I sat on the sofa in the den with the boxes of ornaments and tuned the radio to a station playing carols. I thought Daddy was in his shower, and I turned up the volume to drown out the noises from his bathroom. The water ran, then stopped. The shower curtain rings squeaked. When the door opened, I looked up to see Carly wrapped in a towel, his chest wet. He jumped back into the bathroom, called out, “I forgot my robe.”
I ran into the dining room, shouting over my shoulder, “Coast’s clear.” A while later he appeared for breakfast in jeans and a sweater. “My shower overflowed yesterday. Aunt Pauly told me to use Uncle Bill’s.”
Neither of us mentioned it again, but I couldn’t forget the black hair that ran from his chest to the towel at his waist.
After that, whenever I knew Carly had used Daddy’s bathroom, I went in to straighten up, knowing it would irk Daddy if he saw a mess. I’d thought Carly would be neater because of his military training, but he left a wet floor, soggy towels, the soap in a pool of gunk. I was in there wiping the floor and heard the den door slam. Daddy came in.
“Hey.” I pretended not to notice him unzipping his trousers.
“What’re you doing in here?”
“There was water on the floor.”
He pushed back the shower curtain. “Who’s using my bathroom?”
I stuffed the damp towel into the hamper. “Carly’s shower overflowed again. The plumber will be here tomorrow, so . . .” I pushed past Daddy.
Mama’s heels tapped on the hardwood floor. She came to the door of the bathroom. “William, if you’d fix the plumbing in the rec room, Carly wouldn’t have to use your shower.”
“I don’t have time.” Daddy closed the bathroom door and Mama shouted through it.
“You have time to fix things next door.” She meant our neighbor Linda Gibson, a blonde divorcée who was always asking Daddy for help. Mama had told Aunt Rita, “Except for calling on William, she never calls at all.”
Two days before Christmas, Carly and I sat in the living room, looking through the photo albums we kept on a shelf by the mantel. Halfway through the first one he said, “These are great. Who keeps them up?” The leather album looked small in his big hands.
“Mama.”
“I wish Mom would do this. We’ve got hundreds of pictures just tossed in shoe boxes.” He pointed to a photo of Stell, Puddin, and me standing on the pier at Rainbow Lake at Shumont. “That’s great.” I was knock-kneed and skinny. Puddin, about four in the photo, leaned against my hip. Stell had on her first bathing suit with a bra.
Mary walked through, carrying a broom, and Carly asked, “Could you make a fresh pot of coffee?”
“Yes, sir.” She opened the den door to a blast of cold air, propped the broom on the breezeway, and closed the door fast. “Sure has got to be winter. Cream and sugar?”
Carly nodded.
“How long has Safronia worked for y’all?” I asked him.
“Since before I was born. Why?”
“I just wondered. Mary’s been with us a long time, too.”
Carly turned a page of the album, touched a picture of a small, brown-haired woman in a tailored suit and spectator pumps, carrying a briefcase. “Who’s that?”
“Mama’s mother. She’s dead.”
“What’s with the briefcase?”
“She was a salesman, a woman salesman.”
“I don’t see any photos of your granddad.”
“He left Grandmother Bentley with two daughters and a son to raise. That’s why she went to work.”
“Left? For where?”
“The West. Oregon, I think. He had a girlfriend.”
“You said two daughters. I didn’t know Aunt Pauly had a sister.”
I turned a page and pointed to a skinny girl in a clingy striped dress with a white collar, staring straight at the camera. “That’s Mama’s older sister, Hanna. She died of leukemia when she was twenty-one. Mama was seventeen.”
“Gosh, that’s awful.”
“Yeah. Mama and Uncle Taylor are all that’s left of her family.”
Mary came into the den with a tray. Two full cups, the cream pitcher and sugar bowl, spoons, napkins. “Here you are,” she said to Carly.
“Just put it there.” He pointed to an end table.
She said to me, “Fixed you some hot chocolate.”
“Thanks, Mary,” I said. She left.
Carly poured cream into his coffee, added sugar. “Wow, I’ve never seen this.”
It was a photo of Uncle Stamos and Aunt Rita—hugely pregnant—dated July 1933. “That’s right before I was born. They look so young.”
Uncle Stamos, skinny as a rail, stood next to his short round wife, one arm around her shoulders, the other hand on her belly. I touched the photo. “Your parents still love each other, don’t they?”
“Sometimes it’s almost embarrassing.”
“I think it’s terrific.”
He was quiet, then said, “Are your mom and dad—are they still in love?”
“I guess.”
I had a hard time getting to sleep that night, trying to think of some way I could talk with Carly about Mary, about the way he spoke to her, acting as if she were no more than a piece of furniture. But he’d become a grown-up and I wasn’t sure he’d understand.
After lunch on Christmas Eve, Mama took a turkey from the freezer, wrapped it in a bath towel, and put it on the glass-topped table on the breezeway.
“Are you just going to leave it there?” I asked.
“It’ll be out of the way while it thaws, and the neighborhood dogs can’t get to it.”
Mary came in from the dining room. “The silver’s done, Miz Watts, and the curtains is ironed. We don’t hang them now, they’ll wrinkle.”
Mama wiped her hands on her apron. “Jubie, get the cabbage out of the fridge and pop off the bad leaves.”
I grated cabbage and carrots for slaw while Mama and Mary threaded the dining room sheers back onto the rods. By the time Mary left for three whole days off, the hampers were empty and all the beds had fresh sheets. Even the telephone smelled like Pine-Sol and there was a bayberry candle in the guest bathroom.
I sat on the living room sofa, eyes closed, smelling the mulled cider warming on the stove, a pound cake in the oven, the blue spruce tree strung with lights. I wondered if everybody’s house smelled this way at Christmas, and whether Carly missed being at home. I opened my eyes and Mama was standing in the archway to the dining room, holding Davie, his blond curls shiny against the shoulder of her red wool dress. Mama rubbed his back, her nails gleaming from a fresh manicure. She’d pulled her curls into a chignon encircled with a black velvet ribbon. The pearls at her throat made her skin glow.
“You look elegant, Mama.”
I could see how pleased she was. “Time to get dressed for the candlelight service. Wear your burgundy jumper. Save the velvet for tomorrow.” She straightened an arm cover on the queen chair and left the room.
By noon on Christmas, torn wrapping paper and ribbons littered the living room. Daddy was on the floor with Davie, putting together train tracks. “Jubie, be a lamb and add an inch to my glass.” He winked at Mama. “Just an inch.”
Mama took the glass from Daddy. “I’ll do it, Bill, and have one myself.” She went into the dining room. Bottles clinked. She drank something while she stood in front of the liquor cabinet, then poured whiskey into glasses.
Stell leaned back in the queen chair, her feet curled beneath her, sleepy, content. Carols played from the new LP Daddy had given Mama.
“Where’s Carly?” I asked.
“Talking to his parents,” Mama said.
“In Kentucky?” Puddin called from under the grand piano, where she was putting pajamas on her Bide-a-Wee doll.
“Yes.” Mama handed Daddy his glass and sat next to me on the sofa.
Carly walked in. He was wearing the blue pullover we’d given him for Christmas and was so good-looking I blushed. “Phone, Uncle Bill. It’s
Meemaw.”
Daddy stood, grunting. “I’ll be right back.”
Davie put down his choo-choo and came to me, holding his arms in the air. “Doobie.”
Daddy called from the den, “Pauly, come say hello to Mother.”
Mama groaned. She raised her glass to Stell. “I’ll be nice.”
After Mama got off the phone with Meemaw, she and Daddy sat on the sofa. He put his arm around her and she put her head on his shoulder. A curl of hair hung loose from her chignon and he wrapped it around his finger, tugged it gently, tickled her neck with it. She straightened and moved away.
At dusk we sat in candlelight around the dining room table. Mama carried in the meat platter with the turkey and put it down in front of Daddy. “William, you carve. I’ll be right back.” She glanced sideways at Carly. A minute later she came through the swinging door, carrying another platter with a baked ham on it, crosshatched and dotted with cloves. “Tada !” she sang out and put it in front of Carly.
His face lit up. “I thought I smelled ham cooking.”
“I made raisin sauce, too, from Rita’s recipe.” Mama pointed to a steaming gravy boat and handed Carly a ladle. “Help yourself.”
Daddy frowned. “Good lord, Paula. You made enough to feed an army.”
Mama put her hand on Carly’s shoulder and said, “It won’t be as good as your mother’s.”
“White meat, Pauly?” Daddy asked.
Mama sat down. “And there are scalloped potatoes, biscuits. Apple pie for dessert. Just the same as your mom fixes at Christmas.”
Daddy said, “Jubie, hand me your mother’s plate.”
On the Sunday Carly was leaving to go back to West Point, I was in the kitchen, doing the lunch dishes, listening to Mama and Daddy talk as they lingered in the dining room over coffee.
“The next time Cordelia needs help, you and I’ll have to go,” Mama said.
Daddy mumbled something.
“You have to face it. We need to be thinking about an old folks’ home.”
“She’s not that bad yet.”
“That’s your opinion. Going up there for a week or two is just putting a finger in the dike.”
Carly came through the back door in his uniform, carrying his hat and gloves. “I’m ready to go. Where’s everybody?”
I touched the braid on his sleeve. He resembled a soldier in an old photograph, dressed for battle. I never had talked to him about Mary and now he was leaving. I said, “Mama and Daddy are in the dining room with Davie. Stell and Puddin are upstairs. I’ll call them.”
“Carly?” Daddy walked into the kitchen. “You’re leaving?”
“Yes, sir.”
Mama came in carrying Davie. “Be sure to let us know when you get there.”
“Mom and Dad’ll call you.” He put on his hat and touched Davie’s cheek. “Good-bye, Davie.”
Stell came in the kitchen, still in her Sunday best. She stood on tiptoe to kiss Carly’s cheek. He put one arm around her, the other around me, and pulled us to him. The brass buttons on his chest were cold to my cheek. My face almost touched Stell’s as he held us close.
CHAPTER 16
After we packed up to leave Pensacola, Uncle Taylor and Mama stood by the car talking. She shook her head and pushed him away, her face splotched from crying. He took a couple of steps back and said something, then reached for her and held her for a long time before she got into the car.
Mama put the key in the ignition. “I wish we could stay here.”
“Uncle Taylor invited us to,” I said.
“I mean forever.”
“Why don’t we just go straight to Pawleys Island?” Stell asked. Carter was going to meet us at Pawleys, and Stell could hardly wait to see him.
“I told you. I want to buy fruitcakes.” Mama blew her nose and turned on the radio to a breakfast club, where a man and woman were talking about blueberry waffles. “Fresh blueberries make all the difference,” the woman said, a smile in her voice.
Stell said, “I don’t get what’s so special about Claxton fruitcakes.”
“They’re the best.” Mama turned up the volume.
Puddin said, “Mama, let’s sing something.”
“Claxton is out of the way,” Stell said. “I looked at the map.”
“Hush. I’m listening to this show.”
Mary took Puddin’s hand in the way she had of saying Your mama’s upset, baby.
A few miles west of the Chattahoochee River, Mama tapped the gas gauge the way she always did when it was low. At the river we saw a sign saying the bridge was out, that there was ferry service, courtesy of the State of Georgia. Cars were lined up and Mama told me to walk down to the dock to see how long it would take to get across.
“Mind if I go, too, Miz Watts? Stretch my legs.”
Davie reached for Mary, and Mama lifted him from his seat.
Mary put Davie down between us. I counted the cars as we walked along the shoulder at Davie’s pace. I could feel people staring at us—the colored woman, the toddler, the tall girl.
“Can’t carry but ten vehicles,” said a man at the dock. “How far back are you?”
“There’s nine cars and a pickup ahead of us.” I was proud of myself for having counted.
“Tell your mother it’ll be at least forty-five minutes ’fore she can cross. She’s best off waiting. There’s a bridge north and one south, but it’s a good thirty miles to either.”
“We’re almost out of gas.”
“Stop the motor. Roll down the hill. She can gas up at Donalsonville, ten miles the other side of the river.”
An hour later we drove onto the ferry and stopped at the prow. “We’ll be the first ones off,” Mama said. “Thank God.” Davie stood in the front seat as the boat began to move, saying, “Boat. Oh, boat,” over and over. Halfway across I got out of the car. Something seemed almost not possible about a boat carrying such a load with a motor so small it putt-putted. The only thing keeping us going straight was a hemp rope, thick around as my arm. The ferry rode so low my sandals got splashed when the swirling water lapped over the side, and I knew from the pull against the guy rope that if I fell overboard, I’d be carried around the next bend before anyone could throw out a life preserver. A damp, diesel-smelling breeze cooled my face.
I got back in the car at the landing. As soon as the prow gate was lowered, Mama started the engine. With the front wheels on the landing and the back wheels on the ferry, the motor quit.
I asked, “Are we out of—”
“Shit!” Mama said, hitting the steering wheel with both hands.
“Mama!” said Stell.
“Shut up.” Mama ground the ignition, but the car wouldn’t start.
Horns honked behind us.
The boatman walked up. “What’s the problem, ma’am?”
“I’m afraid we’ve run out of gas.”
“You’re kidding, right, little lady?” The man leaned down, his face close to Mama’s.
Mama looked straight ahead. “No.”
The man called toward the dock, “Need some help here; lady’s out of gas.” More horns honked.
A pickup was in back of us on the ferry. The man driving it got out. “Can’t give you a push. My bumper’s too high.”
Four men got behind the car and tried to push us off the ferry, but the landing sloped uphill and the car was too heavy, even with everybody out except Mama.
“I be goddamn,” the boatman said when they gave up.
A woman stuck behind the pickup said we could siphon gas from her car. The boatman got a can and a hose from a shed on the dock. After they poured the gas in our tank, the boatman signaled Mama.
“Easy, now, don’t pump it. Push the pedal down, hold it, turn the key.”
I saw Mama’s foot going up and down on the gas pedal. “He said not to do that.”
“I guess I know my own car.” She turned the key. The motor ground and ground but wouldn’t turn over. Her face was so red I thought she mi
ght start crying.
The boatman lifted the hood. “She’s flooded. They ain’t nothing to do but wait till she dries out, ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”
Mama got out of the car, rummaged around in the trunk for a book she’d been reading at Uncle Taylor’s. She got in the front seat, settled back against the driver’s door, and propped her feet on the dashboard. She opened her book and began to read. With her sunglasses on and her skirt hiked up showing her curvy legs, she looked like a movie star.
The truck driver stepped up to the car. “Wisht I could of pushed you.”
Mama went on reading as if she’d gone stone deaf.
The boatman said, “Turn your key off, ma’am, so’s you don’t drain the battery.”
Mama turned a page.
Mary said, “I’ll take the children up into the trees where it’s shady.”
Mama didn’t answer.
Davie was sleepy and fussy. Mary carried him and took Puddin by the hand to the shade. She sat under a tree with her legs spread so her skirt made a cloth for Davie to sit on. Puddin sat in the grass beside Mary, leaning against her.
Stell and I sat nearby. The grass felt good on my legs. Stell said, “We have a crazy mother.”
I stretched out. “Uh-huh.”
“Did you hear the word she said?”
“She’s sad about leaving Uncle Taylor’s.”
Stell Ann lay back in the grass with her arm over her eyes. “I don’t want to talk.”
CHAPTER 17
In Albany, Georgia, well after sunset, Mama pulled into a motel, one long building with rooms opening onto the parking lot. She went into the office to register us. When she got back to the car, she drove to the end of the building.
“What about Mary?” I asked.
“I ordered a rollaway, and I didn’t mention her.” Mama set the brake and said to Mary, “Go on in. As long as no one sees you, it’ll be fine.”
We left before dawn and I fell asleep in the car, slumped against Mary. When I woke I saw that spit had dribbled from my mouth, leaving a streak on the sleeve of her dress.
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