Not long after Perk died, some men showed up at her house. She was standing in her kitchen when they knocked. She was standing there with her hands on a chair back listening to the sounds of her children running through the house without regard to her feelings. She was gripping the back of the chair, holding herself to the ground, praying the legs wouldn’t let go of the floor. She was trying to breathe.
He’d been hunting. They were hungry. He’d been hunting for that damned wild pig down in the holler. If he’d gotten that pig, they could have salted it away and eaten for awhile. She heard the blast and thought how good that sound was. It meant food. It meant happiness for a while because they’d have food for their children. They could make do with greens. There was watercress and dandelions and even poke where she could find it, but she had to cook that careful. She could do it. She’d done it before. There might be some middling potatoes she’d left in the field. She could give the babies some food for their stomachs instead of moonshine to keep them quiet.
She waited for him to come home, to bring the pig. She got the rope rigged up to hang it. She sharpened the knife. She sent the children out to the edge of the holler to watch for him and yell when they could see him. He didn’t come out of the holler. The children yelled his name. They said, let us go look for him, Ma, but she said no. Then night came.
The children slept hungry. Next day came, she knew. She knew without going down there that he was dead. There wasn’t any need to traipse down there to find what she already knew.
When the men knocked at the door, she didn’t move. Her fingers wouldn’t let go of the chair. A knock was bad news. Neighbors walked in calling her name. A knock was someone she didn’t know.
“Ma'am?” She looked up.
“Ma’am? Can we talk with you for a moment? We know you’re real busy, but we got something that we think will do you a real service if you could just give us a moment.”
The man was clean. He doffed his hat and held it two-handed down low in front of him. He and the other man stood back from the door to give her space so she’d feel safe while they were there. She stood behind the screen and tried to hear them.
“Ma’am, we see that your beautiful home here is standing open to the elements without any paint to protect and seal the wood. I’m sure that you know insects can get inside the wood and eat their way through and destroy your home while you sleep. You don’t want that, do you?” He watched her face to gauge how effective his speech was. He added a further caution. “I hear you have children, ma’am. This paint will close the wood for insects so that you don’t have to fear them dropping down into your little ones’ faces while they sleep. Insects carry diseases, you know. This paint will kill those insects before they can walk inside. This paint will keep your children safe while they sleep. ”
She stood there with her hands holding onto the screen door as though she could stop the torrent of words from coming through the tiny squares in the wire by keeping the door tightly in place. Children, she thought. Keep the children safe. If Perk was here, he’d keep them safe. She looked at the man. She tried to breathe.
“I ain’t got but a dollar.”
“Well, ma’am, it just so happens that we are running a special. We can paint your whole house for one dollar. If we have enough paint left over, we’ll even do your porch for free.” The man looked at his partner. The tone of his voice dropped and softened.
“Frank, go get the paint and the brushes.” Turning back to the woman, he said, “If you will get me that dollar, we’ll get started. I believe we have enough daylight left, but if we don’t, we will come back tomorrow to finish up. How’s that?”
She still held to the door. It was hard to think, he was talking so fast. Frank yelled from the back of the truck.
“What color does she want?”
“Ma’am?”
“Yes?”
“What color do you want? We got white, green, blue and brown.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know about any of this.”.
“Okay, ma’am, why don’t you give me that dollar. We’ll pick the color. You know some of the colors keep the insects away better than others.”
Down at the truck, Frank waited for an answer. The man at the door came down from the porch straightening out a wrinkled bill. “I don’t know why these women gotta wad up their dough before they put it in their coffee cans.”
“So what color?”
“Give her that god-awful green. Nobody else wants it.”