How Lulu Lost Her Mind

by Rachel Gibson

  “Are you okay?” Lindsey asks as she passes me in the hall.

  Now is the time to tell her. “Yeah.” Mom’s nurse needs to be informed of what’s been happening when she walks out of Mom’s bedroom, but I know Mom would feel conspired against and turn Rattlesnake on both of us. “Just thinking about your party.” Lindsey would become the new Wynonna. “What do you think of a diaper relay race?” I totally make up. “Instead of a baton, you hand off a diaper.”

  Lindsey opens her mouth but shuts it again. “Great.”

  There’s no reason to ruin the baby shower. I can keep an eye on Mom, and Lindsey and I can discuss Mom’s pill stashing after the party.

  For short periods during the rest of the day, I forget the pills are in my pocket. I give Raphael fresh food and water and do laundry. Then something reminds me and I get jumpy, watching and waiting for something to happen.

  When Mom goes to bed, I brush her hair and watch her shows and stay with her until she falls asleep. If I’m with Mom when Lindsey gives her her medication and insist on staying until she starts snoring, she can’t do anything with her pills.

  I shake her shoulder for good measure before I leave her room. She doesn’t respond, so I drag myself up the long staircase and shut my bedroom door behind me. My shorts hit the floor as I undress for bed; the pills are still in the pocket. I’ll get rid of them tomorrow. No rush. Tonight, I just want to sleep. I am emotionally exhausted, but of course my mind races and I stare at the heavy wooden tester above my head, tossing and turning, thinking of problems without solutions. I still haven’t found a Lulu replacement, and Margie thinks it’s because subconsciously I can’t let go. I don’t think that’s the reason, although perhaps I am looking for someone just like me and that’s not realistic.

  After an hour, I give up and turn on the light. I brought the letters I’d found in the steamer trunk upstairs with me and I untie the blue ribbon that binds them.

  The first is from Grandmother. I carefully take it from the envelope and unfold the yellowed paper. Her words and handwriting are as flowery as her stationery. She calls Grandfather “beloved Louis” or “darling Louis” or “Louis, my love.” She writes that “Patricia is getting to be such a big girl and talks up a storm. Her favorite words are ‘gimme dat,’ spoken like a barefoot Cajun.” She ends the letters with, “Your loving and faithful wife, Lily.”

  My grandmother’s early life sounds just like her—lively and whimsical. With each letter, I can almost hear her voice in my head as she talks about sweet magnolia breezes waking her each morning, listening to the world’s most wonderful jazz on Bourbon Street, and handing out books to precious colored children for the Junior League. In one of the letters, she sends a photo of Mom and herself posing with a “hurdy-gurdy man and his petite macaque in Jackson Square.” In another, she sends locks of hair from both her and Mom. She writes of missing him and longing for his safe return.

  Grandfather’s handwriting is perfect. Perfectly spaced letters and words in perfectly straight sentences across the unlined page. He writes the date in the upper left-hand corner and begins with, “To my wife, Lily.” He says he misses his “girls and wish I was there to kiss Patricia good night.” Mostly he talks about his duty, the latest in army gadgets, and the magnificent sunset. He ends all his letters with, “Your husband, Louis G. Jackson.”

  I’m disappointed that the only sense I get of my grandfather is that he was a dud. His letters are formal and relatively boring. He writes of the things he does and sees, but it’s like reading a travel guide or Military Life for Dummies. The only real hint of emotion is spent on descriptions of places and sunsets and how he “longs for a Sazerac at Arnaud.”

  I can’t imagine my grandmother married to Louis. She seems as flighty as he seems stiff. She writes of love and longing for his safe return. He writes of sunsets and longing for a Sazerac. They seem so mismatched that it makes me wonder if she and Louis would have stayed married if he hadn’t been killed. Papa Bob was much better suited for Grandmother and her internal timer.

  The last letter from Grandfather is dated November 2, 1953. It’s loose and worn in the folded creases as if it was read many times.

  My dearest heart,

  This separation is killing me. I long for the days when I am with you again. The memory of the last time I held you in my arms is such sweet torture. It sustains my darkest days, yet makes me long for you all the more. I loathe the world that keeps us apart and the miles that separate our hearts. I do not despair, knowing that you await my return.

  Yet, dearest love, if anything should happen to me, know that I shall call to you unafraid. Know that your name is a whisper on my lips. Listen for it and know that I died loving you.

  Yours always,

  Louis

  Wow, my eyes are a little misty. Grandfather wasn’t such a dud after all. Beneath that cold exterior, he had a romantic heart. Like me when I started the Lulu blogs. Maybe we have more in common than a horrible widow’s peak.

  At the bottom of the pile is an envelope. It’s empty except for a newspaper clipping, tattered and browned from age. Below Grandfather’s military photograph reads,

  Jackson, Battle Victim Wife Told He Died a Hero

  Mrs. Louis Jackson of St. James Parish was notified that her husband, Major Louis Gene Jackson, had been killed in Korea on the date of November 24, 1953.

  On the thin margin of the notice is written in faded black pen, Louie. Love of my life. I am demolished.

  That’s lovely and heart-wrenching. I know that Grandmother was flighty, but it’s good to learn that at one time she did feel something for Grandfather—before she forgot about him and ran off with her first cousin.

  I wonder if Louis called out to Grandmother, if her name was a whisper on his lips as he died. My eyes get a little mistier, and I wipe at the corners. He wrote his last letter to Grandmother less than a month before he died. It’s romantic and heartbreaking— no wonder Grandmother read it until the creases wore thin. I can’t wait to read them all to Mom.

  I refold the worn letter and tuck it, along with the newspaper clipping, into the empty envelope so I won’t lose anything. My mind flashes to my grandparents’ wedding photo, and Jasper and Jed in matching scowls and identical dark suits. I wonder if my grandfather knew the uncles were gay. I imagine not. At that time, homosexuality was against the law, and no one talked about it. It was kept on the real down low. Most gay men got married or were confirmed bachelors with a flair for fashionable pocket squares.

  I gaze at all the envelopes lying on my bed, then return my attention to the one in my hand. It’s postmarked November 3, 1953, and addressed to Jedediah R. Sutton, Royal Street, New Orleans. I recognize the tight handwriting.

  One of these things is not like the others.

  I slide the letter and clipping from the envelope and compare dates. I reread everything and my mind spins in circles, but it’s ultimately what I don’t see that stops me.

  One of these things just doesn’t belong.

  Nowhere in the last letter does Grandfather talk about sunsets and camp shovels. He doesn’t refer to Grandmother or anyone by name. I hold up the news clipping and take another look at the handwriting in the margin. It’s not looping and feminine like Grandmother’s. It’s thin and slopes severely to the right. Louie. Love of my life. I am demolished was not written by Grandmother, and nowhere in any of her letters does she call him Louie.

  “Oh my God,” I say out loud. The letter wasn’t written to my grandmother.

  Mom’s snores fill my room, and I look at the monitor.

  Grandfather “Louie” was as gay as a box of sprinkles.

  20

  July 13

  Mom flirts at the Cheesecake Factory.

  A display case of men.

  Choices.

  WE’VE CIRCLED July 25 for Lindsey’s baby shower and set out in the red beast for our second shopping trip together. This time I will not be talked into boots and a twenty-dollar trim.
First on our list, Party City. Of course, Mom complains about her neck all the way there. She’s in a cranky mood, and I wonder if she looked in her little jewelry box and discovered her missing pills. As we get a cart, she throws the stink eye at two loud teens looking at wigs.

  “Kids these days.”

  I grab a cart and test the waters. “Are you going to be okay?”

  “My neck’s kinked up from your driving.”

  I’ve kept my eyes on Mom for a month now, and she hasn’t opened the drawer in her bedside table. “I only kinked your neck once.” At least not at night.

  “Three times.”

  If something other than a kinked neck were responsible for her mood, she’d let me know. “It’s a big car. I can’t help it.” I defend myself on the way to the baby shower section.

  “Lindsey doesn’t kink my neck.”

  I point to a big Mylar balloon in the shape of a baby bottle. “We should get that,” I say to distract her.

  “It’s huge!”

  I find the aisle with baby shower supplies and stop at the blue section, where Mother and I argue over the “Beary Cute” party theme or the “Little Peanut” party theme. Mother gets her way, and we go with Little Peanut. The smallest party kit is for twelve people, and I toss it in the cart. I guess we’ll be using elephant paper plates, cups, napkins, and plastic flatware for a while. I throw in some blue streamers, tissue pom-poms, and wrapping paper while Mom loads the cart with an Advice for Parents baby shower book, an elephant cake topper, and matching favor boxes. I don’t know who she thinks we’re giving out favors to, but what the hell. We’re having fun, and whatever we don’t find today, I can order and have delivered.

  I load everything into the back of the Escalade and strap Mom into the passenger side. Next stop, Lakeside Shopping Center and its 130 stores. On the way, I kink Mom’s neck only twice. Progress.

  I know that Lindsey has mentioned some baby furniture she’s ordered, but I thought Mom and I could get her a little bed for when Frankie is downstairs. I pick out a beautiful white wicker cradle that you can take out of the stand and use as a Moses basket. Mom is fascinated with a fifteen-hundred-dollar cradle that detects the baby’s sounds and motions and automatically rocks and plays downloaded music tracks. I win this debate, but Mom picks out the blue checked bedding.

  We move from store to store, suckers for every cute onesie we see. Believe me, there are a lot of them, and who knew there were so many choices in baby blankets and strollers? Not me, and Mom seems just as confused. I make an executive decision and get the car-seat-and-stroller combo. Mom manages to find a bottle that looks like a boob and a plush elephant with a blue necktie.

  “It’s like the Dumbo you had as a kid,” she says.

  Not quite, but that’s a mistake that anyone could easily make. “Remember when you used to sing ‘Baby of Mine’?”

  “No.” She scowls and wrings her hands. “I never did that.”

  Crap. I forgot that “remember” can set her off. “That’s right. I got confused,” I tell her to defuse the situation. “I used to love it when you sang to me.”

  She nods and her scowl softens. “I was a good singer.”

  We’re done by noon, and for the first time, I’m glad of the big red beast. With the seats folded down, everything fits in the back.

  Mom wants to have lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. I suggest P. F. Chang’s. She wins, of course, and it turns out to be the cherry on top of her day, which has nothing to do with the food and everything to do with our very handsome waiter.

  “What’s your name?” Mom asks as he takes our drink order.

  “Tyson, ma’am.”

  Just like it says on his name tag. I don’t know if Mom really can’t read it, or if she’s flirting.

  “Oohh.” Her voice gets low and seductive. “That’s a nice name.”

  Flirting. Tyson is probably twenty-five, looks like a California surfer, and has a Southern-boy drawl.

  “He’s so handsome,” Mom whispers as he walks away. “And single.”

  I hardly even think about rolling my eyes. Huge progress. “How do you know? He could have a girlfriend.”

  She shrugs and takes a sip of her water. “Dating isn’t the same as married.”

  Like that would stop her.

  The menu is enormous, and Mom makes me read it to her several times before she decides on a grilled pork chop. But when Tyson reappears with our tea and is ready to take our order, she’s forgotten. Maybe. He patiently goes over the menu with her again. “I’m so grateful, Tyson” and “Bless your heart” spill from her flirting lips. “I’ll have the grilled pork chop,” Mom orders.

  I look at the smile on her fuchsia lips, and I’m not sure her memory slip isn’t contrived.

  “You’re damn foxy,” she says before he can take my order.

  “Thank you, cher.”

  Lord, Mom practically swoons into a puddle right there in her side of the booth.

  I order fish tacos, but I don’t get called sweetheart. Of course, I don’t call him foxy, either. As I watch him walk away, my gaze falls from the back of his apron to his round behind, and I don’t feel an ounce of shame. I am becoming my mother. Either that or I’ve depleted my willpower to resist temptation. I can’t even recall the last time I went on a date—a real date. The kind where you spend two hours getting ready and the anticipation of his kiss steals your breath before he even knocks on your door. The closest I’ve come to that was the night Simon kissed me on the front porch. That kiss certainly stole my breath; the slow build from hot to hotter and the smooth touch of his lips against mine. My hands on his back, sliding south to his behind. I clear my throat and reach for my tea. I haven’t seen Simon since he and his crew finished their work a few weeks ago. The railing and stairs are beautiful, but maybe he can come over and give me a bid for… something. Something that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Like replacing the broken doorknob in the pink bedroom upstairs. That should cost only several thousand.

  “Oh, look at him,” Mom says, then starts to comment on different men as if the Cheesecake Factory is just one big display case. “Look at that one’s muscles.”

  Tyson sets our plates on the table, and Mom asks him if he is single.

  “I’m waiting for the right lady,” he says, and gives her a flirty wink.

  “I think he has a big crush on me,” Mom whispers as he walks away. “Don’t you?”

  More like he wants a big tip, is what I think.

  “I found some letters Grandmother and Grandfather wrote to each other when he was in Korea,” I tell her as I unroll my fork and knife. I haven’t mentioned the letters before now because I’ve been digging deeper for information on Jed. There really wasn’t much, until last night when I came across a note that he’d written to his mother, thanking her for the hundred dollars she’d sent him.

  Mom takes her eyes from Tyson’s behind and turns to look at me. “Daddy was a war hero.”

  “I know.” I’m not a handwriting expert, but Jed’s is thin and slopes severely to the right, just like the writing in the margins of Grandfather’s death notice. “I’ll read you the letters when we get home.” I don’t know if Grandmother knew that her husband and her brother were lovers, but it is the kind of discovery that could send a woman into the arms of her first cousin. It would explain why we know so little about Louis.

  “I don’t remember my daddy.”

  I don’t believe Mom knows anything, because there are two things that Mom has never been able to keep: a husband and a secret. I’m sure Louis and Jed’s relationship isn’t the only skeleton in the two-hundred-year-old Sutton closet. Not that it really matters, but it is extremely unfair that Grandmother is buried in the sinners’ corner while Jed has a tomb with the rest of the family.

  “I think you’re really going to like hearing your dad’s letters.”

  As it turns out, she finds them as boring as I did.

  “He was a war hero, all right.” Mom does li
ke Grandmother’s, but for the most part, she shows more interest in folding the tiny onesies we bought for Frankie, and I leave the letter to Jed in its envelope. It’s best that she thinks of her father only as a war hero.

  “What’s this one say?” Mom asks, and holds up a tiny shirt with a blue llama on it.

  I look up from the stack of letters I’m tying back up with the old blue ribbon.

  “ ‘Ain’t No Llama Like the One I Got.’ ”

  We’ve enclosed ourselves in my office with most of the baby shower gifts. The stroller is still in the back of the Escalade because it’s too big to get in the house without Lindsey seeing.

  Mom holds up a onesie with a Star Wars stormtrooper. “ ‘Storm Pooper.’ ”

  Mom claps her hands together and laughs, and it isn’t until I start to wrap them in Little Peanut paper that I realize just how many poop-themed shirts Mom picked out.

  “That one?”

  “ ‘Party Pooper.’ ” She laughs harder and points at another. “ ‘Poops I Did It Again.’ ”

  I can see the party now: Mom laughing about pooper onesies, and Lindsey and I laughing at Mom laughing about pooper onesies. Even though it’s just going to be the three of us, I think we’ll have a good time.

  But later, when Mom and I are watching The Price Is Right, Lindsey announces, “Jim’s coming to the baby shower. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “That’s fine. We had to buy twelve table settings,” I tell her as I braid Mom’s hair.

  She hands Mom a sleeping pill and a glass of water. “He might bring his sister.” Mom puts it in her mouth and takes a drink. I watch her swallow as I put an elastic at the end.

  Lindsey leaves the room, and Mom lowers the volume on the television. “Go get Momma’s letters,” she says as she wipes cheese dust from her chest.

  I hesitate. Did she fake swallow? Is she trying to get rid of me so she can check on her other pills?

  “Daddy’s too. I want to hear them again.”

  I toss the brush on the bedside chest and walk from her room, pausing just outside the door. My heart picks up a few beats as I wait for the drawer to open and an angry outburst to commence. I give it a good minute, and when nothing happens, I rush to grab the bundle of letters from my desk. Back in her room, we make ourselves cozy against Mom’s pillows, and I read her the “good parts” of Grandmother’s letters that mention her.