Tender Graces (9 page)

I get moon-sick-crazy, as I twirl around the yard towards Mrs. Mendel’s garden, whirl until I’m dizzy as a drunk. I lie in the grass and gaze up at my friend moon staining the sky pale, staining the mountains with mystery. When I get too chilly, I stand and put one foot in front of the other right where I’d stepped before. At the door, I glance back and a shadowy face is looking from Mrs. Mendel’s window. I wave and the shadow waves back.

Back in the kitchen, I see us all at the table. I imagine laughing and giggling and smiling. I put Momma in her blue house dress, Micah with his baggy pj’s and inky fingers, Daddy’s hair combed back—a plate of biscuits and gravy in front of him, Andy grinning with jelly on his face, and me pushing back my messy hair to watch everyone. It’s as pretty as the old television shows they used to make. The marks on the wall made when Mee Maw’s big rear end hit the table are still there. Nobody bothered to cover them up. Things like that have a way of becoming a part of the room until a change happens to make things stand out like red against black. Empty against full. Alive against dead.

Before I left Louisiana, I called my brothers to tell them about Momma. Micah didn’t answer, so I left a message. I remembered how he said he’d never return to the holler, so I didn’t expect him to come.

Andy said, “The bookstore’s hopping crazy.”

“I know you’re busy, Andy, but I want to have a memorial. Won’t you come?”

“I can’t see how.”

“I understand.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” I rubbed my eyes. “I’ve called Adin, but will you call Dad?”

“I’ll make the calls.” I heard my brother’s breathing. Then, “You’ll be okay, Seestor?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry. I’m fine. It’s just . . . I have to do this.”

“I know you do.”

We then disconnected our lines.

There’s a feeling as if someone is in the room with me, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but nothing happens and the feeling is gone. Ghosts. When I opened the door, I must have let someone in. I decide it doesn’t matter. They can’t hurt me anymore than they did, and they can’t love me anymore either.

The kettle is whistling like crazy, so I cut off the fire, and unscrew the lid to the instant Maxwell House. Momma took lots of cream and two teaspoons of sugar. I stir in the sugar, a heaping teaspoon of Maxwell House, and—there’s no cream. I sip the sweet-bitter.

I settle down at the table and think about the mornings I drank coffee with my daughter. We faced each other, just as my momma and I once did, eyes watching over the rim of our cups. I had searched my momma for answers to her mysteries. My daughter and I searched each other for resemblances we knew would never be there. I smile thinking about my only child. My adopted daughter. Momma never met her but I wonder if they’d have liked each other. Without thinking about it until I do it, I hold my womb, the empty place that remained empty no matter how much I screamed at the unfairness. Adin filled my life in the way that stranded children do, with desperation and then with acceptance and then with love. I know about it. I do.

Through the open window, wind slips in to tickle strands of hair against my face. I have to rub the itchiness out of my eyes with thinking on the moments so hard, the taste of it on my tongue. The smell in my nose. The steam from the cup rising up like a tiny ghost.

“Oh, Momma!” I call out. But she’s not talking. That’s how she is, back and forth with her moods. Taking deep breaths of the cool air stops the crying from taking over—the joy cry for my daughter and the sad cry for my momma’s daughter.

The cup is empty, so I prepare another to take with me back to my room. Coffee, cup, sugar, hope, ghosts. But, no cream, no Momma.

In the living room, I put down the coffee and open the windows to let the air come in and the ghosts go out, if they’ve a mind to. I smell earth, evergreen, moon vapors. I can’t see them, but I know ancient things are out there, and the mountain laurel, the wolf, bear, the sleeping cardinal and grosbeak, all the hidden and the found.

The brown couch still has the indent where Momma liked to sit at the right side. The big pointed star clock is stuck on five o’clock. A magazine with prissing models is open on the coffee table. The orange radio is still on the end table.  I fiddle with the knobs, and staticy whispers waft from the speaker. It only plays ghost music now. But I remember the dancing and singing Momma did to that old thing. Even when it was forced out of Momma’s sad lips, she liked a good song. Moon mood music is what I need to block out the quiet, or is it to block out the whispers that break up the dead’s quiet? I bet Momma has a radio that works in her room, but I change my mind. Instead, I take my coffee and listen to spirit feet patter with me back to my room.

I say, “Who’s here with me?” But I know they won’t answer. It’s not their time yet.

My brothers’ room waits for me. And Momma’s room—how will I ever go in there and face the empty, the un-Momma of it? The clouds of powder, the twisting curtains where the wind rushes in, her chattering moods that came when she was feeling happy. I head right on back to my room, humming a song, some old song I heard long ago. It comes up from deep inside of me and tickles my lips as it rushes out.

I do a twirl to my own music, then say,  “Hear that, Grandma Faith? I bet Momma’s wishing I’d hum something she can do a jig to.”

I hear Momma snorting.

I stop my twirl, close my eyes, let my hand wave over the things on the bed, hovering until my fingers feel warm and tingly. I open my eyes. One of Momma’s fancy department store bags is under my palm. I put my hand flat on it, press down to feel the heat in my fingers and across my palm, and then I open it. Inside are photographs, and cotton balls that held the perfumes Momma loved. Channel No 5, Tabu, Shalimar. I spill out the memories.

A photo of Andy, Micah, and me lands on top of the rest. We are grinning so big our mouths hurt, Popsicles held in our hands, the juice staining our arms. The photo is black and white, but I know that I had cherry, Micah had grape, and Andy had orange. I have on a sunsuit, Micah has jeans rolled up at the ends and a striped shirt, and Andy, only shorts. I remember playing in a summer rain, slapping each other with wet towels. Hide and seek. Cold Kool-Aid and crisp Saltines. Lying back on the grass to guess the cloud shapes. Naming Grandma Faith’s puppies, first picking them up and smelling the puppy breath as their little heads wobble back and forth. Our feet green after the grass was fresh-mowed. I see it all, from this one photograph. See how slip slap happy we were in that time
right there
. How it could have always been. If only. I don’t like
if onlys
, but here they are anyway.

Under that picture are a few of Daddy when he was a boy. What was it like for Daddy growing up with Mee Maw Laudine? Four little pictures are my clues. I hold up the one of him when he’s a bitty thing, playing beside a well. Beside him is his one brother who was three years older. I know that Peter died from a fever when Daddy was thirteen. In another picture, Daddy’s about five, swinging on a tire swing, his face pulled into a scowl.

In the last picture he stands beside a man. Daddy’s arms are crossed over his chest, a shadow covering his face so I can’t see what his eyes hold. On the back it says, “Frederick, 15, and his new father.” So many mysteries to Daddy and to Momma. I won’t be a mystery to Adin; she’ll know it all because I am writing it all down, just as Grandma Faith did for me. Just as Momma tried to do with her scrawled additions?

I study a photograph of my momma, Aunt Ruby, and their brothers, standing in front of an old beat-up truck, barefoot with untamed hair. Aunt Ruby has an ugly frown on, bent down a little, scratching at her big old leg. My uncles stare out at the camera, their faces full up with mischief. Uncle Hank’s the oldest; I never did get to meet him. Nobody knows where he took off to. I imagine he’s living in the forests deep, drinking out of the creek, and stealing people’s chickens to eat. It makes me both sad and happy to picture him running wild and free. Uncle Ben grins lopsided at Momma as if she’s the maker of the stars. He has a moon-in-the-eyes look. I wish I’d known my lost uncles better. More
if only’s
.

Uncle Jonah stands right by Momma. He has his hand on her shoulder, as if he’s keeping her from floating off into the blue yonder. And Momma, she’s striking even under all that wind-swept hair and West Virginia dirt. She has her hands on her hips, one hip jutted out. Her head is tilted back so that she’s staring right at the camera with her eyes half-closed. I’ve never seen anyone like her, my momma.

Rain patters the roof hard, then harder, until the sound is roaring over my head and all around me. The storm is here. It drowns out the whispering as I push my hands into the memories to select the next one.

The snapshot I am guided to jerks me up by surprise and sets my hair standing on end. Micah’s face is swollen and he has bruises on his arms and legs. I’m bruised, too, and my hair is whacked into a whopping mess of ugly. Our mouths are turned down and it’s as if all our spirit is sucked right on out of us.

I turn it over to read, “Look what I done to your young’uns, baby sister! Ha! That’s what you get for stealing Jackson from me.”

I taste pennies and sour nasty churns up my throat when that summer slams up against me. The picture makes me madder than a nest of hornets.

All a sudden, I want to burn the whole mess of memories into ashy piles of nothing. I could just spit fire and burn this damn house down with everything in it. I could walk away, wait for the rest of my life to happen. The curtains dance, the wind rushes to rustle the papers, the moon shines on all the evidence. I sass out, “Stop it, Grandma. I’m doing the best I can!”

I stomp my foot. I shake my fist into the air. I’m a woman who’ll howl at the moon. I slam the door hard as I can slam it. It shakes the doorframe; it shakes the rafters, the house and the ground beneath me rumbles and roars. I holler out, “I hate you! Rot in hell!” I’m a little girl all over again with no more sense than to scream at ghosts. But I’m a grown little girl with the power to scream out my mad. I’ve had that scream in me for far too long. I have.

I stand in the middle of my room and wait for something to happen. I sense Aunt Ruby laughing at my messy hair and clothes, my liquor-coffee breath, my sweaty-flushed cheeks, my memory-struck face. I lean out the window, let the storm cool me, soothe me, the mists bathe over me, then I turn in a strong full circle, stamping my feet. When I stop, I’m alone.

No ghosts dare face me now.

Chapter 8

That woman is a terror

I was feeling cat-lazy, flopped on the hallway floor doing a connect the dots puzzle, half listening to Daddy putting ice in a glass and Andy giggling to himself in his room, when I heard Momma’s whiny baby voice.

“Fix me one, too. I’m hot and tired.”

“Coming right up.” Daddy had his I’m-happy-even-though-I-hardly-smile voice.

“Hurry up. I got an idea that’ll settle our worry-bones.”

I slid on my stomach to the doorway to peep and listen.

Daddy put Momma’s glass on the coffee table and sat on his green chair. “What’s up?”

She took a big swallow, fell back on the couch, and put the glass against her forehead. “I don’t have a speck of time to myself around here.”

“Oh come off it.”

“And you’re always gone off somewhere.”

“I’m home every night in time for dinner.”

“Oh whoopee dee doo! My husband comes home for supper. Oh, I mean
dee-ner
. Didn’t mean to get all hicked up.” Momma crossed her eyes. “He-yuck he-yuck, I’m from Wes’ Virgeener.”

“Katie . . . ” Daddy ran his hands through his hair making it stick straight up.

“I’m stuck here alone with three kids.”

“And I work all day.”

“We used to have fun.” Momma flapped her legs open and shut, then lifted her skirt up and down, fanning herself.

“What do you want me to do about it?” Daddy stared into his glass.

Momma sat up straight. “Let’s send Virginia Kate and Micah up to Ruby’s for the summer. Her boy’s gone off to some camp for stupid kids.”

I froze right up, inside and out.

Momma said, “She won’t take all three, but she can handle the two older ones, after I reminded her I took care of Pooter-Boy when she had
her
vacation.”

Daddy finished his drink and stood up. “That woman is a terror.”

I took in a big breath, left it there, waited for what would come next. Aunt Ruby was mean when she boozed herself into stupidity. Any little thing fired her off. She cussed and screamed at Pooter-Boy. If she was extra mad, she’d backhand him a good one.

Momma went on, “Mrs. Mendel said she’d take Andy for a week so we could go on a proper vacation. After that, she’ll keep him a few hours a week for the summer, so we can spend some time together while the two older ones are gone.”

“I don’t like it.”

“We need to work on our marriage, Frederick. Don’t you want me anymore?” Momma stood up in front of Daddy.

He held out his hand, dropped it, shook his head, and then turned away. “I’m going out.”

“Don’t you walk out that door, Frederick Hale!”

“Try and stop me, Katie Ivene.”

She threw her empty glass at him, just missing his head by a dog’s flea as he hightailed it out the door. The glass pieces flew all over the room where it left slivers that I knew would find a way to my feet many a time.

I scooted away from the door, sneaked back to my room, shut my door, and lay under Grandma’s quilt to read
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
. I waited for what would come next.

When Micah came home, he went to his room. I heard him talking to Andy, sounding all happy about playing at the creek with Buster and his dog Pokie. I wanted to, but I didn’t go in and tell him what Momma told Daddy.

After a supper of scrambled eggs and cinnamon toast, and after I had my bath and put on my yellow gown, Momma sat on the side of my bed wearing her prettiest red nightgown and smelling clean and sweet. She touched my chin. “Isn’t that something how your daddy nicknamed you Baby Bug?”