It was a relief to know that Mama was coming with me when I went back to Hog Gap. I wanted her to teach me how to be strong. For certain I wanted to tell her I was probably pregnant again, and what in heaven was I going to do? I wanted to curl up in her lap and let her fight my battles until I could face them alone. If that didn’t work, I just wanted to lean on her. That alone would make everything feel better.
Pa never woke up, so I didn’t get to ask him to forgive me for leaving Annie alone up on the mountain. Mama had his body sent over to William Crawford Funeral Home until she could decide what to do. The neighbors came by and brought the usual assortment of food. Mama sat them down and served them her pears soaked in wine.
“Takes the edge off,” she said.
We girls gathered in the back bedroom while they clustered around Mama like grapes on a vine.
It was the first time in quite a few years we’d spent any time together just being sisters.
“He’s with Annie now,” Clarissa said.
“What difference does it make? He’s dead,” Rebecca said.
“He was our pa, Rebecca,” I said. “Don’t you hurt for him at all?”
“Maybe,” she said.
“Why can’t you show it?” I said. Rebecca stood there acting real tough, but tears welled up in her eyes. “Why can’t any of us show it? Why can’t we finally say the things we’ve kept inside us?” I said. “I’m tired of pretending everything’s all right when it’s not.”
Clarissa started crying. I put my arm around her and what d’you know? Rebecca put her arms around the both of us. We cried for a while, hugging and patting each other, stopping now and then to catch our breath or pass around the tissues. Then we’d start in again, three sisters finally giving one another comfort while we shared our sorrow. I think we cried over what we should have cried over years ago. For the hurts and regrets we never got out when Annie drowned. For keeping our thoughts on how it must have been for her those last few minutes locked inside us. Picturing her calling out and struggling all alone in that deep water with no one there to help her. Crying for Pa and what he missed with us and us with him. For Mama and the years she spent alone when Pa hid in the bottle. Mostly, I think we cried for each other, for the times we could have shared our pain and didn’t. I cried pretty hard over the fact we were finally doing that now. When we finished, it got real quiet. Mama tapped on the door.
“Girls? Someone here to see you,” she said. She opened the door a crack. “It’s Delva and Marie, here to pay their respects.”
Rebecca opened the door and motioned for her friends to come in. Mama went back to the ones gathered in the front room.
“This is Adie,” Rebecca said. “She’s the pregnant one Pa run off I told you about.”
“Rebecca!”
“Well, it’s the truth,” she said. “This is Delva.”
Rebecca pointed to a tall thin young woman with red hair and buck teeth.
“How do,” she said.
“And the one’s got the teeth don’t stick out is Marie,” Rebecca added. Marie smiled. Her teeth were near perfect. But poor Delva; hers were too large to fit into her mouth. And leave it to Rebecca to point it out, when it didn’t need pointing out at all.
“You girls know Clarissa,” she said.
The girls nodded and both said how sorry they were and so on, and they’d lost their pa, too, and ain’t it terrible.
“Oh, it ain’t so bad,” Rebecca said. “He weren’t that great of a guy.”
“Rebecca!” I said.
“She’s just saying that ’cause we’re all cried out,” Clarissa said.
“Oh what the heck! Let’s get happy!” Rebecca said, and she started the “remember whens,” and I gotta tell you, it was pretty funny.
“Listen to this,” she turned to Delva and Marie. “When Burt Hollis and his family first moved in down the road apiece…Oh that’s right, you never met any of ’em; they moved away before you got here.”
“Rebecca,” Clarissa said, “tell the story!”
“I’m getting there,” she said. “Well anyway, they moved into the old Harris place just down the road,” Rebecca waved her hand in the air and pointed out the window. “And one of his kids started a fire and burned most the house down. Well Pa’s home, and he sees the smoke and he hightails it down the road cause he knew some family had moved in. Hadn’t met ’em yet, or anything.”
“Get to the good part,” Clarissa said.
“Well, Pa,” Rebecca says, “he gets there, and this woman and about five little kids is near hysterical, jumping up and down, screaming and crying and carrying on, and this one little guy tells Pa that Pete’s inside. He’s screaming, ‘Pete’s in there! Pete’s in there!’ And Pa don’t know Pete from Adam’s cat. Hell, he don’t know none of them, and the woman is rocking this baby in her arms, ten, eleven months old, and the baby is screaming louder than the kid yelling about Pete. Now Pa can’t get a straight answer out of this woman, so he goes flying into the house to get little Pete, and by this time flames is just shooting out the windows everywhere, and—”
Rebecca is bent over laughing when she gets to this part, and Delva and Marie look at each other like she’s taking leave of her senses.
“What in high heaven is so funny about that?” Delva says.
“’Cause Pete’s a…” Clarissa butts in, “Pete’s…Pa near kills himself running into that house…and…Pete’s a—” Clarissa is laughing too hard to continue, and so am I.
“Pete’s a turtle!” Rebecca blurts out.
Delva and Marie still don’t quite get the humor in all of it. Come to think of it, it wasn’t funny at the time, but years later we thought it was, even Pa. He used to tell it best.
“I made it out with that dang turtle, too,” he said. “If I was gonna meet my maker in that blasted fire, I sure as hell was gonna have something to show for it. And what’d you know? The dadblame thing bit me!” Pa said.
“Once he got in there, how did he figure out Pete was a turtle?” Marie asked.
“Said he looked in every bedroom; there weren’t but three,” Rebecca said. “And the last one he come to had a crayon sign that said ‘ANYONE LETS PETE OUTA HIS BOX DIES!’”
We all bowled over. Delva and Marie finally got it and joined in.
“Tell ’em about when Pa toted Mama’s purse home from the church picnic,” Clarissa said.
“Oh God,” Rebecca said. “He near got arrested.” Rebecca loved telling that story, too. We got drenched in a storm that came out of nowhere. Mama asked Pa to get her purse off the table while we kids ran with the food and blankets and lawn chairs back to the car. Later that night, Mama went to get money for the milk man coming in the morning. It wasn’t even her purse.
“Hon’, you took Emma Weeks’s purse!” Mama said. Her wallet and driver license was inside.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Pa said. “That old bat, she’ll think I done it on purpose.”
“Now, Charlie, why’re you saying a thing like that?” Mama said. “She’s a good Christian woman, goes to church every Sunday. You go Christmas and Easter, and then we got to drag you.”
“That’s right,” Pa said. “You forget what she said to me the last time?” Mama looked at Pa but didn’t answer.
“‘What you been waiting on, Charlie—six strong men to carry you in?’” Pa mimicked. “Mean-spirited woman, I’m telling you,” Pa said.
Miz Weeks did call the law on him, but they got it all cleared up. And Mama got her purse back. It was still sitting out in the rain on the picnic table.
Thinking back on those times made me sorrier than ever that I didn’t get a chance at the hospital to try and make things right between me and Pa. I figured maybe I could talk to him at the gravesite in case the part of the dead that lived on could hear. But Mama had him cremated.
“It don’t cost near as much as a regular burial,” she said. “Besides, I want to put him in Cold Rock River, so he can sort of be with Annie.”
“Trying to rub his body in it?” Rebecca said.
“Course not,” Mama said. “It’s just…well, his heart never left that spot where Annie took her last breaths. I figure what’s left of him best join up with where his heart’s been all these years.”
We climbed the mountain together, Mama, Clarissa, Rebecca, and me. We gathered in a circle at the edge of the lake, near the spot where they found Annie. Mama said a prayer she made up.
“Glory be. Alleluia. Amen,” she said when she finished. She motioned us girls to put the magnolia leaves in the water we’d toted up the mountain so she could scatter Pa’s ashes on top of them. Mama brought them up in her favorite pail, the one she planted geraniums in each spring and put out on the front stoop. The funeral parlor wanted too much money for this urn they recommended.
“This is our deluxe model,” the funeral director said. “It’s made of solid copper with inlaid tiles imported from Italy.”
“Well, I don’t mind spending good money on something special,” Mama said.
“This is one you’ll treasure,” he said. “I’ll see to it that the dearly departed’s ashes are placed in it—”
“Hold on a minute,” Mama said. “We’re not keeping him.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“We’re gonna scatter him in a special spot we got picked out,” Mama said. “Just put the dearly departed in a plain container to go.”
That funeral man put the fancy urn away. He brought out a plain white cardboard box and handed it to Mama like it would contaminate his hands if he held it too long.
So there we were, all gathered around, fixing to send Pa to his final resting spot at the bottom of the lake. Mama tipped the bucket and tossed the ashes as far across the surface as she could. The wind caught hold of them and carried a good many of them off. We pretended not to notice that parts of Pa were floating over our heads. We stared at what was left of him floating in the water.
“Charlie, honey,” she said, “We’re all here, all your girls, even Annie. Well, she’s here in our hearts. Rest yourself good, now. And stop blaming yourself for what happened up here. I know you didn’t mean it, hon’. It’s past time we put it behind us. God knows we’ve suffered enough over it. Besides, the good Lord promised a safe landing, not a calm passage. And all things considered, life usually works out the way He intends for it to, so maybe He wanted Annie up there with him all along. If that’s the case, and you hadn’t cooperated the day she left us, He would of just found another way. You was a pretty good husband and father up till then. It’s a shame you weren’t worth much after, but I forgive you and I think the girls do, too. That right, girls?” Mama said.
“Uh-huh,” Clarissa said, and I nodded. Rebecca looked at Mama with her lips pinched tight together.
“Maybe not Rebecca,” Mama said. “She still don’t look none too happy—”
“Don’t be telling him that!” Rebecca said.
“You forgive him or what?” Mama said.
“I reckon,” Rebecca said and sighed.
“That’s good,” Mama said and put her arm around her shoulder. “Let’s not take any bad, sorrowful feelings down the mountain. Let’s leave ’em all up here, okay?” We nodded.
“Well, that’s it, hon’,” Mama said. “We’re going now.” She headed toward the path down the side of the mountain that didn’t slope quite so steep, and we followed.
“Mama, did you mean all that stuff about Pa cooperating with God and Him maybe wanting Annie up there all along?” I said.
“Sounds like hogwash to me,” Rebecca said.
“Why are you being so nasty?” Clarissa said.
“Did you mean it, Mama?” I asked again.
“You know, girls,” Mama cut in, “sometimes the worst thing turns out to be the best thing. And sometimes the worst thing stays being the worst thing. But no sense telling your Pa that when he just got thrown in the lake.”