“Once you can pay for it, we’ll get one,” Granny says.
“We live in the Dark Ages,” I say, after discarding a jack of hearts.
I fume in silence for Granny’s benefit, too.
“Most families have telephones and television sets by now,” I continue. “I’ve watched Ed Sullivan at Pearl’s house and can’t believe all the good things we’re missing.”
“If you don’t like it here, feel free to leave,” Granny says, studying her cards.
Picking a fight with Granny is never a good idea, so I let it drop.
When the crickets tune up for the evening to sing their songs, I want to tell them to shut up. For the rest of the evening, I avoid the living room where Mama is reading and take an extra-long bath hoping she’s waiting to get into the bathroom.
When I dry off, I put on my pajamas and then go into our bedroom. Mama follows me in.
“Can I brush your hair?” she asks.
I stand in our bedroom with my hands on my hips, wondering how long I can stay mad at her if she insists on being nice. She pats the bed.
I sit with a huff and bounce on the worn out springs just to irritate her, but she isn’t the least bit irritated. My hair is long enough that I can sit on it if I’m not careful. Mama said she used to have hair as long as mine, too, but now she wears it short to avoid accidents at the sawmill.
Hair brushing is something we rarely miss. I take my place at the foot of the bed and Mama sits behind me. With slow, gentle strokes, she brushes my hair as if it is made of birds’ nests that will fly apart if touched too roughly. Over and over, she sweeps my hair back and gathers it and then lets it drop. I close my eyes. This rhythm is like a lullaby. My breathing deepens, and I expel the last of my anger with a sigh.
How is it that even without a daddy, I feel completely loved?
“I’m sorry, Mama.”
“I’m sorry, too,” she says.
Mama puts the brush on the bed, and I turn to see her head bowed like she’s praying.
“Does this mean that you and God are on speaking terms again?” I ask.
She lifts her head and looks at me, her eyes shiny with unshed tears.
“Maybe someday we will be again,” she says, like it’s a secret wish she’s not sure will get fulfilled. “I don’t want you to hate me,” she adds, her voice soft.
“I don’t hate you, Mama,” I say, although twenty minutes before I would have sworn on a Bible I did.
She leans over and rests her head on my shoulder.
“We need to not have secrets from one another,” I say.
She raises her head and her eyes find mine.
“I’m not so sure I agree,” she says.
I start to ask why, and she answers as if she’s already heard my question.
“It’s my job to protect you, Lily, in the best way I know how. When you’re a parent, that’s what you do.”
“Remember when you used to read me fairy tales at night from Granddaddy’s book?” I ask.
She nods. “It was a book he used to read to me and my sisters at night,” she says.
“Well, if there’s a kingdom where secrets are kept, you’re the queen,” I say to her. “And the castle where you keep those secrets has a deep moat with alligators in it.”
She laughs. “That’s probably true,” she says. “But you’ve kept secrets from me, too, haven’t you?”
I pause, remembering my plans to leave Katy’s Ridge as soon as I am out of high school.
“I take that as a ‘yes,’” she says, her smile brief.
She looks at me in that way she always does, like she’s recognizing somebody she used to know.
“My secrets are nothing bad,” I say, thinking, at least nothing bad to me.
“Listen, sweetheart, you’re as entitled to your confidences as I am to mine.”
She says this like she’s closing a loop on a sweater she’s knitting to keep it from ever unraveling. “A mother never knows everything about her daughter, and a daughter never knows everything about her mother. It’s just the way it is.”
In my imagination, I hear a snap, the jaws of the alligator in the moat.
“But what if your secrets involve someone else who has a right to know?” I ask.
“Oh, Lily,” she says, as though I’m intent on making her life harder than it already is. But I detect a little give in the fabric of her protection of me.
I pick up the hairbrush and motion for Mama to turn so I can brush her hair, too. Her hair is short, but thick, and she’s tender-headed, so I am as gentle with her as she was with me.
“Telling secrets has consequences,” she says, as though the matter isn’t entirely closed.
“But not telling them has consequences, too, doesn’t it?” I ask.
She turns and looks at me.
“You have to decide whether telling the secret is going to hurt anybody or not,” she says. “If telling it gives you relief, then you just pass that hurt onto other people. In that case, it was probably selfish to tell.”
“So you don’t want to tell me about my daddy because it might hurt me?” I ask.
Mama sighs.
“Lily, it’s been a really long day. I just can’t do this right now.”
Mama stands and takes the brush from my hand and places it on top of the old bureau that she and her sisters used to share. Before I have time to crawl under the covers, she turns out the light.
Through the thin walls, I can hear Granny getting ready for bed. The rocking chair in her room begins its faint crackling against the wooden floors. Sometimes Granny rocks deep into the night. Tonight, I wonder if she’s thinking of Granddaddy, who died fifteen years ago today. Or maybe she’s wishing she’d pulled the trigger of that shotgun.
As I ready for sleep, I think of the stranger with the muddy shoes and the look on Mama’s face at the time, like a ghost had appeared right in front of her.
My cousin, Bolt, told me years ago that the Monroe land was haunted. It lies beyond the crossroads over near Sutter’s Lake. A girl hung herself in an oak tree on that property.
Tomorrow after school, I want to find the stranger’s cabin. She may know something about my daddy.
Mama reaches over and touches my arm in the darkness. “Are you still awake?” she whispers.
“Yeah,” I whisper back. I’m glad I’m not angry at her any-more. I’ve never been able to stay mad at her for long.
“I love you, Lily,” she says.
“Your secret sense knew the stranger was coming, didn’t it?” I ask.
“It did,” she answers.
“Do you think I’ll get the secret sense someday?”
“Even if you don’t, you have other very special gifts, Lily McAllister.”
“Like what?” I say, but I know she’s talking about my singing.
“Go to sleep,” she says, turning to face the wall.
I close my eyes, but I can’t quit thinking about the stranger. I’m convinced she holds pieces of the puzzle I’ve been trying to solve my entire life.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll ask her,” I whisper. It sounds like a threat, though I don’t mean it to. Or maybe I do.
The mattress squeaks as Mama turns to face me again. I imagine her raised brow along with that don’t-even-think-about-it look.
“I’m serious, Lily, don’t go looking for trouble,” Mama’s voice breaks out of a whisper.
In the next room, Granny’s rocker stops. Has she heard us? The wooden floors announce her movement across the room, followed by the metallic moan of the iron bed that receives her.
“I just want the truth,” I whisper back. “When you’re ready,” I add, knowing it’s best not to force things. If Mama feels pushed into a corner she fights back like a bobcat.
“I’ll think about it,” she says, as though too tired to fight.
I smile. A tiny victory.
According to Mama, everything in nature has a timing to it, and she taught me to respect
the timing of things. You can’t open a cocoon before its ready, or the butterfly will die. You can’t force a flower to bloom by pulling it apart. You can’t force the river to flow faster than it does. You can’t force people to move faster than they want to, either. If Mama says she’ll think about it, she will. But that doesn’t mean I’ll get what I want. At least I know now who to go to for answers if Mama denies my request—the stranger named Melody Monroe.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Wildflower
After a fitful night’s sleep, I go into the kitchen the next morning to find Mama already at the table. Four quilt squares sit next to her as well as a needle with thread marking where she stopped the night before.
“I made it strong,” she says, holding up her coffee cup. Did she have trouble sleeping, too?
My dreams were full of chase scenes. Lily running through the forest, fleeing from an unseen assailant. Sometimes I wonder if dreams are my secret sense just coming out in a different way.
“You’re up early,” Mama says. “You got a meeting I don’t know about?”
I pause long enough to wonder if I should tell her the truth. The truth wins out. “Actually, I’m going to go by the Monroe place and talk to Melody.”
Her voice starts off loud and then goes to a disapproving whisper: “You’re going to do what? Why would you do that?”
Mama is protective of all her children and until I had Lily, I took her way of caring as an insult.
“It may be the stupidest thing I ever do, Mama, but I can’t just sit around and wait for the shoe to drop.”
Mama looks at the kitchen door as if to make sure she won’t be overheard. Her words come out in a whisper again: “Do you think Melody Monroe knows that Johnny is Lily’s daddy?”
“That’s what I need to find out,” I say. “I don’t know what she knows. But when she was here yesterday, she couldn’t take her eyes off Lily and that concerns me.”
“You want me to go with you?” Mama asks, glancing over at the shotgun by the door.
“I don’t want to scare her,” I say. “I want to have a calm conversation.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible with that woman,” Mama says with a scoff. “My guess is she’s here to make a mess of things.”
“Maybe she is,” I say. “That’s what I want to find out.”
“You be careful,” Mama says.
I grab a biscuit left over from yesterday and fold two pieces of bacon into the center of it and wrap it into a napkin.
At the front door, I yell a quick goodbye to Lily, who is getting ready for school. She yells back the same. At least she’s still speaking to me. I remember how Mama and I barely spoke for weeks after Johnny attacked me. Back then, I thought Mama’s silence might kill me. Even the simplest people are complicated, and I don’t know that I’ll ever understand most folks. I’m not sure I even understand myself.
At the bottom of the hill I slide into my pickup and let it warm up while I eat my biscuit. I toss the crumbs outside for the birds. I drive in the opposite direction of the sawmill toward the Monroe place. The paved road changes to dirt and gravel and then to just dirt. No matter how slow I go, the shocks on my old truck squeak and moan. With the ruts and potholes, it’s like riding a wild horse who refuses to be tamed. I pull over and park where the road becomes impassable. A few yards away, I find the remnants of an even narrower dirt road that leads into the forest.
The last time I was here I was Lily’s age, or maybe a little younger. On a post to the left of the road is a rusty white sign that once had No Trespassing painted on it. Now it reads o espassin. The road is grown over and looks like a mud farm at best. Standing water sits in deep craters, and it takes some doing to avoid the puddles. It reminds me of jumping hopscotch squares in elementary school. I think of Bee. I could never spend an entire day with a bunch of kids like she does.
I walk deeper into the woods. Even with the leaves halfway off the trees, it is still dark. I shudder and think of the dream I had the night before of Lily being chased. My stomach rumbles with the strong coffee and biscuit. I shouldn’t be here. I have work to do at the mill. But I need to ask Melody about her intentions.
Nothing much has changed about the Monroe place except that, with no one cutting trees for firewood, the forest is denser. Wisteria vines have captured the front porch and threaten to overtake the rest of the house. Even from a distance the old wood smells rotten. The floor boards of the porch visibly buckle in places with green vines reaching for sunlight between the boards. A three-legged stool sits next to an old washing machine with rollers. A stack of firewood is covered with a white fungus that stretches its fingers in every direction and looks almost as rotten as the porch. At the bottom step I stomp the mud off my boots to announce my arrival, and call out Melody’s name. On the step next to me is a graveyard of cigarettes twisted into the dark, damp wood. The cabin reeks of sour cigarettes and rot.
Several long seconds later, the door opens just enough for Melody to peek outside. Even though it’s after 9 o’clock, she looks like she’s just woken up. I remember the first time I came to this cabin, when Melody and I were both girls. Daniel was with me and my best friend, Mary Jane. Daniel had asked Melody where Johnny was, so he could tell him to leave us alone.
“You wanted to talk with me?” She wipes her eyes.
“I do,” I say. I pause long enough to wish I’d pondered a strategy on the way over. “I’d like to know your plans.”
“My plans?” she says with a short laugh, like she’s never had a plan in her life. Even though there’s a chill in the air she opens the door wide. “You drink tea?” she asks. She disappears into the cabin.
“Sure,” I say, even though I just had coffee.
I test the porch steps before I climb them, grateful my feet don’t break through the boards long overdue for being replaced.
A shiver splits my ribcage when I step inside the house. I’ve never been in the Monroe cabin and the smallness of it feels like what I imagine a prison cell is like. I wonder how an entire family could have lived in it. In the next second it occurs to me that four of this family of five are dead, leaving only Melody behind.
Melody stands at a small wood stove with a pan of water on top heating to a boil. A small table with two chairs is in front of a cracked window that offers the only light in the room. Mama’s kitchen looks fit for royalty compared to this.
“I guess I gave you quite a jolt yesterday,” Melody says, inviting me to sit at the table.
I thank her and take a seat in an uncomfortable chair whose woven seat has almost busted through. With the door open, the dampness of the forest permeates the room. I half expect mold to climb up my ankles if I sit still long enough.
“You gave us all a shock,” I say.
“I bet I did,” she says with a grin that quickly fades.
If history had been gentler with both of us, perhaps we would have been friends. Yet right now she feels more like an enemy than anything, and I need to determine what weapons she has.
A bed takes up a corner of the small room, the old mattress torn and spitting out its stuffing in different places. A threadbare blanket lays across the bed to serve as a sheet and a faded quilt covers the top. A smaller bed, without a mattress, is on the opposite side of the room. I wonder where Johnny and the girls used to sleep. This cabin is barely big enough for Melody and me.
In the last decade, I’ve reached the beginnings of forgiveness for what Johnny did to me. I’ve even begun to forgive myself, the hardest task of all. But seeing Melody again makes me feel like the ground I’ve fought for all these years is crumbling underneath me.
“Why are you back here?” I ask, sounding harsher than I intend. “I mean, if you don’t mind my asking.”
She takes a sideways glance at me, as if to determine whether she should answer. Then she lights a cigarette with a match from a box of kitchen matches kept in a small metal box. The fingers on her right hand are yellow and tough from hol
ding cigarettes.
“After my aunt died, I found an old letter addressed to her from Doc Lester,” she begins. “My aunt lived in Katy’s Ridge when she was younger and they used to be friends.”
It is hard to imagine that Doc Lester has friends, even old ones, given I typically think of vermin whenever his name is mentioned. I’m not the only person in Katy’s Ridge who feels this way.
“Doc wrote my aunt after Johnny died.” She takes a seat at the table and unfolds a letter from her dress pocket as if to offer proof.
A wave of nausea hits, and I hold my stomach to calm the wave.
“You okay?” Melody asks.
“I’ve been better,” I say. I remember the tremors that shook through me yesterday like an earthquake, an unexpected reaction to Melody showing up at our door.
“The tea should be ready,” she says, getting up from the table. “I’m afraid I don’t have cream and sugar.”
“That’s all right,” I say. I never drink hot tea anyway. But it gives me a reason to sit a while.
After putting a pinch of leaves into a small cloth bag, she steeps it in the water that has just boiled. Melody gathers cups and saucers to put on the table. One cup is chipped. The other is missing a handle. Their flower design is just as faded as her dress. Yet both hint at beauty and better times. Then she returns to the stove and waits for the leaves to finish steeping. Melody doesn’t speak, but stares out the window like I do sometimes when I’m remembering something from a long time ago.
A ragged potholder hangs from a nail near the stove. She grasps the pot with it and pours the tea into each of our cups. Then she sits at the table to join me. The chair beneath me has a hole in the weaving, and I hope I don’t bust right through it and end up on the floor.
The tea tastes bitter and stale like it’s been sitting in a tin for a long time.
“Lots of ghosts in these parts,” she says, looking around the room.
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