The Killing Tree (19 page)

“Long story. You hungry? I got some oatmeal pies. And milk.”

“No. I don’t reckon I want anything just yet,” she said.

“Wanna watch some TV, then? Weather’s clear so your reception should be pretty good.”

“No. I don’t really wanna watch TV. You can if you want, though.”

I sat down on the couch next to her. “I just wanna be here with you,” I said. “That’s all.”

She nodded.

“I saw you had some new nail polish. Spicy Peach. Real pretty. Want me to paint your nails?”

I went and got the nail polish. More for me than her. I needed the distraction. I picked up her hand and began to polish her
nails. She had such pretty hands.

“Be careful with that hand now. It ain’t dry yet,” I told her as I picked up her other hand.

“Mercy?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“My momma. She ain’t coming back tonight, is she? She ain’t been around for a while now.”

“I don’t know, she may be coming back tonight,” I said, trying to sound hopeful.

“It’s okay. You can tell me. I ain’t gonna do nothing crazy if you say the truth. I already know it anyway. She ran away from
me, didn’t she?”

“Yeah. I guess she did. I found you here alone. The man at the market said your momma took off a few days ago. Said she’s
staying with a boyfriend. But I left a message for her that you’re okay. I’m sorry she ain’t here with you now.”

“Oh it’s all right. I’d probably scare anybody half to death. Except you. Don’t reckon nothing scares you much. You’re so
strong.”

“Nah, I ain’t stronger than you or anybody else.”

“You are, Mercy. I wish I was you sometimes. I don’t want to make you mad or nothing. I don’t want you to think I’m jealous
green, but sometimes, I just wish I was you.”

“You don’t. I mean maybe now, while you’re hurting so bad, maybe now you think it’d be better to be somebody else. But not
really. Not deep down.”

“You just don’t see it, do you?” she asked dryly.

“Why you would want to be me? No, I guess I don’t. You’re more than pretty. You’re beautiful. When we walk into a room together,
I’m invisible next to you. And that’s okay with me, I’m used to that. But I can’t understand why you would ever want to trade
places with me. You’d never be comfortable being invisible.”

“I may get the first looks when we walk in a room. I may turn heads. Hell, I may even get the second looks too. But you, Mercy.
You didn’t just get a look or a turned head. You got eyes that love you. And I ain’t ever had that. And that’s worse than
invisible. Thought I had it. But I didn’t. I just had another turned head. Nothing like what you got with Trout.”

“But just because things didn’t work out with Randy, that don’t mean that you won’t ever find real love. It just means you
ain’t found it yet,” I said.

“No. It means a lot more than that. It means I don’t even know real love from the fake. I couldn’t see. I just couldn’t see,”
she sobbed.

“Shhh. You don’t wanna be me. I had to hide my love for a mater migrant.”

“I’d hide forever. I’d never leave this trailer if Randy would have just loved me,” she cried.

“You just keep on waiting. Soon you’ll turn a head that’ll stay turned. It’s impossible not to love you.”

“But it’s easy for you to love me. I guess because we found each other when we were scared and lonely. But that’s just you.
Nobody else is like that with me. I mean, even you, with your momma dead and your daddy runned off, got more love than me.
You got your Mamma Rutha and Trout and me. We all love you. I ain’t got nobody but you,” she cried.

“Your momma loves you. You got me and your momma and one of these days you’ll have your own Trout too.”

“My momma, huh? Well if love runs, then my momma loves me. I ain’t never run, Mercy. That time her boyfriend Al stole all
our food money, Momma just sat down in that corner and didn’t move. Just sat there and cried. And I never told her I was hungry.
When I got so hungry I ate all the dog food I never told her. I didn’t want her to know I was hurting. I loved her.
And I didn’t run
. And then that time when she got so stoned she slept for three days straight. Remember that? What did I say to her when she
woke up? I said, ‘Good morning, Momma, what do you want for breakfast?’ I never yelled at her. I never told her what it was
like to look at her and think she was dead. Or to lay my head on her chest to see if she was breathing. I never even told
her she had been asleep for three days. I just went on like nothing ever happened. Because I loved her. And love don’t run.”

“But there’s all different kinds of love. Mamma Rutha’s taught me that love is like this mountain. Outsiders say it just looks
the same ol’ green all over. But we live here, and we know it’s not. We know that the oak is a different green than the pine.
Love’s the same way. It’s got differences too. Like your momma and my Mamma Rutha. They don’t love us the way we think they
should. Their love ain’t the oak. But it just may be the pine.”

“But what do you do when you need it to be something it’s not?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe you look in other places, but stay thankful for what you do have. It’s better than nothing.”

I went to the kitchen and poured a couple glasses of milk.

“Here’s an oatmeal pie. I know they’re your favorite, so no sense in acting like you don’t want one,” I teased.

She took the pie and the milk and laid them on the couch.

“Mercy?” she asked. “That song that you sung to me. Back in my bedroom. What was that song?”

“It’s from the Bible somewhere. It’s one that Mamma Rutha used to sing to me when I was scared of the dark.”

“I like it,” she said.

“I do too,” I said. “Used to make me fall right to sleep. I’d dream of a big bird, and the next morning I’d go looking for
God in the oaks.”

“You know I still remember living in that church,” she whispered. “Being the little church mouse and sleeping on that pew.
How I stacked two hymn books together for a pillow. Everybody told me I was staying in God’s house, and I was so curious as
to why he hadn’t said hello. So I went looking for him. I peered under the pews and peeked into the choir loft. Then I saw
this picture of a man with brown hair down to his shoulders and a beard. And he was wearing a fancy red robe. My brother,
Ben, found me and asked me what I was doing.
I found God
, I told him. But he told me the picture was just God’s son.
Well, what’s God look like?
I asked him. Ben shrugged his shoulders and said,
Like the man in the picture, I guess, just older.
I looked at the picture and imagined that man a little older, with his fancy red robe, a white beard, and long white hair.
And I knew then, that God was really Santa! I started to pray. I told him what I wanted for Christmas and asked him to bring
my daddy back because Momma said God had taken him away. But that Christmas, our first Christmas in the garage, Santa didn’t
come at all. No daddy. No tree. No presents. Nothing. Momma said it was because he forgot about me. And I decided then and
there that I didn’t like my Santa-God anymore. But you know, Mercy, I still get the weirdest feeling every time I see Santa
in the miners’ parade at Christmas. He’s back there in the bed of that pickup truck, and I always feel like it’s God marching
right toward me, staring at my heart to see if I’ve been naughty or nice.”

Della laughed a moment, but then she grew quiet and stared at the empty walls. “It’s not him I’m really scared of, though,”
she said lowly. “What scares me is that if he’s real, then dying’s just a doorway to someplace else for me to hurt.”

“But if you go to heaven, the preacher says there’s no sorrow there.”

“That may be true for other people, but you and me? It’s like when the McDonald’s came in over the mountain when we were just
little kids. And it had that playground. One day when my momma took off and hollered,
I ain’t no momma no more!
to us crying kids, a neighbor came by and took us there. And I knew that at that playground there could be no sorrow. But
when I got there and I slid down that purple slide, I could still hear the echo of my momma’s words.
I ain’t no momma no more. I ain’t no momma no more.
And that’s how I’m afraid heaven would be for me. It’d be a beautiful place, but all the bad stuff I’ve done and all the bad
stuff that’s been done to me would stick to me.”

She picked up the nail polish and began to polish my nails. The night had grown a deep black and the room was lit up by a
lamp without a shade. I watched her paint my nails and marveled at how pretty she still was. Even without her hair, her skull
was so well shaped in rounded curves and perfect circles. The naked skin of her head so silky and glistening. And without
her hair to hide behind, the features of her face were enjoying the center of attention.
Look at us
, the golden spokes of her eyes seemed to say.
See how perfect we are
, her lips called. There was no red-brown cover to shield or distract. And her face was loving it.

But the shadows would still cross. Dimming her golden spokes. Pursing her lips. Trembling her fingers. Smearing the polish.

“Della,” I said softly, “you’re gonna be okay.”

A tear washed its way down her face and clung to her chin.

“I still love him. Not Randy, I hate him. But I love the man I thought he was, I love the shadow. What I crave was never even
flesh and blood.
And I can’t shut it off!
I keep reaching for him when I sleep. I keep whispering his name. I’ve tried to get rid of him. Hell, I even shaved my head.
But my shadow love won’t leave me. It still comes to me at night and asks me to talk my pretty talk, about the stars and the
clouds. It wakes me in the morning to ask me what I dreamed about. Wherever I hide it finds me.
How can I ever be okay again?
” she cried.

“You will be. I’ve got a plan for us. I’ll tell you when you’re stronger,” I said.

“Everything is so scary now. Loving the shadow is all I am, and I can’t shut it off. I’m so scared,” she said as she began
to curl into a little ball on the couch. Her face was down, against my knee.

“Shhh Della. I know you’re scared. We’ll find a way. We’ll shut it off.”

T
he next morning, Della’s momma woke us.

“Well Lord help! Did you girls party so hard you couldn’t even make it to bed? You know you need your beauty rest, Della!
Can’t lure in the men if you got puffy eyes, my little kitten!”

“I don’t want a man, Momma,” Della said lowly.

“What? Now Mercy Heron, what kind of holy ideas you gone and pumped into my Della’s head? Course you want a man, sugar! Hell
you don’t just want one, you want a bunch! And we’re gonna get you one too, precious. Why, you know Bill? My man? He’s gotta
brother that’d suit you just perfect, love! I mean he may be a little older, he’s around my age, but that’s what you need,
baby, a real man. Not a little pantywaist from the Ben Franklin!”

“I
don’t
want a man, Momma,” Della said through gritted teeth.

“Well I wish you’d just hush up all this whining and moping. You and I both know you want a man. We DeMar women, we need our
men. It’s just that simple.”

“Wanting a man is how I got into this mess! A man ain’t gonna fix nothing for me! A man ain’t gonna do nothing but make it
all worse! I just want to be me, by myself, Della DeMar without a man!”

“You’re in this mess because you didn’t listen to your momma. I warned you. Over and over, when you were little, what did
I tell you, Della? I told you to never, ever hand over your heart. Give ’em your body, your mind, your sense of humor, your
Friday night. But don’t you ever give ’em something you can’t walk away with when they turn their backs on you. Or when they
die. And you went out and did exactly what I told you not to! Damn it, Della! If you’d just have the sense to listen! I don’t
tell you these things because I feel better by saying them. I tell you because I want to protect you. Because I’ve handed
out my heart. And when the man turns his back on me, I’ve had to walk away and leave my heart right there with him. And I
didn’t want that for you!”

“But I wanted to, Momma. I wanted to give my heart away. To somebody I thought would never turn his back on me,” Della sobbed.

“But you gotta listen to your momma. Watch how I treat men. I don’t ever give ’em my heart no more. It makes the hurting they
try and put on me so much easier, because they can hurt my body, or steal my money, but they ain’t ever even seen my heart.
So it don’t matter so much when they walk away. Just watch your momma. I’ll show you how to protect yourself. And listen to
me, the best thing to cure your ache is to remind yourself that that one pantywaist at the Ben Franklin wasn’t the only man
that you could have a good time with!”

“But I don’t wanna be like you. You run around with younger guys and older guys and married guys and single guys. And you
don’t ever really know them. And they don’t ever really know you. They use you, Momma. They
use
you. And I’m not saying I didn’t ever have a good time doing things the way you taught me. But don’t you ever just want something
more? More than to use and be used? Even before Randy, I knew I did. I’d look at that picture, the one you threw away when
I was little and I dug out of the trash. The one of you and Daddy. His arms around your waist. And you’re leaning on him.
Your head resting over his heart. And the look in your eyes. And his eyes. I’ve never seen that look on you, except in that
picture. And I wanted that look in my eyes. I wanted that look in Randy’s. I didn’t wanna be like you are now. I wanted to
be like you were then.”

“You know
nothing
, Della DeMar. You think you know everything just because you dug some picture out of the trash? Well, who would you rather
be now, missy? Look at us! You say you don’t want to be like me, huh? Well, I’m fine. I just had a great time with my man.
And you have
nobody
but poor old Mercy Heron. I feel great. And you’re curled up like a dead weed on the couch. I just had my roots done.
And you look like a circus freak.
Eighteen years old and as bald as a baby. So who would you rather be now, if being like me is such a bad thing?”