Following My Own Footsteps

by Mary Downing Hahn

  Without another word she led us to an old black Packard, about the biggest car I'd ever seen. "There's plenty of room for you all," she said, and settled herself behind the steering wheel. Mama got in beside her, still toting Bobby, whose odor hadn't improved. I saw Grandma twitch her nose, but she didn't say anything.

  The rest of us piled into the back. June was still smiling but I was sure her face was starting to ache from the effort.

  If Mama and Grandma spoke to each other I couldn't hear what they said for the noise of whining and bawling and fussing coming from my brothers, combined with the sound of the car's engine. I was about deafened by the racket.

  A few minutes later, Grandma pulled into a long driveway and parked beside a house so big it just about took my breath away. There wasn't a place in College Hill to match it. Not even up on the hill where the richest families lived. I figured we'd stopped here to pick something up. No kin of ours lived in a mansion like this.

  But I was wrong. Mama got out of the car and started walking toward the house. It was clear she knew exactly where she was going.

  June looked at me. "Is Grandma a millionaire, Gordy?"

  "How do I know?" I guess I sounded cross, but it seemed to me Mama should have told me what to expect. With Stuart and Donny gone, I was the oldest son. Surely I had a right to be informed.

  June's eyes filled with tears. "You don't have to get mad, Gordy. I just asked you a question, that's all."

  I patted her head and said I was sorry. By the time Grandma led us into a big cool hallway June was smiling again. But the person she was trying so hard to impress didn't even look her way.

  "Come along," Grandma said, snapping her fingers as if we were trained dogs about to jump through hoops.

  Upstairs, Grandma began assigning bedrooms and telling us where the bathroom was and things like that. I'd never heard such a bossy woman. She was even worse than my old teacher Mrs. Wagner.

  June and I got our own private rooms, something we'd never had before. My three brothers all went into a room next to Mama's. The biggest bedroom running across the back of the house was Grandma's. I figured out Grandpa was dead though nobody actually said so.

  "Wash up," Grandma said. "Dinner will be ready at five thirty sharp."

  We all stood in the hall and watched her go downstairs. Click click went her shoes, firm and quick on each step. Then she was gone.

  I turned to Mama. She was staring into the emptiness Grandma had left behind. Her face had the same old blank look it always had. "Why didn't you tell me she was rich?" I asked.

  Mama didn't look at me. "It's not important."

  "Not important?" I stared at Mama in disbelief. "What do you mean? All those times the old man was out of work, you could have called Grandma, you could have brought us down here, you could have left him."

  My voice was shooting up like a girl's, getting shrill and whiny, but Mama just stood there, round-shouldered and sad, staring at the empty hall. Without saying a word, she picked up Bobby and headed for the bathroom. Victor and Ernie followed her, leaving June and me alone at the top of the stairs.

  "Do you think she's glad we're here, Gordy?" June asked.

  "Grandma? Darned if I know, Junie. She hasn't said much one way or the other."

  "Did you see how I was smiling and looking pretty?"

  "Sure."

  "I don't think Grandma noticed," June said sadly.

  "She had other stuff on her mind. What to give us for dinner and all." I paused and took a good look at my sister. "When Mama's done in the bathroom, wash your hands and face and comb your hair. Get Mama to braid it for you. Change your dress, too."

  June looked mournful. "Mama will be too tired to braid my hair," she said. "And my other dress has the hem ripped out. It's too small, too."

  I hung my head and stared at the shadows slanting across the steps. There was nothing I could do to help June. I couldn't mend her dress or braid her hair. Besides, I was a mess myself. My pants were still damp and they smelled like Victor's pee. My shirt was missing two buttons and both my shoestrings were broken. Maybe Mama had belonged in this house once, but the whole bunch of us seemed out of place now, her included.

  Kicking at the corner of a fancy little rug, I sighed. As usual, nothing was going right. We might as well have stayed in our old house on Davis Road. If I'd been Victor's age, I'd have cried. But I was the oldest now. I had to be tough for everybody.

  Four

  At about five thirty, Grandma called us to dinner. It smelled so good I just about broke my neck running downstairs to see what it was. The sight of the food made my stomach come to attention with a growl so loud June giggled. Grandma had gone all out. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes drowning in gravy, biscuits piled high, fresh tomatoes, and some homemade relishes. I hadn't seen a meal like that since way back before the war. And maybe not even then.

  But, much as I liked the food, I can't say I enjoyed eating it. In fact, if I hadn't been so hungry, I would have gone back to my room. Grandma was after us about our manners from the minute we sat down. She fussed at June for having her elbows on the table. Victor and Ernie horrified her by chewing with their mouths open. Bobby ate with his fingers. I didn't hold my fork, spoon, or knife right. Nor did I say please when I asked Mama to pass me the butter. I also ate too fast. And hunched over my plate as though I expected someone to steal my dinner, as Grandma put it.

  "You haven't taught these children a thing, Virginia," Grandma said, sounding just as snooty as mean old Mrs. Wagner. "They behave as if they'd been brought up in a barn. It's positively disgraceful."

  Mama stared silently at her plate, but she didn't say a thing. I glared at her, vexed by the way she just sat there. Why didn't she speak up?

  "Maybe we like barns," I said, figuring it was up to me to defend us. "Maybe we like being disgraceful."

  "You watch your tongue, young man," Grandma said.

  At the same moment, June spilled her milk. At the sight of it spreading across the tablecloth, she began to cry.

  Turning to her, Grandma said, "Hush. If there's one thing I cannot abide, it's crying."

  "I'm trying so hard to be good," June wailed. "Can't you see how hard I'm trying?"

  "Don't talk back" was what Grandma said to that. Grabbing a napkin, she began sopping up the milk.

  By now I was beginning to see why Mama had run away with the old man. Too bad he turned out to be even worse than Grandma.

  After dinner, Grandma told Mama to put the little kids to bed. "I'm going into the living room to listen to the war news," she said to June and me. "You're welcome to come with me, but you must be quiet. I won't tolerate talking while the news is on."

  Behind Grandma's back, I Heil-Hitlered her and then goose-stepped into the living room. That made June giggle, but it didn't make me feel any better about things.

  June and I sat down near the radio and Grandma made herself comfortable in an armchair. Gabriel Heatter had good news for us. On the Eastern Front, the Russians were across the Oder, fighting the Nazis in Breslau. On the Western Front, we were crossing the Ruhr, heading straight into what Heatter called Germany's industrial heartland. Things were getting better on Iwo Jima and we were bombing the Japs in Manila. Grandma actually smiled.

  When the news was over, she let June listen to "Fibber McGee and Molly," her favorite comedy show. But Grandma had some questions for me.

  "You have two brothers in the army," she said. "Donald is somewhere in Europe, I believe."

  "Donny's in Germany," I said, eager to brag. "Though he's not supposed to say, I figure he's in Patton's Third Army. You know, with Old Blood and Guts, chasing Krauts across France and into Germany. He was in the Battle of the Bulge, too. I bet he comes home with every medal you can get. Maybe even the Congressional Medal of Honor—"

  Grandma cut me off with the question I'd been trying to keep her from asking. "And Stuart? What about him?"

  "Stu? Uh, he's in a military hospital," I said, starting with t
he truth. But I finished with a lie. "He was wounded in Italy or someplace. They shipped him back here."

  Grandma gazed at me, her eyes narrowed. "Is that right?"

  "No, Gordy," June piped up. "Don't you remember? Stu stayed in the woods. You hid him in your hut so he wouldn't have to go to the war. He's in the hospital 'cause Daddy hit him."

  "That's what your mother told me." Grandma eyed me coldly. "You might as well admit it, Gordon. Stuart deserted."

  "What if he did?" I asked. "It doesn't make him yellow or anything. He thinks war's wrong, that's all." My face was so hot I thought my head might explode. I'd been taking up for my brother long enough. I was sick of it—sick of him and Grandma, too. Old bat, asking me questions she already knew the answer to.

  "I'm not like Stu," I yelled. "I'd fight if I was old enough. In fact I hope the war lasts till I'm eighteen so I can go kill Nazis like Donny!"

  "If you don't learn to control that temper," Grandma said, "you'll follow in your father's footsteps, Gordon Smith."

  I jumped to my feet. "I'll never be like that SOB!"

  "That's enough impudence for one night," Grandma said. "Go to bed right now!"

  I gave June a dirty look but she was staring at the radio as if she expected to see Fibber McGee step out onto the living room carpet. "Don't open the closet," she chanted, "don't open the closet!"

  But of course Fibber did, and everything fell out with a big crash like always, and his wife Molly got mad like always. June laughed and so did all the people in the studio audience.

  "You heard me, Gordon," Grandma said, pointing at the stairs as if she was banishing a dog who'd peed on the carpet. "Go to bed. Now."

  "Don't worry," I sneered. "I wouldn't stay here if you paid me." Without looking at Grandma or June, I swaggered out of the room. A loud burst of laughter from the radio spoiled my exit somewhat but I kept on going.

  Not long after I got into bed, I heard June come upstairs. She paused at my door. I figured she wanted to apologize for starting the trouble between Grandma and me, but instead of knocking she just stood there a few moments and then went on to her room. Maybe she thought I was asleep.

  A little later, a train went by. Though it wasn't close enough to shake the bed the way it did back home, I could hear the whistle and the sound of the engine. Lord, I wished I was on it, heading for the Gulf Stream waters and the redwood forest and the sparkling sands of the diamond deserts. Instead I was stuck here in Grandville, North Carolina, in a big old mansion with the coldest-hearted grandma who ever drew breath.

  When the train was gone, the night seemed lonelier. Quieter, too. The floor creaked, the stairs squeaked, I thought I heard June whimpering in her sleep. The wind blew through the big old tree outside, shaking the bare branches. Not far away, a dog barked.

  I was just starting to fall asleep when voices outside my door woke me up. Angry voices. Not loud but deadly low, which was worse somehow.

  "You're almost forty years old, Virginia," Grandma was saying, "and you come crawling home like a whipped dog. Where is your pride? Your dignity? Your spirit? Did you let that man beat every ounce of gumption out of you?"

  "If you don't want us, say so," Mama whispered. "We'll leave, Mother."

  "Where would you go with those pitiful children?"

  Pitiful children—is that how Grandma saw us? I had half a mind to go out there and tell the old battle-axe a thing or two. Let her say Gordy Smith was pitiful then.

  "I don't know where I'd go." Mama's voice sank even lower. "That's why I came here, I thought maybe you would ... that is, I hoped ... I mean..."

  Grandma said nothing.

  "This was my home once," Mama said, speaking a little louder.

  "You were certainly anxious to leave it when you were sixteen," Grandma said. "It was Roger you wanted then, not your father or me."

  "Mother, what do you want me to say? I made a mistake, I was wrong, I'm sorry!" Mama's voice rose. It was all I could do not to cheer her on.

  Trouble was, she woke up Bobby. He started crying, which roused Ernie and Victor.

  "You made your bed," Grandma said. "Now sleep in it—if you can find room." A few seconds later, her door slammed shut.

  Mama must have gone to my brothers' room because I soon heard her singing to them, trying to lull them back to sleep with sad war songs.

  The moment the house got quiet, June tiptoed into my room, sniffling, and perched on the edge of my bed. It seemed I was never going to get any sleep, so I sat up and asked her what was wrong.

  "It's just like home," she sobbed, "only now it's Mama and Grandma fighting instead of her and Daddy. Why can't everybody be nice to each other?"

  "At least Grandma didn't hit Mama," I said. "Or us."

  "She says mean things, though," June said.

  I patted her shoulder. "You know what they say, June Bug. 'Sticks and stones may break my bones—"'

  "'But harsh words cannot hurt me,'" June finished in a singsong voice. Sticking her thumb in her mouth, she crawled into bed beside me. "Can I sleep here just for tonight?"

  "If you promise not to kick me black and blue."

  "I'll lie way over here beside the wall," June promised, "and I won't move all night long."

  June fell asleep almost at once, but I lay awake for hours, listening to trains thunder past, blowing their whistles to warn folks they were coming. I was out of College Hill but I wasn't sure I was in a better place. Like June said, it was the same old thing as before, fighting and arguing and people crying. But at least the old man wasn't here. That had to be an improvement.

  Five

  The next day was Saturday. The first thing Grandma did was organize a shopping trip. She said she wasn't about to have a raggedy bunch of poor white trash grandchildren living in her house. After she made sure we were all scrubbed clean, she loaded us into her big old Packard and drove us downtown. First stop was the barber shop for everybody but Mama and June. Then we went to Goode's Department Store, where we all got outfitted with everything from socks and underwear to church clothes.

  Everybody but Mama, that is. Even though Grandma offered, Mama said she didn't want anything.

  "But, Mama," June pleaded, "you need a new dress. Think how pretty you'd look in one like that."

  Mama glanced at the dress June was pointing at and shook her head. "Don't be silly," she said.

  At home, Grandma sent us upstairs to put on our new playclothes, as she called them. When we came down, she lined us up from youngest to oldest and studied us, tidying Victor's hair, tying Bobby's shoelaces, straightening June's part, tucking Ernie's jersey into his overalls. "Well," she said at last, "you look presentable. Now let's see if you can act presentable."

  After lunch, all the kids followed me into the backyard. To get away from them, I climbed the big oak tree beside the garage. Luckily they wandered off to play on an old-fashioned wooden swing set, leaving me free to scramble from branch to branch like Tarzan till I was as high as I wanted to be, which was pretty high. I surveyed the whole neighborhood. All the houses were big. Some had towers like Grandma's, others were plainer, but none was shabby or run-down. The paint on all of them was fresh, the grass in the big yards as green as it's likely to be in February, the bushes neatly trimmed. No trash anywhere. Nothing broken-down or ramshackle.

  Shrieks of laughter drew my attention to June and Victor. They were pumping the swing, making it go as high as possible, while Ernie ran around it, wailing, "Me, too! Me, too!" Bobby stood a few feet away, a thumb in his mouth, watching. I thought I saw Mama's face at the kitchen window but it might have been the reflection of a cloud.

  From high over their heads, I studied my sister and brothers, trying to decide if they still looked like Smiths. To a stranger, they might seem to be ordinary, everyday kids, but, in spite of their new clothes, there was something about them, a Smith-ness you couldn't quite wash off. Maybe it was that puppy-in-the-pound smile June gave everybody or the way Bobby sucked his thumb or the sad loo
k in Victor's eyes. Misfits, that's what they looked like. Mama and the old man, Stu and Donny and me—none of us really fit in anywhere.

  A door opened in the house next door, and a pale, thin woman came outside carrying a basket of laundry. She was younger than Mama and pretty in a kind of nervous way. A widow, I thought, remembering the gold star I'd seen in her front window. Back in College Hill, lots of folks had stars to show they'd lost somebody in the war. I'd known a few of the ones who got killed, guys who'd been my brothers' buddies. It was tough to think they'd never come back and play ball on the field by the train tracks. One had been good enough to pitch for the Senators.

  The woman next door took her time hanging out the clothes, mainly because she was giving most of her attention to my sister and brothers, who were still whooping it up on the swing set. No more nosy than the average snoop, she'd probably heard we were coming and wanted to get a good look at us. She didn't see me spying on her from the tree.

  What interested me most were the shirts, jerseys, and trousers she was hanging up. Those clothes meant she had a son. He was smaller than I was—I could tell by the size of his clothes—but big enough to pal around with. Maybe he and I could start a gang like I had in College Hill, get in a little trouble, do things to make life interesting.

  After the woman went back inside, I sat in the tree and stared at the shut door, wishing the boy would come out. It was a nice day, not too cold but a little windy, perfect weather for fooling around.

  Suddenly the curtain twitched at an upstairs window just about level with the branch I was sitting on. For a second, I glimpsed a pale face looking at me, but it disappeared before I could grin or wave or do anything.

  At the same moment Grandma spotted me. "Gordon Smith," she called from the back door. "Come down from that tree before you break your neck."

  I took my time in case the boy next door was watching. It wouldn't do for him to think I was some goody-goody kid.