Whistling Past the Graveyard (28 page)

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he next afternoon I found out why Patti Lynn had to say overnight at my house—and it wasn’t from Patti Lynn. Her parents must have made some big threats to keep her from calling, ’cause she always told me everything, even when the sheriff brought her brother Gary home after getting caught drag racing—and Gary didn’t even have his license yet.

Mamie come home from her hair appointment real excited. She started talking even before her foot was in the back door. She said nobody was supposed to know, but it was all over town. Right then Daddy tried to stop her, but she was so worked up, she kept talking right over him. She said Mrs. LeCount was at the hairdresser, and that Bess had told Ernestine, and Ernestine had told Mrs. LeCount, that Gracie had told the sheriff that Patti Lynn’s sister was baby James’s momma! Mamie didn’t call him baby James though, just “that baby,” like she’d never met him.

“That girl is so chunky, who could have been able to tell?” Mamie said.
“But Cathy ain’t married!” I said. “How’d she get a baby?”
“Thanks a lot, Mother.”
Mamie waved her arms with her palms up, like she was laying something out in front of Daddy. “You want to do it all by yourself. Go right ahead.”
Daddy took me outside on the back steps and he told me how Cathy could get a baby without a husband. He just kept talkin’ and talkin’; all I wanted to do was get up and run to my fort. It was horrible. Awful. Impossible.
Finally, I reached over and put my hand over his mouth. “Okay. Okay. Okay.”
He got quiet for a second and I thought it was over. I kept staring at the grass, hoping he’d get up and go back inside. Then he asked, “Do you have any questions?”
The whole thing was so terrible, I didn’t even want to think about it. All I knew was that I was never getting any babies. I was just ready to make a run for my fort when another thought come to me. James belonged to Patti Lynn’s family. Me and Eula was gonna get to see him all of the time—and Eula would stay for sure now.
I said it to Daddy, but I still couldn’t look at him; might never be able to again.
“Starla, this is the Todds’ private family business,” he said. “We’re not gonna talk about it with anyone. You understand?”
“But everybody knows already.”
“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to add to the gossip.”
“But with James there,” I said, “what am I supposed to do, pretend he’s invisible?”
“Honey, James isn’t going be there. The Todds are putting him up for adoption.”
I did jump up then . . . and looked at Daddy. “No! They can’t just throw him away again.”
“Starla—”
“To who?”
“We won’t know. That’s always kept secret.”
“But James is their family! He’s a good baby. He tries real hard not to cry—”
Daddy grabbed my hands. “It’ll be better for him. Cathy is too young to be a mother. She has to finish school. He’ll be happy in his new family. And since he never knew his real momma, he won’t miss her at all.”
“Maybe his daddy wants him.”
Daddy looked sad and shook his head.
“You knew last night! You knew and didn’t tell me.”
“Mrs. Todd was upset. She said more than she meant to, then asked me to keep it to myself. I had to respect that.”
I stomped my foot. “It ain’t right! James is special. We need to tell them. They’ll change their minds. They just need to get to know him better . . . they . . . they . . .” All the sudden I was blubberin’. It happened so fast, I couldn’t stop it.
Daddy scooped me up and pulled me onto his lap. I hid my face on his shoulder and, for the first time I could remember, cried without even trying to stop.
The Todds weren’t just taking James away, they were taking Eula’s reason to stay, too.

I spent the rest of the day in my fort. My secret Howdy Doody lunch box was right there. I hadn’t opened it since July 3, almost three weeks, the longest time ever. But for the first time I didn’t even want to. The things inside had been ruined in Nashville. So I just laid there, only moving when I needed to swat bugs. Lots of thoughts were marching around in my head, their plodding feet pounding against my skull.

I wish I knew where James was. I wanted to say a better good-bye to him and remind him that he’s a good baby and that Eula and I woulda kept him if the law would let us. It was important for him to know that.

Then I got to thinking about what Daddy had said—not about youknow-what, but about Cathy being too young to have a baby, her needing to finish school and whatnot. I’d looked at Daddy’s senior yearbook a lot while he was gone working. I liked seeing him in the footballteam picture, the basketball-team picture, the baseball-team picture, and the track-team picture. Momma wasn’t in the yearbook. Which should have struck me as peculiar before now, I guess. That yearbook was from 1954. I was born in September 1953. Course I knew Momma and Daddy got married when they was still in high school. But it had never all come together in my head until right then—after Daddy had gone on and on about people lovin’ each other and sometimes they get a baby before they was married, and then they get married real fast before the baby is born. But sometimes they’re not ready to be parents and they don’t . . . like Cathy.

How could I have been so dumb?
Ugh. I was just like baby James.
Was Daddy sorry he didn’t send me to get adopted? I sure bet Lulu

was.

I spent some time trying to imagine living with a different momma and daddy, maybe even having brothers and sisters, in a different house, maybe a different town . . . with different friends. It come to me then, as bad as Mamie was, I didn’t want any other daddy or best friend. I didn’t want to go to a school where Mrs. Jacobi couldn’t be my teacher.

If James could pick, would he want to stay a Todd no matter what?

Mrs. Todd was always so fun and nice, but what if she would be as hateful to him for ruining Cathy’s life as Mamie was to me?
The whole thing made my head hurt worse.
Finally I heard Daddy calling my name. I stuck my head out between the leaves. He was on the front sidewalk.
“There you are,” he said. “What are you doing in there?”
“Nothin’.”
“Well, come on. It’s time to go to the apartment. I’ve got Don’s truck. Your bed and everything from your room is in it and ready to go. You can fix things however you want when you get there.”
“What about Eula?”
“She’s already there. Said she’d have sandwiches ready when we got back.”
I couldn’t really believe we was moving out of Mamie’s house. I’d been wishin’ for it for so long—not for exactly how it was happening for sure, but it was still a dream come true. It was gonna be me and Daddy and Eula from now on. I might miss my fort some. But I reckon I could ride my bike here and sneak in it without Mamie knowing.
“What about my bike?”
“In the truck.”
“Mamie still mad?” I asked.
“She’ll get over it.”
Well, that just told me Daddy didn’t know Mamie very good at all.
“Come on!” He sounded excited. He was smiling his real smile, too.
I started to leave my fort, but stopped and looked back at the Howdy Doody lunch box. Living with Daddy, I could take it and he’d never snoop inside. I stared at it for a minute, then I crawled on out and left it right where it was.
After we’d pulled away from Mamie’s house, I asked Daddy, “You sorry you didn’t get me adopted?”
He looked real surprised. “Why would you even ask that?”
I told him about my figuring out things while I’d been in my fort.
He pulled over to the curb. “Look at me, Starla.”
I didn’t much want to do it; what if he started talking ’bout that again? What if he started talking about Lulu? But I wasn’t a baby. I had to have grown-up conversationing whether I liked it or not. I gritted my teeth and looked him right in the eye.
“Some of the best things in life come when you’re not planning on them. It’s important to see them for the gift they are.”
That made me think of Eula and warmed up the cold spot in my stomach some.
Daddy went on, “I nearly died when I thought we might not find you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He swallowed kinda rough. “I’m sorry if I ever made you feel otherwise. I just . . . I thought you’d be better living with Mamie because you’re a girl and I wasn’t sure I knew how to raise you right.” He stopped and looked out the windshield for a second. “And maybe I wasn’t as grown-up as I should have been. But I am now. It’s you and me, kid, from here on.” He reached out and touched my black hair. “You’re my girl. I’d be lost without you.”
I turned in my seat and looked out the windshield. My ears were hot, but not from being mad. “That’s what I thought.”
(Thank you, baby Jesus.)
That night me and Eula and Daddy sat on the living-room floor and ate bologna—and-cheese sandwiches on Wonder bread. They was the most delicious I’d ever had. I liked mine with mustard; Daddy had remembered and not just bought mayonnaise like Mamie always did.
Since our apartment was upstairs, it was real hot. But Mrs. White gave Daddy a big fan and it was blowing real good, so I wasn’t sweatin’ at all. I wouldn’t have minded if I’d been sweatin’ like a hog, as long as me and Daddy and Eula was in one place. As we sat there and I looked at Daddy talking to Eula, something peculiar come over me. I got the same feeling as when I’d been eating dinner with Patti Lynn’s family, where everybody was having a nice time; a feeling of things being shiny and bright and just like they was supposed to be.
I bet it wasn’t that way at Patti Lynn’s tonight. I wished I could call her, but we didn’t have a phone. Mrs. White had said we could use hers anytime, but truth be told, I didn’t want to leave this apartment. Even if it was just to go downstairs. Even if it was to call Patti Lynn.

Daddy started his new job the next day . . . doing what he called being a grease monkey. I thought that was the funniest job I’d ever heard of until he explained it just meant he worked on cars down at the Esso station. Me and Eula spent the morning getting my room set up. We’d just finished when there was a thump-thump-thump on the floor.

We looked at each other.
Three thumps came again.
“We’d best go check on Mrs. White,” Eula said, hurrying for the

door that opened to a stairway built on the outside of the house.

I followed along. Mrs. White was real old, older’n Mamie. Her hair was gray with just a few black hairs left in it. She wore old-lady, tie-up shoes and a bib apron over her dress all the time. Daddy said one of the reasons she made the upstairs into an apartment was because she had bad knees and the stairs were troublesome to her.

Mrs. White was waiting for us at her back door. She had a broom in her hand and invited us into the kitchen. “Sorry to use this”—she lifted the broom—“but I just can’t do those stairs, and it was more dignified than standing out in the yard yelling up at your window.”

“We just happy you all right, ma’am,” Eula said, smiling.

I felt real proud of her. A few weeks ago, she wouldn’t’a said boo to a white woman unless she was forced.
Mrs. White set the broom down. “Well, I know Porter doesn’t have much for setting up housekeeping. And I certainly have more than I need down here.” She pointed to two boxes on the kitchen table. “I thought y’all might be able to use these.”
I got closer and looked inside the boxes. One had some pans, some silverware, and some towels. The other had the neatest dishes I’d ever seen; the plates and bowls was all different colors, orangey red, yellow, green, what Mamie would call “cream,” and dark blue. Mrs. White called them Fiesta dishes. Funny name.There was some glasses in there, too—but they was regular clear glasses like everybody had.
All the sudden I wished Daddy had brought my cowboy bowl from Mamie’s.
“I’m sure Mr. Porter be happy to have ’em,” Eula said, as she picked up the box with the dishes. “Thank you, ma’am.”
“Please tell your daddy if there’s anything else he needs, just ask,” Mrs. White said.
I picked up the other box. “Thank you, Mrs. White.”
She went and held the back-door screen open for us. “And, Starla, you’re welcome down here anytime you want to watch television or use the telephone.”
I’d been so excited about me and Daddy getting our place that I’d forgot we didn’t have a TV. “Thank you, ma’am.” I was some relieved not to have to miss my shows.
“It’s just so nice to have other people in the house again. Since I stopped teaching piano, it’s been too quiet.”
I remembered the sound of her students and their music that skittered from fast to slow and back again, the up and down notes that sometimes sounded wrong. I reckoned I wouldn’t miss hearing them, but the magic that come up when Mrs. White played was different. “Do you still play, Mrs. White?”
She laughed a little. “Not as well as I used to, but I’ll keep at it as long as I can drag myself to the piano bench.”
“Good,” I said, following Eula around the corner of the house to our stairway.
After me and Eula got things put away, we went out to sit on the stairway. It was in the shade and the breeze was nice. I’d been thinking about Patti Lynn all morning. I got to worryin’ maybe she needed to talk to me, with baby James and Cathy and whatnot going on. I wasn’t sure she knew which house was Mrs. White’s.
“I think I’ll ride over to Patti Lynn’s,” I said, getting on my feet. “I won’t leave you here by yourself long, I promise.”
“You think that a good idea? Things bound to be difficult over there right now.”
“But what if she needs me? She doesn’t know where to find me . . . and I bet Mamie wouldn’t tell her if she called to find out.”
“I see.” Eula sat there for a minute. “Maybe I oughta come too. I wait outside, course.”
“It’ll take too long to walk. And don’t worry, I ain’t breakin’ any rules, I ride to Patti Lynn’s all the time.” I went down and got my bike from where Daddy had parked it underneath the stairs.
It felt good to ride again, my legs pumping and the wind in my hair. I took the long way to Patti Lynn’s.
Turned out, I was gone even less time than I’d planned. Eula was still sitting outside when I got back. I put my bike back under the stairs, went up, and sat beside her. Then I parked my elbows on my knees and sat my chin on my fists.
“That bad, was it?” she asked, real soft.
“How come nobody is like they’re supposed to be anymore?”
“Your friend havin’ trouble?”
“She’s okay, I guess. But her momma was grouchy and had the house all closed up and the curtains closed. She wouldn’t even let me inside. Patti Lynn had to talk to me in the backyard. Then Mrs. Todd called her back inside after just a minute—and she sounded almost as mean as Mamie.” I sighed. “They sent Cathy away. Not to the same place as baby James, though. She ain’t gettin’ adopted. She’s livin’ with some relation in Ohio.” I looked at Eula and told her the worst part. “They said she can’t never come home again. Patti Lynn cried when she told me—and she don’t even like Cathy. It was terrible sad.”
We sat there for a minute, Eula rubbing my back.
“Why’d they send her away?” I asked. “Everybody already knows what happened.”
“They hurtin’. I’m sure they’s doin’ what they think best for Cathy.”
I looked up at her. “Like when Charles give your baby away? You think he was doin’ what he thought best for you?”
Eula looked at me for a long time. “Charles always mean to the core, so it hard to tell. But your friend’s family ain’t like that. So I’d say they got good intentions.”
While I was sitting there thinking about the storm that was tossin’ me and Patti Lynn’s lives in different directions, I got a big knot in my throat. Somehow Eula musta known, ’cause she pulled me closer and leaned down to look in my face.
“What’s goin’ on in there?” She tapped my heart, not my head. And I reckoned that was the true source of my misery, not what I was thinking but what I was feeling.
“If I hadn’t run off that day, nobody’d even know about baby James. Patti Lynn’s family wouldn’t be ruined. Cathy could have stayed home. You wouldn’t’a had to kill Wallace—I know you said that ain’t true, but it is.”
“Child, the good Lord got plans for all of us that we don’t know— and he always got his reasons. He want us to learn and rejoice in the good that come from his design.”
“You said a person’s gotta be accountable for what she’s done. If it’s God’s plan, why should anybody ever get punished for what they do?”
“God’s plan ain’t a free pass. Uh-uh. He give us moments to make choices, and we make them. We accountable for those choices. God’s job ain’t to make our lives easier, it’s to make us better souls by the lessons he give us. I tell you now, I wouldn’t change one choice I made since I met you. No matter what.”
“You’re just sayin’ that to make me feel better. No good come from what I done.”
“That ain’t true at all.” She wiped a tear off the end of my nose. “They’s plenty of good.”
I shook my head.
“Well, you think on it for a spell. It’ll come clear.” She got up and left me on the step.
Piano music started to come out of Mrs. White’s windows. It didn’t just touch my ears, it seeped inside and wrapped itself around my heart. But things just wouldn’t come clear.
I was still sitting there when Daddy come home from work.