Free Gap Creek by Robert Morgan

embarrassed to come out? Had he got up early and left? Or could he be expecting me to serve him breakfast in bed?
    I put the dry dishes on the shelf and got the broom and swept the kitchen floor. The fire was dying in the cookstove and I put a couple more sticks in. By then it was daylight and I could see the early sun turning the tops of the mountains copper. I heard a noise behind me and turned. There was Mr. Pendergast with his hair uncombed and his overalls with only one gallus buckled. He drug his feet as he walked to the table.
    “I’ll pour you some coffee,” I said. I got the pot off the stove and hoped the coffee was still hot. The fire was blazing up again, but it might not have heated the pot yet.
    Mr. Pendergast took a sip of the coffee and put it down. “This coffee is cold,” he said.
    “I’ll heat it up again,” I said. I took the cup and poured the coffee back into the pot.
    “A man can’t drink cold coffee,” Mr. Pendergast said.
    I took the pot of grits off the stove and put it on the table beside his plate. He took the serving spoon and dug into the grits and seena skin had dried on them. “When did you make these, last night?” he said.
    “I’m sorry,” I said. “I made them for Hank at six.”
    “I wouldn’t feed them to a hog,” Mr. Pendergast said.
    “I can make you some more,” I said. I got more sticks of wood out of the box and put them in the stove.
    “Don’t bother,” Mr. Pendergast said. “I’ll just have biscuits and an egg.”
    I took the biscuits out of the oven and put them on the table. The jam and molasses and butter was already on the table. Mr. Pendergast looked at the egg and said, “I thought I said a poached egg.”
    “I can make you another one,” I said.
    Mr. Pendergast cracked the egg on the edge of his plate and started peeling it, then stopped. “It’s not half boiled,” he said.
    “I tried to boil it for a minute,” I said.
    “I can’t eat this,” he said. He looked at me like he blamed me for everything wrong in the world. He dropped the egg on his plate like he had touched a rotten tater.
    When the coffee was hot I poured Mr. Pendergast another cup, but I couldn’t hardly stand to look at him. He hadn’t told me when he was going to get up, and he hadn’t told me how to poach an egg. But I didn’t want to argue with him, because it was his house and I was going to have to live there.
    I put more water on to boil, but Mr. Pendergast said, “Forget about the egg. I’ll just eat biscuits and molasses.” He set at the table like he had been offended and he didn’t even want to look at me. I stood by the stove wondering where I could go. It was his house, but I had to take care of it. I didn’t have anywhere to go except up to the bedroom to make up the bed. But the bed had fell apart and would have to be put back together. And after that I could sweep the front room and the porch.
    I left Mr. Pendergast at the table eating hot biscuits and drinking coffee and climbed the stairs to the bedroom. The bed was in pieces, and the quilts and sheets all tangled up. To let in the light I pushed back the curtains. Everything was going wrong. Except for the memory of the night, I wished I was back home on the mountain. I almost wished I could go out and work in the fields or woods, like I was used to doing. At least Mama and Rosie wasn’t as hard to please as Mr. Pendergast.
    I thought of packing up my things in the cardboard box and lighting out for home. It would take all day to climb the mountain to North Carolina and then on up to the ridge. It was a pleasing thought, except when I got there I would have the same old work, and the shame of a failed marriage. Rosie and Lou would laugh if they seen me trudging up the road with my things in the box. And Mama would shake her head at the sadness of it all. And I would have to go back to cutting firewood and planning to butcher the hogs.
    It was the thought of the work that cleared my head a little.