JEWEL (47 page)

I paused in the hallway, out of his line of sight Brenda Kay was in her room, waiting for me to usher her to the bathroom, bathe her and I listened to him read the rest of the article, listened for word of his wife and her job, listened for word of Gene’s wife, Annie, or for word on his eldest daughter, Billie Jean, who’d taken a few night courses over the last two years, then gotten a job as nurse over to Buena Park Community Hospital in Orange County. And I listened, most important, for word of his retarded daughter, Brenda Kay, and the rows of letter B’s she filled her days with.

But there were no words of that sort, only a few more about the brief and happy history of my husband’s rise at El Camino College, and so I let my prayer move through me again, eyes closed, face to the floor, Let him have died enough.

In my head, though, was the picture of Billie Jean in my kitchen, arms crossed, hair undone and down to her shoulders, teeth clenched. Whose will was being done here? I wondered. Was this God’s will? Could I escape the will of God? !

I . , ! t Did God have any hand in this at all?

Billie Jean’s image was in my head, the frustration she felt magnified in me. Let him have died enough. I prayed again, but this time with a few more words added for good measure, to see there’s a wife and daughter here with him. Here was the brink of the old world, one I didn’t want to enter, satisfied, finally, with the new one I had, yet my husband bound by pride and an old dead dream of a place called Mississippi to bring us away from here.

I prayed.

We left for Mississippi anyway, left on a Saturday morning in the midst of thick, cold fog and untold tears, from Billie Jean, who promised she’d visit soon as she’d worked up enough vacation time, from Barbara and Sarah both, though the two of them, I knew, must have been glad their husbands’d be returned to them for weekends-from baby Laura crying away at her two new teeth working in, and from Elaine and Matthe , the two of them dressed up nearly the same as the night they’d been brought here, Billie Jean with some strange notion our taking leave needed Sunday clothes. The rest of the grandchildren were crying, too, all of them lined up in the front room of the empty house, our furniture what we couldn’t jam into the U-Haul trailer we were toting with us to Mchenry diwied up among the children.

Wilman and Burton, of course, weren’t crying at all, but grinned and fidgeted, afraid, I knew, they might let go what they felt about their daddy taking off without them. Wilman had on his Royal Crown shirt and pants and tie, was planning to take Brad and Robert to merchandise a bit of his route down in Long Beach, Burton’d set his eyes on painting their kitchen. “I’ve been waiting three years for this, ” Sarah’d whispered to Barbara in the kitchen earlier as we were taking the last kitchen things the coffeepot, the skillet I’d cooked our last morning’s breakfast in out to the Studebaker, Sarah certain, I figured, I couldn’t hear. Or maybe certain I could.

Annie cried the most. She cried and cried, and I knew it was because I’d never had the moment I’d had with the rest of my children with her, never’d been told by her she was leaving for her own, though she’d been married for near two years now. There’d never been a moment like the one I’d had with James at supper back in Mississippi, nor a night like the one when Billie Jean’d brought Gower home to us, told us they were already married, then’d driven off into the dark, waving behind her.

Burton’d followed Brenda Kay back into the woods behind our old house, the talk we’d had of dreams and making them happen what I always considered my true good-bye to him, and for whatever reason I always thought of my boy Wilman’s driving us in to Los Angeles, the ease with which he’d worked the wheel, the way he’d chewed his gum and waved out to City Hall and’d delivered us right to the doorstep of Bundy Mufffler that was his good-bye, I believed, him suddenly grown after that, as good as gone.

There’d never been any good-bye from Annie, Gene hadn’t so much taken her from us as he’d become a Hilburn himself, ever since the day on the beach and the way he’d handed Brenda Kay her can of soda pop, showed her how to twist the dial on the transistor radio. Anne’d never said good-bye.

And she never would, I saw this morning, the fog outside the windows pushing in on us, pushing so hard on the glass I thought perhaps it’d pop, burst on us here in an empty house.

She’d never say good-bye to us, because now it was us who were leaving, her momma and daddy and baby sister taking out on her. We were the ones to leave her, not the other way around. I hugged her, felt her heavy tears through my blouse as she cried into me, felt snug against me the small swell of her next baby, my next grandchild, and I thought of her when she was a baby girl herself in a house in Mississippi. I thought of a ragged, worn blanket she held out to me, a gift worth more than any Brenda Kay would ever receive, her nyenye, a small bit of cloth surrendered to Brenda Kay. Surrendered, given out of a child’s love for a sister we didn’t even know yet was retarded. But Annie’d known, even then. The blanket’d been a gift to a sleepy sister, the sorrow and work of Brenda Kay’s life already begun back then, Annie already seeing it.

So I let her cry into me. Gene put a hand to her shoulder, whispered, “Anne, it’s okay, ” and gave me a small smile, a shrug. I nodded at him, smiled. I closed my eyes, held her even tighter, because I knew this was the closest I’d ever come to letting her go, slip through my hands, me leaving her to Los Angeles and whatever might happen without me here.

She was in good hands, certainly, Gene’s, and Burton’s and Wilman’s and Billie Jean’s. But not mine.

Finally, Leston cleared his throat, said, “We got to get moving. Want to make Phoenix at least.”

She pulled away, her eye makeup all streaming down her face leave it to my Annie to have made herself up before coming over to see her family off, even though it was only eight in the morning her mouth a crumpled smile, her hair the most beautiful red I knew.

“These are for Brenda Kay on the road, ” Barbara said from behind me, and I turned, touched my own eyes with the back of my hand. She handed me a paper T. G. &Y. bag, and I opened it, saw inside a box of Crayola crayons, a couple coloring books, three candy bars.

I looked up at her, smiled, said, “Thank you, ” though my tears were going full now, too. Then Barbara cried more, and Sarah, and before we three hugged one last time, I caught a glimpse through my tears of Leston and Wilman and Burton, all with their arms crossed, all three shaking their heads, all three grinning. My boys, the only one not here my James, who we’d be seeing once we made it to Texas, probably on Tuesday.

We let go each other, and I wiped my eyes with a Kleenex Barbara handed me from her purse, we three wiping and smiling-and nearly laughing at all these tears.

Then I looked around the living room, said, “Where’s Brenda Kay? ” “Already in the car, ready and waiting, ” Gene called out, his head just inside the door. The room was empty save for we three women, everybody’d gone outside.

We went out the door onto the front walk, the fog still just as thick, just as cold, but it didn’t matter, I’d grown used to the fog, even found I liked the way it hid the day ahead, the way it started things out cool and damp no matter how bright and hot the day’d reveal itself later on.

I was the last one out the house, closed the door behind me, turned the knob to make sure it’d locked. Then I turned, saw all the grandchildren huddled together on the lawn, all of them except James and Eudine’s.

Though the children weren’t in any special order, were just a peck of kids out on a foggy Saturday morning lawn in Manhattan Beach, I laid them out in order in my mind, somehow there being comfort in that act, in being able to know just who all these children belonged to, first Billie Jean’s Elaine and Matthe , then Burton and Sarah’s Susan, Jeannie and Jill, next Wilman and Barbara’s Brad, Robert and Timmy, last, Anne and Gene’s baby Laura, her standing all wobbly, there in a little tutu-like skirt and white baby shoes, a white blouse with embroidery round the sleeves and neck. Her hand was tight in Susan’s, a little baby girl looking up at me.

There they stood, all these children strangely silent on the lawn, none of them more than seven years old, all of them just watching me.

Behind them was the soft gray background of fog, so that I couldn’t even see the house across the street clearly, and then I moved toward them out onto the grass, knelt before them all and gave each a kiss and hug, said good-bye. I felt on my back gentle pats like fragile wings just touching me, touching me, my grandchildren’s hands.

I stood, turned from them to the car and trailer parked on the street.

Burton leaned against the front fender, Wilman against the trunk.

Billie Jean stood at the open rear door, and I could see Brenda Kay already inside, the transistor to her ear. She started to swaying, then let out a moan, her own song, and though it bore no resem l blance I could make to the song she was hearing, I knew it was the new Ray Charles song playing everywhere these days, “I Can’t Stop Loving You.”

She started to singing, her voice wandering up and down like it wanted to settle somewhere, find home, and then came the refrain. Brenda Kay let out even louder, slow and long, “Ah ahh stop, love you! ” She leaned her head to one side, and her auburn hair fell off her shoulder, the transistor tight to her ear.

“Sing it, Brenda Kay! ” Wilman said, and I turned to him at the back of the car, saw him with his arms still across his chest, still grinning.

Barbara, now next to him, reached to his shoulder, slapped him. “Now you cut that out, ” she said, but she was smiling, too, and I looked around, saw everyone was smiling, from Laura on the lawn along with all the grandchildren right on up to Annie. They were all smiling, all looking at me.

I stood next to Billie Jean at the rear door now, looked in at Brenda Kay, said, “You sing it for us, Brenda Kay. All the way to Phoenix.”

But she was turned to her window, lost in the tune, her voice off wandering again.

Billie Jean took hold of me then, held me, and I said, “No more tears, now, ” and I felt her nod, her chin on my shoulder. “Yes, Momma, ” she whispered.

Then came the last hugs from my children, and all the good-byes from the grandchildren, who suddenly broke up, exploded into running on the lawn, circles and circles and circles, Laura in the middle, hands up, looking for someone to take a hold.

“Let’s get a move on, ” Leston said as he shook hands with first Wilman, then Burton, then Gene. He climbed in the driver seat, pulled his door closed, started up the engine.

“Lark Regal, ” Gene called out above the engine, took a step back from the curb onto the lawn. “She’ll get you there easy.”

I was already settled in my seat, saw Leston nod at him, smile. He gave a small wave to his sons and son-in-law.

Annie leaned in my window, held me one last, long moment, then stood, took a step back from the car. She had on a red and green plaid smock top, green stretch-pants with stirrups and these huarache sandals everybody wore out here, and when she put her hands on her hips, I reached out the window, patted her tummy, said, “You take care, my Annie.”

She smiled, quick nodded, her forehead and eyes wrinkled up, ready for tears again.

Before she could give in to it, Leston put the car in gear, and slowly we pulled away from the house, our headlights making sad stabs at lighting up the gray street. It was fog, clean and simple. Nothing for it but to drive slow as you could, watch for other headlights coming at you.

I turned in my seat, saw out the rear window Annie and Gene, him with his arm around her shoulder, her with her arms crossed, and I saw Wilman and Burton turn from the curb, head up the lawn, where Barbara stood holding hard to Brad’s arm, heavy words down at him for whatever offense he’d made, while the rest of the grandchildren swirled round the two of them, and where Sarah leaned against her and Burton’s Rambler parked in the driveway of our old house, purse already on her arm. I saw all of them back there, all of them disappearing into the fog behind us.

I looked at Brenda Kay. She brought the transistor from her ear, held it with both hands in her lap, stared at it a moment or two, then with one finger touched the side, gently twisted the dial to change the station.

She turned it, turned it, then stopped, and here came that Ray Charles song again, this time on a different station. She looked up at me, eyes open wide, mouth open in the closest thing to amazement I figured she could know.

“Momma! ” she said, and held the transistor at arm’s length, nearly touched my face with it. “Ray Cha! ” she said.

I said, “Sing it, Brenda Kay, ” and she smiled, all those teeth again, then held the radio to her ear, let out her song.

I turned to the front, saw the lighter in the dashboard pop. Leston had a cigarette out, reached over and pulled out the lighter, touched it to the cigarette.

Here was cigarette smoke in a new car again, a smell I’d thought ten tears ago a magnificent smell, a mix of the new and familiar with me inside a car that, in 1952, had been heading west toward a new world.

But now here it was inside a 62 Studebaker headed back to the old, and I shuddered at that moment, shuddered from the base of my spine right on up to my neck. It was a reflex, I figured, that showed the amazement I felt myself, the open-mouth awe that had hold on me because of how quick a life could change, how, like lightning, some unforeseen force could bust in, burn your world right out of your hands, leave you dazed. I was just along for the ride back to Mississippi, a place I’d called home once. A month ago I never thought this’d be happening.

Now it’d already come to pass.

So I left my window rolled down, let cold fog fill as much of this new car as it could, crowd out both the cigarette smell and the new car smell. I wanted the fog to fill us up, swallow us whole before we headed out onto the desert, where the rocks and mountains and greasy brush’d play itself out in backwards motion, our lives going the same way, backwards, backwards.

We pulled to the stop sign at Highland and Sixth. Leston honked the horn for any cars he couldn’t see coming at us, then eased right onto Highland.