Getting Near to Baby (3 page)

We learned right off not to use the bath powder.

“It's not that I mind you using it.” Aunt Patty's voice stirred the cloud of bath powder hanging in the air. “Did we use too much?” I asked nervously. Bath powder was an expense, I knew.

“No, no, honey.” Aunt Patty's voice was shrill with being afraid she had hurt our feelings. “But I don't fluff it around so much when I use it, that's all. Not so much of it ends up on the floor and on the top of the toilet seat and such.”

She was good about it, really.

Aunt Patty kept a narrow cabinet on the landing where the staircase turned the comer. There was a glass front on this cabinet and six shelves inside. Aunt Patty's Hummels were set on those shelves. Hummels being little china figurines of children carrying umbrellas on a rainy day, or bending over to pet a puppy. Like that. My favorite is a little girl on a swing.

Little Sister took a shine to those Hummels right off. Every trip up or down the stairs was an opportunity to do a fresh study of them. But she already knew about the tabletops; I never thought she'd open up that glass door. I don't even know when she did it. The first I knew of anything was when Aunt Patty was on her way downstairs and made this sound like a chicken in the mood to lay an egg. A soft kind of squawk. I looked up to see her standing before that cabinet. Her eyes were wide, but she was silent with concentration. Just like that chicken I mentioned. Then she hooked her fingers under the cuffs of her shorts and gave them a sharp little snap—and opened up her cabinet.

Little Sister was playing jacks on the carpet at the foot of the stairs. The ball wouldn't bounce, of course, so she threw it in the air instead. She couldn't catch it very often, but she always picked up a jack anyway. She never once looked up while Aunt Patty stood in front of the cabinet. Curious now, I got up to take a look.

All the Hummels had been moved around. Not just rearranged, but rearranged so that the little boy petting a dog appeared to be in the company of the boy playing a pennywhistle. It looked like they were about to be joined by a boy rolling a hoop. All the figurines had been set up so that they made friendly little groups, or became families, or seemed to be trying to talk to one another. Aunt Patty lines them up like soldiers.

She started to set them back in their proper places. But after she'd moved three or four, Aunt Patty changed her mind and put them back the way Little Sister had them. She closed the cabinet and with the look of someone with an errand to run, settled herself in a chair with a magazine. If someone flipping pages that fast could be called settled.

Oh, and there were the newts.

Small reddish-brown newts lived in the woods behind Aunt Patty's house and in the woods across the road. At home, we don't have so many trees close by. If we wanted a newt, we had to drag our fingers through the mud at the edge of the pond, and if we were lucky, we might find one or two. But the first rainy day at Aunt Patty's led to a wonderful discovery.

The rain brought out newts by the hundreds. They were in the grass, on the driveway, crossing the patio. Everywhere we looked, newts were out taking a stroll, lifting their short legs like so many little wind-up toys. They were a sight to see, but at two in the afternoon, Aunt Patty has her eyes trained on her soap operas.

“Willa Jo? Willa Jo, come in here and tell me you don't think this boy's hair is bleached. Do you see those dark roots or is that my imagination? What is this world coming to, when there will not be a single soul wearing their own hair color?”

After we decided he might just have sun-streaked hair, Aunt Patty went on to fill me in on practically every person on this soap opera. Who was married to who else first, and so on. It was fairly interesting. So neither Aunt Patty nor I paid much attention to the open and close of the back door. Even though I remember it opened and closed pretty often. It was not until the soap opera ended, and Aunt Patty offered to put out some milk and cookies, that we found Little Sister had started a collection.

“I'll have an iced tea and sit with you girls,” Aunt Patty was saying. “Aah,” she screamed. “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

I ran into the kitchen to find Aunt Patty standing with both arms outstretched before her as if she might try to catch her kitchen sink if it should up and run away. Being Aunt Patty's sink, it might. It was swarming with newts, thirty or forty of them, at a guess.

Little Sister chose that moment to come in through the screened-in porch. She was wet, she'd wiped a muddy streak across her cheek, and she had a slug glued to her ankle. She looked about as happy as I had seen her in months. She stopped dead at the sight of Aunt Patty's horrified face. One hand still on the door latch, with the other hand she held two or three wriggling newts pressed against her shirtfront.

“Oh, my stars and garters,” Aunt Patty moaned. “What am I going to do now?”

It was easy, really. No one had to tell Little Sister those newts would have to go. She turned right around and headed out again. I got an aluminum pie plate and put about ten newts in it to carry them back out. Of course, they started escaping the pie plate the instant I put them in, and some of them managed it before I could get out of the kitchen. But newts are easy to catch. It wasn't all that long before Aunt Patty could scrub the sink with Comet and mop the floor twice with Spic and Span.

Outside, I found an extra garbage can lid which we filled with matted leaves and water. Little Sister put some newts in this makeshift pond. But by then, I had the feeling she was doing it because it seemed to make less trouble.

 

 

 

I
look out over the countryside, like I am enjoying the view. Aunt Patty has been thinking things over for three or four minutes. For three or four minutes it has been nearly peaceful out here once more.

“Your momma would shoot me if she knew what all you were doing,” Aunt Patty calls up to me on the roof. She knows it isn't true. Mom won't step on a bug. I don't even look down; I stare off into the woods beyond the bungalows. “She would die of embarrassment if she knew,” Aunt Patty says.

Little Sister must think this might be true, because she scoots forward suddenly to look down at Aunt Patty. Mrs. Biddle is startled by Little Sister's quickness, one hand flies up to grip the neckline of her dress. I was startled too, so I have Little Sister's nightgown in my grasp again.

Only Aunt Patty has not noticed anything. She is not looking up, but is looking off to one side. “This child is stubborn as cement,” she mutters to herself, but both Mrs. Biddle and I have heard her.

“She's not as bad as all that,” Mrs. Biddle says in a voice with only the slightest quaver, considering Little Sister has given her such a scare.

“She is. She is what my very own momma would have called a tough nut to crack,” Aunt Patty says. “My momma knew what she was talking about every day of her life.”

And then she says, “I'm going to have to call the sheriff, I guess.” She crosses her arms over her bosom. This is something she does when she has come to a decision. I have a sudden awful feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I'm about to be in big trouble. Little Sister scooches closer to me by a few more inches, close enough that the hair on our arms touches.

“There's a bad idea,” Mrs. Biddle says. “He won't do anything but call the fire department.”

“Well, that's who I'll call then,” Aunt Patty says. Aunt Patty's large bosom is heaving, and she is resting her fists on the mounds that serve as her hips. I wish Aunt Patty wouldn't talk to us this way. Little Sister is kind of afraid of Aunt Patty as it is. She might never climb down now.

“Do you hear me, Willa Jo?” Aunt Patty asks. Aunt Patty sounds as hard as a church pew. “I'm going to call the fire department on you. They'll come take you down like a cat out of a tree.”

“If you do, I might jump,” I say. At the same time I clamp my fingers around Little Sister's arm and pull back. I don't want Little Sister to believe me. But I am satisfied to see Aunt Patty's face go all smooth and calm in the way it does when she is confronted with a garden snake. Aunt Patty thinks if she pretends to be calm, she is.

She goes on like she never heard what I said. “The fire department will probably notify the authorities, and then I'll be arrested. Do you want me to get arrested, Willa Jo?”

At this, I scoot back so I cannot be seen. Not by Aunt Patty, anyway So does Little Sister. “Willa Jo?” And after a moment, “Willa Jo, are you coming back inside?”

After another moment, she goes back into the house, her slippers hitting the bottoms of her feet. “Hob,” I hear her calling. And then silence.

“I suppose you've got your reasons for doing this,” Mrs. Biddle says in the gentle way she has. Mrs. Biddle nods, smiling even. “I don't suppose you girls are going to come down one minute sooner than when you are ready to,” Mrs. Biddle says, and looks as if she is waiting for an answer.

It would be rude to say, “No, ma‘am, I don't guess we are.” The safest thing is to shake my head. So I am trying to decide whether the right answer would be a shake of the head for no, we won't, or a nod, for yes, that's right. Mrs. Biddle doesn't know what I'm thinking, though, and she goes right on to say, “You aren't doing this to be mean to your aunt Patty, are you?”

I shake my head, no, we aren't.

“Well, that's good,” Mrs. Biddle says as if she is talking to very good girls. “I know it's not the same as having your mother near you. But your aunt Patty's doing the best she can.” This last is said in a way that brings tears to my eyes.

Things don't feel right here. I want to open my eyes in the morning to see my very own wallpaper with the tiny blue flowers and pink rosebuds. Aunt Patty does not believe in putting up wallpaper, not even in the bathroom. She says mold grows behind it. I want the quiet of my mother's kitchen, where the only noise is the rustle of dry cereal shaken out of a box, the coffee percolating in the pot and the crackle of the newspaper as Mom turns the pages. Aunt Patty never touches a newspaper. She says the ink comes off on her fingers. And she never turns off that radio.

I want Mom to read to us for an hour before bedtime, all of us in a clump like alligators in the sun so we can all look at the pictures together. Aunt Patty is too tired after dinner to do anything but watch television. She kisses us on the forehead and tucks us into bed before it is even full dark. We want our mom. We're worried about her having to sleep all alone. We worry that she doesn't eat right, now that she doesn't have us to feed. We miss her.

I hear Aunt Patty's bossy voice, rousing Uncle Hob out of his bed. She's telling him he has to come outside to order us down. Or to plead with us, whichever he thinks will work. That sad feeling I have hardens into a mad feeling and I don't think I'll ever get down off this roof. I'll stay here till kingdom comes.

When Uncle Hob comes out, he is still in his blue-and-white-striped pajamas. I know this because I can see the legs sticking out from beneath his raincoat. Uncle Hob must not have a robe. He has probably never before needed a robe since he doesn't come out of the bedroom, most mornings, until he is dressed and ready for the day.

“There they are,” Aunt Patty says and points up at us with a quick little motion of her hand before she crosses her arms again.

Uncle Hob doesn't say a word as he looks up at us. He doesn't look mad, he doesn't even look sad. He looks at us the way he looks at a crossword puzzle when he doesn't know the answer.

One of the neighbor ladies from down the street—her name is Mrs. Teasley—is walking by and stops when she sees us on the roof. She always looks like she is about to spit. She motions with one hand to Mrs. Biddle, something between a “come here” and a wave. Mrs. Biddle nods, hardly any encouragement, but Mrs. Teasley comes around the comer, along the street, up the driveway.

“Hob,” Aunt Patty whines. And he puts an arm around Aunt Patty's shoulders.

There's something about Uncle Hob, a soft look in his eyes—maybe it's the glasses, but I don't think so—that makes it easy for a person to pour their heart out to him. I don't mean he always has the answer, unless it's mathematical, of course. But when Uncle Hob agrees that “That is some serious problem you have there,” or maybe he chews his bottom lip and says, “It's a dilemma,” you feel better, that's all. I can see that's how his arm around her shoulder works for Aunt Patty.

Mrs. Teasley walks smartly, as if she'd meant to come see Mrs. Biddle all along. As if she has not noticed us after all. Once Mrs.Teasley stands beside Mrs. Biddle, she is bold as the spots on a giraffe. She doesn't say a word but stares at us like she's sight-seeing.

“Do you see any broken ones?” Aunt Patty calls up to us in that voice she uses when we meet up with somebody in the Piggly Wiggly. I can't think what she's talking about and I stare back down at her. “Roof tiles,” she says. “Any broken ones?”

A lot of things run through my mind awful fast. That Aunt Patty expects Mrs. Teasley to believe Little Sister and I are out here to check on the roof tiles. That it is only Uncle Hob's arm around her shoulders that makes her strong enough to pretend anything at all. That I had not meant to embarrass Aunt Patty. That somehow I thought I could sit up here and never be noticed at all, not by anyone. Not even by Little Sister.

When Little Sister followed me up here, I should have known that other people were bound to notice too. Not only Aunt Patty, but Mrs. Garber and anybody else who happened by. I wasn't thinking. I was just feeling. Remembering. But now things are getting out of hand.