Page 144 of Everything Under the Sun

“But where is there left to go?” Esra said, his laughter fading. “Seems like you’d be takin’ a bigger risk leavin’ this place and bein’ out on them roads.”

Esra’s words reflecting Thais’ back on the farm. I sighed.

“Yeah,” I said, and nodded absently. “It’s a risk, but it has to be done.”

Jeffrey came out onto the back porch then, with Thais behind him.

“I tell her I make her a house, too,” Jeffrey told Esra, overjoyed by it. “And she says I-I can go back to swim and fish whenever I want”—he clutched his grandfather’s frail arm—“Isn’t that great, Grandpa? I can go back swimming again!”

Upon hearing this news, I glanced over at Thais; she blushed, lowered her eyes, and then shrugged her dainty shoulders as if to say: Well, I couldn’t tell him no.

I smiled in return, telling her: It’s okay.

Later in the afternoon, June brought up the conversation I tried so hard to avoid.

“Are yens gonna stay in the Graham’s cabin?”

“No,” I said truthfully, and Thais’ face fell. “I’m not sure how much longer we’re going to stay, but we do have to be moving on.”

47

ATTICUS

“Yens can take back what ya can carry in one trip,” Esra told us in the supply cabin just before dark. “But choose wisely—we like yens and all but we cain’t let ya come back every day; we ain’t a grocery store. Hope ya understand.”

I nodded. “We understand.”

“Thank you,” Thais said.

We stuffed our backpacks with various items—I saved room in mine for three rolls of toilet paper.

“Ah,” said Esra, looking at the toilet paper. “The only thing in the world treated like shit but treasured like gold.”

“You can say that again.” I laughed.

June took down the bottle of shampoo she tried to give Thais when we’d first met; she turned with the help of her cane. “It’s my favorite,” she said, putting the bottle into Thais’ hand. “Remember: just a dime and it’ll last yens.”

Thais smiled, and then wrapped her arms carefully around the old woman’s brittle form.

“And just because Esra says we ain’t no grocery store don’t meant ya cain’t come and visit. We’d come to yens, but might take us a week to get there.”

“I would love to visit,” Thais said with a warm smile. “And if you need anything, just send Jeffrey for us and we’ll be here straightaway.”

“Thank you, dear,” said June.

We stepped outside. I couldn’t forget the dead bodies at the bottom of the bluff.

“You should probably lock this building up,” I told Esra, choking a little on the stench; my eyes watered.

“We always lock it,” said Esra.

“It wasn’t locked when we walked in,” I pointed out.

“That’s because we saw yens a’comin,” Esra explained. “We told Jeffrey to go down and unlock it for ya.”

“Esra cain’t never remember where he left his boots,” June chimed in. “He’d ferget to dress himself in the mornin’ if it wudun’t for me.”

“Oh hush, old woman!”

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