Daddy swiped a napkin across his mouth. “Guess it don’t matter one way or the other right now. Olivia’s not planning to go
back to school until Slim gets out of the hospital. I don’t suppose there’ll be a school paper with her gone.”
“At least talk to Mrs. Gray. She said she wanted to talk to you about it. Then when Slim gets better, maybe I can go back
to work on the paper. That’s practically my favorite part of school. Working with Mrs. Gray. She’s one of the nicest people
I know. Don’t you think so too?”
Daddy nodded. “Spunky thing too. I’ve been giving her a hard time about those sticks she pokes in that topknot of hers. Don’t
hurt to give her a laugh now and then.”
My heart skipped a beat. He was interested in Mrs. Gray. I could just tell. I could also tell Aunt Vadine got really still,
and when I looked at her, her eyes had narrowed. The gold flecks in them shone like fiery darts.
She blinked and said to Daddy, “You know, I like what you said about moving on. I’ve been thinking about having a few of my
things sent here from Midland. I have some nice antique pieces that would be right at home here.”
He frowned. “I don’t know….”
“I could get a friend of mine to put them on a Mistletoe truck.”
“Your boyfriend, Bobby?” It just popped out.
Aunt Vadine’s head jerked toward me. “Samantha, he’s not my boyfriend. He’s an acquaintance from work.”
“Bobby who? What are you two talking about?”
“Her
friend
Bobby called here. I think he offered her a job.”
“You know your daughter has quite the imagination. Also the tendency to eavesdrop. Bobby called me a while back, just filling
me in on the news back home. Samantha thought… well, I don’t know what she thought. At any rate, I could have him send a few
pieces of furniture over. Nothing fancy, but…”
The swallow of milk I’d just taken went down the wrong way when I started shaking my head.
No! No furniture.
If Daddy let that happen, it would be impossible to get rid of Aunt Vadine. I coughed and milk sprayed all over my plate.
“You okay, Sis?”
Phlegm stuck in my throat. Aunt Vadine reached over and whacked me on the back. Not a pat.
Whack!
Like she meant business. And not the kind to help my cough. My eyes teared up, and I cleared my throat. “I’m okay….”
“All right then. If no one objects, I think I’ll give Bobby a call.”
Daddy shrugged and rose from the table. “I need to get into Mandeville and check on Slim. Y’all don’t wait up.”
“Daddy, wait. About Mrs. Gray. And Slim. Could you check and see if I could visit him in the hospital?”
“He’s been asking to see you and Cly. I’ll see what I can do. Might be the best medicine for him right now.” When he gave
me a peck on the cheek, I caught the scent of Old Spice. Then he put on his good hat—the one he wore to church—and left.
S
LIM LOOKED BONY AND PALE
against the white hospital sheets when Daddy took Cly and me to visit him on Saturday. The road-map lines in his face had
deepened, and his eyes had sunk under his bushy eyebrows. The only parts of him not shrunk were his feet and ankles, which
angled out from the bottom of the sheets. The skin puffed and looked transparent like if you stuck a pin in it, it would pop.
His face lit up when he saw us. “I’m glad you two came. Staring at these four walls has got me as keyed up as a caged tiger.”
He winked at Mrs. Gray, who adjusted the pillow under his head and then cranked the head of the bed up a little higher. Clear
tubing ran from a tank beside the bed up to his nose.
“Hey, man, we’ve been missing you.” Cly lifted Slim’s knobby hand in his. “Graham Camp’s a bust without you.”
On the other side of the bed, I held Slim’s other hand, wrinkly and soft like my hands after doing the dishes. “We brought
you something.” I handed him a new copy of
The Old Farmer’s Almanac.
“We thought you might need something to keep you busy.”
He took it, his eyes clouding over with tears. “You kids is something, all right. Before you know it, it’ll be time to get
those ’maters planted.”
We promised we’d help him with the garden and told him to behave himself. Talking drained all his energy, and after a few
minutes, Daddy nodded toward the door. “Slim’s still got to rest. Can’t have you tiring him out.”
I kissed Slim on the cheek and looked over at Cly. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and his eyes had a wet look. “We’ll
come back,” we both said at the same time. Then we followed Daddy out into the hall.
Mrs. Gray came with us. “Thanks, Joe, for bringing them. These kids mean the world to him. Alice is bringing the girls up
later. Slim’s been fretting about seeing his granddaughters.”
Daddy draped his arm around Mrs. Gray’s shoulders. “You take care. I’ll be back to spend the night when I get off at eleven.
You look like you could use some sleep.”
She nodded, her hair spilling out from the rhinestone sticks on top of her head.
On the way home, Cly and I decided we’d get Slim’s garden ready and surprise him. Daddy thought it was a great idea. Neither
of us knew beans about how to do it, but we worked all afternoon taking turns behind the hand plow, raking out the dead weeds
and grass. We stopped every so often to throw dirt clods at each other and take long drinks of cold water from the garden
hose. George Kuykendall stopped by in the late afternoon with warm brownies wrapped in tinfoil.
“A treat from Goldie. I seen you two out here slaving away, and wouldn’t you know? Goldie had just pulled these out of the
oven. You kids take care now.” He got in the Buick and waved as he puttered down the street.
Sitting with our backs against the apricot tree beside the garden, we gobbled the brownies.
“What should we plant?” The smell of chocolate hung in the air, swirled together with the scent of fresh-turned soil.
“You’re asking me?” Cly’s face was turned up toward the sky,
which had turned gray, hiding the sun. “I ain’t never planted a garden.”
“Don’t use double negatives.”
“Huh?”
“Ain’t never. You talk like a hick.”
“Reckon that’s what I are, now that I’m a Texan.”
I threw my balled-up tinfoil at him.
“You’d better watch it, cat. I can swing a mean hoe.”
“I am soooo scared.” We laughed until our bellies hurt. “Seriously, what shall we plant?”
“All’s I know is Slim reads that almanac like it was the bible of daily living. He told me the only two books worth reading
were
The Old Farmer’s Bible
and the
Holy Almanac
.”
“You goon. I think we’d be safe with green beans, tomatoes, squash, and cucumbers. Maybe onions. The question is, when do
we plant them?”
“Guess we shoulda bought two almanacs. I think we’ve done all we can today. Besides, I promised Norm I’d trim some bushes
out back.”
I gathered up the tools while Cly wheeled the plow over to Slim’s garage. Then we went back and washed the dirt off our hands
in the garden hose. Cly shut off the water. “Say, Doobie says there’s a recital or something starting at the church tomorrow.
You going?”
“Revival, not recital. And sure, I’m going. Brother Henry’s hoping a lot of kids will come since the visiting preacher used
to play pro basketball. It ought to be interesting.”
“Doob says he’s about eight feet tall.”
“I don’t know about that.” I wiped my hands on my jeans to finish drying them. “Since when did you get interested in church?”
“Since never. But Slim’s been telling me I oughta check it out.
And after seeing Slim and all today… well, I thought… shoot, I don’t know. Maybe I should go and say a prayer for him or
something. Is that what you do there?”
“Sometimes. We also sing, and Brother Henry preaches. Most of the time I listen. You don’t have to go to church, though, to
say a prayer for Slim. I pray for him all the time.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow then. In church.”
“Deal.” We shook on it and went our separate ways.
Since all I had to look forward to was a long evening with Aunt Vadine, I took the long way home, past the playground. A bank
of clouds had come up in the west, and I wished Slim were home so he could give us the latest weather prediction. The cedar
trees that held Mama’s pearls near their roots swayed in the breeze.
Mama.
Maybe Aunt Vadine didn’t think I was moving on, but I was. I could tell. When I thought of her, I got a warm spot inside,
not a stab like a knife. Well, most of the time anyway.
A shiver of excitement danced up my spine when I thought of the way Daddy put his arm around Mrs. Gray. Yes, we were definitely
moving on. Can’t say as I thought much about Aunt Vadine’s idea of sending for her furniture, but she had been in one of her
agreeable moods ever since she brought it up. Maybe Brother Henry had it right. If I trusted God, he would take care of the
details.
When I got to my street, I remembered Mama’s hatbox in the garage. Why not? Just because I wanted to look at Mama’s things
didn’t mean I wasn’t moving on. I lifted the latch and creaked the garage door open. I shut my eyes for a bit and then opened
them to let them get used to the dark before going over to the metal shelves. Daddy’s Coleman lantern sat at eye level next
to his tackle box. The hatbox was where I’d left it. I scooped it up and took it to the front of the garage where the light
was better.
Spiderwebs and a fine layer of dust covered the top of the box. I blew them off and noticed the faded paper on the box had
lilacs
on it. I took a deep breath and lifted the lid, hoping for a whiff of Mama’s favorite scent. Knowing the box had been in
the dingy garage all winter didn’t stop me from wishing. The tiny green scrap of Mama’s dress lay on top of the crocheted
bonnet. Under that, two bundles of letters. I swooped them up and held them out to the light. The top bundle looked familiar.
My handwriting on the outside. The letters I sent Mama in the hospital? I let the other set drop into the box. I would look
at them later. All of a sudden I wanted to read what I had written Mama. I put the lid back on and returned the box to the
shelf to keep Aunt Vadine from giving me one of her looks. Or asking a bunch of questions.
When I went inside, some Western flickered on the television, Aunt Vadine’s eyes glued to the screen. I said hello and walked
past her and into my room.
A tingle went through me.
Mama had kept my letters
. I wondered how they would sound now that Mama had died. Did I even want to know? Still, she had kept them.
The rubber band snapped when I took it off, stinging me on the wrist. I took the top envelope and turned it over to open the
flap.
Weird.
It was sealed shut. My heart hammered in my chest as I turned over each of the envelopes. Sealed. Sealed. Sealed. Why would
she do that?
Slowly, it hit me. Mama had not read my letters. All the hours I spent writing to her about my summer, the brownies I made,
Cly coming to visit, baby Penelope. She had never read one word. Not one.
My fingers went numb. Then cold. Inside it felt like an ice pick went through my heart, lodged there so that every time my
heart beat, it reminded me over and over—Mama had not read my letters. Not the funny jokes I poured out on the pages. None
of the newsy things I wrote trying to cheer her up while she got shock treatments. Not one word.
Something else simmered, bubbling up. I couldn’t explain it, but everything I’d done to protect Mama, to make her laugh and
love me, flashed before my eyes. My insides felt electric, little pulses of energy that hummed along stinging me here and
there, making my breathing short and huffy. My jaw ached from clamping my teeth together. Some fat good I’d been to Mama.
She didn’t even care enough to read what I wrote her.
I turned the envelopes over and over in my hands. I traced the letters of Mama’s name on the front of each one. Every time
I traced her name again, another stab of the ice pick went through me. I clenched my fist around the letters. How could I
move on when my own mother did this? Pretended all those times she knew what I was talking about last summer like she had
read them.
Not. One. Word
.
I clutched the unopened letters, went into Mama’s closet, and gathered up all her clothes piled on the floor. I marched past
Aunt Vadine and out the back door, staggering under the weight of Mama’s things. I stumbled toward the incinerator, dropped
everything on the ground, and let out a long breath. One by one, I pitched every last stitch of Mama’s wardrobe into the eternal
fire.
A breeze caught one of the letters. I chased after it and then another one. My heart pounded in my ears. I scooped the last
one up and threw them all on top of the smoking clothes. My knees had turned watery, and my eyes stung from the smoke billowing
up. My muscles twitched with exhaustion. I slumped down and sat with my back against the warm cement blocks of the incinerator.
Crackles and hissing filled my ears, and I imagined every single word I’d written in those letters being licked by flames.
A fire burned inside me too. I pulled up my knees and wrapped my arms around them, waiting for something. Anything. What now?
One thing for sure. I wouldn’t cry any more tears for Mama. Not now. Not ever. I had moved on.
More pops and cracks came from the incinerator, creaking sounds like an old campfire nearly burned out. I stared off into
the distance and then looked toward the house. There, Aunt Vadine stood on the back porch, her arms crossed, her face shaded
by the house. She didn’t move, just stood there under the eaves. I blinked trying to read her face, but nothing came. The
only thing I could tell for certain, and this sent a chill clear to my toes—her eyes had the same look as in my dreams.
Blank.
Hollow.
I
JUMPED TO MY FEET
and ran toward her. “What are you staring at?”
“You. Are you all right?” Her eyes had returned to their usual muddy look.