Tender Graces (10 page)

I breathed in Momma, and hoped she’d stay a while. “What do you call me, Momma?”

“Virginia Kate. That’s your name and a good one.” She picked up the Easter picture and stared at it. “Lord, church is stupid. That preacher was a ugly liar.” She made a sour face, then it went away as she said, “So, summer’s here, I reckon. No school.”

My stomach tumbled around.

“And your daddy and I want to take a proper vacation.” She smoothed the quilt. “I expect it’ll help our nuptials.”

I stared at her.

“You know, our marriage?” She kissed my forehead and her hair fell over me in a dark waterfall. Her breath tickled when she asked, “Don’t you?”

I shrugged.

“You bet it will! Grown-ups need time alone. They don’t fuss so much after they have grown-up vacations. Right?” She nodded her head until I nodded mine. “See! We think on it the same way. You’re a good girl. Never give me a speck of trouble.”

“Momma?”

“Hush now. Time to sleep.” She tucked the covers around me and stood to leave. “You’re the bestest daughter in the wide-world.” At the door, she blew me a kiss, turned out my light, and moved down the hall to Micah and Andy’s room to talk to them. She next went to the kitchen and ice rattled cold. Then soft music floated into my room and a woman sang deep and rusty, like summertime.

I sneaked to watch around the doorjamb. Momma twirled with her arms out and her nightgown swirled. She was lit up from behind by the lamp and her body showed through the gown. She didn’t look like a momma who had three babies. She was like a momma with no kids at all. She rose up on her toes and bent backwards a bit. I wanted to be her then, grown up and beautiful, dancing. I thought most everything Momma did was as mysterious as the moon and as bright as the sun. I went back to bed, snuggled under Grandma’s quilt, and fell asleep listening to the music.

Daddy’s clomping shoes woke me up. I waited for the fussing to start up again. Instead, I heard Momma talking soft to him, more ice tinkling in the kitchen, and then the Naugahyde made that crinkly sound. I smiled in the dark and was almost asleep again when I heard Daddy make a growly noise. Soft steps headed to their bedroom. The bed squeaked and Momma giggled. When I heard, “Oh my god Katie. Don’t stop!” I put my pillow over my ears and fell asleep that way.

The next morning, Momma hummed as she cooked Daddy a breakfast of eggs, fried potatoes, and biscuits. She looked as if she’d lapped up a full plate of cream. When she rubbed her hand through his hair, he closed his eyes. I kept an eye on Momma while I ate. Micah made his nostrils wiggle. Andy thought it all grand, and laughed the whole morning.

A week later, we were dropped off at Aunt Ruby’s house. Momma drove us while Daddy was at work. She stopped the car and waved to her sister standing on her front step. Aunt Ruby’s orangey-red hair was cut into tight curls in the front of her head, and the back was a fuzzy mess to her shoulders. Her pink-and-purple cotton dress hiked up on her hips and halfway up her legs—she had real pretty knees. When she waved, the underside of her arm waved, too. The only way she was like my momma was the way both their mouths turned up at the corners to where no one could tell if they were planning something, or being ornery, or getting ready to grin.

Micah and I slipped out with our suitcases and stood by while Momma drove off, plumb forgetting to kiss us goodbye. I hoped hard she would turn around, but she just waved her hand out the window. Or maybe that was her hair flying out instead; the dust from her tires made it hard to see.

Chapter 9

They’s stupider than worms

Aunt Ruby told us to put our suitcases away. After we’d done that—I was staying in a smelly room she called the guestroom, and Micah was staying in Pooter-Boy’s smellier room—she stood in front of us with her hands on her hippy hips, said, “I think switches are the bestest thing to keep young’uns toed on they’s line.” She turned her back on us and said over her shoulder,  “Look out yonder, out the back winder.” We followed her and looked where she pointed to the woods. “You see all them trees?” She stared us up and down until we nodded. “There’s pee-lenty of them to wear out pee-lenty legs. Just rememorize that and we’ll be fine.”

Micah and I floated around the house like ghosts so we didn’t get Aunt Ruby riled up. If I spilled my milk, I was switched. If Micah left the spoon outside after he finished eating the peanut butter off it, he was switched. If we talked too loud, walked too loud, or looked at her cross-a-ways, we were switched. She was right, there was pee-lenty switches to wear out on legs. When she moved near me, I covered up my head. That’s because Aunt Ruby also liked to pop us upside our heads before we knew what was coming or why.

I thought my head would split right open and spill my brains onto the floor. I went to bed in the middle of the day and let the hornets go about their stinging business. Aunt Ruby gave me baby aspirin and said, “Just chew on them aspreen, titty baby.” When the aspirin didn’t work fast enough, she stood over me, hollering, “What in tarnation’s wrong with a kid that flops around in bed holding on to her head like she’s dying? Orter be out playing.” She’d shake her half-curled up head and slam out the door. Momma had said Aunt Ruby was just like Grandpa Luke and I believed it.

Then we broke Aunt Ruby’s lamp. The lamp was ugly as a monster’s butt and as big as one, too. She said her special beau gave it to her and she was always shining it up. The lamp stood on a table by the side of Uncle Arville’s easy chair. It was green, yellow, and gold with a big gold lampshade on it.

Micah and I were fussing over a Superman comic book, and when he pulled it from me, I punched his arm hard as I could. That made him a whopping mass of mad. He gritted his teeth and shoved me just hard enough that I fell back against the table. I felt the air moving behind me, then the noise of lamp pieces scattering across her linoleum floor and Aunt Ruby’s screaming.

She stood over us like the pterodactyls in Micah’s picture books, her beak opening and closing as if she’d tear us up one bite at a time. Nothing she hollered made sense, just a bunch of cussing and spit flying out of her mouth. Micah bent to pick up the glass pieces, while I tried to unbend the bones of the lampshade.

She slapped Micah on the back of his head, her eyes teeny slits of mean. “You little shitters! I got that lamp from Jackson!” She kicked Micah in the leg, and he bit his lip so he wouldn’t cry. “I’m sick of you bastards!”

“We didn’t mean to.” I stood up, still holding the lampshade.

Aunt Ruby turned to me and raised her arm. “Shut up!”

My stomach turned like a Ferris wheel.

Micah stood by me. “I’m glad it’s broke. It’s ugly, just like you!”

Aunt Ruby hit Micah in the stomach. He bent over and spit came out of his mouth.

I thought how he tried to be a good brother almost all the time, but how Aunt Ruby was mean to him anyway. I thought of how she switched and slapped us for stupid reasons. I was filled to the top with an ugly mad. It burned up from my stomach to my head and then spread all over my body like fire. I ran and pushed her as hard as I could. Might as well been trying to move a boulder.

She gritted her teeth, grabbed her own hair and pulled, spitting out a holler that curled my toes. I tried to send Micah mind messages to run, but we stood like scared lambs. In Aunt Ruby’s eyes I saw the devil that Mee Maw had shown me in her church book. Her face was purpley and her hair was every which-a-way. Without saying another word, she grabbed me up by my ponytail and shook me until my scalp burned.

Micah ran between us, and this time Aunt Ruby hit him hard enough to send him flying across the room. I didn’t see him land, but I heard a
whump
against the wall. She pulled me by my right arm through the living room and into the hall. I made squeaky sounds; my head had drums beating inside it. Even though I didn’t like him, I wished Uncle Arville would come home and tell her to take a cold shower and stop being such a Bitchly Bitch.

Micah limped after us. He had a big knot coming on his cheek and his eye was squinting up. She told him, “You stop or I’ll snap off her head, you hear me, boy?” He stopped.

She shoved me into her stinky bathroom and I fell on the floor. Slamming the door nearly off its rusted hinges, she screamed, “Fat little bitch! Not s’big in the britches now, huh?”

Micah pounded on the door. “Aunt Ruby! I’ll behave. Aunt Ruby!”

She opened the medicine cabinet, picked up a pair of scissors. I waited to feel the hurt while she killed me. Grabbing me up by the shirt, she cut at my ponytail. She stuck my head under the faucet and held me there.

Micah’s voice was far and away. “You okay? Vee? I’m sorry—”

Ruby pulled my head from the sink. “That momma of your’n don’t want you or your brothers.” She turned to the door. “She ain’t coming back for you. Stole my boyfriend, stole my clothes. Fucking whore. Thinks she’s better’n me.” She grabbed me by the arms and shook me until I thought my head would snap off. She spit out, “Kilt her own baby. Shoulda got rid of the lot of you while she was at it.”

Micah rattled the knob. “You’re a
damn liar
. It’s not true. Not!”

She let go and I dropped in a puddle. As I lay my cheek on the cold tile, she said, real sweet, “You shut up, boy. Ain’t you had enough? Think your sister wants s’more? Huh?”

“No ma’am,” Micah said.

“Say you’re sorry for all the worry you done caused me.”

I hoped he wouldn’t. I wanted him to tell her to shut up and to stomp his feet to shake the house down, even though my stomach did eighty-nine flops about it.

She said, “I’m waiting, little shitter.”

“I’m sorry for causing all the worry.”

Her big fat feet turned towards me. “You next, Fattie mae.”

I didn’t say a thing.

“Well, then maybe brother needs a hair-styling. Maybe I’ll cut his head off’n his shoulders.”

I talked to the pee-floor-tiles. “I’ll behave.”

Her feet moved away. “That’s better. Now, Aunt Ruby’s got things to do.” She opened the door, pushed Micah to the side, and stomped down the hall.

Micah jumped in and looked at me on the floor. “You hurt bad?”

“Nuh uh.”

He helped me stand up and gave me some toilet paper to blow my nose, even though I know I wasn’t crying one bit. In Aunt Ruby’s mirror, I saw my chopped up hair and scratched up red face. Momma wouldn’t want to look at me anymore, I was so ugly. Micah grabbed my sleeve and pulled me out of the bathroom. He said, “Oh oh, leetle seestor, you look bleestored.” He made a funny Popeye face with his scrunched-up eye.

Aunt Ruby yelled from the kitchen. “Sweep up the glass and then come in here to eat.”

While we cleaned up the lamp mess, Hank Williams yowled about cheating hearts.

Aunt Ruby had made macaroni and cheese, with banana pudding for dessert. She pointed her finger at us. “You two better eat after I gone to the troubles.” She smiled just like the bad guy on
Bonanza
. The one that Hoss beat the hog snot out of. I wished Hoss were around, he’d know what to do with Aunt Ruby. She shook her wooly bully head. “I’m sorry, kids. I get so durn mad sometimes, don’t know what gets over on me.” She pointed to the table. “Eat.”

We ate our supper, and then dug into the pudding. I hated how it tasted so good. When Aunt Ruby wasn’t watching, Micah opened his mouth to show me the chewed up cookie and mushed banana, and I put my hand over my mouth to quiet-giggle. We pretended that we forgot everything. When we finished, Aunt Ruby brought us to the living room and made us stand still while she took pictures. She snapped away, grinning, telling us our momma sure was going to love the nice pictures of her babies.

Uncle Arville came back from his fishing trip, looked at us, grunted, and went out to his shed. I didn’t like him. He smelled like grease and old cigarette smoke, and that was the good parts. And he always told the same stories, like, “I was borned in a swamp in Florida, while my mam hunted gator. She just slung me on her back and finished up hunting.”

Aunt Ruby ran out to the store to get stuff for supper, and while she was gone, Micah called home, but no one answered. He hung up and went on out the back door without looking at me.

I sat at the kitchen table and waited.

Aunt Ruby came in toting a sack of groceries. “That man ain’t worth the trouble.” She put them down, opened the freezer, took out a bottle, and filled up a big glass without ice. After gulping half down, she said, “Ahhh, now that’s what I call a warm and cozy feeling.” She drank the rest and poured another.

She cooked fried chicken, smashed potatoes, and cherry pie and every time her foot landed on the floor in time to the beat of the radio music, her rear end jiggled inside her cabin boy britches like a big bowl of Jell-O. I held my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t giggle and get a switching, or worse.

I watched her, wondered what it felt like to put the chicken in the popping grease, then stand back until it settled down. Or to stir the potatoes with butter and cream until they were gooey. To roll out the pie dough and fill it with different fruits or nuts or creams. Aunt Ruby looked almost sweet when she was fixing up food—and her food tasted good. It didn’t make sense how someone that mean could roll out dough just right and get her chicken fried up until it was crispy brown without any burnt spots. I wanted her to show me so I could do it for Daddy. But she didn’t let me help any more than Momma did, except when it came to washing up the dishes.