Don't Call Me Mother (20 page)

Sun streams across the living room as they talk, dust motes swirling in golden light. These elders tell about things that happened so long ago there is no clue left, not even a gravestone. Somehow I am no longer a young, stupid girl, but an observer of history. Someday they will die, too. I will visit their graves and have conversations with the dead.

Blanche seems lost in memory as Gram drives us away from Jessie’s through narrow dirt roads, passing deserted houses, empty fields. After a few minutes the car pulls up in front of a shabby wooden house tilting slightly in the wind, a silent windmill carving the sky beside it.

“Here’s the house you was born in,” Blanche says to Gram.

Gram stares and then says in a stricken voice, “Oh no, Mama, where’s the orchard?”

“It’s gone, all gone,” Blanch whispers. She points to an upstairs window. “That room there is where you was born.”

Gram and Blanche have entered an invisible world together, faces reflecting their journey of memory. I wish I could click open their minds and see what they see. I can visualize the orchard that used to be over there, the climbing rose bush in front of the house.

Blanche says, “Our wedding was in the living room. Lula was born here. We lived here a few years with my papa and mama.”

Gram is speechless and pale. She doesn’t even light a cigarette. I’ve never seen her like this before. She is like the little girl I’ve seen in photographs, a forlorn-looking girl with long blonde hair. I imagine her playing with her dolls in the orchard.

Later that evening, Edith takes out a big box of photos. The faces of the dead come alive again in black and white, their eyes burning across time. “Here he is. Lewis. Now we’ve found him.”

The face of a young man looks out from the photograph. His hair is cropped short, he looks barely older than a boy. I catch my breath—he looks so much like us, with beautiful soft eyes and full lips. Suddenly, he’s a real person to me. I realize in a flash that here—once alive and breathing, once falling in love, getting married, having a child—is my great-grandfather. He’s an actual part of our family, not just a ghost from the past. The adults pick over more old photos while I go into the bathroom to stare at my face in the bathroom mirror for a long time, comparing his face to mine. He seems almost alive, shining out from our faces, my mother, grandmother, and me, that boy who died so long ago in the last century, way back in 1894 on a winter day in March.

Saved

Bringing in the Sheaves

Sowing in the morning, sowing seeds of kindness,
Sowing in the noontide and the dewy eve,
Waiting for the harvest and the time of reaping,
We shall come rejoicing,
Bringing in the sheaves.
Bringing in the sheaves,
Bringing in the sheaves,
We shall come rejoicing,
Bringing in the sheaves.

Back home in Enid, at the Baptist church on Broadway Street, I learn all about the war between God and the Devil. The Sunday School class gathers in a circle in the concrete-block basement classroom. Boys with buzz cuts sneer, slapping their knees and throwing spit wads when the teacher isn’t looking. The girls pretend to be listening, but they are mostly interested in writing notes on their palms. I sit with my hands folded in my lap, trying to hide my shaking knees.

We find out that both the Devil and God are dangerous. The devil is evil incarnate—that means evil in a body, the teacher says—a threat to us day and night. God in his omniscience knows everything we’re thinking, and the devil is always tempting us, so we can’t really trust our own thoughts. The devil is sneaky; he could be anywhere, scheming to set us on the path to hell.

“How do you know it’s not the devil whispering in your ear?” the teacher says ominously. She says if God hears a thought the Devil puts in your head, he’ll punish you like the Israelites in the desert. Or send a plague of locusts. Terrifying.

The teacher says we’re in real danger if we don’t come to church and learn to pray and believe in God. The devil is sneaking around at this very moment, tempting us and our families to serve him instead of God. Hell is a place you don’t want to go after you die—it’s sweltering and tortuous. We must do anything, everything, to avoid it. The devil will try to get us to play cards, to dance, kiss, or go to movies. The devil will tempt us to cheat or lie to our parents. “The devil waits for you, innocent little you,” the teacher warns, “just to trip you up.” She says he wears a black suit, has a forked tail, and leers with beady black eyes. He lives in a red hell made of fire, and delights in stealing people away from God.

The teacher drones on, scaring us all to death. You have to fight this devil all the time. You have to be on the lookout for him. He wants to possess you; he wants to suck you up into his maw and make you suffer for eternity. He lives in smoke and heat, his breath stinks, and his fingers are claws. He’ll talk sweetly to you or he’ll yell and scream and scratch you. And when you die, you will never have another chance to be good. You will suffer for eternity.

The big church is upstairs, with rows of polished wooden benches and a wooden cross in the front. Bibles and songbooks are tucked into holders on the backs of the pews. The church fills up with noisy families, mostly people who seem to know each other. Gram gave me special permission to attend “real church” with my friend Janille. A thin woman with a bun, glasses perching on the tip of her nose, bangs out hymns on the piano.

The preacher starts off with a very long prayer, like Grandpa’s, going on about sin and forgiveness, the temptations of the devil, and God’s mercy. During the sermon he’s red-faced and shouting, punching the air and yelling about a righteous God. We have to accept Jesus as our savior or we’ll go to hell and burn forever in eternal agony. Scary. I want everyone to be happy and things to be good and beautiful.

When the preacher talks about sin, I know it’s in my family, in me, in our history. Lying, adultery, anger, and general meanness—it’s all there in abundance. I feel hopeless. When they die, my relatives will go to hell for sure. It makes me want to cry, but I mustn’t, not here in front of my friends.

“Come up, come on up, and let Jesus in your hearts. He’ll take away your pain; he’ll soothe your worries. Put your burdens on him. He’ll hold them for you. He’s the answer. Lord, show these sinners the way.” The preacher invites us, his voice silky smooth, the sweet hymns going straight to my heart.

I peek at the others going forward. A limping old woman with tightly curled white hair goes up and leans against the preacher, whispering in his ear. A red-faced, lanky-limbed boy goes up with his mother. Are they telling him their sins? Are they embarrassed? He lifts his arms to pray them into the fold. I watch carefully to see what happens when you give up your life to God. The preacher says, “Let the Lord hold your burdens. He died for you, for you. Bring your sorrows up and lay them at his feet.”

The music and the sound of the preacher’s voice fill me with a longing I don’t understand. Tears run down my face. I wipe them quickly so no one will see. The congregation sings a gentle, lilting invitation. My foot moves forward a little against my will, but I’m too scared and embarrassed to go to the preacher. In slow motion, I pull my foot back, staring straight ahead. The people sing sweetly, swaying to and fro. There is something here that I want so badly, but I can’t have it. I can’t be like these other people. They seem too happy.

My parents have broken the Ten Commandments by getting divorced. Will they go to hell, too? And there’s Gram, perpetually perched on the sagging couch, cursing and smoking and telling me what a bad girl I am. I wonder if the other kids’ parents act the way she does. I love Gram. I want her to be happy, and to be saved, too. I want her to think I’m good. If she doesn’t think I’m good, does that mean that God doesn’t either? I forget to take out the garbage and don’t always do all my homework. Occasionally I take money from Gram’s purse, a nickel here and a dime there. I only want an occasional candy bar, and Gram won’t give me any allowance. After my day at church, I think differently about these things. I am in danger. I have to be careful.

The next time Gram allows me go to church, Janille and I slide onto the pew, our legs squeaking on the polished wood. I look around, noticing the smiling faces of the women wearing cotton dresses, the men in sport shirts and jackets, some in suits even though it’s at least 97 degrees outside. Inside, it’s like an oven. Perhaps this is what hell is like all the time. Janille grows solemn and silent when her parents join us. “The Old Rugged Cross” makes my chest hurt. Again I have to fight away my tears.

Today the preacher is quietly serious rather than bombastic. I listen to the wages of sin being death and how much we need Jesus to save us. “Just listen to your heart, tune in and hear what it is saying to you. It tells you that you need Jesus, that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the light. Trust in him and he will take away your pain. Come up, come up and give yourself to him.” Five people make their way to the front.

The preacher’s voice is reassuring, promising peace and calm. They are singing “Bringing in the Sheaves” now, and I understand that I am one of the sheaves of wheat; everyone is.

The minister looks directly at me, and I rise. I blend into the sweet singing and promises as I find myself moving down the aisle. My face is a mess, my nose running, my eyes spilling over. The minister smiles pityingly at my poor self and opens his arms. I lean against him gratefully, and he murmurs in my ear, “Do you take Jesus as your savior?”

I’m crying almost too hard to speak. I say yes and manage to answer when he asks me my name. I wish he’d come home with me and protect me from Gram. I guess Jesus will do that now. I can’t wait for my life to get better; it’s going to change starting today. The minister gently turns me around to face the congregation and calls out my name.

I don’t want the eyes of the congregation on me, but I stand there obediently. To my surprise, the strangers smile their approval. I try to stop crying and make myself presentable but finally give up, wishing I was invisible.

“Six more souls for the Lord, out of reach of the Devil.”

Joyous piano music fills the room; voices rise to the rafters. I hold my breath and paste a smile on my face. When it’s over, strangers come up to me, shake my hand, then wander off. Janille waits for me by the door and says nothing, to my relief. I feel as if I’d just stripped off all my clothes in public, but no one seems to have taken much notice.

I arrive at home a new person, with an aching desire to be gathered up into the arms of the minister over and over again. Gram’s beady black eyes peer out from her cave on the couch. Her teeth are stained yellow. She hunches over, chain-smoking, the stinky butts piling up on the coffee table.

“So, what did you do at church?”

“I joined the church, I…”

“You what? You joined those hellfire and damnation Baptists?”

“Well, they’re nice, and they sang and were very friendly. You said I could go.”

“I told you to go and sit there and keep your mouth shut. What did you tell them about me?”

All of a sudden she’s out of control. I should have lied, but I don’t want to be a sinner or a liar.

“How dare you humiliate me like that! Look at you—you’re a mess. Go change your clothes.”