caleb nods and glides to the piano as Violet moves to the chaise, her face frozen in a stupor. He runs his fingers over the keys as if they are water.

His hands. Always so delicate.

He settles his fingers on the ivories and closes his eyes, as though to allow the song to run through him. It starts with a simple repetition, building to a trickle of higher chords. The melody is familiar at first, but as Caleb loses himself in the song it shifts into something wholly new. In his song, Junie hears the crash of the waves on that faraway island he once called home, the sound of his lost mother’s voice, his cry when he knew he’d never see her again. He plays for what feels like both hours and seconds, moving from delicate moments to powerful crescendos, tricking the song from mind to heart to spirit.

You deserve to bite it like a peach and let the juice drip ’til your fingers get sticky.

She sees now what he meant. She sees now that he understands what it is to create beauty, not just chase it. She craves it now, the taste of beauty still ripe on the vine.

When he finishes and the room rises with applause, Junie remains, the still point in her turning world. She wants to chase after him, but Bess’s glare tells her she’s trapped here until the room is cleared. Caleb slips into the shadows.

Junie can’t let him leave yet. He can’t go without knowing that she sees him, too.

—

By the time bess and Junie finish cleaning the parlor it’s nearly midnight. After stopping at home to change and get Grimm’s Fairy Tales to finish the last pages of the story, Junie runs for the stables, feeling the tick of time toward dawn.

The lantern light glows from outside the stable gate. Junie’s shoulders stiffen watching Caleb load the Taylors’ trunks into the back of the carriage. She told him this morning that he wasn’t wanted. She’d lied so easily.

Junie looks down at the worn book in her arms. This was foolish. He will never go reading with her again. He will never forgive her for what she said, the way Minnie will never forgive her for falling into that river last December.

Maybe Junie doesn’t deserve forgiveness.

She sucks in a breath, preparing to slip into the night, when she cracks a stick underneath her foot.

“Who’s there?” Caleb calls, leaping behind the carriage.

If she weren’t so embarrassed, she’d laugh. Caleb, always the milksop.

“It’s me,” she musters, stepping into the light. She hides Grimm’s Fairy Tales behind her back.

Caleb stands from behind the carriage, dusting off his pants. He looks up briefly before going back to loading the luggage.

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Junie?”

Junie. He never called her that, always Delilah June. She’d hated that he called her that. Now, she wishes he’d say it again. She steadies her breath to recite what she’d practiced on the way over.

“Auntie sent me to tell you there’s leftover food in the cookhouse if you want it. You know, for your trip.”

“That’s awful kind of her, though I’d hate to be a nuisance taking what’s not mine.”

Ouch. Junie rolls her lips under her teeth. She deserved that.

“You ain’t a nuisance.”

“Guess your opinion changed then since this morning.”

“I was wrong for saying what I said. I was real out of sorts,” Junie says.

“Well, glad you’re back in sorts now,” Caleb says. He tosses the next case into the carriage, banging it against the inside.

Junie winces. He’s still mad.

“I wanted to thank you, too, for helping me while you’ve been here. It was real kind of you to do that,” Junie says.

“Deal’s a deal, ain’t it?” Caleb says. “You hold up your side and I hold up mine.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” Junie draws circles in the dust with her feet. “I’m real sorry, Caleb. I ain’t been kind and—”

“It’s all right, I forgive you.”

“You do?”

“Yep. No sense holding grudges with people you ain’t going to see again, right?”

Junie bites down on her lip. This couldn’t be going any worse. She swallows the lump in her throat, turning to look toward the woods. A bush rustles past the tree line, and she sees a glowing golden light in the distance. The light grows, creeping closer through the darkness.

A scream dies in Junie’s throat.

Minnie.

“Get inside!” she says to Caleb, running through the stable gate.

“What the hell—”

She grabs him by the sleeve and drags him into an empty corral. They sit together, holding their breath.

After a minute, Junie peers around the wall to look at the woods. The light is gone.

She looks back at Caleb, his eyes wide and probing. How can she explain this?

“What in the devil is going on?” Caleb says.

“It—it was nothing.” Her mouth goes dry as sand.

“Quit lying to me.”

Her throat swells with tears. Junie isn’t sure why she’s crying, but once the first tear falls, she can’t stop the rest. She curls into her knees, body shaking with sobs.

Everything she loves leaves. Everything she loves rots.

She feels Caleb’s arm wrap around her, and she falls into his chest.

“You’re all right, you’re safe now. You’re safe now,” he says, squeezing her closer.

Humiliation takes hold. She doesn’t know what she wanted from this interaction, but it isn’t this. She jolts away and wipes her eyes with her hands.

“I’m fine. I should go.”

Caleb sighs, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. He meets her gaze.

“I’ve watched you scream and run and fight and cry, and every time all you gotta say is that you’re fine. It’s my last day here, maybe forever. When are you finally going to admit you ain’t fine?”

“I…You wouldn’t understand,” Junie says.

“Try me.”

She tilts her head up, looking at the sliver of night sky between the ceiling planks. She rolls her lips under and sighs.

“I thought I saw my sister.” The words slip out of her before she can catch them.

“Your sister?” Caleb sits back down. “The one who’s—”

“Dead. She’s dead. But I see her in the woods sometimes.”

“Is that why you got so upset this morning?”

“Something like that,” Junie answers.

His silence is lead on Junie’s shoulders. Why had she told him something that would make her seem like she had lost her mind?

“Sometimes I think I see my momma,” Caleb says. Junie turns to face him. “At night, most of the time, right before I go to sleep. She looks the way she was the day I left the island. Some nights, I can swear I feel her hands on me, pulling the covers up over me.”

Junie feels it again, the uncanny way his gaze makes her feel transparent. Now, however briefly, she sees him, too.

“Minnie caught this fever not even Muh could fix. She was gone like somebody blew out a candle. Everybody else has gone and forgotten, but I can’t.”

“I don’t think you get a choice in how grief finds you,” Caleb says. He turns to face her. “See, at my last master’s house, there was this old woman who worked in the house, even older than Muh. She caught me one day, thinking about my momma. And I remember, she took me over into the cookhouse and showed me this cup of tea where there was only a little water left in it but the tea bag still there, so it was real strong. I’ll never forget what she said. She told me that when you first lose somebody, the grief feels like the strongest tea you’ve ever tasted, so bitter and sharp you don’t think you’ll ever be able to swallow. But that every day, another drop of water falls into that cup, and it gets a little easier to taste. That bitterness, that pain, it don’t ever go away or get smaller. But it does fade.”

Caleb curls around her, until she unfurls to lean her head on his shoulder. Her muscles relax, and she melts into his embrace.

“I thought you’d never want to see me again after what I said today,” she says.

“You’re my friend. I’ll always want to see you.”

She isn’t sure how much time has passed when she opens her eyes to the waning moon shining through the ceiling and the scent of Caleb’s shirt. She jumps off him and sits up straight.

“Ah, you’re awake,” he says with a smile.

“How long was I asleep for?”

“Maybe an hour?”

“An hour? It’s got to be gone near two in the morning! And you got to…” She can’t stand to finish her sentence.

“Taylor wants to leave by sunrise. I probably got another four hours or so. We should be going on. I need to see you get home safe, being a gentleman and all,” Caleb says, beginning to stand.

There’s nothing holding them together anymore, nothing to keep him here any longer.

“Wait!” Junie calls. Caleb stops, looking down at her. “I have something for you.”

She grabs Grimm’s Fairy Tales from the dirt, flipping to the last page of “Snow White.” She rips the paper from the binding in one pull.

“Here,” she says, passing it to him. “If you can’t finish it with me, at least finish it on your own.”

Caleb gazes at her, taking the page from her hand before putting it into his pocket. He smiles, the one-sided smile she likes the best.

“You really are something. I did want to give you a little parting gift,” he says, shoving his hand into his pocket. “It ain’t nothing special, so don’t get too excited.”

Caleb retrieves something from his pocket, taking it into his fist. Junie’s eyes widen as her heart races.

“Put your hands out.”

Junie casts him a sideways glance before following along.

“All right, now, close your eyes.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t nothing special?”

“Just ’cause it ain’t special doesn’t mean it can’t be fun,” Caleb says. “Now, close ’em.”

Junie complies. The wind dances through the leaves and branches around them, creating a sound that shimmers like moonlight. Caleb places something in her hands. It feels smooth and round, and oddly light.

“All right, now open ’em.”

In her palms is an apple carved from wood and the size of a grape. Its surface is smooth, except for a carved C on the bottom. Junie rolls it between her fingers in awe.

“It’s supposed to be the apple from ‘Snow White.’ Not poisoned, though.”

“When did you make this?” Junie asks.

“Before bed in the stables. Somethin’ I like to do sometimes. I added the little C, since you taught me that’s my initial.”

“Caleb, this is…real nice.” The sincerity of her words feels odd on her tongue.

Caleb walks her home through the grass fields. He leaves her outside Muh’s garden gate, tipping his hat before returning to the stables. She watches the glow of his lantern shrink and fade into the night. She doesn’t expect to sleep but dozes off just the same.

By the time Junie opens her eyes again, morning has come, and Caleb is gone.