“What we going to name her?”I asked him that afternoon.
“Her?” he said.
“Yes, her. What about Little Claudia after my papa, Claude?”
“What if I want a little boy to follow me around so I can teach him things like how to shave and play?
“Reckon we’ll have to have us another one, then,” I told him.
We laughed, and the sound of it filled that room like nobody’s business.
In the days out from that, Harold would ask, “Heard from Little Claudia today?” and we’d both get real still and put our hands on my belly and wait. It didn’t happen every day, but when we did, we had us a connection that I believed was strong enough to take us through.
But there come a time when we didn’t feel her move no more, and I started to bleed. Harold took me to the doctor, and he listened to my belly and didn’t hear nothing either, so he told me to go home and get in the bed, that I was so deep into it, I’d have to wait on my time to come. I felt like somebody had put me in hot grease and then thrown it in the deep freeze.
It took two weeks for my time to come. The doctor come out to our house. And I was right, Mama Red. She was a girl. And she was blue in color. I had to plead with him to let me hold her. I did it loud and hard the way you would, but he wouldn’t let me. He said, “You might get attached,” and kept her in his stiff arms. I wanted to put my mouth up to hers and blow in it. I wanted to see if I could wake her up.
He asked us what church we went to. I told him we didn’t. He said he knew of a place south of town that would take her and then said, “Best you forget about all of this, Mrs. Creamer,” and walked out the door with her.
When my milk come in, my bosom swelled up hard as rocks, and I felt a pain that I don’t have no words for. Harold would hold me until it all went quiet. Then a bad infection set in and took away any chance of me ever carrying again.
My mama was right, I told myself. I wouldn’t make no good mama, and my little girl knew that.
NOVEMBER 18–19, 1951
The envelope was pink and lay on top of the light bill in Sarah’s mailbox. She’d not taken the time the day before to check her mail, since she and her boy had stayed with Lucky, who was still on his feet and alive, but his whistle had not returned. Sarah’s eyes were tired, so she couldn’t be sure, but it looked to be a personal letter with a large “S” that started off the first name. Could it be Sarah? Or Sister? Mattie’s favorite color was pink. Sarah felt a surge rise to her head.
She reached for it. There was her name, the “C” of Creamer standing tall like the “S” and both taking up space. The return address showed Mrs. Luther C. Dobbins. Sarah put her finger on the letters and traced them, letting herself follow the woman’s rises and falls.
She felt a tightness in her belly. What if Mildred was writing to say she no longer wanted to help her find buyers for her dresses? Sarah thought about putting the letter back in the box. But what if it was something good?
She opened it. The letter inside was of that same pink and carried a border of red roses. The paper was more delicate than any she’d ever seen. She held it lightly. “Dear Sarah,” she read, “I have a special surprise for you Monday morning. I know it’s late notice, but it would delight me to pick you up at your house at fifteen minutes past 9. However, if you do not choose to answer your door, I will understand that you do not desire to go. Sincerely, Mildred.”
Of course, she desired to go.
She wanted to scream and tell someone. Emerson Bridge was in the lot with Lucky. She opened her mouth and drew in a breath, made a gasping sound, the kind her boy had first made when he was days old. Harold was holding him in the kitchen, and Emerson Bridge was laughing and Sarah noticed his dimples, for the first time, noticed his dimples. She blew on his face like a gentle wind, but he gasped and Sarah feared she’d hurt him. His laughter, though, resumed, his dimples sinking deeper into his soft flesh. Sarah knew then that he was filled with more capacity for joy than she’d thought was possible for one living soul, much less one so new to this world.
Sarah now began to laugh. She laughed hard and loud and spun around like a schoolgirl. But she lost her balance and fell to the dirt. When she got on her feet again, she was facing the garden and, on the other side, the house that used to hold Mattie.
She felt Mattie’s eyes on her. They were sad. “You’re still my friend, too,” Sarah called out and took off running to Mattie’s, to the front steps, once painted a pretty green but now faded and cracked. The screened door with the bird on it had rusted. Sarah had not stood on this porch since the day Mattie died, and the ambulance carried away what was left of her.
She put her hand on the handle. “I don’t mean to take away nothing from what was ours, Sister. But I got me a new friend now, and I need you to bless it.”
Sarah waited, her ears tuned to the little pitter patter of Mattie’s feet and her voice, high and hushed.
The wind picked up at Sarah’s back, making the skirt of her dress billow and her apron flap against the door. Mildred’s letter lay in her front pocket. It could blow away. She pressed her hand against it, the words “do not” from the last line coming to her. She removed the letter, her eyes moving to the words. “But if you do not choose to answer your door, I will understand that you do not desire to go.”
“Do not, that’s right,” Sarah said out loud. “If you do not want to do it, Sister, do not want to give me your blessing, I will understand.” She spread her arms across the screened door, leaned her forehead against the top of the bird’s beak. The metal felt cold and rough against her the way Harold’s hands had felt, crusty from the years he’d spent working outside on telephone poles and consuming enough whiskey to fill a sky and dry his body like slivers of apples in the sun. She could feel his hands clutching the sides of her naked hips, Harold at her back and her leaning against their bed. The first time he’d wanted it that way, she’d thought he was too tired to turn her around and lay her flat. But after the second and third times, she knew this was the way he preferred it now, maybe even needed it. She knew she was not a pretty woman. Sarah could not remember the day Harold began this, but it was after Billy Udean left for war and he and Mattie began working together.
The bird had warmed beneath her. It would cut her, if she moved.
She moved. She moved her forehead to the left and then dragged it across to the right.
She took herself from the door. Where she’d scraped her skin felt cool and began to burn. But it felt alive.
She balled up her fist and hit the door. “Why can’t you, Mattie? Why can’t you just do this one thing for me? I ain’t never asked you for nothing.”
Sarah held herself still and listened.
But the wind was all that answered her.
She descended the steps and returned to the mailbox and took out the light bill. It was stamped Past Due, Second Notice. Maybe she shouldn’t go with Mildred now. Maybe she should finish the dress she was making before Mr. Merritt told them the bad news about Lucky. She had already lost a day’s work.
No, she would not be answering the door when Mrs. Dobbins knocked the next morning. By the time Mrs. Dobbins set her delicate hand to rap, Sarah would be onto her third dress.
…..
The steer’s front knees dropped to the ground. The rope, with its short run and scant play, thrust his chin high into the air and held it there. He released a long moan.
Emerson Bridge jumped up from the bucket. “You got to stand up. Come on, stand up!” He was careful not to call Lucky’s name. His hands and arms worked hard to try to pull the animal to his feet. But he could not make him budge.
“Mama!” Emerson Bridge screamed. She was in the house sewing.
He thought about untying the rope, but then he would lie down for sure and die. The animal made a gurgling sound. He was choking. “Come on, get up!” He gave Lucky one big yank, but he stayed on his knees. He thought of his papa’s words. Be kind. Choking is not kind. H
e should untie the rope, but it was too tight.
He ran to the barn, got his papa’s handsaw and began moving it back and forth over the rope, his hand becoming his papa’s. He sawed harder and faster.
The saw cut through.
The animal went down on his back knees, then his whole body to the ground. Emerson Bridge dropped down beside him and placed his knees against his steer’s side to try to keep him from rolling over. “Please don’t die. Please give me another chance for you to trust me.”
Nighttime was almost full upon them. The air was chilled. He could see his breath.
Another deep freeze was on its way.
…..
“Mama, what’s a deep freeze?” Sarah heard at her back. She stopped pedaling.
Her boy stood in the doorway. She had to adjust her eyes to see him. Her lamp was turned low.
“You talking about a place to keep food, hon?”
“If that’s what it is. A deep freeze.”
“It’s like an ice box that rich people keep their food in.”
He brought his arms up and folded them across his chest. They’d been hanging free by his side. She wished she could buy him a new coat, but that would have to wait until she caught up on the light bill. “You cold, hon?”
“What kind of food, Mama?”
“Beans, corn. Even meat, for people who can afford meat. You hungry, hon?” She knew he had to be sleepy. Hungry, too. He’d not wanted any supper.
“So it ain’t a big frost like we had last night?” he said.
“Why, yes, that could be a deep freeze, too.”
“It could?” There was a lift in his voice now.
She’d always known he was smart. Mattie was smart. She could add figures in her head without writing them down.
“How’s Lucky, hon? I mean—” She wanted to honor his not wanting to call the animal’s name. She feared he was trying to distance himself, thinking the steer would die. “Everything all right out there, hon?”
“What kind of meat, Mama?”
She took that as a good sign. He would have said if something had changed. “All kinds, I reckon.”
“What about that fatback and Treet we have sometimes. Are they meat?”
“You hungry, hon? We got a strip of fatback in the woodstove. Let me get it for you.” She slid her chair back.
“I ain’t hungry. Just wanted to know if that’s meat.” He was talking fast.
“Why, yes, hon. And that’s as good as I can do right now. I wish I could—”
“Where does it come from?” He’d never run over her words before.
“George Drake’s, mostly.”
“I mean, from what animal, Mama?”
“Why, fatback’s from a hog. I think that’s right, I didn’t grow up in the country. And I don’t know about that Treet, but I think that’s meat too. I sure intend it as such.”
Emerson Bridge stepped away from the door and into the hall’s darkness.
Sarah stood. “Why, hon? You got a lesson on that at school?” She wanted to go to him, but she heard him take another step back.
“I don’t want no deep freeze. Ever!” He turned and ran.
Nobody in the whole world could ask for a better boy. He never asked for anything, always accepting however little she could give.
She began pedaling again, the hum of it like a train going down the tracks, taking passengers to someplace they used to know. Like Gainesville, Georgia. But Sarah didn’t want to go there. Trains also take passengers to someplace new. Like Mildred’s house. But she wouldn’t need a train to take her there. She wouldn’t even need her automobile. She would just need to be in her kitchen, ready.
She wondered what time it was. Harold’s watch by their bed showed it was shortly before eight o’clock. In thirteen hours, Mrs. Dobbins would be at her door. Sarah could smell peppermints. She could hear laughter.
She stopped pedaling. She could spare a few hours from her sewing, couldn’t she?
She went to her chifforobe. Her rack of dresses, the checks of red and green and brown and yellow, the brown solid and the green. She was on the lookout for special. But she saw none.
Her eyes fell to the baby-blue blanket. She let herself pick it up and, from it, take Mattie’s cloth. She held it up high by one of the long ends and let the rest fall to the floor, where it puddled up.
Sarah closed the door and looked past the brown specks of tarnished glass in the mirror at the house dress on her body. She took hold of the dress at her waist and began pulling it away. Close to two feet of space lay between her fingers and her body.
She allowed herself to have a thought. Reckon Mattie’s cloth would be enough to span Clementine Florence Augusta Sarah Bolt Creamer? She brought the cloth to her body and held it across her. It more than spanned her. Her hands began to shake.
…..
Emerson Bridge stood in the yard between his house and the lot where his steer lay on the ground. He had not wanted to leave him, but what he had started to think could not be true. They wouldn’t do that to the grand champion. Make meat out of him?
He told himself he was just tired from lack of sleep and scared that the animal he had come to love would not recover. It was making him think funny. And not say his name? What if someone had told him not to say “Papa” on that last day when they had shaved? That would be wrong.
He turned towards the lot. He would not only call Lucky’s name, he would scream it so loud, his papa would hear him.
“Luckeeeeeeeey!” he yelled and ran to his buddy.
…..
Sarah held her breath and fed her arms through the bottom of Mattie’s cloth, lifting them as if giving praise. Down her body, the material fell. It made the whole journey.
She looked at herself in the mirror. Morning had come, and its light filled in the space around her. She placed her flat hands on her hipbones and then brought them, stiff with measurement, to her reflection. Nineteen inches, she looked to be. She used to measure twice that.
It was almost nine o’clock. She set her hat upon her head. It had to be positioned just right, since her forehead had scabbed up. She lowered the netting to just above her eyes. She’d never seen a woman wear it like this, this halfway style. On her hands, she placed her gloves, and on her feet, her shoes. They had holes in their soles now.
This was a good day. Her boy had wanted to go to school. He had told her, “Lucky’s going to be all right, Mama.” He had called his steer’s name.
…..
The knock came at 9:15 exactly. Sarah smoothed down the sides of her dress and opened the door to the porch and on it stepped. Mrs. Dobbins stood on the other side of the screened door, which Sarah swung open, her eyes falling to the pretty blue and white. “Why, I ain’t never seen a prettier automobile,” Sarah told her. “Reminds me of a movie star’s, what that woman that played Scarlett in that picture I saw one time must drive out there in Hollywood. Can see her now with her scarf and big sunglasses riding around.” Sarah knew she was talking too much and told herself to be quiet, that she was in the presence of a rich lady. All she really wanted to say was thank you.
Mrs. Dobbins headed towards town. Sarah didn’t wonder where they were going. She didn’t care. But soon the woman turned onto Dixon Road and then into her driveway. Mrs. Dobbins was taking her to her house.
They went inside the back door and stopped in the hallway beside the telephone. Mrs. Dobbins looked at her watch. “We’re a tad early,” she said and turned on a radio that sat on the table. Sarah didn’t remember the radio being there before.
“I want to thank you, Mrs. Dobbins, for whatever the surprise is,” Sarah told her.
“Mildred, call me Mildred.”
“Mildred, yes, Mildred, I remember. Thank you.”
“And I want to thank you, too, Sarah. You gave me the courage to say my piece around Big LC. I told him I was going to bring you over here, and he said nothing against it.”
Sarah was glad about that, but she
had her mind on her and Mildred’s outing. She wondered what they were early for. It appeared to be a telephone call. Was Mildred going to call Sarah’s mother again? She felt her stomach knot up.
But Mildred was giggling and fingering her pearls. “Oooh, it’s that music,” she called out and turned up the radio.
A man began talking. “Ladies, I hope you are by your telephone.” His voice was deep as a good well. “It’s time for Shoe of the Week, sponsored by our good friends at Welborn’s Shoes on the square in Anderson, where you get exclusive but not expensive footwear.” Mildred’s eyes sparkled. “For all of you ladies who put your name and telephone number in the registration box at the store last week, get ready. I’m about to draw a name.”
Mildred was holding a folded piece of paper.
“I’m now placing a call to the lucky lady, and if she can describe the shoe of the week, she wins that shoe in her lovely size.”
Sarah knew what the surprise was now. Mildred thought she might win and wanted Sarah there to share in the joy.
The telephone began ringing. Mildred screamed and reached for the receiver. Sarah screamed, too.
“Hello,” Mildred said. Her teeth were as white as her pearls.
The man on the radio said, “Is this Mrs. Sarah Creamer?”
Sarah’s heart jumped.
“Why, she’s right here.” Mildred passed the receiver to Sarah.
“But I ain’t never been there before,” Sarah whispered to Mildred, who held the telephone at Sarah’s ear.
Mildred pointed towards Sarah’s mouth. “Say hello,” she whispered.
Sarah swallowed. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Creamer?” the man said.
“This is Sarah.”
“Mrs. Sarah Creamer, can you name the shoe of the week?”
Mildred was pointing to the paper she was holding and mouthing out “Read!”
Sarah shoved the netting on her forehead up. “It’s the, the—Du—,” she read.
“Spell it,” Mildred whispered.
“It’s the D-u-e-t.”
“Ladies, we have a winner! The featured shoe is, indeed, the Duet, one of the genuine Logrollers, by Sandler of Boston, made with a hand-sewn vamp and back. Mrs. Sarah Creamer, congratulations!”
One Good Mama Bone Page 18