“I kind of wish I was there,” he says. “I have a feeling things are going to get exciting before they get boring again.”
“Give Reed a hug for me. And a kiss.” I feel myself choking up again. It seems like a week ago our son was a baby in my arms. Or at least a toddler on my lap. Now he’s going to be a sophomore in college.
Celeste waves to me. She’s also wearing a chiffon scarf around her neck that looks like a watercolor in green and yellow. It’s quite the outfit. Especially on a Saturday afternoon in August in our backyard. I wave to her and smile. “Call me tonight on your way home,” I say into the phone, walking toward my sister.
“Might be late.”
“That’s fine. I’m probably going to sleep with Mom Brodie. I did last night. In Daddy’s chair.”
“You’re a good granddaughter, Abs.”
I smile sadly. “I just don’t want her to be alone when she dies. I want her to know how much we all love her.”
Drum tells me he loves me; I tell him I love him, and we end the call. I slip my cell into the back pocket of my jean shorts as Celeste walks onto the dock. She’s got enough blush on her cheeks to share with every woman on the island. I wish she knew how the heavy makeup ages her, but we don’t have the kind of relationship that I can even bring up the subject. She’d take the advice all wrong. Think I was criticizing her. She always jumps to that conclusion. Of course, in all fairness, maybe sometimes my advice has been criticism, but not when it comes to her looks. I understand how sensitive she’s become about aging. And I get it. My bare bottom and my breasts sure don’t look like they used to.
“Where you headed, all gussied up?” I ask, thinking maybe I can steal a little of that blush and rub it on my cheeks. I didn’t bother to put any makeup on today, and I probably look pretty scary.
“Nowhere.”
I raise my eyebrows.
She lifts one undernourished shoulder and lets it fall. “Might go in to The Gull later. Wanna come with?”
“Two nights in a bar in the same moon cycle?” I shake my head. “No thanks.”
She walks past me to go out on the end of the dock. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”
I turn to watch. “You go home with that guy you were talking to last night? The older, distinguished man?”
“Birdie’s been spying on me again.”
“I don’t think any spying was necessary.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Apparently, she was making Daddy’s coffee when you came in this morning.”
“Are you talking about Bartholomew?” Celeste redirects, her back to me.
“Didn’t catch his name.” Someone goes by in a dinghy with an outboard motor and waves. He’s too far out for me to recognize. I smile and wave back. “I’m talking about the guy with the ascot. I’m pretty sure he was the only one in the The Gull in a suit jacket and ascot.” I indicate my neck. “I saw you flirting with him.”
Reaching the end of the dock, Celeste turns and sashays toward me, swaying to a tune I can’t hear. She’s always been a performer, even when we were kids. I’d play the bongos, beating on a half-bushel basket or a pot we stole from the kitchen, and she’d do these dances which, thinking back, were pretty risqué for a ten-year-old. And she wrote plays, specifically tailored to what she saw as her own talents. She always got to be Queen Nefertiti or the plantation mistress. I was usually the slave girl or an elephant.
“I was thinking,” my sister says, swaying her hips, using her scarf as a boa, “a man like Bartholomew could set me up for life. He’s got a house in Atlanta and one in the Keys in Florida. Another in Vale. A businessman. Exports some kind of machine parts. Widowed. Kids live on the West Coast. Busy with their own lives. He’s lonely. I bet he knows how to appreciate a woman.”
“So, you’re looking for a sugar daddy?” I ask. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Nothing Celeste says or does surprises me.
Instead of being insulted, she laughs. “The thought’s crossed my mind.” She walks by me. “Birdie’s looking for you. She said to fetch you. And Sarah.” She starts for the house and then turns back. “And Joseph is looking for you, too.”
I open my arms. “I’ve been right here. Plain as day.”
“It must be a terrible thing to be the family favorite,” she calls over her shoulder.
“I thought you were the favorite,” I holler back.
This time neither of us laughs.
24
Birdie
“It’s not right,” I say very quietly, so only Mrs. Brodie can hear me. “It’s not right, and you know it.” I gently push the brush through her crown of white hair. I know she wouldn’t want anyone to see it a mess. She was always so neat in her appearance, and she took extra care with her hair. It used to be the prettiest red.
When I first came to Brodie Island, I remember lying in my own little bed in my very own bedroom at night in this house, wondering if, when I grew up, my hair would be red like Mrs. Brodie’s. Not just because it was the prettiest hair I’d ever seen, but because I was sure it was her red hair that made people like her. People like pretty women. And the red hair made people listen to her. Trust her. Especially other Brodies. Little Joe wasn’t the only one who took in every word that came out of his mother’s mouth as gospel. Big Joe did, too. That man thought the sun rose and set in Mrs. Brodie. She could do no wrong, and once in a while when I did hear them have a spat, one minute Mrs. Brodie would be raising her voice; the next minute I’d hear the two of them laughing. Big Joe adored this woman. Did until the day he died in bed with her.
When it was decided Little Joe and I would get married, I laid in my same bed and imagined my Joe talking to me the way Big Joe did to Mrs. Brodie. I imagined us laughing, our heads together, holding hands when we thought no one was looking. It was a foolish girl’s dream. I should have known better. I should never have let my expectations grow like that. Nothing good ever comes of those kind of dreams. Nothing but disappointment. I wasn’t a redhead. No one was ever going to love me that way.
My mother didn’t love me. Obviously. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have left me on the steps of the orphanage, still bloody from being born. No note. No gold locket with a lock of her hair. One of the girls at the orphanage with me, Lilith, she had a locket her mother left with her with a lock of blond hair, the same sandy white as Lilith’s. I used to dream the locket was mine when I was a little girl, sleeping under the eaves in the orphanage. Only my locket had brown hair like mine. But prettier, shinier. That locket was my hope that my mother would come back for me.
She never did.
I go on brushing Mrs. Brodie’s hair, gentle as I can. I asked the nurse if Mrs. Brodie could hear me. I asked if she could understand me or if her brain is already dead. Gail said there was no way to know what Mrs. Brodie can hear or how much she can think, so we ought to speak to her, and it’s best we assume she can hear us.
I think Mrs. Brodie can hear me. I think she knows exactly what I’m saying. I think she’s enjoying lying here in bed like this, letting us take care of her, putting the house in such a state. I think she cut Celeste out of her will just because she could and she knew how it would upset everyone in the house. Upset me.
I lean over and whisper in her ear. “Celeste ought to have her fair share of that money. What’s Joseph need with money? He’s got this whole island, and that’s all he cares about. He’s just like his father. As long as he’s got a place to rest his head and a decent truck, he’s got no need for money.”
I lean back to look at her. “Now, I’m not sayin’ you ought to cut Abby out, but Joseph, he . . . I’m just going to say it. He’s getting a lot for a boy born on the wrong side of the sheets.” I chew on my lip for a second, looking at her. Her eyes are still closed. If she heard me, she’s pretending she didn’t. “Celeste needs that money,” I go on. “Not just for what it can buy her, but to know you care about her. That she matters. Everybody knows Abby was always your favorite. And you were her favorite from the hour I pushed her onto this earth. She w
as always more yours than mine, our Abby. And Celeste could see that. It hurt her. Don’t you know how much it hurt her?”
My thoughts drift back to Abby’s birth. And my overall failure as a mother. What a fool I was. I thought God gave you a baby and the love for that baby with it. I thought when Abby was born, I’d know how to love her. Only I didn’t. I mean, I did love her. In my own way, but not the way Mrs. Brodie loved her. Mrs. Brodie’s love came right out of her heart, always full of joy and optimism. I always felt like my love for my children was too tinged with fear. The enormous, overwhelming fear that I wasn’t what my girls needed. I wasn’t enough. And I’d never be enough.
Looking back, I guess that was the same problem between me and Joe, too. I did love him. The best I knew how. But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t good enough. And that’s why he strayed. My inability to love Joe the way he deserved to be loved is what brought Joseph into this world.
I fluff Mrs. Brodie’s hair over one ear. She just got her hair cut the week before she went into the hospital that last time, but I wonder if I ought to call the hairdresser to come out to the house. It’s looking a little long over her ears. She won’t want the undertaker’s wife messing with it. Ruby likes to think she’s a hairdresser, but I don’t think you can call yourself one if you only do dead people. Because who’s going to notice if you do a bad job? And if they do notice, who’s going to complain?
“Celeste needs to understand that for all the mistakes she’s made, she’s still a Brodie, same as Abby.” I look down at Mrs. Brodie. Her chest keeps rising and falling, but I don’t see her twitch a muscle. I go on before I lose my nerve because that’s what usually happens with me. I plan out what I want to say to people, but then I can’t say it. “What I was thinking is, maybe you could wake up for a few minutes. I know you’re tired, and you’re ready to go to the Lord.” I exhale, putting the brush back in the nightstand drawer.
There’s an oyster shell and a piece of blue paper with one of Sarah’s palindromes on the nightstand now, with the teacup and saucer I set there. And a handful of red and white peppermint Starlight mints, each in their own cellophane wrapper. The mints are Abby’s work. Mrs. Brodie and Abby were always munching on those mints together.
“Can’t say I’m not envious, Him calling you home,” I tell Mrs. Brodie, looking down at her. “But if you could just see your way to wake up for a little while, we could send for Clancy, and you could tell him you made a mistake. And you could set it right. You could give Celeste her share. Fair is fair.”
I hesitate, on the outside chance she’s going to answer me. I listen to the sound of the air whooshing out of the vent on the floor, and then I hear Duke barking outside the window. I have half a mind to throw up the window and holler at him to stop his barking. Doesn’t he know Mrs. Brodie’s trying to die in here in some peace and quiet?
I look back at Mrs. Brodie. “I even thought about giving Celeste my pin money, but you made me promise not to touch it until the time was right. And I don’t think this is the time, else you’d have told me.” I think for a minute. “This isn’t just about money. It’s not about Celeste being able to make her rent and get a face-lift, or whatever nonsense she’s been talking about. This isn’t just about money, Mrs. Brodie. It’s about you. And Celeste and her needing to belong here. To belong to you.”
Because we all need to belong to you, I think. But I don’t say it. I feel like I’m going to cry, all of sudden, so I shut up. A part of me wants to tell her, while we’re on the subject, that it wouldn’t have hurt her to throw me a few dollars. Or her car. Or her fake diamond brooch that looks like a palm tree. I always liked that brooch. The girls won’t want it. It’ll end up getting sold for a dollar at the next church bazaar. But I would have liked her to have given it to me. Just to show me that I matter to her. But I’m too ashamed to say it. Too scared to think maybe she knew what she was doing when she didn’t leave me the brooch.
I’m not worth a dollar brooch.
I stand there for what seems like a long time, and finally I let out a long breath.
“So that’s your final word on it, is it?” I ask her. “You’re not going to wake up and call Clancy, and you’re not going to change your will, are you?” I reach down and smooth the sheet over her, wondering if I should get her a blanket. Wondering if this air conditioning of hers might be making her too cool. I take her hand to see if it’s cold. It’s not, and I arrange the side of the bed so she’s comfortable.
“All right . . . Well, fine. Soon enough I’ll be the lady of the house, won’t I?” I take a stubborn tone with her. “And it’ll be me to set things right. The way you always did.” I look down at her face. It looks like a death mask I once saw in a magazine. “So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll set it right myself.”
I turn so fast to walk away from her that I don’t see Little Joe coming into the room. I practically run right into him, and he has to put his hands on my shoulders to slow me down. It startles me. Him so close, touching me. I can’t remember when the last time was he had both hands on me. Oh, he gives me his hand getting in and out of the car on Sunday mornings. But this is different. More . . . intimate I think the word might be. I’ve never been a big one for words or for reading, not like Mrs. Brodie. But I learn things. Words. Mostly on my soaps.
“Who you talking to?” my husband asks me.
I can feel his hands, warm on my shoulders. Almost like they’re burning. There was a time when I wanted him to touch me. I don’t mean I ever wanted him to be all lovey-dovey the way Abby and Drum can be. Kissing hello and good-bye can take up a lot of a woman’s day. I don’t have time for that nonsense. But Mrs. Brodie was always one for hugging people, coming and going. Not me, of course. She never hugged me. I never came and went. I was always here. But anyone else who came into the house, or left, Mrs. Brodie would hug him or her. I never understood the need for it. But there was a time when I wanted Little Joe to act like he liked me. Like he married me for some reason other than because his mother told him to.
That’s worn off.
I take a step back from Joe, looking down at the floor. I hope he didn’t hear what I was saying to his mother. I wouldn’t want him to know I was cross with her. “I was talking to Mrs. Brodie.” I go to his recliner. It looks strange in the room. Takes up too much room. I shake out the afghan Abby left laying on the back, just to keep my hands busy. “The nurse says she might still be able to hear us, even if she can’t talk back.”
He stares at her. I don’t think he thinks she can hear us. He looks uncomfortable standing there. Like he feels he doesn’t belong.
“You ought to talk to her,” I tell him. I start refolding the afghan. Abby made a mess of it. She was never much for folding right. “You ought to tell her anything you still got left to tell her. Blood pressure’s down. She’s goin’, Joe. I don’t think it will be much longer.”
He just stands there, closer to being out of the room than fully in it, looking at his mother. I take a good look at him as I fold the crocheted afghan. He looks small to me. And old. Little Joe was never a big man; Brodie men aren’t. But he had a way of filling a room, making you know he was here. I guess that made him seem like a bigger man than he was. Today, though, he seems small and wrinkled and older than his seventy-one years. He seems a little bit lost.
“She doesn’t look like she’s dying,” he says. His voice sounds like he’s far away. “I don’t think she’ll die yet.”
“You know your mother. There won’t be a hullaballoo. It’s not her way. One minute she’s going to be with us, Joe, and the next she won’t. So you best say anything you’ve got to say to her, or you’ll be saying it to her stone in the cemetery.”
He seems to think on that for a minute before he speaks. “Already said my good-byes.” His tone is gruff.
I can’t tell if he’s talking to me or her. I nod anyway.
He stands there a little longer. I throw the afghan over the chair and plump the b
ack cushion.
“Seems like Abby’s set on sleeping in here with her,” I say. “I wonder if we should bring one of those single beds down from the blue room. Get Joseph to carry it down while he’s here.”
“She say she wants a bed down here?”
I point to his chair. “Guess she wants to sleep in your chair. Where do you want her sleeping?”
He rubs his temples with his finger and thumb like he’s working on a headache. I’ll get him some aspirin when I get back to the kitchen. “Whatever you think best, Birdie. I came to tell you . . .” He exhales like he can’t exactly remember why he’s here. I think this mess with his mother’s will is upsetting him more than he’s letting on.
“Marly’s here with Ainslie. To drop her off. I thought you might want to say hello.”
“I got nothing to say to Marly.”
He’s about to walk out, but then he turns slowly toward me, like it pains him to speak to me. “Birdie, what’s between them is as much Joseph as her. He said so himself. No matter what happened, Marly’s still Ainslie’s mother. And she’s been good to us. She was always good to Mama. Mama would want us to treat her kindly.”
So that’s what it comes to. Always does. Lying in a coma, one foot in the grave, and Mrs. Brodie’s still commanding our every word, our every move.
I look down at the floor. It needs vacuuming. Little bits of dust on the carpet. “I’ll be out directly.”
“Good. Because we’re ready to eat when you are.”
“Start without me. I’ll be out. Just have to put the tea on ice,” I call after him. He’s already in the hall.
I’m checking to be sure Mrs. Brodie doesn’t need anything else when Abby comes in. Like a bus station this room is today.
“Celeste said you were looking for me.”
I glance at her. It takes me a second to remember why I was looking for her. “Wanted your dirty clothes so I could do your wash.”
“You don’t need to do my wash.” She gives a little laugh as she walks over and takes Mrs. Brodie’s hand between hers. “I’ve only been here two days. How much wash could I have?”
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