by Scott Walker
“Well, that’s why I called, actually,” he said in a dejected voice. “I … well … it’s … ah. Oh, hell, Pilar, I just can’t do this on my own.”
She and Jim had been braced for this call since Julia died. “I know it’s hard, Art. I thought your sister was going to help you.”
“She did, for a while, but she couldn’t stay here forever, and I’m at the end of my rope.” He went silent on the other end of the line, waiting for Pilar to make the suggestion.
“What exactly do you want us to do about it, Art?” She anticipated what he had in mind. But if he was going to make this decision, and so dramatically alter the course of her and Jim’s life, he would certainly have to ask.
He hemmed and hawed, never getting to the point.
“What, Art?” Pilar finally interrupted him. “What do you want?”
“Well, I know it’s more, a lot more, than anybody could reasonably expect. But, could you … will you … will you and Jim take them?”
“Oh, Art. Mercy,” Pilar said. Expecting the question did not make it any easier to swallow when it came. “Richard’s barely been gone two years, and that was so difficult for us. And then Julia was sick. We’re just beginning to feel that we have a life of our own.”
“I know, Pilar. And I swear to God, I wouldn’t ask this if I thought there was any other way.” Art sounded so exasperated, she could not help feeling sorry for him. “But there’s not. I’m not asking for myself. I’m asking for them. I can’t give them the attention and life they deserve.”
Pilar did not doubt the accuracy of that observation. “Let me talk to Jim,” she said, “and I’ll call you back.”
Jim was up to his thighs in the fish pond when Pilar wandered back out into the sunny afternoon. When he saw the strained look on her face, he quickly sloshed out over to her. “Who was it?” he asked. “What’s the matter?”
“It was Art.”
Jim’s thick jaw clenched. He slowly shook his head as he looked at the ground without speaking. When his eyes returned to Pilar, his jaw relaxed, and Jim reached out and gave her a bear hug. “You don’t have to explain, or ask,” he said. “We knew this day would come, and it’s fine.”
Pilar craned her neck up to look at his face. “Honestly, Jim? You don’t mind?”
“Hell, no, I don’t mind,” Jim boomed, grinning. “Those little ones aren’t Richard, and we’ve both wanted a family since the day we married. Well, now we’ll have one.” They had been trying to have children without success for a decade. Jim knew adoption had become their only option, and what better than to take in Pilar’s nieces and nephew? Jim also thought Art was about as shiftless and useless a man as he had ever met. It would be the right thing to rescue those children.
Pilar loved him more at that moment than she thought it possible to adore another human being. She rubbed Jim on his thickly-muscled back. “I knew I was smart to let you buy me that cup of coffee back in Clarksburg.”
Jim laughed and said as he waded back out into the pond: “Best decision you ever made.”
Chapter 25
Huntingon, West Virginia
September 1957
Collecting garbage did not make for much of a living, even in Huntington. Until Brenda was five years old, she, Sam and Virginia lived in a two-room apartment above a hardware store across the street from the farmer’s market sheds. Virginia and her daughter shared the one bed. Sam slept on the sofa. With only two windows at front and a small one in the kitchen to the rear, the apartment was perpetually gloomy. In the summer, it was stifling. What little breeze managed to find its way in the windows seemed only to bring the stench of the refuse from the market.
So Brenda was exhilarated when they moved to the four-room, wood frame house in Guyandotte on the outskirts of the city. The neighborhood had declined precipitously since its heyday as a town in the nineteenth century, before Huntington was founded. But a child does not notice such details. The house had a yard, and Brenda had a bed of her own. She was so content that the lack of indoor plumbing and trek to the reeking outhouse seemed only minor inconveniences.
It did not last. After six months, they moved to a different house two streets away. Brenda and Virginia were back to sharing the bed. Sam again bunked on the sofa, which was fine with his wife. Nine months later, they packed up their few belongings and moved to another house in the neighborhood.
They changed homes so frequently because Sam had played cards one night with the owner of these and several other similar properties. The man preferred not to have them sitting empty when they were not rented, and Sam preferred not having to pay rent. Over a beer and a shot of whiskey, they agreed that Sam, Virginia and Brenda could live in the houses in exchange for maintaining them, provided they were willing to depart on short notice if the man found long term tenants.
Eventually, even Sam tired of the nomadic lifestyle. He bought a little two-bedroom house in a tidy, leafy working-class neighborhood. In the kitchen of this house, one Sunday afternoon, he sat Brenda down at the table and told her she was adopted.
“That woman who had you,” Sam said, “didn’t want you, and we did. They were just no-account people. She didn’t even know who got her pregnant.”
It was too stark and sudden a pronouncement for Brenda to comprehend. When Sam called her to the kitchen, she thought he was going to punish her for knocking the drying laundry from the clothesline that morning while she was playing in the yard.
“I … I don’t understand,” Brenda said. “What do you mean? You’re not my dad and mom?” She had sensed for as long as she could remember that something was off with their family. It was an inchoate feeling, and she always suppressed it when it crept in. She never imagined that Sam and Virginia were not actually her parents
“Of course, we’re your mom and dad,” Sam said angrily. “I just told you, she didn’t want you, so we took you.”
“But … but how did you find me?” she asked.
Sam was tremendously irritated by having to reveal even this much information to her. “Your Aunt Elsie knew the people, and she got you for us.”
“But wh … why didn’t my mom want me?” Brenda asked. She began to cry.
“Ginny’s your mother!” Sam thundered. “That woman’s nothing to you. And don’t you go telling anybody now that you’re adopted. And don’t ever talk to me or Ginny about it again.”
“But why?”
Sam leaned across the table. His face was so close to hers that Brenda could smell the coffee and cigarettes on his breath. “Because it means you don’t really love us if you do. And stop that crying. You’re twelve years old, not some little baby.”
But Brenda desperately wanted to know more. “Who was my mo … who is she? Where does she live?” she asked.
“I told you,” Sam shouted, “I don’t want you to talk about it. It doesn’t matter who she is or where she lives. I’m only telling you now because we had to let them know at your school, and I didn’t want you to hear it somehow from somebody there.”
“But—” she began again.
“That is enough, Brenda!” Sam yelled even more loudly and smacked his hand on the table. “No more questions. And I’m telling you, don’t you breathe a word of it to anybody, anybody, if you love us.”
Virginia sat silently in the bedroom she shared with her daughter, listening to the conversation in the kitchen.
* * *
Dear Diary,
Today I turned thirteen. Aunt Elsie gave me some money for my birthday, and I bought you with it. I’ve got to find a good place to hide you because Dad can’t ever be able to find you.
I wonder where my real mom is today and if she is thinking about me. I hope she remembers that it’s my birthday. I wish I knew why she didn’t want me. I guess she thought I wasn’t worth keeping. Sometimes I think she was right. I’m always doing something that makes Dad mad.
I hate junior high. Some of the girls are so mean to me. They make fun of my shoes and my
coat. I can’t help it that they came from the Salvation Army. When I’m grown up I’m going to get a good job and buy myself nice clothes all the time. And if I ever have a little girl I’d never give her away and I’ll always buy her pretty things. Everything she wants.
We’re going to visit Aunt Elsie on Saturday and I’m soooo excited. Dad never yells at Mom and me when we’re there and Aunt Elsie always is so nice to me and she always has a bowl of the best cookies. I can’t eat enough of them fast enough. I wish we would stay for a month with her.
Brenda
* * *
Dear Diary,
I love these kinds of days. Dad and Mom and I went fishing at the river for the whole day. I caught two fish and Dad caught three but we threw them all back because he said it’s not safe to eat them because of the stuff in the water from the factories. But I didn’t care. It was so much fun just to catch them. Mom made fried egg and bacon sandwiches and Dad bought two bottles of pop for each of us and we had such a good time. Then when we got home we all sat on the porch and Dad played his guitar and sang us songs. He never yelled once all day and Mom laughed a lot. I wish it was like this all the time.
Brenda
* * *
Dear Diary,
Today was the last day of school. I’m so glad. I like learning stuff, but there are too many mean girls and boys. My friend Caroline and I are going to bicycle together every day. Dad brought a bicycle home for me two weeks ago from the dump where he works and fixed it up and painted it red. It is beautiful! He is always bringing things home and fixing them up for us to use. I can’t believe what all people throw away.
We’re going to visit Dad’s other sister Aunt Louvina in Kentucky next weekend and I wish I could stay home or that we were going to Aunt Elsie’s instead. Aunt Louvina always treats me like I don’t belong there and she and Dad always end up drinking a lot of beer and fighting with each other. Mom doesn’t like it either and we always try to go to bed early before they start yelling about something.
Brenda
* * *
Dear Diary,
I’m sorry I haven’t written in so long. I stopped a couple years ago because it seemed like a little girl thing to do, writing in a diary. But I found you hidden in the bottom of the chest of drawers, and reread all my entries, and I feel like you are an old friend.
I’m in the spring of ninth grade now, my last in junior high. I met the sweetest boy, Tom, this year, and he has asked me to the prom! He’s shorter than I am, but most of the boys are, and a little skinny, but he treats me like a princess, and he is the star shortstop on the baseball team. I go to all of his games (when they’re at home or at other Huntington schools—Dad won’t let me go on the bus to the games in other towns), and the other girls envy me, which is nice.
Mom and I went last weekend to buy my prom dress. It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever had. White with lots of lace on the top and a flared satin skirt with a petticoat. Three more weeks till the dance. I can’t wait!
I promise I’ll keep writing, now that I’ve started again.
Brenda
Huntington, West Virginia
May 1961
* * *
“Wait for me at the fence at the back of the schoolyard,” Virginia whispered to Brenda as she started out the door, so Sam could not hear her from the kitchen. “I’ll bring the money to you there.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Brenda whispered back and kissed Virginia on the cheek.
After classes ended on sunny Fridays, many of Brenda’s friends went to the nearby dairy shop for a hotdog, Coca-Cola and ice cream. Sam always refused to give her the dollar and a quarter it cost, even when he had the money. Embarrassed by standing around and watching the others enjoy their treat, Brenda usually made some excuse to beg off.
It was one of the thousand things that made Virginia furious with Sam, though she never confronted him about it. He shouted at her enough without provocation. She did what she could to scrape together a little spending money for Brenda, gathering the loose change which slipped from Sam’s pocket and into the crevices of the sofa and selling the crafts she made in her free time.
In the evenings, Virginia liked to crochet, mostly doilies and little teacups which she would starch so they would stand upright. She sold them, for a quarter or fifty cents, to the middle-class women for whom she cleaned house. Sometimes she went door to door with them in the nicer neighborhoods of the town. A lady who lived near Brenda’s school had ordered eight of the teacups, and on this Friday, Virginia was delivering them and collecting her payment.
“Here you go,” Virginia said, slipping the folded dollar bills through the chain-link fence to Brenda. “Have a good time, and don’t stay too long so he doesn’t know you were there.” She never used Sam’s name in conversation, just an acidic “him” or “he.”
Brenda unrolled the little clutch of cash. “Oh, Mom, this is too much,” she said. “I only need a dollar and a quarter. Here.” She pushed two of the bills back through the fence. “And I’ll bring you the change tonight.”
“No,” Virginia said. She refused to take the money. “Save it somewhere he won’t find it, and go again next week.” She turned and walked away down the alley.
Chapter 26
Many of the Scots-Irish Protestants who made their way to the United States in the mid-eighteenth century were a ragtag, unrooted lot. Their great-great-grandparents had supported the English king in the conquest of Scotland. Their grandparents had gone to Ireland to help the English subjugate the Catholic natives there. They were tired of being a despised minority always fighting for an English aristocracy which treated them like the mercenaries their forebears had been, and as many as could set sail for the American colonies and settled on the Appalachian frontier. They hoped that in the isolation of the mountains they could tend their bit of land and make a life far removed from the political intrigues in which their families had been embroiled for centuries.
* * *
Waynesville, Ohio
June 1983
Robert was captivated by the image in the black and white photo, though he thought his great-grandparents inscrutable with their emotionless staring into the camera. “What were their names? Where did they come from in Spain?” he asked Pilar.
“Mom’s name was Mercedes”—Mer-THEY-des, she still pronounced it—“but everybody called her Martha. Dad was named Antonio. She came from Barcelona, but he was Gallego. He came from Galicia. He was an orphan.”
Robert’s gaze lingered on the creased photo. He wanted to know everything about these people. He was familiar enough with Spanish geography to know those two places were far apart. “How did they meet?” he asked.
“Mom’s family had a farm, and Dad worked there,” Pilar said. “He never talked about it much, but I know things were hard then, and he had a lot of trouble finding work. That’s why he came to America, back in 1912, and went to work at the zinc smelter in Anmoore. Mom came two years later.”
For as long as he could remember, Robert had felt an intense attraction to all things European, a craving for a sense of historical identity which seemed to be located somewhere across the Atlantic. Logically, it made little sense. He knew nothing about his father’s Scots-Irish ancestors. They were faceless, nameless people who arrived in the English colonies thirty years before the American Revolution.
Still, the countries of his paternal ancestors’ origins were enough for fourteen-year-old Robert to latch onto Britain. He had shown no interest at all in his mother’s Spanish heritage, partly because he knew only his biological grandmother’s name, partly because his vibrant Anglophilia fostered disdain for the Castilian kingdom. Spain was the dark-hearted country that launched the Inquisition in 1478 and the Armada against England eighty years later. More generally, Robert was a child of Anglo-America, which ignored its Spanish history for the most part, and of Protestant Appalachia, which distrusted anything Catholic.
But now, with a story and a photograph of
real European great-grandparents, Robert’s curiosity swelled. “How did he get to Barcelona? What was her family like? Did they like him? Are our relatives still there, in Barcelona? Have you met them?” he asked Pilar, in rapid fire succession.
She laughed lightly and said: “I’m sorry, honey, but I don’t know any more than what I told you. Nobody here talked to Mom’s people in Spain after she left. One of my brother Lou’s daughters went over there a few years ago, but I don’t know much about it. I remember she said the ones she met were rich, had some kind of store and properties, but that’s all I know.”
Robert was disappointed his great-aunt could not tell him more, but his questions about Mercedes and Antonio faded to the back of his mind as they spent the next two hours examining the photographs and listening to Pilar talk about her siblings and their years growing up in Anmoore.
“Who is that boy?” Brenda asked. He appeared to be about ten and was wearing a short-pant suit and saddle oxfords. In the photo, he and Mercedes stood in the grass on a little knoll with a row of humble clapboard dwellings in the background.
“That’s Richard,” Pilar said. Pain and reluctance edged her voice. “He was Julia’s oldest boy.”
Brenda peered at the picture. Her older brother. “Where is he?” she asked. “You’ve never mentioned him.”
It was clear Pilar would rather keep it that way, but she said: “Richard had a lot of problems his whole life.” She looked at the photo again. “He gave us all fits. He came and lived with Ed and me for a couple years after Julia moved to Cleveland. That was real hard.”
“Where is he now?” Brenda asked.
“Nobody really knows,” Pilar said. “I don’t even know if he’s still alive. After Richard got out of the air force—that must have been about 1958—he got married and had two kids and moved to Florida. It seemed that he had finally gotten his life on track.” She looked long again at the photo. “But then, a few years later, he just up and left one day. Got in the car without saying anything to anybody and disappeared.”