What Momma Left Behind

by Cindy K. Sproles

  “I reckon you’re hungry, ain’t you? I plumb forgot to let you out with all the goins on.” Sally nuzzled me with all the forgiveness the pastor talked about on Sundays, then she made her way out to pasture. She didn’t need no coaxin, and with the barn door open she knew the way. Silly horse could care less if it was rainin either.

  I scooped several ears of corn from the wooden bin into a bucket and followed her to the field. “Here you go, girl.” The horse snorted and latched her teeth onto one cob.

  A rumble rolled over the mountain behind the house, and the sky that direction turned a misty gray. Rain was comin for sure, and I needed to do one thing before it hit.

  “Life ain’t easy in these mountains,” Momma would say. “When the messes happen, you swallow the ache and do what has to be done.”

  I was swallowin a heap too. Hurt, anger, pain. It was like taking a bite of dry biscuit and tryin to choke it down. The bread splinters and the pieces get just damp enough with spit to stick like molasses to your throat.

  I went back to the house and went to eatin that dry biscuit.

  There are times when we do things without thinkin, and when I’d stretched out on Momma’s bed, soaked to the hilt in her blood—well, that was one of them things. My clothes was wet plumb to the skin from holdin her . . . and that odor. Blood-soaked stench covered her bed and filled the house. First things first. Get this rancid-smellin mattress out. I wrestled the heavy mattress on its end and pulled.

  “What in tarnation are you doin?” a voice boomed through the tiny cabin.

  I nearly come outta my skin.

  Calvin kicked a stool out of his way. “I said, what are you doin?”

  Sweat beaded across my brow as I fought the large straw-filled mattress from the back room and into the kitchen. I swiped my arm across my forehead. “What’s it look like I’m doin?” Calvin was always good at figurin things, but right this minute he was provin hisself wrong. “And you can just turn your rear around and get out of my house.”

  “Your house?” He took me by the arm and yanked. The bloody mattress slipped flat onto the slatted poplar floor. “Who died and made you the queen?”

  “Momma died. Or did you even know that, Calvin? Momma died.”

  For a moment he stood quiet. His head hung whilst he took in the news. “She was half crazy anyhow. Ain’t no surprise.”

  I eyed him. His answer didn’t offer me no shock. It was common for idiot things to drop outta his mouth. I pondered my next words. They needed to be just right. Strong enough to let him know I meant business. Steady enough to show him no fear. Any signs of fear on this day and he’d just as likely kill me as look at me.

  “I reckon since I buried her without your help, that makes me the one to say what’s what.”

  A snide smile tipped the edges of his mouth. “Ain’t you the cocky one?”

  “No, they ain’t no cocky to it. Neither of you boys was around to help bury Momma. I had to get Ely Merrell to help me dig a proper hole. Took the better part of the day to do it.” I took a step and planted my feet solid. “Now get out!” My heart raced. Despite my attempt to hide my fear, I could feel my knees knockin.

  Calvin slung threats for years, but they was nothin but hot air. From the time we was youngins, he had no trouble lyin or makin nasty threats to scare a body into doin what he wanted. He was best at pitchin fits and flappin his jaws. Stompin and ravin, slingin his head from side to side if he didn’t get his way. Them actions by theirself was enough to scare a body into givin in. But not today. I was in no mood to give.

  Calvin snagged the stool he’d kicked with his foot and pulled it over. He planted hisself firm on the wooden seat. “Like I said. What in tarnation are you doin?” He had no intention of movin.

  We stared eye to eye for a short time before I finally broke the silence. “Well, Calvin, if you really must know, this here is the mattress I got blood on. I was tryin to save Momma. The odor makes me want to vomit, so I got plans to light a fire to the thing.” I stepped on the mattress and pointed to the tainted material covered with dried blood. “And this here is about ever ounce of blood that spurted out of Momma. Do you see it, Calvin? Do you? You happy now? That what you wanted to know? Cause the truth is, you boys is the reason Momma is dead.” My own anger boiled like a pan of water over the fire.

  “My, my. Ain’t you growed a smart mouth. And I did no sucha thing. I wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger and took her life.”

  It took a second before his words hit me. How did he know Momma shot herself? I didn’t tell him. Questions commenced to rise in my mind. Today was not the day to make this fight. I didn’t have the strength.

  “My mouth ain’t smart. It spits out truth. No thanks to y’all, our momma is dead.” I squatted and grabbed the edge of the heavy mattress. “I’ll thank you to get out of my way so I can get this stench outta the cabin.”

  I heaved the straw bedding past him and out the door. Calvin picked at his teeth with a twig and watched.

  “Of course you won’t help, you lazy, good-for-nothing . . .” The mattress landed hard on the ground a few feet from the cabin. Taking the flint from my apron, I clicked it together until the corner of the tickin caught fire. A black smoke took to twistin and twirlin before I could lean down to blow up a good-sized flame.

  “I come home to get Momma’s Mason jar,” Calvin said. “I need it.”

  I stopped dead but never uttered a word. I thought that was Momma’s secret. A memory come to me.

  “Come on, Worie, I got something special to show you,” Momma had said. “It’s just for you, so don’t you dare tell a soul.” Momma led me into the back room by the fireplace. She smiled and pulled my hand over the stones. “Count four from the left. One, two, three, four.” She slid my fingers across the rough rocks. “Then four up. One, two, three, four.” Momma went to giggling. “This has been here all along, and even after twenty-eight years your daddy never once knew about it. Now push.” She pressed my hand beneath hers, and the rock, loose in its stack, slid to the right just enough to leave an open hole. She reached back into the hole and pulled out a jar. “Here it is.” Momma unscrewed the lid and dug at some folded papers crumpled inside. She fished the contents out onto the hearth, then quickly scooped them up and placed them back in the jar.

  Three nickels. It wasn’t much at all, but on the mountain, them nickels would buy flour and grain. That was it. The jar was Momma’s secret. It never amounted much to me, but to Momma it was the world, so I kept her secret. I promised her I’d never let a soul know about it.

  “When I’m dead and gone, that jar is yours. One day you’ll see why it’s so precious.” Momma gently pushed the jar back into its home and moved the heavy stone into place. “Remember, four and four.”

  Things with Calvin got to seemin a bit queer, and that made me determined to not breathe a word about the jar. I’d play as dumb as Calvin thought I was.

  “Ha!” I slapped my knees and laughed. “What jar?”

  The flames eat at the straw mattress like a dog after its last meal. They stretched high into the sky.

  “You can’t even come here and say you’re sorry Momma is gone.” I pushed my finger in his face. “Ain’t you the least bit sad? Just a little?”

  Calvin pushed his hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out a dollar bill.

  “Where’d you get that?” I snatched the bill from his hand, dodging his attempts to take it back.

  “Give it here.” He chased my hands, tryin to nab the bill. “I got ways of gettin money ever once in a while.”

  I broke out laughin. “I might only be seventeen, but I ain’t stupid. You’re like a mountain lion lookin for the weak prey. Lyin all the time. Stealin. I’m right sure you’d not know the truth if it bit you.” I slammed the bill hard against his chest and shoved. “Now take your bill and get from here.”

  “Where’s it at?” Calvin snapped. He took me by the arm and wheeled me around.

  “Where’s what at?
” I knew he meant Momma’s jar, but I had no intentions of makin his takin it easy.

  “Stupid girl!” he shouted. “I asked you where Momma’s cannin money was. I want to know and I want to know now.”

  “You really think if Momma had money she’d keep us poor as dirt? I ain’t the stupid one here.”

  Calvin’s eyes showed me he was desperate. I ain’t sure why or what he’d got hisself into, but he shoved me against the house and pressed his forearm against my throat. Between the smoke from the straw mattress and Calvin pressin my neck, cutting my air by half, I began to choke. You coulda slid a piece of paper between my toes and the ground. Calvin had to be bad off to even start to carry out a threat.

  “Where’s the jar?”

  “Want in one hand and spit in the other. See which one gets full fastest.” I squeezed the words through the choke, then gagged and coughed.

  Calvin shoved me to the ground. “Smart mouth. I know she told you where she kept it. You was her favorite.”

  Anger crawled from my gut. “Calvin Dressar, Momma never had no favorites. If she did, she’d never have killed herself. She’d have never let me find her dead. That ain’t showin favorites.” I slapped my hand against my chest. “They ain’t no money, you idiot.” I rubbed the pain from my neck. “All I got is this house. Now crawl back into the hole you came from. You ain’t welcome here.”

  Calvin stomped through the cabin, yankin open pantry doors and lookin under beds like we had some sort of mansion. “Where’s the jar?”

  “We just got two rooms, Calvin. And since you done tore through them both, it ain’t right hard to see they ain’t no jar. And bein them mattresses is just lifted off the ground by some blocks of wood, ain’t gonna be nothing slipped under them. What more do you want?”

  Despite his rantin, my mind wandered back to a time when our family wasn’t so splintered. In the far corner of the back room two mattresses rested on small wood blocks. Long, thin slats laid across them held the down-filled tickin inches from the floor. It wasn’t fancy, but it kept Momma and Daddy off the cold floor in the winter. The boys took the other mattress, and I slept on a pallet next to the fireplace. Momma’s rocker butted against a small window by the fireplace, and a quilt she’d sewed hung over the arm. Her Bible rested in the seat.

  The fireplace opened into the cookin room, and if you bent down far enough, you could see clean through the cabin. Daddy was right smart to open it on both sides. One fire served to heat and cook.

  Evenins after we’d eat around the small table Daddy’d made, I’d wash the dishes whilst everone else gathered around the fireplace. Momma made no bones about it. We’d all hear the Word from the good book come hell or high water. The cookin room held a wood bin and a pantry, and in that pantry Momma kept jars of canned beans and spinach. A screen door stood in front of a heavy wood door. I won’t never forget how it warmed Momma’s heart to have that screen door.

  “I done ask you thrice. Where is the jar?” Calvin tossed Momma’s quilt onto the floor, then stormed to the pantry, nearly tippin the rocker over. It was hard to keep my eyes from scannin across the room to Momma’s secret place. I was just thankful Calvin didn’t think to take Daddy’s shotgun.

  I eased inside, sleeked around the broken screen where the shotgun hung, and lifted it off its hook. Calvin stepped behind me. I rested the gun against my shoulder real quick like and pulled back the hammers. “Get out, Calvin. Now!”

  He lifted his hands. I aimed the gun just to the right of his head and pulled the first trigger. It fired, blowin a hole the size of your fist in the wall behind him. The color drained from Calvin’s face. He bore a resemblance to that raccoon Daddy had snagged after a week of it stealin our corn. The look in his eyes was nothin short of disbelief.

  “I said, get out. I was clear and I meant it. I got one more shot. And remember, Daddy taught me to shoot, so do you wanna chance me missin?”

  He eyeballed me for a minute, then stormed outta the house. “Watch your back, Worie. Watch your back!”

  CHAPTER

  THREE

  “Idiot,” I said. Calvin’s threats never held no water. He was, after all, a liar. When he lied his eyes flitted. With all that flappin, he could have took flight just now. And that kinda scared me. It was a different way about him . . . a desperation.

  Sadness took hold of my heart. Momma loved us. She loved Calvin despite his meanness. She loved Justice through his drinkin, and they was no question she loved me for givin up all I did to stay with her and help.

  I miss you, Momma. I surely don’t understand why you felt the need to drain the life from your body. “Didn’t I do things right?” I felt my mood darken. I don’t understand. I don’t know if I can ever forgive you. “Ever!”

  Fear took hold. I was the one thing that scared the socks off me . . . an orphan. Just like all them other youngins—like them eleven Olsen children. No momma. No daddy.

  I remembered when George and Martha Olsen died. He got sick first, and when the fever finally snuffed out his light, they was so poor that Martha quit eatin in order to have enough food to feed her children. Momma’d carry food down to Martha, but it was hard for her to feed Martha’s eleven and her own brood. When Ellie Olsen come knockin on our door to tell us that her mother was real sick, Momma said she knew Martha’s time was counted.

  “It’s the fever, Miss Louise!” Ellie wrapped her arms around Momma’s waist and buried her head into her stomach. “That fever is like ants. It swarms everwhere.” Her shoulders shook as she cried.

  There was always a pot of soup simmerin over the fire, so Momma pulled a bowl off the shelf and poured Ellie some. “Here, child. Eat you something. You’re gonna need to be strong for your brothers and sisters.”

  Whilst Ellie slurped on that soup, Momma went to roundin up canned goods to take to the Olsens.

  “Ellie, you hurry up and finish that soup. We need to get back to your momma.”

  “Yes, Miss Louise.” She turned the bowl up and gulped down the warm liquid.

  I won’t never forget the look on Momma’s face when we saw Miss Martha’s eyes was sunk deep into her head and her lips favored blueberries. And her skin was a pasty gray.

  “Lord have mercy, Martha, they ain’t enough meat on your bones for a buzzard to pick.” Momma lifted Martha’s head and dribbled warm broth into her mouth.

  “Had to d-do wh-what I h-had to d-do to be s-sure my k-kids was f-fed.”

  Martha did what any momma would do to care for her children. She sacrificed so they could live. If it meant more work, she’d work. If it meant not eatin, then she’d miss a meal so them youngins could eat. They was lots of times Miss Martha did without so her youngins could have what was necessary. This time, betwixt the fever and starvation, her life was snuffed out.

  We didn’t have a lot, but Momma always made sure we had what we needed. If we was lackin, she’d commence to can anything she could to sell.

  I wondered if they was a reason Momma might have done the same. Did she do without so us youngins had what we needed? What did we lack that was so important Momma felt like she needed to take her life? What?

  “Have mercy!” Momma had gently dabbed a drip of soup from Martha’s chin. “They was only one person to make this kind of sacrifice. All you had to do was ask for help. You ain’t the good Lord.” She wheeled around to me. “Worie, this fever is runnin wild on the mountain. People is dyin left and right. You best be prayin that the good Lord will have mercy cause it seems the devil hisself is wreakin havoc, takin the parents of the weak and knowin that without care them little ones will die too.” Momma swiped her forehead with her sleeve. “Get me a bucket of cold water so I can cool Martha down.”

  Martha was no different. She was another soul captured, and her children would be orphans. I felt sorry for them little ones. What would they do without their momma and daddy?

  “Martha, we need to break this fever so you can get on to carin for your family.” Momma rubbed a cold rag ove
r Martha’s face, but her life was all give out. She sucked in a long breath and it hissed outta her lungs. Death carried her away.

  “Martha!” Momma shouted. “Martha, what about these youngins?” But she was gone.

  The memory burned hard in my mind. Layin on that slat floor, still damp from scrubbin up blood, I choked back the sobs. Here I am now—an orphan myself. My worst fear had come to pass.

  I reckon I laid there a good part of the afternoon. Smoke from the burned mattress seeped through the door. Horrible thoughts scrambled through my head. I remembered how them Olsen children was left in the cold to fend for theirselves. I was afraid. Afraid of bein alone. Not afraid of bein by myself, but of bein alone—with nobody that cared. My brothers sure as whiz didn’t care. They was too busy makin out for theirselves.

  I loved my brothers despite their stupidity, but in the same breath, I hated how they treated Momma. I hated how they left her alone to fend, expectin her to give, give, give and never get nothin in return. Not even love. She did the best she could to care for us, and them Olsen children, and the others. All the others . . . I remembered all the families Momma tried to help where there was no help to be had.

  “Bring me them jars from the root cellar so I can start cannin these half runners,” Momma’d say. “Get them brothers of yours to stoke up the fire. I need it hot to preserve them beans.”

  That was when Momma started to can. We didn’t have much in the pantry when Martha Olsen died, but Momma took what we had.

  “This is the last time I’ll be caught with my drawers down. I’ll have more food canned. They’ll be something—some sort of food to feed all these hungry children when they come knockin.”

  And Momma did. After Martha died, she commenced cannin all she could from June until October, and when winter come, she could at least try to feed the little ones who lost their parents.