Molasses

My foot dropped to the first floor landing and I raised my hand to the wall instinctively. The paper was rough from the imprints of hundreds of flowers. I traced the edge of a viola before moving to the kitchen, passing the mud room and the pantry on my way down the hall. Walter had put the kettle on the stove at six and I could hear the whistle from upstairs. He knew I would want a cup of tea before he returned home from the mechanic.

The first time I met Walter years ago, I told him he had hands like a mechanic’s. They were cracked and dry, covered in dirt, and they smelled a bit like gasoline. I didn’t think I needed a caretaker, but it becomes inevitable if you live as long as I have. As I grew older, the people I had grown to rely on got older too. Metty Lord absolutely could not be trusted behind the wheel any longer, and my butcher, who had delivered the finest meats to my door every week for thirty years, had passed away the previous September. Personally, I had only fallen once and that was because of Chester, but he was dead now too.

I felt the tiles on the floor with my bare toes, counting one, two, seven before raising my hand to the counter. I reached for the knob of the cabinet overhead, pulling out my ceramic cup. Setting the cup down on the counter and swinging the door of the cabinet shut, I wrapped my hand protectively in an oven mitt before proceeding to pick up the kettle from the open flame. It is amazing to me how many people lose an arm or else get badly burned because they haven’t been careful with their stove.

I hoped Charlie wasn’t awake yet; Walter’s cousin was staying in the basement, in the room with the furnace. He was a quiet man, someone I couldn’t easily notice in a room. I didn’t know what Charlie would have done if he’d had seen me wandering the house alone. Walter was careful to give me space, but most people insisted on helping me. To be honest, if Walter hadn’t spoken out of such necessity, I probably never would have let his cousin stay at Marlfarm. I trusted Walter completely, but we got on well with our privacy.

Walter hadn’t seen Charlie in over thirty years and then he found him in the corn field. At night, I liked to stand by the back windows overlooking the old corn fields. Walter would play the piano and I would sing. Sometimes he would put on a record and in a really wild mood we would dance. It was one of these nights when Walter found Charlie. We were dancing and carrying on when we both heard a strange noise, like a low growl, then a high keen. Thinking it was a wolf, Walter said he was going out to secure the trash. I stood by the back window with my palms against the panes; I must have been a sight with my hair wild from dancing. A few minutes later, Walter returned with a man he introduced as his cousin.

Charlie was escaping something. Hospital or prison, I wasn’t entirely sure and I didn’t care to know. I sensed Walter’s hesitance when he tried to explain it to me. I didn’t want to be involved but I told him Charlie could stay for a while. I knew what it was to miss a loved one; sometimes you’ll hang on to the closest thing. All the same, I would have hated to run into him alone in the house. I’d never forget the time I reached out for his hand; we were at the table and Charlie asked Walter to pass him the potatoes. That night Walter and I had made a stew with chicken and potatoes and peas. Of course, the potatoes were mixed in with everything, but I thought Walter’s response was a little harsh. Charlie was a bit slow; he had a sweet voice, low and quiet with a heavy drawl. I reached for him out of empathy, laying my right hand on his left as he sat near me. The whorled scars bubbled as though from deep within his bones. He pulled his hand away quickly, hissing at me. I had never felt something wicked like that before.

Feeling a need to get out of the kitchen, I moved to the window in the great room, placing my palm against a cool pane. I hoped the weather was nice today because I wanted to sit outside on the porch. Picking up my shawl from the back of my favorite comfy chair, I stepped into my most substantial slippers before unlocking the front door. The porch’s floorboards creaked as I pushed myself through the door frame, making sure the screen door was closed tightly before settling into my rocking chair.

The crisp October morning rolled toward me. I felt a breeze from across the orchard, carrying the smell of singed apples from Raymond’s place. I heard geese overhead, forming their V pattern in the sky. It wasn’t truly cold out yet but I was glad for my blanket. I heard a new whistle, from the distant East, as the night train steamed through the Hudson Valley toward the Catskills.

Rocking, I sipped my tea slowly. A car pulled into the drive, and I stood to greet it. As the door slammed, my neck curved toward the man who had just emerged. “Walter, you’re home early.” I could smell the grease on him from the drive. I had known he would try to help the mechanic despite what the doctor said.

“Hello, Miss Daisy,” Walter drawled. His voice was like molasses. “The car’s all fixed. Do you still want to go to the market today?”

“That would be nice, Walter. We’re all out of carrots, I noticed, and I thought maybe I’d make up a stew for us tonight.”

“Alright, Miss Daisy. Tell you what, let me check on Charlie and then we can go right away. Let’s get you tucked in the car and I’ll be back in five minutes.” Walter took my arm, trying to guide me toward his car.

“Now hold on, Walter. You know I can make it to the drive on my own. You go ahead. I’ll be fine,” I batted at Walter’s shoulder before walking to the edge of the porch, stepping down to the first line of bricks leading down to the parked car.

Walter sighed, muttering, “Okay, Miss Daisy,” under his breath as he opened the front door.

I trudged to the passenger side of my old Dodge, pulling the handle and shifting quickly to avoid hitting my head on the way into the car. I found the key where Walter had left it in the glove compartment and turned on the heat. As the car warmed up, the hot dry air began to lull me to sleep.

I was driving with Walter, through the lovely winding woods of the upstate. I could almost smell the sap on the air. Pines always meant Christmas and my father. Walter drove beautifully. That had been one of the demands I made in my advertisement; my caretaker must know how to drive, well. No racing over speed bumps, barreling through curves. I kept to the country and driving like a maniac from the metropolis just wouldn’t do.

I turned in my seat. Walter was suffering. I was in his apartment before I met him. He was eating pickles and dry toast. The walls were threadbare. We were both alone in the deep space. We were both orphans.

The noise jolted me. I had brought my blanket into the car with me and I struggled with it before freeing my arm and thrusting myself out of the door. Whatever noise it had been had propelled me into motion. Now I could hear only silence, radiating from the farmhouse in front of me. “Walter!” I yelled, rushing forward. I heard no response from inside the house but I tripped across the front lawn.

I heard a faint noise from the back of the house, like rustling corn. I kept moving. Finding the iron railing, I mounted the brick steps I had descended just minutes earlier and pulled open the screen door.

I was overwhelmed by the smell of gunpowder. I’d gone hunting with my father every weekend before he had his accident. I remembered him placing an orange cap down over my blonde curls that morning before we left. We were tracking in the back woods when I saw a flash. Pellets sprayed and I’d hit the forest bed, crunching into needles. My father was always careful when he brought me hunting. He had been taken by surprise and I was knocked down in the confusion. When I woke up, my sight was missing.

The air was thick with it, with something sweeter underneath. Making my way in, I heard a faint rattling from the piano room. I crossed the great room in three strides, passing through the French doors into the back room. My foot bumped against something soft and sharp. The something groaned and I recoiled.

“Is he still here?” the thing croaked. I barely recognized his voice. I knelt down, crawling toward Walter, who lay inert with his arm under the piano bench. I could feel the sunlight streaming through the windows from the field. My knee felt moist and when I reached for Walter’s face, my hand came away sticky.

“I think he left,” I said, my voice wavering. My face was a few inches away from Walter’s. I wanted to see him; to Walter, my eyes would look almost white. They were blue once, a brilliant dazzling blue like you’ve never seen before but the doctor cut my irises out.

“Did he hurt you? I heard it.” I ran my hand across Walter’s chest, feeling for broken edges.

He inhaled too quickly. “Yes, Miss Daisy, he got me good. Right through my shoulder. You’d better make the call.”

I fell backward, catching my weight with my left palm. Spinning up, I felt for changes in the air. Charlie wasn’t here now. I walked to the kitchen, reaching for the telephone on the wall and dialing.

“Hello! Yes, we need help. Come quickly. It’s happened, Raymond,” I wavered as I slid down the wall, closing my cloudy eyes.