Download a PDF version of ”The Homemaker”
Later, I learned it was Mr. Powell who had ventured out into the pecan grove with the shotgun he kept behind the seat of his Explorer. He was visiting his momma when he heard the music thumping from Sharee’s car.
I knew him from church. Every other Sunday, I would walk down to Bethel Baptist. The building was square and striped with thin white clapboard siding. The parking lot wasn’t paved, just clumps of grass and loose pebbles. Bethel Baptist met every other Sunday because the congregation had gotten so small they had to share a minister with a church in a neighboring county. Maybe fifteen or so elderly people would attend, sitting reverently on the pews in their fine clothes. That’s what I liked: their dignity and silence. The minister had a calm voice, speaking of grace and mercy. I felt safe there. Mr. Powell sometimes came with his momma. She had a hunched spine and used a walker to get around. Her hair was pure white, like fluffy cotton. She always wore a strand of pearls, looping down from her bent neck, and matching clip earrings. She and her son would sit next to me and we’d share a hymnal.
On a Wednesday, almost three weeks after high school graduation at the football stadium, Dad was complaining that I just lay around reading romance novels and that I needed to be “paying some damn rent for your room and buying groceries for all you eat around here.” One of his friends said he could get me a job as a waitress at this club downtown. The next day, Dad and his friend drove me to the club in the truck. We went by the courthouse and then over the railroad tracks to where the lumberyard used to be, stopping at this place that looked like plywood hammered onto a frame. Inside, the club smelled of crusty grease and flat beer. Dark paneling covered the walls, and the only light came from the neon beer signs over the bar and a long florescent tube over a pool table. I was introduced to a pale man with rough, flaky skin and wearing shorts and an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt.
“Here’s the girl I was telling you about,” Dad’s friend said. “The one who could work at that Hooters place.”
The owner’s gaze moved from my face, to my breasts, and back. My gut turned, and I took a step back.
“Come on back tomorrow around four and I’ll try you out,” he said.
Dad and his friend stayed at the club, eating wings and drinking beer while they played pool. I sat in a booth, sipped a coke, pulled a paperback from my purse and strained to read under the dim light. My hands were shaking, and I felt like I might puke all over the table. But I swallowed hard and focused on the words.
Hannah ran out to the edge of the woods. She prayed to God, asking for his guidance about her confused feelings for Matthew. She couldn’t marry yet, not with Abraham one year in the grave. The carriages were coming down their drive, and her sister was bringing up jars of preserves from the root cellar. Outside the barn, her father, Abe, and the other men gathered…
A few hours later, I had to drive everyone home.
Mom was lying down in the back room, coming down from a high. Everyone was gone, except for a man snoring on the sofa. The den carpet was littered with Doritos crumbs. Aluminum cans, snuffed-out cigarettes and needles cluttered the side tables. I picked up the remote, turned off ESPN and walked into the kitchen. I set the oven to 350, opened two cans of chopped pineapple, and dumped the contents into a glass baking dish, then mixed in pats of butter and brown sugar. I shredded some cheese and then crushed graham crackers with my hands and sprinkled the crumbs on top. When the casserole was done baking, I wrapped the dish in kitchen towels and carried it as I walked along the highway’s edge to the Wednesday night supper at the church.
I was sitting alone at the end of the folding table in the fellowship hall, eating coconut cake from a Styrofoam plate, when Mr. Powell and the minister came up to me.
“They are telling me you made that there pineapple dish,” Mr. Powell said. His belly hung over the belt of his tan pants. He wore a pale blue oxford without a tie. On his fingers were a wedding band and a thick college ring.
“Yes, sir.” I was nervous, my gaze darting between the men.
Mr. Powell pulled back a chair, sat down and dabbed his red creased forehead with a paper napkin. “That sure was good.”
I mumbled a soft “thank you,” but I wasn’t sure he heard it.
“Reverend Mitchell thinks you might be able to help me. You see, my momma needs someone to look after her. We had this full-time gal, but she got mixed up with a fellow over in Valdosta. Don’t require much work. You just got to stay with momma and drive her to the store when she needs to—”
“Yes.” I said, sliding forward in my chair. Surprised at my own boldness.
