Tarabelle intended to kill two birds with one stone. On my commencement day, she arrived at our house at noon with a picnic basket covered with a flower-patterned dishcloth.“Y’all got Mama ready to go?” she asked as she entered the house.
“We trying to get ready for Tan’s graduation,” Mushy informed her.“You can get Mama dressed.”
“Damn,” Tara mumbled, and placed her basket on the floor beside the couch. “I gotta watch her for y’all, and get her dressed, too? Where she at?”
“She back up in there somewhere,” Mushy answered. She was standing behind me, fastening the back of my dress, while I stared at myself in the mirror.“You pretty as a picture, Tan,” she said.“I’m so proud of you.”
“Thank you, Mushy,” I said.“I don’t think I would have made it without you.”
She winked at me. “You was born to make it.You done spent yo’ whole life talking ’bout that one piece of paper. I can’t wait to see it.”
On the couch, dressed in a pink dress, white socks and black shoes, Laura sat patiently waiting for us to finish dressing. From our bedroom came the voice of Tarabelle encouraging Mama to put her arms into the sleeves of a blouse.
“Maybe I better go help her,” Mushy suggested.
Mushy went into the bedroom, and Tarabelle came out. I don’t know why Laura missed the cues—Tara’s voice coming and Mushy’s going, the click and the clump of footsteps passing each other—but she did.When Tarabelle stepped into the front room, Laura was on her knees beside the couch rummaging through the picnic basket.
“You little thief!”Tarabelle shouted as she charged toward Laura. “You steal anything that ain’t nailed down.”
“I didn’t take nothing, Tara,” Laura cried, and moved swiftly out of harm’s way.“I was just trying to see.”
“See what? What this damn basket gotta do wit’ you?”Tarabelle snatched the basket up from the floor. “Everybody in this town talking ’bout yo’ little roguish ass.Ain’t nothing in the world worse than a thief,” she said, then shouted toward the bedroom, “Mushy, you better hurry up and send Mama on outta there before I change my mind, ’cause I’m gon’ have to hurt Laura out here. Little, low-down, dirty, thieving-ass, mangy dog.”
Laura sniffed her fingers, glanced down at her dress, then fled toward the bathroom while Tarabelle took her basket and went to wait on the front porch for Mama. I still stood in front of the mirror. A train thundered down the tracks behind the house, the house vibrated, and my reflection rippled in the glass. Soon, I thought. Soon.
It was beautiful, breezy, sunny, a perfect day for a graduation, and I wasn’t the least bit nervous.We were leaving the house at twelve-thirty for a one o’clock ceremony, so I wasn’t rushed, and although I had not written a valedictory speech, I knew exactly what I would say. I felt calm as I adjusted the garters on my stockings and stepped into my shoes. Glancing at the mirror once more, I thought I looked nice—real nice. My warped finger was not on the hand that would reach for my diploma, but on the hand that would shake Mr.Hewitt’s.The scars on my back were hidden beneath a lovely, new dress, and the brand on my leg was barely discernible through nylon stockings.
My mother stepped into the living room, briefly glanced in my direction, and winked an eye that did not appear nearly as dull as it had a week ago. I realized that the movement of her eye must have been involuntary. But it winked again, before she stepped across the threshold.
I watched my mother walk up the street behind my sister. Mushy had offered to drive them to Penyon Road, but Tara had insisted on walking, so they strode like strangers, with Tara several paces ahead.
“Who woulda ever thought Mama would be so pitiful?” Mushy asked as we left the house for the Plymouth School.“I keep thinking ’bout how she used to be and how she is now. I know she still sick ’cause if she wadn’t, she’d be going on and on ’bout me living wit’ Richard, and she ain’t said nothing yet.”
“She’s coming around,” I said.“Every day she seems to get better. Even her eyes look clearer.”
“Maybe,” Mushy agreed.
We rode in silence for a while, and were midway up the last hill when I asked, “Mushy, if I wasn’t here, and Mama got better, would you let her take Laura back to Penyon Road to live?”
“I guess I would,” she said.“I don’t know how I could stop her. Laura is Mama’s child; she ain’t mine.”
As the school building came into view, Mushy asked, “Tan, you planning on leaving here?”
I nodded.“Yeah.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Maybe later this year or next year.”
“You gon’ leave me stuck wit’ Mama? I came back down here to help you, now you just gon’ leave me stuck here?”
Mushy parked the car on the school lot, and turned to glare at me, waiting for an answer.
“I’m sorry, Mushy,” I said.“I wanna leave Pakersfield. I thought you’d understand.”
“You selfish, Tan,” she said solemnly, shaking her head as though I had disappointed her.“We all done got dressed up today to come see you graduate ’cause we care ’bout you, and we proud of you. We thought you’d get a job and help take care of Mama. Me and Richard done took care of you for these last few months, and this how you say thank you?”
“Thank you,” I mumbled as I opened the car door to get out.
We walked across the schoolyard side by side, but not together at all. Mushy, I was sure, was craving a drink of whiskey. It seemed to be her solution to anger and frustration—her coping remedy. Although, sooner or later, she would have to face the inevitability of my departure, I blamed myself for my timing and for putting a damper on a day that should have been special.
Friends and neighbors stood in small groups, enjoying each other’s company while waiting for the start of the graduation ceremony. We were greeted cheerfully, and responded somberly, as we made our way to the main door.
“We gon’ be here all day ’til it gets dark?” Laura asked.
“Probably a couple of hours,” I answered.“You’ll have plenty of time to play with Edna, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“It won’t be dark?” Laura asked.
“No, Laura, it won’t be dark,” Mushy answered irritably.“Why you keep asking that?”
“’Cause why Tara need lamps?” Laura asked.“Mama don’t let us turn on the lamps ’til it’s dark.”
Mushy halted in her tracks and glanced down at Laura. “What you talking about?” she asked. “You know Tara ain’t gon’ stay out there all day wit’ Mama.”
“Tara ain’t got no food in her basket,” Laura answered.“She just got something that smell like kerosene, and a box of matches to light the lamps.”
“Shit!” Mushy whispered.“She gon’ set the damn house on fire. Tan, I’m gon’ drive out there before she do something stupid. I’ll try to make it back in time to see you graduate.”
“I’m going with you,” I said.“Laura, you go inside and wait for Harvey or Martha Jean.”
“Don’t tell Tara that I told,” Laura pleaded.
We saw the smoke and flames even before we turned off of Fife Street onto Penyon Road. Mushy, gripping the steering wheel, was swearing so fast that it came out as a chant. I was praying much the same way.
As we rounded the bend, we saw a shower of sparks drift down from the burning house to land in the field.Almost immediately, a small area of dry weeds began to burn. Up on the hill, smoke swelled from the broken window of Mama’s room and through the front door.Angry, orange flames blazed through the walls of the house and licked at the tin roof.
“Damn! Damn!” Mushy shouted. She stopped the car and shifted into reverse. “I can’t park next to the field.”
She was backing the car toward Fife when I glanced up the hill once more and saw my mother standing in a cascade of cinders. Her arms were outstretched as she whirled around like a child enjoying a spring rain.
“Let me out, Mushy!” I cried.“Stop the car! I think I see Mama.”
Mushy braked the car on the gully side of the road, and we both jumped out and raced toward the doomed house.The fire department did not cross the city line, and even if they did, they wouldn’t have been able to save anything.The room where I had spent the nights of my youth was no more. It had caved into the gully. Fire climbed the back wall of what had once been the front room, and the coal stove had dropped and rolled down the incline to be halted midway by burning rubble. Mama’s room, the hallway, half of the front porch, and all of the front steps were standing, but teetering toward collapse.
The smoke was frightening, and I could feel the intense heat from the fire as I scurried up the bank and into the yard. Mushy and I reached Mama at the same time, shouting the same thing, “Where’s Tara?”
Mama whirled in a world that revolved around her.Around and around she turned until I gripped her shoulders and brought her to a standstill. It took a few seconds before her eyes focused on me, and all the while Mushy and I were asking where Tara was.
“Where’s Tara, Mama?” I screamed once more.
Mama pointed toward the remains of the house.“She up in the house somewhere,” she answered calmly.
“No!” Mushy cried.“No, Mama!”
Across the road, the field was now burning out of control. I knew there was a possibility of embers igniting the foliage surrounding the gully, and if that happened, we could be trapped in blinding smoke. Even knowing that, we stayed where we were.
With tears streaming down her face, nearly hysterical, Mushy patted a hand against her chest, above her heart.“I don’t believe my sister is in there,” she cried. “If she was in there, I’d have that bad feeling right here. I don’t feel it.”
I knew exactly what she meant, and I didn’t feel it, either.“Take Mama out of here,” I said. “I’ll look around back for Tara.”
Mushy nodded and tried to move Mama toward the road, but Mama wouldn’t budge. “Come on, Mama, I gotta get you outta here!” Mushy shouted, tugging Mama by an arm.
Confident that Mushy would get Mama to safety—even if she had to hit her over the head and drag her away from the fire—I rushed toward the backyard, keeping as far away from the house as I could. Flames feeding greedily on dried lumber did not yet reach out into the yard, but I was cautious. I quickly scanned the rear of the house where wood crackled and crumbled at the kitchen’s corner, and the overhanging branch of a honey locust smoldered.
Tarabelle was nowhere, yet she had to be somewhere—down in the gully, under a bush, long gone from here—anywhere, except in the hell that was burning in front of me. I called out her name but got no answer.
I could see the rear wall of the house shifting beneath the roof. I stepped back along the path that led to the woods, putting distance between me and a charred wall whose fall in some direction was imminent. It roared as it separated from foundation and roof, then struck the ground, sending burning embers flying through the air. The roaring increased; it was the metallic cry of disintegrating tin.
Smoke, that had been drifting upward, now streamed out over the gully and toward the woods. My eyes watered; my throat itched, and when I tried once again to call Tara’s name, I began to cough. I stepped off of the path toward the outhouse, not quite ready to end my search, heading for the small space between the outhouse and the woods that would lead me safely back to the side yard and down to the road.
Someone had turned on the faucet in the yard.Water sprayed from the spout and hit the ground, sending a muddy stream cascading like blood, down the bank and onto the road.
Through the smoke, I saw stick figures coming toward me. “Is there anything we can do?” they asked.
If there was anything to be done, I would have done it.
I shook my head in response to their questions, and I was suddenly struck with that feeling of loss that neither Mushy nor I had felt earlier.Down on the road, Angus Betts and one of his deputies stood staring up at the burning house.They had come without my knowledge, without a siren, as though they had known there was no help to be given.
“Mushy tells me your sister is in there,” the sheriff said.
I nodded, and kept walking until I reached the spot where Mushy was waiting with Mama. I climbed onto the back seat, but for the longest time Mushy did not start the car. She stared straight ahead through the windshield, as though she expected Tarabelle to leap from the fire and smoke unharmed.
Behind us, on Fife Street, the Pakersfield Fire Department was hosing down the field on the city side of the line.