“It’s after four.”
“Okay, we’ll get dinner. I just want to get out of the house.”
I grabbed my purse, echoing the goodbye Mama called to Oma. Mama took the car keys off the table beside the front door.
“Lori, hello!” The high voice with a southern accent shattered the quiet of the front yard as Mama locked the door.
Mama smiled at Oma’s neighbor and waved.
An elderly woman retrieved her mail from the box attached to the siding beside her stoop. “Is this little Rebecca?”
Before we’d moved, the woman had always given me a Christmas present. They’d been silly plastic dolls, but Oma had always fawned over how nice it was, since the neighbors didn’t have much money.
“Keziah,” Mama corrected. “Her name’s Keziah.”
“Look at how big she’s gotten. How old are you now, Rebecca? Fifteen?”
Great job listening. Mama poked my shoulder, so I called back, “Seventeen.”
“She’s gotten so big. I didn’t know y’all were visitin’.”
“I am, but Keziah is staying for a while.” Mama clicked the keychain to unlock the car.
“Enjoyin’ your time in New Winchester?” The woman swatted a bee with her mail.
“Yes, but we have to go now. Nice talking to you again.” Mama nudged me around the car.
I slipped into the passenger’s seat. Usually, I would make a joke to Mama about still remembering how to drive a car, but I didn’t feel like humor today. Mama didn’t speak until she headed down the road.
“Oma really doesn’t mean it. You know that, right? She loves you.”
“I know.” Houses passed by. People mowed their lawns. Two little girls drew on the sidewalk with chalk, and a woman hung a sign in front of a building: Apartment for Rent.
“You’re going to really like living here again, you’ll see. Did you know Oma wanted to write? She had all these ideas for a cute little series about goats, but I don’t think she wrote any of it down. Maybe you can get her to tell you some stories. You’re probably old enough now.”
“They’re bad stories?” Goats. I shivered. The man on the subway had talked about that. Beware of the goats. Maybe the stories were going to give me paper cuts. My skin crawled at the thought.
“Not bad, just complex. Actually, she used to tell them to me like warnings. The morals were deep. She could have made it with those stories, I think.”
I glanced at Mama as the tone of her voice shifted. A question hung unspoken between us. How long will Oma still remember her tales?
****
The New Winchester grocery store sat in a shopping center, nestled between a dry cleaner’s and a dollar store. I’d forgotten how much stuff they packed on the towering shelves. They didn’t have big markets in the city near our apartment, just corner shops. Stepping inside a supermarket was like entering a new world. I snapped my jaw shut to stop gaping.
Mama pushed the silver cart around a table of cookies. “You better start stocking up on supplies now. I’m not sure how often Uncle Jan is going to take you shopping.”
“But …” Since when have I stocked up on groceries? “I don’t know what to get.”
“I’ll help you make a list once we get back. You can keep track of what you need every week, like toilet paper and soap. We’ll get through this. You’re doing a wonderful thing for your grandmother.” Mama paused beside the potato stack. “I’ll make sweet potato pie for dinner.”
I shivered. Who are we kidding? This was a game of playing house, only with more at stake than who got to play with the kitchen unit.
****
When we finished filling the trunk with groceries, I walked the cart back to the cart return. A red convertible with two guys in the back was parked near it, and a girl leaned against the trunk. With cigarettes in hand, they turned to look at me. I kept my gaze on the pavement, stepping over a Styrofoam coffee cup. These teenagers might be my new classmates.
I’d gone to public school before we’d moved, and I had gone into Mama’s classroom in the city to help out. I wasn’t completely in the dark, but that had all been in elementary school. I’d heard horrible stories about high school. Sure, there were fights in the city, but none I’d ever seen. Then again, my only friend was Tiffany, and her friends usually ignored me. I didn’t smoke or guzzle beer as if it was water. I didn’t go to clubs. Much.
I glanced at the teens. One of the boys lifted his hand in greeting. He kept his hair long and bleached blond where it wasn’t dyed purple. When I climbed into the car, I looked back and saw they spoke amongst themselves again.
“Really?” Mama spoke on her cell phone, fiddling with the car keys. “No, Oma is fine. I was just getting dinner. No, there was just a little incident earlier, but nothing too big. Sure, put her on. Hi, sweetie, what’s the matter?”
I fastened my seatbelt, scanning the parking lot. The cars all looked clean and new, except for one rusty junker. At the far end of the parking lot, a local farmer had set up a wooden stand. A large white sign, painted with bold red letters, let the world know they sold fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
“Sure, here’s Keziah. Phebe wants to talk to you.”
I held the phone to my ear, the casing hot from Mama’s palm. “What’s up?”
“I hate you,” Phebe whined. “You know what Dad gave me for lunch? One sandwich. That was it. It didn’t even have any mustard on it. He said mustard doesn’t go on PB and J. What’s PB and J? Dad won’t tell me.”
“Peanut butter and jelly.” I chuckled. “He just doesn’t understand mustard.”
“I’ll be right back.” Mama opened the car door.
I nodded.
“But he wouldn’t let me put any on.” Phebe’s voice rose.
“Did you tell him you don’t like peanut butter and jelly?”
“He didn’t listen. When are you coming home? I don’t like it when it’s just Dad here. He doesn’t get it.”
In the background, our father yelled, “Hey, I heard that.”
“I like how you make lunch and breakfast.”
“And I like how you’ll eat anything I make.”
Mama returned from the produce stand with two boxes of purple pansies, and I ended the call. Mama set the boxes on the floor in the backseat.
“You’re going to put pansies around Oma’s house?”
“Yes, except for two.”
Mama backed out of the parking space and headed for the shopping center’s entrance. Instead of turning left, she maneuvered right, heading away from Oma’s house.
“Where’re we going?”
“You’ll see.”
We passed a veterinary hospital, a Jewish temple, and a Subway. She turned the car down another road. Oh, that destination. Mama pulled through the wrought iron gate of the New Winchester Cemetery. The path curved, made of dirt and gravel with deep ruts from the press of car tires.
“This was built in the early 1700s with the village’s first settlers buried within the sloping hills,” I read off a large plaque.
The grass was lush and green, and sunlight filtered through the trees to dapple across tombstones, the marble glistening. It felt as if a thousand pairs of hollow eyes turned their direction to me.
Mama stopped the car at the top of a knoll and turned it off. Without speaking, we unfastened our seatbelts and snapped the car doors open. The air seemed cooler there, yet with more sunshine than in the hot parking lot at the grocery store.
My foot sank into the moist ground, blades of grass curling around my Converse sneakers. When I pushed the door shut, the echo of it danced through the graveyard, weaving between the graves. I imagined dead eyes flying open beneath the soil. Hands reached up, skeletal fingers scraping the insides of coffins.
Mama slammed the trunk, and I jumped. Leaving her purse in the car, she carried a box of pansies in one hand and an ice scraper in the other. I followed a few steps behind. Oma used to call the names written on gravestones “people w
ho’d soon be forgotten.” The gravestones would ruin, the words weathered away, and no one would remember. The grave occupants would fade as if they had never existed.
Mama crouched in front of a grave near the fence, far back from the path. I hovered over her shoulder, hands sliding through the belt loops of my shorts while I stared at my grandfather’s tombstone. The space alongside it for my grandmother already had her name and birth year.
“Hey, Daddy.” Mama jabbed the ice scrapper into the soil near where a few flowers grew alongside the marble marker. The dark earth parted beneath the force
“Hi, Grandpa.” I shifted my stance. I didn’t remember him; he’d died of a heart attack when I was a baby.
Mama sang as she continued to plant, lost in her own world, the same one she always retreated to when we visited the cemetery.
I wandered to the next grave, grass crunching beneath my feet.
“Thankful Brooks,” I read aloud. Interesting name. No one had planted a flower for Thankful, the dirt hard and uncared for around the stone.
“Can I have an extra flower?” Thankful deserved one as Grandpa’s permanent neighbor.
Mama knelt beside me in the grass. Side by side, we planted for the dead.
****
I am six years old. My father’s uncle dies from a heart attack. He wants to take me to the funeral, so I can see my family, but Mama doesn’t want me to see a dead man. They argue but finally decide I will wait in the car until afterward and then meet people.
Oma goes too, so she can watch me. The funeral is three-hours away, near Vermont. When we get there, my parents go inside the church, but Oma and I walk to a park nearby. She buys a bag of peanuts from a grocery store on the way, so we can feed the squirrels.
We return to the car and wait, playing with crossword puzzle books. Oma writes the answers, but we both discuss them. When the funeral ends, my father drives us to the cemetery. Oma keeps me in the car.
“Why can’t I go too?” It must be something scary if I have to stay behind.
“It’s a gathering for adults,” she says.
I notice there aren’t any children in the dark-clad crowd.
Afterwards, Mama fetches us from the car and people come over to see me.
“Isn’t she pretty?”
They poke me, ask questions, and giggle when I don’t reply. I don’t recognize anyone, so I run back to Oma. She holds my hand and answers for me.
Chapter 4
The air was thin, the sky blue, and a woman soared, one arm extended. Her face was tranquil, dark eyes solemn. Short black hair curled around her ears, shifting from the force of wind. A slow and melancholy harp mingled with a violin.
The woman plummeted towards the ground. I wanted to scream, but my lips froze together. I couldn’t look away, nor could I close my eyes. The woman sped up as though determined to crash. She was going to strike.
… Now.
Instead of smashing, the woman landed on a white garbage bag filled with fluff.
A man loomed over her, smirking. His hair was short and blue, and he wore thick glasses made from prisms. Rainbows danced across his high cheekbones.
More people lounged amongst white garbage bags, women of crystalline skin and curling blue hair. A hulking man lifted a brass horn to his lips and blew, the sound like a needle piercing into my skull.
I grabbed my blanket, sitting up so fast my abdomen hurt. Next to me in the queen size bed, Mama snored. Warm sunlight streamed through the windows, sending a pattern of lace spilling across the yellow comforter. Random holes littered the cotton, and some of the seams were held together by safety pins.
I pushed off the comforter. The digital clock on the dresser said it was almost eight in the morning. The numbers seemed huge, red, and angry, and I dropped a t-shirt over them.
The upstairs master suite we used during visits was divided into two rooms. One room was the bedroom, hence the large bed and walk-in closet, and the other, smaller room was used for storage. Boxes covered the floor and bookshelves consumed the walls. A large attic laid across the hallway.
I entered the storage room. The space contained one window with lace curtains. Above it, a wooden shelf stretched from wall to wall, filled with old hardcover books. Parting the curtain, I stared at the house with green shutters next door. A birch tree grew between the two houses. The gnarled branches reached for the sky.
The white and black bark had always intrigued me, a maze of mystery. There were pictures to be found in the pattern, faces laughing and screaming.
If I opened the window, I could touch the tree. When I was younger, I’d always wondered what it would be like to climb onto it. Would the thin branches hold beneath my weight, or would I plummet? I’d never gathered enough courage to try.
I dropped the curtain so it settled over the glass. Sunlight blinked through the lace.
Water ran downstairs in the kitchen. Leaving Mama asleep in the bed, I crept out the door and down the stairs. Black and white photographs of Mama and Uncle Jan followed my descending path
Oma stood in the kitchen, washing her pink mug. She didn’t turn around until after she’d turned off the sink and plucked a paper towel off its roll.
“Good morning,” I sang to be chipper.
Oma jumped. “What are you trying to do, scare me? Can’t you make some noise to let people know where you are without creeping along like that?”
I blinked. It wouldn’t do to contradict Oma by saying she was just having trouble hearing because of the running water. “Why don’t I find you a dish cloth? Using paper towels to dry dishes is kind of wasteful and expensive.”
Oma huffed, crumpling her paper towel to throw onto the counter near the toaster. She set the mug down and opened the refrigerator. I didn’t remember the kitchen ever looking so chaotic. There were usually things sitting around, but it just looked filthy. Used paper towels formed mountains on the countertops, and dirty dishes overflowed from the sink.
“Mama’s still sleeping upstairs.”
Oma removed a bottle of water from the fridge. I squeezed past her to get to the cupboard and removed another mug, white with a huge yellow daisy on the side.
Oma bumped the water bottle against the counter. “If it’s time for you to be in the kitchen, just say so. I’ll wait my turn, even though I was here first.”
I shut the cupboard door with a click. “But I’m over here. I’m not in your way. Here, I’ll just go into the living room for now, okay?”
“So where’s your dad?” Oma spat. “Is he there?”
“You mean in New York?”
“No, I don’t mean in New York. Is he at the hospital?”
I frowned. “No. Why would he be at the hospital?”
“With your mom,” Oma growled as if I was being the difficult one.
“She’s not at the hospital.”
“You just said she was at the hospital.”
“I never said that. She isn’t at the hospital.” I clenched my fists, trying to keep my voice calm.
Oma’s face crumpled, her cheeks reddening. “How can you scream at me like that? Don’t you love me? You told me a lie. You did. God is watching you!”
She slammed the mug down so hard I winced, expecting it to shatter. It didn’t, but water sloshed over the edge. Her face bright red and eyes glossy, Oma stormed out of the kitchen and down the hall.
I hate you, dementia. Balanced on the verge of tears, I forced up an inner wall, banishing emotion.
****
Still massaging my shoulder from a mad kitchen cleaning spree, I went to the public school with Mama to register for classes. Later in the week I would have to take a tour of the building, but I tried to block that out. It made my stomach churn and gurgle. I didn’t want to imagine what high school would be like.
“You’ll be okay?” Mama asked as we left the school. “It won’t be that bad. This is a great school system, and you went to elementary here.” The New Winchester Public School consisted of the hi
gh school, junior high, and elementary, divided into different wings of a single building. “I’m sure it’ll seem familiar.”
I kicked a stone off the sidewalk.
“I went to school here, too,” Mama continued. “Maybe you’ll find an old yearbook in the library and look me up? Actually, my old yearbooks are probably still in the attic. You know how Oma never throws anything out.”
I nodded, kicking another stone. A car drove by, and up ahead, a woman walking a German shepherd approached.
“Hey, can I have Phebe?” I asked. “Can she come live here, too?”
“Keziah …”
“Come on, please? It would be perfect.” The words spilled out. “She can even help me with Oma.”
We stepped aside to allow the woman and her dog to pass.
“Keziah.” Mama increased her pace as we resumed walking. “The high school starts earlier than the elementary. How would she get to school? She’d have to walk, and I don’t want her walking alone.”
“I’m sure other kids do it, and this isn’t like the city.”
“So? Oma or I always walked you to school and picked you up.”
Hand in hand, strolling down the street. Sometimes stopping at the ice cream parlor in the spring.
“Oma can walk her then.”
“Oma is older now. I don’t want her walking around here in the winter with ice on the sidewalk.”
“Mama, please!”
“No.”
A squirrel darted up a maple tree and I envied its freedom. “Just because Oma hates her? Why doesn’t Oma like Phebe?”
“Oma doesn’t hate Phebe! They just … They don’t get along. Stop it, Kez. Phebe is going to stay with me. You’re not an adult yet, sweetie, and you’re already taking care of one woman. That should be more than enough.” Mama stopped walking. “Don’t you want to stay here? Just say it and you won’t have to, you know that.”
The Goat Children Page 3