Chasing Lilacs (17 page)

So I didn’t have a mother. Well, I did, but she left, and now all I had was a big hole inside where she should have been.
A hole that hurt so bad I couldn’t stand it. And that wasn’t something I could discuss with Mr. Howard.

That afternoon I found Scarlett tied to the fire hydrant again.

“Which one of Aunt Vadine’s projects did you interrupt today?” I unhooked her and rubbed her chin. So far my aunt had alphabetized
the soup cans and spices in our kitchen cabinets, stripped
the floors and put on a new layer of Johnson wax, and washed and ironed all the curtains. When I pushed open the screen door,
lemony, waxy smells filled the house. I wished for once when I came home a whiff of lilac bubble bath would hit me in the
face. Instead the smell of Juicy Fruit lingered in the air.

All of Mama’s clothes—dresses, underwear, silk nighties, shoes—lay in mounds on the couch and Daddy’s chair. Sparkly hair
clips, tangles of beaded necklaces, and rhinestoned brooches had been piled on the end table.

“What’s going on? Why are Mama’s things out here?”

“Helping your daddy out. You know men aren’t good at figuring out what to do with the effects of the deceased.”

“But…” My eyes took it all in. The dress Mama wore to Alice’s furniture party, the robe she’d worn for days and weeks on end,
her white pumps with the loose heel that clicked on the pine floors…

“You’re too tall to wear your mama’s things, and I’m bigger boned than she was. No sense keeping any of this. I heard on the
radio the VFW is having a rummage sale in town. We’ll take a load off your daddy’s mind doing this for him. Besides, it behooves
us to help the veterans of foreign wars after the sacrifices they made for our country.” With her hands on her hips, hair
the color of a bird’s nest, and thin slashes for lips, she didn’t look one ounce like her own sister, my mother. Wasn’t it
enough she messed with my stuff? Now she was messing with Mama’s.

I piped up, “The rummage sale isn’t until next spring. Once a year, that’s how they do them. So there’s no rush.”

“No sense putting off ’til tomorrow what you can do today. You’ll want to look over these things, keep a bauble or two in
remembrance….”

All of Mama’s things, and I could pick a bauble or two? Why did Aunt Vadine have the right to dispose of Mama’s possessions?

“…
doing our Christian duty to give what we can.” She snapped her gum.

The shiny strung beads and screw-on earrings with dangling rhinestones, the tortoiseshell sunglasses with lenses as big as
saucers, teeny flag pins, blues and golds and soft aqua, cool and smooth surfaces…
a bauble or two
? I scooped up a handful and knew I could never choose just one or two.

“No! You can’t do this. These are Mama’s things. Who cares if they fit or not? They’re hers, and… besides, you don’t know
if this is what Daddy wants or not.”

“Your daddy doesn’t know what he wants right now. He’ll thank me for it down the road, and so will you, when you realize how
my being here has filled the maternal void you’ve had in your life for so long.” She reached into the front of her blouse
and pulled out a hanky I recognized as being one of Mama’s. Aunt Vadine dabbed at her eyes, then straightened up. “We mustn’t
let our emotions get in the way. We’ve a job to do, and the Lord frowns on those with idle hands. Here, you can help me put
these things in boxes.”

I rubbed the material of Mama’s dresses between my fingers, dawdling and thinking. Then I grabbed Mama’s robe, a blue gingham
blouse, a sundress. I snatched up one thing and then another, as many as my arms would hold and ran to Mama’s room and threw
them on her closet floor. I grabbed a pillowcase from the bathroom cabinet and scooped up her jewelry, every last piece, and
stuffed it all in.

“Sammie, you have to get a hold on yourself. You’re acting as crazy as your mother.”

“My mama wasn’t crazy. She had depression; that’s what Daddy said. Is that a sin?” My breaths snorted out through my nose
as I glared at Aunt Vadine, who flipped the hanky in the air. The lemony smells and gum popping closed in on me, and I felt
pressure
building in my chest. I ran from the room into Mama’s closet and threw myself on the pile of her clothes. I hugged them to
my chest, breathing in Mama smells and hating Aunt Vadine for babbling on about doing her Christian duty. Most Christians
I knew didn’t act like her at all. Not one bit.

After a while I sat up with my back to the closet wall and stroked Mama’s clothes. The thick warmth of her robe, the starchy
feel of her yellow pedal pushers, the silkiness of one of her nightgowns. I took the robe and slipped my arms into the sleeves.
Something seemed off about Mama’s robe being here. Every time I thought about the day she died, I figured she had been wearing
her robe since she practically lived in it. Why hadn’t she worn it that day?

A picture kept coming into my head of Mama swinging from a rope. I tried to keep from thinking about it, but I couldn’t help
myself. What had she worn that day? Did she put on her makeup? Earrings? Maybe she took a lilac bath and was going somewhere.
Daddy said she needed to go to the doctor for a checkup. Maybe she was going to town to see Doc Pinkerton. To get those pills
again. Was that what she was doing?

I leaned my head against the wall.
Slim
. I could ask him about that day.
Daddy.
Had he seen her? Would either one of them tell me? My stomach went sour. Maybe I was crazy. Like Mama. Which was better,
being a juvenile delinquent or being crazy? Or dead?

The truth was I didn’t want to be any of those things, but how do you turn around when you’re speeding off down the wrong
path? If only I had a mother, I would have someone to talk to, someone who would let me cry and not tell me I was crazy or
ask me to bring the Doan’s pills.

It was bad enough thinking all those weird thoughts. Then
Tuwana had to stick her nose in. One Saturday we sat in the Edsel listening to KIXZ and not talking about much of anything
when she asked how long Aunt Vadine would be staying.

I shrugged. “She hasn’t said.”

“Mother says if she’s got a grain of sense, she’ll stick around. Grieving widower, free meal ticket, that sorta thing, ya
know?”

“What do you mean?”

“The obvious. Vadine’s going to be your new mother, get it? Mother says after the proper length of time, she’ll make her move.
It makes perfect sense. You need a mother. Your dad needs a wife. There you go.”

“No way. All she’s doing is helping out, cleaning and organizing. Doing her Christian duty, she says. I’m sure she’s got a
job and better things to do in Midland. Besides, she and Mama didn’t get along all that well. Why on earth would she want
to live with us?”

“Who knows? Maybe she likes your dad better than you think. Mark my words. She’ll be your new mother.”

Tuwana and her ideas! I gritted my teeth. Not that the thought hadn’t come to me, but Aunt Vadine for a mother? It made me
want to puke.

T
HE REST OF SATURDAY
and all through church the next day, I couldn’t get Tuwana’s prediction out of my head. I watched the way Aunt Vadine buzzed
around Daddy and brought him cups of coffee, asking him if he’d like to have his neck rubbed, things like that. Then at church
she sat close to him, sharing a hymnal. She fluttered her eyelashes and smiled at Daddy after Deacon Greenwood prayed one
of his famous around-the-world prayers. By the time we finished lunch, my insides felt like they would burst if I didn’t talk
to Daddy and see what he intended to do about Aunt Vadine.

I found him puttering on the back porch, a Camel hanging from the corner of his mouth.

“I thought you gave up smoking.” I sat on the back steps.

“I did for a fact. Took it up again.” He flicked the butt into the grass and scratched the top of Scarlett’s head. “How’re
you making out at school?”

I told him about the school paper and doing the interview with Mr. Howard.

“You know, I always thought he looked like that Buffalo Bob puppet Howdy Doody.”

“Yep. That’s his nickname. We don’t call him that to his face, of course, but his ears do stick out.”

Daddy laughed and measured a piece of lumber he had laid out on the cement slab.

“What are you building?”

“Thought I’d make a doghouse for Scarlett.”

“You mean she can’t sleep in the house anymore?”

“She’s getting bigger, needs her own place. Think we’ll run a picket fence around this cement here, keep her safe in the day.”

“Is this Aunt Vadine’s idea?” I didn’t have to ask. I knew from the way she carried on about dog hair and whacked Scarlett
with a flyswatter every time she got near her crochet.

“Partially.” He stood up, walking in the direction of the garage. The garage where Mama died. How could he go in there? Somehow
he just went in and out, carrying a hammer, a saw, a rusty can of nails. Then two or three more trips, bringing sturdy planks
and slabs of flat siding. He measured and marked the wood with a stub of pencil he kept perched on top of his ear.

“Speaking of Aunt Vadine…” I tried to find the right words. “I’ve been wondering…”

“Were we?”

“Were we what?”

“Speaking of Vadine.”

“Well, I’m trying to.”

“Sis, can you hand me the saw?”

I handed it to him and blurted out, “How long is she staying?”

Daddy stopped and looked up at me. “Awhile. Seems we’re not the only ones having a hard time.”

“She wasn’t all that close to Mama.” The words spat out stronger than I intended.

“Not that. Her job. The manager of the truck stop ran off with all the money, and now the owner can’t pay her anything but
tips, so she’s going to help us out awhile.”

“And when were you going to tell me this?”

“Today, as a matter of fact. Later on I’m gonna get my old army cot from the garage rafters.”

“Army cot? She’s going to sleep on an army cot?”

“No. We figured you would. We got a feather bed topper for it in town. Set it up so you’re sharing a room. Won’t have to hang
your legs off the end of the couch anymore.”

“I’m not sure this is a good idea.”

“Look, I know you’ve had a rough time. Vadine’s right worried about you. Told me yesterday how upset you get at times, that
you need female companionship. Heaven knows I’ve pert near worried myself into an early grave about that very thing. Mama’s
treatments last summer and then her… well, her being gone now. It’s a good thing Vadine came along.”

He made her sound like Saint Vadine, the angel of mercy.

“Don’t you think about Mama though? About the day she died? Like, did she leave some kind of note?”

“None that anyone found. I’d give my eyeteeth to figure it out myself, but…” He blew a puff of smoke and ran his hand through
his hair. “Sis, if she ain’t coming back, it don’t do no good revisiting it.” He took a long drag off the Camel.

“Maybe not for you, but I need to know. Like what she was wearing and did she think about what would happen to us?” That was
the big question. Did she even care?

“It’s not something I aim to dwell on. And neither should you. She made her decision, and we have to move on.”

He picked up the saw and started cutting. I looked at the garage. Would I ever be able to go in there? All I saw from my spot
on the steps was a gaping black hole. I hugged my legs to my chest and felt a cold wind skitter across the yard.

That night someone screamed in my sleep. My eyelids felt glued together, and the more I struggled to open them, the tighter
they clamped shut. I felt myself being sucked down into my sheets like
I was drowning in quicksand, only it was feathers. Mountains and mountains of them. More screaming. Strangled groans filling
my ears. I tried to raise my arms, but they felt like lead. I would get one hand free and try to push up, but the feathers
pulled me down deeper. Finally I was able to squint into the light shining in my room. Hulking figures hovered over me and
pushed against me, deeper and deeper. I closed my eyes and fought against them, thrashing my arms, as the groans became grunting,
huffing noises.

“Sammie! Wake up, Sis.” Daddy’s voice brought me into a sluggish half-awake, half-asleep kind of trance. My heart pounded,
trying to escape my body. My head stayed filled with blackness, a hole that had no end and tried to suck me into its swirling
nothingness. Daddy was outside the blackness, pulling me up, his hands rough and strong, one on each shoulder, freeing me
from the drowning feeling. My breaths came faster, and I forced my eyes open. The groaning and screaming stopped, and Daddy
pulled me to his chest.

“Shhh. It’s all right. It was a nightmare, that’s all.” His hand felt like sandpaper on the back of my head.

I looked over his shoulder and saw Aunt Vadine, her arms crossed against her flimsy nightgown, a hairnet hugging her head.
She yawned and sat on the bed that used to be mine.

The person screaming must have been me, but everything seemed off-kilter. Inside my body shook, shivery and cold.

Daddy stayed beside me, one knee bent, the other on the floor. I fished around under my covers and found Mama’s robe and held
it next to me, letting it warm me. When I closed my eyes, the black hole had gone. No more screaming. Just something foggy
and soothing. Warm like a nice bath. I relaxed and let my head sink into the pillow. The last thing I remember was Daddy’s
lips brushing my forehead.

*   *   *

Every day at school, people talked about the fall dance, who was asking who, and what new outfits they were wearing. I made
up my mind I wasn’t going. It didn’t seem fair to Mama even though Tuwana kept after me all the time.

“If I were you I’d let Cly know you’re interested. I’ve heard Linda Kay Howard wants him to ask her.”

“Well, you’re not me, okay? I’m just not going this year. And if Cly wants to ask Linda Kay, he should.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t like Cly. I did miss playing backgammon with him over at Slim’s, but Slim was the problem. What would
I say to him? I wanted to ask him about Mama, that day he found her, but I couldn’t. Sometimes I thought I wanted to know;
then I didn’t. Daddy said we had to move on, but I felt frozen in time. Like I might wake up tomorrow and Mama would be there
and everything would be fine again. Going to a dance or playing backgammon didn’t seem right.