Chasing Lilacs (32 page)

“It’s not fair.” Tuwana’s face had streaks running down. “I just find out I have a grandpa living two streets over. And now…
now he’s gone.”

“I’m sorry. We’re all going to miss him.” I pushed my toe against the dead grass in front of the glider, squeaking it back
and forth. “Daddy said Slim wouldn’t quit talking about you and Tara and Tommie Sue. He loved you, you know.”

“I guess. Tell me again what happened with your aunt. I heard she went berserk and tried to hang you from the rafters.”

I smiled. “Not exactly. But
berserk
about sums it up. At least she didn’t get to make her move on Daddy.”

“What will you do now? You won’t have Aunt Vadine to complain about. I won’t be avoiding Slim all the time….” Her eyes filled
with tears, and we grabbed hold of each other.

I sniffed. “Guess you’re just stuck with me.” We scritched back and forth in the glider and let the sun warm our faces. Irene
Flanagan marched up the sidewalk carrying a cake. I knew it was coconut. I hoped Alice remembered to number the dishes and
write down what everyone brought.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you!” Tuwana jumped up. “Daddy’s coming home tomorrow. He’ll be here for Slim’s funeral on Wednesday.”

*   *   *

After Daddy went to work that afternoon, I stuffed all of Aunt Vadine’s things in her suitcases and lined them up by the door.
I folded up the army cot and took the feather bed topper to Scarlett’s doghouse. She nosed around and curled right up on it.
I looked toward the garage. Would the hatbox still be there? I took a deep breath and walked slowly toward it. I flipped the
latch and opened the door. I closed my eyes and stepped inside, squinting to make sure nothing swung from the rafters. So
far, so good. The box sat on top of the workbench. I hurried over and lifted the lid and found the bundle of letters and the
thin book I’d seen earlier—was it only that morning? The side of the box had a dent where I’d shoved it against Aunt Vadine’s
knee, but otherwise it looked okay. I carried it back to the house.

On the couch I sifted through the letters first. Most of them had our address and were from Grandma Grace. One, though, had
a thin yellowed envelope with an Atlanta, Georgia, postmark. I removed the single sheet of paper.

My dearest Rita,

I’m grieved by the loss of your aunt Faith. She was a lovely woman whom I had the pleasure of knowing. I enjoyed our visit
on the bus and pray that all is well with you. Please give my regards to your mother.

Your friend,

Margaret Mitchell

The name rang a bell.
Margaret Mitchell. The
Margaret Mitchell? I turned the envelope over and read the postmark again.
Atlanta, Georgia
. Shivers went through me. Mama had met the woman who
wrote
Gone with the Wind.
No wonder she loved the book so much. But who was Aunt Faith?

I grabbed the slim book, looking for a clue. Mama’s journal. On the third page she wrote about taking the train to Atlanta
to see Grandma Grace’s twin sister in the hospital. On the city bus, Mama and Grandma rode next to Margaret Mitchell, who
sat with people at the hospital. She knew Grandma’s sister, Faith. My heart raced as I read what Mama wrote about her trip
and ended with a note that said, “Vadine couldn’t go with us. She hasn’t recovered from losing the baby, nor her injuries
from that awful beating she took from Wayne Cox. I am, quite frankly, worried sick about Vadine.”

Something pierced my heart.
I had a boy once. Stillborn. My marriage didn’t work out.
Aunt Vadine’s face, the empty look in her eyes, rushed into my mind. I shuddered and thought about her loss, the awful way
her life had turned out. And Mama’s. She’d lost baby Sylvia. And I had lost Mama.

Page after page, I devoured Mama’s words, the loopy way she ended her letters, the tiny circles she made to dot the
i
’s in my name. Each page drew me to the next one until at last I had read her entire journal. I went back and reread what
she wrote on June 5, 1950.

In all my born days, I would have never dreamed I could love another human being the way I love Sammie. Every day she asks
a million questions and pesters me till I’m blue in the face. Already, she knows how to write the entire alphabet. Today she
wrote “I love Mama” in perfect penmanship. She’s really something for a four-year-old.

I closed the book and hugged it to my chest. Mama loved me. She always had. And now I had it in her own words. Another thought
came. Mama had kept her favorite memories in this
hatbox. Her journal. Special letters. Sylvia’s crocheted bonnet. The letters I had written her. The empty place inside me
grew warm with memories of Mama. The two of us chasing dragonflies at Red River. Her laugh when we pored over the Montgomery
Ward catalog picking out my school clothes. The way her hair swirled in the breeze riding in the Edsel.
She had kept my letters.

I went back to the day she died, the day that I might never understand completely. She must have brought her memory box into
the garage and put it on the shelf in the corner. Maybe she thought of me and wanted to tell me somehow she loved me. As sure
as my name is Sammie Tucker, I knew she must have pulled her New Testament and the leather case with her pearls out of the
hatbox and run back into the house and put them where she knew I would find them. Whether she remembered the words in her
testament,
Seek and ye shall find
, I don’t know. Only that somehow those words brought me to today. She did love me. A fire burned in the deepest pit of my
stomach. Mama loved me!

From my purse, I took her New Testament. I put it in the hatbox along with her journal and letters. The tiny scrap of green
material had wedged into a torn corner of the paper lining. I lifted it out and rubbed it between my fingers. Then I added
the sliver of lilac soap I had saved and her hairbrush. The glove filled with dirt from Mama’s grave stayed in my purse. I
had another idea for it. Only the pearls were missing, and Tuwana would have to help me with that.

It didn’t come as a big surprise to find out from Mr. Howard that Aunt Vadine had not called him about me being on the paper.
What did surprise me was that Daddy had called him.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out with your aunt. Your father told me she would be moving on.” He cleared his throat. “Sammie,
not many students go through what you have and come out
on top. I’m glad I kept my eye on you. And I’m sure Mrs. Gray would love to welcome you back on the school paper.”

I floated through the rest of the day. That night I got out my typewriter and rolled a sheet of paper into it. Then, beginning
with the day Mama swallowed the pills, I started writing our story.

George, Norm, Cly, and Daddy carried Slim’s casket from the Hilltop Church to the waiting hearse. From there, cars with their
headlights burning made a long snake to the cemetery. Brother Henry read from the Psalms and prayed. After the amen, I stepped
to the casket and broke a rose from the arrangement. One for me and then three more that I gave to Tuwana and her sisters.

Daddy and I stood to the side while people shook hands and whispered. After a while Daddy nodded his head in the general direction
of Mama’s grave. Hand in hand, we walked, not saying anything. A simple stone jutted from the ground where Mama was buried.
Marguerite Samuels Tucker
was chiseled in thick letters above the dates of her birth and death, and below that the words,
Beloved wife and mother
. Tears ran down my face as Daddy squeezed my hand. He sniffled a few times too. Neither of us was in a hurry to leave.

The cemetery stood empty then, except for Daddy and me. A hawk swooped and picked up a mouse near the wire fence a few rows
over from where Mama rested. A breeze brought the scent of sage, but up above the sky was a blinding blue, the same color
as Mama’s eyes.

Daddy took in a deep breath and stepped back from the stone. A toothpick bobbled up and down between his lips. I was glad
he’d given up smoking again. He cocked his head one way and then another.

“I’ve been thinking we ought to plant a lilac bush or two here for Mama. What do you think, Sis?”

“Mama would love that.” I smiled up at Daddy. I opened my purse and pulled out a silt-filled glove, unwound the rubber band,
and let the dirt drift like brown snow onto the top of Mama’s grave.

“You okay?”

“I will be. I just keep having a weird thought.”

“What’s that?” Daddy put his arm around me.

“You’ll think I’m crazy, but sometimes I think about Aunt Vadine. Even though she lied about talking to Mr. Howard and made
my life miserable, I don’t hate her for what she did.”

“That’s good. She’s had a tough life—most of it her own doing.”

“Do you think she’ll be all right?”

“Don’t rightly know. All this time, I thought we were doing Vadine a favor, giving her a place to stay until her life straightened
out. I called that fella Bobby in Midland. Seems she lied about him too. Got herself in a spot of trouble it sounds like.”

“Was he her boyfriend?”

“No way of knowing. He told me she was the one who took the money from the truck stop, and he talked her boss out of pressing
charges by selling all her furniture to pay him back.”

“So we won’t be getting a truckload of her stuff like she wanted?”

“No. Could be that was another thing that set her off. All I know is we gotta pick up the pieces and get on with our lives,
Sis.”

“I’m ready. I love you, Daddy.”

He thumped me on the arm and said, “I love you too.”

O
N FRIDAY NIGHT
, Daddy took Mrs. Gray and me to the Dairy Cream for a hamburger.

Mrs. Gray nibbled at her burger. “The plant superintendent says we can take our time with Slim’s things. I think it’s best
to get it over with though. Next weekend Alice and I will start packing everything up.”

“I’ll be glad to help, Mrs. Gray.” I dipped my French fry in a dollop of ketchup.

“Count me in,” Daddy said.

“Please.” Mrs. Gray looked sideways at me, the bun on top of her head slightly off center. “I want you to call me Olivia.
And I want to thank you both for all you’ve done, what you meant to Slim….” Between her fingers, she turned the paper cup,
glistening with the sweat cups have in the heat. Around and around.

Olivia invited us into the house when we took her home, but Daddy wanted to sit on her porch, where a slatted swing hung on
thick chains. They sat beside each other, swinging gently like a couple of old grannies. Daddy fished in his pocket for his
knife and began whittling on a tree limb he’d picked up nearby.

“I didn’t know you whittled,” Olivia said like it was the most interesting thing since the invention of ice cream.

“Oh yeah, I’m a whittler from way back.” Thin slivers of wood curled at the blade of his knife.

“He whittles, all right. He just hasn’t figured out how to make anything.” I rolled my eyes at him.

“I’ll have you know this is a very handy item I’m working on right now. You’ll see.” He continued shaving the stick while
I wrapped my arms around my knees and gazed off into the heavens. The Milky Way seemed close enough to touch, hugging us somehow.
A firefly or two lit up the bushes near the porch, and I was trying to guess where they would pop up next when Daddy announced
he’d finished his project.

“It looks remarkably like a stick, Daddy. How clever.”

“This, dear ladies, is not just a stick; it is a hair stick.” He reached up and poked it through the wad of hair on top of
Olivia’s head.

We all laughed until the moon smiled through the trees and Daddy said we ought to be getting back.

The next day I called Tuwana and asked her to meet me in the middle of camp.

The bounce in her step had come back. And her attitude. “What’s going on? Why all the mystery?”

“Unfinished business.” I started toward the playground, gripping the paper sack I’d brought along.

When we came to the cedar trees, I held back a heavy branch and motioned for Tuwana to enter. I opened the sack and took out
an old tablecloth, which I spread on the ground. “Sit down, please.”

We sat cross-legged, and I pulled out Mama’s journal.

Tuwana scrunched her eyebrows together but didn’t move.

“Listen to this.” I turned to a page in the middle.

Tomorrow Joe and I will be married. The pearls Mother gave me look beautiful with my dress. I could just pinch
myself I’m so happy. I can only pray someday I’ll have a little girl to pass them on to.

Tuwana studied her fingernails.

I closed the book. “Mama did want me to have her pearls. And thanks to you, they’re safe.” I took out the red-handled serving
spoon and a meat fork. “Ready?” I handed Tuwana the fork, and together we scooped the dead needles away and dug until we heard
metal scraping the cocoa tin. My heart rose in my throat as I lifted it out. I used the edge of the spoon to pry the top off,
pulled out the rolled-up sock, and then held Mama’s pearls in my fingers. I closed my eyes and counted each one. Eighty-four.
A fresh breeze kissed my face and the scent of lilacs tickled my nose.
Mama. She’s here
.

Tuwana smiled, then fastened the pearls around my neck as I held up my hair. I gave her a quick hug. “You were right, you
know.”

“How’s that?”

“Everything has turned out fine. Just fine.”

“I said that?”

“Indubitably.” I laughed and helped her up. “Another thing. I’ve started typing everything that happened since last summer.
It will probably be a never-ending story, but I think there just might be a chapter about Tuwana becoming a cheerleader. It’s
time for you to start practicing, and I’d be glad to help.”

She wrinkled her nose, and together we walked arm in arm back home.

When the Saturday came to clean out Slim’s house, we had more help than we knew what to do with. Mrs. Johnson brought her
girls and Mr. Johnson, who could only give advice and moral support. Cly came with Norm and Eva. Daddy and I helped Olivia
pull things out so Tuwana’s mother could see them, and then Olivia
directed which pile they went into. The furniture was up for grabs, except for Slim’s rocker, which Tuwana’s dad had taken
a shine to.