Miss Dinah and Miss Pauline tried their best to help us out. They took Momma to the Veterans Administration Office, more than once. But to make a long story short, there were so many soldiers needing help after the war that if we waited until they got around to helping my daddy I knew it might not ever happen.
I thought a lot about Imogene and whether her daddy was one of those people needing help after the war. When we were in the hospital she told me her daddy did not get to help in the fighting. They kept the blacks and whites separated in the army just like everywhere else. Except maybe up north.
I figured that was good for Imogene. Maybe her daddy was the same one she had always been used to instead of an angry stranger.
I never saw Daddy hit my momma. But I heard him yelling in their room lots of times at night when he should’ve been sleeping. And one day when he had trouble opening a jar of pickled beets, he got so mad he threw it against the Frigidaire. Then he stomped out the door and tore up the road in his truck.
As he drove away I thought about Hubert at Warm Springs. And psychiatrists. And how I promised Momma we’d fix Daddy somehow. “Maybe we should try the state hospital,” I said.
I expected Momma to argue. But she just stared at the long, pink drips streaking down the side of the refrigerator. Tears oozed out her eyes and dribbled off her face. “Maybe,” she said.
But to be honest, I don’t think either one of us could make ourselves do it. We did look into it, but unless he put himself in there, we’d have to get two doctors to sign affidavits saying he was insane.
We needed a better plan.
For one week I almost thought things were going to be all right with Daddy. Now that the garden was tilled, he would go out there and work the soil with his shovel or hoe and plant lettuce and carrots. He even spent two whole evenings chopping away at the wisteria vines that were moving toward the garden again.
I stood at the bedroom window and watched. He looked as mad at those vines as I was when I cut them back during the war. I was just glad he was taking his madness out on the wisteria instead of on us.
Things were better for me at school, too. I still took my canes, but I always moved around the room without them. And every day I could walk a little farther without stopping to rest.
On the school bus I never sat in the front seat. Instead I mixed in with everyone else. Sometimes Jean or Beckie sat with me. One day after I’d been home for a couple of weeks Jean said, “Ann Fay, my mother wants to know why you haven’t come by to see her.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know,” I said. “Too much going on, I guess.” I didn’t tell her what I meant by that. I probably didn’t need to. If you wanted to hear some good gossip, that store would be the place to go. More than likely the people coming and going in there knew more about my daddy than I did.
“Well, she wants you to come by on Saturday.” Jean laughed. “But watch out! She’s liable to put you to work.”
I looked at Jean to see if she was making this up. “Tell me the truth,” I said. “Does your momma feel sorry for me or what?”
“Maybe so. Or maybe she just likes you. And anyway, if you’re helping in the store it saves one of us young’uns some work.”
So on Saturday I asked Daddy to take me to Whitener’s Store.
“Look at you,” said Ruth Whitener when I came through the door. “Walking in here with only a cane.” She pulled out a stool and told me to sit. But first she gave me a big hug. “Everyone’s been asking where our little polio girl is.”
Her saying that made me feel warm inside. Like I belonged to something bigger than my family and closer than Warm Springs. And after all, her customers had collected a pile of money to get me to Georgia.
Next thing I knew, I had my job back. I can’t tell you how good it felt. I had met a lot of people by working at the store. And now when they saw me again it seemed like their faces would light up. The women gave me hugs or patted my hand and asked about my momma. Some of the men even talked me into playing rook with them. They joked with me and teased me about the boys I met in Georgia.
But I didn’t mention a single word about Gavin. I hadn’t heard from him. When I first got home, I sent a letter to Suzanne and another one to Olivia explaining that my momma was having a baby and my daddy wasn’t doing so good. But I didn’t give them any details.
When the people at the store asked about Daddy, I didn’t give them much satisfaction either. “Oh, he’s busy,” I said. “Working all day and planting the garden at night.”
It made me wonder what they’d be saying if I wasn’t sitting there to hear it.
Of course Otis came into the store right at eleven o’clock. And I do declare, I think even his glass eye twinkled when he saw me. I just had to ask how his momma was doing.
Otis grinned real slow and lifted his hat like always and scratched his head. “She has her good days and her bad days, she does.”
I fished a pickle out of the jar for him and he asked about my family.
“I reckon we’re like your momma,” I said. “Some days are better than others.”
I wondered what Otis actually meant when he gave that answer. What were the bad days like, anyway? Was his momma in a foul mood? Or was her arthritis acting up?
It made me stop and think how all those people coming into the store, one or two at a time, were carrying things inside that the rest of us didn’t have any idea of. And maybe they liked coming in there because they could count on Ruth Whitener to listen to them grumble. Or they could swap gossip and forget their own worries.
In some ways it was like Whitener’s Store took the place of Warm Springs for me. Even if I had different troubles from the people who came in there, they were my friends. It felt like some of the men who came in there offering me chewing gum and asking me silly riddles loved me almost like a daughter.
Or maybe I just wanted to believe that because I couldn’t count on anything from my daddy anymore.
One night, the week after I started back at the store, I found out just how bad off my daddy really was. We were fixing to eat supper. Ida and Ellie had both washed their hands and were sitting at the table. I was getting butter and jelly out of the Frigidaire and Momma was at the stove putting food from pots into serving bowls.
“Ida,” said Momma, “go tell your daddy that supper is ready.”
Daddy was sitting on the front porch, so Ida ran and told him. Then she came right back inside and hid behind the kitchen door. When he came into the kitchen she jumped out at him and hollered, “Boo!”
Well, you should have seen my daddy jump. At first Ida squealed with laughing because she had scared him so good. But it wasn’t a good kind of scared—the kind where you’re startled but then you realize you’re okay.
I could see Daddy thought he was in danger—like Hubert on that day in the brace shop. Like he thought a real enemy was after him. For a minute his whole face went ugly scared, and then he went after Ida like she was the enemy. He let out an awful scream, grabbed her up, and slammed her against the wall.
Ida went dead silent but tears were running off her cheeks. Her teeth were chattering, and her eyes—oh, the fear in them just made my legs go weak. I wanted to grab her away from him, but I didn’t. I just stood there staring and hanging on to the open refrigerator door.
But Momma, if she was the least bit afraid of Daddy, I couldn’t tell it. She was taking a pot of stew beef off the stove when it happened. She set the pot back down and stepped ever so quietly to where Daddy was standing. “Leroy,” she said. And her voice was low and soothing. “It’s your little girl.” As if Daddy didn’t know who Ida was. As if he was the one who needed comforting. She put one hand on Daddy’s shoulder and she slipped the other arm around Ida’s waist. “Let her go,” she said.
Daddy was shaking every bit as much as Ida was. His face was twisted up and he was making strange sounds. But it looked like he had relaxed his hold and was letting her slide down the wall.
Momma pulled Ida to her, but she kept one hand on Daddy’s shoulder.
Daddy shook his head hard—like a dog drying off when it comes out of the creek. Then he went into the living room and out the front door, and left us there.
Ida started crying out loud then. And Ellie too. We was all crying. Momma had Ida’s face pressed up against her big belly and was running her fingers through her hair. “He didn’t mean it for you, honey. He didn’t mean it for you.”
She was looking through the window at Daddy’s truck driving away. I could see her worrying if Daddy was going to hurt himself on the road. I was worried too, but still I was glad he was gone.
I never did put the butter on the table. But it didn’t matter on account of none of us ate supper that night. Later I saw Ellie nibbling on a biscuit, but I don’t think she even realized it or she would’ve put jelly on it.
It was Thursday and I wished in the worst way it was Wednesday. I needed to hear those people singing out at the colored church. I didn’t care what song it was. As long as it was about tribulation and making it through.
I took Comfort from around my neck before I went to bed that night. And held on to her while I waited for Daddy to come home. He came in the back door after I’d gone to sleep. I woke up because Mr. Shoes was in the kitchen yapping.
At least someone in the family was glad to see my daddy.