I cried while Hilton listened for a while. Then Robert got back on the phone and said he’d call me in the morning and then I hung up and fixed myself another drink and ate some potato chips. Then I called Karla and Speed McVee. “I had an abortion,” I told Karla. “It was wonderful. I saved my life. If you ever need the name, call me up. It’s Doctor Van Zandt in Houston, Texas. He didn’t kill me. Don’t tell anybody, Karla. Swear you won’t tell anyone. Don’t tell Speed.”
“I won’t, honey. Don’t worry about that. I won’t tell anyone. I can keep a secret.”
“You know whose baby it was, don’t you? It was Robert’s.”
“Oh, my God.”
“You can’t tell anyone. Don’t tell anyone, not even Speed.”
“I won’t. You know I won’t. I won’t breathe a word.”
A week later, on a Saturday night in Alexandria, very late at night from what I could piece together afterward from the stories, Speed ran into Malcolm in a bar and they had a few drinks together and Speed told him that Robert Haverty and I had had an affair and that I had aborted Robert’s baby.
Then Malcolm had left the bar and gone home and gotten a loaded Ruger he kept in a case in a locked drawer. It had hand-carved walnut handles he had made for it the last time I had left him. Then he called the Havertys’ about three in the morning but luckily for everyone they were in the Caribbean scuba diving so he couldn’t kill anyone that night. Then he called me.
“It’s Malcolm, Rhoda.”
“Jesus Christ, it’s four o’clock in the morning.”
“I know what you did, you bitch. I know all about it. Speed told me.”
“What do you know? You must be crazy. What are you talking about?”
“I’m going to get those babies away from you, Rhoda. I’m going to make so much money that your daddy can’t protect you anymore. I just want you to know that and you goddamn well better take care of them until I get there.”
“Where are you? Where are you calling from? What in the name of God are you talking about anyway?”
“You know what I’m talking about. Speed told me everything.”
“Speed McVee. He’s been trying to fuck me ever since I met him. He’d say anything. I’m hanging up, Malcolm. It’s clear you’re drunk.” I hung up the phone and went back into my bedroom and got into my bed. Then I got back up and went over to the baby bed and picked up Jimmy and carried him to the bed and cuddled up around him. I was in my own bed in the middle of my father’s house. Nothing could harm me. No one could reach me or kill me or yell at me or be cold to me or impregnate me or cut me open with a knife or hurt me or take my babies away from me. No one could touch me. My father would kill Malcolm if he tried to even talk to me. I was safe. I curled my body around my sleeping child. I listened to him breathing. I smelled the lovely clean smell of his hair. I was so unhappy. I was so confused and terrified and lonely. But it was almost dawn. Already the sun was beginning to light up the skies of Dunleith, Alabama. I was home, in my father’s house, in the land of my father’s fathers. Nothing could harm me ever. No one could get to me or hurt me. I was safe, safe, safe, safe, safe.
“What did Malcolm want?” It was my mother, standing in the door in her soft blue nightgown. She walked toward the bed. “What was Malcolm calling you about?”
“Nothing. He was drunk. Don’t worry about it. Go to sleep, Mother. You’ll wake the baby.”
“I’m worried about him. I want to talk to you, Rhoda. We have to talk about all this.”
“Well, not now. Go back to bed. You’re going to wake up Jimmy. Leave me alone, Mother. Get out of here.” She stood at the foot of the bed, staring at me, trying to make me talk, but she had never had an ounce of power over me and she sure wasn’t going to have any now. If it was up to her I would die having babies for her goddamn God. “Get out of here,” I repeated. “Leave me alone. Let me sleep.” She shook her head and moved toward the door. She left the room and I cuddled down again over Jimmy. I had been inside her body. Once I had been curled up inside her as Jimmy and Malcolm had been curled up inside of me. And something else, some terrible homunculus sent to kill me, but I had gotten rid of it. I had flown to Houston, Texas, and had it cut out of my womb. I had done it. I had saved my life and I didn’t care what any of them thought or any of them did. I was going to live and be happy. I would find a way to have a happy life. Wherever there was such a thing. It was out there somewhere and I would go and find it. I rolled my head down into the fine clean ironed sheets on my little four-poster cherry bed. I moved my body around my child until we were one fine breathing thing and then I slept. In my dreams I was somewhere in New York City talking to people who thought like me and laughed like me and knew the world was funny. We raised our glasses high. It was Dorothy Parker. She was across the table from me. “I want you to meet an atheist, Rhoda,” she was saying. “I heard you wanted to meet some atheists and some poets.”
I woke at dawn and went downstairs and found Daddy at the dining room table with his newspaper and his poached egg. Fannin’s cousin, Mayberry, was in the kitchen cooking. Daddy had searched all over Dunleith to find a breakfast cook who would come in as early as he got up and had finally found one. He and Mayberry were “what and what,” as he was fond of saying. Meaning they were both highly suspicious, profoundly cynical, and almost never slept. Mayberry lived alone in a small frame house, had never married, and was probably as much Scots as my father. She was so light-skinned she thought she was above the other black people. While she cooked Daddy’s poached eggs in the mornings, he called the news from the papers into the kitchen. Sometimes he got so excited he got up and went to stand beside her to read her the latest political chicanery. “Those sapsuckers are heading us into another foreign war, Mayberry. They’re all fools. Nothing but fools.”
“Nothing you can do about it,” she would answer, steam rising from the poached egg skillet, lighting up her pale golden face, her fierce eyes never meeting his. “Nothing anybody can do about that mess.”
On this morning Daddy was sitting in his chair at the table, carefully separating the white from the yellow of his eggs. He allowed himself to eat the whites, then a few nibbles of the yellow. He was less than fifty years old but he had already started his thirty-year stint of worrying continuously about his heart.
“What was Malcolm calling you about?” he asked. “You aren’t very nice to your mother, Sister. You got to be nicer to her. What did he want?”
“Nothing. He was drunk.”
“I never knew him to call in the middle of the night. That’s more your speed. You haven’t been mouthing it around about that trip we took, have you? You wouldn’t be that big a fool, would you? Even you wouldn’t be crazy enough to do that, would you?” He laid the newspaper down on the table and fixed me with his eyes. Coal black eyes sunk deep in the sockets, an Irish strain. I have those eyes and so does my brother Dudley, but neither of us ever learned to use them like Daddy could.
“I haven’t told a soul. Why would I?”
“Because you mouth everything around. I never knew you to keep a secret.”
“I don’t believe in secrets. I don’t do anything I’m ashamed to tell.”
“Well, you better keep quiet about this, Sister. I don’t want your momma finding out about it and if that little husband of yours finds out its going to make it hard for me to get you a divorce. I had it all settled about the custody of the children and you had to go down there to Alexandria and start living with him again. Now I got to start all over.”
“What could he do?”
“He could make a lot of trouble if he wanted to. So just try to settle down and don’t go telling anyone else. Did you tell that sissy britches Waters boy? I heard you were out drinking with him the other night.”
“No, I didn’t tell Charles William. And don’t talk about him like that, Daddy. He’s my friend. He’s the best friend I have.”
“He’s a queer duck, that’s for sure. Well, go on and get M
ayberry to cook you some breakfast. You been looking peaked lately, Sister. I want you to stop all this drinking late at night. Your momma wants you to stay home with these babies.”
“I don’t want any breakfast, thank you. I don’t like to eat in the morning. I just came down to get some coffee.” I got up to leave but he wasn’t letting me go that easily. He reached out and took my arm. “You keep quiet about that trip, Sister. I mean it. You just lay low about that for a while and I’ll get Travis Jeans to try to get this custody suit worked out. You got to help me, Sister. You got to quit acting so crazy.”
“Okay. I’m going to. I won’t tell anyone. Let go of me, Daddy. I have to go upstairs and see about the babies.” I made my escape and went into the kitchen and got some coffee and took it upstairs and stayed up there until I heard him leave for work.
It was late that afternoon before he started in on me again. I guess he’d been thinking about it all day, out on some road job, bossing around the tractor drivers in the dust and heat, half his mind on his work and the other half on me. I heard him drive up in the side yard. Heard him whistle. Every day when he came home from work he would get out of his car and begin to whistle a little four-note tune he had learned from his daddy in Aberdeen. I suppose someday when that sound is lost to the world, I will think of it and weep. One long note, then a short trill to a lower range, then a longer note, then a short sliding stop. My brother Dudley tries to do it, but he hasn’t got the force that gave it grace. One long deep thrilling rising note, then a short high slide, then a longer note, then a short one.
I went into the bathroom and combed my hair and put on lipstick. Then I went into my room and took off the dress I was wearing and put on an aqua sundress and some sandals. Then I went out onto the porch to wait for him. It was late in the afternoon, almost dusk. Our cousin Martha Jane was already in a porch chair with a drink and her needlepoint. Uncle Will was coming across the street carrying his lantern. It was a trick lantern that played “How Dry I Am” when you turned the wick. Sometimes he brought the lantern over. Other times he staggered across the street pretending it was a desert. “Water, water,” he would be calling. “With plenty of whiskey in it.”
I settled myself into a wicker chair and waited for Daddy to finish changing shirts. Part of me knew better than to get around him when he had me on his mind but the other part was drawn in like mosquitoes to blood. I heard him pass through the dining room and speak to my mother. I got up and stood in the doorway. “How you doing, Sister?” he began. “What’s been going on?”
“Nothing. I took the boys swimming. Little Malcolm jumped off the board.”
“I got them breathing in the tub this winter,” he said to our cousin Martha Jane. “You got to teach them in the tub and get them ready. You heard any more from your little husband?” he asked, returning his attention to me. “Has he called again?”
“No, I told you he didn’t want anything. He was drinking.”
“Well, you better remember what I told you this morning if you want us to keep these boys. I’m mighty worried about you, Sister. I’ve had you on my mind.” He was talking to me as if his brother and his cousin weren’t even there. He always talked to us that way in front of people, shaming and challenging us, putting us in our place. “What kind of a dress do you call that, Sister? Is that a divorcée dress? What do you think, Will, is this what the divorcées are wearing now? Go put a shirt on, Sister. Cover up your top.”
“It’s a sundress,” I said. I left the porch and went into the kitchen and fixed myself a whiskey sour.
It was almost seven o’clock. Fannin was putting the fried chicken on the buffet. By dark I was drunk. By dark I was upstairs calling Charles William. “Come and get me,” I said. “I can’t stand it here. I have to get away. I have to go somewhere.”
“Sure, Dee,” he said. “Of course I will. I’ll be there in half an hour.” I hung up and called Speed and Karla and yelled at Speed for telling Malcolm about the abortion and then I yelled at Karla for telling Speed, then I tried to call Robert and Hilton but they didn’t answer. I went downstairs and went back out onto the porch. Daddy had a full house by now. Every chair was filled with friends and cousins. He was holding forth about the labor unions and how they had blown up his tipple in London, Kentucky. “We’re going to win the suit,” he was saying. “I got this hotshot lawyer who’s Senator Lampkin’s son-in-law. It’ll be a landmark case when we win it. It’s slow going, though. Those damn lawyers know how to hold things up. Where you been, Sister? Come on out here. Show Miss Hannie your divorcée dress. Look here at this dress, Miss Hannie. Is this what they’re wearing now?”
“I’m going out to Charles William’s house for a while,” I said. “He’s coming to get me. I might spend the night.”
“Don’t go off anywhere tonight. Your mother’s real upset with you, Rhoda. She wants you to stay around here from now on after Fannin leaves.”
“Fannin’s going to stay. She said she would. I asked her.”
“Don’t go off anywhere tonight. Your momma doesn’t want you going off and leaving these babies late at night and I don’t want you off drinking with that Waters boy.”
“Well, I’m going.” I left the porch and went into the kitchen. Fannin and the boys were sitting at the table drinking chocolate milk and eating pound cake and chicken and animal crackers. “I’m going out to Charles William’s house,” I said. “Put them to bed before you leave, will you?”
“I got a tiger,” Little Malcolm said. “I’m going to eat his tail.”
“I got a monkey,” Jimmy added. “Fannin give it to me.”
I poured some gin into a glass and gave them each a kiss. Fannin hadn’t answered me. “Will you get them to bed before you leave? I don’t feel like fooling with them tonight.”
“You’re not going off anywhere tonight and leaving us with these babies.” It was my mother coming to stand in the kitchen door. “And Fannin has to get home to her family. Put that glass down, Rhoda. Stop drinking that stuff. It makes you act like a fool.”
“What am I supposed to do?” I screamed. “Stay here and die of boredom? I’ve been taking care of them all afternoon. I took them to the pool. I played with them all day.” I threw the glass down in the sink and turned and walked out onto the porch and started down the stairs. Momma was behind me and Daddy was behind her. “I’m leaving,” I said. “I’m going out to Charles William’s to spend the night. You’re driving me crazy. I have to get out of here.”
“You are not going anywhere,” Momma said. “You are going to stay here with these babies. Do something with her, Dudley. Tell her she can’t leave.”
“I’m going out there. I’m going to see my friends. I’m not a slave to those babies.” As I started down the stairs to the yard, Charles William drove up in his Buick. Daddy passed me on the stairs and beat me to the car. “She can’t go off with you, son,” he said. “Go on home now. Rhoda’s got to stay home this evening.”
‘I’m going out to Fairfields,” I screamed. “I’m going with Charles William.” Mother tried to grab me. I pushed her out of my way. She resisted and I pushed her again and she collapsed in a heap by the live oak tree. Daddy came around behind me and grabbed my arms. Charles William got out of the car and stood by the car door. “Oh, see here,” he began. “She was only coming out to visit. Are you okay, Dee?”
“Of course I’m not okay. I’m a prisoner in my own house. This goddamn place is killing me.”
“Oh, Rhoda.” My mother began to cry. Charles William went to her and tried to help her to her feet. “Oh, my darling,” she cried. “Don’t talk like that. Don’t curse God.”
“Go on home, son,” Daddy said. “Rhoda isn’t going anywhere tonight. She’s going to stay here and help her mother. You come back over in the morning and bring little Irise with you. We’ll be glad to see you then.” He fixed Charles William with his black-eyed stare. Charles William let go of Mother and backed away. I was struggling to free myself but I
could not move.
“You son-of-a-bitch,” I was screaming. “You better let go of me.”
“Oh, Dudley,” Momma sobbed. “Oh, please, please, you two. Please stop all this.”
“Can we help?” Uncle Will called from the porch. “Come on, Bro. Come sit down and let’s talk this over.”
“You need any help, Ariane,” Cousin Martha Jane called down. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Is everything okay?” It was Irise’s mother calling from across the street on her porch. “Can we help you? Is that you, Charles William?”
“I’m leaving,” Fannin chimed in from the back stairs; “Someone better go in and see about those boys.”
The night wore on but it did not get better. Charles William left. Mother got me back into the house. The company fixed another drink and settled down on the porch. I fell asleep sobbing with my children around me on the bed. “Nobody loves me,” I was sobbing. “Oh, Malcolm, oh, Jimmy, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t have anything to live for. I might as well be dead. I’m a terrible mother. I’ve ruined my life. There’s nothing to do. It’s all over now.” They patted me and moved in close. They threw their fine fat little bodies between me and the world. Think how thrilled they must have been. Their own mother to themselves for the whole night. Their wonderful mother in need of them.
Chapter
33
No matter how wrapped up we get in ourselves and our particular demons, out there in the big field something else is always happening. I had barely opened my eyes the next morning when the phone rang beside my bed. I answered it, thinking it would be Dudley calling Daddy. They always called each other at dawn to talk about their work for the day. I wanted to tell Dudley about the fight the night before and get him on my side before Mother or Daddy told him their version.
It was Klane Marengo and she sounded terrible. “I’m sorry to be calling so early,” she said. “But you got to help me, Rhoda. They say I got to go to jail. You tole me the man said I wouldn’t be put in jail. Now Mr. Edmund say I got to plead guilty or they might put me in the electric chair.”
Net of Jewels Page 34
