by Ruth White
It’s nice out. Everything smells fresh after the rain. There’s a picnic table and there’s a hammock hung between two apple trees. Aunt June shows her garden to me, and it looks like it might be the devil to work in. That’s because part of it runs up the side of a hill.
From here I can see the house better, and it looks like a jigsaw puzzle that was put together wrong. You can tell where the sunporch and several other rooms were added on to the main house.
Aunt June has brought a rag to dry off the picnic table. We sit there and she asks me a bunch of questions. Where do I go to school? What grade am I in? Do I make good grades? What is Elkhorn City like? Then she asks me what Mom has been up to all these years. She says they met only once before when my dad brought her here for a visit.
“She’s still just as pretty as she was then,” Aunt June says. “I remember how August lost his head over her.”
Yeah, my mom is pretty. Everybody says so. But I’ve never known anybody to lose his head over her. And if he was so crazy about her, why did he leave? But I don’t say any of that. What’s the point?
“Do you think she’s still mad at August for leaving?” she wants to know.
I hesitate to answer, because the truth is I don’t know how Mom feels about my dad. She has rarely said a nice thing about him. But I remember a night some years ago when I woke up and saw her standing at the window with the moonlight pouring in around her. She was crying, and I heard her say one word. I think it was “August.” Mom was not aware that I saw her like that. She’d be mortified.
I shrug and say, “I don’t know.”
Now Aunt June wants to know if I have any questions for her.
“Yeah, how come your house is so close to that busy road?”
Aunt June smiles. “When this house was built more than a hundred years ago, it was a one-room log cabin put up right smack in the middle of the woods. You can still see the logs in there. And not another house was in sight of it. There was no road either, just a path going to the doorway. Over the years other people built, and the road got wider. As you can see, this valley is so narrow there’s barely enough room for a big road like that and a row of houses on each side of it too.”
“So did y’all add all the rooms to the log cabin?”
“We bought this house from January Rose, my dad. He added the four rooms downstairs when he and Mama were raising me and August. Otis and I added the second floor, where there are five bedrooms, counting the sunporch, and a bath. Someday we will probably turn the dining room into something else. We don’t ever use it to eat in.”
“That’s interesting,” I say, and we sit there studying the house. “Are your mama and dad still living?”
“Mama died when Avery was a baby,” Aunt June says. “But Dad is living in Bluefield. Emory and Avery call him Poppy. He’s your poppy too, and I’m sure y’all will get to meet each other pretty soon. He visits a lot these days.”
So I do have a grandpa, and I’ll get to meet him. Mom didn’t know if my grandparents were still alive.
“As for your dad,” Aunt June says with a sigh, then smiles, apparently at the thought of him. “Well, have you heard that song ‘The Happy Wanderer’?”
“Yeah, we sang it in school.”
“That’s been the life of August Rose ever since he left your mom—the happy wanderer. He drifts here, drifts there. And he won’t keep in touch.”
“Is he still with that carnival singer?” I ask Aunt June.
“What carnival singer?”
“You know, the one he …”
Aunt June’s face is a blank. Maybe she really doesn’t know that story. I hope she’ll let me drop the subject. She does.
I think about the names. January Rose. June Rose. August Rose. And me—April Garnet Rose. We got a third of the calendar covered. Why would my mom follow the Rose family tradition even after my dad left her?
“Why don’t Emory and Avery have calendar names?” I ask.
“Otis wouldn’t hear of it,” Aunt June says. “They have old Bill family names. Now, Garnet, I want you to know that I’m glad to have you here, and I hope you’ll enjoy your visit.”
I feel like smiling now, so I do, and I say, “Thank you.” Then I add, “Don’t worry. Mom will send for me like she said, as soon as she can.”
“I’m not a bit worried,” Aunt June says, and pats my hand. “Let’s go in and watch television.”
Television! Wow! I didn’t know they had a television. Lily had a radio, and we listened to shows every night. I’ve also seen quite a few movies, because it only costs a quarter, but I have never watched television before.
I follow Aunt June into the house, through the screened porch and kitchen, through the dining room and front hallway, past the stairs, and into a living room. It’s such a pretty room, all decorated in gold, brown, dark red, and deep forest green.
“Why, it looks like October!” I say to Aunt June, and she seems pleased.
The telephone is here on a table, but I don’t see a television. We keep going and come to a smaller living room. That’s where we find that flickering screen and the rest of the family. There are two plush couches and two big easy chairs all jumbled up together in this room. I suspected before, but now I am fairly certain, that my aunt and uncle are well off, at least better off than most folks I know.
I sit on one of the easy chairs, and it’s so soft, I feel like I’m going to sink through it to the floor. First we watch the news, then Lassie, followed by Jack Benny. He makes me laugh out loud.
After a while Aunt June says to Avery, “You can run to the store now.”
And Avery gets up to go.
“You be careful crossing that road,” Aunt June hollers after him.
Pretty soon Avery comes back with Pepsi-Colas and 5th Avenue candy bars for everybody. He gives me mine first, and I thank him.
The Ed Sullivan Show comes on, and I don’t think I ever saw anything so entertaining. I believe I could watch television all night. During a commercial I feel eyes on me. I try to keep from noticing, but it’s like bugs crawling over my skin. So I glance around the room, and there they are, all of them staring at me like I’m more interesting than the television! Then they look away quick.
Next General Electric Theater comes on, followed by Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The $64,000 Challenge. I’m surprised Aunt June does not tell us to go to bed. But we stay on through What’s My Line? Nobody makes a move to turn in until “The Star-Spangled Banner” plays at eleven o’clock, the television station signs off, and the test pattern comes on.
Then we go up the stairs, and Aunt June and Avery tell me good night and sleep tight. I go into the yellow room, close the door, and lean against it with my eyes closed. I start to turn on the light, then I think of all the windows in here. The café curtains are not enough to hide behind. There are still a few cars passing by, and people could see me taking off my clothes if they looked. I feel like I’ve been onstage all evening, and I don’t plan to give anybody else a show tonight. So I undress down to my petticoat in the dark, pull back the bedspread, and slip between soft yellow sheets.
I lie in the bed looking at the sky and wonder about Mom. How far did they get today? Maybe North Carolina. Where are they sleeping tonight? Maybe in the car.
I need to go to the bathroom. I hope I don’t stump my toe in the dark. One time I did that, and my toe never was right again. It went all crooked. I go down the hall as quiet and careful as I can. I hear voices behind one of the doors, and I stop to listen. It’s Uncle Otis.
“You should have told me, June.”
“Maybe, but I knew you’d say no, and I just had to see her,” Aunt June responds. “She’s August’s little girl.”
“You’re right. I would’ve said no. She’s way too much for you to take on right now,” Uncle Otis says.
Aunt June says something back, but I hurry away without making a sound and find the bathroom.
When I’m in bed again, I say to myself, “Well, April Garn
et Rose, your mom’s gone, and you might as well get used to it, because you got nobody in the world now, except the inhabitants of this derned old puke green house, and at least half of them think you’re way too much trouble.”
5
When I come awake, it feels like it’s late in the morning, but I don’t hear a sound in the house. I get up and open my suitcase. That’s when I find that Mom has slipped in a package of pink stationery for me, along with some postage stamps, and a small snapshot of herself clipped to a note that says, “I love you.”
“Like I know where to send a letter!” I say crossly, and shove those items into my nightstand drawer.
Then I find fresh underwear and a pair of shorts and a shirt. In the bathroom there are clean washcloths and towels, so I run some water in the tub and take a bath. It’s soothing.
When I’m dressed I step lightly into the hall. I still don’t hear or see anybody. Back on the sunporch, I make up my bed before tiptoeing down the steps. At the bottom I go left and into the October room so I can see it again. I glance out the front window at Richards’ Grocery, then walk around, admiring and touching stuff.
There’s a small fireplace here with a mantel lined with family pictures. Here’s one of Avery, one of Emory, and one … ? And there he is in black-and-white, the man I know nothing about except that he left my mom for a carnival singer. If Mom had a picture of him, she never showed it to me, but I know it’s him. He looks like Aunt June, and maybe I do have his eyes. He is smiling into the camera, and he is so good-looking I could cry.
I am suddenly filled with an anger I can’t explain.
“Why did you leave us?” I whisper to him through clenched teeth. “Things might have been different if you, if only you …”
I don’t know how to finish, because I really don’t understand what happened between my mom and dad those years ago when they were expecting me. I swallow my feelings and turn away quickly. I feel his eyes following me as I leave the room.
Standing in the hall again, I see a door behind the stairs that I didn’t notice last night because it was in the shadows. It looks like it’s real old, made of heavy, dark boards with big pegs holding it together instead of nails. It must be the original log cabin Aunt June told me about. I try the handle, but the door is locked.
I wander into the kitchen, but I don’t think I should be poking around in Aunt June’s cabinets to see what I can find to eat. I’ll wait till everybody is up. In the meantime, I’ll sit in the sun, which is shining bright. There is not one cloud in the sky, and the birds are singing like they’re on the radio. If I were back home, I would feel good on a day like this. I would go about my business humming a tune.
But this is not my home, and it seems I’m not altogether welcome here. I’m glad the Plymouth is not parked beside the house. That means Uncle Otis is gone, probably to work.
After a while I see a fat girl peeping over a wire fence that separates her yard from Aunt June’s. Her hair is orange as a pumpkin, and her freckles have got freckles. I figure she’s about fifteen or sixteen.
“Hidy, girl,” she calls to me. “I heered somebody say you’re June’s niece. Where you live at?”
“Elkhorn City.”
“Where’s that at?”
“Kentucky.”
“Yeah, I been there three times—or two—I reckon.”
I wonder if she’s quite right in the head.
“My Irish kin lives there,” she goes on.
I say nothing.
“I’m half Irish.”
With all that red hair, I can believe it.
“I’m half German too,” she tells me. “My last name is Fritz. And I’m half American.”
“That’s three halfs,” I say.
“Yeah,” she says. “I’m big.”
That gets a smile out of me. “What’s your first name?”
“Mitzi.”
I tell her my name, and she says, “Garnet, maybe you and me can buddy up. Ain’t nothing but boys around here. You hankering to buddy up with me?”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“But Mommy won’t let me git outside this fence,” Mitzi says. “’Cause I’m apt to go a’wanderin’.”
“Garnet!” Aunt June is calling to me from the kitchen window. “I’m fixing to cook us some breakfast.”
“Yeah, I’ll be your buddy, Mitzi,” I tell her. I figure boys are not nice to her, and she needs a friend as much as I do.
“See you later, alligator!” she hollers as I go toward the house.
“After while, crocodile!” I call back.
“So you’ve met Mitzi?” Aunt June says as I go into the kitchen.
I nod.
“She’s a card,” Aunt June comments with a smile. “A real card.”
“Is she all there?” I ask.
“Not quite,” Aunt June answers. “They say something happened when she was born. I don’t know what. But she’s a real sweet girl.”
Aunt June lays bacon strips in a skillet.
“You know, Garnet, I’ve been thinking it over ever since your mom asked me to keep you, and now that you’re here, I know why.”
“Why what?”
“Why this has all come about. You see, I think there’s a reason for everything, whether we know it or not, and you came here to help me find God. I’ve been searching for him for months now.”
“Why?”
“Why not? Don’t you want to know if he’s real?”
I shrug. “I’ve never puzzled over it much. How do you search?”
“I try a different church every week. Yesterday I was at Big Branch, and last week I went to Little Prater. Now I’ll have you to go with me and help.”
Mom and I were never churchgoing types. I’ve gone only a few times with school friends. As for what I believe, I couldn’t say, but I kinda doubt that God would disrupt my life like this just so Aunt June would have somebody to go to church with.
But what I say out loud is, “How am I supposed to help?”
“You can give me moral support, and also I’ll get new insight from fresh eyes. I can’t get Otis to go, and the boys? Well, Avery is too young, and you see how Emory is.”
Imagine that. She’s his mother and she sees how he is.
“How old is Emory anyhow?”
“He’s twelve and Avery’s nine.”
So my guess was close.
“Next Sunday,” Aunt June goes on, “I’m going to the Joy Creek Church of Jesus. They’re going to speak in tongues.”
“Do what?”
“That’s right! They talk in unknown languages.”
“What for?”
“They get the Holy Ghost. It’s part of their worship. Don’t you want to see that?”
I roll my eyes.
“It’ll be inspirational, you’ll see.”
“Sure,” I say. “And about as useful as a back pocket on a shirt.”
Aunt June chuckles. Yeah, I’ll have to say she’s pretty good-natured.
6
It’s just me and Avery and Aunt June for breakfast.
“Hey, Garnet,” Avery says. “Did you hear the one about the invisible man and the invisible woman getting married?”
I shake my head.
“Well, their young’uns were nothing to look at either.”
Actually, I’ve heard that corny joke before, but I laugh to make him feel good. He laughs harder than I do.
“Where is Emory and Uncle Otis?” I ask.
“Emory’s still sleeping,” Aunt June says. “He’d sleep all day, if I let him. And your uncle went off to work early on.”
“What kind of work does Uncle Otis do?”
“Uncle Dewey has a shop up at his house, where him and Daddy make starting boxes,” Avery says, and I can tell he’s proud. “They’re making about a million thousand dollars selling ’em.”
“Don’t exaggerate,” Aunt June tells him. Then she explains. “Your uncle and his brother, Dewey, have invented a start
ing box for the rail cars that go back into the coal mines. I understand that it acts something like an electrical transformer. The machinery is direct current, or DC. The starting box controls the amount of voltage going into the motor to prevent a sudden surge of electricity coming in at the start-up. They are compact, not much bigger than a shoe box, and the core elements are hardwood posts lined with copper straps. They are a great improvement over the old ones, and everybody wants one.”
“Wow!” is all I can think to say, because I’m impressed and astonished by Aunt June’s knowledge of Uncle Otis’s work.
She grins at me and says, “It runs on both sides of the family—this interest in anything electrical. Your poppy and your dad are electricians, and so are Otis and his brother. If I were a man, I’d probably be one too.”
“My dad is an electrician?” I ask.
“He sure is. He went back to school and got certified.”
“Uncle Dewey has a girl four years old,” Avery says. “Her name is Madge.”
“And that’s your other first cousin?” I ask him.
“No, she’s my second cousin now. You’re my first.”
Aunt June and I smile at each other. If it were only these two I had to put up with, I wouldn’t mind being here at all.
By the time we finish breakfast it’s almost eleven. Emory drags his carcass out of bed in time to eat the leftovers, and he’s still grumpy. I want to get away from him, so I wander toward the front rooms. Avery follows me.
“Can I look in there?” I ask him about the door behind the stairs.
“No. God’s in there.”
I stop short, put my hands on my hips, and give him the eye. “Well, you better tell your mama. She’s been looking all over for him!”
Avery laughs. “I mean it’s locked ’cause it’s where Mama keeps her God stuff, and she goes there to pray.”
“God stuff?”
“You know, her Bible and books. And she hides things in there—secret things.”
That’s interesting. A room for secrets.
In the afternoon Aunt June makes me and Avery and Emory help weed the garden. Emory manages to manipulate me so that I get the patch running up the hill. Like I figured, it’s awkward. You have to brace yourself against falling while trying to hoe at the same time.
