Plantation

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Jesus Christ, Frances Mae, why in hell do you run off at the mouth like that?”

  “Because it’s true, that’s why!” she said. “He’s retarded and you know it.”

  Frances Mae had made a great mistake in underestimating Mother’s loyalty to me.

  “I ought to slap your face, Frances Mae Litchfield,” Mother said. “Someone should. Between your behavior last night and your unconscionable meanness—you are a disgrace.”

  The room was dead quiet then. Mother had taken away her name and rebranded her with her maiden name. The ultimate insult. Score: Dowager Queen—one, Pretender to Throne—zero.

  Frances Mae started to cry. In one movement, Trip reached to the desk and shoved the box of tissues in front of his pathetic wife. No one breathed. We listened to Frances Mae for a few minutes and the more she wept, the more outraged I became. Suddenly, everything became clear to me so I crawled out on the sturdy limb of the family tree and spoke.

  “May I say something?”

  “Of course, Caroline,” Mother said.

  “First of all, Frances Mae?” She looked up at me. “Shut the hell up, okay? No one sympathizes with your tears. We all know you can turn them on at will, so why don’t you just turn them off.” So much for Millie’s voodoo keeping Frances Mae’s anger at bay.

  Frances Mae blew her nose and looked at me with a white-hot hatred. I ignored her and shifted my attention to Trip and Mother. “You know, I came down here specifically to see how you were doing, Mother. Trip had told me this crazy tale and I half believed him. But in twenty-four hours, I am seeing something entirely different. This is not Communist China, Frances Mae.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Frances Mae said.

  “That when you see something you need, you can’t dig around plotting and scheming to justify taking it for yourself, by saying your need for the thing is greater than the rights of the person to whom that thing belongs!”

  “Like I said, just what the hell is that supposed to mean? Trip, darlin’? What is your sister saying with all her fancy talk?”

  Before Trip could answer, Mother spoke up again. “What she is saying, Frances Mae, is that my demise, real or manufactured, will in all likelihood not coincide with your need for another two bedrooms. And, although this plantation has historically been run by women, there’s nothing to say I can’t change that tradition. I might just give it to the Historical Society of Charleston! Furnished!”

  “Well, I guess that’s pretty much that!” Trip said.

  “No, it isn’t,” I said, “you and Frances Mae have to stop looking at Mother as the source of all your problems. Mother has never denied you anything, Trip, and you know it. But if your house needs enlarging, you could fish a little less and work a little more!”

  “I could, huh?” Then, he started to laugh. “I reckon my big sister has just dressed me down, y’all,” he said to us; and then, to no one in particular, “I reckon she has.” He looked at Frances Mae, who was obviously bewildered by what had occurred. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

  “What?” Frances Mae said.

  Trip took a deep breath. As far as he was concerned, Frances Mae was hopeless and the meeting was over. “Why don’t you go round up the girls, honey? My sister and my mother have promised to let me shoot some clay birds with them and I want to make sure the girls are safe inside.”

  “Sure, honey,” she said, lifting herself up from the couch by pulling on Trip’s extended arm. “See y’all later.” She was about to leave the room when Mother stopped her.

  “Frances Mae?”

  “Yes, ma’am?” She looked all innocence.

  “You seem to have forgotten that you owe us an apology for your unkind remarks about Eric. Eric is not retarded, Frances Mae, and if I ever hear you say anything remotely like that again, you will not be welcome in this house.”

  Frances Mae’s jaw locked and her face flushed. Taking her time, she looked from one of us to the other, the corner of her lip raised in a sneer. Finally, she said, “Caroline? Mother Wimbley? I am not sorry one damn bit for what I said about little Eric the retard.”

  “What?” Mother said. “How dare you?”

  I couldn’t help myself—I flew into her and slapped her across the face with all my might. “You stupid bitch; you go to hell!”

  Frances Mae screamed, “Ow! Why you . . .” and tried to hit me back, but I caught her arm in midair. Trip jumped up and pulled me away. I was seriously going to kill her with my bare hands. He got between us and held her back.

  “Caroline! Stop this instant!” Mother said, panic in her voice.

  “That’s right and I’ll tell you another thing!” Frances Mae said, sputtering and spitting saliva.

  “Shut up, Frances Mae, just shut up!” Trip said. “Mother, I’m sorry. I’m taking her home.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not. I’m not finished,” Frances Mae said.

  “Oh, yes, you are!” Trip said.

  “No!” Frances Mae said, nearly screaming. “Y’all listen to me, damnit!” Mysteriously, we all became silent and allowed the buffalo to say her last words. “I am only saying what’s true. I am sick to death of being treated like dirt by this family. I have tried and tried to make y’all love me and my children and they know the truth too—that their grandmother hates them and their aunt could care less about them. I’m tired of being hurt by you and tired of my children being hurt by your sarcasm and criticism. Y’all are the ones who owe me an apology. I’ll be outside in the yard with my girls. Anytime you want to start acting like family to us, let me know.”

  If they had given an Academy Award for Biggest Balls, Frances Mae would’ve won it. She shot me a smug look, then turned on her heel and waddled out.

  “Sometimes the truth is ugly,” Trip said.

  “There’s not a word of truth in what she said,” Mother said.

  “Mother, she may not be as refined as you’d like, but she’s not stupid when it comes to her children,” Trip said.

  “But it’s okay for her to be completely insensitive when it comes to mine?” I said, my heart still pounding. “She is the meanest person I have ever met! I am never speaking to her again!”

  “Mother? There’s room for regret on all sides,” Trip said.

  Mother shook her head and sighed. “Well, I guess I’ll get on out to the barn and ask Jenkins to hitch up the buggy. Maybe I’ll take my granddaughters for a ride.”

  Trip and I were left to face each other.

  “Yeah, she’ll ask him to hitch up the buggy and for a roll in the hay too!” Trip said.

  “You’re a total asshole, do you know that? Would you like to know why Mother goes to his cottage every morning?”

  “Please, no details. The whole thing is repulsive.”

  “She’s teaching him to read and write, you big dumb ass.”

  “Well, Caroline, I can see your little Jew-boy husband has taught you a thing or two. Like how to make your own family feel like shit? Let me ask you something, are you really happy with that pompous ass?”

  “Are you really happy with that lowlife?”

  We stared at each other until our rage subsided into a simmer. I went back and sat on the couch and looked at him standing by the door.

  “Look at this room,” I said.

  “What about it?” He stepped back in, went to Daddy’s desk, and stopped. Then he ran his hand across Daddy’s desk, picked up Daddy’s horn-handled magnifying glass, and held it. “We used to use this to examine bugs.”

  “Trip? Don’t you think that while we are in the confessional of Daddy’s office we should at least try to absolve our anger with each other? It’s not like we have that many spare relatives, you know.”

  He looked at me for a few minutes, took a deep breath, and finally nodded his head. “You’re right. Come on, girl, let’s go shoot the ass off a mess of clay birds.”

  “Just two more things.”

  “Name ’em.”

  �
�You call my husband a Jew-boy ever again and I’ll kick your jewels clear past your tonsils.”

  “Understood, and two?”

  “If that piece of feces wife of yours ever makes another unkind remark, no, even implies anything unkind about my little boy, who by the way is the sweetest child on the planet, she’s a dead woman.”

  “Truce. But hey, try to get Mother to cut the girls a little slack, okay?”

  “Make her apologize.”

  “Look, Caroline, my wife’s a jealous woman. That’s all it is and you know it.”

  “I know no such thing.”

  “You get Mother to lighten up and I’ll get her to apologize.”

  “No guarantees, but I’ll try.”

  “Okay, me too.”

  It was how we established a temporary peace, by coming clean. But that peace was fragile and we both knew it.

  Hell, I understood Trip’s reluctance to work more to please Frances Mae. If I still lived here, I’d be on the river all day long too! What would a sane person rather do? Work to satisfy the needs of a redneck, mean-ass bitch by practicing law in the world of the anger and grief of divorce? Or spend the day on the mighty Edisto, fishing, drinking beer, thinking, and forgetting about the world? Was my meditative practice so different? No, it was like fishing. It was also the powerful urge Trip and I recognized in each other—our need to escape into our own world. It was probably one reason why we could try to forgive each other.

  From the back porch, I could see Frances Mae down on the dock with the girls. They held bamboo poles and were lined up like three pink Popsicles, watching the water for their corks to bob from the weight of a croaker on the hook. Frances Mae went from one to the other, encouraging them, recasting their lines. I had to admit, she was a decent mother to her girls. At least she tried her best. It was true, that Mother and I had never given her any quarter. But Trip didn’t either.

  I decided to go outside to speak to her, hoping to make some peace. I needed to make her understand the truth about my son. I’d squeeze an apology from her. She saw me coming and even in the distance I could see her bristle. I didn’t blame her. Never mind Trip. This was between me and Frances Mae. I’d get my apology from her now come hell or high water. If we were going to have some family reconciliation, she had to do her part as well.

  “Frances Mae!” I called out to her.

  She turned to face me and then turned away again. So she wasn’t in the mood to make up? Well, we would see about that. I got to the dock and my shoes clacked down the ramp, and still, she ignored me.

  “Frances Mae, I want to talk to you.” I walked toward her.

  “Stay away from me,” she said, backing away.

  “I think we need to settle this, Frances Mae,” I said, continuing toward her.

  She backed up one step too many and tripped over the bait bucket, falling backward from the dock into the water.

  “Oh, my God!” I said, screaming. I may have hated her guts, but I never wanted her to fall off the dock seven months into her pregnancy! “Isabelle! Amelia! Go get your daddy! Get Millie! Bring towels! Run! Hurry!” I got down on my stomach and held my hand out for Frances Mae to take. “Grab my wrist!”

  She was coughing and crying. “This is your fault!” she said. Hack! Hack! “Oh, God, it’s so cold, help me, goddammit!”

  She caught my arm and I tried to make a quick judgment for her safety. “I can either pull you up or you can swim around to the other side and use the ladder. The ladder’s probably safer for you.” She let her nails scrape my arm as she let go.

  “You fucking bitch!” she said, and moved through the water about five feet. “You’re a fucking murderer!” She moved along another ten feet, muttering and spitting. “God!” Hack! Hack! “Damn you, Caroline! Damn you to hell! If there’s anything wrong with this baby, it’s all your fault!”

  “Try to calm down, Frances Mae, the girls will be right here with towels. I came down here to talk to you to try to settle this.” I was angry all over again. “You backed away from me. I didn’t push you. You tripped, you stupid sow.”

  She came up the ladder, mascara dripping, hair matted in clumps with river grass, dress sticking to her like Saran Wrap over a watermelon, two cantaloupes, two hams, and a giant rump roast. She was a veritable Sunday buffet waiting to be served.

  “I hate you,” she said, under her breath.

  “There has never been a question about your affection for me or about mine for you. Now . . .” I turned to call out to Isabelle, who was running toward us, arms filled with towels, Millie on her heels. “Pull your ugly ass up and if you say another word to me, I’ll push you back in the river and you can float away to hell. Look at you! My poor brother!”

  “What happened?” Millie said. “Honey, go find your daddy quick!” she said to Isabelle. “Frances Mae, turn around, here.” She put the towels over her, warming her arms and back. “You all right?”

  “I feel like I’m gonna faint,” Frances Mae said, rolling her eyes.

  “Let’s get you up to the house,” Millie said. Saint that Millie was, she put her arm around her shoulder and led her away. Isabelle and little Caroline followed, chanting, “You okay, Momma? Momma? You okay?” I was left with Amelia on the dock.

  “Guess we should put this fishing stuff away,” I said.

  “You’re in trouble,” she said. When I looked at her all I saw was a miniature Frances Mae. “Momma thought you were gonna push her, that’s why she backed up and fell. It’s all your fault. I’m telling.”

  I could not believe what I had just heard come from the mouth of a thirteen-year-old girl. “Don’t get involved, Amelia.”

  “You don’t scare me, Aunt Caroline, my momma says you’re bad. I know what I saw!”

  “You go right ahead and do that, Miss Amelia, and you’ll find out all about grown-up anger.”

  “I’m telling my daddy!” She started running toward the house. “Daddy! Daddy!”

  “You do that,” I said. I turned around and leaned on the railing. Great. This is just great.

  Frances Mae went to bed and slept.

  Before Frances Mae reappeared for dinner, Trip, Mother, and I had another chat over cocktails outside as the grill heated up.

  “Do you know what my daughter told me?” he said.

  “I can only imagine,” I said.

  The sun was beginning to set and the sky was deep red and bright purple against the fading blue. I turned away from it to face Trip and Mother.

  “Trip, surely you don’t believe for a minute that . . .” Mother said.

  “Of course I don’t,” he said. “Caroline has grounds to push her, but she doesn’t have that kind of desire to endanger anyone. After all, she’s got the soul of a vegetarian now.”

  “Oh, fine, knock it off, okay? I’m glad she’s all right,” I said. “Hell, Trip, you know she’s crazy.”

  “Crazy is a big word, Caroline,” Trip said. “I wouldn’t say she’s crazy. Every time she’s pregnant, she acts up. I’m sorry for what she said about Eric. I know it’s not true.”

  “I have a suggestion,” Mother said.

  For Mother to have a suggestion and not a solution or an order was certainly a gentler, kinder Mother than we had known.

  “Tell it,” I said.

  “Why don’t we just pretend that everything’s all right and be a family tonight?”

  I looked at Trip; he looked at me. We both hated the pretend-thing, but the price we’d have to pay to settle all our differences with each other at this point was just too high.

  Frances Mae was properly subdued at the table, Trip served up fabulous steaks, Millie brought out a huge salad and steaming baked potatoes with freshly snipped chives from her garden. Yes, I ate steak and loved it too. We drank two bottles of California special reserve cabernet sauvignon from the Stag’s Leap cellars. We watched the girls twirl and dance in the growing evening light until they were mere silhouettes against the trees and water.

  None
of us had the desire to fight or compromise. Frances Mae’s fall had jarred us into a reprieve. So we pretended things were all right to get through the night. The truth would reveal itself in its own time.

  MISS LAVINIA’S JOURNAL

  Dear Nevil, Dear Diary, Dear Caroline, and Dear God, this is sounding like a letter; isn’t it? Well, it’s just that I don’t know if anybody listens or if anyone will take the time to read this. If anyone does, it will be Caroline. So, girl of mine? What a show! Old Frances Mae went for a swim.You should’ve drowned her, except for the fact that she’s carrying my boy’s baby.That’s exactly how I feel. If there’s one thing that I despise, it’s vulgarity. It’s not your fault, Caroline. Oh, I don’t feel so well tonight. I could hardly swallow my dinner. I’m a little dizzy too. Well, maybe a good night’s sleep will pick me up. Tomorrow, we’ll go to church together and I think this time I’ll say a prayer or two. It can’t hurt and, who knows, it might help.

  Twenty

  Should Be Getting Better, but It Keeps Getting Worse

  SUNDAY morning, as I dressed for church, I was feeling all out of sorts. All at once, going back to New York meant living in confinement. I had never looked at New York that way. It also meant, and this was the larger issue, that although I had Richard, good friends, and even some clients who cared about me in New York, they weren’t from my blood. No one I knew in New York gave a moment’s regard to my soul. For the first time in many years, I thought about my own longings. Millie, Trip, and Mother. All of them confided in me, needed me, and cared about how I felt—not just on the surface, but deep inside.

  I knew also, and I would never admit this, that I lavished Eric with nearly all my focus and ever since Richard went to London with Lois something in me was suspicious of him. I was trying to figure out why I guarded my heart with him and thought that maybe, it was because he was always judging me. I was always coming up short, somehow. In all the years we had been together, he could never specify what it was that I wasn’t enough of to thrill him. Instinctively, I knew there was an underlying current of general dissatisfaction. Frankly, I didn’t have the desire to know either. What did that say about my marriage? That it had run its course?