Inez studied the bed, as if she expected it to pull rabbits from its own hat. After a thoughtful moment, she asked, “You won’t tell Arturo, will you? He already thinks I’m a baby.”
I couldn’t help smiling. I’d had an older brother, too. “I promise I won’t tell a soul. It’ll be our secret.”
She sniffed loudly. “Then, si, please.”
I settled into bed, then tucked her along my side. I told her about my own secret, how I’d fled to this very room when I was her age, for the very same reason. And I told her about my daddy’s description of Heaven.
Only after Inez fell asleep did I realize I was already living in Daddy’s version of Heaven. There was love and peace filling this old house, with thunder all around.
WMOS Radio
“The Voice of the Creek”
Good morning, Creekites! Bert Lyman and Honey Lyman here. I’m the brawn behind the voice and she’s the brains behind the engineer’s control board. Okay, Honey, I’ll quit talking and start working. Folks, listen up:
FOR SALE: Mamie Brown’s house is still for sale. It’s a quaint 2 bedroom, 1 bath with beautiful flower beds and access to fruit trees and pecans. Private—there’s only one neighbor. Contact Ed Brady, Jr. newest member of Mossy Creek Mountain Realty.
SEEDS: Even though it’s only summer, it’s never too early to stock up for the winter, says Tom Anglin at Mossy Creek Hardware Store. He’s got fifty-pound sacks of sunflower seeds on sale for half price, since the hawk spotted over town last week has scared off most of the summer birds around the square. On a related note, Bob the Chihuahua hasn’t set foot outside Beechum’s Bakery since the hawk showed up.
SPECIAL PROMOTION: Pick yourself a free mess of greens, beans and tomatoes in Joe Peavy’s garden when you buy your gas at Peavy’s Gas Station, just off Trailhead Road. The gas is for your car. None of the veggies should be blamed. If you’re just visiting Mossy Creek, don’t call the station and ask what a “mess” is. Only true Southerners know the answer to that question.
FOR SALE: Two rams, descendants of Samson, the Mossy Creek High School mascot who helped start the trouble that led to the burning of the high school twenty-odd years ago. Can dye to your specifications. Call Russ Green. He’s in the book.
SPECIAL NOTICES: The library now has The Wedding Dress and no, I don’t mean the wedding dress that Millicent Hart borrowed from the Mossy Creek Theatrical Guild again. I mean the book by best-selling author Virginia Ellis. Librarian Hannah Longstreet also says the library has more copies of Alice At Heart by Deborah Smith and also the author’s newest book, Sweet Hush.
BOOK PATRON’S PICKS OF THE MONTH: When You’re the Only Cop in Town . . . by Debra Dixon. Chief Royden says it’s the best book about small-town police work he’s ever read. Also recommended: Atlanta Live by Carmen Green. Mrs. Eula Mae Whit says it’s the best book she’s read in a hundred years.
Chapter Three
MAMIE and GRACE
“Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success.”
—Oscar Wilde
“APPRECIATE WHAT you have, Emily Sue. You don’t always understand it but, remember, what goes around, comes around.”
My grandmother, Grace Peacock, always said that. I never quite understood until now. I always thought it had something to do with fences and pecans. But I’ve come to understand that it applies to many levels of life, starting with family and ending with friendship—the obvious kind and those that are a bit different.
My mother and daddy lived with my grandparents. It was a common occurrence for families in Mossy Creek. When I was born it came down to a larger house or separate dwellings. By then she already knew that Daddy was a wanderer with his rainbow just over the next hill. And she shared his search. Since my mama had no intention of staying in Mossy Creek, she voted for a larger house—big enough for her to come home to, but one where she was not responsible for the bills and the upkeep.
At any rate, that’s how we came to live next door to Mamie Brown. Granddaddy bought the two acres next to her and my daddy built our new home, his only and final contribution to the family finances. And, pretty much as my mama expected, she and daddy came around, dropping in through the years when things didn’t go well. That’s another place where my grandmother’s saying comes into play. The Generation Xers of today are doing the same thing—coming home when things don’t go well. Back then it was considered family looking after family. Now, it’s family sharing failure.
Every time my folks left for the next great opportunity, I listened to Granny Grace and stayed put in Mossy Creek. But, even in close families like mine, there are some things that aren’t discussed. My grandmother was the sweetest, most gentle person on the face of the earth except when it came to her neighbor, Mamie. Then she turned into a sneaky, conniving woman who spent her bean-snapping, pea-shelling time trying to figure out how to get the best of Mamie and enjoying every minute of it.
Mamie started their relationship on the wrong foot by sneaking across into Granny’s blackberry patch without asking. We didn’t live there yet and Granny’s patch had more berries than she could every use but to her, it was the principle of the thing. They weren’t Mamie’s and she didn’t ask permission before she picked them.
Mamie’s next crime was my daddy’s fault. When he built the house, he ran the water line into the bathroom but that was as far as it ever got. The toilet and drain pipes were leaning against the back of our house, directly in view of Miss Mamie’s screened-in back porch with the most spectacular iris and caladiums planted just beyond. Miss Mamie pointed out to everyone in the church that the trashy folks next door had ruined her lovely garden. But people in Mossy Creek loved my granny. They’d come by and sit on the front porch with her at night. While the children and I caught lightning bugs in mason jars, they’d talk about their family’s part in the Great War and the Depression before. Until I reached high school, I actually thought that Roosevelt was a chicken farmer. When Mamie didn’t receive the support she’d expected, she bricked in the screens and moved her flowerbeds to the front.
Finally, Granny held out the olive branch, took Mamie some new bulbs for her garden and granted her permission to harvest all the berries she wanted. Mamie was not appreciative. By now, Granny was beginning to question the value of her efforts at friendship.
But it was Buck, my daddy’s best hunting dog who elevated Mamie’s nose to the next level. Buck had the run of the neighborhood and covered most of it. As if in support of Granny, Buck moved his private potty place to the middle of Miss Mamie’s front yard.
War was declared.
Miss Mamie’s bedroom windows, formerly open to catch the summer breeze, turned into white shaded squares that looked like two cartoon eyes glaring at my Granny Grace’s bedroom.
We never had any livestock. Chickens we had, but they had their own private yard. Granny Grace stared at those windows for a few days, then insisted that Granddaddy fence in the back yard.
We assumed it was to restrain Buck. It wasn’t. She never intended to stop Buck’s freedom of choice. In fact, the fence kept him out of the back yard—until Battle Royden, the Chief of Police back then, came to call one afternoon and suggested rather strongly that Buck reside in our dog yard or face jail. For once, Granddaddy agreed and put Buck inside the fence.
The incident became a new salvo from Granny Grace, and she didn’t even have anything to do with it. Buck didn’t like having his freedom curtailed and told the world. If you’ve ever had a male dog who considered himself a stud separated from the ladies in his area, you can imagine what he did. He howled at the moon, at the sun, even at me. Then he dug a hole under the fence bordering Miss Mamie’s side and escaped—several times.
Mamie complained to Battle. “My yard is not his bathroom. He’s killed my grass. I
t looks like a yellow and green polka dotted apron.” Battle talked to Granny Grace who was so apologetic. “Why Miss Mamie is such a good neighbor, I can’t imagine why the dog doesn’t like her. But you know animals,” she said, piously, “they are better judges of people than people are.”
I’m not sure how ugly the Buck situation would have gotten if Mother and Daddy hadn’t come home for a visit before opening a wilderness fishing camp in the Florida Keys. When they left Buck went with them. Our bathroom was finally installed. I went away to Atlanta and worked my way through Georgia State University. I got married and divorced but I swore I wouldn’t move back in with Granny. It was a matter of pride. This was a new world. I wasn’t my mother. Moving home meant admitting failure.
Then Granddaddy died while mother and father were operating a fishing boat somewhere in the Gulf. I was the one who had to go home to make the arrangements. That’s when I learned that it takes ten years for pecan trees to produce fruit, and one good crop of nuts to start a not so friendly feud between Granny and Mamie.
The tree was on Miss Mamie’s side but the limbs grew equally from each side of the tree, guaranteeing Granny her share of the nuts. “You always plan ahead, Emily Sue,” she’d say. But I never realized how seriously she took that until the pecan tree began to bear fruit. That’s when the war broke out in earnest. If we had any squirrels, they had to find another source of food. The two women were out before the sun was up gathering the nuts. Miss Mamie on her side of Granny’s fence and Granny on the other.
There was only one problem, Miss Mamie’s arms were longer and slimmer. She could reach right through the fence squares and get the nuts my granny considered to be hers. Eventually, Granny figured out that if I climbed the tree and shook it at just the right angle, she would be guaranteed a better harvest.
After the funeral, Granny and I sat on the front porch and discussed her situation. She’d be fine, Granny swore. Her sister, Aunt Frank, had decided to come and live with her. They’d share expenses and it would give the two sisters someone to share the chores with. I wish Granny had shared a little more with Aunt Frank—like the neighbor situation.
You have to understand that the only people who knew about the intensity of the ongoing feud over the pecans were Battle Royden, me and Miss Mamie. When Aunt Frank learned about the “fuss,” she decided that the whole thing was foolishness and she’d just put a stop to it.
From what I can piece together from the various versions I’ve heard over the years (Aunt Frank, Granny Grace, Miss Mamie and the new police chief, Battle’s son, Amos—who all tell a different tale), this is what really happened.
From what I can tell, Aunt Frank marched over and announced that she was living with Grace now and she’d already instructed Grace to stop arguing over the nuts and Miss Mamie should do the same. “There’s plenty for both of you.”
Miss Mamie apparently didn’t smile and agree with Aunt Frank like Granny did, so Aunt Frank was prepared to go even further as a messenger of good. “By the way, one of the ladies from the church said you play the fiddle. I brought my pump organ. Grace plays, you know, and I can pick a mean tune on my auto harp. I’m thinking that since we’re in the mountains now, we could get together once a week and play and sing some good mountain music, like the Carter family. You know, the one who had the girl that married Johnny Cash.”
That’s when Miss Mamie demonstrated the force of the anger that had been simmering for twenty-five years. “I play the violin and I am not interested in playing or singing anything with you.”
Now suddenly, Granny Grace had a partner in crime. Except it wasn’t as much fun with Aunt Frank coming up with new plots and trying to run the show. In fact, after six months of living with Aunt Frank, Granny decided she knew why Frankie’s husband had divorced her long before that became a common practice. Aunt Frank just plain didn’t know how to share the fun. She had to run the show, which was Granny’s job and Granny didn’t appreciate it. What Granny did finally appreciate was my divorce. She jumped on that divorce like it was one of the opportunities my mama and daddy were always chasing.
She announced to Aunt Frank that I was divorced now and would be moving back home—just like all those other children who spent all they made and had to have help. That, of course, meant she needed her house.
Nothing could be further from the truth. But when she pled her case to me, what choice did I have, but to agree? After all, Granny Grace had given me a home all my life, I was obligated to repay her if that’s what she wanted. But I decided I needed to check out the situation in person before I altered my future. The next morning, I headed for Mossy Creek. As I drove up to the house, I passed Aunt Frank driving her Ryder truck packed with family heirlooms. She didn’t even wave goodbye.
Granny Grace was sitting on the front porch fanning herself with a paper fan from the newly opened Heaven’s Rest Funeral Home. “Come on in, Emily Sue, have a seat and listen to the quiet.”
“Listen to the quiet?”
“Yes. No dog barking. No violin music and, thank the Lord, no more Frankie. You know I didn’t invite her here. She invited herself then thought she’d take over. I found out something. In spite of Mamie being so high and mighty, she taught me a couple of things over the years. I don’t need you to come home. I don’t need a keeper. I can look after myself.”
“You always could,” I said, thinking that it was too bad two widows living side by side weren’t friends.
For the next few years, Granny Grace got frailer but that didn’t stop the pecan war. Even using walkers to compensate for a mild stroke on her part and a broken hip on Mamie’s didn’t stop them.
In fact, it was an act of God that interceded in the form of a freaky late summer storm that came in from the south, rounded the foothills and hit Mossy Creek. But I didn’t know it at the time. When I made my weekly Sunday evening call to Granny Grace, there was no answer. When I still couldn’t reach her the next morning, I left my office and went home.
The power was out and the house was empty. Granny’s Buick was under the shed. But no Granny. Finally, I bit the bullet and knocked on Miss Mamie’s back door. “Miss Mamie?”
There was a stirring inside and the sound of metal tapping on the linoleum kitchen floor. Granny Grace opened the door. “Emily Sue, what are you doing up here?”
“You didn’t answer your phone and I came to check on you.” I looked around curiously. If Granny Grace had ever been inside Miss Mamie’s house, I didn’t know it. “Why are you over here?”
“Well, we had a little problem,” she said. “A storm came over the mountain like a mad woman dropping hushpuppies into a frying pan full of hot grease. Lightning was flashing everywhere. One bolt hit the pecan tree and ran across the ground into Mamie’s house. I came over to check on her. Didn’t you see the tree?”
I’d walked past the fence and the pecan tree without realizing that it had been hit. As if the bolt were a sharp knife it had sliced down the middle of the tree. The tree had parted like a wilted plant, half the limbs across Miss Mamie’s yard and half leaning over the fence into Granny Grace’s.
“Come on in, child,” Granny said.
I felt like The Cowardly Lion as I made my way through the dark kitchen into the room Miss Mamie had converted into a side porch. When I saw her I realized how old and tiny she’d become in the years since I’d been away.
“Come in,” she said. “All Grace has talked about is Emily Sue. I figured you’d sprouted wings.”
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“About as well as your grandmother, I expect, except she gets around better than me.”
“I always did,” Granny said. “Had to buy one of those chest freezers to hold all those pecans I picked up.”
“Yeah, but that was before you had that stroke, Grace.”
“And before you broke your hip, Mamie.”
Mamie leaned back in the chaise lounge and sighed. “Reckon between the two of us, we might make one good woman.”
“Reckon you’re right,” Granny agreed.
“You’re both better off than that pecan tree,” I said. “The two of you battled over it all this time, then lightning comes along and settles the fight by cutting it down the middle.”
Mamie let out a cry of dismay. “The tree is dead?”
“Not yet,” I answered, “but it probably will die.”
“So be it,” pronounced Granny Grace. “You want any more coffee, Mamie? There’s more pecan pie.”
“If I never see another pecan pie it will be too soon for me,” Mamie snapped.
Fearing a physical confrontation, I interrupted with a question. “What do you need me to do, Granny?”
“Not a thing, Emily Sue. You just get on back to Atlanta so you don’t lose that job. And stop by the power company on your way through town. Tell them we need lights before tonight. I want to watch Wheel of Fortune.”
“Only if we watch Dirty Dancing afterward,” Mamie announced.
“Humph! And I suppose you have it in mind to watch one of those porno channels, next.”
I left the two of them squabbling, the pecan tree forgotten in their new-found differences. Like children, I thought. Or friends.
Still, the two of them couldn’t be left alone and it fell my fate to come home and look after them. I went to work for the mayor as her administrative assistant and found out I liked living in Mossy Creek as an adult a lot more than I thought, even if I was hungry for a friend who could carry on an intelligent conversation.
Last year Mamie moved into Magnolia Manor Nursing Home and put her house up for sale. A few months ago Granny broke her hip and followed. The only vacancy available at Magnolia Manor on short notice was—you guessed it—in the room with Mamie.
After Granny moved I walked through her house. I stopped to put on a Bruce Springsteen tape and stepped out into the back yard where Granny had poured a sidewalk between her back door and Mamie’s. The fence was still there, though an opening had been cut at the end of the sidewalk. In the center of the opening, two new pecan tree limbs had sprouted, one on Mamie’s side and one on Granny’s. At the bottom they bowed out like a fat-bottomed vase. But as the limbs grew toward the sun, they’d wrapped around each other as if in support.
Summer in Mossy Creek Page 7