A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet

by Sophie Hudson

  “Mother, you ring your bell if you need anything! If you need anything! The sitter will be sure to help you with whatever you need, and I’ll be home in a few hours. Okay, sugar? You get some good rest, sugar.”

  Martha felt fine about the arrangement as she backed out of the carport, but when she got home “a little before nine, I was home before nine! I wasn’t even out that late!” she was distressed to find the sitter sound asleep—snoring, even—in the living room recliner. Despite her first inclination to let sleeping sitters lie, Martha’s concern for Sissie proved too strong to ignore. She wanted to check with the sitter to make sure everything was okay with Sissie, and that’s why Martha stood in front of the recliner for the better part of five minutes and repeated, at varying volumes, some variation of “Hello! Hey there! Time to wake up! I’m home now! It’s time to get up! I want to ask you about my mother! Hey, honey! Hello!”

  The sitter never budged. She didn’t miss a beat with her snoring, either.

  I’d like to think that if I had been in Martha’s position at this juncture, I would have walked over to the woman in the recliner, put my hand on her shoulder, and very gently said something like “WAKE UP! WAKE UP! YOU’RE ON THE CLOCK, AND I’M NOT PAYING YOU TO SLEEP, MA’AM.” But Martha avoids confrontation of any sort, so here is what she did in an attempt to rouse the sleeping sitter:

  Walked in the master bedroom and shut the door.

  Opened the door.

  Walked in the master bathroom and shut the door.

  Opened the door.

  Flushed the commode.

  Walked in the kitchen, where she repeatedly opened and shut the door to the microwave because, according to Martha, “My microwave door is really loud! It’s terribly loud! And I don’t see how anybody could sleep through me shutting it, especially not over and over again!”

  At that point Sissie woke up (no doubt because of that microwave door opening and shutting), so she started ringing her bell and yelling, “MAH-THA! MAHHHHHH-THA!” as loudly as she could. The sitter still didn’t move, and according to Martha, “She didn’t even hear Mother’s bell! She didn’t hear the bell! And you know I was at the Sunday school party, and what if Mother needed her and rang the bell and the sitter never answered? What if she never answered? Because she surely didn’t hear it when I was home! She didn’t! Mother rang her bell, and the sitter never heard it!”

  And then, after a brief pause: “CAN YOU EVEN IMAGINE?”

  So Martha took care of whatever Sissie needed before she walked in the living room and stood in front of the recliner and loudly cleared her throat four or eleventy hundred times until the sitter finally stirred. And instead of asking the sitter what in the world she was thinking, Martha simply said, “I couldn’t get you to wake up! Mother even rang her bell! And I opened and closed the microwave door!”

  I’m going to venture a guess that the sitter no doubt wondered how she’d fallen asleep in Myrtlewood only to wake up smack-dab in the middle of a Tennessee Williams play.

  The sleeping sitter confessed that she had been a bit sick to her stomach earlier in the evening and had taken an anti-nausea pill or two, and much to her surprise she became incredibly drowsy and dozed off into what might be classified as a light coma. Martha told her that it probably wasn’t a good idea to take medication when she had a job that required staying awake in order to care for the elderly, but the sitter was nonplussed and asked Martha if she could have her check, seeing as how she had some Christmas shopping to do the next day.

  I’d be willing to bet that Martha probably cleared her throat about fifty-four more times after that request. She was going to be polite at all costs, of course, but she had to consider her mama’s best interests. And before the sitter left, Martha managed to tell her that it just wasn’t going to work out. She was a perfectly lovely person and all—perfectly lovely!—but Martha needed to know that Sissie was in good hands.

  I mean, sleeping on the job was one thing.

  Being oblivious to the sound of the microwave door was another.

  But failing to hear Sissie’s bell? That was a deal breaker, my friends.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Night We neither Camped nor Fished

  WAY BACK IN THE DARK ages of 2005, my husband and I went to Myrtlewood to celebrate Christmas with our families. We took Alex with us, too, since he was two and a half and couldn’t really stay home by himself yet. Plus, we were pretty exhausted from all the holiday goings-on and needed Alex to drive that first leg of the trip from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa.

  Listen. Don’t laugh. He still needed a little work on his defensive driving skills, but he could flat let ’er rip once he hit the interstate. Sure, he got a little tired somewhere around the Bessemer exit and really wanted to snuggle with Froggy, but it was nothing a stiff cup of Starbucks couldn’t fix.

  Anyway, since the Hudson Christmas Extravaganza was on a Saturday, David and I made plans to go to dinner that Friday night with my mama and daddy. My aunt and uncle were going, too, but our little guy stayed with Martha. We really wanted to take him with us, but we didn’t think he was quite ready to drive in the dark.

  (Apparently I’m going to keep going back to that whole toddler driving setup.)

  (It makes me laugh.)

  (Probably because I have such a mature sense of humor.)

  When we were trying to decide where to go to eat, we eventually arrived at the conclusion that we were all craving fried catfish, and that means, at least in parts of Mississippi, that you hop in the car and head to “the fish camp.”

  I’m not exactly sure how the whole fish camp phenomenon started, but I think it had something to do with people setting up camp along central Mississippi rivers and then frying up their catch once the sun set. Since I personally prefer to partake of my meals in a room that’s sealed off from all the nature, I’m thankful that the tradition hasn’t stayed outside on the riverbank. These days people build cabins and furnish them with an endless stretch of picnic tables, and then a steady crowd of happy, um, campers show up on weekend nights to enjoy fried fish, french fries, hush puppies, coleslaw, and sweet tea. Some fish camps even serve boiled shrimp or crab legs or fresh oysters, but that’s only if they’re high end. And really, if you think about it, a high-end fish camp sort of defeats the whole point.

  Before we went to supper on that particular night, we met at Chox and Joe’s house, and just so we can address what you’ve probably been thinking since the first chapter, I’ll go ahead and affirm that yes, you certainly have been reading correctly: my uncle’s name is Joe. I know, it’s very unusual.

  Seriously, though, my aunt’s name really is Choxie. Chox, for short. She and my mama actually had an aunt—their daddy’s sister—by the same name. When Chox was born, her deep, olive-colored skin tone favored the elder Choxie, so Mamaw and Papaw decided she should also inherit the name. About thirty years later Chox gave birth to my cousin Choxie Paige (who goes by Paige but is a Choxie through and through).

  Since I grew up surrounded by Choxies, I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about what an unusual name it is. Then again, I come from a long line of people with names like Maude, Roxie, Tom Alex, Levert, Alma, and Ouida. So having a Chox or three in the family? Well, that’s perfectly normal. Perhaps there will be a time when I can also tell you about my daddy’s aunt Cecil.

  Good grief, I love the South.

  Anyway, we met at Chox and Joe’s house, mainly because we all wanted to ride in the same car and Chox’s SUV was the biggest of the bunch. Plus, at the time, Joe was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, and generally there was a better chance he’d know where we were and who we were if we left from their house. It was just less confusing all the way around. And trust me: I’m not trying to be blasé about Joe’s Alzheimer’s; that’s just how my family rolls when it comes to Big Life Developments. My sister and I laugh about how, when we were growing up, our polar-opposite-of-helicopter parents looked at every hardship as an opportunity t
o work harder and trust God more deeply. Sister and I refer to this as the “get after it” approach to life, and I am here to tell you that my brother, my sister, and I inherited this mind-set IN SPADES.

  Unexpected changes at work? Well, take a day to be sad—and then get after it.

  Challenges in your marriage? Talk about the problems—and then get after it.

  Hardships with your health? Get the help you need—and then, as best as you can, get after it.

  The “get after it” approach doesn’t mean you have to be cold or insensitive or hard hearted, but it very much means that the good Lord never puts more on your plate than you can handle, so you just, with His guidance, try to find the best plan of attack for every single problem, and then, well, you get after it.

  That’s precisely why, when Joe was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, we all knew that we wouldn’t hear a word of self-pity or “Why us?” from Chox about what they were facing. She simply asked the Lord for strength to get through every single day, gathered as much information as she could, tried to keep Joe as happy and comfortable as possible, and then, well, she got after it. They’d built a business together, as well as a mighty fine marriage, and she became the primary champion of both. There were times when I thought I’d never seen anyone look as tired as she did, but she never complained. No, sir. She just got after it.

  (Remind me to tell you about the time my sister’s house flooded.)

  (That, I have to say, was some of the finest gettin’-after-it my family has ever seen.)

  Our trip to the fish camp coincided with a patch of time when Joe was beginning to get really confused about who was who and what was what; his and Chox’s house was littered with slips of paper where he wrote down bits and pieces of information that he was trying to convince his brain to remember. He would jot down the dates of his service in the Marines, the name of a neighborhood friend from his childhood, the price of a printing press from 1974—whatever came to mind. Paige often found those little scraps of her daddy’s memory written inside a telephone book, on the back of a deposit slip, or on the corner of a manila envelope, and inevitably she’d smile as she wiped away her tears.

  When David and I walked in the front door at Chox and Joe’s that Friday night, I could tell by the look on Joe’s face that he knew he was supposed to know who we were; he seemed to have a sense that we were, at the very least, familiar to him, though he couldn’t seem to put all the relational pieces together. Chox made a point to nonchalantly announce our arrival in front of him—“Oh, look who’s here from Alabama! It’s Soph and David!” In doing so, she saved him the embarrassment and frustration of not being able to remember our names right away. The great thing about Joe, bless his heart, was that he was always just as enthusiastic as could be when he saw pretty much anybody. That was true before Alzheimer’s set in, and it was true afterward, too. He might not have had the foggiest idea who he was talking to, but by diggity, his enthusiasm for talking to that person was unshakable. That night was no exception.

  Once Mama and Daddy arrived, we all piled into Chox’s SUV to make the pilgrimage to our fried-fish paradise. For some reason I was appointed chauffeur for the evening, so I climbed in the driver’s seat, waited for everybody to buckle up, and backed out of the driveway. I reminded myself not to drive too fast on the way to the fish camp, but those hush puppies were calling my name, and the time, it was a-wastin’. I mean, normally I do my best to be a conscientious driver and put safety first and all that, but there’s something about the prospect of a night filled with fried food that makes me want to throw all reason out the window and giddyup.

  The first part of our trip was relatively uneventful. Mama and Chox took care of most of the talking during our thirty-minute car ride, focusing primarily on a little conversational segment I like to refer to as People We Know Who Have Died. The best part of any People We Know Who Have Died (PWKWHD for short) conversation is the inevitable constructive criticism/evaluation of the funeral service, centering on (1) the quality of the music, (2) the finish of the casket, and (3) the appropriateness of the attendees’ attire. In Myrtlewood you can almost always count on the music being beautiful and the casket finish being tasteful, but people’s funeral fashion choices are increasingly problematic for Mama and Chox. Opt for a conservative pantsuit or a Sunday dress, and they will sing your praises. Show up in your tennis clothes, and prepare to be a topic of some PWKWHD conversations. All in the interest of exhortation and edification, of course.

  And if you show up in jeans, I guess the good news is that they actually won’t talk about you at all. Because as far as they’re concerned, your ancestors are to blame for that one. It certainly isn’t your fault if you’re mired in a generational stronghold that makes you overly dependent on denim.

  Once they’d made their way through PWKWHD, Mama and Chox segued into People We Know Who Are Sick and/or Injured, followed closely by my favorite portion of the conversational proceedings: Well, That’s What I Heard.

  “Ouida, did you know that Sue Jones moved to Knoxville?”

  “Tennessee? No! I had no idea!”

  “Well, that’s what I heard.”

  Or this:

  “Chox, has anybody mentioned to you that they’re getting a new preacher at that Baptist church over by the park?”

  “Really? Isn’t their preacher from down in south Alabama? The one with that darlin’ wife who’s expecting again? Seems like he’s only been there for about two years. He’s leaving already?”

  “Well, that’s what I heard.”

  I could clap my hands just thinking about it.

  We arrived at the fish camp not too long after the matter regarding the Baptist preacher was settled, and once I found a parking place underneath an old oak tree, everybody gradually filed out of the car. Daddy’s knees were a little resentful of the time he’d been sitting still, as was Chox’s hip, so once all the necessary limbs were sufficiently stretched and restored to good working order, we dodged some impressive tree roots and crunched our way through the gravel parking lot.

  Now, in the event you should ever find yourself at a Mississippi fish camp on a random weekend night, I’m going to share a little piece of information that I hope will prepare you for the experience: I have noticed—and remember, this is merely what I’ve seen during my own fish camp excursions—that there are typically a good many cats outside of fish camp establishments. I don’t know why this troubles me, really, because I’m sure the cats are perfectly lovely and purry and have many wonderful cat qualities, but on some level I worry that there are two or seven cats on the premises because they’re needed to CATCH ALL THE RATS. I have no proof of this, of course, and hopefully I’m totally off base. Maybe those precious felines were just drawn to the smell of fish, much like their kitty ancestors on the old Friskies cat-food commercials.

  I’m sure that must be it.

  But that still didn’t stop me from eyeing a gray-and-white cat with suspicion as David held open the screen door so we could all walk inside.

  Our supper that night was just as tasty and, well, fried as I had hoped it would be. The fish was delicious, the hush puppies were piping hot, and the sweet tea arrived in glasses that held at least thirty-two ounces of fine Southern nectar. Everyone in attendance had a perfectly delightful time. But the fish camp, I guess you could say, was really just the appetizer. The best part of the night was still to come.

  The ride home was pleasant but fairly uneventful. Joe experienced a pretty impressive memory surge around mile eight or nine—I believe we can attribute it to the miraculous powers of fish that has been battered and deep-fried in peanut oil—and he entertained us with stories about who used to live in that green house and where that old road used to lead before the highway opened in the early ’70s. It was fun to hear him in such a lively mood, and when he’d occasionally trail off with an “Aw, dadgummit—I can’t remember,” we couldn’t help but laugh. Chox often said that life with an Alzheimer’s patient meant
you had to do a lot of laughing to keep from crying, and she was right. There was too much heartache in the day to day, so those encounters with the funny felt like sunshine.

  When you live several hours away from most of your family, there’s really no sweeter blessing than having the luxury of just hanging out with them and traveling country roads and laughing and putting the hurt on some fried food as a family unit. As much as I love living in Birmingham, I can’t help but miss my people; even though I’ve known them all my life, they continue to fascinate the fire out of me.

  My mama, for example, is a Terribly Southern Woman. She does not go to the grocery store without having her hair coiffed, her makeup fixed, and her clothing ensemble perfectly coordinated. I was nineteen, in fact, before I saw her sit down for any extended period of time. For most of my life, she has been on her feet, cooking and cleaning and basically creating a warm and welcoming home for her husband and children. If she heard that your third cousin’s niece had a death in her husband’s family, she would bake them a pound cake.

  Mama also has exceptional taste. As a child of the Depression, she knows how to do a lot with a little, and she’s one of those people who are just drawn to the beautiful. Her Christmas tree decorating is legendary, and because she could give Job a run for his money in the patience department, she takes her time with everything she does. Thoughtful, intentional, meticulous—that’s my mama, and anyone who knows her would tell you she’s one of the most servant-hearted people they’ve ever met. If I called her right now and asked her to come to my house and shuck corn for three days (not that we do a whole lot of corn shuckin’ around here, but I needed an example), she totally would. And on the off chance she needed a break from the corn duties, she’d relax by organizing my kitchen cabinets, straightening up my pantry, and looking around the house for anything that might need to go into the washing machine.