The Hollow Ground: A Novel

by Natalie S. Harnett

  Ma scratched at the stones on the ring to test the settings. “That bitch might act like she don’t care I got this, but believe me, it sticks in her craw. It’s what we fought about all those years ago when I said I’d never speak to her again. It all started with her wanting me to bring ambrosia for Easter Sunday, but I had to work a double on Holy Thursday and I was tired and I didn’t get to the store for the marshmallows and pineapple so I brought rice pudding instead. Pudding I made myself. But don’t you know that damn pudding wouldn’t set right and Gram went on and on about how awful it was, how I’d promised to bring stupid ambrosia, and how she could never trust me to make no promises again.

  “‘Promises?’ I said. ‘Who in the heck are you to be talking about promises? Wasn’t it you,’ I said, ‘who promised me your grandma’s ring on my wedding day? That was over seven years ago and I still ain’t got that ring so don’t you go talking about promises, old lady.’

  “‘Well,’ she said, ‘the only way you’re ever going to see that ring is over my dead body.’ And I said I got no problem getting that arranged and then she said she didn’t know why Adrian ever married me and it was a wonder what a man would do for sex and I told her that Adrian married me because he loved me and he wanted to take care of me and she said that was horsepucky and he only married me because he knew no one but some dumb orphanage trash would be stupid enough to marry him with his arm all broke and I said that dumb orphanage trash was at least smart enough to know where and when she was welcome and that she’d never step foot in that godforsaken house again!”

  Breathless, Ma finished her story and said she needed a smoke. Ever since Gramp died, Gram didn’t care if Ma smoked inside so I went out to the side porch to get Ma’s cigarettes, which was when I noticed Uncle Jerry’s car pull into the drive. I rushed back to the bedroom but not before Uncle Jerry was already pounding at the door and Gram was saying, “Who is it?”

  “Where’s Adrian?” we heard Uncle Jerry ask in his booming voice.

  Ma clenched at her neck. Her eyes darted from wall to wall. Then she cupped her face and patted her cheeks as if to make sure she was really there. “What’s Bropey come for? What do you think he wants?” Wildly, Ma searched my eyes for an answer.

  “I don’t know, Ma,” I cried. “I don’t know.”

  Ma’s eyes had a crazed glow to them. “I’ll talk to Bropey. But it’s your job to keep that bitch from saying something awful.”

  I couldn’t imagine any way to stop Gram from doing anything she wanted. My breathing got shallow and I had to suck for air. “How, Ma?” I said. But she’d already whipped open the door and breezed down the hall, her voice all false and syrupy as she said, “Bropey, what a wonderful surprise.”

  I moved out into the hall and stood in the doorway watching Ma kiss Uncle Jerry on the cheek. Gram was in profile, her hump shaping her into a hook aimed right at Ma. “Well, since nobody’s polite enough to make no introduction, I’ll do it myself. I’m Rowena Howley.”

  “Pleased to meet.” Uncle Jerry nodded. “Sorry to be trouble, but I’m looking for Adrian.”

  “He’s probably at The Shaft,” Gram said bitterly. “Or O’Malley’s. That’s the likely guesses.”

  Uncle Jerry looked from left to right as if he were about to cross a street. Then he wiggled his finger at Ma, beckoning her to follow him outside.

  Me and Gram stood watching from the side porch window but we couldn’t hear most of what was said. Uncle Jerry lit a cigarette and took one puff, then tossed it to the ground where he scuffed at it with his shoe over and over like a bull getting ready to charge. Ma pressed her hands to her face and seemed to sob.

  Gram shook her head. “Told her, didn’t I? You was there. I told her don’t no good come from lookin’ up your brother. Isn’t that what I said, clear as day? You remember that, girl. Blood is just blood and no more and the past is best left where it is—in the past!” Gram trudged out of the porch and into her bedroom all the while wagging her head.

  Eventually Uncle Jerry held Ma and patted her back. He stared across the street at the Williamsons’ front porch, which had sunk partway into the ground, and he said loud enough for the Williamsons to hear, “Like hell on earth. You remember what I said, Dolores. You think about it. You’d be welcome any time.”

  Hours later when Daddy came home, Ma walked straight up to him and while he stood shaking off his coat in front of Gramp’s empty Barcalounger, Ma pounded at his chest and slapped his face. “My brother! My brother you had to steal from? Why didn’t you steal from any other goddamned person but him?”

  Daddy gripped Ma’s wrist to stop her from hauling off and whacking him some more. The lines of his face went limp with confusion. “How’d he find out? He wasn’t supposed to be back in the office till Tuesday. They were driving to Janice’s family in Albany. I was going to put it all back in the safe on Monday. I swear. He never would have known.” Daddy dropped Ma’s wrist and clasped both her shoulders.

  Ma’s spine went from rigid to practically collapsing in Daddy’s arms. “You mean you got it? You got the money you took from him?”

  Daddy disappeared into the basement and returned with a wad of cash. Slowly Ma counted it, then counted it again. “So it’s all here?” Ma asked, her voice quaking with disbelief.

  Daddy was staring at the darkness framed in the window. “I had a sure thing,” he said. “I almost tripled Jerry’s money. I had enough to pay him back and buy you the nicest ring in the shop. I was going to put it all back on Monday. He never would have known.”

  “But he does goddamn know,” Ma said, squeezing her ring finger so hard it turned white. “You think Jerry cares that you got all his money? You think he don’t mind that you took it to gamble? What if you’d lost it all? What then?”

  “But I didn’t lose it. All I did was borrow it so I could get you a ring. How could he hold that against me? How could he not want his sister to have the ring she’s always wanted? He wanted to find you all these years, Dolores. Of course he wants you to keep the ring.”

  With Daddy’s words Ma wept and eventually she let Daddy hug her and stroke her hair. “You think he’ll forgive us then?” she said.

  “Of course he will,” Daddy murmured, kissing her gently on the side of the head. “Why wouldn’t he? He’s your long-lost brother, after all.”

  But Uncle Jerry didn’t forgive Daddy. The next day Ma took off work to drive down to Allentown to return the money and to collect Daddy’s things from the dealership. She had me miss school so I could make the trip with her and we met Uncle Jerry in the parking lot of a Giant supermarket because Ma was too ashamed to have Norma or Joe or Phil, Daddy’s workers, see us.

  “I won’t bring him up on charges, Dolores,” Uncle Jerry said, handing Ma a paper bag filled with Daddy’s things. “That’s the best I can do. But don’t you forget my offer. And you”—Uncle Jerry pointed at me and barked—“you be good to your mother. You’re lucky she doesn’t stick you in an orphanage with all she’s got on her plate.”

  I turned away, but just before I did, I shot Uncle Jerry the nastiest look I could muster and secretly smiled when his mouth flinched in response. “My ma would never do that,” I said.

  “Come on, Brigid,” Ma said, her voice weak and her body bent like she’d just been punched in the gut. “We got a long trip ahead.”

  On our way out of Allentown, Ma drove slow on Furlong Street past the house that Uncle Jerry’s friend had been fixing up for us. “Say goodbye to it, Brigid,” Ma said with a type of longing I’d never heard before in her voice. “Say goodbye to everything your daddy took from us.”

  “It’s the curse, Ma,” I said. “Not Daddy taking it away.”

  “Don’t I know it. Your daddy’s curse.”

  I said nothing. It felt like the core of me was hollow and Uncle Jerry’s words about Ma leaving me in an orphanage were echoing inside that place over and over.

  * * *

  When we got back to Barrendale Ma got
into bed, pulled the quilt to her eyes, and voice muffled, told me to tell Daddy that she didn’t want to talk to him. But Daddy didn’t come back that whole afternoon and later when I knocked on the door to bring Ma supper, Ma said, “Go to hell, Adrian. Go to hell and don’t never come back.”

  “It’s me, Ma,” I said. “I got some of Gram’s meat loaf.”

  Ma didn’t say anything so I stepped inside and saw that Ma had spread out on her mattress everything Stepma had given us, all that remained of Ma’s dead ma. Looking at the objects made me think again of the bad things Ma’s daddy had done to her, the things perverts were arrested for, and I shivered even though the room was steaming hot from the radiator pumping.

  Ma’s face was grayish, coated with sweat and the grime that coated everything inside and outside the house. She sat Indian-style on her mattress, holding in one hand a tortoiseshell comb with one of the teeth missing. On her lap was a small crocheted white purse and a single long black glove. Spread around her were some hair curlers, a porcelain figurine that spun on a music box, lace collars, and oblongs of lace with snap buttons on them.

  Ma dropped the comb and patted the mattress for me to sit. I put the plate of food on the desk and knelt beside her. Ma hadn’t let me look through the box of her ma’s things so I looked with interest at a porcelain bride with hardened lace on its dress and the little metal barrettes with stiff ribbons glued onto them and the crochet-edged hankies folded neatly in thin cardboard boxes.

  “I thought getting married and having my own family was all I ever wanted,” Ma said. “I thought having my own family would make me forget the one I came from, but all it did was make me think about them worse.”

  I didn’t know how to comfort the pain in Ma’s voice so I reached for a folded yellowing hankie and cradled it against my cheek.

  “Jesus Christ, Brigid.” Ma slapped the hankie from my hand. “You gettin’ it all filthy.”

  “It’s already filthy,” I said, streaking a clean spot on the porcelain figurine with my finger. All the stuff was coated with the dust from years of storage as well as the house’s general dirt. I wiped the dirt from my finger on to my pant’s pocket and wondered how Ma’s dead ma could be as saintly as Ma said if she’d let what had happened to Ma happen.

  I picked up the photo of my grandma that Ma had propped on the pillow. “I wish I’d known her,” I said, trying to get at what I was thinking.

  Ma nodded, then pressed her lips tight like she was in pain. She reached for me and clutched me to her. “Ah, God,” she cried. “I got everything that’s left of her. I got everything there is to get and it still ain’t enough. I still got a hole inside.”

  Ma let me go and thumped her chest like she was drumming the hollow of her heart. Then she lay down on her mattress and I stroked her hair until she quieted. It was only early evening but Ma slept through till night and when I went to bed, I could hear her breezy snores. I tried to stay awake to hear when Daddy came home, but sleep got the better of me and I didn’t wake until 3:00 A.M., in expectation of Mr. Smythe’s nightly gas check. I rarely slept through it, but when I woke he wasn’t there. Through the window, fingers of white moonlight stretched out on the floor to aim straight at Ma’s mattress, which I saw was empty. From the kitchen came noises. I guessed Ma had gotten up to make herself something to eat.

  “Shh,” she said when I stepped into the kitchen and found her at the counter making two cheese sandwiches, one with ketchup on it, the way only Brother liked it. I looked from the sandwiches to the suitcase, Auntie’s old green one, which was propped by the door.

  “What are you doing, Ma?”

  “Me and John Patrick is taking a trip. Don’t you mind about it.” Ma held her arm up and licked ketchup from where it had globbed on her skin like blood. “Don’t go making me feel bad. Uncle Jerry ain’t got room for you. John Patrick can stay in Little Jerry’s room. There ain’t room for me and you in the guest room.” She looked toward a crack in the wall that had grown crooked and long during the night. “It’s just temporary, Brigid. Don’t go giving me a hard time about it.”

  Ma tiptoed into the living room past Daddy who was loudly snoring in Gramp’s Barcalounger. She lifted Brother from where he curled on the couch and carried him with his head on her shoulder and his arm sloped around her neck. “I’m the one who has to get out of here,” she whispered. “It’s not just you who’s suffering. You can’t just think about yourself.”

  In the kitchen she quieted Brother by cupping the back of his head with her hand. “Now don’t go making me feel bad, Brigid. I don’t want to do this. He don’t have room for you is all. That ain’t my fault. No one can say it is.” Her glance toward me was uneasy. We didn’t meet eyes.

  “Is this because of your daddy?” I asked.

  “What?” she said, the word quick and sharp as a dagger.

  “Is it because I look like him? You said I did. Is that why you don’t want to take me?”

  “This is no time for your foolishness, Brigid. The ridiculous things you say!” Carefully she opened the door, mindful of how it squeaked. Slowly she then slid Brother down to his feet and told him to walk to the car. She picked up Auntie’s old valise and stepped out onto the moon-shadowed ground. She didn’t look back but she stood there for a moment as if pondering West Mountain glowing red between the trees.

  My body went so slack and heavy that I felt as if the bones in my legs had left with Ma. I managed to pull out a kitchen chair and to kind of collapse into it, leaning partway on the table for support. I heard the car motor turn over. I heard the tires crunch the gravel on the drive and then I listened to the fading sound of the car as it drove off. Long after it had gone, I stayed at the table, unable to move.

  Eventually Mr. Smythe quietly opened the screen door. He smiled, seemingly not surprised to find someone, even a little girl, up in the middle of the night. “Can’t sleep,” he stated, shaking his head. He helped himself to a bottle of milk from the fridge and poured a glass. He set the glass on the table and patted me on the head. “Don’t stay up too late,” he said and then he reached in his back pocket for his gauge meter and waved it up by the ceiling.

  Gradually night gave way to bluish, then gray light. A woodpecker worked on a nearby tree. When I heard Gram shuffling around her room, I attempted to get up but the heaviness in my legs had given way to a quivering sensation and I still couldn’t move.

  “What on earth?” I heard Gram declare. She was staring at the crack in the wall, which no matter how many ways she’d tried to stop its growth, still lengthened by degrees every night. “Lord, girl, what the heck you got the door open for?” Gram trudged toward the door and stepped in front of the dusting of dirt that had blown in a foot or more across the linoleum.

  I cringed, waiting for the slap I’d get for leaving it open, but instead Gram lifted a note from the counter. She held it at arm’s length and read out loud, “Time to look out for myself since it don’t seem no one else will.”

  Gram peered out the screen, then shut the door. “Guess her brother gave her the gas money. Lord knows what he’ll want from her in return.”

  I said nothing, my leg had stopped its involuntary twitching and now felt heavy as rock.

  “Well, you just goin’ to sit there?” Gram crumpled the paper and tromped over to the trash where she dumped it. “Even if your ma’s gone, you’re still here. And it’s still Saturday, your day to clean the floors. And you got a mess right there you can start with.” Gram pointed at the patch of dirt by the door.

  I gripped the edge of the table, leaned my hand against it, and pushed myself up from the chair. But instead of standing, my numb legs collapsed and I found myself flat out on the floor, staring at a table leg, stunned, having never had my body fail me before.

  “Get up, girl! Get up!” Gram shouted.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw one grungy pink slipper coming toward me.

  “Get up,” Gram said. “Don’t go lyin’ there like a slug.”
She nudged my shoulder with the tip of her slipper and when I didn’t respond she kicked me with it. “Get up, girl. Get up. She ain’t worth it, you hear?”

  I started to cry. Gram sat down on the chair, bent down and slapped me hard on the cheek. But I only wailed harder so she slapped me again, striking my cheek, my nose, the ridge above my eye. “You deserve better than her. And don’t you ever forget it, you hear me?”

  I rolled to the side and then pushed up out of Gram’s reach, gagging on a sob, my vision clearing. From her bathrobe pocket Gram pulled out a wad of crumpled tissues. She picked out a clean one and offered it to me. “Let it go, girl. Let her go. She can’t give you what you want. Let her go. You can do it if you try.”

  I crawled forward to take the tissue from Gram’s hand and as I reached for it Gram said, “It’s not your fault who your ma is, you remember that.”

  Through a haze of tears I focused on Gram’s face, surprised beyond all words to see kindness softening its creases.

  PART III

  Twenty

  Spring never came that year. Winter lasted into May with a blizzard blanketing the fire zone in such a thick fog that on Mother’s Day weekend Route 6 was closed to traffic and by that following weekend it was closed again because 86 degree days had flooded the road with snowmelt.

  Spring was Gram’s favorite month and the shock of its absence unhinged something in her. Suddenly she couldn’t take a trip to the store or clean a gutter without saying a prayer to this or that patron saint first. On her way to the Hi-Lo market she’d pray, “Saint Christopher, get me there safe, you hear?” As she’d stand on a ladder, swiping her long fingers through the gutter, she’d shout, “Keep me from fallin’, Saint Sitha!” Since Saint Sitha was not only the patron saint of housework but also of people who’d lost their keys, she’d usually add, “And don’t let me lose my keys!” Of course after such a prayer she wouldn’t be able to find the keys to the car or to the little jewelry box where she kept her wedding ring while she cleaned.