Carla stood on Maurine’s front porch balancing tomatoes in her arms while debating whether to knock or open the door and call out as she’d done for years. She never would’ve predicted she’d have to consider such a silly thing, but it was her new reality and at the moment, it felt like a vital choice.
She’d just come from Mr. Freeman’s office and she’d been mulling over what he’d said.
Your grandmother didn’t make this decision lightly, Carla. She trusted you implicitly and she had every faith that you would handle things properly and fairly. Your aunt and uncles, they’ve been through tough times, and she wasn’t sure what the circumstances would be at the time of her death. She didn’t do this to cause trouble, Carla, she did this to prevent it.
Those words were the reason why she’d decided to turn toward Maurine’s for an impromptu visit. Her aunt and uncles hadn’t had much to do with her recently and she wasn’t sure if they’d even give her the time of day. But she had to try.
She took a deep breath, shifted the tomatoes, and knocked. Maurine’s potted plants and flowers still outlined the porch, along with a ceramic dalmatian that had been passed down for decades and would no doubt continue to be. The bench swing she used to play on back when Great-uncle Lloyd lived in the house, squeaked as it swayed in the godsend of a breeze. She used to stand on it, hold the chains, and swing as hard and as high as she could, ignoring the warnings from her elders about the danger. She’d obeyed when they’d told her to stop, but as soon as they’d disappeared, she’d been right back at it, until one day she’d pushed a little too far and she and the swing had flipped, dumping her headfirst on the edge of the concrete porch and onto the grass a few feet below. She hadn’t cried until she’d touched her head and saw all the blood. By the time Uncle Lloyd had reached her it was cascading down her forehead and face. That little escapade had resulted in seven stitches and several licks from a hickory switch. But she still liked to think that all the fun she’d had riding that swing had been worth it.
She smiled to herself as the breeze brought a hint of another afternoon thunderstorm. The thought of Janice and of being alone with her again in the dark during a storm, possibly even tonight, helped to keep her current anxieties at bay.
The door opened cautiously, and Maurine looked at her through the flimsy screen door. The door, like the swing, were things Maurine had yet to update on the old house and Carla was somewhat grateful. She liked coming back and finding things to be exactly like they were when she left. Like now, she wished things with Maurine were like they used to be. But in taking just a quick glance at her, Carla could see that they weren’t. Her eyes were distant beneath a faded Myrtle Beach ball cap. Carla surmised she’d been sunning on the red wood deck by the purple bikini top and cutoff jeans she wore. It didn’t take long for the scent of suntan lotion to come through the screen.
“Hey,” Carla said softly.
“Hey.” She sounded tired, and her face was drawn and void of any emotion, like she had lost the energy to battle or to even feel for that matter. The fight and fire she’d always had seemed to be gone, leaving her soul vacant. It struck Carla hard.
She swallowed down tears.
“I, uh, picked your ripe tomatoes for you. Your plants were pretty weighed down.”
Maurine pushed open the screen.
“Thanks.” She took the tomatoes.
Carla hesitated with the hopes of being invited inside. When she wasn’t, her nervousness grew and she had the urge to flee, the fear of facing another rejection all too reminiscent. But she’d come to talk, and Nadine was right, running wasn’t going to solve anything.
“I see you’ve still got your green thumb,” Carla said looking back at the thriving flower pots and numerous plants. It was a silly thing to say, but Carla was desperate to keep her engaged.
She shrugged. “I reckon.”
Carla shifted, the wait for the invite driving her mad.
“Uh, would it be all right if I came in?” She slid her hands into the back pockets of her knee length denim shorts and rocked on her heels.
Maurine didn’t hesitate very long before she shrugged again. “Yeah.” She edged the door open farther and Carla entered and followed her through the house to Maurine’s carefully decorated country kitchen. Gooseflesh erupted on her skin from the powerful cold of the windowed air conditioner wedged above the sink. Maurine didn’t seem bothered by it as she rinsed the tomatoes and placed them on a paper towel to dry.
Carla’s close assessment of her revealed a slack to her normally strong posture. The skin below her eyes appeared dark and sunken. She’d also lost weight. Her shorts hung lower on her already thin frame, and the shoulder straps to her bikini kept slipping down her arms, evidently irritating her. She cussed under her breath every time she had to push them back up. Her fair skin was pink from the sun, especially along her shoulders and cheeks, which was the only color to her pallor. Maurine didn’t have the olive skin tone Carla and Betty had, so when she was depressed or down, she paled considerably. Maybe that was why she was risking sunburn to lounge in the sun. To give herself some color. That would be the only reason Carla could come up with as to why Maurine would forego protecting her creamy skin.
“Mind if I get a drink?” Carla asked as Maurine sliced into a juicy tomato.
“Help yourself.”
Carla yanked open the old fridge and retrieved two cans of Pepsi. She shook her head and smiled. She could always count on Maurine to have two things in her kitchen. Pepsi and peanut butter. The main staples of their childhood. A twelve-pack of Pepsi was chilling in the fridge and Carla figured a jar of Peter Pan peanut butter would surely be in the pantry. She had the urge to check and see, seeking some sort of nostalgic comfort to dull the nerves of the moment. She resisted and set a can of Pepsi down for Maurine, who eyed it but continued to cut the tomato. Carla slurped her soda and retrieved the Duke’s mayonnaise and loaf of white bread and set them next to Maurine’s drink. Maurine promptly dug out four pieces of bread, spread mayonnaise on all of them, and then carefully added the tomato slices. She salted the slices generously before finishing off the sandwiches with a press of her palm to the bread tops.
She handed Carla her sandwich on a paper plate and quickly cleaned up.
“Thank you.” Carla knew she shouldn’t be surprised at her silent generosity, but she was. The gesture stirred more tears, but she managed to hold them down.
Maurine took her plate and drink and walked to the back door. Carla followed and they stepped into the thick heat onto the deck. She sat across from Maurine in a flower-patterned lounge chair, slid down her shades from their position atop her head, and bit into her sandwich. Maurine did the same. They were under the cover of two oversized patio umbrellas that Maurine had most likely recently positioned for a refuge from the sun. An old radio with a wayward antenna was next to her chair, promising thirty minutes of uninterrupted hit songs from the eighties. The music, along with the coconut scent of the sun screen, brought back summers from long ago when Carla used to lie out on the deck with Maurine and Janice. She’d felt so special, so grown up. They’d always included her when she’d asked and sometimes, she didn’t even have to. She recalled Janice, stretched out on her chair in a black bikini, the Wayfarers she’d saved her money for looking stylish on her face, while Maurine read fashion magazines under the cover of the umbrella, her own hot pink designer shades on her face. Carla could remember feeling a little excited at seeing Janice in her bikini, but she hadn’t understood why. She’d just known she liked looking at her. Liked looking at every last bit of her.
She missed those days.
When the three of them were happy and enjoyed each other.
Now everything was so messed up. Maurine wasn’t even spending a lot of time with Janice.
“I miss you,” Carla said, sipping her soda.
Maurine chewed on a bite from her sandwich, staring straight ahead through the oversized lenses of her trendy sunglasses.
“Don’t you miss me?” Her silence was maddening.
Maurine sipped her own drink. “I don’t feel much of anything these days.”
Carla’s heart sank and she wasn’t sure what to say. She let the silence seep in between them. After a short while, she heard the clamoring of claws on the deck steps. Magpie, the neighborhood Labrador who seemed to belong to no one and everyone, emerged with his black and pink tongue hanging low and his sizable butt wiggling. His short curve of a tail swatted the air rapidly and seemed to be the power supply to his dancing hind end.
“Hey, boy.” Carla held out her hand and he sauntered to her. She rubbed his thick head which was warm from the sun. He had the smell of free-roaming hound on him along with a wet and mud coated underside. Both gave away his recent and favorite activities of chasing wild animals, rubbing and rolling himself on dead ones, and trouncing aimlessly through the creek. She was surprised but grateful he hadn’t brought one of his treasures along with him. He was known to collect and hoard his goods, hence his name. She pulled apart her sandwich and fed it to him, unsure as to when he last ate. When he finished, he collapsed in a shaded corner and cleaned his paws.
Carla turned her attention back to Maurine and followed her line of sight through the deck railing to the hilly fields beyond. She could just barely see the sparkles from the twinkling of the creek water at the far end. She was always so moved by the beauty of the Sims land.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she finally said to Maurine. “I’m sorry for a lot of things.” She paused, waiting for a response from Maurine but got nothing. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately though, about all this stuff and I want to run some things by you. I came by today to see if you would hear me out.”
Maurine swallowed another bite. “I don’t know. I don’t want to get upset again. I…I just can’t cry anymore. I don’t have any cry left in me. Do you know what happens when you don’t have any cry left? The pain still tries to get out, only it can’t, not with tears anyway. And you find yourself wishing for tears of all things. For the ability to cry. But nothing happens. Nothing changes. You come close to crying sometimes. But, well, we all know close don’t count in nothing but horseshoes and hand grenades.”
More silence ensued and Carla felt like she’d just been gutted, and Maurine appeared just as morose, having tossed her plate and what was left of her sandwich aside. She sat with her arms crossed over her chest but didn’t quite pull off angry and defiant. Her body was too weighted down with sadness for that, her face too drawn.
“I’m so sorry you’re hurting so badly, Maurine.” It killed her to think of Maurine crying at all. She was always so strong, so formidable. Hearing she’d cried so much that she no longer could continue, hurt her beyond measure. “I can’t make what’s happened go away. I can’t bring Grandma back and I can’t take away your pain. I can do one thing, though. Which is what I want to talk about. But first, there’s something else I need to tell you. Something I don’t think you’re aware of.”
Maurine glanced over at her, but she didn’t show any interest.
“It’s about the will.” Carla went on. “Grandma didn’t write that will recently. She wrote it ten years ago.”
Maurine shrugged. “What does that matter?”
“Maurine, think about where everyone was at in their lives ten years ago. You were going through a nightmare of a divorce, your house was at the constant threat of foreclosure because Clint wouldn’t pay his half of the mortgage payment on time, you were scared of both him and your future, and you weren’t sure where you were going to live.”
“Cole was in a deep depression because his wife had left him, and Erica had just been in that awful car wreck and was recovering. He was also having trouble with his job which he eventually lost and was unemployed for two months. He had to live with Grandma for close to a year before he got back on his feet.”
“And Rick, Jesus,” Carla said.
“That’s when he hurt his back at the sawmill.”
Carla nodded and kept talking.
“He was laid up for six months. In horrible pain. His girlfriend took pretty good care of him until she said she couldn’t do it anymore and left. You ended up moving in with him. Helped you both out I guess.”
“But do you remember the worst part of it all?”
Carla continued.
“Rick got mad at Cole. He blamed him when his girlfriend left him because she then went after Cole. Cole didn’t do anything wrong, but Rick didn’t believe it.”
“They didn’t speak for months.” Carla studied her, hoping she was reaching her. “Remember?”
Maurine swung her legs over the side of the lounge chair to face Carla and threaded her hands together on top of her head.
“Our lives were a disaster,” she said, removing her sunglasses. Her eyes were serious and sad and finally absent of resentment. “I didn’t even think about any of that.” She looked at Carla for a long moment, then swallowed and glanced away. “You were the only stable one she had.”
Carla responded softly, so relieved that she’d reached her. “At the time, yes.”
She was quiet for another long moment. “I’m so sad for her now. She must’ve been worried sick about what to do. So, she did the only thing that made sense. The safest thing.”
“She knew I would do my best to do right by everyone. And I’m going to. I don’t know how ya’ll could’ve ever thought anything different of me.”
Maurine studied her and seemed to be moved by the emotion she saw on Carla’s face. She got up and took the few steps to embrace her where she sat. She pulled Carla to her waist and held her.
“I’m sorry, Carla. I’m sorry. I was—we were hurt and confused, but we should’ve never turned on you over it. We’re—I’m just so stupid sometimes.”
Carla teared up a little then. Her cheek pressed against both the warm, freckled skin of Maurine’s abdomen and the rough denim of her shorts. When she pulled away, she wiped at what was left of the moisture from her tears and Maurine’s suntan lotion.
“Families tend to get that way in these sorts of matters,” Carla said, swinging her legs over the side of her chair to make room for Maurine.
Maurine sat next to her and helped Carla remove her sunglasses. She looked into her eyes.
“Can you ever forgive me?”
Carla nodded. “Silly, I already have.”
Maurine smiled and her eyes welled with tears.
“Hey, look, you’ve got tears,” Carla said.
“I do, don’t I?” She took a finger and swept some away. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to cry.”
“Me neither,” Carla said. “Somehow these tears feel good.”
They both laughed softly, and Maurine shook her head. “Lord, I wonder what Mama’s looking down and thinking about all this.”
“Oh, she’s pissed. There’s no doubt about that.”
“She’d give us all an earful, wouldn’t she?”
“Would? She’s already doing it. Can’t you hear her? She’s telling us all to stop this shit and get on with our lives.”
Maurine looked up at the approaching storm clouds. “She’s the only one I know who could go to heaven and still raise hell.”
Carla laughed and wrapped an arm around her neck. “You got that right.” She looked up at the sky with her. “Now it’s time to make everything else right.” Tiny icy drops of rain pricked her face. She grinned.
“We hear you, Grandma. We hear you.”