North Alabama, in the middle years of the twentieth century. Towns with names like Sheffield and Florence and Tuscumbia. Muscle Shoals and Elkmont and Tanner, Aberdeen and Dunleith and Wheeler. The Tennessee River flows through this country, flowing southward to meet its eastern half at Guntersville Lake. This is the Appalachian Valley, the Appalachian Highlands, and the Piedmont Plateau. This is where my father’s people came when they left Scotland. They are cold laughing people, with beautiful faces and unshakable wills. They are powerful and hot-tempered. They never forget a slight, never forgive a wrongdoing. They seldom get sick. They get what they want because they believe they are supposed to have it. They believe in God as long as he is on their side. If he wavers, they fire the preacher. I had never been comfortable with them. Never liked to visit long in Aberdeen, their stronghold in the middle of their cotton fields. They had settled the land on Spanish land grants and cleared it with slave labor. They loved to read the old wills in which their ancestors left slaves to each other. It made them sad to think they couldn’t keep slaves anymore but had to let the black people do anything they liked, might soon even have to let them vote.
I came due south from Nashville and drove into the sleepy little town of Dunleith in the afternoon of the last day in May. I found the main street, using a map my father had drawn for me, and followed it to Wheeler. I turned onto Wheeler and immediately began to be seduced. Huge elm trees lined the street on either side. Behind the elms were magnificent houses, each one bigger and more elaborately Victorian than the last. I began to want to live in one of these huge painted houses. I do not know what I thought such a house might do for me, but I wanted the biggest one of all. Three blocks from the corner there it was. A huge chocolate-colored palace with turrets and balconies and porches. I parked the car and got out and looked up at the door. My mother came running down from a screened-in porch. She was wearing the black Mexican wedding skirt she had bought the year before when my father was having his love affair and she had run away to New Orleans for her nervous breakdown. She came flying down the steps with her hair all in ringlets and began to hug me. “My goodness, honey,” she said. “You’ve gained so much weight. I thought you were on the swimming team.”
“I won the freshman writing contest, Momma. I didn’t even enter it. I won first place.”
“We’ll take you to a doctor tomorrow and get you some of the new pills. We’ll go in the morning. Well, come on in and see the house. Isn’t it beautiful? Don’t you like it?”
“Are Dudley and Annie here? Have they moved in yet?” I spotted my little brother Alford lurking on the porch with his B-B gun. The summer before he had shot a B-B in my hand when I tried to take the magazine out of his gun at an ice-cream party we were having. “I can’t believe you still let him have that gun. I can’t believe you do it.”
“Don’t start a fight with Alford. Come on in, Rhoda. Everyone’s on the porch waiting to meet you. Some of your cousins. They’ve been here all afternoon waiting for you to come.” I walked up on the porch and was introduced to my cousin Martha Ann, who lived across the street, and her husband, Frank, and Mrs. Hunter Waits, Senior, from Aberdeen, and Daddy’s cousin James’s wife, Lelia. I shook hands with everyone and answered their questions, then Momma and Lelia took me to see my room and tour the house. It had fifteen rooms and an attic and a basement. It had three screened-in porches and three parlors and a den. It had six or seven bedrooms depending on if you counted the maid’s room. My bedroom was on the second floor. It was three times as large as any room I had ever had. Its windows looked out upon the high branches of a majestic elm. My cherry furniture was all arranged and a new bedspread was on the bed. A quilted spread in subtle shades of yellow. There was a ceiling fan above the bed and a braided yellow rug was on the floor. Mother stood beside the bed waiting for me to tell her how wonderful it was.
“Where’s my eiderdown comforter, Momma?” I asked. “Please tell me where you put it. It better be here.”
“It’s in the chest at the foot of the bed. That’s my old chest that held my trousseau. I’m giving it to you.”
“That’s nice. That’s really nice. Look, are all those people down there going to stay all afternoon? I’d really like to get my stuff out of the car. My typewriter’s in the trunk. I want to see if I can find a copy of that paper I wrote that won in case anyone wants to see it. I’ve forgotten what it says.”
“Of course, darling. I’ll bet you’re tired too. I’ll have the maids bring your things up and help you put it all away. You go take a bath and change clothes. You look like you’re worn out.” She was opening my dresser drawers. “See, honey, everything’s here. Right where you left it.”
“Well, not quite.” I walked over to the window and looked out through the trees and across the street to where a small brown-haired girl was standing on the porch of a small blue house. “Who’s that, Momma? Who’s that girl?”
Momma came and stood by my side. She put her hand on my shoulder. “That’s Irise Lane, honey. She’s just your age. She’s dying to meet you. Shall I call her over? Shall I invite her over?”
“No, wait until tomorrow. I’m really tired, Momma. I had to drive a long time to get here. Who’s in our old house in Franklin? Did someone buy it?”
“Daddy sold it to Val’s cousin Donald. Val said to tell you goodbye. He said you could keep on writing columns and send them to him in the mail if you wanted to.” I was still watching the girl on the porch of the blue house. A heavy boy in a loose white shirt and a pair of shorts came walking up the sidewalk and took her arm and the pair of them went into the house.
“Who’s that with her?”
“That’s Charles William Waters. He’s very artistic. He’s studying architecture at Georgia Tech. He’s Doctor Freer’s nephew. We really need to go see Doctor Freer tomorrow and do something about this weight. I don’t want you to be fat. You’ve never been fat.”
“You shouldn’t have sent me to that goddamn school without getting me some Kappa recs. It’s been terrible. It’s the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life.” My voice was rising. Daddy’s cousin James’s wife, Lelia, backed out into the hall. “I had to join that goddamn new Chi O chapter you and Aunt Lucille cooked up for me. It’s the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life. You didn’t even tell me about Dudley being kicked out of school for cheating. You let me go up there with that hanging over my head and you didn’t even tell me.” I turned on her then, so full of rage and incomprehension and despair, so glad to find a target for my wrath.
“Oh, darling, please don’t start anything. There are people in the house. Don’t come down here and make everyone’s life a hell. There’s a wonderful country club in town. Tomorrow we’ll go out and you can see the pool. So you can keep up with your swimming.”
“Leave me alone, Mother, will you? And I’m not going to a doctor. I’m not fat. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m going to kill myself if you don’t leave me alone.” She moved toward the door and I pushed her through it and slammed it shut and walked over and lay down on the bed and cried myself to sleep.