Mama Rocks the Empty Cradle (14 page)

“You missed the turnoff,” Mama said.

“I’ll turn around soon as I can,” I told her.

When I finally got to the right road, the Childses’ mobile-home commune popped up in my headlights like an oasis. The rain began tapering off; the thunderhead, still spitting jagged bolts of lightning, was moving north.

I drove slowly to Rose’s trailer, parked, and turned off the headlights. Mama reached into the backseat and picked up her gray plastic raincoat.

A pretty young girl, about sixteen, with gleaming dark eyes, opened Rose’s door and ushered us into a screened wooden porch. In the girl’s arms was a baby about the same age as Morgan, a child that I could have indeed mistaken for Morgan. The baby, who I suspected was named Lizzie, made a noise, something that sounded like a hiccup. “Shhh,” the girl with the beautiful dark eyes whispered gently to the infant.

We stepped inside out of the drizzle. The girl reached behind her with her free hand, then handed Mama a clean towel.

The sleepy eyes of young Lizzie were in stark contrast to those of the other children who came out
from a room in the back of the mobile home to stare at us.

“Go back into that bedroom!” the girl hollered at them. They darted back inside.

We rubbed our arms dry with the towels, then the girl ushered us inside a large bright room. For some reason, I didn’t remember seeing the two walls of books with faded bindings when Mama and I had visited Rose earlier. They must have caught Mama’s eyes, too, because she studied them thoughtfully.

But I did remember the framed pictures of young boys and girls on the mantel. Today, however, there was another photo, a black-and-white picture of an old woman.

The room smelled of food, that delicious blend of aromas that’s unique to Southern postfuneral visits with grieving families. Neighbors and relatives had carted food in for the feast. A long wooden table draped in a brand-new white plastic tablecloth ran the width of the room. On it were at least five different kinds of potato salad. There were candied sweet potatoes, carrot shuffle, white rice, collard greens, string beans, and new potatoes spiced with smoked sausages. There was succotash, carrot and raisin salads, lima beans, okra fritters, macaroni and cheese, lasagna, black beans and rice, red rice, corn bread, biscuits, fried chicken, ham, turkey stuffed with a corn bread dressing, meat loaf, Swedish meatballs in tomato sauce, baked beans, bread pudding with a poignant whisky sauce, pound cakes, sweet potatoes, apple pies, and mountains of cookies. The
display seemed overwhelming. Mama’s contribution, a carrot-sweet potato puree, sat in the center of the table on a large crystal platter garnished with sprigs of mint. Mama had confided that she’d prepared for this kind of event before she had her surgery. Stashed away in her freezer were several very special dishes, among them this puree.

Mama had told me its ingredients when she asked me to pull it from the freezer: sour cream, whipping cream, sweet potatoes, carrots, salt, sugar, butter, nutmeg, black pepper, red pepper, and margarine. She’d instructed me to let it thaw overnight in the refrigerator. And before we left to go to Cricket’s funeral, I’d baked the puree for thirty minutes. My father, not one for attending funerals unless it was a family member, had offered to drop it off at Rose’s mobile home while we were in church.

I surveyed the rest of the room. Behind the table was the couch and three or four matching cushioned chairs. At least a dozen gray plastic folding chairs lined the walls, left, no doubt, by the undertaker for guests.

Mama sat down in one of the cushioned chairs; I flopped on the couch. “Honey,” Mama asked the young woman who’d let us in, “what’s your name?”

Dimples formed in the girl’s cheeks as she flashed a smile at Mama. “My name is Trice.”

“Are you Rose’s daughter?” I asked.

Trice nodded. “I’m her oldest daughter,” she said, looking over her shoulder. Then, in a sharp voice, she yelled down the hall to the clustered, staring
children, “Get back in that bedroom and shut the door!”

Mama studied the photograph of the old lady with an intensity that was almost embarrassing. She pointed. “Trice, tell me—who is that?”

Trice made a slight movement of her head, almost a nod, then she cocked her head in the picture’s direction. “That’s Great-grandma Lucy Bell,” she answered.

I stirred in my seat. “I don’t remember seeing that picture before,” I said.

“It was put out this morning,” she told me. Again impatience flashed on her face as she turned to see that the five or six children were almost inside the living room with us. She patted her sleeping baby on the back, turned, and walked toward the children. “I done told all of you, you’ve got to stay inside the bedroom while Mama’s company is here, do you hear me?”

At that moment, the door banged open and a crowd of people pushed inside the room. All the chairs quickly became filled. Fingers started tasting from the food on the table. I was going to suggest to Mama that I fix a plate for both of us when Rose, dressed all in black, stepped between us. She bent and whispered something in Mama’s ear, something that caused Mama to blink in confusion. Whatever Mama responded, it caused Rose to shake her head emphatically.

Mama patted Rose on the hands. I heard her say, “Tonight, no matter how late, I’ll expect you.”

Rose nodded, broke off eye contact, and moved back quietly to the other side of the room.

“What’s that all about?” I asked, once I’d gotten close enough to whisper in Mama’s ear.

“Rose has found something that Lucy Bell had kept hidden all these years!” Mama told me.

I
finished my coffee and looked at my watch: 10:06. I took a deep breath, walked to the glass door, and looked out into the garden.

Just a few drops of rain had fallen on the windshield as we’d driven home from Rose’s house. Now the southern sky was crystal clear. There wasn’t one cloud overhead. The stars sent their lights in all directions.

Mama took her last sip of chocolate almond coffee. “You all right?” she asked me.

I glanced at my watch again. “When will Rose get here?”

Mama set her empty cup on a table. “You’re a city girl, you’re not ready to go to bed, are you?” she asked.

“No, I’m not ready to go to bed, but I am ready to talk to Cliff. I promised him I’d call and I wanted to do it
after
Rose’s secret visit,” I replied, sounding more than a little impatient.

Mama’s eyebrow rose just as the phone rang. I picked it up. “Miss Candi?” the voice on the other end asked.

“No,” I answered. “Who is this?”

“Rose.”

“Just a minute.” I handed the phone to Mama.

“Candi speaking,” Mama said. “Okay,” she said, then handed the receiver back to me to hang up.

“Is she still coming?” I asked.

“Yes, she’s still coming. She’ll be here in fifteen minutes. Simone, you might as well be prepared—Rose is tired, so she’s asked Nightmare to drive her here.”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” I exclaimed, irritated. Nightmare had been among Rose’s guests, but he hadn’t come anywhere near me, which suited me fine. I crossed my arms across my chest. “I should’ve known that I’d have to deal with that bad dream again.”

“They won’t stay long,” Mama said.

Half an hour later, I opened Mama’s door and stepped aside as Rose and Nightmare entered our foyer.

Rose, who now wore a long black dress that buttoned down the front from her neck to her ankles,
and who held a brown paper bag tightly in her hands, walked in and smiled at me vaguely. Nightmare followed. His smirky gaze held mine for a few seconds.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” Rose told Mama.

Mama smiled graciously. “Sit down here by me,” she said to Rose. Then she looked up at Nightmare. “Son, what is your name?” she asked.

He grinned. His straggly beard jounced up and down like it was being controlled by a puppet’s string. “Call me Nightmare, Mr. James’s wife,” he answered.

I cleared my throat. “Sounds like the perfect name to me,” I said.

Mama shot me a quick scolding look, then said, “I don’t want to call you that name. What name did your mama give you when you was born?” she insisted.

Nightmare looked down at his hands, but he didn’t say anything.

“His mama named him Dan, but he won’t answer to it,” Rose said.

“Nightmare is a good name ’cause I like to scare pretty women,” he said, giving me a direct look, his eyes dark, disturbing. Refusing to be intimidated by him, I stared back, trying hard not to squirm. His look made my skin crawl.

Mama cleared her throat, then she fixed her gaze on Nightmare. “Sit down, Dan,” she said, pointing to a chair.

Nightmare broke off eye contact with me. He
shoved his hands in his pockets and looked around the room, but he didn’t move from his spot right in the doorway.

I perched on the arm of a black leather chair and waited. Actually, I was thinking that I should have gotten my can of Mace from the car.

Rose gestured in irritation. “Did you hear Miss Candi tell you to sit down?” she snipped at Nightmare.

He shifted uncomfortably on his feet. But he didn’t move.

“Okay, Dan,” Mama told him, her voice unperturbed. “Stand right there until it’s time for you to go.”

Nightmare shook his head emphatically but still he didn’t move.

Mama turned to face Rose. “What did you want to show me?” she asked.

“Well, Miss Candi,” Rose began, looking down at the brown paper bag in her hand. “I was dusting those old books of Grandma Lucy Bell’s this morning. You know, getting ready for people to come to the house after the funeral and all—”

“Yes,” Mama prodded.

Rose held out the wrinkled old bag. “I don’t know if you wanted to see this, but—well, this is what dropped out of one of them.”

Mama took the bag.

Rose continued, “It had a picture of Grandma Lucy Bell, the one I put on the mantel.”

“A good picture,” Mama said.

“And this list of names, and—this note,” Rose finished uneasily.

Mama looked at the note and studied it. After a few moments, she read it out loud: “
Vengeance is mine
.”

Rose touched Mama’s arm. “You notice the note ain’t written in the same handwriting as the list,” she said. She paused. “I guess I can’t get those notes Cricket found on her windshield out of my mind—I don’t know if this note got anything to do with those notes or not.”

Now Mama’s expression changed. She became thoughtful. “Simone, get a pad and pencil,” she ordered me.

I obeyed; I was used to taking relevant notes.

Once I had pad and pencil, Mama continued. “Now Rose, tell us again exactly what the three notes that were written to Cricket said.”

“Best I can recollect,” Rose replied, “the first one said,
Morgan is pretty enough to steal
. The second one said,
Tainted blood runs inside you
. And the third one was,
Morgan suppose to be mine.”

“Is it possible,” Mama asked, as if talking to herself, “that Morgan was stolen as a vendetta?”

Rose sat straight up in her chair. “A what?” she asked, looking confused.

“Revenge,” I said. “Somebody trying to get even for something.”

Rose gave me a quick, suspicious glance. “Revenge for what? Cricket nor Morgan never done anything to anybody that I know of.”

“Maybe, but—” Mama began.

Rose cut in. “I think the so-called revenge has got something to do with crazy Timber killing Cricket and letting some woman steal Morgan from that baby’s real family,” she insisted.

“Maybe,” I suggested, “it has something to do with Lucy Bell’s cemetery.”

Nightmare moved abruptly. His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared. In a fierce voice he said, “Nobody better bother with Grandma Lucy Bell’s babies—I take good care of them babies just like I’m suppose to do—I made a promise to her, on her dying bed.”

“Now I know I should have gotten my Mace from the car,” I said to myself.

Mama eyed me seriously.

I tried to flash a smile of apology but Mama continued to look unhappily at me.

Rose turned to Nightmare. “We all know that you do a good job of keeping that cemetery nice and clean,” she told him.