Book Learnin

Strapped down to the bindin chair my fingers absently feel along grooves at the ends of the arms, clearly where someone had clawed their nails into the wood and worn it down over the years, as the savory smells of the Bailey supper wafts through the house. I had to admit, it smelled damn good. Better than I’d had in a long while.

After a time I hear footsteps on the porch. The door swings open and in walks Jessie with my books and papers in his slender hands followed close behind by Fiona. My eyes lock on the papers in particular. He had almost certainly read them already. Here it comes.

“He didn’t have much. Just the basics.” He looks at me. “I put your road viddles in the cold cellar. They’ll keep there awhile.”

If he wanted me to say thanks he’d be waiting a long time, gag or no.

“Papa’s back, just hangin the meat.” Fiona says through to the kitchen. “Said he’d be in soon.”

“Alright.” Helen says back. “Supper’s ready when he gets here. Y’all warshed up and read to eat?”

“Yes Momma.” All three of her children say at once.

Elsie appears in the kitchen doorway and her eyes light up like the night sky on the fourth of July. “Books!” She sprints to her brother and scoops the items he held out for her. Clutching it all to her chest she hurries to her chair and sets them out on her lap. Jessie and Fiona look at each other with big smiles.

“They’re Mister Devlin’s, remember that.” Jessie says.

“Ohhh, I’ll treat’em good. Really I will.” She runs her hand over the cover of one of the tattered old tomes as if it were a precious treasure. She looks up at me. She meets my eyes for the first time as her zeal for reading momentarily overcoming her fear of strangers, and she pleads. “May I borrow your books for a time Mister Devlin? I promise to treat’em good.”

Those eyes! Those deep dark eyes. God damn, it felt like she was looking into my very soul. Not having the heart to say otherwise I give her a slow nod.

“Thank you Sir!” She beams.

The top book is my bible, this she gives just a glance then sets it to the side on a little bookshelf kept in the corner. In her excitement to see the other book she also puts my folded up papers there too, tucking them under the bible. Seeing the cover of the second books she lets out a little gasp.

“What is it?” Jessie asks with a grin, excited for his little sister. It takes a second but it soon hits me, Jessie couldn’t read. Why else would he ask that? That means he hadn’t read my papers.

“Poems.” Elsie whispers in something approaching awe. “An anthology!”

“Anthony who?” Helen pokes her head out.

“No Momma.” Elsie giggles. “Like a collection. Different folk wrote these.” She opens the cover to the table of contents and reverently runs her fingers down the page, as if she might feel the letters. “Poe, Dickinson, Whitman…ohhhh! This is wonderful!”

“Mister Devlin is a man of learnin it seems.” Jessie says.

“Too bad for him he never learned to read a map.” Fiona quips with a chuckle.

“C’mon my girl. Set the table.” Helen says as she returns to what she was doing. “You can read that at bedtime.”

Very gently Elsie closes the cover and caresses the plain black cover. Her joy was palpable even from across the room. “Yes Momma.” She glances out of the corner of her eye at me, suddenly shy again, then sets this book on her shelf too. She then hurries back into the kitchen with Jessie soon following along. And just like that…I am left in the room alone with the imposing Fiona.

She just stands staring for a time with the look of the devil himself in her intense hazel eyes. I don’t meet her gaze but neither do I look away, I didn’t want to challenge her in my present state but I also wanted to let her know I wasn’t afraid of her either.

“Funny seein someone else in there. Not nice, is it?” She says at last.

“Frrk!” I swear at her through my gag. Swearing in Momma’s house was one of the few acts of defiance I could do right now. Didn’t do nothing but it made me feel a bit better.

“So full of fire.” Her lips curl into an evil grin. “So brave…he he he.”

“Rrrm!”

“All bound up and helpless. Helpless. Helpless. Can’t move no matter how hards you try. No matter how hards you fight.” She takes a step closer, her voice low. “Helplesssss. Mmm, the things I could do to you piggyyyy…” Suddenly she stops, stands statue still a moment, then actually stumbles back as she shakes her head and brings her hands to her temples, a look of great confusion coming over her. She starts to whine deep down in her chest before blurting out. “Elsie!”

In a heartbeat her two siblings are back through the door and at her sides. “Shhh, Momma’ll hear.” Elsie says softly as she strokes her sister’s shoulder.

“Fiona?” Jessie asks, hugging her from the other side. “What’s the matter?”

“Piggy…piggy…” She points to me as if I’d done something to her.

“Call’im Case. A’member? Call’im Case.”

She nods. “Case.” She looks down at Elsie with tears glistening in her eyes and whispers as if she were in pain. “Help meeee.”

“I’m here Fiona.” Elsie looks to her brother. “Would you mind settin the table for me Jessie?”

“I don’t mind.” He says. Pulling Fiona down to kiss her cheek he whispers to her. “I love you sister. You strong. You a goddess!”

“Love youuu.” Fiona whimpers.

“She okay?” Helen asks. “What’s goin on out there?”

“She’s okay Momma. Leave her be.” Jessie assures her as he heads back into the kitchen where the pair of them start talking quietly.

Meanwhile Elsie had lead her sister to the sofa and sat her down on the floor in front of it. Fiona sit stiffly, her legs straight out in front of her and her hands clasped together with a white knuckled grip. Elsie hums to her as she calmly removes her sister’s bowie knife from its sheath and sets it out of reach.

“If I could just…have him alone…just for an hour…”

“You can’t think those things.”

“I can’t…stop…” Her muscles tense up as her hands tremble from squeezing so hard.

“Shhhh.” Elsie says soothingly as she retrieves a thin book from the shelf. “Momma’ll hear you.”

Fiona bites down her lips as her troubled expression flinches repetitively. Christ! What was wrong with this woman?

“Don’t look at him. Don’t even think about him.” Elsie says. She was clearly uncomfortable with my being there but helping Fiona and doing it quick was more important to her right now.

Elsie lays the book over Fiona’s clasped hands. “Here, work on learnin your letters awhile. Just focus there.”

Fiona obeys without objection or hesitation. Opening the faded old school reader she hurried flips to the first page where the bright color drawing of what looked like a deer was and sets straight into it. “The ante…lope bounds o’er the grassy plains, as light and free as air; and happy as all little children should be, who have never known sorrow or care.”

Elsie had come in behind her sister to sit upon the sofa behind her. Leaning down she wraps her arms around his sister’s chest and hugs her tight as she kisses her cheek. “Yer cheatin.” El says. “You know this one too good.”

“I like this one.” Fiona chuckles, her troubled spell fading away just as quickly as it began under her sister’s patient attention. “You choose then.”

“Find the flower vase.”

“Yes Ma’am.” Fiona flips through the pages. Each set of pages had a picture and poem on one side and a short bit of text on the opposite leaf. She flips until she gets to a picture of a man looking down at a tortoise and pauses. There were markings on this page, crude violent scrawlings of arrows and things poking into the tortoise.

“Not that one.” Elsie says gently.

“Yes’m.” Fiona nods and keeps going until she found the vibrant colors of a bunch of flowers in a vase. She swallows hard and starts again. “N-now the…summ-er days are here, flow…” She corrects her pronunciation. “…flowers are bloo-min ever-where.”

“Good!”

Fiona smiles. “Lif-tin up th-th-thhheir pret-ty…um…heads, from their…hum…humb…humblee…humballee…”

“Humble.”

“Humble, gras-sy…beds.”

“Mah goodness you’re learnin fast!” Elsie says as she starts to unweave Fiona’s long braid. “Now say it in a go.”

Her big sister takes a breath. “Now the summer days are here, fl-flowers are bloomin…ever-where; liftin up theirrr…heads, from the humbllle, grassy beds.”

“Very good!” Elsie had produced a comb and pulls it through her sister’s long blond hair. “Keep goin.”

“El?”

“Yeah?”

There is a long pause as Fiona stares down at the bright happy looking flowers in the book. “What’s wrong wit me?”

Taking her sister’s head in both hands Elsie tenderly kisses her crown. “Nothin. You’re just as God made ya. Now read me some more.”

“Yes’m.”

Fiona continues to struggle through the reading as Elsie combs and strokes her sister’s hair, congratulating every success and gently correcting each mistake or stumble. Despite everything I could not help but be touched by the display of sisterly love happening in front of me. These Bailey’s were fucked up something awful but there was real love in this house, no doubt about it. As long as you were family.