The mill hill was in the north part of town, just past the mill, at the base of a wooded mountain. The houses were identical boxes, many of them with the original white paint now all faded, but some had been painted blue or yellow or green or pink or had aluminum or tar-paper siding. Chairs and couches lined porches, auto parts were crammed into some of the little yards, and one grimy house had a faded rebel flag hanging out a window. But you could see that keeping up appearances was important to a lot of the folks on the hill. Some used whitewashed tires as planters for pansies or had colorful pinwheels spinning in the breeze or little cement statues of squirrels and dwarves. We passed one woman out sweeping her dirt yard with a broom.
The Wyatts’ house was one that clearly showed pride of ownership. The sky-blue paint was fading, but the front yard was mowed, the bushes around the foundation were evenly pruned, and little rocks lined the path from the front steps to the sidewalk.
Liz stepped back, letting me go first. I knocked on the door, and it was opened almost immediately by a big woman with a wide mouth and twinkling green eyes. Her dark hair, which had a streak of white, was gathered in a loose bun, and she was wearing an apron over a baggy dress. She smiled at me curiously.
“Mrs. Wyatt?” I asked.
“I reckon I am.” She was drying her hands on a dish towel. They were big hands, like a man’s. “You all selling something?”
“I’m Bean Holladay. Charlotte’s daughter.”
She let out a shriek of joy, dropped the dish towel, then wrapped her arms around me in a spine-crushing hug.
I introduced Liz, who held out her hand in greeting.
“This ain’t a shaking family, it’s a hugging family!” Mrs. Wyatt shouted as she enveloped Liz in another crushing hug. She pulled us into the house, hollering for Clarence to come and meet his nieces. “And don’t you be Mrs. Wyatt–ing me,” she told us. “I’m your Aunt Al.”
The front door led into the kitchen. A small boy sitting at the table stared at us with wide, unblinking eyes. There was a big coal cooking stove with two freshly baked pies on top of it. Plates, bowls, and pots were stacked on the shelves according to size, and ladles and stirring spoons hung on a rack above the stove. You could tell Aunt Al ran a very tight ship. The walls were hung with needlepoint and small varnished boards with Bible verses or sayings like A SCRIPTURE A DAY KEEPS THE DEVIL AWAY and YOU CAN’T HAVE A RAINBOW WITHOUT A LITTLE RAIN.
I asked if Joe was there. “I met him yesterday, but I didn’t know he was my cousin.”
“Where’d you meet him?”
“In Uncle Tinsley’s orchard.”
“So you’re the peach thrower?” Aunt Al threw back her head and let out a huge laugh. “I heard you got quite an arm on you.” Joe was out and about, she said, and usually didn’t come home until dinnertime, but he was surely going to be sorry he missed this. She had four children, she went on. Joe was thirteen, her middle boy. She introduced the kid at the table as her youngest, Earl. He was five, she said, and he was different, not much strength, and he’d never really learned to talk—so far, anyway. Her eldest, Truman, who was twenty, was serving his country overseas. Her daughter, Ruth, who was sixteen, had gone down to North Carolina to help out one of Aunt Al’s sisters, who had three children to look after but had been taken down with meningitis.
A man came out of the back room, moving carefully like he was hurt, and Aunt Al introduced him as her husband, our Uncle Clarence.
“Charlotte’s daughters? You don’t say.” He was thin and slightly bent, his gaunt cheeks had deep lines, and his gray hair was crew-cut. He studied Liz. “You I remember,” he said. Then he looked at me. “You I never laid eyes on. That momma of yours got you out of town before I had a chance to see my brother’s only child.”
“Well, now you got your chance,” Aunt Al said. “Be sweet.”
“Glad to meet you, Uncle Clarence,” I said. I wondered if he was going to hug me, like Aunt Al had. But he just stood there looking at me suspiciously.
“Where’s your momma?” he asked.
“She stayed in California,” I said. “We’re just here for a visit.”
“Decided not to come, did she? Now, why don’t that surprise me?” Uncle Clarence started coughing.
“Don’t be getting all cantankerous, Clarence,” Aunt Al said. “Go sit down and catch your breath.” Uncle Clarence left the room coughing.
“My husband can be a little crotchety,” Aunt Al told us. “He’s a good man, but his lot ain’t been an easy one—what with his bad back and the white lung he got from working in the mill—and he’s sour on a lot of people. He also worries hisself sick about Truman being over in Vietnam, but he ain’t going to admit it. We’ve lost three Byler boys to the war, and I pray for my son and all those boys over there every night. Anyways, how about some pie?”