by Lynne Gentry
Momma notices the remnants of LaVera’s cake addiction, too. Had LaVera poisoned herself? Accidentally mixed something dangerous into her cake batter? After all, Momma keeps WD40 in her kitchen cabinets. Did LaVera have something equally as deadly in hers?
Across the body of a dead woman our gazes lock. A memory erupts from deep inside me. It’s so old and dusty, I have to blink several times, but the picture eventually comes into focus. I’m six years old and so frightened I’ve soiled myself. Momma is squatting before me and trying to coax me out from under the kitchen table.
“He’s gone.” She scoots away pieces of the broken plate with her shoe. “You can come out now.”
I take her hand and let her pull me to her. “Why was Daddy yelling?”
She shakes her head. “He’s disappointed.”
“With me?”
“Never.” Momma takes my face in her hands and looks deep into my eyes. “With himself.”
Truth is a jolting slap I can actually feel burning my face. Momma wasn’t the only one who knew my father was a failure. I knew it too. I knew Daddy drank to fill that hole. And deep down inside of me, I knew he was drinking the day we went to the river and I went without saying a word.
Momma and I are once again two women with a secret, bound by the complexities of life and the promise to never tell another living soul.
Nausea bubbles up. I have to turn away from LaVera, swallow hard, and suck in deep breaths.
“Lift with your knees,” Momma says with a calm reminiscent of the moments after Daddy destroyed the kitchen, gave her a black eye, and stormed from the house. “LaVera’s had more cake than an old woman ever should.”
I manage a weak nod, slide my shaky hands under LaVera’s stiff, heavy arms, and look to Momma. I want to ask her why she stayed, why we never talked about Daddy’s propensity to rage, why she let him destroy our family, but instead I say, “Ready?” A quick heave and my back immediately regrets letting Momma talk me into this. “Grab her ankles. She’s dead weight.”
“I can see that, Charlotte Ann.” Momma slaps a hand around each of LaVera’s ankles. “Only a few feet to the bed.”
Backing over lipstick tubes and broken perfume bottles while carrying a dead woman and the overwhelming weight of my family’s dysfunction has me struggling to keep my balance. Doing my best to use my foot to clear a path, I can only hope that for once Aria obeys me and remains downstairs. Halfway to the bed, Momma lets go of LaVera’s left leg. The sudden shift of weight almost brings me to my knees. “Momma!”
“Sorry.” Her bones creak as she bends to retrieve LaVera’s stiff, swollen ankle. “We’re almost there. Hoist your end up first.”
“She’s too heavy. We’ll have to do both ends on three,” I argue. “Think you can do that?”
“Still count to three...or lift?”
“You know what I mean.”
Momma wraps her hands around LaVera’s ankles and counts, defiantly. “One. Two. Three.”
With a grunt and a heave, we swing LaVera up and she lands with a dull thud in the middle of the bed. The arms and tail of the robe float up around the dead woman like an aromatic pink cloud. LaVera’s forehead has a dark bruise from where it had been pressed against the vanity for who knows how long.
“I hear sirens.” I’m relieved and terrified at the same time. I point at LaVera’s forehead. “How are we going to explain this?”
“We’re not,” Momma says. “Help me get her changed.”
“Momma!”
“Charlotte Ann, LaVera loved you.”
“What does that have to do with tampering with a body?”
“LaVera never went anywhere without having her face completely done. She said it was a smart business decision. Personally, I think her vanity played into it as well, but she had a point. Who would ever buy beauty products from someone who’s face looked as if those products didn’t work? LaVera spent her life making others believe that they too could be beautiful. I’m not sending her off to heaven looking anything less than how she lived on this earth. Going out with the dignity by which we lived is all any of us want.”
Somehow, I feel this point is not just about LaVera. That it is my mother’s attempt to tell me how she’s been feeling...to teach me how to treat her both now and when her time comes. I raise my hands in surrender. “Okay. You win.”
Together, Momma and I wrestle LaVera out of her old robe and into the beautiful pink silk robe. The scream of the volunteer fire truck has turned off the main road and is now hurtling up the long lane.
We’re still huffing from the exertion when Momma holds out her hand and wiggles her fingers impatiently at me. “The lipstick.”
“I don’t think we should put lipstick on a dead woman.”
“I’m putting lipstick on my sister.”
I fish the tube out of my pocket and plop it on her flattened palm. “LaVera was not your sister.”
Flashing lights and blaring sirens now throb beneath the open bedroom window.
“She was the sister I never had but always wanted. That’s family in my book.”
Momma has just finished the pinking of LaVera’s blue lips when the first volunteer fire fighter thunders through the front door. We can hear Aria telling him that we’re upstairs.
“Stall him, Charlotte.” Before I can think of a sane way to do what she’s just asked, Momma rushes to the vanity, snatches the piece of cake, drops it in the handbag still hanging from her arm. I’m at a loss for words, but Momma’s face is a study in calm as she turns to the burly man bursting into the room. “Stay right where you are, Ezra.” Momma’s teacher’s voice freezes her former student in his tracks. “There’s nothing you can do for LaVera now.”
“Mrs. Slocum, I need to get to her. See if she needs CPR.”
“She’s well past having you pump her chest.”
“Momma, it’s his job.”
My mother looks at me like I’ve grown three heads then her gaze slowly drifts to LaVera. “As you can see, Ezra, this dear woman has always been a natural beauty. And I intend for her to stay that way. You’ll go get your stretcher and handle her with the utmost of care.” Her gaze whips back to the fire fighter. “Am I clear?”
Chapter 14
CHARLOTTE
Momma clutches the ruby-glass cake pedestal upon which she’s carefully placed her impressive three-layer hummingbird cake. The dessert is a masterpiece of overripe bananas, pineapple, and love. Each swirl of the rich, cream cheese frosting is evenly spaced, as if measured with the ruler my mother used to maintain order in her classroom. Stoic faced, Momma holds out her gift like she’s one of the magi bringing frankincense or myrrh to LaVera’s funeral potluck. Momma’s been cooking for the past three days. Our kitchen is full of enough pies and casseroles to feed the entire county. Winnie says Momma’s cooking binge is her way of dealing with the pain of losing her best friend. I say, death has never made much of a dent in this steely woman.
For my contribution to LaVera’s Celebration of Life service, I’ve picked up BBQ ribs from the Shake Shack. They’re so fresh off the smoker that the foil pan is burning my hands. “Aria, can you get the door for us, please?”
Last night, Aria and I met Winnie at the fellowship hall. I helped Winnie drape several round tables with the church’s tea-stained white cloths while Aria filled milk-glass bud vases with New Dawn roses she’d clipped from Momma’s garden.
I steel myself for Momma’s opinion of our work as I follow her inside the fellowship hall.
The distinctive scent of southern faith hits me square in the face. Brewing coffee. Worn carpets. A couple of crock pots filled with roast and potatoes. And several stacks of dusty, old Bibles.
“LaVera would love all this fuss.” Momma’s pleased nod nearly trips me up. It’s hard not to read too much into the small smile curling her lips, but I can’t help but hope it’s the first sign of a possible thaw between us. “When my time comes, keep it simple.” Just like that, the smile is gone and
winter is back. “Meat goes in the kitchen.” She places her cake in the center of the dessert table and spins the pedestal until she’s satisfied that the best side faces outward.
I trudge to the kitchen where two women Momma’s age are organizing the plastic forks and paper plates. I recognize them but can’t recall their names. With sympathetic smiles, they take my offering and put it between the mound of fried chicken and bowls of Jell-O salad. Tempting as it is to say something about the heat from the ribs melting the gelatin, I keep my mouth shut and dutifully return to my mother.
Momma is giving the room a careful going over. “LaVera couldn’t grow a rose any better than she could bake a cake, but she knew exactly what shade of lipstick would bring out the color in someone’s eyes.” Momma critical gaze sends chills down my back. “She always said you should stay away from coral, Charlotte Ann.”
I bite my tongue. “Ready, Momma?”
“Do I have a choice?” She takes off toward the sanctuary where we’re to join Bo and Winnie in the church nursery in order to be seated with the family.
Momma nods at the early arrivals beginning to fill the pews as she marches toward the nursery at back of the sanctuary. The small room is empty except for two rocking chairs and a rickety changing table. I pick up an old bulletin that’s been left on one of the rockers and try to convince Momma to sit. Her resistance to every kindness I’ve tried to show her finally crumbles and she drops into the rocker. I want to comfort her, but I’ve never really known how.
I bury my nose in the sick list of the three-months-out-of-date bulletin. The effort to distract myself does nothing to assuage my guilt for refusing to comply with my mother’s desire to deliver LaVera’s eggs before we went to town. Even in her confusion over what we were going to do that day, Momma kept bringing up the need to drop by her neighbor’s while the eggs were fresh. I’d dismissed her suggestion as a stall tactic. Had I not been in such a hurry to put a medical label on my mother’s strange behavior, LaVera might still be alive.
At the light rap on the nursery door, I stop pacing and prepare to face Bo for the first time since we found his mother. Winnie says Bo doesn’t blame me, but I don’t know what he’d think if he ever found out that I’d helped Momma move and spiff up his mother’s body.
“Sara?” Ira’s bald head pokes around the door. “Mind if I offer you my condolences?”
“Sweet Moses!” Momma is out of the rocker with the agility of a woman who’s never broken her hip. She flings her arms around the old man’s neck and hugs him tight. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was in love. After what seems like forever, she pulls back, tears streaming down her cheeks. “What on earth are you doing here, Ira Conner?”
Tears shed for Ira’s arrival and not a single tear for LaVera’s departure? Now I’m the one feeling confused.
“Come in.” Momma drags Ira into the nursery.
Trailing behind him is Teeny, a huge black bow sitting squarely on the top of her white hair. “Sara.” When the big-boned woman steps into the nursery and opens her arms wide, the room seems to shrink.
“And Teeny!” All ninety-six-pounds of Momma is swallowed up in Teeny’s embrace. It’s such a heart-felt reunion, I’m crying right along with everyone else.
Momma pulls out the tissue she keeps tucked in her sleeve and dabs at her eyes. “How on earth did you two get here?”
“Trixie.” Ira’s cloudy eyes swim with his own tears. “But before you commence with that lecture sitting on the end of your tongue, my daughter did the driving.” Ira turns to the open door and waves in a stout, red-faced woman who seems like she would be far more comfortable working sheep than wearing a faded Sunday dress and low-slung Rockports. “Esther is my oldest.”
Hard to believe Momma’s claim that Ira’s children have made millions from his natural gas wells. I don’t mean to judge Esther like she’s some kind of threat, but old habits die hard. Before I know it, I’m giving her the head-to-toe, once-over, size-up of a legal rival. I really have no basis for this behavior. Esther’s been nothing but gracious and cooperative in all of our phone dealings. She was forgiving of Momma’s assisted living escape plan and subsequent use of Ira’s car. She was very generous to allow Ira to stay for a few days at the Fossil Ridge once Momma finally found her way home. And when I phoned her to ask her to tell Ira about Momma losing LaVera, it was Esther who’d offered to bring her father.
Momma waves her hand over the mismatched rockers and insists Ira and Teeny make themselves at home.
Ira shakes his head. “Surely you don’t think I’m the kind of man who’d take a chair from a lady?”
Momma’s smile is so warm it nearly melts the prickles right off the cactus she’s been lately. “Always the gentleman.” She stands close to Ira, her hand threaded through his arm. Together, they watch Teeny settle, then Ira escorts Momma to the other rocker like he’s protecting a queen. Once Momma’s seated she asks Ira, “How did you even know about LaVera?”
“Your daughter called mine.” Ira flashes a smile my way. “You’ve got a good girl there, Sara.”
Before Momma can respond, Winnie sticks her head in the nursery. “Time to start.”
It seems the whole town has turned out to celebrate the passing of Addisonville’s favorite Avon lady. Hymns, scriptures, and a rather funny video Winnie put together cap the service. Now comes the hard part. Going to the cemetery for the lowering of LaVera’s casket into the ground. I thought I’d never breathe again as the wenches lowered Caroline into the grave. And then Daddy...
“Mom,” Aria tugs at the sleeve of my dress. “Winnie says we’re supposed to ride to the cemetery in the limo. There’s plenty of room for Ira and Teeny and Ira’s daughter too.”
When I try to beg off, Momma glares at me like I’m trying to make Bo’s already bad day even worse. With a sigh, I pile in behind Momma and her friends.
No one is saying much on the drive and I’m glad.
But Ira breaks our silence. “Sara, I’d love to hear your favorite memory of LaVera.”
I don’t know if it’s Ira’s encouragement or his interest, but I’ve never seen a simple statement open Momma’s well-guarded gates.
Her face lights up and she launches into the time LaVera convinced her to try the latest Avon mask. “LaVera caked my face with a green thick mud.”
“I’ll set the timer for ten minutes,” she promised. “Once it dries, you’ll wash years away.” Momma shakes her head. “That mud dried as hard as my river bluff,” she chuckles. “LaVera handed me a pink wash cloth. I scrubbed until I thought my skin would bleed, but the effort didn’t even make a dent.”
“Let’s try a warm compress,” LaVera said.
“After ten minutes of feeling like I’m in a sauna, my face was still green. LaVera filled her kitchen sink with water and held my head under until I started flailing. At one point she threatened to use a sledgehammer to break away the crusty stuff. We finally picked off all the green one tiny piece at a time. When I was finally free, LaVera dragged her palm over my cheek and said, ‘Told you it was good. Your face is as soft as a baby’s butt.’”
Even Bo is laughing by the time we reach the small cemetery on the edge of town where LaVera is to be laid to rest beside her husband. I’m mesmerized. The charming side of Momma has been buried so long, I feel like the disciples must have felt when Jesus rose from the dead...not wanting the moment to end. But when the limo rolls to a stop, so does the levity...but only for a moment.
I exit first, intending to help Momma pick her way across the crunchy brown grass, but she waves me off and rushes to sandwich herself between Ira and Teeny. She’s so giddy she’s almost skipping toward the tent the mortuary set up over LaVera’s grave. I don’t know if this inappropriate behavior is part of Momma’s dementia or a defense mechanism, but it’s left me unable to move away from the limo.
Esther spills out of the limo. “They seem to bring out the best in each other, don’t they?” She’s standing behind me,
a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Dad talks about Sara Slocum non-stop.”
“Funny, she never mentions him.” I immediately regret taking out my embarrassment, horror, terror...I’m not sure what it is...on Esther. Dropping into damage control mode, I add, “But I haven’t seen Momma talk that much in a long time. Silence is how we Slocums handle things...not skipping around headstones.”
Esther’s expression offers more comfort than I deserve. “It’s not easy taking care of a parent.” She pats my arm then leaves me standing at the limo.
“Your mother is handling this better than I expected.” The male voice coming from behind me catches me off guard.
I whirl to find Benjamin leaning against the limo. “Or she’s drunk.”
His chuckle rumbles deep in his broad chest. “More likely blissfully unable to properly register the extent of this loss. Don’t be surprised if you have to remind her again and again that LaVera is dead.”
“Not sure I’m up to watching her relive that over and over.”
“You don’t have to do this alone, you know?”
“Are you offering to let her move in with you?”
“She’s one of my favorites.” Benjamin gently takes my elbow. “I missed the funeral. Miss Sara will never forgive me if I miss the graveside.”
“True. Holding on to a grudge is one thing I’m pretty sure Momma will never forget how to do.”
My heels sink into the cracks in the dried earth. Leaning on Benjamin is all that is keeping me from getting sucked under.
Chapter 15
CHARLOTTE
Mother has dallied so long over her funeral lunch plate that her baked beans are swimming in slimy green Jell-O. I know she’s not ready for Ira and Teeny to leave, but Esther is looking at her watch. Ira’s daughter has been exceptionally patient. Hopefully, Momma will be grateful and gracious.
“Ira’s a good man,” Winnie slides into the empty chair beside me. “Teeny’s a...unique woman.”