Milk Glass Moon (3 page)

“You can do it. I know you can.”

“I’m not gonna be easy to be around,” Fleeta promises.

Spec Broadwater, Otto, and Worley are sitting at the counter in the Soda Fountain eating the lunch special: beef stew and biscuits, with a side of fried apples. Spec’s cigarette smolders on his saucer. I put out the cigarette on my way to the coffeepot.

“Hey, what’d you do that fer?” Spec bellows. He adjusts the name tag on his pressed khaki shirt. His legs, too long for the stools, are slung to the side like railroad ties. Spec has taken to putting gel in his thick white hair. The sides are so shiny and close to his head that he reminds me of the great George Jones, who is as famous for his coiffure as for his singing.

“You’re not supposed to smoke. Remember your bypass?”

“Quintuple. Don’t worry, Ave. I’m cutting back.”

“While you’re cutting back, you need to set an example for Fleeta. She needs to quit.”

“Since when is Fleeta Mullins my problem?”

“Since she went to the doctor and he told her to stop smoking.”

“Jesus, Ave. I got enough on my plate. Don’t make me surgeon general of Wise County on top of everything else.” Spec adjusts his glasses and fishes for his pack of cigarettes.

I stop him. “You’re in here every day for lunch. She needs your support.” I pour myself a cup of coffee and freshen Otto’s while I’m at it.

“I can stand up for my own damn self,” Fleeta announces from the floor. “I don’t need the support of any of y’all.”

“Aw, Fleeta, relax.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Otto Olinger. Just ’cause you is president of the Where’s My Ass Club that convenes up in here every day for lunch don’t mean I got to take any bull off of ye.”

“What do you mean, Where’s My Ass?” Otto asks.

“Look at ye, all y’all. Not a one of ye has an ass. I don’t know how your pants stay up.”

“It’s called a belt, Fleets,” Otto says with a chuckle.

“I ain’t never gotten a single complaint about my hind end,” Spec tells her, sounding hurt.

“Somebody down in Lee County’s bein’ nice. If old Twyla Johnson was honest . . .”

The mention of Spec’s woman on the side down in Lee County sends Otto and Worley into a giggling fit. (I thought Spec had given up his girlfriend, but I guess not.) Fleeta continues, “She’d tell you the truth: it’s flat and square. Looks like somebody dropped a TV set down your drawers.” Fleeta goes into the kitchen.

“She’s on a royal tear,” Worley says, shaking his head.

“Jesus, does she have to get personal like ’at?” Spec dumps cream into his coffee.

“It’s only gonna get worse, boys,” Fleeta bellows from the kitchen.

I make a run over to Johnson City to pick up some olive oil Jack ordered. He’s become quite the chef, picky about his ingredients and accomplished in his techniques. Sometimes he dreams about opening an Italian restaurant. It never dawns on him that folks around here are not interested in sampling pesto made with fresh basil; they much prefer their own cuisine, biscuits and gravy and name-your-meat chicken-fried. Besides, the Soda Fountain at the Mutual is all the food service I can handle, and it’s strictly lunch fare. Pearl and I were surprised when we saw the profit sheets last year. With our local economy struggling as the coal industry dies out mine by mine, it’s a good thing Pearl is such a risk taker; the fountain did more business than the pharmacy.

As I cut through Wildcat Holler and head back into Cracker’s Neck, I practice my opening to the Sex Talk between Etta and me. There is so much to say on the subject that I wrestle with whether I should begin with the physical and segue into the emotions; or if I should just start out by asking about her feelings and what she knows already; or if I should make it a family meeting and invite her father into the discussion. It bothers me that I want Jack there. This shouldn’t be so hard. I want the sort of closeness with my daughter that I had with my mother. She was my protector, and I was her defender. We never talked about sex, but I felt I could surely ask her anything if I wanted to. The truth is, I never felt comfortable asking her about sex, relationships, or intimacy. I knew she was in a less than romantic marriage, and maybe I didn’t want to remind her about what she didn’t have. I never wanted to make my mother uncomfortable, to say or do anything to cause her pain. Maybe this is the root of my repression—the feelings I could not express. I don’t blame my mother for that, though. It was my choice.

As I drive up to our house, negotiating all the pits where the stones have settled on the road, I see Otto and Worley on my roof. Jack used to tackle all home repairs, but the irony of a career in construction is that he no longer has time to fix things around here. (They say, “A shoemaker’s child goes barefoot”; well, a construction worker’s wife has holes in her roof.) I don’t mind it, though. Having Otto and Worley around reminds me of my single days, when they would come to my house down in town and take care of whatever needed fixing without my having to ask. As I jump out of the Jeep, I see a third figure on the roof: my daughter.

“Etta, what are you doing up there?”

“Helping Otto and Worley.”

“I want you to go inside.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not safe.”

“It’s safe,” Etta says defiantly.

“I got an eye on her, Miss Ave,” Worley says without looking up.

“Me too,” Otto says to reassure me.

“Go inside anyway, Etta.”

Etta looks so small from the ground. As she gingerly crawls across the roof toward the window, it reminds me of when she first learned to crawl, and instead of being thrilled that my baby was learning a new skill, I was terrified that she was beginning to move in the world without me.

“Etta! Watch it!”

The toe of Etta’s right shoe gets caught where a shingle has not been bolted. She tries to pry the shoe free, but she is on all fours and cannot. She tries to use her left foot for leverage, but it hits a slick spot and she begins to slide toward the gutter. Otto and Worley drop their tools and crawl over to her, but Etta’s weight against the slope of the roof makes her slide even faster.

“Ave, git the ladder! Git the ladder!”

The ladder is propped against the far side of the roof. I’m frozen, thinking I can catch Etta if she falls. But I know this isn’t possible. The drop is almost twenty feet, time is passing, and the fabric on her jacket is tearing away as she slides. I heave the ladder from the side of the house to the front gutter, where her feet are dangling dangerously over the edge. Worley has thrown his body sideways across the roof and has grabbed one of Etta’s hands, which stops her from falling.

“Come up, Ave. Come up and git her,” Worley says, panting. Otto attempts to crawl closer to Etta, but he is afraid to disrupt the precarious balance of their weight on the roof, so he stops. I dig the feet of the ladder into the soft earth and climb up quickly. I feel more confident when I get to Etta’s feet and can get a grip on her legs. She feels so small in my arms; I remember what it was like when I could control everything to keep her safe. I carefully pull her to me. Worley lets go when I have a good hold on her. I hold Etta by her waist and slide her onto the first step of the ladder, shielding her with my body.

“Do you think you can climb down?” I ask her. Etta barely whispers a reply, and we descend the ladder one step at a time. I try not to look to the ground, it seems so far away. With each step I take, and each one Etta takes, I breathe a little easier. By the time we reach the ground, Otto and Worley have come through the house and are waiting to help us off the ladder.

“Sorry about that, Miss Ave. We thought she was safe up ’ere with us,” Otto says.

“That’s okay,” I tell him. Then I turn to my daughter, who examines the palms of her hands, streaked with a little blood where the shingles burned them during her downward slide. I wince. I have never been able to stand it when she bleeds.

“Come on, let’s wash up.” I take Etta into the house and hold back until we are out of Otto and Worley’s earshot.

“What in the hell were you thinking, Etta?” She has never heard me yell this loudly, so she backs up several steps. “You are not allowed on the roof. You know that. I don’t care who is here doing what, you know the rules. You could’ve fallen and broken your neck.”

“But I didn’t!” She turns on me.

“What?”

“I didn’t!”

“Because you’re lucky. Lucky I was there to catch you!”

“Yeah, I’m lucky you were there,” Etta says sarcastically.

“Are you mocking me?”

“What do you care, anyway?”

Etta has never spoken to me in anger, and I don’t know how to respond. I don’t know whether to admonish her for sassing me or to answer the question.

Etta looks me in the eye. “You don’t care about me.”

“Where do you get that idea?”

“All the time.” Etta storms off and up the stairs.

I follow her. “Stop right there!”

She turns and faces me.

“That’s a very cruel thing to say to me. Of course I care about you. But when you do something stupid, something you know you’re not supposed to do, you can’t turn around and blame me for it. You’re the one who’s wrong here. Not me.”

“That’s all that matters to you. Who’s right and who’s wrong.”

“Watch your tone.”

“You just don’t want me to die like Joe. That’s all.” Etta slams her bedroom door shut.

For a moment, I think I might honor her privacy, but my anger gets the best of me. I throw the door open. “What is the matter with you?”

Etta is on her bed. My heart breaks, and I go to sit beside her. She pulls away.

“We need to talk about this.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. I want Daddy.”

When I attempt to reach out to her again, she gets up off the bed, goes to the old easy chair with the broken arm, and throws herself into it and away from me. I have never seen this sort of emotion from my daughter, and I am stunned. But I am also so hurt that I don’t know what to say. So I rely on my rule about being consistent in my discipline. I’m not going to let her off the hook. “Dad is not going to bail you out of this one. You need to think about what you did this afternoon. And about the way you talked to me.”

I leave the room and close the door quietly behind me. I walk down the front stairs and go through the screen door to the porch. I sit down on the steps as I have done so many times at twilight. Otto and Worley pack up their truck without saying a word. They take full responsibility for Etta being on the roof, and I don’t want to say anything more. They get into their truck and wave somberly as they descend the hill.

I lean back on the stairs and take a deep breath. The mountains, still green at the end of summer, seem to intersect like those in a pop-up book. This old stone house is hidden in their folds like an abandoned castle, with me its wizened housekeeper, taken for granted and obsolete. I feel myself hitting the wall common to all mothers: the day your daughter turns on you. And it happened on such an ordinary day in Cracker’s Neck Holler. Nothing strange or different or particularly dramatic in the weather or the wind. The sky meets the top of the mountains in a ruffle of deep blue. The sun sets in streaks of golden pink as it slips behind Skeens Ridge. I get lost in the quiet, the color, and the breeze, and I’m back in simpler days, the brief time before Jack and I had children, when this house was a place where we made love and ate good food and tended the garden.

The cool air soothes the throbbing in my head. I am making a mess of motherhood. What do I know about children, really? I was an only child. Maybe I baby-sat here and there, but I never had a grand plan that included children. When I found out I was pregnant, I made Iva Lou order me every book on parenthood from the county library. I read each one, choosing concepts that made sense and figuring out how to implement them. When my kids came along, I thought everything would fall into place. But my daughter isn’t who I expected her to be. I thought she’d be like me, like my side of the family, marooned Eye-talians in Southwest Virginia who made a good life and fit in. But she’s pure MacChesney, freckled and fearless. My kid has no dark corners, no Italian temper or Mediterranean largesse. And I know that I have disappointed her too—she needs an outdoorsy, athletic mom, one who encourages her to take risks. I do the opposite; I encourage her to stop and think. My goal is to keep her safe, and she resents that. Sometimes I am filled with dread at what lies ahead. How do I stop fearing the future? No book can tell me that.

The high beams on Jack’s pickup truck light up the field as he takes the turn up the holler road. He slows down to check the mailbox, and I see him throw a few envelopes on the front seat. Then he guns the engine again, spitting gravel under his wheels. Soon I hear my daughter’s footsteps as she runs down the stairs. The screen door flies open and she jumps down the steps two at a time, ignoring me, and over the path to meet her father as he parks. I hear the muffled start to her version of the Roof Disaster and wish briefly that I weren’t the mother but the wizened housekeeper after all, so I wouldn’t have to rat her out. But I know that I have to be unwavering so that at some point when she must make hard decisions, she will remember these days, find the wisdom born of experience, and make the right choice (yeah, right). I have to be the bad guy. Jack puts his arm around Etta as they walk up the path. I stand up. Etta passes by in a businesslike huff without looking at me. She bangs the screen door behind her.

“Are you okay?” Jack gives me a kiss.

“My nerves are shot,” I tell him with a nice teaspoon of self-pity.

“We’re going to have to come up with a doozy of a punishment,” he promises.

“Great.” My carefully rehearsed Sex Talk is ruined for now, another plan gone awry.

“Kids taking chances, taking risks, it’s all a part of life, Ave.” Jack sighs.

As we walk up the stairs, I want to tell my husband that I’m scared. It is one thing to parent a helpless infant and then a child, but when that child develops a will, the future becomes clear—I won’t be in charge anymore, and I won’t be able to protect her. My husband will have to guide us through these rough patches, since parenting seems to come so naturally to him. I have to learn how to calm down and lead my family. And then I have to find a way to love my job as a mother as the requirements change, and I’m going to need Jack to help me do it.