Tomato Girl

by Jayne Pupek

  A few years ago, my parents gave me a sewing basket, just like Mama’s, only smaller, filled with buttons, needles, and spools of thread. Mama had shown me how to thread the needle and tie a knot. I’d practiced until I’d gotten it right, and eventually I’d learned how to sew on buttons and even repair simple hems.

  After I’d sewn on a button, Daddy would dig into his pocket and pull out a shiny coin to pay for my work, saying, “This is for my little seamstress.”

  I kept the coins in a glass jar under my bed. It was my sewing money, I’d told Mary Roberts, holding the half-filled jar in my hands. I had plans for my sewing money, but never could settle on just one idea for long. Sometimes, a new red record player like the one in the window at Montgomery Ward’s topped my list. Other times I wanted a nice set of oil paints, or a stack of hardback books that wouldn’t have to go back to the library because they were mine to keep.

  Another jar held the buttons I collected to sew on Daddy’s clothes. After sweeping the floors in the store, I checked the dustbin for any lost buttons. When we went to church, I searched the pews. In the market, I checked shelves near the cigarettes and dirty magazines where men most often lost their buttons.

  Sewing Daddy’s shirt was a job I loved almost as much as tending the Easter chicks. When I held his shirt in my hand, I believed Daddy was mine for keeps.

  THE CAB PULLED in front of the hospital entrance and while Daddy paid the driver, I counted six floors of windows. Babies were born on the second floor. I knew this because we’d sent a card to my third-grade teacher when her son was born. Fifth floor was for people who hurt themselves on purpose, which I knew because many times Daddy had reminded Mama that she didn’t want to end up there. I didn’t know which floor was for people who fell down basement steps, but I hoped Mama was on the first floor so I wouldn’t have to go too high up to see her.

  I’d been born inside this hospital, but that was too far back for me to remember. I’d been back there at age three to have stitches in my chin after falling against a saw in Daddy’s toolshed. I don’t remember the accident, only Daddy carrying me with a towel pressed to my face and the bright light in my eyes when the doctor stitched my cut. Daddy had been angry at Mama for letting me play in his shed. After we came home, he’d put a big padlock on the door and then sat out on the front porch, drinking so many beers he stumbled when he stood to come inside.

  AS MUCH AS I wanted to see Mama, the hospital scared me. Daddy must have sensed how nervous I felt. He held my hand as we walked toward the large glass doors, which opened like magic when we stepped on the black mat in front of them.

  While Daddy held one hand, I carried my pocketbook in the other, my sleeping chick tucked inside. I whispered to him to stay quiet so Mama would be surprised. I hoped that bringing him wouldn’t get me in trouble. This morning, Daddy had said it was against hospital rules for animals to visit, but Tess found my straw purse in the closet and told him, “Here, the chick will be able to breathe in this, and no one will ask to see inside a girl’s purse.” Daddy threw up his hands, which meant Tess and I had won.

  Just inside the door, Daddy stopped in the lobby and knelt in front of me. “Ellie, I don’t want you to talk about the baby around your mother.”

  “Why?” I didn’t understand Daddy’s serious face or why he didn’t want me to talk about Mama’s new baby. “If she thinks about the baby, maybe that will make her get well faster.”

  “But the doctor thinks Mama’s baby might not live, and that will make her very, very sad. Just because the baby is all right now doesn’t mean that it’s out of the woods yet. Remember when Nana and Grandpa died, how Mama’s sad mood came on?”

  I nodded. I had been only five when it happened, but I remembered, and I knew I’d never forget.

  WE’D BEEN EATING supper when the telephone rang. Mama answered the phone and then only listened. When she hung up the phone, she screamed and dug her fingernails into her face, leaving red trails. Daddy had to hold her down on the floor to make her stop, and she kicked and screamed, biting his hand so hard blood came.

  I remember I hid in the corner. Mama was scarier than any bad dream I’d ever had.

  Daddy had called for a doctor to come and give Mama a shot to make her sleep. This was before he started giving her shots himself. Maybe it’s where he got the idea.

  The next day, Mama walked around the house mumbling to herself, a wad of tissue clutched in her hands.

  Daddy and I drove her to the train station so she could go to the funeral in Georgia. I asked Daddy why he and I didn’t go, too, and he said something about my uncles not being on speaking terms with him. We never visited them and they never came to Virginia, and I don’t remember ever seeing a Christmas card from them. Daddy said some people carry grudges to their graves.

  A week later Mama came home wearing a black dress that she wouldn’t take off. She didn’t want to talk or eat or play. That’s when I started going to the store with my father, or staying at Mary Roberts’s house.

  One day we came home and found Mama sprawled on the kitchen floor, a bag of flour in her lap and a tablespoon in her hand. Mama was spooning flour into her mouth, and with each scoop, dough clumps stuck to her lips where the flour mixed with her spit.

  The doctor came back. This time he brought a nurse and a colored man who made Mama get into the back of their car. They took her away, and I didn’t see Mama for months.

  She wrote me, printing her letters so I could read them. She told me how sorry she was, and said that losing a mother and a father was very hard. She said I would someday know for myself, and then I would forgive her.

  Just before she came home, Mama wrote and told me how wonderful things were going to be. How she would sew me beautiful dresses and make angel cookies. We’d cut paper dolls from the Sears catalog, and at night, take our thick blankets and sleep under the stars.

  We did do all those things. But only for a little while.

  THE HOSPITAL SEEMED to have grown larger since last night. Or maybe Daddy’s warning made me feel small.

  “I won’t say anything about the baby,” I promised.

  “And let me tell your mother about Tess,” Daddy added as he took my hand again and led me deeper into the hospital.

  We passed through the waiting room where I’d sat last night. I was glad to see that the old man was gone, and a fat lady squeezed into a green dress had taken his place. The bad ammonia smell hadn’t gone away though.

  At the nurse’s station, we stopped to find out which room was my mother’s. “Julia Sanders is in 311,” the nurse said.

  “How was she last night?” Daddy asked.

  “You’ll have to check with the nurse on the third floor.”

  WHEN WE REACHED the nurse’s station, Daddy stopped and asked about Mama’s condition.

  “Let me check her chart,” the nurse answered. She reached for a metal clipboard and read a few notes. “Mrs. Sanders seems to have slept well and her vitals are all good. No change in her status. Appears to be doing quite well.”

  The nurse looked up to see if Daddy had another question.

  “And the baby?” he asked.

  “No change.”

  “Thank you,” Daddy said, and took me by the hand.

  “No change is good, isn’t it, Daddy?”

  “Yes,” Daddy said without looking at me.

  We found room 311 and Daddy pushed the dark door open, a little at first, then wider.

  “Good morning,” he said, nudging me toward Mama.

  She looked small and thin in the big metal bed. Fragile, too. Her skin was so white. Her brown hair spread out like a fan on the pillow.

  When she saw me, she smiled. She put her elbows behind her and tried to sit, but then winced.

  “Should I get the nurse, Julia?” Daddy asked, rushing to her side.

  “No, no, I’ll be fine,” she insisted, motioning him to sit in the overstuffed chair beside her bed. Mama wore a faded floral-print hospital gown wi
th blue piping around the neck. A gauze bandage covered the stitches on her forehead. Brown dots of iodine seeped through the bandage so that it looked almost like a tea bag pasted to her skin. A blue-black bruise darkened the right side of Mama’s face.

  I stepped closer to the bed, lay my purse on the blanket, and reached out to touch her bruise. It was an ugly, dark stain on her pale skin. I wanted to wash it away. “Does it hurt, Mama?”

  She took my hand between hers and rubbed it the way she did on cold days to make the blood flow. “Only a little.”

  I pulled Mama’s smooth hands to my lips and kissed them. They had a strange lemon smell, almost like cough drops. I wrinkled my nose.

  “I know, it smells awful,” Mama said. “I asked the nurse for hand lotion and she brought this horrible cream.” She turned to my father, and added, “Rupert, do you think you could bring a gown from home, and some Jergens?”

  “Of course. I should have thought of that myself, that you’d be more comfortable with some of your own things. I’m sorry.”

  “No need to be sorry. It’s been a difficult time.”

  “I brought something from home,” I whispered to my mother.

  “You did?” Mama’s eyes widened in surprise.

  I unhooked my purse lid and lifted my chick for her to see.

  “Let me take a closer look,” she said. Mama patted the mattress, motioning me to sit beside her.

  I climbed onto the edge of the bed, careful not to hurt her, and placed my green chick in her hands.

  Mama cupped her palms around the fluffy chick and smiled. “Oh, Ellie, he’s adorable! What an unusual green color. Did you name him?”

  I nodded. “Jellybean.”

  “That’s an interesting name …”

  “Tess thought of it. She knows good names.”

  “Tess?” My mother’s thin eyebrows rose, making small arrows across her forehead.

  “Tess is Daddy’s tomato girl.” I smacked my hand over my mouth. I wasn’t supposed to tell.

  “Isn’t she Mason Reed’s girl, the one who has epilepsy?” she asked my father.

  “Well, yes, she has epilepsy, Julia,” Daddy said, shifting in his chair. “But she hasn’t had an episode in months. Doctor’s got her on some new medicine. She’ll be a big help to you, cleaning up around the house, cooking. The doctor said you’re not supposed to do any lifting or bending.”

  “I know that, Rupert, but I don’t think a teenage girl with her own infirmity is what the doctor had in mind.” The muscles along the edge of Mama’s jawline stiffened, making the veins in her neck rise. I watched Jellybean in her hands.

  “Julia, there’s no need to get upset. Just trust me on this. Tess will work out fine.”

  Mama didn’t answer. Her lips narrowed into a straight line.

  Jellybean peeped. Mama’s hands were too tight around him.

  I nudged my chick’s small body from Mama’s tight fingers and put him my back inside my purse.

  The rest of the visit with Mama felt as heavy and slow as a sermon. No one said another word about Tess, but her presence hung in the air like smoke you couldn’t fan away.

  Daddy worked the crossword puzzle from the newspaper and talked with Mama about the landscaping company opening up just outside of town. “They placed quite an order last week,” he said, and gave Mama details about the wheelbarrows, levels, spades, and spools of twine he’d sold.

  I stood by the bed and combed Mama’s long hair. Little flecks of blood had dried on her scalp and peppered her pillow.

  We stayed with Mama until her tray came, a bowl of pot roast, mashed potatoes, and oily green beans. We kissed her good-bye, first Daddy, then me. As much as I hated the hospital and wanted to leave, I would have done anything to stay with Mama. I wanted to sit by her side and spoon smooth mashed potatoes into her mouth. I wanted to hold the milk carton to her lips and urge her to drink it all. And then after her meal, I’d curl beside her and tell stories until we both fell asleep.

  Daddy placed his hands on my shoulders and made me step away from Mama’s bed. We promised to come back the next day and bring a few things from home.

  Mama smiled, then turned toward the window. The corners of her eyes were moist with tears.

  BACK ON THE FIRST FLOOR, Daddy was quiet while we sat in the hospital lobby and waited for the cab. He looked out the door as cars slowed by the entrance. A woman in a wheelchair rolled across the floor, then an elderly man in a gray suit walked in and nodded to Daddy. I’d seen the man in the store, but couldn’t remember his name. If we sat there long enough, we’d run into customers who knew us. Daddy didn’t say anything, and I didn’t feel like talking either.

  Something about Tess troubled Mama. Daddy knew it. So did I. Still, neither of us said a word, as if by keeping quiet, we could ignore what we knew.

  Kissing Tess now seemed like a bad thing. Somehow, I felt I’d betrayed my mother.

  When I got home, I’d wash out my mouth with something awful like dish-washing liquid, and I would never, ever kiss her again.

  SEVEN

  LITTLE SEAMSTRESS

  INSTEAD OF TAKING ME home or to the store, Daddy dropped me off at Mary Roberts’s house. Mary was in school, but her mother was home. When Daddy asked if she’d look after me, she smiled and said, “I’d be delighted, Rupert.” Mrs. Roberts is always delighted to do her Christian duty, which means helping when she can. “How is Julia?” she asked. “I couldn’t believe the news when you telephoned. One always worries about the elderly falling, but I guess it can happen to just anyone, now can’t it?”

  Daddy smiled as Mrs. Roberts babbled on. “Julia’s going to be fine. Just fine,” he said and patted my shoulder.

  “And you said you found a girl to stay while Julia recovers?”

  “Yes, Tess Reed has agreed to stay.”

  Mrs. Roberts raised an eyebrow. “I see. Well, you know, Rupert, I would have been delighted to find a girl from the church. The Reeds don’t have the best reputation.”

  “I appreciate that, I really do, but don’t trouble yourself. Tess will work out just fine. She’s got a lot of energy and is happy to help. Now, I need to get to work. Expecting a shipment of paint today.”

  “I want to go to the store with you,” I begged, tugging at Daddy’s arm. I didn’t understand why I had to stay with Mrs. Roberts.

  “You missed school today, Ellie. You’ll need to get your notes and homework from Mary. There will be other days to go to the store.”

  I could tell that was a made-up excuse. Daddy didn’t want me at the store today. But why?

  While I tried to figure things out, Daddy kissed my head and reminded me to be home for supper. We lived only four houses down from Mary Roberts, so I was allowed to walk.

  “Thanks again, Charlotte,” Daddy said to Mrs. Roberts before he left in the cab without me.

  MRS. ROBERTS MADE me lunch, and I ate my tuna sandwich quickly, washing it down with cold milk. I tried hard to answer Mrs. Roberts’s questions without telling her too much. As Daddy has said, “Be careful what you say at Mary’s house. Mrs. Roberts tells everything she knows and half of what she doesn’t.” I watched my words and did not say anything about either Mama’s baby or Tess.

  “God certainly was looking after your mother, Ellie. Why, plenty of people have broken their neck in falls half that distance.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I agreed, even though I didn’t know of a single person with a broken neck. I wasn’t so sure God was looking after Mama either. If He was, why did He let her fall in the first place? But not being up to a sermon from Mrs. Roberts, I kept quiet.

  After lunch, I played on Mary’s swingset, waiting for her to come home. While I twirled on Mary’s swing, Mrs. Roberts swept the front porch and carried letters to her mailbox. She smiled and offered to get me more milk or something each time she stepped outside. I wondered what it would be like to have a mother who checked on you. Mama so often needed me that I couldn’t imagine it being the other way a
round. Until I started spending time at Mary Roberts’s house, I never knew how other mothers acted.

  Before long, the yellow bus slowed and Mary stepped off. She squealed when she saw me, and we jumped up and down, holding each other’s hands. Later, we rested in the warm grass and I let Jellybean walk around between us.

  I told Mary about Mama’s fall down the basement steps, and how the tomato girl had come to take care of things while Mama got better. When I whispered in her ear about the makeup and the Kotex, Mary squeezed my hands and said, “Oh, you are so lucky,” just like I knew she would.

  Some things I left out on purpose, like the kiss and Mama’s baby. Keeping secrets is a lot like telling lies, but sometimes you just can’t risk everything. I wanted to tell Mary how I worried about Tess being in our house when Mama came home, but I knew she’d tell her mother. And then Daddy would be mad at me for sure if Mrs. Roberts said something about Tess.

  Before I left, Mary wrote down my homework assignments, and then I put Jellybean into my purse, and thanked Mrs. Roberts for lunch and tea.

  “Why, you are so welcome,” she said, and reminded me to give my mother her best. “We’ll all be praying for her.”

  I thanked Mrs. Roberts again, but knew Mama wouldn’t want to hear about the congregation praying for her. Although she sometimes went to church with Daddy and me, Mama thought most churchgoers were gossips and bores.

  Even though I felt sad about Mama, a part of me filled with hope. Mama would get well, and we’d have a new baby in the house. There would be strollers, rattlers, and teddy bears in every room. With a new baby, maybe Mama would be glad Tess was there. She’d help Mama with all the chores and be my make-believe big sister. I’d bring over Mary Roberts and she’d play Avon, too. Maybe I’d be an Avon lady like Tess, instead of a teacher. My sewing money would pay for lipsticks to get me started. I’d take them to nearby houses and practice the way Tess had told me. “Hello,” I’d say, “My name is Ellen Sanders, please call me Ellie. Would you like to try some Crimson Rose? It would look lovely with your fair complexion.”

  At our house, I stepped onto the front porch and set my purse down, freeing my hands to smooth the front of my dress and pull up my socks. I noticed bread crumbs scattered on the porch where Tess had stood this morning. Had she fed the crows that had perched on the railing? Black ants nibbled at the crumbs that were left.