Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen

by Susan Gregg Gilmore

She quit shaking and I leaned in even closer. Mama didn't flinch. She sat quiet and still as I moved my face directly in front of hers. I stared deep into her eyes, and for a minute, I knew I was looking right into her soul. Those beautiful brown eyes, every detail of which I had memorized in my sleep, were full of sadness. My mama's heart was broken too. It had been broken for a long time. I could see it for myself.

  “I love you, too,” I said, holding my mama's hands tightly in mine.

  As I held my mama's hands, all I could think about was my daddy. He used to love to tell me the story of the lost sheep. He told me so many times I knew it by heart. Sitting here with my mama, I could hear him telling me again.

  You see, there was a man who had a hundred sheep, but one of them wanders off. He loved all his sheep, and he left the other ninety-nine grazing on a hillside just to go looking for that one that couldn't find his way back home. When he finally finds it, he is happier about this one little lost sheep than he is about the other ninety-nine still grazing on the hillside.

  Somehow I always figured Daddy was trying to tell me that I was that little lost sheep, trying to find my way back home. Maybe I am. But I think my mama was that little lost sheep, too. I knew she was back, I could see her plain as day. But I wasn't sure she had yet found her way home.

  All the sadness I had been storing up wasn't all going to blow away tonight as easily as the wind blowing through my hair. But my heart wasn't hurting as much as it had the night before, and I had a feeling it wasn't going to hurt as much tomorrow night, either.

  Mama and I sat on the porch for hours. She wanted to know everything about me, from my favorite color to my date for the senior prom. I told her about my shopping trip to Loveman's with Gloria Jean and about my pink dress. She smiled and cried at the same time, happy for my joy and sad that she had missed the journey. I told her about Hank and how we broke up and that he was dating Ruthie Morgan now. I told her that I missed him and had ever since that night back in June. We talked till my eyes and head began to hurt, neither one of us noticing that it was beginning to snow again and the ground in front of us was turning white.

  But I couldn't leave. I wanted to know what Mama had been doing for the last twelve years. I wanted to drink it in slowly, savoring everything she said. She sang in a few bars in Nashville but never made it to the Opry. Mostly she waited tables at a restaurant near Music Row, serving Cobb salads and club sandwiches to fresh-faced music executives half her age. On the weekends, she sang at the Heritage Funeral Home. She said it was good money, and the grief-stricken weren't prone to complain about her performance.

  Turns out the birthday cards I had gotten from my aunt in Willacoochee every year had come from her. At first she mailed them to an old friend who in turn would mail them to Martha Ann and me. Then about eight years ago, she moved back to Willacoochee to take care of her dying mama. She said they had never really gotten along, and, unfortunately, nothing changed much at the end. Anyway, she's lived there ever since, waiting tables, the only thing, she says, she knows how to do.

  I wasn't sure if I was ever going to be able to accept or understand what my mama had done. But I guess I was coming to think like Martha Ann, I was just grateful to have a mama, good or bad.

  Gloria Jean tapped on the front door and then opened it just enough to show her face. I waited for her to say something, but she was unexpectedly quiet. I think she was “drinking us in” as she'd say. I think she was drinking every last drop. Finally, she spoke.

  “Ladies, I hate to call this evening to an end, but it's getting late and this cold air is not good for your complexions. And I know both of you want to look your best at the funeral tomorrow. The whole damn town's going to turn out for this one,” Gloria Jean declared, as if we might actually be surprised by this announcement.

  “Not every day the preacher's dead wife shows up at her husband's service, now is it?” laughed Gloria Jean, obviously looking forward to the day's events. I thought I might need to remind her that this was going to be a funeral not a wedding.

  “Gloria Jean,” my mama said, standing up and turning toward her friend, “I always knew you were the dearest person in this town, but Catherine Grace has been telling me, well, I need to thank you.”

  “Lord, for what?”

  “For loving my girls.”

  “Oh Lord, Lena Mae, you are going to get me crying, and I sure don't want red, puffy eyes at that church tomorrow. Roberta Huckstep will be there and God only knows I have to look better than that old bat. Right, Catherine Grace?”

  “That's right,” I said, looking up at Gloria Jean. I could see her face in the light shining through the kitchen window. She wasn't wearing one lick of makeup. I don't think I had ever seen Gloria Jean without any makeup except that time she had her face covered with a bluish looking mud. But tonight, with her face bare, she looked absolutely beautiful.

  The snow was falling harder and even the trees were turning white. Everything looked pure and peaceful. Suddenly I had that familiar, desperate urging to be with my sister. I got up and hugged Mama and Gloria Jean and then stepped into the warmth of the only home I had ever known. “Hey, would you do me a favor, Gloria Jean?” I asked, turning back to face her. “Tell Brother Bowden to get in touch with the minister in LaFayette first thing in the morning. He's welcome to come to the service, but I'll be delivering my daddy's eulogy.” Then, with that said, I shut the door, leaving Mama and Gloria Jean staring blankly at each other, unsure of what to think.

  Martha Ann was already asleep in my bed, having offered her own to Flora. I crawled in next to her and began stroking her hair. She turned her face toward me and asked what time it was.

  “A little after midnight, I think.”

  “Lord, Catherine Grace, where have you been all day? I was getting kind of worried about you.”

  “It was a long way home, but I'm here.” It had been six months since I left Ringgold, and yet the day I stepped on that Greyhound bus seemed like a lifetime ago. It surely had been a long way home, but it felt good being here, lying next to my little sister

  “You know, Martha Ann, I'm not so sure a person can run away from home.”

  “What? Am I dreaming? You are Catherine Grace Cline, aren't you?” Martha Ann couldn't help but wonder.

  “All I'm saying is that you can run away from a town or a house, but I'm not so sure you can run away from your home.”

  Martha Ann practically fell out of the bed. She sat straight up and turned on the light. She said she had to see my face to make sure I wasn't just joking with her. She wanted to know what had gotten me talking like that. I told her I wasn't really sure. Daddy would have said it was the Holy Spirit, but I think it might have been Eddie Franklin. Either way, all I knew was that I had spent my life begging the Lord to hear me out, to let me know He was out there somewhere, actually caring about what happened to Catherine Grace Cline. Turns out, I think He was talking to me all along, I just never bothered to listen to what He had to say.

  “It's a funny thing, Martha Ann,” I said, “how much time we spend planning our lives. We so convince ourselves of what we want to do, that sometimes we don't see what we're meant to do. Maybe Daddy was right, maybe I was meant to be here after all.”

  “What are you meant to do here, Catherine? Grow tomatoes?” she asked. “You'll never be happy doing that.”

  I wasn't exactly sure of everything, I told her. But it would come to me in time. I did feel certain of that.

  As we snuggled in my bed, I could see the snow had stopped falling. The moon behind Taylor's Ridge was full and bright and the reflection of the moonlight off the snow made the sky so bright it was almost like day. For the first time, Taylor's Ridge was a comforting sight, like the earth's strong arm holding you close. I apologized to Martha Ann, thinking maybe I had forced my dream on her. Maybe I'd forced her to eat too many Dilly Bars.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Sunday School Teacher's Miraculous Reception

  The n
ext morning, everybody was buzzing around the house like a bunch of worker bees trying to please the queen. Miss Mabie and Flora and me had left Atlanta so quickly I hadn't really thought about what to wear to the funeral. Daddy would insist on me wearing black, I knew that much, and I'd spent the last half hour rummaging through my sister's closet looking for a black skirt to go with the black silk blouse I had bought for work. Martha Ann was frantically hunting for a pair of nylons that didn't have a run. I could hear her cursing and slamming drawers all at the same time. And Flora was already frying bacon, hollering for everybody to come and eat a hot bacon biscuit before putting on our funeral clothes.

  In all the rush I hadn't really given much thought to poor Miss Raines, at least not up until now. I found one of Martha Ann's baby dresses hanging in the back of her closet. And all of the sudden, looking at the delicate smocking and the little yellow ducks embroidered along the hem, I wondered who was going to help Miss Raines dress her baby. We were about to bury the one man she truly loved, and she was having his child. I knew she was sitting in her house all alone, with a pile of damp Kleenex growing by her side.

  Gloria Jean said she had heard from Ida Belle who had heard from Ruthie Morgan's mother that Miss Raines would not be attending daddy's funeral, thinking her presence might be too uncomfortable for the Cedar Grove congregation. She was going to finish up some packing and then head on down to Summerville. Surely, the sweet Sunday-school teacher with the big, blue eyes didn't think she needed to keep pretending she had a fiancé named Donald.

  I needed to talk to Martha Ann. She had given up her search for a new pair of nylons and had shifted her attention to putting on her makeup. She was standing in the bathroom in front of the mirror. Gloria Jean had picked up some new waterproof mascara for us at the Dollar General Store. She said crying for the dead was not a good reason to let your makeup run all down your face, and she made us promise we'd only use the Maybelline she left sitting on the bathroom counter.

  Martha Ann was struggling to open the cap. I told her to run it under hot water and see if that would help. She kept fiddling with the tube of mascara as I started talking, telling her how worried I was about Miss Raines and her little baby. After all, that baby was our kin, too. Martha Ann dropped the mascara in the sink. “Damn it. It doesn't run because you can't get it out of the tube to put it on your eyelashes in the first place.”

  “Hey, Martha Ann, did you hear what I just said?” I asked, taking the mascara from her hand and loosening the cap before giving it back.

  “Yes, yes, I did, I'm sorry. I'm just kind of nervous,” she replied, turning toward me and giving me her full attention. “Look, I'm worried, too. I have been for a long time. You know that. I just wasn't sure if anybody, other than you, would understand.”

  “Well, we're all that's left of our daddy, and I think we need to make things right for him. And the only way to make things right is for Miss Raines to be here with us.”

  “Yeah sure, I don't care if she comes to the funeral. I think she should be there.”

  “No, that's not what I mean. I mean she needs to be here, in this house, with us,” I said real carefully.

  “You mean live with us,” Martha Ann repeated, just to be certain.

  “We're her family now, and we need to help her raise our little brother or sister.” There, I'd said it. But before I had time to worry about her response, Martha Ann squealed with excitement. She loved the idea of having a baby in the house. Then she suddenly hesitated, wondering where we'd put everybody, especially with Mama back at home. She was not willing to share her room with a newborn baby no matter how cute he or she turned out to be. I told her I hadn't worked out all the details yet, but kind of like the feeding of the five thousand, we'd take care of everybody.

  On the other side of the door, I could hear Flora hollering from the kitchen. “Ya gonna need to keep up ya stren'th. Ya hear me?” She was on the telephone talking to Miss Mabie, who had spent the night with Gloria Jean. Flora was already pacing the kitchen floor, worrying that Miss Mabie wasn't getting herself something to eat. She had no more hung up the phone when Gloria Jean called, for the third time this morning. She wanted to make sure us girls didn't forget to carry a lace handkerchief as well as an extra bottle of Aqua Net. Lord only knows what she planned on doing with all that hairspray at Daddy's service. She told Martha Ann to come over with her nylons, and, with a little Revlon clear nail polish, she'd have those stockings looking as good as new.

  I knew if I was going to get Miss Raines to the church, I needed to leave now, while everybody was tending to their own pressing needs. Flora had finally left the kitchen, and I could hear her in Martha Ann's bedroom grunting as she tugged and pulled her girdle up and over her tummy. Flora would insist on driving Miss Mabie's car to the church, especially with all this snow on the ground. I stood outside Martha Ann's bedroom door and told Flora to tell everybody that I'd meet them at the church, and not to worry, I was going to take Daddy's car. Flora yelled back from inside the bedroom, wanting to know where I was headed right before my daddy's funeral was about to begin. It wasn't right, she said, to keep the dead waiting.

  I told her that I just needed a minute or two to myself. “You understand, don't you, Flora?” I said, not waiting for an answer. I headed down the hall, grabbing my heavy wool coat from the closet and then running toward the front door. But as I threw my coat over my shoulder, something caught my eye. Mama was ironing one of my dresses. I wanted to ask her why she was doing that. I already had something to wear to the church. But all I could do was stand in the hallway and watch her hand gently glide the iron back and forth, smoothing every wrinkle out of the fabric. Ruthie Morgan's mama had never ironed anything as perfectly as this.

  She set the iron down and looked up at me. I smiled, letting her know how thankful I was, and then I turned back toward the door and ran out onto the porch. The steps were covered with a thin layer of ice and as soon as my foot touched the first step, I fell flat on my bottom. Thankfully, my heavy coat cushioned the fall, but I couldn't help but laugh, wondering if Daddy and his new band of angel friends had seen that from above. I kept my curse words locked in my mouth just in case and picked myself up and walked very carefully to the Oldsmobile. The door was frozen shut and I had to pull hard on the chrome handle, leaning my entire body away from the door. When it opened, I fell on my bottom again.

  This time Martha Ann yelled from the bathroom window. “Your butt's going to be frost bit by the time you get to Miss Raines.” I could still hear her laughing as she closed the window behind her.

  I pulled myself up into my daddy's car and settled in behind the steering wheel. For the first time since hearing that my daddy had passed, I truly felt his presence, his gentle, comforting presence. I put the key into the ignition and waited for the engine to warm. I didn't need any shivers down my spine to tell me that I wasn't traveling alone.

  I backed the car out of the driveway and then headed toward the church. Cedar Grove's brick exterior stood out like a monument on the snowy, white ground. The black hearse was already there parked alongside the building, waiting to carry daddy's casket to the cemetery. I wondered if the men from the funeral home were going to be able to get my daddy in the ground, considering how freezing cold it was. I whispered I'd be back and then turned left and headed into town.

  It felt like Christmas Day. Every building was closed and shut tight; even the lights at the Dairy Queen were turned off. Everybody in Ringgold was on his way to say good-bye to my daddy. Everybody but one, and I had to go get her.

  When I pulled in front of Miss Raines's house, I could see boxes neatly stacked on her front porch. She was standing in the picture window, staring out at nothing. She jumped when she saw the car, obviously startled at the sight of my daddy's Oldsmobile. I climbed out of the front seat, this time leaning on the hood of the car to steady myself as I walked toward the curb. She was already standing on the porch waiting for me, holding out a hand to guide me up the
two final steps to her house.

  “Catherine Grace, what are you doing here? You should be at the church by now.”

  “Well, since it's my own daddy's funeral, I don't think they'll be starting without me. You're right, I do need to be heading that way, but I needed to say something to you first,” I said, not giving her the opportunity to interrupt. “Martha Ann and I have been doing some talking, and we agree that there's not going to be a funeral if you're not there. So get your coat, and let's go.”

  “Catherine Grace, that is very kind of you girls, but I don't think the rest of Cedar Grove is going to feel too good about me showing up at Reverend Cline's funeral. They don't want to think your daddy had anything to do with this baby. Apparently they want to think I just miraculously conceived this child or, at the very least, went up to some bar in Chattanooga and let the first guy who asked me to dance knock me up. Oh Lord, I'm sorry, Catherine, I don't normally talk like this. I just haven't been myself lately.”

  “Miss Raines, of course you're not yourself. You're pregnant, and Flora says any woman who has a baby growing in her is sure to be acting like a crazy person. And as far as all those other people are concerned, well, I guess they'll just have to go find themselves another funeral to cry at if they don't want you there because I'm not leaving without you. Now get your coat. It's really cold out there.” Miss Raines stood perfectly still, unable to speak or move, but I could see the tears starting to well up in those beautiful blue eyes of hers.

  “Listen. I know that for a long time I was plain rotten to you, just downright mean. Truth be told, I always liked you. I was just so mad that my mama was gone, and I found it was easier to be ugly to you than to my own daddy. It wasn't right. But you're family now, and you need to be at that funeral today—for Daddy, for Martha Ann, for me—and most of all for that little baby inside your tummy. And after the service, I've got news for you, Miss Raines, you're coming on home with us. You don't need some imaginary husband in Summerville. You need a family, now more than ever.