The Swan House (9 page)

She was a genius with expression. Even with the serene children whose hands were folded in their laps, Mama managed to convey their personality in the way the eyes shone or flashed and the turn of the lips. And for me, the child she knew best, she offered herself the luxury—
la gourmandise
, as she called it—of painting me just as I was. On the rope swing, bare feet stretching in the foreground of the painting, my mouth wide open in glee, and my tangled hair flying out behind me. The look in my eyes was of perfect, wild contentment, and even the big hickory from which the swing hung seemed to be smiling.

It was the kind of painting that made people smile when they looked at it, the kind that inspired you to hold out your arms and go running through the wind into a pile of freshly raked leaves, a picture that resonated with the vigor and spirit of childhood. Mama was proud of it.

Even Daddy could barely help stifle a hoot of laughter when he saw it. His brow wrinkled. He regarded me and then the portrait and then me again. “Well, darling, you seem to have captured our little Swan in all her exuberance!” Then he picked me up in his arms and swung me around, and we all shared in that delicious laughter.

It was the sweetest of my childhood memories. The sunny days swinging while Mama painted, humming happily to herself. Painting me was good therapy, she told me. It made her feel as though she had swallowed a butterfly that was flittering away inside her tummy, trying to get out. She couldn't wait to see what the painting would become.

And whenever I looked at it as a teenager, I felt that same warmth and truth. That rush of joy knowing that Mama had known me and understood the wild, free side of her daughter. Of course she had understood, for she had the same stubbornness, the same lust for adventure, the same determination to take in life in large gulps of fresh air.

One day in late June I was crying so hard that my face was all splotched and red and my eyes swollen. I wouldn't let Daddy into my room despite his pleading. I felt miserable, and I guess I was. Daddy must have thought I was on the brink of suicide, because after a while he stopped pleading, and all was silent. Then later I heard his footsteps on the staircase, accompanied by those of a high-heeled woman. I could tell immediately it was Trixie.

In whispered tones he said, “She won't come out. She's in there bawling her eyes out and heaven knows what else. Please, Trixie, do something.”

Hearing the anguish in Daddy's voice made my sobs stop momentarily. Then it was Trixie's high-pitched Southern drawl that permeated the walls of my room.

“Sugar, Swannee, now I have a tall glass of lemonade out back by the pool, and you can just sit in the lounge chair and sip on it and dip your toes in the pool, and if you want, I'll give you a manicure and paint your nails. I don't know about you, but mine are simply atrocious. And I promised Lucy I'd do hers, so you might as well come on down. And I told your Daddy to go on and get to his meeting, that you'd be fine eating with us.”

Hearing her talk like that, so natural, so trivial, about all the things we always did, somehow flooded me with relief. In spite of Mama's not being here, some things wouldn't change. Trixie was still my wonderful neighbor with the syrupy voice and the silliest ideas and a ten-year-old daughter named Lucy.

“I'll be waiting for you, Swannee. See ya in a minute,” she called out.

I didn't see it, but I'd bet a million bucks that Trixie blew a puff of smoke from her cigarette and then nodded her head, winking at Daddy and shooing him out of the house. She'd done it a hundred times before. I heard her high heels clicking loudly on the steps and Daddy's heavy steps following, and then it was quiet.

I lay on the bed for five minutes without another tear flowing. I must have dozed a little, because I sat up with a start at the sound of Lucy's laughter and the splashing of water. I went to my window and peered outside, past the spacious yard. I couldn't see the pool, but I imagined Trixie sitting there, as she used to with Mama, bright pink straw hat on her blond curls, nicely tanned and toned legs stretched out on the chaise lounge, sipping something exotic. I hopped off the bed, scuttled to the bathroom, where I threw water on my face, wiped it quickly on a hand towel, and ran down the steps, taking them two at a time.

When I stepped out into the boiling, sticky heat of late June in Atlanta, the suffocating sensation made me thankful. It was the same. The smell of honeysuckle was the same, the tall hickory and oak trees without a breeze flickering their leaves were the same. And Trixie, wonderful Trixie, was the same as always. She smiled from under her straw hat and motioned for me to take the lounge chair beside her. Skinny Lucy with her long blondish brown hair splashed away in the pool. Maybe there was life after Mama's death after all.

Trixie was petite and blond and sweet. And I guess just her name made you think she was a bit superficial. And her high-pitched laugh. But she'd had her share of hard times too. Her husband had divorced her ten years ago when she was pregnant with Lucy. Anyway, Mama had loved her like a sister, and I loved her too. I had a hundred memories of Trixie rescuing me from eternal boredom while Mama painted. She'd arrive, always looking immaculate, every hair in place, wearing a wide straw hat and fashionable glasses, with a picnic basket draped over one arm. “Come on, Swannee, it's time you get yourself outside with us. Your mom needs a break.”

It wasn't until after Mama's death that I realized the extent of Trixie's love for Mama and for us. How she was in a sense Mama's personal savior when Daddy couldn't be there. She and Ella Mae and Daddy performed an intricate if unseen act of grace to keep my mother balanced and functioning. And I never once saw it. That was their gift to me as I grew up. Secrecy and love.

Chapter 4

T
here were several things that pulled me out of my depression at the end of June and during those early days of July: Trixie's attention and Rachel's constant phone calls insisting that we had to get a start on the Raven Dare were two. But it was especially Ella Mae who was determined to have her Mary Swan back.

“You is not much good to anyone, sugah, sittin' round as you are, feelin' sorry for yorese'f,” she said one day when she found me flopped across my bed, staring at a magazine. “Ya know what would do ya good?”

“No idea,” I mumbled unenthusiastically. “Give me a hint.”

“You needs ta do somethin' fo' somebody else, Mary Swan. And I got jus' the thing.”

I looked up from the magazine I was reading, the lack of interest evident in my eyes.

“You come downtown with me on Saturday mornin'. He'p out at Grant Park.”

I'd never been to the part of Atlanta called Grant Park, but I knew where it was—in the slums, in the inner city. “What do you mean by ‘help out,' Ella Mae?”

“I mean you goes to he'p people who are in a heap o' trouble and need a good hot meal and a listenin' ear. That's what I mean.”

“Who'll be there?”

“Lotta blacks'll be there. And some white folk too, Swannee. It's not the kind of thing you can explain too well. Ya have to see it for yorese'f.”

She didn't twist my arm or anything, but somehow, Ella Mae convinced me to go with her to Grant Park, a part of Atlanta's famous downtown that was now falling into disrepair. All the white families with money were moving out.

I was petrified to tell Daddy where we were going, but when I did, he just said, “If Ella Mae's taking care of you, that's just great.” Anything that would get his Swannee out of the house seemed to be fine with him.

Ella Mae took the bus to our house and arrived around ten-thirty that Saturday morning. I was still asleep. She backed the old blue Cadillac out of our two-car garage. Daddy had taught her how to drive it years ago, and she used it to take Jimmy and me to different outings. She was one of the few maids who could drive at that time, and she was proud of it and even prouder of her “Caddylac,” as she called it.

She honked once, and that got me out of bed. Five minutes later I rushed out of the house with a piece of toast hanging from my mouth. I hopped into the car, still munching, and gave Ella Mae a half smile. We rolled the windows all the way down, and I put my face to the wind and let the hot air blow over me.

Riding with Ella Mae at the wheel was always an adventure, the way she stomped on the brakes at stoplights and maneuvered the Cadillac along the streets. I decided I wasn't as scared of getting into trouble in Grant Park as I was of getting into a wreck before we ever arrived.

Eventually she pulled up in front of a red-brick church.

“You didn't tell me I was going to church,” I complained.

“An' you didn' ask.”

So I spent a good bit of Saturday morning and afternoon with Ella Mae in a big room in the basement of Mt. Carmel Church. Paint was peeling off the walls, except for where a mural had been painted near the side door, and a lot of long metal tables and folding metal chairs were arranged on the left side of the room.

“This is our fellowship hall, where we has our meals and such,” Ella Mae explained. Then she led me into the adjoining kitchen to meet a white woman named Miss Abigail, whom Ella Mae called “an angel in the devil's boilin' pot.” According to Ella Mae, Miss Abigail had moved to Atlanta in the midfifties from Detroit, where she'd worked in the slums for sixteen years.

Miss Abigail looked older than Daddy and younger than Ella Mae, which would have made her around fifty. Her hair was thick and mostly black with streaks of gray here and there, and she wore it long and pulled back in a ponytail, which struck me as odd for a woman of her age. But what I really noticed about her were her eyes. To this day I can never remember their color. I think they were just a very ordinary brown. But that day, as on most every other day I was with her, Miss Abigail's eyes sparkled. There's no other word for it. They sparkled as though she'd just been told she had won a million bucks.

She was of medium build and she wasn't very tall, several inches shorter than I, and I was five feet five. But according to Ella Mae, she was tough. She had spent her life on the streets, serving the poor and homeless, one of the first white women to do such a thing in Atlanta.

Miss Abigail was leaning over a big aluminum sink washing lettuce leaves. She turned around to greet me, wiping her roughened hands on her faded green apron. Then she extended her hand. “Thank you so much for coming down to help us today, Mary Swan.” Miss Abigail's voice carried no hint of the Southern drawl we knew in Atlanta. I gave her a half smile and a shrug.

She didn't seem to notice. “There are over four hundred and fifty families living in Grant Park, and most of them are desperately poor. A large percentage of the kids have never known their fathers and are being raised by their grandmothers. About a year and a half ago, we started offering spaghetti lunch once a week to any who wanted it. Volunteers from both white and black churches take turns preparing and serving the food. Ella Mae is one of the most faithful.” She stated the facts coolly. “You can help out with serving the sauce.” She pointed out from the kitchen into the big room adjoining it. Steaming pots of spaghetti sauce and bowls of noodles were sitting on two long tables that separated the workers from the assortment of people milling around the room, waiting for lunch.

The spaghetti was overcooked and stuck together, the plates cracked, and the pots and pans dented and stained. Ella Mae said that all the silverware had been stolen the week before, so she and Miss Abigail had to go down the street begging the neighbors to loan them forks and knives at the last minute. I stood there, awkwardly holding a ladle in one hand, waiting for them to return. The people standing in line were mostly sad-looking men in thin shirts and greasy pants that hung on them, or heavyset women with thinning hair, or teenage girls with one or two little children in tow. There was a mixture of whites, blacks, and Mexicans.

I found myself serving spaghetti that Saturday beside a boy who was about eighteen or nineteen, strong looking and tall, over six feet, and black as the ace of spades, as Granddad would say.

“Hello. I'm Carl,” he said, staring down at me with the ladle of spaghetti sauce in my left hand.

“Hi. My name's Mary Swan.” My voice sounded a little strained, and I bet my face was crimson.

“Nice to see ya here, Mary Swan.” His smile was wide and white.

“Nice to be here.” I tried to smile, and then I cleared my throat.

“Do you come here a lot, Carl?”

“Most weeks I come. Helping Miss Abigail.”

“Why do you want to help her?”

He smiled again. “'Cause she's the one who helped me get back in school. She helped me find an afternoon job so that I can make some money for my family and still go to school. She's one fine lady.”

And that was how I formally met Carl Matthews.

I couldn't think of anything to say, which, as my friends often commented, was rarer than an uncooked piece of beef. It was just that it seemed more like I was in Africa or Haiti than in Atlanta. I'd lived here all my life, but I didn't know a thing about this side of the city.

“You have any brothers and sisters?” I ventured.

“Yep. Three of 'em. I live with my two younger brotha's, my little sista', and my aunt.”

“What about your parents?”

“My mama's dead. She died when I was twelve.”

That made my heart skip a beat. “Was she sick?”

“Got shot. Big fight between her and her boyfriend. You know what I mean?”

I didn't have the faintest idea, but it sounded absolutely gruesome. “What about your dad?”

Carl's smile was cynical. “I've never met my dad. Don't know him from Adam.” He chuckled, but I wondered if there was bitterness behind those black eyes.

“My mom's dead too,” I offered, feeling worse by the minute.