“Oh, Holly.” Kathleen hugged me. “I really wish there was something I could do. I don’t like seeing you this way. I hope for your sake this all blows over.”
“So do I.” I didn’t think it would, though. Nothing would ever be the same between my parents and me.
“Be sure and write,” Kathleen said as she got into her car.
I choked back my tears as she drove away. I thought about running after her. My shoulders sank as I walked back toward the house. Antarctica stood with the screen door open, moving her head to the side as she swatted a paper wasp. I immediately straightened my shoulders and held my head up high. Even though everything in my life was changing and none of it felt good, I didn’t want anyone, especially Antarctica, to think I was already homesick and regretting my decision to come here.
“What are we having for supper?” I asked to throw her off.
She just grunted and shook her head. “Rather than thinking about what you gonna eat, you oughta think about this: when a bird falls out of its nest it had better learn to fly.”
I had no idea what she was talking about.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Dreaming of the dead is a gift from God, reuniting us with those we’ve loved and lost.
Mama Hendricks
ANTARCTICA WAS ALMOST six feet tall with arms as spindly as a daddy longlegs. Her hair grew in tightly crimped little clumps like a wooly lamb’s and on hot days, her milk chocolate skin melted into glossy sweat. No one would guess she was only seven years younger than me. Like most coloreds her age, she had little if any formal education; but claimed she could look someone in the eye and tell exactly what was going on in their heart as well as their head. It was a gift, she said, straight from Jesus.
Back when Wylie was still alive, Antarctica came twice a week to clean house and do the laundry. Shortly after my second husband Horace passed away, she moved in permanently as my caretaker. Everyone was happy with this arrangement. It kept me from having to go to a nursing home or from having to move in with one of my sons. Antarctica knew this and wasn’t a bit shy about using it to her advantage. No one was going to tell her how to take care of me, or that she was being paid too much to do it.
My granddaughters, Holly and Caroline, used to make fun of Antarctica’s name by calling her Aunt Article. When they learned she had a brother named Africa and a sister named Asia, they spent a whole afternoon trying to come up with other names her parents could have named their children. Antarctica wasn’t bothered by their games. She knew she was about the only colored the young girls had ever been around. She told them how her father had worked as a janitor at the high school most of his life and had learned the names of the continents by studying the large maps hanging in the classrooms.
Holly came to stay with me the summer after her brother passed away. Sometimes in the late afternoon, the two of us would join Antarctica as she sat on the front porch cooling herself with a cardboard fan from the First Baptist Church. One side had a picture of Jesus Praying in the Garden and the other an ad for Elysian Fields Funeral Home & Cemetery. Some days I would pretend to doze off so I could listen in on what Antarctica and Holly had to say.
At least once a day, the elderly woman who lived across the street would come out her front door, carrying a small cooking pot. Her frail hand would shake as she poured the water she had saved from boiling her greens over her overgrown petunias and bright pink geraniums. If her tired old basset hound was anywhere nearby, he got a shower.
“That ol’ lady don’t waste nothing,” Antarctica commented. “That lil’ bit of water ain’t gonna save nothing from all this heat.”
Holly didn’t say anything, so Antarctica, thinking I was asleep, decided to change the direction of their conversation.
“You sure got a long face on today. That ol’ dog over there looks a heap more happier than you.”
“There’s nothing to do,” Holly complained. “Caroline won’t be back from cheerleading camp for another week.”
“I’ll give you something to do if that’s all it is.”
“I doubt that would help.”
“I think you is all mixed up ’bout living and dying.”
“What do you mean?” Holly asked.
“Well, sooner or later, everybody on this earth loses somebody they love. You can’t change that. That’s the first thing you gotta understand. The next thing you gotta do is start acting like you’re alive. When I die, Miss Holly, I only want one thing on my tombstone. I want it to say ‘Antarctica LIVED’ in great big letters. None of that rest in peace stuff on my grave. I don’t want nobody thinking I messed around feeling sorry for myself. Uh, uh. This ol’ body has lived.”
“I miss Jake a lot. I even dreamed about him last night.”
“Don’t let dreaming of the dead make you sad. It’s the only way you can be with him for now, and that’s a gift from Jesus. You’s always gonna feel the pain of not having him around.”
“I’d rather have him here than in my dreams.”
“The only way you can be with folks that’s passed on, other than in your dreams, is to go where they’ve gone, too. And I don’t think that’s a good place for someone who’s got their whole life ahead of them. Can’t nobody make you feel better but you. You gotta keep yourself busy and keep your mind on what you’re doing. It’s the only way to lessen the pain. My grandpappy told me that. And he oughta know from all the time he spent in the hot sun picking cotton.”
I cleared my throat so Antarctica would think I was waking up. Besides, it was time for the radio newscast sponsored by Spencer’s Hardware. There was more gossip than news since not much happened in Land of Goshen, but at least it kept me entertained. Antarctica wheeled me to my room and helped me into bed. Holly sat close by so she could listen, too.
According to the announcer, 1965 was going to be one of the hottest years on record. And Lilly Thompson was down in her back again. The choir at First Baptist was having a bake sale to raise funds for new robes. If anyone could drive Malcolm Peters to his doctor’s appointment next week, he’d sure appreciate it.
“Sweet Jesus, have mercy,” I cried out as a sudden pain ran up and down my limbs. It hurt so bad I didn’t know whether to pray or to curse God.
“Are you all right?” Holly got up and came over by me.
“I haven’t been all right in years. Tell Antarctica I’m having one of my hurting spells.” I hated Holly to see what living so long does to a person. It didn’t matter how good you’d been; sooner or later, you got punished just for being alive.
“I’m coming, Miss Ada,” Antarctica called from the hallway. She must have heard me moaning because she already had a couple of pills and a glass of water in her hands.
“Read to me, Holly,” I said after I swallowed my pills. “My Bible’s on the nightstand. Read something from the Psalms. Read me something of comfort.”
Holly opened the Bible to the page with the red ribbon marker and began reading from Psalm 27: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life . . .”
There was nothing worse than lying in a bed and wasting away. I had always been the one to take on the ill and the bereaved. I never thought I’d end up being an old crippled woman dependent on others for my every need. During the war, Tom Murray would knock on my door every time he had to deliver a telegram to the parents of a dead soldier.
“I need you to come with me,” he would plead. “I can’t do this without you.”
I would stop whatever I was doing and follow Mr. Murray. I dreaded the task, but I knew I was better at it than anyone else he could have picked. All the while, as we rode in silence, I would thank God for sparing my three sons who were fighting overseas. I self-righteously believed my willingness to pass on bad news to others shielded me from having to hear such unbearable news myself. When others called me a saint, I would reply, “I was never a saint. I did what God called me to do, but I did it for my own selfish reasons. It was a
bargain I made with my Maker, just as one might make with the Devil. No one should call me a saint.”
Holly read the last verse of Psalm 27. “Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” My heart sighed as she finished my favorite passage—not from being in pain, but from knowing God wasn’t ready to call me home. I would have to wait a little longer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Life is not always what we want it to be, but it is always what we make it to be.
Antarctica
THERE’S NOTHIN’ I rather do than sit on the porch and drink ice tea. People go by and they speak or they don’t speak. Either way, you get to know who they are, what they think, and how they feel ’bout you. Miss Ada and Miss Holly sits with me most days, but today, it just two of us. Miss Ada say she feeling too poorly to get out of bed.
Miss Taylor walks by ever’ day on her way to town. I don’t think she do anything other than that and tend her plants. Most the time, she just say hello and keep on going. But this morning, she stop, then shift her weight on the wooden cane she always carry. She wearing a pink-and-white checked cotton dress with a stiff, white collar and long sleeves. Her white summer gloves cover her thin, bony hands. Why on earth she dress like that in all this heat.
“Antarctica!” she screech like a barn owl when she look out from under that straw hat of hers. “These are the saddest looking hydrangea bushes I’ve ever seen. It’s a good thing Miss Ada isn’t out here or she’d have a fit. I tell you, she’d have a fit. Can’t you do anything about them?”
“I tries, Miss Taylor, but they just don’t wanna grow any for me. Growing things just ain’t my calling.”
“Well, it will just break Miss Ada’s heart if these hydrangea bushes die.”
Miss Taylor then turn her attention to Holly. “Holly Hendricks! You come out here on the sidewalk where I can see you.”
Holly look at me and rolls her eyes. She then got up and went out to where Miss Taylor stood staring Miss Holly up and down like a fox sizin’ up a chicken.
“You’re going to be nothing but a beanpole if you grow any taller.” Miss Taylor look up at Holly. “You’re just like all the other Hendricks, with that blond hair and blue eyes of yours. Now tell me, dear, about your mother. Some folks around here say you’re staying with Miss Ada because your mother can’t handle you anymore, that she hasn’t been right since your little brother passed away.”
“Mother’s just fine.” Holly lowered her head.
That ol’ lady ought to be ashamed for saying what she did.
“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” Miss Taylor say. “I didn’t believe that nonsense anyway. Your mother’s a strong woman. Always has been. I wish I could say the same about your daddy. He is Judge Hendricks’s son, though, and that should account for something. I always said that Judge Hendricks was a fine man. I can remember when old man Simpson got upset about a ruling your granddaddy made, but after he went home and thought about it, he had to admit the Judge was right. I never knew one time when your granddaddy wasn’t fair. He never lost his temper around anyone or ever complained about being awakened in the middle of the night to marry folks who had let their courting go too far. The only time Judge Hendricks would refuse to marry anyone was if he smelled whiskey on their breath. Then he would tell them to go home and sleep it off and if they still felt the same way the next morning, they knew where to find him.”
“I wish I knew more about Papa Hendricks. I was only three when he died.”
“It’s a shame he wasn’t around any longer than he was. I never knew a finer man. He only feared God and maybe the wrath of Miss Ada. I’velived so long, I’m not afraid of anything. Not anything, I tell you. Not even the devil himself.”
“Miss Taylor, would you like some ice tea?” I called out, hoping she would quit talking about the dead.
“No, thank you. I best be on my way.”
She then turn back to Holly rather than getting on her way.
“Now, if I were you, I’d ask Miss Ada what to do about these hydrangeas. That’s the kind of thing folks ought to pass on, what they know, rather than what they have. One of these days, no one is going to know anything at all. You ask Miss Ada about her flowers. It would tickle her pink to talk about them.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll do that,” Miss Holly say as she walk back to the porch.
I didn’t like Miss Taylor stickin’ her nose in my bizness, telling me that Miss Ada’s hydrangeas gonna die if I don’t tend them. Humph!
“Miss Taylor knew my grandfather,” Holly say as she sat down with me. “She thought the world of him, but I don’t think she cared too much for Daddy.”
“Why you say that?” I ask.
“She made a point of saying Mother was strong, but then she said she couldn’t say the same about Daddy. What do you think she meant by that?”
“That’s something that goes way back, child, when your daddy came home from the war. He was a mess and somewhere along the way, he started up drinking. Everyone know’d it, too, but no one would tell Miss Ada or Mr. Wylie. The church deacons was on his tail just about the time you all ups and moves away. Mr. Wylie be turning in his grave for sure if he know’d that. Miss Taylor, I reckon, don’t respect no one who has to have whiskey to get on with their lives.”
“Daddy drinks a lot. I’m not supposed to say anything, but that’s why I came here. I didn’t want to be around him anymore.”
“I suspect’d as much.”
“Mother blames me when he gets mad. She says I ought to keep my mouth shut when he’s had too much to drink.”
The poor child was letting loose now.
“You’re not to blame, child. The devil done got a hold of your daddy a long time ago and there ain’t nothing you can do ’bout it. He drinks ’cause he think it’s gonna drown his sorrow. But all it do is fill him full of poison. The poison takes over the mind, then it slowly kills the soul. The body just hangs on forever. That’s why he like the way he is. He is plum full of poison.”
“It’s not just him. Mother never talks about Jake, but I know he’s on her mind all the time. She acts like she can’t stand the sight of me, just because I’m alive and he isn’t. When I try to come near her, she turns away. She won’t have anything to do with me.”
“All that come from losing a child, Miss Holly. I seen my own mama lose two children of her own. Each time she do, she just close her eyes and prays to Jesus and befo’ you know it, she done got another baby in her arms. That always cure her sadness. Your mama, she done think she too old to have another baby and her only child at home is just ’bout to fly the coop. That what’s wrong with her.”
“I don’t think Mother’s as strong as Miss Taylor claims. If she were, she wouldn’t keep pushing me away. All I want to do is love her, but she won’t let me.”
“Miss Holly, if your mama didn’t love you, she wouldn’t be so kind ’bout letting you come here just so’s you be happy.”
“It doesn’t feel like love to me. She feels guilty because all her love went to Jake and she doesn’t have any left for me. Sometimes I think it would be better if no one loved anyone. We could just forget about them if they left us and go on with our lives.”
“Don’t tell me, child, that life’d be better with no lovin’ in it. Would you really like to think that you didn’t love your brother? That he meant nothin’ to you? I think he meant the world to you, and your folks, and that’s why you all is in this mess. Why do you think funerals brings folks together better’an any other thing? ’Cause ever’body loved the dead person, that’s why. Only they don’t know it till the person’s all laid out with no air in his lungs. That’s the shameful part. That’s what oughta be changed. You look at those trees out there. Ever’ one of them is gonna lose their leaves as soon as the cold spell comes aroun’. But the leaves come back ever’ spring ’cause they ’member how sweet the songbirds sing in the branches in the summer. Life has its seasons, child. That’s why you gotta let people kno
w you love ’em while they’re still walkin’ ’round this earth, so they only carry sweet memories with ’em to the grave.”
I don’t think I ever knowed a family as messed up as this one. Miss Holly think no one love her, Mr. Ross drowns his sorrow with the devil’s drink, and Miss Jewell locks her heart up tight and don’t let no one enter in. They all like a dog chasing its tail, going in circles till they too tired to care or too crazy to stop. I don’t know which. What gonna happen if none of them quit chasing their tails?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Forgiveness is the only antidote for a broken heart.
Holly
IT HAS BEEN many years since the summer I spent with my grandmother and Antarctica in Land of Goshen. I remember it, though, as if it were yesterday. During those few weeks, Antarctica’s little seeds of wisdom—the simple words that came from deep within her heart—helped me understand that we can’t always change the circumstances of our life; we can only change the way we respond to them. Antarctica was a kind, gentle soul who had more knowledge in her little finger than some scholars who labor a lifetime to discover the secrets of life. Because of her, I no longer blamed myself for causing my father’s drunken rages. I stopped believing that the root cause of his anger had anything to do with my behavior—how good or bad I was, as Mother often claimed. I wasn’t responsible for his actions any more than he was for mine. Whether it was the horrors of war or the demons that dwelled within his soul that drove him to drink didn’t really matter. I could forgive him for sometimes making my life miserable or continue to blame him for my own misgivings. The choice was easy for me. All I had to do was remember the apple tree he had planted in my dreams a long time ago—a simple, loving act that allowed me to see the best in him.
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