Whistling Past the Graveyard

by kindle@netgalley. com

  Something I’d heard Mamie say come back to me.“. . . shook her till Porter come and snatched that baby from her. What if he hadn’t been there? That girl isn’t fit to take care of a baby. . . .”

  No. Mamie said all sorts of lies about Momma.

  A flash came back to me. Momma’s face was right down in mine . . . and ugly-mean. She was yelling. There was a red splash of nail polish across the bathroom floor. I was a bad girl. She jerked me hard. Bad. Bad. Bad . . .

  I slid all the way down and let the water come up over my head, but her voice went on. On and on and on.

  I held my breath and it got farther away. I laid there on the bottom of the tub looking at the wavery bathroom on the other side of the water.

  All the sudden I saw Wallace’s face. I jerked myself up; floppin’ so much that water sloshed all over the floor. I sucked in a breath. Footsteps ran across the apartment.“Starla!”Eula wiggled the doorknob. “You all right, child?”

  “Fine,” I said in a croaky whisper. Then louder: “I’m fine.”

  She didn’t say any more, but I didn’t hear her leave the door.

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my face. All the sudden, a cryin’ fit got hold of me. I wadded the washcloth over my mouth to keep Eula from hearing. I cried on and on, more than I could ever remember. I got worried that maybe I couldn’t never stop.

  But the sobs finally turned into hiccups, my tears into burning eyes. By the time I was back to my real self, the water had gone cold and my toes was all shriveled.

  I felt some better.

  When I come out of the bathroom, Eula was at the kitchen table. I don’t know when she’d left the bathroom door. She didn’t ask what had taken me so long. She just took me over to the couch and sat us down. Then she took my comb and worked the tangles out of my wet hair. She hummed nice and soft while she worked. Even though my hair was black, my scalp was tender like it was still red, but Eula didn’t make those tangles hurt as much as when Mamie worked on them.

  I closed my eyes and concentrated on her humming, her long fingers moving through my hair, the brush of her breath on the back of my neck. Some of the anger got less tight inside me.

  “Let’s leave,” I said, keeping my eyes closed. “Right now. Let’s go back to Miss Cyrena’s.”

  For a minute, Eula stayed quiet. I hoped she was making plans on how to get back there.

  Then she sighed. “You know that ain’t the right thing to do.”

  “Why not?” I turned and looked at her. “Nobody cares. Nobody wants us except Miss Cyrena.” I hated that it was true, that Momma had meant what she’d said. If we left now, I wouldn’t have to know for sure. Once Momma was back, it’d be too late to run.

  “What about your Daddy?”

  I shrugged. I didn’t want to think about him right now. Truth be told, Daddy wasn’t never home and Mamie hated me. Patti Lynn . . . well, my insides was too raw to think about never seeing her again.

  Eula looked at me for a long while; her eyes was sad as I’d ever seen them. “I know you disappointed in your momma—”

  “She’s horrible! And she ain’t my momma no more.”

  “She always be who borne you. Nothin’ change that. ’Member I told you, there more to bein’ a momma than birthin’ a baby. And some women just ain’t made for it. Your momma surely is one of those.” Eula shook her head, real sad. She held my face in her hands and got so close we were nose to nose. “That your momma’s shortcomin’; it got nothin’ to do with you and the good person you are.”

  I felt my chin start to shake. I bit my lip, and when I blinked, I felt a tear roll down my cheek. “I’m not good. I never do nothin’ but make trouble.”

  Eula sat back with her eyes wide. “I never heard anythin’ so foolish.”

  “It’s true! I’m always gettin’ put on restriction and sent to the principal’s office. Mamie says I’m sassy and disobedient—and I reckon she’s right. I leap before I look and I got me a real bad temper.”

  “Well, now, we can all do better. That’s why we get up every day, to try and do better with the good Lord’s help.”

  “Mamie says I’m just like Momma! What if it’s true?”I could hardly breathe after those words got out.

  Eula looked real serious. She was shaking her head slow, like she was considering. “We all a little like our mommas, but you ain’t your momma. I’m sorry for sayin’ this, but she a disappointed and selfish woman, ugly and hateful inside. Maybe she always that way, maybe life hammered her into it. I can’t say. But what I do know is you and me, we been through some things together. Hard things. And I ain’t never seen you act selfish. You fight for what’s right. There’s nothin’ to be ashamed in that. You take care of James and me when we need it, even when it’d be easier to just leave us. I see that you a beautiful person inside—most beautiful I ever met.”

  I wanted to believe her. But I couldn’t. For one big reason. And that reason made me sure she was just trying to make me feel better. I pulled up all of my braveness. “I run away, just like Momma. And . . .” I swallowed but my mouth was dry. “And if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have killed Wallace.”

  His name surprised her, I could tell. She sat there for a minute quiet and still. It didn’t look like she was going inside herself, but I couldn’t be sure.

  Her whole body was shaking a little and her voice was low and strict when she said, “I never want you to say that or even let it into your head again. What happen with Wallace was ’cause of Wallace and ’cause of me. Our trouble been brewin’ a long while. After I took James, disaster comin’ like a freight train whether I picked you up on that road or not. What happen with Wallace is on me, not you. Not you!”

  She grabbed me in a hug so ferocious, the love reached clean to my bones. She kissed the top of my head. “Truth is, you save me, child. You save me as sure as the sun rises. Sooner or later, he gonna kill me, or James, or both of us. I know that now. And I know that because you give me the strength to see it.”

  We stayed quiet for a bit, hanging on to each other.Then she said, “I know I gotta pay for what I done. But I do it with an easy heart. Never you feel any sorrow over me.” She pulled me away from her and put her hand under my chin. “You hear me?”

  “They can’t lock you up for savin’ me. They can’t.”

  She smiled then, soft and kinda sad. “Maybe not. We just wait and see what justice bring. I’d kill that man again and again if he tried to hurt you. So maybe I am a sinner in the Lord’s eyes. I find out when I meet him, and that the only judgment that means anythin’.”

  “Daddy will help you.” Right then it came to me that maybe I didn’t know Daddy; I sure didn’t know Lulu. And Mamie’d probably have the law waiting to take me off to reform school when I got back. She sure wouldn’t help Eula. Mamie would wish that Wallace had done got me out of the way for good.

  “You should leave,” I said. “Without me. That way nobody’ll be lookin’ for you.”

  Eula shook her head. “Ain’t you been listenin’? You and me come this far, we finish this together.”

  I tried to swallow but my throat closed up.

  “Together.” She nodded and kept her eyes on mine until I nodded, too.

  Eula made me go to sleep in Lulu’s bed. It made my skin all crawly to think of her laying her fake blond hair on one of these pillows. I laid there until I heard Eula feed James and tell him a sweet good-night, same as she done with me. I hoped James wasn’t as wound up inside as I was. I worried I’d still be awake when Lulu come home. I didn’t want to see her face ever again.

  But the night moved on and Lulu didn’t show up. The apartment stayed hot.The street outside stayed noisy. Music come out of the doors of the bars and met on the street before coming up and in the window. The voices of men and the laughter of the women made me wish we was sleeping in the bed of Eula’s truck. I heard a fight. Eula fed James again. After I heard her get back on the couch and start snoring real quiet, I finally picked up my pillo
w and went around the curtain.

  The light from the street made the room look like it was just a rainy day and not nighttime. James was laying on a folded blanket on the floor at the foot of the couch where nobody would step on him. He was just wearing a diaper. Eula was on the couch. She wasn’t wearing her nightgown, but had put on one of her baking dresses like she was ready to get up and run if need be. Her Sunday hat and nice dress she’d worn on the bus sat on top of her grip. At least she wasn’t wearing shoes.

  I got down on my knees and studied her for a bit. Her hair stuck out from her head like a dark halo. I kinda wished I’d just stayed quiet in that room at her house and let her be my momma; let her and Wallace and James and me be a family, the way she’d wanted.

  It was a silly thought. Wallace wasn’t never gonna let that happen. I laid down on the floor and put my head on my pillow. I’d just closed my eyes when Eula whispered, “I feel bad for your

  momma.”

  My eyes sprung back open. “Why? She’s so awful.”

  “’Cause she’ll never know what she missin’ in not knowin’ you.” Eula’s hand come over the edge of the couch and I took it. We stayed that way, just bein’ for a while, before I finally fell asleep.

  27

  A

  three-rap knock woke me. I jumped up, my heart skitterin’ along like a startled rabbit. It took me a second to figure out where I was. The couch was empty. Eula was at the table feeding James his bottle.

  Thump, thump, thump. It wasn’t a knuckle knock, it was a fist. I looked toward the curtain that hid most of Lulu’s bed. Feet were sticking out, red toenail polish looking like stoplights. Nasty and bossy as Lulu was, I was surprised she hadn’t woke me up and made me go get in her bed when she come in. I almost wish she’d tried.

  The knock was louder the third time.

  I got up and peeked around the curtain. Lulu’s hair was wild, her raccoon eyes smeared and her mouth hangin’ open. “Someone’s at the door,” I said. She didn’t open her eyes. I poked at her foot. “Lulu. The door.”

  She rolled over and covered her head with the pillow.

  I turned to Eula. She looked nervous, but put James down—he didn’t like his breakfast interrupted and started to bawl. She motioned for me to stay back, then went and opened the door just a crack.

  “Sorry, ma’am. Must have the wrong apartment.” It was Daddy.

  My bruised heart wasn’t ready to see him, but I come up behind Eula and pulled the door open all the way.

  Daddy almost didn’t look like Daddy. His hair was all messy and his face had some beard on it. But his eyes were the most wrong. Daddy’s eyes was always laughin’—Good Time Charlie, some folks called him, even though his name wasn’t Charlie at all. But now his eyes was red and bloodshot and had dark circles under them. I held my breath, waiting for him to start yelling.

  His eyes lit on me and changed. “Starla! Thank God!” He picked me up off the floor and squeezed me tight before I even saw him moving. He kept saying over and over, “Thank God. Thank God. Thank God.”

  I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. I buried my nose in his neck and breathed him in. He was still Daddy. (Thank you, baby Jesus.)

  He felt skinnier, but his shoulders were still strong and his arms hard as rocks like always.

  I heard him sniff and that broke my tears loose. We cried some. Then he set me down. He wiped his face with his hands, and his beard made a scratchy noise. Eula handed me a Kleenex. When I took it, I saw she was crying, too.The only one who wasn’t was James,’cause she’d picked him up again.

  Daddy looked at James, his white face against Eula’s brown arm. I could tell he was trying to figure out where James come from. Maybe since Lulu was married now, he thought maybe James was her baby.

  That made my stomach feel sick. I hoped no baby ever had to have Lulu for a momma.

  Daddy didn’t ask about James, though. Instead he looked past us into the little apartment. “Where’s your momma?”

  I pointed to the curtain. “Lulu is sleepin’.” I was never gonna call her Momma again.

  His face changed. He looked like a storm. “Get dressed. We’re leavin’.”

  “But, Daddy, I need to tell you somethin’.”

  “You can tell me on the way. Get dressed.”

  “I can’t go without Eula and James.”

  He looked at me. “James?”

  “The baby.”

  He looked at them. “Why not?”

  “’Cause they need our help.” I thought of Miss Cyrena and of those folks at Mt. Zion Baptist, how they helped just ’cause we needed it, without asking a lot of questions. I wanted Daddy to be like that. “Eula done saved me from gettin’ killed.”

  “Killed!” His eyes got big. “Last night? Here? What in the hell happened?” He looked like he wanted to break something.

  “Not here. Back in Mississippi. She kept me safe in gettin’ here. That’s what I need to tell you—”

  “Quiet out there!” Lulu sounded like her tongue was thick and sticky.

  “What happened!”Daddy was getting riled. It was an unusual thing.

  “I had to run away so I didn’t get sent to reform school, but got kidnapped almost right away—”

  “Shut the hell up!” Lulu again.

  Daddy looked mad enough to stomp snakes. He stalked over to the end of Lulu’s bed. “Don’t bother yourself to get up.” I’d never heard Daddy sound so . . . nasty. “In case you’re at all interested, we’re leavin’.”

  “Porter?” Lulu mumbled his name, like she wasn’t sure it was him.

  “Jesus, you reek of booze! As far as I’m concerned, you just burned your last bridge. One night! One fu—One night and you couldn’t stay here and take care of her?”

  Daddy being so mad at her made my heart float.

  “Hey, I had to work!” Now she sounded awake. “It ain’t my fault she showed up here! If your mother had been doing what we pay her for—”

  “Pay her for? Is that how you see it?” He made a real disgusted sound. “You make me sick.” He kicked the foot of her mattress, then turned around and run his hands through his hair. After a second, he said, without looking at Lulu, “You might want to drag your ass out of bed, since you probably won’t make any effort to see your daughter again.”

  “Fuck off.”The sheets flounced like Lulu was covering up her head.

  Daddy come stompin’ back to me. “Get your stuff, you can change in the car. You can tell me what happened on the way.”

  “But Eula—”

  He looked at her. “You want to come with us?”

  Eula nodded and held James tight.

  He pointed to her grip, all packed and ready to go—just like Lulu had ordered. “This yours?”

  Eula nodded again and he picked it up.

  I grabbed my shoes and Barbie suitcase and we was out the door lickety-split. Daddy slammed it behind us. His jaw kept working and his breath was real rough. We went down the stairs and got in his car. He started it up and drove off, so anxious to get gone he didn’t even ask where baby James come from. I reckon by now he’d figured he wasn’t Lulu’s.

  As we drove away, I was busy inside—hoping Daddy’s being mad was all on Lulu and not me, getting my story organized, worrying ’bout Daddy getting Eula fixed up with the law, worrying ’bout baby James and what was gonna happen to him. I kept worrying about those things so I didn’t have to think about that horrible person who used to be my momma. It didn’t come to me until we’d gone six blocks that I didn’t even say good-bye to Lulu.

  After seven blocks, I decided I didn’t care.

  Daddy didn’t say a word for fifteen minutes. He just drove, then pulled into a parking lot, told me to get dressed, and got out. I real quick put on my dress, ’cause it was fastest and I could put it right over my pj’s. Then me and Eula and James followed him into the diner.

  The waitress brought coffee for Daddy and orange juice for me. Eula and baby Jam
es was at a little table way in the back. Daddy told the waitress to let Eula order whatever she wanted and bring him her check. Then he said to me, “You said you were almost killed. Did you mean that or were you exaggerating?”

  I was so glad he didn’t want to talk about Lulu, I almost sounded too happy when I started my story. “It’s true! It was a kidnapper, Eula’s husband, Wallace. He kidnapped me and James both. Eula had to save me with a skillet—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!”

  Dang! I’d been planning this for days; how I was gonna explain all nice and careful, but when that first word come out, the rest was right behind it. All because of Lulu. I hated her even more.

  My insides felt like Jell-O. What if I’d already messed it up? I took a deep breath and got ready to start again. I had to get this done right. And I had to do it while we was separated from Eula, in case she decided to be contrary about what I was gonna say.

  I got my mind organized to start over. I thought about asking baby Jesus for help, but it seemed wrong, since I’d be bendin’ the truth some.

  “Afore I get tellin’ what happened, you gotta promise not to stop me to ask questions or scold me. I know I done wrong and gotta get consequences.” This was the first thing I was supposed to say. “But you listen to everything so we can help Eula.”

  “After what you just told me, I reckon it’s best to start at the beginning.”

  That’s when it come to me that he probably already knew about some of it from Mamie. But Mamie would make me look as bad as possible. Daddy had to know my side so he really understood.

  “Okay, but I mean it, Daddy. You gotta hear it all. No interruptions.”

  He made an X over his heart like we did when we was swearin’ to keep a secret from Mamie.

  “Mamie pro’bly already told you ’bout my gettin’ put on restriction for breakin’ Jimmy Sellers’s nose.”

  Daddy kept his eyes fixed on mine and tilted his head. He turned his palm up and flipped his fingers, telling me to come on and tell it. I was some disappointed, but not surprised. Daddy always made me tell him what I done wrong my own self, even if Mamie had already told him and punished me.