Chasing Lilacs (20 page)

I tried to step down, but the hem of my jacket caught on the hinge of the ladder. When I pulled it free, I saw a spot of green.
A tiny piece of material, no bigger than a postage stamp, was stuck in the hinge. I gulped for air. Mama must’ve worn her
green dress that day. The same one she wore the day I got my hair cut in a pageboy.

I hurried down the steps and half-folded the ladder so I could pull the scrap out. I rubbed it between my fingers, a tiny
triangle with two sides frayed where it ripped. My throat got a knotty feel as I remembered the way the skirt swished when
Mama walked. Did it hang limp or float in the stillness of the garage that day? I sat on the folded ladder and let the cold
numb me—my face, my toes, my fingers, so that after a while I could no longer feel the smoothness of the green fabric in my
hand.

Scarlett came up and sniffed the patch, then jumped up and licked my face. I picked her up and tucked her inside my jacket,
needing her close to me. After a while she squirmed out and ran into the corner of the garage where Daddy kept paint buckets
and oilcans on a metal shelf. I shooed her away, and when I did, I noticed a hatbox on the bottom shelf.

“Seek and ye shall find”
popped into my head. I hauled the round box out, trying to remember where I’d seen it. Mama’s closet? Maybe Aunt Vadine put
it in here. Or Mama. A lavender ribbon, grosgrain I think you call it, held the lid on. Quickly I undid the knot and peered
inside. A crocheted baby bonnet lay on the top. The one Sylvia had worn in the picture. No doubt this had been
one of Aunt Vadine’s creations the way she spent half her life with a ball of yarn in one hand and a hook in the other. It
felt delicate and lacy. Under the bonnet were two stacks of letters with rubber bands around them. In the dimness of the garage
I couldn’t tell what they were or who they were from. I decided to take them into the house. I put the lavender ribbon and
the green scrap inside the box, leaned the ladder against the wall, and whistled for Scarlett. Before I left, I turned around
and looked into the empty garage. It didn’t scare me anymore. No more black hole. Just my heart feeling like a squeezed orange
knowing that’s where Mama died. Died and left me.

I creaked the door shut behind me and looked up. Cly leaned against the end of the garages.

“You did it.” He winked at me.

“It wasn’t so bad. Not good, but…”

“No rats?”

“Nope. I found this box though. I think it’s some more of Mama’s things. Were you watching me?”

“Just got here. You want to come over to Slim’s for a little backgammon?”

“Sure. First, though, maybe I ought to put this box back. Aunt Vadine would just snoop in it.” I flipped open the garage latch
and carried the box back to the shelf. In and out, like I did it every day of the week.

When we walked by the incinerator, I stopped, fished the rotten mother letter out of my pocket, and threw it into the lake
of fire.

While we played backgammon all afternoon, the wind howled outside Slim’s windows. Slim got up to check the weather. “The sky’s
darkening up. Looks like there’s rain a-coming.” He craned his neck to look through the front room window. “Best if you young’ens
get goin’. Sammie, I’ll drive you home.”

Cly sprinted across the street to his house while I ran toward Slim’s truck. The sky opened up, spitting rain that blew sideways,
stinging my face like bits of glass. Slim helped me in, then let the engine warm up a minute before hunching over the steering
wheel to drive me home, muttering about the blasted weather in the Texas Panhandle. Him and Daddy… always talking about cold
fronts and high-pressure systems like they held the secrets of the universe.

“Thanks, Slim. Be careful driving back.”

“You bet. Hurry on into the house now.”

I wanted to go to the garage to get the box I’d found earlier, but the wind about knocked me down when I started up the sidewalk.
When I made it to the porch, I turned around, waved at Slim, and opened the door. Scarlett appeared out of nowhere and whooshed
past me into the house.

“I’m home!” Stomping the wet off my feet, I slipped out of my soggy jacket. Scarlett ran into the kitchen and shook her wet
fur, spraying water all over the cabinets.

“Good heavens, throw that thing out. Nothing worse than the smell of a wet dog.” Aunt Vadine came from the bedroom tugging
a sweater on over her dress. Scarlett raced at her, barking and pouncing on her front paws, doing the hokeypokey in and out
and around her legs. This time I saw the fire come out of Aunt Vadine’s eyes, and I moved fast.

I grabbed Scarlett by the collar and whisked a towel from the cabinet to dry her off. “Poor baby. You’re so cold and wet.”
Pulling her to me, I whispered into her ear, “Don’t worry, you won’t have to go back out. I’ll fix you a spot in here.”

“Nothing doing. The dog stays out.” Aunt Vadine wouldn’t budge when I suggested making a spot for her under the kitchen table.

“I’ll watch her. I’ll even sleep out here with her. It’s inhuman to make a dog sleep in the cold and wind. What if it snows?”

“It’s not going to snow… how you get these ideas astounds me, but since you won’t let me hear the end of it, you and the dog
can sleep under the table.”

Grabbing the feather topper and my pillow from the army cot, I fixed a spot. When Scarlett curled right up and went to sleep,
I got up and went into the front room. Aunt Vadine sat in Daddy’s rocker poking a crochet needle in and out of her latest
project.

“Would you like some hot chocolate?” I got out a pan and the milk.

“That would be nice.”

We sipped the chocolate while rain hammered the roof. The windowpanes rattled like bones in the wind, and I wondered if Daddy
would make it home from his evening shift. Looking out the front window, I couldn’t even see the elm trees at the edge of
our sidewalk, just a blur like the television warming up. If the rain
did
turn to snow, we could have a blizzard.
My baby sister, Sylvia, died during a blizzard.
Immediately I pushed the thought out of my head. I picked up one of Aunt Vadine’s
Crochet World
magazines and flipped through it. Baby bonnets, baby bibs, baby everything-you-could-think-of.

“Hmm, I was wondering….” I closed the magazine. “Is this what it was like the night Sylvia died?”

In and out. Poke. Poke. Poke. No answer.

“Mama said she couldn’t get Sylvia to a doctor because of the blizzard. It doesn’t matter, I guess, but all this wind and
blinding rain scares the bejeebies out of me.”

“What kind of talk is that? Bejeebies?”

“Better than saying pee-waddings, I guess.”

“Samantha, you’ve got a filthy mouth. As for your question, I wasn’t there when Sylvia died. We did have a snow flurry or
two, but your mother kept herself in such a state, she probably didn’t know a blizzard from a hole in the ground.”

“What state? Like she was scared or nervous or something?”

“Something. Never was right after birthing Sylvia. Cried for weeks on end. Brought the baby over to your grandma Grace and
me to watch, said she just couldn’t take any more.”

“Mama cried or Sylvia cried?” This had turned out more confusing than I thought.

“Who knows? Sylvia had the colic and you were such a meddlesome child, always running off to the neighbors, getting into things,
just being a general nuisance. More than once I told Rita she should take a switch to you—after all you were five years old,
big enough to at least behave yourself. Handling two of you made her berserk.”

Me?
She was saying I was a brat. Was she saying it was my fault Mama had problems?

“Didn’t Daddy help?”

“Your daddy provided a living, a car, a place to live. The oil field paid well, but only when there were jobs. Men need to
know they’re appreciated. I’m not one to speak ill of the dead, but your mama never showed an ounce of appreciation for your
daddy. If she had, she wouldn’t have done what she did and be in hell today.”

Her words hit me like a slap in the face.
Mama in hell?
How could she, Mama’s own sister, say such a thing? I knew, though I don’t know how, Mama had done what she did to go to
Sylvia, to escape the hell in her mind.
Seek and ye shall find.

Aunt Vadine poked her crochet hook in and out, studying the web of loops and chains, her face hard like it was made of stone.
Her saying those things about Mama made my blood boil. Not to mention the way she treated me.
So I’m not an angel all the time
. One thing I knew, Aunt Vadine must not have helped Mama back then, so why did she think she could help us now?

I put on my flannel nightgown and crawled into my feather bed with Scarlett under the table. In the dark I reached for my
purse
and felt inside for the leather jewelry case. Holding the pearls in both hands, I counted. One, two, three… all the way around
to eighty-four. I went around again, counting in twos this time.
Sylvia cried all the time, and Mama couldn’t take it. Is that how she felt when Penelope screamed that day in Alice’s front
room? Like a failure? Was I really a horrible child?
I counted the pearls again.
Sylvia died before Mama could prove she was a good mother. Is that what depression does?

Scarlett whimpered in her sleep, and I pulled her close.

Please, dear God, say hello to Mama, and in your spare time, maybe you could look down and see things aren’t going too well
here. I’d like to feel normal again. Just plain old Sammie. I’ve tried choosing happy thoughts. Instead here I am, sleeping
under the kitchen table. That’s odd, don’t you think? Do you think you could give me and Daddy some answers? I don’t think
Aunt Vadine’s the answer we need. Maybe we could try something else.

Oh, and bless all the children in the Congo. Amen.

I returned the pearls to their case, and after a while Aunt Vadine shuffled off to bed. Outside the wind howled. A window
screen had come loose, banging like a bass drum.
Bum-bum-bum.
I dreamed of dancing to Sonny and the Spinners, twirling in Cly’s arms with Mama’s pearls—all eighty-four of them—shining
and perfect.

N
OVEMBER
1. The day of the dance finally arrived. It took thirty minutes to do my hair, and I’d borrowed some mascara from Tuwana,
who said it would define my eyes—my best feature according to Miss Fashion Expert of the state of Texas. Through the stiff
mascara, I blinked at my image in the mirror.
No zits. That’s good.
I slipped into my ruby sweater with the matching straight skirt. Holding my breath, I lifted the pearls from the case and
fastened them. My heart pounded as I took another look at my reflection.

Mama, I wish you could see me now.

Aunt Vadine knocked sharply on the door. “Your friend is here.” She said
friend
like it was a disease.

Daddy and Cly chatted about basketball while I grabbed my purse and my coat.

Cly’s eyes widened a bit when he first looked at me, and his smile told me he approved of how I looked. He had on a dark suit
and a slim tie with circles printed on it. My heart fluttered.

“Aunt Eva said you’d like this.” He handed me a box.

“Wow…” I lifted out a miniature white mum with a glittery net and ribbons. “Thank you. Was I supposed to get you something?”

“Beats me.” He shrugged and stood with his arms at his sides, shifting from one foot to the other.

“Did you see what Cly brought?” When I turned to show Aunt Vadine the mum, she had the oddest expression on her face, her
eyes locked at a place near my neck.

“Those…” She started to raise her hand to point at something. She straightened her whole body and inhaled through her nose.
“Your necklace. How lovely.”

“Those are Mama’s pearls, aren’t they?” Daddy said.

I smiled and nodded.

Aunt Vadine mumbled something, then fixed her lips in a tight, wrinkled prune pose.

Daddy helped with my coat and Cly held open the door. We hurried out to Mr. Johnson’s Edsel with its scooped-out sides glowing
in the moonlight. For a second I felt like Cinderella.

Black and gold streamers decorated the VFW with balloon bouquets tied along the sides between pictures of uniformed veterans
from the two world wars and Korea. Four guys with pompadour hair tuned their guitars on the stage directly under the American
flag. Their tight pants rode low on their hips, their white satin shirts unbuttoned halfway down their chests. Sonny and the
Spinners. As soon as we got there, Cly headed for the guys bunched on one side, and I saw Gina in a circle of girls on the
other. She pinned on my mum and said, “Nice outfit.”

When the music started, a few couples danced—the ones you’d expect. Tuwana and Mike hopped by while Pug and Mitzi, the homecoming
king and queen, twirled and spun. Most of us just anchored the sides of the VFW, looking nonchalant, tapping our feet to the
music. My first dance, and I had no idea what to expect.

“They’re all a buncha goons.” Gina cocked her head toward the boys. “Not that it matters all that much. I’m four inches taller
than Spunky, even in my flats. We’d look like Mutt and Jeff out there if he ever asked me to dance.”

The band played two slow songs next, and the same three or
four couples snuggled and shuffled around in time to the music. On our side Linda Kay Howard kept things lively with her
hee-haw laugh.

After the band ended “That’ll Be the Day” in a ragged, off-key
bum-bum-bump
, Mrs. Alexander, Mike’s mother, took the microphone and gushed about how great the band was and urged us to give them a hand.

“The next song will be ladies’ choice. Come on, y’all, don’t be shy. We want everyone to have fun.”

A flurry of activity, like a VFW game of Fruit Basket Upset, started as the band began playing “Party Doll.” I looked around
to see what Gina was going to do and bumped into Linda Kay, dragging Cly out onto the floor. My heart sank, and I stood during
the whole song wishing I could be swallowed up by the streamers and balloons. I had the urge to go to the bathroom, and I
considered running downstairs. Instead I chewed on a hangnail and watched Linda Kay tilt her head up and smile at Cly, who
danced stiff-legged, like a windup toy. I heard a cackle above the slow music.
Linda Kay?