The Cotton Queen

by Pamela Morsi

  Dinner was an occasion. Babs set the table with the Clifton family china, a wedding gift from Acee’s mother. She was regally installed at her son’s right hand. Uncle Warren and Aunt Maxine were also there. I sat next to Renny. He was now Private First Class Renny, dressed in his uniform for the occasion. He’d graduated from high school the previous spring and was home on leave after training with the Army. He was so grown-up and so handsome. I thought him the most spectacular man I’d ever seen, even if he was my cousin. My very first crush, I suppose.

  And Renny was wonderful to me. He was always smiling and teasing. He made me feel like I was important and that talking to me was interesting.

  The food was great and there was lots of it. Plates were passed round and round the table. I was leaning back in my chair, feeling that stuffed sense of Christmas contentment, when Acee rose to his feet.

  “Babs and I are so happy to welcome all of you to our house for this holiday celebration,” he said. “I trust that since you’ve all been good, St. Nicholas has brought all of you exactly what you’ve wanted.”

  There was laughter and noises of agreement all around.

  I liked Acee at lot. He wasn’t anything like my father, I don’t suppose. But I did remember how safe I felt with Daddy. I felt safe with Acee, too. And he was funny and always teasing me. He seemed to genuinely like me and I liked him, as well. Not just because he bought me lots of stuff and put up a swing set in the backyard and read aloud to me in the evenings in his deep, strong voice. I liked him for himself. As a stepfather, I didn’t think that a little girl could do much better. And it seemed as if most of McKinney agreed. Even the Hoffmans, who I began visiting again on every other Sunday, thought well of Acee. And no one was trying to adopt me anymore.

  Our life was like the end of a good story. We were living happily ever after. That joy, hopefulness, good feeling continued for a couple of months. Then our house was suddenly quiet.

  Babs and Acee were unhappy. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t that they were arguing or screaming at each other. In fact, it seemed as if they never shared a word. They certainly didn’t share a bedroom. At first, Babs would come crawl into bed with me in the middle of the night. I liked that. But eventually, she got her own bedroom next to mine. That seemed okay to me. After all, there were a lot of bedrooms in Acee’s house.

  At the dinner table, I did most of the talking. I’d tell them what was happening at school and what my friends were saying and doing, what I was learning from my teachers. They both listened attentively, even encouraged me to keep up the chatter.

  One evening, as I was taking a bite between stories, Acee spoke up.

  “Laney,” he began. “You should probably hear this from us before you hear it at school.”

  My mom’s head snapped up, her eyes bored into him as if she was giving him a warning. Acee ignored it.

  “Your mother is expecting a baby,” he said. “You’ll have a little brother or sister by the end of the summer.”

  My jaw must have dropped open in disbelief because Acee, suddenly smiling, reached over and nudged it back into place.

  A brother or a sister. It was hard to even imagine, but it sounded to me like a good idea. We were a family now. And family’s had more than just one child.

  “This is great!” I said.

  Acee nodded. “Yes,” he said, not quite convincingly. “It is great. Your mother and I couldn’t be happier about it.”

  He looked over at Babs as if he dared her to contradict him.

  “Yes,” she said, a little hesitantly. “We are happy. But Laney, this is not something that people talk about. If someone mentions it to you, you can tell them that Acee and I are very happy. But you must not mention it yourself.”

  I nodded, but I wasn’t sure I understood.

  “I can tell my friends though,” I suggested. “And my cousins.”

  “No,” Babs said firmly. “I don’t want you saying anything to anyone.”

  That didn’t seem like very much fun.

  “Do you understand me, Laney?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  That was the end of the discussion. For two people who were very happy, Babs and Acee seemed really sad.

  As the weeks passed, I grew accustomed to the idea, even excited about it. Since I couldn’t talk about it at school, I talked about it over dinner every night. I told Acee and Babs that I was hoping for a sister.

  Acee grinned at me. “If she’s as pretty as you, the whole town would envy us,” he said. “But the thing about babies is that you have to take what you get.”

  I nodded. “So it may be a boy.”

  “And he may be ugly,” Acee added, laughing.

  We both thought it was a great joke and began calling my mom’s tummy, Ugly Boy.

  Babs didn’t seem to think it was a very funny joke. But she was not in a very good mood most of the time. She yelled at me a lot more than usual. And she was edgy, as if being mad was just under the surface. I felt like I was walking around on eggshells all the time.

  “It’s just her ‘condition,’” Acee assured me one evening as she snapped at me over nothing. “Just try to be as good as you can.”

  I tried.

  Babs got fat. People commented everywhere we went about how much she “was showing.” Acee told them that he hoped it might be twins. Babs complained under her breath about busybodies. After a while, she stayed close to the house. She didn’t want to see anyone and she didn’t want anyone to see her.

  I wouldn’t have minded that if she’d spent time with me. She didn’t. She wandered about the house listlessly all day and sat in front of the TV wearing her bathrobe all evening. Acee stayed in his study. Except for dinnertime, I hardly saw him.

  So every day I walked home from school by myself and then played in my backyard or alone in my room. I’d dig up the SoupKids that I’d hidden in the treasure box in the bottom of my closet and played with them as I waited for my kid sister, who would be someone I could really play with.

  Marley Barstow Clifton came into the world on July 18, 1964. I’d been dropped off at Aunt Maxine’s when Babs went into the hospital. After getting the news, I was eager to see him. I was even hoping to share my backyard swing set with him. But it was not to be.

  “Marley is sick,” Aunt Maxine told me.

  “Like with a cold or something.”

  “No, he’s got a hole in his heart,” she said. “I don’t think he’ll be able to come home from the hospital for a very long time.”

  My mother didn’t come home, either. When people talked with Aunt Maxine it was always mentioned how Babs never left the baby’s bedside. I didn’t see much of Acee, either. The rest of the summer I more or less just stayed with Aunt Maxine and Uncle Warren. I didn’t really mind it. I mean I loved them and my cousins and all that. But somehow I felt sort of lost, too.

  I couldn’t go up to the hospital to see the baby. No one under age twelve was admitted. Then they moved him to a bigger hospital in Dallas. No one even mentioned the possibility of getting to see him.

  School began. I was off to first grade with Aunt Maxine by my side. Every morning we walked by our big house with my big bedroom, all my wonderful new things inside. It was as if they were lost to me. I shared a room with Janey and Joley. The twins were nice and motherly, but they were freshmen in high school now. It wasn’t perfect having me taking up space.

  Renny was stationed in North Carolina. He wrote Aunt Maxine a letter nearly every week and Uncle Warren would read it aloud at the supper table. It made the house a little less crowded, but we all missed him.

  Pete was now a self-described Beatlemaniac. The group’s records turned on his record player night and day. And he was combing his hair forward in a Beatlelike manner that exasperated Aunt Maxine and angered Uncle Warren.

  Most Sundays, I was sent out to see the Hoffmans. My cousins, Cheryl and Nicie went to my school, so we were best friends throughout the week. Ned was there, too. He called me Little O
rphan Laney. I hated that. It wasn’t true. I had parents, two parents, just like him. I had Babs and I had Acee. They both loved me and cared about me. They just didn’t have time for me.

  Marley died the day before Halloween. The twins had already put together my costume. We’d carved a jack-o’-lantern and made plans to get candy all over town.

  We didn’t go trick-or-treating that year. Everyone went to a funeral instead. Everyone went except me.

  I never saw my brother. I never saw him alive or dead. He was like a fantasy. No more real to me than an imaginary playmate.

  “Why can’t I go to the funeral?” I asked Aunt Maxine before she packed me off to Mrs. Larson, her next-door neighbor and my babysitter for the day.

  “Your mother doesn’t think that funerals are good for children,” she answered.

  “All my cousins are going,” I pointed out. “Everybody I know is going, except Mrs. Larson.”

  “Your mother is doing what she thinks best.”

  “It’s not best for me?” I asked. “She’s hardly seen me since last summer. I’ve grown up since then. You should tell her that. I can read now. And I know all my sums. Miss Martin has put me in the Blue Birds Arithmetic Circle. Those are the smartest pupils. It’s all boys except me.”

  “I know,” Aunt Maxine said. “You are very smart and we are all very proud. But your mother doesn’t want you to go to the funeral. She doesn’t want you to remember your brother that way.”

  “What way am I supposed to remember him?” I asked. “Nobody ever let me see him.”

  Aunt Maxine didn’t have an answer for that. But I didn’t go to the funeral. I waited at Mrs. Larson’s house until it was all over.

  It was late afternoon when everyone returned. I was still feeling a little gloomy, but Uncle Warren perked me up immediately.

  “Why don’t you get your things together and I’ll take you home,” he said.

  I cheered. Not exactly what was expected of a sister in mourning, I know. But I couldn’t help it. I was eager to be in my house again. Eager to see my mother, to laugh with Acee again.

  It wasn’t at all as I’d imagined it to be. Uncle Warren dropped me off at the curb in front. I carried my dolls, my teddy bear and my suitcase to the porch by myself. I was met at the front door by a stranger.

  “You must be the daughter,” she said.

  I nodded.

  She waved to Uncle Warren who was still waiting in the street. He drove away.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “I am the housekeeper,” she answered. “But I am not your babysitter and I will not allow you to be noisy and underfoot. Do you understand me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You will reply ‘yes, ma’am’ or ‘no, ma’am,’” she said. “I do not approve of lax manners.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Do you know where your room is?”

  It seemed like a silly question to ask. What kid wouldn’t know their own room?

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered.

  “Then I suggest you remain in there, quietly, until someone requests to see you.”

  It was a very strange homecoming. Our house, our happy, laughing house, now was big and dark and ominously quiet. I sat in my room and nobody requested to see me. The old house creaked and the furnace made a big whooshing sound when it came on, but mostly it was just silence.

  I waited and waited.

  I watched out the window at all the people passing by.

  I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling.

  I played with my toys—most of which I hadn’t seen for months. The dollhouse that Acee’s mother had bought for me at Christmas was mostly empty rooms. From deep down in the bottom of my treasure box, I dug out my SoupKids salt and pepper shakers. I decided that they could live in the house. Even in big empty rooms, the two of them together wouldn’t be alone or lonely.

  I snuck down the hall to go to the bathroom several times. I was genuinely afraid of the housekeeper. I didn’t know if I had permission to go to the bathroom. But I wasn’t about to find her and ask.

  It was after dark when I got hungry and tried to sneak downstairs. I ran into Acee. He seemed surprised to see me.

  “How long have you been here?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “A while I guess, I came over after the funeral.”

  “Have you seen your mother?”

  I shook my head.

  He took my hand and led me to the beautiful nursery at the end of the hallway near my mother’s bedroom. Babs had decorated it in bright yellow gingham with Peter Rabbit wallpaper. Sometimes she had let me help. Acee opened the door and I saw her. She sat next to the crib. She looked up with surprise.

  “Laney,” my mother said. “I forgot you were here.”

  She forgot that I was there.

  “I’ve been in my room forever,” I said. It was a complaint, but nobody seemed to notice.

  “Have you had anything to eat?”

  “Nope.”

  “Is Hannah still here?” She glanced up at Acee questioningly. “Maybe she can fix Laney something.”

  “I’ll do it,” he answered. “I’m hungry myself. Do you want something?”

  Mom shook her head and gazed back into the empty crib.

  I was ushered out of his room. Acee took me to the kitchen and we made ham sandwiches.

  “Is that all you can cook, ham sandwiches?”

  He nodded. “That’s pretty much it for me,” he said, grinning. “Before I married your mother, I either ate at restaurants or at my mother’s.”

  He handed me my sandwich and I took a bite.

  “It’s pretty good,” I told him.

  He smiled and nodded. “That goes along with my philosophy of life,” he said. “If I can only do one thing, I want to do it better than anybody else.”

  “I want to do lots of things,” I told him.

  “Most people feel that way,” he said. “But sometimes it’s better to do one thing really well than to be mediocre at a number of things.”

  “What’s meaty oaker?” I asked.

  “Everything.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” he said. “You’ll find out about the world too soon anyway.”

  I shrugged and let that go.

  “What’s wrong with Mama?” I asked him. “How could she forget I was here?”

  Acee reached over and tucked a stray lock of my hair behind my ear. “She’s just sad, Laney,” he said. “Her whole heart is full of sadness right now. But she’ll get better. She’ll be fine.”

  He said it with such certainty, that I had no choice but to believe him.

  “For the last few months Marley has been the center of our lives,” Acee said. “I hope you don’t think that it means that you’re no longer important to us.”

  That thought hadn’t occurred to me, but it did then.

  “The little fellow was just so sick that we’ve had to focus all our attention on him.”

  “I know.”

  “You are definitely a part of this family and don’t think for a moment that you are not.”

  “Okay.”

  When we finished our sandwiches, Acee went to his study to catch up on some work. I went back to my room.

  I played with my SoupKids inside the dollhouse.

  “Are you my brother?” the girl kid asked the boy kid.

  “Yes, I’m Marley. I’m your brother Marley.”

  “How’d you get that broken place on your hat?”

  “My mama threw me in the trash,” he answered.

  BABS

  I SHOULD HAVE spurned Acee’s proposal of marriage. That’s what a good, decent woman would have done. That’s the course that an heroic, admirable mother would have chosen. I chose the path that made my life easiest. I didn’t even hesitate. Acee offered a lifeline and I would have been a fool not to take it.

  But I never wanted him to feel like a fool for throwing it to me.

  My intention was that
he would never know the true origin of our child. A baby is a baby. No one can ever truly know who the child might favor. If it grew up to look like Burl, I would just say he reminded me of my father. No one would argue with me.

  I married Acee as quickly as I could. The key to pulling off such a deception would be timing. I’d been unwilling to wait even until after the holidays. If he was surprised, he didn’t act like it.

  “I don’t want a big wedding,” I explained. “It just wouldn’t be appropriate. It is my second marriage and widows are not blushing brides in yards of white organza.”

  “We don’t want to...to insult Tom’s family,” he said. “There’s no need for haste.”

  I waved off his concern. “I don’t want to wait,” I told him. “There’s no reason for us to delay being happy. Tom would understand.”

  Acee didn’t argue with me. He wanted me to have things exactly how I wanted to have things.

  His mother wasn’t quite as biddable, but Acee was her only son. She wanted him to be happy and he wanted me to be happy.

  It all turned out quite well. The courthouse wedding included all his colleagues and co-workers. It was a very public wedding with both my family and his present and approving. The reception in the Grange Hall was tasteful and refined, rather than lavish and showy. Everyone in McKinney was aware of what was happening. And while not everyone could be invited, no one could truly feel left out.

  All in all, I was very pleased with the wedding day.

  The wedding night was a disaster.

  I suppose I should have anticipated problems, but I didn’t. I didn’t expect fireworks or the earth to move. I didn’t even expect the oneness I’d felt with Tom. But I did expect to be able to tolerate intimacy.