Walking Through Shadows (6 page)

I learned about the awful pain that love can bring on the morning Sheila was supposed to come up to our house to make blackberry jelly. Year after year, every jar of Mama’s jelly turned out so perfect it wiggled on your spoon and spread smooth on a biscuit. Mama had promised to share her cooking secrets with Sheila, who told us that her jelly always turned out too runny or too sugary. Our bushes were bursting that May, and I filled several gallon buckets with plump juicy berries. My purple-stained fingers were covered with briar nicks and my waist was ringed with red welts from red bugs who preferred my blood to berries. I was thinking that biscuits tasted just as good with syrup when Sheila came in laughing.

“Lordeee, lordeee, y’all should’ve seen old Sid down to the barn. Stoney didn’t get her mule collar on fast enough, and she started sucking her milk out ’fore he knowed it. When he tried to get her head back round, she butted him clear cross the barn.” Sheila sat at the table and laughed hard. “Then Stoney, he got hisself up and went back over to her, and she’s sucking fast as she can, one eye on him. ’Fore he got there she done backed up and turned her tail. I knowed she were ready to kick him like a mule, and he knowed it too.” She looked over at Mama. “And you know what he done then? Stoney lit up a cigarette and walked right outta the barn. He said, ‘Sid, you welcome to your breakfast. I ain’t gonna get killed trying to keep you from it.’ That cow got the best of him.”

Mama and I laughed, but we were enjoying Sheila more than the story itself. Lil’ Bit, who had been busy all morning stacking blocks on the floor and then knocking them down, heard our laughter and smiled up at us. He said in a most solemn voice, “You funny, Sheshe.” That set us all off again.

Mama wiped her face on her apron. “Okay, now we’d better get to work if we’re going to get these berries put up before dinner time.” I had already washed all the mason jars, and when Mama went to hand the first one to Sheila, it slipped from her grip and crashed on the floor beside the tower of blocks. We all screamed, “Lil’ Bit, no,” as he reached out toward the glass. Mama grabbed him up into her arms at the same time that Sheila’s arm shot out to move the broken pieces away from him. Her hand came down on a shard and blood began to drip from her palm.

“Oooh, you’ve cut yourself,” I yelled.

Sheila held up her hand and licked the blood. The cut wasn’t too deep, but it was nearly an inch long. “It ain’t too bad,” she said.

When Mama came over to get a closer look, Lil’ Bit started to cry. “Shhhh, Sheshe is okay,” she reassured him. Then she turned to me. “Annette, get some gauze and tape. Run.”

After we got Sheila bandaged and Lil’ Bit calmed with a cookie, we set about the serious work of jelly making. Mama stood at the stove with her wooden spoon, stirring the first batch that was nearly ready for cooling while Sheila carefully lined up the jars on the countertop. I dumped another bucket of berries in the sink to wash. I remember thinking that Sheila’s accident was a bad luck sign, as I had dreamt about missing teeth only the night before, so when I heard the crunch of gravel, I looked out the window with a shiver.

I saw a bright red Chevrolet truck pull up beside our old rusted lawn mower that Daddy had set out for Digger to take home later that day. “Mama, company,” I said.

“Who is it?”

“Dunno. Can’t tell.” But as those words came out of my mouth, I recognized the man getting out of the truck. It was Uncle Walter, Lil’ Bit’s real daddy, whom we hadn’t seen since Lil’ Bit’s second birthday three months past. He had been spending a lot of time in Chicago working for the Illinois Central, and his visits had been sporadic and brief. Next I watched the passenger door open and saw a woman stepping out. He had never brought anyone with him to visit before. “It’s Uncle Walter and a lady,” I said, which sent Mama across the kitchen to the window. As we watched them walk toward the back porch, I noticed Uncle Walter had a new bounce in his step, and his hands fluttered around him as he talked to the woman and pointed to the dairy barn, the fig tree, our new tractor shed. The lady’s head jerked around looking in whatever direction his finger led her. She was wearing a beautiful orange, pink, and yellow print chiffon dress, and I thought she looked like she was dressed for a party instead of a visit to our dairy. She wore yellow high heels with rounded toes, and I stared at her feet as they hopped like little canaries toward the house.

“Wellllll,” Mama said, using a lot of air. “Wonder who she is?”

In the kitchen Uncle Walter introduced her as Gloria. Sheila picked up Lil’ Bit and carried him into the living room where Mama turned on the lights and waved our company to the couch. After he sat down, Uncle Walter introduced her again. This time as Gloria Vitter. Mama and I looked at each other, both of us trying to figure out if she was a relative of Uncle Walter’s that we didn’t know about.

“We’re married. Got hitched a week ago,” Uncle Walter said, taking Gloria’s left hand and displaying her gold band.

I waited for Mama to say something, but she was struck dumb. I think we both tried to smile, but we were so surprised I imagine our mouths looked like we had just swallowed iodine.

It was then, right at that moment, that Mama’s supernatural powers came to her. She reached across and pulled Lil’ Bit out of Sheila’s arms and held him on her lap with her arms folded over his stomach. Uncle Walter kept right on talking about how he met Gloria in the hotel where he was staying and where she worked as the hostess in the restaurant. They hadn’t known each other very long when they both realized they were “meant for each other.” These last words they actually said together, and as I watched Gloria’s hand squeeze Uncle Walter’s knee, I thought about how he cried so pitifully at Aunt Doris’s funeral. I remembered the hurt and dazed look on his face those times when we helped Aunt Doris into the truck after she visited Lil’ Bit.

I suspected what was coming, but Mama knew before me, and when Uncle Walter stopped smiling and sat up squaring his shoulders, she kissed Lil’ Bit’s head three times. We had never cut his hair, and it hung down below his ears in soft red curls. He looked like a fat little angel, his blue eyes fixed on Gloria’s colorful dress. “So Gloria’s home is in Chicago. Her people all live there and naturally she wants to stay. I can get a transfer, no problem.” I let out a long breath. Maybe Uncle Walter had come to say good-bye.

I began praying. “Please, God. Please please please.”

Mama’s eyes were closed and I knew she was praying as hard as me. The silence in the room was terrifying. I could hear the clock ticking all the way from the kitchen. A leaf blowing against the window sounded like a gunshot. I lifted my eyes to Gloria, and saw her pressed lips. She nudged Uncle Walter. He moved away from her on the couch.

Finally, when we were all about to break into a million pieces from the stillness, Mama’s voice drifted out from above Lil’ Bit’s head. “So you’re moving soon.” The words were whispers, like the sounds of a weak person lying in a hospital bed.

“Yes, Rowena,” Uncle Walter said. “I’ve got the house up for sale and the land, and I’ll be packing up and going within the week.”

“This week,” Mama echoed.

Uncle Walter’s face was chalky, and there were wet circles on his blue shirt beneath his armpits. I was glad of that. I wanted him to feel worse than he’d ever felt in his life. Just then Lil’ Bit pointed to Gloria’s yellow clutch purse which she held in her lap. “Candy,” he yelled out. “I eat candy.” Since Grandma had started bringing Lil’ Bit a peppermint or a chocolate drop in her purse, he had gotten the idea that all purses held treats like these. “I want candy,” he said smiling at Gloria.

Gloria didn’t understand. “I don’t have any sweets,” she said. She turned to Uncle Walter. “Give him a penny or something, Hon.”

I almost said, “No, he’ll put it in his mouth and swallow it, stupid.” But Uncle Walter wasn’t listening to her. He stood up, walked over to where Mama sat on the edge of her chair and knelt in front of Lil’ Bit. He held out his hands. “Come here, son,” he said.

But Lil’ Bit wasn’t interested, and he craned his head around his father’s back to stare at the yellow clutch. He pointed again. “Candy,” he said, his face screwing up with fury.

Mama looked at me. “Annette, get him a piece of fruit slice.”

I jumped up and ran to the candy dish, fishing out a sugared orange slice, and raced back to Lil’ Bit, who grabbed it in his chubby hand and stuffed it into his mouth as he said, “Thank you” using the manners we had taught him.

Uncle Walter hadn’t moved, nor had Mama or Gloria or Sheila. It seemed they were all frozen wax figures, the smell of the sweet candy wafting around their still heads. Mama’s fingers moved when Lil’ Bit’s drool dripped down onto her hand, and without looking, she found his mouth and wiped it with her thumb. I stood right beside her chair, thinking about grabbing Lil’ Bit and running out the front door. I saw the two of us flying down the road, Lil’ Bit’s overall straps falling down on his shoulders, my tennis shoes tearing up the grass as we sailed out of the yard. My right hand reached out, but Mama took it and laid it on her shoulder. As I stood there ramrod straight, I thought we must look like a tintype photograph in which I was the stern husband with my hand on the shoulder of the sitting wife, a serious-eyed baby seated on her starched skirt. Lil’ Bit did look somber, now that his craving for sweets was satisfied. His round eyes bore into Uncle Walter as if he were memorizing him. Gloria was talking all this time, but I have no memory of what she said. I suppose she was telling us their plans because I heard Mama say, “The house sounds nice.”

When Uncle Walter stood up, Mama and I knew that nothing could keep him from saying the awful words that would stab our hearts. “We plan to take Lil’ Bit with us.”

Pieces of the next hour come back to me, but mostly all I remember is the hollow sound of the voices, the sudden heat that made the air hard to breathe. I can still see the pink lipstick smear on Lil’ Bit’s cheek where Gloria kissed him. Phrases come to me. “Wonderful to him,” “Appreciate all you’ve done,” and finally the last hateful sentences as they walked out onto the porch. “We’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. That will give you enough time to pack his things, won’t it?”

I helped Mama pack his diaper pins, his sweet-smelling baby powder, the appliquéd sunsuits and bibs with ducks and cows on them. I folded the navy sweater and cap set Mama had knitted for him, and we boxed up the toys we had bought for Christmas although it was still months away. Now Santa would bring them to his new snow-covered home. Sheila cried for all of us. She sat on the floor in Lil’ Bit’s room, her tears wetting his undershirts, his sunsuits, his Sunday white shirt with the Peter Pan collar. She sobbed into the blanket we would throw over his head, asking, “Where’s Lil’ Bit?” until he would pull it off and laugh as we screamed, “Oh, there he is!” There he is, we said, but he wouldn’t be there ever again.

Lil’ Bit slept with Mama and Daddy that night. I tiptoed into his room to his crib to say a private good-bye, but the white sheet was stretched smoothly across the empty mattress. When I opened the door to Mama’s room, I saw Lil’ Bit’s blue cotton rump sticking high in the air. His face was turned to Mama and his thumb was centered in the perfect O of his mouth. Mama and Daddy lay on their backs, their open eyes staring up at the ceiling that must have seemed like a giant coffin lid. I backed away from them and fled to my cold bed, where I lay in my own casket until the morning sun ruthlessly forced me to get up and become an only child again.

I didn’t see Lil’ Bit go. I didn’t kiss him good-bye. I didn’t help load the boxes and bags into the truck. As soon as I awoke, I pulled on my blue jeans and shirt and ran out the front door to Sheila’s house. Stoney had gone on the milk run in Daddy’s place since he needed to be with Mama and Lil’ Bit, and Sheila was waiting for me on the porch. “I figured you’d come up,” she said, as I pushed my two hundred pound legs up the steps. “Let’s go for a walk.”

May is an unpredictable month in Mississippi. Some years it is a summer month, hot and humid, so that all the town kids drive out our way to cool off in the river. Other times May is a spring month with a constant breeze that caresses our faces and cools our bodies. This day was perfect, a wind-kissing day, a day we Southerners brag about to our Yankee friends. Sheila and I set off slowly marching through the woods beside her house. We didn’t talk for a long time, and when we came upon a doe with her white-spotted fawn, we stood motionless until the mother lifted her head and nudged her baby away from view. There were words and pictures in my head. I heard my voice saying, “They’re giving him some crackers to take in the truck. He’s crying and calling our names. He doesn’t want to go.”

We had been walking for hours I think. I know we missed breakfast because I remember hearing Sheila’s stomach growling like a hungry dog’s. I didn’t know where we were, but I didn’t care. I would let my Best Friend take me wherever she wanted to go.

I later realized we were on the Whittingtons’ property standing in a field of clover; we stood for a moment looking over the waves of vivid crimson stretched out before us. Above the field, the noontime sun sat like a golden orb in the sapphire blue sky. “Wow,” Sheila said. “Ain’t it pretty?” And then she pulled me farther out into the field. Taking my shoulders, she turned me around. “Now stand right there. Don’t move,” she said. I obliged her. Sheila pointed to the ground. “See your shadow?” I looked down and saw the outline of two legs, two hanging arms, a torso, a big round head. I nodded even though I wasn’t at all sure the figure was me. Sheila looked back and forth from me to the sun. She danced from foot to foot, rocking left, then right. Shading her eyes with her hand, she stared up for a long time, and finally, she yelled out, “Okay, take a step. Now.” I wavered for a moment, and then understanding and remembering, I lifted my foot and walked into my shadow.

On the way home, Sheila skipping along beside me, stopped and said, “This shadow will pass. The sun will come out again. It always does.” When I left her standing on her porch, I walked home both full and empty. Nothing would ever replenish the empty cavern Lil’ Bit had left in my heart, but I had been given something on this day. I walked on toward the sad quiet house, longing to feel Mama’s arms wrapped around me, but knowing somehow that my scrawny limbs were the strong ones now.