Hill Women

by Cassie Chambers

  But as I got older, things changed. As my horizons were expanding, my mother’s were too. It was as though my growth and change were contagious; as she watched her daughter evolve, she automatically did the same.

  On one trip home, I told my mother about a wine-tasting class I had gone to with my friends. A few months later, she and I went to a liquor store and picked out a bottle of wine. She was so worried someone might see her that she insisted we park our car around the corner and dart into the store with our heads down. When we got home, she—after much hemming and hawing—had a glass of wine with me. Over time, we got to a place where we would have a cocktail on some of our nights out together. My mother, as it turns out, is a fan of margaritas.

  Even now, though, she hides her wine collection from view if any of her family members come to visit. On Christmas Day, she will put her wine rack in the back of her closet until her family has left. Once they’re gone, she’ll retrieve it and open a bottle for us to share.

  A willingness to indulge in a glass of wine wasn’t the only way my mother changed. She watched a Harry Potter movie with me and blushed when I teased her about not letting me watch it as a child because there was “too much devil in it.” She tried (and hated) sushi. She drove back to college with me one fall and made her way through some pretty heavy New England traffic. The more I experienced, the more experiences she knew were out there for her to try. And the more she experienced, the more open she became to experiencing other things.

  The summer after my junior year at Yale I went to South Africa. I had gone to Europe to visit some UWC friends right after we graduated, but this would be by far the longest I had ever been outside America. I had gotten a grant to study the attitudes of Cape Town students about gender, and I was excited to spend a couple of months in a new part of the world.

  My mother, on the other hand, was not excited at all. “Cassie, have you read these crime statistics?” she said over the phone. “They don’t just rob people over there. They break their arms when they rob people!” I could hear the genuine fear in her voice. But I was young and full of travel lust. I was not about to be talked out of going.

  Finally, she tried another tactic. “Why don’t I come with you?” she said. “We can make it a vacation.” At first I resisted. I was a twenty-something college student. I didn’t need my mother to accompany me on my trips. Then I reconsidered. My mother had never been outside of the country, besides that one day trip to Mexico and a cruise that briefly docked in a couple of Caribbean ports. I was nervous about spending so long in such an unfamiliar place. It might be nice to have her along for part of the time. So I agreed and she bought a plane ticket.

  I left for South Africa earlier than my mother to get started on my research. A month later, I went to retrieve her from the Cape Town airport. Her flight had landed early, but she’d had no way of contacting me, since neither of us had cellphones that worked. She was sitting on a bench in the terminal, her eyes darting around nervously. Her bags were tucked under her seat, and her legs were planted solidly in front of them. I had no doubt that she intended to kick any person who so much as looked at them or her. I could see the outline of a pouch underneath her shirt. She had asked me several times about the various options for keeping her passport and money safe. Despite my protestations—“Mom, you don’t need to wear one of those pouches. You will look like such a tourist!”—she had gotten one of the largest, most touristy ones on the market.

  My mother stayed nervous for most of the two weeks she was with me in South Africa. But she didn’t let her fears stop her from experiencing all the area had to offer. We rented a car, and she drove—on what was, in her mind, the wrong side of the road—through the South African countryside. I was in charge of navigating. When we reached roundabouts, we would go around two or three times before turning onto a side street, just to make sure she knew which lane to drive in when she exited the circle. “Yup, that’s the lane,” I would say as we began another lap.

  Our last week there, we went on a safari. It was the off-season for tourism, so many of the guests at the lodge were local South Africans. One evening I came down to the common room to find my mother deeply engaged in conversation with the other guests. They were asking her questions about American politics and culture, and she was cheerfully sharing her thoughts on American involvement in the Middle East. From then on, we always had plenty of people who wanted to sit with us at meals.

  My mother also made friends with the staff at our hotel in Cape Town. She asked them about their city and took their advice on how to see it. She was open about the fact that she was outside of her comfort zone, saying, “I’ll be honest with y’all, I’m real nervous about bein’ here.” On our last night in Cape Town the hotel staff gave us a bottle of South African wine and a dessert plate with the words We will miss you! written on it.

  It was on this trip that I felt the relationship between my mother and me change. I was no longer just her daughter, the person she had birthed and raised. There was a shift in the balance of authority; we became more equal. We were companions, friends, joint adventurers.

  I sometimes ponder this shift, how and why our relationship transformed itself. I’m not sure the relationship between Granny and my mother changed in the same way. Not because the two of them weren’t close—they were—but because the older they got, the more their lives diverged. Wilma was moving ever farther from the hills, while Granny stayed firmly rooted in the mountains. They had their past in common, but their futures were increasingly different. There was something about the newness of the world my mother and I were exploring together that allowed the bounds of our old relationship to slip away, and a genuine friendship to emerge.

  In the evenings on that trip, we talked to each other as friends do. She had begun working with children again, as a teacher for the Berea College Child Development Lab. This was her passion, and she was good at it. She had a knack for finding children who needed extra attention and making sure they got extra support. Teaching wasn’t as lucrative as insurance sales, but it yielded her far more happiness. I encouraged her to follow her passion, and she in turn encouraged me to follow mine. I wasn’t quite sure what that was yet, and we spent hours trying to figure it out.

  I’m glad we had this trip together. It marks the last time I remember not having to think about her advancing illness. Her symptoms had begun a few months before we went to South Africa. She suddenly developed burning pain in her hands, feet, and shoulders. Over time, some of her muscles died. Her balance worsened, and she got tired more easily. The doctors were stumped.

  They remain stumped today, even though her symptoms have continued to progress. The nerves in her body keep dying, and no one is sure exactly why. The doctors know it’s an autoimmune condition, but they don’t know exactly which one it is or what caused it. Her immune system is attacking the nerves in her body and brain. No one can tell us how or at what rate her disease will progress. The uncertainty is scary.

  I might never get to go on another long trip with my mother. I hope I do, but her condition is unpredictable and I don’t take anything for granted. Sometimes, when I think about her disease I get angry; it took my mother too long to be able to explore the world, and I worry that her ability to explore it will be cut too short. Other times I ignore her illness, as though ignoring it will make its effects go away. I’ve spent years searching for someone or something to blame it on: doctors, decisions, environmental contaminants, genetics. I’ve never found a satisfactory culprit.

  * * *

  —

  My mother’s illness didn’t stop her—and the whole family—from coming to Connecticut for the weeklong festivities celebrating my graduation from Yale. For months, my mother had been telling me that she intended to be the last one on the dance floor the night of the parents’ reception. She stuck true to her word. She even outlasted me, bobbing her head and snapping her fingers until
security began ushering people out.

  By the time I graduated from Yale, it felt mostly natural to be there. I had figured out the system, the code, the secret password into this world that had seemed so mysterious for so long. In some ways, I forgot that I’d ever felt like I didn’t belong there. Although I still made the occasional faux pas—such as showing up to a Fourth of July picnic at a country club in a black business suit only to find everyone else in seersucker and plaid—I felt that I understood most of the rules and expectations of this new world.

  But it’s hard to inhabit two worlds at once. As I fit in more at Yale, I fit in less in the mountains. I didn’t know how to be both of these people at the same time, the Ivy League graduate and the Eastern Kentucky mountain woman. So I chose to define myself as the Ivy Leaguer—it somehow seemed like progress, like an improvement in who I was. Like I had been upgraded with special knowledge and new features.

  The Christmas of my senior year at Yale I arrived reluctantly in Owsley County. It was the first year I hadn’t really wanted to come home. I liked being in New Haven, and I had a senior thesis and a New England boyfriend to get back to.

  I entered Aunt Ruth’s house in a black cashmere dress I had bought on a discount website, and I was pleased with how chic it looked. I wore black leggings, black boots, and a black headband with an oversized black bow. The rest of my family was in jeans and T-shirts, as I knew they would be. I looked out of place. Maybe that was the point. Maybe I subconsciously wanted to signal to them that I was different now.

  I sat impatiently as we opened presents, taking note of each time Aunt Ruth interrupted or talked over someone. Had she always been so loud? It seemed impossible to get a word in amidst the noise and chaos.

  That year my mother gave Aunt Ruth too many presents, just like she always does. “Oh, I just happened to have extra lying around,” she said as Aunt Ruth opened up a series of expensive candles. “It didn’t cost me much at all.” I knew that was a lie. I think my mother feels a need to make up for the fact that she left Owsley County and Ruth did not, and giving Ruth a lot of presents is a way to do that. Once, when Ruth was at our house, she commented on a painting on the wall. The next time my mother was in Owsley County, she gave Ruth the painting and claimed she was “redecorating.”

  “Thanks, Shorty,” Ruth said to Wilma with a soft smile. Even now, you can tell Ruth is the older sister.

  I once asked my mother if she thought Ruth resented her for the opportunities my mother had. “I mean, don’t you think she wishes she had those?” I asked.

  My mother thought awhile before responding. “I don’t think she sees a point in thinking about things that way,” she answered. “I think she’s happy with her life and happy I’ve had mine.” I know that Ruth and my mother are still close, maybe even closer than they were as children. Ruth gets nervous about driving to doctor’s appointments in larger cities, so often my mother will take her and Sonny. Ruth calls at eight A.M. most Saturdays just to chat. My mother knows nobody else would call that early and always says, “That’ll be Ruth,” as she reaches for the phone.

  Still, each time Ruth asks one of us pointed questions—“What’s it like in South Africa?” “What’re you learning in school?” “How do you get to New York City?”—I wonder if she wishes she’d had some of the experiences we have. I sometimes think about taking Ruth on a vacation to Europe or California, but I’m not sure she would enjoy it. She went to Florida a few times to visit Sonny’s son who lives there, and she told me that she didn’t like it. “It’s too hot in Floy-ida,” she explained with pursed lips. “And there are too many people.”

  That Christmas in Owsley County, Aunt Ruth noticed that I was quieter than normal. She plopped down beside me on her couch and leaned over. “Honey, that’s a real nice dress. I’d love to have me a dress like that.” She brushed my sleeve in an admiring way. I don’t think she actually meant it. I’d never seen Aunt Ruth in a dress other than her wedding photos and the occasional Sunday at church. I don’t think she had a use for any garment that limited her ability to do chores and work outside. But I think she was trying to make me feel better about standing out—to let me know that even if I looked a little different, I still belonged with my family.

  I had barely gotten out of the car when I heard a familiar voice say, “Hey, Cassie.” I turned around and saw Ezra, a classmate of mine from Yale. I hadn’t known he was going to be there, but it was good to see him. We chatted briefly as I began to unload the boxes from my car. I had barely walked ten feet farther when I bumped into Kathleen, yet another Yalie. Kathleen told me that a third classmate of ours would be arriving shortly. I looked at my watch. It was eight o’clock in the morning. I wondered how many more familiar faces were yet to come.

  It was my first morning as a student at Harvard Law School. I had just finished a year as a Fulbright Scholar at the London School of Economics, a year full of adventure and travel. I had roamed the streets of Morocco by myself. I had met the Queen of England. I had taken myself on a weekend trip to Belgium just to see what it was like to travel alone. I felt like law school was going to be infinitely less exciting.

  The first time I took the LSAT—the standardized test used for law school admissions—my score was mediocre at best. That should have been a warning sign: I don’t think like a lawyer. I like to live in the world of big ideas and unconstrained brainstorming. Logic and detail are not my strong suits, and I should’ve given those facts more weight.

  Instead, I brought out my work ethic. I holed up in the library and pored over the pages of LSAT books. I woke up at six A.M. every day to take a practice test. I cleared my calendar for nothing but test prep. I blindly chased Harvard Law School like I had chased every other objective achievement up to that point. Eventually I raised my score enough to get admitted, although barely.

  Of the 550 students in the incoming class, about a dozen of them had gone to Yale with me. There were dozens more who graduated the year above or below me. If I expanded this circle just one degree—to people who knew one of my friends or vice versa—a good chunk of the student body fell inside its circumference. Although statistics on this type of thing can be hard to find, one article suggests that 30 percent of the students graduating from Yale Law School attended Yale or Harvard for undergrad.

  You would think that being a part of this cohort would have made my transition to law school easier, and in many ways it did. I wasn’t intimidated by the fact that I was at an Ivy League institution. I understood the norms and expectations, and I was comfortable speaking up in intimate, intellectual environments.

  But in other ways I was totally unprepared. Unlike a lot of my classmates, I didn’t know any lawyers before coming to Harvard. There were none in my immediate or extended family. I’d never set foot inside a law office. I had no idea what lawyers actually did. I had decided to go to law school because I wasn’t really sure what else to do with my life, not because I had some deep, burning passion for the law.

  I didn’t realize just how limited my understanding of the law was until I got to campus. “Are you interested in civil law or criminal law?” one of my classmates asked me at orientation. I hadn’t known that the two were different. “Both,” I said cautiously, waiting to see if this answer was acceptable. Satisfied, he continued, “Me too. I think it’s good not to decide until you’ve taken classes in both.”

  Although I was the first in my family to go to law school, I wasn’t the first to appear in a courtroom. When Papaw and Granny got married, they lived as sharecroppers on a farm in Sugarcamp holler, a few miles away from Cow Creek. But the Sugarcamp landlord evicted the family when Papaw, due to prior commitments, couldn’t come help him with some house repairs one day. The landlord thought that since Papaw was his tenant he should be at his beck and call. The landowner arrived, irate, the next day. “You best be off my property by the end of the year,” he said, his cheeks red
, shaking with anger.

  It wasn’t hard for Papaw to find a new place to sharecrop. He was known as one of the hardest-working men in the county, and within weeks he had made arrangements for the family to move to Cow Creek. Papaw took this unexpected turn in stride. He had learned that life was unpredictable, and getting angry rarely erased the challenges he faced.

  While undertaking this move, Papaw had his first and only encounter with the law. As part of relocating, he loaded up the manure from the barns at Sugarcamp to take with him to fertilize his new garden. Manure was a valuable resource on farms, and Papaw wasn’t about to leave it behind. He never considered that maybe he didn’t own the manure; he owned the horses that had produced it, and the food that he had fed the horses, so he just assumed the manure was his as well.

  The landlord, known county-wide for his spitefulness, disagreed and sued Papaw for fifty dollars—the alleged value of the manure. When I drive past the Owsley County courthouse I imagine the scene: Papaw in his bibbed overalls and cap, explaining to the judge in his slow, accented speech why he was entitled to this particular pile of animal feces. Papaw insisted on arguing the case himself, in part because he couldn’t afford a lawyer and in part because he believed that the law would be just and rule in his favor.

  Papaw was wrong. The landlord won in court because of who he was and how much of the county he owned. He then tried to use the money judgment to convince Papaw to come back to Sugarcamp. “Come work for me,” the landlord said, false sympathy in his voice. “I won’t make you pay that judgment.”

  Now, Papaw may have been poor, but he had pride—perhaps he had such pride because he was poor. And if that pride was wounded, he was forever wary of the offender. Following the lawsuit, the family stayed at Cow Creek, and Papaw refused to work for his prior landlord. Even though it was a struggle, Papaw found a way to pay the judgment.