A Long Time Gone

by Karen White

  The Fifth Dimension was belting out “Aquarius.” I was about to flip it off, figuring music wasn’t the best thing for my impending headache, when my mother started singing along. She had a clear, strong voice, perfect for the vocals of the song. And she remembered every single word.

  I glanced at Chloe in the mirror again, wondering why she hadn’t reached forward and changed the station to modern hits. I hadn’t been allowed to listen to my own music in my car since Chloe had started first grade.

  Instead, she opened her mouth and joined my mother in singing the refrain. A horn honked and I had to swerve out of the lane of opposing traffic, narrowly missing an oncoming car.

  “How do you know that song?” I asked, forgetting my headache for a moment.

  She rolled her eyes. “Hailey was in a production of Hair at the community theater last summer, remember? She made me watch it six times. I know every word by heart.”

  My mother continued singing and Chloe joined her, and eventually I did, too, just so I wouldn’t feel left out.

  Cora had given me directions to Sunset Acres, and like every business near Indian Mound, it was off of Highway 82. The fields, now accessorized with bright red or green mechanical planters that stretched across eight rows of earth, gradually gave way to strips of fast-food restaurants and chain motels. Not a lot had changed since I’d last been here, maybe one neon sign being exchanged for another, and it certainly hadn’t gotten any prettier. But there was something comforting in it, too, like the scarred surface of a favorite antique chest.

  The song had ended and I felt Chloe’s silence as she stared out at the urban landscape of midcentury homes with new roofs and old doors with three diamond-shaped windows in a diagonal across the front. People sat in lawn chairs on porches or yards and waved as we drove by. Carol Lynne and I waved back on instinct, and I didn’t even think about it until Chloe asked, “Who was that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Then why did you wave?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. To be friendly, I guess. It’s just what you do.”

  She raised her eyebrows as if the world had suddenly gone crazy, then returned her stare out the window.

  Despite its name, Sunset Acres was a two-story brick building surrounded by a small square of asphalt parking lot with a slightly hipped roof that resembled an old motor lodge, but without the neon VACANCY sign. Cora had already warned me that it wasn’t much to look at, but the staff inside more than made up for any aesthetic disadvantage.

  We signed in at a front desk before being directed to an elevator. The furnishings were sparse and slightly shabby, but the white laminate floors gleamed with polish, the walls dotted with brightly framed depictions of flowers and landscapes. Examining one closely, I saw that it looked like a paint-by-numbers piece, but I chose not to judge, realizing they’d probably been made by a resident.

  “What’s that smell?” Chloe asked, her voice echoing off the bare floors.

  It was a mixture of disinfectant and medicated skin creams blending with the cooking odors of whatever they’d served for breakfast. I gave her the look Bootsie had often given me, effectively silencing her, and allowing her to draw her own conclusions.

  We walked down a long corridor with handrails along each wall and ramps instead of stairs. Pausing at a door at the end of the hallway, I looked for the plaque that confirmed we were at room 106, then knocked on the door.

  A plump middle-aged woman wearing khaki pants and a floral scrub top opened the door and smiled warmly. “I’m Johnetta Moore. You must be Vivien. Cora told us you’d be coming by this morning.”

  She opened the door wider to allow us to walk inside, her white sneakers squeaking on the linoleum. I introduced her to Chloe and my mother before moving forward into the room.

  It was a private room with only a single bed, and although it was small I could tell that a lot of effort had been made to make it seem like home. A worn, dark green reclining chair sat in a corner next to a small table full of framed photographs. Handmade needlework hung from the walls, and rainbow-hued afghans lay across the foot of the bed and along the back of the chair. The deep windowsill was filled with pots of ivy, and in front of the window was a record player like the one in the closet of my room that had once belonged to my mother. A stack of vinyl records sat on the floor next to it, the unmistakable face of Elvis on the top cover.

  “We expected you a little earlier,” Johnetta said as she led us to the bed. “This is usually her rest time, but she insisted on waiting until you got here. She’s been very excited. I’ll let you chat and I’ll be back in a little bit. Just give a holler out the door if you need me.”

  I watched her leave, then allowed my attention to be drawn to the head of the bed. The old woman sat against a pile of pillows, her skin dark against the bright white of her linens and the lacy nightgown she wore. She seemed to have shrunk since I’d last seen her, as if each year had demanded a piece of her in payment. Her fingers lay like brittle kindling against the sheets, her hair a steel gray bun braided at the back of her head just like she’d always worn it.

  But her eyes were cloudy, as if they had been reversed so that she could only look inward. I remembered Carrie telling me that Mathilda was blind, but I somehow hadn’t expected this. I thought of all the photographs and frames and bright colors and imagined Mathilda dictating what should be placed where, so that she would know what it looked like without being able to see it.

  “Mathilda,” Carol Lynne said, moving toward the bed like a person working herself through a maze. She knelt down and picked up Mathilda’s hand. “It’s me. It’s Carol Lynne. I’ve come back.”

  Mathilda reached out her other hand and placed it on my mother’s head. “Yes, chile. You come back to stay. Jus’ like you always promise.” Her voice was thin and reedy, but still held the melodious tones I remembered from being sung to at night.

  “I did, didn’t I?” my mother said, a child repeating something to make it true.

  I wondered if she’d visited here with Bootsie, and imagined she probably had and had even already shared the same words with Mathilda. But the old woman just closed her eyes and smiled, stroking my mother’s hair. Mathilda had already outlived most of her family, including her husband and a son, and maybe that was what gave her the sense of peace and acceptance, a nod toward the inevitable. Like jumping off the levee and into the river, it was pointless to pray to not get wet.

  Chloe stepped back and I reached my hand out to her. She either didn’t see it or ignored me, because my hand dangled in the air for a long moment before I drew it back to my side.

  Mathilda turned toward us, her milky eyes searching. “Who you brung with you, Carol Lynne?”

  Not wanting Chloe to be introduced as JoEllen, I spoke up. “It’s Vivien. And I brought my stepdaughter, Chloe.”

  My mother moved to sit at the foot of the bed, and Mathilda opened her arms wide to me. I found myself moving quickly toward her and wrapping myself within her embrace, holding on to her as if she were all the parts of my past I wanted to bring back, feeling that as long as she was there it was possible.

  She let go of me, and I pulled away. Her hands found my face and she stroked my cheek, her fingers wet with my unexpected tears. “You still beautiful. I always say you get prettier as you get older. And you married now.”

  “Not anymore. It didn’t work out.” I was conscious of Chloe behind me, listening to every word.

  “So you come back, too.” It wasn’t a question, but more of a recitation of an old, familiar story. “Where you been?”

  My mother let her hand fall on Mathilda’s thin leg under the blanket. “She’s been chasing ghosts.”

  The throbbing in my temples deepened as I looked between my mother and Mathilda, trying to decode her meaning.

  “Um-hmm,” Mathilda said as she nodded, her odd eyes closed.
/>   For a moment, I thought she’d fallen asleep. But then her eyes popped open again, staring directly at Chloe.

  “You been helpin’ in Miss Bootsie’s garden?”

  Chloe shook her head, and then quickly said, “No. Sir. I mean ma’am.”

  Mathilda found my hand and squeezed. “She be gone now a year. Her garden needs tending. And you cain’t chase ghosts when your fingers are busy in the dirt.”

  I dipped my head, wondering if her mind had started to go along with her eyesight, and wishing she could tell me what to do. I jerked my head up, remembering why we’d come. “Mathilda, you’ve known my family for so long. Do you remember any stories about a woman who disappeared? Maybe even a member of my family?”

  Her hand felt cold in mine, but her expression didn’t change. “Why you ask that, Vivi?”

  “Remember that terrible storm earlier this week? Lightning struck the old cypress in the backyard, exposing the roots. There was the body of a woman found buried underneath them. We’re trying to find out who she was, and how she got there.”

  She closed her eyes and I watched as they moved rapidly beneath her paper-thin eyelids as if scanning her memory. “There was one Walker woman, long before my time. She the one whose husband built the house. It was all wilderness then, and they say she was delicate-like, couldn’t take the hard livin’. She went back to her family in New Orleans, left her husband and chil’ren. Don’t know if she ever came back, though. That part of the story ain’t as interestin’ as the leavin’ part, so people don’t talk so much about that.”

  I thought I felt a small tremble in her hand, but it could have been from me. My headache throbbed throughout my body, and I focused on Mathilda’s face so I wouldn’t think about the vial of pills in my purse.

  “She wore a tiny ring on a watch chain around her neck. It was half of a ring that when put together read ‘I’ll Love You Forever.’ Does it sound familiar to you?”

  She pulled her hand away and began to push her covers off. “I needs to sit in my chair so I can rest. They say more people die in bed than they do in wars.”

  I thought about calling for Johnetta, but she would only make Mathilda get back in bed. I figured if you’d reached one hundred and four years old, you’d earned the right to sleep wherever you wanted.

  I took one of Mathilda’s elbows and was surprised when Chloe took the other. We carefully led her to the chair and helped her sit. Then I laid the afghan over her and pulled the lever so that she was in a reclining position.

  “So do you remember the ring?” I asked again.

  “The ring,” she repeated, as if to make sure she’d heard me correctly. Then she raised her hand and touched Chloe’s cheek, and Chloe looked at me with widened eyes but didn’t pull back. Mathilda moved her hand from one cheek to the other, tracing a thin, dark finger over Chloe’s brow bone, and then her nose and chin.

  “How old you be?”

  “Twelve,” Chloe answered, her eyes darting to me with a question.

  “Hmm. You got good bones, chile. You be like Vivien and Carol Lynne. They was ugly as a naked chicken when they was knee babies—Carol Lynne ’specially. Jus’ be patient. This way, you have a chance to grow your personality. It’s the ones born pretty cain’t barely put two words together.”

  Mathilda dropped her hand and closed her eyes. “Tell Johnetta that I’m already asleep so she won’t bother me.”

  Chloe stepped back, her cheeks flame red.

  I bent over the old woman and kissed her cheek, thinking she might already be sleeping. Quietly, I said, “It was so good to see you again. I’ll stop back soon, all right?”

  She didn’t move, her only response the slow lifting of her chest as she breathed.

  We tiptoed from the room, passing Johnetta along the way and letting her know that Mathilda was already asleep, but not telling her exactly where she was sleeping.

  We piled into the car again, and I turned the engine, the sound overly loud to my sensitive hearing and pounding head. I felt adrift, confused for a moment as to where I should point my car. You cain’t chase ghosts when your fingers are busy in the dirt. Mathilda’s voice worked its way through the pain in my head. Facing Carol Lynne, I said, “Are Bootsie’s gardening tools still in the shed?”

  My mother’s eyes were clear as a child’s, and just as empty. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to quell the anger and frustration I felt toward her. It was almost as if I believed she’d begun to lose her memory on purpose so that she and I would never have the conversation I’d been dreaming about for years. It was unfair, and unkind, but it didn’t take away the truth of it.

  “Why do you need gardening tools?” Chloe asked, leaning into the front seat.

  “Because we’re going to grow things. Who knows? Maybe it will qualify for a science credit in your homeschooling curriculum.”

  “My what?”

  I gave an inward sigh. I hadn’t wanted to tell her that her father had called, knowing it would upset her that he hadn’t asked to speak with her, but I had no choice now. “Your dad called this morning and we decided that it’s okay if you stay here with me until he returns in May. Which means that we have to find a way for you to finish the school year. I thought I’d ask Mrs. Smith if she might know how to go about it, since she was a teacher for so long.”

  I shut my eyes, wondering if I’d made a mistake, that her being here now didn’t mean she wanted to stay. Holding my breath, I waited for Chloe to speak.

  Chloe leaned back in her seat, her arms clenched tightly across her chest, and I knew she was thinking about her father. She caught me looking at her in the review mirror and immediately rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

  I sighed with relief as I pulled out of the parking lot back onto Highway 82. I didn’t turn on the radio this time, thinking my head couldn’t take it and not wanting to break my promise to Mark less than a day after I said I could stop.

  “Hey, Vivi?”

  I met Chloe’s eyes in the mirror. “Yes?”

  “When you asked Mathilda about the ring on the chain, she never answered you.”

  I looked back at the flat road in front of me leading into the horizon. “No,” I said. “She didn’t.”

  Despite my headache, I reached over and turned on the radio and listened to my mother singing every lyric as if she’d never forgotten them, figuring it was easier than trying to think about why Mathilda would have wanted not to talk about the ring, or why it had been buried with the woman underneath the cypress tree.

  Chapter 20

  Carol Lynne Walker Moise

  INDIAN MOUND, MISSISSIPPI

  SEPTEMBER 1, 1963

  Dear Diary,

  I’m leaving. For good, I think. There’s nothing to keep me here and a whole world that’s waiting for me. I can feel it, just like the way I can feel the change in seasons even before the cypress leaves turn the color of fire. I’ll miss that the most, I think. The colors of the trees in fall and the delta sunsets. But other places have trees and horizons, too, I guess. I’ll just need to get used to them.

  I went down to the jewelry store yesterday to say good-bye to Emmett. He didn’t know that, of course, but as long as I did it was okay. Bootsie’s a couple of years older than Emmett, but he looks much younger. Bootsie once told me it’s because he never had children to wear him out. I said she should look just as young, seeing as how she’d gotten a hall pass on raising her child for six years. I remember saying that, because I was twelve, and that’s the last time I ever got my mouth washed out with soap. Which is better than getting slapped, I guess, but just as humiliating.

  I sat and watched Emmett work for a long time, neither of us saying anything, which is the way we both like it. There’s something beautiful about the only sound being the ticking of hundreds of clocks. Maybe that’s why he’s always so calm. He said he spent so m
uch time there with his uncle that when he got older he never wanted to work where there was more to listen to than just the sound of time passing.

  He handed me the old hatbox with all the spare parts and pieces, and asked me if I wanted to play with it. I wasn’t sure if he was joking or not, or maybe he hadn’t noticed that I’m eighteen now, so I took it and started going through all the watch parts and old pieces of miscellaneous jewelry. He told me that when he died the box and everything inside it would go to me. I thanked him, because he was being nice, but I couldn’t imagine what I’d want with a box of old junk.

  It’s right before dawn now, and I’m sitting out on the front porch with my suitcases and writing this while I wait for Jimmy Hinkle. I’m also smoking a cigarette—and I’m going to leave the butt right here on the porch for Bootsie to find. I’m done with her rules. It’s time I make my own.

  The sky is just light enough that I can see what’s around me, so I took a walk to the Indian mound and pressed my ear to the ground at the top to see if I could hear the earth talk to me. Mathilda had shown me that years ago, and I think a part of me believes that the earth and moon and sky are all living creatures. And that they speak to us if we’re willing to listen. I listened real hard, waiting to hear the earth tell me it was time to leave and not come back. But no matter how hard I tried, all I heard was the wind and the sound of the cypress trees crying in the swamp.

  I sat down at my cypress tree, too, opening my eyes wide just in case Mathilda’s haint wanted to show itself to me. But there was nothing there except for me, and the old tree, and all the memories of me sitting beneath it. I’ll miss this tree the most, even more than our weird yellow house with its creaking floorboards and peculiar style. I think I’ll even miss Bootsie’s garden. I’d never admit it to her, but all those hours I spent watching her have taught me something about the cycles of life and death, and how it’s possible to grow something from a tiny seed pressed into the soil. Maybe it’s because I think of myself as a seed, only it’s taken me eighteen years to poke my head above the ground.