In the Shadow of Alabama

by Judy Reene Singer

  “She won’t cook for herself; she’s afraid that the stove is going to blow up,” I add. “It’s electric. She doesn’t like the taste of New York water, and she hates my food.”

  “Things worry her,” Sandra says. “She told me she’s afraid that the horses will go crazy and stampede her. I’ll try to get up to you as soon as I can, maybe I can smooth things over.”

  * * *

  Lisbon is spooking at rabbits, which he has never done before. I wonder whether the tension in my body is making him nervous. We are riding through the woods, through shadows of soft ocher, stepping into pale brown patterns, stepping carefully over lacy gray-green ferns and small purple wildflowers that poke through the leaves and lay across the flat rocks like they’ve been sacrificed. I had to get away from the farm for a while, from my mother, from everything that she is turning sour. Sandra will be coming later today, and I need these woods to comfort me. The trembling leaves play music as compelling as Liszt, and I close my eyes and let Lisbon take over, walking us through the brush and trees while I listen.

  Maybe I was meant to be single. I had never been truly loved by anyone. I am grieving for David. Why don’t people send sympathy cards when a relationship ends? It’s as hard as death. Maybe I was expecting too much from life. It’s all right not to be loved, if you don’t think about it. If you don’t build up your expectations, if you allow the woods and the flowers and horses and dogs to fill you up. It’s enough. You can thrive, even.

  Then it strikes me. That should have been my emotional goal. To thrive.

  A mirror only tells half the story.

  It echoes back what is held in front of it. The reflection is impartial, not the final, perfect truth. It’s all about context. You have to take a big step back and look carefully, because the glass reflects the opposite of life, balancing the image of what you see around you.

  I know I can be stubborn like my father, and see only what I want to see. Maybe David needed more from me than I owned. Maybe my mother and I will never find a place where we can meet. Maybe Lisbon can never be with the other horses. Maybe they would have fought him forever and he would have paid a terrible price for my stubbornness. I am paying a terrible price now for my stubbornness. I am not thriving at all.

  And then I know. I know! My stubbornness is not from being convinced I am right; it is my protection, so that I don’t tumble over the precipice. It is the wall that keeps me safe. If I let it go, I will evaporate, disappear into the chasm below. I am breathless from knowing this. I stop Lisbon in his tracks and lean forward and throw my arms around his neck.

  “Lisbon,” I whisper into his ear. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  Chapter 39

  Some families belong together and some will forever prickle against each other. Sometimes you have to cobble your family together from people who have dropped into your life here and there and because you realize that you love them. I tell Malachi that I plan to move him into my guest room so he can recuperate and ask his permission to show my mother the inside of his cottage. He nods sleepily, sitting in the sun, drooping like a flower without water. I can still hear the wheeze in his chest. I am hoping my mother will like the cottage enough to live there.

  “My sister’s comin’ for me anyways,” he mumbles.

  “You’ll stay with me until she gets here,” I say.

  * * *

  My mother follows me into the cottage with a look of disdain. “How am I supposed to cook a twenty-pound turkey in there?” she asks as she opens the oven door to the little stove in the kitchen.

  “When is the last time you needed to cook a twenty-pound turkey?” I ask her. She draws her hunched body up to her full kyphotic four-feet-eleven and looks indignant.

  “I may want to have someone over for dinner,” she huffs, then points to the top of the stove. “And look, there’s no clock on it. How do I tell the time?”

  I point to the microwave sitting on the counter right next to the stove. “What’s wrong with the clock on the microwave?”

  “And where’s the TV?”

  “Malachi never watched TV, but we can get you one, first thing.”

  But she doesn’t hear me. Her eyes are darting around, looking for further proof that I am not a good daughter by making her live in this house. A horse whinnies outside and her head jerks back.

  “Oh my God!” she gasps. “I won’t be able to hear myself think because of all that noise.”

  We returned to my house without speaking. Where I saw a cute cottage, an adorable home that could serve my mother well, she saw a small shed behind a horse barn surrounded by dust and animals and noise.

  It was all mirrors.

  * * *

  Sandra arrives later that afternoon, sailing right through the front door as soon as she gets out of the cab and heading straight for the living room, where my mother is staring at the television. Sandra’s out to get the real story, I suppose.

  “I want to talk to Mom alone, please,” she says by way of greeting. Her purpose is to find out from my mother how awful I’ve been to her. I can see Sandra sitting on the couch, shaking her silver hair as she clucks with sympathy. She spends about an hour in there, until finally, the two of them make their way into the kitchen, where I am putting out platters of food for lunch. Sandra has her arm protectively around my mother’s shoulders as they slowly walk through the door. The position of her arm says to my mother, Don’t worry, I’m here to take care of you now. I know how you feel, I know how Rachel failed you, and I am here to make everything better. Sandra, the good daughter, is riding in on the white horse to rescue her.

  My white horse.

  “Sandra!” I say when she comes into the kitchen, giving her a hug. She smells like baby powder. Then I realize that there are no suitcases anywhere. “Where are your bags?”

  “I only brought a small overnight bag,” Sandra replies. “It’s in the living room. I plan to leave tomorrow right after breakfast. I’ll share the bed with Mom tonight; she doesn’t want to sleep alone.”

  “Because I heard coyotes howling last night,” my mother explains. “The Discovery Channel says they prey on the weak.”

  Sandra suddenly stands back from me and wrinkles her nose. “Horses,” she says. “You always smell from horses.”

  “You think that’s bad?” says my mother. “She wants me to live in the barn with them.”

  “It’s not the barn,” I correct her as though it mattered. “It’s a little cottage next to the barn.”

  “It’s really no place for her,” Sandra says. “She needs to be with family. Harrison and I have a room ready. A real room. I’m taking her home tomorrow.”

  “The cottage has been totally renovated; it’s a very nice place,” I protest. Wait, did she say my mother needs to be with family?

  “I’m starving,” Sandra says, sitting herself at the table. “What are you making? All this country air has made me hungry.”

  “Sandwiches,” I tell her while putting out platters of cold cuts and bread and bowls of salads. I begin setting places for us around the table. Sandra makes my mother a turkey sandwich, then reaches for the liverwurst and forks the entire half pound onto two pieces of bread.

  “The bread isn’t as good as it is in Phoenix,” my mother points out after taking a bite of her turkey sandwich.

  “It’s the same brand you always get,” Sandra and I say in unison, then look at each other. There is a nano-moment of silence, then I crook my pinkie finger and hook it up with Sandra’s and shout, “Jinx, jinx.” At first, her face registers surprise, and then the two of us suddenly laugh.

  “I’m glad you girls are having a good time,” my mother says. “I haven’t been able to eat a thing since I got to New York.” She leans back in her chair, trying to look weak and emaciated, but is not quite pulling it off.

  “You eat with me every day,” I remind her.

  “But I don’t cook it,” she says. “It’s because your stove is trying to electroc
ute me. I got a terrible shock from it yesterday.”

  “Static electricity,” I say. “From shuffling across the floor in your socks.”

  “My socks don’t shuffle,” she says. “It’s my knee. It’s from my old football injury.”

  Sandra and I give each other looks. “Ma,” she says, “you never played football.”

  “I was an athlete,” my mother says, making her hand into a fist and holding it up to show off a thin, wrinkled arm with a shriveled, flaccid bicep. “I played football during recess in the third grade. It just shows, you don’t know anything about me.”

  And maybe we don’t. My mother has never really talked to us, never really told us about her life, or our family, never said that she loved us. She just raised us, the way one would raise a plant. You feed it and water it, and put it somewhere so it can get on with the business of growing. At some point, it either blooms or dies. I’m not sure which one applies to me and Sandra.

  Sandra finishes her sandwich and makes herself another.

  “How are things going for you?” I ask her as she takes a big bite. She chews for a few minutes, looks up at me, then looks away. Her face clouds; she clears her throat.

  “Actually, Harrison and I—”

  “I need to see a doctor for my knee,” my mother interjects. “The only doctors who come around here are horse doctors.”

  Sandra drops back to the business at hand. “I’ll make an appointment for you when we get to Atlanta,” she says briskly. “We have some very good doctors.” We continue eating our lunch. My mother complains about the potato salad, the tomatoes, the coffee. Sandra has finished her second sandwich and gets up to scan the kitchen. “You have anything for dessert?”

  “I need to see a dentist,” my mother says. “I thought the tomatoes were slippery, but I think my dentures are loose.” She is wearing one of the necklaces my father made, handmade brass links with a pendant made of tiny clock parts. If it was a little more graceful, it could almost be steampunk.

  “Did Dad make that?” Sandra points to the necklace.

  My mother nods. “He was so proud when he made it. Said no one else in the world would have anything like it.” She strokes the piece with her fingers. “He liked making special things for me.”

  I remember Willie’s words and picture my father huddled over a workbench, carefully picking up little pieces of metal junk to turn into jewelry. “It’s nice,” I tell her.

  “Cake?” Sandra asks.

  I take the white bakery box from the refrigerator and put it on the table. She cuts the red string with a knife and opens the box with the expression of someone opening a wonderful gift, then cuts a huge slice of chocolate cake for herself. She pours more coffee and sits down with her plate.

  “Everything’s going just fine,” she replies to my earlier question, and smiling happily, takes a big forkful of cake. I feel bad for her.

  “I have an announcement,” I say to her and my mother. “I finally bought myself a piano. Just today. I haven’t played in years and I decided to play again.” My mother stares at me as I sit there, excitement filling my heart. And I wonder what David would have said.

  “That’s exactly why your father got rid of that old piano,” she says. “All that stupid pounding was giving us a headache.”

  Families who prickle, families who try to love. I have them both.

  Chapter 40

  With its carved cherrywood, shining brass pedals covered in green felt, the next morning my new piano arrives incognito under white quilts, like it’s trying to slip back into my life without making a fuss. A baby grand, with silken white keys, interrupted by neat pairs and trios of black. The deliverymen unwrap it, assemble it, promise me that someone will stop by tomorrow to retune it, and then leave me alone, to run my hand over the sleek, glossy wood, run my fingers across the keys and contemplate all the music buried inside. It begs me to play it. My mother says nothing during the entire delivery.

  “Your books must be doing well,” Sandra murmurs.

  * * *

  Sandra has relented and plans to stay a few days more. That night, after dinner, she and my mother decide to take a little evening walk around my farm. The house is dark and quiet. David hasn’t come home or called, and I allow the shadows in the house to fill me as I sit down at the piano, almost shy. I rub my hands together, then clasp them, almost like I’m praying. What to play? What to play? I had also bought some books, filled with wonderful music, transcribed down to my level. I’m sorry I have to bring this lovely piano down to my level.

  Bach. I pick out a simple Bach piece and stumble through it twice. I will get better, I promise the piano, I won’t disgrace you. I play it a third time.

  I am suddenly aware that my mother and Sandra are in the doorway, watching. They must have slipped in through the back door. My mother asks Sandra to help her upstairs to bed, and they leave without another word.

  I start to play again. My fingers find what they need and Bach sputters from them before settling into real music. Oh yes, I remember this passage. I remember how these notes move together, find each other. How the melody leans on the bass, supported by it, before sailing lyrically away. I wish David were here. He has never heard me play the piano, and suddenly I wish he could just know this part of me.

  I finish and decide to check on Malachi one last time before I go to sleep. He doesn’t answer his door, but I can peek in through his living room window and see that he has left the night-light on and that he is asleep on the sofa, in his pajamas.

  * * *

  Through the shadows, I can make out the bulk of a figure walking toward the barn. It is Sandra. “Mom is asleep,” she calls out to me. “I told her to put a suitcase behind her bedroom door until I got back. I told her I’ll give her three and a half raps to let me in.”

  “She’s safe here, Sandra,” I reply, not even questioning how she’s going to do half a rap. “Honest.”

  “Serial killers can come to horse farms, too, you know,” she says, then pauses on the path, unsure of what to do next.

  “Want a cup of tea?” I ask.

  “If it’s not too much trouble,” she replies with what sounds like relief, then waits a beat. “Is there any cake left?”

  “One piece, I think.” She follows me back to the house and into the kitchen. “Are you sure you want to take Mom back with you?” I ask. I don’t want Sandra to think I’m dumping our mother on her. I want to do the right thing by both of them.

  I pour boiling water into a china teapot and start to steep a tea ball of chamomile. Malachi always made me chamomile tea at night. “She’s so difficult,” I add. “You’ll never be able to make her happy.”

  “She’s always been easier on me, because she knew I would fight back. That I would stand up for myself,” Sandra says matter-of-factly, taking the white box from the refrigerator. “I can shut it all down. I won’t mind her at all.”

  I stare at her for a moment. “You really are a good daughter,” I say. “She doesn’t deserve you.”

  Sandra’s lip quivers for a second, and then she catches herself, shaking her head, shaking off my words like a dog shaking off bathwater. “Look,” she says, pulling a slip of folded paper from her sweater pocket. “I went over a budget with her. She hated the idea, but she’ll need to budget her money. That’s why I decided to take rent from her. I’ll put it into a secret account so that when the—the time—comes, she can be cared for properly in a decent nursing home.”

  When the time comes. I know what time she means. “You think she’s getting—worse?” I ask.

  “I see it even more now than when Dad died.” She helps herself to the last of the cake. “So, we have to make a budget,” she says and sits down at the table, the slice in front of her. “And me being good in math, I know she has to budget things so that she’ll have enough left over. It’s very important to have enough left over for the end.”

  * * *

  We sit silently together with our tea. Sandra
stirs in three teaspoons of sugar and takes big forkfuls of cake. She looks peaceful sitting there and eating. I watch her, aching to really talk to her. She finishes her cake and scrapes the plate clean with her fork, getting every last crumb, serene satisfaction written all over her face, and suddenly, I understand her. She needs to get every last crumb, from everything, because nothing, nothing will fill her up, nothing, nothing, will fill up the hollowness, the aching loneliness, the need for loving attention and just as suddenly, I feel very bad for her.

  Her irritability, her ridiculous snide remarks, I see it all differently now. It keeps her from being so nakedly vulnerable. She has that, and her food.

  And I have my horses.

  Plants grow funny when they don’t get enough light.

  “I really tried to take care of Mom,” I say.

  “Actually,” she admits slowly, “the cottage is a cute little place.”

  This surprises me. “Thank you.”

  “I’d live there myself, if I had to,” she adds. “I might still, if I divorce Harrison.”

  “Is it that bad that you would really divorce him?” I ask.

  She takes a deep breath. “Oh no,” she says. “But I’m always waiting. You know. For the shoe to drop.”

  I know too well.

  We finish our tea. The idea of both my mother and Sandra living with me gives me pause. “The cottage isn’t that cute,” I say. “Sometimes there’s a strong draft that blows in from under the front door.”

  * * *

  The cake is all gone and Sandra finally relaxes over our second cup of tea. “Why don’t we sit someplace more comfortable?” I tell her. We carry our tea into the living room and she stops abruptly. “Why did you get a piano?” she asks, drawing to it. “Now, after all this time?”

  She sets her tea down on an end table and rubs her fingers gently over the piano’s gleaming wood, then sits on the bench and lightly touches the keys. I used to teach her little songs when we were young, when I had the piano. When we were children. I used to sit with her and teach her how to play. It was the only time we weren’t arguing. She picks out “Heart and Soul” with one finger.