Sister Golden Hair: A Novel (3 page)

“Here we are!” my dad said as we passed the Bent Tree sign and pulled onto a street lined on either side by two-story duplexes. Twenty-five units climbed up the side of the mountain, each a boxy red-brick building with six front windows, two doors, and tin chimneys like mushrooms springing up from the roof. My dad had made the place sound like a fancy mountain-top resort, the sort of hotel in which the young heroines in the books I read spent their summers. But the duplexes in Bent Tree looked more like army barracks.

The manager, a short man with a comb-over and a huge set of keys dangling from his belt, was waiting for us. He looked like an even smaller version of Sonny Bono, bereft without his Cher.

Dad followed the manager into the duplex and we sat in the car waiting. Insects throbbed and a bird shrieked back in the woods. My little brother crawled over the seat and got in Mom’s lap. The top half of each duplex was covered in beige aluminum siding; strips had fallen off here and there, exposing patches of gray cement. Most of the windows were covered with blinds, but a few people had strung sheets over the glass. One showed a Confederate flag. A rusty grill lay on its side and a few motorcycles were parked
along the street. In the yard next to our unit was a concrete birdbath.

As we drove out of Bent Tree, my father told my mother how the woman inside our duplex wouldn’t speak to him or the manager. The manager said Bent Tree’s owner felt once you’d signed the contract, you’d committed yourself to spending at least a year in the development. Still, if an annulment was needed, if we really wanted our deposit back, he would issue us a check. My mother didn’t answer; she just ran her hand through my brother’s hair as he slept on her lap. I kept waiting for Dad to tell us about his plan B but he was quiet. I knew my father wouldn’t get his first check for another week and we were down to our last forty dollars and that the motel room cost $19.95 a night. I knew, too, that we couldn’t go back to Philadelphia; our house held a new family, a young couple with a baby. Once, when a job hadn’t worked out, we’d gone to live with Dad’s parents. Another time we’d stayed with my mother’s sister for a few weeks, but my aunt had made it clear when we left that that would be the last time.

The sun had gone down and my dad turned on the car headlights. After a while he stopped on the side of the road and spoke to a hitchhiker waiting on the soft shoulder. The man wore a small backpack, a cheesecloth shirt, and jeans with a
V
cut in the bottom of
each leg and a triangle of paisley material sewn in to make the bell swing wide. His curly brown hair fell at his collarbone and he had a mass of freckles. Most thrilling was the string of seeds—Love Beads—around his neck. The young man got into our station wagon. I was all the way in the back lying on my stomach, reading the funny pages of the newspaper with a flashlight. I peered over the seat. My mother had smeared white cream on a rash around my mouth and I was terrified an actual hippie might see my greasy face, or worse, the red dots all over my chin.

“Hi, everybody!” he said. “My name is Guy.”

“Where you headed, Guy?” my father asked in the nothing-to-lose voice he always used when talking to hippies.

“Up to Floyd,” Guy said. Floyd was farther up in the mountains, the place local hippies hung out. I could tell my father was disappointed with Guy’s reply. I knew my father felt if Guy was free enough to be a real hippie, he would march in protests against Vietnam, or head for the Deep South to register black voters. I knew Dad had been sad to miss the fund-raiser that spring for McGovern, the one where James Taylor and Carole King sang.

“Do you live up there?”

“Oh no,” Guy said. “I’m just checking it out.”

Wow!
I thought.
Guy doesn’t have a home either.
But unlike us, he didn’t seem to care; he was living free and easy. Sitting sideways in the backseat, looking out the
window, he told us he’d hitched up to Maine, which was crazy beautiful. He was thinking about checking out Japan. A guy he knew was teaching English. My mother pressed her body against the passenger-side door, as if Guy might have head lice. Just before we pulled off the highway we let Guy out. I turned to see him receding in the glow of our headlights. He walked backward carrying a cardboard sign that read:
HELLO, FELLOW HUMAN! CAN YOU SPARE A RIDE?

After Guy was gone, my father talked about life on the road, speculating on the potential for adventure. We could buy a camper and just take off, live in the moment. I knew he was saying this so he wouldn’t have to talk about Bent Tree. Finally he asked my mother what she thought we should do. She didn’t answer. She stared out the window, her lips pressed together.

Back in the motel room she went into the bathroom to change into her nightgown and take off her makeup. When she came out she flung herself on the bed. At first my dad continued to try to talk to her, saying if the woman—whose name was Miranda—wasn’t out by Sunday, that was it, that was absolutely the cut-off date. Mom didn’t say anything. She just lay on the bed staring at the dull ceiling, her eyes open and empty like a dead person’s.

After a while Dad gave up trying to talk to her. He got us changed into our pajamas. I heard the television in the room next door and in the parking lot a car door slammed. My brother fell asleep immediately. I pretended to sleep, every now and then letting out a long dramatic breath to prove I was unconscious.

My mother stood up and walked over to the phone on the dresser beside the television. She had on her mint-green nightgown and she’d taken off her mascara so the skin around her eyes was smudged.

“I’m going to call my parents and see if I can take the children there.”

“Don’t do that,” my father said from behind his newspaper.

She picked up the receiver and put her finger into the plastic dial.

“I’m sick of this,” she said. “I’m calling right now.”

“Don’t!” My father lowered the paper.

My mother pulled the rotary to the end and let it ratchet back.

He stood up and tried to take the phone from her hand, but she held on so hard the skin over her bones turned white.

“Don’t touch me,” she said, holding the receiver over her head.

“You’ll feel better when you’re in the duplex,” he said, taking the receiver from her hand and placing it back into its cradle. “You’re just tired.”

She let him lead her over to the bed, but when he tried to put his arm around her she shrugged him off and moved back to her earlier position on the far side of the mattress, her face to the wall.

In the night, when the train whistle woke me, rattling the window beside my bed, I saw through the dark that my mom was still lying on top of the covers, now in her quilted bathrobe, her back to me, her face toward the wall. I thought she was at a 2 moving toward a 1, but then I heard her long, even breaths and realized she’d fallen asleep. My dad was sitting in the vinyl chair by the television. At first I thought he was sleeping too, but then I saw the whites of his eyes gleam in the parking lot light slanting through the break in the curtains. Of course he was worried about my mom, where we’d live, if we had enough money, but I think his
grand plan
was also failing. He’d given up church stuff, the prayers, the creeds, the vows that he had told me were a waste of time. He didn’t want to dig a channel, he wanted to find the spring and let it flow over us. We were, he had told me with great enthusiasm, in a period of devolution, unlearning what we knew. It seemed crazy to me that my dad was trying to get to a place without maps, or directions. He was tired, confused, despairing. And what if God actually was dead like a lot of people said? Then, rather than finding Him, my Dad was going to have to invent Him all by himself.

Early in the morning, Dad came in with donuts. He told us he’d already been back up to Bent Tree. Miranda was gone and we could move in. We got dressed and threw everything into our suitcases. On the drive Dad played the radio, and he kept glancing over at my mom in her paisley head scarf and sunglasses.

“You look like a movie star going incognito,” he told her.

She turned her head toward him and softened her mouth.

As we pulled up in front of our duplex, Mr. Ananais, the manager, stood by the curb waiting for us.

“She’s still in there,” he said. “I had her out earlier this morning but she got spooked and locked herself back in.”

“Now what?” my mother said.

“Well,” the manager said hesitantly, “I think if she heard the children’s voices—”

“No way,” my mother said. “I’m not having my kids exposed to some lunatic.”

“Come on,” my dad said. “It’s worth a try.”

“I’m not going,” my mom said, looking straight out the window.

“I’ll go,” I said.

“Me too,” said Phillip.

Inside the duplex a few boxes were stacked against walls. The floor was covered with mangy gold shag and the walls were white, holes here and there where pictures had hung. The rooms smelled like incense.

Mr. Ananais led us upstairs, down a short hallway to a closed bedroom door.

“Miranda,” Mr. Ananais said, “the new tenants are here.”

Beyond the door, mattress springs released and I heard soft footsteps moving closer. I could hear Miranda breathing against the wood.

“I’m in a very bad mood,” she said.

“Do you want me to tell you more stories about my cat?” Mr. Ananais asked.

Dad looked at me with his eyes wide open. Mr. Ananais was more accommodating to the woman than either of us had expected.

“Yes,” Miranda said, “that would be nice.”

“Well my cat, Hector, likes to watch TV.
Bonanza
is his favorite show. He knows exactly when it comes on each afternoon. If it’s not on, he gets mad and goes to the television and meows until I turn it on. I put a pillow down and he lies with his paws folded in front of him.”

Mr. Ananais looked at my father, who was flushed and smiling. More than anything else in life, Dad grooved on surreal situations. If my mom had been here, she’d have been whispering that this was crazy.

“Why don’t you say hello, kids?” Mr. Ananais suggested.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Jesse. I’m twelve . . .”

What else would she like to know about me? I could tell her how I loved to read or that lavender was my favorite color, but in the end I went with my favorite candy bar.

“. . . and I love Almond Joy bars . . .”

“I like fire engines,” Phillip said. “And pizza!”

There was silence but it had a different texture, more like macramé than leather.