Authors: Leigh Byrne
By the time my eighth birthday came around on July11, Mama was feeling much better. That morning she woke me early and told me she had a special day planned for me. I followed her to her room and sat on the edge of her bed, waiting for her to get dressed.
She let her housecoat slide from her shoulders and tossed it onto a chair. Wearing nothing but her bra and panties, she dug through her drawers until she found her favorite red shell. She pulled it on over her head, tossed her curls back into shape, and then squeezed into a pair of dark denim Bermuda shorts. She walked over to her vanity and sat on the padded bench in front of it. I jumped down from the bed and sat beside her, like I always did when she put on her makeup.
She picked up her brush with the mother-of-pearl handle, pulled it through her hair a couple of times, and arranged a few wayward curls around her face. She slid open her red box of cake mascara and applied some to her lashes with the tiny black brush inside. Then she selected, from the drawer of her vanity, the perfect shade of lipstick to match her shell, and traced it along the lines of her full lips as she pursed them in an
O
shape. After a quick quality check in the mirror, she plucked a tissue from the dispenser and kissed it, leaving a bright red imprint of her mouth.
“There,” she said springing to her feet. “Now, let’s tend to the Birthday Girl.” She went over to her closet, and pulled out a box wrapped in purple paper and tied with a yellow ribbon. My heart pounded with excitement when I realized it was a present for me. “I’m going to let you open this now. It’s something special I picked out for you.”
I took it from her, tore through the paper, ripped apart the box, and pulled out what was inside, all in one motion. It was a sun-suit that tied at the shoulders, red with black polka dots.
“I love it, Mama!” I stripped out of my pajamas right there so I could put it on and wear it for the rest of the day. “Thank you!”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart.”
For lunch Mama made corndogs and macaroni and cheese, my two favorite foods, and for dessert, she baked a German chocolate cake, also my favorite. She adorned the cake with eight pink candles, lit them, and then turned out the lights. Everyone in the family sang “Happy Birthday” as she brought my cake over to the kitchen table.
After we ate, I opened my other gift—a new troll doll with hair striped the colors of the rainbow—to add to my already large collection. Then Daddy, Nick, Jimmy D., and I all went outside. Daddy was finally going to make good on his promise to build us a tree house in a sprawling mimosa out in the backyard. Mama stayed behind and picked up the kitchen. It had been over four months since Audrey’s death, and she still hadn’t left the house.
Out in the yard, I found a patch of soft grass and sat to make a dandelion necklace. Before too long I heard the familiar sound of the back screen door first creak open and then snap shut. In the far corner of the yard, Daddy and the boys stopped what they were doing and looked toward the house.
Out walked Mama, pressing the palm of her hand against the sun’s glare. “My lands,” she said. “At first I thought you were a big ol’ ladybug out there in the grass! You look just like one in your new dotted sun-suit!”
I giggled at the thought. “Oh, Mama, you’re silly!”
She picked up her lounger that had been leaning against the outside of the house since last summer, unfolded it, and situated it facing the sun. She lay down and stretched out, with one leg hanging off the side, and her bare foot resting on the concrete patio beneath her, as if at any minute she might get up and go back inside.
“Ladybug,” she said as she rolled up her shorts so she could get some sun on her legs. “Hmm, now that’s a good nickname for you. I think I’ll call you that from now on.” She tucked her shell up under her bra in front to expose her stomach, leaned her head back on the lounger, and shut her eyes.
A grin crept onto my face.
Mama’s back.
I was about halfway done with my dandelion necklace when Daddy and the boys started making some loud noise hammering on the tree house. Mama raised her head and looked in their direction. Then she looked at me. “You sure have been out there in that grass for a long time, Ladybug. What are you doing, anyway?”
“Making a necklace,” I said. “It’s a present for somebody.”
“Who could you be making a present for, it’s
your
birthday.”
“It’s a surprise.”
She smiled, and the specks of copper in her eyes sparkled. She put her head back and rested it against the lounger again, her smooth face soaking in the sunlight.
Lana Page, the lady who lived next door, came out of her house and walked up to the chain-link fence separating her yard from ours. “Hidy, Rose,” she called out to Mama.
Mama lifted her head. “Hey, hon!”
Mama called everyone “honey” or “hon,” and her favorite phrase was “bless your heart.” Daddy said she was such a sweet talker, she could call somebody a scum-sucking bitch, and begin the sentence with “hon” and tack “bless your heart” on the end, and it would sound like a compliment.
Mama had always been one to keep to herself. Even at her best, when she went out into the yard, she was willing to talk only briefly with the ladies in the neighborhood about light subjects, such as fashion or cooking.
She hated nosey people, and if someone overstepped her tight boundaries, she was quick to shift the conversation so they wouldn’t have an opportunity to pry into her life. If that didn’t work, she would suddenly act like she smelled her beans burning, even if she wasn’t cooking beans at all, and then take off running into the house to tend to them. Growing up, I never once saw her socialize with the neighbors without a fence in front of her, and an imaginary pot of beans cooking on the stove.
“I’m fixin’ to put on my bathing suit and lay in the sun,” said Lana. “Why don’t you come over and join me?”
“Oh, honey,” said Mama, cupping her hand over her eyes to form a visor against the sun. “I’m not baring this pale body!”
Lana chuckled. “Don’t be silly, Rose, you look great!”
Mama brushed off Lana’s compliment. “Now, if I had your figure, Lana,” she said, stringing out her words like she was stringing bubblegum from her mouth, “Pale or not I’d put on a bikini every day and strut all around this yard!”
“Oh, Rose, shut your mouth! Come on, get your suit on and visit with me for a while. We’ll catch up on some girl talk.”
“I would, Lana, really, but I’ve got to get up from here in a minute and make these hungry young’uns some supper. I’ve got pinto beans on the stove right now.”
“Okay, then.” Lana turned and walked back toward her house. “But the offer stands if you change your mind.”
Most of our neighbors who lived on Maplewood Drive were like Lana, Southern small-town friendly, waving whenever they saw you, whether they knew you or not, stopping occasionally to chat. She and her husband, Jack, like all the young couples that lived on our street, were typical middle class of the seventies. The men were dominant heads of their households, responsible for the financial support of their families, and most of the wives were content to be homemakers and stay-at-home moms. Every couple had at least two children, many of which were around the same age. On summer afternoons the smell of burgers grilling filled the air, the badminton nets went up, the croquet sets came out, and the yards were crawling with happy kids.
Our neighbors were friendly, but they were also aware of the boundaries that separated their private lives from one another—invisible boundaries, but still as impassable as the chain-link fences between their yards. They didn’t press too hard to get into your business because they didn’t want you poking around in theirs. That was the Southern way, the way Mama said it should be. She said it was of no concern to anyone what went on in the privacy of her home.
It started out as a typical summer day for us. Daddy went to work, and Mama did her chores around the house. My brothers and I played out in the yard until about noon, when a steamy rain came from out of clear skies, forcing us back inside.
Mama brought out the Clue game to keep us occupied, and served up what was left of my birthday cake. When Daddy got home from work, we ate supper, and then he and the boys went down to the new den, while I stayed upstairs with Mama in her bedroom.
She decided to take one of her long bubble baths. While she was soaking in the tub, I sat at her vanity and fingered the perfumes she had displayed on a gold filigree tray. The delicate jewel-toned bottles of many shapes and sizes intrigued my eye. I picked up each one and sprayed my neck twice, like I’d seen her do.
I went over to the closet, and pulled out her black silk robe, put it on over my clothes, and then slipped my feet into her furry pink house slippers that were on the floor directly beneath it. With the robe trailing behind me, I modeled in front of the mirror, striking various glamorous poses, trying to mimic the beautiful women I had seen in the Sears catalogue where Mama ordered our school clothes.
When I got bored, I decided to join the rest of the family down in the den. When I came to the bottom of the stairs, I saw that Daddy and Jimmy D. had the mattress on the floor, and they were playing the flying game. The flying game was something Daddy had invented to entertain Nick when he was a toddler. At eleven Nick had gotten too big to play anymore, and was sitting in one of the beanbags watching television.
“Hey there, Tuesday,” Daddy said, when he saw me. “Wanna play?”
“Sure!” I said, and ran to him. I never passed up a chance to play the flying game.
Daddy, while lying on his back, bent his knees and pulled them in close to his body to get ready for me to climb on. Meanwhile, I leaned forward, resting my chest and belly on the soles of his feet. When he was sure my weight was balanced, he slowly extended his legs upward until they were perfectly straight.
High in the air, I closed my eyes and stretched my arms out as far as I dared, pretending to be an airplane, or a bird soaring in the sky. Daddy, at six feet seven inches tall, had the longest legs, but I wasn’t afraid of being so high because I could sense his strength beneath me. And whenever I needed to, I could open my eyes and look down at his face for reassurance.
After Daddy let me “fly” for a while, he suddenly separated his legs, allowing me to slip off his feet and drop in front of him. Then right before I fell, he caught me in midair. He never gave warning as to when he was going to do this, so each time my heart raced like crazy. But I trusted him enough that it didn’t enter my mind that he might let me fall. And he never did.
After several turns each for Jimmy D. and me, Daddy’s legs wore out, and he announced the game was over. Tired from playing, we all cuddled up on the mattress to watch television. Just then Mama poked her head in the doorway at the top of the stairs, and told us she was going into the living room to read for a while.
No one in the family but Mama ever spent much time in the living room. In contrast to the casual ranch style of the house, it was decorated formal Victorian. Heavy, tasseled, dark-green draperies hung to the floor over the picture window. In front of it, proudly perched on cherry ball-and-claw feet, was a mauve tapestry sofa. In the middle of the room was Mama’s marble-top cocktail table flanked by two Queen Anne chairs. On one wall was a drop-leaf table, and on another a cherry wood secretary desk with a
Gone with the Wind
lamp on top of it, and a collection of ceramic Victorian figurines inside the hutch.
Some nights Mama sat in the living room all alone in one of the Queen Anne chairs, with a cup of hot tea or a glass of wine in her hand, gazing up at something seemingly out of her reach, a gentle yearning in her eyes. That night she curled up on the sofa with a book.
After a few hours of watching television, Daddy, the boys, and I were ready to go upstairs. On our way to bed, we passed by the living room and noticed Mama had fallen to sleep reading. It was not unusual for her to doze off on the sofa. Sometimes if she was sleeping well, Daddy let her stay there for the night.
He got a blanket from the linen closet in the hall and covered her up, and then turned off the living room light. The boys went on to their beds, and Daddy walked with me to mine so he could tuck me in. “I’ll be right down the hall if you need me,” he said. But I wasn’t afraid; I had no reason to be. Mama was on one side of me, and Daddy was on the other.
Through my sleepy haze, I heard Mama call out, “Audrey, are you okay?” Words I had grown accustomed to hearing because she still woke up often through the night, thinking Audrey was calling for her.
“I’m coming!” yelled Mama. “I’ll be right there!”
Then a loud cracking sound that bounced off every wall of the house brought me upright in my bed. The sound reminded of the time I was at one of Nick’s baseball games, and a player broke a wooden bat against a ball.
Daddy and the boys came charging down the hallway, and I jumped up and joined them. Nobody said it, but I knew we were headed for the living room, where Mama was.
When we got there, we saw that the sofa, dimly lit by streetlights shining through the window, was empty. Without hesitation Daddy turned back and bounded through the kitchen and down the dark stairs to the den. Nick flipped on the light to the stairway, and he, Jimmy D., and I followed.
Mama was lying at the bottom of the stairs, her head and shoulders on the floor, and the lower half of her body sprawled across the stairway. She was not moving, and a small puddle of blood was near her mouth. Daddy rushed to her and felt around on her neck for a pulse, and then turned and ran back up the stairs, pushing us kids along in front of him. “Everyone in the living room,” he said, and grabbed the phone receiver off the kitchen wall and called for help.
As soon as he hung up the phone he ran back to Mama’s side. I watched from the top of the stairway as he got down on his knees. “Please God, not my Rosie!” he pleaded. “Don’t you dare take my Rosie from me!” He looked up above him, and I could see the tears rolling down his face. “I can’t make it without her!”
I knew he loved Mama, as much as a child my age could have known. I had heard him tell her practically every day, and I had seen it in his affection for her, which he openly displayed. But that night I remember
feeling
how much he loved her, the power of his love, and the depth.
It was the first time I had ever known my daddy to cry. He had always represented strength and safety to me. He was the one who chased the monsters away, and held me when I was hurt. Seeing him in such a weak, desperate state shook me at the core of my sense of security, and I began to tremble with fear.
Within minutes an ambulance had arrived, and its red lights were tracing around and around the living room walls. Daddy went next door and got Lana to come and stay with my brothers and me, so he could follow Mama to the hospital. Nick, Jimmy D., and I all sat on the sofa, unusually close to one another, and still as statues. We watched out the window as the paramedics loaded our mama into the ambulance on a stretcher, not knowing whether or not we were ever going to see her again.