In the morning, there’s bacon and a spoonful of scrambled egg on Harry’s plate. He has his spoon in his hand; he slept that way. I was fearful that he’d poke his eye out or run it down his throat, but he’s using it now to chop at the yellow egg.
Auntie’s at the stove, turning hotcakes. She says to Harry, “Honey, you go on and pick up that bacon in your fingers. That’s the way it’s done around here.”
And Harry does. He takes an almost-bite. I want to fall on the floor in relief. Now, if we can get him to talk …
Luz has already eaten. I pour a cup of coffee, hug Harry, and kiss the top of his head, and Luz’s too.
I try to figure how many years I’ve been gone. In this big kitchen, not much has changed. No dishwasher has been added, no microwave. I wonder if I’m welcome enough—or at home enough—to run dishwater in the sink for the washing up. I do it anyway, and squirt in liquid soap, begin to dunk the sticky plates. On the porch, a dryer has been installed alongside the washer. I guess the clothesline, where I used to play among the sweet-smelling sheets, isn’t used anymore.
Auntie brings the plate of hotcakes and the warm syrup jar. She stirs sugar in her mug and gets right to it. “Clea, all of us, we read your book.”
The book. I began it the day Dr. Ahmed gave me the steno pad in the hospital. When it was finished, I called it Halo. I’d changed the characters’ names, at the urging of my editor, and I’d fudged with the places, making up towns, renaming the river. I hadn’t fooled anyone here, nor did I expect to.
“You said bad things about us.”
“No.” I sip my coffee. Too hot. “I said bad things about Mama. I needed to say them.”
“You ran off,” Auntie says, as if she has a whole list. “In the dead of night.”
To save myself.
Those were the bad years. After False River, before Belize.
I went to live where nobody cared, just sat on the sidewalk and watched shoes go by. I had street people to learn from. When it rained I held cardboard over my head. I could walk two blocks to a food line, and when I needed to pee I went around to the alley, although most didn’t bother.
That was just the beginning.
“I went to college,” I said. “Got a degree.”
Luz has been watching me, her eyes big and round. She knows about the book and has asked to read it, but I won’t let her. Here in this house, though, things are going to come out.
I set my coffee down, give her a smile, and watch Harry toy with his breakfast. In just the last couple of days, his face has grown pale, veins blue at his temples, his eye sockets too big. I’ve heard of children who had to be fed intravenously, and that also makes me afraid. Fear breeds fear—had I not learned that myself, bound to a bed in a psychiatric ward?
What we put into the world, we get back a thousandfold.
When I’ve finished my coffee, I’ll go upstairs to Call, and I’ll give thanks, in advance, for the return of Harry’s appetite.
Meanwhile, I say, “One bite, little guy?”
He rubs an eye with the flat of his hand.
I’m no more rested than when I went to bed. Last night I lay awake, thinking that Millicent couldn’t be more wrong. Whatever sins my mother committed, and wherever she is now, she made her hell right here, where I could see it. I sometimes stepped inside it with her.
Being away from here was what saved me. I’m grateful to those people who reached out to me in the streets and clinics and basements. And among the Belize Sisters, I learned that life is the hard part. As will be the next life, and the next. Only between is there real, true rest.
There was always comfort in this house. Aunt Jerusha and Uncle Cunny gave me what was never required of them, and as soon as I calm my nerves and screw up my courage, I’ll walk next door, find whatever concrete or timber may be left, and I will spit on it and curse it.
Then Miss Millie will have something real to work on.
After that, I’ll have to deal with the law. There’s probably no statute of limitations on murder.
I sit at the table and swallow a mouthful of coffee. My eyes are on my boy. I say, “I think babies remember God.”
Auntie looks over at me. Bitsy has come down, and she fills a plate.
I say, “I wish Harry could tell me what God looks like. Or that he could show me heaven on a map.”
No one says a word.
“I think that’s why they can’t speak,” I say.
Bitsy pours syrup.
I smile, making conversation. “Babies have these funny little toes and dimpled bottoms. They’re—you know—fresh from the earth and the sky and wind, but not allowed to speak of it. I wonder where that memory goes.”
Over the rim of her cup Auntie says primly, “They say we got brain parts we never use.”
“They look so innocent. When Harry was two, he had hair like the down of a baby duck.”
Now that I’m here in Auntie’s house, I hate that I’ve kept Luz and Harry from her. Then I look over at Bitsy. Her eyes are more heavy-lidded than usual.
“Auntie,” I say, rising. “May I use your phone? I’ll pay for the call. I’d like to tell the sisters where I am. My cell phone—”
—was lost in the collapse of my house in Dandridge.
While Bitsy eats, I call Sister Isabel, murmur something vague, I’ll be gone awhile. Will you cover my assignments? I’m sorry, but the files and lesson plans were on my desk. When the house came down, they blew away on the wind.
Sister Janice and Sister Grace crowd around the little phone and say We love you, Go with God, and Stay in touch.
Do not worry, they tell me.
I climb the stairs to the attic for a few minutes of Call. But the only things that come are quakes like fissures trying to open inside me. I get up and gather our dirty clothes. One of Thomas’s socks is stuck in a sleeve. For a moment I wish I had a match.
How can I think that?
Because, of course, it’s all coming back. I’ve come back too, and brought my own demons with me.
Then I hear a truck, a pickup—the county sheriff’s? I run down the stairs to put my arms around my kids. But it’s Uncle Cunny.
He throws his hat on the table. He runs a hand over his hair. “Another storm’s swirling up out in the Atlantic. It’s headed for the gulf.”
Shookie’s folding clothes at the table. I see now that her legs are thick as tree trunks. She wears a pair of bedroom slippers that once were pink and fuzzy. Her steps are short and shuffling.
“God’s sake,” she says. “All this weather’s more than a body can take.”
“Put a dollar in the jar on the shelf,” Auntie tells me. “For the laundry. Pays for hot water and soap.”
If we stay here very long, I’ll have to transfer money from our bank to one in Greenfield, or even Jenerette, which is closer. If we stay here long, I’ll need to find a job. But it won’t be, will it—not long at all. And anyway, that’s assuming Auntie will let us stay in this house that’s already so full. On the other hand, she and her sister are getting older, and Bitsy’s no hand at anything.
When I come down, Auntie leaves the table and turns on the TV. “Lord, Cunny, what are they sayin’?”
He shakes his head. “Already a hurricane, and they’re calling it Greta. You can bet your fine china we’ll take a hit.”