He didn’t make the tiger wait very long.
“So, Maggie, do you think you’ll move back to Georgia right away? Or perhaps take some time to travel a bit first?”
I slipped the triangular pie server underneath the crust and lifted a piece heavy with pecans onto a dessert plate. “Excuse me?”
Mama hustled back to the table with a tray of china cups and saucers. “We haven’t decided exactly where we’ll go yet, but I think we’ve definitely ruled out Kentucky.”
“Kentucky would be good if you were a horse person, I suppose. Do you like horses?”
I laid my fork down and made sure my eyes grew big and wide. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jim chuckled and took a cup of coffee from Mama. “You don’t know what I mean about the horses?”
“No, I mean about Georgia. We’re not moving back to Georgia, we’re staying here.”
Jim held his cup halfway to his mouth. Mama spilled coffee on the white tablecloth.
“My daddy left me this farm—didn’t Mama tell you? I didn’t get to know him growing up, and now he’s dead, so it’s really good we get to live here because I can learn things about him, and since my stepfather turned out to be gay and all, Mama doesn’t want to go back to Atlanta anyway. So we’re staying put right here.”
I dug my fork into the pecan pie. Mama’s face was frozen.
“Sweetheart, if I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were being impertinent.”
“Did I say something wrong? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to. He just thought we were moving back to Georgia next year and I was explaining to him why we’re staying here on the farm.”
Her head swayed the tiniest bit, like she was balancing to keep it from exploding off her shoulders. First her eyes bulged, then they narrowed into tiny slits, and her fingers curled tight around her fork.
“I am sure you know perfectly well we are not staying here,” she said. She glanced quickly at Mr. Jim. He looked like he wanted to be anyplace but at our dinner table. “We will continue this discussion after our guest has left. Jim, would you like cream for your coffee?”
“No, thank you, Dee, I’m a black coffee guy.”
“Yes, of course you are.”
“You told me specifically that we were not moving back to Georgia, that there wasn’t anything there for us anymore, remember?”
“Of course I remember, but there was no discussion about staying here on this farm. Ever.” She turned to Mr. Jim. “I’m so sorry, Jim, she doesn’t know what she’s saying.”
“I do know what I’m saying,” I said firmly. “And I want to stay here.”
“We are not going to discuss this silly notion in front of company. Now eat your dessert. I always did like that rule about how children should be seen and not heard.”
“We should discuss it in front of Jim, because that’s why he’s here, right? So you can make me like him, so I won’t care when he comes with cash on day three hundred and sixty-five. Isn’t that what you told me?”
Mama’s face tightened so much I thought her skin might pop.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, ladies, let’s not get into a fight,” Jim said. “I am interested in this farm, Maggie—who wouldn’t be, it’s magnificent. But we don’t have to talk about this here and now. We have seven months to make a decision.”
He reached out to pat my hand like I was a puppy. I jerked away.
“It won’t be for sale in seven months, either.”
Mama shot up from her chair, gripping the side of the table so hard her knuckles turned white. “You. Are. Excused!” She flung her arm in the direction of the stairs.
“Fine!” I yelled. “But this farm was my daddy’s and it’s the only thing I have of him, so don’t even think for one second that I’m changing my mind!”
I fled the room and pounded up the stairs, making sure every footstep was heard all over the entire state. Tossing my denim skirt on the floor, I yanked on a pair of jeans and fumbled through tears and shaking hands to zip them up. My stomach felt like a piece of wire was twisted around it. I grabbed two sweatshirts, layered one on top of the other, and tiptoed down the back stairs and out into the cold.
The sun sank quickly. The temperature dropped so fast I could see my own breath by the time I got to the Parkers’. I leaned against Deacon’s truck in the driveway and shivered in the dark. A single candle flickered from each of the second-floor windows, one in the kitchen, two in the living room, and one in Sue and Kori’s bedroom. Laughter and voices drifted down, mingling with the smell of pumpkin pie and fresh snow. The middle of my chest squeezed so tight it was hard to breathe. Kendra was right; I was an outsider. I didn’t belong to this family, and I’d never felt it as much as I did right then.
A face appeared in one of the windows. Sonnet pulled a sheer curtain aside and watched me watching her, then let the curtain fall again and moved away. I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. As much as I couldn’t stand the thought of going home, if I stood out in the cold much longer, my tears would freeze as soon as they hit my cheeks.
I’d just turned toward the road when Sue came around from the side of the house. I heard her feet crunch on the driveway, and saw her walking toward me with her arms spread wide. Uncontrollable sobs exploded from my chest.
“Hey, Maggie, you all right, hon?”
She pulled me into a hug and planted my face on her shoulder.
“Oh, boy, oh boy. Good old holidays. Always inspiration for drama.”
Hiccup. Hiccup.
I looked up. “Mama and I had such a big fight at dinner.”
“Of course you did.” She brushed wet hair out of my face and smiled. “We’ve already had two fights with Haily, and Kendra and Lucy got into it in a big way. You’ll be able to tell by the gravy splattered on the ceiling. Holidays are tough, hon.”
I nodded and sniffled, but I didn’t want to let go of her. She jiggled my shoulder.
“Hey, what kind of pie do you like? We spent most of yesterday and this morning baking. Pumpkin, cherry, pecan, mincemeat, blueberry—I think that’s it. Nope, we have buttermilk pie, too. We love pie. Let’s go get some, okay?”
Minutes later I was warm and toasty in the living room above the country store, eating pie smothered in whipped cream with Biz snuggled up to my side, watching Deacon and the others play charades. At the end of one game, James leaned over and inspected the top of Biz’s head.
“Hey, look at that! Your hair’s coming in bright red, just like mine!”
Biz stiffened and there was a beat of silence before she reached up and touched the new threads sticking straight toward the ceiling.
“No, it’s not!”
Everyone laughed together, and my whole world tilted. I wanted to reach out and touch all the smiling faces around me. I wanted to say that I loved them, every one of them, and I wished I could make that moment last forever. But, of course, I didn’t say anything. I pulled Biz closer and leaned my cheek against the yellow fuzz that announced she was getting better. Someone handed me another piece of pie, and a new game started up.
THIRTY-ONE
Jim’s car turned out of the driveway just as Deacon and I rounded the bend a little after eight. Deacon cut the truck lights and pulled slowly up to the house.
“You want me to come in with you?”
I could see Mama through the windows, moving between the counter and the sink in the kitchen. She might not even know I’d left. So different from the Parkers. I touched my cheek, remembering the way Kori had cupped her hand under my chin before I’d left and said, “I’m glad you came to us, Maggs. It was a good Thanksgiving.”
“I’m okay. But thanks.”
Deacon patted my shoulder. “You know where to find me and Quince.”
I got out and fumbled my way around to the back of the house in the dark.
For Mama and me, the way we’d always acted when there had been an “unpleasantness”—which was the way she referred to out-and
-out fights—was to pretend nothing had happened. This might not have changed for her, but I couldn’t let it go. My heartache was real. I’d stuffed too much down inside my whole life; there was no room for more.
The morning after Thanksgiving, I wrapped up in the new red parka she’d bought me and snuck out to the barn before she was awake. I hadn’t been back to see the magnolias for a while, but on this day, with a showdown between the two of us in clear view, I needed more than courage. I needed a reminder of what I’d missed out on, and why I wanted so badly to stay.
I folded the big tarp into a square on the floor and lined the paintings up against the wall, smallest to biggest, left to right, and sat cross-legged to study them. What did he feel when he stroked his brush across the canvas? Did he paint each one on my actual birthday? Or did he work on them over the winter, before sugaring season took all his time? I dabbed my fingertip on the unfinished painting, right where my eyes would have been, and pretended to color them sky blue. It was nice being up here by myself, almost like he was sitting beside me, so close I could smell the Listerine on his breath. I remembered that now—that he always smelled like Listerine when he hugged me.
The barn door rolled open downstairs.
“Sugar?”
I crawled out to the landing and peered over the edge. Mama stood in the middle of the big empty first floor in her fur coat and pink snow boots, looking like she was lost on a trek to Antarctica.
“I’m up here.”
She startled. “Oh! I saw you come out. What are you doing?”
“I like it in here.”
“Your daddy used to come here to paint.”
“I know. Some of them are in this room.”
“Still? I figured he’d sold them all. People loved those landscapes.” She lifted the collar up around her ears and shivered. “It’s so cold in this barn. It’s a wonder Jesus survived his birth.”
“These aren’t just landscapes,” I said. “Some are different.”
“Different?”
I’d spoken too soon. I wasn’t ready to share the magnolias with her, and now she’d want to see them. Thoughts flew through my mind so fast I couldn’t catch them. What should I say? How could I use this in the Stay-in-Vermont Action Plan?
“He painted magnolias,” I said bluntly.
“Magnolias?” She climbed the steps. Her pink boots left wet marks on the wood. “I didn’t know that.”
When she got to the top I moved between her and the room where the magnolias were still lined up against the walls. “I didn’t know he painted anything. I had to find out from two girls at school,” I said.
She heard the accusation in my tone and stopped, guarded. “May I see them?” she asked quietly.
Reluctant but hopeful at the same time, I led her to the room. Maybe seeing them would make her understand why it was so important to me to stay. Her eyes moved slowly from one painting to the next, her mouth dropping open slightly. When she got to the last one, she raised a hand toward the faceless image, then jerked it away.
“Do you know who that is?” I asked.
“Of course I do,” she said gently. “They’re beautiful. He even remembered the way your eyelashes had that little bit of gold on the end. I never knew he painted these.”
“Neither did I.” My voice wobbled. I was trying so hard to sound certain, and grown-up, but everything inside trembled. “Why didn’t I get to know him when he was alive?”
Her eyes softened again, the way they’d been that night I asked about the divorce. “It was complicated, sugar. He came to Georgia once, don’t you remember?”
I nodded. “But why only once? Every time I asked about him, you made me feel like I didn’t appreciate Peter and should stop asking.”
“Peter took good care of you. He gave you everything you needed.”
I shook my head. “No, he didn’t. He gave me things. You gave me things. We never talked about stuff that mattered. You made me feel ashamed whenever I asked questions about my own daddy.”
“How do you think Peter would have felt if he knew you were asking all those questions when he did everything for you? He took you in as his own when we married, without question. Have you ever considered his feelings?”
That tipped me over the edge. “I don’t really care how he felt,” I yelled. “The man who painted these pictures was my father!”
Mama’s eyes got big and her nostrils flared, the same way Sassy Pants’s did when she got spooked. “This, young lady, is exactly why we never discuss this sort of thing. Get your hysteria under control. This is not how we behave.”
She turned and stalked toward the door, but I couldn’t let it go. “Maybe that’s the way we did it before, but we aren’t in Georgia anymore!”
She wheeled around, her face frozen in a scary, fake-smile, wild-eyed expression. “Oh. I. Am. Aware,” she snapped. “Now come down out of this place. Your real mother is taking you shopping at the Black Friday sales.”
THIRTY-TWO
The night before school started again, Mama did the unthinkable. She broke her own golden rule, right in the middle of dinner.
“Sugar,” she said, her eyes trained on a mound of mashed potatoes, “I want to talk to you about Mr. Jim and what happened on Thanksgiving.”
I nearly choked on my milk.
“I think it’s important you understand something,” she said.
“There isn’t anything to understand.”
“Yes, there is, and I need you to hear me out. I know you think you want to stay here, but it isn’t something I ever considered. We’re only required to be here—”
I interrupted her. “I want to know about my daddy.”
She sat back in her chair. “Right now?”
I nodded.
“Do you think that will help you get over this obsession about staying here?”
“It’s not an obsession. And it’s two separate things, anyway.”
“Not really. If this wasn’t your daddy’s farm, you’d have no interest in staying. I understand that, but it doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for us.”
“I didn’t even know him. The kids at school know more about him than I do. It’s embarrassing.”
“Okay, I can tell you some things. He was creative. He was estranged from his family. When we found out you were coming, he joined the military without even discussing it with me. He thought it was the best way to support us.”
She got up and pretended to look for something in the cabinets, slapping the doors shut after inspecting each one.
“Tell me something real.”
She twirled around. “Real? What’s not real about those things?”
“What was he like? What made him happy?”
“Do we really have to do this?”
Something told me not to say a word, that if I forced her to talk first, she’d tell me. I chewed the inside of my lip and waited until she sat down.
“Okay, if you must know, there was the before person, and the after. Before he went to Afghanistan he loved to paint. He loved being outside, he loved trees. He picked wildflowers and kept them in a jar. He was the only man I ever knew who read poetry books in public, and sometimes he read out loud to me. Is this the kind of stuff you mean?”
The image of my daddy reading a poem to a younger version of Mama spread warmth throughout my body. She was telling me stuff I’d waited a lifetime to hear.
“Please keep going.”
“He wouldn’t talk much about his family. I’m not sure what happened, but he didn’t like them. He said they were judgmental. He only wore Levi’s jeans because his legs were so long and they fit him the best. He could build anything with wood. He had those kind of eyes people say are soulful. Never raised his voice. He had huge hands that were gentle and soft. And he smiled all the time.”
“What about after?”
Her voice got quiet. “There was barely any shadow of him left. I knew it as soon as we met him up here. He needed to be alone most
of the time. You made him happy, but he reminded me of a turtle. He’d poke his head out for a few hours and do things with you, then he’d disappear for days. And I don’t mean literally disappear—he was here, but his head was somewhere else. He couldn’t stand noise. Sometimes he thought he was back in the war. And sometimes he could get violent. It was frightening.”
“Did he have PTSD?”
“How do you know about PTSD?”
“Because I went to school and they taught us stuff.”
“Okay, yes, he had PTSD.”
“And that’s why we left?”
“That’s why we left.”
“But he only came to see me one time.”
“I’m sure he wanted to come more, sugar, but he was crippled by this problem. It was almost impossible for him to travel.”
“Why didn’t you bring me up here?”
Little creases bunched on her forehead. Her mouth moved like Biz’s when she tried to make uncooperative words come out. Finally, her eyes got really big and she said, “Don’t you see? He had a mental illness. Mental!”
“Why does that mean you couldn’t bring me?”
“PTSD is an adult problem. Children shouldn’t be exposed to those kinds of things.”
“It’s not like he had chicken pox, or a cold I could catch.”
“You were safe in Atlanta, sugar. Peter may not have been your biological father, but he was stable. Your daddy’s illness was unpredictable. He was damaged. Who knows what kind of lasting effect being around him could have had on you!”
“But you never gave me a choice. You should have done something to make it happen and now it’s too late.”
“You were too young to know how to make that kind of decision.”
My voice had risen to a semihysterical level, but I wasn’t finished. I had so much more to say. “I belong here. I was always supposed to be here. You should have brought me. It’s your fault! He wanted me here. He missed me so much he had to paint me! Is that the lasting effect you were worried about? He would never have let anything bad happen. He told me.”
Georgia Rules Page 12