WEAVING AIN’T NOTHING BUT PUTTING PLAIN THINGS TOGETHER and making ’em prettier than when they was all alone. Sitting here looking back on my life, I guess that’s pretty much what the good Lord had in mind when He set me down here in the world. I can picture Him looking down on me right this second. He’s a-grinning, just so happy I done it figured all out.
Now, this here basket I been sewing—this one’s the prettiest I ever made. Got nice bulrush stripes, and these little pine needle knots ’round the top—we call ’em French buttons. Yes sir, this one sits, oh, ’bout knee high, and be good to hold just about anything, I reckon. But this one’s gonna be for EJ, my grandbaby, so he can put in it whatever he likes. I reach down and grab me some more palmetto leaves so I can finish sewing it up. I ain’t got much longer, no sir. Soon as I put this little white tag on it what says, “For my sweet baby EJ, Love, Grandmama,” the basket’s finally gonna be done.
Whooee! I sure am tired ’cause I ain’t never put one of these together without stopping before—’less you count that basket I made for Mister Jeffrey and Miss Clarice a while back. But I’m real anxious to get this one finished ’cause this here’s my special basket—the one that’s gonna put me and my sweet Daddy Jim together once and for all.
See, right down in the bottom, I started me a little starter coaster and then worked my way on up and out. In the middle of that coaster is a palmetto knot holding a hair of mine and a hair of Jim’s I been saving all these years. Didn’t know I was saving it ’til I found it on a dress shirt of his hanging up in the closet last night. I ain’t never washed his clothes after he died, ’cause sometimes I like to go on in there and stick the cloth up to my face just to try and catch a whiff of him. Works too. So, deep down in this basket is these two little hairs of Jim and me—so we gonna be together again in the flesh real soon. Jim’s real excited and I am too . . . I. . . Hold on just a second, Miss Nancy’s having a fit.
“What’s that, Miss Nancy?”
“Car’s comin’, Essie Mae! Get out the way! Out the waaaaaaaaay!”
Lord have mercy, I don’t know what got into that girl, but sure ’nough, Henrietta’s pulling over on the side of the road, and she ain’t even slowing down none!
“What in tar-nation, child?” I ask when she steps out the car. I’d thought for a second she was my Mack truck coming to take me out o’ here. I’m trying to catch my breath, but it just ain’t coming fast enough. Girl scared me half to death, what she did, and my chest is starting to feel all tight.
“I’m so sorry, Mama!” she says, running over to me and setting me down in my chair. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but what in the world are you doin’? Drivin’ like a crazy woman!”
“Oh, I was on the phone with my boss. He’s not happy I’m out here, is all,” she tells me, sitting down in Jim’s pink chair. She hesitates just a second ’fore she does it, then sits down anyway. Henrietta ain’t never believed Jim comes and talks with me every day. Just thinks it’s one o’ them loose screws I got.
“Well, what you doin’ out here?” I ask her. “Shouldn’t you be at work, sure ’nough? Oh I know. You come to take me ’way to that Sunnydale Farms.”
“No, Mama. That’s what I came to talk to you about.”
“You can talk all you want, Retta, ’cause I ain’t goin’!”
“Mama! Just hear me out.” I wrap my arms up tight on my chest and stare off up the highway. “Mama you’re seventy-eight years old today and . . . well, I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday.”
“Child, you ain’t never come to see me on my birthday before. Why you startin’ now? Oh, I see. You feelin’ guilty ’bout stickin’ me in that home, ain’t you? Well, you can just forget about that. I don’t want your pity. Just go on back to work now.”
“Mama, now stop it. I really am here to see you. EJ told me you were acting funny. You feeling okay?”
“Heavens, child. I’m fine. ’Cept for you scarin’ me half to death, I’m good as I can be.”
“Well, good.” Henrietta gets real quiet then reaches down in her purse and hands me a pink envelope.
“What’s this? A card? Oh, that’s nice,” I tell her. A little pain shoots through my heart. Last card I remember getting from Henrietta was one with big colored balloons she’d drawn all over it. She was nine years old and had just come off the school bus grinning from ear to ear. She was ’til she got in the house anyway. She come into the kitchen and pulled the card out her backpack. She was handing it to me real sweet when all a sudden, she noticed I was over at the sink cleaning up blood off my skirt.
“What’s that?” she asked me. I didn’t know what to tell her. She must ‘a seen something was wrong on my face though, ’cause then she jumped up and ran over to the window.
“Where’s Scruffy?” she asked me, her breath fogging up the glass. When I didn’t answer, she turned ’round real quick with fire in her eyes. “Where’s Scruffy? Where is he? Is he all right?”
Scruffy was just like his name, scruffiest dog you ever wanna lay eyes on. Henrietta had found him when she was six years old and begged me every day to bring him indoors. I put my foot down and kept it there, sure ’nough. Ain’t no mangy dog setting foot in my nice clean house, no sir.
“Retta, baby, come here a minute,” I told her as I come ’round and grabbed her hands. She pulled away from me real quick.
“He’s dead, ain’t he?” The tears started to roll down her cheeks. “You killed him!”
“I ain’t killed that dog, Retta, he just run out in the road, is all. The man what hit him ain’t even seen him when he done it. He was real sorry. He sure was.”
Henrietta ran off screaming into her bedroom and slammed the door. I looked there on the kitchen table at the birthday card she made me. “Mama, you’re the best mama in the whole world. Happy Birthday. Love, Henrietta,” it said.
After that day, neither one of us ever talked ’bout Scruffy again. Seems there’s lots o’ things Henrietta and I don’t talk about much.
Well, getting back to that pink envelope I’m holding, Henrietta says, “Just open it, Mama.” So I do.
I pull out this big white card with one o’ them flowerdy poems on it. You know the ones, where they so impersonal you might as well not get one a’tall?
“That’s real nice,” I tell her, slipping it back into the envelope it come in.
“No, Mama,” she says, grabbing it from my hands. “You need to open it.” She pulls it out the pink envelope again and hands it to me. When I open it up, I feel real faint all a sudden, and I can’t see real good. I squint my eyes and say, “Retta! Is this . . . you givin’ me a check?”
“I am, Mama,” she tells me, smiling and sitting back in her chair like she’s all satisfied. “Enough to pay for your taxes.” She takes my hand in both of hers. “You’re not going have to lose your house, Mama.”
“I’m not?” My mind’s going fuzzy. “I don’t understand, Retta. Why? Why you doin’ this?”
“Mama, don’t ask me why,” she says all testy. “I just . . . I don’t know if you’re doing so well and I . . . putting you in a home with you hating it so much, EJ thinks it’ll just kill you. And I certainly don’t want that on my conscience, now do I?”
I can tell she’s trying to be sweet ’cause it’s my birthday. She tries to smile at me, but Lord have mercy, it’s just too much. My eyes are welling up and I’m starting to cry. Now I go to lean over to her but somehow I lose my balance and I fall out my chair instead. Henrietta yelps and bends down on the ground to pull me up, but when she turns my face to her, she starts screaming.
“Mama! Mama!” she’s hollering real loud now, and Miss Nancy’s coming over. “Call an ambulance, quick! Go grab my phone!” Hen-rietta’s pointing to her car and Miss Nancy runs fast as her stubby legs can take her, but it’s too late, and Henrietta knows it.
“Oh Mama, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” Henrietta rocks me in her arms and boo-hoos right there in the dirt. Truth be told, it’s the nicest moment I’ve had with her in years. Too bad I can’t make no sounds to tell her so.