by Ann Hite
A knot grew tight in my thoughts. “I’ll think about that later.” Daddy always loved Emily best. She made something of herself by leaving this town. “I’ll call you if I need you.” We never said what we intended to say to each other, me and Owen. Maybe it was this death that softened us.
“Owen.”
He was watching me, listening in a clear-eyed kind of way.
“Most of what is between us is good.” There.
He stood still and then the door was empty.
“I need you,” I whispered, but to who I wasn’t sure.
The soft washcloth—one of Mama’s best—smelled like the fresh clean spring air. I dropped it in the bowl of water and perfume; a light lavender smell floated around the room. Mama’s silver brush weighed heavy in my hand. Her clothes had to come off, but I couldn’t do that just out of the blue. She was my mama. I had to work up to the task. The silky purple scarf wrapped around her head hid little blond curls. I ran my fingers through her thick hair, working her scalp like I’d seen her do each morning. The brush moved through her hair as if her body still owned her soul.
“Mama, you got the prettiest hair,” I whispered in her ear. The tulip trees were in bloom and some of the yellow, green, and orange flowers fluttered in the breeze to the ground. I don’t know how long I brushed. Then I worked her old flannel gown over her head. The sight of her body was comforting. I pulled off one of her socks and then the other. Her toenails were painted a beautiful bright pink. Oh, the ladies of the church would have just died. Using makeup or nail polish was considered vain and a sin. But there were those fragile toes, shining for all to see, a secret, a joy. The sight stirred something inside of me that broke me open. My tears fell for the first time since I understood she was gone. I couldn’t help but think of Mary kneeling to wash Jesus’ feet in the expensive perfume and drying them with her hair.
Gently I worked the soft cloth over her feet. The perfumed water made a puddle on the shiny table finish. This memory would be preserved in the watermarks. I reached on top of my head and released the knot of hair. I rubbed Mama’s feet until the water and perfume soaked into the strands. Mama was gone.
She was buried two days later on a warm spring day. I watched the pine box being lowered into the big empty hole. I held Nellie in my arms. Owen stood beside me. Already I could feel him moving away from that soft place we had found. Mama loved me enough to come see me before she left the world. She wasn’t no ghost, just a spirit on its way to heaven. Amen.
Twenty-five
Like I said, the summer after Mama died women won the vote, and boy did that set Asheville ladies to singing. I was too sick at heart to care. So it took me until the 1924 presidential election before I wanted to use my right and cast my vote. Owen finally agreed but I could tell he didn’t like the thought one bit. Three-year-old Nellie was our common thread, our reason to smile at each other sometimes.
“Why do we want to take a child with us to vote? Miz Marks said she’d watch her. Voting ain’t no place for a little girl.” Owen spoke around his chewing tobacco that he’d taken to using.
This was one time I intended to have my way. “She’s going to watch her mama vote for the first time. I want it to stick in her head; otherwise she’s liable to forget how many women fought for this right. We worked hard.”
Owen spit out the back door. “You didn’t work at nothing.”
Owen was wrong. I had attended me one meeting of the North Carolina Equal Suffrage League. Those women were serious about getting the vote and a lot more. Mama took me. It was a side of Mama I didn’t know. She believed in women standing up for themselves.
“It’s important to me Nellie goes.” I looked him dead in the eye.
“Oh, what the hell. I ain’t standing here and arguing with you. You take her with you. Voting ain’t some woman’s parlor game.”
I wanted to point out it was his first time ever bothering to vote. Ain’t that the way it went. Some folks wanted a right so bad while others had the privilege and never used it.
The courthouse had a line running down the stairs. It seemed I wasn’t the only woman who took my voting serious. There were more women waiting than men. My vote was going for President Coolidge. He’d done a fine job since he took over for the late President Harding. As we worked our way to the voting booth, Owen took me by the elbow. Sweet little Nellie held my hand and flashed a smile at me. “What we doing, Mama?”
I squeezed her hand. “We’re doing something mighty fine, Miss Nellie. We’re exercising our voice.”
Owen huffed and whispered in my ear. “Now, when we get there, Josie, you make your vote for John W. Davis.”
For a minute I stopped following the line and looked at him. “What?”
“Keep walking.” As I obeyed him, he spoke louder. “I ain’t having no wife of mine shaming me by voting for a Republican.”
A couple of women ahead of me looked back with sympathy. God help us women. We lived in a free country but couldn’t do what we wanted. Nobody was telling Owen how to vote. But none of this came out of my mouth. I should have shouted my thoughts from the highest tree, but instead I said one word: “Why?”
He cut a look down at Nellie and then at me. “Because John W. Davis is from West Virginia, Josie. Do I have to spell it out for you? You ain’t got enough sense not to vote Republican.”
I stared at him like he had three eyes.
“Mr. Davis is from the South. Everyone knows it’s time to have someone from the South become president. You understand that?”
I pulled Nellie in front of me and kept moving up them steps right into the courthouse. I had every intention of voting for who I wanted. He wasn’t stealing my wish.
Mrs. Vera Jones nodded for me to take my ballot to the open booth.
“Remember what I said,” Owen said, loud enough for all to hear.
When Vera placed the paper ballot in my hand, she smiled. “Make your choice, Josie.”
And that’s exactly what I marched off to do. Then I noticed Lyle Hamby taking the ballots when folks were finished. Lyle and Owen worked together. They did some drinking together too. Nellie and me went into our booth. I inserted the ballot and stared at the machine. I almost wished I’d stayed home. What kind of fool was I? A law wasn’t going to change one dern thing for us. I lived in North Carolina. President Coolidge’s name came first on the ballot.
“Mama?” Nellie tugged on my skirt.
“Wait, sweetie. I got to think.” The thin black curtain was nothing, no protection at all. My courage drained right out of my feet. Owen would know before I got home if I didn’t vote the way he told me.
“Mama, are you going to do what Daddy told you?” Nellie had a worried look on her face. Lord in heaven, I’d taught her how to bow down to men.
I squatted in front of her and whispered, “Nellie bird, when you grow up, you don’t have to do what any man tells you to do. Okay?”
She looked at me with her big brown eyes.
“Promise?”
“Okay, Mama.” She smiled.
“Good.”
I stood and made my vote for President Coolidge. “And Nellie, I did exactly what I wanted to do, not what Daddy wanted me to do.”
Owen stood by Lyle. I held Nellie’s hand tight and marched over to the table. Lyle stopped talking when I pushed my ballot at him. Owen didn’t say a word. He was so sure of himself, so positive I’d never go against him and follow my own mind. It was a shame I couldn’t tell him.
“I can’t take that, Josie.” Lyle smirked.
My head spun.
Owen puffed. “You got to fold it yourself and put it through the slot.” He looked at Lyle. “And they gave them the vote.”
And Owen never knew I went against him. But I always had it planted away in my thoughts. I went against him and followed my heart.
Twenty-six
Owen Clay was a man to be reckoned with. The year Nellie turned eight he decided we was taking a trip to his hometown
. I don’t know how that bee got in his bonnet but it did and there wasn’t no talking him out of it.
“Owen, that’s a long way to drive.”
“I’m driving and you’re going, nothing to worry on.” He never looked up from his newspaper at the kitchen table.
Nellie had her hands in dough, doing her best to make her own biscuits. She was doing pretty good for her first try. “We could take a train.” Nellie smiled.
“Sorry, sweetie, the train only goes as far as Savannah. Darien is another sixty-something miles down the coast. We got to drive. You’ll like it.”
Nellie nodded.
“What are you doing over there, anyway?” Owen’s voice always went soft when he spoke to our girl. This made our marriage worth all the ins and outs.
“I’m learning to make biscuits like Mama’s.”
He laughed. “Well, I’ll have one of those when you’re finished.”
Nellie laughed. Both Owen and me smiled at the same time.
“Why you so afraid of this trip, Josie? We’re going to spend the night in Atlanta, stay in a fancy hotel. You’ll get to see the city.”
“I’m not afraid.” I said this sharply and knew that’s exactly what was wrong. I was scared to death.
“We’ll have us a good time.” He opened his newspaper and began to read again.
I never had left the state of North Carolina. Shoot, I’d never been past Asheville’s city limits.
We set out in the old Buick for what seemed like another country. Who in the world had heard of Darien, Georgia?
“Tell me about the ocean, Daddy.” Nellie wore a wide-brim straw hat with a yellow ribbon. Her dress was the prettiest butter-colored check with a full skirt.
Owen smiled as he watched the road. “It’s the biggest body of water you’ll ever see.” He seemed to move away from us into his own world. “Once you hear the ocean, the sound will stay in your head. It will visit you when you’re low and need some help. The ocean is living and breathing.”
“I can’t wait, Daddy. Drive fast.”
“But you got to remember Darien is inland. It’s on the Altamaha. All around you will be marsh, and the smell of salt is the best smell in the whole world.” He gave a little shiver.
“What’s the Altamaha, Daddy?” Nellie wiggled in her seat with excitement.
“That’s a mighty river, girl. It takes the fishermen out to the sea each morning and brings them home each night. It’s like this here highway, except for boats. Darien is a fishing town and has been forever. The sea is in everyone’s blood.”
“Were you a fisherman?” Nellie was finding out more than I knew about her father.
“Should have been, Nellie bird. My daddy was a fisherman, but when he died at sea, Mama never got over it. She even let the bank have his boat for next to nothing. She told me if I ever went to sea, she’d make me leave home. I did and she did what she threatened. That’s how I ended up in Asheville.”
Nellie was quiet.
“So, you just stopped fishing?” How could he have kept this from me?
“Everybody thought I was jinxed. It was pure stupidity.” He glared at the road and his knuckles turned white because he was gripping the steering wheel so hard.
“Why was it stupid?” Nellie sang out.
Owen’s face softened. “Fishermen believe in signs and such. Shoot, they believe in ghosts.” He cut a look at me. “We know there ain’t no such things, but they are ignorant and believe.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, after all was said and done, I came to Asheville.” He had relaxed.
“I can smell the salt.” Nellie cheered.
Owen laughed. “You keep on smelling that salt. It will take you places. Darien is the best place I know.”
The first time I saw the tall buildings I couldn’t believe they were real. They stood off in the distance like some pencil drawing on what seemed to be the edge of the world. We’d been riding so long my legs were numb.
“That’s Atlanta.” Owen said this in a quiet way.
Nellie sat up straighter. “Look at how big the buildings are, Mama.”
“We’re going to stay there?” I nodded at the city.
Owen never looked at me. “Yes ma’am. We’re going to stay at the Georgian Terrace. That’s one of the fanciest hotels in Atlanta.”
“A hotel?” Nellie said in wonder.
“A fine hotel,” Owen laughed.
My fears were lost in his laughter.
I’d never in my whole life stayed somewhere as fancy. Our room had the softest and best-smelling cotton sheets. When Owen went into the bathroom to clean up, Nellie and me rolled around on the bed just to feel how it bounced.
We had dinner in the restaurant downstairs. The tables were covered with white linen and the napkin rings were real silver.
“Daddy, can we live here?” Nellie had a plate of fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Her face glowed in the soft candlelight. Lord, it was almost like the honeymoon me and Owen never thought of having. And of course Nellie was along.
“Wait till we get to Darien, honeybee. That’s where you’ll want to live, both of you.” He smiled. “It’s in your blood, Nellie. You’ll know as soon as we drive into town.” Owen took a big bite of his steak.
“How far is Darien from here?” My chicken pot pie melted in my mouth.
“It’s about six or seven hours.” Owen winked at Nellie.
I tried not to let the air out of my lungs in a huff. “How in the world did you ever find your way up to Asheville?”
“Looking for dry land, Josie.”
Nellie looked like a princess at the fancy table. She was meant to have fine things. A cold chill walked up my arms, but I didn’t pay it a bit of attention. We were having a fine time.
Twenty-seven
We drove into Darien before the sun went down the next day. Owen took us over the big river and straight to the dock, where the shrimp boats were lined up for the night. The air smelled like salt, tangy and sharp. Nellie jumped from the car as soon as it stopped and ran to the edge of the dock.
“Careful now, there are gators in these waters.” Owen put some chewing tobacco in his lip.
“Where are we staying?” I heard a little splash and looked in time to see a small alligator slide off a log into the brownish river.
“I told you there were gators,” he said to Nellie.
She clapped her hands and bounced up and down on her toes. “Look, Mama.”
Owen nodded to a worn house in the bend of the river not far from where we stood. “That’s the old homeplace where I grew up. My daddy was born there.” He pulled a key out of his pocket and showed it to me.
“You’ve had this place all the time we’ve been married?”
He frowned. “Yep. Don’t start making this a problem, Josie.”
“Why are we here?” All of a sudden I understood this trip was much bigger than showing me and Nellie where he grew up.
“I’m here to sell the house, and I want to show you the cemetery. You’ll have to bring me here for burying.” He watched Nellie, who gazed down in the water. She looked up and smiled. I wanted to grab her and go home. The air was thick with a omen that Owen would never profess to believing.
“Can we live here forever?” Nellie yelled.
Owen’s face melted into a smile. The bad moment was gone.
“What about all your friends?” I spoke ahead of him.
Nellie’s face grew serious, and she looked so much like Owen I had to look away. “I can make new friends, Mama.”
Owen gave a little chuckle. “I just bet you could too. But we’re here to sell that house over there. A friend is going to buy it.”
“Who?” How could this be news to me?
“A man I used to sit on that very dock and fish with. He’s buying it for his sister who never bothered to get married.”
“Owen, how could all this happen without me knowing?”
His cheeks turned red. “I don’t
owe you my past, Josie. It’s no place for you.”
The words stung my heart.
“This will be your money when I die.”
A chill walked into my heart and closed the door. I’d never thought of a life without Owen. A woman had to have a husband. They couldn’t live on their own. That was just a fact of life. “Are you dying?”
He smiled and walked to Nellie. “Nope. I’m getting rid of an empty house. A house with bad stories. It’s just that and nothing more.”
We were so different, me and him. We were together because that is what men and women did. They got married.
The salt was so strong I could taste it, but I couldn’t make myself come in from the front porch that faced the river. Imagine a river nearly in a person’s front yard. Like Nellie, I began to wish I could live in the little town. Somehow I had it in my head a life in Darien would be simpler. The magic Owen must have felt as a boy was catching like a sore throat. The air was full of fancy little fairies hidden out of sight. I was turning into a little girl.
Nellie’s voice carried out of the upstairs bedroom. Her and Owen had been talking a long time. I rocked back and forth. A blue-gray bird flew through the moss-covered trees, unfolding long legs, landing in the marsh. Several other white and gray birds dipped in and out of the river. What a world this was compared to Asheville, with its mountains and rushing creeks. This river moved so slow I couldn’t see a current. The wind rippled along the water, a lazy movement at most. Time stood still as clouds built high and moved across the hazy sky. Just a hint of cooler night air ruffled my blouse. Nellie talked and talked.
“I love yellow. Mama tries to always give me something yellow to wear. She made this dress.”
Now why in the world would she be telling her daddy about a dress he already knew about? Then I saw Owen’s familiar figure walking down the path to the house. I stood. Who was Nellie talking to?
“I love the mountains and so does Mama. It’s a real nice place to live. I think you’re wrong. I don’t think I’ll ever come here to live even when I grow up.”