I grew aggravated with Daniel in that moment for saying what I’d been thinking and for being right. He was no help.
I said, “I gotta go.”
I hung up even though I heard him about to speak again. Mama came by carrying shirts to iron. I followed her, wanting to talk, hoping I might just say the right thing to make her think twice.
“Mama.”
“Hm?”
“What would Daddy think?”
She headed for the kitchen where she’d set up the ironing board. It was cold outside, the grass coated like powdered sugar from frost. The silence stretched on. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.
When I began to think she wasn’t going to answer, she sighed and said, “We got no money to live on, Sonny.”
“Not even with Ross’s job?”
“It ain’t enough.”
“So, you’re marrying him for money?”
“No.”
“It sounds like it.”
“There’s no doubt he’ll be a good provider.”
I had to know. I had to ask her, even though she’d already said before she loved Daddy, this new decision undermined her words.
“Do you really love him?”
Mama focused on arranging a pair of pants on the board just so.
She said, “People get married for all different kinds of reasons. You’ll understand when you get older.”
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my dungarees. Mama licked her finger, quickly touched the iron, and it hissed. She kept talking, as if trying to persuade me to her side.
“We’ll still be close by. I realize this is the only home you’ve ever known, but I think you’ll like it over at Frank’s. It’s right nice.”
I wondered when she’d been there. Was that where they’d gone one of the nights they’d gone out? It was odd thinking about her in that place. She wouldn’t look right there, situated in those dark rooms that shut out the sunlight, different than our light, airy house that caught a sunbeam in every corner, depending on the time of day.
She continued, “It’s gonna work out fine, wait and see.”
I couldn’t see how, remembering the ugly wallpaper, everything musty smelling and him there, every day, every night. Mama cooking in his kitchen. Us sitting at the huge dining room table. Come to think of it, I didn’t even know what his kitchen looked like, but what I did know is it wouldn’t be home. Could never be home.
Before I had time to even get used to the idea, and believe you me, that was all there was to do, try to get used to it, Mr. Fowler devised a way to make it all happen before Thanksgiving. We piled into his shiny vehicle on another cold and windy afternoon, when the sun dared to peek through a sky filled with chalky clouds while casting shadows across the plowed fields and bare branches rattled overheard, sounding like a string of bones. Mama wore a pale pink wool suit he’d surprised her with. It was a bizarre and intimate thing, him buying her clothes. He dressed in a suit, his hair near about as perfect as I’d ever seen it. Coal black, thick and shiny. Admittedly, Frank Fowler wasn’t bad looking, and it was a shame him being such a jackwagon, as Ross had taken to calling him. He took her hand in his own, it got swallowed up the same way our own lives appeared to have done since he showed up.
We headed up to Kinston, to a justice of the peace, who asked a question or two, used his own wife as their witness, and then had them both sign a paper.And that was that. Mr. Fowler was now my stepdaddy, and I was so discombobulated by the entire thing, I couldn’t speak. When he kissed her full on the mouth in front of all of us, I couldn’t have been more shocked than if he’d slapped her. The justice of the peace congratulated them, and turned to do the same with me and my brothers, and I barely acknowledged the gesture. I shivered nonstop, like that cold wind that had been blowing for days had settled into my very bones. Ross pushed me toward the doors leading us out of City Hall. Outside the building, the American flag snapped sharply in the breeze and the clasps attached to the lines to raise and lower it clanged against the metal pole, giving off a slight echo that sounded like little church bells chiming.
Mama’s face was pink as her suit, and Mr. Fowler was actually sweating, even though it was chilly. I kept picturing Mama and Daddy together. Ross, Trent, and I walked to Mr. Fowler’s car, and got in. We sat piled together in the back seat, me staring straight ahead while Ross and Trent looked out their windows, all three of us absorbing what just happened. I think it was then I began to think about how there were moments in life that stood out more than others. Like when I knew I could divine water. Christmases. My first day of school. Daddy’s passing. And today. Today was sure to be a day I’d never forget.
After we got back from Kinston, Mr. Fowler took us straight to our house. It was early evening, and the weak sun we’d had all day had finally given up. My brothers and I bailed out of the back seat, while he and Mama sat talking about moving to his house. I made my way to the back porch and into our kitchen so I wouldn’t have to hear it. She came in after about five minutes, looking like she’d been standing over a hot stove cooking all day. Color high, hair a bit out of place and my stomach clenched. It was too early for bed, but that’s where I was going.
I said “good night” in an abrupt manner and started out the door she’d just come in.
Quietly, she said, “Sonny.”
I remained facing the door, my hand on the knob.
Mama said, “Please be patient with him.”
I looked over my shoulder at her, trying to decide what she thought about today, about being married again. About being married to somebody like him. I couldn’t hardly stand how he raked his eyes over her like she was one a them places where you could go and eat all you wanted.
She wanted me to accept him, and for her sake, I would try. “I will, Mama.”
I went back to her and kissed her cheek. She grabbed at my hand and held it between the two of hers, urging my cooperation, while acknowledging a little as to what I was feeling.
She said, “It can’t never be like it was with your daddy, I know that.”
She released my hand and I went down the dogtrot for what seemed like the last time. The next day, a Sunday, we gathered up what we were going to take. Mr. Fowler came to help, and he moved so fast, carrying Mama’s things out the door, it was like he believed she might change her mind. My brothers and I filled our station wagon with our own belongings. Looking at our small piles and then comparing it to the size of how I remembered the house, I was sure we’d be swallowed up, our presence like a smudge on the wall.
Mama and Mr. Fowler went on ahead. I went back to my old room one last time to make sure I’d got everything, and when I walked out, I stopped at the threshold, holding my dowsing branch. I took a moment to look around. I had Dolly clutched in my other arm, and it really felt as if we were betraying Daddy, and his memory.
I said, “We’ll be back, Dolly.”
She gave me that silent, lopsided look of hers.
I climbed into the back seat of our station wagon, and Trent turned around and said, “Why’re you bringing that stupid stick? It’s half burned up, and you can’t do nothing with it.”
Ross said, “What’s it to you?”
Trent said, “I guarantee Daddy Frank will have something to say about it.”
Ross cut his eye at Trent. “Daddy Frank. You sure are something else, Trent. Sure ain’t taking you long to butter him up.”
Trent shifted on the seat. “He said for us to call him that.”
“You won’t hear me do it.”
I said, “Me neither.”
Trent hated when we ganged up on him.
He mumbled, “You two ain’t got the sense God give a turnip.”
Ross drove slowly down Turtle Pond Road and I looked out from the crowded back seat, surrounded by piles of clothes. Passing by plowed fields, I let my imagination take over, and pictured us coming back just like this, going in the reverse.
A minute or so later, Ross pulled the car
up Mr. Fowler’s driveway and when the two-story white house came into view, he said, “Never did like the looks of this place.”
I wanted to run back home. Mama stood on the big wraparound porch, dressed in a brand-new dress, a powder blue one. She waved and smiled. We stared at her as she came down the steps looking like she belonged in a fancy magazine. I didn’t think she looked like herself. When she got closer, she even smelled different, something intensely sweet.
She said, “Ross, Trent, you each have a room. And Sonny, wait till you see yours.”
Mama’s nice clothes came with the look of someone focused on adjusting to a new situation the way a just-born calf would, wide-eyed and a little disoriented. We followed her into the house. Nothing had changed. The painting he’d told me not to touch, still there. The ugly wallpaper too, and it looked even more awful than I remembered. I turned around to go back out and help unload our car when Mr. Fowler appeared from out of the room where Daddy and I had gone to talk to him that very first time. He grabbed Mama around the waist and cinched her tight to him. I looked away. Seeing the two of them was like pairing a mourning dove to a turkey vulture. My sweet gentle Mama in the hands of a buzzard.
With a hint of embarrassment, she said, “Y’all come with me and I’ll show you where your rooms are.”
We went up the staircase, our feet clomping on the steps, sounding like we were marching. The walls were a narrow-planked wood that ran from one corner to the other, and on them were old black-and-white photographs of scary looking people with thin lips and hard staring eyes who seemed to observe us like trespassers.
Mr. Fowler came behind us and said, “This here’s my family. Fowlers and Perdues. Mostly just aunts and uncles.”
Mama said, “Your daddy Frank didn’t have brothers or sisters.”
She was going to call him that.
Mr. Fowler said, “Just as well. As a teen, I was wild as a buck Indian. Mama couldn’t a handled much more’n me.”
At the top of the stairs I saw five doors. Two on each side of the hallway, and one at the end. Mama pointed to the doors on the left.
“Ross, Trent, choose the one you want. And don’t fight about it.”
My brothers began looking over the two rooms, while Mama motioned at one of the doors on the right.
“Sonny, this one’s yours.”
She opened it, and it set off a loud creaking groan of protest. I peeked in and knew right away I hated it. The bed was set high off the floor, and I’d need a footstool to get up on it. The wallpaper was old and faded, a blue and yellow floral pattern that almost made me dizzy when I stared at it. It smelled like mothballs in there and I really, really wanted to be outside where I could gulp in fresh air. I would stifle in that room, I was sure. Mama noticed I’d gone pale, and sweaty.
She said, “Frank, can we open a window?”
He went across the room and yanked the yellowed lace curtains back. I saw a cloud of dust come off them, and the window only cracked a little before it stuck.
He said, “Ain’t nobody been in here in a while.This was my own mama’s room. I ain’t allowed no one in it till just now.”
I could tell. I had the horrible idea she might have died in it. I couldn’t ask, but thought surely I was breathing the stale air that had been expelled from some old dying woman’s lungs. I went over to the window and leaned down to the small opening and took several big gulps of air, and felt a little better.
Mr. Fowler said, “Thought you were a tough girl.”
Mama said, “Oh, Sonny, look here. Isn’t this a nice desk?”
Mr. Fowler said, “It was Mama’s. Best she don’t touch it.”
Mama looked surprised. “Sonny would be careful.”
He ran his hand over the wood top. “Tell her not to touch it.”
Mama said, “She’s right here, Frank, reckon she can hear for herself.”
He said, “It’s special made. I don’t want it messed with.”
Mama crossed her arms. “Fine.”
Mr. Fowler said, “It’s old, delicate. I can buy her one of her own.”
Mama huffed.
Mr. Fowler said, “I will. Don’t worry,” misunderstanding her.
She let it go, and motioned around the room. “What do you think, Sonny?”
I gazed about. It was like being stuffed into a cramped little closet even though it was huge. “I like it fine, Mama.”
Mr. Fowler said, “Shoot, this room’s got to be twice the size of the one you had.”
Mama said, “We’ll get your things in here and it’s gonna feel just like home before you know it.”
I held back on that, and we finally went back down the stairs. I took a moment to look around, and found myself wandering to the spot in the hallway where I’d been with Daddy. Mr. Fowler caught me bent down, and looking at a picture of a fox crouched low, backed against a tree, and a pack of dogs snarling around it.
He said, “That there’s a scene depicting a fox hunt in England.”
I straightened up. I didn’t know what to say ’cause I really didn’t like it, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. And then he asked me directly.
“Do you like it?”
I glanced at him, remembering how Daddy always said honesty was the best policy.
“Not really.”
Mr. Fowler said, “You don’t like me much either do you.”
This was not a question. This was a statement. I was instantly on alert.
He said, “Maybe you just like little flits.”
I said, “I don’t even know what that is, so it don’t matter none to me.”
Mr. Fowler said, “It ought to matter. Looks like my first job as your new daddy is to teach you. Your friend? Folks don’t take kindly to his sort around here. Them kind? They’re no better than the Commies. And here you are, all moony-eyed over him. You can forget that. He ain’t never gonna like you, and you might as well get used to it. Know why? ’Cause he likes boys. Boys. Not girls. I ever catch him over here, I’ll fix him, but good. You hear me? My house is off-limits to the likes of him. He ain’t got his shit together, and that’s what I been wanting to say since Day One. You stay away from him, and you ain’t got a thing to worry about. Understand?”
Through his entire little tirade, I didn’t dare move, and minded my countenance. He looked satisfied, like he’d finally gotten something off his chest that had been eating away at him of a long time. Mama called him from some other part of this enormous house, her voice faint.
He pointed a finger at me. “You best keep that shit to yourself. Don’t you go worrying your mama with your whining and carrying on. It’s high time you learned who’s boss.”
After he was gone, I tried to sort out what he’d said about Daniel, searching back through my memory and recollecting instances where Mr. Fowler’s words rang true. I considered how Daniel had acted around Trent, back to that most recent moment in the cafeteria. I stared at the wallpaper, at the fox cowering, at the dogs baring their teeth at it, and the blood pooling at its feet where it had been shot. I stared at its face, at the knowledge of its death which the artist had somehow captured and reflected back, as if I was an ethereal witness to the animal’s end of life. The scene reminded me of Daniel, and how the world might come at him, relentless, unforgiving, and ruthless.
Chapter 24
Mr. Fowler was big talk.
He told Mama, “I want you to feel like this is your house. Make yourself at home.”
He left one day, and Mama went through the place like a little tornado, dusting and straightening up. She put Ross and Trent to work outside, cleaning up the dead weeds from around the bushes near the foundation. She had me help pull back some of those heavy drapes to let the sun in. It wasn’t much, but it looked and smelled better, until Mr. Fowler walked in, and got all pissy about it.
He said, “Why’d she move this here?” talking to himself again, like Mama wasn’t there. What he was going on about was the couple of chairs she’d had my
brothers help her move into the large hallway. He told them to put them back where they’d been. Mama stood with her hands folded in front of herself like a little schoolgirl being scolded. He walked around like a drill sergeant, looking things over, and then he stopped at a small side table where she’d arranged a couple pictures of us.
“Why’re these here?” He grabbed the pictures and handed them to her. “Put’em in that room, there.”
Mama protested, saying, “You said make ourselves at home.”
He said, “Yeah, well.”
He walked outside and looked at the wood rocking chair Daddy had given her and she’d set on the front porch. He picked it up and marched it around to the back side of the house, like it wasn’t good enough to be seen. Mama remained quiet as he came back in and yanked the curtains closed, shutting off the light again, undoing all her work. She walked off, leaving him to mumble questions to himself about what was done and why. She went by me, tight faced, back ramrod straight. She made no move from that point on to change one single solitary thing in that house. She repacked boxes of pictures, and other small knickknacks she’d brought. She washed clothes, cleaned floors, but our possessions were nowhere in sight.
She said, “I feel like I’m walking around in a mausoleum.”
On that, we could agree.
* * *
Just before Thanksgiving, she fixed Mr. Fowler’s favorite meal. He’d handed her an old yellowed piece of paper with the recipe on it. Mama took it gladly and looked it over.
She said, “Oven-baked buttermilk chicken. Okay, I reckon that’s what we’ll have tonight.”
He said, “I like to eat at six o’clock.”
Mama said, “Yes, Frank, I know.”
She worked in the kitchen all afternoon on the meal, and wonderful smells soon took over. Even though I didn’t care about the big dining room and its gloomy interior, I wanted to see how it would feel to be sitting at that enormous table, which Mr. Fowler bragged could seat about twelve people and was made of solid oak.
We gathered round the table at six, and soon as we sat down, he said, “Mind your manners. This ain’t no countrified kitchen you’re sitting in here.”
The Forgiving Kind Page 22
