Tending to Virginia

by Jill McCorkle

  It is 1897, mid-December, and Virginia Suzanne Pearson is sitting by the fire, her cherry rocker moving back and forth, a worn woolen quilt pulled up over her full abdomen, her hands clasped under her stomach to support the weight. Just a few minutes ago, she had looked out that frosted kitchen window and studied the thick gray clouds in the sky. This area rarely gets snow, but this night, Virginia has a feeling that it is coming, the clouds, the crisp sharp smell, the frozen rattling of the limbs of the pecan tree outside the window. She had stood, watching and waiting, as if there would come a sign, but then she had been distracted by a kick, a tiny unknown elbow trying to make room. She had held her breath but had not moved for fear that the moment would end too quickly as it had the other times. It is time, yes, and it will snow before morning, she had thought and pressed her heart-shaped face against the frozen window, her thick curly hair pulled up away from her face. She watched Cord brush down that old mule and lead it into the barn and now she is waiting for him to come in from the cold, the fear that the pneumonia that has taken so many could take him.

  It is like a secret that she has, this knowledge that the time has come and she will enjoy it, enjoy when Cord sits beside her and speaks of the fields and what he did today. She will hold this secret like she might be a child herself, until she can hold it no longer and needs to let go. She will rise so early, all the feelings that she has felt before and she will concentrate on a smudge on the ceiling, her hands gripping that bed and she will not concentrate on the pain for good can come from pain. This pain will bring her so much good and when the sun is there within her sight out that window, it will all be over and she will cradle that warm little body beneath the quilt and Cord’s eyes will say how he’s glad that part is over and her breath on that little neck will say Emily Suzanne Pearson. Yes, she will know when the time has come and she will just let go.

  * * *

  “Were you looking for this?” Gram asks and pulls an ear of corn from her pocket, the pink silks falling over her hand. “Tessy said you wanted this.”

  “Oh yes,” Virginia whispers, and reaches her hand, closer and closer, until it is there, the silks falling onto her own hand while Gram’s hair grows darker in the faint light, her face gets younger.

  “A person’s got to know when to let go,” Gram says. “You can hold on tight but it don’t change the fact that sooner or later you’ve got to let go.”

  * * *

  Virginia wakes late, radio alarm still playing, the sky through the bedroom window still overcast, bathroom light on and towels strewn across the floor but Mark has already left. She gets up switching the orange nightshirt for the lavender sack dress that her mother made for her while she was there. Things are coming to her so clearly now, so many things that she had forgotten. She remembers the house on Carver Street so vividly, the windows, the way the light fell, and sees now what she wants to paint, from the back door as though you just stepped in, standing in that doorway and looking into the breakfast room as Gram had done so many times, kerosene stove to the left, the table, Venetian blinds, china cupboard on the right with that pink china bowl on the second shelf, the same bowl that Virginia accidentally dropped and broke when she was ten, the hat box filled with buttons in the center of the table, a coffee cup, the white oilcloth, red and white woven placemats, rice in the salt shaker, through to the kitchen, the outside rim of the sink and counter showing through the doorway, the little step stool in front of the window, violets on the sill.

  She sees it now, sees it so clearly, the colors and shadows, and then she will paint what it looked like to sit on that counter and look out the window, the huge brick warehouses down the street, smoke from what used to be Cutty’s Place, the pecan tree just outside the window where her mother stands with that brown sweater drawn close around her shoulders, standing on the sidewalk with its bumps and cracks, her mother’s hair blown back, so young-looking; and then she will paint it from her mother’s eyes as she looked up at that window and saw Virginia standing there, face pressed against the glass, her breath forming a circle, and her mother sees the leaves tumbling from those gutters over the back porch, the white wooden siding, gray shutters; and she will paint that same day from Gram’s eyes, staring down that hall to the bedroom, chair railing and bead boards narrowing like a railroad track to that closed bedroom door, a dim filtered light coming from the crack below the door, slants of light from the Venetian blinds falling on the wall to the left; and she will paint it from Gramp’s eyes, those large blue eyes as he sat in his chair and looked over the backyard to that chicken-wire dog pen, the Uncle Remus book that he had read so many times he knew it by heart, held on his lap.

  Mark has left a note pinned to the lavender dress, “the new uniform” as he called it while she shredded up the yellow one and used it to clean the drops of paint from the floor in the baby’s room. He has gone to the library and then to mail the lease on the house in Richmond that they are going to rent, a small house with hardwood floors and dormer windows upstairs. He had brought her detailed floor plans and photos, which direction every wall and window faced and then he sat there like he was holding his breath. “What? Am I a difficult person?” she asked.

  She goes into the spare room where she has already started packing some boxes and put them in the closet, all law books cleared away, replaced with toys and a new painting, painted on top of the old, this time friendly animals, zoo animals in their bright colors, Tony the Tiger and Peppi Le Peu. The phone rings and Virginia goes to the kitchen to answer, no dishes in the sink, windows still smelling of Windex.

  “Hey girl,” Cindy says. “Just checking to see if you’ve dropped it yet.”

  “Not yet.”

  “You haven’t been back in three weeks,” Cindy says. “Of course it’s probably good; you might get stuck again and wasn’t that a trip?”

  “Quite a trip,” Virginia says, stretching the cord to reach the Mr. Coffee that Mark had left turned on. “I must have been going through something psychological, you know?”

  “Shit,” Cindy’s laugh comes through the receiver so loud. “Why do you always have to have some smart sounding reason for acting like a spoiled bitch?”

  “Was I that bad?”

  “Oh God, Virginia,” Cindy says. “You have acted that way your whole life. And yes, I called you Virginia. Mama said if you wanted to be called Virginia that we should call you Virginia because you’re grown up now.”

  “Madge said all that?”

  “Oh man, she’s been saying all kinds of things,” Cindy says and laughs again. “But, I do think Hannah coached her on that one.”

  “You can still call me Ginny Sue,” she says. “Really, it sounds funny for you not to call me Ginny Sue. Tell everybody just to stick with the way it’s been.”

  “Well, the leopard has changed its damn spots,” Cindy says. “Listen, I got to tell you my news. I’ve decided me and Chuckie are gonna buy one of those solar condos that my sister has been pushing on me forever.”

  “You are?”

  “Yeah, and what’s more, I took Mama to Merle Norman’s like what Hannah did, and I left her there, wasn’t about to let them mess with my face. But, when I picked Mama up, I couldn’t believe it, night and day, and then she went and got her hair frosted so it looks kind of blonde instead of gray and then we drove over to Ivey’s in Clemmonsville and Mama bought herself a whole new wardrobe. I even picked out some of it. I got me some black leather pants for the fall.”

  “I’m glad y’all are getting along.” Virginia is staring at the phone now, wondering if this is really Cindy on the line.

  “Well, she gets on my nerves so bad still, but we’re trying,” Cindy says. “And I got no choice but to be nice to slutbucket and likoor-sucker if I’m buying a condo through her.”

  “Now you sound normal,” Virginia says. “Have you seen Charles?”

  “Yes.” There is a stillness at the other end. “Got hitched, ah, I guess about an hour ago. Mama bought Chuckie a n
ew suit and he looked real cute when I dropped him off at the church, face is getting better since he went to the dermatologist. Charles is paying for it.” Cindy pauses again, sounds like she moves away from the receiver for a second. “Charles saw me when I pulled into the parking lot there. He waved and I tooted the horn, made him laugh. You know he probably needed to laugh, probably was scared and I know how his neck will start to sweat if he’s scared.”

  “I’m sorry, Cindy.”

  “Yeah, well, I had my turn. Now it’s his turn, and who knows what’ll ever happen,” Cindy whispers. “I wanted to tell you that and too, shit, honey, I met the cutest doctor and he ain’t married; he’s so cute, too, and cute like I like it, a little rough-looking but clean. He’s so cute that I don’t say ‘ain’t’ in front of him, told that drug pusher to fuck off. I said, ‘fuck your wife, buddy. That’s what she’s for.’”

  “Cindy!”

  “Now, don’t climb on my ass over liberation. I mean you can look in my wallet and know that I am, look at me, but he probably has the kind of mind that that’s what made sense to him. I’m through with him and anybody like him.”

  “Good,” Virginia says, straddling her legs and lifting her skirt a little in front of the floor fan so that the cool air will billow up her dress. “Come see me soon. Please. We’ll be moving in five weeks.”

  “Hell, I will,” Cindy says. “But I want you to have that baby and take up smoking again before I do. Good God, I was telling Mama that I never want to sit through such a hell-hole time as we all did that day at Emily’s house.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t you ever tell all that went on,” Cindy says. “I’d be embarrassed for people to know that I come from such.”

  “Who am I gonna tell?” Virginia asks and laughs. “The old folks? Constance Ann? Earl Conners in front of Endicott Johnson’s?”

  “Yeah, yeah, make up something of your own for a change,” Cindy says and pauses. “But you know, that was something what Emily said to me wasn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “About getting me a green dress and dancing,” Cindy says and laughs softly. “It seemed so real, too, didn’t it? You might think Grandma Tessy turned into a tree but I think she’s off somewhere dancing with that man.”

  “I never said she turned into a tree,” Virginia says slowly, though still feeling a prickle over her scalp from Cindy’s words.

  “I’m still your favorite cousin, though.”

  Virginia goes out onto the porch, that Virginia Slims still wrapped in a baggie on the rafter. “Sure I saw it,” Mark had said and laughed. “But God knows with the way you were acting, I wasn’t about to touch it.” She takes it down and drops it in the trashcan, walks out into the yard where it seems the weeds have grown a foot overnight.

  “Sure is hot isn’t it?” Mrs. Short calls from her side of the fence.

  “Yes,” Virginia nods and bends to pick the wild violets growing there.

  “Your husband told me you were sick a while back but I see you ain’t had the baby.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, it’ll come when it’s ready.” Mrs. Short steps close to the fence, her body greased in suntan oil even though there’s no sun and her hair pulled up in a blue floral towel. “Husband tells me y’all are moving North, too.”

  “Just to Richmond.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear it. I’ve felt right safe with y’all here beside me and I was telling my Buddy the other day,” she pauses. “You know my boy, Buddy? One that drives the flashy car?”

  “Yes.” Virginia squats there to pick more violets, pull the milkweeds.

  “Well, I told him that I’ve felt right safe with you two here. I mean you just never know who you’re gonna end up living beside.” Mrs. Short talks on and on and Virginia smiles and nods but the words all escape her and she concentrates on the way she’s feeling, a strange way that takes her breath. She sits and stretches her legs out and watches the gray clouds gathering and she turns until the breeze is blowing into her face.

  “Looks like more rain,” Mrs. Short says. “First we go on and on without it and now it seems like it’s rained for a month.” And now Mrs. Short is folding her lawn chair, going inside while Virginia sits and watches the clouds, names coming to her mind. Mark will be home for lunch soon just as he promised when he leaned over her this morning, Colgate and shaving cream. She can’t wait for him to get home, now. She holds her breath, waits and it disappears again, leaving her feeling odd and uncertain so she concentrates on names like Emily and Lena, James and David, and the sky is getting darker, so she concentrates on Mark getting home, thinks about how she will arrange the furniture in Richmond.

  In just a few minutes the wind has picked up and the umbrella of Mrs. Short’s patio table is rocking back and forth. She smells the clear sharp smell of rain; it is coming, she knows and she watches the clouds gathering in the distance like dark swirls and it seems like she should be thinking of something that can slow it all down, some secret that she will remember forever, but all she can think is that she wishes Mark would hurry; all she can think is barefoot and pregnant, drop a rusty nail in a bottle of vinegar. She thinks of that cloud rushing towards her and how right now that cloud is probably over Gram’s duplex and her parents’ home, and how very soon it will be right here, in her yard. Something is about to happen and she knows it with the first cool drop of rain, that cloud letting go. I’ve always known when the time was right, Gram says, I’ve just always known. I would never leave you, she told Mark and buried her face in his warm neck, there is no one who could ever take your place. I’ve known that river my whole life, Gram says, it’ll rise come a rain. And she sees that river so far from its source, growing and rushing as if there are not enough places or hours in the world. Easy does it, Gram says and the june bug twirls faster and faster around her head while she digs her feet in that warm black dirt and Gram stoops and picks her way down that garden row, then disappears in the thick field of corn. I’ll always be with you, she says.

  published by

  Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill

  Post Office Box 2225

  Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

  in association with

  Taylor Publishing Company

  1550 West Mockingbird Lane

  Dallas, Texas 75235

  © 1987 by Jill McCorkle.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover lettering by Marcy Kass.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  McCorkle, Jill, 1958–

  Tending to Virginia.

  1. Title.

  PS3563.C3444T4 1987 813’.54 87-1481

  E-book ISBN 978-1-61620-201-9