Murphy had a headstone carved with drawings of dogwoods set right in the marble.
Margaret Mary Murphy
June 20, 1940–May 11, 1966
Wife, Daughter, Mother, Friend
She was laid to rest at the far end of Grove Hill Cemetery. Her head rested inches from a big old chinaberry tree that’d lived there far longer than any of the bodies gathered around it. How they dug a spot so close to the roots of that magnificent tower of wood is a mystery since I wasn’t there to watch. But the fact they were able to gave me comfort in the days that followed. I pictured the roots of that great-great-granddaddy tree cradling Margaret Mary like outstretched arms reaching deep under the red Georgia clay, hugging her, rocking her, protecting her from whatever else scurried under that clay and the black earth beneath it. The sun rose high and burned hot the day of the burial, but it rained near steady the thirty days that followed. Then the flowers came out—petunias, honeysuckle, Queen Anne’s lace, roses. The azaleas blossomed, the variegated privet ballooned, the Leyland cypresses soared, and the hostas mushroomed. Margaret Mary was dead, but the earth and the flowers didn’t care and the sun didn’t notice.
“Willa Mae,” I wailed. “What ever are we gonna do without Margaret Mary?”
“We gwine do right by this li’l baby to begins with,” she said. “Dying is the other half of living. The day we’s born we heads towards glory. And good thing we got dat glory, too, or dat sadness jist ’bout kills us,” she said when we gathered after the ceremony. “You be’s glad you haves a friend you can miss so good. Not everybody haves that.”
Pastor Gib’s home was full of folks milling about, tasting the food, hugging and clasping hands, shaking heads. Miz Crawford sat white-faced on the maroon chair next to the sofa, her arms crossed tight across her chest, her hands clasped firm against her arms, garden hands, long fingers brown from tending her vegetables, yanking its yield. Heads leaned down and whispered words I couldn’t make out. She nodded at some, ignored others, but never spoke that I could tell. The dining room table was packed with food. Fried chicken, coleslaw, three-bean salad, collard greens, honey ham roast, sweet potatoes, biscuits, corn fritters, snap beans, thick sliced tomatoes, and mustard potato salad. On the table in the kitchen were pies: key-lime, coconut cream, southern pecan, apple, peach, and cherry. Willa Mae brought her soufflé pie, and Mama wanted to know what was in it and how to make it.
“This here’s not one them secret family recipes, is it?” Mama asked.
“Da only secret is why it takes so long to bakes it. Dat recipe I gots don’t tells why,” Willa Mae said.
Next to the pies, cakes lined the cabinets: German chocolate, Boston cream, lemon, angel food, and caramel cream, along with an assortment of fudge brownies. Children darted in and out through the screen door leading to the kitchen, their voices floating into the living room. They snatched at the tables, tugging at pieces of cake and slices of pie, the crumbs quickly gathering at their feet and following their shoes out the door. Miz Hadaway, who’d appointed herself in charge of the youngens, bustled around, wiping up bits of frosting and pieces of crust and crumbs fallen off the table, keeping pace with the small bodies that ran out onto the back porch.
Mama had Grace Annie on her lap. She’d given her a cookie with bits of chocolate in it. Most of the chocolate was all down the front of her dress, the only real good one she had that still fit her. She’d outgrown everything.
“Adie, come take dis precious boy chile,” Willa Mae said. “I’m plumb wore down.” Willa Mae clutched at her chest with one arm and held baby Sam tight with the other. Her face was distorted and white as cotton. I ran to her side and took Sam, all the while screaming for Murphy.
“Help!” I yelled. He was at my side in a Dixie second. He gathered Willa Mae in his arms and carried her over to the sofa like she didn’t weigh more than a small sack of onions. The women seated on it scrambled out of the way.
“Call an ambulance!” Murphy yelled. He loosened the collar of her dress, yanking it completely away from her neck.
“You can call dem, but I ain’t going to dat hospital place,” Willa Mae said. “Dey can give me more dem pills I gits from the doctor. I clean run’s out. Das all I needs.”
The ambulance arrived within ten minutes, and three men in white bustled around checking her life signs. I watched one of them squeeze the black rubber bulb, then slowly unscrew the silver knob hooked to one side. “One-eighty over one hundred,” he said.
“Respiration one hundred,” another one said. “Pulse sixty-two.”
“Ma’am, we need to get you over to the hospital. Let the doctor check you,” the first one said. He motioned to the others to bring in the cart.
“Guess dat be okay,” Willa Mae said. “But den I be coming right home.”
Sam stirred in my arms. I looked down at him while the men lifted Willa Mae and placed her on the stretcher.
Sweet baby—life’s a teeter-totter, little fella. Up, down, up, down. And when it stops, it’s all over. Guess there ain’t much a body can do but enjoy the ride.
• • •
The sorrow that was still heading our way didn’t have anything to do with Willa Mae having heart pains. In fact, the doctor let her come home in two days. He said the traveling and the funeral was too stressful, but she’d be fine, just needed plenty of rest. Murphy and me went to fetch her.
Murphy put an old mattress out in the truck bed. I used some of the linens I found stuffed in the bottom of Willa Mae’s trunk I still kept at the foot of the bed. I tucked the sheets around the lumpy mattress best I could and put a nice quilt down for her, too. Two orderlies helped us lift her up into the truck and off we went, Grace Annie on the seat between Murphy and me, Sam in my arms. Grace Annie stood up, spun around, and grabbed hold of the back of the seat cushion. She placed her forehead against the window glass and pressed her tongue against the pane like it needed to be tasted.
“Weemie,” she said and pointed to Willa Mae. Her face lit up in a grin.
“Yes, punkin’,” I said. “Willa Mae’s all better. She’s coming home.” Grace Annie turned and tasted the pane again.
“No, no, Grace,” I said and tugged at her arm gently. “Dirty, ucky, ucky,” I said and made a face. She laughed. “Ucky, ucky,” she mimicked. Sam lay sleeping in my lap, his little head nesting in the curve of my arm.
“Weemie, Weemie,” Grace Annie chanted, not taking her eyes from the window and all the while bouncing up and down on the seat.
“Bah, bah,” she said and waved at Willa Mae, her baby voice soft and sweet. Buck, you are flat out missing so much. Grace Annie took hold of Murphy’s arm, grasping his shirt with her fingers. Murphy kept his hands firmly on the wheel as the pick-up lumbered down the gravel road. Even so, he turned his head and gave her a smile.
“You having a good time, sugar?” he said.
“Da-dee,” she chirped, still clinging to his shirt, but now just using one of her hands. She patted the top of his shoulder with the other. “Da-dee,” she repeated.
Goodness! Sam clung to me like I was his mama, and Grace Annie took to Murphy like he was her daddy. Truth be told, we were like a family, took most of our meals together even. And Murphy was just about everything a gal could hope for. He was becoming his happy self again, accepting Margaret Mary’s death as part of God’s mysterious plan. When he looked on me, I no longer had to wonder whether I saw something shining in his eyes. It was more than obvious. Eyes can talk if you let them. I tried hard not to let mine talk back, but my heart did. I kept thinking what it’d be like be with Murphy, really be with Murphy. What a mixed-up mess. Buck best hurry and get home pronto. Mama said lonely hearts and lonely bodies had two cousins they hung out with: Double and Trouble. Thank goodness I got a letter from Buck to remind me.
It was postmarked Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. We’d never been apart—unless you count the times he didn’t come home at night—so it was the first one I ever got from him. He did send me a card once for Valentine’s Day. It was real pretty, but he forgot to sign it. The letter was written in dark black ink on plain paper. I saw right off he couldn’t spell very well, maybe one reason he wasn’t partial to writing letters.
Buck got sent to Fort Monmouth after he finished boot camp at Fort Benning. He was taking some kind of signal training for communicating in war times. I tore open the envelope. It was packed so tight with paper he’d taped it shut to hold it together. He near wrote me a book.
Deer Adie,
I ain’t much good at this hear letter writing, but I got a lot I want to tell you, so I’ll do my best. I never really liked myself before I met you, even though I strutted around like I was God’s present to women. But I knew you would save me the first time I seen you, You were different from the other girls. Had this look about you. Kind of girl don’t think she’s real pretty, doesn’t thro her body around, stands back like you’ll ask someone else to dance but you can tell she wishes it was her. You were like that. I find that real attractive in a girl. Adie, girls been throwing themselves at me my whole life since I was ten. It started the day Ella Sims come across first base with plenty time to spare, since Oscar “slowpoke” Adams couldn’t pick up the ball she hit and here he was in mid-field and the ball run through his legs even. He turned around backwards to chase it. When he got it, he can’t throw a ball neither, Ella coulda had herself a home run. It was fourth grade recess and the guys and the girls played softball together. When Ella got to first base she threw herself on the spot our teacher marked off for it to be and then instead of heading for second, third and home, she flung herself into my arms like the speed of her trip to first base had made her too dizzy to stand. “Buck Jenkins, kiss me and you kin strike me out!” she said, then puckered her lips and laid one on me. Her lips were the size of a pig’s butt and that was the smallest part on her. I spit when she took her lips off mine and the whole school laughed. “I’m putting a pox on you, Buck Jenkins,” she yelled. “A pox! Hear me?” From then on, Adie I been having trouble with women. She come from the devil, that Ella Sims, and I ain’t ever shaked loose a’ her. It’s like I ain’t got much time ’fore I end up where she come from and I got to live it all, do it all, see it all. Know what I mean? You ever had a pox laid on you?
Boot camp was really something. They rousted us out of bed by 5 o’clock for a ten mile hike in full gear ever morning. It was hotter’n a overheated hissing radiator and some the guys didn’t do real good. This guy from Mississippi had some kinda breakdown from the sergeant yelling at him so much. They put him in the hospital ward for brain cases, but I think he’s getting out. I mean out of the marine corp, not just the hospital. I don’t mind it too bad, the yelling and stuff. I see what they’re doing is breaking us down and building us back up the way we need to be if we’re gonna be in war and expect to be alive once its over. It’s given me time to do some thinking on how I got built the first time around. I’m thinking maybe some the things you don’t know about me might could help you see why I’m not what I coulda been.
I never told you what happened in Hog Gap long before my folks moved on over to Cold Rock. I’m not talking about Austin. I’ll tell you about that later. Well, before Austin ever got his head beat in we had us a little brother. Born pretty late to my folks and it was one heck of a surprise. They sure did dote on that little guy. We all did. They named him John Andrew after each of their pas, who’s both dead (that’s why you ain’t never seen ’em). When Andy—that’s what we called him—was two years old Pa backed his truck over him right in our front yard one morning. He wasn’t even supposed to be out of the house. Austin and me took turns watching him on days Ma did the washing out on the back stoop. It was Austin’s turn and he went back to bed and took Andy with him. But Andy musta got up and went outside. Our yard was so full of potholes Pa didn’t even know he run over him. He drove on to work like usual. Ma finished hanging all the clothes on the line out back and come in the house when she finished. She found Austin in bed in the back bedroom. I slept in the attic was made up for me and never heard a thing. Ma thought Andy was in bed with Austin since this blue blanket he dragged around with him was mixed in with the covers. It was summer and we slept in sometimes if our chores was caught up from the night before. Later Ma yelled for us to get our butts out of bed and she went out to sweep the front porch. She noticed what looked like a pair of Andy’s p.j.’s laying in the front yard and went to fetch ’em, figuring they blew off the clothesline. They were Andy’s pajamas alright, but he was in them. His skull was crushed. You could see the tire marks on his face where the truck ran over him. I ain’t never fergot Ma carrying him in the house and putting him on the table. Parts of his brains was stuck to her apron. And Ma says, Buck, git me some that antiseptic out of the medicine cabinet and some them bandages left from when yer pa hurt his hand. Me and Austin was staring at what was left of Andy like we weren’t believing what we’re seeing. Know? And she says, Go on now, I got to fix Andy up. Our baby’s hurt hisself.
Eventually, she come out of it and I ain’t never heard no one scream so loud, not before, not since, not even from the hogs at bleeding time. Adie, we was different people after that. Pa blamed Ma. Ma blamed Pa, who blamed Austin. It was a vicious circle of finger pointing. Don’t think the word accident ever got thought about, let alone spoke on. It was like it had to be somebody’s fault in order for them to even try to live with it. I remember thinking, why is that? Can’t something just happen by chance? Isn’t that what an accident is? Or do you gotta blame yoreself or somebody else ever time something bad comes about? Ma said accidents do happen, on occasion, but rarely. And she said this weren’t no accident. It was negligence and when you got negligence, you got a body should be held accountable for it. Looking on it that way I wondered how far up that accountability went. Not wanting to get smacked in the head, I didn’t ask, just wondered.
Ma was probably reliving her share of that responsibility thing when you had that accident with Grace Annie. She ain’t mean to the bone, Adie. She’s just hardened up a good bit around all her edges. It comes from her getting hurt so bad and not taking to it good. She firmed up to survive it, I think. She weren’t planning on keeping Grace Annie for good. She probably was thinking she was protecting you from yourself the way she wished somebody would of done her. If she hadn’t of left Andy in Austin’s care without following up, he might not a got run over. I think the parts about you she don’t like is the same ones she don’t take to in herself. After Andy died, Ma and Pa pretty much made Austin’s life miserable after that. I did my best to be a good brother to him, but that alone ain’t enough. Later on, Austin fell head over heals in love with this girl. She got pregnant and he wanted to marry her and get the heck out of Hog Gap. He come to me pretty excited, seeing as he had a job all set in Hamilton up the road a piece. Bought a ring, plain gold band, and was going over to give it to her. He never made it back in one piece. The girl’s pa beat his head in with a two-by-four. Near killed him. Brain damage was so bad Pa said it was a shame it hadn’t. But I think it hurt him bad knowing he hadn’t made things right with Austin before it happened. There was a tenderness in him after that I hadn’t seen before. Ma was in a pretty bad way by then. She’d lost her baby Andy and now Austin had turned into one. He was eighteen years old.
Adie, the man who broke Austin’s skull was Mr. Fletcher. That’s why he give me the job when I come back. He’s been giving Ma a bunch a money each month since he near killed Austin and he bought her that T-bird, too. I’m sure by now you’ve figured since it was Mr. Fletcher beat him, that the girl Austin was crazy in love with and was having a baby with was Imelda Jane. And yore right. I shoulda told you long ago. And for damn sure I shoulda never got involved with her myself. Can’t rightly say why I did. ’Cept she’s a big tease and I was a fool. Or maybe I wanted to prove that Austin was the fool, that Imelda Jane weren’t no good to start with and he wouldn’ta never been happy with her no how, so what’d it matter his life was ruined over it anyhow? It woulda been ruined either way. Know what I mean? After that beating, Imelda Jane didn’t do much to make me think any different. Matter of factly, she did stuff no respectful girl would think of doing. Once she had three of us over to her place when her folks was out of town. She didn’t even make them other two guys leave the room while they waited their turn with her. I ain’t proud of that, Adie. It just goes to show how low people can go when they don’t have no respect for themselves. I ain’t just talking about her. I hope you can work on forgiving me. I’m working hard on that part myself.
This sergeant drilled stuff in us I should of had drilled in me long ago. He’s a veteran from the Korean War and has stories to tell you wouldn’t believe. During part of that war it got so cold and they weren’t dressed for it and they near froze to death. He said he found out then the human body can endure a lot more than most people think it can, given the opportunity. He drove us pretty hard during the day, but taught us about duty and honor and country. I think he’s probably a hero from that Korean War, even though he never said he was or nothing. For sure I admire him and want to be as much like him as I can be by the time I’m ready to leave for Viet Nam. (He said most of us is going there and the fact I signed up for it makes pretty much for sure I am.) I think this war might do for me what nothing else so far been able to. The future will tell. I just hope it ain’t too late to be the kind a man I want to be for you, Adie, and the kind of daddy I want to be for Grace Annie. When I look back at all the running round I did with other women, all I see is a fool. And when I look at you I see how beautiful you are, inside and out. And I see our children in your eyes, Adie. Not just the one we already got. I’m talking bout the ones we might could have yet that ain’t even been thought of. I pray to God I ain’t took away their chance of that happening and snuffed the life out of them ’fore they even have one. I might could forgive myself for a lot of things, but that ain’t one of them.
Think you could send me a picture of you and Grace Annie? Two would be good. One for my wallet and one for over my bunk. It would be a big comfort to me. I’m really missing you, Adie. I never knew how much you meant to me till you ain’t near me no more. One of the stupidist mistakes a man can make is taking somebody for granted. Another is being so blind I didn’t notice that the man was me.
Luv, yer husband forever if you’ll have me,
Buck
P.S. Please write back soon’s you can. And watch out for Murphy, Adie. That man’s got some kind of special designs on you. Now, I know you might find that hard to believe what with you being kind of plain and all. I don’t mean nothing bad by saying that, but you know, you ain’t exactly the kind of woman men gets the hots for, if you know what I mean. And that’s all Murphy’s got on his mind. I’ve seen his kind before. I’m speaking from my heart, Adie. I ain’t no fool. I seen the attention he been paying you. I had a talk with him before I left. Told him to leave you alone or there’d be trouble. He said the trouble is we both love the same woman. And I told that smart aleck the trouble is only one of us got her. You know what he said? Which one? See what I’m talking about? So watch him good.