“Are you sure your fish is in here?” I looped my finger in, trying to find it.
“Yes. I put it there when MeMaw made us clean our rooms.”
Rosey looked in the dark depths of the drawer. “I can see it.”
“I’ll get a coat hanger and see if I can hook it.”
Avril started laughing. “You’re funny, Mommy. You’re going to hook my fish.”
“I’m going to try. And you’re right, that is funny.” I worked the hanger around and thought I had it, so with a firm hold, I wiggled the drawer, trying to dislodge the cypress fish. The drawer popped open with a crack of wood splintering. I handed the prized possession to Avril and looked to see what I’d broken.
The bottom of the drawer had split, but something seemed odd. I removed the contents of the drawer and discovered that the shattered wood concealed a shallow compartment.
My neck veins throbbed, the pressure like a noose tugging at my jaw. Doreen had left the wardrobe hoping I would discover its secret. My lungs had run out of air, leaving a half-dizzy, half-silly bubbling in my head. My fingers worked to remove the rest of the splintered bits, but already I could see the edges of a photograph and a paper with blurred ink.
Scooping up the items in my hand, I stumbled back to Rosey’s bed and sat down. Either I had found some long-forgotten relic that meant nothing or I had struck gold.
I prayed it wasn’t fool’s gold.
[ CHAPTER 42 ]
Mommy, what’s wrong?” Rosey’s voice was far away, like she was shouting through water.
I thought I was drowning myself. That my arms and legs couldn’t get the oxygen to continue splashing. My lungs burned as I stared glassy-eyed at the paper in my hand.
My birth certificate. At least the date of my birth was correct. May 1, 1927. And my first and middle names. Georgia Lee.
My stomach heaved.
Birth mother: Cora Tickle
Age of mother: 16
Birth father: Unknown
Rosey stood close, her body warm next to my shivering one. She waved a photograph in front of my face. “Momma, why’s there a picture of me when I was little?”
“Why?” That was the question. Why? Oh Lord Jesus, why?
“I don’t know, Rosey… it’s not you. Look, you’ve never had a dress like that. It’s not you.” My voice was sharp. No one else was in the picture, only me standing beside the car of my childhood dreams. I took the picture from her, rage bubbling up from the depths.
Aunt Cora. My mother. This time she would give me the answers.
Now. Before I lost my nerve. And my breakfast.
“Rosey, go find Ludi and tell her I have to run an errand. You girls mind what she tells you.”
I didn’t wait for her response, just grabbed my purse, my birth certificate, and the photograph. My hands grew numb from gripping the steering wheel, and I don’t remember the drive over to State Street and Mara Lee. Quivering legs carried me to the back door. I flung it open and saw something hurtling through the air toward me.
Glass shattered against the doorjamb. Aunt Cora stood wide-eyed and poised with another one of Grandma Tickle’s china plates.
“I told you—” Her jaw dropped, her mouth trying to form words. She blinked, let her hand with the plate drop to her side, and winced. “Sorry. I thought you were that miserable Van Sweeney sneaking back in.”
“What’s gotten into you, Aunt Cora? Or maybe I should be saying Momma.” I waved the birth certificate through the air.
“Oh, my.” Her face turned white. “He’s already told you. How? He left here not three minutes ago. What were you doing? Listening at the keyholes again?” She laughed, a tinny cackle. “You were good at that when you were younger.”
She looked at the plate in her hand, reared back, and hurled it, too—not at me, but at the open door. It shattered on the porch railing, the china bits like a wind chime ruffled by a sudden breeze.
“I was not listening at the keyhole.” My nostrils flared as I breathed through them. “And why are you breaking Grandma Tickle’s dishes?”
She pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, her face contorted. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“How could you? You had a million opportunities to tell me you were my mother, and you never let on. Not once. I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you. All this time, I thought it was my parents who were ashamed or hated me. Now I see you must have despised waking up every day and having to face whatever shame I’d brought to you.”
My breaths came out in huffs. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to endure my presence any longer. I will disappear from your life. I’ll give up the Stardust and take the girls somewhere else.”
“No. Please. Let me explain—”
“You had your chance.”
I turned to go, my heart leaden, questions still slamming against my skull like the steel balls in a pinball machine.
Aunt Cora grabbed my arm, her fingers biting into my flesh. “You’re right. I had a chance to give you up. As a matter of fact, my father thought I did. But I couldn’t. It didn’t matter that I was sixteen years old and your father didn’t even know you existed. I couldn’t do it. Never. Please. Hear me out.”
This wasn’t the poised, always-in-perfect-control Aunt Cora I knew. Her veneer had cracked, and I saw a tired, desperate shell of a woman.
I removed her hand from my arm and through clenched teeth said, “Only because I would regret it forever if I didn’t hear the story, I’ll listen.”
“Come. I’ll fix us a cup of tea.”
“Don’t bother, but I would like to sit down.”
We sat facing each other at the breakfast table. Two half-empty cups sat on the table, the remnant of Van Sweeney’s visit and the cause of Aunt Cora’s outburst. I knew he must be the unknown father, but I had to hear it from her own lips. An unnatural calm spread over me; I was ready to hear what she had to say.
She folded her hands on the table. “You had to have known my father to understand. He was harsh, controlling, and ruled our home with an iron fist. My poor mother endured his rants with grace, and I believe now it was an act of mercy that God allowed her to pass from this earth when I was twelve years old. My sister, Justine, took her death hard and started standing up to Father. They went round and round until he kicked her out and told her he never wanted to see her again. She left home when she was seventeen and married Gordon Mackey. They lived in Kipling, but Justine would still visit her friends in Mayhaw once in a while. She was wild and daring, not always in a good way.
“I was left to handle Father. The summer I was fifteen, I wanted to go with my friends to see the touring vaudeville act, but Father wouldn’t let me. As luck would have it, he was called to Shreveport on business, so I went anyway. Three nights in a row. The last night, my friends heard of a party at the Stardust, and I was afraid to go because Uncle Paddy might see me. But when Van Sweeney, the one I had my eye on, asked me to come, I did.
“Some of the guys brought liquor. I’d never had a drink in my life, but that night I did. It felt so liberating. At first we were all just laughing and dancing, but then people started pairing off. I started feeling sick and went to the bathroom in one of the cottages. When I came out, Van was waiting for me. He’d been drinking, too, and…” Tears brimmed in her eyes.
I leaned back, my own memory of O’Dell flashing like a marquee in my head. “You don’t have to explain that part. I know what you mean.”
She smiled, the first since I’d come to her house. “I guess you do. And I now realize I pushed you into marrying O’Dell because you at least had a man who offered. Not that Father would have allowed me to marry Van. By the time I found out I was expecting, Van was long gone. I went to the Stardust to ask Paddy and Doreen for his address so I could write and tell him the news. They suspected something was wrong and had seen me that night even though I thought they hadn’t. They didn’t have his address but forced me to tell Father about the baby.”
“No, they ended up helping me. Father sent me to an unwed mother’s home in Tyler and made it clear I had to give you up. He told people I had a nervous breakdown. I wrote Paddy and Doreen and begged them to help me. They’re the ones who arranged for Justine and Gordon to take you. Paddy offered to pay them for their trouble. Justine took advantage of them and threatened to spill the beans if Paddy didn’t give them more money. Blackmail, really.
“When Father died, they brought you to the funeral. Paddy told them he was through giving them money, so they left you with me. I was thrilled and gladly gave them their half of Father’s bank account with the promise they wouldn’t come back. Or tell. I knew I’d never find a husband if word got out that I’d had a baby out of wedlock.”
I laughed, but it was harsh. “Guess that didn’t pan out so well, huh?”
“I know. You reap what you sow, and I wanted to tell you the truth, but when you got older, I just couldn’t.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you didn’t get along with Paddy and Doreen. You owed them a lot.”
“I regret so many things. They’re one of them. They thought I should tell you the truth, but I’d already made up my mind. We argued, and I refused to see them. I was mortified when you started going out there. I was afraid they’d tell you.”
“I guess that’s what Doreen meant by saying they’d given their word.”
Alarm flashed in Aunt Cora’s eyes. “Doreen is here? She gave you the birth certificate?”
“No.” I told her she’d written and how I’d found it in the wardrobe. “Funny. I was just trying to help Avril get the cypress knee Catfish carved for her.”
“Who in heaven’s name is Catfish?”
“Ludi’s son. He has the most amazing talent for carving. He told us the legend about cypress knees, how they connect the trees up and down the bayou. He compared them to people, that we’re all connected even when it doesn’t seem like we are.”
“Uncle Paddy used to tell me that story. I’d forgotten.” Tears glistened in her eyes.
A lull fell between us. It didn’t change the years of lies Aunt Cora told me. How could I ever get used to thinking of her as the woman who gave me birth, then lied for twenty-five years? The coil wrapped around my heart tightened.
Aunt Cora placed her hands on her cheeks and rubbed them. “I don’t know what happens now. I guess it’s your call. I’m too old to care about my reputation, and with Van coming back, I’m in more of a tizzy than ever.”
“I think he cares for you. And you must’ve told him about me. I guess that’s what you were shouting about. Why did you tell him when you wouldn’t even tell me?”
“I didn’t tell him. He figured it out. He said you look just like his sister. He and Malcolm Overstreet started comparing notes, I think. Malcolm was at the Stardust that night. Not part of the vaudeville act, but he partied with us. What a mess.”
“It’s a mess you created. I think you should untangle it. Maybe it’s time you told the truth for a change.”
“I didn’t expect you to be so bitter.”
“I guess that’s one thing you did teach me.” My mouth tasted sour—the same way it did every time O’Dell cheated on me again. I hated the dirty way I felt, raw inside. I gathered up my birth certificate, the photograph, and my purse. “One other thing. How did your mother die?”
“I thought you knew. She had polio.”
[ CHAPTER 43 ]
I’d never felt so alone as I did when I left Mara Lee. Yearning most of my life to know the truth, and now it was like an ocean wave, swelling over my head, slapping me in the face. I had to remind myself to breathe. The logical thing would be to turn O’Dell’s Ford around, go back to Mara Lee, break some more of Grandma Tickle’s china, and scream at Aunt Cora to get it out of my system.
I had always said I could deal with the truth. What I’d never gotten beyond was how exactly I would do that. It sounded so much more logical in my head. The people in my imagination who I would have to absolve were Justine and Gordon. Never had I imagined it was Aunt Cora. Stupid of me!
All the signs were there. The big deal she made of my birthday every year. Ha! A day I’m sure she could never forget. Her protectiveness of me… of the girls. Of course. I had that fierce mothering complex, too. I would die before I let something happen to one of my girls.
A horn blasted through my rolled-down window. I looked up in time to see I was driving in the wrong lane and cars were swerving to avoid me. Someone hollered “Watch out!” from the sidewalk.
I jerked into the right-hand lane, gunned the engine, and drove until I found a spot where it was safe to pull over. My hands ached from gripping the steering wheel. I flexed my fingers to work the pain out, then leaned back and closed my eyes. Tears trickled down my cheeks, slowly at first, then in a steady stream as my chest heaved with sobs.
Pressing the back of my fist against my lips, I tried to gain control. Bitterness nestled into the hollow spot I’d reserved for my parents, but it had Aunt Cora’s name on it. My mother.
Tears welled up again. Would my life have turned out different if I’d grown up knowing she was my mother? Would I have confided in her and taken a different path with O’Dell? I shuddered. My “mistake” with O’Dell was no different than Aunt Cora’s. And while I should be ensuring that my girls didn’t make the same mistakes we did, I wasted my energy lamenting O’Dell and his unfaithfulness and despising Aunt Cora for not telling me the truth about my parents.
The truth was there now. I could stay mad at Aunt Cora, deny Van Sweeney was my father, and harbor resentment toward O’Dell till the earth stopped spinning. And if I did, it would rot my soul.
I wanted the shackles gone. All of them.
Digging through my purse for a hankie, I came up with the photo of me beside Justine and Gordon’s car. I did look like Rosey, wild curls and all. But I was frowning, sadness in my eyes. It dawned on me that I couldn’t remember anything about my childhood before the day we came to the Stardust. Surely, there had been birthday parties and Christmas, but I didn’t have a single memory. It was like that part of my life hadn’t existed… that it all began the day I came to live with Aunt Cora.
Live. That’s what I wanted to do. Live happily. Freely. Without hanging on to remorse. Without passing on to my girls a bucket of mistruths and resentment.
I found the hankie and wiped my nose, then turned the car around. I couldn’t wait to tell Aunt Cora that I forgave her. And loved her. And wanted her to be my mother.
After supper, Mary Frances and Malcolm took the girls for ice cream so Peter and I could talk. When I’d gone back to see Aunt Cora, we cried in each other’s arms and talked about the future. We agreed that we would talk to Van together and proceed from there. Neither of us knew if he would even stick around for the benefit. She had a meeting to attend, and I had been gone longer than I intended, so I went home and kept up the pretense. A few more days wouldn’t hurt, but my soul-searching had also revealed that I no longer wanted to hang on to the bitterness I had toward O’Dell, so I’d come up with a plan.
Peter thought we were going to rehearse for the talent show, so he’d brought along his guitar. And Sebastian. He seemed surprised when I hooked my arm in his and led him around to the back steps of the quarters. Catfish waited on the steps as I’d asked him to. He was hunched over like he wanted his body to swallow his head.
“It’s okay, Catfish. I need for you to show me something.”
“What, Miz Georgie?”
“The place where you found Mr. O’Dell’s body washed up. Think you could do that?”
Both he and Peter looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
“Come on now. It’ll be dusk soon, and I want to see it.”
Peter stowed his guitar in the washhouse and told Sebastian to stay. The dog lay down with his paws over
his face and pouted, but he stayed.
Catfish led the way, his steps heavy at first, looking back every dozen yards to see if we were still behind him. I’d worn sturdy shoes, and a dress with pockets for what I wanted to carry. Tickle grass brushed against my legs as we went across the meadow. I inhaled the deep scent of the outdoors, and as we neared the trees, the bayou smells crept toward us. Rich. Moist. Fish and pine smells melting together, thick in the back of my throat.
When we reached the trees, our feet padded on the spongy needled floor as curtains of Spanish moss waved us through. We passed the clearing where jasmine branches reached for the sun, their blossoms gone but their scent rising like dew from the earth. Catfish darted fawn-like between the trees then came to an abrupt stop.
“This is the place.” He pointed at the murky water with shades of green and brown shifting in the shadows. “Right here. It got stuck in the cypress knees.”
It. Not he. Or Mr. O’Dell. I hated to make Catfish revisit the terrible memory, but I wanted him to know, too, that nothing was his fault.
I pointed to the spot. “There?”
He nodded and stepped back.
I stepped closer and tried to picture O’Dell’s body. Not the bloated mess I knew it was, but the way he was in life. Loving to his daughters. Content on the bayou. Stillness rose up from the waters, and a tern upstream squawked. I tried to think of what O’Dell must’ve felt that day. Torn over what to do with the mess of his life? Regret, perhaps, that he’d gotten himself into a situation that had no easy solution? I thought he was so deep in despair, he didn’t notice the water rising, roiling, speeding him toward eternity.
My hand slid into my pocket, my fingers curled around the rose petals I’d plucked earlier. I didn’t throw them but tossed them out like I was feeding chickens, scattering them here and there, watching as they floated, clumped together, drifted, then became one with the lazy water.
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