How to Build a Heart

by Maria Padian

  After the hymn the congregation sits. The minister moves to center front and launches into the opening prayer . . . when I see her. Far left, front, lemony dress.

  Grandma Crawford.

  She looks straight ahead at the minister, jaw set. Her white hair is molded in helmetlike curls, like she’s just had it done and sprayed. She’s superthin: all sharp angles and bones. Like dry kindling in a yellow bag.

  I’ve seen so little of either of my grandmothers, but this I know: they are nothing alike. Abuela is all soft curves and hugs, little pats and constant kisses. Her English is worse than my Spanish, so she talks to me with the food she insists I eat and the teary goodbyes after our rare visits. Her church in Puerto Rico is not this blond-wood, well-lighted place: it’s candles and plastic statues of saints who have been killed in all sorts of gruesome ways. It’s all mystery, blood and gore, with a massive crucified Jesus hanging on the wall behind the altar.

  That Jesus scared me when I was a little girl. But it’s nothing compared to the nerves I feel now, with all these eyes—like crawly bugs—on me.

  I must be staring at Grandma Crawford, because she turns her head. As if my thoughts are lasers boring into her skull. Our eyes meet.

  Hers narrow. Not in a mean way. More . . . curious. Like the item she’d ordered from Amazon finally arrived and wasn’t quite what she expected when she opened it. Her mouth twists, like she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s sucking on a hard candy. She turns back to face the minister.

  I think I stop breathing. At least, that’s how it feels when Mark speaks into my ear, startling me to exhale.

  “Real warm and fuzzy, right?” he whispers. He noticed.

  I don’t answer. I don’t know what to think. Or what I expected. Just . . . not that.

  The service blows by in a series of songs and prayers, and next thing I know everyone is filing out. Everyone—regular parishioners and Crawfords alike—visits over coffee and donuts in the fellowship hall. Aunt Carrie navigates for me, quietly whispering names when various relatives approach with “Is this Charlie’s girl?” or “How are you, sweetheart?” I sort of know most of them, especially the older folks. They haven’t changed nearly as much as the Littles.

  After donuts, the general public leaves and the Crawfords get to work, setting up folding tables and putting out food. For some reason they treat me like a guest, so when I head to the kitchen to help, one of the aunties shoos me away and tells me to go have fun. I’m not sure what that entails, since everyone else is occupied, but then I see a girl arranging a table by herself in the corner.

  It’s Grace of the “lonely” child question. I do the math in my head and figure she must be thirteen by now.

  “Hi. Grace, right?” I begin when I approach her.

  She’s removing something from a box and turns. Her face lights with recognition. “Cousin Izzy!” she exclaims. “Hey! I heard you were here!” She places the objects she’s holding on the table and wraps her arms around my shoulders in a quick squeeze. “Little” Grace is taller than me. “How are you?”

  “Bored,” I confess. “No one will let me help.”

  She laughs. “Well, you can help me with these photos. I got dozens. We’ll arrange them here and you can catch me up!”

  Grace talks nonstop while we work. I hear all about her school and who’s at Reunion this year and who isn’t and who got engaged and who’s got a boyfriend and . . . yeah. Grace’ll “talk ya.” That’s how Daddy always described way-chatty people.

  Speaking of: Grace pauses for breath and looks at me meaningfully as she places a picture front and center.

  It’s my father’s formal Marine portrait. And even though I can’t stand that photo, suddenly seeing him there, staring at me, threatens to bring on the tears.

  “I know you must miss him so bad,” Grace says, placing one hand on my arm.

  You can’t even imagine, I don’t say. He should be in this room right now, standing with a brother or two, cold drink in hand, smiling that Big Charlie Crawford smile. I would join them and murmur so only he could hear, “That Grace. She’ll talk ya,” and see his eyes crinkle with laughter and wink in that our-little-secret way. I would tell him Grandma Crawford looks sour as a lemon in that dress. And Aunt Carrie is so nice. And Mark has grown up to be kind, go figure. And the hogs still stink and the dirt around here’s still kinda red and . . .

  God, this was a mistake. Charlie Crawford isn’t here. He’s missing from here more than he’s missing everywhere else. The big black hole of Charlie Crawford Is Dead is bigger and blacker in the places where he should be. In the places where I remember him. Where I need him.

  As hard as it is to feel alone, it’s harder to feel alone in a room full of people. And unbearable to feel alone where you’re supposed to belong. Like, with family. Daddy’s what connected us to this clan: he knew all the players and all the rules of their games. Without him, I don’t know where I fit or what I’m supposed to do. Definitely not unwrapping foil pans of fried chicken or hauling tables and setting out chairs.

  Or even arranging family photos. As if I needed more evidence I don’t belong, the next I pull from the box is the one from Grandma Crawford’s sixtieth. Where she’s surrounded by all the grandchildren. Except me. I set it on the table like it’s fire-hot.

  “Oh, I remember that day!” Grace begins, but then checks herself. An embarrassed expression creases her face, like she’s just walked in on someone using the bathroom.

  “Yeah, who could forget Grandma Crawford’s birthday,” I comment.

  Grace smiles politely. “Can I ask . . . why d’you call her that?” she says. “‘Grandma Crawford’?”

  “My mother,” I tell her. “She’s strict about how we address adults, so that’s what she taught me to say. You all call her Mawmaw, right?”

  “Meemaw,” Grace corrects. “But she doesn’t like it. She thinks it’s common.” Grace glances around, as if someone might overhear her. “She can be snobby,” she confides. “She tried to get us to call her Grand. But Meemaw stuck.” She giggles. “Except for Jonnie. His parents warned him to always say ‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘No, ma’am’ when he talked to her? But Jonnie’s sort of nervous? So he just called her Ma’am. And that stuck.”

  Something inside me stills. Like Grace hit the “mute” and “pause” buttons simultaneously.

  Ma’am says she might as well be black! Jonnie’s words about Mami.

  I’m so stupid. God, I’m so stupid.

  “Could you excuse me?” I say, and walk quickly away before she says another thing. I’m not sure where to go, so I make for the exit doors, in search of a shady tree. Unfortunately, it’s hot as hell even in the shade, so I start to walk. I don’t know where, just . . . away.

  I need to clear my head. Because here’s the thing: I’m not sure how bad this is.

  And even just a little bad isn’t okay.

  I’ve covered maybe two blocks, and my sandal straps are rubbing blisters into my ankles when someone shouts my name. Mark. Of course.

  “Where’s the fire?” he exclaims, panting, when he catches up.

  I decide not to bury the lede. “‘Ma’am’?” I demand. “Jonnie calls Grandma Crawford Ma’am?”

  He hesitates. Like a witness on the stand, worried he might say something to incriminate himself. “Yeah. What, you didn’t know that?”

  I shake my head violently, my hair whipping itself out of its knot. “No, I did not! You people ‘ma’am’ everyone! Mami used to tease Daddy about it. Whenever he’d come back to North Carolina he’d lay the Southern accent on thick and start ma’aming every woman in sight.”

  “Sorry that upsets you. Down here, we call it manners.”

  I stamp my foot in frustration. “Is it ‘manners’ that she said Mami might as well be black?” I demand.

  Now Mark looks completely confused. “Yo
u talked to her? And she said that?”

  “No! Last Reunion I came to. Remember, Jonnie said she said it?”

  Mark rolls his eyes. “You do know Jonnie’s stupid, right?”

  “It doesn’t matter if he’s stupid! It matters if she said it!”

  Mark scrunches his nose, thinking. It reminds me of Jack. “I do recall something like that,” he finally says. “But, Cuz, no one pays any mind to Jonnie. And Meemaw’s just mean as a snake. To everyone. I mean, she calls me white trash. To my face.”

  I stare at him. Does he really think calling him white trash is the same as saying Mami might as well be black? As if painting people who aren’t lily-white with a single brushstroke of “other” is just . . . mean?

  He doesn’t get it. Because in spite of everything—ruining the cake, drinking and drugging, breaking and entering—he’s still in the picture. And I’m not.

  I’m not sure what’s going on here, but it’s not right. It smells. Like hog stench. Sometimes so strong it hits you clear in the face and you stagger backwards, but most times? It’s a hint. A whiff. Something lurking beneath the sweet perfumes and smiles that you can’t grab hold of. But it’s there.

  Mark thinks it’s just people being mean or stupid, the way Sam and Aubrey think Crew Cut Taunton is just an asshole. But they don’t smell it from where I stand. Downwind.

  “I think maybe you’re not enough of a hater to see the hate,” I tell him.

  Now he looks concerned. He takes a step closer to me. “No one hates you, Izzy. Come to think of it, I think my momma likes you more’n she does me.”

  “I don’t mean you guys. Your family’s great. You know who I’m talking about.”

  He takes another step closer. “She’s not right. Daddy says she never was, even before his daddy died and left her with four boys. Then she lost a son? Your daddy? I’m not making excuses, but it explains things. She had to be tough to survive, and it sort of left her all shriveled inside. But does it matter? She’s part of the past. I mean, you were just in there. It’s like an . . . ambulatory care convention.”

  For some reason, hearing Mark use the word “ambulatory” strikes me as hilarious. Not that I can laugh. But his comment is like cold water dumped on all my hot mad.

  “Well, my mother’s a widow, too. But I can’t think of a single person who’d call her mean as a snake. Except maybe Gloria. And my brother’s teacher.”

  Mark smiles. “You’ll have to tell me about that. But for right now, can we head back? It’s hot out here and I’m hungry.”

  I shake my head. I’m done. “You go without me,” I tell him. “I’m walking back to your house.” It’s probably a mile or two, but even if I shred my feet to bloody bits in these sandals, I’m leaving. As I set off down the steamy sidewalk, I feel Mark’s eyes burn holes in my back.

  “So that’s it?” he calls after me. “You’re running away? Again? Isn’t that why you came here in the first place?”

  I wave at him over my head.

  “Fine!” he shouts. It sounds like “fahn.” “Then you’re not who I thought you were!”

  This stops me midstep. I turn. I’m a good twenty feet away, but I can see the fierce blaze in his eyes.

  “I thought you were Big Uncle Charlie’s daughter. And he never ran from anything.”

  28

  The bus trip between Clayton and Queen’s Mountain takes an agonizing nine hours because it stops in dozens of little towns along the way. If you drive your own car and obey the speed limit, it’s only five hours.

  If you’re Mark, and speed limits are merely suggestions, you can make the trip in four.

  That’s the deal we cut after I got in his face and told him to shut-up-and-what-the-hell-do-you-know-about-my-father? He didn’t flinch. He said fine, prove you’re not a wuss. Come back to the party in the fellowship hall, and I’ll give you a lift back to Virginia.

  I don’t know what was hotter: the sidewalk or my temper. And I still don’t know where Mark got off talking about “Big Uncle Charlie,” like he really knew him. But here’s the thing: my daddy was the bravest. And accusing me of being less than his daughter? Well, those were fighting words. And made me realize, for the first time in a long time, that I wanted to be the girl he would have expected me to be.

  No more Isabella “Chicken” Crawford.

  Besides, I hate long bus rides.

  So I marched right back and got on line for lunch.

  All through the fried chicken and biscuits and pie, I prayed. Through the hugs on hugs from people who kept explaining how I was related to them and how happy they were to see me. Through the polite chorus of “How’s your mother?” and questions about my brother they’d never met. Through the Littles (now big) and the Bigs (some married) and right up to the moment when I approached the corner table where Grandma Crawford sat.

  Everyone paid their respects to her. As the matriarch and sole owner of the family hog business—which, Mark explained, she had saved, even when all the farms around them got bought out by big companies—she was the boss. The so-called iron fist in the velvet glove. She didn’t manage the day-to-day operations anymore, but everyone knew: she was the last word.

  And they owed her.

  I was beginning to see my daddy’s decision to join the Marines in a new light.

  When I finally had a chance to approach her, Mark came with me. I think it was half for moral support and half out of sick curiosity to see what would happen.

  “You remember Izzy, right?” he began. “Uncle Charlie and Aunt Rita’s girl? She’s come all the way from Clayton, Virginia, for Reunion.” The others had bent to kiss her papery cheeks, and I could see her lift her chin slightly, preparing for me to do the same.

  I did not.

  I stood there and waited for her to speak.

  “Clayton, Virginia,” she said, her thin lips barely moving. “Is that where you live now?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We moved there less than a year ago.”

  “And how do you like Clayton, Virginia?”

  I found it odd that she repeated the name. “I like it very much, thank you.”

  “They’re building a house there,” Mark added.

  One of Grandma Crawford’s eyebrows rose ever so slightly. “Building a house?” she asked.

  “With Habitat for Humanity,” Mark explained.

  I shot him a let-me-do-my-own-talking look, but I don’t think he noticed. Grandma Crawford seemed amused by his revelation. “I suppose that gives you both something in common,” she said. Which should have been nice, but I could tell: it was not a compliment. Although what she said next was probably her version of a compliment.

  “You favor your father.”

  I knew she didn’t mean my Crawford eyes. She was talking color. My light skin. I wasn’t one of the piglet-pink blondes like Grace, but I could . . . pass. And while I’m not as fair as my daddy, I’m not as dark as Mami. Or Jack.

  I’d been hiding for a long time. Behind my school uniforms, behind my complicated car pool plans, my borrowed clothes, all the stories I made up in every new town we called home. But standing there as my grandmother complimented me for favoring my light-skinned parent was the first time I felt shame for all the times I pretended to be something I wasn’t. Letting people think I was something I wasn’t.

  All afternoon I’d prayed for the right words to say to that woman. But not until that very comment were my prayers answered.

  “Actually, I don’t favor anyone,” I told her. “I’m a little Crawford. A little Garcia. And all Isabella.” I took a step closer. I wanted to make sure she heard every word. Because it was going to be the last time I’d ever speak to her.

  “But if I grow up to be half as cool as my parents, I’ll be happy. Especially my mother. D’you know, my daddy loved her so much. He used to say, ‘Izzy, your mother is the b
est thing that ever happened to me.’” I waited for that to sink in. “The best thing,” I repeated.

  Her old eyes glittered, but other than that, she didn’t react.

  “I thought you should know that.” Then I turned and walked out, Mark following close behind.

  He tailed me straight outdoors, the adrenaline coursing through my blood making my feet fast. Once outside, I tried to slow my racing heart with deep breaths.

  “Gotta hand it to you, Cuz,” he said, “you’re something in a fight.”

  “For that,” I told him, struggling not to gasp, “you don’t just owe me a ride. You owe me hours.”

  “Say what?” Mark asked.

  “Equity,” I told him.

  Which is how I find myself two days later, sitting on the Scrouch with Mark, playing with Paco, when Mami and Jack pull up. They weren’t expecting us until after dinner, but at Mark-miles-per-hour, we’re way early.

  “Izzy!” my little brother cries, banging the door open. He jumps into my arms and we twirl. He smells like crayons and playground dust. His little body is warm. I hold on for a long time.

  “Jack,” I say when I finally put him down, “this is our cousin Mark. Mark, meet Jack.”

  Mark stands, holding Paco in his left hand while he sticks out his right. He and Jack shake. “Hey, Jack. Good to meet you.”

  “You’re staying in my room tonight,” Jack informs him. “I’m sleeping with Mami.”

  Mark and I exchange glances over my brother’s head. We’d been making bets over what the arrangements might be. I just won a dollar.

  “Thank you,” Mark says. “It’s very nice of you to give up your bed.”

  “That’s okay! It’s only one night. Then you’re going to Ms. Betts’s!”

  Before either of us can register surprise, Mami appears, a grocery bag in each arm. Mark, wisely, hands me Paco and makes a beeline for her.

  “Hey, Aunt Rita, let me help you with those!” he says, grabbing them both. This buys me a second.

  “How much trouble am I in?” I mutter.