Flora by Gail Godwin Page A

the sassafras tree, and realized I could probably climb up and down by myself whenever Iwanted. It would be fun to show someone. Like Brian, who I was sure had never climbed into or out of a hole in his life. But Brian would probably never climb anywhere, up or down, again.
    We hurried along the paved road to Finn’s motorcycle. “I hope we won’t have upset Flora too much,” he said.
    “We’d better not say anything about going in the crater,” I said. “It’ll worry her and she’ll cry. My cousin has the gift of tears.”
    “God forbid we make your lovely cousin cry,” he said. “If you ride behind me on the seat, we’ll get you home that much faster.”
    “Oh, I couldn’t possibly—”
    “Ah, you can do anything you set your mind to, Helen. I’ve seen you in action now. So climb up and hold on tight.”

XII.
    How are you settling into your new room?” Mrs. Jones asked. It was Tuesday again and I was helping her change the linens on Nonie’s bed.
    “Oh, fine.”
    “Have you … dreamed anymore?”
    I knew from her wistful tone she meant had I dreamed about Nonie. The answer was yes, but, as it had been a hideous nightmare, I weaseled.
    “I’ve heard her voice a couple of times. And one night I woke up really sad and so I did this strange thing.”
    Mrs. Jones smoothed down the top sheet on her side and companionably waited.
    “I got her new hat out of the closet. She was trying it on when she had her heart attack, you know.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Then I put it on. I sat down in front of the three-way mirror and pinned it on. It still had her hatpin in it. She always carried this pin in her purse in case she felt like trying on hats downtown.”
    “How did it look on you?”
    “Well, I tried it different ways but none of them looked right and then I saw if I scrunched down far enough so I couldn’t see my shoulders, it was just the hat on a person’s head. And it was like she was there.”
    Mrs. Jones sighed.
    “It was like she was showing me how she looked just before she died. I mean how she would have looked if I had been standing behind her.”
    We each plumped our pillow in its fresh case and then together folded the counterpane over them.
    “That’s wonderful about that hatpin,” she said at last. “What did you do with it?”
    “Oh, I put it right back in the hat afterwards and put everything back in the box.”
    “That’s exactly what I would have done!” Mrs. Jones raised her eyes to the ceiling and seemed to be recalling some precious item belonging to Rosemary that she had cared for in a particular way. After a minute she added, “That little girl died, you know.”
    “What little girl?”
    “The one who came down with polio the same time as your friend. It was in the paper. How is your friend doing?”
    “They may let him go home, but it will be a long road to recovery.” I was quoting Father McFall. The rector had “dropped by” the house on his way to the hospital and sat and talked to Flora while I finally wrote a letter to Brian that he could handdeliver. “He has been asking about you,” Father McFall explained, just short of scolding, “and I know you’ll both feel better if you send him a few lines on paper. Something he can keep and reread.”
    “Unlucky little fellow,” said Mrs. Jones. “And they’re sayingnow it was just the two cases, not an epidemic. They may even reopen the lake for the fireworks on the Fourth.”
    Would my father lift our quarantine when he heard there was no epidemic? Somehow I doubted it. He liked us where we were. “Getting on a-okay here,” he had scrawled on the back of a postcard of the American flag. “I am much more suited to this kind of work. You and Flora stay on your hill. That way I know you’re safe. Will try to call soon. Harry.”
    Flora had received a second rejection and spent that day in tears, but the following day she was offered a job teaching fifth grade in a county school in Dothan, Alabama,