by Lee Smith
Oh, I don’t know. Songs she made up out of her head, I reckon. Daddy didn’t like it. He thought all music ought to be church music, but he didn’t say a thing. He never spoke a word when it came to Mama, she meant the whole world to him, which was true from the minute he first laid eyes on her at that little church up in the Blackey coal camp where she was born. She was one of nine children, and the oldest, though she was not but fourteen years old when Daddy came riding up the holler to preach that first time. She stood up in front of the altar all by herself and threw back her head and closed her eyes and sang “Beulah Land” in her pure gold voice that never faltered, sang so beautiful Daddy said you could see the notes floating out perfect and visible in the air. Daddy was thirty years old at the time. He had already been out west, gone to jail, married a Mexican, got shot in the leg, you name it! All of these things before he got religion, after which he had took to the road for the Lord. Oh, he’d been places, and seen things. But he had never seen nothing like Mama the day he came to the church at Blackey when she was singing “Beulah Land.” Mama noticed him too, of course, the handsome stranger with the snapping black eyes and the big black hat standing thunder-struck in the open door at the back of the church.
And then he did preach, though he hardly knew what he said, and after it was all over, Daddy exchanged a few words with Mama and then went right up to her father, old Joe Burns, and said, “Sir, I want to marry your daughter Evalina.”
Old Joe Burns looked Daddy in the eye. “I appreciate the offer,” he said, “for times is hard, but Evalina is too young, sir. Come back next year and you can have her.” And so he did, and brought her over here to Rockhouse Branch, and built this house for her, meantime farming and preaching down at the Mount Gilead church which you must of passed on your way up here.
Why, I don’t know as she thought anything about it! Girls in those days did as they were told, not like they do now, not like Daisy and Iris Jean have done! Anyway, it was plain to see that Daddy doted on her and got her anything she could think of, though he did not like for her to go off the place except to church. He was always worried that something bad might happen to her. He brought pearl buttons and ribbons and pretty cloth from town, and was real proud of how nice she could sew, and she did make beautiful dresses for us girls and for herself, though there were always those at church that talked about it, and about the sin of vanity.
“My little flowers,” Mama called us, and in fact we truly were her garden as she said, Iris Jean the oldest, born when Mama was sixteen, and then me and Daisy my sweet twin, and then Billy, three years later. I know it was a lot of children for a slip of a girl to bear, and sometimes I have felt that what happened was our fault, somehow, for coming on her so fast.
I remember so clearly one thing I heard her say to Daddy when we were all just little and Billy was newborn. She was lying in the big old bed with Billy nestled up close by her, and Daddy though fully clothed lay by her side and stroked her long bright hair. I stole in the room and stood at the other side of the bed, where they did not see me. “Gabriel Lockhart,” Mama said, as if in a dream, “Where did all of them come from? Don’t you remember back when it was just me and you? But now there is so many. I keep thinking, oh who are they all? and where have they come from?”
“Now Evalina,” Daddy said, “You know they have come from God.” And she smiled at him, and then she started humming a little faraway tune while Billy nursed. Everybody was worried about Billy, who came out backward with the cord wrapped around his neck and had terrible seizures as a little child.
I was more worried about Mama, who started talking to Billy in his illness the way you do talk to a baby but then kept on talking to herself, and pacing the house all night. I was not surprised when she left us, as she had been mostly gone in her mind for a while, though Daddy would never admit it. It was true that she might never have left had it not been for John Astor Sneed who came out here from town selling dry goods and notions. He came once, twice, and the third time Mama went with him in that wire-wheeled buggy he had hitched to the cherry tree. John Astor Sneed wore red suspenders, I will never forget it. Had a fat gray horse. Billy stood in the yard and waved good-bye when they left, Billy loves to wave, but I was crying. She said she was coming back, but I knew somehow she never would, not unless I made her, which I have now done. She is the first one I made when I started doing my art.
Shoot, no! Take all the pictures you want. It’s real pretty back here, ain’t it? Every one of my people has got their own little garden, you might say. Of course it just about kills me, trying to keep it all up. Poor Billy now, he never was a bit of help. Just as soon pull up a rose as a weed. He don’t know no better. But he sure has brought me a lot of nice art supplies.
Well, I don’t know. I can’t exactly tell you. All of a sudden I thought, Lord, how much I miss Mama! It had come a real bad thunderstorm that night, and I came out here in the yard to find a big branch snapped right off this little dogwood tree, and something about the way it was standing there, that little jaunty angle of it — see how it looks like it is fixing to dance? — put me in mind of Mama, and how graceful she was, and how light of foot.
The first thing I done was wrap chicken wire all around it, and then I started hauling some clay mud up here from the branch to pack in around it — Daisy and me had always made little people out of that old red clay — but then all of a sudden I thought, Well, shoot! Why not get some of that instant concrete from the hardware store, might as well be modern. And so I did, and so I made her. All the quartz? It’s down at the branch. That’s where the name comes from, Rockhouse Branch. Sure it took a long time. Months. Every day or so I’d put me a little dab of concrete and a little piece of quartz. Gave me something to do. Then Billy got the idea and he started bringing me this mica, see here? Isn’t that pretty? Lord knows where he got it, he just walks and walks everplace. That’s salvia, blooming at her feet. Fire-engine red! She loves it.
Now what did you say your name was? I was wondering if you might be kin to any Goodys. You look just like a boy I used to know, name of Ray Goody, a long time back. You kindly favor him.
No? Well, anyway, Daddy was a handsome man as I said, but oh how he declined after Mama left! For he used to call her his little sunshine, and now his sunshine was gone. A blackness fell upon him like a cloak. He turned dark and sad and could not see the good of anything. It seemed like even God had turned His back on Daddy, and on us.
We just did the best we could, naturally. That’s all you can do! Daddy was so sweet and broken that I had to take care of Billy the best I could, and keep house. Oh, Iris Jean didn’t care a fig for all that. It was all school, school, school for Iris Jean, who was smart — I’ll admit it — but would not stay home from school for one single day, not even when Billy had double pneumonia. Furthermore Iris Jean would not go to church or mention Mama’s name, either one. Kept her nose stuck in a book all the time. Poor Daddy! First he lost Mama to John Astor Sneed, then Iris Jean to education. Now I’ll tell you frankly, I might of liked some of that education myself — I’ve always been real smart — but somebody had to stay here and cook for Daddy and take care of Billy! Everybody can’t just run off and do whatever they please!
Of course Iris Jean came back into the picture from time to time with her fancy degrees and big ideas, such as getting papers on Billy and sending him off to the special school, which liked to kill Daddy and me, though it did not last long, I will tell you. Lord, I won’t forget how happy I was the day I was sitting right out here in a lawn chair snapping beans and I heard that little whistle I knew so well, and it was Billy! Grinning like the sun, arms full of old stuff he’d picked up along the way. “Here, Sissy,” he said — that’s what he calls me, Sissy. “All for you, Sissy,” he said.
I used bottle pieces on Iris Jean — look how they catch the sun! Those blue ones come from Milk of Magnesia bottles, they’re my favorite.
And mirror pieces of course for Daisy, who looked like
me but did not have any character to speak of, unlike myself. I am afraid Daisy took after our sweet Mama in the worst possible way. It all happened in the blink of an eye. One minute Daisy was playing hollyhock dolls with me, and the next minute she was jumping into pickup trucks with complete strangers. I am not even sure how she met those boys in the first place, as Daddy had started keeping us home from school for our own protection right after we lost Iris Jean. Poor Daddy! He begged and pleaded and cried and prayed over Daisy to no avail. He locked her in her room and switched her with a locust branch until her skinny white legs had long red welts and even I had to feel sorry for her.
I will not forget the time I woke up in the middle of the night to feel a boy’s long hard body pressing mine, his warm lips on my face. “Ssshh,” he said. In a flash I knew it was Lewjack Jones, sneaking in the wrong window. But I confess I didn’t say a word. I lay there and let him kiss me for the longest time before I jumped up and hollered “Daddy!” real loud and scared them all to death. It was funny, really. But then after Daddy ran him and Daisy off, I laid back down on my bed and cried and cried as if my heart would break, as if I even cared what that boy and my sister did in the dead of night! So — that’s Daisy! Right over there, surrounded by zinnias.
This left Daddy and Billy and me. I got Billy to help me switch the mattresses around until I got the best one, which had been Iris Jean’s, and the prettiest quilt, which used to be on Mama and Daddy’s bed. Fan pattern, Mama made it herself. Daddy never missed it. He was not into details by that time, all he did was lie in the bed and cry until finally he lost his church and all of them started coming around here with casseroles, and then they stopped. I love that kind of casserole you make with French-style green beans and mushroom soup and onion rings on top, you know which one I mean? Church women all know how to make that casserole, it must be the law! Well, I miss that. I have never been one to cook, I’ve got too much to take care of out here in the yard.
Yes, I did think about it, just once. It was about then, in fact. Now I was accustomed to walking into town to buy groceries and what all else we needed, such as aspirin from the drug store, or whatever. It is a long way. Three miles, I reckon. At least. Well, Daddy used to drive me, but then he got so poorly, and of course I didn’t have a driver’s license, he never held with us girls driving a car — anyway, I was walking out of the hardware store one day when I heard this high-pitched voice yelling my name. “Lily Lockhart! Lily Lockhart! Wait a minute!” and so I did, and it turned out to be Ray Goody, who worked for Mr. Gray and rented a room right upstairs. Ray Goody was slight-built and sandy-haired, like you are, and had him some of those little gold-frame glasses too. He was real shy. His face turned the brightest red when he talked to you. “Lily Lockhart!” he said again. “I’m going to drive you home.” And so he did. And came in the backyard carrying a bag of concrete, and put it down, and admired my people, and said hello to Billy and Daddy who had come out there to gawk at him. Ray Goody acted just like we were anybody. So I did too. “Sit down here and let me get you a cold drink,” I said, and he did. He sat on that little stone bench you’re sitting on now, and I came back with two glasses of ice water. It was summertime, real hot, and the glasses were all beaded up with sweat by the time I got back with them.
“This is the best water I have ever tasted,” Ray Goody said, and proceeded to drink every drop without taking his eyes off me. His eyes looked like china plates behind his glasses. “It’s nice here,” he said, putting the glass down when he had finally drunk his fill.
“Come back anytime,” I said. I don’t know what got into me! But the fact is, he did. He came back and sat under the cedar tree and told me how he had been sick in the hospital but was now better and had come to work at Gray’s Hardware because Mrs. Gray was his mother’s cousin. He was really a writer, he said. “I have been watching you come in the store,” he said. “In fact I couldn’t take my eyes off of you,” he said. This embarrassed us both so much it seemed we might die on the spot, but we did not, and as Ray Goody’s visits continued, he started bringing us all manner of gifts from the hardware store, bird feeders and wind chimes and grapefruit spoons with little ridges on them and a new hose and an ashtray shaped like North Carolina. Chewing tobacco for Daddy and butter-rum Life Savers for Billy. Ray Goody spoke of this as his courtship. “How am I doing with my courtship?” he used to ask me, bright red but determined, and soon he took to sneaking up behind me and putting his arms around my waist and rubbing his face in my hair.
As for me, I went around in a dream, and my heart beat too fast all the time. I could see right where we were headed, like leaves floating down Rockhouse Branch to that little waterfall. Then one October day he popped the question. He wanted to marry me, and we would live together in his room in town over the hardware store where I would have a job too, in the arts and crafts. Ray had already asked Mr. Gray about it, and Mr. Gray said it was fine, that he and Mrs. Gray had been thinking about buying an RV vehicle and seeing something of the world themselves.
“What do you say?” Ray Goody asked me, but I was flabbergasted. “Well, think about it,” he said, and then he kissed me and drove back into town, saying he’d be back that evening. Well! I had to sit down. I thought about it while scarlet leaves from the maple tree fell on the grass and the wind blew my hair around. My face felt hot, like I had a fever. Why not? I thought. Why not? I could scarcely breathe. Then I started thinking about making a concrete birdbath shaped like a leaf, and some stepping stones. Those things would be easy to mass produce. My heart on fire, I went in to tell Daddy.
He was standing by the window looking out, and did not turn around when I told him. “Why, that is wonderful,” he said. Then he bent over double with the pain that would take several years to kill him. “You go on,” he said. “It’s not anything. I just want you to be happy,” Daddy said. He was so sweet, wanting nothing more than to lie down by himself until it passed. Oh, he was so brave! But of course I did not go with Ray Goody when he came back that evening, I did not go with him then or anytime, and sometime during Daddy’s long illness, Ray just slipped away. Left town. I don’t know if he told the Grays where he was going or not — he sure didn’t tell me! One week he was in there selling nails and saying, “How is your Daddy today, Lil?” and the next week he was gone, that lace curtain fluttering out of his open upstairs window like a sign. Oh, I was a pure-tee fool to think I could have done it anyway! I had to wait on Daddy hand and foot from then on. And he wrestled with the angel of death as hard as he’d wrestled with God, I swear it. You’d think he would have been glad to go, after everything that had happened to him, but he was not. Lord, no! He fought it tooth and nail, I’ll tell you. He was all wore out by the end, and light as a feather, and we put him right over there, me and Billy. Sure thing! That’s him all right, all them dark rocks in the shape of the cross. Then I built the arbor and planted the grapevine in memory of how hard he hung on, you have to admire that in a man. You have to.
You mean this here pile? Well, I don’t know, it gives me something to do while I’m taking care of Billy, he sleeps so much now. Poor thing. He couldn’t do without me. And it will not be long, I can tell you. You know how I know? It’s when their fingers start curling up like ferns. In fact I may bring me some ferns up here from the creek, now that’s a thought. But I’ll swear it don’t seem like no time at all to me since Billy was just a little boy, making mudpies down there with me and Daisy.
Well, I wish you didn’t have to rush off. But you come on back anytime! You can sit right there on that bench and write in your notebook, just like you used to. I bet you could get a lot of work done. It’s nice, in a garden. Why there’s something happening all the time out here, first daffodils and forsythia in the spring, then roses and daylilies and I don’t know what all in the summertime, then chrysanthemums and asters and nandina in the fall, everything comes and goes and comes again in its season. You’re going to like it out here. It’s real peaceful, and there is al
ways a little wind up in them cedar trees, it’s like they catch the wind somehow, and trap it up in there, and it sounds so pretty, like wind chimes. Why, you can hear it right now. Just listen.
House Tour
Have a happy holiday!” The pretty girl in the wine shop is dressed in a red velvet elf suit, with green tights and high black boots. She carries the carton of wine to Lynn’s car like it is nothing. When she bends over to put it in the trunk, her tiny skirt hikes up to show her red panties. This is the kind of outfit Lawrence would love, damn his soul. A little kitsch, a little sex, a little irony. Everybody always thought Lawrence was such a genius, but actually he is so predictable as to be boring, really. Lynn recalls that black thong she found in his glove compartment years ago, back when they were first married, she didn’t even know what it was.
“I am putty in their hands,” he’d said, spreading his. Lawrence has soft, elegant hands with long thin white fingers, he has never done one honest day’s work in his life.
“Thanks, Erin, and Merry Christmas to you also,” Lynn says, which comes out sounding weird, sort of like English as a second language, but never mind, this Erin girl will get it. She’s a smart girl, she has never raised an eyebrow or said one word to Lynn about her solo wine purchases or asked where Lawrence is keeping himself these days. (Guggenheim in Italy? Semester at NYU? Lynn has answers ready.) And when she first broke her ankle, Erin brought a nice bottle of Viognier over to the house herself, a gift. Erin is so nice, really, just like everybody else in town who came by with casseroles or picked up Lynn’s mail at the post office for her. This is the benefit of living in a village, though there’s a downside too, Lynn thinks darkly. Yes indeed.
