“When did y’all have a fuss? And was it about Taylor?”
Donnette sighed. “In a way it was. I didn’t say a word about it when we got home; I was too scared to. And I kept running to the bathroom. It was this morning. Tim got on to me real bad, Ellis. He said I was a fool to think that he hadn’t known all along that Taylor was back in town, to try and protect him like I did. He said he saw Taylor at the funeral and he knew I was breaking my neck to keep them from seeing each other.” She smiled through her tears.
“Tim said I had to let it go, Ellis. He said all that with Taylor was over and done with, and that I had to stop protecting and mothering him so much. I know he has a point, but I couldn’t let it go at that. I had to open my big mouth. I told Tim that I was afraid of Taylor, afraid for them to see each other again. And I swear, I don’t understand his reaction! Tim turned white as a sheet, and he just walked out of the room. He walked right away from me!”
This time Donnette was crying in earnest, big tears rolling down her cheeks, and I didn’t know what to do. I patted her on the shoulder while she buried her face in her hands and cried her heart out. I didn’t know quite what to make of it, either.
“Tim hates me, Ellis. I know he does. He wants to be independent and forget everything that’s happened and I won’t let him. I bet he even thinks I like having him depend on me. I’ve never been so worried in my life—I can’t live if Tim hates me, Ellis.” And on she went, sobbing and carrying on. I didn’t know what to say to make her feel better. I was afraid that she might be right. Not that Tim hated her, but that she was overprotective of him and he resented it. Made sense to me.
Suddenly there was a loud knock on the shop door. I like to have jumped out of my skin until I saw it was Tim. I ran and opened the door and stuck my head out.
“Is Donnette all right?” There was so much concern on his face that I knew he really cared for her, and I breathed a little sigh of relief.
“She’s a little upset right now, Tim, but she’ll be okay. Give her a minute to pull herself together.”
Tim looked real uneasy, like he didn’t know what to say. Finally he stammered, “I-I got the sign hung and I want her to see it.”
I smiled up at him and winked. “That’s great, Tim! Just what she needs. Tell you what, let me help her get her hair fixed and some makeup on, and we’ll be right out there.”
I closed the door quickly. Through the curtains, I could see him standing there for a minute uncertainly. Then he went back to the front yard.
“Come on, Donnette,” I said. “Get those curlers out and let’s get some makeup on you, honey. Tim has got your sign fixed!”
I was so proud to be able to do something nice for Donnette I decided that since she was already so upset, I wouldn’t tell her yet about the conversation between Miss Frances Martha and Miss Della. It would probably be more than she could handle today.
I helped Donnette fix herself up real pretty, but she was still pale and shaky when the two of us went outside to join Tim. She gave me a hug just before we went out the door and told me how grateful she was to me for listening to her problems. I tell you, I sure was proud of that course that I’d taken at the Methodist Church then. Daddy says the Methodists are middle-of-the-roaders and don’t have enough religion to suit him, but I think that they have just enough for me!
I will never forget when we walked out to the front yard and saw that sign Tim had painted and hung for Donnette. I always think of myself as a levelheaded, practical person, not emotional at all, but I got tears in my eyes when I saw it.
And Donnette—well, she just started up crying again and ran right into Tim’s arms. He held her so tight that I thought he was never going to let her go. I wished she’d hush crying, because her eye makeup that we worked so hard on was running in blue and black rivers down her face. But somehow, I don’t think she cared one bit.
I slipped away then and left them standing there, holding on to each other for dear life, looking up at that sign, that big white sign with the town of Clarksville painted so pretty all around the edge, their house right in the center.
Taylor
Aunt Della and I walked heavily down the hall to her room, she scraping along, hanging on to the walker, her head bent over and her back humped, me holding on to her elbow like an idiot, as though that would do either of us any good if she started to fall again.
“Now don’t you worry, baby,” she said to me, huffing and puffing like the Little Engine That Could, from the story she used to read me every single night as a child. “Don’t you worry none, you hear? I’m fine. I just lost my balance, got a little dizzy. I’m absolutely fine.”
I couldn’t tell if she was trying to convince me or herself. My hands were shaking so that it was a wonder she didn’t fall just from me rocking hell out of her. Trying to help and I’d probably end up doing her more harm than good. Story of my life.
I was determined to get her settled into her room and call the doctor or somebody. Maybe Sarah—we’d just let her off, so she couldn’t be in bed yet. I might even have to break down and call Daddy Clark or Aunt Mary Frances or Martha. I was that worried.
It was like Aunt Della read my mind.
“Taylor, I want you to help me get into my bed, then I’ll be fine. I think I just ate too much catfish tonight. Really, I probably shouldn’t have gone, I haven’t been out at night in so long. Couldn’t see the porch steps and almost fell. Don’t you go calling Harris or any of them, you hear?”
At her bedroom door I let go of her long enough to reach inside and turn on the overhead light. Her room was so big and dark that the light from the hanging lamp overhead seemed pallid, lighting only the faded roses printed on the rug underneath it, and leaving the corners of the room in shadows. I faked a cheerfulness that I didn’t feel.
“Okay. Here we are. Home sweet home.”
I helped her into her room, carefully moving her toward the four-poster bed. Letting go of her elbow, I yanked off the white chenille bedspread and pulled back the sheet. It was hot as holy hell in her room. How could she stand it?
“Okey-dokey, Aunt Della. Into the bed with you.” I tried a smile that didn’t quite come off.
Aunt Della stood facing me, both hands gripped tightly on the walker. She looked at me, then at the bed, and she shook her head.
“Oh, baby. Bless your heart.” Like me, she tried to smile. “Maybe you had better call Frances. I got to go to the bathroom.”
For a moment I stood there and just stared at her. She looked at me with those pale watery eyes, so fatigued that they seemed even paler now.
“No, let’s don’t call her,” I said, having absolutely no idea how I’d pull this off with somebody as modest as Aunt Della. “I’ll help you go to the bathroom.”
I grabbed the elbow again and turned her toward her bathroom before she could protest. But she only said, “Oh, sugar, you don’t have to …” weakly, and off we went.
“Now,” I said when we got her, me, and the walker inside the little bathroom adjoining her room. “I’ll go get you a gown while you use the pot. Or do you need any help with that?”
To my relief, Aunt Della chuckled. “Bless you, baby. I don’t believe you could help me even if I did.”
Somehow I got Aunt Della pottied, nightgowned, medicated, and settled in for the night, ready for her nightly prayers. I even found a bell someone had given her for Christmas and put it on her bedside table with strict orders for her to ring hell out of it during the night if she needed me.
I bent over and kissed her forehead once she was all settled in, with her covers pulled around her like it was wintertime instead of early September. Carefully, I pushed the stray gray hairs off her cool, damp forehead.
“Did you have a good time tonight, in spite of the dizzy spell?” I smiled down at her. She looked so shrunken without her teeth in. Her skin appeared yellowish in the glow of the Victorian lamp on the round table by her bed.
“I sure did. I appreciate
you and Sarah Jean taking me with y’all,” she said as she smiled up at me. “I do love catfish. Me and Rufus used to get a craving for fish, go to that same restaurant. It’s been in Mt. Zion long as I can remember. Used to be a fish camp.”
“Sarah’s quite a woman, isn’t she, Aunt Della?” I knelt beside her and took her hand. “Wonder why she ever fooled with Charlotte? Surely she had her number.”
Aunt Della looked thoughtfully up at the lamp then back at me. “I believe Sarah Jean honestly felt sorry for Charlotte. She was the only female friend Charlotte ever had. Maybe she didn’t see Charlotte in the same light the rest of us did. Plus, they only saw each other in the summers, when Sarah visited Maudie.”
I nodded, getting to my feet then sitting beside her on the bed. “Yeah. That makes sense. And I can vouch that, in Charlotte’s case, absence does make the heart grow fonder.” I leaned over and gave her another kiss. “We can talk tomorrow—you’ve got to get some sleep now, okay?”
But Aunt Della surprised me as I turned out the lamp and started out the door, bringing up a subject we’d avoided so carefully since I’d come home. Surprised me and saddened me more than ever.
“Taylor?” Her voice came weakly from the bed just as I reached the door.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“I thought Tim looked good, didn’t you?”
I stood poised by the door, frozen, then turned and looked back at her. The light from the hall outlined her eerily in her bed, reminding me of what little I’d seen of Miss Maudie in her casket the other day, and I shivered.
“He looked—okay, I guess.”
“Taylor?” If I hadn’t been standing perfectly still, I couldn’t have heard her voice, it was so soft. “I love that boy. I always loved him, from the first time he started coming around here with you. He was mighty special to me, almost like another son.”
“I know, Aunt Della,” I said, swallowing hard, painfully.
“I believe he’s going to be okay now, don’t you? Jesus has promised me he will be.”
Yeah, old Jesus really keeps those promises, doesn’t He, I thought to myself, but to her I said only, “Yes, ma’am.”
“Taylor?” Something in her voice scared me, she sounded so sad. “Honey, I’ve done that boy wrong. You know that now, don’t you?”
I crossed the dark room and knelt again beside her.
“Aunt Della, you couldn’t do anyone wrong if you tried.” I smiled at her, but she was shaking her head vigorously.
“I’ve been begging Jesus to forgive me, and now I need to ask you to. Because I see now I not only did Tim wrong, I did you wrong, too.” Her pale eyes looked at me pleadingly. Without her teeth, her words were slurred somewhat, like a drunk. I had to lean close to understand her.
“Aunt Della—,” I began, but she grabbed my hand hard, surprising me with the force of her grip, her large bony hand covering mine.
“No, baby—you listen to me. When you would ask me about Tim these past two years, I always told you he was okay. But I knew he wasn’t—I knew he was lame and that he couldn’t use his right arm. But—I was scared, Taylor. I was so scared you’d have another nervous breakdown if you knew … so I let you think he wasn’t bad hurt....” Her voice broke off in a sob and tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes.
I reached over and touched the teardrops that fell, wiping them away with my fingertips.
“Aunt Della, you did what you thought you had to do. Okay—so it was wrong, in a way. But your heart was right.”
Still she shook her head, closing her eyes tightly. “Not for Tim it wasn’t. Poor little thing! I let him think you didn’t care enough about him to call or—nothing. I don’t see how neither one of y’all can forgive me.”
I took her chin in my hand, turning her face toward me, and she looked at me with shame glistening in her tear-filled eyes.
“You hush about that, you hear?” I told her firmly. “You and I both made mistakes. But I did mine out of self-centeredness and yours was an attempt to save me. Knowing your honesty, I can only imagine how much that cost you. You’ve paid for your sins. You can’t pay for mine—I gotta do that.”
“But—how, honey?” she whispered, looking up at me. “Me and Harris both—give him credit—tried to help Tim afterwards. He was too proud to accept anything from us, even a job at the bank from Harris. He kept insisting the wreck wasn’t your fault.”
I shook my head. “Damned idiot—he knows better than that.”
“I don’t know what he’ll let you do…”
“I don’t know either, Aunt Della,” I admitted. “But I’ll find a way to do something. That I can promise you.”
“Baby? You’ve got to face Tim again before you can do anything else. You’ve got to. Promise me you will.” Again her gnarled old hand grabbed mine painfully. “I know one thing for sure—if you give me your word you won’t break it.”
“I’ll see him, Aunt Della. I promise you that.”
A faint smile touched her lips, though I could have been imagining it, the light from the hallway was so dim. She let go of my hand and nodded. “I’m putting that on my prayer list. Right now.” And she closed her eyes.
I was stretched out in my bed later, smoking a cigarette in the dark. In spite of the scare of the dizzy spell and my fear for Aunt Della, I couldn’t help smiling to myself remembering her horror when she realized I was going to have to help her undress. I almost lost it when I looked at her as I pulled her dress over her head and noticed that her eyes were tightly closed. She was like a refugee from another era, somehow caught in a time warp in the eighties. Sarah said that both Aunt Della and her Aunt Maudie were so incredibly naive, it blew her mind. We had a long bullshitty discussion of small-town life and the way it shelters one from the larger world. Actually, we had this conversation the other night on the banks of the Black Warrior, over a beer, passing a cigarette back and forth.
I smashed my cigarette out in the bottle cap I used for an ashtray, dropped the butt down an empty beer bottle by my bed, and turned over, hoping to get a decent night’s sleep. Even though Aunt Della scared the hell out of me when we got home, it had been a good night—just being with Sarah made it good. Seeing Tim had thrown me, shaken me up more than I realized until now. And Tim—he’d surprised me by looking as shaken as me. God! I was at an advantage, in a way, having seen him from a distance at the football field my first day back. But me suddenly materializing like that, right before his eyes … I bet he almost shit a brick to look up and see me there. At the Catfish Cabin in Mt. Zion, of all the damn places.
The Catfish Cabin became one of mine and Tim’s favorite hangouts after our first trip there, quite a few years ago now. Tim had finished the football season of his sophomore year, the first year he started as a varsity player.
It was sort of a fluke—some good old boy, I can’t recall who now, was the first-string quarterback and he got his bell rung third quarter. Desperate, Coach Mills put Tim in and he astonished hell out of everybody with his throwing arm, getting himself written up in all the local papers. By the end of the season, Tim had taken over the starting position and was getting all sorts of attention from state-wide sports writers, heralding him as a young Namath or Montana. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.
So it was after the state playoffs his very first season that we decided to celebrate. I offered to take Tim out on the town for dinner, going into Tuscaloosa to a nice place. I got all dressed up in a dark suit and tie, trying to decide between the Cypress Inn or the University Club, even toying with the idea of going into Birmingham to Southside, when Tim came over. He too was dressed fit to kill, in a god-awful brown polyester suit that he’d borrowed. He had his hair all slicked down and I had to struggle to keep from laughing at him—I couldn’t help it, he looked so much like a country boy out for his first night on the town. I held myself together until we got in the car and I told him I hadn’t quite decided the best place for us to go to celebrate. His fresh-scrubbed face lit u
p and he turned to me eagerly.
“The whole time I was getting dressed I kept thinking,” he said breathlessly, “reckon Taylor wants to go someplace really nice, like the Catfish Cabin in Mt. Zion? I’ve always wanted to go there.”
“Man, you’ve got to be kidding,” I told him, shaking my head in feigned astonishment. “That’s exactly where I was thinking of taking you!”
After that, going to the Catfish Cabin became our way of celebrating, especially after big victories. The only time we didn’t was after Tim’s last game, one I’ll never forget. It was the first and only time I ever saw Tim drunk.
It was the state championship game, our senior year, Tim’s triumph in a career of triumphs. It was his final game, and all the damn reporters, photographers, and TV cameras in the state of Alabama turned out for it. The Blue Devils captured another state championship in divison 3A, mainly because Tim played such an incredible game, completing twenty-four of thirty passes for over four hundred yards and five touchdowns, breaking records like hell. Tim was the one lifted on his teammates’ shoulders in the final seconds instead of Coach Mills, though that could have been because no one could lift his fat ass that far.
Donnette, of course, was all over Tim—they were a steady item by then, and pictures of them kissing hit the local papers the next day. She clung so tightly to him that I couldn’t get close enough to even congratulate him. I always swore she saw me coming toward him and dragged him to the dressing rooms before I could reach them, unwilling to let me share this triumph with him. Then she stood guard at the door, supposedly to fend off the reporters and all the well-wishers so that Tim could shower and get out of there before being bombarded again.
So I had gone back home then, thinking I’d wait and catch Tim tomorrow, knowing now that the two of us wouldn’t be celebrating that night as was our custom. It was a long drive home; the game was played at Legion Field in Birmingham, and I didn’t relish driving back alone. Normally I shunned the high school crowd, but for some crazy reason that night, I’d longed to share in the glory of the state championship and resented hell out of Donnette’s petty jealousy.
Making Waves Page 18