Her Own Place (18 page)

Outside the house there was a sharp flash of lightning followed by a blast of thunder. “Oh, Lord,” Mae Lee said. “Bye, bye!” She hung up the telephone. She jumped out of bed, grabbed up some blankets, and ran into the kitchen. She draped them over the curtain rods so they would cover the kitchen windows, pushed the table into a corner, and brought in her rocking chair.

Someone had said that if a tornado came, the proper thing to do was to get under a stairwell. She didn't have one. If she had to, she would dive under the heavy oak table. With her robe pulled tightly around her, she huddled in the rocker.

Mae Lee worried whether Lou Esther and Warren had been warned. She wanted to call them, but was afraid to talk on the telephone during a storm. At least they had something good to eat. Only the afternoon before Mae Lee hand-carried over a big basket of fried chicken, homemade hot biscuits, and vegetable soup. Warren was now retired, and his health was starting to fail.

Mae Lee thought of how, years earlier, Church Granger had driven to outlying farmhouses to warn the families without telephones of an approaching hurricane. For a fleeting second, she wondered if he knew about the tornado watch, but then remembered that the poor soul did not need to be called.

The storm was raging all about the house, and there she was, alone in her kitchen, rocking and thinking, her eyes tightly closed yet still seeing the brilliant flashes of lightning. Although the storm was frightening, Mae Lee's thoughts were even more so. She'd been roused from a troubled sleep. Maybe she'd heard the whirling wind outside, but she had
been dreaming about some story she'd read in the paper. Now she couldn't get the story out of her mind. Things she read about total strangers rarely affected her so much. But this story, about a young dancer's death, had worried her. At the young age of twenty-one, the dancer's life was cut short because of AIDS.

Mae Lee had studied the dancer's picture. The dancer was flying through the air. She'd thought of him as a little air-dancer. And now the picture of the air-dancer was heaping anxiety and grief upon her. The image of her grandson's face the first time she saw the fool earring in his ear flashed before her.

She couldn't remember if the air-dancer had an earring in his ear. Though the newspaper was right there in the kitchen, she made no effort to look. If the air-dancer had worn an earring, she didn't want to know. The earring business bothered her.

In the face of an impending tornado, Mae Lee forced herself to confront truth. Was she more worried about Mae Lee Barnes's image than her grandson, more concerned over what people might think of her because of her grandson's earring?

It was too much. Mae Lee started crying. She thought of the dates in the newspaper chronicling the life of the young man—his birth, his great successes, his tragic death. And now she cried for him, the little twenty-one-year-old dancer.

Yet it was more even than the earring in her grandson's left ear that she was worried about. When she allowed herself to really be honest with herself, she worried about her own mind. Sometimes she would be telling someone something very important, and then right in the middle she'd forget the
point she intended to make. And try though she might, she just couldn't remember.

The lightning and thunder seemed to have died down for a while. It was quiet and calm now. She turned on the kitchen light. Before the storm started up again, she needed to know where her money was so she could get it in case she had to get out of the house in a hurry. She moved the money bag from her umbrella stand, placed it in the bottom of her rice canister, and covered it over with rice.

It was good she still remembered where the money was. The other day she'd forgotten where she'd hidden it and spent the better portion of the day looking before she found it. Was she losing her mind?

Mae Lee picked up an advertisement for a new local nursing home. She'd saved it to give to Clairene. Clairene was going to have to put her mother-in-law into a home. The women at the hospital had talked about how blessed they were. They believed it would take some doing to force their children to come down to putting them into a home.

She thought of Ellabelle's sister tucked away in a nursing home. Her children had talked the poor old soul into putting her house in their names, then they seemed to sit back and wait for her to break some bone so they could put her away. But as she and Ellabelle had agreed, those children all lived in the North. So often when people moved to the North, they changed their ways, their thinking, and they didn't rightly realize what they were doing. If those children had stayed in South Carolina, they wouldn't have done such a thing.

The very thought of the North made Mae Lee sit upright
in her rocking chair. Three of her children lived in the North and the other two, although nearby, still lived in North Carolina. She hoped the word “north” hadn't messed up that part of the South.

Mae Lee felt uneasy. She had been feeling poorly all day. She looked at the nursing home advertisement again, and thought of her friend Claude Madison. The poor thing broke his leg, and while it was true that maybe his frail daughter in the North couldn't take care of him, he had let her talk him into going into a nursing home until he was better. After all, he could have stayed on with his sister, who was old but spry and in good health.

At first when she'd visited him in the nursing home, he was happily looking forward to his leg healing and coming back home. In time his broken leg healed, but by then his spirit was broken. The last time she visited him, he made no mention of coming home. He didn't mention anything, just sat there, staring at the blank walls. Claude Madison never came home.

She didn't know what being in a nursing home did to a person's mind when they were forced to stay there even when they were well. She decided she'd better be careful and not break any bones.

Mae Lee and the ladies down at the hospital had often talked about nursing homes and had said that children generally didn't mean any harm when they rushed their aged parents off to nursing homes. So often they just weren't mature enough to fully understand, that was all. She felt sure that her children would never put her away.

Mae Lee could sense a quiet fear—that uncertain kind of
fear that starts to creep in on people when they are alone in the night and already scared to death. And now there it was, fear closing in on her like wind-pushed rain clouds. She grabbed up a small brown paper bag and began writing. When she finished, she safety-pinned it to the nursing home ad.

My children,

My old right arm is aching me again so I hope you can read this chicken-scratching. It's not hurting too bad though, so don't you worry. The doctor said it is just arthritis. Maybe someday one of you children might lay something like this newspaper ad out for me to see. Please never tell me it's time to go into one of these places. Children, don't ever put me in no place like that. I don't care how they smile and carry on in those pictures. They are not happy. How could they be? Nobody can be happy away from their own home. How could I be happy away from here? I took care of you when you were weedie bitty babies. Now it's your turn. I'm your baby now. Take care of me.

Mama

P.S. I shouldn't be too much trouble. There is only one of me and I pray there will still be five of you. But if you all ever feel it's too much, children, you can always put me up for adoption.

As quickly as the storm had seemed to end, now it started again—the lightning flashed, the thunder roared, and racing, churning winds rocked the new house.

The roar of the wind was frightening. Something crashed
against the house. The thunder was deafening. The back screen door, blown loose by the ripping winds, flapped back and forth. Pieces of limbs torn from the trees crashed against the roof with such force she thought for sure some of them would come through.

The mournful sound of the wind was almost human. The image of her handsome young grandson's face flashed before Mae Lee's eyes as plainly as the lightning. “On second thought,” she whispered to herself, “maybe I remember more than I need to.” The memories of the summers her grandson had spent with her were sharp and clear. Sweet memories now soured by the thought of that earring. It didn't matter what some might say. For her, it wasn't natural for a boy to want to wear an earring in his ear. But then, maybe she was partly to blame. She'd bought a little boy a little girl's nursing kit.

Now, sitting alone in the kitchen, alternately dark and light by the flashing lightning, she was troubled that maybe she shouldn't have bought the little nurse's kit. Her mama had always told her never to allow her son, Taylor, to play with his sisters' girl toys and baby dolls.

Mae Lee tried to swallow the lump that sadness had welled up in her throat, but the attempt made it worse. Tears burned her eyes. She found it difficult to breathe. The combination of sadness and fear was choking. She knew that the eerie sounds outside belonged to a windstorm that could suck its fury into a long funnel-shaped cloud extending toward the ground, and decide what was to be spared or destroyed.

She prayed silently that her grandson wouldn't be somewhere mixed up with the wrong crowd, speeding down highways
with a crowd of youngsters with little hickory-nut-sized heads rising just above steering wheels. She prayed her grandson's mama wouldn't allow him to have his full head of hair cut so that in spite of being a husky healthy young man he would still look like a little midget in a car. She hated little pointed-looking heads.

Mae Lee thought of all the time she had spent on her grandson's head, shaping and smoothing, turning the sleeping baby so he'd have a round pretty head. She hated to see some crazy, pointed haircut come along and destroy it all. It seemed to her that if a young boy wanted his head to look like he was wearing a dunce cap, he could go and buy one.

Sitting in the dark, riding out the storm alone, she blamed herself for having read the newspaper article about the death of the ballet dancer in the first place. Maybe it was good to know about things going on in the world, to keep up with the news and all, but so often knowing brought pain. Sometimes she kind of wished that she was more like her distant cousin Mamie. The woman couldn't read or write. She still didn't believe that man walked on the moon, yet she was happy as a lark, and oh, could she sing.

She couldn't help thinking that sometimes they even put too much in the newspapers. In one article she'd read that left-handed people had a shorter life span. Her grandson Tread was left-handed.

She reached for the glass of water she'd placed on the table. A glass of water and a plate of Sweet Sour Cream Roll-Ups. The tornado might take her away, she thought, but she sure didn't plan to go thirsty or hungry.

She picked up her glass of water with her left hand. She too was left-handed. Her mama had also been left-handed. Her grandson had inherited his grandmother's genes. He couldn't help being a lefty. Maybe he couldn't help wanting to wear an earring in his left ear.

Mae Lee shivered, pulled a cotton blanket about her shoulders, gathered the stones she was all set to cast, and mentally buried them. “I'm driving myself crazy,” she said aloud. “Crazy over nothing.”

Suddenly her worries and anxious concerns over what people would think, including her own suspicions, paled away. Maybe Ellabelle had been right about the earring thing. Maybe, like Dallace said, it was after all in Tread's left ear.

She thought of her young grandson's eyes that day, eyes that begged for her acceptance. She'd read that, but had withheld her acceptance. Now, in the face of a storm that might sweep her away, she found it in her heart to forgive. “Grandmama forgives,” she cried out repeatedly. Her cries were muffled by the whistling winds and drowned out by the thunder. Her grandchild did not have to be present for her to feel fulfilled.

“I'm Tread Wallace's grandma.” She smiled finally. “He is my firstborn grandson, and that's all that really matters. For now, that's enough.”

The next morning the sun streamed in on Mae Lee, sound asleep in her rocking chair. It crept across her body like a cat stalking a small bird. She awoke refreshed. She had slept out both a tornado and her troubles too.

During the last week in November 1989, only a month away from the date Hooker Jones had set to kill hogs and make all that tasty fresh sausage and liver pudding, Mae Lee's doctor ordered her to cut all pork out of her diet.

As she eyed the meats in the Be-Lo grocery store she thought of what Dr. Bell had said: “No pork, Mae Lee.” For a long time she studied the meats. Moving along the line she finally picked up a package of chicken, but put it back. She was so tired of chicken. The cuts of beef looked good, but she passed them by.

Mae Lee felt sad. For years she had not been able to afford the meats and desserts she loved. Now she could afford them, only she couldn't have them, because they caused high blood pressure and cholesterol.

She glanced over at the pork meat again. Her heart heavy, she looked at the things in her shopping cart. A little piece of pork would set her dinner off. Like a crook about to shoplift
something, she quickly glanced about to see whether the coast was clear, then started sorting through the country-style pork ribs.

“Mae Lee Barnes?” a soft voice behind her called out.

Mae Lee jumped. The package of pork fell to the floor. For a brief moment Mae Lee stared at the white woman standing before her, the large blue eyes and thin pale hair, the face filled with wrinkles. “Miz Granger? Liddie Granger?” she questioned. “Is that you?”

Liddie Granger nervously twisted a wedding ring around her slender fingers. Blue veins bulged in her white hands. Her hands looked really old. Finally, she smiled. “Yes, Mae Lee, it's me. What's left of me. I didn't realize I'd changed that much.”