IT TOOK ALL DAY to drive to Edenton. If Amity had not left one of the dresses to Boo, I might have never pulled into the pretty coastal town. I did not know what caused Boo and Thomas to leave Boiling Waters and move to Edenton.
My dim recollection of the woman the Sylers called Auntie Boo was embedded in a single memory. It was at the foot of our driveway, back in the days when my father dumped gravel down the long rutted path from our house to the road to give his car traction, that Boo and I had an encounter that seemed like nothing and everything. Auntie Boo and her husband, Thomas, lived down the street from us. Thomas liked to fish in our pond. Boo mostly stayed home, but she needed the money, so she watched Delia and me while Mother worked a shift at Weyerhaeuser. Back then everyone could get a job there.
I recalled how I sensed Boos impatience with Delia and me. I did not understand how women judged my mother back then, so I could only sense how I was treated. The further I distanced myself from the Sylers, I noticed as I came of age, the more respect I got. Perhaps it was not me that she disliked, I reasoned on the way to her house. But dredging up memories from the mental files dating back to when I was a kid was risky. It seemed as if even back then I knew to store whatever I saw as if somehow, later on, an adult’s perception would reinterpret the memory and cough up a secret.
When my mother took the job at the lumbermill, Delia and I needed a sitter. Boo lived close by. Most of my days with Boo are still in a fog. I recall only one moment.
Boo troubled over the mud puddle that formed at the foot of our driveway where I played after a summer storm. She might have thought that my mother was neglectful for letting me play in the mud hole. Or maybe it would not have mattered what I did; she saw it as another opportunity to judge my mother. But when she found me sitting in the clay soup of summer rain, she clapped her hands at me, telling me to get out. She marched me up the driveway and then hosed me down near the garage like she might a runaway Pomeranian. If in my adult life I ran into Auntie Boo at the mall, I’d not have known her.
“Have you listened to a thing I’ve said?” Delia asked. She startled me back to the present.
The drive down U.S. 17 lasted for a long stretch.
“You navigated us good,” I told her. “Do you ever travel out of Boiling Waters?” I asked, with a bit of forced enthusiasm. We had been driving for over ten hours. The fatigue of the road was getting to me. The sun was setting on the cold day’s end.
“I been to Southport. Went to Prospect once. That’s where Leland’s family’s from.” She looked around for a cafe.
We crossed the Chowan River driving into Edenton. Gum trees shadowed the brown water running beneath the Chowan River Bridge. A single herring floated atop the water’s surface, its scales glistening beautifully in the dying daylight. A sign read “The South’s Prettiest Small Town.”
“Looks like you take this exit,” she told me.
I pulled from my jacket pocket the note on which my aunt had scrawled the address of Thomas and Maurabelle Brolin, the neighbors known by the Sylers as Uncle Tom and Auntie Boo.
I drove down Broad, and that took me into Edenton’s downtown district, which was characteristic of the places tourists flocked to in the summer months in North Carolina. Instead of stretching malls populated with designer chain stores, the downtown was clogged with boutiques and shoe stores, each one owned, more than likely, by some persons aunt whose sole purpose was to service the locals with handpicked brands selected by a buyer whose taste reached for something beyond that place.
Delia said, “It’s getting dark. I need a smoke.”
I pulled into a parking space in front of a cafe. I went inside while Delia stopped on the sidewalk and lit a cigarette. A waitress in jeans and an apron seated me at a table that looked out on the main drag. A church was opening up across the street. People were getting out of cars dressed in jeans, not like we dressed back when I went to church with my mother. We dressed to the nines or else stayed home.
The waitress filled my water glass. I held up the note that had been taped to the back of the painted dress. “Do you know this street?” I asked.
She pressed open the note. Turning to a woman standing behind the counter, she asked, “Bonnie, you heard of Elm Street?”
Bonnie came out from behind the counter. “Sure, hon. I’ll write it down.” She wrote on the back of the note while saying, “You’ll go up Broad back this way, make a left on Cyprus and right on Elm. About the only Elm I heard of anyway.” Turning to the waitress, she said, “Flor, you ever notice all our streets is named after trees?” She then asked me, “You from out of town?”
Delia walked in blowing out a stream of smoke. She took the chair across from me. She was wrapped in a blanket pulled from my backseat. We both ordered a steak and a potato and then ate, watching cars pull up and people streaming into the church.
Bonnie, the cashier who may have also been the owner, checked out a middle-aged couple and then spoke to me over the register. “Hon, you need to try our pie. It’s banana cream, but not like you’ve ever tasted.”
Delia said, “I’ll have some. Me and Gaylen here, we just inherited a quarter million.”
Bonnie looked stunned.
I lowered my voice and said to Delia, “You’re not supposed to tell people that. It’s not kosher.”
Delia laughed, “I want to shout to the world, Gaylen. You know how long I been on the down low with Freddy?”
“What is that?” I asked her, annoyed. “Some sort of hip-hop language?”
“I heard of it,” said Bonnie, now fully committed to our conversation. “My kids are in public school. They pick up all sorts of lingo.” She warmed up to Delia, ignoring me. “Girl, if you got the dough, you ought to go down to the Nail It and get you some silk wraps.” She held up her right hand, showing Delia her red nails, decorated with some sort of floral markings the color of irises.
Delia examined the fringed edges of her cuticles. “I’ve never had a manicure. Can we go, Gaylen?”
“Delia, you have to consider more than just what you want right this instant,” I whispered.
“Oh, let her have some fun,” said Bonnie.
“What are we talking about?” asked the waitress. She identified herself to Delia as Flor.
“These girls have inherited a million dollars,” said Bonnie.
Customers were turning around in chairs, craning their necks to look at Delia and me.
It wouldn’t have done any good to correct Bonnie, to tell her that it wasn’t a million. To her a quarter of a mil, a mil, it was all the same.
Flor pulled up a chair next to Delia. “I know this guy that helps lottery winners with their budgets.” She stopped as if struck by a sudden thought. “Not that you won the lottery. You don’t have to tell me. But anyway this guy is a money wizard. He can take your money and help you multiply it, you know, like Donald Trump.”
“I’m in,” said Delia.
“Could we have the check?” I asked.
We pulled away in my car and drove onto the main drag of Edenton. Delia was still looking up and down Broad to find the Nail It boutique when I spotted the street sign marked Elm. We passed a yellow bungalow and several brick houses nearly covered over with shrubs. Delia was in a good mood, having exchanged phone numbers with Bonnie and Flor.
“If you trust every person you meet,” I said, “someone could take advantage of you.”
“Not Bonnie or Flor, Gaylen. They’re nice. You know, you’d have more friends if you’d learn to open up.”
“You’re too trusting.”
She loosened the blanket around her neck and turned the heat up. She laughed, disagreeing with me. “When you meet a certain person, you know right off the bat you can trust that person. Don’t you know anything about people?”
I was counting down the addresses. I had not rehearsed what I would say to Boo as had been my custom when meeting new people.
Delia continued in her upward emotional spiral. “First I’m going to get silk wraps for my nails and then a toe ring. You ever own one of those?”
“Never thought to do that,” I said. “How about we drop all talk of spending for the night?”
“You sound like Daddy.”
“Until you met Bonnie or whatever her name is, Delia, you’d never heard of silk wraps. You’re too easily sold.”
“You know why you cheated on your husband?” she asked. “‘Cause you never allow yourself any fun.”
I spotted the address but hit the brakes too hard. Delia came out of her seat, her forehead narrowly missing the dashboard. “Cripes!” she yelled at me.
“Why did you say that, Delia?” I asked. “That I cheated on Braden?” My insides felt unsettled.
“How do you think? One little, two little, three little Long Island teas.” She was enjoying her power over me.
I parked the car at the foot of the driveway. “You don’t remember right because you were too drunk. You’re making it up.”
She sat back against her seat. Whether she was second-guessing her own drunken state that night was beyond surety. Finally, she lowered her voice. “He was a college professor, you said, name of Max something or other.” She closed her eyes and inhaled, reaching out to touch the place on the dash that had almost been her undoing. “Does Braden know?”
I was rubbing my temples. “He knows, Delia. That’s why we’re separated.”
“I’m glad Daddy didn’t know. He died thinking you were perfect.” A strange smile came over her face. “For some reason, though, it makes me like you better.”
“For the rest of the night, I want you to keep your mouth shut,” I told her. “The last thing we need is you spilling your guts to Boo and Thomas. They already think our family is nuts.”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s complicated. I somehow remember her that way.” Explaining it was too tiresome.
An outside light came on near the front door.
“Can I have silk wraps?” she asked.
“All right,” I acquiesced.
She clapped gleefully. I got out of the car and shut the door, although it did not muffle the sound of her glee.
My finger had scarcely touched the old doorbell when the front door opened. A man, probably in his early thirties, pushed a pair of eyeglasses up his nose. He had an intelligent look about him in that his eyes were reflective, like a man who reads a lot. But he was far too young to be Thomas. I steadied myself by touching the doorpost. Delia’s confession left me feeling weak in the knees.
The man looked at me curiously for a moment before asking me my business.
“My name is Gaylen Boatwright. My aunt, Amity Syler, knew a couple by the name of Boo and Thomas Brolin.”
He opened the door the rest of the way. “Name’s Joel Brolin. Haven’t heard my mother called Boo, though, in years.” He laughed, putting me at ease.
“Are they home?” I asked.
Joel was reluctant to answer. “My mother passed on two years ago. My father’s home, but its not a good day.”
Delia bounded up onto the porch behind me. “I’m Delia,” she said, not quite as flamboyant as she had been in the cafe. It only took one glance at Joel for her to evaluate the man standing in front of us. Joel was in a higher caste, according to Delia’s system of calculating human worth. It made her more reticent, and that was a relief to me.
Joel stuck out his hand to Delia. She shook it bashfully.
I was let down to find Boo no longer alive. I hardly knew what to do about the painted dress in my backseat. “My father, Amity’s brother-in-law, recently died. My sister, Delia, and I are driving around meeting family members,” I said, not knowing how else to explain our sudden appearance.
“A road trip. I took one myself when my mother passed on.” He stepped back, opening the door all the way. “Please come in.”
He led us into a room with bookcases built into nearly every wall, save the ones with windows.
“I’d offer you coffee, but I’m looking after Dad this weekend, and I’m lousy at keeping the pantry stocked.”
“Is he sick or something?” asked Delia.
“Alzheimer’s,” said Joel.
Over the course of the next five minutes, I said, “I’m sorry,” a half dozen times while Joel recounted Mr. Brolin’s slow regression into Alzheimer’s. Joel’s sister Beverly had been the chief caregiver for Thomas. She had taken off for the weekend, leaving Joel to fill in.
“But don’t think Bev is a saint for doing it,” he said. “She hates it, but what do you do? I’m a starving photojournalist and gone most of the time. She’s really stuck looking after Dad,” he said.
“I understand that,” I said. Except Delia could never have stayed over to look after Daddy for a single night without forgetting herself and running off into the night. “I had to hire hospice care for our father,” I said.
“What does a photojournalist do?” asked Delia.
“Aim a camera and shoot at opportune moments.” He sat on the edge of an upholstered chair as if any minute he might have to get up and leave. He smiled at Delia.
She was wearing her eyeglasses that darkened in bright sunlight. Either the front porch light or the bright lamp she was sitting under had shaded the lenses. She looked like a small owl perched in the chair, wide-eyed and lapping up Joel’s attention.
“You have to like what I do. Not a lot of money in it anymore. The camera industry’s made it easy for every Tom and Dick to point a camera and produce brilliant photos,” he said.
“We don’t know about being poor anymore, do we, Gaylen?” Delia interjected.
I sighed, hoping that would be enough to silence her.
“We inherited a lot of money,” she told Joel.
“Is your father in bed?” I asked.
Joel glanced down the hall and then told me quietly, “If I wheel him out here, I can’t promise he’ll behave. Alzheimer’s makes him do wild things. He peed on the TV last night because he didn’t like what Katie Couric was saying. But, if you can handle it, visitors help him focus.”
I wanted to see Thomas’s face to see if I could remember anything about him. “I’d like to meet him,” I told him.
Delia was looking at the TV.
Joel got up, and I told him, “My Aunt Amity was an artist. She left your mother a painting. I’m sure you and your sister would like to have it.”
Joel was surprised. “Now I know who you’re talking about.”
“I’ll go and get it while you bring out Thomas,” I said.
I took my time about putting on my coat, waiting for Joel to leave the room. Then I ran for the car. If I timed it right, Delia would have no time alone with him to say more than she ought to say.
The painting was cumbersome to pull out one-handedly. Under the interior car light, a fleck of blue paint fluttered off the canvas onto the floorboard. I slid the canvas out and then held it upright. It was Amity’s biggest painting, tall as me and three feet wide. She had painted a clothesline behind the painting. The dress was attached to look like a piece of laundry, inanimate, yet animated in the moment by a brisk wind. Boo’s dress was suspended for all time as arty laundry.
I set it against the door and looked inside. Delia was laughing and talking to a much older Thomas than I had remembered, a stooped-back, silvery gray fellow seated in a wheelchair. His hair hung to his shoulders, the flesh of his face sagging from high cheekbones, typical of southerners from Indian ancestry. I turned the canvas sideways and shoved it through the doorway. “Here she is!” I yelled, hoping to draw Joel’s attention away from Delia’s alacritous zeal.
“Gaylen, Thomas remembers you!” said Delia.
Joel was standing behind his father still holding onto the wheelchair handlebars. He cast his eyes dubiously at me.
Thomas turned to look at me. A smile came over his face, and he said, “What a relief. You don’t look like your old man at all, Gaylen. I was worried.”
I propped the painting against the sofa. “Amity Syler made this from one of your wife’s dresses.” I explained how Amity saved Boos dress and fashioned the painting.
Thomas looked at the painting, thoughtfully. After studying it, he said, “I know why she gave up that one.”
“How could you remember?” asked Joel. “It’s covered in paint.”
“I remember everything. What I don’t remember, doesn’t matter,” said Thomas. He stared out through the window for an entire minute. The backyard was mostly black, the only light a dim yellow glow shining over a neighbor’s fence.
Delia laughed, nervous in the silence.
Joel tried to read the pencil-scrawled note in the corner.
I knelt to get a better look at Amity’s writing. “It says that Boo saved the dress from her wedding.”
“I took her to St. Augustine,” said Thomas. He continued to stare out into the dark backyard.
Joel looked surprised. “When did Mom give Amity the dress?” he asked.
“She was mad at me,” said Thomas. “Threatened to leave me. I guess that was her way of saying it was over, you know. She wanted to scare bats out of me like women do. It was the dress she wore when she married me.”
Joel could not take his eyes off the painted dress.
“Seems like we’d only lived in Boiling Waters a year as newly-weds when we had our first big one. Your mother liked visiting the Sylers, especially their pond. I found her sitting on the bank, mad as bees at me. Only time I ever heard her swear. She said she learned to cuss from me, but it was her daddy she learned it from.”
“I remember you faintly,” I told him. “But mostly I remember Boo.”
“You suffered the most in those days,” said Thomas. “I’ll say that.”
Joel stood behind Thomas, continuing to dismiss his father’s recollections. He kept rolling his eyes, waving away his words dismissively.
Thomas’s voice grew quiet and so nearly inaudible it caused all three of us to lean toward him.
I mouthed to Joel not to worry. He had warned us his dad was unpredictable.
“The day your mother sent that boy of hers away was the day I stopped worrying for you.”
Delia sat back in her chair, for once not saying anything at all.
“He makes up a lot of stories,” said Joel. “Dad, I’m going to take you back and help you into bed.”
“I’m not making up anything,” said Thomas. “Stop talking for me, like I’m some ignorant puppet!”
I knew that Joel probably wanted Delia and me to excuse ourselves. But Thomas was wound up and unstoppable. “Is it me you’re talking about?” I asked him.
“What was the name of that brother?” he asked.
“Truman,” said Delia.
“Your mama took a lot of flak for sending him away. Even your Aunt Amity was ashamed of her for putting her boy out.”
“Dad, that’s enough,” said Joel.
“I don’t mind,” I told him, but it was a polite cover. I wanted Thomas to spill out what the Sylers had covered up.
Thomas got quiet. A peaceful look softened the old man’s face. Joel apologized for him and explained that he had told a lot of stories, none of them true, about him and Beverly. He fell asleep. Joel wheeled him out of the room.
On the way out of Thomas’s house, I was trying to remember what Mother had told me about Truman. Nothing was coming, but while she complained about Truman, she never told me he had hit me or even laid a finger on me. That was not the Truman I remembered, the passive boy taking a flogging from her. I was squeezing my brain to jolt loose a fogged-over memory.
“Truman was a bad kid,” said Delia, running to keep up with me.
I stopped and looked at Delia over the top of the car. “Where are we going next, Delia? I can’t remember.”