Tender Graces (40 page)

Momma turned stronger, but she turned weaker at the same time with the booze on top of her medicine. She stayed cooped up except for doctor visits, so I had to stay cooped up with her.

Momma said, “I expect I’ll see someone and they’ll either be glad I’m looking like this, or they’ll feel sorry for me. I won’t have it.” I told her she was still beautiful, but she didn’t believe me. She said, “You have all the pretty now. Be careful with your pretty, Virginia Kate. Men act stupid over your kind of pretty.”

If I called Rebekha and Momma found out, she’d get a poochy pout mouth. If I didn’t call, I felt lonesome. At night, it was dark and lonely. I wanted Fionadala. I wanted Grandma Faith. I wanted my brothers.  I wanted my sister mountain to sing to me. I wanted to see what came next without being scared.

When Uncle Jonah picked up Momma for her doctor’s visit, as usual, she wore a red scarf, big sunglasses, and sat scooched down in her seat.

Her doctor scolded her, “Stop sucking down the alcohol. Do you know what this is doing to your body?” He looked at me. “Not to mention your family.”

Momma said, “What do you know?” and stormed out.

On the way back to the holler, Uncle Jonah tried to talk sense into Momma, too, but she got mad at him, told him to mind his own, and to stop at the next store. She said, “Brother, my check hasn’t come in the mail yet, I’ll need to borrow some money, okay?” She handed me a piece of paper. “Virginia Kate, here’s the list of things I want.”

I knew what the list read without looking: red fingernail polish, red lipstick, Pond’s Cream, and four bottles of her favorite booze. I wanted to throw the note in the trash, but I wanted more to go inside and look around to buy something for myself.

Uncle Jonah said, “Why don’t you come in and see if there’s something else you want?”

Momma ignored him.

With my own money, I bought myself a pair of silver dangly earrings, Flex Shampoo and Conditioner, a bottle of lavender-scented bath salts, a new fashion magazine, and two Snickers bars (they didn’t have Zeros!).

Back at the holler, Momma asked me to do her nails. She sang along with the radio, a cheese and Ritz casserole bubbled in the oven, and Mrs. Mendel’s tomatoes were on the counter next to Momma’s best-friends-in-a-bottle.

While I painted red on her nails, Momma yappervented on about how evil Mee Maw was. How she used her money to lord it over everybody. She said Rebekha was playing like a goody two shoes know it all. I wanted to take up for Rebekha, but I kept quiet. It didn’t do any good to get Momma all up in a state.

She next carried on about her daddy, how mean he was. She talked about the wreck, and Aunt Ruby. “I saw my sister, Virginia Kate. I saw her eyes all wide and all that blood with her face half torn off. Torn up, torn up.  I saw my momma, burned up to a crisp. It was terrible, terrible.” It took me an hour to get her settled down.

While she napped, I took the casserole out of the oven to cool, and picked up around the house. It wasn’t hard to keep up as long as Momma didn’t have a hissy fit or want to cook anything. When she tried to cook, she’d think it was funny when things didn’t work out right. I’d watch her flopping around the kitchen, throwing things in bowls and pans. She’d laugh, but I didn’t laugh knowing I’d have to clean it up while she was sleeping it off.

I could usually get her out of the kitchen to watch television. She liked
Mission Impossible
, but could never keep up with what was going on. Dean Martin made her laugh. She’d hold her drink in her left hand and a cigarette in her right and say, “Just what do you think is in his cup, hmm?”

After we ate our casserole, she stood in front of me with a big looped-up grin. “I want to make some cookies.”

“I’ll do it, Momma. You go rest.”

“I just got done resting. Go fix the radio on something good and I’ll make the bestest cookies ever.”

I found a station playing the greatest hits.

She sang along while the dough went flying. Her hair was in a ponytail so the growing-out spot didn’t show much.

While the cookies baked, she danced around, trying to get me to dance with her. But I wasn’t much in the mood, knowing I had all that sticky dough and all to clean up.

“You sure are a stick in the dirt. What did that woman do to you over there in Loo-see-aner?”

“Nothing, Momma. I’m just tired.”

“You’re too young to be tired.” She twirled around and her house dress twirled with her. Even with her scars and what the booze did to her, she was still the Queen of West Virginia. “I think you’ll do better living here, won’t you? Learn how to loosen up some.” She grabbed my hands and pulled me off the couch. “Come on, Virginia Kate. How can you not dance?”

I danced with her, taking in her Shalimar floating around the room with the liquor-smoke smells. She wore her new apple-red lipstick, her ponytail bounced around, her eyes moon-shined, and she laughed showing her strong teeth, except one pointy one missing from the accident. We twirled around. I was little again and in love with my momma. Then she was on the couch and asleep, just like that, boom bam, done. I turned off the radio, put a blanket over her, and cleaned up the mess in the kitchen.

And it was that night when the house whispered to me. I heard Grandma Faith sighing. The open window let in cool air and the serious moon was big and bright. I wandered around picking up things Momma left around. I felt like good things were right on the other side of my mountain. That if I could just get there, everyone would be waiting for me and I would bring them to me so we could all be together. The whispering grew louder, “Virginia Kate. Virginia Kate. Virginia Kate.”

The phone rang and I hurried to answer it before it woke up Momma.

“Girl, this is Darla calling.”

“Miss Darla!” I grinned into the phone as if she could see me.

“I got the number from Rebekha; hope you don’t mind me giving you a ring.” Sophia Loren was barking in the background. “Silence, Sophia.”

“I don’t mind at all.”

“You okay there?”

“I’m fine.”

“Sometimes you do things because you feel like you have to.”

“I guess so.”

“Sometimes we have to do things. But sometimes we don’t have to do things that make us very unhappy.”

“I’m fine, really.”

We both breathed in our phones. I thought hard, hoping she could hear my thoughts, like she used to.

“Your momma is a strong woman. She’ll do whatever she needs to do to survive. But you’re a young woman, with all this life ahead. Everybody has their burdens to carry. I think you’ve carried your Momma’s enough.”

I leaned my head against the wall. So tired. I was so tired.

Then, just like that, we talked about other things. The crepe myrtles. The mimosa lost all its blooms, but was thick and green as it waved in the hot wind. How everything was boiling, wet, and moldy. The cicadas were louder than ever. How Miss Darla had to rescue the house geckos that Sophia Loren liked to chase. She told me Micah was hardly home anymore, but only because I made her tell me about my brother. We hung up and I let the sound of Miss Darla’s voice stay warm on my ear. I went to my room and even though I said I never would ever again, I cried until my pillow was wet and snotty.

I didn’t hear Momma come in. “What do you have to cry about?”

I looked up at her. Momma had put on lipstick and she missed her lips some, so that her mouth looked like it was bleeding. It was on so thick it left a big lip print on the glass she held. I said, “I don’t know.”

“I’m the one who ought to be crying.” She gulped her drink, then said, “I’m the one who lost her whole goddamned family. All my babies. Even you. You’re here, but just part of you is here. I’ve lost you all. My Frederick, my babies, my pretty. All gone.”

“I’m sorry, Momma.”

“You setting in here crying. Well, you see me doing that? Huh? I don’t have nobody, but I’m not wasting my breath blubbering over it.”

I didn’t sass back and say that she cried a lot. She probably didn’t even remember it. I wiped my face with Grandma’s quilt and took breaths.

“If you don’t like it here, then why don’t you go back? Huh? Why don’t you go back to that woman? She’s your momma now, not me.”

I shot out of bed. “No, that’s not true.”

“Sure it is. All you kids were going to let her adopt you and leave me in the cold with nobody.”

“But, Momma, I—”

“—all my babies, and that daddy of yours, too. One thing I couldn’t do was give her the last bit of you I had. Then I’d be nothing, not a woman, not a momma, nothing.”

I went to her. “I’d still be your daughter, no matter what.” I wrapped my arms around her, took in her booze, smoke, and Shalimar. “I won’t ever leave you, Momma. Ever. You need me.”

“So, you feel sorry for me? Is that it? My daughter thinks I’m pitiful?” Momma pulled away, turned around, and headed to the kitchen. I followed her. She opened the freezer, reached in the bowl for ice, and threw three pieces into her circle glass. “I don’t need you feeling sorry for your own momma.” She grabbed the vodka, poured to the rim, put down the bottle. She drank half the glass down in a gulp.

“Don’t, Momma. Please. I can’t take it again.” I pressed my eyes with my palms, then dropped my hands and looked at her. “Please, Momma.”

Over the rim of her glass, I saw something change in her eyes.

I took a step to her.

She put up her hand, said, “You’re young. Everything ahead of you. I remember that. Well, sort of.” She turned to the window. “I expect I never got to be a kid, not really. They wouldn’t let me. Damn men thinking they can take what they please without caring about the mess they leave behind. Thinking young girls are like grown women. And a Daddy who’d rather whup us silly than hug us.”

I went still.

“Your grandma tried to make things better, but she had her own hurts, I reckon. That day, I knew what to do when your daddy came around.” She drained the glass, turned to the counter, and poured another. “I’m glad I left home when I did, but it wasn’t enough.” She waved her hand over the room, and me. “All this wasn’t enough for me. Husband and babies. I wasn’t ready, do you see? Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“No, you don’t. You think you do, but you don’t. You’re still untouched, aren’t you?”

I lowered my eyes and felt heat rising in my face.

“That’s what saved you, isn’t it? Away from me, from here. From momma to child, momma to child, momma to child. Maybe you broke the chain? Huh?”

I looked at her, took in my momma like a big breath, she filled up my lungs and body and all a sudden I couldn’t breathe.

She pushed her hand through her wild hair. “Mee Maw sent me money in trade for you kids. I thought it would just be for a while, that’s all. I thought I had it all planned out.” She tossed her head. “I found Harold because I thought I could get you all back. But he hated kids.”

I gawked at her. My voice box clicked clicked.

“When it all fell to shit, I figured maybe you were better off. Or maybe, maybe I just wanted to be free.” She poured another drink, took a big swallow, then said, “When Harold left, I married Melvin; he wanted babies and he loved kids. He said he’d try with all of you.”

“He wanted us?” I sat at the table, my legs wouldn’t hold me any more.

Her chin pointed out to me. “He wanted me to quit drinking, smoking, and being me, and that’s not what happened.” She made a sour face. “He wanted me to go to church and tell that Jesus I was a sinner. Well, nobody tells me what to do, not even Jesus.”

I stared at her. All a sudden, I hated the way her mouth curled up at the ends. Hated the smell of her liquor-smoke breath. Hated the way she worried about her own self first. I had to hate her right then. I had to put hate over the love so it wouldn’t hurt so much.

“I don’t need someone to take care of me.” She wasn’t soft anymore. “All you do is remind me of everything I lost. That’s all you do. Remind me. Remind me. Remind me of it all. All I don’t got.”

“Why are you saying all this to me? Why, Momma?”

She pointed her right finger at me. “I don’t want you, you hear me? I want you to go back to Loo-see-aner-faner-bananer-fuckaner.” She bent over and coughed up eighty cigarette-smoking toads, straightened up, said, “I’m happy here all by myself. I can do what I want when I want. Maybe I want to have some men over. Can’t do that with you here. Not with those looks. They’d be all over you instead of me.”

I jumped up, turned and ran to my brothers’ closet, slammed the door behind me, pressed my palms to my face, tried to ride up to what was good and true, but all I could do was breathe and breathe and breathe, in and out in and out, hard and fast.

Later, back in my room, Momma didn’t come check on me, or come tell me she was sorry. She didn’t come tell me everything would be okay. Or that she was just drunk and didn’t mean it. All I heard out of her was the slam of her door and the lock clicking in. I let the headache come on, buzz buzz went the hornets. That pain was better than the heart pain.

I fell asleep and dreamed Grandma Faith was holding out her arms. I was little again as I ran to her. She held me tight and stroked my hair as I cried into her dress. She let me stay there a long while. I smelled the bread and apples even after I woke up.

The next morning, I knocked on Momma’s door with coffee and toast. “Momma? Breakfast is ready.”

“Go away. I told you last night.” I heard something crash on the floor. “Call my brother and tell him to pick you up and take you away from me.”

“I have hot coffee, just as you like it.”

“I’m not unlocking this door and I’m not coming out and I don’t want any fucking coffee. You aren’t wanted, you hear? Never ever ever do I want you back here. I never want to see you again as long as I live. You damn kids have ruined my life. Well, from now on, I don’t have kids. I don’t have a daughter. Now
Git.
.” Something thundered against the door and I jumped, spilled some coffee.

I put the tray by the door and went to the kitchen on rubber legs. I looked out the window at Mrs. Mendel working in her garden. Her hair was under a funny straw hat with flowers pinned all over it. I drank a cup of coffee and let the wind blow on me. After I drank every drop, I went to the phone and dialed up Uncle Jonah. When he answered all I could get out of my frog throat was, “You got to come now, Uncle Jonah. Momma’s acting stranger.”