Page from a Tennessee Journal (AmazonEncore Edition)

straight into their mouths.” At seven months pregnant, Tillie squirmed on one of Eula’s hard-bottomed kitchen chairs.
    Standing at the washbasin rinsing the last of the breakfast dishes, Eula paid scant attention to her niece’s chatter. As she reached for a drying towel, her mind pondered on that non-seeing look in Alex’s eyes when he finally wandered into the kitchen hours after the sun woke up.
    “What?” Eula forced her eyes to focus on her niece, but her head insisted upon returning to the recollection of Alex.
    It had been more than an hour after the break of dawn when her husband walked through the back door. Except for the eggs and the last of the bacon, his breakfast had already been cooked. Eula cracked the just-laid eggs into a bowl, and she braced herself for some words, any words, from her husband that would tell her where he had passed the night. Already dressed for Tillie’s upcoming visit, Eula stood at the stove, the fork pressing down hard on the bacon in the cast-iron skillet, making sure that it browned evenly just the way Alex liked it. Careful not to utter a word, she made certain that the look she carved on her face showed her husband neither approval nor disapproval, simply that she was ready to accept whatever answer he gave her.
    The bacon sizzled its doneness. Eula kept her face toward him. But as she stood there waiting for him to break the cold human silence of the kitchen, she realized that she might be there all day rooted like a stalk of harvest-ready tobacco waiting for a hired hand to wander by and spear it. If the truth be told, she couldn’t be sure that Alex had actually noticed her in the kitchen at all this morning.
    To him, she might have been a great, gray blob that blended in with the gray of her kitchen walls. If he was inclined to pay any mind to her, it would have been when she set his coffee mug down and his hand brushed hers as he pushed the hot coffee aside. Surprised, she said nothing. As she set his breakfast before him, she gave him a close look out of the corner of her eye. There was a tiredness about her husband like none other she had seen. It was not like he had plowed five acres without a mule and every muscle in his body had ached him into immobility. No, his fatigue was covered all over with an air of supreme satisfaction.
    As she watched him slice into his eggs, she noticed a little smile that kept coming and going across his face. She got the feeling that her husband wanted to laugh out loud like he had just brought in the biggest and best tobacco crop in all of Montgomery County.
    He had eaten his breakfast as if he were the only person in the house. The first words she heard from him all morning were when Wiley George hallooed at the door right after Alex pushed away his empty breakfast plate. There had been no “good morning,” no “hello,” no “Eula, pass the salt.” There had been nothing between them except that look on his face and in his eyes that definitely put him in some place other than in the McNaughton kitchen.
    “You got to watch ’em when they’re working in your house.” Tillie labored to turn in her chair to face her aunt.
    Eula jolted at the sound of her niece’s voice and nearly jabbed the fork she was drying into her hand. Tillie’s short grabs for air between every two or three words finally worked their way into Eula’s ears and shook her out of her reverie.
    “What are you talkin’ about? What starch?” Eula sat down heavily, only half paying attention to Tillie, who looked miserable with discomfort.
    Her mind started to drift back to the morning and Alex. Knowing that the pictures of him flooding her head would do her no good, she decided to hang on to every word Ben Roy’s silliest child spoke this morning.
    “Momma’s new hired girl told me that her sister’s husband’s cousin does it. She says that the walls of the cousin’s cabin are filled with big holes, all from eating the starch right out of them.” Tillie grimaced as she grabbed at her stomach.
    The gasps were becoming deeper and more frequent. A shaft of concern flickered in Eula’s mind. Though she never wanted to remember those days, had she panted like Tillie right before she lost Alex’s baby?
    “Aunt Eula, I’ve had myself these pains for the last week. If I can’t have my own hired girl, maybe the starch will help. The girl says it might.”
    All the old worries bubbled in Eula’s mind. There had been no early pains, no