More than I Lost

DAWN; A SCATTERING OF BIRDSONG. HUMID air drifts through the screens to curl a manuscript abandoned on the roller of a Remington portable. A jay calls. Small winds stir the ragged leaves of August, pattering to the ground the last of midnight’s rain. Across the room, a sheeted form stirs and curls against another. There are murmurs of recognition.DAWN; A SCATTERING OF BIRDSONG. HUMID air drifts through the screens to curl a manuscript abandoned on the roller of a Remington portable. A jay calls. Small winds stir the ragged leaves of August, pattering to the ground the last of midnight’s rain. Across the room, a sheeted form stirs and curls against another. There are murmurs of recognition.
“Happy birthday, Faye, honey. And my sincerest congratulations.”
“Yeah? For what?” Creaky with sleep.
“Thirty-seven’s a prime number. You’re prime again, first time in six years.”
“Oh, boy. Like a piece of aged beef. I found a new wrinkle yesterday. Next thing’ll be hot flashes.”
“You look exactly the same right now as you did when I first laid eyes on you. Which is, you’re the loveliest, sexiest woman that ever …
” Faye Bynum yawned, jaw yawed as commentary, and stretched, shuddering; but pulled his head to her breast and tangled her leg with his. “How sweet, Fordie. But first of all, you’re blind as a bat without your glasses, and it’s barely light out. Plus, you know I never believe anything you say about how damn lovely I am.”
“Yeah?” He cast off the sheet. “Do you believe this, then?”
Later, she wrapped herself in his castoff shirt and wandered to the screen porch to taste the day. And called back to him, “Forde. Come and look. It’s something … amazing. Hurry.” He hurried, stubbing his toe on a pan that Faye had risen at two AM to place under drips from the leaky place in the roof. The water spilled, creating the puddle it had been intended to prevent; and they stood together, watching dawn skim the scalloped blanket of fog above Morgan’s Eddy, a spring-fed bulge in the otherwise negligible Gabbro River. Above its surface, the morning mist was touched by sunlight and currents of air barely alive in the hush; in its depths the bones of Confederate dead slumbered and cycled, long since fossilized to fool’s gold. Fingers of sunlight touched the mist with peaks of white and gold, a coloristic meringue. The white peaks were edged in orange and blue; the hollows between were like some alpine land that neither of them had visited, cradling worlds in valleys tinged with color from the peaks. It lasted a few minutes more; then glints of water showed, and the fog began to evaporate in the steepening slant of sun.
They lingered, content to rub hips and breathe the mingled scents of pine, mist, and bed.  “Well.”

***

She walked through the kitchen and down two steps to a grassy place at the back, where she worked through the ground exercises that had kept her acceptably tight and graceful this far. They were getting a little harder the last years; when she finished, speckled with twigs and sand, she turned in the kitchen door to let her breath and pulse come back to normal, and to feel the effect of the workout on a body that she considered pretty good for a woman starting to push forty. She inhaled deeply, held it, and traced the line of obliques down a tight belly to solid thighs, and a still handsome butt with no sag to it. Blood coursed through it all, singing at its work. Last night’s rain had brought clarity and freshness to the air. A few sumacs and a bald cypress were showing fall colors. The scrub oak leaves were still green, but they were bug-spotted and leathery, with a jaded look to them, as if the summer had worn them out, along with its welcome. Faye Bynum, 37, took her towel-wrapped self and a cake of Ivory down to the Eddy to clean up, to wash away sweat and the traces of Forde Morgan, and to begin her 38th year in its brisk and tannic embrace.

***

“Mr. Morgan in?” “Yes, Miss Bynum. Been waitin’ for you.” “I was at the High School. He knew that.” “Yes’m … Just bet he done.” Sharon muttered the last when Faye had sauntered far enough not to quite hear it.  Faye entered her office and heard Forde’s extension ring next door. Announcing her arrival, no doubt. And sure enough here came Forde, ushering ahead of him a coltish, solemn-faced girl of mid-teen years with dark hair, dark eyes, and a remarkably straight, just charmingly off-line nose. “G’morning, Miss Bynum,” Forde said, in formal tones. “Like you to meet my second cousin once removed, Lee Forsythe. Lee, Miss Faye Bynum.” “How do, Ma’am,” the girl said, not offering a hand.  “How do yourself. Not sure I ever met a second cousin once removed. That I knew of. How can we help you this morning?” “Lee is Pop’s cousin Ralph’s daughter Eloise’s girl,” Forde said. “Think that’s the way it goes. Anyways, she’s showing some promise as a writer, thought we might take her under our wing, like, give her some practical experience to go with her English Comp she’ll be taking starting next month. She’ll be a sophomore at Gabbro High, see.” “I do see. Are you old enough to work, Miss Forsythe?” “I’ll be sixteen next month.” Contained, sure of that much. “I read your book, Miss Bynum. I enjoyed it very much.” “Did you. That makes you one of a very select group.” “Yes’m, I specially liked the pieces about the Gabbro County School Board. I about had to laugh out loud, sometimes.” “No more than I, sitting there and listening to them. Mr. Morgan, when you say ‘we’ will be taking Miss Forsythe under ‘our’ wing, I suppose you mean ‘I and ‘my,’ respectively.” Lee Forsythe blushed and looked at the floor. “I don’t mean to be a trouble, Ma’am.” “Well, I would, in your place. Apprenticeships - in which I am a great believer - almost always mean trouble for somebody who was doing fine before you showed up. Mr. Morgan, leave me alone with Miss Forsythe a while so we can get acquainted. Have a seat, Miss Forsythe.” When the door swung shut behind Forde, Faye turned to Lee Forsythe. “Now, tell me - ” “Ma’am, Miss Bynum, I’m sure your time is valuable. I did not ask to be tooken under your wing, and I do not wish to be a trouble to you. I would a great deal rather learn what I can on my own.” Lee bit her lip and blushed deeper. ‘Tooken,’ for God’s sake.