The Shade of My Own Tree

by Sheila Williams

  The Confederate flag fluttering gently in the breeze caught my eye. Something about that thing always makes my blood boil. I don’t care about that part of southern heritage. Maybe I wasn’t born to. I had stopped for a moment to meditate on the Stars and Bars when a gravelly voice assaulted my thoughts.

  “Hey there! How’re you? Lovely day, ain’t it?”

  I lowered my gaze and found myself looking at a two-hundred-year-old man.

  Now I understood why he was flying that flag. He probably was a Confederate.

  He had a grizzled gray beard, and tufts of white hair fuzzed out from beneath his fishing cap. His clothes were at least as old as he was, and his shoes were older. His house was a dilapidated Queen Anne that might not survive the next strong wind. Two mats of fur lay on a concrete slab next to a pickup truck that belonged in the Ford Motor Company antique car museum. The mats moved, so I think that they were dogs. Something that smelled horrible burned in a huge barrel. Oblivious to it all, the little man sat in a lawn chair in the middle of the small yard, with a six-pack at his side, a beer can in his hand, and a cigar stuck in the side of his jaw. He was grinning at me.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Lovely day, ain’t it?” he repeated. Reaching down to his side, he pulled a can out of the pack. “You the colored girl’s thinking about buyin’ Caroline’s place?”

  I had to think about this question. I hadn’t been colored or a girl since 1965. But to this talking relic I probably was both.

  “Thinkin’ about it,” I echoed his words. How did he know?

  “Good house,” he commented. He spit out a wad of gnawed cigar and mumbled something. I thought that I heard him say, “Caroline was a good woman.”

  “Want a beer?”

  “Um … no, thank you,” I said.

  “Suit yourself,” he said, shrugging. “But if you change your mind, I’ll be right here.” He stuck the stubby piece of cigar back into his mouth. “I’m here all the time.”

  The grin never left his face.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  He nodded and held the beer can aloft before guzzling it down.

  I kept walking.

  There was laundry hanging on the clotheslines. There was a chicken coop in one backyard, a state-of-the-art wood play set in another, and a pair of model types power-walked past me wearing designer athletic wear with matching sneakers. They carried bottled water. Another woman with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth walked by carrying a soda. She was probably only thirty years old, but her face already spoke of a hard life that had gone on too long. The sun was shining and the sky was blue, but I could tell by the way she walked and the dead look in her eyes that she didn’t notice or care.

  She wore the face of a woman who doesn’t think that life is much worth living. It is the face of a woman who doesn’t see beauty or love anymore. The face of a woman who doesn’t see herself anymore.

  I have worn that face myself.

  I turned down Burning Church Road.

  The church that lent its name to the road had long since burned down but left its pioneer cemetery. I wandered through the gates and glanced at the tombstones marking the passage of time of Prestonn from the early 1800s through the early 1900s. It was quiet.

  The yellow house stood like a bastion at the end of the street. Even from here, I could see Bette’s FOR SALE sign, the new one with her pink/orangeade colored hair. But this tag of American enterprise had not ruined the majesty of the house. It stood with the confidence of a woman “of a certain age” who has come into her own, a little worn and somewhat beaten up and disappointed but still poised, still lovely. And still alive. The sunlight left a warm glow around the house that said, Come on in and have a cold drink.

  The house had stood through the Civil War and tornadoes. It had survived lightning, locusts, and yellow fever epidemics. It was standing beneath trees that watched the last of the Shawnee and the Miami move west never to return.

  The paint was peeling and the porch was falling down. The plumbing was a nightmare and the roof was questionable. The garden needed attention. And the house had a past. It had been neglected and taken for granted.

  But it had survived.

  Like me.

  There was a slight breeze and for a moment I felt a chill. Then I heard it.

  Caroline Xavier had left a set of wind chimes hanging from the rafters of the only part of the porch that wasn’t falling down. The tune they played was soft, light, and pleasant. It fit like poetry on the day. I walked toward the sound.

  The yellow house deserved a second chance.

  And so did I.

  Chapter Five

  There is a saying that when the gods want to punish you, they answer your prayers. I think that’s true. I am just trying to figure out what I did to make them so mad at me.

  I called Jack Neal, the inspector whose name was on the card that Bette gave me. I arrived a little before six to unlock the house. Most of Miss Xavier’s furniture and personal things had been removed, so there wasn’t any place to sit except on the porch or on the front steps. I stepped on to the south porch, then wandered out into the rose garden. I counted nearly fifty bushes in all. I thought I’d better get my mother up here quick before I killed them. I can grow mold and that’s it. I have a “purple” thumb when it comes to plants. One of the bushes was budding early; the tiny buds were soft and smooth to the touch. I pulled my hand back before I got too carried away. I didn’t want to kill the little blooms before they got a good chance at survival.

  “Ms. Sullivan? Ms. Sullivan?”

  The house inspector.

  “Yes! I’m back here.”

  I headed toward him and then stopped. The inspector smiled and marched in my direction, clipboard in his hand. My stomach turned to concrete.

  He was the maintenance man from the Women’s Crisis Center.

  I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole. My embarrassment went into high gear. Had he gotten a good look at me in the TV room at the shelter? And if he had, what did he think? I was humiliated. LaDonna’s words about everyone knowing about my situation still stung.

  “Opal, they know already.”

  I was embarrassed before he said one word.

  “Ms. Sullivan, I’m Jack Neal. Bette Smith called me right after I left you that message.” He chuckled. “She gave me a whole list of items to check on and a page full of instructions.” He looked up from his clipboard. His eyes were friendly. “She’s all over my case about this inspection report. Wants me to turn it around in twelve hours. Is she your guardian angel or something?”

  It didn’t help that he was so good-looking.

  If Jack Neal remembered seeing me before, he was too polite to mention it. I was grateful.

  He slipped on a pair of reading glasses as he went down “Bette’s list,” which was two times as long as mine. Tall and a little bulky, he had a shaved head, a broad grin with dimples when he smiled, and dark eyes. He looked like a chocolate Mr. Clean. His shoulders were broad and his movements reminded me of football players that I had seen. He chuckled when I mentioned it.

  “That football stuff is great when you’re young. But when you get old? The knees go, the ankles go, and your hips ache. Old football players don’t die; they just fall to pieces!”

  We headed towards the house.

  “I just want to make sure that I’m not being a total fool over this house,” I told him as I opened the door. “If it ought to be burned to the ground, you’ve got to let me know before I sign on the dotted line.”

  “Got it,” he said with a nod. “Let’s see what we have here.…”

  An hour and a half later, he was finished. I glanced at Jack’s clipboard. The inspection report was the size of a telephone book.

  “All right,” he said, “The house needs work, no doubt about it.” He slid on the glasses again and started on the first pa
ge. “You’re going to need some roof repairs. Not an entirely new roof, but you don’t have any flashings around your chimneys and there are some loose bricks up there. That will need to be fixed. There are some venting problems.…”

  He had only gotten through the first three pages of the report when I decided that I needed a break and a swig of Pepto-Bismol.

  “Look, Mr. Neal,” I interrupted him.

  “Just call me Jack,” he said.

  Startled, I lost my train of thought. I looked up at him and noticed that he was smiling again.

  “I’m getting indigestion here,” I snapped. “Can you break it down for me?”

  He flipped the pages back and took off his glasses. For a moment, I blinked. For an old fart, he was a pretty nice-looking man. Too bad I wasn’t in the market for one right now or anytime in the next four hundred years.

  “OK,” he said slowly. “The best way I can say it is … about the only things that you don’t have in this house are termites and a ghost.”

  That was comforting. And he was right about the ghost. The “spirit sweep” performed by Father McEachern had come up clean.

  “I see,” I said in a low voice. My heart sank.

  Like an old broad with varicose veins, cellulite, hot flashes, and graying hair hidden under control-top panty hose and slacks, a fan, and Clairol, the house had done an excellent job of covering up her real secrets.

  “Mr. Neal—”

  “Look, Ms. Sullivan, I know that you think this old house is a pile of junk and that somebody should light a match and put it out of its misery.” He looked up at the box gutters and the south porch that was the only solid piece of porch there was.

  “But the things that I’ve outlined on my report are pretty common in houses of this age. This house is over one hundred and fifty years old. You can’t expect it not to have a few things wrong with it.”

  “A few things!” I waved a hand at the two-inch-thick document attached to his clipboard. “From what you’re telling me, I might as well tear the damn thing down and start over.” I said those words with a sigh. The yellow house had gotten into my blood. I had begun to feel that fixing it up was like fixing up myself. That both of us would become whole together.

  Neal laughed.

  “No, no, this is a day’s work!” he said. “Your report is only ten pages long. It’s not really that bad. This place was built by craftsmen who knew their stuff. It’s hardwood construction, virtually termite-proof, by the way. It’s been here a long time. It’ll be here a few hundred more years. The roof is slate. Once you have it repaired, it’ll last you forever. You have a real treasure, Ms. Sullivan. Just needs a face-lift, that’s all.”

  He smiled at me this time. And I smiled back.

  OK, Opal, I said to myself, it is time to get off the fence. You can’t play it safe forever. If you’re going to see a rainbow, you might have to dance on the roof a little. And I was about to do just that. In high heels.

  Between Neal and Bette, I got a list of contractors to bid on the roof, the plumbing, and some of the plasterwork that was needed to get the yellow house into shape. The rest of it I would do myself.

  Georgy Porgy got the social services agency to waive some of the restrictions for respite care for victims of domestic violence. As long as the electricity was on and the Loch Ness monster was out of the toilet, they would make referrals. I was spinning around in circles, trying to juggle my job, coordinate the move, call plumbers, roofers, plasterers, electricians, and so on.

  By the time moving day was over I was too tired to sleep.

  “Ma’am? Where does this go?”

  I couldn’t see the owner of this voice because he was hidden behind a tower of boxes labeled BOOKS. He was huffing and puffing and sounded as if he were about to have a heart attack. I tried to look innocent. I only have a few hundred books. How heavy could they be?

  “Uh … third floor,” I answered apologetically.

  I thought I heard him say, “Shit!”

  “Basement,” I said quickly to the man behind him before he had a chance to open his mouth. I heard his heavy footsteps clomp through the dining room. When did I get so much stuff?

  Pam and Ron unloaded my car. Ron started organizing the garage under the coach house. Even little Tyler and Tré “helped,” bless their hearts.

  “I’m moving, Aunt Opal!” Tré exclaimed as he proudly carried a small box of Tupperware into the kitchen.

  “Yes, you are, sweetie.” I gave him a pat on the head and watched him toddle into the kitchen where his mother was waiting.

  “Opal! This kitchen is prehistoric!” Pam yelled.

  “I know!” I yelled back.

  “Hope you like camping out,” she added under her breath.

  “I heard that!” I yelled back.

  I went back to my “business plan.” At Jack Neal’s suggestion, I decided to do the most urgent things first. Plumbing, roof, kitchen, then plasterwork.

  One of the plumbers was coming at noon. It was only 10:30. Next item.

  I drew a line through the name of one plasterer in my notebook. Never call a man named Jean Pierre to do any work with his hands. At least, not in the U.S.

  He’d shown up earlier this morning dressed in shirt and tie. He had a clipboard in one hand, a latte in the other, and an attitude. He surveyed the house—and me—with his nose turned up. My dining room, he declared, was “hopeless.”

  “Ms. Sullivan? The roofer wants to see you,” the moving company supervisor’s voice came from behind the huge chest that was going into what would be Imani’s bedroom, because it wouldn’t fit up the third-floor stairwell. For someone who would only be home for about thirty days a year, that child was going to have a lot of furniture.

  One of the first things you learn in these old houses is that half of the furniture that you want to put on the third floor won’t fit up the third-floor stairwell. Those third-floor stairways were made for an elite segment of the population: elves and gnomes.

  The roofer was scribbling quickly in his notebook as I approached. I knew that I was in trouble when he looked up with a tragic expression on his face. I wondered if the director had yelled, “Action!” yet.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this, Ms. Sullivan,” he said with the solemnity of a doctor pronouncing a sentence of imminent death. “You have a lot of things going on up there. It’s a wonder that you don’t have more leaks.” He shook his head with the appropriate amount of pathos. Richard Burton would have been jealous. I wanted to put my hand on my forehead and sigh loudly, but I managed to restrain myself.

  “Give me the damage, Jimmy,” I said. If I didn’t stop him now, this performance could go on forever.

  With barely undisguised glee, Jimmy ticked off the different pieces of the job and the total. I had to take a deep breath. My financial plan was looking more like a financial science fiction plan. Now I needed to sit down.

  But I had company.

  I had set up some lawn furniture on the only part of the porch that wasn’t falling down. Two cats, one a tiger, the other a calico, were sprawled across my new cushions enjoying the sun. Bear lay on the floor in his usual position in front of the door with his huge head on his paws.

  “Some watchdog you are,” I grumbled at him, and looked at my newest guests.

  The cats didn’t move. The tiger looked at me without interest, yawned, and rolled over. The huge calico opened one eye, blinked a few times, then went on with her nap.

  “Beat it,” I said.

  The cats didn’t move.

  Bear looked up at me, whined, and lumbered off the porch.

  “Not you,” I said, watching him go.

  “Them!”

  The cats glared up at me as if I were sitting on their porch.

  “Must be ghetto cats,” I mumbled to myself, lifting the cushions so that the cats would have to get up. “Not afraid of
anything. Beat it.”

  The calico shrugged and disappeared. The tiger gave me a withering gaze, then followed.

  They both slinked away toward the coach house.

  Wonderful. They probably had a litter of kittens hidden in there. I decided to name them Ice Tray and Calico With an Attitude (CW for short). I couldn’t keep them in the house because I was allergic to cats now, but if they kept the place free of mice, then they could stay in the coach house.

  Two of the movers struggled with a huge armoire that had been in my grandmother’s house in New Orleans. They gave me a hopeful look.

  “Ms. Sullivan?”

  I lied and told them to try the front bedroom on the second floor. I just wasn’t ready to see two grown men cry because I had asked them to take that four-thousand-pound piece of mahogany up those narrow steps to the third floor. It wouldn’t fit anyway.

  The second plasterer came.

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt or a tie, but he wanted $5,000 just to redo the east wall in the dining room. He was the first person that I told to have his head examined. But he wasn’t the last.

  Plumber Number Two came right on time and I walked with him back to the kitchen.

  “The current owner has put in the new refrigerator and stove, but—”

  The man’s face was turning red and he was grinning from ear to ear. Bellows of laughter spilled out of his mouth.

  “There hasn’t been any plumbing work done in this kitchen since the turn of the century!”

  I had heard all of this before.

  “Which century? Nineteenth? Or twentieth?”

  “Twentieth,” he said without missing a beat. “I will have to rip out everything that’s here and start from scratch.” He was so thrilled that he could barely control himself.

  I turned to let Plumber Number Two out the back door just in time to see two of the movers at the front door performing a juggling act with my mattress and box spring. They looked like dancing bears in the circus. They looked up at me hopefully. “Third floor,” I said.

  A duet of groans followed by a “shit!” followed. I tried to look busy with the cap on my ink pen.