by Nancy Hedin
I had a head full of questions I wanted to ask him, but only braved asking two of the most pressing.
“Can I still work for you and save for school?”
“Of course you can,” Twitch said, and hugged me. It was one of those A-frame–type hugs that don’t allow for much body contact.
It was a start. I buried my face in the front of Twitch’s shirt and asked him the second question.
“Am I going to get sick too? Is this like some of those illnesses that if one of the litter gets it, they all do?”
“No, honey. It’s not bacteria or something like that.”
Before Twitch escaped into the Jeep, I grabbed him around the shoulders and gave him the hug he should have started that day and in the thousands of days since I was a kid. I didn’t know if I totally believed him that I was safe from the sickness Becky had, but I knew my momma and dad would be there, and I knew Twitch would be there to guide me as much as his science and love would let him.
Grief was a marathon.
None of us had trained.
We lacked endurance, wind capacity, and even proper shoes. Most nights I feared sleep because of nightmares of Becky in the fire. It wasn’t that I didn’t think about it during the day, but at night, if sleep caught me, I couldn’t get away from the pictures, sounds, and smells. I didn’t ask Dad or Kenny if they were having the same problem, in case they weren’t. I didn’t want to start it for them.
I put one foot in front of the other and kept moving. Momma, Dad, and Kenny did the same, I supposed. Caring for Little Man helped. I went through the motions of living a life if only for the fact that I needed to do my part in taking care of Becky’s son. The animals on the farm and in Twitch’s vet practice made demands, oblivious to my desire to cocoon until the memories faded and hurt less.
Once spring passed into summer, Momma rose up like the humidity and took matters into her own hands. For once, I was glad that Momma took control. She started the healing. As usual, she used food. She began cooking again.
She started off easy and made fried chicken. She took the pudgy drumsticks and thighs, dipped them in milk, coated them in bread crumbs, and browned them in Crisco oil until they looked like something kissed by the sun. She cooked fresh garden vegetables—not from our garden, we hadn’t planted a thing that year. Momma used vegetables from Gerry and other neighbors who dropped things off, not knowing what more they could do.
Momma took the onions, carrots, and other produce and nestled them beside pork roasts and beef roasts. She put them adrift in chicken broth and cream sauces. She baked bread, cinnamon rolls, caramel rolls, and molasses buns. She stirred lump-free brown gravies and added a titch of coffee if the color wasn’t deep enough. She fed Dad and me, and Little Man and Kenny when they stayed for dinner.
Eventually, the days didn’t seem so pointless. Momma’s appetite and opinionated attitude returned. Dad’s laughter escaped without the look of self-conscious guilt. Neighbors and friends visited. Pastor and Mrs. Grind, Jolene and Charity, Twitch, and Gerry came often. Talking soon overtook the silences. Language about Becky settled into past tense and airbrushed reminiscence.
Becky would not be resurrected by penance from me or anyone else. Becky was dead.
June passed. I turned nineteen, but couldn’t really imagine celebrating. Becky’s absence was still too glaring. Momma made a cake, red velvet with cream cheese frosting, Becky’s and my favorite. Jolene bought me a bird field guide, and Charity made a pencil sketch of me holding Little Man.
Then in late July, just after Little Man’s first birthday, I told Momma I couldn’t grieve Becky anymore.
“I’ll always remember her, Momma, but I can’t sit under the weight of her absence. I have to live my life.”
If Momma thought me selfish, she didn’t say it or write it in her notebook. Momma gave the signal that it was time to move on with other parts of life. Even though Momma was scared, she made up her mind to go to Clearmont to see her mother.
“What if she doesn’t know me?” Momma asked. “What if she won’t talk to me? What if I wasted my chance?”
“What momma wouldn’t be thrilled to see her child again?” I said.
Momma even let me drive.
The station wagon was still badly dented from Momma’s demolition derby in Kenny’s yard. The passenger door didn’t open, so now our car matched our truck. Momma slid into the passenger seat from the driver’s side of the car. Her feet tapped the floorboards, and she fidgeted in the passenger seat to the point of getting abrasions from her seat belt. She clutched the Jesus bar the whole way to Clearmont.
When Momma and I arrived, the nursing home was bustling with activity. A bingo game had broken out in the lunchroom about the same time as somebody had left the door open to the aviary. Diamond doves and canaries flew through the TV lounge to the nurses’ station, to the lunchroom, and back to the aviary where they thumped the glass in attempts to return to their nests.
Sassy, the official Clearmont Home for the Aged cat, chased through the halls hunting exotic birds. Old people who hadn’t raised their hands above their heads in years swatted at dive-bombing, pastel-colored birds. Momma and I found Grandma lying motionless on her bed in her room.
“Oh God, she’s already dead,” Momma said.
Grandma rose up. “Who’s dead?”
“Mom?” Momma moved slowly toward her mother.
“Margaret?” Grandma lay down again, but she turned her head and looked at Momma. “You’ve gotten fat.”
Normally, those would have been fighting words. I waited for Momma to lash out and maybe leave, but Momma didn’t flare up. It was like she was little—young inside. She toddled to Grandma, pulled a chair close to the bed, and sat.
I watched and actually prayed from the doorway. Momma had lost Becky. I hoped that she could salvage her relationship with Grandma.
“Mom, my baby died too. I know how you hurt when William died. Now, I know.” Momma wrung her hands.
Grandma’s mind was a worn transmission. It slipped and stalled between present and past like she was trying to rock a car out of a rut in the snow.
“Oh, you poor dear,” she said. “No parent should ever have to go through that. It’s just not natural to see your child die before you.” She closed her eyes. “Of course it happened to me. It wasn’t so uncommon then, farm accidents, but still you think that when you get them past that baby time that they should just live and grow up.”
Grandma sat up in bed, swung her legs to the floor, shifted her mind gears into drive, and pressed the accelerator.
“Margaret, how are your girls?”
Momma moved with Grandma’s mind like her hand was on the same gearshift.
“I have the best girls, Mom. You’d be so proud. They graduated top of their class—both scholarship winners. Lorraine is right here with me.” Momma waved me over closer to Grandma.
“Yes, of course. She’s a pretty girl.” Grandma squinted and looked past us to the doorway. “And where’s that Rebecca?”
“Oh Mom, my Becky died.”
“I’m so sorry. That’s the hardest thing. I don’t know how to soothe your heart. Just don’t make the mistake I made. Love the children you have left like they could be gone tomorrow.”
Grandma rocked and hummed. “I lost a child, a son. Take it from this old woman, I know. You’ve got to hold the babies you have left—the ones that died don’t need you no more. The live ones need you.”
That did it. I thought I would fall over. Momma quaked and spilled. Her individual tears were not distinguishable in the continuous stream down her face.
Grandma looked at me and bent forward.
“What’s your name, honey? Are you the new aid? You look so much like my Margaret. She’s a nurse.” Her mind seemed to slip again and she said, “Where’d I put that paper?”
She rummaged through the three drawers in her nightstand, searched her basket of knitting, and then pulled a wrinkled paper out of the bosom of
her slip.
“Gotcha. Here it is, Margaret.” She handed the paper to me. The paper had once been a placemat. On one side knives, folks, and spoons danced with salt and pepper shakers. The other side had a hand-drawn map of a farmstead—house, barn, grain silo, chicken coop, well house. I smoothed the paper out on top of the wheeled table that flanked Grandma’s bed.
“That’s our home farm.” Momma ran her hand over the crude drawing.
“Margaret.” This time Grandma looked at Momma. “You really should go out there and get that nest egg we saved for you. Be a nurse. Get your white cap.”
Grandma pivoted, put her feet on the bed, and closed her eyes. Her mouth fell open moments later and she let out a snuffly snore. Her troubled mind must have eased into park.
I followed the blacktop out of Clearmont at Momma’s instructions. As far as I was concerned we were headed in the wrong direction. I no more believed that nest egg existed than I believed in the Easter bunny.
The paved road gave way to a rutted gravel road. The dust rose and choked me until I closed the window and vents. What seemed like a ditch turned out to be an overgrown driveway. Thigh-high grasses and bushes combed the undercarriage of the station wagon, and woody branches scratched the windows and doors. Just beyond a windbreak of scrubby pine trees stood what remained of the farm where Momma had grown up.
The house, a saltbox structure, had lost its paint, and all the windows were broken out. The grain silo had collapsed upon itself into rubble. The chicken coop leaned west and the well house listed east like they were stooping to hear what the other had whispered.
The barn still stood. Its windows were gone, giving it the look of a vacant face. I parked as close to it as I dared. The barn appeared like it could collapse any moment.
“We don’t have a shovel,” Momma said.
“Don’t tell me you believe that nest egg is still here?”
“What do we have to lose in checking? She drew us a map.” She turned the map in her hand. “I know this barn. We are right here. The nest egg is in the northwest corner of the barn.” She pointed and started to move toward the barn.
“I’m not going in there. That barn is ready to fall down.”
“It’s not that old. It just looks old because no one has used it or taken care of it for years. Besides, there might be money for college in there.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and refused to look at Momma. “I’m working for Twitch and taking out a small student loan.”
“Hard to know what animals are in those weeds and the barn,” Momma said.
“Okay. I’ll go with you, but I don’t believe there’s any money.” I grabbed the flashlight from the glove box and went around to the back of the wagon to get the tire iron.
“Good, Lorraine. If we see snakes or rats you can swat them with that.”
“I’m not killing anything. This is to dig up that money.”
We picked our way through the long grass, burdocks, and thistles. Cicadas whined. The barn door no longer hung on its track. I used the tire iron to pry it open. The wood shredded like dry turkey breast, but enough of it held together so that I could lever it open and get through. I leaned against it from the inside and created a gap large enough for Momma. If Momma got any slivers or cuts, she didn’t complain.
Light filtered through the windows on either end of the barn, but not enough to help me know where to step or see what animals were skittering along the floor and in the haymow above.
I squeezed the rubber grip of the flashlight and turned it on. Momma took my arm and pointed in the direction of what I assumed was the northwest corner of the barn, but looked like a black hole in space.
Old straw crunched under my feet. Barn swallows abandoned their nests and flew out the glassless windows as Momma and I made our way through the barn. There was dried manure a foot, foot and a half deep in some places. I wondered how old the shit was. Had my grandpa left it like this, or was I walking on the remnants of work other farmers had failed to do?
Momma looked around her. She touched the wooden beams. “My dad and his dad built this barn. Can you picture men straddled on the rafters, first nailing roof boards, then tar paper to the roof and later shingling it? Some of the haymow boards were nailed in place by me once I was strong enough to swing the ten-ounce hammer Dad gave me for the job. I remember trying my first cigarette in that haymow. It’s a wonder I didn’t burn the place down.”
The northwest corner of the barn had a manger that had kept the hay up off the floor. Momma held the flashlight while I pulled and pried the rotted boards away. I kicked stale, decomposing hay out of the corner until I got to concrete.
Momma shined the flashlight down on the floor.
“Look under here,” she said. The light started to flicker like the batteries were giving out. She slapped the flashlight against her hand, and it worked again. I knelt and swept debris away until I reached the cement floor. I felt along the floor for cracks in the cement. I found a fault line just as the light failed again.
“Goddamn it!”
Momma’s swearing scared me more than the darkness. I rose up and banged my head on a board. I knelt again and passed my hands over the cement like I was reading a braille holy book. “I found a crack.”
“Well?” Momma asked.
“Do you want me to try to pry up the pieces of concrete here in the dark? Or should we go and come back with a new light?”
“I’m tired of waiting. Try to open that hole.”
I felt around for the tire iron. I located the crack again and put the beveled end of the tire iron on top of the opening. I pressed down and rocked the tool. The compromised concrete powdered against the steel and the edge of the tire iron sunk. I levered the loose pieces away. After I’d opened an area just slightly larger than a dinner plate, I put my hands in the dirt below and dug.
The sand and gravel felt cold and wet. It gave way more easily than I’d expected. I hadn’t been digging very long when I hit something hard. It felt and sounded like metal when I tapped against it with my fingernails. I cursed the useless flashlight and the irresponsible family that had left it in the car with dead batteries.
“What would Grandma and Grandpa have buried it in?”
“I don’t know.” Momma lowered herself to her knees. There was no way Momma could get back to her feet without a tractor and logging chain, especially if there was the added weight of disappointment if we didn’t find the nest egg.
“It’s a can—probably a coffee can.” She put her hands in the hole and fingered the thing I had found.
We both dug like possessed pocket gophers. We got the can loose and held it between us there in the dark.
“Can you lead us out of this place?” I asked Momma.
“I can.”
I took the can, put it on the floor, and stood up. I helped Momma to her feet. As I reached for the can and the tire iron, the barn boards creaked and shifted.
I turned to Momma. “That seems about right. I’m going to be crushed just before possibly finding enough money for me to go to college.”
Momma led the way. I was at her hip. We inched along the barn floor as the walls below the gambrel roof moaned. When we found the door where we’d come in, Momma pushed the door and made an opening for me. I went through and pulled the door open enough for Momma to pass through.
Spiderwebs and straw netted Momma’s hair, mud and dust caked her hands and knees, and I noticed for the first time that Momma was a beautiful woman. I had probably entertained those thoughts years before, but no time recently. She had been a big aggravation and obstacle to me—nothing beautiful. But there she was, not yet forty and her losses would have wizened anyone, but she was still young and beautiful.
“Let’s open this can, Momma.”
The lid had rusted and adhered to the can. I used my jackknife blade to pry around the edges, but it wouldn’t budge. I was ready to tear at it with my teeth when Momma found a good use for that dead flashlight.
She beat on the can, and it separated at the seams.
Inside was a bundle wrapped in wax paper. Momma placed the bundle on the car hood and fumbled with the paper.
Momma jerked and gasped. There was her high school diploma, yellowed but legible.
“I ran away,” she said. “I thought I made graduation, but I never saw my diploma to know for sure.” Tears streamed from her eyes. Just that piece of paper would probably have been enough, but there was more. There were William’s and Momma’s birth certificates. Momma took each document into her hands, examined it, and handed it to me.
“Look here, Lorraine.” She handed me a black-and-white photograph. The back of the photo read, County Fair 19__, Michael, Aggie, Margaret, and William.
“We had our family picture taken at the fair. I was five, and William was a baby.” Momma petted the photo like she could touch her brother and dad.
The last thing in the bundle were woolen socks.
Shit.
My heart fell.
Grandma’s idea of a college nest egg was a few documents and equipment for warm feet. Momma tossed the socks to me.
“There you go, daughter.” She grinned at me.
“Great. Just what I need is wool socks.”
“That’s just one sock,” Momma said. “Look inside.”
I unrolled the sock, found the opening, and reached inside.
I had money for college.
It wasn’t the McGerber scholarship. That money wasn’t right for our family anyway. It certainly wasn’t right for me. There were too many strings attached to money from a holy man, too many expectations of what it meant to love God.
The money I did have had been earned by my grandparents. The nest egg was real. Momma gave me the money that would have been hers if she hadn’t gotten pregnant with Becky and me. This was what I had wanted. I finally had an immediate way out, so why hadn’t I packed my bags? I couldn’t answer my own question. I made like I could and pulled my duffel from under my bed with an idea that I would begin packing.
I held the money in my hands. The bills were soft and wrinkled from years in a woolen sock, in a coffee can buried under the cracked cement of Grandma and Grandpa’s barn. The money smelled musty and sour. I imagined that a forensic scientist—maybe one of those CSI folks—could have looked at the bills under a microscope and seen my grandparents’ sweat-smeared fingerprints on them. I counted them again, one hundred hundred-dollar bills, enough to build a small house at the time they’d first been put in the steel can. They didn’t use it for themselves. They’d put it in a can for their children and covered it with cement—maybe so they wouldn’t change their mind. Then they’d told the story to their children. One child died, and it took a lifetime for the other child to believe she had the right to take what was promised.