A Place to Call Home (2 page)

There was hope for that. But what happened to Roan Sullivan and me changed my life and changed my family. Because of him we saw ourselves as we were, made of the kindness and cruelty that bond people together by blood, marriage, and time. I tried to save him and he ended up saving me. He might have been dead for twenty years—I didn’t know then—but I knew I’d come full circle because of him: I would always wait for him to come back, too.

The hardest memories are the pieces of what might have been.

I
t started the year I performed as a tap-dancing leprechaun at the St. Patrick’s Day carnival and Roanie Sullivan threatened to cut my cousin Carlton’s throat with a rusty pocketknife. That was also the year the Beatles broke up and the National Guard killed four students at Kent State, and Josh, who was in Vietnam, wrote home to Brady, who was a senior at Dunderry High,
Don’t even think about enlisting. There’s nothing patriotic about this shit
.

But I was only five years old; my world was narrow, deep, self-satisfied, well-off, very Southern, securely bound to the land and to a huge family descended almost entirely from Irish immigrants who had settled in the Georgia mountains over one hundred and thirty years ago. As far as I was concerned, life revolved in simple circles with me at the center.

The St. Patrick’s Day carnival was nothing like it is now. There were no tents set up to dispense green beer, no artists selling handmade 24-karat-gold shamrock jewelry, no Luck of the Irish 5K Road Race, no imported musicians playing authentic Irish jigs on the town square. Now it’s a festival, one of the top tourist events in the state.

But when I was five it was just a carnival, held in the old Methodist campground arbor east of town. The Jaycees and the Dunderry Ladies’ Association sold barbecue sandwiches,
green sugar cookies, and lime punch at folding tables in a corner next to the arbor’s wooden stage, the Down Mountain Boys played bluegrass music, and the beginners’ tap class from my Aunt Gloria’s School of Dance was decked out in leprechaun costumes and forced into a midyear minirecital.

Mama took snapshots of me in my involuntary servitude. I was not a born dancer. I had no rhythm, I was always out of step, and I disliked mastering anyone’s routines but my own. I stood there on the stage, staring resolutely at the camera in my green-checkered bibbed dress with its ruffled skirt and a puffy white blouse, my green socks and black patent-leather tap shoes with green bows, my hair parted in fat red braids tied with green ribbons.

I looked like an unhappy Irish Heidi.

My class, all twenty of us, stomped and shuffled through our last number, accompanied by a tune from some Irish dance record I don’t remember, which Aunt Gloria played full blast on her portable stereo connected to the Down Mountain Boys’ big amplifiers. I looked down and there he was, standing in the crowd at the lip of the stage, a tall, shabby, ten-year-old boy with greasy black hair. Roan Sullivan. Roanie. Even in a small town the levels of society are a steep staircase. My family was at the top. Roan and his daddy weren’t just at the bottom; they were in the cellar.

He watched me seriously, as if I weren’t making a fool of myself, which I was. I had already accidentally stomped on my cousin Violet’s left foot twice, and I’d elbowed my cousin Rebecca in her right arm, so they’d given me a wide berth on either side.

I forgot about my humiliating arms and feet and concentrated on Roanie Sullivan avidly, because it was the first close look I’d gotten at nasty, no-account Big Roan Sullivan’s son from Sullivan’s Hollow. We didn’t associate with Big Roan Sullivan, even though he and Roanie were our closest neighbors on Soap Falls Road. The Hollow might as
well have been on the far side of China, not two miles from our farm.

“That godforsaken hole only produces one thing—trash.” That’s what Uncle Pete and Uncle Bert always said about the Hollow. And because everybody knew Roanie Sullivan was trash—came from it, looked like it, and smelled like it—they steered clear of him in the crowd. Maybe that was one reason I couldn’t take my eyes off him. We were both human islands stuck in the middle of a lonely, embarrassing sea of space.

My cousin Carlton lounged a couple of feet away, between Roanie and the Jaycees’ table. There are some relatives you just tolerate, and Carlton Maloney was in that group. He was about twelve, smug and well-fed, and he was laughing at me so hard that his eyes nearly disappeared in his face. He and my brother Hop were in the seventh grade together. Hop said he cheated on math tests. He was a weasel.

I saw him glance behind him. Once, twice. Uncle Dwayne was in charge of the Jaycees’ food table and Aunt Rhonda was talking to him about something, so he was looking at her dutifully. He’d left a couple of dollar bills beside the cardboard shoe box he was using as a cash till.

Carlton eased one hand over, snatched the money, and stuck it in his trouser pocket.

I was stunned. He’d stolen from the Jaycees. He’d stolen from his own
uncle
. My brothers and I had been trained to such a strict code of honor that we wouldn’t pilfer so much as a penny from the change cup on Daddy’s dresser. I admit I had a weakness for the bags of chocolate chips in the bakery section of the grocery store, and if one just
happened
to fall off the shelf and burst open, I’d sample a few. But nonedible property was sacred. And stealing
money
was unthinkable.

Uncle Dwayne looked down at the table. He frowned. He hunted among packages of sugar cookies wrapped in cellophane and tied with green ribbons. He leaned toward
Carlton and said something to him. From the stage I couldn’t hear what he said—I couldn’t hear anything except the music pounding in my ears—but I saw Carlton draw back dramatically, shaking his head. Then he turned and pointed at Roanie.

I was struck tapless. I simply couldn’t move a foot. I stood there, rooted in place, and was dimly, painfully aware of people laughing at me, of my grandparents hiding their smiles behind their hands, and of Mama’s and Daddy’s bewildered stares. Daddy, who could not dance either, waved his big hands helpfully, as if I was a scared calf he could shoo into moving again.

But I wasn’t scared. I was furious.

Uncle Dwayne, his jaw thrust out, pushed his way around the table and grabbed Roanie by one arm. I saw Uncle Dwayne speak forcefully to him. I saw the blank expression on Roanie’s face turn to sullen anger. I guess it wasn’t the first time he’d been accused of something he didn’t do.

His eyes darted to Carlton. He lunged at him. They went down in a heap, with Carlton on the bottom. People scattered, yelling. The whole Leprechaun Review came to a wobbly halt. Aunt Gloria bounded to her portable record player and the music ended with a screech like an amplified zipper. I bolted down the stairs at that end of the stage and squirmed through the crowd of adults.

Uncle Dwayne was trying to pull Roanie off Carlton, but Roanie had one hand wound in the collar of Carlton’s sweater. He had the other at Carlton’s throat, with the point of a rusty little penknife poised beneath Carlton’s Adam’s apple. “I didn’t take no money!” Roanie yelled at him. “You damn liar!”

Daddy plowed into the action. He planted a knee in Roanie’s back and wrenched the knife out of his hand. He and Uncle Dwayne pried the boys apart, and Daddy pulled Roanie to his feet. “He has a knife,” I heard someone whisper. “That Sullivan boy’s vicious.”

“Where’s that money?” Uncle Dwayne thundered, peering down into Roanie Sullivan’s face. “Give it to me. Right now.”

“I ain’t got no money. I didn’t take no money.” He mouthed words like a hillbilly, kind of honking them out half finished. He had a crooked front tooth with jagged edges, too. It flashed like a lopsided fang.

“Oh, yeah, you did,” Carlton yelled. “I saw you! Everybody knows you steal stuff! Just like your daddy!”

“Roanie, hand over the money,” Daddy said. Daddy had a booming voice. He was fair, but he was tough. “Don’t make me go through your pockets,” he added sternly. “Come on, boy, tell the truth and give the money back.”

“I ain’t
got
it.”

I was plastered to the sidelines but close enough to see the misery and defensiveness in Roanie’s face. Oh, lord. He was the kind of boy who fought and cussed and put a knife to people’s throats. He caused trouble. He deserved trouble.

But he’s not a thief
.

Don’t tattle on Carlton. Maloneys stick together. We’re big, that way
.

But it’s not fair
.

“All right, Roanie,” Daddy said, and reached for the back pocket of Roanie’s dirty jeans.

“He didn’t take it,” I said loudly. “Carlton did!” Everyone stared at me. Well, I’d gotten used to that. I met Roanie Sullivan’s wary, surprised eyes. He could burn a hole through me with those eyes.

Uncle Dwayne glared at me. “Now, Claire. Are you sure you’re not getting back at Carlton because he spit boiled peanuts at you outside Sunday school last week?”

No, but I knew how a boiled peanut felt. Hot, real hot. “Roanie didn’t take the money,” I repeated. I jabbed a finger at Carlton. “Carlton did. I saw him, Daddy. I
saw
him stick it in his front pocket.”

Daddy and Uncle Dwayne pivoted slowly. Carlton’s
face, already sweaty and red, turned crimson. “
Carlton
,” Uncle Dwayne said.

“She’s just picking on me!”

Uncle Dwayne stuck a hand in Carlton’s pocket and pulled out two wadded-up dollar bills.

And that was that.

Uncle Dwayne hauled Carlton off to find Uncle Eugene and Aunt Arnetta, Carlton’s folks. Daddy let go of Roanie Sullivan. “Go on. Get out of here.”

“He pulled that knife, Holt,” Uncle Pete said behind me.

Daddy scowled. “He couldn’t cut his way out of a paper sack with a knife that little.”

“But he
pulled
it on Carlton.”

“Forget about it, Pete. Go on, everybody.”

Roanie stared at me. I held his gaze as if hypnotized. Isolation radiated from him like an invisible shield, but there was this
gleam
in his eyes, made up of surprise and gratitude and suspicion, bearing on me like concentrated fire, and I felt singed. Daddy put a hand on the collar of the faded, floppy football jersey he wore and dragged him away. I started to follow, but Mama had gotten through the crowd by then, and she snagged me by the back of my dress. “Hold on, Claire Karleen Maloney. You’ve put on enough of a show.”

Dazed, I looked up at her. Hop and Evan peered at me from her side. Violet and Rebecca watched me, openmouthed. A whole bunch of Maloneys scrutinized me. “Carlton’s a weasel,” I explained finally.

Mama nodded. “You told the truth. That’s fine. You’re done. I’m proud of you.”

“Then how come everybody’s lookin’ at me like I’m weird?”

“Because you are,” Rebecca blurted out. “Aren’t you scared of Roanie Sullivan?”

“He didn’t laugh at me when I was dancing. I think he’s okay.”

“You’ve got a strange way of sortin’ things out,” Evan said.

“She’s one brick short of a load,” Hop added.

So that was the year I realized Roanie was not just trashy, not just different, he was dangerous, and taking his side was a surefire way to seed my own mild reputation as a troublemaker and Independent Thinker.

I was fascinated by him from then on.

The world in general didn’t even know that Dunderry, Georgia, existed. I searched for us on the enameled globe in the living room and we weren’t there. We were barely find-able on the creased, coffee-stained road map of Georgia that Mama and Daddy kept in the glove compartment of our station wagon. Atlanta rated a fat star and Gainesville was marked with a circle. But Dunderry was only a black dot. We lived an inch to the left of Gainesville and an inch and a half above Atlanta.

We had peace and quiet, a beautiful little courthouse square with tree-lined streets, and sweet, handsome, old homes, big farms tucked in broad, lush valleys, and cathedral-like mountains around it all, to keep us safe.

Our ancestors would still have recognized the town they’d founded, despite electricity, paved roads, indoor plumbing, and monuments to five wars—including the one that left a dozen young Dunderry men dead in far-off states and gave us, in return, four anonymous Yankee soldiers whose graves at the edge of the First Baptist Church’s cemetery had become a tourist attraction.

I asked Mama, who was a Delaney by birth and a Maloney by marriage—in other words, she stood proudly at the crossroads of the two oldest families in Dunderry—if we were as small as the map said. “Don’t you worry,” she told me. “If you study an ant under a magnifying glass, it’s as big as an elephant. Size is all in how you look at things, and we’re very big.”

I pointed out that Hop had held a magnifying glass
over an ant in the front yard once and after a minute in the sun it had looked like a Rice Krispie with legs. Mama studied me the way she did when I stumped her and then she told me to stop thinking so much.

But I decided we’d better be careful how we looked at ourselves.

Mama’s great-grandparents, Glen and Fiona Delaney, immigrated from Ireland in 1838, the same year as the Maloneys. But they were educated shopkeepers, born and raised in the city of Dublin, while the Maloneys were descended from illiterate tenant farmers in the Irish backcountry. More important, the Delaneys were Protestant and my father’s ancestors, the Maloneys, Catholic. Glen and Fiona established Dunderry’s first drygoods store and the first bank and built the first two-story house in town, and Glen was elected the first county magistrate. He and Fiona supported the Union during the Civil War, and their two oldest sons served in General Grant’s army. The Dunderry Home Guard retaliated by looting the drygoods store and burning the Delaney buggy shed. A Maloney, my great-great-grandfather Liam, was the Home Guard’s captain.