Ray’s favorite place to be in all of Bliss, Michigan, was up in the old tree Aunt Carrie had told us was called a weeping willow. Ray would scurry up the trunk and relax into its branches. I would stay on the ground, hollering up about how unfair it was of him to go where I couldn’t well follow.
“Come on then,” Ray called to me between two branches.
We’d been in Bliss more than a week and I was gaining in strength. Still, pulling my full weight up a tree seemed impossible. I felt the bark, running my fingers along its grooves and ridges, working up my nerve to at least try climbing. But my nerve kept finding reason to stay away.
“You can see all the way into town from up here,” Ray said.
“Can’t either.”
“See for yourself.”
“I can’t, Ray,” I told him.
“You ain’t tried.” His face disappeared behind a branch thick as my thigh.
“I got a dress on.”
“Don’t matter.”
“Does too.” An ant crawled up the tree lugging something on its back. It changed route to avoid my finger. How lucky the little critter was, not having to worry about being ladylike.
“You need yourself a pair of pants,” Ray told me. “I bet your mama’d make you a pair.”
“Nuh-uh. She never would,” I answered him. “If I so much as asked, she’d make me copy from the Bible where it says women shouldn’t dress like men.”
“It don’t say that in the Bible.”
“Sure it does.”
“Where at?”
“Well, I don’t know exactly, but God did say it.” I picked at the bark, pulling a loose piece off between my fingers. “You don’t see men wearing dresses, do ya? Mama isn’t like to let me wear slacks.”
“If you say so,” Ray said.
The leaves rustled and I could tell it was because he was climbing higher and higher up. I pouted, even though I knew he’d never see it, and sat down at the bottom of the tree, leaning against it and closing my eyes. I sat like that for more than a couple minutes feeling sorry for myself.
“Hey, you awake?” Ray asked, his upside down face hovering near my head.
“Uh-huh,” I told him, looking up to see how he was dangling from a branch by just his bent legs. “Be careful.”
“I ain’t gonna fall.” He pulled himself up and swung down to the ground. “I been thinkin’.”
“Yeah?”
“I been thinkin’ about writin’ a letter to my ma,” he said. “I figure she might wanna hear from me.”
“You need help?”
“Can’t do it on my own.”
“All right, then,” I said, glad to be needed.
The two of us went inside and Aunt Carrie told us we could use a couple pieces of her good stationary. It was real pretty with sweet little daisies bordering all the way along the edge. She even let us use her ink pen. It wrote smooth, she told me, but I worried about making a mistake without a chance of erasing it.
Ray and I sat at the little table in Aunt Carrie’s kitchen. He leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his chin and sticking his tongue out the side of his mouth. I didn’t rush him. I knew he was thinking real hard.
“I ain’t never wrote a letter to nobody before,” he whispered, leaning forward and putting his elbows on the table.
“It’s not too hard,” I told him, smoothing the paper against the table-top. “You wanna start with ‘Dear Mama’?”
“Write ‘Dear Ma,’” he said, watching real close as I moved the pen over the page, nodding like he was giving me his approval.
I tried my best to keep my hand steady, to make the letters clear and neat. To keep the ink from splattering all over the place. It had been months since I’d written so much as my own name, though, what with the school closing down and me being sick. My hand started hurting before I got down even those two words.
“Tell her I’m happy here,” he said. “Tell her there’s green grass all over the place and that I ain’t seen even a speck of dust. Not no dirt, neither.”
“Sure there’s dirt,” I said, looking up at him. “How else would the grass grow?”
“You know what I mean.” He pointed at the paper. “Write it down anyhow. Maybe she’ll wanna come if she thinks there ain’t dirt she’s gotta clean up.”
I wrote what he told me, sighing when I couldn’t remember how a certain word was spelled. Then again, I didn’t know that Mrs. Jones would mind so much if I misspelled a word or two. Probably she wouldn’t even know the difference.
“And tell her she could maybe find a job up here,” he told me, leaning over the page and watching me write. “Put down that if she comes we’ll get a place all our own. Tell her I’ll get a job, too, so we can make rent.”
“Slow down,” I said. “I don’t wanna rush.”
He waited, letting me catch up, but tapping his foot to let me know he was short on patience. I felt him watching and it made me nervous. Still, I wrote what he told me to. I didn’t ask him where she’d get a job or if he’d stay out of school to work. All I did was write that letter as he said it.
“That it?” I asked once I’d caught up. “Anything else?”
“Tell her that I miss her somethin’ awful.” He waited a minute. “Got it?”
“Uh-huh,” I answered. “You wanna sign it?”
He took the pen and slid the paper in front of himself. His whole hand wrapped around the pen. It took him near as long to write the three letters of his name as it had for me to write the whole thing.
I thought sure he’d rip through the paper, he pushed down so hard.
Once he was done he looked up at me like he was real proud.
I didn’t have the heart to tell him he’d made his R backward.
Mama’d never been one for taking naps. Back in Red River she only sat down at meal times and when she had a radio show she wanted to listen to. Even then she kept her hands busy with mending. Meemaw had called her a “busy body,” always moving around doing something.
But since we’d been in Bliss, Mama’d taken to resting more than I’d ever seen her do before. She’d sleep right in the middle of the afternoon, sometimes not even getting up to eat dinner. When she got up, she was no better than she’d been before.
Aunt Carrie told me she thought Mama needed all that rest, that she’d be better soon enough. Ray said she had the blues. Daddy, though, said she was going through an adjustment.
“It’ll take some time,” he’d told me. “She’ll be back to herself before you know it.”
As for me, I thought she was heartsick, missing Beanie and Red River and having her own house. I thought the very last thing she needed was to be by herself so much. Not if she was ever going to get better, that was.
So, about once a day I’d go into the room where Mama rested just to keep her company. She’d let me curl up beside her on top of the covers. I’d tell her about what I’d done that day or hum a song to her. She didn’t seem to mind that I couldn’t sing so pretty as she did.
After Ray and I folded up his letter and put his ma’s new address on the envelope, I got to thinking about my own mama. I went to her room to tell her about the tree and the letter and a bird I’d seen early in the day. I was about to knock, but I noticed the door wasn’t shut all the way. Peeping in I saw she was standing in front of a tall mirror, looking at herself in a dress I’d not seen before. She turned sideways and gathered the fabric at her back, pulling it tight on her too-flat stomach.
She turned her head toward the door and I pulled my head back so she wouldn’t know I was peeking in at her.
“Might as well come in,” she said, dropping the fabric so the dress hung like normal. “I can see you.”
I pushed open the door and went to stand beside her. She put an arm around me and we looked at each other, at ourselves in that mirror. I’d grown to just below her shoulder. I wondered if I’d be tall as her some day. Maybe even taller.
I couldn’t remember if Winnie had been short or tall. And I couldn’t remember how her voice had sounded, not really. I’d never learned if she knew how to make a good supper or if she could sing sweet and pretty.
I did know all those things about Mama, and that’d have to be enough.
For about the hundredth time in the months since learning about how I was born, I regretted that Mama hadn’t been the one to give birth to me. It was plenty, though, to know that she’d given me a life.
“You all right?” Mama asked, looking into the reflection of my eyes in the mirror.
“Yes, ma’am.” I didn’t want to tell her I’d been thinking about Winnie. She’d told me she wanted me to forget all about That Woman. “Is that a new dress?”
“New to me,” she said. “Carrie told me to try them on, that they didn’t fit her anymore. She said I could have any of them that suited me.”
There on the bed she and Daddy shared were laid out dresses of all different colors and patterns.
“They’re pretty,” I told her.
“Aren’t they?” She turned toward the pile, touching the fabric. “They’re all fine dresses. Too fine, maybe.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m afraid I’d spoil them,” she said, crossing her arms. “They’re all store-bought. It’s been years since I had a dress I didn’t make myself.”
“They’ll look nice on you.” I picked one up that had a green and blue plaid across it, handing it to her. “They’d just get wasted if you didn’t wear them.”
She held the dress against the front of her.
“Maybe I could wear them on Sundays,” she said. “Maybe for special.”
She smiled at the thought.
Ever since I could remember, I’d thought Mama the prettiest woman in all of Oklahoma. Her dark hair that held a spiral of curls, her creamy skin and warm eyes. The way her smile lifted her whole face when she laughed at something Daddy said. How soft and sweet her eyes were when she sang.
I didn’t have so much as a drop of her blood in my veins, still I had hope that one day I’d glow the way she did. One day I’d be so nice a woman as my mama.
“I should hang these up,” she said. “I’m just so tired today.”
“I can do it,” I told her. “You wanna lay down?”
“Thanks, darlin’.” She let her shoulders slump and she hung her head like a rag doll. “Seems no matter how much I sleep I just can’t get rid of this exhaustion.”
“It’s all right.” I put my hand on her back, pushing her toward the bed. I pulled back the covers so she could climb in. Like she’d done for me most every night of my life, I tucked her in, pulling the sheet up to her chin.
“I’ll be better soon,” she whispered.
“I do hope so,” I told her.
“Hope.” She yawned. “I like how that word sounds.”
“Me too, Mama.”
After I got done hanging up all the new-to-Mama dresses, I left the room, making sure to turn the doorknob as I pulled it all the way closed. Mama was sleeping so good I didn’t want anything to wake her.
It felt like something in my heart flickered, making it beat a little faster.
Hope sure was a pretty word.