“I’ve been trying to find you for an hour or more.” He scooped his car keys off the coffee table. “We need to go to the hospital right away.”
“Who is it? Is it my daddy? Mavis?”
“It’s your grandmother. Her friend Boomer called me at work trying to locate you. She’s had a stroke. We need to hurry. I’ll drive you.”
“Meemaw?” I shook my head. “No, Timothy, it can’t be Meemaw. She hasn’t taken sick a day in her life.”
“Sweetie, we need to get to the hospital. There isn’t a lot of time.” He put a hand on the small of my back and tried to guide me to the door.
“I just talked to her this morning before I went to work. She was beating her rugs for spring cleaning. She’s going to give me another cooking lesson this Saturday. We’re going to make cornbread.”
Timothy grabbed me and hugged me tight. “Elizabeth, it’s very important that we get to the hospital... now.”
My knees felt as weak as cooked spaghetti. “Oh Timothy. I can barely walk.”
“It’s okay, honey. Just lean on me. I’ll get you to the car.”
On the drive to the hospital, I chewed on my cuticles until they bled. Timothy parked in front and led me up to the third floor to intensive care. A nurse pointed us toward a waiting room where Boomer sat on an orange plastic chair. His face was hidden in his hands, over which rose plumes of white hair on either side.
“Boomer?” I said softly.
He looked up at me with eyes tinged red. Then he started bawling.
“Boomer? How’s she doing? Where is she?”
Boomer had covered his face with his hands and was stammering through his tears, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was saying.
“I’ll go find a doctor,” Timothy said.
“Too late,” Boomer said through his tears. “Glenda’s gone. She died five minutes ago.”
“No. Boomer,” I said, “you’re wrong. She would never go without seeing me first. Is she in there?” I pointed to a door beyond Boomer. “She’ll want to talk to me.”
A doctor who had entered the room with Timothy touched my shoulder. “Are you the granddaughter?” he asked in a gentle voice. His eyes were the same pale gray color as his hair. “We’ve been waiting for you. Your grandmother went very peacefully a few minutes ago. She never regained consciousness after the stroke.”
I bit my knuckle. “It can’t be.”
Timothy circled his arms around me and held me as I cried into his shirt.
“I just talked to her this morning. How can she be gone?” I said through my tears.
I lifted my head to look up at doctor. “Can I see her?”
The doctor nodded and opened the door that led into the private ICU rooms.
I clung to Timothy and we shambled inside. It was quiet in the room. Although machines loomed on each side of her, Meemaw wasn’t hooked up to either of them. She was lying on her back with her hands cupped at her sides as if she’d decided to steal a nap during the day. But I’d never known Meemaw to lie down in the middle of the afternoon. She’d sooner be caught nipping on a shot of whiskey.
I walked to the side of her bed and touched one of her hands, which was still warm.
“Meemaw, are you there? It’s me, Elizabeth.” I sat down in the bedside chair. “I know the doctor said that you left us a few minutes ago, but I figure you’re still hovering around here somewhere the way that lady did in the movie we saw on the Lifetime Channel. I know you wouldn’t leave without giving me a chance to say good-bye to you.”
I picked up her hand and kissed a freckle on her index finger. She had such strong, loving hands. I’d seen them shell peanuts, can peaches, and stroke my burning forehead when I took ill. A fresh batch of tears seeped from my eyes, and Timothy pressed his cheek against my own.
“Meemaw, why’d you have to go?” I swallowed back more tears as I continued. “I’m not going to keep you because I know Jesus wants you home again, but I just wanted to thank you for taking such good care of me when my mama died. You were like my mama and daddy all rolled into one.”
I took a final look at my meemaw. Someone had removed her glasses and her face looked incomplete without the frames, almost as if she were missing a nose or a cheekbone. I spied them lying on a table beside the bed and placed them on the bridge of her nose.
“There, that’s more like it. I wouldn’t want you to be bumping into things up there in heaven.” I kissed her cooling cheek. “I love you, Meemaw,” I whispered.
After we left Meemaw’s room, a nurse gave me the sweater she’d been wearing. The sleeves were frayed and there were cigarettes and wadded-up tissue paper in the pockets. I held the sweater to my nose, inhaling the scent of tobacco and lilac toilet water, and felt the tears splash my cheeks.
After I pulled myself together, Timothy, Boomer, and I went to the hospital cafeteria to get a cup of coffee.
Boomer’s soft, pale hand shook as he set his coffee mug on the table. “I was helping her hang one of the rugs on the clothesline. She had this big brush she was going to beat it with. She gave the rug a good smack and the dust flew out of it. She was enjoying herself, whacking the rug and watching the dirt fly. Then she threw her arm back with the brush, ready to whack it again, and her arm froze in midair. She made a sound like ‘omph’ and she crumpled to the ground. She never regained consciousness.”
Boomer pulled several napkins out of the dispenser and blew his nose.
“I’m so glad you were with her, Boomer,” I said.
Boomer and I cried in each other’s arms for a few minutes. Then he said he wanted to go home to check on his mother as well as to pick up Meemaw’s dog Pierre. He had agreed to care for the pooch until other arrangements could be made.
After Boomer left, Timothy came over to my side of the booth and held me tightly. “Is there anyone who should be called, Elizabeth?” he asked.
“Meemaw has an older sister in lower Alabama who I’ll get in touch with,” I said. “There’s no rush. Marion is in a nursing home and she’s at that stage where she’s like a faraway radio station, fading in and out all the time. I remember Meemaw used to say she was never going to end up like Marion because she kept her mind sharp working Seek and Find puzzles. She picked up a new puzzle book every time she went to the market.”
“I wish I could have known your meemaw better,” Timothy said.
“She melted like butter hitting a hot skillet when she first saw you. She always favored curly-haired men. When he was younger, granddaddy had more curls on his head than Harpo Marx.”
Timothy squeezed my hand. “Should we call your daddy?”
I scowled. “I’ll call him in due time. He and Meemaw were oil and water. They never got on.”
I looked up from my coffee to see my godmother, Patsy Ann, standing by our table, wearing a smock printed with pastel teddy bears.
“Oh, Elizabeth, I just got off my shift with the babies in the nursery and heard the news about Glenda,” she said. “I am so sorry, lamb.” Mascara streaked her plump cheeks.
I hugged her. “I’m glad to see you. Why don’t you sit with us? This is my husband, Timothy Hollingsworth. This is Patsy Ann Dinkins, my godmother. She lives behind Meemaw.”
Timothy got up to shake her hand, and Patsy Ann nodded so vigorously that her auburn wig shifted.
“Yes, I go over there so often I swear that I’ve run a groove clean through the centipede grass,” Patsy Ann said. Her eyebrows flew up her forehead. “Did you say husband?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m an old married lady now, going on two weeks. I meant to tell you when I saw you last, but Edward called you away before I could.”
She patted her chest. “Edward and I have been in Charlotte seeing a specialist, so I hadn’t heard. You poor lamb. Your meemaw is gone for good.�
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She glanced at Timothy. “Thank goodness our Elizabeth has you to look after her. You better take good care of her, young man, or you’ll have to answer to me. I’ve known this child since she was no bigger than a head of cabbage. I fed her first bottle of formula.”
“Patsy Ann was my baby nurse,” I explained. “She took care of me in the nursery just after I was born.”
“Oh, and what a treasure she was,” Patsy Ann crooned. “Prettiest baby I’ve ever seen in the nursery, and I’ve seen so many babies that if you’d put them end to end, they’d reach all the way to Timbuktu.”
“She’s still beautiful,” said Timothy. “Won’t you sit down? Can I treat you to some coffee or something to eat?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” Patsy Ann plopped down beside me. “I’ve been on my feet all day long. We had a couple of colicky ones in the nursery.”
“I’ll go through the line so the two of you can catch up,” said Timothy. “What can I get for you?”
“Coffee, black, and one of those bear claws if they have them. If not, a jelly doughnut will hit the spot,” said Patsy Ann.
I put a hand over my coffee cup to show Timothy I wouldn’t need anything. After he walked to the cafeteria line, Patsy Ann said, “He’s a looker, that one. And such nice manners. I bet Glenda thought he hung the moon.”
“Thank you, Patsy Ann.”
Patsy Ann jiggled her knee under the table. “It’s hard to imagine Glenda gone. So unexpected. She’s done gone and left you an orphan and with no other family to speak of.”
I stirred my coffee with a plastic straw. “Well, there’s my daddy and my half-brother Lanier, but we aren’t close.”
Patsy Ann sniffed. “I remember Glenda talking about your daddy. Dwayne, is it? Do you wish you were closer to him?”
I shook my head. “Not especially. But with Meemaw gone... Well, I don’t expect he’ll be much of a comfort. And of course, my mama’s been long gone.”
Patsy Ann was staring into the distance. She had a funny look in her eyes. Then she turned to me, laid a hand on my shoulder, and said in a low voice, “That’s not necessarily true. Your mama may not be long gone after all.”
Thirty
Excuse me, but I think your karma just ran over my dogma.
~ Bumper sticker on Reeky’s VW bug
Timothy returned with Patsy Ann’s coffee and a bear claw the size of a child’s baseball mitt. Alarm registered in his eyes when he looked at me. “Elizabeth, are you all right?”
Patsy Ann fanned me with a napkin. “I think the shock of losing Glenda is setting in.”
“Elizabeth, honey. Do you need water? Can I take you home to lie down?” Timothy asked.
My lips felt like they’d been Krazy-glued together. Patsy Ann spoke for me.
“No, Elizabeth told me she’d like to stay here and chat with me. There are so many memories of her meemaw to sort through, aren’t there, lamb?” She patted my hand. “Why don’t you go on home and I’ll drop Elizabeth off in an hour or so.”
“Is that what you want, Elizabeth?” Timothy asked.
“Uh huh,” I managed to say.
Timothy looked uncertain. “I hate to leave you. Are you sure you’re going to be all right?”
“I just adore how young men are these days. So sensitive and sweet,” gushed Patsy Ann. “Just like Mickey Rooney in all those pictures with Judy Garland.” She smiled at Timothy. “Don’t worry. She’ll be fine with me, sugar pie. Elizabeth and me are like family. She’s my god baby.”
Timothy leaned over to kiss my cheek. “I’ll wait for you at the house. You have my cell phone number? You’ll call me if you need anything?”
I nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you in an hour or so then. Nice to meet you, Mrs.—”
“Patsy Ann will do.” She waggled her plump fingers to say good-bye.
I watched him walk out the door and then counted to twenty slowly in my mind to make sure he wasn’t coming back for anything. Then I forced my mouth to form words. “Patsy Ann! What in heaven’s name did you mean by that, that my mama wasn’t necessarily gone? She’s been gone ever since I was a little baby. I put a bouquet of forget-me-nots on her gravesite every year on the anniversary of her death.”
Of course, I hadn’t seen with my own eyes my mama lying in her casket; I was too young to attend the funeral. But I’d heard the stories of her being whittled away by meningitis until she wasn’t much more than a collection of bones with bits of flesh hanging on. Could she somehow have recovered? And did she run away for some reason? Maybe with that mysterious man in her diary?
“Patsy Ann, is my mama alive?” I asked.
Patsy Ann made clucking noises with her tongue. “I’ve opened a can of worms, haven’t I?” she said. “But then again it doesn’t seem right to keep it from you. Especially now that your meemaw is gone. Oh, dear me, what am I doing?” She gobbled pieces of her bear claw.
I grabbed the sleeve of her smock. “Patsy Ann, if my mama is alive you have to tell me. I’m her only child.”
Patsy Ann wrinkled her forehead. “Lamb, I don’t know if your mama is dead or alive.” She lowered her voice a notch. “If the facts be known, I don’t even know who your mama is.”
“Patsy Ann, you do too know who my mama is. Her name’s Darlene Polk and she died when I was just a baby.”
“I know, lamb, but I’m saying that Darlene ain’t your mama. Your mama is someone else entirely.”
“What? That isn’t possible.”
“It’s possible, Elizabeth.” She paused. “It’s possible if somebody went and switched babies at the nursery.”
I nearly severed my tongue. “What... are... you... saying?”
Patsy mopped her brow with a napkin. “You have no idea how Glenda fretted over Darlene. Always worried about who she was out with. In a snit if she came home with her hair mussed and lipstick smeared. It’s all she ever talked about over coffee. Glenda might not have cared much for Dwayne, but I knew it was a relief for her when Darlene married him. No more late nights pacing the floor of her kitchen, listening for the slam of a car door. No more worrying if Darlene was going to get herself in the family way without being married. Glenda would have fallen to pieces if she saw what I saw that morning in the delivery room.”
“What did you see?”
She sighed heavily. “I was holding Darlene’s hand for her, cheering her on. I don’t normally work delivery but when I heard Darlene had come in with her contractions two minutes apart, I wanted to be there for her. I was so excited. I was going to see Glenda’s very first grandchild.”
She lowered her eyes to her plate. “Of course, I nearly fainted once the baby slid out from between Darlene’s legs and the doctor held her up for all to see.”
I took a deep breath. “What was wrong?”
“Nothing was wrong with her health. She had ten fingers and ten toes. She scored an eight on the Apgar and she had a good strong cry.”
Patsy Ann’s mouth drew up tight like she’d sucked a lemon. “But it was the way that she looked that was all wrong. Her skin was high yellow and her hair was as curly as sheep’s wool. There was no doubt in my mind that that child was half-black. I could see what was going to happen. Glenda would have been heartbroken and Dwayne would have divorced Darlene in a flash. It would have been a terrible thing.”
“My mama gave birth to a mixed-race baby?”
Patsy Ann nodded
“So you switched babies?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“How did you get away with such a thing?”
A note of pride entered her voice. “Shoot. It wasn’t that hard. These days mamas and babies have matching hospital bracelets, but in the 70s you just switched bassinets. It was easy as pie.”
“But how could you give some other mother a mixed-race baby? You couldn’t have gotten away with that?”
Patsy Ann’s eyes got bright as dimes. “It just so happened that a young, unmarried society woman gave birth here in the hospital the same evening as Darlene. She wasn’t even going to see her baby, because she was putting it up for adoption. That baby was blue-eyed and fair-haired. If you haven’t guessed by now—” She squeezed my hand. “That baby was you.”
I stared at her wide, plain face. “Patsy Ann, how could you?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t care what you say. I think I did the best for everyone.”
Patsy Ann’s news swirled around me like white spots from a flashbulb: Dwayne was not my daddy. Lanier was not my half-brother. Darlene was not my mother, and Meemaw... my dear, sweet meemaw was no more kin to me than a stranger on the street. Moreover, the boy in Darlene’s diary, the infamous “B,” did get her pregnant, and the reason she kept their relationship a secret was because “B” was black.
“Did you talk to my mama about this? Didn’t she see the baby when it was born?”
Patsy Ann shook her head. “She was pretty wrung out, so I don’t rightly know. When I brought you to her for the first time, I watched her to see what she might say but she just counted your fingers and toes. If she didn’t know that you weren’t her baby, she never said boo to me about it.”
“What about the other woman, my real mother? Didn’t you know her name? Who was she?”
Patsy Ann scratched the fabric of her slacks. “I thought it was best if I never knew her name.”
My mind whirled. “There’s gotta be records of women who gave birth that day.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. The young woman who birthed you came from a connected family and they were hush-hush about her admittance. Trying to save the family some embarrassment, I guess.”
“My mama was a rich girl. My birth family was society folk.” This was all too much.
“You got blue blood flowing in your veins, sure enough.”
Bet Your Bottom Dollar (The Bottom Dollar Series Book 1) Page 19