Appalachian Daughter

by Mary Salyers

  On Thursday afternoon. Maggie listened as the doctor called her father into the hallway and explained that Johnny Ray needed to spend most of his time lying down since his heart had become so weak it could sustain very little activity. He told Ray they should let Johnny Ray do whatever he felt like doing. They were to give him vitamins and iron because of his anemia. Maggie explained to the doctor how several weeks earlier she had allowed Johnny Ray to get wet and cold.

  “The heart is a muscle, and like any muscle, it gets tired.” The doctor spoke in reassuring tones. “The rheumatic fever has weakened it, and that makes it tire more easily. Getting wet didn’t make it weaker. It has been slowly getting weaker since he had encephalitis last summer.”

  Maggie, relieved to know she hadn’t caused it, heard the implication that the weakening would continue. She started back into the room to help Johnny Ray get dressed to go home when she heard her father ask how much longer he could live in this condition. Without turning around, she paused in the doorway to hear the doctor’s reply.

  “It’s hard to say. His heart could continue to beat for a long time. It’s possible it could even get stronger, or it could just suddenly quit.”

  At school the next morning, Maggie found Miss Erickson and asked if she had some time to talk. They agreed to meet in the library at noon. When Maggie explained to Miss Erickson how her mother refused to let her sit at the table with the family for meals and how she had not spoken a word to her for over a week, Miss Erickson asked, “Are you getting enough to eat?”

  “Mama doesn’t try to keep me from eating, she just won’t let me eat at the table with the family.”

  “Do you think playing basketball is worth the price you’re paying?”

  Maggie rubbed her hand across her forehead. “I’m trying to decide. My sisters tell me not to back down. Jeannie thinks she would like to play basketball, too, when she gets in high school. They say if I don’t back down now, Mama will have to allow them to participate in various activities later.” Maggie caught her breath in a sob. “But what hurts most is that she doesn’t even speak to me. She doesn’t even look at me, like I’m invisible.”

  “Do you think it might help if I talked with her?”

  “No. It would make it worse. But thank you for offering.” Maggie struggled to control her tears, without success. “On top of that, I think my little brother’s going to die.” Maggie put her head down on the table and sobbed.

  Miss Erickson reached across the table and took Maggie’s hand quietly waiting until she stopped crying. “Maggie, I’m really sorry about your little brother. I know it’s hard to think about anything else right now.” She paused and squeezed Maggie’s hand. “What does your father say about your playing basketball?”

  “Nothing much. In the past when Mama opposed my doing something, like going to the Business Education Convention last spring, he overruled her. She doesn’t like it, but he always has the last word.” Maggie sighed “But this time he said me and Mama would have to work it out.”

  “I can’t advise you to disobey your parents. Personally, I don’t think playing basketball is wrong. But deliberately doing what your mother had forbidden you to do is another matter.” Maggie nodded. “On the other hand, I’ve seen you practicing with the team, and I know they are depending on you. So I don’t feel comfortable advising you to give it up either.” She smiled a crooked smile. “I guess I’m not much help, am I?”

  “Actually, it helps a lot to have someone listen to me, someone who understands. I guess what it boils down to is that I’ll have to give it a try and see if I can hold out. I just hope I can play well tonight with all this on my mind.”

  “Looks to me like you just decided to stay on the team. I think it is a bold decision. I support you, but you will not lose my respect if you decide later to change your mind. During the game tonight, you’ll have to focus and concentrate to keep your worries out of your mind. I’ll be up in the bleachers yelling for you.”

  “Thanks, Miss Erickson. You’ve been a big help.”

  * * *

  Maggie had perfected an unusual hook shot. Starting near the foul shot line, she would take a quick dribble away from the goal to her right and fling the ball over her head toward the backboard. Because of her height and the high arc of the ball, guards hardly ever blocked the shot, and it swished the net for a goal most of the time. They had won their first two games. The praise Maggie got from her teammates, fellow students, and even strangers gave her the courage to bear the ostracism her mother continued to impose at home.

  Maggie diligently did her chores and helped out every way she could. Betty Lou and Jeannie kept urging her to hold out against Mama. It helped to have allies, but the atmosphere at home remained tense. Johnny Ray’s slowly worsening condition, and the burden of yet another hospital bill weighed heavily on Maggie. As usual, Ray had little work during the winter months, and she approached December with little hope for a festive celebration at Christmas time.

  Early in December after a spell of dry weather, their father asked Maggie and Betty Lou to stay home from school for a few days to help pick corn. Earlier, Ray and Stuart had cut the stalks and formed shocks. Even though the weather had moderated slightly, their hands became so cold they could hardly feel the ears of corn when they tore them from the stalks and tossed them into the wagon. By noon they had filled the wagon, and Old Maude, Maggie’s favorite mare, had pulled it to the barn. After lunch they returned to the field of shocks to pick another load. Despite the cold, it was a pleasant time. Ray joked with the girls and told them stories of his youth back in Kentucky.

  Bud continued to make his Sunday afternoon visits. He always asked Corie Mae for permission to take Maggie to church. Corie Mae would look at him and shrug her shoulders, and they took her gesture as assent. With Bud’s encouragement and the enthusiasm of her friends for her performance on the basketball court, Maggie gained the courage to continue to defy her mother. But she noticed that her skirt bands were looser, and Miss Erickson, with obvious concern, commented on the dark circles under her eyes.

  The third Friday in December, Maggie’s team had to play Nemo, which was unbeaten for the season and had won every game against Maggie’s school for the last four years. JD offered to take Ray to the game, and Maggie was excited that her daddy would finally see her play. At the end of the first half, Maggie’s team led by ten points. Nemo’s coach switched their tall center, Peggy Smith, to guard Maggie. She was taller than Maggie and very aggressive. While she could not block Maggie’s hook shot, she often intercepted passes or tied up the ball. Maggie’s team suffered several turnovers, and Nemo tied up the score.

  As the fourth quarter started, Mary Ann took the ball at center court and passed to Maggie, who got in her special shot for a score. The referee turned to take the ball back to center court, and Smith gave Maggie a shove. Mary Ann heard her call Maggie a “Bitch.”

  “Ignore her,” Mary Ann yelled, but Maggie was angry. She had done nothing to this girl. Why was she being so rude? As the quarter moved along, the aggression continued. Maggie made a foul shot putting her team ahead, and as soon as the referee turned his back, Smith tripped Maggie making her fall. Some in the crowd began to yell at Smith, who only grinned and shook her fist at them. She moved close to Maggie and said, “If you make another shot, me and my team will catch you after the game and beat you to a pulp.” The next time Maggie got off a successful hook shot, Smith spit in Maggie’s face.

  Without thinking Maggie swung her fist, and blood spurted from Smith’s nose. When Smith began to scream, the referee called time out and threw Maggie out of the game. The crowd roared in protest while she walked back to the bench hanging her head. Coach Moore stood to face her. “Go to the dressing room right now!”

  She sat alone on the bench beside the showers with tears streaming down her face. She had let the team down, she had let Coach Moore down, but most of all she had let her father down. He was watching her play for the first time, an
d she had gotten herself thrown out of the game for bad sportsmanship. She imagined how disappointed he must feel.

  She heard the final buzzer and could tell by the sparse cheering that her team had lost. Her teammates began streaming into the dressing room, and gave her hugs. “Good for you, Maggie.” “You gave that creep what she had coming.” “I hope you broke her nose.” “She’s the one who should have been thrown out of the game.” “If I’d been there, I’d hit her myself.”

  But her teammates protested loudly on Monday when Coach Moore told Maggie she would not play in the next two games. “But that girl was pushing Maggie, calling her ‘Bitch,’ tripping her and even spit in her face.”

  “I know that, “ Coach Moore explained. “But my players do not let the opponent get them rattled. Getting Maggie thrown out of the game was exactly what she wanted, and Maggie fell for it. All of you need to understand that I will not tolerate any unsportsman-like conduct. Maggie can practice with the team, but she will sit on the bench for the next two games.” He blew the whistle to start practice. “Some things are more important than winning.”

  Later he talked with Maggie privately. “I understand how she provoked you, and I need you to understand that I’m not angry with you. But I feel I must penalize you as a matter of principle. My players need to know I will not allow retaliation no matter how provoked they are.” But his words did little to ease Maggie’s disappointment and humiliation. She would have quit the team except that when she had joined her father in the bleachers that night, he had put his arm around her and said, “I’m sorry you lost your temper, Sunshine, but if you was going to hit her, I’m glad you done a good job of it.”

  * * *

  On the Friday night after Christmas, Maggie and Wanda helped Aunt Lillian close up the restaurant. They had served the local Angus Breeders Association for their annual meeting. Wanda had joked about what a bunch of bull they were. A knock at the door caught them by surprise.

  “It’s JD.” Aunt Lillian opened the door. “What are you doing here this time of night?”

  JD stepped through the door and looked around. He had such dark circles under his eyes that Maggie thought he’d been in a fight. “I need to talk to you and Maggie.” JD turned to Wanda. “You can listen in, too, if you want.”

  “Thanks, but if it’s family business, I’ll grab my coat and go on home.”

  “Wait.” JD turned to Aunt Lillian. “Is it okay if I drive Wanda home and then come back to talk to you two?”

  “You don’t need to take me home. I can walk. I do it all the time.”

  “I know, but I’d like to take you home tonight. Please.”

  Wanda shrugged and nodded. Maggie locked the front door behind them and watched as JD held the door for Wanda to get into his car. “Did Wanda tell you that she broke up with JD?”

  Aunt Lillian turned out the lights. “Yes. She’s been sort of weepy all week. But I admire her for sticking to her guns. When he showed up on Christmas Day half drunk, she wouldn’t let him in the house and told him never to come back.”

  “That’s what Wanda told me.” Maggie walked through the apartment door while Aunt Lillian held it open. She had helped at the café off and on for several months. She also spent the night with Aunt Lillian when she had no way to get home after a basketball game. She no longer felt like a guest, even had some extra clothes stashed in the closet. Maggie hung up her jacket, kicked off her shoes, and sat on the sofa.

  Aunt Lillian took some milk out of the refrigerator. “Think I’ll make some hot chocolate. That’s one of JD’s favorites.”

  “I’m surprised he showed up tonight. This morning Kenny told me he hadn’t been home since Christmas morning. I don’t know where he’s been. He didn’t look very good, did he?”

  “I’m afraid to guess where he’s been. I really worry about him.” Aunt Lillian motioned to the pan on the stove. “Will you stir this cocoa while I find that bag of marshmallows I bought the other day?”

  Maggie and Aunt Lillian had each drunk a cup of hot chocolate and washed their cups by the time JD came. He rubbed his red eyes and sighed as he removed his coat and threw it over the back of the sofa. He sat quietly on the sofa staring at the floor until Aunt Lillian handed him his hot chocolate with three marshmallows floating on the top.

  Maggie sat beside him. “Are you okay? You look like you’ve been run over by a dump truck.”

  “You might say I have.” He blew on the chocolate and took a sip. “Except I guess I drove the truck over myself.”

  “What do you mean?” Aunt Lillian brought a chair from the kitchen table.

  JD took a deep breath and slowly let it out as a sigh. “Aunt Lillian, you do know about Stella, don’t you?”

  Aunt Lillian nodded. “Yes, I even met her when I visited WC last summer. Why?”

  JD took another swallow of chocolate and hung his head for several seconds. “I guess I’ve made a bad mistake, several mistakes, to tell the truth.” He stared down at the marshmallows that had melted into a sweet white syrup. “I told Mama.” He took a quick breath almost like a sob. “I knowed I shouldn’t of done it. But she made me so mad. Before I knowed what was happening I had wrestled her to the floor. And I was sitting on top of her, holding her arms to the floor to keep her from slapping me again. And I just blurted it out.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  With a pounding heart, Maggie released the breath she had been holding and finally found her voice. “I’m so sorry, JD. Why did she attack you?”

  Another deep sigh. ‘It’s a long story. I guess it started Christmas night. I’ve been thinking I should break up with Wanda. I just ain’t been treating her right, standing her up, ignoring her, arguing with her. She deserves much better’n that.” He quickly emptied his cup and set it on the coffee table. “I decided I should just go ahead and do it on Christmas night. She had told me if I ever come there drinking she would break up with me. So being too chicken to say the words myself, I drunk half a bottle of wine so she would have to say ‘It’s over.’ I was a coward, and I apologized to her tonight. Like I say, she deserves better’n me.” He stood up and took his cup to the kitchen sink. He rinsed it out, filled it with water, and drank it down in noisy gulps.

  He stared out the kitchen window. “When I left her house on Christmas night, I was so mad at myself and ashamed of my behavior I didn’t know what to do. I drove around awhile, but being Christmas night, nothing was open. Finally, I drove down to Miller’s Falls and drank the rest of the wine and cried my eyes out. I don’t know if I passed out or just fell asleep.” He turned around and took a few steps toward Maggie and Aunt Lillian and put his hands in his hip pockets. “The next thing I knowed it was 12:30 Tuesday afternoon. I was supposed to start work at 10:00 that morning.” He sighed and flopped down on the sofa. “I went down to the creek and washed my face. That icy water woke me up real fast. When I got to the station, Mr. Sexton handed me my pay check and said I was fired. I can’t blame him. I ain’t done him right lately neither. That was the third time I’d been late in the last week.”

  Maggie put her hand on his shoulder. “What’s happened to make you like this?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just like I don’t give a hoot about nothing.” He stood up again and began pacing. “Anyway I drove down to Deer Creek Camp and spent the rest of the day drinking and playing pool at Joe’s Bar.” He stopped beside Aunt Lillian’s chair. “Okay if I smoke?”

  Aunt Lillian nodded and slid an ash tray across the coffee table toward him. He lit a cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke. “Along about midnight this guy named Marvin Black come in with a woman. They sat at the bar drinking, and after a while they got into an argument. He begun slapping her around and made her nose bleed.” JD took another drag on his cigarette. “You know me. When he hit her again, I told him to leave her alone. He said, ‘And just what would a little squirt like you do about it?’ So I picked up a heavy ash tray and threw it. It hit him in the head and knocked him
off his bar stool. He staggered to his feet and made a lunge for me. Pretty soon we had broken glasses, turned over tables, and hit each other with our fists, bottles, chairs, and anything else we could get our hands on. We made a real mess of the place. Joe called the sheriff. He took both of us to jail.”

  Aunt Lillian gasped. “He locked you up in jail?”

  “Yeah, for three days.” JD put out his cigarette in the ashtray and sat down again. “I guess the sheriff went out to see if Mama would put up my bail, but he told me she said ‘I hope he rots in there.’”

  “So how’d you get out?” Maggie pulled her feet up under her. In spite of the warm room, she shivered.

  “I guess the owner of the bar came to the sheriff’s office, and told him he had decided to drop charges if we would sign a statement saying we’d never come back there again. So about ten o’clock this morning, the sheriff opened the door and let us out. I hitchhiked down to Deer Creek Camp to get my car and went home.”

  “And that’s when the fireworks began, I guess.” Aunt Lillian rubbed her hands over her face.

  “And how. I hadn’t even got through the door till Mama made a lunge at me knocking me back out on the porch. I finally got into the house, but she was all over me, calling me all sorts of names and slapping me. That’s when I snapped and threw her to the floor. I straddled her holding her arms down on the floor, and she spit in my face.” JD got to his feet, felt in his pocket for his cigarettes, and lit up again.

  Maggie swiveled her feet back onto the floor and sat up straight. “So exactly what did you tell her?” She twisted her hands together.

  JD blew out smoke. “Everything. I told her Daddy had a woman in Detroit. She called me a liar. So I told her about Meeka and that Stella was a black woman. Then she spit on me again. Finally I said if she didn’t believe me she should get on a Greyhound Bus and go see for herself.”