Briggs Western
1957
F rom the outside, the building revealed nothing of its contents. It was large and gray and stone, and took up an entire city block as well as a good portion of the air above it. It might have been an armory or an office building or a place where they made safety pins. But when you pushed through those glass doors—well, at the time Silla found it almost too wonderful.
“This used to be your granddaddy’s store,” said her father, bending to speak into her ear. And even though it wasn’t called Briggs Western anymore, being inside something that once held her family’s name gave Silla a sense that she had come from someplace special.
She leaned back, letting her gaze climb to the soaring ceiling, the lights above her looking like stars glowing in a sunlit sky. Around her were curved displays of glass and shiny metal, illuminated seemingly from within to showcase the immaculate rows of purses and gloves and scarves that they contained. Ladies with bright eyes smiled at her from behind the counters as their fingers moved over the buttons of the cash registers like they were the keys of a piano. Everywhere around her, there was color and sound and beauty.
“You can get anything you want, sugar,” said her father. Today was Silla’s eighth birthday and he had taken her back to the town where she was born to “tie up some loose ends,” as he put it, before his wedding to Hattie. Silla supposed that meant standing in lobbies and sitting at desks while papers were signed and stamped and signed and stamped, as that’s how they had spent their morning. But now that was done and she was here and it had been worth the wait.
She looked to the far wall of the store. Against it was shelf after shelf of stuffed animals, next to a display with bins of bright foil-wrapped candy. Her father saw her eyeing them. “Go on,” he encouraged. “Go pick something out.”
She took tentative steps, feeling the soft soles of her shoes meet that hard marble floor as her father walked next to her. She reached a round, tiered table, the perimeter of which was lined with dolls all looking out with a glass-eyed calm. “You like this one?” her daddy asked, lifting a blond one off the shelf. “This one’s pretty.”
She looked at it for a moment, but didn’t know exactly how to answer. The blond doll looked the same as all the others—same nose, same lips, same arms that reached out to a person it couldn’t see. Only its dress was different. From behind her came a gentle voice. “May I help you?”
Silla and her father both turned at once. There stood an older woman, small with a body that didn’t look thin so much as deflated. Her shoulders were hunched forward over her flat breasts and her dark gray hair was pulled back into a small bun. She wore a skirt and hose that bagged a bit at her ankles, above the shoes into which her bent feet seemed awkwardly contorted. When she saw Silla’s father, her eyes narrowed with recognition that seemed to try to slither from her mind’s grasp.
“We’re just having a look around,” answered her father, stiffening slightly, giving a tense but polite nod as he angled his body back toward the display.
But Silla watched the lady, watched as her eyes drifted away as if with the tide of a memory. Suddenly, they snapped back to her father. “Excuse me,” said the woman, “but aren’t you Lee Harris?” The quaver in her genteel old Southern voice gave her an air of authority.
Silla’s father looked down at his feet for a steadying moment before turning around with a cordial but restrained smile. “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a nod.
She gasped, her hands clasped in front of her. “Why, I was at your wedding,” she said, as if it was a thought she hadn’t meant to speak aloud. “To Martha.” Her eyes flickered to Silla.
“You don’t say,” replied Lee with a nervous chuckle, as he rested his hand on Silla’s back, beginning to steer her away from the woman.
“Yes, I’ve been working here since it was Briggs Western,” she said, as if he had doubted her. “I worked for Mr. Benson Briggs when I was just a girl.”
“Isn’t that something,” said Lee. Then he nodded. “If you’ll excuse us.” He scooped Silla up onto his hip and began making for the door and as he did, Silla looked back at the woman. She was leaning against the display, looking at Silla with that troubled expression that she hadn’t seen much since they’d moved away from here.
“She knew my mama?” asked Silla, bouncing with her father’s steps. “Before she died?” But her father didn’t answer. He navigated quickly through the enormous store and back toward those glass doors.
He had pushed through them and into the thick, hot air outside before he spoke again. Stopping on the sidewalk, he set Silla down and looked at her, his hands on his hips, his brow creased. “You know Hattie’s going to be just like a mother to you, don’t you, sugar?” Silla nodded and her father smiled, the relief rushing out with his breath. Then he pinched her cheek. “You’re going to have the prettiest mother in the whole world.”