Queen Bee Goes Home Again

by Haywood Smith

  But looking at the two of them lying there, wasted and helpless, my heart broke for my sole surviving uncle and my father. And their genes within me.

  Please, God, I beg you not to let me get to this state. Take me home now, if you have to, but don’t let me come to this.

  Then I flashed on the two of them, naked and hollering and flinging clothes and sheets, and I chuckled in spite of myself.

  The only positive thing about visiting the nursing home was, it certainly gave me a proper sense of perspective.

  At least I had my mind, and so did Miss Mamie.

  I could start over, as long as I had my mind.

  Heck, I might even go back and finish college, so I could get a decent job teaching. That sounded like a plan. I loved teaching things, and the vacations would be great. All I had to do was figure out how to pay for my degree.

  “C’mon, Miss Lin.” Shalayne beckoned me to the door. “They’s out cold. You go home and come back another time, when they’s better.”

  Better was definitely a relative term, pun intended.

  So I went back out into the searing parking lot, then headed home to face the music, Lord help me.

  Four

  Turning in at the crushed-granite drive of my childhood home, I decided to park in the shade of the porte cochere beside the dining room, then hunt for my brother Tommy to help me unload and carry my stuff up the rickety stairway to the tiny apartment that had once housed the full-time gardener.

  But Tommy’s truck wasn’t in the garage beneath the apartment, nor anywhere on the grounds. As usual, he’d managed to be elsewhere when he was needed.

  I was unbuckling my seat belt when I heard the screen door to the dining room skreek open, then slam. I looked that way to see Miss Mamie’s lower legs march out onto the smoke-gray floorboards of the verandah, half a flight above me.

  “Oh, my Lins-a-pin, you’re finally back home where you belong!” my mother declared, finishing with a self-satisfied, “I knew you’d come. I need you. Things have been so hard since your Aunt Glory flew the coop.”

  Leaving Miss Mamie alone and lonely.

  My fingers locking on the steering wheel, I closed my eyes and bent my forehead to the rim. My life was Cinderella, in reverse. Again.

  Help me do this. Please.

  “Yoo-hoo, Lin,” Miss Mamie called again, bending down so low to see me that her hem grazed her swollen ankles and sensible, lace-up Clarks. “Are you all right?”

  No. I was a total failure, and ticked, ticked, ticked about the whole thing.

  It didn’t matter that the entire country was in a depression (except those lucky ducks who got unemployment), I took this personally.

  I mean, how else can you take it?

  The papers said things were getting better, but nobody had ever talked to the subcontractors and self-employed. We were still ruined.

  So much for a meek and teachable spirit. But never mind that.

  “Come inside,” the Mame instructed, still looking years younger than her nine decades, despite her now snow-white weekly Queen Elizabeth “do” that she’d had since I was a teenager, along with her pleasingly plump physique.

  She’d always told me that being plump was good when you get old, because the fat fills out most of the wrinkles, but now I noted deep brackets flanking her mouth, and a new weariness around her eyes.

  She motioned me to get out. “I’ve made a nice pitcher of iced tea to cool us off.”

  Iced tea sounded good. I hoped the through-the-wall, high-efficiency air conditioners I’d had installed in her kitchen could make a dent in the heat.

  The house had central heat and air, but running them cost almost a thousand dollars a month to achieve barely discernible results, so compartmentalization had definitely been in order. Still, in this heat, the power bills had to be enormous.

  Thank goodness I’d put the AC units in the garage apartment with my first real estate commission. After I’d paid Miss Mamie back for my training course and license fees, of course.

  At least I wouldn’t bake myself alive out there the way I had right after my divorce.

  Determined to start over—again—I finally forced myself to get out and climbed the stairs to the verandah. I caught a sidelong glimpse of the blasted bathtub by the front door, but relegated that to the dead-issue file and topped the stairs to face the latest ordeal of my life.

  Her face flushed from heat and anticipation, Miss Mamie opened her arms to draw me in. Jus’ like a spider, the voice of Mammy from Gone with the Wind whispered in my brain. Déjà vu, all over again.

  I loved my mother, but this definitely hadn’t been my plan for life at sixty. Till my world fell apart, I’d always imagined my husband and I would retire and travel. Phil was traveling, all right, but with a blond ex-stripper half his age, and all our money, half of which was legally mine. But what is, is. My ex was a crook, and may have been all along.

  Move on, my twelve steps prodded. Let go and let God.

  I forced the anger down with a mental mantra: I forgive him, I forgive him, I forgive him. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. No way around that one.

  One day, I’d mean it when I said so. For now, I “acted as if” and kept praying it into being.

  Shifting my attention to the present, I gave the Mame a brief squeeze, then escaped to hold open the screen door for her. “Where’s Tommy?”

  “Gone to one of his meetings,” she said cheerfully as she shepherded me through the hot, stuffy grand dining room into the much cooler kitchen. “It was a special one—a birthday party, I think.”

  Somebody would get their one-year-sober chip. Or their twenty-first.

  The kitchen smelled of everything wonderful and edible from my childhood, fried chicken foremost. My stomach rumbled, but quietly enough not to set Mama off.

  She smiled. “Thank God for AA. Your brother hasn’t had a drink or drugged in seven years.”

  For which I was truly grateful, but the twelve steps hadn’t cured his laziness. He’d known when I was coming home and wasn’t there. Nor had he been there the day before, when my broker and childhood friend, Julia Tankersley, had rented a small moving truck for the day, then drafted her family into bringing what was left of my good furniture into the garage apartment.

  Typical Tommy.

  Seeing the criticism in my expression, Miss Mamie took the tea out of the icebox as she defended, “He’ll be back directly, I’m sure.” Pouring the cold brew over ice in a quart glass, she aimed some motherly judgment my way. “Your brother has been a big help to me, keeping up the house since your daddy got sick,” she scolded. “Give him credit for that, at least, Lin.”

  She refrained from listing the things I hadn’t done to help her since I’d escaped to my little Fortress of Solitude ten miles away.

  Shamed, I nodded. “I know. You’re right.”

  That last sentence had taken me five years of intensive therapy to master, along with several weekly meetings in my 12-step enabler’s group.

  Miss Mamie handed me my tea as if it were a prize for agreeing with her. “Tommy’s takin’ care of the outside the best he can. Now that you’re here to help me with the inside, we’ll all be just fine.”

  I did my best to conceal the panic that rose afresh at the thought of being trapped as a maid, at Miss Mamie’s beck and call, for the rest of my life.

  Visions of Psycho flashed in my mind.

  I took a sip of tea to calm myself and my eyes watered, teeth curling at the syrupy sweetness.

  Sweet tea was one thing. This would induce diabetic coma.

  “Goodness,” I sputtered out. “I must have forgotten to tell you that I can’t have sugar anymore.”

  Contrary to rumor and Dr. Oz, Splenda hadn’t made my taste buds any less susceptible to real sugar. The cloying sweetness lingered on my tongue, and my teeth ached.

  My mother’s eyes widened, her hand dramatically splayed across her chest. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me you’
re diabetic.”

  “No,” I temporized, “but the doctor doesn’t want me to be, so he said I should avoid sugar.” Which was true. But the truer truth was, I couldn’t afford new clothes, so I had to lay down some strict dietary boundaries right away, before my mother could use her favorite weapon—guilt—to fatten me right up with her Southern cooking. Then I’d have no chance of ever finding a decent man.

  Not that there were many good men loose out there, as far as I could tell. The good ones were either still married to the wives of their youth, or snapped up so fast I didn’t even know they’d been divorced or widowed.

  The truth was, sex had been great, but I wasn’t sure I was willing to put up with what I’d have to do to get it anymore. And as I’d learned from my one disastrous effort at a casual fling with Grant Owens ten years ago, I was anything but casual about sex.

  I’d tried to find someone online, but there were no takers within driving distance, even though my digital photo showed that I still had good skin, a pretty face, and a good figure (when I wore foundation garments).

  In my experience over the past ten years, commitment had gone the way of the dodo. So both times I’d pursued a relationship with darling Christian men, they’d dropped me like a hot lug nut when they realized I wouldn’t sleep with them outside of marriage.

  I mean, after a decade of single and celibate, I figured I was a virgin again by the statute of limitations.

  But noooo. They just wanted me to sleep with them, and when I wouldn’t, poof! They were gone.

  Christian men!

  As my Granny Beth always said, “If all Christianity had going for it was the people who belonged to it, it wouldn’t have lasted five minutes. Fortunately, it offers us more than ourselves.”

  My mother smiled. “You look so thin, sweetie. Are you all right? I really think you could stand to gain a little.”

  So much for boundaries.

  My new thinner self was the reward for working seventy hours a week on two meals a day, but I didn’t tell Miss Mamie the truth, because she’d smother me for sure and insist I eat something fried, on the spot. I noted the wide basket on the counter heaped up and lumpy under a bunch of Mama’s starched tea towels. Fried chicken!

  For generations, Miss Mamie had been ignoring sanitation standards by keeping the chicken she’d fried just before lunch covered on a platter at the counter till dinner, but so far, nobody had gotten sick.

  Yet.

  It was a chance I gladly took for the perfection of her fried chicken.

  “Thanks for the tea,” I deflected, “but I need to get started unpacking.” I got up. “I’m going to turn on the air conditioners in the apartment and unload.”

  Mama seemed to shrink a little, and for the first time in history, didn’t offer to help. “Mmmm.” Suddenly she looked very old and alone.

  “Why don’t you get some rest?” I suggested, worried. Was she sick? “I’m sure Tommy will be home soon to help.” Not.

  Miss Mamie didn’t protest. “I think I will try to take a little nap.” Her verve evaporated. “I’m not much for stairs anymore, especially when I’m carrying things. Ten flights a day is my maximum, and I’m almost there.”

  “You don’t need to worry about my stuff, in the first place,” I said. I’d always thought of my mother as immortal and indomitable, but I could see now that she was neither. My parents had drawn strength from their constant bickering, and Miss Mamie had always looked and acted twenty years younger than she was.

  Maybe not having my father around to fight with accounted for her weariness. At the Home, Daddy had Uncle Bedford to keep his juices flowing, but Mama had been left in sudden silence, and it had definitely taken its toll.

  It hit me that she needed to take care of someone and always had. “Mama, do you miss Daddy?”

  She looked to me with gratitude. “Believe it or not, I do. But I couldn’t keep him here after he started trying to kill me at night.”

  I grasped her hand. “Mama! You never told me.”

  Her other hand covered mine like a protective shell. “Your plate was full enough without knowing that.”

  “But I want to know. You can tell me anything.”

  She straightened in her chair. “Thanks. I may take you up on that, but not today. I need a nap.”

  “Rest,” I told her. “I’ll come back when I’m done.”

  My mother rose, brightening. “I fixed all your favorites for dinner. Fried chicken, butter peas, stewed corn, homemade potato salad, fresh tomatoes from the garden, fresh pole beans, rice and gravy, pickled peaches and my green tomato pickles, and homemade peach ice cream. I cooked all yesterday, but the chicken’s fresh this morning.”

  That explained the aromas. All my very favorite foods. My stomach growled again, audible all the way across the room.

  Maybe I’d set those boundaries tomorrow. “Wow. I’ll be there. What time?”

  “Seven-thirty,” she said. Miss Mamie thought it was absolutely uncivilized to eat any earlier, which set her apart from most of the elderly I knew.

  “Great.” I ducked out and fled before my body could drag me to that platter for a piece of pan-fried chicken.

  Four hours, one side salad from Wendy’s, and fifty-six trips up the garage stairs later (not counting the downs), my brother strolled into the apartment. “Hey, sis.”

  I looked at Tommy and suddenly realized he looked way older than his fifty-seven years. Still lanky and muscular as a long-distance runner, he had gone white at the temples, which just made him look distinguished. But decades of sun, booze, and cigarettes had etched their consequences deeply into his face, never mind that he’d quit smoking and drinking seven years before.

  His grin, though, still looked like a boy’s. “Why didn’t you wait till I got here? I told the Mame I’d help you unload.”

  We both knew perfectly well that I was constitutionally incapable of waiting for anything if I could help it. “I got it.”

  Tommy grinned. “Well, I’m here now. What’s left?”

  “Nothing. Julia”—my broker and high-school friend—“and her family helped me move the big pieces yesterday, after the bank finally confirmed the closing.” I refrained from reminding him that he hadn’t been there to help then, either.

  He shrugged, his eyes narrowing. “If you choose to be mad at me because I wasn’t here when you wanted help, that’s your prerogative. All you had to do was call me ahead of time and schedule this when I could come. The fact that you didn’t was your choice.”

  I hated it when he went all 12-step on me. “I didn’t know for certain till yesterday at noon, and I left you a message. The closing had already been postponed four times.”

  I straightened. “And anyway, I told Miss Mamie when I would be here today,” I shot back. “You could have come sooner.”

  Tommy didn’t take the bait. “You didn’t tell me. I’m not a mind reader, Lin,” he said with maddening calm. “Sorry I didn’t get your message, but I was booked solid till now,” he said, peering at me without judgment. “I chaired three meetings today, so I couldn’t leave them in the lurch.”

  So he’d left me in the lurch, instead.

  All he’d done for the past ten years was AA. And working on the big house, which, I had to admit, was pretty much a full-time job.

  Tommy must have read my mind. He shook his head with a wry smile. “Welcome home, sis. Maybe you’ll be able to relax and regroup, now that you’re here.”

  That struck a nerve.

  Relax, my fanny! The last thing I’d wanted was to move back home, but even after selling everything I could part with, I still didn’t have but a few hundred dollars left after the short sale.

  I needed a job that wouldn’t make me want to commit suicide.

  Thanks to the economy, real estate was out. The whole area was glutted with foreclosures and short sales, so in the past five years, I’d had to work three times harder for a fourth of the money. Julia had only kept me on because we’d gon
e to high school together. When I realized I was just a drag on her, I’d quit.

  Tommy swung around a white leather side chair, then straddled it. “So, what’s the plan?”

  My knees aching, I settled in the club chair facing the sofa. “There is no plan. Not yet. I finally got the mortgage off my back. That was my main objective.”

  He nodded. “Kudos for that. Moving anything in this market is a miracle.”

  I appreciated the thought, but still had a horrible taste in my mouth about the whole thing.

  Tommy eyed me with assessment. “So maybe we could knock around a few possibilities.”

  He wanted to advise me about life choices? AA or no AA, no way. “Maybe another time.”

  “No time like the present.” When he saw my stubborn frown, he shifted gears. “Want to go fishing with me tomorrow? It’s very calming.”

  “Have you forgotten the last time?” I reminded him. I’d caught a bass worthy of a lifetime on my first try, much to Tommy’s chagrin. Since all I could do was go downhill from there, I hadn’t gone back. Not to mention the fact that I’m terrible at sitting still and keeping my mouth shut, so fishing definitely wasn’t the sport for me.

  “That was just beginner’s luck.” My brother didn’t know when to take a hint. “Wear your bathing suit. We can swim when it gets hot.”

  No way was I going to put on a bathing suit. I’d tortured myself enough for the time being. “Sorry, but I’ve got plans.”

  “And what would those be?” he asked archly.

  I rubbed my aching knees. “Sleep. Lots of it. And plenty of Advil. I probably won’t be able to move tomorrow.”

  I hated not being able to do what I wanted without ending up in bed with the heating pad. Hated it.

  “Sleep is good,” he agreed. “Take a few days. Rest. Consider your possibilities.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “So now you’re the guru, huh?”

  Tommy actually blushed beneath his fisherman’s tan. “You live, you learn. It’s progress, not perfection.”