Swan Place

by Augusta Trobaugh

  “Ran off and left you all?” Her voice had such an incredulous tone.

  “Yes’m,” I said. “And that isn’t all.”

  “Lord help us!” Aunt Bett breathed into the phone. And then she was silent and I could feel her anxious waiting coming right through the telephone.

  “Yes’m. Well, it’s like this . . .”

  “Spit it out, child!” Aunt Bett whispered.

  “Crystal had a baby.”

  “A baby?” Aunt Bett sounded as if she had never heard of such a thing. Then she added, “You mean Crystal had a baby and she ran off and left the baby too?”

  “Yes’m. She hadn’t been feeling good. She was sad all the time,” I explained. “Some folks call it ‘baby blues.’”

  “Take more than just baby blues to make a mama leave her own child! Oh good Heavens! That poor child!”

  “Oh, we’re taking good care of her,” I hastened to add.

  There was a moment of hesitation on the other end, and then Aunt Bett said, “Oh, honey, I didn’t mean the baby. I meant Crystal!”

  It felt strange to hear Aunt Bett talking of Crystal as a child, but maybe that was right. Crystal was a child who tried to do a woman’s job. Aunt Bett sighed. “She just took more on herself than she could handle.” And then she added, “Well, when are you all coming back home?” So there was the question, right on top of me. “Dove?”

  “Please listen, Aunt Bett,” I begged. “Buzzard says we can stay here. She’s got a big house and plenty of money, and we really like it here.” From the other end, a long, long silence. “Aunt Bett?”

  “Not come home?” Aunt Bett’s voice sounded small and tight. “Not come home to your family?” Now there was a catch in her throat.

  “We can’t crowd in on you,” I tried to explain. “Why, where on earth would you put us?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” Aunt Bett sounded exasperated. “But I’ll find a way to make room.” Her voice was rising. “You’re family!” she almost shouted.

  “And what about Mary Elizabeth?” I asked.

  “Mary who?”

  “Crystal’s baby. Mary Elizabeth. She’s not blood kin to you. Me and Molly and Little Ellis are your nieces and nephew, but Mary Elizabeth isn’t.”

  “Well, what does that matter?” Aunt Bett sounded confused. “If she’s with you all, she’s part of your family and you’re part of mine, so what does it matter?” And standing there, listening to Aunt Bett, I could almost see the old washing machine on her back porch and all the jars of pickles on the shelves in her kitchen, and the big dining table we all crowded around, and what that kitchen looked like the night she thought Roy-Ellis had put a strange woman in her sister’s bed. I felt my eyes fill up.

  “Dove?” Her voice was plaintive, almost mewing.

  Just then, Buzzard passed by me and motioned for me to cover the phone. “Hold on just a minute, please, Aunt Bett,” I said. “Buzzard wants to tell me something.” I clamped my hand over the receiver.

  Buzzard had her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. “Did she come right out and ask you all to come home and live with her?”

  “Yes,” I admitted, feeling my face starting to burn.

  “And you would say no to your very own kin?”

  “But you said we could stay here,” I protested.

  “Yes, but when your own flesh-and-blood kin wants you, you got to go. She’s family!” Then Buzzard stomped off down the hall.

  “Are you sure, Aunt Bett?” I asked, after Buzzard had gone.

  “What on earth do you mean? Of course, I’m sure!”

  “Yes ma’am,” I said, instinctively. “Well, let me get some things straightened out here, and then I’ll call you back and let you know when we’re coming. I think we ought to wait a few days, just to see if Crystal comes back,” I added hopefully.

  “Well, whatever God wills,” Aunt Bett said. “In the meantime, I’ll start getting things ready here.” There was a warm, satisfied sound in her voice. “Oh, and Dove, I meant to tell you that when I cleaned out you all’s house—it was rented, you know, and the man who owns it asked me to get your stuff out of it—I found a whole stack of notebooks in your handwriting, and I packed them up with the other stuff that’s in my toolshed. I couldn’t save much, but I saved those and some of your dishes and pots and pans.”

  “My notebooks! You found them!” Instantly, Miss Madison’s face appeared before me, her eyes serious and pleading.

  “I’ve got them here for you,” Aunt Bett said again. “Now you go on and do whatever needs doing, and be sure to thank Buzzard for being so good to you all.”

  “You’re sure it’s safe for us to being Molly back?” A sudden, icy current of fear ran through me.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Aunt Bett assured me. “If he’d been going to do anything else, he would already have done it. I expect he was really just snooping around about insurance money, but of course, there wasn’t any.”

  “Oh.”

  “Well, give Molly and Little Ellis a kiss from me,” she said. And then she added, “And to Mary . . . what is her name?”

  “Mary Elizabeth,” I reminded her.

  “Yes. Give Mary Elizabeth a kiss from her Aunt Bett, as well.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  When I got off the phone with Aunt Bett, I just stood in the hallway for a long time, wondering how things could change so fast—again! I’d felt in my heart that something was going to go wrong, but I never expected it to be that Crystal would run off and leave us all—leave Mary Elizabeth for me to take care of! And now, in only the last few minutes, I’d learned that Buzzard herself owned the Swan Place and that we were welcome to stay with her. Except that now, we were going back to Aunt Bett’s.

  When I finally went into the kitchen, Buzzard was sitting at the table, giving Mary Elizabeth her bottle. I looked at Mary Elizabeth’s wispy blond hair against Buzzard’s dark arm, and my heart pained me deep inside my chest.

  “Aunt Bett said I was to thank you for helping us.” The words felt empty and sad. And what on earth was I thinking? I should be happy to be going home. But it all felt so bittersweet! I didn’t know what else to say, but my mouth opened and the words that fell out were: “I don’t know how I’m going to get us home.”

  “I’ll take you all home,” Buzzard said, and I could tell she was trying to speak lightly, just as I had done when Savannah left. Like if she sounded lighthearted, she would feel that way. “Been meaning to go see Mee anyways. It’s been too long.”

  “I told Aunt Bett I thought we should wait a little bit. See if Crystal comes back. If that’s okay with you.”

  “Fine with me,” Buzzard said in kind of a gruff voice. “Told you all you could stay long as you want.” She didn’t even look at me. Just kept her eyes locked onto Mary Elizabeth. We stayed quiet and kind of strained for long moments, and then Buzzard seemed to shake off whatever kind of gruffness she was feeling.

  “We’ll wait awhile, like you said,” Buzzard sighed. “And that will give us some time to get you all’s things together.” At that, she looked down into Mary Elizabeth’s round little face, nodded, and said in a singsong kind of voice: “Yes, we’ll do just that. Pack up all your things and take you home.” Mary Elizabeth had finished her bottle, and Buzzard heaved her up onto her shoulder and patted her back. We finally heard a resounding burp, and Buzzard gave Mary Elizabeth to me. Molly and Little Ellis had come into the kitchen and they stood, one on either side of me. Buzzard looked at us all for a long time.

  “Seems like I’ve gotten used to having children around,” she said. “Gonna be an awful lonesome old place when you all are gone.”

  “If you want children . . . a child . . . around, I know one who’d be awful grateful to have a place where she could live. One place where she could live all the time,” I offered. “The way it is now, she gets shuffled around to different relatives all the time.” Buzzard was listening closely, with a little scowl on her face, so I continued. �
��Her mama died and nobody wants to keep her all the time, so she has to keep changing schools and trying to make new friends and everything.”

  “Who is that?” Buzzard sounded suspicious.

  “My friend Savannah. Aunt Mee’s granddaughter.”

  “Humph,” Buzzard snorted. But still she gazed at us. “Well, we’ll see,” she added, finally. “Didn’t want to get used to having children around anyway.” But by the tone of her voice, I could tell that she was arguing with herself, and I believed with all my heart that it was an argument she was sure to lose. So right then and there, I could imagine Savannah living in that big, beautiful house, with Buzzard and the Sisters of the Circle of Jesus all loving her and taking care of her. It was a wonderful thought!

  Well, we found out pretty fast that we really didn’t need to wait very long to see if Crystal was going to come back. Because only two days later, there came a postcard . . . from Crystal. The picture on the front of the card was a big magnolia flower, and underneath it was printed, ALABAMA. On the back, Crystal had written:

  Dear Dove,

  I’m on my way to far-off Las Vegas, where I’m going to get work as a dancer. It’s the only thing I know how to do right. You’re better than me about children, and that’s why I left Mary Elizabeth with you.

  —Love, Crystal

  And right after her name came little circles and crosses.

  “What’s that mean?” I asked Buzzard, who was reading over my shoulder.

  “It means hugs and kisses,” Buzzard said in a flat-sounding voice. And I was thinking that it was a strange thing to add at the end of a card that said she was going off and leaving her very own child.

  “I guess that’s it,” I said. “She’s not coming back.” Buzzard nodded.

  And I don’t know why, but all of a sudden, everything started trying to go through my mind all at once. So that for a little moment, I didn’t know whether I was the Dove who was Mr. Swann’s great-niece and lived in a big beautiful house and had everything I could ever want—or whether I was the Dove who wore dresses that were too short and that the other girls in school looked down on. Then I thought about Miss Madison and how she didn’t look down on me! And right then and there, it seemed that nothing else mattered. The mean girls at school could say anything about me they wanted to say, and I wouldn’t care. And I thought about how our leaving was going to open up a lonely place in Buzzard’s heart that Savannah would fill. Suddenly, I wanted to be with Aunt Bett more than anything in the world. I wanted her to tell me everything was going to be all right. Wanted her to make me change out of my Sunday dress. Wanted to know that if anything mean or evil or sad tried to get close to any of us, she would pitch one of her Holy Ghost fits and fight against it and keep it away from us.

  Maybe Buzzard could see what was going through my mind, because she just looked at me for a long time. Then she nodded her head and headed down the hall toward the telephone.

  After Buzzard got off the phone—and she was on it for a long time, I called Aunt Bett and told her we’d be coming the next morning.

  “Well, come on!” she laughed. “I’ve had lots of help getting everything ready for you. Come on home!”

  And it wasn’t long after that before all of the sisters came driving around the back of the house in that same truck, and they lifted Sister Blood-of-the-Lamb down and carried her inside. I followed them into the kitchen where they all sat down around the big table, looking at Buzzard expectantly. Buzzard picked Mary Elizabeth up out of the bassinette and held her in her arms. Then she called to Molly and Little Ellis to come into the kitchen.

  “These here little ones . . .” Buzzard motioned to us all, and then she tilted Mary Elizabeth up into almost a sitting position in her arm. “These here little ones are going back to live with their own Aunt Bett,” she announced. “And I asked you to come here so that we can pray them to a safe trip and happy lives. And to pray for their Aunt Bett, who is getting ready to open her arms to them.”

  All around the table, heads nodded and “amens” sounded. Buzzard stepped up and put Mary Elizabeth into the arms of the sister closest to her. “You prayed this little one into the world safely, and now we need to pray again.” The sister who was holding Mary Elizabeth crooned into the baby’s sleeping face, and then she passed Mary Elizabeth along to the sister beside her. I stood there and watched, while Mary Elizabeth made the rounds of those big, strong, dark arms—except for Sister Blood-of-the-Lamb, who had fallen asleep. Then Buzzard guided Little Ellis and Molly around the table, and each sister put her hands on their heads and asked God to bless them. And when that was done, Buzzard’s eyes fell on me.

  “And we want God especially to bless Dove here,” she intoned, and I felt the tips of my ears going all hot. “This child—this young woman—has more courage than almost anybody I ever met before.”

  Me? I was thinking. Me?

  Buzzard went on: “She is faithful to family, and I guess there’s nothing as important as that.”

  Moans and amens again, and then Buzzard said, “Let us pray.” They all bowed their heads, but nobody said any prayers out loud, at least not so that you could tell what they were saying, but the murmuring voices filled that kitchen just as surely as the aroma of Buzzard’s good biscuits could do. They prayed for a long, long time, and finally, Buzzard whispered, “Amen.”

  When they were ready to leave, each one of the sisters kissed Mary Elizabeth and put their hands on Molly and Little Ellis’s heads, and each and every one of them gave me a big bear hug that almost squashed me. But I didn’t mind.

  Then they went to wake up Sister Blood-of-the-Lamb, and I waited around, wanting to hear her say “Jesus come while I was asleep?” But this time, the hand on her shoulder didn’t wake her up. Then someone shook her shoulder, and another sister reached out and put her fingers on Sister Blood-of-the-Lamb’s wrist. We all waited. And in a few minutes the sister looked up at all of us with shining eyes. “This time, Jesus came while she was asleep.”

  The drive back to our little town from the Swan Place didn’t seem at all as long as when we had driven it before—when Crystal was still with us, and we hadn’t added Mary Elizabeth yet. And when Buzzard’s big black car pulled up in front of Aunt Bett’s house, the cousins came out, and Aunt Bett herself came down the steps, wiping her hands on her apron. There were hugs all around and lots of laughing, and then Buzzard got out of the car with Mary Elizabeth in her arms, and a hush fell over everything. Aunt Bett pressed through the crowd of children and stood right in front of Buzzard, who was holding the sleeping baby.

  “Oh, please give her to me,” Aunt Bett said, and when Buzzard had handed over the sleeping baby, Aunt Bett cradled her and laughed and went into a whole conversation with her that I couldn’t understand one bit. All kinds of baby-words and them chanted in a high, soft voice. And when she got done with that, she looked at all of us and announced, “Oh! God is so good to bring a baby into this house again!”

  “Amen,” Buzzard said. Then to me she added, “I’m going on over to Mee’s house, but I’ll stop in and say good-bye before I go on back home.” And watching Buzzard get into the big black car and drive out of Aunt Bett’s yard, I felt my heart just lurch so hard. But there wasn’t time for me to think about it much, for we all started crowding into Aunt Bett’s little house.

  Why, I never saw such a thing as what had happened to it! There was an extra couch in the living room and a bigger table in the dining room and plenty of chairs to go around it. The boys’ room had two big sets of bunk beds and each with a cowboy bedspread, and the girls’ room had another two sets, but they were white and each had a ballerina bedspread. In the corner was a beautiful white bassinette with a little lace pillow in it—for Mary Elizabeth.

  “Now come on and let me show you the best surprise of all!” Darlene grabbed my hand and pulled me to the back porch. But the porch looked so different, because somebody had walled up part of it and built a partition with a door in it, right o
n the other side of Aunt Bett’s washing machine. Darlene opened the door and I saw that it was a small room with twin beds with pretty yellow bedspreads, and a small bookcase with lamps on either end of it right between the headboards of the beds. Neatly stacked on a shelf on my side of the bookcase were all my notebooks. I glanced at Darlene.

  “I didn’t look at your notebooks, Dove,” she said. “I sure wanted to, though!”

  Aunt Bett had come up behind us, and I heard her take in a sudden breath.

  “Darlene!”

  “It’s all right, Mama,” Darlene said hastily. “It’s not a sin to be tempted—only a sin to give in to it.”

  “Well . . .” Aunt Bett muttered, as if she couldn’t decide whether to fuss with Darlene or not. But Darlene just kept right on talking: “This is our room, Dove—yours and mine—because we’re the two oldest. And I remembered how we made ourselves some privacy in our old rooms.” She went into the room and pulled on a white curtain that was attached to a long wire and slid it forward as far as the door, making two narrow rooms out of the one.

  Aunt Bett said, “Folks at church did all this for us, and they sure had to work hard and fast! They brought in all the extra beds too.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, and I wanted to hug her, but I knew she would just wave away anything like that. So I just said, “Thank you!”

  And later, when I unpacked my suitcase, Aunt Bett admired the beautiful clothes Buzzard had bought for me, and the way her eyes glittered, I knew that she was thinking how far down the line of girls those clothes could go, once I outgrew them—all the way down to Mary Elizabeth herself, I expected.

  So that’s the way our little family changed all around—with folks leaving it, like Mama and Roy-Ellis and Crystal and Sister Blood-of-the-Lamb, and then other people coming into it, like Buzzard and Mary Elizabeth, and the Sisters of the Circle of Jesus. And at the last, we all finally got mixed in with Aunt Bett’s family, and that turned out to be the very best thing of all. Why, there were so many of us, we were like a mighty army! When we’d go to church on Sundays—and Aunt Bett made sure we all went with her, every single one of us—we could practically fill two whole pews, all by ourselves. I always felt so happy seeing us there like that, in two good, strong rows.