Chasing Lilacs (19 page)

“I always wanted to know what you birds carried around in those bags. You gonna tell me, or do I have to wrestle you for it?”

“I’m thinking about it. You’ll probably think I’ve flipped my wig if I show you.”

He reached into his pocket and took something out.

“Shut your eyes and open your mouth.” When I did, he put a cherry Life Saver on my tongue.

“All right. I’ll show you.”

I pulled out my wallet, a compact, a skinny notebook for school assignments, two tubes of lipstick, one called “Party Pink”
and the other a shiny lip gloss, and a pencil with no eraser. Should I show him the rest? Mama’s stuff? So far, I hadn’t shown
that to anyone. Tuwana would laugh. Gina would probably be okay with it, but it hadn’t come up. But Cly? Should I or not?

“Come on, what else you got in there?”

“Promise you won’t think I’m crazy?”

Cly nodded, and I took out the New Testament, the glove full of grave dirt, and last, the leather box with Mama’s pearls.

“These were Mama’s things.” I explained what they were. “I feel connected to her somehow by having them with me.”

Silence. I stared at the toes of my loafers.
He probably thinks I’m nuts.
My fingers went numb from clutching the pearl box so tight.

After a while Cly peeled off another Life Saver and offered it to me. “You’re lucky, you know?”

“How’s that?”

“At least you’ve got something to remember your mom. Me, I don’t even have a picture. Just a bunch of rotten memories.”

“I’m sorry. Does it make you sad?”

“Sometimes. Mostly I just don’t think about it.”

We sat in the dark, not saying much, just looking up at the sky. I tucked the things back in my purse and leaned back into
the warmth of the incinerator. “That’s all I think about.”

“I figured. Sometimes you’re off in another world.”

“Have you ever been afraid to do something?”

Cly spun the basketball between his fingers and didn’t answer.

“Well?”

He cleared his throat. “I don’t think about it much anymore, but there used to be rats in the place where my dad and me lived.
Scared the bejeebies out of me to shut my eyes at night. I could hear them scratching when it got dark, and I would lie with
my eyes open, keeping a lookout. When I fell asleep, they came in my dreams. My dad laughed, called me a sissy.”

“You were afraid of rats, but you killed a rattlesnake.”

“Slim pushed me to it. Then when I started hitting it, I thought about those rats, and that’s why I beat the bloody pulp out
of that thing. You know what? I don’t have those rat dreams anymore.” He stretched out his legs and whistled for Scarlett.
“Why’d you wanna know if I’m afraid?”

“There’s this thing I’m afraid to do.”

“If you don’t do it, you’ll always be afraid. You gotta put it on the front burner and just go after it. You wanna tell me
what it is?”

“Maybe someday.”

“I’m all ears.”

I took a deep breath and looked up at the sky. Stars looked down, millions of them, winking at me. Why, of all the guys in
California, had the one without a mother shown up at Graham Camp? What did it mean? The stars twinkled while I wondered whether
or not to tell Cly tonight. Or ever. A falling star shot across the Milky Way.

Feeling braver, I told him. “It’s the garage. Where Slim found Mama that day. I want to go in there, but I can’t. I’m afraid
to ask Slim how Mama looked, if she said anything….” My voice broke, and I couldn’t finish.

Cly reached over and put his arm around me. I rested my head against his shoulder.

“You’ll do it someday, cat.”

My stomach growled and made us laugh. Tinny, echoing laughs.

“I’d better go before my aunt gets worried.” She’d probably had forty conniptions by then already, but facing her wasn’t half
as scary as the thought of stepping into the garage.

Cly stood and pulled me up. “Here. You might need these.” He tucked a half roll of Life Savers into my palm and went off dribbling
the basketball.

The kitchen clock read only eight o’clock, but Aunt Vadine snored from Daddy’s rocker. I got a drink of water and tiptoed
into the bedroom. At my desk I pulled out a sheet of notebook paper and wrote Mama a letter. I let her know I thought Cly
was a good friend and that I was thinking about wearing the pearls to the dance. I tucked it in an envelope and wrote
XXX
and
OOO
on the back before I took it to her room and propped it on her pillow next to Daddy’s.

N
OTHING SCARED SCARLETT O’HARA
. She took care of dying soldiers, and when she was flat out of food and money, she made a dress out of her curtains. One
Saturday, I decided to read
Gone with the Wind
again and see if I could figure out what made her so brave. When I went to get the book from my desk, I couldn’t find it,
so I asked Aunt Vadine if she’d seen it.

“A child your age shouldn’t be reading such filth. Books like that give girls ideas, and boys can smell it on ’em coming and
going.”

“It’s just a book about the Civil War, people caring for each other even though Atlanta burned to the ground and thousands
of men lost their lives.”

“Phooey!” Her lips drew together like the top of a drawstring purse. “Trash. That’s all it is. Totally inappropriate for you
to be reading. And don’t think I didn’t see you behind the incinerator, cavorting with that boy, Sly somebody or another.”

“Cly. His name is Cly. And we weren’t cavorting. I don’t even know what that is. We were talking. And I would like it very
much if you would give back my book.”

“Get it yourself. It’s in that incinerator you’re so fond of.” She picked up her crochet, jabbing the shiny hook in and out
of the pot-holder-sized creation in her hands.

I ran out the back door over to Goldie’s, my face burning from her words.

“Cavorting! Why would she say that?”

Goldie listened patiently while I told her everything.

“Maybe she feels responsible for you, wants to be a substitute mother, and doesn’t know how to go about it.” Goldie handed
me a glass measure with her special vitamin mix and nodded toward the mating parakeet bins. “She’ll either come around or
tire of Graham Camp and move on. Sometimes you have to let things slide off and stick it out.”

For once I didn’t find Goldie’s advice all that comforting. Why did I have to make all the adjustments? None of this would’ve
happened if Mama hadn’t killed herself. No tiptoeing around one disaster after another. No Aunt Vadine snooping through my
stuff, taking over my room. No Scarlett being banished to the doghouse. No Mr. Howard with his Howdy Doody eyes on me.

Slamming the screen between the parakeet pens and the work area, I glared at Goldie. “You know what I think? None of this
would be happening if Mama hadn’t
you-know-what
to herself. It’s all her fault. Did she give one thought about me and Daddy? No, she had to go off and be with her precious
Sylvia.” I smacked the measuring cup on the worktable and felt the blood pumping in my ears. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.

“You know what else? She didn’t just up and decide that morning to slip a rope around her neck. She knew the night before.”
My breaths panted out like Scarlett after she’d been chasing a rabbit. “Why else would she tell me everything was going to
be just fine? How could she know that unless she knew she was going to do it? And another thing. When I left for school, she
stood on the porch and blew me a kiss. She never did that before.”

Goldie wiped her hands on her dirty apron and led me out of the aviary and into her front room. By now my whole body shook,
and when Goldie tried to sit me down, I shoved her away.

“And what about Daddy? All these years, while Mama moped
around in her bathrobe, he left me to worry whether she took her pills or supper got put on the table. Smiling like we were
just the most ordinary people on the block, telling me things would get better. Then you know what else he did? He tried to
get Mama to go back to that hospital. Just a checkup, he said, but he knew something wasn’t right. Mama said she would rather
die than go back to the hospital. Not once did she think what would happen to me. Now Mr. Howard at school thinks I’m two
steps away from being a freak show. That’s what Mama did—turned me into someone I don’t even know anymore. I hate her! Do
you hear me? I hate her!”

The words gagged me, closing my throat off. I raced into Goldie’s bathroom and vomited, my head over her toilet, clutching
the sides of the cold porcelain. Rivers of bile, sour and yellow, puked out over and over again. I got the hiccups, which
felt like being punched in the belly every time one came. I held my breath and counted to fifty. My head got all swimmy, and
I gulped for air. Tears and vomit wet my face, and I felt as hollow as a dead tree. And just as rotten.

Goldie washed my face and walked me into her front room. Lowering me on the couch beside her, she held me in her arms, rocking
back and forth. When she talked, it wasn’t about Mama, and her voice sounded far away, like coming up from a deep well.

“When my Jimmy died, nothing and no one could console me. I blamed God and George and my own stupidity for letting him go
off to that swimming hole. Like a cancer, it devoured me, robbing me of every joy I had in life. George looked like death
himself, and one day he said to me, ‘Goldie, we’ve let fear get the better of us. Fear of what might happen if we choose to
go on and live a normal life.’ Soon after we moved here and chose to go on.”

She stopped for a minute, then cleared her throat and said,
“You’ve been through a lot in your young life, more than your share.” Her rough fingers stroked my cheeks. “The Lord says
we’ll have troubles. Guaranteed. Listen to me, child. Your mama made her choice, and you have to make yours. You can keep
your anger and hate everyone around you. You can blame God or your mama or your daddy. Or you can choose to face life, wherever
it takes you.” Goldie held me tight and kissed the top of my head.

“It’s too hard and not fair….” Daddy’s words echoed in my head:
Life is not fair.

“You’re not alone—there’s your daddy and me, and don’t go discounting the helpers the Almighty brings your way. Irregardless…
you, and you alone, have to choose.”

My choice? What helpers? Aunt Vadine? Mr. Howard? Even Alice Johnson and her showing me the proper etiquette of gratitude?
If this was the work of the Almighty, it was a big fat joke.

Goldie had never lied to me before. Never. She couldn’t if she tried.

What if I had it all mixed up? It wouldn’t have been the first time. Still. Mama had known what she was going to do, and she
didn’t care.

She.

Did.

Not.

Care.

But… what if Goldie was right?

Deep inside I felt a burning spot, a hot coal that wouldn’t stop.
How could Mama do this to me?

G
OLDIE’S WORDS RANG IN
my ears.
You decide.

What I decided was to write Mama another letter and tell her what a rotten mother she was. Tears splotched the notebook paper
as I scribbled.

Why didn’t you think about what would happen to me? How could you do that? Leave me so Aunt Vadine had to come and take over,
telling me how I upset the organization of her cupboards by putting the cinnamon next to the pepper? Her cupboards? Did you
get that? Everyone thinks Aunt Vadine is going to be my new mother. I want a mother, but she’s not the one. You are. Now I’m
stuck with her.

I’m going to my first dance, and she lectured me about the evils of dancing just because Brother Henry preached about that.
She puffed up like a toad when I told her you met Daddy at a dance. Why can’t you be here to see me dressed up and wearing
your pearls?

After writing three more pages, I didn’t feel so mad anymore. Just sad. And lonely. I folded up the pages and stuck them in
an envelope. No
XXX
and
OOO
on the outside. I thought about Cly and going to the dance. Maybe Cly was one of the helpers Goldie talked about. He even
said someday I would be able to go in the garage.

Today. It has to be today. Before I chicken out
.

I grabbed my jacket and stuffed the letter to Mama in the pocket. When I did, my fingers curled around the Life Savers Cly
had given me. I peeled off the paper and put one on my tongue. The sharp cherry taste made me feel braver. I buttoned my jacket
and went outside.

The sky was bright, a blinding blue that hurt my eyes when I looked up. And the wind bit my cheeks, making them feel hot and
cold at the same time. With my hands stuffed in my pockets, I lowered my head and walked from the back porch toward the driveway
and the garages. Scarlett bounced beside me, wagging her tail, like I might take her for a walk.

When my feet crunched on the gravel drive, I raised my head and looked at the row of garages. Six on our side for the houses
on our half of the block. Six identical doors, all shut. Two of them had padlocks. Finally I let my eyes focus on ours. Second
from the right. Shut tight. No lock.

In the background Goldie’s parakeets sang—crisp, chirpy noises. Had Mama heard the parakeets that morning? I listened for
a minute and took a deep breath. Even with the sun out, I felt chilled and shrugged deeper into my jacket as I walked to our
garage. I lifted the metal latch and let the door creak open. I waited for a second, hoping more light would fill up the space.
I stepped inside and noticed how quiet and still the air was. Scarlett scratched in the dirt floor and sniffed around the
walls. I watched her and then made myself walk to the center of the garage. A nervous energy surrounded me. That and the shadows.

When I looked up, I saw that metal beams crisscrossed below the slanted ceiling. How had Mama done it? Did she throw a rope
up and loop it around or climb on something? How did she know how to make a noose? I studied the beams and didn’t see anything
at all. Like nothing had ever hung from them. A stepladder leaned against
the back wall. I walked over to it and dragged it back to the middle, where I opened it. Daddy had used the ladder to paint
my room blue when I was in the fifth grade, and blobs of blue paint dotted the steps. Steadying myself, I climbed up until
I got to the third step. I reached up and touched the metal crossbar. Mama must’ve done it from this step, right here. A shiver
went through me as a picture of her dangling from a rope flashed through my head.