Swan Place
Authors: Augusta Trobaugh
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Sagas, #African American
“You’re going to be a good woman when you grow up, Dove. A good woman and very strong.”
Her words surprised me.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Well, I can see how strong you’re trying to be right now. And I’ve seen how good you are to Molly and Little Ellis. And you don’t fuss with me about going to church,” she added. I thought about it being Easter Sunday and about the clothes Aunt Bett had brought over for us to wear.
“Thank you for the nice clothes you let us use,” I said.
“Goodness!” Aunt Bett exclaimed. “You’re grateful, as well. Yes, you most certainly will be a good woman. A strong woman.”
I didn’t reply:
My Mama did too raise me right! And I’m only being this polite to let you know that. And I won’t be strong. I don’t know how to be!
———
“Trobaugh delivers another solid novel of small-town life below the Mason-Dixon line (after
Sophie and the Rising Sun
). As in past fictions, Trobaugh’s supreme skill is her command of character
. . .
”
—Publishers Weekly
“. . . In Dove, Augusta Trobaugh has created a precocious young woman struggling with class, gender, and race issues. Dove questions her own understanding of religion, sexuality, and responsibility.”
—Southern Scribe Reviews
The acclaimed author of these southern novels from
Bell Bridge Books
THE TEA-OLIVE BIRD WATCHING SOCIETY
SOPHIE AND THE RISING SUN
MUSIC FROM BEYOND THE MOON
RIVER JORDAN
RESTING IN THE BOSOM OF THE LAMB
PRAISE JERUSALEM!
by
Augusta Trobaugh
Bell Bridge Books
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.
Bell Bridge Books
PO BOX 300921
Memphis, TN 38130
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-222-4
Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-213-2
Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.
Copyright © 2002 by Augusta Trobaugh
Printed and bound in the United States of America.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
A hardcover edition of this book was published by Dutton Adult in 2002
A mass market edition of this book was published by Plume in 2004
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Visit our websites – www.BelleBooks.com and www.BellBridgeBooks.com.
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Cover design: Alia Parise
Interior design: Hank Smith
Photo credits:
Garden (manipulated) © Trudywsimmons | Dreamstime.com
House (manipulated) © Ken Cole | Dreamstime.com
Mailbox (manipulated) © Chris Boswell | Dreamstime.com
Swan (manipulated) © Irina Matyash | Dreamstime.com
:
Mps
:01:
For
Swan Place:
For all the beloved children: Sean, Nathan, Evan, Daniel, Brianna, Savannah, and Dallas
Every spring, I watch for the first tender assurances of the earth being born all over again—a particular, fragrant sweetness in the air, the green mist of newly sprouting leaves, a veil of dew on the grass early in the mornings, and the savage, melodious songs of young mockingbirds staking out their territories. And I am always drawn back to one particular spring, starting on an Easter Sunday morning when I was only fourteen years old, when I finally started becoming the woman I was destined to become—when
I
arrived, after a long year of losing and gaining all the strong women who became grafted into my being forever. A year of learning what it meant to
get on with living
, as Aunt Bett always said. But also of discovering that I had a secret place deep inside that was filled with the strength and love that came from that terrible and wonderful year. A year when I lost almost everything I had to lose—but when I finally came to realize that no howling storm of life buffeting me would ever be as ferocious as the throbbing breath of resolve deep inside, leading me, at last, to the song I was created to sing.
I was dreaming about Mama as that year started, and in my dream she was dancing all around the living room with her favorite honky-tonk music turned up just as loud as it would go. She was wearing her spangle dress and high heels, laughing and jiggling her head, so that her all-over little golden curls went to dancing, too, and the sequins on her dress sparkling and the rhinestones in her dangle earrings just shining! In my dream, I was clapping my hands to the music and laughing with her, while she danced and danced and danced. Then, a little something or other seemed to happen in the music—a sound that was high, like somebody whistling. And another sound—a fluttering sound, so soft.
Mama must have heard it too, in my dream, because she stopped dancing for a little moment, and then she looked right at me with her eyes all blue and shining.
“Listen, sugar! He’s singing for you!”
The honky-tonk music started fading away, and so did Mama, until all that was left of the dream was that high sound and the soft fluttering, them no longer in the dream but outside of it. Outside of my window. Then I knew the coolness of the pillowcase against my cheek.
Somewhere, a mockingbird was singing the most wobbly little song I ever heard. Why, it wasn’t even dawn yet, maybe not even close to it, that’s how dark it was outside. But still the mockingbird sang. He must have been in the big chinaberry tree in the yard, singing his heart out into the darkness. And the soft fluttering sound was a big moth on my window screen, trying so hard to get inside to where the night-light was glowing.
I turned over onto my back and watched the dark ceiling and listened to the soft puppy-squeak breathing coming from Molly and Little Ellis—my little sister and brother—where they slept together in the bed across the room, and to the crooked notes from the mockingbird. I guess he must have gotten awake too early, just like me. Maybe that’s why his song was all wobbly and timid-sounding, like he wasn’t sure if it was time to sing. Not so early. Not before daylight.
I knew what Mama would have said if she could have heard that mockingbird singing away in the dark. She would have said he was real young and hadn’t quite learned his song yet. And in the center of the dark ceiling, I could see my mama’s pretty face, smiling down at me.
The moth fluttered against the screen again, Molly murmured in her sleep, the bird kept on singing, and Mama smiled at me from the ceiling, so that it all came together and made a music of its very own. I tried so hard to hold on to it, because I wanted to stay that way forever and ever, with Mama so pretty and happy. But no matter how hard I tried to keep it all, I felt it just drain away, so slow-like—and what was real took its place
:
Mama couldn’t dance anymore, couldn’t even remember how to smile. Her just a little, wasted person not much bigger than me, sitting so still and quiet in the corner of the couch, all drawn up and inside of herself, not seeing or hearing us, looking at nothing, and wearing a blue scarf on her head. Under the scarf, no blond curls anymore.
When Mama first started getting sick, Roy-Ellis—my stepdaddy—told me she was going to be all right. But she just got sicker and sicker—until finally she was so bad off that Roy-Ellis had to take her to the hospital, down in Louisville. He stayed there with her as much as he could, had stayed almost all day long the day before—Saturday—but then he came home
late in the afternoon, just after I’d fixed Molly and Little Ellis their supper of grilled cheese sandwiches and saltine crackers and applesauce. When I heard Roy-Ellis coming up the steps to the front porch, I thought at first that Mama must be getting better, because he was singing “In Your Easter Bonnet,” and he came into the kitchen carrying a big paper sack and smiling. I started to ask him about Mama, but when I looked at him, there was something in his eyes that stopped me. So instead, I said to Little Ellis and Molly, “You all eat your sandwiches before they get cold. Roy-Ellis, you want me to fix you a grilled cheese?”
“No honey. Thanks. I just wanta show you all what I’ve brought you, though.” He started taking things out of the sack: three cartons of eggs from the A & P down at Louisville and a little box with Easter egg coloring tablets in it and some cardboard punchout bunnies and chickens, for the eggs to sit in and look pretty and some paper decals to stick on the eggs. After Little Ellis and Molly finished their supper, Roy-Ellis set about helping us to make colored eggs. He burned his fingers pretty bad on the pot of boiling water but made himself say “Shoot!” instead of what he usually said. And he didn’t fuss one little bit when Little Ellis almost spilled the whole cup full of purple dye, just trying to see it real good. But he gritted his teeth when all the little paper decals stuck to our fingers instead of on the eggs.