Chapter Twelve

Nikki awoke on Monday to a text from Tag: Want to get a burger tonight?

She sent one back: Have plans. When’s the fish fry?

The next one said: Friday night. Interested?

She sent back a smiley face, crawled out of bed, and spent the day doing housework, laundry, and grocery shopping—and worrying about how her mother would react when she showed up at her house just before seven o’clock.

By late afternoon, her stomach was in knots, so she only had a bowl of chicken noodle soup for supper. She picked up her purse and locked the door before she lost her nerve. When she got to her mother’s place, she sat in the car for a full five minutes. Maybe she should just take Wilma’s call like usual. She could sit right there in her car and say what she was supposed to, couldn’t she? For real closure, she had to have some real answers. She needed to know things that had never been talked about before.

She inhaled deeply, got out of the car, and marched up to the house with determination. The sound of her phone ringing in her purse came right before she hit the doorbell with her thumb. She heard the sound of all the locks clicking and then the door opened.

“What are you doing here?” Wilma asked through the storm door. “We’re supposed to be talking on the phone right now.”

“We’re going to be talking face-to-face tonight. Are you going to let me in?”

“I suppose.” Wilma’s expression said that she wasn’t happy. “Why did you come?” She went back to her recliner and took a sip of her seven o’clock glass of sweet tea.

“Are you going to invite me to sit or offer me something to drink?” Nikki asked.

“I didn’t plan on you being here, and there’s only enough tea to last me until I go shopping, and if you want to sit, then sit. I’m not keeping you from it,” Wilma said.

Nikki kicked off her flip-flops, sat down on the sofa, and drew her legs up under her, which got her a dirty look from her mother. People did not put their feet on the furniture, and if they did, then it had to be sprayed with disinfectant.

“I want to know about when you and Daddy got married,” Nikki said.

“That’s old news,” Wilma said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m not leaving until I get some answers,” Nikki said. “I can sit here all night if I need to.”

Wilma gave her the old stink eye. “I was working at a café downtown. He drove a truck through here on Friday nights on his way to Dallas. He’d stop by for a piece of pie and we got to talking. I was almost thirty and had no intentions of getting married. After all, I’ve never been healthy, and I didn’t want children.”

“So why did you marry him?” Nikki asked.

“I was tired of working at the café, and he said he loved me. No one had ever told me that before. So we got married and before we could even discuss kids, I was pregnant with you. It was horrible. I was sick the whole time, and when you were born, you had the colic, and Don was gone all week on the truck. I thought I was getting a good man who’d take care of me. All I got was two squalling kids I didn’t want.”

Nikki’s blood ran cold in her veins. What if she turned out to be like her mother when she had children? Would she feel like they were a burden too?

No, I will not. Her kind of problems are not inherited, and besides, I’d refuse to be like that, she thought.

What if you’re like your father and get tired of a bad marriage and just walk out? asked that pesky voice in her head.

“Hush,” she muttered.

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” Wilma said. “You asked, so I’m telling you.”

“I’m sorry,” Nikki said. “I wasn’t talking to you. Go on.”

“Then Quint got sick and I had to take care of him. I did my duty by y’all as best I could, but you got to realize just how sick I’ve always been. I should never have married or had children,” Wilma whined.

“Did Daddy ever get in touch with you after he left?”

Wilma looked past Nikki at the picture of Jesus on the far wall. “Not with me,” she answered. “He sent those divorce papers, and it said right there in them that he’d put money in my bank account every month, so I signed them. It was a relief. We hadn’t…” She blushed.

Nikki had never seen her mother’s cheeks turn that red and could count on the fingers of one hand the times she’d seen her smile. “Hadn’t what?” she pressed for more.

“You know.” Wilma blinked several times. “My mama was past forty when I was born and Daddy was fifty. Daddy was gone before I got married. Mama had the same problems I do. She didn’t come from healthy stock either. She didn’t want me to get married, told me how awful things would be…you know, in the bedroom. She was right, so after Quint was born, I told Don he’d have to sleep in a different room.”

“You mean for twelve years y’all didn’t have sex?” Nikki gasped.

“I didn’t. I don’t know what he did when he wasn’t home, and I didn’t care.” Wilma’s cheeks went scarlet again. “I was glad when he would come to Celeste so he could help with you kids. I loved you as much as I could, but taking care of you was just too much of a burden for me. Don was five years younger than me and his health was good.”

Nikki understood more of her mother’s background right then than ever before, and she felt so sorry that Wilma had never known what a real, loving relationship should be. She wanted to hug her mother and tell her that life didn’t have to be like hers had been, but that would be going too far. The last time she’d even put her arm around her mother’s shoulders was at Quint’s funeral, and then she’d shrugged it off.

It’s not her fault. Her dad’s words came back to her mind. They’d been fishing out at Canyon Creek when she complained about her mother’s coldness. You have to understand why she is the way she is. I thought I could fix her, baby girl, but some things you just can’t fix.

There were no more questions. She could understand now why her father left and a little bit about why Wilma was the way she was. Knowing left an empty hole in her heart, and she wanted so badly to fix her mother, to help her know joy and happiness. But she knew her father had been right. Some things can’t be fixed.

Wilma glanced at the clock sitting on the end table and got that blank stare in her eyes again as she gazed over Nikki’s shoulder. “I guess Jesus is telling me to give you what’s rightfully yours. It’s in Quint’s room. I used to hide it in my bedroom, but when you left, I didn’t want to look at it.”

She hurried to her brother’s room, but it took several minutes for her to build up the courage to open the door. All of his things had been given away before his funeral because Wilma was convinced that the germs from his ailment were hiding in his toys, his pillow, even his furniture. Nikki had salvaged a teddy bear and kept it hidden in her closet until she moved out. It was part of that last load of things she had taken out of the house.

She finally eased the door open and peeked inside. The room was empty. Over there against the wall, she imagined Quint’s bed. He was curled up on it with a book in his hands. Her eyes traveled around the room to imagine his dresser with a globe on it. They’d spin it and put a finger on the places where they wanted to travel someday, and then he’d check out books at the library and study about the places.

She didn’t see anything that would be called hers in the empty room until she opened the door all the way. Just inside, so that Wilma wouldn’t have to go inside to reach it, was a box with all kinds of mail in it. She picked it up and carried it to the living room.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Stuff that’s been comin’ for you for the last fifteen years. I’d like for you to get it out of here,” she said. “And it’s almost eight o’clock. You should be going now.”

“Do you tell Mrs. Thomas to leave when she comes to visit?” Nikki asked.

“That would be rude, but I do sometimes pretend to fall asleep,” she said.

“Good night, Mama,” Nikki said.

“You stay on the porch until I get all the locks done up. I’ll flash the porch light when I’m done.” Wilma followed her across the floor.

Nikki did what she was told and then carried the box to the car. She drove home trying to figure out whether she was angry or sad for her mother, and glad that she’d broken the curse that must’ve run through the family for more than a generation.

She parked the car, picked the box up from the passenger seat, slung her purse over her shoulder, and headed for the Dumpster. A brisk wind whipped her dark hair into her face, and she set the box on the bottom step to tuck the strands behind her ears. The hot breeze had blown one of the envelopes back toward the car. She chased it down and realized that it had never been opened.

“Now that’s downright rude,” she said as she returned it to the box. About to toss it along with the others, she noticed that the handwriting wasn’t hers. A cold chill chased down her back, and she stood there in the fading sunlight and recognized her name on the card written in her father’s hand. She flipped several more pieces over and they were all the same.

She dug her phone from her purse and called her mother.

“Hello, Nikki.”

“Why didn’t you give me these when they came? Why did you hold them back from me?”

“Because your dad should have taken you with him, not left me with a teenage girl to raise. It wasn’t fair,” Wilma said. “You can do whatever you want with them. Good night, Nikki.”

The call ended. Nikki picked up the box and took it upstairs. She set the box on the bed and began to sort the envelopes by the dates they were mailed. The first one had come the week after Quint had died. It took two hours to read through more than twenty letters, fifteen birthday cards, Christmas cards that had at least a hundred dollars in each one with a note telling her to buy herself something nice, a graduation from high school card with money in it, and one for when she’d graduated from nursing school only a few months ago.

When she finished, the front of her shirt was tear stained. “Oh, Daddy,” she said as she picked up the first letter and scanned it again. He tried to explain that he couldn’t live with Wilma any longer, and he should have never married her. She’d seemed like a shy, sweet woman when he met her and fell in love with her, he said. It wasn’t until they were married that he realized what he’d gotten himself into. If she ever couldn’t stand living there, she was welcome in his new home. It was the same address that was written in the upper left hand corner of every single piece of mail.

She paced the floor from one end of her living room to the other and looked up at the clock. She couldn’t call Emily at ten o’clock at night, but Tag had said his door was open if she ever needed to talk.

She fed Goldie and walked out of the apartment.