Shem Creek

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Whatever, I said. So she’s got a brain. So what? Daddy’s acting like an ass.

  “He’s not acting, Lindsey said, he is one.

  “Lindsey agreed with me that it was a little sudden for Dad to be moving in with someone. Okay, he dates a woman. Fine. But now he’s living with someone? We decided she must be desperate.

  “So Lindsey and I sat there for a few minutes, staring across the street and all around at Daddy and Patti’s neighborhood, with its rolling lawns, clipped hedges, the population of Range Rovers, BMWs, and Benzes and it was plain as day that the money gulf between his life and ours had widened again. It was like this—Daddy owned the power company, Mom had a flashlight and we sat in the dark trying to light a match.

  “It didn’t matter what we thought about fairness. Money was the only reason we ever fought. He gave and he didn’t give, depending on his mood and how hard we begged. It’s awful. I don’t understand how he can just do what he wants and never consult anyone. I mean, he bought himself a Range Rover but refused to buy . . . listen, he wouldn’t even pay for Lindsey’s SAT tutor! How cheap is that? And how stupid? I mean, Lindsey is the brain in the family! If she thinks she needs a tutor, why would anyone say no?”

  “I don’t understand your father,” Aunt Mimi said.

  “It’s so complicated,” I said. “It’s just so complicated.”

  It was barely eight o’clock in the morning and I felt my eyes burning with tears.

  “Baby, I am so sorry you had to go through that,” Aunt Mimi said. “Let me fix you a glass of tea. Come on now.”

  She handed me a tissue and I blew my nose. I couldn’t help it; I just started crying all over again. Big fat tears just came pouring out of my eyes. Aunt Mimi pulled me into her side and when I started to gulp, she just said, Oh, Lord, honey. It’s gonna be all right. She hugged me so hard, I just gave in and wailed like a baby. It felt kind of good to let it all go. I had not cried that hard since Daddy walked out on us.

  Maybe one of the reasons Mom wanted us to move to South Carolina was to get all of us out from under the thumb of Dad’s endless insults. It wasn’t only about money, really, it was about being considered in someone else’s life. And, it was about your father loving you and wanting to take care of you.

  That should not have been too much to expect.

  FOUR

  NO TRAVELING FOOLS

  THE very first thing I did when I reached the outskirts of Montclair was make a mental list of all the real estate brokers I knew, deciding at last to call Gretchen Prater. She would tell me exactly what I needed to do to put the house up for sale. I had never sold a house and I had no idea what ours was worth. I knew the train connection to Manhattan had pushed real estate values up and I was hoping we would clear enough to buy a reasonable house in South Carolina.

  Because Lindsey helped me with the driving, we had made the trip to New Jersey in one day—a very long day. It would be a week before my knees would stop hurting. I had called from Richmond as I had said I would, and spoke to Mimi, who said everything was fine, that I shouldn’t worry about a single solitary thing. All I could think was, what I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me, and I knew Mimi well enough to know that she was probably fully steeped in Gracie’s baloney, thinking there was no bottom to her well of complaints.

  Gracie had yet to become fully acquainted with the grace and steel of my sister’s spine. Mimi would muster up her strength, Gracie would find herself put in her proper place and she would never know how it happened. Gracie would never remember a battle or the pain of a fall, only that somehow, without a single raised voice or any kind of argument, she had come to a new point of view about a few things. That was the Magic of Mimi.

  I was weary and light rain was falling. A thick mist, typical of New Jersey rains, was all around the traffic. Lindsey had fallen asleep in the front seat, leaning against the window. She seemed so innocent. I saw for the millionth time that her mouth was the same shape as mine. Glancing over every now and then, I was reminded of how angelic she looked as a baby, sleeping on her stomach in her crib, cheek pressed against the sheet, breathing through her mouth. Soon, she would be leaving me and I wondered how I would adjust in the coming months without her. What a wonderful daughter she was—never a moment of trouble, but she was moody in a dark kind of way that worried me sometimes. She dreamed vividly and as a small child of seven or eight, she would wake up over and over all night, frequently having trouble separating her dreams from reality. But as she had immersed herself in school, her flute and in astronomy, she had become more withdrawn from us, except for her daily scream fests with Gracie, who usually provoked them. I was very relieved to have this time with her because for once I needed her more than she needed me.

  We came into town from Route 280 and stopped at the traffic light by Pal’s Cabin. It was after midnight but the roads were still busy. I never ceased to wonder what all these folks were doing up so late. But, living as close as we did to Manhattan, I knew they could be doing any number of things, going to work, coming home from work, looking for an all-night pharmacy and God knows, looking for someone to make them feel better, even if only for an hour or two. Sometimes the sheer masses of people all around me were overwhelming. I knew they all had lives, many of them had children, spouses, in-laws . . . who were they? These hordes of humanity?

  Sometimes living in the New York area seemed like a great experiment in anthropology. Perhaps we had not really come so far since the cave. The only difference between high-rise apartment buildings and cave dwellings were creature comforts. (And, things like penicillin and thank God, cosmetics.) It seemed like we still ventured out to hunt and gather, hurried home with the kill and enjoyed what we could glean from our lives.

  What I had been able to glean had always been precious little. Things would be better for us in the Lowcountry if for no other reason than the difference in the cost of living. Maybe I could even save some money for once. I waited at the light at Bloomfield Avenue, thinking about what South Carolina would bring. Even though a huge task lay before me, I was energized for all of it.

  I liked Brad Jackson a lot. I was looking forward to working for him, being around people again during the daytime, doing things with Mimi, and most of all having a real life for myself. Obviously, I had my cross to bear with Gracie and I wasn’t too thrilled about the inevitable mental gymnastics and exhaustion that would come along with trying to get her on the right path and keep her there. How could two daughters from the same womb be so different?

  Lindsey began to stir.

  “Where are we?” she said.

  “Almost home, baby. Probably time to sit up and look alive, huh?”

  “Oh, God! I could sleep for a thousand years.”

  “Well, you just stay in bed in the morning and I’ll get you up when I get things organized, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  She was watching our town whiz past us with melancholy eyes. This might be one of the last times we passed the Montclair Art Museum together, Whole Foods, the police station . . . each of these landmarks was part of the collage of our lives together.

  In minutes, I pulled into our driveway. We got out, groaning from stiffness, and took our duffle bags from the back of the car, and walked across our yard. We were traveling light, saving room for the return trip. The house was dark, newspapers thrown all over the stoop, even though I had canceled it, and the mailbox was jammed with catalogs and circulars.

  “Forget it,” I said, “we can get this junk in the morning.”

  “Good idea.”

  Once I could see that robbers had not carried away the beat-up and worn-out contents of our house, sleep came easily. In the morning, the warmth of streaming light roused me like a gentle hand nudging my shoulder. I was surprised that I had slept so long. It was after eight o’clock. I smelled coffee and hurried down to the kitchen.

  “Morning, Mom! Hey, here’s your coffee!”

  “Thanks, sweetheart. What got
you up so early?”

  “I don’t know, I woke up around six and couldn’t go back to sleep. My mind was all cranked, you know? I figured well, I couldn’t do a lot of stuff around here to really help you, but I could gather up all the magazines and the tons of crap mail and put it in bags to throw out, right? So, that’s what I’ve been doing.”

  The coffee was so weak I could see the bottom of my cup. She had filled three shopping bags. As a tribute to her thoughtfulness, I complimented her.

  “Hot coffee. Stuff of the gods.”

  Lindsey smiled and I smiled with her.

  All morning long, she cleaned closets while I worked with Gretchen, my broker friend.

  “What do you think?” I said.

  “I think that if you spend a thousand dollars, you’ll make another twenty!”

  “Really?”

  “Linda. Think about it. You can walk to the train station from here. This house is a commuter’s dream. There are only so many locations that are in walking distance.”

  “I’ve been here for twenty years.”

  “Yeah, it’s a lifetime, isn’t it?” She smiled at me, probably remembering when her daughters would babysit for mine. Those were sweet years. And, so long ago.

  I stopped for a moment to think back to what we had paid for the house and I remembered it had seemed like a fortune at the time. One hundred eighty thousand dollars. Surely it had gone up in value. Anything in the neighborhood of three hundred thousand would thrill me right out of my mind.

  “Call Tony at Metropolitan Plant Exchange,” she said. “Let’s stuff the flower beds with pink and white impatiens. Then let’s put some bowls of potpourri around in the bathrooms and the living room. And, the front door and stoop need a coat of paint. I’ll get a wreath. Pots of flowers too. Maybe a wicker love seat from Pier One . . .”

  “God, Gretchen, you are so smart.”

  “Not really. Just experience. Think about it. If the front of the house is welcoming, people overlook other things.”

  “Like the worn-out wall-to-wall carpet in the living room?”

  “You got it! Listen, even if you changed it, the new owner is gonna want something else. That’s how it is. I had a client once who spent a fortune on her kitchen. I promise you, it looked like a rocket ship! Modern this, state-of-theart that . . . Anyway, I find her a buyer and the buyer wants an English country kitchen so, out it all goes! Probably a hundred fifty thousand down the drain! So, listen to me, you just freshen up the place and that’s it!”

  “A little lipstick on the old pig?”

  “Yes!”

  Gretchen took pictures and notes and left saying, “As soon as we get these little jobs done, I’ll have you a buyer in two weeks! No sweat!”

  I just shook my head and watched her leave, clicking her heels down my bluestone walkway to where her car was parked. She was beautiful, confident and successful. I wanted to be just like her.

  “Hey, Mom!”

  I couldn’t answer Lindsey because I had momentary brain freeze from the dream of becoming like Gretchen and the reality of selling our house, leaving Montclair forever. She came to my side and pulled on my arm.

  “Mom!”

  “Sorry, honey, I was just thinking about everything. . . .”

  “I found my baby album. . . .”

  “I definitely want to take that back with us. Did you find Gracie’s?”

  “No, it’s probably in her room. God, I thought I was gonna start crying or something when I looked at some of the pictures of us.”

  I was having none of that. No indulging in mood swings. “Lindsey. Over the next few days, your hands and my hands are going to touch every memory we have.” Then I sang a little in my fake opera voice, “Ya gotta be strong, ya gotta be tough . . . isn’t that how the song goes?”

  “Mom?”

  “What? Off-key?”

  “No, I’m just glad you didn’t decide to become a lounge singer, that’s all.”

  “Very funny, missy. I’ll have you know I have Tina Turner’s legs, okay?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Um, your legs are white?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Well, all I can tell you is that it’s a good thing Gracie didn’t come. This house would be like the war in Iraq. She really doesn’t want to live in South Carolina, you know.”

  “Yeah, well, that may be true, but she needs to live in South Carolina! After all the nonsense she’s pulled? You think your daddy would put up with that?”

  “No. And, you’re right. Gracie needs to bring it down a little. And, forget Patti. She takes shit from no one.”

  “Um?” I hated hearing vulgar slang come from the lips of my children, although I used slang myself, and for good reason too, but that was entirely another matter.

  “Sorry, but really! You should have seen Patti last Thanksgiving when we were trying to stake out our territory.” Lindsey giggled.

  “Well, I won’t miss having to deal with her all the time or Fred; that’s for sure. And, while we’re on the subject of Patti and your dad, you never told me exactly what happened, except that he announced over dinner about them getting married, which is proof of her Swiss cheese judgment about men. So, tell me what Gracie did. . . .”

  “Uh, it wasn’t Gracie. It was me. And, it wasn’t pretty. No, it wasn’t pretty at all.”

  I sank to the couch and put my feet on the coffee table, waiting for Lindsey to tell, hoping against hope that she had wrecked Fred’s holiday to a fare-thee-well and that Patti had received an undiluted lesson on the teeth-grinding frustrations of raising teenagers. These thoughts made me feel only one-half an ounce of guilt.

  “Gee, I hope you girls weren’t rude to them,” I lied.

  Lindsey giggled again and made a two-year-old face, the kind you made when you got caught playing in your mom’s makeup. “Linda? We were baaaaad girls.”

  “Don’t call me Linda or I’ll spank your bottom!” I patted the cushion next to me. “Sit! Linda doesn’t have all day!”

  Lindsey plopped herself on the sofa, and as usual she twisted her hair while looking out the window, gathering her thoughts, deciding where to begin.

  “Okay,” she said, “Gracie and I got to Dad’s new house and in two seconds realized he had moved Patti in and they had redecorated like, I don’t know, like some television program was going to do a big story on them. At first, we were furious—Gracie, especially. She takes one look at Patti and walks out of the house. Daddy started yelling how dare she walk out like this and then the next thing I know, Patti is defending Gracie because she realizes Dad didn’t tell either one of us that they were living together.”

  “Poor Patti,” I said. “She should’ve interviewed me before she moved in with Fred. I could have told her a thing or two. But then, like my momma used to say, one woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” she said. “So then I went outside to talk Gracie into coming back into the house. You see, we were formulating a last-minute plan to get back at Dad for being such a creep to us but Gracie was so pissed off at the world, I couldn’t get her to move.

  “We saw that he was so involved with Patti that he didn’t give a damn about us and so we both got pissed off in advance of him proving it.

  “I remember that Gracie said, Does Mom know about this? And I distinctly remember that I said, I don’t think so.”

  “You’re right. I mean, I suspected he was seeing someone for a number of reasons. First, he seemed, I don’t know, cheerful, that is to the extent that your father can seem cheerful. And, when he bought my ticket to South Carolina, I knew something was up. But, I never thought in a million years that he was involved with someone at that level. It was shocking.” I looked at Lindsey and realized she felt sorry for me for getting bamboozled and I hated that. To make things worse, I had given Fred a little jab, and I knew that was in poor form to speak badly of him to the girls, but now and then I couldn’t help myself. Hell, I wasn’t a sai
nt, you know. But I tried to redeem myself by saying, “Look, it’s okay now. I am happier and so is your father and so are we all . . . so continue!”

  “Okay. Eventually, we went back inside and Operation Kill Thanksgiving continued but, with slightly less enthusiasm, because it was pretty depressing. Our next step was the silent treatment. Whatever Patti asked us, we gave her one-word answers. It was truly a beautiful thing. I loved it.

  “So, where are you going to college, Lindsey?

  “Dunno.

  “So, Gracie? Do you like sweet potatoes?

  “No.

  “Have you ever gone to the Macy’s parade?

  “No.

  “We could tell by her body language that Patti was uncomfortable because she had failed to charm us right off the bat. Daddy shot us multitudinous looks of threatening anger and we would stare back at him with innocent blank faces. I knew he thought we were torturing her, when actually we were torturing him through her. We didn’t give a damn about her. He, however, was supposed to care about us. Eventually, in between flipping channels on the television, he finally started getting mad, which was what we had hoped for.

  “Patti said something like, Do you girls like the turkey livers fried? To which we both replied with a loud Ew! Gracie made some extreme gagging noises for special effect. Anyway, Dad slammed the remote so hard on the arm of his chair that the batteries fell out. Patti left the room to baste her bird.

  “Dinner’s almost ready, she said over her shoulder in an exasperated voice.

  “Rather than deal with Dad exploding, we quickly changed tactics. Come on, Gracie, I said, let’s go help Patti in the kitchen.

  “Daddy eyed us with suspicion. Who could blame him for that? Sure, Gracie said, why not? You’re right.

  “Silence for a moment from Dad. Then he sat back down and prepared to resume ignoring us as humans. But before that he hurled us a threat.

  “Finally! Daddy said, and took a deep breath. You had better be nice. She means a lot to me. Bring me a beer and help Patti. Your old man needs a moment of peace around here.