Rachel Loves’

bleating hearts
Mostly it’d be on the porch. In the summer it was after the chores was done, dishes washed up, before the mosquitoes was too bad, still light. Sometimes a barefoot girl’d stand on the bottom step while Rachel Loves dried red hands on her apron and then put them on her hips. Mostly young women, newly weds or homely, ones not so much wanting to be told advice as just to have someone to listen to them.
Even in winter, a girl’d start by standing there in the cold. They usually showed up at the same time, but in winter it was in the dark and instead of ginghams they wore cloth coats, barn boots if they had them. Rachel Loves never disappointed even one lovelorn girl. Old Mrs. Loves would wring her hands in that apron until tears froze on both their faces and then she’d ask her in.
The house had a parlor, where nobody let children play, where Mister Loves knew enough not to smoke so he didn’t go much, the room the Reverend sat when he had to come. The parlor had a table between two upholstered chairs and the hankies was in the drawer.

Rachel Loves didn’t weep, she bawled. She wailed with the women and groaned with the girls. They sounded like ewes in the lambing barn. They’d cry together until they both felt better. Then small matters was what they talked about as they calmed down. Always ended with Rachel Loves giving the girl some roots from her bleating hearts. That’s how the same ones got everywhere on Loves Road.