Aunt Faye

Her aunt moved around the kitchen with the kind of unobtrusive grace tall people sometimes possess, without humming or talking, her movements, unassuming and spare, leaving Sara to sip her coffee and read an old copy of Reader’s Digest, undisturbed at the kitchen table.  They had both been up since seven; Ben was still sleeping on the couch in the living room.  It was mostly quiet except for the steady hum of the refrigerator; the occasional crow of a rooster coming from somewhere in the backyard, and the sound of Ben’s snores, coming steadily in four second intervals. 

     She was wearing a faded pair of overalls, the authentic kind, reinforced at the knees and covered in steel rivets, that had probably belonged to Uncle Bervin.  She had already been out, bringing back a basket filled with six pale blue eggs that had come from the Japanese silk hens she kept secured in a hatch in one corner of the barn. There was no vanity in the way she wore her hair, which was gathered in a little bundle behind her neck, tied with a rubber band.  She stood behind Sara, placing her hands on her shoulders.

     “You want some more coffee?”  She poured coffee in Sara’s mug, and then sat down at the table.  She picked up a delicate looking fabric, a string of white gossamer lace, from the pile of clothes on the table and and began to sew it to the bottom of a tiny doll’s dress.

     “Okay.”  Sara responded without looking up.  She and Ben had gotten in late the night before and had gone straight to bed. Her sleep had been fitful, dreamless. She found herself waking up almost every hour, pressing the alarm clock on the night stand to find out what time it was.  The sounds in the country were too different; the screech of mating bullfrogs and the incessant chant of crickets echoed in her ear all night long.   Had she heard a car honk, or the whooshing of cars going past on Roosevelt, or even the noise from a badly hushed up argument between the Perez’s next door, she might have slept better.  Instead, she found herself craning her neck, as if listening for something, looking out the window into the night, with the perception of a blind man, its inky darkness devoid of light and sounds familiar to her.  She wanted to go home.

     She put the book down and rubbed her temple.

     “Good morning.”  Ben stood in the doorway, blinking his eyes, wearing a patchwork quilt gathered around his body like a toga, and yawned.

     “Hey, Ben.  How are you feeling?”  Her aunt asked him.

     “Better.  I can’t seem to straighten out my neck, though.”  He arched his neck, moving his head from side to side.

     “You could have slept in the other room.”  Sara said.

     “And listen to you snore all night?”  He sat at the table, holding up a doll’s outfit, a yellow satin dress with puffy sleeves, out in front of him.  “This one’s cute.  Prom night?”  He picked up another, a blue velvet riding habit, from the pile on the table.  “Ooh, Aunt Faye, I like this one.”

     “Well, Ben, I can see you have very good taste.  Hand those over please, I need to iron them.”     A few years after their uncle died, Aunt Faye sold most of the farm to her neighbor, a red-faced man from Norway who worked tirelessly alongside a half-dozen or so Bahamian men in the pineapple groves adjacent to her.   To keep herself busy, she joined a traveling craft circuit, comprised mostly of a group of women, all either widowed or single, from her church.  On weekends, they would gather in the church parking lot, fill a couple of U-haul trailers with a variety of homemade dolls, lopsided pottery, embroidered cloth picture frames, drip less rainbow colored candles, and hitch them to their Chevrolets and travel up the Western coast of Florida, stopping at fairs and bazaars along the way.  Aunt Faye’s dolls, all with the same bright-eyed expression painted on their muslin faces, and wearing expertly sewn and intricately detailed clothes, were very popular; after awhile people began to call her at home to request one for their daughter or sister or mother.  She didn’t really need the money; Sara suspected part of the fun for Aunt Faye was getting the chance to maneuver the car and trailer in and out of traffic on the interstate.

     After breakfast, Ben went out to the barn to take a look at the tiny hairless piglets that had been born the week before.  Sara spent the rest of the afternoon helping her aunt iron the doll clothes. They were in her aunt’s bedroom when she decided to tell her she was going back.

     “I’m going to head back today Aunt Faye.”  Her aunt stopped sewing and looked up at her, but didn’t seem surprised.

     “You think that’s a good idea, honey?”

     “I don’t know.”  But she knew she had to get back, suddenly feeling an urgency to move. “I’m going to go get ready, okay?” 

     Her aunt nodded.  “Well, you know where to find me, if you need me.”

     She was in the spare room making up the bed when Ben walked in.

      “You want to come see the piggies?”

     “I can’t.  I want to take a shower.”

     “Sara, what are you doing?”

     “I’m going home, Ben.  What’s the big deal?”

     “Well, I thought we were going to stay out here awhile.  That’s what Dad thinks.”

     “Since when did you care what he thinks?  I have things to do, I need to get back.”

     “To the restaurant?  Victor?”  Last night, right before she had fallen asleep, the phone had rung. 

     "Yeah, that's right."

     “Well, I’m going with you. You can’t stay by yourself.”

     “Okay. You could have fucking drowned, you know, for nothing, just goofing off.”  She picked up a duffel bag and began throwing things into it, her clothes from the night before, her make-up kit. “Everything is one big joke for you.”

     Ben sat down on the edge of the bed, with his back to her. His voice lowered.

     “I felt its skin.” 

     “What are you talking about?”

     “That day. I was trying to get a lobster that had gone behind some coral so I didn’t see it at first.  This shark came out of nowhere, you know?   I didn’t even see it until it was so close I could see its eyes. It looked at me straight in the face, I swear, and I couldn’t move.  I wanted to touch it, just to see what if felt like-so when it turned around, I put out my hand out-it’s skin was sharp. It should have hurt. But it didn’t.  It felt good.” He shook his head, “I don’t remember what happened after that.”

     She put her hands to her head, her forehead beginning to throb. “Well, I remember very clearly.”  She sat down on the bed.

     “I know you do." He stood up.  “I’m sorry.”

     “You know, maybe you should go up with Pete.” 

     “What?”

     “Nothing. Look, I’m leaving after lunch.”