Playing With Matches (20 page)

Being
away
from here was what saved me. I’m grateful to those people who reached out to me in the streets and clinics and basements. And among the Belize Sisters, I learned that life is the hard part. As will be the next life, and the next. Only between is there real, true rest.

There was always comfort in this house. Aunt Jerusha and Uncle Cunny gave me what was never required of them, and as soon as I calm my nerves and screw up my courage, I’ll walk next door, find whatever concrete or timber may be left, and I will spit on it and curse it.

Then Miss Millie will have something real to work on.

After that, I’ll have to deal with the law. There’s probably no statute of limitations on murder.

I sit at the table and swallow a mouthful of coffee. My eyes are on my boy. I say, “I think babies remember God.”

Auntie looks over at me. Bitsy has come down, and she fills a plate.

I say, “I wish Harry could tell me what God looks like. Or that he could show me heaven on a map.”

No one says a word.

“I think that’s why they can’t speak,” I say.

Bitsy pours syrup.

I smile, making conversation. “Babies have these funny little toes and dimpled bottoms. They’re—you know—fresh from the earth and the sky and wind, but not allowed to speak of it. I wonder where that memory goes.”

Over the rim of her cup Auntie says primly, “They say we got brain parts we never use.”

“They look so innocent. When Harry was two, he had hair like the down of a baby duck.”

Now that I’m here in Auntie’s house, I hate that I’ve kept Luz and Harry from her. Then I look over at Bitsy. Her eyes are more heavy-lidded than usual.

“Auntie,” I say, rising. “May I use your phone? I’ll pay for the call. I’d like to tell the sisters where I am. My cell phone—”

—was lost in the collapse of my house in Dandridge.

While Bitsy eats, I call Sister Isabel, murmur something vague,
I’ll be gone awhile. Will you cover my assignments? I’m sorry, but the files and lesson plans were on my desk. When the house came down, they blew away on the wind
.

Sister Janice and Sister Grace crowd around the little phone and say
We love you, Go with God
, and
Stay in touch
.

Do not worry
, they tell me.

I climb the stairs to the attic for a few minutes of Call. But the only things that come are quakes like fissures trying to open inside me. I get up and gather our dirty clothes. One of Thomas’s socks is stuck in a sleeve. For a moment I wish I had a match.

How can I think that?

Because, of course, it’s all coming back. I’ve come back too, and brought my own demons with me.

Then I hear a truck, a pickup—
the county sheriff’s
? I run down the stairs to put my arms around my kids. But it’s Uncle Cunny.

He throws his hat on the table. He runs a hand over his hair.
“Another storm’s swirling up out in the Atlantic. It’s headed for the gulf.”

Shookie’s folding clothes at the table. I see now that her legs are thick as tree trunks. She wears a pair of bedroom slippers that once were pink and fuzzy. Her steps are short and shuffling.

“God’s sake,” she says. “All this weather’s more than a body can take.”

“Put a dollar in the jar on the shelf,” Auntie tells me. “For the laundry. Pays for hot water and soap.”

If we stay here very long, I’ll have to transfer money from our bank to one in Greenfield, or even Jenerette, which is closer. If we stay here long, I’ll need to find a job. But it won’t be, will it—not long at all. And anyway, that’s assuming Auntie will let us stay in this house that’s already so full. On the other hand, she and her sister are getting older, and Bitsy’s no hand at anything.

When I come down, Auntie leaves the table and turns on the TV. “Lord, Cunny, what are they sayin’?”

He shakes his head. “Already a hurricane, and they’re calling it Greta. You can bet your fine china we’ll take a hit.”

29

A
untie’s broiling chickens in the oven. I go outside to study the sky. Bitsy comes too.

I recall how, on Saturdays during those post-fire years, I’d help Auntie with the baking. It was the strangest thing—rolling out pastries, or when I iced a cake, I seemed to stand on higher ground. Uncle loved it. I made coconut cream pies that were whipped and high and perfectly set. For that one, I think, he kissed my cheek.

“How’ve you been doing, Bitsy?” I say now.

There’s this thing about Bitsy: She seems as surprised when she speaks as when she’s spoken to. “I guess I been fine.” After a couple minutes pass, she says, “Inside, though, I got the depression.”

I say, “Oh?”

In a voice as breathy as spring, she says, “You a good mama?”

“I—think so. I hope so.”

“I had me a baby girl,” she says. “Only you didn’t know.”

Cicadas are trilling in the oak trees. Through the screen I see Auntie moving around in the kitchen, Shookie coming out of the bathroom, straightening her undies, her slip, and her dress.

“Excuse me?”

“I had me a little bitty baby. She pale, but they say she darken up.”

I stare at her wide face, her squinchy eyes and thick lips. Is there something beautiful about Bitsy? Somewhere?

“When?”
I said.

“You was here.”

“I was?”

“I went to the hospital. You stupid to not notice I’s so big.”

The hospital? I remember that. Something was wrong with Bitsy’s blood. Or blood pressure. Shookie stayed here. She came with a valise and her crocheting—a great ball of cotton with a hooked silver needle sticking through. I never questioned where Bitsy was. I knew for a fact that high blood pressure came to folks who ate too much.

She nods her great head. “I went to the hospital, and they pulled this little gal outa me, an’ I heard her cry.”

She was right—how stupid I was! How could Bitsy sleep around and not get pregnant? If Shookie couldn’t buy her daughter a bra, she sure didn’t have her on birth-control pills.

But this is something else. Something more, and it’s colored pale pink.

“You had a baby,” I say softly. “What happened to it?”

“They didn’t let me keep her. Was something bad wrong, they said. But I heard her cry. I called her Felicia.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

And for the first time ever, Bitsy turns a smile on me, the corners of her mouth going up, lips parting.

“You have really nice teeth,” I say.

Auntie has her hip to the door, and I hear Miss Shookie talking on and on.

“Bitsy?” I say. “I’m sorry they took your—Felicia.”

She shrugs her big shoulders. “I guess she died. Mama wouldn’t let me keep her, anyways. She up there now—” She points.

I nod and look up. Clouds have moved in, thick, gray, and forlorn.

“It okay,” Bitsy says. “My baby girl, she think I fine. She say I’da made a good mama, change her diaper, comb her hair.”

The heat and the cicadas and the world spin around me. Bitsy’s words stick.

My baby girl, she think I fine
.

30

W
heezer comes home for lunch. We eat cucumber sandwiches and celery and sweet pickles—Luz’s favorite. And potato chips and pecan pie.

Bitsy watches Luz; Luz’s eyes are on Auntie; Wheezer studies me.

“Sorry for staring, Clea,” he says. “You’ve grown up, is all. You got real pretty, and you’re a fine writer too.”

“You read my book?”

At this, Luz looks up. She holds Auntie’s book in her lap.

“ ’Course,” Wheezer says. “It was a good read. You were brave to tell the truth.”

“In the eye of the beholder.”

“It’s your truth that counts. I read it twice.”

Wheezer’s story was greater than mine, although that was one thing being crazy had taught me: Nobody’s pain gets discounted. Size does not matter. I wonder how Wheezer has dealt with his past.

I shift my eyes to Harry. Auntie has brought him his yellow bowl. He sorts through a few dry Rice Krispies, picks up a couple
and puts them in his mouth. I don’t know whether to celebrate or keep quiet and let him be.

“In case y’all haven’t heard,” Wheezer says, draining the last of his fruit jar of tea, “there’s another storm brewin’.”

Auntie nods, sighing.

Harry has taken a shine to Uncle Cunny Gholar and, for the last couple of hours, followed him around like a puppy. Now Uncle announces that he and Harry should “throw one in the water”—meaning minnows on a hook.

“I believe we can catch us a fish at Duck Creek,” he says.

Harry sits up, and his eyes go round.

“After lunch?” Uncle asks him.

Harry nods once.

“Not until he eats a little more,” Auntie says.

Wheezer pushes back his chair. “Listen, Clea,” he says, “let’s take a walk by the river.”

“Can I come too?” Luz wants to know.

“Sure,” Wheezer says.

She brings her book.

I tell Harry I’ll be back in a minute and bestow kisses on the top of his head.

But he has eyes only for Uncle Cunny, who’s eating a second piece of pie.

It’s one of those smothery afternoons that only this part of Mississippi, with its moist deltas and hot southern sun, can know. The sky, though leaden, still looks blameless. The air is heavy with fragrances—grass and the lily of the valley that grows in deep shade. No leaves rustle in the oaks, where gray moss hangs down. Even the birds have gone to sleep. The river is silent too—not one water frond or cattail is stirring. Oddly, not one bluebottle hovers on the surface.

Wheezer takes up a rock and skims it, perfect, across the still water. Luz knows how to do this; Thomas has taught her. She finds her own flat rock, finds the angle of elbow and wrist, and imitates him.

“I see you’re reading the Bible,” Wheezer says.

“It belongs to Miss Jerusha. There’s nothing else here to read. My books—”

“I have some in my room. You’re welcome to look. I’m guessing you’re a very high-level reader.”

“Very,” Luz says, giving her glasses a shove, although they haven’t slid down.

We walk for a while, along the bank, toward False River.

Wheezer asks her, “Is this the first time you’ve read the Bible?”

“From the beginning,” she admits. “Although now I’m reading the Old and New Testaments at the same time.”

“Ah,” he says. “A comparison shopper. You have a very smart daughter, Clea.”

“I’m like my mom,” Luz says.

“Yes. Like your mom.”

This exchange embarrasses me a little. We find a place to sit.

“Tell him, Mom,” Luz says. “Tell Mr. Stengle how you got me.”

“Why don’t you tell him, Luzie?” By now, she knows it backward and forward, and tells it much better than I do.

She likes that. “Mom and Dad were teaching in Mexico when they found me. I was four years old and sitting in the doorway of a plywood coop. Shack. Shed. I was four, and I was having trouble breathing.

“Mom had this grant she’d gotten from the government, and she used it to buy soap and fresh water and underwear. She brought that stuff to us, to the community.” Luz grins. “She
didn’t speak any Spanish, but she handed out bags of dried beans and flour and rice. And she loved on the babies.”

Listening, I think,
Those were good days
. On the playa, two other sisters and I had set up a stall where we shaved the kids’ heads to rid them of lice and showed them how to brush their teeth. They laughed until they fell on the ground. But not Luz. She had uneven bangs, a serious face, and squinty eyes.

“One day Dad—he wasn’t my dad yet—found this donkey cart, and we all piled in.”

“There were at least a dozen of you kids,” I say.

“They led us up the mountain to an American clinic so doctors could check us out. They gave us chewable vitamins and shots for diphtheria.” Luz’s face loses its animation.

“I had brothers, two of them. They were fourteen and twelve. They joined the army. I remember Paulo carrying a rifle. He and Rico went off to fight in the mountains, and they died. So I was left all alone. When Mom and Dad found me, I was skin and bone. Starving.

“I was hungry, but Mom says I was more interested in the books she had in her bag, so they borrowed me. It was for just a month.”

“How long ago was that month?” Wheezer asks.

“A long time. There was nobody to miss me, anyway. We got me tennis shoes and shorts and tops. We went to an ophthalmologist. He gave me eyeglasses. Spectacles. Cheaters.” She grins.

I add, “Luz had asthma; a doctor prescribed a spoonful of syrup once a day and gave us an inhaler for the worst times.”

“But they wondered what would happen after they went home,” Luz says, taking up the story. “They got my hair cut, had me vaccinated against everything, and loaded me up with books. At four I knew how to read—can you believe that?”

She could. Right away, that had struck a chord in my belly and knotted me up. I didn’t care who had taught her, or how she’d learned—I bought her a dictionary, notepads and pencils. A red backpack to hold all her things.

“Mom and Dad flew to the capital,” Luz says with a flourish, “and started the adoption papers that would let them keep me for the rest of our lives. Dad had to go home to teach class, but Mom stayed.”

I did. I waded through tons of paperwork, then flew to Biloxi on December 24 with Luzie, her tiny carry-on, and her red backpack.

“And that’s my story,” Luz says. “Well, except that I’m smart. I skipped second grade. I could’ve jumped fourth, but Mom wouldn’t let me. Also, I love mice and spiders and garden snakes. I turn over rocks. Dad teaches biology. He said sometime he should take me to school with him so I could teach his class.”

“She sleeps with books spread around her on the bed,” I say. “Last year she was president of the school science club, and an elected officer in the astronomers’ club at Thomas’s college.”

“Mom said I could have a membership in Book-of-the-Month Club if I paid for it, so I got a job walking dogs.”

To the park and back
, I want to say.