[5]

My mother’s father, 1978
Becca

Becca’s mother, Mary, drummed her fingers on the table. She didn’t like fried chicken, so of course her mother, Edna Wickle, had fried chicken for dinner. Mary didn’t want to be here, but Edna had telephoned and said, “I’d like you to come home. I think if you talk to your sister, it’ll make a difference. Plus, I’m getting up there in years. I’d like to see my granddaughter.”

Mary’s younger sister, Claire, was depressed and fat.

Her father used to say, “You’re lucky, Mary. You have a nice figure. Not like Claire.” He somehow thought things between them were good and normal, while every day Mary imagined the horses trampling him, an accidental shooting, a tractor mishap.

There was a scar on her lower back—the imprint of his belt buckle.

“I think if you talk to Claire, she’ll listen. She admires you.”

He lost his head. He didn’t mean it. That’s what her mother had said.

Now Edna wiped the countertop with a dishrag and opened the freezer. “Do you think Becca will want strawberry or vanilla?”

Mary brushed a few crumbs from the table into her palm.

“I’ve always liked strawberry,” Edna said.

“Are you even going to ask how I’m doing?”

“How are you?”

“Rowe’s in the garage most nights.” Mary tossed the crumbs in the trash.

“Becca’s not allergic to strawberry, is she? My aunt Lucille was allergic. It could run in the family. I hear a good many people have strawberry allergies. I can’t imagine.”

“You’re not listening.”

“No, Mary. I hear you. Your husband spends a lot of time in the garage.” Edna shut the freezer. “He likes cars, right? Fancy cars?”

“Right.”

“And I asked you: What do you think I should do about Claire? She’s my daughter who lives here with me, and she’s very sad.”

“I think Claire’s depressed because you let Dad treat us like dogs. She fell in love with that idiot Tom because he’s worthless like Dad was.”

Edna opened the freezer again. “I guess Becca could have strawberry and vanilla.”

“Mom!”

Edna thought that Mary’s confrontations were annoying. “And your husband spends his time in the garage because of your father? Why do you do this, Mary?”

“Because he was a bastard and you didn’t do anything.”

“Your father wasn’t perfect, but he never claimed to be. Is Rowan? Men aren’t angels, Mary. Strawberry or vanilla?” Edna set two half-gallons of ice cream on the table. “I don’t have chocolate. I can’t stand it. You ought to try talking to Claire in the morning. Be subtle, I think. She’s better-spirited in the morning.”

“Why didn’t you stop Dad?”

Edna put her hands on her hips and faced Mary. “I didn’t know you were coming home for this. Your father’s buried. You can’t blame him for your life. You’d think with all that schooling you’d know that.”

“Dad was a bastard. That’s what’s wrong with Claire.”

“How long has your father been dead? I haven’t seen you in four years!”

“Six!”

Edna put the vanilla and strawberry back in the freezer. “See that Becca gets some ice cream. I’m going to bed.” She was tired, and there wasn’t time for regret. Since her husband passed, her story had changed. She prayed every morning and played the organ at church. She believed that a kitchen should be the center of things, and kept busy canning and cooking for church dinners and invalids. She’d long ago left the bigger upstairs kitchen to the cobwebs. It’s not functional. She slept in a room adjoining the basement kitchen. There was hardly reason to go upstairs these days. Too many rooms to clean.

On his deathbed, fearing God, her husband, Clayton Wickle, had said, “I was tough on the girls because I wanted them to be tough. The world’s not an easy place.” He’d had good intentions. Still, he’d been wrong—the way he treated them was wrong. Flinging that stupid belt around. Bullying Mary. Neither of his daughters was tough. If anything, they were weak. Always desperate and pleading, the two of them. Poor Mary couldn’t let the past go. If only she understood how short life is.

Edna left Mary and Mary’s resentment in the kitchen. She shouldn’t have asked her to come home. Still, she’d wanted to know her only grandchild, and she was short on time. Tomorrow she’d talk to Mary. She’d try again to tell her daughter, I love you. Please stop blaming me for what your father did. We did the best we could. Edna wanted resolution. She wanted peace. It was the Lord’s way. It was her way.

She went to bed to dream. Nearly every night now for weeks, she dreamed of her own mother, young and beautiful, and in the dream Edna was a girl, and she could smell lavender. Her mother had always kept satchels of dried lavender in the folded laundry. When Edna woke, she caught whiffs of lavender. She was sleeping more and more.

Mary didn’t want Becca fat. She didn’t offer her strawberry or vanilla. Instead she went to bed on a cot in the basement den. Attached to the kitchen, the room smelled like fried chicken. There was a low ceiling with exposed wood beams, and a brick floor. Except for Claire’s bedroom, the upstairs rooms were shut up. After her father’s death, her mother moved into the basement where the farmhands and Willis, her mother’s domestic helper, had slept. Willis used to say, “I’m nobody’s maid. I’m a cook and a dishwasher.” She’d worked for them three days a week, eight a.m. to six p.m., before going to bed in the same room where Edna now slept. Mary felt sick being here. She wished she’d never brought Becca to Prospect, Virginia. The sooner the days passed, the sooner she’d be driving home to Chapel Hill. She closed her eyes, desperate for sleep, picturing her old brown work boots worn thin at the ankles, heels touching, just inside the main door upstairs. She remembered stuffing her socks inside and tiptoeing to her bedroom. Always trying to be invisible.

She remembered the feel of her bare toes on the cold floor; hanging her winter coat with the soiled black sleeves on the pine rack her father made. Sometimes the coat dropped to the floor in a foul-smelling heap and she wanted to leave it right there, but she’d bend down to pick it up. She remembered being afraid. He would yell, “Girl, what are you up to?”

Don’t think about it, Mary, she thought. There’s no one yelling anything anymore. There’s only the whisper of Claire’s TV. But her mind wouldn’t listen: If there’s a hell, I hope he’s rotting there. I hope he’s suffering. Mary’s rage kept her up most of the night.

At nearly nine o’clock, the sun was only now setting. Becca kissed her grandma’s dog, Bo, on the nose. “Good night.”

The house was quiet; everyone in bed. Becca went to her grandma’s room and undressed quickly. She hadn’t expected to like her mother’s mother, having heard from her father that Edna was “a simpleton,” and “a real pain in the rear,” but Grandma Edna was hard not to like. Becca pulled the covers back and climbed into the twin bed across from her grandma’s. According to her mother, a long time ago slaves had slept in this room. The room had a dank smell. The plaster walls were lumpy and the exposed bricks were faded and nicked. Grandma Edna was talking in her sleep! She was so different from Becca’s other grandmother. Neither woman, she knew, had attended her mom and dad’s wedding. People are stupid. Becca felt sorry for Aunt Claire, who was sad and fat, reminding Becca of the ladies she saw at the Piggly Wiggly, their hair in pink curlers, their carts full of Twinkies and potato chips. It was hard to believe her mother and Aunt Claire were related. Aunt Claire was the kind of woman who disgusted Becca’s dad. He said that fat people had no excuse. “Stop eating cheeseburgers.”

Upstairs, Claire watched an episode of The Love Boat. She tried calling her ex-boyfriend Tom twenty-six times (using a rotary phone). His line was busy.