Betty

by Tiffany McDaniel

  I did what I thought Dad would have. I went outside to the garage. I expected it to be empty, but I found Lint standing beneath the herbs hanging from the ceiling.

  “What you doin’?” I asked him.

  “I like to be out here while the p-p-plants are dryin’.”

  “I have to make a tea for Flossie.” I started searching the shelves.

  “What’s w-w-wrong with her?”

  “She’s got a pain. Wanna help me make somethin’ for her?”

  Together we grabbed jars of chamomile, valerian root, and wild ginger. We dumped them into the hollow tree trunk by the garage. Using Dad’s pestle, we ground the blossoms and roots, scraping them out with our hands and dumping them into a pot. We collected river water in the bucket and boiled the ground pieces until the liquid became a dark tea.

  “This will h-h-help her,” Lint said, pouring some into a wooden cup.

  I carefully carried the tea inside. When I handed it to Flossie, I saw she had written, in black pen, I hate you over the bloodstain on the sheet.

  She took a drink but spit it back out.

  “It tastes like squirrel piss,” she said. “I thought you were gonna do somethin’ to help me, Betty?”

  I stepped over to the radio and turned it on. It was playing a song I knew Flossie liked. As she held her stomach, I took the sheet beneath her off the corners of the bed, then pulled it from under her. Taking the pen she had used to write I hate you, I laid the sheet on the floor and turned the words into the swirling patterns of a dress that the blood stain became once I gave it sleeves and a skirt. Extending from the sleeves, I drew arms. Beneath the hemline, two legs. From the collar, I carefully made the neck and head of a girl with long hair that stuck out from her head in the five points of a star.

  “Who is she?” Flossie asked.

  “Our Cherokee great-great-great-great-grandmother when she was a girl,” I said. “She dreamed of bein’ a star, too.”

  I held the sheet up and started twirling with the drawn girl to the music.

  “You know there’s a Cherokee legend that says if you stop dancin’, the world stops,” I said. “I think the women in our family must have danced all the time. I think they danced when they were born. When they first saw the highest flyin’ bird. When they ran the river the entire length to prove they could when everyone else said they couldn’t. And I know they danced when they first bled. That’s why a tea ain’t gonna help you none, Flossie. You’ve got to dance, because it’s what the women in our family have always done for the things in their life. It’s why the world never stopped, because no matter what change or pain came to them, the women danced. They knew the world had to go on in order to see all the good things that came out of that change and pain. You don’t want the world to end do you, Flossie? You’ll never be a star then.”

  She watched me dance with the sheet, pulling it through the air like a ribbon twirling from the ends of my fingers. Without saying a word, she got up and took hold of the opposite edge until the sheet was stretched between us and the drawn girl was staring up at the ceiling. We spun and laughed. The room around us disappeared in our minds as we danced until we were in a clearing at night. The sky, starless. We lifted the sheet higher and higher, the drawn girl shooting up into the sky and breaking apart into a billion pieces of light.

  25

  Let the woman learn in silence.

  —1 TIMOTHY 2:11

  When Mom’s dad died a month later, I didn’t mind. I was surprised, though, when Mom said we were going to his funeral. It was Mamaw Lark who had called to tell us he was dead. Mom picked up the phone, listened, and said, “Okay.” Then she was in her room, laying out a black dress. Okay. She sat at the vanity and brushed her hair in slow strokes. Okay.

  She picked up the one perfume she had. White Shoulders. She slipped off her blouse. Wearing only her bra, she sprayed the perfume on her own white shoulders. She spritzed pump after pump until the perfume ran down her arms and dripped to the floor from the crooks of her elbows. The whole room smelled like a summer of pale flowers. When the perfume was used up, she stared at the empty bottle and began to cry.

  “Mom?” I took a step into her room, which suddenly felt no bigger than a crawlspace.

  “It’s all gone,” she said, her fallen tears mixing with the perfume.

  Instead of taking another step forward, I took a step back. I didn’t know how to comfort a woman who used all of her one good perfume so she wouldn’t have to face the aching truth that even though her father was now dead, what he had done to her would always live.

  Grandpappy’s funeral was the next day. Leland was driving in from Alabama to attend and would meet us at the funeral home. Mom made sure Trustin and Lint tied their hair in low ponytails. They’d both been growing their hair out and it was now to their midback.

  “And, Betty,” she called from her bedroom down to me in mine, “make sure you wear a clean dress. No berry stains on it or earthworms in the pockets or—”

  I stepped into her room wearing my best dress. The one with the pleats in the skirt and the scalloped collar. I did not dress to mourn, but to celebrate that an evil man was now gone from this world.

  “Well, don’t you look nice.” She looked at me as if she just then realized I was no longer five years old.

  She lowered her eyes to my chest.

  “There’s something you’ll need,” she said before stepping into her closet.

  She came out with a wire hanger upon which hung a small camisole. It was cream-colored and had a little bow in the front like Flossie had on her training bra.

  “You’re not Flossie, I know,” she said. “You won’t get in a bra sooner than you need to. But this will be a first step.”

  She handed the camisole over. I took it with my head down and quickly returned to my room.

  I closed my door and stood up against it, staring at what my mother had given me. The camisole was sheer. I could see the light on the other side of it. I ran my fingers across the lace on the top.

  “You’re stupid,” I said to the camisole before throwing it on the bed.

  I looked down at my chest. My dress was loose, but I could still see the outlines of two small points protruding. I pressed against my chest with both hands, but the two points remained, like two soft hills upon the landscape of my body.

  I unbuttoned my dress and stepped out of it to put the camisole on. I didn’t look in the mirror until I was fully dressed again. Only then did I carefully study my reflection, checking to make sure neither of the camisole’s straps nor its lace were showing, as if the undergarment was a thing with tentacles I had to hide.

  “For affliction of eyes,” I spoke to my reflection, “take black gum bark and grind it.”

  I pressed my hands against one another.

  “No, don’t grind.” I corrected myself. “Boil into a decoction. While still boiling, pour into eyes to burn everything away.”

  I laid my head back and held my hands up over my open eyes as if pouring liquid into them. Blinking a few times, I looked in the mirror to see nothing had changed with my reflection.

  When I got downstairs, I wondered if anyone would notice I was wearing something different. Everyone just started heading out to the car, so I followed. As I passed the raccoon tail on the antenna, I wondered when I had stopped slapping it for luck.

  Childish anyways, I said to myself as I twisted in the camisole and headed to the rear seat to sit by Fraya and Flossie.

  On the drive, the three of us reached into our pockets and exchanged slips of paper with the goodnights we’d written on them. We passed them silently from hand to hand until we’d circulated them back into our pockets.

  Once we got to the funeral home, we found Leland leaning up against his truck, waiting for us. Fraya merely slid her handbag into the crook of her arm and put her
gloves on. It was hard to tell if Leland was watching. He was wearing sunglasses.

  “Wait.” Mom gave everyone a once-over to make sure we looked as respectable as possible. “All right,” she said, only slightly satisfied. “We can go in.”

  The funeral home smelled of stale cigarettes. The low-pile carpeting was stained in places and looked to be about a century old. Mom signed our names in the guest book. Then, in a slow procession, we walked up the long room to stare at the wrinkled man in the cheap coffin. Few were in attendance. There was just some coughing old men, probably long-standing bar buddies of Grandpappy’s who used to clap each other on the back and sing the same old songs they had sung when they were young enough to have better hearts, if ever they did. It was a short service, barely more than a reason for the men to put on their best pairs of jeans and their cleanest flannel shirts.

  After Grandpappy’s body was lowered into the ground at Joyjug’s cemetery, we went to what had once been his house. I stood with my sisters and brothers in front of the screen door, unable to cross the threshold. We could hear Grandpappy’s voice in our heads:

  Don’t you come into my home, you little shits. You stay outside with the rest of the indecent and hopeless animals.

  “Don’t just stand out there.” Mamaw Lark’s voice rose above his. “Unless you plan on paintin’ the porch.”

  Every step we took inside, we anticipated Grandpappy’s voice demanding we get out. Only when we checked around each corner and found he was really dead after all did we explore our surroundings.

  I’m not sure how I expected the rooms to look. They were sparsely furnished. The most color was in a granny-square afghan draped on the back of a chair. There were three framed photos sharing a small table with a lamp. One photo was of a train engine. The smallest was of a large dog. The photo in the black frame between these two was of a young man, which Dad picked up.

  “That’s my husband as a youth,” Mamaw Lark said.

  “You’re the spittin’ image of your papaw, son.” Dad held the photo up for Leland to see.

  Leland briefly glanced at the photo, but was more interested in the way Fraya stood in front of the houseplant dying in the corner of the room.

  Mom quickly took the photo from Dad and sat it back on the table on her way into the kitchen, where she could help her old mother make coffee. The two women did not speak to one another. If not for the shared gray eyes, no one would be able to tell they were mother and daughter. Not with the way they tried to be so separate from one another. I knew that at any given moment, whether fire, flood, or other disaster, they would not be able to count on one another. They would each let the other burn, drown, die in any number of horrible ways so as not to have to grab the other’s hand and show even a flicker of love.

  When they served the coffee in the living room, they did so with stiff jaws. Dad picked up a mug and blew on the hot liquid as he looked out a window at the clear blue sky.

  “Sure is one hell of a nice day,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t call it nice.” Mamaw Lark looked at him in every damning way she could.

  “I just mean to say the sunshine feels good.” Dad quickly took a drink of his coffee.

  Mom walked around the room as if she’d never once lived there. Her eye caught on the scattering of charcoal drawings on the sideboard. Trustin looked from me to the drawings. We both watched Mom as she carefully held the paper by its edges so as not to smear the charcoal or get any on her fingers. As if she herself could not name lightning and thunder, she asked her mother what the drawings were of.

  “Storms.” Mamaw Lark held the word a long time, then moved her mouth as if she had trouble swallowing. “We started gettin’ ’em in the mail about a year or so ago in plain envelopes addressed to me and your dearly departed pappy. Lightnin’, thunder, and plenty of rain. If you ask me, these storms is what killed your pappy. Feelin’ the dread of such a storm comin’ from someone out there in the world keeps a man from gettin’ peace. Didn’t your pappy deserve some peace? He was a mighty good man. You had no right to attack him the way you did, young man, when you took Alka away from us.” She wagged her finger at Dad. “You nearly killed him. It’s a wonder I even allow you in this house now, but I reckon death reduces old grudges.”

  “I didn’t punish him without good reason.” Dad looked out the window at the very spot in the yard he’d held Grandpappy Lark down. “A man who beats a woman the way he done, deserves a taste of hell.”

  With cherries on their minds, my siblings wandered into the kitchen. Trustin looked at me before following them. I heard the back screen door open and close. I decided to stay longer in the living room, watching Mom stare at the lightning bolts in the drawings. She knew who the artist of them was. The question she must have been asking herself was who had sent them. She knew Trustin would not be so deliberate. She raised her eyes to mine.

  “That day was a long time ago.” Mamaw spoke to Dad. “A bruise or a scar don’t matter none now. I got some honeysuckle vines in the yard.” She pointed out the window with her crooked finger. “They’re yours if you want ’em. Alka tells me you like plants.”

  Mom’s eyes darted to Dad. She seemed embarrassed it should be revealed she knew something about her husband after all. Next thing you knew, she’d start to say she loved him out loud. What a weakness that would have been to a woman like her, who displayed her thorns as wisely as any rose can.

  While Mom was putting the storms back on the table, I took the opportunity to go outside and join my siblings. They were standing in the backyard beneath the old cherry tree. Trustin had stopped just short of it. I walked out beside him. We both looked up at the tree’s branches. We’d come to realize that some things are never as big as we remember they are.

  “You mad about where the storms ended up, Trustin?” I asked.

  “You think the storms are what killed him?” He watched the leaves roll over in the wind.

  “Would you care if they were?”

  “Naw.” He grabbed my hand and together we stepped in under the tree.

  Leland, Fraya, Flossie, and Lint were each staring up at the fruit Grandpappy Lark had told us we were never to touch.

  “Damn him to hell.” Fraya reached up and plucked a cherry.

  We watched as she turned it over in her hand, admiring the ripe curves and its earnest red hue. With childlike courage, she placed it in her mouth.

  “What’s it taste like, Fraya?” Flossie asked.

  “Like something beautiful,” Fraya said before grabbing more cherries by the handful and shoving them into her mouth until her cheeks ballooned.

  As the juice dripped down her chin, I thought of how God exists in little ways we don’t always see unless we happen to be looking at the very moment a sister dares the demons and reminds you that not all paradises have gone just yet.

  Almost at once, we each began to pick our own cherries. Leland carried one over to the edge of the tree’s shadow. Staring at the cherry, he seemed to be considering what to do with it. Deciding, he squeezed it between his fingers before throwing it to the ground.

  The rest of us continued to eat what cherries we could reach. We laughed as we spit the pits out at one another, all while the sun shone through the branches. With a stem hanging between my lips, I looked back toward the little white house. I thought I saw Grandpappy Lark frowning in the window. But it was not Grandpappy Lark. It was our mother, and she was not frowning.

  On the way back home, we shared the ride with the honeysuckle vines Dad had dug up. Long, thin vines that would bounce every time the tires rolled over loose gravel. The blooms filled the car with their light, crisp scent. I believed the little trumpet flowers were the origin of all music. Of the rhythms of things we feed on in the middle of the night when we’re close enough to one another to feel the way sweat beads down the skin.

  Leland drove b
ehind us until he turned off on the road that would take him back to Alabama. He honked the horn and waved. Me and Fraya were the only ones who didn’t wave back.

  Once we got onto Main Lane, Dad dropped Fraya, Trustin, and Flossie off in town with enough pocket money to catch a movie. Lint didn’t want to go because he didn’t like sitting in the dark. I wasn’t interested in seeing a movie because I wasn’t in the mood to be annoyed by Flossie repeating the actors’ lines in my ear, as she always did.

  When the four of us got to the house, Dad and Lint carried the honeysuckle vines to the backyard to plant.

  Meanwhile, Mom went to get the mail. As she was pulling it out of the box, a car drove up. I stayed on the front porch and watched a man hand her a folded paper through his open window. He spoke briefly to her before driving away.

  Walking toward the house, Mom tucked the mail under her arm so she could unfold the paper the man had given her. She walked past me and into the house as she read. I followed her, all the way up the steps to her bedroom, where she laid her purse with the other mail on the bed. She went through these motions, never once taking her eyes from what she was reading.

  “Who was that man?” I asked.

  “The editor of our town’s humble newspaper, The Breathanian,” she said.

  “The Breathanian? Did I win the poetry contest?” My eyes widened at the thought. “Is that why he was here? To tell you I’d won?”

  “You write about gettin’ fucked.” She flicked the paper with my poem handwritten in cursive on it. “And you think a small-town newspaper is gonna give you somethin’ for it? They want a sweet little rhyme about butterflies and birds. Imagine how many pretty sugar dishes would drop to the floor and break if this poem were to be opened at the breakfast table.”