The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue: A Novel

by Barbara O'Neal

  PRAISE FOR BARBARA SAMUEL

  “Miss Samuel writes like a dream, and her contemporary family stories combine real-life dilemmas with sweet romance in totally irresistible packages.”

  —The Dallas Morning News

  “One of my favorite authors! Settle into your most comfortable chair, enjoy, then tell your friends. Barbara Samuel is irresistible. She writes compelling, poignant stories that will touch the heart of any woman.”

  —SUSAN ELIZABETH PHILLIPS

  “[Samuel’s] characters are warmly drawn and sympathetic, their problems real and believable.…”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Like Elizabeth Berg and Luanne Rice, Samuel has a gift for mining hidden meaning from seemingly ordinary moments of time.”

  —The Romance Reader

  “[Barbara Samuel is] noted for her skillful writing, excellent characterizations and emotionally involving novels…”

  —Library Journal

  “[Barbara Samuel] creates an in-depth view of what truly matters in life—lasting relationships, especially the solidarity between generations of women. Readers should have their handkerchiefs ready.…”

  —Booklist

  The Goddesses

  of

  Kitchen Avenue

  A Novel

  Barbara O'Neal

  July

  KALI

  Kali is depicted with black skin. She wears a necklace of skulls, carries a knife to cut through illusion, a mirror of reflection and drinks from a skull cup of blood. She stands above her disemboweled lover, phallus erect, his blood feeding the earth. Her visage is terrifying. She is loved and feared for her destructive powers, for she is both womb and tomb simultaneously.

  —www.goddess.com.au

  Prologue

  TRUDY

  The first time I see Lucille again, I am lying in my bed. Alone. My newly broken arm is propped on a pillow. It’s very late, close to dawn. My face is hot from crying and loss and Vicodin, which they gave me at the emergency room. The drugs are not appreciably helping stop the pain in my right arm, which is imprisoned in a cast to my elbow. It’s red. The cast, that is. Probably the arm, too, which feels like coyotes are chewing on it. And the world seems red, too, all around the edges.

  When I open my eyes, Lucille is sitting in the chair where Rick always throws his clothes. She looks exactly the same, which should tip me off that something is slightly wrong, but in my current state, nothing seems real, so I just blink at her for a long minute.

  It’s been twenty-five years since I’ve seen her. She’s wearing a shawl that a matador gave her, red with black silk fringes she plays with. There are heavy silver bracelets on her tanned arms, and she’s drinking a cocktail. It’s funny enough that I smile. Lucille always did believe in cocktails. My mother said she was a drunk, but she wasn’t. I knew even then that my mother was just afraid of Lucille. Afraid of her sexuality, afraid of her courage, afraid of her version of womanhood. Afraid it would leak out of her house somehow, like bad water, to poison the whole neighborhood. My mother and her friends, all the ladies on the block, said terrible things about Lucille’s clothes—gossamer blouses that showed her low-cut bras, the sleek way she wore her hair and let all of her back show, nape to waist, on summer days. She told me it was a woman’s secret power, her back. It didn’t age the way other parts might.

  Men found reasons to stop by her yard when she was working with her flowers, the flowers she nudged like magic daughters from the hard ground in the desert. Poppies as big as sombreros, waving long, black, inviting stamens from their silky hearts, and roses in impossible colors, and cosmos by the thousands.

  The men stopped to admire her back. And her strong brown arms, and the glimpse of her lacy bras.

  But mostly they stopped to hear that wild, bold poppy laugh come out of her throat. Stopped to have her admire them. Stopped to be watered by her joy.

  She was sixty-six years old when she moved into our neighborhood.

  Now it has been twenty-five years and she’s at the foot of my bed, not in some ghostly form, but as solid as the cat purring on my hip. When she doesn’t say anything, I swallow the rawness in my throat and croak, “What are you doing here?”

  “Time to take it back, kiddo.”

  “What?”

  “Your life.”

  October

  HECATE

  Hecate completes the goddess triad of the Maiden (Persephone), the Mother (Demeter) and the Wise Woman (Hecate). She walks between the seen and unseen world but resides in neither, carrying a flaming torch so she can see where others can’t—into the human psyche. She is accompanied by her dog (or horse), her sacred animals, and offers her magical protection in times of danger.

  If you have that sense of foreboding sitting in your solar plexus, it may be that you are standing at a crossroad, and are unsure about where you need to go next. Rest assured that Hecate is walking alongside you, carrying her torch with which to guide you.

  —www.goddess.com.au

  Set me as a seal upon thine heart,

  as a seal upon thine arm:

  for love is strong as death;

  jealousy is cruel as the grave:

  the coals thereof are coals of fire,

  which hath a most vehement flame.

  Many waters cannot quench love,

  neither can the floods drown it…

  SONG OF SOLOMON 8:6–7

  1

  ROBERTA

  Sunday, October 25, 20—

  Dear Harriet,

  My hands are shaky as the leaves on the trees today. Hope you can read this all right. I hate seeing that I’ve got old lady handwriting. But then, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? How’d we get so old?

  It’s Sunday and I ain’t been to church. Been sitting here all morning by my Edgar, trying to get enough courage up to let him go. I sent everybody away—all the parishioners who been bringing greens and pots of stew and washing up my dishes while I sit with him. Sent even the children away. They can all come back later, when I’ve gone and done what I need to do.

  Sister, I been here all morning and can’t open up my mouth to say it. Go on, Edgar. I’ll be all right. He’s just waiting for that, because when he fell into this coma, I grabbed his old hand and begged him not to leave me.

  And he’s such a good man, he’s holding on. There, now I’m crying again.

  I been holding his hand for sixty-two years. This morning, I was holding it and remembering that morning he first came to our back door, asking for a drink of water. Remember? He’d been down on his luck, but he was so proud. He looked so good in the sunshine with his pretty head and that strong old nose. My heart flipped clean over and I wasn’t but fifteen. I’ve had no use for any other man since that day.

  I been remembering all of it this morning. Wondering how it would of been if we’d stayed back there in Mississippi with all y’all. Wondering what it was he saw in Italy that made him never talk about it his whole life long. Wondering if we’d of had as good a life if we hadn’t come west to Pueblo, where we’ve been so peaceful. Home of the Heroes. Did you know they call it that nowdays? Fitting. Edgar put away all his medals, but he was sure proud when the Medal of Honor winners all came here. He put on his best suit that morning, and went down to listen to them, all four old men like him. I went along with him, of course, but I didn’t hear what he did. I asked him one time if it was so bad as all that, and he just bowed his head and said, Worse.

  So I just let it be.

  And he’s not a perfect man, not by any means. He was too stern with the children, fussy about things as he got old, wanting every little thing his way. We’ve had our
share of dark times, too, times when I wanted to take a meat cleaver to his stubborn old head. Once or twice, he hurt my heart, but he never did it on purpose.

  It’s not those times I’m thinking of now, though. I’m remembering how hard we could laugh, so much that Edgar would get to wheezing. I’m thinking about waking up morning after morning after morning with him lying beside me. Listening to him, whistling as he fiddled with a television dead but for the magic he gave it with his clever mind.

  Lord, give me strength. I have got to let him go. He’s withering away right in front of my eyes. But I’m telling you the truth, sister, I’m going, too. I asked the Lord to take me. Y’all know I love you, but you, sister, know my life won’t be nothing without him.

  Your sister,

  Berta

  Mother, the moon is dancing

  In the Courtyard of the Dead.

  “Dance of the Moon in Santiago”

  FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA,

  Translated by NORMAN DI GIOVANNI

  2

  TRUDY

  When Edgar dies, I am next door in my house, reading Lorca with my hands over my ears so I don’t have to hear the wind. It’s only because I have to take them down to turn the page that I hear Roberta’s cry, that piercing wail that can only be called keening.

  It’s been a long day, waiting for this. Because I wanted to be here when the moment arrived, I didn’t go to the movies or out to the mall to distract myself from my own troubles. Roberta’s granddaughter, Jade, is on her way to Pueblo from California, but she isn’t here yet, and Roberta sent everybody else away. When the moment comes, she’ll need someone. So I’ve waited. Trying to keep warm—I’m wearing a T-shirt, a cotton sweater and a wool one, two pairs of socks, and jeans—and I’m still cold. It’s like Rick was my furnace, and without him, I’m turning into an icicle.

  And the wind is driving me crazy.

  People often tell me how much they love the wind. I’ve sat, with my mouth open, while friends from elsewhere—they are always from somewhere else—rhapsodize about the winds they know, and I can tell that they’re thinking of an entirely different entity—a green goddess, trailing her veils over the beach or through the forest. They love a wind that comes with moisture and beauty.

  In Pueblo, our winds are of the Inquisition variety, winds that know that the secret of torture is to begin and end, to be inconstant and constant at once, to bellow and to whisper. Endlessly.

  This year, it’s been even worse than usual. Every morning, it gathers, gusting and stopping. Blasting and quitting. All day, it bangs on the windows and blusters around the car and buffets the trees and tears at the shrubs. Boxes blown from who knows where skitter down the street. There is no surface without grit. Static electricity can knock you down. I play music, loudly, to drown it out, put a pillow over my head at night.

  But not today. I have to listen for Roberta.

  For lunch, I pour some condensed chicken and stars soup into a pot and put the kettle on for tea, huddling next to the burners with my hands tucked under my armpits. The tea is indifferent, the soup the last can on the shelf. I was lucky to find that much worth consuming, really, since I keep forgetting to go to the grocery store. Right now, when I’m hungry for something better than the cupboards have to offer, I look around for my list so I can write good tea bags on there, but it’s gone missing. Again. I can’t keep track of anything lately.

  I used to spend at least two hours a week planning menus and shopping for my crew of five. Now it’s only me and my seventeen-year-old, Annie, but more often than not she eats at school or at her restaurant job or with her boyfriend, Travis. As long as I keep milk and cereal and frozen pizzas around, she’s covered.

  I keep forgetting that it might be good for me to cook for myself. Nobody ever liked the same foods I do—my roasted veggie dishes and exotic soups. Time to indulge. On my list, I write, Garlic, marinated pepper strips, lemon juice, whole pepper. Frozen quiches. Cheddar (the good one), Triscuits.

  I won’t forget the single-serving cans of tuna, which have been the mainstay of my diet lately. It’s easy, and at least the cats get enthusiastic when they hear me pop the lid. I always pour the water off into a bowl for them. They are immensely grateful and I can glow over it for a good five minutes, standing at the counter eating out of the can.

  I know, I know. Cats, tuna—this has all the earmarks of a Bad End.

  The kettle whistles and I pour water into my cup, think maybe I’m just getting old. Bones thinning along with my skin, muscles withering away to nothing. I think of my granny, wizened down to broomstick size, and pull my sweater tighter around my torso.

  Not old, not old, not old. Not at forty-six. Forty-six is young these days, or at least just beyond the cusp of middle age.

  Wind blusters against the windows, and I hear the sound of the chimes my new neighbor hung on his porch. His things appeared abruptly overnight three days ago, like the plumage of some exotic bird—a trio of chimes strung across the porch, a cluster of sticks and painted canvas in the side yard that promised quiet and other things, a foreign car I thought might be an English Mini, strange and small and orange. A ristra, cheery, bright red chiles in a string, hung by the door, nothing strange by itself. But it almost seemed that there was a new scent in the air, spice and chocolate and the promise of fresh yeast. Shannelle, the young mother across the street, said she’d glimpsed him, and widened her eyes to illustrate her amazement.

  I move to the window to peer out. My breath makes a thick circle of condensation on the glass. At first I can only see the car, a blurry round like a giant pumpkin, so I wipe away the fog and cover my mouth with my fingers. As if called by my curiosity, he comes out on the porch.

  Oh.

  Despite the cold, he wears no shoes, and only some Ecuadorean-style pajama bottoms riding low on hips the color of a sticky bun. Hair runs in a fine line up the center of his belly like a stripe of cinnamon. Heavy silver bracelets cuff his dark wrists. A necklace of claws, something made in a jungle, hangs around his neck.

  He stretches, showing the tufts of hair beneath his arms. I find myself holding my breath with him, letting it out again only when he lowers his chin and, in an insouciant gesture, tosses back his hair to show his face. It looks good from this distance, a high brow and wide mouth. Hair, thick and wavy, pours down to his shoulders in a tangle of honey and butter.

  I half expect him to look my way, feel my gaze like some magic being, but he only bends over to pick up a newspaper and goes back inside.

  Lazy thing, I think, sleeping until past noon.

  I carry my tea and soup into the dining room, put down a place mat on the table even though there’s no strict need for it. It’s not as if the table needs protecting—it’s ancient and beautiful, if scarred from twenty-some years of family dinners—but I like the homey look of the floral pattern against the wood. I think it might be for show, in case anyone happens by, a way to demonstrate that I’m doing just fine, but that’s okay, too. I get a matching napkin out of the drawer and center everything on the mat, look for a magazine to read, trying to recapture the sense of well-being such old rituals used to give me when Rick went off riding with his buddy Joe Zamora, and the kids were at friends’ houses or skating or whatever. In those days, time alone was a luxury—I’d put on some music no one else liked and fix some soup only I would eat, like my very special corn chowder, and read in the blissful aloneness.

  But the evening looms. The house thunders with emptiness. How could my old life be over so suddenly that after years and years of never having a minute to draw my breath now I have so much time that I feel myself sinking into it like quicksand, drowning in it?

  A mother finished. A wife dismissed.

  Cliché-city.

  “God, Trudy,” I say to myself aloud, since there’s no one else to say it to. “You are boring me to death now. Do something.”

  So I find the collection of Lorca’s poems, which I’ve been reading in an attempt to rene
w my acquaintance with Spanish—a passion I left behind somewhere. His work is appropriate to accompany the sound of Roberta’s singing that comes to me between bursts of wind. The houses are not that far apart and she’s got one of those big, black Southern gospel kinds of voices, like Aretha Franklin, though she pooh-poohs that comparison. I knew when I heard her that she was singing her husband Edgar’s favorites for him.

  One last time.

  Letting him go at last. He’s been in a diabetic coma for two weeks, since just after supper one Friday night. I was sitting with her when it happened—he’d been sick for a while, pieces of his body just eaten away by the disease—and she grabbed his hand, and cried out, “Edgar, don’t you leave me!” in such a heartbroken voice that I had to go home and cry about it later.

  The hospice workers and the nurse who came in every day kept saying they didn’t know what in the world was keeping him alive. But I knew. So did Roberta.

  The cry comes again, a wild piercing wail, the sound of her soul tearing in half. I put down my book, put my hand to my chest, and let it move through me. In a minute, I will stand up and go to her.

  In a minute.

  In between, I let it swell in me, the freshened sorrow that her grief brings. My husband is not dead, just in love with somebody else, but I’m mourning him all the same, and my heart joins in Roberta’s howl, as if we’re a pair of coyotes. My wrist, out of the cast now for a couple of weeks, starts throbbing, and I put my other hand around it protectively.

  Roberta. I put on my shoes and coat and hurry over to her house.

  SHANNELLE’S WRITING WALL

  Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do than by the things you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the tradewinds in your sails.