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Nonny stood at the sorting case, her mind racing as fast as her hands. Before parting company with Mack and Ruby Barlow the previous evening, she had convinced them that she could save time by grouping the Turner property transactions according to location. She had a folder in her Jeep now, containing three packets of information, but she had waked off and on through the night with another thought nagging at her. She was eager now to be through with casing the mail so she could check it out. She glanced at her watch again.
Nine o’clock. The place should be opening about now . . .
“You taking medicine?”
“What?” Nonny turned to face Claude Riley at the next case.
“You’ve looked at your watch every minute on the minute for the last half hour.”
“Need to make a stop before I head out of town. The place doesn’t open until nine.” She paused, studying the man. “You’ve been here a long time, Claude. What do you know about Grover Anderson’s wife?”
He rubbed an earlobe. “Mostly hearsay. I’m only a couple years older than Ruby, but when a couple split the blanket back then, it raised a few eyebrows. These days, splitting up is more common than not.”
“Split the blanket? The Andersons separated?”
“Best I can recall.” His brow wrinkled as he gave the question more thought. “No, I’m sure they did ‘cause she just up and took off one day. Left those two girls with their daddy. That caused quite a stir, you can imagine. A mother leaving her children behind like that.”
“Well . . .” Nonny paused. “Maybe she had a good reason.”
“Ain’t saying she didn’t. But back then, the mother always took the children when she left her man. Not natural for a woman to just walk out on her babies.”
“Not natural . . .” Nonny backtracked, trying to regain her original thread. “Well anyway, I learned yesterday that Grace Anderson’s dead and I’m interested in how she died. So you never heard anything about that?”
“She is dead?” He rubbed his earlobe some more. “No. One day she was here and the next day, gone. She’s dead, I figure it must’ve happened after she left. What’s got you so curious about her? Got anything to do with old man Anderson’s funny behavior?”
She paused. “What do you mean?”
“Nightmares. Least that’s what my mama calls ‘em. She’s out at the home, too. But you’d know that ‘cause you took her fresh plums last summer.”
Nonny nodded, thinking about his comment. “I heard about those nightmares. Guess he gets pretty loud.”
“Gone the other way now. Least that’s what Mama said when I went by this morning. Sleeping all the time. Couldn’t get him awake enough to eat his supper last night or breakfast this morning.”
“Oh? Well, maybe he’s just making up for all that lost sleep.” She picked up her loaded trays before Claude could respond. As she walked outside, she realized she had not answered Claude’s question about her reason for searching out Grace Anderson. But she did not return to give him an explanation for she did not know the answer to that question herself.
Nonny coaxed the cold-hearted Jeep to life and proceeded through the gray morning light to the Chapman Funeral Home. The former two-story residence had a wrap-around porch that gave it a homey feel, but the backyard had been turned into a sheet of black asphalt. She walked up the back steps and rang the doorbell.
“Too early to check a few records, Bertie?” Nonny had checked the funeral records kept at the Genealogy Society and come up empty handed. That meant, she would have to dig deeper.
Alberta Tumlinson returned the smile. “Who’ve you lost now, Nonny?”
Nonny followed the short dark-skinned woman to the basement, talking as she went. “Mr. Anderson’s wife, Grace. I’m hoping you handled the funeral.”
“Grace Anderson?” The woman’s look was skeptical. “Name doesn’t ring a bell and I been here a long time. But let’s take a look.” She pulled several old file boxes from a cabinet. “I got a funeral to get ready for, so just let me know when you’re done.”
Nonny faced the boxes of old records, then sat down to do what she had become good at. Searching for the lost. An hour later, she left the funeral home carrying a copy of a receipt. It showed that Grover Cleveland Anderson had purchased a coffin and marble headstone for the sum total of $995, an amount that Alberta said bought a top-of-the-line casket and grave marker in its day. But there were no burial records.
“At least Pa thought a lot of her.” She studied the simple wording that Pa had paid to have etched into the stone: Grace, God Grant Forgiveness to Thee and Me. As her eyes returned to the word forgiveness, a reprimanding voice sounded inside her head.
What the hell do you think you’re doing?
*****
Nonny had trouble focusing. Her hands worked mechanically, inserting and removing mailbags from mailboxes, but her mind was powered by a will of its own. Throughout the morning, she questioned her impulse to search out information about Grace Anderson, especially in light of Ruby’s sentiments. What had started as simple interest was now bordering on an obsession, and that thought made her mouth go dry. Obsessions of any kind were not a good thing. She worked hard on tweaking her thinking, attempting to put a reasonable focus on the matter. But by the time she reached the Barlow place, she was talking aloud.
“It’s only normal for a child to want to know a mother she never knew . . . Ruby’s just overwhelmed right now . . . she’ll come around, I’m sure she’ll come around.”
It was mid-afternoon when she parked outside the Barlow’s house. She reached for the folder of information she had worked up, which now contained the receipt for Grace’s headstone, and looked around for Mack’s Bronco. It was nowhere in sight. She was going to have to face the changed Ruby alone.
Nonny was both puzzled and dismayed at Ruby’s behavior at the nursing home. The woman’s change in attitude on finding Bill and Jack flew in the face of her previous stance. Her bitterness toward Grace was even more bewildering. The latter behavior disturbed Nonny the most for it smacked of a loss of faith. From the cradle to the grave, people raised in that part of the country were taught to believe in indefinables, such as love, charity, forgiveness. What had happened to Ruby?
I’d want to find out everything I could about my mother, she thought, no matter what she’d done.
In spite of that sentiment, Nonny removed the receipt for the headstone from the folder, carrying only the property transactions and the Barlow’s mailbag to the front door.
“Hey, Whitey,” she said to the old dog that greeted her on the porch. She knocked hard, loud enough that someone would hear in case a hairdryer was running. She smiled at the stooped little woman who opened the door, glad her first encounter was with Sister.
“What you got there, Sister?”
“What do you think of it?” Sister handed Nonny an embroidered mailbag.
“Why Sister, this is the prettiest one you’ve done yet. Where did you get this thread? I didn’t bring it, did I?”
“Found it at the Walmart. Feel it—pure silk, not that blended stuff you find these days. Only skein like it so I grabbed it right quick. Don’t know why someone hadn’t snapped it up. Just meant to be, I guess. Meant for my hands alone.”
“I’ve never seen such fine handwork.”
“You don’t mind that I used the good stuff on ours, do you? I don’t have enough of it left for another bag, so ours will be one of a kind.”
“Not that we’ll get to use it,” Ruby snapped. She stood in the hallway leading to the kitchen, drying her hands on a dishtowel.
Nonny deduced Ruby’s meaning immediately. Mack had told her about selling the house. In a sense, she was relieved that Mack had come clean about his plans. She wondered if the news could account for Ruby’s change of behavior—and appearance. The woman’s hair looked as though it hadn’t been brushed since she’s gotten out of bed, and she hadn’t bothered with makeup at all. One thing was clear. The tone of Ruby’s voice indicated she was still bitter, making Nonny glad she had left the receipt from the funeral home in the Jeep.
“Why wouldn’t we get to use it?” Sister looked at the remainder of the silk thread. “I could use it to embroider something small.”
Nonny caught her breath, realizing that Sister did not know about the move. Ruby saved her from needing to respond.
“That today’s mail?”
“Yes,” Nonny said, “but it’s just more sale flyers. I have the other information pulled together on the properties, though.”
“Already?” Ruby glanced at the folder Nonny held. “How’s it look?”
“Not too bad.” Nonny opened the folder to reveal three paper-clipped packets. “It made sense that you would take the area closest to home—”
“Home?”
Ruby’s tone gave Nonny pause. “How ‘bout we have a cup of coffee while we sort through these, Ruby. I’m sure Sister needs to get back to her sewing. Right, Sister?”
“I paid for that gold thread with my own money,” Sister grumbled. “Reckon I can use it on anything I want.” She picked up a crimper tool off the side table and handed it to Nonny. “Here, might as well crimp snaps on these mailbags while you’re jawing. Pressing on the thing makes my arthritis kick up.”
Nonny took the stack of mailbags that Sister handed her, a package of snaps, and the crimper tool. Leading Ruby to the kitchen, she deposited her armload of goods on the table. “Okay,” she said, pouring two mugs of coffee. “Get it off your chest.”
“Can’t talk about it.” Ruby took a seat at the table.
“Can’t talk about what?” Picking up a mailbag, Nonny secured a snap on the flap and waited for Ruby to speak.
“About what Mack’s planning on doing, that’s what I can’t talk about.”
Nonny took a deep breath and picked up another bag. The crimper made a loud click as she pressed a snap in place. “Have you tried talking him out of it?”
“Out of it . . .” Ruby stared at Nonny. “You know?”
Nonny felt her face flush. “Well, yes. That night Mack went over to the Turners and they wouldn’t talk to him, he came by my place.”
“Why didn’t you didn’t try to talk him out of it?” Ruby’s face flushed. “First Tootsie and now you—all my friends are deserting me.”
“You think I’ve deserted you?” Nonny stared at the distraught woman. “Why would you think that, Ruby?”
“Because of those mules! At the church, you were supposed to help talk Mack out of looking for them. Instead, you’re helping him find them.”
Daylight dawned for Nonny. “No, it wasn’t like that. I just got carried away. When it comes to research, I do that.”
“And now you’re siding with him on this move thing.”
“Oh, Ruby. I’m not. It’s just none of my business.” Nonny laid the crimper on the table. “He’s got your best interest at heart, you have to believe that.” She paused. “Besides, what makes you think he’d listen to me anyway?”
Floundering for words, Ruby said, “You could’ve tried.”
“Ruby, Mack and I aren’t close anymore.” Nonny sipped her coffee as she gathered her thoughts. “I take it you don’t like the place he picked out for you.”
“Haven’t looked at it, just pictures he brought. He’s planning on taking me to see it soon as he can turn loose. He’s spending most of his time fixing up this place so he can sell it. That’s where he is right now, picking up paint for the front room— I painted that room not three years ago. Picked the color out myself . . .“ She choked up.
Nonny struggled with words, a fact she ordinarily would have found humorous. But there was nothing funny about this situation. “So Mack owns the house outright, you don’t have part ownership?”
“Why, no. Will and me had no money saved when he passed. Mack was real good to buy this place for us to live in. I just always considered it my own. Picked out the paint colors, the furniture, ran my beauty shop business the way I liked— He called me a kitchen beautician. How could he say that?”
Nonny looked at the hairdryer in the corner. The bookshelf holding beauty products. The stack of clean white towels next to the sink. “You think he meant something bad by the remark?”
“I think he’s ashamed of me, that’s what I think. What’s wrong with fixing hair, I’d like to know? It’s honest work—besides, I like to fix hair.”
“And there’s nothing that says you can’t continue and make more money while you’re at it. Let’s face it, Ruby, fewer and fewer people live out here. I bet you’d have a larger clientele in that gated community Mack talked about.”
“It just wouldn’t be the same. Town people are different.”
Nonny sat for a bit, watching Ruby struggle to regain her composure and wondering how to console her. “You might like it better. Think about it, a new house closer to shopping, and—”
“Would you move into town?”
Nonny sighed. “It’s different for me.”
“How’s it different? With your job, it would make more sense for you than me . . .” She paused. “Oh, I see. Because you’re younger, that’s what you mean.”
“Age has nothing to do with it. It’s just that I need my solitude.”
“Solitude? Why do you need solitude? It’s not normal for a woman to want to be alone unless. . . .” Ruby hesitated, her face flushing. “Unless maybe you’re, uh, you know.” She made a wiggle-waggle movement with a flattened hand.”
Nonny stared at Ruby. “What are you talking about?”
“It doesn’t affect my feeling for you one way or the other if you are a . . .” Again, Ruby made the wiggle-waggle movement. “Beside, no need for that these days. Even women hosts on those TV shows are marrying other women.”
“Are you saying . . .” Suddenly, Nonny did find the situation laughable. “I’m not a lesbian Ruby, if that’s what you’re implying. Not that I don’t have friends who are . . .” She gave her hand a wiggle waggle to finish out her sentence. Then she grew serious. “How the hell did we get off on me anyhow?”
Ruby thought a minute. “We were talking about why it’s okay for me to give up my house and not you.”
“The house doesn’t have anything to do with it, Ruby. A house is just a house.” Nonny lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. “Look, maybe we better stick to the business at hand.”
Opening the folder, she pulled out three packets of information, each with copies of plat maps attached that she copied from postal maps. Taking the three packets Ruby had divided home the night before, she sorted them by area to make the search go faster. She quickly explained how she had divided the packets to accommodate Ruby’s work, her postal route, and Mack’s ability to look at more remote properties.
Abruptly, Ruby let out a groan.
“What is it?” Nonny said. “Are you sick?”
“No . . . Well, yes, but not the kind of sick you’re talking about. How in the world are we going find the burying place of two long-dead mules? What was I thinking?”
“But you wanted to look for them.”
“I know, I know, but any sign of the graves would be long gone. Land might’ve gotten overgrown or everything plowed under. Lots of folks turn cattle into their fields now. Cows could’ve trampled everything into the ground.”
But marble’s indestructible, Nonny thought. Wondering if it was time to retrieve the receipt for Grace’s gravestone, she chose her next words carefully.
“What if I looked to see if Pa bought Grace a grave marker of some kind. People typically mark graves . . .”
Ruby rose from her chair and dumped the rest of her coffee down the drain. “I told you how I feel about that—”
“What are you carrying on about, Ruby?” Sister stood in the doorway.
“I am not carrying on—”
“I guess you are! People in the next county could hear you.”
“Bill and Jack,” Ruby snapped, picking up her folder of property listings and waving them at Sister. “We know where to look now but that there may not be any trace of them left to find. So I can’t fulfill my duties as Pa’s Assignee.”
“Maybe it’s not as hopeless as it seems,” Nonny interjected. “Remember, Grace was buried with Bill and Jack. And if Pa put up a marker for her—”
“He wouldn’t have done such a thing, not for a woman that deserted her children!”
Ignoring Nonny, Sister took the papers from Ruby’s hands and studied the map. “Was me, I’d look for Bill and Jack’s grave marker.”
Ruby glared at her sister. “There you go again, talking nonsense. Do you actually think Pa would buy a grave marker for mules?”
“Didn’t say he bought one.” Sister settled into one of the empty chairs and picked up the bags Nonny had finished crimping. “This all you got done? For pity sake, I can work faster than that.” Irritably, she began to fumble with the crimper.
“What do you mean, Sister?” Nonny took the crimper from the little woman’s hands. “Don’t worry with this. I’ll take the rest home with me. What did you mean, look for the marker Pa put up?”
“I mean he made a marker for them. Made it out of their doubletree.”
“Doubletree . . .” Nonny envisioned the pivoted wooden bar with metal fittings Grover Anderson would have used to hitch up his team. “You mean, Pa used the mules’ own harness to mark their graves?”
“You couldn’t remember that,” Ruby snapped. “You weren’t old enough . . .” Ruby hesitated, turning to Nonny. “Could she remember that?”
Nonny called up classes she had taken in educational psychology. “Well, she might. A child’s memory begins about the age of four.”
Sister gave Ruby a smug look. “I was older than that.”
“Well, I wasn’t,” Ruby snapped. “I don’t remember a thing.”
“I’m going back to my embroidery.” Sister pushed away from the table. “Mack’s gonna paint when he gets back and I got a few more bags to finish up.”
Ruby let out a sigh as Sister left the room. “Well good, now we got something to look for.” She poured another cup of coffee, picked up the crimper and bag of snaps, and mumbled as she worked. “I wasn’t even out of diapers, how would I remember something like that?”
Nonny felt an ache in her chest as she watched the woman who had no memories. She wanted to tell Ruby about the receipt for the headstone that Pa had bought for Grace, to show her the wording on it, but she knew to do so would be a mistake. For the woman not only had no memories, she didn’t want any. At least, not of her mother.
Nonny began to question all the time she had put into such a wasted effort, then numbed, realizing the truth of the matter. She had not searched out the information about Grace for Ruby’s sake. She had done it for herself. She was the one who needed to know that the woman had existed, had been born, lived and died.
A child’s memory begins at the age of four . . .
Nonny listened to the words that slipped uninvited into her mind and felt a sudden need to leave, to get away from Ruby Barlow and the house she grieved for. Without a word, she picked up her folder of properties, picked up the stack of mailbags on the table, and jerked the crimper and snaps out of Ruby’s hands.
“It’s just a house,” she told the startled Ruby. “You’re supposed to grieve for people—not houses.”
Nonny left Ruby sitting at the kitchen table without as much as a goodbye. She finished her work at the post office perfunctorily, then drove through evening shadows to a house set in a dark and isolated wood and worked at crimping snaps on mailbags far into the night. In solitude.
