Don't Call Me Mother (8 page)

The lights are bright at the Perry station. Families gather, whispering and talking. I dread seeing the eye of the train as it comes around the curve, but there it is, a monster that will take away my mother. The whistle tears through me.

Mother kisses Gram on the cheek. Their voices and eyes are soft, as if leaving is the only time they can feel this. Mother kneels down. “You be a good girl. Mind your Gram.”

Her scent mixes with the air that is laced with diesel and the promise of rain. She slips into the train car and soon reappears at a window. I watch her wave with a gloved hand, remembering our cozy train ride of so long ago. The whistle blows again, and the train disappears with my mother. I stand by the tracks, focused again on the place where they meet at the horizon, the point where time and space come together.

The wind whispers its ancient knowledge, stirring up remnants of the history buried in this copper-red dirt. All that went before is in the past now, both the good and the bad. I resign myself again to life without my mother, but can hardly breathe for the pain in my chest. Particles of bone and dust blow against my legs.

Daddy Is Magic

Daddy is magic. Daddy is a dream. Daddy is coming this morning! Gram and I wait by the shuddering train, the steel animal that trembles and snorts, pawing the tracks at the Perry station under a brilliant blue sky. I jump up and down on the concrete, the sun warm on my hair. The morning is sweet, full of birdsong and promise. Not a cloud in the sky. Men in suits and long coats sweep from train cars. All the men look like him, almost, the brims of their fedoras shadowing their faces. Under one of those shadows might be my daddy.

I scan the faces of all the men dismounting from the train, my stomach beginning to sink. Did he change his mind? Will he remember me? I know I’ve grown. Now that I’m seven, I’m much smarter. I was in second place in a spelling bee, and I can read beyond my grade. I can’t wait for Daddy’s good cheer, his brimming-over energy, his bristling whiskers, the rough nap of his coat, the feel of his strong arms lifting me into the air.

I want to spend time with him alone, to get to know him better, to see his arms without a starched shirt, his dark silky hairs lying against his skin. Other girls talk about their fathers at school. A girlfriend tells me she watches her father mow the lawn wearing no shirt, that she accidentally saw him pee. I can see in her eyes the thrill of it—so naughty, yet so exciting—a secret glimpse of a mysterious part of life that is hidden from children.

I feel cheated without a father in my house, without any contact with men in general. My grandmother doesn’t even let the neighbor guy who mows our lawn use the toilet. The Father, with his big body and those illicit private parts, is exciting and dangerous. There is something about the power of men that changes women, though we kids don’t have words for it, exactly. But we can feel it, we can hear it in the women’s talk about not displeasing a man. We hear the way they chat about their husbands; it’s the same way they talk about God—with awe, a little gasp at the end of the sentence. There is much left unsaid, like between moments of a prayer. The only way to hear in between what people say is to learn to listen to the wheat, the land, the wind. You can only hear these things out in the plains, by a wheat field, say, in the spring.

Feet tap-tap-tap on the bricks of the station platform. He’s coming for me, for me! Now the heavy breath of his deep voice, “Linda, Linda.” He lifts me up. Colors and shapes swirl—the brick train station, the steel train, the conductors’ blue suits—around and around. My ribs are squeezed so tight I can barely breathe. His cashmere coat swings around him, and he laughs from deep in his throat. His Old Spice envelops my face and sinks into my bones, and I am happy all the way through.

“I’ve missed you, my girl, my girl.” He whirls me until I’m dizzy with joy, then sets me down and faces Gram.

I’d rather leave out the next part, how Gram leans toward him, her hand cocked with an unlit cigarette, hovering close to him as he flicks open the lighter. She touches his hand with hers; a sizzle, then the tobacco burns orange. She looks into his eyes and he meets her gaze briefly before they break apart.

It’s been so long since I’ve heard Daddy’s voice that I’ve forgotten what he sounds like. Even his face has dimmed in my memory. The picture of him in my mind is not him, not really, and my photograph of him doesn’t capture him either. A daddy can’t be folded flat in black and white. Sometimes I steal the picture out of its hiding place, but not too often. If you get a good feeling and hold on to it too much, you have to pay for it later.

The Nash Rambler glides down the blacktop. The car overflows with all of us, Daddy taking up more than his share of room, his coat thick with Chicago threads, the white of his starched shirt so bright. His huge hands sculpt the air as he talks excitedly about his work on the L & N railroad, his stock investments, making more money than ever, belonging to fancy clubs. I tug his arm—Daddy, Daddy. He turns back to enfold me in his scratchiness and Old Spice. My happiness knows no bounds. Daddy is a burst of cymbals in my quiet life with Gram.

Daddy and I ride in the elevator of the Oxford Hotel. Looking out the window in his hotel room, I can see all around town—spidery trees, Randolph Street, Broadway, Main Street, and the granite courthouse on the square. We can even hear the train whistles from the Frisco and the Santa Fe, a lonely sound that has always made me think of him and my mother. The spot under my left rib, where I feel always feel the absence of my parents, aches even though Daddy is right here and I can feel his warm hands on my shoulders as we look out the window. I don’t know why a train whistle always makes me feel sad.

I’m surprised that Gram is letting me spend the night with him here. I love being alone with him, like other girls who have a father spending time with them at night, at bedtime. Tomorrow we’ll go to Aunt Helen’s for one of her fried chicken dinners. Gram will be there, continuing the silent conversation between them. When they are together, I can sense the events of the past. I don’t know exactly what happened between Daddy and Gram, but I can feel it in the dropped words and glances between them.

All I know about Daddy and “the old days” is that he married my mother when she was twenty-nine and he was forty, and they had me the first year they were married. They divorced when I was eight months old. I know it in my stomach and heart. I have no memories of him from before the age of four. No feeling of his clothes or body on my skin. Only a blank space. I’m seven, and we’re alone together for the first time. When the man at the hotel counter took too long, I tapped my foot. He was stealing time from Daddy and me. I have only two days and a night to make up for the whole year, 363 days when Daddy lives only in my imagination.

The bathroom at the Oxford has a floor made of tiny black-and-white tiles, a pedestal sink, and a gleaming bathtub. If I can get Daddy and me into that tub, I’ll understand what makes him different from me. I’ll know what other girls know. I want to be in their club, not left out the way I am at school games—the skinny one, knock-kneed, pigeon toed, always dropping things.

I want to be like the other girls, whose lives are enriched somehow by the thick voices and grime of the males in their lives. They have daddies who fix faucets, repair cars, and mow lawns; wash the car and take out the garbage; come home every night to smooth out the bumps of life. They drive up in white shirts with rolled-up cuffs. The neighbor daddies grin and put their arms around their wives and kiss them on the cheek. The other girls’ daddies give them baths or even take baths with them, so I want that, too—to have the mystery of daddies revealed.

He has taken off his jacket and loosened his tie. He starts to tickle me and we roll around on the bed, rumpling the chenille bedspread. My stomach hurts from so much giggling, and my face is raw from his beard. I feel the imprint of his big arms and hands on my body. I feel his strength in me and ask him if we can take a bath. He seems surprised but rustles down the hall to check the tub. It’s even bigger than the tub at my house, with feet and great curved edges and long silver spigots like swans’ necks. I wonder if I was wrong to ask him, but all I want is wet hair and giggles with my father in the bath. The top of Daddy’s bald head shines as he bends down to inspect the bathtub, as if the quality of the tub will decide this question.

He murmurs nervously, “I’m not sure if a little girl should take a bath with her father. It’s not proper. It’s different for a mother, but for a father…” His face registers confusion.

“Oh well, if you don’t want to…” I say, wanting to smooth things out. “But my girlfriends, they see their daddies in the tub, they…” My cheeks grow hot with a shame I don’t fully understand.

“It’s okay,” Daddy says with a soft voice. “There’s room for you to sit behind me.”

My feet are cold on the tile floor as I undress. Daddy has agreed, but I still feel anxious, thinking maybe this is a bad thing.

“You get in first, and then I’ll get in,” Daddy says.

Bubbling water bursts out into the tub. I fit myself at the back of the tub, leaving room for Daddy. It will all be okay, I tell myself, but something doesn’t feel right. Daddy comes in wearing a towel and turns his back to slip in. I close my eyes after sneaking a look, but with a washcloth in a strategic position, he’s taking no chances. He is jittery and giggling, and I feel I have crossed some kind of line.

I turn toward the swan spigots, my white legs small and thin beside his long, tanned legs slicked with thick hair. I pretend to be a cheerful, laughing girl, but I feel bad. The bath is brief, and then we get dressed in separate rooms. We go to sleep in the big bed after dinner. He snores, and his body is so huge. I feel small and grateful next to him, but worried. I hope he doesn’t think I’m bad because of my curiosity.

The next day, Gram takes us to Aunt Helen’s.

“God love ya,” she says, giving me a squeeze. Gram, Daddy, Aunt Helen, and Uncle Maj chat as if they’ve known each other for a long time. Aunt Helen serves up her fried chicken, gravy, and mashed potatoes, bustling around the room with the energy of a pressure cooker. We must all be family now that Daddy is in her fried chicken club. Gram takes slow puffs from her cigarette, her black eyes fastened on me. Can she tell that today I belong to Daddy?

They get along, tilting their heads back and laughing over dinner. Gram is really strict about table manners and gives me “the look” that reminds me to hold my fork correctly. She tells me to cut the fried chicken off the bone.

“Oh, just let her pick it up in her fingers. You’re gonna fancy away that little girl to nothing,” my father says with a wink in my direction.

Gram’s eyes flash. “Nonsense.” Gram shows me how to cut the chicken, then tells me to do it myself. My knife slips, and a chicken leg flies onto the tablecloth.

Daddy laughs. “It’s okay, just pick it up. She can’t be a lady all the time.” He winks at Aunt Helen, who winks back.

Gram’s voice is harsh now with righteousness. “Of course she can. My granddaughter will have good manners and hold her head up in society. Sit up straight, Linda, and don’t chew with your mouth full.”

Daddy wipes his mouth and excuses himself from the table, his shoes squeaking as he paces the floor. Around the table, flustered hand movements, eye glances. Then he’s out with it.

“Look here, Frances. I appreciate what you’re doing with Linda Joy—taking care of her, buying her nice dresses—but she’s still a little girl.”

Doesn’t he know that he shouldn’t say things like that to Gram? She tosses her head and gets up from the table, leaving the rest of us hunkered down.