A Violet Season by Kathy Leonard Czepiel Page A

turned toward the pasture and pressed one hand to the back of his neck. He wandered up to the fence. The cows watched him approach. One nudged her nose toward him, and he patted her gently. Alice tightened her grip on the brown paper bag, and it crinkled.
    Mr. Jacobs faced her again. She waited for him to speak.
    “The truth is, I’m not accustomed to walking with a young lady like you,” Mr. Jacobs said, and Alice wondered what kind of a young lady he thought she was. “Any young lady, that is,” he added. “I feel all nervous in your presence.” He laughed then. She had never heard him laugh, but it may have been the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard, because his laughter had something to do with the fact that being with her made him happy.
    It was her turn to say something. She was afraid if she tried, she might begin to laugh as well, uncontrollably, she was so excited to be standing here at the edge of the Ellerbys’ cow pasture with a young man, with Joe Jacobs, and he liked her!
    “I’m nervous, too, Mr. Jacobs,” she said, and calling him that made her giggle. She didn’t bother covering her mouth, just let the laugh spill out of her.
    “You must call me Joe,” he said, taking a step toward her. She wasn’t sure she would be able to do that. “Maybe not in front of anyone quite yet,” he added, and they laughed together. A wagon was cresting the hill in front of them, and instinctively they set their arms at their sides and began walking. Alice didn’t recognize the driver when he passed, but Joe tipped his hat. Joe. There. That wasn’t so difficult, at least, to think of him as Joe.
    “Here we are,” he said a few minutes later when they reached the turn for Aldus Road and the Pruitts’ house.
    “You needn’t accompany me to the door,” Alice said.
    He seemed to understand that she didn’t want the Pruitts to see he had walked with her all that way. “I hope to see you again soon, then,” he said.
    “I hope so, too,” she said, and with a wave, she headed up the road. She couldn’t wait to tell Claudie.
    She found Claudie and her mother in the kitchen, shelling peas into a giant pot, where they dropped with a ping like BB shot. Mrs. Pruitt measured out the medicine in a glass and asked Alice to carry it up to Avery; she would be up in a few minutes, she said.
    It hadn’t been strange at all to sit at the foot of Avery’s bed when Claudie was there, but now Alice hesitated at his door. It didn’t seem proper, but Mrs. Pruitt had sent her. Alice wondered whether Claudie’s mother had intentions of trying to strike a spark between them. After all, she could have sent Claudie up instead. But it didn’t matter what Mrs. Pruitt’s intentions were. Alice thought of Joe Jacobs and felt a thrilling spin. She rapped at Avery’s door with one knuckle, announcing, “It’s Alice, with your medicine.”
    “Come in,” he said in a normal voice; the pain seemed to have subsided on its own. He was lying on his side, and Alice had to set the glass on the night table in order to help him up. He gripped her hand hard and instructed her to put her arm around him. She pressed her hand into his back, damp with sweat, and returned his grip and eased him to a seated position, then let go of his hand to reach for the glass. As soon as she could, she stepped away from the bed and averted her eyes to the lace valance over the window while he drank. She would not make a good nurse, she thought, for merely the hint of sourness in the room made her feel queasy.
    “Thanks, Alice,” he said, setting the glass on the night table and leaning on one elbow, then the other, then onto his pillow. “Thanks for getting that for me.”
    “You’re welcome,” she said. All the ease had gone out of their conversation now that they were alone. Now that she had touched his weakness. And now that her entire life had changed on the walk from the pharmacy.
    “You know what’s the worst of it?” he asked, and