Flies on the Butter

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  “It was your idea,” she chided. “And should anybody ask, I’ll let them know it too. Now, where are you?”

  “Who knows? At this point I’m just driving, hoping I’ll get there before tomorrow. But maybe if I wait long enough, you’ll have all of those kids asleep before I get there.”

  “THESE KIDS ARE NOT—”

  “Shhhhh.”

  “These kids are not”—Rose could hear that she spoke through clenched teeth—“spending the night here. There is a motel up the street, and I hope Uncle Leonard brought his credit card, because those children look like some hungry, wild beasts.”

  “I’ll pick up the Advil.”

  “No. Liquor. Advil wouldn’t break through all this pain.”

  Rose laughed again. “I have a question. How do you spell Shayrun?”

  “Is this a trick question?” Charlotte popped her gum.

  “No,” she chuckled. “I’m serious.How do you spell Shayrun?”

  “It’s like everybody spells Shayrun. S-h-a-r-o-n.”

  Rose would officially go to her grave never forgiving herself for having spent a large portion of her life being an idiot. “Of course,” she replied. “That’s how I thought you spelled it.”

  “Well, honey, if you’re having trouble with words like that, you might better get you a tutor before you embarrass yourself.”

  “You may be right,” Rose assured her.

  “Oh, honey, I have got to go. Aunt Lola just pulled out the biggest chocolate cake I’ve ever seen. Lord have mercy, there are more cakes around here. I’m telling you, if they put candles on these cakes, we’d go up in flames. You better get here quick while I still have all those children outside, away from the food . . . Well, here, your brother wants to talk to you again anyway.”

  “Hey,” came Christopher’s welcome voice. “I forgot to tell you this morning that I thought maybe we could have a Christmas dinner with Mom, since you’re going to be home and it’s so close to the holidays.”

  Well, his voice had been welcome. Rose felt her smile evaporate. Amazing how quickly that could happen. “Yeah, I guess you did forget to tell me that.”

  “You really need to spend some time with her, and I know you won’t be back for Christmas, so let’s at least do this.” She could hear the intense desire in his voice.

  “You know, I don’t know why all you people make such a big deal out of Christmas anyway. I can’t remember a Christmas that was any good,” she retorted.

  “Then you have a very selective memory. And if you would quit thinking about yourself long enough, you might remember some good things about your life.”

  She refused to let him hear her hurt. He had no idea what she had been remembering over the last several hours. But there was nothing good about Christmas. Absolutely nothing that she could remember. Then she remembered.

  Rosey slammed the large Sears catalog onto the kitchen table. Jenny climbed into the vinyl-covered seat next to her.

  “What you got there, girls?” Mamaw asked.

  “We’re picking out what we want Santa to bring us,” Rosey confirmed as she opened the first page of what seemed to be a gazillion-page catalog. Jenny started oohing and aahing as soon as she opened it.

  Rosey crinkled her brow and told her, “That’s not even the toys, Jenny!”

  “Well, get on to the toys then!” Jenny bopped in her seat.

  “You girls want some hot chocolate with marshmallows?”

  Rosey and Jenny jerked their heads in tandem.

  And for the next hour, Rosey, Jenny, and Mamaw sipped hot chocolate and wrote out their wish lists to Santa Claus. By the time they were finished, Mamaw had outdone them both.

  “Does Santa come to old people?” Rosey asked her daddy when she got home that night and replayed their afternoon for him.

  “Santa can come to older people, I’m sure,” he said.

  “Well, I’ve never seen you or Mama get nothing from Santa, so I didn’t know if he’d want to bring Mamaw something or not. But I didn’t want to tell her and hurt her heart, because she really, really, really liked this thingamajig that she said could wash her clothes real fast.”

  “Do you think it was a washing machine?” he prodded.

  “Yeah, maybe it was one of those.”

  Rosey’s daddy scooped her up in his arms and headed toward the staircase and then up to her room. “Well, Santa always knows what we like, so who knows? Maybe this year Mamaw will get something special for Christmas.”

  “I think she’s been pretty nice. I mean, I’m not sure what a mamaw could do to be naughty and all, but she hasn’t missed church since I’ve known her.”

  Her daddy chuckled, and she felt the warmth of his breath as he rested his head against her cheek. “Then I’m certain she’ll get that thingamajig that washes her clothes real fast.”

  When Christmas Eve arrived, Rosey’s family spent the night at Mamaw’s house. They did every Christmas Eve. That’s just how it was. And everyone knew that they were not allowed to see their gifts until Daddy brought out the big camera with the spotlight on top and made movies of the whole thing. But this year Rosey just had to investigate something for herself.

  So sometime in the middle of the night, Rosey sneaked out of bed. She couldn’t fall asleep anyway, so she tiptoed to the family room. That’s where Santa came, because that’s where the fireplace was. But Rosey was going because she only needed to know one thing. All she needed to know was that Santa had come for Mamaw, because if he hadn’t, she would have to share her gifts, because Mamaw couldn’t be disappointed on Christmas. That would just be more than Rosey could bear.

  Rosey rounded the corner, the pine planks cold on her bare feet. She put her hands over her eyes, peering through the spaces between her fingers. She didn’t want to spoil her own surprise, so with a smaller window to see things through, she wouldn’t see as much. She began her visual scan at the left side of the fireplace. About halfway through her survey, she caught sight of it. Santa had come for Mamaw too! A big ol’ washing thingamajig was in the middle of the family room floor, with something else just as big beside it. Well, that was all she needed to know.

  Rosey crept over to Mamaw and Granddaddy’s bedroom door, which had been left ajar. She peeked through the small crack. Mamaw was on her side of the bed, facing the door, and Rosey could see Granddaddy tucked behind her with his hand draped halfway around her. Her stomach was a little too expansive for his arm to span the entire distance, but it fit there perfectly, Rosey thought. She looked at Granddaddy’s face lying above Mamaw’s. They both looked a little funny to her without their glasses on. She figured their teeth were in the bathroom, in a cup. For a moment she wondered what else they took off before they went to bed.

  But seeing them there made Rosey completely happy. And she knew this would be the best Christmas they had ever had. She knew it because Santa had come to see Mamaw too. In fact, the whole turn of events made Rosey so completely content that instead of waking everyone up in the dead of night to see their presents, she crawled into bed with Christopher and slept until the sun came up. In the morning everyone was surprised that she had slept so long, but they didn’t know Rosey had already had Christmas.

  “Rosey? Are you there?” Christopher asked.

  “Yeah, I’m here,” she replied, worrying a little that the ice seemed to be winning the battle with her windshield wipers. She turned on her defrost. “But I just don’t like Christmas anymore, Christopher. I can’t help it. It has too many old memories.”

  “I know. That’s why it’s time you start making new memories. I’m sure you and Jack have had some good Christmases together.”

  Rose had told Christopher most of what was going on with her and Jack, at least what she could bear to talk about. “I really don’t want to talk about Jack either.”

  “Listen, Rosey, I know that one Christmas was horrible. I know you’ve never been hurt so deeply before or since, but I also know that you have got to get rid of all
this. It’s eating you alive.”

  Memories bombarded her now. The crying. The yelling. The Christmas tree and packages that were underneath it. Rose tried to stop the memories, but she couldn’t. They were coming now, fast and strong and loud. What she had been refusing to think about for years was surging to the surface like a tsunami. And she was sure its arrival would destroy any life that remained.

  Rosey heard the screaming from down the hall. She was only thirteen and could count on one hand the times that she’d heard her parents argue.

  Her heart thumped hard and fast in her chest. She slid out of bed and tiptoed with bare feet through the carpeted doorway and into the hall. She peered around the corner and into the family room, where she saw the back of her mama’s head and the side of her daddy’s face as his anger seeped all the way down the hall and struck Rosey in the pit of her gut.

  “I won’t live this way anymore,” Rosey’s daddy yelled.

  Her mama sobbed frantically. “But I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she pleaded. “It was a mistake. I never should have let it happen. It didn’t mean anything.”

  Rosey thought maybe her mama was apologizing for the country-style steak she’d forgotten the previous night in the Crockpot. The house was still filled with the scorched smell. She wasn’t sure why a burned dinner would lead to yelling. But if it did, she was certain she would make sure she never burned dinner herself.

  “You are not sorry. And this probably isn’t the first time.”

  “I’ll do anything,” her mama screamed. “Anything. Please tell me what I can do.”

  Rosey heard a tremble in her father’s next words. “There are no more anythings. You’ve used up all your anythings.”

  Her daddy got up and started down the hall. Rosey’s bedroom was too far away for her to make it back there undetected. Instead, she slipped into her parents’ bedroom, flung herself to the opposite side of the bed, and scooted underneath it. The blue bed skirt rippled with the wind her quick movements brought. The minute she was hidden, her daddy came in, and she felt the bed move with the weight of what must have been a suitcase as it landed roughly on the end of the bed. Her mama rushed in and threw her body across the bed. “No! You can’t! What about the children?”

  She felt her mama’s weight being shifted. “You should have thought about the children.” His voice had grown calm and steady. “But you never think about anyone but yourself. I hope those other men made you happy. Because that’s what you have traded this family for.”

  Rosey’s mind coursed through a thousand thoughts. What did he mean by “other men”? Rosey knew her mother had been gone a lot. She said it was all the real estate she was selling. That’s what she had started doing after they moved to Myrtle Beach. Rosey had never liked it there. Everything had changed. Their lives. Their home. Even the way her mama and daddy looked at each other. If only her mama wasn’t such a bad cook. If only she hadn’t burned the dinner.

  The repeated sound of hangers scraping the metal clothes rack passed through Rosey’s bombardment of thoughts, and each time she heard the scraping, the weight of the luggage grew.

  Rosey heard the zip and felt the weight lift. She listened as her daddy’s shoes walked toward the door.

  “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” her mother screamed. “And there weren’t men. It was just one. And he didn’t mean anything to me. You’re the only one that has ever meant anything to me. Just you! No one means anything to me but you.”

  Rosey heard nothing but her father’s fading footsteps amid her mother’s wails.

  “Daddy! Daddy!” Rosey cried as she crawled out from under the bed and ran to him. “Daddy, please don’t go. I’ll cook for you. I won’t ever let your dinner burn again. Daddy, please don’t go!” He put down the suitcase.

  She clung to his waist. The strong arms of her gentle father wrapped around her. He lifted her face and kissed it. “Shh . . . baby girl,” he whispered into her ear. “Shh . . . This has nothing to do with your dad’s dinner. And I’m not leaving you. Okay? I just can’t stay here with Mom anymore.”

  Rosey’s head was spinning. She saw her mama wrapped in a ball on the edge of the bed, crying, gasping for air. She wanted to cut herself in half. Make herself a rubber band or something and wrap them all together so no one could leave. Anything to make this stop happening. She squeezed her daddy tighter. “You can’t leave me, Daddy!” She used her fists to beat against his chest. “Take me with you, please, Daddy. Take me with you!”

  She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. But her daddy gently unfolded them and moved her body back as much as she would allow. He looked into her eyes. “You know you’re my heart, don’t you, baby girl?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “And I will always love your mama, and you are so much like her,” he said, chuckling through tears that had begun to fall. “But you have to listen to your daddy.”

  “I don’t want to listen if you say you’re leaving,” Rosey declared, slapping her hands against her ears.

  He pulled them away and smiled the smile that always let Rosey know things would be okay. But somewhere in her erratically beating heart, she knew that smile didn’t have the same meaning this time. “Now, listen,” he said, “Daddy is not leaving you, baby. I can see you every day. Just let me get settled, and we’ll figure all this out. But we can’t figure it all out today. So you just have to trust me, okay? I am not leaving my children. Daddy loves you and Christopher with all of his heart. Now, I have to go.” He kissed the top of her head and took his suitcase and headed to the door.

  Rosey followed, screaming. Crying and screaming. Her heart was officially breaking. As she reached for the screen door to follow her daddy onto the walkway, a hand grabbed her arm.

  “You can’t go, Rosey.” She dimly heard Christopher’s voice speak into her ear.

  “I’ve got to go!” she wailed. “Daddy’s leaving! We’ve got to make him stay!”

  Christopher pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. She collapsed to the floor, sobbing, Christopher with her, protecting her. He always protected her. “You’ll see Dad again,” he said, kissing her hair.

  Rosey wept fitfully there on the floor. And somewhere in her tears, strangers arrived. They were fear and anger. But she let them stay until eventually they became her faithful companions. And the peace that passes understanding had been relegated to foolish childhood memories.

  21

  The freezing rain intensified as Rose struggled to see the road clearly. Her breath was coming in pants, and her chest was hot. She tried to keep from shouting. It was useless. “I have no desire, Christopher, to have anything to do with celebrating Christmas with Mother!” The anger had to be released, even though Christopher wasn’t the target. Because everything inside her felt as if it were on fire.

  He tried to temper her outburst. “You need to calm down.”

  “Calm down?” she screamed. “I don’t want to calm down! I hate that woman, do you understand that? That woman is why I don’t want children! That woman is why I am the way I am! That woman is why my marriage is in shambles. And THAT WOMAN”—Rose’s fury peaked—“IS WHY MY FATHER IS DEAD!”

  “Now, hold on a minute, Rosey,” Christopher said in a severe tone. “You act like she killed him with her own two hands.”

  “She might as well have! You know what the doctors said. They said that there was absolutely no cause for his death that they could find, but for some reason it was like his heart just collapsed! What do you call that? I say he died because she broke his heart! And that is why I’m not coming there for any other reason than . . . OH GOD!”

  A dark shadow appeared in front of Rose. The death angel had come. “Can you move, ma’am?” the young voice asked.

  She hadn’t anticipated that the death angel would talk, but she was in too much pain to care. “It hurts,” she said.

  As her mind began to wash away with the icy rain, the death angel encouraged her to hold on. She heard the Jaw
s of Life tear at the metal wrapped around her. Then, strangely, she heard the death angel ask the ambulance driver if he could ride with her. That his uncle really wanted him to stay with her all the way.

  The last thing Rose heard was the shutting of the ambulance door. And with it, she was certain, the ending of her life as well.

  Dr. Dirk Palmer ran scores of tests and could find nothing more than a concussion. But his patient was still nonresponsive, so he made the decision to put her in intensive care, just so the nurses could keep a close watch on her during the night. The small cut above her eye required only four small stitches that would dissolve by themselves in about ten days. His patient never moved the entire time he sewed them.

  Had Rose been awake, she would have refused to allow this man to touch her, because his name sounded way too much like that of a soap-opera doctor. She had refused treatment before for the same reason. Well, no, actually that one had reminded her of Rick Springfield when he played a doctor on General Hospital. Back when she and her mamaw would sneak and watch the show together. That was the real reason she wouldn’t let that doctor touch her. He couldn’t be a real doctor looking like Rick Springfield.

  Dr. Palmer made sure she was settled into ICU before he took a break. His shift was scheduled to be over at ten that night, but when the time came and Rose still was not responsive, he decided to stay a little longer. He lived in Wilmington, almost an hour away. He had wanted to be a small-town doctor, but his wife’s family had lived in Wilmington all their lives. So the compromise was his commute.

  He went to the small office, sat down on the lumpy couch, and made a call. “Hey, baby. Did I wake you?”

  He could hear the grogginess in his wife’s voice. “I just laid my head down. The girls were exceptionally wired tonight,” she said with a soft laugh.

  “I think I’m going to spend the night here tonight. There’s this patient”—he paused, not certain of his own feelings—“I just think I need to be here.”