Morning Glory by Lavyrle Spencer Page B

school with her mother, you know. Course, that was before she dropped her whelp and they locked her up."
      "You did?" Lula sat up and reached over the edge of the tub for a towel. She stood and began drying herself. Harley did the same.
      "She stared at the wall a lot, and drew pictures all the time. Once she drew a picture of a naked man on a windowshade. The teacher didn't know it was there and when she pulled it down the class went crazy. Course, they never proved it was Lottie. See drew it, but she was always drawin', and who else'd be crazy enough to do a thing like that?"
      Harley stepped from the tub and began drying his legs. Suddenly he stopped and stared at the hairless insides of his thighs. "Damn it all, Lula, how'm I gonna explain these mustard stains to Mae?"
      Lula explored the evidence, giggled and turned to the mirror, tightening one of the combs that held her upsweep. "Tell her you got the yellow jaundice."
      Harley guffawed and slapped her fanny. "Hey, Lula, you're all right, kid." Abruptly he sobered. "You're sure tonight was okay to do it—I mean, you couldn't get pregnant or anything, could you?"
      Lula grew piqued. "You're a little late askin', aren't you, Harley?"
      "Jesus, Lula, I depend on you to tell me if I need to use anything."
      She dabbed Evening in Paris behind her ears, between her thighs. "How dumb do you think I am, Harley?" She capped the bottle and slammed it down. He was always asking the same question, as if she were too ignorant to use a calendar. She'd answered it scores of times, but it always left her feeling empty and angry. So, she wasn't his wife. So, she couldn't have his babies. Who'd want 'em? She'd seen his kids and they were stubby, ugly little brats that looked like bug-eyed monkeys. If she was ever going to have a kid, it sure as hell wouldn't be his. It'd be somebody's like that Parker's, somebody who'd give her handsome, brown-eyed darlings that other women would envy.
      The thought of it gripped her with a sense of urgency. She was thirty-six already and no marriage prospects in sight. She'd live the rest of her life in this stinking little dump where she'd probably die, just like her mother had. And when she got so old Harley didn't want to do it on the kitchen table anymore—or couldn't, for that matter—he'd retire to his rocking chair on the front veranda with his precious, boring Mae. And all those homely little monkeys of his would turn out more homely little monkeys and old Grampa Harley'd be happy as a tick on a fat sheep.
      And she—Lula—would be here alone. Aging. Going to fat. Eating beef and mustard sandwiches by herself.
      Well, not if she could help it, Lula vowed. Not if she could by God help it.

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    Chapter 4
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    E leanor awakened to a pink sunrise creeping over the sill and the sound of an ax. She peeked across her pillow at the alarm clock. Six-thirty. He was chopping wood at six-thirty?
      Barefoot, she crept to the kitchen window and stood back, studying him and the woodpile. How long had he been up? Already he'd split a stack waist-high. He had tossed his shirt and hat aside. Dressed only in jeans and cowboy boots, he looked as meaty as a scarecrow. He swung the ax and she watched, fascinated in spite of herself by the hollow belly, the taut arms, the flexing chest. He'd done some splitting in his time and went at it with measured consistency, regulating his energy for maximum endurance-balancing a log on the stump, standing back, cracking it dead center and cleaving it with two whacks. He balanced another piece and—whack! whack!—firewood.
      She closed her eyes—lordy, don't let him leave—and rested a hand on her roundness, recalling her own clumsiness at the task, the amount of effort it had taken, the length of time.
      She opened the back door and stepped onto the porch. "You're sure up with the chickens, Mr. Parker."
      Will let the ax fall and swung around. "Mornin', Mrs. Dinsmore."
      "Mornin'