The Moonflower Vine

by Jetta Carleton

  “I expect Mama’s awake by this time,” she said. “We ought to get back.”

  “I suppose we should.”

  But nobody stirred. We watched a leaf tilt down slowly and land on the water. Another followed. A locust ripped a little hole in the silence with his serrated cry.

  “Autumn…” said Jessica. We let it drift away on the warm air.

  After a while we dressed and took the long way home. Climbing a slope, we came out on the high meadow we called the Old Chimney Place. A few soft bleached bricks marked the spot where a house had burned, years before our time. Jessica and Leonie could remember when the chimney stood tall, visible from the road.

  “Remember,” said Jessica, “how we used to mark off rooms inside the old foundation?”

  “With clover chains,” said Leonie.

  “And decorate them with daisies?”

  “Yes, and Queen Anne’s lace and chigger weed.”

  “And how the chiggers decorated us!” They laughed. “There was a plum thicket here—we used to eat them before they got quite ripe, remember?”

  “We got so sick and Mama got so mad! It was nice here then.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Yes…”

  “Mathy had a playhouse here,” said Jessica. “Remember the times we found her here when she didn’t come home after dark?”

  “I remember!”

  They smiled at each other and moved on ahead of me, lost in times that I had little part in. I had not shared their childhood. They had another little sister, long before me. This was Mathy, the third daughter, whom I remembered only dimly. She went away when I was three. But Mathy had a child, a boy named Peter, born when I was five. Through him I knew something of her nature. Peter was very like her, so they told me—fine-boned and dark, with bright dark eyes; quick and antic and imperturbable, and, like his mother, fascinated by the world. Peter loved trees and stones and dug-up bones and most especially the intricate mechanism of anything that crept or flew—bugs, beetles, butterflies. He had made them his work. He was studying in Europe now on a fellowship, at the University of Leyden. We were all terribly proud of Peter.

  Jessica and Leonie came back around the old foundation, still talking of Mathy. “It must have been a hard life,” Leonie said. “I wouldn’t have liked it.”

  “Neither would I. But I think she was happy.”

  “I hope so. I really do hope so!” Leonie looked up earnestly, as if Jessica might doubt her.

  “I wish Peter were here,” I said, watching a ladybug climb up a stem.

  “I wish I were there!” said Leonie. “I’d give anything to see Europe.”

  “I’ll take you some day—if it doesn’t blow up first. Wouldn’t it be fun to be there with Peter?”

  “Oh, wouldn’t it!” she said. “Did he write you about his vacation, that trip he took? He writes the most marvelous letters.”

  “And lots of them.”

  “I hope Soames will do half as well. Last summer when he was away, I got one little postcard.” Her face clouded briefly and brightened again. “Peter sent us cards from everywhere. London, Venice, Denmark. Just think, he’s seen Elsinore!”

  “Yes, he wrote me.”

  “Elsinore! All those places you read about in literature! And Peter appreciates it so.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “I wish Soames were like that.” Again that look of hurt perplexity came into her face. “Oh, when I think! If only he’d kept on with his vocal lessons—he could have studied in Europe, too. Italy—Paris—! If only I could have found some way—if his father had been any help—” She turned away, her pretty face clenched in frustration.

  A faint “Hoo-hoo?” came drifting through the woods from the direction of the house. “There’s Mama,” I said. “We’d better get on back before she comes looking for us.”

  We set off down the slope, passed through a strip of woods, and came up through the orchard among the silvery arthritic trees, their joints swollen and calcified with time. Here and there my father had set new trees, replenishing his grove. Nothing was allowed to die.

  “There goes the mail carrier!” Jessica said, as a car drove up the road. “He’s late today.”

  “Maybe we’ll hear from Peter,” said Leonie. She hurried to the mailbox, where Mama stood with a letter in her hand. “Is it from Peter?”

  “I think it’s from Ophelia,” said Mama.

  “Oh, shoot.”

  Ophelia was a second cousin of ours. She and her family lived south of the farm, some forty miles away. Mama opened the letter and handed it to me. “Read it, Mary Jo. I never can make out her writin’.”

  I peered at the letter and held it out at a distance. Ophelia’s script was like an abstract painting; you had to back off and squint to make something of it.

  “ ‘Dear Cousins,’ ” I read, “ ‘haven’t heard from you folks in a while. Wonder if you are still alive and kicking, ha! Well, Ralph and me are about as well as common. With the help of Jesus. Ma complains some. She is poorly this summer. I don’t know how much longer we will have her with us.’ ”

  “Poor old Aunt Cass,” Mama said, referring to Ophelia’s mother. “Her mind wanders. But my land, for one her age, she’s stronger than I am.”

  “She smells it, too,” I said. “She was pretty ripe when we were down there last summer.”

  “Why, Mary Jo!”

  “Well, she was—all of ’em were. Ophelia and Ralph holler and carry on at those holiness meetings and work up a good sweat and never take a bath.”

  “They’re washed in the blood of the Lamb,” said Jessica.

  “It’s no substitute for Lifebuoy.”

  “Hush that, both of you,” said Mama. “You ought to be ashamed. What else does she say?”

  I squinted again. “ ‘If the Lord wills, Ma will be ninety-six her birthday. We are looking for you folks down that day. You promised you would come and bring the girls.’ ”

  “I could kick myself,” said Mama. “I did promise, when we’s down there Decoration Day. I’d forgot all about it. Why couldn’t she!”

  “Because she’s got a memory like an elephant,” I said.

  “And that ain’t all,” said Jessica. Ophelia was rather large. “When is Aunt Cass’s birthday, Mama?”

  “Tomorrow!”

  “Oh no!”

  “Ain’t that just the way of it!”

  “We don’t have to go, do we?”

  “We’d ought to.”

  “We can’t—we’re going to cut the bee tree.”

  “But I promised!” Mama wailed, looking at us in despair.

  “Well,” said Jessica, “you can break that kind of a promise. God won’t hold it against you.”

  “Yes, but Ophelia will. She’ll be plumb mad. And Aunt Cass is so old—this may be her last birthday.”

  “Mama, do you realize we’ve been going to Aunt Cass’s farewell parties for the last nine years?”

  “Well, I know, but—”

  “And we may be going another nine, if these all-day powwows don’t get her down before then. All that cryin’ and kissin’—”

  “Cousin Ralph and his wet mustache!” I said.

  “—and shoutin’ and singin’ hymns!” Jessica went on. “If Ophelia’s so worried about her ma, she better cut out the celebrations. She just has ’em because she likes ’em.”

  “I guess that’s true,” Mama said. “But you can’t hardly blame her. It gets awful lonesome down there.”

  Jessica snorted. “Why, Mama, they don’t get lonesome! They go to those tent meetings and drive into town and Ralphie and the grandchildren are always coming to see them—they have a dandy time.”

  “Ophelia says they’re lonesome.”

  “She’s just playing on your sympathies. She knows she can do it. She has you and Dad running down there all the time. And the trip’s hard on you, you know it is.”

  “Well, yes,” Mama conceded. “But next time I see her,
she’s going to want to know why I broke my promise. What excuse will I give her?”

  “Tell her we were going to cut a bee tree—just tell her the truth.”

  “The truth’s hard for some folks to understand.”

  “Then make it easy on Ophelia. Lie!”

  Mama looked at us thoughtfully. “I reckon I just will.”

  We laughed and I kissed her on the cheek. It had the soft worn feel of old linen. (I never could get used to mothers who were young. Mine was middle-aged when I was born, and crisp young mothers never seemed authentic.)

  “Besides,” said Mama, “if we’s to go away off down there, we wouldn’t get back in time for the moonflowers.”

  That crisis passed, we settled down to peel peaches in the parlor. It was cooler in there. Mama wanted to make preserves before supper. We didn’t need more preserves, but she enjoyed the work. Every morning of our vacation she greeted us with shining face. “Now today we’re not going to work—we’re going to do just what we want to do!” And every day it turned out that we just wanted to wash all the quilts, or scrub woodwork, or make another batch of preserves. It had been like that all our lives. Our mother ruled us with a practical hand, the broom and fruit jar her badge of office, the washboard her shield and buckler. We were allowed to study, as our father was a schoolteacher, but we were rarely allowed to read. Shouldn’t we instead be doing something? And wouldn’t we rather? Mama needs you—let’s clean the smokehouse—hurray! My mother loved her work, and never so well as when she had us to help her.

  Age had done nothing to diminish her passion. Here she was at seventy, keeping house as assiduously as ever. She had none of the conveniences at the farm. But bless her, she had someone to help!

  She had a friend whose name was Hagar, a leathery little old maiden lady who lived on the next hill. Miss Hagar had moved there some years ago with an aging father. When the old man died, Miss Hagar stayed on on her rundown farm, as lonely as her namesake. Oftentimes we beheld her single in the field, a solitary reaper in sunbonnet, faded gingham, and a man’s old shoes. A rough, shy, stolid little creature who fended for herself and asked no favors. She did a man’s work more easily than woman’s. She smoked a pipe. Aside from a certain female relish of “natural sorrow, loss, or pain,” there was hardly a feminine trait about her. But she was devoted to my mother. Several times a week she came to visit, and the two of them gathered and canned and cleaned and talked, cozy as cats in a warm barn.

  She was an odd companion for my mother, who smelled of sachet and wore ribbons in her petticoats. My mother put ruffles at her windows and doilies on her tables; she longed for the Victorian elegance of plush, cut glass, long velvet portieres, and a fine white house in town. A big house on the corner, with a porch all around, a great green lawn, and a boy to come Saturdays and trim the hedge. She would have been quite at home with servants.

  Yet on the other hand, my mother had plowed a field in her day and was not ashamed. She had country values. She liked crops and fat cattle, jars glimmering red and gold and green in the cool earth-smelling dark of dirt cellars. She liked the kitchen filled on Sunday with relatives and old friends. And she liked a good visit, a conversation heavy and rich with death and loss and pity.

  Miss Hagar was her woman, far more than ladies she had lived among in town. Those ladies, most of them, played bridge and gave luncheons. They called things by fancy names and bought gadgets and listened to serials on the radio. My mother scorned such women, yet they made her ill at ease. Because her grammar was faulty and her values were not, she was made to feel out of place.

  Lonely for her own kind, she kept a good deal to herself. She tended her house, raised her children, and for forty years waited for her husband. Morning after morning she rose and cooked his breakfast and saw him off to school. Evening after evening she sat beside him, watching him as he worked. The wind mourned in the chimney, the kettle sighed, the rocker creaked, and he said never a word. He had work to do; he must not be interrupted. She sat motionless to still the rocker. The clock ticked, the kettle sighed. And she slipped off to bed. She was lonely for forty years. But she loved him and she waited.

  Her children grew up with flawless grammar and strange rebellions. But she loved them and was patient. All of them went away, one of them died. But at last, incomplete as all things are, but recognizable withal, the joy she waited for came about. She could come back to the good creek farm. Her husband was all hers at last. Her children came home to her in summer. And she had a friend, devoted as a good servant, who loved to talk of death and disaster and could not read a word.

  “Miss Hagar went to town this afternoon,” Mama said, glancing up from her peaches. “I don’t know what for. It must have been important—she hasn’t been to town more than three times all summer.”

  “Too bad she didn’t know Dad was going,” said Jessica. “She could have gone with him.”

  “She wouldn’t have, anyway. We’re always askin’ her to go in with us, but she’s afraid she’ll be some bother to somebody. Won’t hardly let you do a thing for her. And land-a-livin’, as much as she does for us!”

  “She sure is a help.”

  “And won’t take nothin’ for it. We try and try to pay her a little something, but she won’t have it. Papa takes her up a box of groceries once in a while, or a sack of feed.” Mama glanced up again. “Where is Papa? I wish he’d go on in and get that ice.”

  “He’s already gone,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” said Leonie. “I thought Soames was still here.”

  “I guess Dad went without him.”

  “Really?” Leonie went to the back door and looked out. “I can hardly believe it,” she said, coming back. “Somebody went to town and Soames is still here working!”

  “He sure is doing a good job on that roof,” said Mama. “Listen—don’t that sound pretty?” Soames had begun to sing.

  “Oh yes, he’ll sing now—when he thinks nobody’s listening.” Leonie’s face was wistful as the clear sweet baritone soared from the barn roof, dreaming of Jeanie with the light-brown hair. She had such hopes for that voice.

  Mama sighed contentedly. “Such a sad song. Makes me think of poor Mr. Corcoran.” And she told us once again how they had found him that morning when they drove up to take him a pound of butter…not that the old man seemed to appreciate what they did, but it was just his way…and she couldn’t bear for him to eat so poorly, such an old man living all alone like that with no one to look after him. Her dry little domestic voice droned like an old ballad, full of love and woe.

  A breeze lifted the lace curtains, dallied a moment, and vanished into the stillness of the old farmhouse. My sisters and I rocked and fanned, stretching our bare legs over the flowered carpet, under the pictures of Christ walking on the waters and praying in Gethsemane. The miracle went unremarked and the passion in the garden did not move us, abandoned as we were to the profane pleasures of disaster in which we were not involved and the serenity of the long warm afternoon.

  Jessica fanned her legs with the hem of her dress. “My, but it’s hot. I could use another bath already.”

  “Yes, it’s hot,” said Mama, turning her collar inside. “Put your dress down, Jessica. I can see right up you.”

  “Well, Mother, that’s all right. You know what’s up there.”

  “Ah! What if somebody came up on the porch?”

  “If they slip up on us without honking, it serves ’em right.”

  “Remember last summer,” I said, “when the preacher came to the back door and caught you trying on that old corset? Boy, was he surprised!”

  Mama said, “I told you the back porch wasn’t no place to try on a corset!”

  “Where would you have tried it on?” said Jessica.

  “Upstairs, of course.”

  “But it was hot upstairs. And anyway, the preacher had no business out here in the first place. Way out here in the country in the middle of a hot afternoon. We’re already saved, and
he knows it. He should have been home readin’ his Bible or accommodating his wife.”

  Leonie and I giggled, and Mama said, “Jessica! Shame on you.”

  “She looks like she could use a little, poor thing.”

  “Now you stop talking like that. It’s not nice.”

  “Okay, Mother.” Jessica grinned. “But she doesn’t look like she gets much, does she?”

  “Now hush that!”

  We snickered and stretched and yawned. Leonie went out to the back porch and brought back a pitcher of iced tea. We sprawled in our chairs and rattled the ice in our glasses. The air was sweet and spicy with the smell of honeysuckle and cedar. At the windows the white curtains filled and wilted and filled again, easy as breathing. The sound of hammering peppered into the warm air intermittently from the barn roof.

  The afternoon ran slowly, heavy like honey, sweet and golden and not oppressive. We rocked, and the ice clinked in our glasses, and the curtains rose and fell. And I thought without really thinking in words of those moments in Chekhov, when the pace of the play slows down to a stasis. The woman in the swing moves forward and, after a long time, back. The doctor (for there is always a doctor) sags in his chair, too heavy with unhappy wisdom to stir. Daughters or uncles lean against trellises in a trance of frustration. And the stillness and the heat and the boredom of the provinces weigh the play down until it scarcely moves.