Free A Virtuous Woman (Oprah's Book Club) by Kaye Gibbons Page B

pose. Jack would come and stand over me fixing a roast or something and tell me to save a good piece, not to pepper it too much. And we were even sillier over the puppies, sitting on the back steps, looking at them rolling around in the pen, wondering what sort of dogs they’d grow up to be.
    But all that stopped when we got the film developed. I thought we would’ve been happy to go over it all again, but all the pictures did was show us how badly we wished it was a baby in a highchair, birthday cake all over her face, not our half-deaf, half-blind dog slobbering all over a good piece of shoulder roast, licking one of my blue flowered plates.
    We looked at all the pictures and then put the envelopeaway. I run across it every now and then but I’ve not opened it up. I don’t need to, knowing what’s in it, knowing what’s not in it. The next time June visited us I took just as many pictures of her, and I kept on taking them. Those I don’t mind looking at. I can stare at those long enough to see what I want to, see her mine. It’s just a matter of seeing what you want to see. People do it with hearing, thinking, and saying all the time. But seeing’s harder, especially when you know that an old bulldog is never going to get you confused with her mama, but a little girl might. If you stay by her, she might.

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    B urr told me last week, he said to me, “The years my wife’s been gone have been the happiest years of my life.” He said all he missed about her leaving was wishing she’d go. I told him it was a shame in this world he couldn’t have had a woman like Ruby, and he just had to shake his head like “I know.”
    Tiny Fran left him right after June went off to college. I was out sweeping under the pony shelter and he showed up and said to me, “Well, she left.” He said they’d had a royal knock-down drag-out over how much money he’d been mailing to June, and one thing led to another and she got her suitcase out and what she didn’t cram in it she threw at him. Then he asked her what she was going to live on and she told him she’d borrow on or sell off her part of the farm and that’d keep her fairly well. Burr said he thought, Oh,hell no you won’t. And he went and got his checkbook and bought her out right there, wrote out something and she signed it. I said, “Well, congratulations, let’s take a drink.” He said he could use one. He needed more than one, that’s for damn sure. I told him I’d be interested to see how long the money held out. He said that’d depend on how many times she walked by a shoe store. And sure enough, last year about this time she called him and said she was in a bind, and every month since then he’s been sending her a check. Ruby told him it was the best investment he ever made, that maybe she’d fall in love with a shoe salesman. We all had to laugh.
    Ruby loved Burr and June, tolerated Tiny Fran, but pure couldn’t stomach Roland. From the time Roland was born until the time they led him off away from out here Tiny Fran stayed right on top of him like she was the hen and he was the damn egg, just raising all grades of hell if anybody came near him. You’d go up in the yard and she’d be hanging out the wash, him pulling on her skirt and whining, and you’d hear her saying, “Mama’ll make you a big old cake soon as she’s done.” They’d sit down and split a chocolate cake but she wouldn’t have given June air if she was in a jug. June’d have to come over here to have a treat. Roland wouldn’t have anything to do with us, least not until he came and killed Ruby’s mule. Before that, Ruby’d say, “Well, Roland’s like he is because his mama keeps himso close, and you might not want to excuse him but you can see why he’s a problem.” Then after the mule Ruby had to stop making a allowance for him. You’d see her tighten up when somebody talked about him.
    June turned out though, I and Burr and Ruby jumping in between her and Tiny Fran