Jewel. Myrna G. Raines

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 to figure out why. Matilda wanted Bull for herself, so the woman tormented her to death just cause Bull had married her. Hell, she couldn’t hardly go to the bathroom without Matilda wanting to know whether she was gonna do number one or number two!

      Jewel still didn’t know what she was going to do about the kids. She’d never even seen them. Didn’t know what they were like. They could be meaner than snakes. Letting them go to an orphan’s home, though, seemed kinda rotten, but what were they to her? “Clay’s kids, that’s what,” her mind said, and then she’d be right back to where she was at, not knowing what to do about them young’uns. Lord, why’d they have to drink that moonshine? It messed up everything!

      She loaded the Chrysler down with her suitcases and started out. Jewel hated to admit to herself that she didn’t know which way to go, but thought she’d just get a map and try that. Jewel never went much of anywhere since all her life she was so used to staying at home. To a hotel with Dan maybe and then straight back home. She’d go into Chillicothe to different theaters to see movies, and knew where all the better stores were. But the only place Bull took her was out to eat every once in a while and she figured that was just to show her off. He sure did do a lot of preening when they went someplace where other people could see them, but she noticed there was never nobody there that Bull knew, or if they was they didn’t do no talking.

      Jewel figured she was like one of Bull’s cars. Before he took her somewhere, he’d inspect her to make sure she was wearing her most expensive stuff and if something she was wearing didn’t please him, he’d make her change. And he told her to keep her mouth shut while they were out. If anybody said anything to her she was just supposed to smile at them and nod. It made her awful uneasy, to the point that she dreaded going anywhere at all with him. But Bull wouldn’t show off no jalopy.