THIRTY-TWO

The night before school started again, Mama did the unthinkable. She broke her own golden rule, right in the middle of dinner.

“Sugar,” she said, her eyes trained on a mound of mashed potatoes, “I want to talk to you about Mr. Jim and what happened on Thanksgiving.”

I nearly choked on my milk.

“I think it’s important you understand something,” she said.

“There isn’t anything to understand.”

“Yes, there is, and I need you to hear me out. I know you think you want to stay here, but it isn’t something I ever considered. We’re only required to be here—”

I interrupted her. “I want to know about my daddy.”

She sat back in her chair. “Right now?”

I nodded.

“Do you think that will help you get over this obsession about staying here?”

“It’s not an obsession. And it’s two separate things, anyway.”

“Not really. If this wasn’t your daddy’s farm, you’d have no interest in staying. I understand that, but it doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for us.”

“I didn’t even know him. The kids at school know more about him than I do. It’s embarrassing.”

“Okay, I can tell you some things. He was creative. He was estranged from his family. When we found out you were coming, he joined the military without even discussing it with me. He thought it was the best way to support us.”

She got up and pretended to look for something in the cabinets, slapping the doors shut after inspecting each one.

“Tell me something real.”

She twirled around. “Real? What’s not real about those things?”

“What was he like? What made him happy?”

“Do we really have to do this?”

Something told me not to say a word, that if I forced her to talk first, she’d tell me. I chewed the inside of my lip and waited until she sat down.

“Okay, if you must know, there was the before person, and the after. Before he went to Afghanistan he loved to paint. He loved being outside, he loved trees. He picked wildflowers and kept them in a jar. He was the only man I ever knew who read poetry books in public, and sometimes he read out loud to me. Is this the kind of stuff you mean?”

The image of my daddy reading a poem to a younger version of Mama spread warmth throughout my body. She was telling me stuff I’d waited a lifetime to hear.

“Please keep going.”

“He wouldn’t talk much about his family. I’m not sure what happened, but he didn’t like them. He said they were judgmental. He only wore Levi’s jeans because his legs were so long and they fit him the best. He could build anything with wood. He had those kind of eyes people say are soulful. Never raised his voice. He had huge hands that were gentle and soft. And he smiled all the time.”

“What about after?”

Her voice got quiet. “There was barely any shadow of him left. I knew it as soon as we met him up here. He needed to be alone most of the time. You made him happy, but he reminded me of a turtle. He’d poke his head out for a few hours and do things with you, then he’d disappear for days. And I don’t mean literally disappear—he was here, but his head was somewhere else. He couldn’t stand noise. Sometimes he thought he was back in the war. And sometimes he could get violent. It was frightening.”

“Did he have PTSD?”

“How do you know about PTSD?”

“Because I went to school and they taught us stuff.”

“Okay, yes, he had PTSD.”

“And that’s why we left?”

“That’s why we left.”

“But he only came to see me one time.”

“I’m sure he wanted to come more, sugar, but he was crippled by this problem. It was almost impossible for him to travel.”

“Why didn’t you bring me up here?”

Little creases bunched on her forehead. Her mouth moved like Biz’s when she tried to make uncooperative words come out. Finally, her eyes got really big and she said, “Don’t you see? He had a mental illness. Mental!”

“Why does that mean you couldn’t bring me?”

“PTSD is an adult problem. Children shouldn’t be exposed to those kinds of things.”

“It’s not like he had chicken pox, or a cold I could catch.”

“You were safe in Atlanta, sugar. Peter may not have been your biological father, but he was stable. Your daddy’s illness was unpredictable. He was damaged. Who knows what kind of lasting effect being around him could have had on you!”

“But you never gave me a choice. You should have done something to make it happen and now it’s too late.”

“You were too young to know how to make that kind of decision.”

My voice had risen to a semihysterical level, but I wasn’t finished. I had so much more to say. “I belong here. I was always supposed to be here. You should have brought me. It’s your fault! He wanted me here. He missed me so much he had to paint me! Is that the lasting effect you were worried about? He would never have let anything bad happen. He told me.”

Mama’s eyes got really big. “When could he have possibly said that to you?”

“I—I’m not sure, I don’t know, I just know he did. He promised. I remember.”

She put her hands against the edge of the table and stood up, her voice cold and shaky.

“We’re not discussing this anymore. It never ends well.”

On Monday I stayed on the bus past our house after school and rode to the store with Lucy, Kendra, and Sonnet. My heart still hurt from the fight the night before, and I didn’t have the energy to face Mama. Sue was waiting in the driveway with the car engine running.

“You three have dentist appointments,” she said to the girls. “Come with me.”

“Dentist?”

“I don’t want to go to the dentist!”

“You’re going, so get in the car,” she said. “Maggie, maybe you could help Kori. Biz has the physical therapist with her. She’s a little self-conscious. Givin’ her some space.”

Sonnet was the only one who didn’t argue about the dentist. She slipped into the front seat while Sue practically had to push the other two in the back. By the time they drove off, poor little Lucy was crying, her red face pressed against the back window.

When the bell over the door binged, Kori looked up from where she was kneeling on the floor and smiled. “Hey, Maggs, how are things?”

“Okay, sort of,” I said. “Sue said you might need help.”

“Sure, I can always use an extra hand. We’re still playing catch-up. Christmas stuff needs to get out.”

I tossed my backpack behind the counter and knelt beside her, packing dozens of tins of maple syrup with plain labels into boxes. The new cans we were putting on the shelves had a sprig of holly painted above a picture of a sleigh and two big horses standing by a sugar shack. My sugar shack.

“Didn’t my daddy paint stuff like this?”

She smiled and nodded. “Except for the holly, that’s his painting.”

“Is this my sugar shack?”

“Might be, they all kind of look alike to me, except the great big ones. His original painting is hanging in the bank in town.”

I’d never thought about his artwork being in places where I could go see it, I only knew about the boxes upstairs in the barn.

“I found a painting he did called The Georgia View.”

“I know that one. When the weather was good, that was your dad’s favorite place to paint. He said on a clear day he could see all the way to Georgia. Hence, the name.”

“Do you know about the magnolias?”

“I do. They’re lovely.”

“Mama says he was damaged and unpredictable.”

Kori knelt in front of me and lifted my chin. “He was a good man, Maggs. He had some challenges, but he was a truly good man.”

“Did he try to get better? From the PTSD, I mean.”

Kori paused just long enough for me to know the answer before she said anything. “He worked really hard, but I’d be lying if I said he was completely over it. It’s a process. He used art therapy to control his anxiety, and that was huge. He was definitely better, but not fixed.”

“She didn’t bring me to see him because she didn’t think I should be exposed to him, but I wish I’d known him more.”

“I know for a fact that he wished the same thing.”

The softness in her face made me feel safe. And she’d said he was a good man. That made my whole body fill up with happy.

“Thank you,” I said. “I’m glad I came here today.”

“Me, too.”