by Gigi Amateau
“Are we out of Virginia yet?” I asked Mom.
“No, not yet, Miss Jenna. Virginia is a very long state, if you drive it sideways. Let’s play a counting game to help pass the time,” Mom suggested. “Hand me a pimento cheese sandwich, and I’ll teach you how to play.”
I dug out a sandwich for Mom.
“And some chips, too, please.”
I dug out some chips for Mom and ate a couple more myself.
“Okay, Jenna, in this game, every time we see a church steeple, we have to sing the phrase ‘Church bells do chime’ three times. You may sing high or low, fast or slow. The only rule is that you must sing it in a way that fits the church.”
Virginia has a lot of churches. When I saw a sweet, little white church sitting atop a hill, I sang “Church bells do chime” fast and high, with lots of somersaults in my voice.
When Mom saw a fine brick church way down in a valley, she lowered her voice, deep like a man’s, and said, “That is a very big, very serious-looking church.” She sang her song so slow and so low that it didn’t sound like Mom. We sang and sang until we were hoarse.
When I got tired of singing, I still wasn’t tired of counting, so I made up a new game.
“Let’s count all the big trucks we see. And if we lose track, we have to start over; that’s the only rule.” All the way to two hundred thirteen or two hundred fourteen we counted. Then we got lost in our counting and had to start over. By the time we got to Tennessee, I was tired of trucks, but I still wasn’t tired of counting.
“Let’s count crows!” Mom said. “Like Tannie and I used to do when I was little. Saint Louis would drive us to Birmingham, and we’d tell our fortunes by the number of crows standing on the side of the road. Whoever sees a crow first starts counting like this: ‘One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never told.’ I’ll go first.”
Counting crows sounded fun to me!
Mom saw one crow. “Uh-oh, one for sorrow. Too bad. I’ll see more next time. Your turn next. Hey, do we have an apple left?” I handed Mom an apple and took one for myself.
“Two! I see two crows! One for sorrow, two for joy!” I shouted.
We took turns all through the Great Smoky Mountains. Mom always counted only one for sorrow for her fortune. I counted every number except seven.
“Look!” Mom said on her turn. “Three! Well, of course. Three for a girl and I have you.”
We drove across the Tennessee River, and finally, on my turn, I counted seven crows.
“Wow, seven for a secret never told!” Mom slapped me a high five. “What do you think that means, Jenna? What is a secret never told?”
“Maybe, if there are diamonds buried in our backyard, but nobody ever found them, not even in a million years.”
“That’s a good one,” Mom said. “Or what if a unicorn lives way up in those Smokies, so deep in the forest that no person ever saw it and no one ever, ever knew that unicorns were real?”
Then I thought of Tannie and why we were making this trip. I wondered if Tannie had a secret never told. I whispered to Mom, “What if Tannie really does want to come live with us, but it’s such a big, gigantic secret inside of her that she hasn’t even told herself?”
“I think you’ve found our fortune, Jenna,” Mom said. “Let’s stop counting crows.”
In Nashville, I stared out the window at the streetlights as they came on. Mom listened to the radio. I fluffed up my pillow against the window and rested my eyes.
The next thing I’ll see will be Tannie, I thought.
After fourteen hours — one whole day and most of a night — we turned into Tannie’s drive at a quarter till midnight.
I ran to the house, straight to find Tannie. With her broken ankle in a cast, Tannie had to walk with crutches. She moved ever so slowly, but she and Butt were standing at the door waiting for us.
Tannie’s hand shook a little when she reached out to me. “Jenna, let’s get a good look at you.” Tannie tried to smile. Butt purred against my ankles and pushed his bottom high in the air. I hugged Tannie for an extra long time.
I could tell by her face that Tannie still had some pain. I smiled a lot even though Tannie didn’t look just like herself. Mom had told me to act happy so Tannie would see how glad we would be for her to come live with us. I didn’t have to act one bit.
“Tannie, how are you?” Mom wanted to know.
“I’m all right for any old lady,” she answered. She patted Mom’s shoulder and held her cheek out for a kiss.
Mom kissed Tannie’s cheek and held her close.
“How are you, really?” Mom asked again.
“Well, I’m not myself, if that’s what you mean. I don’t expect I will be for some time, if ever.” Tannie paused and sighed. “I’m different, Grace. I’ll have to use a walker after this cast comes off. Everything is different now,” Tannie told her.
Mom nodded like she understood. Butt licked his paws, then cleaned his face.
Tannie shooed us off to bed. “These girls have been on the road for too long, haven’t they, Butt?” Butt looked up from his bath.
“Get some sleep,” said Tannie. “We’ve plenty of time for catching up tomorrow.”
But I couldn’t sleep; neither could Mom. We were ready to talk Tannie into coming home with us.
In Tannie’s big guest bed, where Mom and I slept, I whispered to Mom, “Are you sure she’ll come? If I were Tannie, I wouldn’t want to leave.”
Butt hopped in the bed with us. He smushed the quilts down, turned around and around, and settled right on top of Mom’s chest. Mom started to sneeze, “Tannie’s a tough bird—achoo — that’s for sure. We’ll have some convincing to do, no doubt about it. Achoo.”
I hoped Mom would do most of the convincing.
In the morning, Mom got up her courage while she made us pancakes and sausage for breakfast. Mom says it’s easier to talk over a good meal.
I didn’t go kick my soccer ball around the yard or race through the woods looking for quail. I didn’t run to visit the chickens. I didn’t hide in the low, tangled branches of Tannie’s magnolia tree. I stayed right beside Mom while she told Tannie how we had everything ready for her in Virginia.
She asked Tannie nicely to come home with us, but that didn’t work. Tannie didn’t put up a big fuss at the idea of leaving the place she built with Saint Louis. She just didn’t want to leave.
Tannie said, “Grace, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stay here.” Mom didn’t give up. She’s strong willed, too, just like Tannie and me.
Mom reminded Tannie of the time Tannie helped us, when we needed help the most. “When Michael and I split up? What did you do?”
Michael’s my dad; he lives way across the country now. He’s strong willed, too, just like the rest of us. Mom jokes that nobody ever called him Saint Michael. My dad lives in San Francisco — that’s even farther from Virginia than Tannie’s place.
Tannie looked at Mom and shook her head. “You girls are like my own, that’s all.”
Mom wasn’t going to give in. “Tannie, you came to us then. You read Jenna stories and taught her every bird song you know.”
“Bob-white, bob-white,” I whistled for special effect.
“That’s good, Jenna. Do you remember the song of the eastern meadowlark?” Tannie asked.
“I would never forget it.” And I sang the song of the eastern meadowlark for Tannie: “Spring-of-the-year, spring-of-the-year.”
“How about the sweet little eastern towhee? Isn’t he your favorite?”
“Drink-your-tea! Drink-your-teaaa!” I sounded just like the towhee.
“Ladies, stop changing the subject,” Mom scolded us. “Tannie, the point is we’re family. We need to be together.”
Tannie wouldn’t budge; Mom wouldn’t quit.
“Aunt Britannia,” Mom said softly, “we all need help sometimes.”
It took a very lot of convincing
and begging to get Tannie to agree. Tannie was running out of arguments. She tried to resist Mom one last time. She looked at Butt and patted her knees.
Butt jumped up in Tannie’s lap and kneaded her pants with his tiny paws until his spot was just right for sleeping. Only Butt didn’t fall asleep; I saw his little pink nose twitching, and his eyes were only pretending to be asleep. Butt was playing opossum!
“Well, what about Butt? Jenna, you love Butt, I know,” Tannie said to me.
I rubbed my nose against Butt’s nose to make him open his eyes.
Then Tannie looked at Mom. “You’re allergic to cats, Grace. And I can’t leave Butt.” Tannie folded her arms like she thought she had won.
Butt is so smart; he jumped down from Tannie’s lap and twisted himself around Mom’s legs, meowing like he was a kitten. He’s such a baby.
My mom loves Tannie so much that she picked Butt up in her arms and nuzzled his pink nose to hers. “I love Butt, too! We insist that Butt should come with you.”
Tannie didn’t say anything — she just got real quiet. I could tell she was thinking hard about it, but I didn’t get too excited yet. I rubbed Butt’s tummy until he started purring really loud like a lawn mower.
“Butt,” I told him, “if you come to live with us, you can eat scraps from the kitchen and sleep in my room anytime you want. We even have a screened-in porch where you can stretch out in the sun all day long!”
I kissed Butt’s nose again. Butt purred even louder.
After another minute, Tannie agreed. “Okay, girls. I will hate leaving this place. There are many, many memories of a wonderful life here. I suppose you’re right. Butt and I will live with you. If that’s what you really want.”
With Butt still in her arms, Mom leaned over to Tannie and kissed her. “Yes! That’s what we really want.”
I gave Butt a tummy rub.
Then, Mom started to sneeze. Achoo! Achoo! Achoo!
“Must be all the pollen outside,” said Mom. She set Butt down on the floor.
Tannie put her farm up for sale and her enormous pickup truck and her motorcycle, too. She gave the bossy rooster and the kind chickens to Mrs. Butler, who was in need of a rooster, anyhow. Tannie kissed each chicken on the head before we left. The movers put her sleigh bed and her piano in a trailer, and her grandfather clock and gardening tools, too.
Tannie and Mom sat in the front. Butt and I had the whole backseat to ourselves. Tannie would only stare out the front window. “I have to look ahead! I can’t turn back,” she said.
Mom sniffled and wiped her eyes. She reached her hand to Tannie’s shoulder.
I watched out the window until we were gone, long down the road. The four of us drove back through the Great Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge Mountains, too, all the way home to our house in Virginia. Tannie rode the whole way with her good china in a box on her lap so it wouldn’t break.
I had a feeling Tannie was right about everything being different now.
Tannie sure did seem different. I looked at my Tannie List, then put it away. My list would have to wait until Tannie got better. First, we had to learn fast how to help Tannie. Especially since she couldn’t do everything by herself anymore. In fact, Tannie stopped doing most things for herself, because Mom did most things for her.
Mom cooked Tannie’s meals and washed her clothes. She fixed Tannie’s medicine and took Tannie to the doctor to cut off her cast. Mom even helped Tannie in the shower so she wouldn’t slip and fall. Tannie hardly said a word. Something told me maybe she didn’t like all of Mom’s helping.
And when Mom brought home the new walker to help Tannie stay balanced, we learned that Tannie liked that even less.
“I have to take such extra care with simple things. I’m not supposed to bend over. I’m not supposed to squat down. I can’t lift anything. I’m not used to this. I’m used to doing everything on my own,” Tannie complained.
Mom tried to comfort her. “Your bones are so fragile that you have to be careful. Fragile bones take time to mend, you know, and it’s best if they don’t get broken at all. I’m going to take good care of you now; you don’t have to worry about anything. Using your walker will help keep you safe,” Mom said.
My special job was to keep track of Tannie’s walker and remind her to use it all the time. Sometimes Tannie refused. If she walked down the hallway without it — holding on to doorknobs, teetering to the left, then tottering to the right — I would ask her, “Aunt Tannie, where is your walker?”
Tannie would just wave me off with her hand and a shrug. “I don’t know. It’s in the other room, I guess.”
My other job was to keep Tannie’s bird feeders filled. Even though we still hadn’t put up any nest boxes, the eastern bluebirds perched on the power line every day. The northern cardinals kept watch on the fence gate. One day, I saw a bird I had never seen.
“What’s that fuzzy-headed gray one?” I asked Tannie.
“That little tiny darling? That’s called a phoebe!”
“A phoebe? There’s a bird named after me? Jenna Phoebe?”
“Opposite. You are named after that fuzzy-headed bird!”
“Oh, it’s so cute.” I wished I could hold the phoebe in my hand.
“That was you on the day you were born, Jenna. So tiny and fuzzy and sweet, that I suggested that your parents give you that name.”
“Aunt Tannie, is it time for me to start a life list?” I asked.
“I believe it is; I believe it is. That little eastern phoebe shall hold the most esteemed, number-one spot on your life list. You’ll never forget that bird, even when you’re old like me.”
I think watching the birds with me was the most exciting part of Tannie’s day. While Mom worked hard at the hospital and I worked hard at school, Tannie watched TV or read books or watched the birds at her window. But Tannie was used to more excitement. She was used to doing whatever she wanted to do. If you ask me, Tannie was getting bored in Virginia.
Poor Tannie. Would she ever have a big adventure again?
One day, when Mom and I came home, Tannie was nowhere to be found.
“Tannie? Tannie, where are you?” Mom hollered through the house.
“Butt?” I called in my room.
“Tannie, this isn’t funny,” Mom said to nobody.
“Butt! Butt! Baby-Butt!” I called under the sofa. Then I made a kissing sound; I walked all through the house; Butt did not come out.
I heard that mockingbird making a fuss outside. I ran to the back door.
“MOM!” I yelled. “I found Tannie’s walker!” Mom came running.
“Uh-oh,” she said. Mom threw open the screen door. The heat from outside rushed onto my face.
There was Tannie with one foot on a stepladder and one foot on the earth. She wasn’t using her walker or being extra careful.
Tannie was about to climb the dogwood tree. Mom ran to Tannie, waving her arms in the air. “Stop! Stop! Do not climb up that tree!”
Tannie stepped back down, with both feet on the earth. She stood at attention and gave Mom a salute. I laughed out loud. Mom did not laugh.
Mom took a deep breath and then asked Tannie calmly, “What exactly are you doing out here? Why is there a ladder leaning on that tree?”
Tannie explained that it was no big deal. She pointed toward the holly, where the mockingbird lived. “I wanted to see how many eggs might be in the nest.”
Then Tannie looked up in the dogwood. “Butt came out with me, of course.”
Butt cried from the tippy-top branches.
Tannie admitted, “You would think I’d know better than to stake out a mockingbird. That protective mama bird chased Butt right up the dogwood. I’m glad you’re here. Grace, will you hold the ladder for me? The big baby won’t come down.”
Rescuing Butt sounded way fun to me! “I’ll do it! I’ll do it! I’ll get Butt even without the stepladder!” I took off my socks and shoes and shimmied up the tree before Mom could tell me, “Do not
climb up that tree!”
Tannie cheered me on. “That’s it, Jenna! You’re just the right size! Get on up that tree, little girl, and bring the big baby down to me!”
Butt cried louder: MEOW! MEOW!
Tannie was right; the dogwood was just my size for climbing. I reached Butt in a flash. He jumped safe into my arms, and we carefully climbed back down to Tannie and Mom.
Tannie shook my hand. “Jenna, you’re a girl after my own heart.”
“You’re the one who taught me that the best way to climb a tree is barefooted,” I said, giving Tannie the credit.
I looked at Mom, expecting her to tell me, “Good job, Jenna! You saved Butt’s life.”
Instead, she just said, “Ladies, let’s go back inside before someone gets hurt.” Mom looked at Tannie and took another deep breath. “Aunt Britannia, next time ask for help first. You could have really hurt yourself. I’m surprised you didn’t lose your balance just moving the ladder.”
“Grace, I’ve never needed much help,” Tannie told Mom. “You know that.”
Mom just said, “Tannie, come on. I’ll help you with your shower after supper and after I pay the bills.” Mom held Tannie’s elbow tight going up the steps. Butt followed Tannie. I put the ladder away, all by myself, and made a note to add the mockingbird to my life list.
At bedtime, I waited to hear the mockingbird, but she didn’t sing one note. I guessed she was too busy with her nest to sing. Butt curled up beside me and purred himself to sleep. I waited and waited for Mom. I reached under my pillow for my Tannie List. Maybe tomorrow, I thought, I’ll at least take care of number six. I’ll win that soccer game for Tannie.
This year, my spring soccer team was one of the best in the league. I was nervous about this first play-off game because it was the biggest game of my life. I was even more nervous because Tannie was coming to watch me and I wanted to win for her. Finally, I could do something on my Tannie List: Win a soccer game for Tannie!