I was allowed to accompany Oops into the examining room, and she held my hand as if it were a lifeline. The poor little thing had never had a pelvic exam, and she was mortified. As the doctor poked and probed, Oops cried silent tears that I tried to catch before they puddled in her ears. When the exam was over, the doctor stood, snapped off his rubber gloves, took Oops by the hand, and pulled her to a sitting position.
He looked her in the eyes and said, “Young lady, you’re lucky this time because I’m pretty sure you’re not pregnant. I’m going to run the standard tests, just to be certain, and you can call in three days for the results. You’re also lucky to have such a caring big sister.”
We hadn’t fooled a soul.
We didn’t have to wait three days. That afternoon when we returned home, Oops went to the bathroom, only to return with a big smile on her face. She had started her period! And that bit of news opened yet another can of worms.
Oops said, “Sis, when I had my first period, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I went to our old Encyclopedia and looked until I finally figured out that what was happening was called menstruation. From what I could tell, girls weren’t supposed to figure this out all by themselves. Their mothers were supposed to do some explaining. I found some Kotex in the linen closet, along with some elastic contraption, which I figured had something to do with menstruation. And I worked with it till I finally decided I was wearing it right. Surely, Ma’am knew that her pads were disappearing; she had to know I was the one who was using them. Yet she still said nothing to me. She just replaced the pads and bought a new belt and put it in the linen closet.”
When Oops told me this, I was overcome with guilt. I should have known, and I should have helped. Ma’am was not the one to discuss menstruation with me; why did I think she’d discuss it with Oops? Well, I just wasn’t thinking.
When I found blood in my panties for the first time, who did I tell? Why, Percy, of course. He took my hand, marched me straight into the kitchen where Ma’am was standing at the sink, staring out into the back yard at god-knows-what.
He said, “Ma’am, Sis got her period, and she needs some stuff.”
Without turning from the window, Ma’am reached into her pocket and pulled out some crumpled bills. She didn’t even look at us when she handed us the money. Percy and I walked to the drugstore, where he pointed out the long row of stuff.
Then he said, “Now you’re on your own. I know where it is, but I don’t know what it is.”
But Oops didn’t have a Percy. Poor kid. She laughed when I told her this story, but she had a sad look in her eye.
Before we both started crying again, I said, “What do you want for supper?”
She said, without hesitation, as if she had been practicing the answer, “Fried chicken and chocolate pudding with skin.”
Garth’s mother had taught me how to fry chicken, and I’d practiced till I’d become an expert. But the chocolate pudding with skin was a food from our childhood. On those days when Ma’am was unable to fix our lunch, for whatever reason, I’d make chocolate pudding—not the instant stuff, but the real deal—the kind that had the thick skim on top once it cooled. Percy called it chocolate leather; Oops called it skin. And tonight my little sister wanted chocolate pudding with skin.
I made her pudding and put it in the fridge to cool and to grow its skin while I fixed our chicken. While the chicken was frying, I whipped up a little potato salad. When we sat down to eat, I realized what a blessing this day had been. It took a tragedy for me to fall in love with my little sister. I looked across the table at her, and she smiled at me in a way I had never seen her smile.
After we had eaten, I said, “Okay, your turn. You get to wash the dishes.”
While she was tidying the kitchen, I collapsed on the sofa and curled up in the ratty old quilt I had been curling up in since childhood. The day had exhausted me. I was just drifting off when Oops finished the dishes and came into the living room. She pulled a stool up beside the sofa and sat down.
Fingering the quilt, she told me, “I remember when you and Percy were still living at home; you’d stretch out on the sofa with a movie magazine and cover up with this old quilt. It was even ratty back then. Percy would happen by and plop down on the sofa with you and pull out a corner of the quilt to cover his feet. Without even looking up from your magazine, you’d skootch over and make room for him. The two of you always looked so comfortable together, like you belonged. I never felt like I belonged. I always wanted a quilt corner; I always wanted you to skootch and make room for me. But I was afraid to ask—afraid you’d tell me that I really didn’t belong.”
My heart hurt so badly. I reached out, took my little sister's hand, skootched over, pulled her onto the sofa with me, and held the ratty old quilt open so she could have a corner and more. I cocooned us in the quilt and held her while she cried sixteen years of tears. She sounded like a lovesick teenager, as well as a terrified child, which is precisely what she was.
Forty-one
“Percy, don’t you think it’s time you gave it up. You’re a parent. You need to act more responsibly. What if something happens to you? What about Lydia?”
And Percy told me, “Sis, being a parent doesn’t mean giving up my life, and that’s just what I’d do if I gave this up. You know that I live for biking—for heaven’s sake, it’s my job—and I’ve been going to Bike Week at Myrtle Beach for as long as I can remember. Please don’t try to lay a guilt trip on me for doing what my heart tells me I have to do.”
He was right outside Raleigh, North Carolina when the car passed him, kicking up debris as it went by. It may have been a rock or a bottle—nobody knows—but, whatever it was, it hit Percy on his shoulder, causing him to lose control of his bike. He skidded on his side down the interstate a good distance before he came to rest in the grassy ditch by the highway.
When the ambulance arrived, Percy was unconscious but still breathing. The medics strapped him onto a stretcher and carted him off to Rex Hospital in Raleigh so the doctors and nurses could try to put him back together.
I was visiting with Ma’am when Percy’s friend Graham called Colonel Tom to tell him what had happened—at least what little he knew of what happened. He was riding directly behind Percy and saw him swerve and lose control. That simple.
Of course, I expected Colonel Tom to say, “Ma’am, pack me a bag. I’m headed to Raleigh.”
Instead, our father said, “That damn fool got himself into this mess; he can by-god get himself out of this mess. He’s been riding on borrowed time most of his life. Maybe this is the goddamn wake-up call that boy needed.”
Ma’am looked horrified by The Colonel’s tirade, but before she could say a word, Colonel Tom said, “And don’t you even think of going after your delinquent son.”
And, just like that, Ma’am shrank into her shell, fearful, I’m sure, of having one of her clumsy spells.
Without a word I ran out of their house, jumped in my car, and flew home. Thank god Garth was still at the golf course when I got there. I didn’t feel like getting into a fight over my wanting to go to Raleigh and his forbidding me to go. Had he been there, he probably would have grabbed my keys to keep me from making the trip. He didn’t care for Percy and jumped on the bandwagon every time Colonel Tom called Percy a delinquent. He was jealous of Percy’s and my close relationship and resented the time we spent together. But Garth wasn’t there, and I was going to help my brother. I’d face my husband’s anger when I returned.
I called Vickie to let her know what had happened, and she said, “Sis, you know I’d go to Raleigh with you, but I feel it best that I stay here with Lydia.”
I told her that, of course, I understood and that I wasn’t calling to ask her to go along. I just felt that she needed to know that her child’s father was in the hospital. Vickie thanked me for calling and said that she expected me to bring Percy to her for his recovery. She promised to have her guest room made up and waiting for him when
we returned from Raleigh. Vickie is a saint.
I grabbed my toothbrush and a change of clothes, left Garth a note, and headed for my car. As soon as I filled the tank with gas, I headed out of town. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when I reached the city limits, and I figured that, with no major stops, I’d make it to Raleigh in about five hours. That would put me at the hospital at around nine. Surely the staff would allow me to see my brother, even if visiting hours were over. I’d just have to take my chances that they would.
About halfway to Raleigh I stopped to stretch my legs and top off the gas tank. I hadn’t eaten since noon, so I grabbed a Coke and a pack of Nabs and headed back out on the highway. I drove with one hand, ate my Nabs with the other, and cradled my cold Coke between my bare legs. It was uncomfortable, but it kept me alert.
And all the way to Raleigh I thought about the silly, immature, wonderful brother whom I loved more than life itself. What would I find when I reached him? Would he still be my silly, immature, wonderful brother? Or would I find a broken man, someone I didn’t even recognize?
I reached the hospital before eight o’clock, a lot earlier than I had anticipated. Guess I was driving a bit faster than usual. I arrived at the peak of visiting hours and was ushered right into Percy’s room.
That silly, immature, wonderful brother of mine was propped up in bed, watching Wheel of Fortune. His right arm and leg were in casts, while his left side was scraped raw from skidding along the highway.
And the first thing he said when he saw me was, “Thank heavens I was wearing my helmet so I didn’t mess up my purdy face!”
Percy was banged up pretty badly but not so badly that I couldn’t take him home after a day’s rest. Instead of checking into a motel, I brushed my teeth in the hospital restroom and bedded down on a chair beside Percy’s bed. I felt as if I were sitting on a croquet mallet, and I didn’t sleep too much that night. Poor old injured Percy, on the other hand, was snoozing and snoring like a band saw.
The following morning, after I’d plied myself with a gallon of strong, caffeinated coffee and checked Percy out, a couple of orderlies helped me pack him into the back seat of my car, propping all of his injured parts on pillows. And for the next five hours Percy entertained me with the description of his wipe-out. It amazed me that an accident that took a mere thirty seconds from start to finish could have so many bloody, graphic details. I realized as Percy talked that what was a terror to his family was just part of what Percy called being alive.
When we got to Vickie’s house, she was waiting with a made-up bed and a plan for Percy’s care, just as she had promised.
Once we had Percy settled and had given him the remote to entertain himself, Vickie said, “Let’s go get some coffee, Sis. You look like holy shit.”
We went into Vickie’s kitchen, one of the warmest and most inviting rooms on the face of the earth. It was yellow and sun-filled with row on row of potted plants on glass shelves in the window over the sink. The frig was covered with Lydia’s artwork, and the room always smelled like something with cinnamon was cooking. This was also the room where I came to love Vickie, the room where she and I have had our best talks.
Vickie always had a pot of coffee going, so all I had to do was grab a mug and pour—which was about all I could do on the amount of energy I had left. Vickie poured herself a mug, sat down beside me at the kitchen table, and took my hand.
“You all right, Sis?” she asked.
I told her, “Yeah, I’m all right, but sometimes I just get so tired of Percy’s antics. He’s my brother and I love him, but I just don’t understand how you keep putting up with him.”
And she said, “Sis, when I think I can’t stand his foolishness another minute, I just remember what made me love him in the first place. And those things will keep me loving him forever. But the main reason I put up with him is, despite his immaturity, he gets the important things right. You know, not many people get the important things right, and when a man does, I think he deserves to be appreciated for it. That’s something your father will never understand about his son, and that breaks my heart—for both of them.”
When Percy was a freshman in college and got that cute little majorette pregnant, my family thought it was the end of the world and the stupidest thing Percy had ever done. I think getting that cute little majorette pregnant was the best thing that ever happened to my silly, immature, wonderful brother.
Forty-two
It was a Thursday, the one day of the week when Garth kept his office open late for people who just couldn’t possibly get their teeth cleaned during regular business hours.
I was sitting on the sofa, watching the news and eating kung pao chicken from the take-out carton, trying to master chopsticks. I had just flung a blob of kung pao on the rug and was on my hands and knees cleaning up my mess when Percy burst through the front door screaming, “I did it! I did it! I did it!”
Before I could stand to greet him, he was in the living room, dancing and jumping and twirling. He didn’t even have to tell me what “I did it!” meant. I knew what it meant. There was only one thing that could make Percy this happy. He had done what he had wanted to do since he was thirteen years old. He had bought the garage from Lester Peterson. But I played dumb and let him tell me.
“What, Percy, what? Are you okay? What did you do?”
“Sis, I bought the garage!”
I jumped up, acted surprised, and flung my arms around his neck, planting a huge congratulatory kiss on his cheek, just like Percy had done for me when I had gotten the typing job at the law firm.
I said, “Percy, I’m so proud of you. We’ve never had a business owner in our family. Tell me everything.”
Then Percy told me, “Well, Sis, I’ve always known that I’d be the one to take over the shop when Mr. Peterson retired; I just had no idea it would be this soon. This morning he called me into our office and asked me to sit down cause he needed to talk to me. I sat across the desk from him, and he said, ‘Percy, I love you like a son and have since the day you wandered in here, a scrawny, sassy thirteen year old. I saw something special in you; I knew I wanted to get to know you, wanted you for my friend. You have proved my hunch right. I’ve worked hard to build this business and my reputation as an honest and fair businessman. I’m looking toward retirement, but I can’t retire until I know this business I love is in good hands. Yours are the only hands I’d trust with my business. Would you be interested in buying me out?”
I said, “Well, Percy, what did you say?”
Percy told me, “Sis, I couldn’t say anything right at first ‘cause I was crying. Mr. Peterson understood; he stood up, walked around the desk, and put his hand on my shoulder till I stopped. You know, Sis, if I had cried like that in front of any other man, I’d have been so embarrassed; but I wasn’t at all ashamed to cry in front of him. Finally, I said, ‘Mr. Peterson, I have wanted this shop to be mine since that day I wandered in, all scrawny and sassy. I’m honored that you trust me enough to turn it over to me. Name your price; I won’t haggle. I know you’ll be fair. All I ask is that you let me rename the place so I can feel like it’s all mine.’”
“Sis, we haven’t worked out all the details, but he’s giving me a very fair deal, a deal that will allow me to buy him out over the next ten years. During that time he will stay involved as much as I need him to be. He laughed and told me he’d act as my consultant.”
Percy asked me to drive over to Ma’am and The Colonel’s with him to tell them his news. He had no idea how they would react, and he told me that he’d like to have me around. It made me sad that Percy was still so uncomfortable around The Colonel, that he had to have me as support.
Percy and I found Ma’am and Colonel Tom sitting in the back yard in lawn chairs, having a drink. Neither seemed surprised nor excited to see us, but that was nothing new. They’d never seemed surprised or excited about anything their children had ever done. We each grabbed a lawn chair, planted it in front of our
parents, and sat facing them. Percy had lost a great deal of his animation between my house and our parents’ back yard. I could see the muscle in his jaw jumping, and he was wringing his hands between his knees. I hated my mother and father for making my brother, their only son, feel nervous about sharing good news with them.
He said, “Ma’am, Colonel Tom, I have some great news—well, great news for me. Mr. Peterson has agreed to sell the garage to me. As soon as we’ve ironed out the details and drawn up a contract, I’ll take over. It’ll be all mine.”
Neither Ma’am nor Colonel Tom jumped up and hugged and kissed Percy. Ma’am looked at The Colonel to get his reaction and didn’t respond at all to Percy’s news. Colonel Tom pursed his lips, bobbed his head up and down, and said, “Business owner, huh?”, still bobbing, bobbing, bobbing.
I didn’t offer a thing. I was too angry at Colonel Tom for his half-assed response and at Ma’am for her lack of response. I just sat with my eyes slitted and my jaw clenched.
When it looked like all Percy was going to get was a head bob, he said, “I’m having an open house as soon as the business changes hands. Y’all will come, won’t you?”
That’s when Ma’am and The Colonel gave Percy their phony smiles. They just stretched their lips back over their teeth while the rest of their faces stayed in place. I felt like slapping my parents for their insensitivity. They should have been so proud of their son, but, instead, they barely humored him.
Finally Colonel Tom said, “Sure, sure…”
And Ma’am, after looking sideways at The Colonel to read the mood of the moment, repeated, “Sure, sure…,” in barely a whisper.
But Percy saw what he wanted to see. He saw parents who were caring and supportive. He lapped up their phony smiles and rolled around in their “sure, sure…,” certain that his parents were delighted with their son’s business decision.
Getting the Important Things Right Page 18