“Well, he give me the hairy eyeball while you and your mother was gettin’ supper out. Lord, did he make me nervous.”
Aunt Carrie didn’t say anything, she just tilted her head and watched him tell the rest of his story.
“Now, I gotta tell you, my ma never in her life made chicken pot pie.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“I don’t mind tellin’ you.” He leaned forward. “She was a firm believer that pie should be dessert, not a meal. Ain’t that right, Tom?”
“Excuse me?” Daddy asked, looking like he’d just gotten woken up from a shallow sleep. “Oh. Yup, that’s right.”
Daddy tried at a smile, but failed miserably.
“So when Carrie’s mother brought out the pot pie, I got to wonderin’ if I was over for dessert, not supper.” He shrugged. “I figured, when in Rome, do what the Romans do. So, before Carrie cut into it, I piped up and said, ‘You know what I like on that? I like me a big old scoop of vanilla-flavored ice cream on top.’ I said, ‘There’s nothin’ I like so much as when it melts all over top of it. Adds real good flavor.’”
“I tried to say something, I promise I did,” Aunt Carrie said, a laugh hanging in the corner of her mouth. “But my father told my mother to get the ice cream out of the ice box.”
“And Carrie cut me the biggest slice of that pot pie she could’ve.”
“Remember, I was just as nervous as you.”
“I’ll believe that when my goat stands up and starts tap dancin’,” Uncle Gus said. “Well, Carrie’s father told his wife to scoop up a nice round ball of ice cream to put on top of my pot pie. She did as he said and plopped it right on my supper.”
“I will never forget how big your eyes got when you realized it was meat and vegetables,” Aunt Carrie said, clapping her hands in front of her face.
“What did you do?” Ray asked.
“The only thing there was to do,” Uncle Gus said. “I told her the most polite thank-you I could manage and cleaned my plate.”
“He told my mother it was the best thing he had tasted in his whole life,” Aunt Carrie said, shaking her head. “She believed him, the dear.”
“Then, seemed whenever I came for supper, she’d made a pot pie and put a big old scoop of vanilla ice cream right on top, just for me.”
“Oh, if she’d ever known she would have been horrified,” Aunt Carrie said.
“And that was why I never told her,” Uncle Gus said. “A man’s gotta do whatever he has to if he wants to win the love of a good woman. Ain’t that so, Tom?”
Daddy glanced at Mama. “That’s right, Gus,” he said. “Sure is.”
“Excuse me,” Mama said, getting up from the table and dropping her napkin on her seat.
“Are you all right, dear?” Aunt Carrie asked.
“I just need a little air,” she answered, making her way around the table and into the living room.
The screen door creaked as she went out.
Daddy went after her.
I went to the front door and watched them walk away down the drive, Daddy following Mama and calling after her.
She just kept right on going.
CHAPTER FIFTY
I waited on the porch, expecting to see them coming back up the drive, hand in hand, to get Ray and me. They’d take us home. We’d all be back to normal. Life would be easy for the first time I could remember. It would work like magic.
I waited for them even though I knew they wouldn’t come. At least not in the way I’d hoped they would.
After a little bit, Aunt Carrie came out to sit beside me on the steps. She brought with her the clean scent of washed dishes and I felt guilty for not staying inside to help her do them up. If she was sore about it, she didn’t tell me so.
“Do you remember me telling you that I was never able to have babies?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I lost a few of them like your mama did.” She reached around her knees, linking her hands in the front. “Three babies.”
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“That’s because I didn’t tell you.” She smiled at me. “Women don’t talk about it. Not really.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“I suppose because it’s a private matter,” she answered. “I didn’t even tell Gus about the last two until later.”
“Was he mad you kept it a secret?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I think he was more worried about me than anything.”
“Were you okay?”
She shook her head no. “The grief made me feel like I would lose my mind.”
“Do you think that’s what’s wrong with Mama?”
“It might be,” she said. She let go of her knees and took my hand. “I believe she’ll come back. I keep praying for it to happen. It might take a long time, dear. A very long time. But I believe God can heal her heart.”
“Did you ever feel one of your babies move?” I asked.
Aunt Carrie shook her head. “I don’t believe so.”
“I felt Mama’s baby,” I said. “With my hands.”
“That must have been nice.”
I nodded.
We stayed there awhile longer. It felt good being outside and still like that, not rushing off to do something or go someplace. Just sitting and breathing in the crisp spring day was good enough for me.
Daddy came back not long after Aunt Carrie sent Ray and me up to bed. The springtime evening had made it hard for me to fall asleep, so bright and active was the world outside the window.
Even so, I’d have woken up if I’d heard Daddy’s voice anyway.
I was sure he’d come to bring Ray and me home.
Up out of bed I hopped, swinging my thin robe over my shoulders. I didn’t think of packing up any of my things. There would be time later for that. I couldn’t hardly wait another minute to get back to the house on Magnolia Street.
“Ray?” I said. “You up?”
All I heard back from his side of the room was thick breathing with just the smallest rasp of a snore. It was all right. He could come home the next day after school for all I cared.
I followed Daddy’s and Uncle Gus’s voices to the living room where they sat in a couple chairs in a corner of the living room. They were both sitting at the edge of their chairs, leaning forward, elbows on knees, talking close like they were sharing some kind of secret.
“Guess there’s a place just outside Detroit I could take her to. Doc Barnett told me about it,” Daddy said. “I hate to do it, but I don’t know that I’ve got much choice.”
“She gonna fight you?” Uncle Gus asked.
“Might just.” Daddy sighed. “I can’t take care of her anymore. Not the way she is right now.”
Uncle Gus nodded. “You know I hate bein’ nosy, Tom.”
“I don’t mind telling you,” Daddy said. “She went in to have a bath. Something didn’t feel right.”
Daddy patted his chest.
“I never have been one to get a feeling about something,” he said. “Not like that. But I went in to see that she was all right.”
He rubbed at the back of his neck and shook his head.
“Gus, she had my shaving razor,” Daddy went on. “I swear, I thought she was going to cut herself with it. Fixing to kill herself.”
“You really think she would?” Uncle Gus asked.
“Can’t be sure. But I wouldn’t doubt it. Not the way she’s been talking lately.”
I thought of Mr. Jones, Ray’s father. How he’d sat in his broken down jalopy with his gun between his legs, the end of it pointed right up under his chin. He’d wanted to die so bad, but Daddy didn’t let him. Not that day at least. But Mr. Jones had found a way.
One thing I’d learned was that if somebody wanted to die badly enough, they found a way.
“Abe’s been sending her letters,” he said. “I found a stack of them in her drawer.”
“Oh, Tom,” Uncle Gus said.
“I thin
k she’s just so twisted around, she doesn’t know how to feel,” Daddy said. “She’s not herself.”
“You’re leavin’ tomorrow?” Uncle Gus asked.
“Planning to,” Daddy answered. “Might be gone a couple of days. Winston told me to take my time.”
“We’re happy to keep the kids long as you need us to,” Uncle Gus said. “Carrie and me, we sure like havin’ them around.”
“Thanks, Gus. I best get going. Mrs. Barnett’s looking after Mary for a while. I should relieve her.”
“You get some sleep if you can.”
“Feels like I haven’t slept for two years, Gus.”
“I know it. Maybe when she’s somewhere safe you can,” Uncle Gus said.
“I hope so. I’m worn down.”
“You’re doin’ the right thing. You are.”
Daddy stood, looking smaller than I’d ever seen him. His shoulders were slumped and his face was sunk in. I didn’t know that he’d been eating much, he looked so thin.
I thought of the time he told me about his father. He’d been so sick he’d slimmed down to almost nothing. He’d wasted away. Seemed worry was the sickness that was wasting Daddy away. It sure made my stomach ache to think of it.
He saw me standing there at the bottom of the steps in my nightie with the robe slung around my shoulders.
“Darlin’?” Daddy said.
Uncle Gus nodded at Daddy and said he’d give us a couple minutes to ourselves.
“When can we go home?” I asked.
“Not yet, darlin’,” he answered. “Not yet. But soon. All right?”
I told him it was all right. But that was a lie.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Opal told me Lenny had plans to take her on a date, just the two of them. He’d even gotten a dress for her to wear. It was the green-blue of pigeon feathers when the light hit them just right. I thought Opal would look real nice in that dress, the way it cut in at the waist and flared out at the bottom just enough so I could imagine it had a nice swing to it.
“Where’d he get it?” I asked her, feeling of the soft cotton dress where it hung on the back of her apartment door.
“It belonged to his sister. He said she doesn’t wear it anymore,” she answered. “I’m just glad I don’t have to wear a work dress.”
On the floor she had her good shoes, all the scuffs rubbed out of them and the leather shinier than I ever could have managed to get mine.
“I even got a new pair of stockings,” she said. “Lenny gave me the money for them.”
She held them up for me to see.
“They’re nice,” I told her.
“I can’t remember the last time I had brand-new. I’m so afraid to tear a hole in them.”
“Where’s he gonna take you?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I hear there’s a jazz club down in Toledo where they don’t mind a colored girl like me dancing with a white boy like him. Maybe he’ll take me there.”
She folded the stockings and put them careful as she could on the top of her dresser beside the tiny box I knew to hold the earrings Lenny’d given her.
“I keep thinking of sitting in the apartment back in Detroit,” she said. “Listening to the band play whatever struck their fancy. They could play the same song every night and it would seem new every minute or so.”
“How could they do that?” I asked.
She turned toward me, leaning her behind against the dresser. “They just made it up as they went along.”
“How did they learn to do that?” I asked.
“I guess they first learned the easy stuff—which note was which and how to put fingers on the keys. They used that and made up whatever they thought sounded good,” she answered. “Same as with dancing. You learn the easy steps—the rock step and the double back and such—and then you just make up the rest. It’s not hard.”
“I don’t think I could ever do that,” I said.
“You might surprise yourself,” she said. “You never know unless you try.”
She turned toward the dress, smoothing its skirt with the palms of her hands. The corners of her mouth turned up and she hummed some tune or another.
“You love him,” I said. “Don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Lenny’s trying to get me to run off with him.”
“Would you do that?”
“Goodness no.” She laughed. “He’s not the man for me, Pearl. Not even close.”
She left the dress alone and came to sit beside me. We talked about music and dresses and when the next dance at the American Legion might be.
What we didn’t talk about was Mama, and for that I was glad.
It was nice to have a friend like Opal.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Daddy took Ray and me back to the house on Magnolia Street on Thursday after we ate supper at Aunt Carrie’s table. It seemed like it had been a year since I’d stepped into that house, so many things had happened. When Daddy opened the door, letting me go inside first, I noticed how dark it was. The curtains had been drawn and a fine layer of dust lay on everything.
Ray hadn’t come inside with us. He’d said something about going over to see Bert. Daddy’d said he’d need to come in before dark and Ray’d told him he would.
The very first thing I did after going into the house was push the curtains open in the living room, letting in the last bit of light from the day. Second, I went to Mama’s room. The door was opened wide and the bed was untidy, like somebody’d gotten up quick and hadn’t had time to pull the covers tight.
Mama wasn’t there like I’d hoped she would be.
“Did you really take Mama away?” I asked, standing in the bedroom doorway.
“I’ve got something I have to tell you, Pearl,” Daddy said, standing right in the middle of the living room. “Just don’t know how to do it.”
“Where did you take her?” I asked. “Will you tell me?”
He nodded.
“How about you come sit down,” he said, pointing at the davenport.
I did as he asked, not pushing myself all the way back on the cushion, but sitting closer to the edge so my feet could touch the floor.
Daddy pulled up a chair so he could sit facing me, our knees touching.
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but it was long enough for my imagination to run through all the things that he might have to tell me about Mama. Of all the ideas popping and snapping in my mind, the one that came strongest and hardest was a picture of Mama with his shaving razor in her hand.
Just the thought of it made the back of my throat sting, making me think I was going to be sick.
Daddy opened his mouth like he was fixing to say something, then closed it again and reached in his pocket for a cigarette.
“Seems I remember a time when smoking these eased my nerves,” he said. “I’m not sure it works anymore. Or my nerves are just too broke down for fixing.”
He lit the cigarette and breathed in the smoke, squinting his eyes like it either felt good or burned. Either way, he smoked the whole thing down almost to his shaking fingers before putting it out in an already full ashtray on the side table.
One thing I’d learned was that when there was something difficult to do or say, it was made easier by holding hands. He let me take his and I felt of his rough skin against my fingers.
He pushed his lips together tight and swallowed. Then he used his free hand to push a bit of my hair behind my ear.
“Pearlie,” he started, his voice quiet. “You know you mean the world to me, don’t you? You’re my girl.”
“Yes, Daddy,” I said, breathing deep after speaking, bracing myself for the bad news I was sure was coming.
“And your mama,” he said. “She does love you. You do know that, right? She might not know how to show it right now, but she does.”
I nodded my head even though I wasn’t at all sure that she did.
“Well …” He stopped and licked h
is lips. “How am I going to tell you this?”
I gave his hand a small squeeze, but not so hard that it might hurt him.
“It’s all right, Daddy,” I said. “I’m strong.”
He broke a smile and looked down at our hands.
“I know you are, darlin’. You always have been. Strong and brave.”
Him saying that made me sit up taller. If anything I could be strong and brave for him.
“It’s your mama—”
“Is she sick?” I asked.
“In a way,” he said.
“From the—” I left off. “From what happened?”
“Yes, darlin’,” he answered. “I guess you might say it made her heartsick. That on top of losing Beanie, it just broke her heart all over again. Doctor Barnett said he’s seen it before.”
“Didn’t he have any medicine for her?”
“He tried,” Daddy said. “Gave her a couple of things for her nerves, to settle her a little bit and help her sleep.”
“It didn’t work?”
“No.” He stuck the tip of his tongue out between his lips like it helped him think better. “She’s not herself. Hasn’t been since Beanie died. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
I nodded.
“It got so I couldn’t take care of her anymore, Pearl.” He cupped a hand over his forehead and dragged it down his face. “I couldn’t do enough for her.”
“I heard you talking to Uncle Gus.”
“I know you did.”
“Was she really going to cut herself?” I asked. “With the razor?”
He breathed in through his nose and shook his head. “I don’t know, darlin’.”
“Why does anybody do that to themselves?”
“I don’t know how to answer that, Pearlie,” he said. “I guess she’s going through a time of being weak. What she needs is us to be strong when we can. We’ve gotta remember that, all right?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered.
“That’s fine, Pearl. Just fine.”
“Is Mama like Mad Mabel now?” I asked. “Did she lose her mind?”
“She’s not seeing things that aren’t there,” he answered. “She’s just got a broken heart that won’t mend. That’s all.”
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