Authors: Donna Mabry
The truth of what the doctor said scared me more
than everything that happened. There was no one to
take care of me now but Helen, no other family. For
my own sake, I had to take care of her. I had to see to
it that nothing bad happened to her.
After a while, the house was finally dark and
quiet, and sometime after, my tears stopped coming
and the anger oozed out of me, I got up and took the
baby from its cradle. I lay back on my pallet on the
floor and held the baby in my arms. I didn’t sleep until
the sun had started to lighten the room and the awful
night had passed.
I woke in the morning to the sound of voices in the
next room. I didn’t move, but listened for a while,
trying to make out what was being said. The door to
the bedroom opened and the preacher’s wife, Sister
Clark, came in carrying some clothes over her arm.
She and Brother Clark served at the Holiness Church
my family went to. She was a nice, mostly happylooking young woman, not much older than Helen,
with light brown hair, green eyes and a gentle touch.
She laid the clothes over the side of the cradle, knelt
down by my pallet, and took me by the hand. “Maude,
you need to get up now. We have to get ready for the
funerals.”
I didn’t move, only looked up at her. Sister Clark
reached over and took the baby out of my arms. “I have
to take him to the undertaker’s, Maude. He has to get
him ready. Now you get washed up. I set out some
clothes for you to put on. They came from your friend
Susan. She wanted to share what she has with you.
Everything in your house got burnt up.”
I thought about my pretty blue dress that Momma
made me for my birthday. She’d embroidered little
butterflies around the hem and the edges of the sleeves.
I’d only worn it once. It was gone now, and so was my
doll with the china head. I didn’t play with it anymore,
but all the same, it hurt to know that I would never see
it again.
Sister Clark held the baby as if it were still alive,
and I liked her for that. She sighed. “Under the
circumstances we’re not going to have a wake.
There’ll be a service at the church at ten o’clock.”
I picked up the dress she brought and held it up
in front of me. It looked a little big, but I didn’t
complain. She patted me on the head. “That’s a good
girl. I’ll stay here with Helen until after the funeral.
She’s not in any shape to go to the service. She’s going
to need you to take care of her for a while. When you
get dressed I’ll show you what to do for her.”
I dropped my head and nodded. I promised
myself that I would do everything I could to take care
of my sister, partly because I loved her so, and partly
because, if I lost Helen, there would be no one to take
care of me, no one at all.
Sister Clark left with the baby. I went into the
kitchen, pumped a basin of water and took it to the
washroom. I took off my clothes from the day before
and washed myself, then put on Susan’s clothes that
Sister Clark brought me. When I finished dressing, I
went out and sat in the parlor. I watched Tommy and
Sister Clark going back and forth to Helen’s bedroom.
I got up only one time. That was when Tommy left the
bedroom door open. I walked over to the door as
quietly as I could and peeked in. Sister Clark sat by the
bed reading the Bible out loud. Helen lay with her eyes
closed as if she were asleep. Her chest rose and fell to
a regular beat, and there was a bit of color in her
cheeks. That made me feel better, and I went back to
my chair and sat there until Tommy walked in and told
me it was time to go. He had dark rings under his eyes
and a haunted look on his face.
As we went out the door, I took his hand in mine.
“She’s going to be all right, Tommy.”
He looked down at me with a weak smile. “If you
say so,” he said.
The Holiness Church was different for me that
day. All my life I’d looked forward to the services.
They sang bright and lively tunes, except on the
Sunday mornings when they had the Lord’s Supper
and sang “Break Thou the Bread of Life.” They
clapped their hands in joy. People would stand and
testify about how good God was to them, and how
Jesus had saved them and changed their lives.
Sometimes, someone would go down front after
the sermon and repent of some sort of sin. I always
wondered what it was they’d done that was so bad, but
once, when I asked her, Mom shushed me and told me
it was nobody’s business but God’s and the sinner’s.
That seemed fitting to me.
That day, no one was happy, no one sang
brightly, and no one clapped their hands. The soft
sound of women crying lasted throughout the service.
Brother Clark did his best to comfort us. He was a man
who made you trust him. Blond hair, blue eyes, and a
handsome face, he was about thirty. His big build
didn’t come from studying the Bible, which I know he
did every day, but from doing the chores on his
parent’s farm that he still tended for them.
That day, he didn’t pace back and forth in the
pulpit and wave his arms the way he usually did, but
stood in one spot and talked about how Brother and
Sister Clayborn had both accepted the Lord Jesus as
their personal Savior years ago and had lived a life that
testified to the truth of it. He said that he was sure that
they’d attained the state of grace that every member of
the church should work toward, to be able to live life
in purity, no longer sinning. He said that now, this very
day, they were sitting at the right hand of God. He told
us how the baby was there as well, since he’d died
before he could sin.
I’d done so much crying the night before that I
didn’t cry at the church that day. I found the comfort I
needed in the preacher’s words because I believed
them to be true.
After Brother Clark finished, we sang another
song and the three pine boxes were lifted onto the
shoulders of the men of the church. It took six of them
to carry the largest, which held my daddy. Four of
them carried mom, and one man carried the little box
with the baby, walking down the aisle with it held in
two hands in front of him. A farm wagon was waiting
outside. We all walked together behind it to the little
cemetery on the outskirts of town, singing hymns all
the way.
The boxes were lowered into the three holes that
had already been dug. Brother Clark said a few more
words about how we are formed out of the dust and
would return to the dust and then said another prayer
for the comfort of us left behind. One by one the
congregation filed past the holes, each of them picking
up a handful of dirt and throwing it on top of the boxes.
Tommy and I went last, but I didn’t pick up a handful
of dirt to throw. I couldn’t do it. Momma hated dirt. I
hung my head, kept my eyes on Tommy’s feet, and
walked past the holes, not looking down into them.
When Tommy and I got back home, Sister Clark
took me to Helen’s bedroom and showed me all the
things I would have to do to care for Helen. She was
finally awake, and Helen said that she could take care
of herself, but Sister Clark shushed her and told her
she had to follow doctor’s orders if she wanted to get
well again.
She told me how to keep Helen’s most private
parts clean, and how to use a pan for Helen’s toilet.
She explained how to put clean sheets on the bed with
Helen still in it. I listened close to everything she said
so I would do it right.
When she was finished, Sister Clark gave me a
quick hug. “If you need help sometimes, let me know.
It won’t be for very long. In a few weeks, she’ll be her
old self, and you can go back to being a little girl again.
For right now, you have to be the woman of the
house.”
It was as if, for the last year since Helen was
married, Mom had been training me for the job I had
to do. I set about being the woman of the house that
very day. I gathered up the soiled bedding and took it
out to the back porch where there were two washtubs,
one for washing and one for rinsing. I pumped the
water and heated it and carried it to the tubs myself. I
took the paring knife and a block of soap and cut it up
in the hot water, the way I’d seen my mother do so
many times. When the bedding was washed and hung
on the line, I changed the water and did the regular
clothes.
After that, I put out a simple lunch for the three
of us, me, Tommy and Helen. The house was full of
food brought by friends. Someone had been smart
enough to bring a block of ice so the food would keep
fresh longer. I sliced some ham, boiled a few potatoes,
and warmed up a dish of collard greens. I made a tray
and took it in to Helen. Tommy took his plate in the
bedroom to eat with her, and I sat at the table in the
kitchen by myself.
After giving thanks for all our friends and the
food, I ate alone and then cleaned up the dishes.
Tommy sat in the bedroom all that day and held
Helen’s hand while she slept. Later that evening,
Brother and Sister Clark came over with a regular bed
for me so I wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor. They
brought me a stack of clothes that were donated by the
members of the church. Some of the things were brand
new. There were a coat, three dresses, and there was
enough underwear for me to go a whole week before I
had to wash them. Tommy and the preacher set up the
bed in the room meant for the baby. Tommy cried as
he carried the cradle to the barn, and Brother Clark
patted him on the back and re-assured him that
someday he could carry it back in the house.
Helen was weak for a long time, and I did
everything I could to take care of the house and my
sister. After a few weeks, Helen’s strength came back
some, and she was up and about. I didn’t need to help
her so much in a personal way, but it was a long time
before Helen started to take over the household chores.
Even then she left the harder work, like the laundry
and the heavy cleaning, to me. It seemed that I never
did get to go back to being a little girl, but my life did
start to be more normal. I went back to school and to
my regular class in Sunday school. I saw my friends
there, but never asked them over to the house. It wasn’t
my house, and besides, I didn’t have time to sit on the
porch the way Helen did before she married. There
were too many chores to be done.
I got my first time for the monthlies when I was
eleven. I picked up a basket full of laundry and felt
something hot and wet run down my legs. I set the
basket down and looked down to see the red streaks.
No one had ever talked to me about it, but I wasn’t
afraid. I knew from doing the laundry that women bled
once a month.
All the same, I didn’t feel old enough to be a
woman. I washed off the blood and cleaned myself up,
then stuffed a cloth into my undies and went to talk to
Helen. She said it was something all women shared.
She sat next to me and put her arm around my
shoulders and told me matter-of-fact what she knew
about the situation. “When Eve sinned, God put a
curse on her and now, every woman has to suffer for
it. You’ll get this once a month. It will last five or six
days. You can’t take a sit-down bath or wash your hair
while you have it or you’ll get sick. I’m sorry you got
it so young. Some girls don’t start until they’re fifteen.
They’re the lucky ones.”
Then Helen tore up some of the thin, older
towels into strips and gave them to me with directions
on how to use them and how to keep myself clean.
Taking care of the house, I had a woman’s job, and
now I had a woman’s body, and I wasn’t happy about
either thing, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.
When I was twelve, I struck up a beginning
courtship with James Connor. I always liked him, and
I guess it showed, because even when I was in
kindergarten, Daddy teased me about it. James mostly
ignored me before.
The town had only one school, so we saw one
another every weekday, and he attended the Holiness
Church with his family, the same one I went to with
mine. He was a few years older, and I figured out right
away that now he wanted to be a different kind of
friend. I was tall for my age, as tall as a grown woman,
and my figure had bloomed early. I wasn’t slim and
tiny-waisted like Helen, but was like my daddy, sturdy
built.
James had light blond hair and deep blue eyes
and was tall enough that I had to look up at him. I liked
that. He didn’t make me feel so big. He was as plain as
I was, but he was pleasant looking and had a warm
smile and a winning way about him. He made me feel
special. If I came into the classroom after him, when
he caught sight of me, his face sort of lit up, like it
pleased him for me to be there. I never saw him pay
attention to any other girl. He smiled at me and seemed
happy to see me each time we met. Once, he held my
hand when he walked me home from school. I liked
that, but the next day, someone teased us about it, so
he didn’t do it again.
After the birth of Helen’s stillborn baby, Helen
seemed to get in a family way at least once a year, but
she always miscarried in her second or third month.
Each time, she would go to her room for days and cry.
Every time, she gave up on ever being able to carry a
baby to the end. Tommy held her and comforted her
and reminded her that the doctor had told them that
they would have a healthy baby sooner or later.
When I was thirteen, Helen missed her period
again and made it through the third month without a
problem. Everyone held their breath. Doctor Wilson
told her to go to bed and stay there as much as possible,
and she did. For the second time, I was the only
woman working in the house. I got up extra early,
when the first rooster crowed, cooked breakfast for the
three of us, made a sack lunch for Tommy to take to
work with him, and a lunch for Helen, which I put in
the icebox to keep cool. When I got home from school,
I did the chores and cleaned and fixed dinner.
Saturdays, I did the laundry and cooked the meal for a
cold Sunday dinner, usually fried chicken, corn bread
and potato salad. Except for the necessary things, even
I didn’t have to work on the Sabbath.