by Lisa Samson
She is talking about my life, too, only I don’t think it’s so bad. “So what can I do?”
She grates out a laugh and I see a deadness in her eyes that hasn’t been there before, as though a precipice has been tumbled over, finally, after all this time. And I am surprised that it took this long, really. “You already do everything for me but drink my drinks and sing second soprano.”
“Am I keeping you with us?”
“Yes. But only because I don’t know where else to go.”
“You can always go back home, Grace.”
She lifts her glass and sips, looking so much like Mama I feel my skin raise at the chill. “Maybe I will someday.”
I look back at Leo’s sleeping form. “Do you want me to care for Leo for a while? Let you concentrate on straightening yourself out?”
She only nods.
“Have you thought about going someplace to dry out?”
She nods again. “But I don’t know where.”
“There’s a place up in New York State, it’s just for women. But it’s a Christian place, Grace. I can make the calls.”
“Do whatever you have to do, Charmaine. I’ll cooperate.”
I sigh. “Let me know when Leo wakes up. I’m going to go make a chocolate cake. Maybe he’d like some with a glass of cold milk.”
“He’ll sleep for a good two hours more.”
“Just let me know.”
But Grace says nothing else. She just reaches into her pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.
I see her puffing out behind the trailer a minute later and think, I am watching a living tragedy. I wonder if God will life her up out of the miry clay and set her feet upon the solid rock.
I mix up the batter for the cake, put it in the oven to bake, and run into the church. Ruby sits at the piano playing like no tomorrow. “Ruby?”
“Yeah, Char?”
“Can you go sit in the motor home for a few minutes? Hope’s asleep and I got a cake in the oven. I just have to make a couple of quick calls.”
“Sure thing.”
I sit down in front of Tanzel’s desk and ask her if I can use the phone.
“Of course, honey. Is it a private matter?”
I nod.
“Go on down to the kitchen. There’s an extension there and nobody will bother you.”
“You sure you won’t pick up your line and listen in?” I joke.
“I’m not promising a thing!”
I call the home for addicted women and explain Grace’s situation.
Twenty minutes later I pack her things and ask Melvin to carry the sleeping Leo to the motor home and lay him on the bed next to Hope. Then I drive her to the train station for an express north.
When I return, I awaken Leo from his nap, bathe him, put on a fresh pair of pants and a shirt, and show him the loft of our motor home. “This is your bed now, sweet boy. You like being up high like this?”
He nods effusively.
Melvin builds a little railing right away and by the time we finish the service tonight, it is securely installed. At twenty-three years of age I am the practical mother of two children.
Leo doesn’t even cry for his Mama that night. He eats another slice of cake and flinches every time I put my hand out to stroke his full, sweet cheeks, or smooth his soft blond hair.
I pray Grace will make it to the home. I even bought her a bottle of Seagram’s to make sure she had no reason to get off the train.
You know, I really have to wonder about life sometimes.
14
Today one of the deacons and his wife took us to Shoney’s for a nice lunch, and now I am resting before Ruby and I begin practice for tonight’s service. We’re singing “Beulah Land” and that newer song, “I Want Jesus in My Life More Than Anything.” Of course, we lead the music with Henry Windsor and tonight is Gaither night. How the folks love to sing those Gaither tunes, and I don’t blame them. Tomorrow night is “Life Is Like a Mountain Railroad.” I just love that song.
Without Grace’s high parts we’ll have to do a little adjusting, I guess, especially when we simulate that train whistle.
But, I feel close to sleep now as I lay next to Hope here in the back of the motor home. And I look down and see her little body there, her eyes closed in slumber. She’s so pretty this little one. Her eyes move beneath her lids, which is really pretty odd-looking but nonetheless amazing, and I know she’s dreaming about something. I can see the pulse beat in the artery in her neck, so strong and rhythmic and real. The human body never ceases to astound me.
Now it confounds me how living, moving beings just walk about as self-propelled machines. We don’t plug ourselves in, and once we’re older and we don’t have mothers stuffing food in our mouths, we fuel ourselves. It’s not like a car that a human has to put gasoline into.
As I said, a real miracle.
I wonder if a time existed when Mama ever laid down next to me and stared at me while I slumbered? How I wish to Jesus I could take for granted that she did. I wonder if her mama, Grandma Min, stared down at my mama, Isla Jean Whitehead?
It’s a hard thought because I believe I know the answer. As wonderful as our bodies are, they are also terrible and mysterious and things go wrong. Fine-tuned things like our brains. I ‘picture Mama’s brain now and I see this shriveled-up, sick thing sitting there in her skull.
Mentally ill.
I went to the doctor earlier today. I know my life is good, but I can’t shake the feeling it isn’t. The Sominex isn’t working and I think of Harlan’s brother E.J. and figured that maybe if his wife had just done something not so drastic when she first realized she had a problem, that maybe all that stuff wouldn’t have happened. I told him about my sleeplessness, my tiredness, and how angry I could get at Grace sometimes.
“Do you ever cry for no reason?”
“Not really. But I do get the urge to throw things against the wall every once in a while.”
“Do you?”
“Throw things? No, sir.”
He gave me a test where I answered all sorts of questions like, “Do you ever feel those around you would be better off if you were dead?” to which I answered “no.” But despite that, he tallied things up and said yes, I was depressed. “I thought depression was more extreme.”
“Not always. People have their own way of manifesting symptoms.”
I nod. “What if you just give me a better sleeping pill? Maybe if I get more rest that will do the trick.”
So he does. And I am glad because I sure don’t want to get on some awful medication. I’ll bet Harlan’s happy mother didn’t take a pill her entire life!
He suggested counseling, too, but with my life of traveling hither and yon, I know that is impossible. And while I can hide a bottle of pills in my Tampax box, I can’t hide a weekly visit to a shrink. And after the damage that psychiatrist did to Harlan’s sister-in-law, well, I’m a little reticent, and who can blame me? Mama never trusted doctors either.
Two more days and our time in Suffolk will come to an end. We hit the road on Thursday and head down to Atlanta. Or “Hotlanta” as they say.
Oh, my lands.
Ruby is in hog heaven now that the travel trailer is her own. We boxed up the rest of Grace’s things and stored it in a corner of the utility truck that carries speakers and such. We’ll drop it all off at Bee’s when we go by that way. Ruby already put up new yellow curtains, bought a new spread for the bed and a new lamp. It looks like a real little home in there now. All that space for one person, and then there’s four of us in the motor home. I don’t blame Ruby, but what I wouldn’t kill for a little ranch home somewhere. It could be brick or just siding. I wouldn’t even ask for shutters as long as I could walk across floors and not always down aisles.
But guess what? Harlan agreed to get new carpet for the RV and he said I could pick whatever color I want. I never could get all the mud out from that gravedigger night. He asked me to just hold off for a few months until our f
inances strengthened a little. So I’m going with plum. And Ruby and I are going to reupholster the dinette and van seats, too! Won’t Melvin have a fit? I can look into his mind right now and see his thoughts. I can see him thinking biblically. “Talk about easting your pearls before swine. And purple? How can a decent man drive in a purple seat?”
He won’t say anything though.
I sit at my dinette imagining the possibilities. I’m going to try putting up border again, the adhesive kind, and some mirrors to give the illusion of space. I had the idea of installing a ceiling fan in the bedroom area and Harlan looked at me askance. “What’re you trying to do, Shug, decapitate me?” So there went that idea. That’s okay though, because I’ll tuck it away for later when I want something else and I’ll be able to say, “Well, I couldn’t get that fan I wanted so I thought this would be a good second.”
Ha.
I love our womanly tricks of the trade. And you know what? Some of these things just come naturally. I know this because Mama sure didn’t teach me.
Hope and Leo sit on the bench across from me. Leo’s coloring and Hope’s shoving crayons in her mouth. But Leo’s in his own little world and doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he takes the cornflower crayon from her pillowy fist and starts on a sky. He’s got potential, I do believe. I wonder if Grace ever noticed?
I gaze at his little head, the straight cap of blond hair swinging slightly as he bears down on the crayon and practically digs a blue pond into the paper. I gaze into his little head and I see myself there. I see a small child with a drinking mama. Only at least my mama made sure I was clean. I have to give her that.
“Leo?”
He looks up and nods.
“You doing okay these past couple of days here with us?” He nods. “Uh-huh.”
“Would you like another piece of chocolate cake?”
“Uh-huh.”
Shoot. Why did I offer that? Now I’ll have to give Hope some and she insists on feeding herself and I’ll be giving her yet another bath today! So much for trying to get a glimpse of Grandma Min this afternoon. I’d better get a move-on soon because tomorrow is the last day.
15
Tonight its “This Old House” and “Suppertime.” Now that “Suppertime” song always makes me want to cry. Those gospel songwriters and their mamas! Makes me wonder if I should pick another genre of music to sing.
MaryAnna Trench called me today. Some man down in Atlanta wants to hear me sing for something he organizes each summer called “Gospelganza.” Next summer it will be Gospelganza ‘84 and they travel all over the country. Talk about good exposure. When I told Harlan about it, he just shrugged his shoulders. “Well it can’t hurt to check it out, Shug. But don’t get your hopes up too high. There’s crazy people everywhere.”
And that sure is the truth.
What a day today is. I love weather for some reason because although it’s always changing, it rarely does something other than what you’re used to. Weather is like God, always unexpected, but never completely unpredictable. ‘Course there are times when a cyclone hits, and it catches you unawares. It’s violent and swirling and moves like an army catching anything that’s not nailed down to the earth. And God’s like that too sometimes, only it’s not about being nailed down to the earth, it’s about being nailed down to the Kingdom of God. Today is one of those autumn days that have been dropped in a toasterfor just a spell. Not much else has changed, the air still feels thin with October and smells of leaves and smoke. So I slip into my yellow sweater, strap the kids in their car seats, and head on out in the truck over to Freemason Street. I’ve already decided I’m not going to go and see Grandma Min, but I am going to try and get some clues as to who she is and to see if this is the house my mama grew up in.
Hope, in the middle of the truck bench seat, already looks like she’s falling asleep. Praise God! What a morning! This child is turning into a pip. Getting into everything. I wonder if I was like that. Leo just looks out the window. The nice thing is that he and Harlan have always had a shine for one another. I wish I had taken some more time with him before Grace left. Now, I just am not sure what to do for him.
But my heart couldn’t be more full for the little fellow.
I ride through the Hardee’s drive-thru and get myself a Diet Coke and Leo a Sprite. We just smile at each other. I pull away and utter a prayer for Grace and in the same space of brain wonder how she could not see the value of this little boy.
What a great night’s sleep I had last night! That prescription sleeping pill beat the over-the-counter variety. This may just be the answer. And maybe Harlan’s right. In his sermons he says we’re so quick to seek our own methods of healing and redemption, that we’re too slow in falling at the Savior’s feet and giving it all over to Him.
It’s 3:15 and I am hoping I catch my grandma coming home from school. But as I pull up, I notice a car already sits in the driveway. It’s a dark blue Escort.
And so I begin to look for clues. All the curtains are lined so I can’t tell if frilly pink ones hang in the upper, dormered windows. I figure if a girl grew up there, surely there’d be pink, frilly curtains at one of the windows. The garden has been mulched this autumn and the bushes trimmed, but not in perfect shapes. And then the warm breeze blows and I notice it sitting there in the backyard. A rusty old swing set. I see my mama swinging there, dangling her legs, all alone, for she never spoke of a sibling. And I see Grandma Min checking at her from the kitchen window from time to time. And Mama is just lonely.
It is a lonely house.
What has Grandma Min been thinking all these years? How sad did Mama’s choices make her?
I can’t believe Grandma Min was the abusive type that pushed her daughter from the house. I mean, she is a school-teacher. So what happened to drive Mama to Lynchburg?
I just need to do this. Just go on up to the house and knock on the door. I picture myself doing so in my mind’s eye, which is always a good first step. And so I decide that if I don’t do it now, I just may never, and we’re leaving town tomorrow night.
I pull the truck into the drive.
“Now Leo, just sit here a minute while I go ring the bell. Try not to wake Hope. You know how she can be.”
“Uh-huh.”
I check my hair in the rearview mirror, freshen up my lipstick a little, turn off the engine, and roll down my window.
I should have told Harlan. He’d be here with me now. He’d run interference or something. Maybe he’d even go up to the door and tell Grandma Min the entire tale.
What if she is really a bitter old woman who wanders around inside her little house? What if she really doesn’t want to know about me?
So I breathe in and set my feet on the brick path.
Bitter old women didn’t spread mulch and trim their bushes, did they? Bitter old women didn’t keep the swing set around, did they?
But I’ll bet bitter old women did buy lined draperies.
I step onto the landing and ring the bell before I could talk myself out of it.
A long slim window lines either side of the dark blue door and I see someone peer out the right one. A white brow lifts, her florid forehead knits, pale blue eyes widen then disappear. Locks click as they are disengaged.
The door opens and there she stands, my own flesh and blood. She wears a plaid skirt and a dark green turtleneck and her white hair is cut short and boyish. “Can I help you?”
How do I start this? Why didn’t I think up a good starting sentence. “Are you the mother of Isla Whitehead?”
She pales.
“Are you Minerva Whitehead?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I’m your granddaughter, Myrtle Charmaine.”
She shakes her head in bewilderment. “What?”
“I’m Isla’s daughter. She named me Myrtle Charmaine and always called me Myrtle, but a few years ago I decided to go by Charmaine.”
She remains silent.
I expect her to ask if this
was some sort of joke, you know, like they always do in books and movies and stuff. But she just stands there with her mouth open. My nerves jangle like silver charms. Should I offer proof? I open my purse and pull out my driver’s license. “See here? Charmaine Whitehead Hopewell.”
“You’re married?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I can’t even begin to gauge what she must be thinking, but the color returns to her face. She looks at the picture of me on the license and then back at my face.
“I know it’s not very good, but I just get so nervous in front of those motor vehicle cameras. Why, when Mr. Reasin taught me to drive and took me to get my learner’s permit they had to take five shots before they got one of me with my eyes open.”
I don’t know what else to do but fill the empty spaces with my babble. No wonder God had the people of Babel disburse. He probably got tired of hearing all their noise. Just like I am tired of hearing mine. But still I go on.
“I’m here in the area just until tomorrow. Mama mentioned you from time to time —”
“She’s still alive?”
I shake my head.
“Oh, no!” She jams her hand against her mouth.
“No, I didn’t mean ‘no,’ I meant I don’t know! I don’t know whether she’s alive or dead.”
Grandma Min turns away, walks over to the steps in the center hall of the house, and sits down. I follow her inside. “You said your name was Charmaine?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She bows her head. “And your maiden name was Whitehead?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So you’re mother wasn’t married?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’m sorry for you then.”
I don’t want to tell her that isn’t even the worst of it, so I don’t just then. I’m hoping there will be time for that. “I know this is a shock.”
She sits there with her head bowed, still clutching my driver’s license. I pull out my little calling card that has Bee’s phone number and replace the license with it. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here, I guess. But well, you being family and all …”