The Homecoming of Samuel Lake. Jenny Wingfield

by themselves. Which suited Swan just fine. Everything that had seemed exciting less than a week ago had paled in comparison to Uncle Toy, who was bigger than life, bigger than anything she had ever seen in life, or could imagine ever seeing.

      She found him out beside the house. He was on the ground, under Papa John’s old truck, just his feet sticking out, and he was tinkering with something. Swan squatted down and looked under the truck, and cleared her throat loudly. Uncle Toy didn’t have to glance over to know who it was.

      “Can I help?” Swan asked.

      “Nope.”

      “Well, I wouldn’t mind.”

      “Well, I would.”

      His voice was blunt as a sledgehammer. Swan narrowed her eyes into slits and got this faraway, thoughtful look on her face.

      “Do you know what?” she asked, after a while.

      “What.”

      “I have purely been wasting my time on you.”

      “Is that so.”

      “It damn sure is.”

      She stood up and tapped her foot a couple of times. Disdainfully. She had her arms crossed in front of her chest, and she was staring down at his feet. If she’d known for sure which foot was the real one, she’d have given it a good hard kick. But she didn’t know, so she just used words to try to hurt him.

      “Here I’ve been, dogging your tracks like you were some kind of hero, when all you really are is an old, one-legged bootlegger. I bet you never saved anybody’s life. You prob’ly lost your leg running away from a fight. And as for Yam Ferguson, he must have been one puny sombuck if he let himself get done in by the likes of you. I wouldn’t be scared of you in a graveyard on a dark night.”

      It was awfully quiet. Uncle Toy wasn’t tinkering anymore. He could come sliding out from under that truck any minute. But Swan didn’t care. She really wasn’t scared of him. She had decided not to care one way or the other about him. He had become completely insignificant to her, the way she had to him.

      She said, “And I don’t want to be your friend anymore, either.” That part was hard, because she didn’t mean it, even more than she hadn’t meant all the other things she’d been saying. She had a heavy feeling in her stomach, the way you do when you close a door that you don’t want closed, not ever. But she had had it with him. Begging wasn’t in her. So she turned, and stalked off, too proud to look back.

      Toy slid out from under the truck and sat up. He could see her, heading into the house. Shoulders straight, head erect. “Well, I’m so glad,” he said softly.

      Not that it was entirely true.

      By the time Samuel’s old car pulled into the yard, it was almost dark. Swan was sitting on the porch steps waiting for him. The instant his feet hit the ground, she hurled herself across the yard and tackled him, hugging him and dancing up and down.

      “Hey, hey, wait a minute,” Samuel protested, but he liked the reception.

      “Are we moving?”

      “We are.”

      “Good. Where to?”

      “We’ll talk about that later. Where’s your mama?”

      Just as he asked, Willadee appeared on the porch and waved, and the two of them started walking toward each other. Bernice was sitting in the swing, sort of off to one side, almost hidden by the morning glories that meandered across the porch rail. She watched while Samuel and Willadee moved into each other’s arms. Noble and Bienville, who had been off in the pasture, were charging into the yard, bearing down on their parents—hugging them both at once, because those two were still standing welded together. One thing about Samuel and Willadee. They sure said hello like they meant it.

      Eventually, Samuel turned loose of his wife and picked Bienville up and shook him like a rag, and made noises like an animal roaring, and set him down again. He greeted Noble by boxing him on the shoulder. Noble boxed back. Samuel grabbed his shoulder, as if that had hurt more than he expected, and while Noble was wondering whether he’d hit his old man too hard, Samuel cuffed him another good one.

      All this, Bernice observed from her perch in the swing. Samuel and Willadee and the kids were starting up the steps, all jabbering at once. When they got even with Bernice, she stood up, sleek and graceful as a cat. She was wearing a soft little cream-colored dress that clung to her curves when she moved. And when she didn’t. Everybody stopped stock-still. Bernice had that effect on people.

      “How you doing, Bernice?” Samuel asked.

      Bernice said, “Fine as wine.” Smooth and warm, like butter melting.

      Willadee rolled her eyes up in her head and drawled, real slow, “I’ve got something on the stove, Sam. You just come on in whenever you’re ready.” And she went inside the house. Talk about trust.

      “Where’s that husband of yours?” Samuel asked Bernice. She motioned toward the backyard. A vague gesture. Samuel glanced in the direction she had pointed and nodded, as though indicating approval of Toy’s presence out there, somewhere. “I hear he’s been keeping things going around here the last few days.”

      “Some things, yes.”

      Samuel’s eyes played over Bernice’s face. No fondness, no malice. Just a look that said he knew where she was heading, and he wasn’t going along with her. He looked at her like that until she looked away. Then he opened the screen door and waved his children inside.

      “C’mon, c’mon, your mama’s waitin’.”

      “Sure am, preacher boy,” Willadee called out. Drawling again.

      All during supper, Swan and Noble and Bienville kept after Samuel to tell them where they were moving, but he kept putting them off. This wasn’t like their father. Usually, he couldn’t wait to give them the news, and to embellish it with every single positive comment he’d been able to drag out of anybody who’d ever seen the place. As a rule, the new town was so small that it wasn’t easy finding people who’d been there, even just passing through—except for the pastor who was leaving, and he was apt to be more full of warnings than full of compliments. But Samuel always managed to find something good to tell about it. The people were the salt of the earth, or the countryside was a sight for sore eyes, or the church building was a relic and there were rumors that it had secret passageways, or the parsonage yard had a good spot for a playhouse, or something.

      Tonight, though, was different, and everybody noticed. Even Calla and Toy and Bernice had questioning looks on their faces.

      “Anything wrong, Sam?” Willadee asked.

      “I was planning to tell you about it first, and then break it to everybody else.”

      Willadee passed the speckled limas across to Toy. “They must be sending us to bayou country. We’ve been everywhere else.”

      Samuel said, “They’re not sending us to bayou country.” He set down his tea glass and rested both arms on the table. Everybody’s eyes were on him. Waiting.

      “They’re not sending us anywhere.”

      Swan broke all records getting out of the house after supper. She had to find a place to think this thing through. She would have settled into the swing, but Aunt Bernice would be out there again before you could even spit. She always hogged the swing as soon as she’d finished helping to clean the kitchen. Swan herself never had to assist with such chores, although she knew unfortunate kids her age who did. Willadee was of the opinion that you’re only a kid once. Grandma Calla thought that once was a dandy time to learn some responsibility, but Swan could wear you to a frazzle, so she never pushed her point. If Aunt Bernice had an opinion, she kept it to herself. She just did her share of the work as quickly as possible and disappeared into the porch shadows until bedtime. You wouldn’t have known she was there, except for the gentle squeaks the swing