Although Brenda wouldn't show it, she was as sad as I was, if not sadder the following morning when Uncle Palaver prepared to leave. He gave us a tour of his motor home to show us some of the new things he had bought for it. I sat in the driver's seat and pretended I was on the road, unwrapping states and scenery like Christmas presents as I crossed the country. Never did Uncle Palaver's life seem as attractive to me as it did at that moment. Yes, he had no family to cart along and be responsible for. At least, no family yet.
Perhaps he would have one someday with Destiny, although he never did speak of her as his girlfriend or fiancee. Was he ashamed to admit he was in love with an African American woman? Or was he afraid she might disappoint him one day? Did he want to remain forever unattached? Was he the free soul he appeared to be, carried along by whatever whim or notion he had, accepting or declining invitations as he pleased? Every day brought some unexpected surprise. There were defeats and unhappy
experiences, but all he had to do was get behind this wheel, start the engine, and drive off, leaving anything unpleasant behind him as forgotten as an old bad dream.
He would surely do the same soon after he left us. I thought. Oh, he would worry about Mama, but he would be so occupied with his work and his travels that he would not feel that worry as intensely as he felt it here with us. I didn't resent him for that no, I envied him.
Take me with you, I dreamed of asking.
"Well. Nora," he said when we were all standing outside his vehicle. "I brought this to give to Matt. but I'll give it to you now." He handed Mama an envelope with the check in it to repay the loan Daddy had given him some time ago.
"You don't have to give me this now. Warner," she told him.
"Sure I do. I don't want to owe anyone money," he said. We knew he meant he didn't want to owe Daddy. "Brenda, you keep copies of all the news clippings from the sports pages. I'm going to brag about my niece everywhere I go."
"Thank you, Uncle Palaver, I will."
"And April, you keep looking under things. Magic happens when you least expect it," he told me.
Brenda and I hugged and kissed him, and then Brenda looked at me to tell me we should leave him and Mama alone for a few moments.
"I've got to get to my homework," she said. "Me, too," I added, and we went into the house.
We both stood inside the doorway and looked out through the window on the side. Mama had her head down. and Uncle Palaver was talking to her. Finally, he just reached out to embrace her and held her. He kissed her forehead, turned, and went into his motor home. Mama stood there with her arms folded and watched him pull away. She looked so small and alone to me, it took all my power to stop myself from charging out to embrace her as well.
"Let her be." Brenda said firmly. "The more you cry in her arms, the longer it will take for her to get back on her feet.
When we last a game, we feel bad for a while, but we look forward to the next, April. Otherwise, we might as well quit. Understand?"
I nodded.
"C'mon," she said. I'll challenge you to a game of checkers. The way you are right now. I might just beat the pants off you."
"No, you won't." I said.
The smile began in her eyes. I could hear her thinking. That a girl That's my sister.
Mama was right about what would soon follow. The news of Daddy's departure spread yen' quickly, and the phone calls began and continued all the following week. Most of the women who called her used the excuse of just seeing how she was holding up and if there was anything they could do to help her in any way. What each wanted was to get closer, be on the inside, so she could be the one with the news bulletins. Fortunately, most of these calls happened while Brenda and I were in school. When we were home and we did hear her answer the phone and talk, her voice was always so thin, so low, so full of pain.
Despite her brave declarations about how she would carry on, she didn't look for work or even entertain the idea if someone else brought it up. Returning to college was as distant a dream as anything could possibly be. She left the house only to do what had to be done, and every night she greeted us with a new revelation about something Daddy had done, something good. It was easy to see that was how she held on to hope.
"Your father arranged for all our stocks and bonds to be handled by a money manager. I don't have to worry about any of it," she told us. "He arranged for the man who takes care of his offices to look after our house needs and problems. too. I really don't have to do anything, be anywhere. All the bills are being paid electronically! I don't even have to go to the bank," she said after we urged her to get out more often.
Both Brenda and I quickly understood that she wanted to be near the phone in anticipation of Daddy's calling, apologizing, begging to return. That call never came.
At school. Brenda was less bothered than I was by other students, especially girls on her team who had questions or comments about what was going on in our lives. Even without these events, she was not as approachable or as vulnerable. It was truly as if her skin were tougher than mine. Her aggressiveness on the court carried over into the classrooms and hallways of the school. Most girls were nowhere as competitive as she was, and most weren't interested in challenging her.
They surely talked about her behind her back. but Brenda never cared. She seemed above it all, moving on her own plane, her own level, years beyond the others. It was as if she had left long ago and her body still had to work at catching up.
Those who always made fun of me because of my weight or whatever were eager to tease me about Daddy. The boys said things like. "He had to leave to get something to eat. You probably ate everything in the house." I would never say it wasn't painful, but Brenda's admonitions were stronger. I didn't talk back or fight back. The last thing I wanted to do was get into any trouble now. After a while. I was returned to the shelf of disinterest. I was too boring a subject, after all, and what little they gained or enjoyed wasn't enough to sustain the teasing.
I devoted my energy to my studies, and to everyone's surprise, including my own, my grades began to improve seriously. Even Mr. Leshman stopped me on the way out of his class one day to tell me how pleased he was with my grades.
"I'm very happy for you." he said, which struck me as a very ironic and strange remark. How could anyone be happy for me for any reason these days? Of course, few realized how hard it was back home. with Mama slowly fading away. She was losing weight, and she wasn't taking anywhere near as much care of herself as she used to take, whether it be her hair or her makeup or her wardrobe.
She spent so much of her time cleaning the house. I thought she would vacuum the rugs into threads. Not a speck of dust was permitted, not a smudge on a window or a glass. It was almost as if she blamed poor housekeeping for her problems and was out to change it dramatically. Somehow, she had disappointed Daddy by permitting a stain to linger or a smudge on a window. No matter what time Brenda or I returned from school, she was at one house chore or another. And when the house was spotless and shining everywhere, she turned her attention and enemies to the garage.
Despite Daddy's suggestions, she did nothing with his clothing, and Uncle Palaver had refused even to look at any. She went into his office to clean and polish, but she didn't put anything away or take anything out. The truth was, she was living and working as if she really expected he would appear one day. She practically admitted it, telling us, "Your father isn't one to just pick up and leave like this. It's one thing for him to stay away for a day or two on business, but another to start a new life. I've spoiled him. No woman is going to spoil him like I did, especially not one of these modern women."
"What's a modern woman?" Brenda asked quickly.
"You know, one who wants a cook and a maid to do all her housework and expects expensive gifts regularly. They never put themselves out of joint for anyone."
"That's ninety percent of the mothers of kids at our school," Brenda told her.
"Exactly."
"So what do yo
u think. Mama?" Brenda continued. "He's going to show up and declare he had amnesia or something?"
"I don't know. I just... I don't know," she said.
Brenda was ready to keep pouncing on her, but she stopped, shook her head, and left the room. Mama looked at me and sighed.
"I know she wants me to hate him. April. I know I should, but I can't get myself to hate him. I'm angry and hurt, but it's just not in me to hate."
"Me, neither. Mama," I revealed.
"Maybe we should be more like Brenda. She's so strong. She'll never be hurt, and if she is, no one will ever know it."
"Is that good. Mama?"
Mama shook her head. "Right now," she said. "it seems wonderful to me. Go on. April. Do your homework, talk to your friends on the phone, do anything but hang around and moon around this house with me," she said.
"I want to be with you. Mama."
"I know. honey. But I don't want you to be sad. Please," she begged.
Reluctantly, I left her.
Our lives soon took on a strange ethereal quality. It felt as if we were floating through our days, and the things we did, we did mechanically, almost entirely without any thought. It got so we fled to our separate corners, afraid that if we did spend too much time with one another, we would crack and crumble into dust. I dreamed of that happening to Brenda and me and Mama simply vacuuming us up before turning the vacuum cleaner on herself. The empty house echoed with the sound of ghosts sobbing.
Mama never went outside for the mail. Usually, because of the later hours Brenda kept at school. I was the one to bring it in, and of course, my fingers trembled when I opened the door to the mailbox and slowly gathered the envelopes together. My heart thumped in anticipation of seeing Daddy's
handwriting. I fantasized about a letter from him, one in which he begged for forgiveness and asked to return.
It never came. Weeks turned into months, and then, one day, there was a crack in the walls that had fallen with the weight of steel around us, and a piece of correspondence slipped through. Mama almost didn't see it. When I brought in the mail. I would leave it on the counter in the kitchen. Sometimes it just piled up for days, and sometimes she took it off immediately.
Lately, she had taken to bringing the mail into Daddy's office and sitting at his desk. Brenda looked at me, and I looked at her, but neither of us said anything about it. Was it a good thing or a bad thing? We both wondered. At first, she had treated
everything that belonged to Daddy as sacred things. They couldn't be boxed or packaged or given away. Nothing could be changed. She had gone into his office only to clean it the same way she used to before he had left.
Was she in there now because it helped her remain close to him? Or was it because she had finally accepted he was gone, and as Robert Frost told us in his famous poem, nothing gold could stay? Was she finally conceding and facing reality, or, as Brenda so coldly put it, had she finally gone to the cemetery? A part of me wanted her to do that for her sake, so she could go on and do something with the rest of her life, but another part of me hoped it wasn't true. I couldn't help it: I wasn't Brenda. I had to cling to some hope.
One night. Mama was sitting in the office, mindlessly tearing open envelopes and filling files with documentation, when both Brenda and I heard her scream. 'Oh. my God!"
We both came to our doorways at the same time and looked at each other. Then we charged down the hallway to the office. Mama was behind the desk, her hands over her eyes, her elbows on the desk. She looked like someone who was told to keep her eyes closed until the surprise was ready to be shown. Daddy's computer and monitor were turned on beside her. Although she knew how to use it well and often shopped over the Internet, as far as we knew, she had not done that since he had left us.
"Mama?" Brenda asked.
Slowly, she lowered her hands and looked at us. For a moment, she looked like a stranger. Her face was so contorted and changed, wearing an expression I had never seen. It looked like a composite of emotions: shock, sadness, but relief of some sort as well.
"What is it. Mama?" I asked, stepping into the office. Brenda followed.
She sat back and held up a letter. "What is that?" Brenda asked.
Mama took a deep breath first and then spoke. "As you know, all of our business correspondence, every bill of any importance, legal documents, and so on, goes through the money manager your father had appointed before he left us. I get a monthly report. but I haven't paid all that much attention to it. The summary is all that matters to me. We've always been in the positive column: our income always exceeds our expenses, and there are trusts set up for both of you."
"Are we in financial trouble?" Brenda pounced. "Is that it? Was all that Daddy had done just window dressing?"
"No, honey, far from it."
"Then what is it?"
Mama looked at the paper and sat forward, "This comes from a health insurance company. Apparently, some time ago, your father contracted with an insurance company different from the one we've always had, the one that covered our family. This one was for him only, and that was why I never saw anything on it or about it before this.'
"Why would he do that?" I asked.
"He was trying to hide something from us," Mama replied. "What was he trying to hide?" I asked.
"I'm not sure exactly, but whatever it is, it's a very, very serious thing. This." she said, holding the letter up again. "is a letter approving the insurance coverage for his stay at a facility."
"What sort of facility?" Brenda asked.
"I looked it up just a few moments ago," she said. nodding at the computer.
"And? So?" Brenda pursued. "What is it?"
"A facility for the terminally ill," Mama told us.
No one spoke. It was as if we had all zone mute. Brenda finally stepped up to the desk and took the paper from Mama's hand to read. I stepped up beside her and read it, too.
"It's just outside Knoxville." Brenda said, and put the paper down on the desk,
"I don't understand," I said. No one spoke. so I whined. "I don't."
"None of us does. April," Brenda snapped at me. "so stop saying that."
I started to cry. I couldn't help it.
"I'll have to make some phone calls," Mama said.
Brenda and I sat on the leather settee and watched and listened.
Mama began by calling the facility. She asked if a patient named Matthew Taylor had been admitted. Whomever she spoke to didn't want to give her an answer immediately and passed Mama on to another person, who told her they didn't give out information about any of their patients over the phone.
"But I have to know if he's there. I'm his wife." Mama insisted.
"I'm sorry. That's our policy," she was told.
Frustrated, she hung up and thought, and then she looked up our family doctor's number. Of course, his office was closed, but he had an answering service. She told them it was an emergency and demanded that the doctor call her. The service told her they would contact our doctor. Dr. Brimly.
In the meantime, she called our financial manager and demanded to know how long payments had been made to this new health insurance company. He told her he had no information about it and that she would have to let him look things up when he got to his office in the morning.
"You know about it," Mama told him. "I know you know about it. Nick."
After she hung up, she nodded and told us he hadn't denied it.
"Why would he do this?" Brenda asked, shaking her head. "It's like some kind of conspiracy."
"A conspiracy of silence," Mama said. nodding.
The phone rang. It was Dr. Brimly. Mama immediately confronted him with questions about Daddy. She was crying as she asked the questions.
"What do you mean?" she cried, and just listened for the longest time. "I see," she said. "Thank you," she said, and hung up.
For a moment, we thought she wasn't going to tell us anything. "Mama?"
"He said your father first came to him
about having constant headaches. He started to treat him for migraines but very quickly realized it was more serious. He sent him to a specialist in Memphis, a Dr. William Kay, and that was the extent of his
knowledge of your father's problems. He said apparently your father ordered Dr. Kay not to give him any information. He said..." Mama hiccupped, trying to catch her breath. "He said he was sorry, but it all just fell through the cracks, and he never followed up. He said he had heard Daddy had left us, of course, but he didn't put it together with anything." "Headaches?" Brenda asked. Mama nodded.
"Well, what did he think was wrong with him? Why did he think it was more serious?" Brenda asked.
"He suspected he had a brain tumor,' Mama said.
She turned and looked out the window into the darkness. There was no moon, and the overcast sky had put a blanket over the stars.
"Mama?" I said. standing.
I could actually feel the floor trembling beneath me. Of course, that came from my own unsteady legs.
Mama turned slowly and looked from Brenda to me, her eyes dark with sadness.
"He was dying," she said. "He wanted to keep it a secret from us. That's why he left us like that."
"Why?" I asked, unable to control my streaking tears. "Why was he so mean to us?"
"So we would hate him," Brenda said.
I turned and looked down at her. "What did you say?"
"So we would hate him and not suffer. That was why he took away all the pictures of himself he could find, and why we can't find the family vacation videos. He tried to die for us before he really did. I'm right. aren't I. Mama?"
Mama nodded.
"But now." Brenda said for all of us. "we'll suffer more because of how any we were at him."
Mama lowered her head. It was as much as confirming what Brenda predicted. Our true suffering had yet to begin, and what it would do to all of us was something we couldn't anticipate.
I pressed my hand to my heart to keep it from pumping through my chest.
And Brenda, lifted with new rage, stomped out of the room to cry where no one could see.
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