by Anne Lovett
Rich or poor, if it gets too hard, a woman can be tempted by anybody who shows up with a branch of sweet shrub in his hand, sweet shrub bless me, not much to look at but heaven in its heart.
Momma, you’re talking crazy.
I suppose I am, she said. Ava will have pretty things. Like those rubies.
Oh Momma, they are so beautiful.
She nodded. I should be happier about this wedding. I liked Dulany before he went away, even if your daddy minded that he was the boss’s son. He used to be a sweet young man. But now he’s harder. Disconnected from things. Sometimes he goes into his own thoughts, and it’s like he’s not even here.
That was it, the part he left behind. I didn’t say so to Momma. She was worried enough.
Dulany Bennington Radford and Ava Dell Willis were married in the First Baptist Church on the sixteenth of June, the day after the war ended in Burma, and so many people came that chairs had to be brought for the aisles and the vestibule.
Ava’s parachute gown outdid any creation from Paris, everybody said, and they said that Momma had outdone herself. Everybody cried, including me.
Mabel Conable and the ladies from the John Wesley Methodist Church helped Momma put on a reception in the church hall. They made green and white mints that melted in your mouth and chicken salad sandwiches and creamed chipped beef in patty shells and a three-decker wedding cake with wedding bells on top and beautiful pink punch with a floating ice ring made of ginger ale and strawberries.
Mrs. Norma Radford, Duke’s mother, donated bouquets of pink roses from her garden, and it was as fine a reception as that old church had ever seen.
Duke and Ava left for their honeymoon on St. Simon’s Island.
Shortly after that I started to save up my nickels and dimes to be able to buy some ear studs. I made friends with Lourdes Sanchez. And when I had saved enough, I convinced Mrs. Sanchez that my momma had said it was okay to let her pierce my ears. Momma was really mad, so to make her happy I promised I would go to church with her every Sunday, and when I came to the age of discernment I was received into the John Wesley Methodist Church.
Chapter Twelve
1945
It was right after they dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima that Chap and Elmo finished the plane, the beginning of the end of the war, the beginning of the end of my childhood.
Chap asked me to help him one Saturday afternoon out in the garage, handing him bolts and screws. The place smelled like dust and oil and airplane dope, and the door was thrown wide open, now that he didn’t have to keep his hobby a secret. All sweaty and arms black with grease, he tightened the last bolt on the engine, put down his wrench, and asked me to run get us some tea before we cleaned up.
I hurried to the kitchen and came back with two fruit jars full, sweet and strong. We stood drinking it, feeling the cold wash through our insides. Chap wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. We’ll be taking her out to the airfield soon, he said. There’s an abandoned hangar we can have, and we’ll put her all together, put the wings on and give her one last coat of dope. Then she’ll be ready for a spin.
With me? I was all excited now. I couldn’t wait to fly.
Why sure, you’re my boy, you know.
That old thing he used to say, that old thing I used to like. Couldn’t he see I was growing up? I was still flat-chested, but you could tell something was beginning to happen, and I longed for a bra to at least cover me when I wore a T-shirt. Chap, I said, I’m a girl. I want some girl stuff like Ava has. Dresses and jewelry.
Chap laughed. But you hate dresses. Look at you.
Okay, so I was wearing dungarees and a T-shirt, but still. I couldn’t tell him about wanting a bra. Maybe I need some earrings, I said.
Earrings, hmmm, he said. He sat on a wooden box and motioned for me to sit too. I perched on an old kitchen chair one nail away from collapsing. Outside, the katydids skirled in the trees. He took a long drink of tea and rattled the ice. Ever hear of Amelia Earhart?
Sure.
She was a flier, he said. And she wore dresses—well, some of the time. I don’t know about earrings. I just don’t want you to give up bein’ you, honey, to copy Ava.
Yes, sir.
I can give you flyin’ lessons now and earrings when you’re older. How’s that?
How much older?
As long as it takes for your momma to get used to your ears having holes, he said, and that was that.
Then Japan surrendered, and the war was over. We had a celebration at our house. We bought barbecued chickens from Willie Pennyman’s father and the Conables brought cake and Duke and Ava brought champagne, and it looked so fresh and bubbly I begged for some and she poured me a glass without a word.
Starrett Conable laughed at the face I made. Well, she won’t ever be a drunk, Chap said.
Ava’s rubies glittered and they both drank a little too much and got tipsy. Starrett whispered to me, the big hero’s fixing to fall off his cane.
Shut up, Starrett, I said under my breath. He was a year older than me and thought he was so smart.
Let’s go out to see the engine, Starrett said. We all trooped out to the garage, and we stood there under the bare electric light admiring it. Does it run, he asked.
It will, I said. It’s going to carry me up one day when I fly the plane.
But you’re a girl.
Chap’s going to give me lessons.
He says.
Bet you ten million dollars, I said.
Something real, he said. If I win I get to kiss you.
And if I win I get to slap you, I said.
I was looking forward to smacking him.
One morning in September I was sitting on the back porch with Momma shelling butterbeans. It was a cool day, the first real blast of wind from the north, a wind to push summer all the way back to Florida. By this time Duke was out of the army and had gone back to work for his father at the plant and they were tooling up to make work pants again. The whole town thought of him as a hero. Like father, like son.
I was dropping the littlest butterbeans into a special bowl. I liked their earthy smell—it made me shiver and I didn’t know why. Momma was faster than me, though her fingers often got swollen and she found it hard to do that kind of work.
We heard a car door slam out front and then Ava came tripping along around the house in her high heels, all dolled up in a new skirt and polka dotted blouse with puffy sleeves.
Momma’s eyes lit up and mine narrowed. Hi, honey, she said.
Hello, Momma. Ava planted a kiss on her cheek.
There’s coffee in the kitchen. I’m about ready for a cup, Momma said. She pushed herself out of the chair, panting and straining. Here, let me help, I said, and Ava and I exchanged the kind of glance sisters give each other when there’s something wrong with their mother.
I’m all right, Momma said crossly, and limped into the kitchen. My knee is gimpy, that’s all.
We poured our coffee, mine with half milk, and sat down at the kitchen table just as cozy as you please. So what brings you here? Momma said.
Does it have to be something? Ava said.
You have that look, Momma said.
Ava set her coffee cup down and her bird-wing brows came together. Duke found us a place, she said.
Well, what’s wrong with that? I thought you hated living with the Radfords.
I like their house. I wanted one of my own.
Well, then.
Duke wants us to live in a bungalow. On his grandfather’s farm.
Grandfather Dulany?
Yes, ma’am.
Sweetbay Plantation? Ava, that’s wonderful.
No, it isn’t! It’s where the maid used to live!
I’m sure he’ll fix it up for you.
But I want to live in town. I was expecting something swell.
Ava, he has to work his way up at the plant. I’m sure he wants to save money for a better place later.
I want it now. She gave the pou
t I knew so well.
I stared into my coffee cup and wondered if Ava had learned anything at all.
And Duke is going to teach me to ride, she said. She might have been saying he was going to teach her to eat worms.
I jumped up. Oh, Ava, you’re the luckiest girl in the world! What I wouldn’t give to have a horse!
She examined her nails. It will be very hard on my manicure, farm life.
At the mention of nails, Momma went out to the back porch to get the butterbeans. She hated to sit and talk when she could be accomplishing something useful. She pushed a handful at each of us and started shelling. Beans we plunked into the bowl and hulls into a paper sack. I reached for a pod.
Ava, she said, this is a battle you cannot win.
I’ll die, she said. There’s manure out there.
You won’t have to shovel it, Momma said, smiling.
I’ll have to smell it. Fresh country air, huh.
Momma didn’t even glance at me when she said, Do you love him, Ava?
What does that have to do with it?
Momma ran her finger expertly down a pod, splitting it. Did I leave Chap when he lost his business? When we had to sell our house and move here? It hasn’t always been easy. I’ve been tempted by—well, never you mind. But now we prop each other up, and I swear to God I don’t know what I’d do without him. He is my strength and I am his.
Momma’s eyes looked older than they should have, and I thought of what she’d said about the soft dirt and the sweet shrubs and I wondered if anybody had loved her besides Chap. But even if they had, I knew she would not have gone with them.
Ava picked up another bean and tore at it, trying not to use her fingernails. I came here hoping you’d be on my side, Momma.
I am on your side. I want you to be happy.
What do you mean?
You can win a battle, Ava, and lose a war, if you know what I mean.
Ava picked up another bean. She was getting good at not using her fingernails.
In a war you have tactics, she said thoughtfully.
One warmish Thursday evening toward the end of September, Mabel Conable stopped by the house, pulling the pickup around to the back. It was nearly seven o’clock, and the light was fading to gold around the vines on the back fence while I was unclipping clothes from the line, surrounded by air so full of the smell of ripe muscadines it could make you drunk. When she got out of the truck, I tossed a shirt into the basket and called hello. She looked as though somebody had taken a giant bottle of Clorox and dipped her in it. All the color was gone from her face, her hair was white-gray, and she was wearing a housedress as washed-out as a dishrag. I noticed the grim look on her face and my heart sank. It couldn’t be Elmo Junior because we’d heard he got out of a prison camp.
I told her Momma was inside scraping some late corn off the cob to put in the freezer locker. Mabel went on in.
When I finished taking down the clothes, I carried them inside and found Mabel helping Momma scrape corn, scoring the kernels down with a sharp knife and then scraping down with the flat of a table knife to get all the good out. They both had glasses of tea by their elbows.
While I put away the clothes, I could hear them talking. Mabel was just like a radio announcer. It seemed that she was looking for Elmo and couldn’t find him anywhere and felt he was off someplace with Chap. He could be with some woman, she said. They both could.
I think she’s silver with blue and white stripes, Momma said. Her name is Matilda.
What the hell? Mabel said. Matilda?
You been out to the airport looking for them? It’s the plane, Momma said.
She wouldn’t go first try, Momma said. Elmo tell you that? They need to work on the engine.
He’s close-mouthed, Elmo, said Mabel.
There was a silence as the women scraped and scraped.
I heard something, Mabel said. Duke Radford spends a lot of time down at the Bisons Club bar.
Oh well, said Momma. There are some vets there.
Aren’t you concerned?
It’s Ava’s business, said Momma, and she has not seen fit to come to me.
I think she goes too, Mabel said, and there was a darkness in her voice.
You had better go to the airfield, said Momma, while it’s still light, and her voice was even and calm.
Mabel got up then. Yes, she said, I had better go there.
I came into the kitchen just as the screen door banged closed behind her. Help me with the corn, honey, said Momma. It’s almost done. She scored and I scraped. When we finished, she gave me a sack of boiled peanuts for a reward. I was sitting on the back steps eating them when Chap came home with Elmo.
The screen door banged and I heard the crunch of beer cans being opened. I waited for Momma to ask where they had been, but she never did.
There was a frost between Mabel and Momma, and the Conables did not come over the next Friday night. That was okay with me, because then there would be no Starrett to bug me and tell me I was his favorite dish. I had not forgotten our bet. Kiss or slap, and I was going to win. Then Chap said they had fixed the engine and maybe next Saturday we would all go out to the airfield.
I was so excited.
On Monday I got sent home from school for being sick. It came on me all at once, dizziness and fever, and the doctor said it was flu, there was something going around. I felt so bad I thought I would die and never see the plane take off, and I wondered if this was how Momma felt every day.
On Tuesday, Momma fixed me aspirin and a glass of orangeade about lunchtime and went out, closing the door softly behind her, telling me to sleep again. I drank all of the orangeade and set the glass on the bedside table, snuggling under the pile of covers she had mounded to try to ease my chills. Through my sick-fuzzy mind I heard a tapping at the front door, so faint I could hardly be sure there was anybody on the porch at all.
I heard a voice, a rumble, asking, How’s the girl?
Doing all right, Momma said.
Despite the chills, I crawled out from under the covers and slid over far enough so that I could see out the window, and it was Elmo, and that was strange because he usually came to the back. Momma had her arms folded and they lowered their voices so I couldn’t make out what they were saying. He put a hand to her cheek. Gwen, he said, and then she stepped back as if his hand had been red-hot.
I have to go now, she said, Mae Lee’s calling. She turned and hurried in the house. I had not called her. Elmo walked away with his hands in his pockets.
Maybe I had the answer to my question, and I wished I didn’t.
I tried very hard to get well by Saturday. I begged Chap to put it off, and he said if the weather was perfect, he had to go then. Momma explained that he didn’t have many free Saturdays, and I did, so that I could go another time if I missed this one.
But I want to see it fly first, I said, thinking of the bet with Starrett. I just knew he would make it a point to be there. Maybe he would get Chap to give him a lesson.
We’ll see, said Momma. Duke and Ava want to come.
I looked up at Jesus on the wall, and then I got the rosary out of my top drawer where it hid behind the socks, and prayed harder than I ever had in my whole life.
Chapter Thirteen
I hunkered in the corner of the back seat on the way out to Sweetbay, hoping no one would notice how pale I looked, trying to tell myself I felt fine. I’d pretended to have an appetite earlier and got down my eggs and grits, but my stomach rebelled at the greasy bacon, and I stashed that behind the stove. If Momma ever found it, she might think she’d dropped it by accident, because she wasn’t so steady these days.
The drive to Sweetbay was even prettier than I imagined it, down a long dirt road bordered with huge oak trees draped with long swags of Spanish moss, then past neat fields, then rows of pines leading to the house itself. We parked in the circular dirt driveway under a huge, mossy live oak. There were a couple of trucks parked there too, the moss touchin
g their roofs.
The house itself was one story, with a porch that wrapped all the way around held up by square white columns. Ava and Duke walked out and came down to greet us.
Granddad sends his apologies, Duke said. He’s got a sick cow.
He never lets up, does he? Chap said.
All he’s ever done was work, said Duke. Worked even harder after Grandmama died, like she was up there watching him.
More to drive away the loneliness, Momma said to me under her breath.
I blinked when I really looked at Ava. She wore a pair of jeans and a calico blouse, and a scarf was tied around her head, the two ends sticking up like rabbit ears. She saw me looking and twirled around. How do you like the latest farm fashions?
Oh, Ava, Momma said.
I’ve spent the morning stripping turnips, she said, wiggling her fingers and making a face.
Good, Momma said. I noticed that Ava’s nails were not polished.
Come see my bungalow, Ava said.
Chap wanted to talk to old Mr. Dulany, so he went with Duke to hunt down his granddaddy in the barn while Ava took Momma and me to show us the bungalow. We walked around back of the big house and I saw the barn and some outbuildings, and heard people talking and chickens gabbling and horses snorting and smelled gasoline and manure. And here was a little white-painted bungalow with green shutters. A chimney stood at one end, and some new bushes had been planted under the two front windows. Ava jerked open the screen door. Welcome to my world.
We walked into a tiny front entrance with a little kitchen on the left, a breakfast bar separating it from the living room. It reminded me of a doll’s house, with white ruffled curtains at the windows and a brown-and-pink slipcovered sofa. And there were Ava’s movie magazines, of course, arranged on the coffee table, which stood on a rag rug.
Why, Ava, Momma said. This is charming.
I nearly died when I first saw it, she said. Dark and musty and dusty, no one had been living in it for years. It didn’t even have electricity! Thank God I have a phone. I’d die without it.
You’re on a party line, said Momma.