Queen Bee Goes Home Again

by Haywood Smith

  It was all worth it when I walked into the warm, cozy kitchen of my childhood. I shoved Connor and Phil behind a steel door in my mind, then slammed it. Focus on the present. Don’t project the worst.

  After a gloriously fattening breakfast, I retreated to the study. Now spotless, the room was a haven of quiet and light. I started writing my paper on my new notebook computer, and before I knew it, Miss Mamie called me to lunch.

  After we ate our chicken soup and salads, I was back in Daddy’s study working when the doorbell rang and Miss Mamie answered it.

  “Flowers for Miz Lin,” the deliveryman said. “Agin.”

  “Thank you.” I heard my mother close the door without tipping. “Lin,” she called.

  “I’m in here!” I rose just as she walked in with yet another big bowl of red tulips.

  Summoned by the ruckus, Tommy finally emerged from upstairs, disheveled, and followed Miss Mamie into the office.

  The Mame frowned as she set the tulips on the den’s new coffee table in front of the new leather couch I’d found at The Dump. “They’re from Phil,” Miss Mamie announced with open disapproval. Brows lifted, she stared down at me. “The card says ‘Marry me.’ What’s that all about?”

  About your reading my personal messages, I wanted to say, but didn’t. “I told you: Phil claims he’s been born again and wants to remarry me,” I said.

  I’d mentioned the marrying part to her before, hadn’t I?

  “Why on earth would he want to do that?” she and Tommy asked almost in unison.

  Apparently, I’d left that out.

  I shrugged. “He claims I’m the wife of his youth, and he wants to do right by me now.”

  Tommy’s eyes narrowed. “Surely you’re not considering marrying him.”

  Miss Mamie’s spine went rod-straight. “Remarriage, indeed. As if you could overlook what he’s done to you.” She glared at me. “Mark my words, Phil’s up to no good, as usual.”

  Tommy peered at me with sympathy. “The trouble is, he struck a nerve with Connor.” He frowned. “I have a few friends in law enforcement. Is it okay if I try to find out what’s really going on with Phil?”

  “Knock yourself out,” I told him. “I’ve given up. On him and Connor,” I said, realizing that it was true as the words came out. “I’m through wanting what I can’t have, and not wanting what I can. From now on, I’ll just go to college and stay here to look after y’all. And Daddy.”

  Tommy and the Mame exchanged pregnant glances that said they weren’t buying my resignation for a second, but I didn’t care.

  “Now, I need to get back to my homework.”

  The two of them moved reluctantly toward the kitchen.

  After the kitchen’s swinging door closed behind them, I heard a muffled hosanna of “French toast!” from my brother.

  Smiling, I settled back to work.

  Once the paper was finished, I had a big human biology assignment. I was doing very well in that class, despite the fact that my Nigerian lady professor was barely intelligible in English, although I’d managed to decode some of her lectures as the weeks passed. (I found out later that all the lecture notes had been available somewhere in the maze of our campus network.)

  I stood up, stretched, cracked my knuckles, then looked for my mother. I found her in the family room that opened onto the kitchen, sitting on the sofa and listening to Focus on the Family on the radio while she stitched yet another kneeler for the Methodists.

  “Mama, do you have any more of that chicken broth? I could use a mugful.”

  “There’s plenty.” Miss Mamie laid down her needlework, her expression wily. “It certainly cleared up that cold in a jiffy, didn’t it?”

  If only it could do the same for me. “I wish it could heal my heart.”

  Tommy snuck up behind me and affectionately hooked his arm around my neck. “Okay, Sissie-ma-noo-noo. No more about Connor and Phil. Back to the books for you.”

  I let him drag me back to the desk, then sat down.

  Miss Mamie arrived with a fresh mug of chicken soup. “Good for what ails you.” Then she herded Tommy out and closed the door behind them.

  You cannot lose what you never had, I told myself for the thousandth time. My dream of Connor might never have materialized, but how it hurt to let it go.

  Just get me through this day, Lord, and then the next. Help me to be present in every moment.

  I prayed it. And prayed it. And prayed it.

  If only I could feel it.

  Fifty-four

  Phil kept sending me presents with cards asking me to marry him, but I never responded and blocked his number.

  But at night, whenever I was tired or discouraged, mourning washed over me, flooding my soul till I cried myself to sleep, which only made me more disgusted.

  I’d never been a blubberhead. Why was I crying so much?

  Was it possible to go through puberty again? I hadn’t been so emotional since I was twelve, and now my face kept breaking out.

  The real question was, how many tears would it take to wash Connor Allen out of my life?

  Fifty-five

  On Tommy’s and my regular Friday morning visit to the Home on March first, we walked in to find Aunt Glory and my cousins Laura and Susan huddling in the foyer, Aunt Glory’s lace handkerchief dabbing away at her eyes.

  I halted in my tracks. Uncle Bedford.

  I closed my eyes and tried to prolong the moment when it still felt as if he were in the world.

  Laura burst into tears and headed straight for me, her arms extended. “Ooooh, Lin,” she sobbed out, collapsing over me to hug the smithereens out of me. “It’s Daddy.”

  Poor Uncle B. Poor Daddy.

  And it would happen on the nurse’s morning off.

  I mustered myself to help. Like all Southern women, I knew my role with funerals, our time-honored Southern transition from life to the hereafter. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

  Still wearing my cousin around my neck, I reached out and took Aunt Glory’s hand. “I know you must be devastated.”

  My aunt gave my hand a brief squeeze, clearly satisfied that I’d said the right thing, regardless of the relief she must be feeling. We were ladies, after all. Out of respect for the departed, none of us would officially acknowledge that relief. Ever.

  After a while, we’d be able to say, “He’s gone to a better place,” but only after Aunt Glory said it first.

  Cousin Susan came over and gave me a pat on the shoulder. “We know you loved him, too.”

  Finally, Laura let go of me. “The hearse is on its way,” she murmured. “Mama insisted on calling Finnegan’s because it’s so close.”

  “Would y’all like us to have the reception at our house,” I volunteered, then stupidly added, “or are you going to have the services in Atlanta?”

  Aunt Glory said, “Here,” at the same moment her daughters said, “Spring Hill.”

  Spring Hill? Where Atlanta’s nobility were put to rest? Talk about pricey.

  I hugged my aunt, leaning close to her ear to whisper, “You’re the widow, sweetie. It’s your call, not theirs. I’m sure you can work this out.” I pulled back and said in a normal tone, “Do you mind if we go make sure Daddy’s okay?”

  Aunt Glory nodded. “Y’all go. But please come back. I need to ask you about the family plot up here and all.”

  “Don’t worry,” Tommy soothed. “This won’t take long.”

  I petted my cousins on the way past, then we headed for the Alzheimer’s wing. The staff were busy getting Uncle Bedford onto a stretcher when we walked in, but Daddy wouldn’t let go of his brother’s hand.

  Unshaven, the weight of the world in his face, Daddy told us, “He went without me. Just left, without even telling me he was going.” Tears overflowed his red-rimmed eyes. “How am I going to manage without him? I don’t even know who I am, without him here to remind me.”

  Tommy wrapped Daddy in a fierce hug. “You’re going to be okay,” he said thr
ough his own tears for our father. “Lin and I are here. We’ll take care of you.”

  Daddy went limp, pulling away but still gripping his little brother’s cold hand. “Not always. And you don’t know,” he stated flatly.

  “Don’t know what, Daddy?” I sat beside him and gently pried his fingers from Uncle Bedford’s cold, waxy yellow ones, replacing my uncle’s lifeless hand with mine.

  Daddy was inconsolable. “What our life was like after Mama died. How I protected Bedford and Waring when Daddy got drunk. The boy I was then. The good things I did. The man I was with your mama in the beginning.” His mouth crumpled. “She loved me then. Before the women. She loved me then.”

  So there had been other women. Hardly a shock. “It’s okay, Daddy. We love you, too. And so does Miss Mamie. She just told me so.”

  I stroked his arm as Tommy let go and faced him. “It’s gonna be okay, General. I swear it. I’ll come every morning, and you can tell me anything, no matter what, and I’ll love you.”

  “We both will,” I added.

  But Daddy turned his face to the wall as if we’d both just disappeared. “You don’t know. Nobody does. He was the last one.”

  All our father’s brothers had left him here, at the mercy of his fears and decaying mind.

  Junior Finnegan and the undertakers arrived outside the door and transferred Uncle Bedford to the long body bag on their stretcher. When he was all zipped in, they added a furry blanket with the funeral home’s logo at the center to cover the bag, then rattled off down the hall.

  Daddy didn’t seem to notice. He just sat there, frozen and unseeing. I wondered if he was catatonic from the shock.

  Tommy took the electric razor from its charger by the sink. “Come on, Daddy. Let’s get you all spiffed up for the day.”

  Daddy didn’t say anything, just sat there, totally passive, while Tommy lovingly shaved him, then wiped his face with a warm, damp towel. “That’s the ticket,” my brother told him. “Now you’re the man.” He wiped Daddy’s hands, now limp.

  I tried to rouse him. “Would you like me to get you a Blizzard, Daddy?” Sane or crazy, he never turned down a Blizzard from the DQ. Until this time.

  He didn’t respond.

  Then, quick as lightning, he snatched my brother’s wrist. “I want to go,” he snarled. “Do you hear me? I want to go!”

  Tommy pried at Daddy’s fingers in alarm. “Ouch, that hurts! General! Ten, hut!”

  The fury in our father’s face remained. “I want to go!”

  “Go where, honey?” I begged, praying he’d let go of Tommy before he broke something. “Where do you want to go?”

  He turned his anger on me. “You know. You all do, but you won’t let me! I have to get out of here.” He went canny. “I have to have words with my wife. She’s the one who put me here. I’ll kill her, that’s what I’ll do. Knock her in the head.”

  I stuck my head out into the hall and hollered, “Help! Haldol! Stat! Help!”

  For once, the nurse was at her station. She unlocked a syringe from the meds cart, then double-timed it down the hall. I pulled her into the room. “He just went psychotic, won’t let go of Tommy’s arm.”

  She nodded, then thrust the syringe into Daddy’s thigh.

  He sputtered for a few seconds, then went limp, his eyes as dead as his brother’s.

  Tommy reclaimed his wrist as the nurse and I laid Daddy onto the bed, then raised the sides.

  “That’ll put him out for the day,” she told me.

  I hated having to drug him into oblivion. Hated, hated, hated it. But what other choice did we have?

  I turned to Tommy, who was massaging his wrist. “Let me take you to the urgent care to make sure that’s not broken.”

  “No. It’s okay. Everything works fine.”

  I looked at Daddy, understanding what he’d said and why, which was disturbing, in itself. I knew what had sucked him back into madness. “He wants to die, too, and I can’t blame him. Somewhere in there, he knows what he’s become.” I exhaled heavily to stem the tears that collected in the back of my eyes. “Why didn’t God take them both?”

  Why is the devil’s trap, Granny Beth whispered in my mind.

  She must have been whispering to Tommy, too, because he tapped his skull and quoted her. “If you could put God in a box this big, He wouldn’t be much of a God, now, would He?”

  Seeing my distress, he shook his head. “Tearing yourself up about this will only make you crazy. What is, is. All we can do is deal with that.”

  I nodded, aching inside, then went to the head of Daddy’s bed to kiss his forehead. “I love you, Daddy,” I murmured into his ear. “So does Miss Mamie. And Tommy. We’re all praying for God’s mercy for you.”

  Then I rose and hugged my brother, careful of his wrist. “Let’s go home and tell Miss Mamie about Uncle B.”

  Tommy nodded, hugging me back. “She was like a mother to him. She’ll take it hard.”

  “Not as hard as she will when we lose Daddy.” I had no idea what she’d do then.

  We left to talk to Aunt Glory, then deliver the bad news to our mother.

  Fifty-six

  When we told Miss Mamie about Uncle Bedford, she stiffened, said it was a blessing for everyone, particularly him, then turned and went to her room.

  I started after her, but Tommy grasped my elbow to hold me back. “Give her some time. Uncle B was like a son to her. We need to respect her privacy. When she’s ready to talk about it, she will.”

  I nodded. Once again, his wisdom surprised me. “You’re right.”

  That afternoon, we called Junior, who told us Aunt Glory had won out about burying Uncle B in the family plot by reminding her girls that he’d always wanted to be buried beside his long-dead mother. When that didn’t convince them, she’d promised—in writing—that Patterson’s Spring Hill could bury her in Atlanta when her time came. That sealed the deal with my status-conscious cousins.

  So Uncle Bedford would be viewed (to avoid speculation about how he’d really died), then properly funeralized at Junior’s, then finally laid to rest beside his beloved mother in the Breedlove burial section of Mimosa Branch Cemetery, along with our departed forebears from the past hundred seventy-five years.

  Somehow, Daddy found out Junior was doing the funeral, then insisted on going to visitation, so we took a chance and brought him (heavily sedated) with us. Miss Mamie had been there since the doors were opened, sitting next to Aunt Glory and the girls while most of Mimosa Branch’s old guard came to pay their respects, including both of the Mame’s prayer chains and her garden club, along with a delegation from the Athletic Board of Georgia Tech and another from the Podiatry Association.

  I’d worried what Daddy would do when he saw Miss Mamie, and sure enough, he took one look at her and wrenched free of us with superhuman strength, then strode over to her and grabbed her up from her seat before we could stop him.

  Everybody in the room but us froze.

  Fearing the worst, Tommy and I raced after him. But the moment our mother gained her feet, Daddy started singing softly in his wonderful baritone and dancing with her.

  Before our eyes, the decades fell away.

  Miss Mamie laid her head on his shoulder and followed his lead, calling him Mr. Samba, which made him smile. Across the room and back, he led her.

  Then abruptly, he halted, confused. “Where’s my wife?” The anger returned. “I need to have a word with her.”

  I whisked Miss Mamie out into the hall and asked her to stay out of sight till we took him back to the Home. Then I went back in to help Tommy, who’d taken Daddy to the open casket to distract him.

  Looking down at Uncle Bedford, Tommy said what most people say. “They did a good job with him, General, didn’t they? He looks real natural.”

  In a moment of lucidity, Daddy covered his brother’s crossed hands with his own and said, “I wish I was in there with him.” Then he turned to the room and bellowed, “This is my baby brother.�
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  Everyone present tensed, but Daddy went on. “We used to blow up straw hats with firecrackers at the barber shop. And steal moonshine from Scruffy Gober’s still, sweet as the corn it was made from. And run wild in the woods like little boys should. And hide together when our father came home drunk and mean. I loved Bedford like my own son. He made me proud. Five-letter man at Tech. Officer in the navy. Top of his class in podiatry school. And now he’s gotten out of that hellhole before me.”

  Daddy bent over, bracing his hands on his knees, and wept. “Gone, without me.”

  My father, who never bent. My father, who never cried.

  Everybody present looked away, except Miss Mamie.

  From the hallway, she stared straight through Daddy, as if she could erase what was happening by ignoring it, but that didn’t work. I could still see the shame and pity in her stoic expression.

  Then I realized things could take a turn for the worse at any second. So I signaled Tommy, and the two of us all but dragged our father out of the other end of the room, slowly progressing toward the parking lot.

  “Come on, Daddy,” Tommy soothed. “I’ll take you home.”

  “No you won’t,” Daddy moaned. “You’ll take me back to that place, that hell. I’ll be alone.” He shook his head like a dog that needed to be put down. “How much longer do I have to stay there paying for my sins before I get to go to heaven?”

  Tommy and I both almost fell apart, then and there.

  We’d become the enemy. Dear Lord, we were the enemy.

  But what choice did we have? We couldn’t control him anymore. He was dangerous.

  I hugged Daddy as we made our way toward my minivan. “It’s going to be okay,” I lied. “It’s going to be okay.”

  The lines of grief in his face shifted to sly anger in the blink of an eye. Daddy demanded with hostility, “I want to come to the funeral. I have a right. He’s my brother.” His muscles hardened. “Promise me I can come to the funeral, all of it, or I’ll knock you both in the head.”

  By now we were in the parking lot, closing in on my minivan.

  “Promise me!” Daddy growled, his resistance firming.