I woke the next morning to the scent of fresh-brewed coffee making its way from the kitchen, down the hallway, up the stairs, and all the way into my room. I rolled over, stretching as I went, shivering in the early morning cold. Pulling my arm out from under the mound of covers, I stole a quick glance at my watch. It wasn’t even six o’clock, but I’d slept all night with the overhead light on, so the room was as bright as noontime in the middle of summer.
I leapt from the bed and ran over to the chifforobe. I opened it and yanked the robe from the hook on the opposite side of the door. I slipped into it, tied its sash around my waist with a tad too much force, then scurried to the dresser, where I hoped I could find a pair of socks. Drawer after drawer revealed only a hodgepodge of old books, papers, yellowed color photographs and some fading black and whites. Finally, in the bottom right-hand drawer, I found an unopened six-pack of white sports socks.
I made a quick trip into the upstairs bath, where I rummaged through the drawers next to the sink, through old tubes of ointments, various sizes of Band-Aids, broken pocket combs, some emery boards, and a nail clipper until I found a travel-size tube of toothpaste and toothbrush I’d brought with me on my last visit. I brushed my teeth, splashed ice-cold water over my face, and reached for the only towel in the room, hanging over the inside doorknob.
It smelled musty.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I turned my left foot upward and frowned; the sock was already soiled from walking down the staircase. I made a mental note to wash the floors with a vinegar and water solution as soon as I was done with the dusting. I padded into the kitchen, following the aroma of Maxwell House.
“Morning,” I greeted Aunt Stella and Doris, both of whom were sitting at the kitchen table, reading sections of the Savannah Morning News.
“Did we wake you, Jo-Lynn?” Doris asked. “Mama, I told you we were being too loud.” She folded the local section, then laid it on the table beside her. “Mama, hand me your part, please. You’re hardly reading it.”
“It’s the comics. What’d you expect?”
I smiled as I poured a mug of coffee and joined them at the table. “You didn’t wake me,” I said, sitting. I reached over and patted Aunt Stella’s old and wrinkled arm. Her skin seemed so thin, so fragile. “How you doing this morning?”
She nodded at me. “At least I wasn’t sleeping alone.” She nodded toward Doris as she passed the comics to her. “Sleeping in that bed by myself is something I never intend to do.”
I took a sip of my coffee. “Evan called last night.”
“Did you tell him about staying here, Jo-Lynn? Did you talk to him about the offer Mama made you?”
I shook my head. “Not really. I dropped a hint.” I winked at Aunt Stella. “You know, just enough to drive him crazy.”
Aunt Stella peered into her coffee mug. “Doris, shug. I could use a little more coffee.”
Doris dropped the comics, looped fingers into the mug’s handle, and swept over to the counter where the half-empty coffeepot waited. Aunt Stella turned to me. “Now, shug. You want to be careful here. You don’t want to end your marriage over this.”
I shook my head. “It’s not over this, Aunt Stella. Believe me.”
Doris rejoined us at the table, placing Aunt Stella’s coffee before her. “I’m planning on calling Karol Paisley this morning. I thought maybe you’d like to meet her.”
“We need to go by the cemetery,” Aunt Stella commented, as though that altered anything Doris wanted to do.
“We will, Mama.”
“We need to check your daddy’s grave.”
I knew better than to comment. It was the Southern way. In fact, I was somewhat surprised Mother hadn’t insisted we head back to the cemetery before yesterday’s sun had set.
“I know, Mama.” Doris looked at me. “JoLynn, you want some breakfast, hon?”
I shook my head. “No. I’m going to head upstairs, get dressed, run over to Mother’s. I need to shower and change and then I’ll be back.” I finished off the cup of coffee I’d steadily sipped from.
“Bring your mama back with you,” Aunt Stella said. “She’ll want to go with us to the cemetery.”
“I’m sure she will.” I stood. “Alrighty then. What’s say I come back around ten or so?”
“Ten sounds good,” Aunt Stella said.
We rode to the cemetery in Mother’s new Caddy. Mother drove slowly while Aunt Stella, who sat up front, reminded her that the roads might be icy. Doris and I shared the soft leather of the backseat.
“It’s not cold enough for the roads to be icy, Mama,” Doris said.
“It snowed yesterday,” Aunt Stella reminded her while staring straight ahead.
“Flakes, Mama. Weatherman says it’s forty-seven degrees outside.”
Aunt Stella didn’t respond.
I turned my head to look out the window. The entire countryside was barren; gray, brittle grass lay flat against the soil and naked trees reached like an old woman’s fingers toward an ashen sky. Old farmhouses continued to stand proud against the landscape, appearing sturdier than some of the newer ones, many of which were overgrown and overshadowed by untended foliage. I spied an older teenage boy, clad in jeans, shirt, and a denim jacket, driving alongside the road on a four-wheeler. He wore a dirty baseball cap, and his long blond hair, tucked behind his ears, hung on his shoulders from beneath it. As we passed I craned my neck to look back at him, and for a moment it seemed his eyes locked with mine. He nodded, then rolled his shoulders and turned off to the right, down a ditch, and through an open field.
I turned my attention back to what was happening on the inside of the car. Doris was staring at me, a quizzical look on her face. “You know who that is, don’t you?” she asked. “That’s Bettina Godwin’s grandson.” She leaned forward. “Mama, what’s that boy’s name?”
“What boy?” Aunt Stella asked, her gaze never leaving the front windshield. “Turn up here, Margaret,” she instructed Mother.
“I know, Aunt Stella. I’ve been driving to this cemetery nearly my whole life.” Her words weren’t unkind, but the irony of it wasn’t lost on me.
“Just didn’t want you to miss it, shug,” she said, then turned her chin over her shoulder and said, “Terry. Terry Godwin. He’s a rascal, that one is. And he’s hardly a boy. I think he’s near-bout twenty years old.”
Doris turned to me. “You remember Buster Godwin, don’t you, Jo-Lynn? His mama and daddy lived out on Bird Lane.”
Mother slowed her car as she took a sharp left turn, then sped up again as she drove up a slight incline toward the church property. The old cemetery ran adjacent, rolling toward a field of harrowed dirt that died out on the horizon. I immediately spotted the fresh mound near the back, the Shepherd Funeral Home canopy still standing guard over the floral blanket and the cluster of arrangements sent by family and friends.
“Margaret, we need to see about getting these flowers home before they die in the cold,” Aunt Stella said. “You send that husband of yours on over with his truck, you hear, and he can bring them to the house.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Mama,” Doris interjected, “I was telling Jo-Lynn about Mr. Buster Godwin Senior.”
“What about him?”
“I was telling her that his mama and daddy lived out on Bird Lane.”
“Well, who gives a rat’s rear about that?”
Doris sat back with a huff. “I just thought she might remember them, is all.” Doris looked at me. “They’re both dead now anyway, Jo-Lynn.”
“Bunch of white trash. Never cared for them much. None of ’em. The day Senior died nobody cried.” Aunt Stella sniffed.
“Mama!”
Blessedly, Mother pulled the car up the asphalt drive, rolling it toward one of the gravel roads that ran between thick rows of the dead. I looked over at Doris, who sighed as I rolled my eyes.
“That’s not altogether true, Aunt Stella, and you know it,” Mother said. “I’m quite certain his family mourned him then as we are Uncle Jim now.” She momentarily looked back toward Doris and me. “When we were younger, Bettina Godwin— then Bettina Bach—and I were good friends.” She looked at Aunt Stella again. “Anytime she came over to the big house, you were nothing but sweet and kind to her.”
“Mama? Sweet and kind? Do tell, Cousin Margaret.”
“Bettina comes from good people,” Aunt Stella said, never looking back. “Hurry up, Margaret, and stop the car. I need a cigarette and your Uncle Jim’s grave needs tending to.”
The tires of Mother’s car crunched along the road then rolled to a stop. Doris reached over and took my hand. “Mrs. Godwin’s people were the Bachs. You know, Valentine and Lilly Beth Bach. Miss Lilly Beth died way before our time.”
I nodded. “I remember him, yes.” Valentine Bach—a man I thought born old—had been a local builder as long as I could remember. He drove a beat-up truck and was always, always, clad in worn overalls, faded from years of wash-n-wear.
I opened the door and slipped out of the car’s warmth and into the chill of the day. “Mercy,” I muttered, then reached around and opened Aunt Stella’s door for her. “Tuck your scarf around your neck, Aunt Stella,” I told her as Doris and Mother came from around the other side of the car.
And she did.
Aunt Stella looped her arm in mine and headed toward Uncle Jim’s grave. “Valentine and your Uncle Jim were good friends,” she said, squeezing my arm.
“I don’t remember seeing him at the house yesterday,” I whispered, as though not wishing to disturb the dead.
Doris and Mother walked behind us, the sound of our footsteps growing more solemn as we drew closer to the mound. A gust of wind whipped through the nearby oaks, howling a bit, and I shivered.
“Mr. Bach was never much of one for a funeral,” Doris said. “But his daughter Bettina was there. She married Buster Godwin Senior.”
“That boy was pure white trash,” Aunt Stella repeated her sentiments.
“Mama!” Doris all but stamped her foot. “Anyway, Jo-Lynn, she was there with her son Buster Junior, though with so many folks there you may not have noticed them. They kinda stay to themselves sometimes. Well, mostly Miss Bettina. Margaret, did you get to say hello to Miss Bettina?”
“We spoke for a moment or two.”
“That was nice,” I said for lack of anything else to say. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to say anything to them.” I winked at Aunt Stella beside me. “Or to Mr. Bach, who didn’t bother to show up.”
“Wait till he has his own funeral,” Aunt Stella said. “He’ll show up then.”
I looked back at Mother, who shook her head and sighed.