by Amy Greene
“His daughter. I’m Kenny’s daughter, Myra.”
She fell silent again. I was sick to my stomach. I pushed back my sweaty hair and tried to smile. “Do you remember me?”
She adjusted herself in the green metal chair. I was careful not to stare at her goiter. It looked like a bullfrog’s throat sack. “I reckon,” she said.
“I wanted to see where he and my mother lived. And I wanted to see you.”
For a long moment she didn’t answer, until I thought I would go mad. Then finally she said, “I didn’t figure you wanted nothing to do with us.”
“Well,” I said, flustered. “I always wondered about my parents….”
“Kenny nor Clio neither one was fit to raise a youngun,” she said.
I stared up at her, not sure if I had heard right. I waited for her to go on, but she turned her face to the screen door and bellowed, “Imogene!” I jumped. Her voice was startlingly loud. The door creaked open and a slim woman came out. She had styled hair and tailored clothes. She seemed out of place there. She froze when she saw me.
“Imogene,” my grandmother said, “this girl claims to be Kenny’s youngun.”
Imogene looked at me and touched her face. Then she smiled. “Of course she is, Mother. Of course this is Kenny’s girl. Look at her eyes.”
We sat in a small, dark kitchen that smelled faintly of mellow garbage. I could hear an old man calling and moaning from another room. “That’s Uncle,” Imogene said to me as she poured coffee. There was a Chihuahua under the table. It trembled and growled at me. “Why don’t you see about him, Mother?”
“He’s all right,” my grandmother said flatly. “He’s always carrying on like that.” The dog stood up and barked at me, showing its teeth. “Hush, Peanut,” the old woman said, and kicked at his flank with her bare foot. I could see dirt caked under her toenails. The dog skittered away and curled up again out of reach.
I sipped the bitter coffee and studied them in the murky light. They didn’t seem related. Imogene’s face was soft and pretty. I liked the veined backs of her hands. “Mother, isn’t she beautiful?” Imogene asked. The old woman didn’t answer. “What have you been doing with yourself, Myra? You were just a baby when I last saw you.”
“I got married and moved down here with my husband, John Odom.”
“Is he any kin to Frankie Odom,” the old woman asked, “has a hardware store?”
“Yes, that’s John’s father,” I said. I was growing impatient. I wasn’t there to talk about myself. “I have some questions, I guess. About Kenny and Clio.”
“We’ll tell you anything we can,” Imogene said, smiling over her coffee. “Won’t we, Mother?” The old woman just went on blinking at me.
I thought hard but all my questions had suddenly evaporated. My mind was blank. They stared at me across the table. I felt my cheeks burning as I groped for something to say. Imogene looked concerned. Then her face brightened.
“Would you like to see some pictures?”
“Yes,” I said, exhaling at last.
“Mother, where are those albums?”
“Under the bed,” the old woman said. She grunted and rose to take a pack of sugar wafers from a bread box on the counter. She stood at the sink eating them as Imogene went for the albums. She looked at me, soggy crumbs falling down her goiter. I was sickened that she had given birth to my father and known my mother as a daughter-in-law. Imogene brought the albums to the table and removed one from the top of the stack. She wiped dust off its cover and turned the pages slowly, a parade of unfamiliar faces in grainy black and white. Then she stopped. “Here. This is Kenny and me,” she said. Two children stood on a porch with solemn expressions. It was hard to tell how far apart in age they were, but I guessed he was at least six years younger than her. I wanted to feel something. This was my father. But as the pages turned and I watched the progress of his growth from a boy into a young man, I realized I was waiting to see my mother’s face. We flipped through the second album and still no sign. It was like she, and I, had been erased from the history of these people. Granny had pictures of my mother but they were all taken on the mountain. I needed pictures of her there in that house, living a life I didn’t know or understand. Imogene must have seen my disappointment.
“Don’t you have any pictures of Clio around here, Mother?” she asked.
The old woman bit into another sugar wafer. “That girl never set still long enough to make a picture,” she said, spraying crumbs.
“Good Lord, Mother,” Imogene said, brows knitting together. “Do you have to talk so hateful all the time? Myra’s going to think we’re awful.” She turned to me and smiled. “I know I’ve got some at my house. Would you like to come home with me and take a look? I might could tell you some stories, too.”
“I don’t know,” I said, thinking of John for the first time since I got out of the taxi. “I told the cabdriver to be back at the pool hall by three.”
“I don’t live far,” Imogene said. “I can have you back before then.”
In the car she told me things about my mother that I’d never heard before. The time she let me taste ice cream on her finger and how I suckled with such a funny look on my face. The time she brought me in from the car bundled up and when she opened the blanket inside the warm house everyone saw that she had carried me across the yard upside down. But something bothered me about the way Imogene kept her eyes straight ahead as she spoke, the way she laughed nervously. I grew afraid that it was all lies, or at least only part of the story. We pulled up to her house, a nicely landscaped brick duplex. She lived in one side and kept tenants in the other. Getting out of the car, I realized how close we were to the Odom house. I ducked my head as we crossed the yard. Inside, the windows were hung with trailing plants and curios lined a white mantel. The room was clean but packed with antique furniture. There were mirrors and picture frames propped against one wall and old books stacked against another. “Don’t mind my mess,” Imogene said. “I’m opening myself a little shop next door, when the remodeling is done.” I glanced toward the window, hearing the hammering outside. She followed my eyes and said, “That’s my friend fixing the roof. I’ve been buying things along as I see them. I’ve loved old things since I was a little girl. It’s scary to try something new like this, but I always wanted my own store.” She seemed harried and scattered, talking perhaps to hide her embarrassment. We both knew she was keeping something from me. “You can have a seat, honey,” she said. “I’ll get my albums.”
I went to the brocade loveseat, lace doilies draped on its arms. I felt outside myself, in this unfamiliar place with this strange woman who was my aunt. When she came back, we spent a long time looking at the pictures. One of my mother holding me, not smiling. One of her surrounded by other people, a cigarette between her fingers. She smoked. I never knew. These are the things people forget to tell you. When all the pages were turned, we sat in silence. I supposed it was time to go but I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t stop thinking of Imogene’s nervous stories in the car, the troubling sense of being lied to. She waited expectantly, probably for me to say that I should be going, so I said it. “I ought to be getting back.” But I didn’t get up. My body resisted and when she was getting her purse I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. I blurted, “What were they really like?”
She turned to me, startled. “Hmm?”
“All I hear are the good stories. I want to hear all of the stories. Good and bad.”
Imogene put down her purse and keys. She came to sit beside me again. She put her hand on my knee. “Oh, honey,” she said.
“I want to know,” I said.
She grew quiet, looking down, biting her lip.
She looked back up. “But what good would it do? What does it matter now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Please tell me.”
“You’re sure.”
“Yes.”
“All right. I’ll do the best I can.”
She began at the
beginning. “I’ve always been different than them,” she said. “I hated growing up in that filthy house. You couldn’t go barefoot unless you wanted black feet. He tracked it in on his boots. We call him Uncle but he’s not. I figure he’s my grandfather. Grandmother moved in with her sister Lucille, who was married to Uncle. About a year later, Mother was born. I don’t know if Uncle raped Grandmother or if she slept with him. Are you sure you want to hear all this?” I nodded and she went on. “Uncle never was any good. I believe that’s part of why Kenny turned out how he did. It was in the blood. Now Grandmother and Lucille are gone and Uncle’s still kicking.
“We moved in with Grandmother and Lucille and Uncle after Kenny was born. Mother was a bastard, and Kenny and I grew up fatherless, too. But I do remember my father. The three of us lived for a while in a room over a storefront. He had a strong, nasty smell and whiskers. Straggly hair and no teeth, tattoos all over his arms. One of them was a dagger. I don’t know what happened to him. He wasn’t Kenny’s father.
“I was eight when Kenny was born. I doted on my brother, toting him around everywhere and letting him pitch tantrums. But he had the finest blond hair and the sweetest blue eyes, just like yours. He was the cutest little boy, until he got spoiled and hateful. He wouldn’t do his schoolwork and Mother didn’t care. I was the only one that ever tried to encourage him, but what was the use? She let him drop out in the eighth grade. He laid around for the rest of his life after that, except to go out drinking on the weekends. He’d take a job here and there, but he ended up quitting every one of them.
“Kenny’s father, your grandfather, was shot in a bar, I believe. Mother settled down after that. She was still mean as a snake on the inside, though. Sometimes I wonder why I still go over there. I wonder why I still love her. But it’s the same reason you love your mother, and will still love her after I say what I’m going to say. Uncle owned the pool hall where Kenny and Clio met. I had married my husband Gerald and moved out, so I wasn’t around much at that time. But I did get to know Clio, at least somewhat. She had hair like yours, even longer. She was a fairly nice-looking girl, but not like you. I’ll be honest. There was something odd about her eyes, like the lights were on and nobody home. She couldn’t stand to hang around the house. She got a job and left you with Kenny. I know you’re wondering if she loved you. I think so. She bought you frilly dresses. Put bows in your hair, which you had a lot of, even as a baby. She played with you like a doll. She wasn’t a bad girl. Just restless, and liked to drink. Kenny, I don’t know. It bothered him when you cried. He wanted to sleep late and you woke him up early. He and Mother didn’t watch you very well while Clio was at work. Some days I’d go over there and find you lying in the crib crying with a dirty diaper. You always had diaper rash where they didn’t change you enough, and I’d take you home with me.”
She paused then and looked down at her hands in her lap. I held my breath because I knew she was about to tell me whatever she had been withholding. I opened my mouth to stop her, to say that she was right, I didn’t want to know. But it was too late.
“She dropped you one time,” Imogene said, the words rushing together. “She and Kenny both were drunk. I believe she was on something, too. Some kind of pills. She said you just slipped through her fingers. You hit your head on the floor and Clio thought you were dead. She was out of her head when she called me. I could barely understand her. She wanted me to help her bury you. Said Kenny couldn’t do it, he was passed out, and Mother and Uncle both worked late at the pool hall on Friday nights so they weren’t home. I rushed over there scared to death what I would find. She was standing in the yard pacing back and forth with you, making this awful moaning noise. I jumped out of the car and snatched you out of her arms. I saw right away that you were just sleeping. I believe she would have buried you alive if I hadn’t gotten there fast. I begged Clio to let me drive you to the emergency room, but she was scared they might take you away from her. She could have been right. They might have. But I believe she did love you the best she knew how.” Imogene pulled a crumpled tissue from behind her watch band and dabbed at her eyes. She didn’t look at me. When she began again, her voice was unsteady.
“After a while Mother got tired of babysitting. She wouldn’t do it anymore. Clio started driving you up the mountain and leaving you with your grandmother when she and Kenny went out. Thank goodness you were with her when your mother and father got killed. Once Kenny and Clio were gone it was like you were gone, too. Your granny didn’t want me to visit, and Mother never tried to. She’s a hard-hearted woman, even being her daughter I can’t deny it. I went up the mountain to see you once anyway. It was a scary place to me, so hidden up there in the woods. But I saw that you were well taken care of. You won’t be able to see this now, and you might be angry at me for saying it, but for you it’s a blessing Kenny and Clio died. Your granny was nice enough to me while I was there. We had peach cobbler and coffee. But she asked me not to ever come back. I understood. So, there’s all of it. I’m your aunt. And I’m glad to see you again.”
I sat staring at her for a long time, unable to speak. A clock ticked loudly in the silence. After a while, it seemed Imogene felt obligated to say something. She looked out the window, where the hammering was still going on at intervals. “You know I told you I’m opening a shop next door?” she asked, voice high with false brightness. I nodded numbly. “Would you like to take a look before we go? These last renters left me with a mess, but it’s a world better now.” I nodded again, feeling like a sleepwalker. “Oh,” she said, glancing toward the kitchen. “I better take Ford a glass of tea. I bet he’s burning up out there.” I waited while she rattled around in the kitchen and came out with a frosty glass. She gathered her purse and keys and I followed her outside on automatic pilot. I went behind Imogene in a daze, the dress I’d put on that morning sticking to my legs in a heat that was uncharacteristic for such an early spring day. She talked with forced enthusiasm about the sign she would have painted with her name in fancy script, and where it would hang above the shop door. I pretended to listen, but her voice was distant and hazy to me.
There was a man coming shirtless down from the roof. “I brought you a drink, Ford,” Imogene said to him. He had long hippie hair, that’s what John would have called it. His chest and belly glistened with sweat. He smiled, showing good white teeth, and drank the tea down with long gulps. “Thank you,” he said.
“How’s it coming?” Imogene asked.
“Nearly finished.” He looked at me with eyes like John’s, but kinder. Then I noticed his hand on the slippery glass. One of the fingers was missing.
“This is my niece,” Imogene said, “Myra Odom. Myra, this is Ford Hendrix.”
We nodded to each other. The sun was in my eyes. Birds twittered. I felt far away. “It’s funny how Ford and I met,” Imogene said. “We were at a garage sale down in Oak Ridge. This woman had a whole table full of old books, and Ford and I were like kids in a candy store. We got to talking and come to find out, Ford has quite a collection. I’ve been out to see them, haven’t I, Ford? You wouldn’t believe it. And Ford writes novels, too. He’s a regular celebrity these days, had a book signing down at the Plaza.”
Ford grinned. There was a silence. I realized he was staring at me, but I couldn’t concentrate on him or on what was being said. Then Imogene looked over her shoulder, toward her house. She frowned back at us. “Is that my telephone? I’d better go check. It might be Mother. Myra, I promise I’ll hurry back. I know you need to be somewhere.”
“You’re white as a sheet,” Ford said the instant she was gone. “Are you sick?”
I took a better look at him. He was older than me, at least late thirties, a handsome man. Not beautiful, as John once was, but good to look at. “No. I’m not sick.”
He wasn’t convinced. “It might be the heat. Let’s go over here in the shade.” When I didn’t move, he took my elbow. His touch startled me. I remembered the missing finger. I let him lead me unde
r the trees. We sat down and I was grateful for the coolness.
“I didn’t know Imogene had a niece,” he said.
“I didn’t know I had an aunt,” I said. “Until today.”
“You and Imogene never met before now?”
“I wanted to know about my mother. She died when I was one.”
“I see. Did Imogene tell you?”
“Yes,” I said, looking down at the damp print of my dress. “She told me.”
“Ah,” he said. “She told you too much.”
I raised my head, startled. His face was very close.
“You have eyes like my husband’s,” I said, without knowing why.
“Well,” he said. “You have eyes like the Aegean Sea.”
“You’ve seen the Aegean Sea?”
“Yes. It’s very blue.”
“Imogene says you have a lot of books.”
“Yes.”
“Do you read poetry?”
“Some.”
“Wordsworth?”
“One of my favorites.”
“Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”
“Tintern Abbey.”
“Yes.”
Looking at him, soft hair, soft eyes, all soft, made me forget. Then Imogene was back and we stood up. She seemed hot and nervous. “That was Mother,” she said. “Uncle’s fell out of bed and she can’t get him up by herself.”
“Did she call for an ambulance?” Ford asked.
“No, he’s not hurt. He does this all the time. Myra, honey, I’m afraid we’ll have to run back by the house. I hope it won’t make you late.”
I remembered John and tried not to show my fear. “That’s okay,” I said.
“I can drive her back,” Ford spoke up. I stared at him mutely.
“Oh … are you sure?” Imogene turned to me, brow creased. “Myra, would that be okay with you? I wouldn’t dream of it if I didn’t trust Ford with my life.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said.
“I’m so sorry about this. Will you come back and see me?”