Sunflower Read Free Page B

cheeks, but Analisa gave no thought to her appearance as she turned to be sure the stranger was at ease. The knot atop her head forgotten, most of her thick hair had tumbled around her shoulders, the darker, honey-gold tresses hidden by the sun-bleached top layers, which fell from a natural center part. Droplets of sweat covered her brow and upper lip. She wiped them away with the back of her forearm. As Analisa walked toward the kitchen bench, she turned to her grandfather.
    “Opa, I will pour you some clover tea, and then you should go to bed. It’s getting late.” She was anxious to tend to the man’s needs without her grandfather’s interference.
    “Me, too?” Kase asked without taking his eyes off the strange dark man whose tall body lay stretched across his mother’s bed.
    “One cup, yes, with Opa, and then you will have to sleep. I’ll sleep in your bed with you tonight. Sit at the table and I will get your tea.”
    Carefully, Analisa poured the tea into delicate porcelain cups that seemed quite out of place in the house made of sod. The tea had been brewed yesterday, for today they had managed with cold meals in order to avoid heating the iron stove. While the old man and the boy sat at the long table waiting for her to serve them, she placed blue and white teacups, saucers, and bread plates before them. Analisa worked with swift efficiency, moving as if her life had not just been interrupted by a man dropping on her doorstep. She served them slices of golden cake, fresh two days ago, and taking nothing for herself, filled a tall jar with water from the crockery pitcher on the bench and returned to the half-naked man stretched out on her bed.
    The man was beginning to stir. He was uncomfortable, she knew. His head rolled from side to side as he mumbled unintelligibly. She tried to capture his head in the crook of her arm and force water between his lips, but her attempts failed. The dish towel lay nearby, forgotten in their haste to move the man to the bed. She moistened the end of the cloth with the tepid water and smoothed it across his lips and brow. Analisa repeated the movements until he quieted some and then returned to her grandfather’s side.
    It was late into the night before Analisa was finally able to slip her soft lawn nightgown over her head and roll the long sleeves up to her elbows. She tied the ribbon below the prim round neckline. The lace-edged collar and smocked bib front broke the severity of the white gown.
    After sending Opa and Kase to bed, she had wrestled with the stranger’s boots and finally succeeded in pulling them off. When she unbuttoned the waistband of his trousers, Analisa had discovered to her chagrin that the man was nude beneath the dark material. After a moment’s hesitation, she had covered him with the lightweight tulip-patterned quilt and drawn his pants down by tugging at them with her hands beneath the cover. The task complete, Analisa had smiled at him, pleased at her own ingenuity. Once the man was settled, with a cool compress on his forehead, Analisa had seen to his horse.
    Kase, she noticed, was sleeping soundly, his nightshirt twisted up around his short legs, the white material a contrast against his brown skin even in the dark. The boy’s pallet had been pulled out from beneath her bed, and since the stranger had usurped her place, Analisa would either have to share the pallet with Kase or sleep in the rocking chair. Not wishing to disturb the boy on such a hot night, Analisa chose the rocker.
    The rain had stopped, and the house was still and dark. The familiar furnishings stood like mute ghosts around the room. Analisa wondered, as she had before, if her mother’s spirit might linger among her belongings. She wondered, too, if that ghost would be whole and lucid, or like the confused soul who had lived in her mother’s shell during the last year of her life.
    An ivory-backed brush rested on the trunk near the head of Analisa’s bed. She reached for