Irene put her foot down. “He’s drunk as a skunk, Grover, You’re not taking my girls out on that boat and if you have half a brain in your head you won’t go either.”
Grover didn’t listen. “Hold on, Brick. Let me get my shoes and I’ll be right there.” He glared at Irene as he walked past her and through the screen door. He opened the cabinet under the kitchen sink and took out his bottle of Jim Beam and tucked it under his arm. Irene had embarrassed him in front of Brick. He didn’t speak to her but he kissed the twins and climbed into Brick’s boat.
When Grover wasn’t home by nightfall, Irene didn’t worry. It wasn’t the first time he’s missed supper. She knew that her husband sometimes came to her straight from another woman’s bed but she had learned not to mind. In fact she welcomed the reprieve from the rough intercourse.
She was awakened by a knock at the back door. She lit a lantern and buttoned her robe as she hurried to the kitchen. She opened the door and stepped back as the sheriff and two men she didn’t know entered the room.
The sheriff removed his hat. “Irene, I’m afraid I have some hard news to give you.”
Irene didn’t speak. She clutched the neck of her gown.
The sheriff continued. “Irene. Grover is gone.”
At first she thought he meant he had run away but then it began to sink in. Grover was dead.
“Best we can tell, Irene, they hit the breakwater off Belhaven. Brick and Grover were both probably killed instantly.”
Irene found the chair with her hand and lowered herself onto the seat.
“Irene, do you want me to go get your sister to come stay with you?”
She shook her head. “No, sheriff. I’ll be all right. Thank you for coming sheriff. It was kind of you.” It occurred to her that this was the second time the sheriff had stood in her kitchen and told her she was a widow.
After the men left, Irene sat in her kitchen for a long time before she got up, lit a fire and set a cauldron of water over it. While it was boiling she went to her bed and stripped off the sheets and carried them to her laundry tub. When Benjamin woke up she found his mother furiously scrubbing the sheets against her washboard.
* * *
16-year-old Benjamin was again thrust into the role of man of the house. He was no longer a child and he refused to be treated like one. He made up his mind that he would quit school and take care of the farm.
“You can’t quit school. I won’t hear of it. We’ll manage. It won’t be easy, but you will not quit school and that it final.”
“Ma will you be practical for once in your life? What are you planning to do? Plow those fields all by yourself while I sit in a classroom reading Shakespeare? I can see it now. In the evening we can put on plays for the twins.” Benjamin laughed. It was s derisive laugh. The laugh that sounded exactly like Grover’s.
Irene stood up. “I won’t have you speaking to me like that. I’m your mother.”
His mother had just buried her second husband. At forty-eight, she was an old woman. For a moment he almost felt pity for her.
“Benjamin, I know you’re just trying to act grown up but you are a boy. It’s not going to be easy for any of us but things without all remedy should be without regard. What’s done is done.”
Benjamin shook his head. Leave it to her to quote Shakespeare in the middle of a crisis. “Damn it, Mama, why don’t you just find yourself a new husband like you did when my daddy died?”
“Benjamin, I won’t have you speaking to me like that. I’m your mother. You are going to stay in school. I’ve said all I am going to say. The matter is settled.”
“Mama. I’m done with school. I can’t afford to have dreams anymore. Neither of us can. You made too many bad choices.”
Irene slammed her hand down on the table. She got up and walked toward her son. “Benjamin, you will do as I tell you. The matter is closed. Please don’t try my patience. What’s done is done.”In spite of her protests, Benjamin quit school. He got up at dawn and went to the fields. He no longer had time to tend to the animals. That task, that had once brought him such joy, now relegated to the twins.
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