Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (31 page)

I was no virgin. I stank. My hands smelled like baby poop and puke and tobacco. Even the Hovet I sprinkled on them could not erase the stink. There was nothing to erase the stink of being alive. I was afraid my children would die. I was afraid we were all dying.

In the dawn air the cold turned my breath into fog. Fog was all around me. Soon I could not see my own hands.

I made myself wait until six-thirty to call Willetta. I told her it was an emergency, and she came. While she made the kids breakfast, I put on lipstick and combed my hair. I was still trying not to cry. I went to the drawer in the bureau where Shep kept his cash, but there were only two fives. I needed more than that.

“Willetta, do you have any money?” I asked.

I was asking my colored baby-sitter for money.

“No, ma’am, just my bus money. What you need?”

“What I need is a lot of money,” I told her.

“You need you Mr. Robert B. Anthony off the TV to give you a check for a million dollars is what you need,” she told me while she gave Lulu a bottle with 7-UP in it for her upset stomach.

“Make sure Little Shep eats his oatmeal,” I said. “Otherwise he’ll be into the cookies before you can turn around.”

“Yas’m,” she said, buttering Sidda a piece of toast. “Where you going in all this rain?”

“I’m going to Confession,” I said. “I’m going to get absolution.”

“Them old cat-eyed priests mean,” Willetta muttered. “You got to look out for them old cat-eyed priests.”

“I’ll be back in an hour or so,” I said.

“Good, Miz Vivi,” she said, “because I got to get over to Mrs. Daigre’s soon as you get back. She having her a bridge party this evenin.”

They did not know me over at Saint Anthony’s. It was all Italian there. The church was darker and older than Divine Compassion, and they loved their artificial flowers, those Italians did. I had not been in that church since my childhood, when Mother took us there for the funeral of one of her friends.

Underneath my Givenchy, I was wearing only my bra and panties. Who would’ve known the difference? It was not a sin. I had my chapel veil on.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was two weeks ago.”

I tried to take a deep breath but it got stuck in my chest. My heart slammed and I could not breathe.

I didn’t know this priest. I couldn’t confess at Our Lady of Divine Compassion. What I had to say was too Goddamn much for my own parish.

I could smell him sitting there on the other side of the screen. I leaned my nose in and smelled the screen. Scents of incense and leather-bound hymnals. The worn velvet of the kneeler scratched against my knees. I had no comfort. My whole body itched. Had been itching for four and a half days. I itched all over. It would drive me crazy if it didn’t stop. I had already gone through two bottles of calamine lotion, which had stained half my outfits, and it did no good. I called
Dr. Beau Poché for something stronger, and he was supposed to have it waiting for me at Bordelon’s. Thank God for Beau. He was a baby doctor, but he took care of me too.

I was twenty-nine years old, almost thirty. I could not breathe. My sins left me breathless. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last good confession.”

I pulled my Givenchy coat tight around me. “Father, I accuse myself of bad thoughts toward my family.”

“Were these thoughts impure?”

“No, Father.”

“Have you borne hatred toward your husband?”

“Yes, Father. And toward my children.”

“How many times have you borne these thoughts of hatred toward loved ones?”

“I don’t know, Father. Too many times to count.”

“What are these bad thoughts?”

I knew I had to tell him. He was a priest, the representative of God on earth. I had to tell my sins. Then maybe I could eat, then maybe I could sleep.

The palms of my hands itched. They itched right into the center of my skin. I pushed my thumbnail as hard as I could into my palm. I did not want to tell my innermost thoughts to this priest. I did not trust his cooked-cabbage smell.

But I needed absolution. I needed a prayer that would carry me back into that tiny house without murdering those four dear little children.

“In my thoughts,” I whispered, “I want to abandon my children, I want to injure my husband. I want to run away. I want to be unattached. I want to be famous.”

“Do you have the courage to make sacrifices?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Have you the necessary health and abilities to fulfill your duties as a wife and mother?”

“Yes, Father.”

“Well, then,” he said, and shifted his weight in the chair. “The married state is a road which passes over hilly regions. You accepted a life of duty and responsibilities when you received the sacrament of matrimony. Precious lessons of patience and resignation may be learned from the lifelong sorrow of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Our Blessed Lord. Ask her to teach you how to bear your cross silently, patiently, and in perfect submission to the will of God. We are put on this earth to suffer. It is through suffering that you reach happiness, through humiliation that you attain glory. Your chief duty is to live together in love, concord, and fidelity with your husband, and to raise your children in the Catholic faith. You must banish these bad thoughts.”

“But, Father,” I asked, “what if I cannot make the thoughts stop?”

“Then you commit a sin of faithlessness in the Passion of Your Redeemer. For your penance, make a good Act of Contrition, say three Our Fathers and seven Hail Marys while slowly meditating each of the Seven Sorrows of Mary. Now, by the power of God invested in me I grant you absolution for your sins in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Go in peace and sin no more.”

I walked out of the church and got in my car. It smelled like my babies. I lit a cigarette. You must do penance in order to be forgiven. The car was cold. I pulled the Givenchy cashmere around me. I lit another cigarette.

I stared at the velvet box that held the ring from my sixteenth birthday. Shep did not own that ring. I did.
My father gave it to me. I could not get money unless Shep gave it to me. I could charge wherever I wanted, but Shep had to hand me money. I did not have a checking account. I had nothing of my own except that ring.

Five hundred dollars. The man at The Lucky Pawn just handed over the money. Did not want to hear where the ring came from.

“I don’t want your story, lady,” he said. “I just want your pawn item.”

On the map, the Gulf of Mexico didn’t look far. Still, it was farther than I had driven by myself in years. I drove fast. Faster than that Ford had ever been driven.

That old-lady sedan came with my second baby. I had nothing to do with picking it out. It appeared in the driveway with a note from Shep, and I was supposed to say thank you. Didn’t my husband remember my Jeep? Didn’t he remember I was the queen of the road, roaring through the night with the Ya-Yas, my bare foot heavy on the pedal, my painted red toenails bright as the dials on the dash?

Nobody knew where I was.
Not even the Ya-Yas.
I would go somewhere and start a new life where no one knew me. I would have no roots. I would leave my husband, my children, my mother, that piss-ant priest, even my best friends behind. I would wipe the slate clean and stand naked and try to find out who was there. I would look for Vivi Abbott, a missing person.

I didn’t stop until I got to the Gulf of Mexico. I stood at the edge. All I could see was water, stretching clear down to Mexico. The air was clear. I had left
poo-poo diapers behind in Louisiana. Nothing in front of me but water. It was blowing and lightly raining, but I craved a hurricane. I am a woman who loves hurricanes. They put me in a party mood. Make me want to eat oysters on the half shell and act slutty.

I leaned my body against the wind and walked. I was not the kind of woman to take off her coat and walk into that ocean, giving up. But the thought crossed my mind.

I thought of that lovely, exquisite trip the Ya-Yas and I took to this same Gulf. Was it ’42? ’43? Drove all the way here by ourselves, no chaperone, no nothing. Jack and the gang drove down later. Stayed at Caro’s family’s beach house, woke up in the mornings, threw on our swimsuits, and headed straight for the beach.

I thanked God that that beach was still there. That the water was still raging. That nothing was crying but seagulls. No baby puke, no mouths to feed.

I walked for hours, and did not miss my children for a moment.

“Give me the best room you have,” I told the desk clerk at the Hotel of the Gulf Coast. “Water view.”

Postcards in a little holder on the desk read, “An Institution in Keeping with the Grandeur and Beauty of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. In a Tropical Garden on the Beach.”

I signed the register as Babe Didrikson. The clerk only nodded. Fool, I should have signed Grace Kelly.

“Have room service send up a bourbon and branch water, please. A double. Your best name brand.”

The first thing I did was draw a hot bath and climb into the tub with my drink. When I could no longer
smell baby crap on my fingers, I got out. I dried my body with the plush white towel, and applied the lotion. I pulled my Givenchy around me, put on fresh lipstick, headed downstairs, and tried not to scratch in public.

The dining room looked out on the Gulf. I sat down and unfolded the linen napkin in my lap.

I ordered another bourbon and branch water and drank it quickly. I felt my shoulders relax.

I ordered a third drink. When I finished it, I felt my stomach relax. But I still itched.

I ordered a dozen oysters, and ate them with cocktail sauce hot as hell, with extra Tabasco sauce. I was nobody’s mother. I was the queen of my own sovereign nation.

A gentleman approached my table. He was graying at the temples, not hard to look at, but I didn’t like his shoes. Cheap and lacking originality.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I can’t help but notice you are alone this evening.”

I looked at him square in the eyes, and spoke with a British accent. “I am working on a story for
The London Times.
”

“
The London Times
is writing a story about Gulf Shores?” he asked, impressed.

“Very confidential,” I said. “Sorry.”

“What a shame,” the man said. “A pretty thing like you.”

“Pretty is as pretty does,” I said.

The man went away.

I polished off the oysters, then ate a salad, and ordered bread pudding for dessert.

“We are known for it,” the waiter said.

“Lovely,” I said. “And a snifter of brandy, for a nightcap, if you’d be so kind.”

I sat at the table with plenty of room to breathe. Nothing tight on my waist. I should’ve dressed like that all the time. I should’ve shredded my girdles with a potato peeler. My belly was full and rounded, and I was very sleepy.

My sobbing woke me.

The smell and taste of bananas and peanut butter was in my mouth. Our favorite snack on that summer trip to the coast. Necie and Caro and Teensy and I sitting on the beach eating bananas smeared with peanut butter. The softness of the fruit, its sweetness, the nutty flavor of the peanut butter, the caramel color against the pale flesh of the bananas. The sun on my skin, my toes dug into the sand, the sound of our laughter. Jack’s arrival. Turning cartwheels, climbing up onto his shoulders, wading into the Gulf. My body, agile, in constant motion. Eating when I was hungry, sleeping when I was tired. Being kissed when I wanted. Never having to beg for anything.

I flicked on the light in the room and lit a cigarette. When I opened the window, I could hear the Gulf. Cold air hit my face.

I put out my cigarette and walked into the bathroom. I turned on the heater full blast, stood in front of the mirror, and looked at my body. There was my body.
Do not cry. Nobody likes a woman with saddle bags under her eyes.
But I could not stop sobbing. My breasts would never be firm again.

I did not feed my babies from my breasts. Nobody but coloreds did. It was the 1950s. I had thought I might breast-feed the twins. I had wanted to breast-feed the twins. But after my baby died, my milk dried up.

I was dried up.
I could not go back to that house full of hungry mouths. I would start over in a new town,
get myself a newspaper job. People did these things. People started over.

I hugged myself around my waist. I had to hold on to myself. I had to hold my own body so I would not dry up and blow away.

In the bed I kept holding myself. I tried to concentrate on the smell of the salt air coming in through the open window. Empress of the Heavens, I prayed, Gracious Mistress of the Singing People, send me a sign. Otherwise, I will drive my car as far as my money will take me, then I will stop and report the news in an unknown town. Sweet Lady, who carried the Divine, give me a signal.

In my sleep, my twin boy came to me, my precious one, the one I lost, the one whose body was not sturdy enough to stay. Melinda held him in her arms. She wore blue robes and a crown. When she saw me, she smiled, and gently set my baby down. He was only an infant, but he stood by himself.

He took a breath, locked me with his eyes, and began to sing. No accompaniment, just one perfectly pitched, bell-like voice singing a lullaby and love song rolled into one.

When the Deep Purple falls

Over sleepy garden walls,

And the stars begin to flicker in the sky,

Thru the mist of a memory

You wander back to me,

Breathing my name with a sigh.

In the still of the night,

Once again I hold you tight,

Tho’ you’re gone, your love lives on

When moonlight beams.

And as long as my heart will beat

Lover, we’ll always meet

Here in my Deep Purple dreams.

When my boy twin finished his dream song, he stepped forward and raised his arms to me. I bent down and took him in my arms. His gaze was steady and so was mine. I held him to my breast for a moment. I did not need anything else. After a while, he climbed down from my arms and started to walk away. Just before he disappeared, he turned and said, loud and firm, “Wake up!”