Blackwater: The Complete Caskey Family Saga

by Michael McDowell

  “That’s your fault, Miss Mary-Love,” said Elinor, cannily returning to the subject. “Oscar and I would never have turned you away if you had knocked on the door.”

  “I didn’t feel welcome,” said Mary-Love, abashed that her innocent-sounding tactic of delay had so quickly been turned against her. “This isn’t my house anymore, you know.”

  Elinor didn’t reply. Her smile was vague.

  “You know,” Mary-Love went on, “one day I sent Luvadia Sapp over here with the deed to this house. I signed it over to you and Oscar. Did that girl bring it, or did she lose it somewhere on the way?”

  “Oh, she brought it. We’ve got the deed inside somewhere.”

  “I was expecting a thank you, I must say.”

  “Miss Mary-Love, Oscar and I bought this house.”

  “I gave it to you!”

  “No, you’re wrong,” Elinor said with ostensible amiability. “It was supposed to have been our wedding present. But then we had to pay for it. We had to give you Miriam for it. Miriam was eight years old before you finally turned over the deed. That kind of delay doesn’t deserve a thank you.”

  Elinor’s voice and tone continued soft and conversational, but Mary-Love was certain now that this attack had been long in the planning. She was little prepared to do battle when all her thought for months had been devoted to tomorrow’s journey!

  “I don’t know why I’m sitting here listening to this,” Mary-Love cried. “You’re so hard! No wonder Frances is the way she is! No wonder Miriam doesn’t want to play with her!”

  “Frances, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a thoroughly sweet child. She loves everybody, and everybody loves her. I wish I could say the same for Miriam. The way that child acts, I’m glad she lives with you and not with me.”

  “Miriam is worth ten of Frances!”

  “You may think that, but it’s still no excuse for you to treat Frances the way you do,” said Elinor, remaining aggravatingly cool.

  Mary-Love, in danger of becoming agitated, sought to turn the attack. “Elinor, why do you treat me the way you do?”

  Elinor appeared to consider for a moment, and then replied: “Because of the way you treat Oscar. The way you treat your whole family, the way you’ve always treated them.”

  “I love every one of them! I love them to death! All I want in the world is for my family to love me.”

  “I know,” said Elinor. “And you don’t want them to love anyone else. You want to provide everybody with everything. You didn’t want Oscar to marry me because you didn’t want him to divide his love. The same with poor old Sister. You took Miriam away from us—”

  “You let her go!”

  “—and you raised her so that she loved you, and didn’t give a single solitary thought to her own parents. I remember when Grace was little and was close to Zaddie, you tried to break that up, too.”

  “I don’t remember anything of the sort!”

  “You did it, though. Miss Mary-Love, it’s the kind of thing you do without thinking. It comes natural to you. If you had had your way, James would have thrown Queenie Strickland and her children out of town the day they showed up.”

  “Queenie was no good—”

  “You told James he was making a big mistake in taking in Danjo, but Danjo has made James very happy.”

  “One day that boy is going to turn—”

  Elinor again paid no attention to Mary-Love. “And when the bank called in Oscar’s loan, you wouldn’t lend him the money to save him from bankruptcy. You wanted to see Oscar and me go under. You wanted us poor so that we would have to come begging.”

  “Oscar didn’t go under. James lent him the money,” Mary-Love protested.

  “Oscar has never forgiven you. I don’t imagine he ever will.”

  “You haven’t either, have you, Elinor?”

  “Miss Mary-Love, you don’t like me because I took Oscar away from you. You haven’t liked me since the day I showed up in Perdido. It can’t make a whole lot of difference to you whether I forgive you or not.”

  “You’re right,” said Mary-Love, suddenly frank, almost without knowing it, letting her anger show and speaking her mind, “it doesn’t. I’ve never expected anything from you except bitterness and reproach, Elinor. And it’s all I’ve ever gotten. And this, I suppose, is your fond farewell with everybody about to go off to Chicago for a good time.”

  “Yes,” replied Elinor, unperturbed. “Though you’re not there yet.”

  “You’ve been biding your time, haven’t you? You’ve been treasuring up your hostility, isn’t that right? You’ve been storing it up for five years, ever since Oscar asked me to lend him money he didn’t even need!”

  “I have been waiting...” Elinor admitted.

  “I wondered when you were going to show your hand,” snapped Mary-Love. “Since you showed up in this town during the flood, lounging in the Osceola and waiting for my boy to come along and rescue you and court you and marry you. Lying in wait for him like a lizard waiting for a green-bottle fly! And you got him. I couldn’t stop you. But I did stop you from getting anything else, didn’t I? For all your running-around, and all your little schemes and plans and biting, you’ve ended up with nothing at all.”

  “Nothing?” echoed Elinor.

  “Nothing. What have you got? You’ve got this house, because I gave it to you. You’ve got a drawerful of promissory notes to James, and he’s the only man in the world who would lend money to Oscar, who never had anything I didn’t give him and never will. You’ve got a deed to a little land that’s scattered around here and there, but it’s all flood land and there aren’t any roads on any of it and Tom DeBordenave when he owned it never made a crying dime off it. And you’ve got a little girl, but she’s a puny thing, and nothing at all compared to the one you gave away fifteen years ago. You’ve got a few friends in town, but they’re the ones you stole from me. They’re the ones I didn’t want anymore. And you’ve got a husband who will insist on living next door to his mother forever. That’s what you’ve got, Elinor, and let me tell you, it isn’t much. Not by my standards.”

  “It seems to me,” said Elinor, “that you’ve showed your hand too.”

  “No! I’m not the one who’s fighting. I’m not the one who’s always playing games. Because I’m on top. You try to blame me for beating you out of what’s rightfully yours, but nobody beat you out, Elinor. You just didn’t have the courage to go out and get what you wanted.”

  “I’ve held back,” Elinor returned.

  Mary-Love laughed derisively. “I’d like to see you try to do something, Elinor. Just what do you think you could do, to get back at me for all the things you think I’ve done? What paltry little thing will you do now?”

  “Miss Mary-Love, despite you and despite everything you’ve tried to do to keep Oscar down, I intend to make him rich. I intend to make him richer than you ever dreamed of being—that’s what I intend to do.”

  Again Mary-Love laughed. “And how do you intend to do that? The last time you convinced him to do something, all he did was get himself in debt, and he’s never gotten out of it. Are you gone persuade him to buy more land?”

  “Yes. Henry Turk is going to sell his land—that’s all the poor man’s got left. He’s got a tract of about fifty thousand acres in Escambia County. He came to see Oscar about it the other day.”

  “How much does he want for it?”

  “Twenty dollars an acre.”

  “That’s a hundred thousand dollars! Where’s Oscar gone get that money?”

  Elinor smiled. “I thought I’d take this opportunity to ask you to lend it to him.”

  Mary-Love’s jaw dropped in her amazement. “Elinor, you are asking me to lend you one hundred thousand dollars so Oscar can buy a lot of worthless land?”

  “It’s not worthless. It’s covered with pine.”

  “Lord God, what do we need more pine for? There’s nobody buying it, Elinor. Or hadn’t you heard there’s a Depression g
oing on.”

  “We ought to have that land, Miss Mary-Love. Will you lend us the money?”

  “No! Of course I’m not gone lend you the money! You’d like to drive me to the poor house, is what you’d like to do, Elinor. Well, I’m not gone be driven anywhere, I’m not lending Oscar one penny. What has he been able to do with that land he bought from Tom DeBordenave? He hasn’t even been able to keep up bank payments on it.”

  “Then your answer is no?”

  “Of course it’s no! Did you actually expect me to say yes?”

  “No,” admitted Elinor. “I just wanted to give you one more chance.”

  “One more chance for what?”

  To this Elinor made no reply. She drank off the last of her nectar and put the glass on the table at the side of the swing.

  “Miss Mary-Love,” she replied, still unmoved, “think whatever you like about me. All I’ve said today is that I know what you’re up to. I’ve always known. And when the time comes when you have the leisure to think things over, just remember that I gave you one last chance.”

  Mary-Love stood up from the glider and straightened her dress. “I’ll tell you another thing, Elinor...”

  “What?”

  “You make the worst nectar I’ve ever had in my life. It tastes like you made it with water straight out of that stinking old river. The only reason I drank more than one sip was out of pure politeness.”

  . . .

  The next morning a caravan of automobiles, filled with people and luggage, headed for the train station in Atmore. Florida Benquith drove Queenie, Queenie’s children, and Ivey; Bray drove Mary-Love, Sister, and Miriam; and Oscar drove James, Danjo, and Frances. Everyone was jammed together and anxious to be off. Sister carried sheaves of tickets in her pocketbook. She had taken the responsibility of managing all the logistics of the excursion.

  At the train station the Caskeys and all their luggage were lined up on the platform, waiting for the Hummingbird, which would take them as far as Montgomery. There they would change trains and be on their way directly to Chicago.

  Mary-Love attempted to wheedle out of her son some small expression of affection: “Are you gone miss us?”

  “You’re taking away half the town, Mama.”

  “Say goodbye to me, Oscar!”

  “Have a good time, Mama,” said Oscar, perfunctorily kissing her on the cheek. She had not dared hope for more. She turned to thank Florida Benquith for her assistance, when she suddenly grew dizzy and grasped the back of a bench to keep from falling.

  “Are you all right, Mary-Love?” asked Queenie.

  Mary-Love looked up with an expression of pained surprise. “Suddenly I think I have got the worst headache I’ve ever had in all my life.”

  “Are you sick?” asked Miriam apprehensively. She had been looking forward to this trip, and wanted nothing to interfere with her pleasure in it.

  “No, I’ve just got a headache. Sister, is everybody ready to go?”

  “Yes, ma’am—”

  Before Sister could continue, Mary-Love sank onto the bench and raised her hand to her rapidly paling face.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she gasped.

  The adults gathered around her. Malcolm and Lucille stood to one side and drew on sullen faces in preparation for some great disappointment. Frances and Miriam looked toward their grandmother with some misgiving. She looked very ill.

  Ivey moved forward and felt Mary-Love’s forehead. Already her hair lay in damp waves over her prickled scalp.

  “Miss Mary-Love, you hot?”

  “Ivey,” she whispered, “I’m just burning up!”

  Ivey turned to the others and said, “She got a bad fever. She ought to be at home in bed right this very minute. Y’all back off some.” She took a kerchief from her pocketbook and handed it to Miriam. “Go get this wet.”

  Miriam hurried off to the ladies’ room. The rest of them talked in low voices, glancing at Mary-Love. Her head lolled on her shoulders as Ivey sat beside her, unbuttoning her blouse, and wiping the perspiration from her forehead.

  “She’s real sick,” said Florida. As the wife of a doctor, her opinion carried some weight.

  “I know,” said James, “but will she be all right?”

  “Once she gets home, probably,” replied Florida. “Leo ought to look at her. I never saw anybody get so sick so fast.”

  There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then Sister’s teeth went clack-clack and she said, “All right, then, I’ll say it.”

  “Say what?” asked James weakly.

  “What are we gone do? Are we gone go back to Perdido and sit around for five more years before we ever get out of town again?”

  “Mary-Love looks so bad!” said James.

  “Florida and I will take care of Mama,” said Oscar. “The rest of y’all ought to get on that train. We got to think of the children. They’ll be so disappointed if y’all turned around now.”

  “I know,” sighed James. “But it just doesn’t seem right to leave like this.”

  “Probably she would want you all to go on and have a good time,” suggested Florida. “I don’t think she would want to ruin everything for everybody.”

  Sister laughed. “Florida, don’t you know Mama better than that? Nothing would make her well sooner than to know that we had canceled the entire trip because of her.”

  “Sister!” cried James.

  “Well, I’m sorry, but that’s the truth,” said Sister. “We have been planning this for months, and it’s the first real chance I’ve had to go anywhere or do anything since I got married. I don’t intend to give it all up just because Mama comes down with a summer cold.”

  “It looks worse than that,” Queenie said. “But I agree with Sister, James. The children are excited—we’re all excited. The tickets are paid for, the hotel reservations have all been made. And what would we say in Perdido, that all ten of us turned right around and came back when we weren’t fifty miles out of town, just because Mary-Love came down with a little headache and temperature?”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said James.

  “Of course they’re right,” said Oscar energetically. “We’ll put Mama in the back seat of the Packard and have her home in bed before y’all get to Greenville. As soon as she’s well, we’ll pack her up and send her on to meet you.”

  “Then it’s settled,” said Sister quickly. This seemed the solution that would do the least damage to their original plans, and she wanted to make it firm before James, in his charity to Mary-Love, could change anyone’s mind. “Somebody should go speak to the children and tell them what’s been decided.”

  . . .

  Mary-Love Caskey sat and moaned and sweated profusely on the hard wooden bench in the stifling Atmore station. She could not speak an articulate word. Beside her, Ivey Sapp mopped her brow, squeezed her hands, and whispered, “Miss Mary-Love, Miss Mary-Love, what you been eating? What you been drinking? D’you get hold of something that wasn’t good for you? You been drinking down some bad water?”

  Chapter 39

  The Closet Door Opens

  Elinor was sitting on her front porch when Bray drove up. As if she had known that Mary-Love lay feverish across the back seat of the car, she stood up and walked out to the street and peered in. “Bray,” she said, “I’ve got the front room all ready for her.”

  “Miss El’nor,” said Bray, puzzled, “did Mr. Oscar call you on the telephone to say we was coming?”

  Elinor, appearing preoccupied, did not answer.

  Oscar had driven up right behind Bray and had heard what his wife had said. “Elinor,” he said, “you sure you want this responsibility? I was thinking we maybe should put her in the hospital.”

  “Did Ivey look at her?”

  Bray nodded. “Ivey say she ought to be at home in her own bed.”

  “That’s not the hospital,” Elinor pointed out. “Zaddie and I will take perfectly good care of her.”

  B
ray lifted Mary-Love out of the car and quickly carried her into Elinor’s house, up the stairs and down the corridor, placing her on the bed in the front room.

  Elinor followed them in, calling Zaddie up.

  “All of you go away, now,” said Elinor, closing the door of the room against them. “Zaddie and I are going to change her clothes and give her a sponge bath. She’ll be cooler and more comfortable then. Oscar, you better call Leo Benquith and get him over here.”

  Everyone did as they were told. Dr. Benquith arrived to find Mary-Love looking very weak and very ill, propped up on pillows in the front room. She appeared now, however, to have some awareness of where she was. She was so little her old self that she did not even object to being placed in the care of her daughter-in-law. Elinor and Zaddie stood at the foot of the bed as Leo Benquith examined her.

  “It’s a fever,” he said with a shrug. “Just what everybody said it was. And, Elinor, you did exactly the right thing. Miz Caskey,” he said, addressing Mary-Love—rather loudly, as if deafness were also her infirmity, “Elinor’s gone take good care of you till you get well.”

  Mary-Love’s eyes closed and she sighed heavily.

  That evening at supper, Oscar said to Elinor, “You sure we shouldn’t put Mama in the hospital?”

  “You heard what Leo Benquith said,” replied Elinor. “I know what to do—and Leo will drop by every afternoon. Miss Mary-Love would hate the hospital—all those strangers. And, Oscar, when they start calling from Chicago, you tell them she’s doing just fine, but doesn’t want to talk on the telephone. If they think she’s still sick, they’ll all pack up and head right back. Your Mama has this family trained.”

  “Don’t you think people should be here?”

  “I do not. I think they’d only disturb her. I’m going to shoo away all her visitors until she can get well. By the time they all get back, your mama will be up and complaining how they all left her high and dry. She’s never going to let them hear the end of it.”