Tender Graces (41 page)

He was there so fast; it was as if he flew over on a bird. He couldn’t get Momma to come out, either. She cussed up a big black storm cloud. She told him she wanted to be alone. She said she didn’t need a brother right then either and I saw by his eyes that it cut Uncle Jonah to the core.

After we went back and forth to her closed-up door for two days, and after she vowed not to eat until I left, we finally believed her. I packed up and went back to Uncle Jonah and Aunt Billie and Starlight and Big Fella. I stayed there until I quit crying. I did lots of crying on the back of Starlight, and she’d never tell anyone. The last day of my crying, I told Uncle Jonah I was ready to go back to Louisiana

When I called Rebekha to tell her, she said, “We’ll meet you at the airport.”

I flew to Louisiana and let all the hurt from Momma’s words fly away to the wind as if it never even happened. I tucked her away like an old photo of old relatives no one remembers but their face is familiar.

Daddy and I rocked on the porch drinking tea, at least mine was tea, I wasn’t sure about his, or maybe I decided I didn’t care. He put his glass on the porch floor, took out his wallet, and handed me a photo of Momma he kept secret. In the photo, Momma stood with her left hand planted on her hip, the right one behind her back, as if she was hiding something there. Her dress pressed against her, so it must have been windy that day, and her hair tumbled all around her shoulders, pieces of it blowing across her face.

“You kept it all this time?”

He looked like a little boy caught sneaking cookies before supper. “Yes.”

“Well, you should have Rebekha in there.”

“I have Rebekha, see?” He flipped open his wallet and showed me Rebekha’s gap-toothed grin. I thought she was pretty; she looked sincere, too.

“You shouldn’t keep Momma in your wallet.” I couldn’t let it go; it was bugging me like itchy ant bites.

“That’s why I’m giving it to you. I feel a release.” He sighed, as if he really were releasing something.

I put the photo in my britches pocket.

He smiled at Rebekha’s picture, and then folded and stuck the wallet back in his pocket. He said, “You must think me foolish.”

I didn’t say how I’d been doing the same thing when it came to Momma casting a spell on us. I looked out at the giant oak and asked,  “Am I ever going to see Momma again?”

“I just don’t know. I wish I did.” He rubbed his hands on his knees. “Things will work out just fine, however they’re supposed to.” He opened up his Shakespeare book of plays. I looked at the page he was on, read with him about stormy seas and people being shipwrecked and pitiful lonely creatures named Caliban.

Chapter 32

He always hated goodbyes

1973

We celebrated Micah’s high school graduation with a trip to New Orleans. A storm came up and we held our breath all the way across the spillway, but by time we checked into the Monteleone, the storm passed. In the French Quarter, we drank café au lait and ate beignets, shrimp and oyster po-boys, muffalettos, and Bananas Foster. We put money in hats and guitar cases, and tapped our feet to the street music. The street kids danced their hearts out. I thought they had sad eyes behind their big huge grins, but maybe they were just getting tired. How could I know for sure the mind and heart of other people?

When we had our palms read and did the tarot cards, Micah just rolled his eyes and said all he saw in our future was less money in our wallets. In Napoleon House, we kids slurped cold Coca-Cola in frosty beer glasses, and Rebekha and Daddy had Pimm’s Cups. We took a carriage ride, the mule’s feathers bouncing. I watched the Mississippi River, muddy and quick and full of deep dark secrets. Drunk people swarmed out at night, so we stayed inside after dark. New Orleans was like a circus, except a circus that stayed around all the time and the people came to it, instead of the other way around. I used up three rolls of film.

It was the only time we had a real family vacation. We drove back tired and happy and ready for our own beds.

Micah shook me awake.

I propped up on my elbow. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“Hey. Nothing.” He cracked his knuckles.

“How’s it feel to be out of high school?”

“Unbelievable.” His teeth shone in the dark as he stood looking down at me. “Remember I told you I would go to New York soon as I graduated?”

I nodded. I never really believed he would go. I thought he’d just dream about things, as I did.

“Well, I’m leaving tonight.”

I sat up. “Tonight?”

“We’re going to hitch.”

“Hitch?”

“Yeah, we figured it’d be more exciting that way.” He looked excited, his face swirling like his paintings.

“But, I bet Rebekha would buy you a ticket, or let you use the car.”

He blew out his breath, then said, “I don’t want a car and I don’t want a ticket. What’s exciting about that?”

“But what about college?”

He walked back and forth by the side of my bed, itchier than ever. “I’m going to be an artist. Who needs college?”

“I’m going to college when I graduate. It’s what we’re supposed to do.” I crossed my arms over my chest. Miss Primmy Priss.

He stopped at the side of my bed again. “That’s you. I can attend art school or something. More opportunities in New York than here, Sister-bo-blister. You should get out when you can.”

“It’s not that bad here.”

“Geez, come off it.”

“Our family is here.”

“Families can break up; you should know that by now.”

“You think our family will break up?” I heard my mimosa scratching.

He kneeled by my bed, the silly moon touched his face. “I’m just spouting off. Look, this is what I want to do and how I want to do it. I’m just saying don’t let Louisiana suck you in forever.”

“I do miss my mountain all the time.”

He rolled his eyes. “Come on. You can dream better than that.”

I shrugged.

“Stop being so scared of everything and take a chance.”

I flopped my head back on the pillow.

He jumped up and stretched. “Time to flee, Vee.”

I lay like a whiney lump. “But I’ll miss you.”

“Aw, don’t worry; I’ll write.”

“Why can’t things stay the same?”

“Why should they?”

“What did Daddy say?”

“I wrote a letter and stuck it on the fridge. It’s easier this way.”  He stared down at his feet as if he wanted them to start moving—all the way to New York. He said, “This is a good thing. Don’t look sad.”

“What about Andy? Did you tell him.”

“Yes. He said, ‘Goddamn, Micah.’”

I closed my eyes tight, tighter, tighest, to stop the burning, and when I opened them, Micah was gone. He always hated goodbyes. Life was all about goodbyes, seemed to me. I hated goodbyes, too.

Rebekha found the note the next morning and went wild with worry. She and Daddy  made calls, talked about going after him, until Daddy finally said Micah was old enough to make his own way. Rebekha looked sad, but she just nodded.

Andy moved into Micah’s room, and decorated it with fast cars and pictures of girls in bathing suits. Bobby re-did his room with everything baseball.

We kids started school again in the fall, and the house settled into the ground, groaning and creaking like an old man getting in his easy chair. We all settled with it, settling in our bones, getting used to the changes. Daddy and Rebekha argued here and there, but even their arguments sounded so regular they weren’t even scary anymore.

Jade said that at least arguing meant people cared, not like at her house where it was a mausoleum and everybody walked around with sticks up their butts. She said she felt like running away herself, that maybe next time they went on vacation, she’d slip away to a new place and start a new life like Micah.

I wondered about people running away. Wondered if secrets or worries stuck to them like a tick sucking out blood. Wondered if Micah was running away from old things, dark wing things. Wondered about Jade wanting to run away from her family and it seemed like her own body, too, she was so skinny. I thought about these things all the time and they were weighing my shoulders down.

I thought maybe some things shouldn’t stay secret. Secrets are lonely. Secrets have to be buried in dark places. That’s what I thought about while I pretended I wasn’t going to tell anyone the secrets I held, when I pretended I was just minding my own business, strolling in the breeze, walking around humming as if I had nothing at all on my mind, no secrets, no promises to hold secrets.
La la la tee dah
, I’m trailing in the breeze. Running my hand along the table.

Rebekha sipped tea and read a magazine. I stood behind her to see what she was reading, she smelled like Flex Shampoo, and she was reading about how to save marriages.

She closed the magazine. “Hey. How was school?”

“Hey. It was fine.” I sat across the table from her.

She turned to the back of the magazine, pointed to a recipe for a seafood casserole. “I’m going to try this. I want to experiment with different recipes. What do you think?”

“It looks great.”

She stood up to pull two cookbooks from the shelf. “This has some fancy French cooking in it and this one is Italian. I can’t wait to try them.” She flipped through the cookbook, stopping at different recipes. She said, “And you, won’t be long before you’ll be off to college. Do you know where you want to go?”

“Not yet. Maybe here.” I heard Micah sigh, all the way from New York. I sighed, too.

She closed the cookbook. “What’s wrong? There’s something wrong.”

“It’s different stuff, I guess.”

“You know, we all tiptoe around until something either explodes, or goes away.” She traced her finger on the table’s wood grain. “But, I can see by your eyes that something isn’t going away. If you need to talk about it, any of it, I’m a good listener.”

I tried to smile at her.

“Releasing makes us lighter. I’m finding that out myself.”

Before I lost all of my nerve, I let the frog croak out, “I tried my hardest to make Momma happy, but I couldn’t. She didn’t want me anyway, no matter what I did.”

“I’m sorry, Hon.”

“Why don’t people want things to be happy? Why does everything have to be so crazy-mixed up?”

“She must be in a lot of pain and doesn’t know how to deal with it.”

“You always take up for her, but she doesn’t take up for you.”

“That’s just how it is sometimes. I mean, what would it solve for me to go around saying bad things about your mother?”

I shrugged.

“I really believe your mother loves you. She just doesn’t love herself, I suppose.” She tucked a stray hair. “Mothers—they have so much power. A few little words and a few un-thought out actions can nurture or destroy a child. It’s a power I always said I’d use wisely. I sometimes feel as if I’ve failed.”

“But you haven’t. You’re a good momma.”

“Thank you. That means a lot to me.” She sipped her tea, then said, “I suppose people make strange alliances, and pacts, and weird accommodations they become accustomed to.”

I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure I understood.

“People can love each other and not know how to handle things. They become confused and chaotic, like those paintings Micah does, where you think you see what the painting is about, and suddenly it changes into something else. You have to keep looking at it. It’s fascinating how they seem like one thing and then another. All those hidden meanings. Just like people.”

I went still. I said, “Are you going to leave Daddy?”

She stared at me, sighed, then said, “I’ll be honest with you since I promised I always would. I don’t know what will happen; things seem to be going smoother lately.” She reached across and squeezed my hand. “I mean it when I say that you children are safe here, this is your home. I’m not leaving and neither are you. Unless you want to, okay?”

I nodded. I believed her.

“You still look troubled.”

I was tired of scratching at things until they bled; scabbed over, scratch again, over and over. “I miss Micah, I guess.”

“Me, too. I miss his paints and brushes all over the place. I was always after him and here I go missing the very thing that irritated me.”

“I wish he’d call or write.”

“I imagine he’s taking on the town and not paying attention to time.”

“I guess so.”

“Oh, I bet he’s painting up a storm and living large.”

The sour nasty boiled up, burned and pushed, and then spewed, “He ran away because he’s full of his secret.”

She leaned forward. “What do you mean by that?”

Out it spewed, like vomit. “Micah pushed Uncle Arville and killed him. He was trying to get away from him is all. It was an accident. Uncle Arville fell and the pole went through him. Micah said he has nightmares all the time. He made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone.”  I panted.

Rebekha’s left hand was over her mouth while I told her, her right was clenched in a fist.

My heart thundered. “You can’t tell him I told, Rebekha. You can’t. I never tell on Micah. Ever.”

She clasped her hands tight. “Oh, god. So much makes sense now.”