and there’d be a dress or shoes and underwear for her. Some of the stuff she ordered herself at Bull’s house looked good in the catalog but wasn’t that pretty when you got it but most of the things she got from the Spiegel catalog, she liked. And Bull didn’t pick out her clothes no more. As she got older, her taste in clothing changed, and Bull was pretty well satisfied with what she bought, and if he wasn’t, he didn’t say nothing about it.
She picked up a letter addressed to her in a familiar hand, and it shocked her. A letter from Clive, and the rest of the mail was forgotten. She hadn’t heard from them in years! Staring at the writing on the envelope, she was trying to think back to when she had heard from her family last. Oh, she still sent them Christmas cards, fancy ones, so they’d know how much money she had. And Macie had sent her letters when the kids were born, telling her about them. Maybe Clive and Dorie had had a young’un and they was writing to tell her about it. As far as she knew, they’d never had a young’un as long as they’d been married. She’d never got pregnant herself, and she wondered about that. Was it her, or was it Bull? Had to be her because she’d been carrying on with Dan almost ever since she’d married Bull and she still wasn’t expecting.
She slowly opened the envelope, thinking if it wasn’t a new young’un, that Clive was probably gonna ask her for money. He’d got himself in too deep somewhere and needed her to bail him out. Well, he had another think coming. Jewel had money. Bull give her lots of money to spend and sometimes she didn’t spend it all. But she sure wasn’t gonna send it to Clive. She wasn’t gonna send him one red cent!
What she read, though, made her a little sick at her stomach. It wasn’t a young’un and it wasn’t money that Clive wanted although he did mention it. Clay and Macie had been poisoned by some moonshine they’d drunk to celebrate her birthday. They’d buried them two days before and they’d left three kids that needed a place to stay. Three? She only knew about Clay, Jr. and Shannon. How old was the third one? They hadn’t wrote and told her about that one. Must have come along after he got back from overseas. But Clive went on to explain that Clay, Jr. was seven, Shannon was five and Nathaniel was eight months old. Why couldn’t Clive and Dorie keep ’em? He explained that, too. Dorie was finally expecting and the baby would be born in five months. There was no way Dorie could keep them young’uns, according to Clive, because they had to move up to Logan County and take care of Dorie’s mom and dad. Couldn’t she find it in her heart to take in these young’uns for Clay and Macie’s sake?
Well, don’t that just beat all, Jewel thought as she paced up and down her bedroom, staring at the letter in her hand as if it were some kind of death sentence. What was she supposed to do with them? She had her own life. She didn’t have time to take care of no young’uns. There was Bull who would have a fit and there was Dan who she’d never get to see if she had all them young’uns around all the time. But Clive went on to say that they’d go to a orphan’s home if she didn’t take them in. None of Macie’s family couldn’t take them. They hardly had enough to feed what they had. And Jewel remembered Macie’s family and how poor they was. They even had less than the Logan’s. Lordy, she didn’t know what to do! She wasn’t too bothered that she never saw her family, but she always knew they were there. And Clive and Clay had taken care of her after their mommy and daddy died. What if Clay hadn’t quit school and took care of her when she went into that spell she had that time? What if they’d sent her to a orphan’s home because they were boys and she was a girl? It had been mentioned by somebody, Clive had told her. Jewel was in a quandary, going back and forth, trying to decide what she could do or should do.
And Bull wasn’t there to ask about it. She reckoned she could call him on the telephone, but she’d never done that. She’d have to ask Matilda where he was staying at and she didn’t want to do that. And besides, he’d just say no. She didn’t want the kids but she didn’t want them going to no orphan’s home, either. What in the world was she gonna do?
Down at the bottom of the letter Clive had added a p.s. “If you can’t come and get the young’uns, will you please send some money on the funeral? We buried ’em up on his farm where it didn’t cost nothin’ for that, but we still owe the funeral home in West Hamlin.” He’d paid a little on it, he said, but still owed a lot. Could she send a few dollars to help out?
That night, Dan noticed right off that Jewel was distracted. She’d never been that way with him before. As eager for their lovemaking as he was, tonight she mostly just stared and smiled every once in awhile. What was wrong with her? But when he asked, she just said nothing was wrong and put a little more enthusiasm into it, but Dan could tell she wasn’t there, but was off somewhere else. Something sure had happened.
Afterwards, as his index finger slowly made feathery little circles around her nipples, making her shiver, he asked, “Did Bull call? Is that what’s wrong with you, honey? Did he say something to you?” Suddenly he sat up on the bed, the sheet he had pulled up falling away. “Oh God! He didn’t find out about us, did he? Jewel, he’d kill us both if he found out!” The worried look on his face touched Jewel, but there was no way that anybody knew about them. If anybody was gonna find out, they’d a already done it.
“No, it ain’t nothin’ like that, Dan. Bull never calls me. My brother died, is all. I found out about it this mornin’ and I have to go back to West Virginia for a couple a days. You know, to go to the funeral and all.” He wouldn’t know she was lying. And she wasn’t about to say nothing about Macie dying, too. That would just be too much explaining to do. “I just hate leavin’ you what with Bull bein’ gone. We coulda had us some good times.”
Dan lay back down and pulled her to him, breathing a sigh of relief. “Don’t worry about it, Jewel. There’ll be other times. You just go back and do what you gotta do. I’ll be here waitin’ when you get back. And I’m sorry you lost your brother. That’d be hard.”
“You’re so sweet, Dan.” And she meant it. In her heart she was thinking that she wished she’d met Dan before she did Bull. But her mind said she wouldn’t a had nothing if she had. She really liked being with Dan, but not all the time. And Bull owned the company, had all that money. Dan was just a worker, like everybody else.
She crept into the house and went straight up the stairs to her bedroom. She got down a suitcase that she’d never used, and packed a few of her brand new clothes in it. Things she’d just bought in the last month or so. Her closet was full of clothes, shoes, hats, and her drawers had tons of panties, brassiere’s, slips, and silk hose and garter belts. She owned lots of lingerie that Bull had bought for her, even if he only wanted to look at her in them. He’d have her put on the sheer nothings and parade up and down in front of him, but nothing much ever come of it. He always said he had a headache or his chest was bothering him, and she’d just go back to her bedroom.
The next morning at breakfast, she told Matilda the same story that she’d told Dan. Her brother Clay had got killed and she had to go back to West Virginia for the funeral. She just told Matilda he got killed because she didn’t want to go into what killed him. When you tell somebody that someone got killed, nine times outta ten they’d think it was a car wreck. So she just let Matilda think it. Lying through her teeth, she told Matilda she’d tried to get in touch with Bull, but couldn’t. She didn’t know that Jewel had no idea where he was. When he called, just tell him she went back home for a few days. She showed Matilda the letter, but not what it said, figuring the woman had already seen the envelope anyway. The nosy old hag went through all their mail before she brought it to them.
“Bull ain’t gonna like you goin’ off, Miss Jewel. He’ll be madder ’an a hornet. Jus’ you wait and see.”
“I’ll be back before Bull gets back here. He ain’t comin’ home fer a couple a weeks.” She wished the woman would stop interfering in her life, but there wasn’t no chance of that. She had something to say about everything she did, and Jewel had finally grown up enough
