Susan Gregg Gilmore

by The Improper Life of Bezellia Grove (v5)

  “Nana,” I said, more like I was asking a question, desperately wanting to know why she had packed away her daughter’s childhood.

  “Time to let the past go, honey,” she answered. And she picked up the box and carried it out to the Cadillac.

  By the time I made my way back to the interstate, the old man in front of the gas station was gone. One single, ghostly light was left burning in the office, highlighting his display of motor oil. Suddenly I needed to see my mother. I needed her to know that she hadn’t done anything wrong. She had loved a boy, that was all, a boy who probably didn’t even know how to dance. There was nothing wrong with that, nothing at all. And now she just needed to come home.

  Early the next morning, Uncle Thad called the hospital. The doctors were not very eager to release my mother, not even for a short visit home. They said her treatment was not going as well as expected. They needed more time. And Mrs. Grove, in their expert opinion, seemed very anxious about returning to Grove Hill. They said maybe we should instead consider a quick trip to the hospital one afternoon during regularly scheduled visiting hours. Our desire to have Mother home might be genuine, but it was not, in their expert opinion, in their patient’s best interest.

  Nothing about that sounded right to me or to Uncle Thad. Mother loved Grove Hill. And I knew, if given the opportunity, she would want to come home. Uncle Thad agreed and said that first thing in the morning he was driving over to Chattanooga and checking on Mother himself. He told me not to worry, but even his own voice sounded concerned.

  The next morning Nathaniel hurriedly swept and cleaned every inch of the house. And Maizelle started fussing about the kitchen making chicken Kiev and tomato aspic, Mother’s favorites. She would bake a lemon meringue pie before the end of the day, she promised.

  Just three or four hours after Uncle Thad left Grove Hill, he called to say that he would be bringing Mother home immediately. He was packing her suitcase now, and they would be on the road by early afternoon. He said nothing more than that and then hung up the phone, his voice, firm and uncomfortably vague, resonating in my ear.

  When Mother did arrive at Grove Hill, it was as if I was seeing her for the very first time. Her hair was pulled back neatly in a low ponytail, and her face was scrubbed clean. She was dressed in a pair of khaki pants, a white collared blouse, and a light blue cardigan sweater. She looked beautiful, at least so I thought, until I looked into her eyes. They were different. They were hollow and vacant, and she stared at me as if she had never seen me before.

  I stepped toward her, wanting to welcome her home, to pull her into my arms and tell her that I understood now. But she inched closer to Uncle Thad, reaching for his hand, reminding me more of a child who has accidentally bumped into a stranger than my very own mother. Uncle Thad slowly guided her up the large marble steps. Mother stood on the porch for a moment, seeming a bit cautious or maybe confused. But Uncle Thad squeezed her hand a little tighter and led her back inside her home.

  Uncle Thad stayed until dinner, and then he stayed some more, carefully watching over my mother’s every move as if she was a little girl learning to walk. And in a way, she was. She did get better, slowly. She never drank again. She never spoke hatefully to Maizelle or Nathaniel. In fact, she didn’t even seem to notice that the color of their skin was different from her own. She never called me Sister or forced Adelaide to knit. And yet sometimes I wished she had done those things, because the woman who came back to Grove Hill was timid and afraid. She was just not my mother.

  LOCAL VIETNAM HERO COMES HOME

  BLACK MARINE NOMINATED FOR BRONZE STAR

  To Be Honored at Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church

  Local black U.S. Marine Corps Private First Class Samuel Stephenson will arrive home in Nashville Thursday after being wounded while serving a tour of duty in Vietnam. Stephenson has been nominated for the Bronze Star for Valor, one of the military’s highest recognitions of bravery on the battlefield, according to a U.S. Marine Corps spokesman at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

  Stephenson, a graduate of Pearl High School, served in Vietnam outside Saigon. He had only been in Vietnam for three months when he demonstrated acts of heroism during a surprise attack by Vietcong forces just south of the Marine Corps base of Khe Sanh. According to official military reports, Stephenson, surrounded by enemy combatants, moved through a hail of gunfire to rally his unit’s dazed infantrymen to redirect their fire on the advancing enemy.

  Although wounded by an exploding grenade, Stephenson got to his feet and led a small counterattack force. Refusing medical treatment, he pressed the attack, killed several of the enemy, and reinforced his unit’s defensive position. Stephenson’s dauntless courage and heroism, according to the U.S. Marine Corps spokesman, inspired his fellow Marines to defeat a determined and numerically superior enemy force. Stephenson is being discharged early due to the injuries suffered in combat, for which he will be awarded the Purple Heart.

  Stephenson is the son of Nathaniel and Celia Stephenson of East Nashville. A service of thanksgiving will be held at Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church at eleven o’clock on Saturday morning. A reception will follow in the church’s fellowship hall.

  The Nashville Register

  early edition

  DECEMBER 18, 1970

  chapter fifteen

  Samuel was coming home. That’s what the newspaper said, that’s what Nathaniel said, but somehow I still couldn’t believe it. And although Christmas was just a few days away, I honestly didn’t spend one minute thinking about presents or lighted trees or shepherds standing watch by a manger in an old dilapidated stable outside of a two-bit town in the middle of a desert. Not this year. All I could think about was Samuel Stephenson, the beautiful boy who spoke my name with more tenderness than even Shakespeare or the Virgin Mary could have imagined.

  We were all counting the days till he came home, even Mother, though I’m not sure she really remembered who Samuel was. She said she did, but I think she just wanted to share in the excitement. There were a lot of things Mother didn’t remember anymore. Apparently when they send a bolt of lightning through your body one too many times, it can knock part of your memory right out of your head. But she was getting better, at least that’s what Maizelle said. She said she could see it in her eyes. And even though there were brief moments when I had begun to recognize the mother I used to know, I wasn’t quite so sure.

  Adelaide had made a chain out of construction paper, the kind it seems we all learned to make in kindergarten as soon as the teacher trusted us with a pair of scissors and a jar of paste. She hung it all around the kitchen so Mother, Maizelle, and I could see with our very own eyes exactly how many days it would be until Samuel was home safe and sound. That chain seemed long enough to wrap around the world when she first made it. Now there were just a few pieces of paper left, dangling above the kitchen sink.

  Nathaniel and his wife were planning a special prayer service and a big party afterward in the fellowship hall underneath the church’s sanctuary. Samuel was a hero, and he deserved a hero’s welcome, they said. They mailed handwritten invitations to everybody they knew, including us. But Nathaniel said that, before even one piece of cake was cut, we were all getting down on our knees and thanking the good Lord for bringing his son back in one piece. There were too many parents out there, he said, whose boys had come home in boxes. He didn’t know why that had to be. He’d just add it to a very long list of things he figured he’d never fully understand until he stood at God’s feet. So only after the good Lord was thanked and praised would we head downstairs for some of the best barbecue in all of Nashville.

  Nathaniel could not stop smiling. Just talking about his son coming home left him trembling with excitement. He walked into the kitchen and looked up at Adelaide’s paper chain and nearly shouted, “Three more days! Praise the Lord, three more days!” Then he headed into the dining room looking for Mother’s tea service. Polishing the silver might just calm him down a bit, he thought. Maizelle said sh
e thought it might take a shot of whiskey and then turned around and walked out of the room, laughing to herself.

  The front doorbell rang shortly before noon. Adelaide, Mother, and I had all gathered in the den. Adelaide was sitting on the floor writing Christmas cards to a few of her friends. She had made them herself, using the rest of her construction paper and pieces of silver and gold foil left over from some long-forgotten school project.

  Mother was relaxed on the sofa, knitting Samuel a sweater. Not long after she came home from the hospital, she’d picked up a pair of Adelaide’s knitting needles, and she hadn’t put them down since. I had never seen my mother knit, but she said she used to do all sorts of handiwork when she was a little girl.

  She chose a deep red yarn for the body of the sweater and then placed a bright green Christmas tree, perfectly trimmed with shiny blue ornaments and topped with a yellow star, right in the middle. And even though I couldn’t picture this sweater on a young military hero, I looked at my mother and reassured her that Samuel would love it.

  Uncle Thad came in from the back and knelt down by the fire just before the bell rang. He had three logs tucked under his left arm and snowflakes stuck gently to the top of his head. He carefully stoked the fire, making room for fresh wood but careful not to throw sparks onto the rug. It had started snowing not long after breakfast, just enough to lightly cover the ground, just enough to make everyone want to sip hot chocolate and listen to Adelaide’s collection of rock ’n’ roll holiday albums on Father’s old record player.

  “Lord have mercy, if you don’t look like a Christmas card yourself,” Maizelle said as she walked to the front door. But when she saw a young, dark-skinned girl standing on the porch, she dropped to her knees and cried out loud. Nathaniel came running from the back of the house. He let out a scream from somewhere so deep within his belly that I was afraid his insides might come spilling right out of his mouth. The sound washed through my body, leaving me numb and scared, and for a brief moment I found myself hiding behind my mother. Sometimes, even now as an old woman when I dream about Samuel, when we’re wrapped in each other’s arms underneath the cherrybark oaks, I wake to the sound of that tortured cry. The young girl rushed into the house, not waiting for anyone to formally invite her in.

  “Daddy, no, it’s not what you think!” she cried. “It’s not what you think. Samuel’s fine. Samuel’s here. He’s home. He got here this morning, not long after you left. He wanted to surprise everybody. Mama told me to come and get you. Everybody’s at the house now waiting for you. Daddy, stop crying,” she pleaded softly, realizing that her sudden appearance had left her father thinking that his only son was dead and gone.

  And like a set of dominoes tipping forward, we all seemed to fall to the ground, so overwhelmed with relief and joy that even the weight of our own bodies was too much to bear. Mother, in a fit of unexplainable tears, wrapped her arms first around Nathaniel and then Maizelle. And once we’d caught our breath, Adelaide and I started screaming with excitement. Adelaide said she just couldn’t believe it because there were still two paper loops hanging over the kitchen sink. I’m really not sure how long we stood there. Time seemed to have no meaning that day. Finally my uncle mouthed something to me that I couldn’t quite understand. He motioned for me to come closer and then spoke quietly in my ear.

  “Bezellia, sweetie,” he said, “go get Nathaniel’s coat and hat. We need to drive those two on home. Neither Nathaniel nor his daughter is fit to be behind the wheel of a car right now. They’re just too overwhelmed with emotion to think straight, let alone drive across town. I’m not sure how that girl got here without winding up in a ditch. The roads are already getting a little slick. I’ll drive Nathaniel’s truck, and then you follow in mine, just put some good snow tires on it the other day.”

  But I stood there, like a schoolgirl playing freeze tag and waiting for her turn to run. Shocked maybe by the excitement, at least that’s what I think Maizelle would have said. My uncle kept talking to me. I guess repeating the same instructions until I finally nodded and stumbled down the hall, feeling my way with my hands. My eyes were clouded with tears, but I found the closet by the back door and reached for the brass knob in front of me. When I touched Nathaniel’s hat, the soft, worn felt between my hands, my body started shaking uncontrollably. Nathaniel was wearing this hat the day he introduced me to Samuel. He was smiling so big, so proud of his boy. Now Samuel was finally home. That’s what his sister had said. She walked right up to my front door and said it. But I was almost afraid to believe it was true. I wondered if Nathaniel felt the same way.

  Uncle Thad drove directly in front of me, checking his rearview mirror every second or two, careful to keep me close in his sight. I could see Nathaniel and his daughter on the seat next to Uncle Thad. I could tell the two of them were laughing and crying just by the way their heads kept bobbing up and down. I had never been on the other side of the river. Mother used to say there was nothing over there worth seeing. “That’s where the colored live, Sister. You cross that river and you just might get shot.” That’s what she used to say.

  The houses were smaller and closer together, but the streets seemed tidy and well kept. Even under the gray December sky, the neighborhoods, all decorated for the holidays, looked welcoming and friendly. Small children bundled in heavy coats were walking on the sidewalks with their mothers, hand in hand. No one was carrying a gun. No one was lying drunk on the side of the road. I wondered if Mother had ever been over here or if she had just made all of that up.

  Nathaniel’s house was made of stone and topped with a black-shingled roof. A large porch wrapped around the front, just like ours. It was bigger than the other houses on the block, and his yard was planted with grand, aged boxwoods and scores of hydrangeas looking dormant and twiggy in the winter cold. A lush pine wreath was tied to the front door, and brightly colored lights tacked along the roof-line were blinking on and off again, seeming to welcome everyone who walked by. And right in the middle of the yard stood a bare old oak tree with a huge yellow ribbon tied around its trunk. It looked as though it had grown weary waiting for Samuel’s return.

  Cars were already parked along both sides of the street as far as I could see. Men in work clothes and dark suits and women in woolen coats and colorful hats had filled the yard, patiently waiting their turn to get inside the house and wrap their arms around their hometown hero. In a strange way, it reminded me a little of my father’s dying and all the people who had come to pay their respects, except this time everyone truly cared.

  Nathaniel jumped out of the car and rushed to the low gate that surrounded his property. He fumbled with the lock, and when the gate finally swung forward, he almost fell onto the grass. A large man grabbed him by the elbow and led him into the house. His daughter stumbled behind them. Every few steps somebody would grab her and give her a big hug and then set her free again. And just as soon as she’d regain her balance, someone else would scoop her up in his arms and hug her so tight it looked as if her tiny little back might snap in two just like one of Maizelle’s green beans.

  By now, everyone standing out in the front yard had turned around and was looking at Uncle Thad and me. No one readily spoke or invited us in, and I realized I felt as out of place in this world as Samuel must have felt in mine. Uncle Thad offered a few quick hellos and then gestured for me to get in the car. But again, I just stood there, seemingly frozen in place. I desperately needed to see Samuel. I needed to tell him that I’d got his letters. I needed to tell him that I’d read each one at least a hundred times. I needed to tell him that I still loved him. But I wasn’t welcome here. I could see that.

  Uncle Thad said this was a very emotional day for this family, and we needed to give them some time alone. Maybe so. Maybe I’d have a chance to talk to Samuel later. We didn’t see Nathaniel again that week. His daughter called the house and said that her mother and father surely appreciated the large bouquet of flowers Mother had had the florist deliver as w
ell as the country-baked ham. They had been eating on it for two days now. They sure looked forward to seeing us at the church on Saturday, and she promised that her daddy would be in touch as soon as he could.

  Maizelle visited the family two or three times, always carrying a chicken noodle casserole with her. She said Samuel’s mama didn’t need to be worrying about cooking any meals right now. She just needed to be loving on her baby boy. Maizelle always came back from the Stephensons’ looking happy and kind of mad all at the same time—happy to see Samuel again and mad that he had been sent to that jungle in the first place. She said some days she felt like throwing a brick right through the president’s big white house. Samuel had nearly given his life, she said, for a country that probably wasn’t going to treat him any better now that he was home. “Not right. Just not right.”

  I asked her a thousand questions about Samuel every time she came back from a visit. And she patiently answered them all, although she’d look at me with one eye slightly closed and her head tilted sharply to the right. “Samuel coming home hasn’t changed anything, sweetie. You remember that.” But she was wrong. It had changed everything.

  Late Friday afternoon, Nathaniel called the house. Mother spoke to him from the telephone in the kitchen. I could tell she was trying not to cry, but her voice quickly grew weak and teary. I didn’t think too much of it really. Mother found more and more to cry about these days—a pretty sunset, a perfect rose, even one of Maizelle’s fresh, hot pound cakes could reduce my mother to tears. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and lowered her body into one of the kitchen chairs, the one with the uneven legs, and gently started rocking back and forth.