Tending to Virginia

by Jill McCorkle

  “You really meant to leave, didn’t you?” he asks, crackling static. “When you told me that you wanted me to leave, you really meant it didn’t you?” She sees him standing there, pacing, that beige phone cord stretching as he moves from the door to the bathroom back over to the edge of the bed, his face gone pale, circles under his eyes as the bed creaks with his weight and he stares at that cobweb in the corner, weaving, netting, tighter and tighter, and she feels as cold and distant as that overhead bulb that she knows he has switched on.

  “Yes,” she says, her voice so clear and cold. “I don’t have a life with you.” She holds the receiver tightly, the silence on his end, and he might be on the phone in the kitchen and she sees his back as he stares out that kitchen window where the wisteria vines wrap and squeeze, choking that maple tree that has shaded that rented piece of land longer than she’s been alive. “You don’t mean that,” he says, the same way that Bryan Parker said it, the same way that he must have said it to Sheila. “We have so much,” he says to Sheila but Sheila had a mind of her own, a life of her own.

  “The only reason that you are with me,” she says, everyone watching her with frozen sketchy faces, her voice slow and deliberate, “is because it didn’t work with Sheila. If Sheila had been like me, if she had been passive and malleable and willing to put her life on hold . . .” she stops with the pressure of her mother’s hand on her arm, the frightened look on her mother’s face.

  “But that’s not true,” he says and she can’t stand hearing him for another second, can’t stand the thought of all that there is to face. She hands the receiver to her mother who refuses at first, but takes it when Virginia drops it to the floor and rolls back to face the cheap prefab wall, that yellow light from the window forming a distorted square.

  “Tell him Ginny Sue needs some nicotine,” Cindy says. “Tell him it’s withdrawals.”

  “She’s had a rather upsetting day,” her mother says. “We’ve all been talking over sad old things that we should have left alone.” Her mother pauses and Virginia can hear her sighs, hear her comforting words to Mark, Lena shuffling to the bathroom, Madge going through the trashcan. “I know that, honey,” her mother says and Virginia imagines what his words must have been. “I am her husband! Virginia is acting crazy!”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” her mother says. “Ben and I can follow and take the other car home.” Another pause and then, “Okay, yes I will” and then “You know that we love you, Mark.”

  “Don’t do this to me,” Virginia says when Hannah hangs up. “Please. Don’t make me go.” And Hannah just wants to shake her, to tell her to grow up; but all Hannah can think about now are all those times that Ginny begged not to stay at Madge’s house. She thinks of when she had stood on the curb of Carver Street and watched the ambulance pull away with her daddy in the back, the sheet over his head. Ginny Sue was just a tiny thing, peeping out the kitchen window, waving her small hand when Hannah looked up. “Please don’t go,” Ginny had said, “Please,” when they carried that stretcher through the kitchen, Hannah and her mama following to the street, a child saying “please don’t.” Hannah had watched her mama roaming over toward the garden, litter that she had collected clutched in her hand; she watched Ginny pressing her forehead against that window, the glass fogging with her breath. And in that moment, Hannah felt all alone, the ambulance gone and all alone, straining to keep an eye on both mother and child, and then she had felt herself moving, acting, telephoning and cooking and washing dishes and straightening the house before people began to come while her mama sat and sewed a clown for Ginny Sue, all of her attention seemingly focused on a child who didn’t really know what was going on.

  “You’re not thinking about your child,” Hannah says now. “You are thinking of no one but yourself.”

  “Myself, that’s right,” Virginia says and sits up. “I’m thinking of myself like Madge should have done, thinking of myself like Cindy did when she left Buzz. Cindy and Chuckie are fine all by themselves.” She looks at Cindy who is shaking her head back and forth. Cindy takes the deck of cards from Madge’s hand and puts it back in the trashcan, then walks towards Virginia as if she’s in slow motion.

  “Don’t blow it, Ginny Sue,” Cindy whispers. “You don’t know how lucky you are.” Cindy squeezes her hand. “You are lucky, lucky. Your whole life has been lucky. I can’t count the times that Mama has looked at me and said, ‘why can’t you be more like Ginny Sue?’”

  “Oh Cindy, I’m sorry,” Madge says but Cindy just shrugs, smiles at Madge.

  “I guess even my daddy felt that way,” Cindy whispers, her face turning pink. “I know Buzz Biggers did. Honey, if he could have had you, he wouldn’t have looked twice at me.”

  “Cindy,” Virginia says, repulsed by the very thought of Buzz Biggers, but held fast by Cindy’s watery gaze.

  “No, it’s true,” Cindy says. “You were two years behind me in high school and I always knew that whoever I dated would have chosen you over me if he could’ve, and I also knew that anybody you went out with wouldn’t have wanted to go out with me.”

  “That’s not true,” Virginia says. “You are so much prettier, and look at your figure and you’re exciting. You were always so popular.”

  “That’s what Charles said,” Cindy says, the tears coming to her eyes. “I guess Charles is the one person who I felt would have chosen me first; mainly because I asked him one time. I asked him if he wished I was more like you.”

  “Oh Cindy.”

  “No, let me finish.” Cindy leans back, her legs crossed Indian style on the daybed. “Charles felt that way about me and I blew it. I’ve always made fun of you and stuff but it’s because I was jealous. I was jealous of everything you had and it was easier to just do everything opposite from you than to compete.”

  “Maybe you should tell Charles how you feel.” Virginia sits up, looks at Madge. “Don’t you think she should tell him?”

  “And you should think about how you feel about Mark,” Hannah says. “He’s a good person and he loves you.”

  “Roy was a good person,” Lena says.

  “Yes,” Emily nods. “But Roy Carter would not have had me. No, for I was a lady and Roy would not have had me.”

  “No, he wouldn’t have,” Lena says. “And I’d not’ve had James, as sweet a person as I thought he was.” Lena looks around the room and laughs. “James was nice but he was dull. Roy said, ‘James is about as funny as a bubblegum machine on a lockjaw ward.’” She laughs and fans her hat back and forth.

  “He was never silly,” Emily says. “If that’s what you mean.”

  “I can’t believe you were ever jealous of me,” Virginia says, for the first time noticing the little lines leading from the corners of Cindy’s eyes where she used to draw long black eyeliner tails like a cat.

  “Yes,” Cindy smiles, the lines reaching into her hairline, but she looks pretty this way with her hair in wisps instead of stiff and sprayed. Cindy laughs and slaps Virginia on the leg. “I guess that’s why I’ve always made a soap opera of something. Having people tell me what NOT to do was better than nothing.”

  “Oh Cindy,” Madge gasps. “You needed attention, and here all this time I’ve ignored you thinking if I ignored something that it would stop.”

  “Didn’t work with Daddy,” Cindy says and catches herself when she sees her mother wince like she might have just sliced a finger. “Oh, don’t get yourself all worked up and ready to hemorrhage over it.” Cindy waves her hand and Madge is almost relieved to have Cindy talk to her that way. You can’t just start your life over and everything be brand new, can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

  “This has gone on long enough,” Hannah says. “I say it’s time we all wake up and grow up,” she pauses and looks at Ginny Sue. “And get on with it. This kind of talk will get you nowhere.” Hannah glances around the room now and they are all silent. Somebody has to do it; somebody has to step in and keep things moving. “I’m going to fix a b
ig pot of spaghetti and hope that Ben will come on over soon. I think the storm has passed.”

  “It’s not but five,” Madge says. “The radio says the watch is on until seven.”

  “The weatherman is not always right,” Emily says and shakes her finger at Madge. “God knows better than the weatherman.”

  “But what am I going to do?” Virginia asks and for the first time other than walking to the bathroom, she gets up off that daybed and starts pacing. She goes over and straightens that hat on Lena’s head because it has been about to drive her crazy seeing it tilted that way, and she straightens out Gram’s drapes where whoever opened them this morning let them get all twisted. “Just because Cindy is being nice to me doesn’t fix everything right up.”

  “I think somebody that chose to live with a person, chose not to marry that person, decided on a college and a major, chose another person to live with and did marry, ought to be able to think for herself.” Her mother is standing in the doorway of the kitchen with a pack of hamburger meat in her hand. “You decided all of those things without any help from me. Why, then, at twenty-eight years old and ready to be a mother yourself are you asking for advice?”

  “Because I need it,” Virginia says. “You’ve always given me all kinds of advice that I didn’t need, how to spray starch a collar, how to hem a skirt, how to make biscuits like Gram used to make, but now I need some advice and you won’t give it to me.”

  “Well, pardon me,” Hannah says and drops the hamburger meat to the floor. “I have done all that I know to do, done and done and done for years and this is the thanks that I get.” Her voice shakes and the tears roll from the corners of her eyes. “Why are you coming to me now? Why, after all these other things have gone on in your life and you didn’t see reason to tell me.”

  “You wouldn’t have understood,” Virginia says, her head light and dizzy. “What would you have said if I had told you that I was living with somebody?”

  “I would have told you that I thought you had lost your mind. I would have told you that you were making a big mistake.”

  “And that’s why I didn’t ask you,” Virginia says and sits on the end of the daybed. “You’ve always done things exactly right. You wore white when you got married and it meant something. You don’t smoke; you had two children, a station wagon, a business that was all your own, and you’ve never been in therapy.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” Hannah says and shakes her head back and forth. “You talk like my life has been easy and perfect, like I’ve never had a problem.”

  “You haven’t.” Virginia shakes her head from side to side.

  “Oh, I haven’t?” Hannah laughs sarcastically and looks away from Ginny Sue, those eyes too much like her own, this conversation like one that she could’ve had with her mama years ago. “I’ve had my share of problems,” she says. “Just imagine if you were to lose Robert right now and never have him again. Just think about that. I lost my brother and I was as close to him as you are to Robert, maybe even closer. I don’t have my daddy either, Ginny Sue. And, yes, we all lose our parents, people talk about it all the time but it’s different when it’s yours and there’s nothing that anybody on this earth can do to prepare you for it.” Hannah pauses and looks over at her mama, feels the dryness of her throat. “And I’ve made my share of mistakes and don’t you ever forget it.”

  “You have?” Madge asks and Hannah feels like the rug has been pulled out from under her. She hasn’t been divorced and hasn’t killed anybody but God knows, she’s had problems like everybody else.

  “Of course I have.” Hannah picks up the hamburger from the floor and pulls a piece of dust away from the cellophane. “I left Ben one time,” she says which is the truth though Ben never knew of it. She’s never been able to figure out if she really at any moment intended to leave him or if it was just a game, a trial to see how she would feel if she really left him, and she drove down to the beach and sat on a beach towel and watched the ocean and thought about Ben Turner until she cried and got back in the car and drove home, sunburned and sandy and so glad to get there.

  “What’s wrong?” he had asked and held her so close. “I was afraid you had left me,” and he laughed, those rough hands of his cupping her face, and he told her all about a Rolls that had pulled through, stopping for gas, heading to New York, and how he called Roy on the phone and Roy had gotten there just in time to see it pulling off. “Roy wanted to get under that hood so bad,” Ben said. “And I wanted him to, kind of to pay him back for all the times he let me look at his Lincoln. I sat down with a piece of paper and drew it all out for him.” And that’s when she made up her mind that this was her life, no make believe and no fairy tales, this was it, and she knew that she’d be a whole lot happier just knowing and accepting; it’s been a fine life with Ben Turner.

  “You did not,” Virginia states in her best school-teacher voice. “You’re just saying that to make me feel bad for what I said to Mark.”

  “Or to make me feel better,” Madge says.

  “She’s saying it because I told her so when she was a child,” Emily says and nods her head.

  “Maybe I’m saying it because I want to say it and because it doesn’t have a thing to do with a one of you here,” Hannah says. “I do have some life all my own, you know. My whole life is not tied up to all of you.”

  “I am your mother,” Emily says.

  “I am like your mother.” Lena stands on her wobbly legs and shakes a finger.

  “Yes and Madge is my cousin and Ginny Sue is my daughter and Cindy is some kind of cousin.”

  “Just say niece,” Cindy says. “Really I’m like a niece.”

  “Yes, a niece,” Hannah says so that she can say what she wants before the conversation goes to some other godforbidden secret of death or babies or incest. “But what goes on behind closed doors is my business, a life that has nothing to do with any of you. I’m sorry but that’s the truth. Ben is my husband and I love him dearly, but he ain’t perfect.”

  “Does he do funny things with his underwear?” Madge asks.

  “Is he a redneck in the Klan?” Cindy asks and Hannah is getting madder by the minute. Not once in her entire life has she been able to have a headache or a sunburn or indigestion that somebody in this family has not had it worse.

  “Can’t I have a problem of my own?” Hannah asks. “Aren’t I a person?”

  “I’ll give you my problems,” Madge says and Lena nods, starts to talk, but Hannah jumps in while she’s got the energy.

  “I don’t want your problems,” Hannah says, her voice causing Madge to shrink, causing Cindy to jump right over and put her hand on her mama’s shoulder. Good, that’s where Cindy ought to be, where she should have been years ago. “I’ve had my own.”

  “But why would you want to leave Daddy?” Virginia asks. “How could you have ever thought such a thing?”

  “The same way you’re thinking it now,” Hannah says and watches that know-it-all look come to Virginia’s face.

  “You’re making this up.” Virginia grips her stomach when it kicks, a hard one, and her mama doesn’t even ask if she’s okay; her mama just shakes her head. “Then why did you leave him?”

  “Because it wasn’t going like I expected.”

  “It never does,” Gram says and laughs. “I told Hannah when she got married, I said, ‘Now, it ain’t always going to go as you expect and you might from time to time wish that you weren’t there; you might wish that you were here at home with me and your daddy.’”

  “You didn’t tell me that,” Hannah whispers and goes and takes her mama’s hand, those blue veins so large, the wedding band loose and worn, trapped under that swollen knuckle. “I wish you had but you didn’t.”

  “That’s what Mama told me,” Emily says. “I’d go to her house and James didn’t know. I’d say, ‘Mama, it ain’t like being at home’ and she’d say ‘one day it will be though. One day when I’m dead and buried you’ll all of a sudden feel like
you’ve got a home.’” Emily shakes her head and smiles to think of her mama so old then and the way her mama took to roaming the streets, forgetting where and who she was. God, to be able to walk and to get out on those dusty roads and walk towards town with nothing on your mind but buying some calico and hoop cheese. “It comes on you sudden like,” she whispers. “You get out and start walking and it starts to get dark and you say to yourself, ‘I got to get myself home before the storm comes’ and your feet carry you home but not way out in the country a piece where your mama still boils her bath water on the stove. No, you go on home where you got children wanting their dinner.”

  “God, I fixed Pooh some good dinners,” Lena whispers. “Sardines.”

  “Pssshhh,” Emily says. “Them cats ate better than people.”

  “Because they’re better than most people.” Lena rubs the pillow on her lap.

  “But why did you leave Ben?” Cindy asks. “You knew him. You had known him your whole life.”

  “For the very reason Mama just said,” Hannah says. “I was feeling homesick and I was starting to realize that I was never going to live in New York and be a fashion designer like Lena had always said I could be. I realized that I was never going to be a housewife and sip coffee and chat. No, I was going to work; I was going to send my children to school with keys around their necks. I was homesick for all the times that I had been able to sit around and think about what I wanted to be instead of having to get out and be something.”

  “And you are something, Hannah,” Cindy says and Virginia can’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy when her mother smiles and nods at Cindy.

  “There are choices to make,” Gram says. “James said ‘Emily, if you didn’t want to get married, you should have just stayed out there in the country with your mama.’ And I said ‘I can do both just fine, thank you’ and when I told my mama that she said ‘you got to learn to let go, Emily. God taught me with that thunderstorm that you just got to let go. Your place is with your husband, now.’”