Buried Seeds

by Donna Meredith

  “I promise to start reading the rest tonight—even though I have papers I need to grade.”

  “You always have papers to grade. They’ll wait. Read your story, Angie. Leadership is in your genes. Have you told Rebecca you’d serve as AFT vice president?” Mom asks.

  “Someone else would do a better job. Besides, I don’t have time.”

  “Mom, you have to do it,” Trish says. “Be the change you want to see.”

  “That’s a cliché.”

  “Because it’s true. Come on. I’ve found time, so should you.”

  The guilt trip starts working on me. Even though Trish had already been pregnant as the “Me Too” movement took off over the summer, she spoke out about harassment she’d experienced in college and organized a meeting of local women to share their experiences.

  I’m not ready to give into to the “do it” whispers in my head yet. “I’m just a one tiny cog in a humongous system. Who’s going to listen to me?”

  “You have power, even if you don’t realize it,” Mom says. “You can be an organizer like Rosella Krause.” Mom stares over the baby’s head at empty space near the ceiling as if she sees something the rest of us are missing. “Just think about Evelyn Maddox.”

  Evelyn? Hadn’t she died a few years back? Mom’s train of thought is impossible to follow. “That woman with the reedy voice who used to sing in the church choir?”

  “Right, Evelyn Maddox. When Evelyn was singing one of her pitiful solos, you could hardly hear her. But when the whole choir was singing together, why, the joyful noise rocked the rafters of the sanctuary. Their voices drowned out the preacher, the man in charge. You want Governor Justice and them legislators to give you a raise, the whole chorus has to start singing. Drown the tightwads out.”

  I swallow a giggle. So often Mom brings dead people into conversations as if they are still among us, but I see her point.

  Trish crosses the room and retrieves the baby from my mother. “Do it for Bella, Mom. She’s gonna need good public schools.”

  The whisper morphs into a roar. Why doesn’t insurance cover children’s hearing aids? What if we can’t afford to give little Bella all the best care she deserves, that every human deserves?

  “Okay, okay, I’ll do it for all of us.”

  Back home that night, I curl up in my favorite chair with a cup of tea, the scrapbook in my lap. I’m not ready for Deborah Springer’s story. Not yet. Instead I turn to the fattest section of the book, the one labeled “Rosella Krause.”

  I sink deeper into the chair cushion, amazed by how much work went into this project. Th e first page is a sepia-toned photograph of Rosella, taken when she was possibly in her late teens, dwarfed beside a strapping fellow who resembles Clark Gable, clearly older than she. Despite her diminutive size, the lively spirit and self-assurance she exudes dominates the photograph. Or maybe I am predisposed to focus on her because my mother has gushed over her so. I wouldn’t call Rosella beautiful, but she is striking, dark-eyed, full-lipped, with long, thin fingers, close-clipped nails, that look as capable of milking a cow as shaping a vase from clay. A small embroidered cape fastened with a brooch partially hides the bodice of her gown, three-quarter sleeved with a thickly braided hemline, a frock designed to give any woman confidence. My mother’s handwritten caption indicates it might be a wedding photograph. Although I study the woman’s face closely, I cannot discern any resemblance to me. She is dainty; I am big-boned. Her hair, caramel; mine black as coal. At least, it used to be. The one feature we might share is dark eyes, though who can really say from a faded photograph.

  I flip through several pages of news clippings about Rosella’s pottery. I am impressed. She was important enough to merit her own show in an art gallery in San Francisco. I doubt if many women achieved that kind of recognition way back in 1920. I flip to the next page and unfold a photocopy of the entire front page from the Examiner. How important this woman must have been to make the front page of a city paper!

  Absently I reach for my teacup with my right hand, letting the index finger of my left hand trail down the photocopy until it rests on a bold headline containing my ancestor’s name. As the headline’s meaning sinks in, the teacup slips from my fingers and clatters back onto its saucer.

  Rosella

  San Francisco, 1920

  The teacup slipped from my fingers and clattered onto its saucer. It seemed some ghosts from my past refused to stay buried. I scanned the headline again and let my breath hiss past my teeth. How in tarnation could the Examiner print such scurrilous lies! Now that the Great War was over, it seemed all the newspapers wanted to print was scandal and gossip and lies. Tardily, I inspected the teacup, caressing the curve of the handle. The piece was hand painted, a gift from Nellie Priester, and I would be loath to allow the slightest harm to come to it. I started every morning with that cup in hand—even when I traveled—to remind me of my dearest friend. I found the china intact though tea had sloshed onto the hotel’s tablecloth.

  I scanned the first paragraph again, hoping the words were merely the product of a mind still cobwebbed by dreams or nightmares. But the massive headline, so oppressively dark in typeface and thought, assaulted me anew. As if my hands possessed no more substance than empty gloves, bereft of starch and bone, they released the Examiner, its pages spilling atop buttered toast, a pot of fragrant plum jam, and what remained of my chamomile tea. I would have appreciated this room service more had it not included the newspaper. My hands flew to the hollow at the base of my throat, as if to shield that most vulnerable stretch of skin. Were authorities about to arrest me? Imprison me? Hang me by the neck until dead?

  Considering the power of the Puritanical crusade waged by Compton and his ilk, it is no wonder that I was first overcome with fear, but let me assure you, after a few deep breaths, outrage replaced fear. Oh all right, I was afraid too, but the ridiculousness of that headline. Lock her up!!! Yes, the paper deemed me—all ninety-two pounds, fully dressed out in petticoats, corset, and leather shoes—me, worthy of three exclamation marks. Three! Why, the very morality of the nation must be at stake. Gasp! What woman’s husband could possibly be safe as long as such a harlot remained free. Lock her up!!!

  Oh, I had spent a night in jail when I was arrested for picketing the White House, but other women shared the same fate then. Awful as it was, I had company in my misery, other women who ate beans and cornmeal crawling with weevils, who were kicked and beaten, manacled to the bars of prison cells, and denied even the simple luxury of a toothbrush. That last bothered me more than anything else. I do like clean teeth.

  This new threat singled me out in a personal attack. Who among my acquaintances had fed the reporter this mishmash of fact and fiction? Hardly anyone knew the few details that were accurate. Who? Who? Who would betray me this way?

  I had barely noticed when Solina rose from the breakfast table and tiptoed behind me to see what had caused such alarm. By the time she spoke, I suppose she had already read most of the story over my shoulder.

  “Mama, I know you are different from other mothers, but how can they say these things about you?”

  Different? I wasn’t that different. Although I grant you, most mothers didn’t have clay under their fingernails. And not many had arrest records—but it wasn’t as if I had committed any criminal acts. None I deemed criminal anyway. I caressed the petal smooth hand she placed on my shoulder without turning to look at her.

  When I didn’t respond, the hand on my shoulder tightened, her tone more insistent, the pitch higher, trembling. “Mama?”

  She was so young, only fourteen, an innocent, but I could procrastinate no longer. Even though I’d often rehearsed my story mentally over the years, now that the moment had arrived, I felt unprepared.

  “Only a fool could believe I set out to become a bigamist—and I know you are no fool, Solina, because I raised you.”

  She resumed her seat at the breakfast table, unable, poor girl, to eat a bite, her eyes never leavin
g my face until I delivered the newspaper into her hands.

  “Most certainly I am not now nor have I ever been a baby killer or a whore,” I told her when she finished reading the scandal sheet— for what else could you call it? “You cannot believe those things about me. Such despicable fabrication is beneath even Hearst and the Examiner.”

  But oh, I shuddered as I considered the damage this would do. Picture my fine circle of patrons and friends as their eyes alight on this sordid gossip. See their finely embroidered handkerchiefs clasped to the delicate pink of their lips. Hear them call to their maids for smelling salts. But quicker than my friends can order up a carriage, they will be overcome by a Christian impulse to share such dreadful news. Feel the air shift as front doors whiz open and click shut along Russian Hill as these ladies rush to each other’s homes. Beware: A ninety-two pound Satan has darkened your doorways. An exorcism is in order. Or at least a glass of sherry.

  For a moment, I speculated about the fate of my pottery. Would they destroy my precious art, now view it as tarnished by the wicked hands that created it? No, no, ’tis more likely notoriety would increase its value. Every piece, an opportunity to waft a pale, smooth hand in a ewer’s direction, and declare I knew the artist, and then in the lowest of whispers—lean in closer, ladies—here comes “A Tale of Two Men in Two Cities.” A tale far racier than anything Dickens ever wrote, though hardly as profound.

  “My story—the real story, Solina—begins on our family farm in West Virginia,” I said.

  One side of her mouth lifted in an expression I’d noticed all too often lately. A scowl. Quite unattractive.

  “Mama, I have a right to know. Is Papa really—”

  I posed the rude question before she could finish. “Really your father? He raised you, didn’t he? He deserves that title. But if you consider simple biology, the answer is rather more complicated.”

  My daughter’s eyes grew wide with horror. “Mama, right now I feel as if I have no idea who you are.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Let me assure you, the story I am about to share will vindicate my actions.”

  I would have told her long ago, should have, but the moment never seemed quite right. She deserved to hear the truth, a virtue entirely—well, almost entirely—absent from the Examiner story. “Seriously, darling, what woman would willingly assume the responsibility of caring for two husbands simultaneously? The Good Lord knows one man can be trouble enough.”

  Especially if one of them was Jack Joyner.

  “Give me a chance to explain.”

  She slouched in the chair and crossed her arms, pulling the fabric of her nightgown tight against her budding breasts. “I’m listening.”

  The tone of her voice had hardened slightly. But even though her lower lip eclipsed the upper in a slight pout, I was amazed anew by how lovely her face had become—an exquisite oval with features arrayed in perfect symmetry. Her dark eyes, which reminded me so much of Jack’s, and every bit as much of Val’s, rested on me expectantly, but I hardly knew where to start. Truth—did anyone ever really grasp the whole truth, the bitter truth? More important, did Solina really want to hear it? I wasn’t sure how much to divulge.

  My eyes fell back onto the newsprint and my teeth clamped together. Instead of the photograph of the most beautifully textured design I’d ever created, one employing both slip trail and sgraffito, the Examiner had wasted space on Jack’s and Val’s mug shots. The scandal completely overshadowed the opening of my show at Kenneson’s gallery, mentioned almost as an afterthought. Men! Must they always dominate everything? Poof! All the years I had spent honing skills, perfecting technique, building toward the kind of recognition every artist longs for—my own show in an important gallery—eclipsed by outrageous tittle-tattle.

  Who had ruined what was supposed to be my moment of triumph? I was going to find the source behind the Examiner’s story and then I would—well, I didn’t know what I would do, but I would be forceful. Merciless. Vengeful. If it was that conniving Alexandra Underwood, I would slap the arrogance right off her face.

  I smacked my hand down on the table. Solina jumped and Nellie’s teacup rattled in its saucer.

  Harrison County, West Virginia, 1899-1903

  A thief and magician, that’s what Jack Joyner was. Though I sketched him many times, I never could quite capture his ever-changing eyes. Through sleight of hand, one day his eyes would steal the burnished brown of chestnuts, but the next day, he’d sidle up beside the very same tree, and before those poor leaves knew what was happening, he’d stripped them of their green. Some days his eyes gleamed golden, and I knew he’d fooled the sunlight yet again, perhaps with another card trick. No girl could resist his twinkle or his wink. Jack Joyner was indeed a thief. That trickster stole the heart of many a girl, including mine. I should have known he’d prove just as fickle as the color of his eyes. Jack was a jackass, but I couldn’t see it then. No, I was certain he would rescue me, that he would keep me from turning into my mother. Don’t get me wrong— I adored the dear woman—but she allowed my father to swallow her identity. I swore by all that was holy that would not happen to Rosella Krause. And it didn’t, so it’s only fair to credit Jack for his role in shaping the independent woman I became.

  The Krause farm amounted to sixty-five acres of rolling hills suitable only for grazing. We raised cows to keep us in milk and meat. No matter how cash-poor we might be, there was always plenty to eat. My father had plowed up our only two acres of bottomland where we planted corn, pole beans, tomatoes, peppers, and squash. His skin was sun-darkened and pebbled like an orange; his fingers, so rough they snagged on cloth, sandpapered your skin if he happened to touch you. His face, narrow, trapezoid-shaped, broader at the forehead, tapered to a squared chin darkened by a trim beard.

  Besides tending to the needs of a husband and seven children, my mother managed that vegetable garden, stocking our root cellar with Mason jars to see us through winter. They were beautiful, those jars, shiny rows of raspberry jam, red and green peppers simmered in tomato sauce, golden corn relish, the dull green of pole beans, and pickled cucumber spears. The jars I cherished above all were the green tomato pickles we canned in late fall.

  My mother also kept a small flock of buckeye chickens she’d obtained from a woman in Lumberport, ten miles north of our farm on the outskirts of Clarksburg. My mother claimed they were the best chickens ever bred. Killed mice better than our cats. Summer evenings when she was too exhausted to take another step, my mother would sit in her rocker on the porch, and several of those hens took turns nestling in her lap while she stroked their feathers. Baby substitutes, you see, after my youngest brother Timmy grew too big for lap sitting. Following Timmy’s birth, my mother took to sleeping in the bedroom that had been Mark’s and Paul’s before they left home for jobs in the coal mines and Josiah’s before he married and worked construction jobs in town. The room was once shared by two older brothers, so I’m told. They left home soon after I was born to log the magnificent red spruce, yellow poplar, white oak, and hemlock that once carpeted the Alleghenies. Many trees ranged from ten to twenty feet in diameter, if you can believe the letters my brothers sent home. Those giants are all gone now and my brothers disappeared into the wilds of the western states. We last heard from them almost a decade ago.

  In any case, my mother passed off the new sleeping arrangements as a joke, that it was the only way to get any rest because my father snored.

  By the time I was ten, I had wrung the necks of chickens under the direction of my mother and had sent a bullet spiraling into the sweet spot of a deer after hours hovering in a stand with Josiah. I had tried but failed to snag a wild turkey, those creatures being far too wily for the likes of me.

  My first attempts at art were rather crude pots, functional pieces my mother taught me to make. We hauled wet clay up from the creek and shaped vessels to hold water and large bowls to hold apples from our orchard. My mother showed me how to use a sharpened stick to incise simpl
e designs in the wet clay, the shape of an oak leaf or the outline of a tree. But my favorite way to capture any aspect of the natural world was with a pencil. I fancied myself an artist. The school mistress had shown us sketches of bobwhite, crows, and a golden eagle done by John James Audubon who lived in nearby Kentucky. He had become famous for his drawings, she said. Since she had complimented my drawings, I was certain I could become famous too.

  Besides farming, my father, the right Reverend Herman Krause, supported us as an itinerant preacher. Weekends, he set out for Bristol, Pennsboro, Center Point, Clarksburg, Quiet Dell, Shinnston, Saltwell—any nearby community that would welcome a sermon and allow him to pass a collection plate. No matter how exhausted my mother was, if his destination was close enough, she put on her one good dress and got all of us cleaned up to accompany him. She would leave a small roast with vegetables in a cast iron pot inside the woodstove so we could eat upon return. When I was a little tot, my older brothers would sometimes tell jokes at the table. That seemed acceptable to my father, but if my mother dared to laugh at the boys’ remarks, he blessed her out with a fiery sermon. Women must not laugh at off-color stories. Women, in Herman Krause’s book of rules, must hold themselves to higher standards than men. Women must serve as pillars of light, leading their men folk down the paths of righteousness. He even used to sing “This Little Light of Mine,” just for me, his little light. I didn’t aspire to be anyone’s light or pillar—the heck with that—but I learned to follow my mother’s example and only laughed at my brothers’ antics when my father wasn’t around. Through small deceptions like this, I remained in my father’s good graces. Grudgingly. Already I resented the way my mother allowed him to control her actions, the way her light dimmed in his presence.

  The summer everything changed, I was but eleven. Early in the morning, I had helped my mother with the wash and hung the bedding and clothes on the line to dry. Afterward, I peeled potatoes for our dinner. The trouble began when I carried the peelings out to the garden compost pile. Nimrod, my father’s prized Hereford bull, snorted behind the fence as if he were calling to me. We stared at each other for a full minute. Then I ran back to the house for my sketchbook. Before I knew it, an hour had passed and I had filled several pages with drawings of the bull, a patch of Queen Anne’s Lace, the gay blooms of a Rose of Sharon, and a wooly worm inching its way across a hickory twig. I trotted toward the barn, sketchbook swinging freely from one hand, pencil box from the other, eager to share my latest drawing with my father. I pulled up short when I saw him forking fresh hay into the stalls. My chore, which I had shirked. Again. I tended to lose track of time when I was drawing.