Darby Read Free Page A

Great-Uncle Harvey is old and doesn’t stand much, he isn’t a good stander. So usually, when he’s on his feet, he wants to hug somebody, and he was the same that day. Smiling, he said, “Now, who’s here? Who’s gonna give me a hug?”
    My mama answered. “Great-Uncle Harvey, you got Big and Small Darby, Aunt Greer, and McCall located around you.”
    “Big Darby,” he said, following my mama’s voice and giving her a squeeze. Then he chased Aunt Greer, me, and McCall the same sort of way, following our voices.
    “How are you, Great-Uncle Harvey?” Mama asked when he was done.
    “I’m fine now. But that journey from Charleston is a rough, lonely ride.”
    Riding back to Ellan, Great-Uncle Harvey sat in the front passenger seat, discussing the smells and sounds of his trip, the way a fly had landed over and over on his cheek during the first couple of hours out of Charleston. I was stuffed in back next to my mama and Aunt Greer. Meanwhile, McCall was driving and real quiet on account of being a little mad. He had to drop us off, then go back and fetch Jacob, the black-man nurse, and he didn’t want to.
    “Excuse me, Great-Uncle Harvey,” I said when he finally stopped talking, “you wanna go to McPherson’s Pond later?” It was something me and him always did together.
    “He needs to rest,” Mama declared, nudging me softly with her elbow.
    “That’s not so,” Great-Uncle Harvey told her. “A little headache medicine, and an hour of sitting, and I’m gonna want some fresh air.”
    “Great-Uncle Harvey,” my mama said, “you’ve got all weekend.”
    “I don’t mind.”
    Mama gave me an uncomfortable hawk-eye. “If you’re gonna take him to the pond, Darby, you have to bring Jacob along with you. Either that, or you can’t go.”
    I nodded, but I already figured Jacob was coming. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to steer the rolling chair very good, and I didn’t want Great-Uncle Harvey coasting out of my grip and into the water or something.
    The reason me and Great-Uncle Harvey always go to McPherson’s Pond is so that he can get me to hear things I normally don’t. He’s got real sensitive ears, and he recognizes bugs and birds and bullfrogs from their noise. While we were walking, he said to me, “Darby, is there a water bird of some sort fishing the pond over yonder?” With a shaky hand, he pointed off through some sphagnum moss that was dangling in a bristle of tree limbs.
    Sure enough, a bird was strolling the opposite shore, grabbing fish with a pointy beak. “How’d you know?” I asked him.
    “Heard his legs stir the water.”
    I watched the bird for a while. Then I got curious, and asked, “Great-Uncle Harvey, do you remember what seeing was like?”
    He raised a hand for Jacob to stop pushing. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I sometimes have dreams about seeing things.”
    I stepped back and looked at him. “What mostly do you see in your dreams?”
    “I ain’t sure if I can explain it.”
    I brushed some burrs off my white dress. “Could you try maybe?”
    Great-Uncle Harvey smiled. “I see my daddy’s hands sometimes, the way they had deep cracks along the tops.”
    “You mean wrinkles?”
    “I don’t think. Cracks is what I remember, like the way the bark on a tree feels . . . except smaller.”
    I watched the big fishing bird lift its legs and swing into the air above the pond. So as not to make my uncle sad, I decided not to tell him that people never have cracks on their hands’ tops. “Well . . .” I mumbled, “I didn’t know Granddaddy except for when he was stuck in bed.”
    “Yeah,” Great-Uncle Harvey said. “It’s just something I see sometimes.”
    Unsure what I should say, I picked up a twig and pushed at a spider web. “Did anyone tell you I wrote a newspaper article?”
    “Nobody did,” Great-Uncle Harvey said. “What did you write about?”
    “Just something true,” I answered. “It was boring while I was doing it, but now that it’s