I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure how I felt about Caleb, but I thought Mother was probably right. He was just a big boy, and he was good to Reana Mae. Maybe he just needed to feel at home someplace.
After supper, I retrieved my pillow and blanket from the sofa and trudged up the stairs to the attic room. At the top of the steps, I stopped in amazement. Everything had changed. The furniture had been rearranged so that Tracy’s things occupied the front of the room and mine were squeezed into the small alcove at the back. My books, my pictures, my stuffed animals and dolls were stuffed willy-nilly into a small bookcase. Even my clothes had been moved from the big closet we had shared into the small closet at the far end of the room.
I stood in stunned silence for a moment. Then I began yelling, “Mother, Mother! Come look what Tracy’s done!”
Mother came up the stairs with Tracy right behind her. She stood staring, too, as Tracy said in the same sharp, bright voice she’d used since we got home, “I rearranged things. Doesn’t it look nice, Mother? See, all of my things are here at this end, and Bethany’s are at that end. That way we each have a space of our own. Doesn’t it look nice?” she repeated, looking up at Mother.
“Well, Tracy … I think maybe you should have waited until we were home and let Bethany have some say, too.”
“But I wanted to surprise her,” Tracy said sweetly, her hazel eyes sparkling innocently.
“Don’t you like it, Bethy?” She turned to me now. “See, all of your stuff is together now. And you have your own closet, too, so we don’t have to share anymore. And look,” she said triumphantly, lifting the quilt on my bed, “look what Daddy got for you to keep your extra things in.”
Under the bed was a large, flat wooden box with a hinged lid. Tracy pulled it out and lifted the lid. Inside I saw my summer clothes, folded neatly.
“Daddy helped you do this?” Mother asked incredulously.
“Oh yes, Mother. When I told him how I wanted to surprise Bethy and give her some space of her own, he said that was just the nicest idea he’d ever heard. He helped me move all the furniture around. I certainly couldn’t have done it myself.”
Tracy turned back toward her side of the room. I noted grimly that she commanded the lion’s share of the space, and that my posters had been removed from all the walls.
“Don’t you like it, Bethy?” She looked at me again, and I could see the spite in her eyes. “It will be so much nicer if we don’t have to step over each other all the time, don’t you think?”
Mother was looking at me, too, waiting to see what I would say. We all made allowances for Tracy. And even though it wasn’t fair, I knew Mother would go along with it if I would—as long as it kept Tracy happy.
I looked around the room again. My stomach churned; my fists and teeth clenched tightly. Just for once, I wondered what would happen if I threw a fit, if I lost control and screamed and threw things out the window.
But even as the thought arose, I knew it would never happen.
I sighed. “Sure, Tracy. I like it just fine, I guess.”
“Are you sure, Bethany?” Mother asked softly.
“Yes, Mother.” I nodded. “It’s fine.”
I carried my pillow and blanket to the bed at the far end of the room. That’s when I realized that Patsy wasn’t in her usual place on the bed. I had put her there when we left for our trip. I knew she had been there, tucked under the quilt in her flannel nightgown. I turned in a panic to look at Tracy and caught just a trace of a smile on her face before her eyes widened in mock dismay.
“Oh, Bethy, I’m so sorry,” she gushed. “When Daddy was moving your bed, Patsy fell off and her head broke wide open … just shattered right there on the floor.”
I stared at the spot on the floor where she was pointing, as if I might see some remnant of my Patsy. Of course there was none.
“He felt so bad about it, Bethy, he really did. I don’t know how it could have happened. I guess she must have been right at the edge of the bed.”
I shook my head. Patsy hadn’t been on the edge of the bed. I had tucked her in myself in the early morning before we left.
“Don’t be mad at Daddy,” Tracy continued, her voice sweetly pleading. “He felt so bad about it. He really did.”
“Daddy moved the bed?” Mother asked quietly.
“Well, of course,” Tracy said, looking right into Mother’s face. “I couldn’t move it on my own, so he came up to help me.”
“So you both moved it?”
“Well, I was helping Daddy,” Tracy said flatly, her eyes still wide and staring straight up at Mother. “But he’s the one that pushed the bed. And he feels just terrible about it.”
“I’m sure he does,” Mother said, watching Tracy’s face closely. Then she turned to me. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. We’ll get you a new doll.”
It wasn’t until Mother hugged me that I began to cry. My tears came in great, gulping sobs, and once I started, I couldn’t seem to stop.
I cried for Jolene’s lost baby, and for Reana Mae. I cried from anger and confusion and sheer exhaustion. And I cried for Patsy—my beautiful doll. I hadn’t actually played with Patsy much in the last year. But losing her felt like losing part of myself.
Mother held me until I had worn myself out with crying. Then she helped me change into my nightgown, washed my face, and tucked me into bed.
She sat on the edge of the bed and stroked my hot, flushed face, until my eyes finally closed. And as she stroked she sang, “All night, all day, angels watching over me, my Lord. All night, all day, angels watching over me.”
As I drifted off into a restless, uncomfortable sleep, I wondered what kind of angels they were to let such awful things happen on their watch.
11
Demons and Ghosts
“I know, Helen, I know.” I could barely hear my father’s voice. It seemed to come from inside a deep well. “She’s a handful now. But it’ll pass. Just you wait and see. She’ll grow out of it.”
“What if she doesn’t, Jimmy?” My mother’s voice sounded equally far away and very worried. I struggled to wake myself from the fog of sleep. Where was I? Oh yes, at the far corner of the attic room, where Tracy and Daddy had pushed my bed. I could see stars in the night sky out the window over my bed, and I could hear my parents’ voices through the heat vent that now lay directly under the bed. I must be right over their room.
“She will, Helen. She’s just upset by this whole business with Bobby Lee and Jolene, that’s all.”
“Jimmy, did you move Bethany’s bed?” Mother asked abruptly. “Or did Tracy?”
“Well …” Daddy hesitated. I sat up in my bed, listening intently now. At the other end of the room, Tracy snored.
“Well,” he continued, “Tracy wanted to surprise you all, moving the furniture all by herself, so she and Bethany would both have some space. And she started out on her own, but then when she tried to move the bed … well, she came running downstairs in a panic, saying she’d broken Bethany’s doll. You should’ve seen her, Helen. She was so scared. She thought you would blame her for it. And she was just crying to beat the band. I thought she’d never stop. So I said I’d help her with the rest, and then I moved the bed where it is now.”
“So Tracy broke Bethany’s doll?” Mother asked.
“It was an accident, Helen. Honestly, you should have seen how sorry she was.” Daddy was pacing now. I could hear the floorboards squeaking.
“I’m sure she was,” Mother said grimly.
“Now, don’t be that way,” Daddy was pleading. “She really was sorry. And she was so afraid you’d be mad at her. Honestly, Helen, it was pitiful.”
There was a long pause. I slid to the floor, rolled myself under the bed, and laid my ear against the vent. Finally, Mother spoke.
“Jimmy, we’ve put this off for a long time,” she said. “But we both know something is not … right with Tracy.”
I could hear Daddy’s pacing. One particular board squ
eaked loudly each time he stepped on it.
“Jimmy? Are you hearing me?” Mother’s voice was sad and tired. “I know it’s not something we wanted to believe. But, Jimmy, look what she’s doing to Bethy.”
“No!” Daddy’s voice was so loud it made me jump. At the far end of the room, Tracy sighed and rolled over in her sleep. “I’m not going to let you make this into a crisis. So she broke a doll, so what? It was an accident, for God’s sake. And even if it wasn’t … even if it wasn’t completely an accident … Helen, is it any wonder she’s so resentful?
“Just look at it from Tracy’s perspective. First, you pay all kinds of attention to that little girl down there, not that she don’t need it, God knows. But Tracy … she just needs a little more attention from you, that’s all. That’s all she’s ever needed. And then you take off in the middle of the week—in the middle of the school year, for God’s sake—and you take Bethany with you, but you don’t take her. How did you think she was going to feel, Helen?
“Tracy would be just fine if you spent as much time worrying over her as you do over Jolene and Reana Mae. I’m sorry I ever took you back to West Virginia! When are you going to start putting your own family first, Helen?”
The door slammed, and I knew he’d left. A moment later, I heard the car start in the driveway. Then I heard my mother sobbing. She was still crying when I heard the bedsprings creak under her weight. Finally, a long time later, I fell asleep there on the floor to the sounds of my mother’s muffled sobs.
12
Pilgrimage
We didn’t go to the Coal River that summer. Instead, we spent the long vacation at home in Indiana. Nancy and Melinda were delighted by this change; they both had boyfriends and belonged to sororities, and they spent less and less time at home those days. Nancy took a summer job at a store in the mall, earning extra money and a big discount on clothes. I don’t know which she valued more, but my parents were amazed at how well she did at work. Nancy had never been much of a student, but she was a marvel at sales. Soon, she had customers who wouldn’t buy from any other salesclerk.
“That girl could sell ice to Eskimos,” my father crowed at dinner one night. “Who knew she’d have such a head for business?”
“I bet I could sell things, too,” Tracy trilled. “Don’t you think I’d be a good salesman, Daddy?”
“Probably so, baby.” Daddy smiled. “But you’ve got a ways to go before you can get a job.”
The very next day, Tracy announced she had taken a paper route. For the next two years, she diligently delivered newspapers after school every day, dragging the large canvas bag full of rolled papers in a wagon behind her. Sometimes she paid me a penny a paper to help her roll them. Her customers loved her, often tipping her far more than any of the other carriers received, and Daddy beamed when he talked about his two budding business tycoons.
Melinda spent her days at the YMCA. She was on the swimming and diving teams, and she worked long hours on her rolls and butterfly stroke. Daddy went to all the meets, cheering himself hoarse from the side of the pool. All of Melinda’s ribbons hung from a corkboard in his office, and he proudly boasted of his future Olympian, too.
I spent the summer reading, writing letters to Reana Mae, and whining at Mother. I didn’t remember a summer when we hadn’t gone south, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I went to the pool with Melinda sometimes, but I didn’t want to swim on the team. I followed Tracy on her paper route, rode my bike to the park, drew chalk pictures on the sidewalk, and bitterly resented my father for keeping us at home.
“I don’t know why we can’t go to the river,” I complained daily. “I think Daddy is just mean to make us stay home.”
After a week or so of this, Mother’s patience wore thin and she told me that every time I complained about staying home, I would have to put a dime in the gripe jar she made and set out on the kitchen counter. After losing a dollar’s worth of dimes, I stopped griping out loud. But I was not happy.
Part of my unhappiness stemmed from Reana’s irregular letters. I wrote to her diligently, twice a week at least, bemoaning my fate and maligning my father. Her letters came less and less frequently that summer, and she seemed not to miss me at all. In fact, Reana Mae sounded happier than I’d ever known her to be. In June she wrote,
Today we had the biggest game of kick-the-can you ever saw. Every kid on the river played, and Caleb was IT. Just when he thought he had everybody, I ran in and kicked the can over. Harley Boy swore he let me kick it, but I don’t think so. Caleb don’t let nobody beat him.
Two weeks later,
Bethany, you are missing the best summer ever! Caleb and me cut a real path all the way to the beach. Boy was Harley Boy suprised! He even got mad and said he was going to do that and we took his idea. But Caleb just laffed at him and said Harley was jelus cause we did it with out him.
In July,
I swam all the way across the river today!!! I was scared to at first but Caleb swam with me the hole way. When he is not working at granpa’s store we swim all the time. And mama don’t even yell when I come home late like she used to. She just smokes her cigs and don’t say anything.
The only dark cloud on Reana’s summer parade seemed to be her daddy’s long absences. Despite his promises in March, Bobby Lee was taking longer and more frequent hauls. Reana Mae wrote that he hadn’t been home more than four days all summer. Still, on the whole she seemed to be having the time of her life. Without me.
Near the end of July, Daddy announced that he was taking a two-week vacation. We sat in stunned silence, gaping at him. Daddy had never taken a whole two weeks of vacation before.
“Are we going to the river?” I asked, already planning in my head all the things I wanted to do with Reana Mae.
“Not this year.” He grinned, winking at Mother. “This summer the whole family’s going to …” He paused just long enough for us to get impatient. “Florida!”
He beamed proudly, Mother smiled, and the other girls squealed in excitement.
“Florida! Oh, Daddy, that’s so cool!”
“Are we staying at the beach?”
“Will the hotel have a pool?”
“We’ll get so tanned!”
I sat sullenly, watching them.
“What’s wrong, Bethany? Don’t you want to go to Florida? Land of the golden sun!” Daddy tweaked my chin.
Mother stood behind him, watching me. She smiled hopefully and nodded.
So I nodded, too.
“Yes, Daddy. I want to go.” I could hardly get the words past the lump in my throat, but I smiled and blinked back the tears stinging my eyes. “That’ll be great.”
Satisfied, he turned to the others, who were peppering him with questions. Mother touched my cheek lightly and smiled. I ran upstairs to write to Reana Mae.
We drove to Florida in the big old station wagon, each of us commanding her usual spot. Mother and Daddy sat up front, of course. Nancy and Melinda laid out their blankets and pillows in the backseat. Tracy and I took the back end. Daddy laid out all the suitcases, then spread several blankets over them. Tracy and I sprawled on top of these, amusing ourselves by sticking our feet out the back window, making faces at the drivers of cars behind us, and bickering.
Our destination was Bonita Springs on the Gulf Coast. We were going to see our Grandmother Araminta. I didn’t remember having seen her before, though Daddy swore I had. Now she had lung cancer, and Daddy was bringing his girls to visit her before she died. I wondered, as we drove, what I would feel for this woman who was my daddy’s mother but wasn’t my Aunt Belle. I wondered what Daddy felt for her, too. If he was worried at all, it didn’t show. He sang nonsense songs, teased my mother, and ate jelly beans as he drove over the speed limit through Tennessee, slowing to obey the signs in Georgia, then speeding again when we hit the Florida state line.
On this special pilgrimage, we didn’t pack our meals. We ate in real restaurants and stayed in real motels—which turned out
to be not nearly so glamorous as we’d imagined. Six people in a single motel room did not lend itself much to glamour. Mother and Daddy slept in one bed, Nancy and Melinda in the other, and Tracy and I spread the blankets from the back of the car on the floor to sleep.
We unloaded the car just after lunch on the third day at a small motel six blocks from the ocean, raced for the bathroom to change into our swimsuits, then waited impatiently while Mother donned her suit and Daddy found the cameras. Finally, we climbed back into the car and drove to the beach, where Daddy fumed at the injustice of paying fifty cents for a parking place, and we swam in the ocean, letting the waves knock us about, screaming at the cool water, while Mother fussed about sunscreen and sharks.
The next morning, we showered and shampooed and donned the Easter dresses mother had draped so carefully across the motel beds. Daddy paced about the small room, barking orders and checking the cameras again and again.
“Nancy, you are not wearing those green stockings. Helen, did you see Nancy’s stockings? She can’t wear those today.
“Melinda, tie your hair back, for Pete’s sake! You look like you just got out of bed.
“Bethany, where are your shoes? No, you can’t wear your sandals. Where are your nice shoes? I know your mother packed them. Get them on your feet … now, Bethany!
“Tracy, where are you? Helen, where’s Tracy? What’s she doing in the bathroom? We’ve got to go, ladies. Come on, we’re late!”
I’d never seen my father so nervous. Mother moved wordlessly from suitcase to suitcase, finding stockings and hair bows and patent leather shoes. Finally, we lined up for inspection. Daddy looked us over critically, pronounced us fit to be seen, snapped a couple of pictures, and herded us to the car.
“No, girls, you can’t ride in the back in your nice dresses. Tracy, you sit up front with us. Bethy, you’re with Nancy and Melinda. Everyone ready? Okay, let’s go.”
Prayers and Lies Page 11
