Looking for Me

by Beth Hoffman

  “I’m fine. Norma didn’t mean any harm. She’s a good soul.”

  The cable pulley hummed overhead as a red chairlift scooped us from the platform. The attendant locked the safety bar with a sturdy click, and Olivia’s eyes widened when she saw how far the cable stretched up the mountain. “Um, how far are we going?”

  “A little over a half mile. So don’t flip out on me, because there’s no way to get off until we’re at the top.”

  The higher we moved up the mountain, the quieter it became, until the only sound was the sharp teacher-teacher-teacher call of an ovenbird far below our dangling feet.

  When we reached the top of the mountain and stepped off the platform, I led Olivia along a rugged path where nature offered gift upon gift: bulging tree roots with giant knuckles that formed steps over hazardous terrain, the echo of a pileated woodpecker hammering out its home, the fecund perfume of damp earth and moss.

  As we came upon a crest, I turned and whispered, “Look.” In the sun-checkered shade stood a white-tailed deer. We watched the young doe pick her way around a cluster of ferns, and then she disappeared beneath a dark scaffolding of leaning trees. The wind picked up, and with it came a hymn of the forest—the steady rush of a waterfall, the whistle of an eastern meadowlark, the rustle of dry leaves. To my ears no choir on earth could send a more glorious song through the air.

  A surge of blue filled the sky when we finally reached our destination. Olivia’s lips parted in awe.

  We stood side by side on the highest point of Kentucky’s famed Natural Bridge. As if by magic, more than nine hundred tons of ancient sandstone had been suspended across the mountain face. Sculpted into a soaring arch by 70 million years of weather, it was spectacular and eerie at once.

  To stand here was to experience the magnitude of Mother Nature, to witness her artistry and ruthless power. I closed my eyes and felt the winds of her sympathy move through my hair, and I listened to her tender mercies echo across craggy cliffs.

  To stand here was to feel inadequate and grand and connected to something far beyond comprehension. But most of all, to stand here was to feel forgiven.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “Thanks for all the kitchen gadgets,” Olivia said, sliding a cardboard box across the bed of her truck. “I love that old grinding mill.”

  “You’re welcome.” Together we closed the tailgate, then covered the back with a tarp and tied down the corners. “Be careful going home. I feel guilty for working you half to death.” I looked up and watched dark clouds plow through the sky. “I know you hate driving in the rain. The weatherman said it would hold off, but it sure doesn’t look like it.”

  Olivia dug her keys from her handbag. “He’d better be right, or I’ll hunt him down and stick a barometer up his ass.”

  I burst out laughing.

  “Teddi,” she said, opening the driver’s-side door, “I don’t like leaving you all alone. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

  I gave her a fierce hug. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  Though her eyes conveyed that she thought otherwise, Olivia let it go. She started the engine and rolled down the driveway while Bear stuck his head out the passenger window. I waved good-bye until she vanished around the bend, and then I knelt and rubbed Eddie’s ears. “Well, it’s just you and me.” As much as he loved playing with Bear, he gave me a lick as if he liked that idea.

  After gathering a few empty boxes and another roll of tape, I headed upstairs to Mama’s bedroom. Stacked inside the old pie safe she’d used for storage were magazines, folders filled with recipes, and canceled checks bound together with dried-out rubber bands.

  I sifted through each shelf: keep, toss, save for auction. The feelings and memories that surfaced from touching my mother’s personal things twisted my insides, and twice I had to swallow back my tears. Much of what I found made no sense—an old green woolen scarf that moths had turned to lace, a bag of bobby pins, a chipped glass candleholder. Mama had saved those things, yet I found nothing that held memories of her family.

  I stepped over to Daddy’s night table and pulled open the drawer. It was empty. My eyes darted from the pie safe to her chest of drawers. “Where is it, Mama? Where’d you put Daddy’s Bronze Star? I know it was here after he died.”

  Memories, Mama had once said. Who needs them? The past is the past and best forgotten.

  She’d said those words when I helped her clean Josh’s bedroom four years after he disappeared. In between his mattress and box springs, I’d discovered a manila envelope filled with handmade maps, each with detailed drawings and notes. When I set them aside to take home with me, Mama had turned toward the window and said, “He’s gone, Teddi. Saving those maps will only break your heart.”

  And now, as I lifted her handbag from the desk chair, I spoke into the stillness of the room. “Memories matter to me, Mama.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed with her handbag on my lap and pulled open the zipper. Item by item I removed the contents: a wrinkled linen handkerchief with blue embroidered edges, her green vinyl checkbook stuffed with coupons for chicken soup and a two-for-one Glad Wrap special. Before Mama’s death these things would have meant nothing, but now they had become so precious I could hardly bear to look at them.

  Inside her brown coin purse were two quarters and a tube of lipstick in a shade named Pink Paradise. It was Mama’s favorite color. That half-used tube of lipstick represented the end of my mother’s life more profoundly than her death certificate. I held the lipstick in my hand until the metal tube grew warm, until the first drops of rain spattered against the window.

  SPRING 1969

  Mama was in the kitchen preparing supper. I watched her stand at the counter and roll out baking-powder biscuits, her mouth set in a thin ribbon. Though I didn’t know why, she’d been in a foul mood for days, and by the looks of things she wasn’t going to get happy anytime soon.

  Using a jelly jar turned upside down, she cut the dough into circles and placed them on a baking sheet. Josh and I were sitting at the kitchen table playing a game of checkers. The rules of a quiet house were in force, and we were careful not to giggle or click the checkers together.

  It had been raining for nearly a week, and the ground had swelled beyond capacity. Just that morning Mama had stood at the window and watched a torrent of water lift her marigolds from the ground and carry them down the driveway, the yellow blossoms spinning in circles before they drowned at the side of the road.

  Black clouds rolled low over the house, and flashes of lightning sliced through the sky. Water had trickled into the cellar, and a musty odor rose through the iron grate on the floor by the kitchen table. Mama hated the smell of it and lit a vanilla-scented candle to freshen the air.

  She put the biscuits into the oven and never so much as glanced at Josh and me when she walked to the closet. With an umbrella in hand, she opened the back door and stepped out onto the porch. I pushed back my chair and followed.

  “Where are you going, Mama?”

  “Out to the workshop, to get your father for dinner.”

  A gust of wind blew rain into my face as I pointed to the sky. “No, Mama. Not in this storm. You could get hit by lightning!”

  She turned, her dress getting soaked as the wind ripped through her hair. The look on her face startled me, eyes empty of light, skin as white as paraffin. “Don’t worry,” she said, opening the umbrella. “I couldn’t possibly be that lucky.”

  The memory of that day played over and over in my mind. With her tube of lipstick still clutched in my hand, I turned away from the window and looked around her bedroom. “Why, Mama? Why were you so unhappy? Just look where it got you.”

  From the top drawer of her pine bureau, I removed bras, panties, and slips, all of which I packed into a box. The next drawer held a few skeins of ivory wool and a photo album, its leather cover nearly mummified from age.
r />   I sat on the floor with the album on my lap. Dried-out sheets of protective film crackled and threatened to fall apart in my hands. On the third page was a black-and-white picture of Josh. Sliding it from beneath the film, I angled it to the light. He was about nine or ten and was sitting at the edge of the pond. His smile was wide with innocence, his eyes crinkled into half-moons. I studied that picture for a long time, trying to reconcile the photograph of the child in my hand to the description of the mud-masked man in the newspaper article.

  In the middle of the album was a photograph taken when Daddy had been in the army. He was standing on a Sherman tank with his arm around the shoulders of a man named Max Walker. Max was Daddy’s best war buddy, and the events of one single moment had left the two of them forever bound together.

  It was December of 1944. The Sixth Armored Division was charging through Belgium. Inside the cramped quarters of the tank was a crew of four soldiers, two of whom were Private First Class Max Walker and my dad, Private Henry Overman, who was the bow gunner and assistant driver. The weather was brutal. Subzero temperatures froze the tank turret, and ice had to be chipped away to free the action of the gun. If ice or snow covered the periscope, the driver was rendered blind. That’s when someone with nerves of steel had to climb into the open to clear it off, frequently under enemy fire.

  It was under these conditions that Max Walker exploded from the hatch. While clearing ice from the periscope, he was felled by a bullet that tore into his hip. As he lay writhing in pain, someone jumped from the tank. Under a hailstorm of enemy fire, it was the Kentucky farm boy with the lopsided gait who carried Max Walker back inside the tank. That farm boy was my dad.

  When I reached the last page, it occurred to me that the album in my lap was as fragile as my family’s singular and collective lives, and I held it against my chest for a moment before setting it aside.

  I opened the bottom drawer of Mama’s bureau and removed packages of hosiery and cotton pajamas. Beneath a blue seersucker robe was a shiny white box. Even before removing the lid and unfolding the tissue, I knew what I’d found.

  I had first discovered it when I was five, maybe six years old, and I still remembered every soft tuck and hand-sewn seam. I had touched it dozens of times in my youth, and more than once I’d pretended it was mine.

  Layer by layer I unfolded the tissue.

  Crafted of fine silk and clearly handmade, the nightgown was the color of pink face powder and had a cool, liquid feel, as if you could pour it into a teacup. It was obvious that Mama had never worn it.

  When I was a little girl, I would sometimes tiptoe into my mother’s bedroom when she was down the hall taking her evening bath. I’d wait until I heard her splash, and then would soundlessly pull open the drawer so I could feast my eyes on the incredible gown. Carefully, I’d run my fingers over the slender ribbon straps and marvel at the three perfect silk rosebuds sewn at the center of the gathered bodice. Some nights I would fantasize about the gown until I heard the bathtub drain, belch, and gurgle, and in a mad rush I’d fold the tissue over the gown, push the drawer closed, and hightail it to my bedroom before Mama came padding down the hall.

  The gown looked just as beautiful to me now as it did then. I tucked it back inside the box and set it aside to take home, which I did just two days later, but not because I was done cleaning out the house.

  While carrying an armful of boxes into the dining room and adding them to the dozens already filled with items I planned to tag for a spring yard sale, I stopped and looked around the room. Envisioning my family’s history spread out on tables—the pink melamine dishes Mama had collected with S&H Green Stamps, Daddy’s thermal vests, Grammy’s chipped Mr. and Mrs. Piggy salt and pepper shakers, and my brother’s collection of Lincoln Logs—all of it being picked over and, yes, some of it even chuckled over, was more than I could bear.

  It was time to go back to Charleston.

  The overhead light felt harsh against my tired eyes as I climbed the stairs of my carriage house. I stood in the doorway of the guest bedroom and looked at Mama’s urn. “I cleaned out the house, Mama. Well, most of it anyway. I have a van parked on the street that’s crammed full of boxes. You know what’s in all those boxes, Mama? Memories.”

  I turned and went into the kitchen to feed Eddie. From the cupboard I removed a tin of chamomile tea, and I set the kettle on the stove. While waiting for the water to boil, I marched back to the guest room and plunked down on the edge of the bed.

  “And guess what else, Mama? I brought back so many boxes full of memories that I don’t know where the heck to store them. If I had a house, it’d be different. But I don’t. Wanna know why I don’t have a house? I’m finally going to tell you.

  “Remember how you poked me for not owning my own home? Well, I’d have one by now if Grammy hadn’t broken her hip. But her medical insurance doesn’t cover all the nursing-home costs, so I’ve had to bridge the gap. I’m glad I can do it, but damn it, Mama, I don’t make enough money to pay my rent, take care of Grammy, and keep the farm, too. I love that farm, and it’ll rip me apart to sell it.

  “So while you’re up there knitting white socks for angels or bitching about the food being too salty, just take a look down here and see for yourself—I have the prettiest little shop you could imagine, and if you hadn’t up and died before you got here, you’d know exactly what I’m talkin’ about. I miss you so much, Mama. And I’m mad at you, too.”

  Rising from the bed, I gave her urn a little ping with my finger and left the room.

  TWENTY-TWO

  There were several antique shops in Charleston, and though we owners had a healthy respect for one another’s quirks and individual areas of expertise, there was no mistaking the undercurrent of rivalry. I was just about to head out the door to see what my competitors were showcasing when a man walked in. He was short and paunchy, with a baseball cap pulled low on his head. A plastic pocket protector with the words RODNEY’S WRECKING & TOWING printed on its front glared from his navy blue polo shirt. He was one of those people who filled up a room upon entering, and not in a good way. He spoke before I even had the chance to extend a greeting.

  “My wife was in here on Saturday. She talked to a short woman with red hair about that chest.” He pointed a beefy finger toward the eighteenth-century Renaissance chest that I’d recently acquired. “When she asked about negotiating the price, the redhead said all prices were decided by the owner. So that’s why I’m here. Is the owner around?”

  “My name is Teddi Overman. I’m the owner.”

  His eyes swept over me. “My wife says the price of that chest is three thousand dollars. I told her that was ridiculous. She must have misunderstood.”

  “Your wife is correct. This chest was crafted in Italy in the mid-1800s. The Italians are known for selecting specimen woods. As you can see, it’s in remarkable condition.” I pulled open the top drawer and showed him how beautifully it was constructed. “This is Brazilian rosewood. Pieces like this don’t come along very often. All things considered, it’s a steal.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “A steal? Are you one of those Charleston trust-fund kids who don’t know how hard it is to earn a dollar?”

  Slowly, I pushed the drawer closed and looked him in the eyes. “No, I’m originally from Kentucky. And from where do you hail, Mr. . . . ?

  “Barnes. Rodney Barnes. Came up from Miami to visit my wife’s nephew. He’s a cadet at The Citadel. Now, there’s a place packed with trust-fund kids. Anyway, as for this here chest, I’ve gotta be honest with you—”

  Oh, here it comes, the baloney that precedes the dickering.

  “There’s a shop a few blocks away that has a chest a lot like it for a whole lot less money.”

  “Well,” I said, making a sweeping gesture toward the door, “then I suggest you go buy it.”

  As this clearly wasn’t the response he was expecting, Mr.
Barnes took a small step back. “I would, but see, my wife wants this one. It’s her birthday, and I promised her she could pick out whatever she wanted.”

  “Oh, with your charming ways, I’m sure you can reason with her, Mr. Barnes. And who knows? Maybe you can get the other chest for even less than you think.”

  He glanced out the front window and sucked his teeth. I could almost see his mind churning to come up with his next strategy. But I had my own strategy, too. Though Mr. Palmer had taught me the art of haggling, there were rare events when holding firm rendered the best results.

  “Look, here’s the deal,” he said, turning toward me. “I’ll give you fifteen hundred dollars cash for this chest as long as you throw in the shipping.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t have any wiggle room.”

  “Aw, c’mon,” he scoffed. “When cash is on the table, there’s always wiggle room. I thought you said you were the owner.”

  I flashed him an icy look. “I am. But I wouldn’t be for long if I gave away my precious antiques. It’s been nice speaking with you, Mr. Barnes. I hope you and wife enjoy your visit in Charleston.”

  Just as he opened his mouth, the bell above the door chimed and a woman walked in. From the look on Rodney’s face, I knew that the chubby blonde was his wife. Her red skirt was as tight as a second skin, and she hurried forward with quick little steps that sent her hoop earrings swaying.

  Rodney looked both surprised and annoyed to see her. “Chrissie, I told you I’d meet you when I was done. We’re just now finishing up, so why don’t you run along and—”

  “I couldn’t wait,” she bubbled. “Isn’t that chest the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?” Sliding her arm around his thick waist, she looked in his eyes. “Did you get it for me?”

  His lips formed a stiff smile. “Yes, honey. I got you your chest for a real nice price.”