The Swan House (40 page)

“It's her eyes. They sparkle.”

“Exactly. Like she has a holy conviction of what she's doing.”

“She does. She fully believes God called her.”

“Must be nice to be able to do what God says.” He laughed wryly. “My life's already been written in stone by Mr. Robert H. Bartholomew, Sr. Top grades in prep school, Ivy League college, return to Atlanta, and carry on the family business. Marry a nice girl”—he winked at me, and we both said in unison—“from a fine Atlanta family” and burst into laughter.

“But seriously, I wonder what it feels like to do something because it feels right in your . . . in your soul.”

“I don't know.” I shook my head in wonder. “All I do know is that I think she has had one of the hardest lives I've ever heard of. In many ways, harder than the poor she works with. She's trying to help them come out of their poverty. But she . . . she
chose
to leave wealth and enter into poverty. Can you imagine?”

Robbie was thinking about something far off. He didn't answer right away, but finally he said, “Yeah, I can, Mary Swan. I think I can.”

We were driving down Peachtree, the street that cuts through the middle of Atlanta, the street that summed up for me so much of my life. The Capital City Club sat on the corner of Peachtree and Harris Street, my church sat on the corner of Peachtree and Andrews, and the country club was located six miles farther down Peachtree. My dad's office was somewhere in between. Grandmom and Granddad Middleton lived right off of Peachtree, on a wide, calm road not far from Piedmont Hospital.

Robbie slowed down in front of the Fox Theatre. “Wanna go in?”
Gigi
was showing.

“Hasn't it already started?”

“Are you kidding? Not the nine-o'clock show. We've got fifteen minutes.”

“Yes, then! Yes, let's watch it, Robbie!” I called the house from a pay phone across the street to tell Daddy that we'd be late, and Jimmy answered.

“Lucky duck. The Fox. All right. Let me tell Dad.” He returned a minute later. “Daddy says what he always says.”

“‘Be careful and don't stay out too late,'” I repeated from memory.

“Exactly. And I won't tell you who just happened to stop by with a hamperful of Kentucky Fried Chicken right after you left.”

“Amanda?”

“Right. I had to sit through dinner alone with them while she cackled and Daddy pretended to think her jokes were funny.”

“Sorry, Jimmy. You could always let Muffin out again and get Daddy to help you find him.”

“I don't think that will work twice, silly. Anyway, have fun.”

“Well, thanks.” I smiled to myself. My little brother had actually said something straightforwardly nice to me!

The Fox Theatre was famous for its enormous pipe organ, which played before each film or opera and then disappeared underneath the stage. The theatre's interior walls were made to look like a medieval castle, and when you peered upward, it looked like there was a real sky for a ceiling. As the organ played familiar tunes, we craned our necks to watch the sun rise and shine overhead and then slowly set on the other side of the theater while thousands of tiny stars twinkled above us. Just sitting in the Fox Theatre was magic.

Robbie must have felt the same way, because he put his arm around my shoulder and drew me close to him, and with the other hand he took my left hand and squeezed it gently. I rested my head on his ample shoulder and let myself get lost in a movie about a young girl's discovery of Paris.

It was nearly eleven when the movie ended. When we passed the High Museum on the way home, I had an incredible urge to tell Robbie all about Mama and the paintings and Resthaven. “Can we talk for a little while, Robbie?”

“It's late. You don't think your dad will mind?”

“Not if it doesn't last too long.”

“You sure that all you want to do is talk?” he asked with a grin on his face.

I stuck out my tongue, and he shrugged. We pulled into the parking lot of St. Philip's, which was just right up the street from my house. And for the next thirty minutes, I told him about my trip to Resthaven and what we'd found out. I made him promise to tell no one, and I never once mentioned a thing about the Raven Dare or Carl. Maybe he suspected it, but he didn't let on. And when I was done, I let out a huge sigh of relief because it felt like I was being honest with him, almost completely honest with him, for the first time. And I realized anew what I had forgotten over the last ten days. I really liked Robbie Bartholomew a lot.

Before he kissed me good-night, he said, “That was a really interesting evening, Mary Swan. Maybe our best yet.”

Chapter 19

O
n Thanksgiving Day we all went to Grandmom and Granddad Middleton's house for dinner. Their house was on Habersham Road, only a five-minute car ride away. We liked their house because it had a big basement that they'd transformed into a game room. It had a pool table and a ping-pong table, and along one wall there were shelves behind glass that were filled with all of Granddad's trophies from his high school and college days—the days when he'd been a sports hero. Sometimes after a meal, Jimmy and I would escape to the game room and admire the trophies while the adults sipped their after-dinner drinks.

Tradition stood strong on Thanksgiving Day. On Christmas and Easter and the Fourth of July, the Middleton clan sometimes split up to be with their respective spouses' families. But not on Thanksgiving. That was the day when every Middleton was expected to be present, from the oldest to the youngest. This year, with Mama gone and Daddy's youngest sister just having had her third baby, the number went unchanged from last year, and that number was twenty-eight immediate family members. Grandmom didn't mind a bit if other families showed up to join in the fun, as long as she had all her children and grandchildren around. Sometimes, Mama's parents came up from Griffin to join us.

The house was already brimming with children, teens, and adults when Mamie and Papy arrived. I could tell that Mamie had been drinking. She leaned heavily into Papy, and when she kissed me on the cheeks, I could smell the alcohol on her breath. Her bright red lipstick was smeared on, and her eyes looked bright and glassy. Papy supported her under the arm.

“Ma chère Marie Cygne.”
She always broke into French when she'd been drinking and started calling me the French equivalent of Mary Swan.
“Pourquoi n'es-tu pas venue me voir?”

Her words stung me. Why
hadn't
I been to Griffin to visit this fall? Mama had been their only child. That big plantation must have seemed terribly lonely since Mama's death.

“We'll be coming for Christmas, Evelyne,” Daddy said, rescuing me and giving his mother-in-law the necessary kiss on each cheek. “Ian, so good to see you. Come on in. I believe you remember my sister, Lisa, and her husband, Jeff.”

And so I escaped into the kitchen. It wasn't my usual spot on Thanksgiving Day. Normally I played chase with my younger cousins and then went out by the pool and talked with the older ones. We grandchildren ranged in age from Jackie, who at twenty was in her junior year at Hollins, to baby Eddie who was just sitting up at six months. Eddie was actually Franklin Edward Middleton VI, named after Daddy's oldest brother, who was named after Granddad who was named after my great-granddad. Somehow there had been six of them. This new baby had been dubbed Eddie. In that way, when Grandmom spoke of Frank or Frankie or Franklin, only three men would qualify, making things a little less confusing.

I really didn't see my cousins very often, maybe two or three times a year, and I never felt any tight bonds with them. Still we managed to have fun at the family get-togethers. It was Jackie who had given me my first cigarette to smoke, years ago behind the changing rooms at Grandmom's swimming pool. But today I didn't feel like chasing toddlers or chatting with the teenagers.

“Mary Swan, go on out with everyone, honey,” Grandmom said as I tried to find something to do in the kitchen.

I pretended I didn't hear her, and she didn't insist. I needed the shelter of the warm kitchen with the delicious aromas of baking turkey and biscuits and apple cake engulfing me and protecting me from the reality around, the reality that everyone was present except Mama. I was thankful for my experience at Grant Park too. Somehow having spent so many hours in the kitchen in the basement of Mt. Carmel made me feel more comfortable in Grandmom's kitchen. That Thanksgiving Day, I found real pleasure in helping Grandmom, the master hostess, arrange the food on her dining room table. The china and silver and white linen napkins were stacked at one end of the table. The crystal glasses and the ice water and tea in their silver pitchers and the wine in its crystal decanter were all set on the long cherry sideboard.

I began to carry out the food. As with every Thanksgiving, each family brought some Southern specialty to add to the feast. Soon the table was laden with the turkey, the stuffing, the mashed potatoes and gravy, the cranberry sauce, the delicious
pâté
that Mamie always brought, fresh from her farm, the artichoke hearts, the blueberry muffins, the sweet potatoes with the marshmallows melted on top, the green bean casserole, the fresh turnip greens, Grandmom's homemade rolls that Jimmy loved, and my personal favorite, her corn soufflé . When it was all in place and piping hot, we stood around the table, all forty-two of us, and held hands while Granddad asked the blessing.

By the time the pies—pumpkin, chess, and apple—were laid out, we were all recovering in various corners of the vast house. Uncle Tim, completely drunk, had launched into the same story he told every Thanksgiving, and the house was filled with merry chatter. The day was bright and chilly, and from the windows of Grandmom's living room, I could see some of the cousins playing in the yard with Muffin, who loved to join us at my grandparents' house. The red mutt, who was mostly hunting dog, ran in wild circles around the children, his rust-colored fur blending nicely with the fallen leaves. Several girls chased him, squealing, while Jimmy tossed a football with two boys around his age.

I made polite conversation until I found my chance to kiss both sets of grandparents good-bye, slip outside, and walk from Habersham Road to Andrews Drive, admiring the stately homes all along the way that I knew so well. Once at my house, I went upstairs to the
atelier
and closed the door firmly behind me. I stood before my easel, looking out the windows, and I painted. My stomach was full and I felt sleepy, so my strokes were not crisp like the autumn air, but lethargic, slow, as if I was clumsily trying to thread a needle with my paintbrush. But I kept painting because over the past weeks, experience had proved that just the discipline of making myself paint was invaluable. And today I was concentrating on a very small part of the canvas, a figure in the background, barely seen, fuzzy like my mood, the figure of a black boy kneeling in a field.

There were few things that brought the city of Atlanta to its feet in those days like the football rivalry between Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia. The Georgia Tech vs. Georgia football game on the Saturday after Thanksgiving was as much of a tradition as Thanksgiving itself. This year it took place in nearby Athens, at the University of Georgia's Sanford Stadium. Granddad had eight tickets, so I'd invited Robbie, and Jimmy had invited Andy, and Daddy had, unfortunately, invited Amanda Hunnicutt.

By the time we got to our seats, the crowd of students for both teams had already had a lot to drink and were bellowing out their rival school songs. Being on Bulldog territory, Tech fans were by far outnumbered. But our minority crowd sang with as much gusto as the Georgia Bulldogs. “I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech. . . .”

And from the Georgia camp came their song to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” “Glory, glory to ole Georgia. . . !”

Of course in our family, with Granddad having played for Tech's illustrious football team, we'd heard a hundred stories of the rivalry and especially the one about when Granddad was the hero of the game. But since Robbie didn't know the story, Granddad launched into it again.

“The game was being played on Georgia Tech's Grant Field. It had snowed at the beginning, and a freezing drizzle settled in for the rest of the game. But the loyal fans stayed. Georgia had a strong team that year, and Tech had a few star rookies but lacked experience.”

“Granddad was one of the star rookies,” Jimmy added.

“Well, now, Georgia jumped to a fourteen-zero lead. Tech got two field goals, making it fourteen to six.”

“It was Granddad who kicked the field goals!” Jimmy persisted.

“Georgia scored again but missed the extra point. At halftime it was twenty to six. We got quite a talking-to by our coach at halftime.”

“Tell them who your coach was, Granddad.” That was Jimmy again.

“Robbie, our coach was none other than John W. Heisman. You ever heard of him?”

“Sure, Mr. Middleton. He's the man the Heisman Trophy is named after.”

“Exactly. Well, he coached at Tech, boy. And he coached hard. Cut our water allowance during the week before the game and had us eating lots of meat, eating it nearly raw. Anyway, in the third quarter, we rallied with a touchdown and made it twenty to thirteen.”

“Excuse me, sir? Did you score the touchdown?”

“Well, yes, I did, son. I did score that one. And we managed to hold Georgia on their next two possessions. But with three minutes left, we were still down by seven points.”

Jimmy could not contain his enthusiasm. “Then Granddad came in as end, and the quarterback hid the ball on his hip and faked to the tailback. In the meantime, Granddad was streaking down the field, wide open, and the quarterback lofted a pass to him and it sailed into Granddad's hands and he scored!”