Isle of Palms

by Dorothea Benton Frank

I decided, then and there on crazy Lucy’s widow’s walk, watching the sun slide into the grand ruby stretch of horizon, that I would not pick Daddy apart. I would not interrogate Daddy in front of her. I would probably not interrogate him anywhere unless I found myself in an easy circumstance.

  If watching the signs around me told me anything then, it was that everybody was entitled to some happiness. They weren’t hurting anyone and the only risk was their own pride.

  “What a gorgeous sunset,” I said, exhaling my change of heart.

  Their posture relaxed; their faces softened. Whatever storm they had anticipated from me had passed out to sea on the turn of day to night.

  “Yes,” Daddy said, putting his arm around Lucy on one side and me on the other.

  “I’m so happy I could just cry,” Lucy said.

  “Please! Why don’t I help you incinerate that chicken instead?” I said. Even I, the plain food chef, thought that the chicken could be salvaged under a watchful eye at the grill but the poor tuna had been overmarinated beyond hope. If I ate that tuna, I’d never get my rings on again.

  With the gas grill finally at the right temperature, I placed the chicken over the coals, alternating basting the bird with cursing and swatting mosquitoes—the unofficial state bird of South Carolina. Daddy and Lucy were inside making salad and, I suspected, whoopee. This was confirmed when I slipped through the screen door to get the soggy fish without making enough noise. His back to the door, Daddy was standing at the counter and Lucy was behind him with her hand up the back of Daddy’s shirt.

  “Okay, tell me what this says.” She traced a word on his skin with her fingernails.

  “Nunk?”

  “Nunk? No, you silly! Hunk!”

  I cleared my throat. “Okay, you two, there are children in the room.”

  Lucy giggled and Daddy said, his face turning crimson, “She was just . . .”

  “Oh, forget it,” I said, “I was young once too, you know.”

  “Golly, Anna, we need to find you a man, honey. What’s up with your love life?”

  “You know what? That’s a darn good question. I met this guy and then . . .” And then, nothing happened, I thought.

  We picked our way through the chicken, bagged salad and garlic bread in addition to two bottles of Fat Bastard white wine. Lucy, true to habit, had managed to squeeze in a pitcher of frozen Margaritas and some vodka shots, which only she and Daddy drank.

  After all, I had to negotiate the yard to get home to nobody. They gave me the blues.

  When it was time for me to slip out, leaving them the lion’s share of the evening alone, I stood up from the couch.

  “You leaving?”

  “Yeah, I gotta get up early. Hey, Lucy! Thanks for dinner.”

  “Oh, honey, wasn’t nothing at all!”

  “Lucy? I’ll be back in a few minutes. I want to take a look at the lock on Anna’s back door.”

  “Sure, baby boy! I’ll be right here waiting!” Lucy gave me a hug and Daddy a kiss on the cheek. “See you later, Miss Anna! Sleep tight!”

  Daddy and I walked down her stairs and across the yards to my back door.

  “My lock is fine, Daddy.”

  “I know, I just wanted to talk to you for a minute.”

  I unlocked my door and we went in the kitchen.

  “You want a glass of water?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” he said and leaned against my counter, waiting for one of us to speak. “What’s bothering you, Anna?”

  He did not speak with an accusatory tone nor was there any trace of anything that would have allowed me to put up my guard and fight. It was just my father asking his daughter what was wrong and could he help.

  I was not a woman who cried easily or often. There were two occasions in my life that I recall really losing it and weeping like a child. One was my mother’s death when I realized she was really dead forever. Those tears sprang from a deep well of profound sadness. The other was when I knew I couldn’t live with Jim anymore. That major crying jag was brought on by my guilt and fear of standing on my own feet. This was entirely different. It was about digging up the bones.

  As my hot tears, the kind you dare to start up with you but they defy everything and come anyway, those steaming, streaming traitors, started running down my cheeks I lost all my words. I didn’t know what to say to him. He came to my side and his hands held my shoulders. My hands shook, trying to fill the filter with coffee for the next morning. I put it on the counter and the coffee grinds went everywhere. I turned around and put my head on my daddy’s shoulder, my arms around his waist, and ugly gulping sobs began to roll. I didn’t care.

  “Whatever in the world has happened, Anna?”

  “Oh, shit. Nothing.”

  “Yeah, sure. Come on, baby. Tell me. God knows, this old man of yours has heard it all.”

  “I don’t, oh, God, Daddy, I mean, I just don’t know where to start. I guess I just don’t know what’s true anymore.”

  He pulled his pressed handkerchief from his pocket, shook it open, and handed it to me. “I hate the way the laundry is doing my handkerchiefs. Too stiff. Blow.”

  “I don’t have the heart to ruin it,” I said, and pulled a tissue from the box next to the microwave, blowing my nose with a frightening racket.

  “That’s you, Anna. Practical. Thoughtful.”

  “It’s the thoughtful part that gets me into trouble,” I said.

  “Well, if you don’t talk to me, I can’t tell you if what you’re thinking is right or not.”

  “Okay. I have to ask you a question. How come you never told me you had a brother who died during the war?”

  Daddy took a deep breath and stared first at the ceiling and then at the floor.

  “I don’t know. Because there was no reason to.”

  “And is it true that you made Momma call you if she left the house for, say, a trip to the grocery store?”

  “She was a terrible driver and I worried about her being on the road.”

  I could see him getting mad. And, I could see him trying to control his anger. We stood there for what seemed like years until he finally said, “What’s this really about, Anna? Those two old busybodies got your motor going? God Almighty!” He began to circle the living room. “People should mind their own business! I can’t stand it when people talk. It’s vicious and it’s wrong to try and reinvent the past. What’s done is done!”

  I was exhausted enough to go to sleep right there on my kitchen floor. I had forgotten about the power of release brought on by tears. My muscles ached; I felt heavy all over. I hardly had the strength to talk anymore about something so serious at the end of a long day.

  “It’s getting late, Daddy, and Lucy is waiting for you.” I chewed on my bottom lip, waiting for him to respond. His anger was white-hot.

  “Is this all?”

  “No. It isn’t all. I guess I’m just trying to look at Momma differently.”

  “You can do that all you want but it won’t change a single thing. Your mother was the biggest disappointment of my life, Anna. She was a disgrace. Her death nearly killed me too.”

  “It nearly killed all of us, Daddy. I just think that maybe she wasn’t as bad as I’ve always thought. You know? I mean, when children want something they can’t have, they stomp their feet and carry on.”

  “And what she wanted was another man, Anna. Remember she died doing drugs and having sex with another man.”

  Now I was getting angry. “Like you or Grandmother ever let me forget. But I don’t think that’s what she wanted, Daddy.”

  “Oh? You’re an expert on marriage now?”

  He was pissed off to the gills. I didn’t have the strength to have a knock-down, drag-out fight with Daddy, I just wanted him to help me understand. Maybe if I could understand, we could have some healing in both of our screwed-up minds.

  “I think she was suffocating, Daddy. I think she felt trapped.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  �
��No, it’s not!”

  “You’re jealous of my affection for Lucy, aren’t you?”

  “Good Lord, no!”

  “Yes, you are. I could see you tonight, brooding around. You’re jealous!”

  “I was brooding because I was trying to think of a way to talk to you about Momma! Jealous of you and Lucy? No way!”

  “Oh.”

  A few seconds passed and then I threw in the towel for the night. “Lucy’s a fruitcake, but I love her to death. She’s probably exactly what we both need. I mean, we’re too serious. She’s a ball of fire.”

  The smallest of smiles crept across his face, dissolving his anger. When I saw it, I put aside my anger too.

  “Well, she sure puts the pepper in my pot.”

  Good Lord. Pepper in his pot? I hadn’t heard that since I used to watch reruns of reruns of Donna Reed or some such show from television antiquity.

  “Oh, Lord, Daddy! Pepper in your pot? Let’s talk tomorrow, okay?”

  “Well, take some Motrin. I’ll call you in the morning. Maybe you’re getting a cold or something.”

  He kissed me on my forehead and left. I stepped outside and called after him.

  “Night, Daddy.”

  “Night.” Then he stopped and turned to come back.

  “What?”

  “Anna. About your mother. There were reasons . . . well, I was a very foolish man. And possessive. Prideful.”

  “I’ve been a fool before too, Daddy. And prideful.”

  “The human condition.”

  “Yeah.”

  That half admission that all the fault may not have been my mother’s was the closest to an agreement on the facts that I would ever get from him.

  I waited until he was halfway up Lucy’s steps before I even thought of turning away from the sight of him. Daddy was getting older. I could see it in his walk. Where he had once possessed a kind of deliberate gait, there was now a sort of rhythmic shift to one side. He seemed to be relying more on his left side than his right. I wondered if his hip hurt, or maybe his knee.

  At least he had a love life.

  For a moment I thought of Arthur, the Cheese Whiz. Indeed. But Lucy was right. I needed someone in my life besides her, Daddy, and the ever shrinking circle of people I knew who lived on the anorexic pages of my social calendar.

  And hadn’t I made some sweeping stupid remark to Daddy and Lucy only nights before that I had met a man and that I had been dreaming about opening my own salon? There you had it in a nutshell—none of us was perfect or logical or totally honest, even about the big issues. Maybe we were more likely to fool ourselves about the big issues than the small ones.

  I was relieved that I hadn’t confronted Daddy at Lucy’s. My father’s relationship with my mother wasn’t Lucy’s business.

  Maybe it wasn’t mine, either.

  What would my obsessing change? Rehashing the past would make my father feel worse and there was no guarantee that I would feel better. Did it matter anyway if my mother was a saint or a sinner at this point? Was there a way we could look at her indiscretion and make our own lives better?

  I washed my face, brushed my teeth and dressed for bed. I was so tired. I settled under my covers and closed my eyes and began to try and see my mother with my mind. For the first time in years, I decided to pray for her.

  Momma? Momma? I need to know. Was everybody wrong about you? I’m looking for you. I want you to know that I’m thinking of you. I hope you’re at peace. I really do and I’m asking God to give you peace. I miss you.

  I’ve always missed you.

  I needed you then and I don’t know why you couldn’t help me, but it’s okay now. I forgive you. I do. Please help me understand. . . . I am so lonely. I didn’t even know that until now, but I am tired and I am so alone. I’m sending you my heart; please send me yours.

  Twelve

  Getting Hairy

  DREAMED about my mother again last night. I was little and she was pushing me on a swing. What did it mean? Maybe she was just trying to tell me to lighten up. At least that was all I could come up with as I walked on the beach, looking for sand dollars and answers. There were few of either to be found.

  I had so many things on my mind. I was still bothered by last night’s argument with Daddy. No one would ever completely change Daddy’s opinion of Momma but I could change my own. In the end he had admitted some guilt over how he had handled their marriage, but Daddy’s pride was just about as thick as a stone wall. Was mine? Well, if it was, I wouldn’t let it be that way any longer. Having been cornered once or twice myself, I could understand how Momma would have rebelled. Obviously, she chose badly when she took it up with the pharmacist. Maybe she was afraid of divorce. Maybe she just got caught being stupid. I felt sympathetic toward her. Hell, who was I to judge anybody? I was only a few years younger than she was when she married Daddy and I had gotten drunk at my senior prom and wound up with a baby. Nobody poured the alcohol down my throat and nobody pushed her down the aisle. Both of us had our eyes open when we made our poor choices. The difference was that giving in to her frustration came with a price tag of her life. Mine had given me Emily. Marry in haste, repent at leisure. If old Violet had done needlepoint, she would’ve had that on a pillow for sure!

  And last night I had cried my eyes out like a baby. When the tide turned on the island, and most especially on the edge of day, your heart would swell with all sorts of longing. Who wouldn’t have wept? Anybody who holds back the truth for over twenty years and then has to face it? I’d had an uncle? And, although I’d never admit this out loud, I’ve always wondered what I could’ve done about Momma. If I had loved Momma harder, if I had just let her know that I needed her more, would that have made her more devoted to us? It had simply never occurred to me when I was a little girl that I had a responsibility of that magnitude. Now, as an adult, I could see that it was slightly abnormal to think that I was partially to blame, but I always would.

  If dealing with the past wasn’t enough, I was getting more desperate for freedom from Harriet with each passing day. The accumulation of her nit-picking, spying, and accusations had driven me to the limit of what I could tolerate and still hang on to any kind of good humor around her. Unfortunately, this really wasn’t the right time to quit. Not that my mortgage was so horrible, it was that I’d never had one before, and I wasn’t accustomed to having long-term bills to pay. I just wanted to get used to the new commitment in my life before I took another risk.

  I saw Arthur from a distance and he waved. I threw my arm around, waving back with more enthusiasm than cool dictated, but I was wishing he would come over, be a pal, listen to my woes, and give me some advice. He was through with his morning walk and he turned and crossed the dunes.

  If there was one column in which I was sorely lacking, it was friends in whom I could confide. Since Frannie had stayed on in D.C. after college and Jim left, sure, we talked all the time, but talking on the phone all the time wasn’t really enough. I needed friends to go out to dinner with or to the movies, you know, people I could hang out with. I had been so busy I’d never found the time to cultivate new friends. This had an unmistakable downside.

  Truth be told, Daddy and I had stepped into each other’s lives in ways that were probably unhealthy. I don’t mean there was anything weird going on. Jeez! No. It’s just that when I moved back in with him I think it was probably normal for me to have assumed certain roles—grocery shopping, housekeeping, cooking, and gardening. He was the handyman, confidante, even though he was a grump, and he covered the mortgage. I was his shield against another marriage and any poor son of a gun I brought home would undergo the interview process from hell. For years, we went safely nowhere on the road of personal relationships. That was what laziness and fear could do to a life.

  And another good case to illustrate my laziness was that about the same minute I signed my mortgage, as I was still slinging hair for crazy Harriet, I realized that my days with her did have a number. Gre
at, Anna, just great. I just hoped I would have the presence of mind to recognize which actual day would be most auspicious to tell her to take my pillared position at the House of Hair and insert it in the region of the Great Never Tanned.

  Dragging myself back home to dress for work, I decided that I should probably give my career much more thought. There had to be a solution.

  I wrestled with the choices before me while driving to Charleston—stay with Harriet and go slowly insane or go slowly insane in another salon. Given the choice of lunatics, Harriet almost seemed preferable. At least I knew what caliber of nut she was. There was an old Gullah saying I remembered about changing partners—keep the evil that you know. I had escaped Daddy’s house by the skin of my teeth. The thought of another uprooting change made my stomach ache.

  Working for any other salon would have been worse than a lateral move. Crazy though she may have been, Harriet had the best salon in Charleston. We had more walk-in traffic, more stylists and a larger product and accessory selection. Most importantly, just because I had a robust dislike for her, it didn’t mean I wanted to disengage at any cost. I absolutely needed to know where my next paycheck was coming from. Still, what was the answer?

  If I were to go out and buy a new car (which I wouldn’t be doing for at least five years), I’d probably visit several dealers and see what kind of deal I could get. But as long as I was ever so gently kicking around a career change, I decided to take a discreet poll of my trusted clients to see if they would follow me to a new salon. Maybe that would satisfy my urge to bolt for a while so that I could stand Harriet a little longer. Yes, that was what I would do.

  I walked in the door and picked up my appointment list from Carla, our receptionist of almost six months—a longevity of mind-boggling proportion in House of Hair history. She ran the front desk and the scheduling, and was a wizard.

  Carla Egbert was tall and lanky like a runway model, had a flawless face, and operated the front of our salon like the head of strategic planning for the armed forces. All with good humor and ribald wit. To say she was loved and feared was an understatement. If you crossed her, she overbooked you with new clients and you could be frazzled to death. If you gave her the correct regard, she was your secret weapon against Harriet and the hairy hordes desperate for a holiday makeover or prom night teens with acne-pocked T-zones who wanted to look like Jennifer Aniston. If you really aggravated her, she stuck you with wedding parties.