Unto These Hills (31 page)

We are at a crossroads about which direction the city and county should go. But don’t make fun of many generations of fine people who grew up on mill hills. I grew up in Arkwright and had a great childhood. I’m very proud of where I come from.

Mr. Greene suggested people are afflicted with “MHM” (Mill Hill Mentality). That’s one illness I’m glad I have.

Another read:
After reading Mr. Greene’s letter on MHM, I just brushed the cotton lint out of my hair and tried to understand why he is so bitter. The man needs a sense of humor. As I was reading his letter about converting the Marriott into a “wrassling” center and fish camp, I ‘bout choked on my snuff….’

This topic went on for several weeks before another, a ban on public smoking, took its place. Villagers crawled out of the woodwork commiserating or celebrating each moment’s controversy.

In the cacophony of opinions, I found myself distracted from my own home-front dissonance. Discovered myself stimulated and entertained. The anecdotes, sandwiched in along the way, drew raves from every stratum of readers, from elementary students to literary folks. Walter was delighted to be my comic foil in the spoofs, guffawing as Lee Roy read them aloud while they lounged in their easy chairs on late afternoons.

My busyness with writing proved to be a blessing. It regenerated my brain.

It helped me not think of Daniel.

Another thing happened: my addiction to food began to wane.

~~~~~

When Sheila, who had spent much of life devising ways to get attention, began to complain of dizzy spells, I didn’t get too disturbed. “It’s probably nerves,” I told her more than once, since her emotions still skyrocketed at things both great and trivial

My laid-back response seemed to reassure her, at first anyway. “I hope so, Sunny,” she said, then her lips began to tremble. I hurtled from my kitchen chair and around the table to gather her in my arms.

“Honey,” I murmured, “don’t worry so. Things like this are usually nothing to get all worked up over.”

Her head began to move from side to side. “No — it’s not that. It’s my girls…Sunny,” she convulsed into sobs, “I-I’ve…lost…my…g-girls.”

“Oh, Sheila,” I tried to soothe her, alarmed.

“T-They wouldn’t come to my house for E-Easter. Said I’d not b-been a Mama to ‘em and they didn’t want to h-have anything else to do w-with me.” The crying intensified and her body, noticeably thinner than ever before, quaked as though she rode an off-balance, gyrating washing machine.

I led her into the den and lowered her to the sofa and slid in beside her. “Sheila, honey,” I said gently, “it can’t be all that bad. Why wouldn’t the girls come to your house for Easter?” Dread oozed through me as kaleidoscopic images flashed a lifetime of the girls being farmed out to their individual dads.

She snuffled, exhausted and gaunt-eyed. “Ginger and Cassie are angry at Michelle for working in a strip joint.”

Shock splintered through me. “Michelle? Is she bartending?”

“No, Sunny. She’s
stripping.”
Frightened, haunted eyes peered at me. “My
baby’s stripping
and is
proud
of it.” Tears puddled again. “She won’t listen to me, Sunny. The other girls don’t want to take their kids around her.”

I sucked in a deep, quaking breath and exhaled slowly, seeing dots before my eyes. I shook my head slightly to clear it, then arose and paced to the window to even-out my reaction.

Will this lewd stuff never stop? Are these the sins spoken of in scripture that are passed from generation to generation?
The sheer plausibility of it slapped me like the wrist-flip of a wet towel. It stung.

Sheila’s face contorted with agony. “Ohhh…Suuunny! I’ve lost ‘em…I’ve lost my girls. They won’t even talk to me on the phone. I told ‘em the doctor thinks something serious is wrong with me and they
still
wouldn’t come….” I rushed to comfort her, knowing there was more to the story than my baby sis reported.

“Ohhh God,” she moaned, beginning to rock back and forth, with my arm draped around her sagging shoulder. I thought
Sheila, the shocker is now the shocked.

She startled me when suddenly, she snapped upright and gazed at a point in space. Anger glazed her eyes. “It’s not right, Sunny,” she singsonged and a chill rippled up my spine. “It’s Curtis’ fault, too. He’s as much to blame as me. I know he was doing things…things with both men and women.” Curtis was the last husband, who’d. ‘claimed’ all the girls as ‘his.’ He was the most decent of Sheila’s exes. He and I still stayed in touch and he remained concerned about the welfare of each of the girls and grandchildren.

“Sheila, that’s not true,” I said, not wanting to hear all the outrageous venom that poured like volcano ash from her pretty mouth.

She sliced me a
get-with-it
glare, not really
there
behind those green eyes. Suddenly they narrowed to mere slits. “I remember how he’d go up to men and think I wud’n lookin’ and he’d be so
touchy-feely
it was disgusting.”

“Sheila, Curtis is by nature an affectionate,
touchy-feely
person. That doesn’t make him —” My words shut off. She was no longer with me as her mouth tightened into a cynical smile and her eyes shimmered hatred.

I didn’t for a moment believe my sister’s charges. Sheila’s memory was quite selective in such cases. I remembered the times she’d embellished facts concerning me till even
I
nearly lost sight of truth.

Francine’s observation was more to the point. “That l’il
hussy
could almost make a person believe that day is night, and dark is light. She’s
dangerous, I tell you.”

Sheila had that ability to sway folks. She simply rehashed her version of happenings, over and over, till, to her, they became reality. It was her
conviction
that snared the listener, that drove home her tale’s seeming veracity.

“I took ‘em all out of my will,” she whispered, startling me with her
return.
“I’ve got that big settlement coming any day now — remember that sexual harassment suit I filed against Mr. James who owned Steel-Tex? Well, I’m being awarded enough that I’ll never have to worry ‘bout money again.” Then she dissolved into tears again, plastered herself to my shoulder, and moaned, “my girls…my girls. Why, Sunny?”

My mind spiraled…
poor Mr. James
. Just how much of Sheila’s charges against her ex-employer were true?
Poor girls…poor Sheila.

All of them are the losers.

I held her in my arms till she snuffled and hiccuped. “I can’t believe my baby’s doing those things, Sunny.” She gazed beseechingly at me, like she did when she was a child, like I could do something to make things right.

This time I couldn’t.

~~~~~

I called Cassie, wanting to get to the bottom of Sheila’s overwhelming torment.

“Hi, honey,” I said. “Just talked with your mom and she’s pretty upset that you girls wouldn’t celebrate Easter with her. What’s happening, Cass?” I had a good rapport with all Sheila’s girls. Had tried to always understand their perspectives of my sister. I’d tried, in my own way, to fill in, to take up some of Sheila’s slack through the years: making sure they had birthday cakes and Christmas gifts, and cards when they accomplished the honor roll or won some school office. I loaded them down with goodies every chance I got and loved every minute of it.

They nestled deep in my heart.

A long tired sigh. “Aunt Sunny, Mama’s never really ‘been there’ for us and now she’s wanting us to flock to her like dibbies and we can’t do that. She always talks bad about our dads and wants us to
agree
with her that they’re sorry jerks.” Her laugh was forced and sharp. “I mean, if Daddy hadn’t been there for us, what would’ve happened to us? And this thing with Michelle — she’s a
stripper,
for God’s sake. Not only that but she’s training her daughter, Tracy, to strip, too. I’m no big religious person, like you, Aunt Sunny, but I know what decency is and what it’s
not.”

“…religious person, like you, Aunt Sunny.” If only I were….

I felt sick at heart. Sheila had really done a number on her kids. But she did, in her own crazy way, love them. “Couldn’t you two just try to compartmentalize things, Cassie, and treat holidays as sovereign times of family —”

“If it were only that, I could. But when I tried to talk to Mama about it, she went into one of her snits and said things to me — in front of my children — things like she accused me of
selling drugs…and prostituting
.
Lies
.” She choked up and grew quiet for long moments while my stomach churned over Sheila’s indiscriminately, razor-sharp tongue. “She’s not changed, Aunt Sunny. I can’t have my kids hearing such trash about me. I’ve worked hard to gain their trust and finally felt I had it. Mama had them so confused —” She broke off on a sob.

“It’s okay, honey,” I murmured. “I understand.”

And I did. Too well. Sheila
had
lost her children. Her sins were just now finding her out.

I understood, too, her grief.

It was the same sorrow I felt over Muffin.

~~~~~

“Way I look at it, the feller was dealin’ in drugs. The shootin’ ain’t racial a’tall,” declared Lee Roy as I swept under his feet. “That ‘ar feller was tryin’ to run ‘is car over them
po
-lice officers, was what he was a’doin’.” He took a long slurp of coffee and resettled it in its coffee-table groove
. “They’d’a been stone
crazy
to not shoot at ‘im.”

Walter nodded blandly, one eye on the TV Twinkie commercial. Lee Roy’s scrutiny of the moment was the subject of last week’s column, dealing with a black drug dealer’s shooting death at the hands of two white police officers who’d claimed the suspect was running them down with his car. Afterward, some folks called it a hate crime, racially motivated. I’d simply printed opposing opinions.

It stirred up lots of discussion from all quarters, Lee Roy’s corner being the most verbose. “Anyways,” Lee Roy recommenced, “when a car comes at ye, you ain’t gonna take time to note the color o’ the driver’s skin ‘fore ye commence shootin’,
by crackie
. Ain’t that right, Walter?”

“Yeh,” Walter muttered, flipping the channels, stopping at an old rerun of
Hunter.
He loved Stephanie, Hunter’s pretty sidekick. ‘But she ain’t as purdy as you, Sunny,” he always claimed, grinning. I teased him that she was his ‘sweetheart’ but I knew her main attraction was that she could handle a .38 as well as any man.

I collected dessert plates and headed to the kitchen. Walter’s held only crumbs while Lee Roy’s brownie lay half-consumed. His teeth’s half-mooned bite left it grinning derisively at me. It reminded me that I’d not eaten a one of the batch Gracie and Jason had helped me bake last night. They still, on their visits, wanted to do our cooking thing together.

Nowadays, I bagged and sent most of it home with them, or immediately shipped it out via Lee Roy, who stopped along the way home to disperse treats. He loved the benevolent Santa Claus persona the gesture gave him. I loved making him feel good.

Everybody was happy. Especially me when I looked in my big round old-fashioned-dresser mirror and saw my clothes hanging like burlap bags on my thinning frame. My weight loss wasn’t a conscious one. It simply happened as months passed and my newspaper column kept me hopping and thinking about something beyond my own hearth.

It was time.

Chapter Seventeen

The event caught me off guard. I suppose I’d thought it would never happen, that I wouldn’t have to eventually deal with my feelings. Not a word of warning foreshadowed his arrival.

Early in May, Daniel moved in with Doretha. Her brother’s homecoming bowled Doretha over. Actually, Doretha’s ‘bowled over’ was not your usual kind. She simply walked around with this little Mona Lisa smile on her small, thin face, one she rarely wore. Actually, all her rare smiles were mystical. Alvin, now bald and round like his father, remained estranged from Doretha. He lived with his mama but daily spent time at Doretha’s catching up the housework.

“Dangdest thang I ever saw,” was Lee Roy’s only commentary, careful not to malign my good friend, Doretha, nor Alvin, my kin. Unspoken law on the mill hill was and remains that the vilifying of one’s kin is taboo
unless
a same-clan kin starts the maligning. In such event, even the most courageous, seasoned gossip must proceed with trepidation, not daring to cross over a certain invisible boundary. Since nobody knew exactly where the unseen line lay, they were prone to play it safe and use generic statements, such as Lee Roy’s cagey “Dangedest thang I ever saw.”

I remained silent, giving Lee Roy no encouragement to further pursue the topic, even though I, too, considered Doretha and Alvin’s arrangement most bizarre. But, I figured it seemed to work okay for them.

The first weeks of Daniel’s homecoming found me inordinately occupied with column deadlines so I had little trouble avoiding him. I stayed busier’n a one-legged tap dancer so as not to think about him being close-by.

Until the birthday party.

Gracie’s nineteenth birthday party was June’s big mill hill event. Started out, Walter and I were throwing it, then Emaline wanted to help, joined by an insistent Francine, followed by Aunt Tina, Doretha, and finally, Sheila, never far from the limelight, jumped aboard.

Financially, as the old saying goes, between us all we didn’t have a pot to piss in. What we did have was the kind of love that combined all our resources and energy to cook mouth-watering food and festive cakes and gather a riot of colorful wild flowers from meadows surrounding the village. Emaline pulled out her best crystal punch bowl, and filled it with an ice-cold sweet concoction of Seven-Up and fruit juices.

We foraged small crystal flower vases from the church’s storage and filled them with clustered wildflowers to center each white-clothed table.

Lee Roy hauled in two coolers brimming with ice. Everybody stopped what they were doing to check him out in his heretofore unheard of
cleaned-up
status. He’d decked out in one of Walter’s outgrown plaid shirts and razor-sharp creased khaki slacks, his hair moussed and tucked determinedly behind each ear. ‘Course, that tamed effect only lasted for about thirty minutes, till the June day’s humidity sprang it loose in wildly frizzed, Bozo-disarray.

We’d reserved the Methodist Fellowship Hall for the event. Emaline would have had a conniption had we done otherwise. Now, as a rule, no age-lines exist in mill hill celebrations like those found in suburban upper-middle class partying. Virtually everybody we knew, young and old alike, got an invite, if not personally by phone or over-the-fence, then via the village grapevine.

Our
dressing up
consisted of sharp casual slacks and accessories, topped by styles ranging from teen girls’ bared midriffs to matronly frilly blouses. I wore a classic peach slacks and sweater ensemble that hugged my newly slimmed shape, a topic of much discussion throughout the evening.

“You look
wonderful,”
Emaline took in my new look as we unveiled domed casseroles and Tupperware containers, “like
sexy.”
I shot her a wary look and she flashed a rare wicked little grin, relaxing me immeasurably to find that all these years as a preacher’s wife had not turned her into a prude. I already knew that but the reminder unleashed spurts of jubilation that trickled warmly through me.

Emaline’s little gesture finished turning my world right side up again.

At least for the moment

~~~~~

Francine and I were flapping open another white cloth to spread on the last table when Emaline nudged me and whispered in my ear, “Don’t look now but I think you’re gonna have to work on that
friendship thang
.”

Even before I turned, I knew. Seemed every hair on my body rose up.

A tall familiar figure swept through the doorway, then paused. His black hair glistened and the turquoise eyes swept the gathering until they found me. My breath hitched as they drilled into me like laser beams. He wore simple black slacks and a white button-down collar, open-necked shirt. As always, simple clothes, on Daniel’s rugged frame, managed to look fabulous. His stillness pulsed with energy, like a cougar readying to pounce.

I watched his mouth form my name.

A thrill shot through me as mine silently formed his.

Daniel.

His eyes never leaving mine, he wove his way to me. I’d forgotten the confident way he moved. I’d forgotten how lean he was and how angular his features and how incredibly virile he looked all over.

Of all the scenarios I’d imagined for this reunion, I’d never fathomed this. I recognized the glint in those fierce eyes and the thrust of that strong, cleft chin. Little flecks of silver lightened the midnight black temples. His face remained unlined. He seemed as young as the night he’d left to join the Army.

He stopped no more than a foot from me. Our gazes locked and I felt the impact all the way through me. The power of him sizzled and vibrated over my senses, shook me to my core. He had to know the sensual power he still wielded over me.

But I knew right off that he was dealing with me honestly, no attempt to dazzle or pressure me as only he could do.

When he spoke, his deep voice rumbled across his broad chest. “I know how you feel, Sunny.” His gaze slid down, slowly, caressingly, over each feature of my face, then returned to lock with my own. “I promise…I won’t embarrass you or cause you more dishonor.”

“Daniel,” I licked my lips, saw fire flash in his eyes before they hooded. “I — I don’t know what to say.” I shrugged weakly, quaking with hidden emotions. “I can’t —”

“Don’t turn me away this time, Sunny.” Then I knew the look on his face to be vintage Daniel. Lion-Man, Daniel. “Friends. That’s all.” The defiance there was stubborn,
fierce
. And then, I glimpsed the little boy, Daniel. The vulnerable Daniel. It was only a heartbeat glimpse, but it shot straight to my soul.

We stood like that for long moments, he, resolute in reconciliation, I determined to keep my shield firmly in place. Then I saw it. A tear forming along his lower left lid. The haunting features seemed frozen, yet — the tear gathered…then swelled until it spilled over and trailed down that strong, chiseled cheek… a crystal bullet, revealing a chink in the Lion-Man’s armor. He didn’t wipe it away. Brutally ignored it. Like the bleeding blister on his thumb.

My heart split. I took a deep shuddering breath and slowly let it out. I literally saw dots for a moment. Then I remembered Emaline’s words…
there’s no reason you can’t go back there, Sunny. Not if you do it the way our Father orders…

Please…
I prayed,
give me a right heart.
Suddenly, in a flash, I knew I could do it.

I smiled and stuck out my hand. “Friends.”

He blinked. Like the quick stroke of a paintbrush, surprise shaded his features, then evaporated. He smiled then, the big, wide one that made his eyes glimmer like emeralds, making my knees go weak. His big hand clasped mine and I felt its warmth all the way to my toes. “Friends.”

~~~~~

No one seemed to take notice of our little episode. Emaline and Francine had sensitively moved away to other tasks, allowing us privacy. The older folks, who knew something of our past, had mostly died off. The others had forgotten much of it. This time, I was glad Muffin remained consistent in her late appearances. I didn’t want a repeat of her tirade the last time she saw Daniel and me together all those years ago.

I hope she makes it.
Poor Gracie still hadn’t given up on her mama. Occasionally, I still felt the stirring of hope, when Muffin would slip up and smile at me. I say ‘slip up’ because her disdain had been so deliberate and focused through the years that anything beyond that meant self-treason to her. The slip-ups only reinforced her justification for hating me. Oh, I could read her like a Nora Roberts novel. Sadly.

Long ago, I’d let go of Muffin. Like I’d let go of deep emotions. The Serenity Prayer daily challenged me to recognize things I
can
change and those I
cannot
…I especially prayed for
the wisdom to know the difference.

I’d thought that now, I did. But — seeing Daniel again I wasn’t so certain.

Please…make me strong.

I tried to avoid Daniel for the rest of the afternoon but each time I turned around, there he was, helping in a dozen ways, carrying heavy trays from the kitchen, emptying garbage, making fresh coffee in the huge coffee makers, heaping food on plates and carrying them to elderly, slow-moving folks.

“That ‘ar Daniel, he’s a nice feller,” Lee Roy informed me as he deposited his half-eaten food into a nearby canister and helped himself to more black coffee. “Says he used to live here.”

Lee Roy had moved in with Sally not long after Daniel’s infamous exodus. He wasn’t privy to the situation. “Yes, he did.”

“What did he leave for?” Lee Roy took a long swig of steaming coffee then waited expectantly for revelations to spill from my lips.

“Why don’t you ask him?” I replied none too gently. His eyes rounded. Then I said more kindly, “I’ve gotta go check on the tea refills,” leaving him peering after me, eyebrows cocked curiously.

Muffin came in bearing a present just as folks lined up for dessert.

“Hi, Mama,” she gave me a quick, perfunctory hug, her blue eyes casing the gathering, no doubt gauging its likelihood for excitement. Muffin’s most-used expression was “
I’m bored.”

“Wish I had
time
to get bored,” remained my favorite rejoinder.

I saw her locate Gracie, embrace her and present her the gaily-wrapped gift. My heart warmed as Gracie tore into and tossed aside colorful tissue and ribbon, then squealed with delight over the expensive Gucci gold earrings and matching bracelet her mama had ordered online. Muffin attentively fastened them on for her to model, drawing lots of
oohs
and
ahhs
in the process. Then, arm in arm, they moved outside to stroll and have a mother and daughter talk. It happened more frequently now, this maternal leaning.

Relief and pleasure surged inside me. At least, for Gracie, hope hovered. For Muffin’s and my healing, I held no such delusions. Just acknowledging the rift between us brought that dead, heavy weight of defeat crashing back into my chest.

I veered my thoughts elsewhere, laughing to see Lee Roy holding court with my other
Things Old and New Column
fans. He was the infamous
good friend and neighbor
of the celebrated Stones, Sunny and Walter. Lee Roy was the best PR man on the face of planet earth.

I tried to stay away from Daniel but found it difficult to avoid a six-foot-two, hundred and eighty-five pound male who remained underfoot practically all evening.

Actually, it worked out for the best because, by degrees, I found myself relaxing and reclaiming the easy affability we’d shared as adolescents. I slid more and more into my old comfort zone.
More like brother and sister,
I told myself. Then,
nah, maybe cousins…distant cousins. More like neighbors?

I was able to laugh by now and see how absurd it all was.

It’s all in my head,
I finally concluded Just notions.

I could turn that off.

After all, that’s what I’ve done for all these years.

Yep. That’ll work.

~~~~~

“Law, Gladys!” I shrieked when she arrived on the arm of her teenage grandson, Chris, who left his Granny with me and quickly migrated to the girls. “How did you find out about the party?” We hugged long and hard.

“At church. One of the members here in Tucapau visited our church for a revival last week and told me ‘bout the party. He knew we was friends from way back. I’ve bent his ear talking ‘bout you so much. You’re still purdy as everything.”

“So are you, Gladys.” She was. Her hair now was completely gray and she wore it in soft curls, clipped back on each side. I tried to ignore the way one of her eyes behaved.

It seemed off-center somehow. Strange. Almost eerie.

Finally, she erupted into a rolling, full-belly,
Gladys
laugh. “You’re a’wondering about my eye, ain’t you?” She always
knew.
Ignoring my red face, she divulged, “I lost it and they’ve put this danged glass eye in. They give it to me. Free, it was. Its just that — it won’t stay in place all the time. Just ignore it if you can.”

I tried not to show my shock. My pretty, vibrant Gladys…
lost an eye.

“What happened? To your eye, I mean.” Seeing how she didn’t seem too concerned about the change in her appearance, I relaxed some.

“Glaucoma. Had headaches like you wouldn’t
believe
. Nothin’ couldn’t help the pressure behind this eye. Pain dang-near
killed
me, Sunny. Finally, I told my doctor to take it out. Against his better judgment, he did and my headaches went away. Never had another’n.”

“Mymymy
,
Gladys. What a life you’ve had.” I hugged her again and she laughed as though losing an eye was of no import. “Where’s Vince? Your husband.”

“He died last year, honey. Same way’s Harly did — dropped dead of a heart attack. Runs in the family, I s’pose.”

“I’m sorry, Gladys. You seemed really happy with him.”

She smiled and said softly, “I was.” And I thought
how strong she is. Turns loose and lets go when it’s time.