A Long Time Gone

by Karen White

  “Congratulations,” Tommy said without meeting her eyes.

  Her eyes brightened as she regarded my brother, and I wished he’d look at her so he’d see.

  The little girl on her hip, who looked to be about two years old, kept staring at me with dark brown eyes, as if she saw something she recognized.

  Carrie smiled at my mother. “Hello, Miz Moise. It’s good to see you again.”

  “It’s good to see you, too,” Carol Lynne replied with a big smile. I wondered if Carrie could tell that my mother had no idea who she was.

  Carrie turned back to me. “I haven’t seen you in years, Vivi. You’re still as pretty as ever. I always expected to see you on one of the major networks as a news announcer or hard-hitting journalist. I guess I still do.”

  I felt Chloe’s eyes on me. Forcing a smile, I said, “No, not quite. I tried at first, when I got to LA, but then I met someone and got married. This is my stepdaughter, Chloe. She’s visiting.” I waved my empty left hand at Carrie. “I’m divorced, too.”

  “We should start a club,” she said, laughing, although her eyes looked sad. “It’s nice to meet you, Chloe. Do you babysit?”

  “She’s not going to be here very long,” I interjected before Chloe could answer.

  “What about you?” Carrie asked, addressing me. “Are you back to stay?”

  “I—”

  “I need to go potty,” Bo said, tugging on her arm. “And I don’t want to go to the ladies’ room.”

  Tommy stood. “I’ll take him to the men’s room, if you like.”

  Carrie smiled at him appreciatively. “Yes, thank you. Bo, please go with Mr. Moise and he’ll take you.”

  Like a monkey, the small boy took a leap at Tommy, who caught him like a pro, then shifted him onto his back for a ride to the restroom.

  I felt something pulling at my hair and then the little girl slid from her mother’s arms and into my lap.

  “That’s Cordelia. I named her after my grandmother. It’s old-fashioned but I think it suits her. And she likes you, which is saying something. She doesn’t like just anybody.”

  I tried to hand her back to her mother, to tell them both that I wasn’t good with children, but Cordelia had put her arms around my neck and rested her head on my chest.

  “The reason I was asking about how long you’re staying here,” Carrie continued, “is because seeing you reminded me of how you were the school historian back in high school, and the editor of the paper, and what a good writer you were. I don’t know if you knew, but the Indian Mound Library burned down two years ago and we’ve just built a new one—thanks to a generous donation by the International Rubberized Products Company, which has just moved its manufacturing plant to Indian Mound. But all the archives that were saved from the fire are now stored in the basement of the town hall and need to be sorted and organized—and maybe even written about, but that’s another project. The historical society—I’m a member—couldn’t pay you anything except our undying gratitude. We’ve just been hoping that the right person would present herself.” She beamed at me.

  “I . . . I, um, thank you. I’ll think about it and let you know.” My hand was patting the baby’s back as if it knew what to do.

  Lowering her voice, Carrie said, “I heard about that business of the skeleton found in your yard. They didn’t have much to say in the paper.”

  I was glad to change the subject, but wished she’d chosen another topic. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, not wanting to disturb the child in my lap. “That’s because we don’t know much about it other than that she was young and had given birth. I gave a sample of my DNA to see if there’s a match.”

  Her eyes widened. “Maybe you’ll want to organize the archives so you can dig for more information about your family if it comes out as a match.”

  I nodded halfheartedly. “Yeah. That’s a plan. But I’m not really expecting a positive result. From what I remember my grandmother telling me, all of us Walker women are accounted for.”

  Carrie continued. “You could always talk with Mathilda Simms, just in case there was more than Bootsie knew or remembered to pass on.”

  I stared at her, wondering for a moment why the name sounded so familiar. “Mathilda?” I asked. “Bootsie’s Mathilda? But she must be ancient by now.” Cordelia stuck her thumb in her mouth and began twirling my hair with the fingers on her other hand.

  “Oh, she is. I think she just celebrated her hundred and fourth birthday. They’re hoping she’ll make it into the Guinness Book of World Records. She’s blind now, but her mind’s as sharp as a tack. She lives over at Sunset Acres. I volunteer there whenever Mama can watch the kids, and I like to visit with her. She’s always got lots to say.”

  Tommy came back from the restroom with Bo riding piggyback. When they reached the table, Bo slid down to the floor but seemed reluctant to leave Tommy’s side.

  Tripp leaned back in his chair, a satisfied smile on his face as he regarded Carrie’s children clinging to my brother and me. “Looks like you found yourself a couple of babysitters if you’re ever in a pinch, Carrie.”

  “I know, right?” Carrie said, not taking her eyes off Tommy. She leaned forward and extricated a reluctant Cordelia from my lap, then reached her hand out for Bo. “It’s good seeing everybody. Hope to see y’all at the theater later tonight—I’ll be working the ticket booth.” Looking at Tommy, she said, “And don’t be a stranger.”

  He looked into his glass of water and just pursed his lips while he gave her a quick nod. I wanted to reach over and rap him on his forehead with my knuckles.

  As she walked away, Cordelia lifted her hand and waved bye-bye to me, and I was unprepared for the electric jolt around my heart. I turned around to see Tripp watching me closely.

  The waiter returned to take our orders, and then the conversation turned to the next day’s cotton planting and Tommy’s hopes and expectations for the growing season, and continued until after the food was put in front of us. I was quiet, still remembering the sweet smell of Cordelia’s hair, and being almost overwhelmed by the memories that had flooded back to me at hearing Mathilda’s name and learning she was still alive. She was the closest bond I had remaining to Bootsie, and I was left wondering if I could find the courage to visit Mathilda and have to answer questions I’d probably prefer to avoid.

  I looked up and found Tripp watching me with unreadable eyes, but knowing he was probably thinking the same thing. I focused on my plate of spaghetti, trying to think only about the food and how nice it was to see my brother again, and how having Chloe with me somehow made my heart lighter.

  “Vivien?”

  I looked up at my mother. I wondered how long it would be until she couldn’t remember my name anymore, the thought sending a panicked sense of urgency thrumming through me.

  “I’d like to go see Mathilda.” Carol Lynne’s eyes were clear and focused, and I was afraid to speak and break whatever spell she was under. “I need to ask her something.”

  I nodded. “Okay. I’ll see about bringing you tomorrow, all right?”

  She was staring at me, her head tilted like a person does in an art museum. “You’ve cut your hair. It’s real pretty. I wish you’d let me braid it for you. It lets people see your beautiful cheekbones, and it’s so much cooler in the summertime. But I know you don’t like me touching your hair anymore. I’d like to, though. I miss it. I miss you.”

  My chest stung from unshed tears, my face hot all of a sudden. I held my breath, unable to speak even if I wanted to.

  “Mathilda taught me how to braid hair. She’s so clever; she knows so many things.” With a slow smile I barely remembered, she leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “She’s real good at keeping secrets.”

  “Like what?” I managed to ask, recalling what she’d said while we were standing at the jagged hole where the roots of the
cypress tree grew through old bones. She never had a chance to come back because she never left. I kept seeing my own face superimposed over the skull, and I could even imagine the sound of crows, thick in the leaves of the tree.

  Richie returned to our table to refill our waters, and when I looked back at my mother, her eyes had the same distant look I’d begun to recognize. I sucked in a breath, tasting disappointment and anger, and feeling completely and utterly hopeless.

  I slid back from the table and grabbed my purse. I excused myself, then headed toward the ladies’ room, knowing I wasn’t fooling anyone except for maybe Carol Lynne, but too desperate to medicate my growing conscience to care.

  Chapter 17

  Carol Lynne Walker Moise

  INDIAN MOUND, MISSISSIPPI

  JULY 25, 1963

  Dear Diary,

  Jimmy Hinkle and me and a bunch of other kids went to Tchula last weekend to swim in Horseshoe Lake. I wore my new bikini that I bought with the money I earned working at the drive-in and Bootsie has no idea I have. She thinks all girls should be covered from their necks to their ankles, even if they’re going swimming and it’s a thousand degrees outside. Somebody brought their transistor radio and we all danced to this song called “Surfin’ USA,” and I danced in my bikini and Jimmy watched me.

  I was too ashamed to tell everybody that I was afraid of the dark, muddy water, and how I don’t like the way the catfish swim right up to you and touch your toes and legs. Mostly, though, I don’t like the way you can’t see the bottom. I think it reminds me too much of where we all are in our lives right now, and how you can’t see what’s coming but you’ve got to keep swimming anyway.

  I have a big crush on Jimmy, so I held my breath and jumped right in with everybody else. There was beer and funny cigarettes, and after a while I felt just fine and not so afraid anymore, and learned how to stick my head under the water with my eyes open. I could see the catfish then, but not much else. But after sharing another cigarette, I didn’t seem to care anymore.

  Jimmy gave me a couple of cigarettes to take home with me, to help me deal with Bootsie. And I need help. Just being in the same room with her makes me want to scream. I wouldn’t even talk to her for a couple of weeks after she slapped me, even though she tried to apologize. It happened and there’s no taking it back.

  She’s been talking about getting me ready to go to Starkville to start at State in the fall. I know she always wanted to go to college, but that was her dream, not mine. I only applied so she’d stop asking and leave me alone. But now she’s talking about which sorority I want to pledge and how many sets of sheets I should take with me.

  I read Betty Friedan’s book and I know now that I don’t have time to waste going to college. I need to start living my life. It will pass me by if I’m stuck in a classroom learning home economics and enough math so that I can balance a household budget.

  The Russians just sent a woman astronaut to the moon, the governor of Alabama is promising segregation forever, and Buddhist monks are burning themselves up on street corners in some place called Vietnam. There’s too much going on in the world for me to spend the next four years trying to earn an MRS degree when I don’t even want to get married.

  Jimmy said that he’s planning on moving to San Francisco, where his older brother lives in a house he shares with ten others, where everybody shares the cooking and the shopping and everybody takes care of everybody. He said there’s room for more if I was interested. And then he kissed me, which made me decide that I am definitely interested. I guess I couldn’t get much farther away from Mississippi than California.

  Yesterday Mathilda caught me smoking one of Jimmy’s cigarettes while I was sitting at my cypress tree. She must have felt strongly about smoking grass, because she came pretty close to the tree, although I could tell she kept looking for what she calls a haint. The bottle tree she put up is still there, and I told her she was safe, but the thought of those haints being stupid enough to crawl into a bottle made me laugh so hard that I could barely breathe.

  She said I’d left the Greyhound bus schedule in my jeans pocket and she’d found it when she was doing the laundry, and she wanted to know exactly where I was planning on traveling and did Bootsie know.

  I’ve never been able to lie to Mathilda, so I told her what Jimmy and I were planning on doing. She just shook her head, and told me it would break my mama’s heart. When I told her that my mama didn’t have a heart she got mad, and I never saw Mathilda get mad before. She said that if Bootsie didn’t have a heart it was because she’d given it all to me. And that I needed to understand that it wasn’t me that made her leave when I was a baby, but that I was what had brought her back.

  I told her I hadn’t been waiting for my mama to come back home, that I’d grown used to her being gone and wished she’d stayed gone. I wanted Mathilda to see that Bootsie didn’t want me to go farther than Starkville because she didn’t want me to see more of the world than she had, that she wanted all the same things for me but not more. Mathilda said that it’s okay to want more or new or different, but before I ran off to find those things, I needed to know first what I already had.

  Looking around me, all I can see is a crazy house, a garden I don’t know how to grow anything in, and a mama who never wanted me. I know I’ve got Cousin Emmett and the cotton fields and Mathilda, too, but none of that matters when you weigh them against all the other stuff. But all Mathilda said was to stop chasing ghosts, because I’ll never catch them.

  Then she marched right up to the tree and took my cigarette and smashed it under her shoe, saying I was on the road to ruin if I thought I could find the answers I needed with a cloudy head. As she walked away, I yelled at her that it wasn’t answers I was looking for, but maybe a way where the questions wouldn’t hurt so much.

  She turned around and looked at me with sad eyes, and said I was only keeping secrets from myself, and that keeping secrets is a lonely way to live. She looked so sad that I wanted to ask her what secrets she must be keeping, but I was too mad, so I let her leave without saying anything.

  I watched her until the screen door shut behind her, thinking on what she’d said about chasing ghosts, and still not understanding what she’d meant.

  Chapter 18

  Adelaide Walker Bodine

  INDIAN MOUND, MISSISSIPPI

  DECEMBER 1923

  I pushed open the door to Peacock’s jeweler’s, the tiny bell ringing overhead. The bell was new, introduced by Mr. Peacock to alert John to customers, since he was now spending so much time in the back room. His reputation as an horologist with the ability to repair any clock or watch had traveled quickly, and he was receiving packages from as far away as Savannah. He seemed almost driven about earning as much money as he could, and spent a lot of time working. I wanted to be with him as much as possible, but I found his ambition just another part of him that I loved. He always gave me a meaningful look when he talked about having a nest egg and some stability in his life, and it gave me hope for our future together.

  “I’ll be right with you,” John’s voice called out from the back. I knew he was alone, having checked with Sarah Beth about what time Mr. Peacock usually went home for dinner.

  I made sure I was standing in the ray of sun from the large bay window, to reflect off my red hair that was curled around my face under my hat to spin it into gold, and to put my new outfit in the spotlight. It wasn’t actually mine, since the skirt was midcalf on me and far too short for Aunt Louise to allow me to wear in public, and the shoes had three-inch heels.

  I knew from our recent shopping trip to Jackson to purchase a dress to wear to the Heathmans’ New Year’s party—my first time to be invited, since I was almost seventeen—that Aunt Louise didn’t appreciate any sort of heel that made me look like one of those flappers Uncle Joe was always reading about in the newspaper. Ever since women got the vote, Uncle Joe and Aunt Louise
had thought we were heading for the end of the world. I thought they were both being a little shortsighted about the whole thing, since it was generally known that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, and whether women could vote wasn’t going to change that one bit.

  The air had dipped to a bitter cold, and in addition to wearing Sarah Beth’s clothes, I wore one of her fur coats and matching cloche hat, feeling older and as sophisticated as the photos of the movie star Lillian Gish. I peeled off Sarah Beth’s kid-leather gloves and put them in the pockets of the coat, then let the coat slip from my shoulders to the floor and waited.

  “How can I help you . . .” John’s voice faded as he caught sight of me, his business smile changing into something else entirely. He wore an apron over his starched white shirt, his sleeve garters exposed. An eye loupe hung from a strap around his neck, his blond hair tousled as if the apparatus had been perched there recently. A small-headed hammer stuck out from the large pocket of the apron, and what appeared to be a watch chain dangled from his hand.

  “Well,” he said, stopping several feet in front of me. “I was expecting a customer, but this is much better.”

  To hide my blush, I twirled for him so that my long strand of pearls—also borrowed from Sarah Beth—would swing and shimmy along with the hem of my dress. “Do you like it?”

  He whistled, then stepped toward me, dropping the chain in the pocket with the hammer. “Of course I do. As long as it’s your gorgeous face above the collar, I’m going to love anything you wear.” After a quick glance toward the large front window, he leaned forward and kissed me, his lips soft and lingering.

  “Good,” I said. “Because I want you to take me out dancing at one of those places Sarah Beth is always telling me about. I’m a good dancer—I know I am. I can fox-trot, and I’m practically an expert at the Charleston. Well, Sarah Beth says so, anyway, and she should know.”