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Nobody but a fool crossed Aunt Delia, so Eva never did. When Eva was a girl before they moved up North, she had to fight her way through the smell of Vicks VapoRub and greens that lingered in her great-aunt's small, damp house to take her slices of her grandmother's bourbon-laced pecan pie. She would always dutifully dispose of her aunt's nail clippings as the old woman instructed but kept one eye glued to the door when she kissed her wrinkled cheek.
Aunt Delia was a hoo-doo woman; she knew how to work some roots. She could make a person lie, scream or pine six weeks for a man she saw once in the A&P. She could make a snake dance, a cat bark, and when she was young, she'd made six of John Dixon's hens lay double-yolked eggs because he'd talked to her in sweet whispers out of both sides of his mouth.
She had something to do with Hannah Jones' bad luck too. Hannah, who walked with a switch that stopped grown men dead, stole Aunt Delia's best beau and wed him before he knew he was gone. She later had the first of three sets of twins six days after she turned thirty-six. Everybody knew it was Aunt Delia's doing because it involved the number six. Her spells always had to do with love, loss, lust and a combination of the number six.
Her death at ninety-six didn't surprise Eva; what did was the arrival of the small black box with the words, To Eva Lilton Hutchinson and her sweet man Hutch with all my love and devotion, Your Great Aunt D, printed neatly in red across the top. When Eva opened it, all she found were a few dried twigs and the lingering smell of Vicks VapoRub. She shoved it to the back of a shelf and didn't think about it again until everything hadsettled into its place.
Aunt Delia always did like to have the last word.
Hutch And Eva
FRIDAY, JUNE 13The bad luck started late on a Friday night in June, a week after the Hutchinsons'tenth anniversary. The day had been hot, and the night was hotter. It was going on eleven and as usual Eva and Hutch were getting on each other's nerves. After about fifteen minutes of silent rage, Hutch said aloud the words he'd been thinking for weeks.
'I've got to get out."
"And go where? To the bathroom? To the store?"
Eva asked. She was lying across their king-size bed, reading the newspaper and glancing occasionally at ESPN.
"Out of here." Hutch swept his hand dramatically to signify everything around him including Eva, and then slumped down on the edge of the bed like the breath had been knocked out of him.
"Out of where?" Eva asked again.
"Out of here."
"Out of where? The bed? The room? The country?"
"Here."
:'What the hell. are you talking about, Hutch?"
'Why are we lying to each other, Eva? Why after all these years can't we just tell each other the truth?"
Eva tossed him a dirty look, and with a loud, exaggerated flourish fanned the newspaper in front of her face and spoke through it.
"Get over it." She lit a cigarette, and the smoke curled around the paper in a hazy, smelly wreath.
"Dammit " Hutch narrowed his eyes as it settled around his face.
"I'm not giving it up, if that's what you're bitching about , " Eva said. "You have your dirty little habits, which I know you don't want me going into at this point, and I have mine. So get off my ass about it. Besides eating, it's the only physical pleasure I have left,"she added with a pointed, nasty edge.
Hutch glared at her for a moment. "I can't think of any 'dirty little habits' I have that are as nasty as that cigarette, and don't blame me. You're the one who never wants to do it."
She hadn't said anything about sex, but Hutch knew that was what she was talking about.
"There's nothing wrong with me. I just get tired of taking the initiative," Eva said.
"What did you say?"
'You heard me."
Hutch got up from the bed, walked to the blue-tiled bathroom that adjoined their white and blue bedroom, peed loudly in the toilet, flushed it and then, leaving the toilet seat up, lumbered into his walk-in closet.
Suddenly, like a man gone mad, he went through his clothes: the smart, expensive suits he wore to lure big clients, his everyday workingman's denims, the tux he'd bought at the insistence of his best friend Donald Mason, who swore that every man should own at least two before he turned fifty (Hutch had six years to go), and the various shirts, sweaters, pants, sweat suits, jeans and jackets that marked his ten years with Eva, his second wife.
Silently, Eva watched him pack, then said after a few moments, "Have you lost your mind?"
"No . "
"Then what are you doing?"
"I told you."
"What's going on?"
"I'm just tired, Eva."
"Tired?" Eva folded the newspaper down in front of her and watched Hutch grab the oversize gray suitcase she'd bought him last year for his birthday. "Tired of what? I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You know as well as I do." Hutch shifted through his clothes, throwing some into the suitcase at his feet, tossing others back onto the floor of his closet. His pajama bottoms slipped down over his hips, and he gave them an angry yank, pulling them back around his trim waist, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror.
