“No, Mattie,” she’d said, almost pleading. “You keep him. He’s yours.”
“What?”
“He’s yours, Mattie. You and Buck.”
“But, Ida, he’s your son! You can’t give up your own flesh and blood!”
“Don’t judge me, Mattie.” Ida pushed her gown down between her legs, trying to sit up. “Do you want him or not?”
“Folks will know,” Mattie said. “They’ll wonder where this child came from.”
“Folks won’t know a damn thing lessen you tell them,” Ida said, wiping her face with the bottom of her dress. “Besides, you and Buck live so far out here in the sticks you could have ten little ’uns and nobody’d be the wiser.”
“What about Ruther? He’ll want to know where the baby is?”
“Ruther doesn’t want that baby.” She stumbled as she tried to steady herself on the floor. “He won’t come home till it’s gone.”
“You’re getting up too soon!” Mattie placed the baby in the bassinet and rushed back over to Ida, grabbing her arm and helping her back onto the bed. “You stay put.” When Ida closed her eyes, it had looked to Mattie as if Ida was leaving the planet, going off to start a new life somewhere else. Mattie had taken the baby into the bedroom and placed the bassinet next to her bed. When Mattie woke the next morning, she found Ida gone without a note, all the birthing sheets and towels cleaned and folded neatly on the bed. Mattie had gone back to the bedroom and picked up the baby. “Pink is love,” she said, kissing him on the nose. “That’ll be your name.”
One moment like any other, Mattie thought. She’d had no idea at the time how many lives would change because of that one moment, including hers and Buck’s. Buck had been in Texas, handling legal work for the US Army Corps of Engineers on a dam project. He’d call almost every night, excited about the progress. “Should bring some new life to this depressed area.” Mattie listened, wanting to tell him about the baby but thinking it best to wait until he came home. It would only be two weeks. Of course, by then there was no way she’d give up Pink, no matter what Buck said.
Mattie never told Pink who his real parents were, and as tangled as things had become over the years, she never could without hurting too many folks, especially Pink. It would destroy him.
“So can you help, Mama?” Pink asked again. “Just a little magic to get me through?”
Mattie went over to the chair and picked up the besom she was working on for her neighbor’s daughter’s wedding. She gathered birch twigs into a bunch, cutting them with her bolline so they were the same length then attached them to the ash staff with willow binding. She layered another bunch of twigs, securing them with more willow twine.
“Mama,” Pink said, strolling over to her side. “Now don’t start ignoring me. It wouldn’t take you no time at all to throw something together.”
“Pink, it’s not about time!” she snapped, glaring up at him. At moments like this it was hard for her to believe he was a grown man. When he wanted something, his voice took on the carefree timbre of youth, his blue eyes sparkling in the same incorruptible way they had when the owner of the pet store accused him of stealing a turtle. Unlike most folks, Pink became more charming when he was desperate.
“I hope that’s not for Isabelle,” Pink said, sitting on the edge of the couch, nodding toward the besom in Mattie’s hands. “She nearly killed me with that last one you made her.”
“Did you put it above her door like I told you?” Mattie asked, saddened that Isabelle had become so resistant to magic; she had been one of Mattie’s best students. Mattie couldn’t help but blame herself for Isabelle’s illness. She had a reasonably good idea why Isabelle was so sick and not getting better, but there was no way to tell her or Pink.
“Well, sure, of course I did,” Pink said. “Just like you told me.” He pulled a cigar out of his pocket and thumbed his lighter.
“Don’t smoke that in here. You know better.”
“You burn all sorts of stuff in here smells a whole lot worse than this White Owl.”
“Did you put the besom on the outside of the bedroom so she couldn’t see it?” Mattie said, growing agitated with him.
Pink sat up, hands on knees, the fat cigar wedged between his stumpy fingers. “Well, no. I put it on the inside. You make them so pretty-looking I thought I should hang it where she could see it. Boy, did it rile her up! ‘Get that goddamn witchcraft shit out of my house!’ she screamed. Then she flew out of that deathbed of hers like her butt was on fire and tossed a slipper like a damn baseball to knock the broom off the wall. Then she hit me with it. Hurt like hell.”
Pink got up and ambled across the room, picking up a small ceramic gnome sitting on the table. “If you don’t have time to conjure a spell,” he said. “Maybe you could carve me some kind of rune that’ll do the trick, something I can carry in my pocket or hang from my rearview mirror.”
“Pink, it doesn’t work like that.” Mattie dropped the besom in the basket at her feet. “It’s not about me doing anything. It’s about you, your attitude, your entire approach to things.”
“Mama, you know I tried to learn all that stuff. I ain’t much for reading, and I couldn’t remember all those chants and gods and goddesses. I gave it my best shot.”
She wasn’t sure he’d finished even one book she’d given him, even though he’d said he’d read them all. None of it made any sense to him, he’d told her, “I’m too simple for the spirit world,” he’d said. She assured him he wasn’t and urged him to try harder.
“Well, what about that love spell thing you did for Isabelle and me?” Pink said, sitting down across from her again. “I didn’t have to change my ‘approach to things’ for that.”
Magic held no power over love. Mattie knew that, but Pink didn’t and he was suggestable. Her little deception had worked for a while, at least on Pink, though Isabelle seemed to have seen through it. “That was different. You were already married, and it was to help you both through the rough times after Isabelle’s mother . . .” Mattie said, remembering Isabelle’s father that day, his palms covered in blood.
“Well, I could use a little love spell for that damn sister of Isabelle’s,” Pink said, jumping to his feet, strolling to Mattie’s refrigerator. “That girl is always giving me trouble.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Mattie said, following Pink into the kitchen.
“Is there anymore of that pudding, Mama?” Pink bent over, his hand shifting past the vegetables and bowls in the fridge.