Fran Rizer - Callie Parrish 05 - Mother Hubbard Has a Corpse in the Cupboard (15 page)

Good heavens! The room on the orthopedic floor was like a hotel suite. Not that I’ve ever stayed in a hotel that big or fancy, not even on my honeymoon. Instead of just a bedside table and one chair beside the patient’s bed, this was an L-shaped room with two recliners, a love seat, a full couch that opened into a double bed, and a little round table with a Tiffany lamp on it.

Plus more closet and drawer space than I have in my entire apartment, and a bathroom big enough for a party. I looked around to see if there was one of those locked refrigerators that have mini-bottles, imported beers, and snacks in it. I stayed in a motel with one of those and when I checked out, they charged me an arm and a leg for a beer and a little bag of pretzels.

Rizzie stretched out on the couch while I curled up on the love seat with several pillows and Tyrone kicked back in a recliner holding the television remote and flipping from channel to channel.

When the attendants brought Maum back, we all gathered around her to be sure she knew we were there, but she was asleep.

“She was awake in recovery, but we adjusted her pain meds on the pump just before we came to the room,” one of the men told us. They attached the automatic blood pressure cuff to her arm, adjusted the oxygen prongs in her nose, and filled her water bottle before leaving us alone with her.

“Go on home,” Rizzie said. “I’m staying through the night, but there’s no reason for all of us to stay here.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive. I’m just going to stretch out and watch TV.”

“Will you put the top down?” Tyrone asked before we reached the elevator. I agreed, and then he questioned, “Is it too late to go to your dad’s? When Jane and Frankie brought the food, they said your brother John is still in town, and they’re going to play music again tonight.”

“No,” I answered, “it’s not too late. They’ll be picking until at least midnight.”

• • •

The ugliest house in the county—that’s what I call the house I grew up in because it has dark gray shingles and black trim—the colors on sale when Daddy redid the exterior. By looks, it would be the perfect home for the Adams Family, but it was more like those happy sit-coms because when I was a child, and even now, that house was always filled with love, laughter, and music.

I parked behind John’s BMW, and as Tyrone and I walked up to the porch, music spilled out of the open front door. Daddy and all of my brothers play guitar, and several of them play mandolin, bass, and Dobro or the resophonic guitar as some folks insist on calling it because Dobro is a brand name, but in our case, the one at the house actually is a Dobro brand, so I just keep calling it the Dobro like we always have. Our only fiddler is John, and Daddy and I are the only ones who play banjo. I hadn’t bothered to stop by my apartment for my banjo because Daddy has lots of spare instruments.

Besides music, the smell of food wafted out, too. I recognized that odor—Daddy’s catfish stew. He makes all kinds of stews, including squirrel with potatoes and gravy, but my favorite is his catfish.

A lot of the music played at the Parrish place is bluegrass, but we mix in a little folk and country as well as gospel. Tyrone and I walked into “Uncle Pen,” with Daddy, John, Mike, and Bill picking and singing. When they finished the song, they welcomed Tyrone and asked about his grandmother. I got Tyrone and me each a bowl of stew and a couple of slices of bread. Some people in the South eat crackers or cornbread with catfish, but our family eats sliced bread.

Daddy and The Boys were all drinking beer, and a cold one would have been perfect with the stew, but I got Tyrone a Coke and me a Diet Coke.

“Do you think your dad would let me have a beer?” Tyrone asked when I handed the can to him.

“Are you out of your mind?” I said. “No way would he let you drink beer at his house. You’re underage, and he might not even if you were old enough. I’m way past the legal age to drink, and he doesn’t let me have beer when I’m around him.”

“I’ve seen you and Rizzie drink beer,” Tyrone protested.

“Not in front of my daddy, you haven’t,” I answered.

“Hurry up eating and grab a banjo,” John called. He’s my oldest brother and the one I’m closest to. I hadn’t known he was coming up from Atlanta. I looked around for Miriam and their two kids, but they weren’t there. John had been feeling unloved and unappreciated recently, and I hoped he’d just come for a visit and not because he was leaving his, at least up until now, first and only wife.

Jim’s in the Navy and never been married, but track records for the rest of us aren’t good. Frank, Mike, Bill, and I have all been divorced—two times for Mike. At least none of us had kids that we knew of. Well, I would have known, but so far as we knew, John’s son and daughter were Daddy’s only grandchildren. Of course, that might be about to change for Frankie, and maybe down the road for Bill. He married again not long ago, but unless Molly straightens him out, she’ll kick him to the curb before they celebrate their first anniversary.

When I’d finished eating and Tyrone had begun his second bowl of stew, I grabbed Daddy’s banjo, but John took it out of my hand and gave me a guitar.

“Before you play banjo, sing ‘One of These Days’ for me,” he said. That’s an old song written by Earl Montgomery and recorded by several artists, but my favorite is the one by Emmylou Harris with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. My brothers all say I sound like Emmylou, but I think they just say that ’cause they love me. She recorded it long before I was married, but I played the dickens out of that song for months before I got my divorce and changed jobs. Then, when I moved home for a while, I sang it every time we picked. That song said exactly what I felt at that time.

Mike had been playing doghouse bass, but he leaned it up against the corner and grabbed the electric bass. Daddy took mandolin; Bill, on Dobro; John, on fiddle; and I had Daddy’s Martin guitar. With me singing lead and The Boys backing me up, we sounded pretty good even though Frankie’s tenor voice would have added a lot. I assumed he was somewhere with Jane and that Bill’s wife Molly was with her family since they’d just buried her aunt. Bill probably should have been with her. He is definitely not the most thoughtful husband, but then, I’d rather make music with my family than hang around with in-laws, too. We tore that song up:

I won’t have to chop no wood

I can be bad or I can be good

I can be anyway that I feel

One of these days

Might be a woman that’s dressed in black

Be a hobo by the railroad track

I’ll be gone like the wayward wind one of these days

One of these days it will soon be all over cut and dry

And I won’t have this urge to go all bottled up inside

One of these days I’ll look back and say I left in time

Cause somewhere for me, I know there’s peace of mind

 
I might someday walk across this land

Carrying the Lord’s Book in my hand

Going cross the country singing loud as I can

One of these days

But I won’t have trouble on my back

Cuttin’ like the devil with a choppin’ axe

Got to shake it off my back one of these days

One of these days it will soon be all over, cut and dry

And I won’t have this urge to go all bottled up inside

One of these days I’ll look back and say I left in time

Cause somewhere for me, I know there’s peace of mind

There’s gonna be peace of mind for me, one of these days

“Are you crying, son?” Daddy asked.

I looked to see who he was talking to and I’d have dropped my teeth if they’d been store-bought when I saw that John wasn’t picking and singing. He was picking and crying.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I got something in my eye,” John mumbled and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “But I understand now,” he mumbled. “I understand why Callie played and sang that song so much when she left Donnie and moved back from Columbia.” He attempted a smile, but it didn’t really work. “Callie, you’ve become a woman in black like it says in the song. Tell us, Callie, do you have peace of mind now?”

Speechless seldom describes me, but it did then. Was I happier than I was at the end of my marriage to Donnie? Yes, but the qualifier was that I was happier than before, but not
really
happy. I didn’t admit it, but I was like almost every woman my age. I wanted to be wanted, but not for any fly-by-night affair. Recently, I’d thought that my new Donald and I were finding peace of mind together, but I hadn’t heard from him in almost three weeks. I smiled and lied, “Yes, I believe so.”

Mike laughed, “While we’ve got you talking, tell us if you’re being bad or being good these days.”

I faked a slap at him and said, “What’s next?”

“I want to do ‘Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” John said. “I’ll take the lead.”

I traded the guitar for a banjo and we broke into that old standard by A. P. Carter that’s been recorded by danged near everybody including the Allman Brothers years ago. John started off strong.

I was standing by my window

On one cold and cloudy day

When I saw that hearse come rolling

For to carry my mother away

Will the circle be unbroken

By and by, Lord, by and by

There’s a better home a’waiting

In the sky, Lord, in the sky

I said to that undertaker

Undertaker, please drive slow

For this lady you are carrying

Lord, I hate to see her go

Will the circle be unbroken

By and by, Lord, by and by

John’s voice cracked and he broke down sobbing. We all stopped, and Bill went to his side. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I miss her so bad,” John said, “I just miss her so bad.”

“Then you should have brought her with you,” Daddy said.

“What are you talking about?” John.

“Miriam. If you miss her so bad, you shouldn’t have left her home.” Daddy.

“I don’t miss Miriam at all. I miss Mama. Am I the only one who misses Mama? Nobody ever even mentions her. Do you even remember her?” John.

Daddy said, “It’s been over thirty years, but I still miss her. Why do you think I stayed home and raised you younguns instead of running around with women? Calamine and the young ones can’t possibly remember your mama, but I think about her every day. That’s why I don’t look for someone to court now. How can I when my mind’s never far away from your mama?”

John slumped down on the couch, and we all gathered around him. Tyrone asked me, “What’s wrong?”

“John’s my oldest brother. He was twelve when our mother died, and he’s missing her tonight.”

“I didn’t know your mama was dead. I just knew she wasn’t here. Thought maybe she’d gone off to someplace more exciting than here like my ma did. I’m lucky my Maum was here to take care of me.” Then, a tear trickled down his cheek.

What to do? I’m surrounded by sensitive men who cry, but who can blame anyone for crying over the death or absence of a mother?

John wiped his face with a dish towel Mike handed him and stood up. “Let’s pick some songs that don’t wring my heart out like a wet rag. How about ‘She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain?’ That’ll work, won’t it?”

Tyrone joined in singing that and the others he knew like “There’s a Hole in the Bucket, Dear Liza.” I was just glad nobody mentioned “Sweeter than the Flowers” by the Stanley Brothers. That song about “Oh, no, Mother, we’ll never forget you, and someday we’ll meet you up there” could bring tears to my own eyes, and I never knew my mother because she died giving birth to me.

Rain had begun before we left, and I wanted to get on the road before it turned into a storm. Daddy seemed to have a hard time letting us leave. He kept saying things that delayed us. Then he filled two big jars with catfish stew—one to take to my place and one for Jane and Frankie. He also promised Tyrone he’d teach him to play guitar and insisted on lending us a guitar to take home with us so I could show the teenager a few chords before they got together for a lesson. No, the one he lent us wasn’t a Martin, but it sounded good anyway.

12

Spooky. I can’t deny that I got a creepy feeling every time I had to go out to the new casket warehouse behind Middleton’s. It wasn’t the coffins. I used to go upstairs without that weird feeling when we stored them on the second floor of the house, but since Otis and Odell had the pre-fab building put in back, I did
not
like going back there, and I did
not
want to take Mr. Nathaniel Haeden in there to pick up a Gates Exquisite bronze with satin cream interior.