Mariel sinks into the soft pillows. A ceiling fan cools her face. She closes her eyes and thinks she has never been so tired in her life. She wants to stay here and let her mother take care of her, her alone; she wants to be her mother’s child. She doesn’t want her mother to be eighty years old and frail. She doesn’t want to worry about her falling or having a heart attack.
“How’s Donnie doing?” Naomi asks.
“Okay, I guess. He seems to be all right.”
“And Dolly?”
“I guess she’s okay, too. She stayed out at Artie’s last night. I’m surprised she’s not over here to see you yet. She’s getting the house, you know.”
“I figured she would. I wonder what she’ll do.”
“I have no idea.”
“She’s a good girl.”
“She’s not a girl, Mama. She’s twenty-seven years old and doesn’t have a clue what she’s going to do with her life. And she won’t even talk about Bobby. All she’ll say is that the marriage just didn’t work out. Well, my Lord, Mama, how could it? The man was hooked on every pharmaceutical known to mankind. I mean I’m talking Elvis here, Mama. And Dolly knew it when she married him. That’s what I can’t understand. Why latch on to someone who’s headed down the toilet?”
“People do it all the time, Mariel. They think they can rescue them.”
“I guess so. And like I was telling Donnie last night, in spite of his problems, Bobby is one of the most likable people in the world.”
“And it took strength for Dolly to put him out. Think of it that way, Mariel.”
“And dumbness to have let him in. Those Sullivan genes. No common sense.”
Naomi reaches for another cookie. “Well, they’ve done pretty good. Look at Artie, famous all over the world, and Hektor, rich as Croesus. Donnie’s always done fine, too.”
“Hektor’s pure luck. And speaking of being stoned out of your skull, you should have seen him last night.”
“Drunk?”
“I don’t know what he was on. Probably something exotic his company is importing from Latin America.” Mariel moves a Family Circle magazine on a wicker table and places her cup on it carefully. “Sometimes I think he has better sense than Donnie, though. At least you can reason with him.”
“Donnie is a very sensible man,” Naomi says. “You know that.”
“He’s taking Artie to Birmingham to be cremated.”
“Lord!”
Mariel is pleased at the expression she has caused on her mother’s face. “I told you, Mama, the Sullivans don’t have any sense. Artie wants to be cremated. Mr. Brock came out from Mobile yesterday afternoon with that neat little piece of news. Of course by that time we already had everything planned. The announcement’s already in the paper this morning about the funeral. Everything.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. First I thought we’d just go on and have the funeral and then Donnie could take her to Birmingham. But he wants to go today like there was some hurry. And then I thought, Well, nobody would know the casket was empty. We could just go on and have it anyway.” Mariel looks out at the bay. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
Naomi sees the deep circles under Mariel’s eyes. “Pull your shoes and stockings off,” she says, “and let’s walk down to the beach. I got it cleaned up from the jubilee yesterday.”
Mariel is alarmed. “You shouldn’t be down raking that beach, Mama.”
“I waited till it was cool. Did you see that sunset last night?”
“We would have sent somebody.”
“Mariel, you worry too much. Reckon it’s a Cates gene?”
Mariel bursts into tears. “Those damn Sullivans. None of them with a grain of sense.”
Naomi holds her middle-aged child. “Shhh,” she says. “Come on, dry your eyes now. Of course Artie ought to have a funeral. Let’s figure out just what all we need to do.”
THIRTEEN
Artie on Her Fifteenth Birthday
MAMA’S RUN AWAY AGAIN. I KNEW IT AS SOON AS I WOKE UP this morning. The house had that too quiet feeling. I got up and looked in their room and, sure enough, the bed hadn’t been slept in. I went in and woke up Donnie and Hektor and told them.
Hektor said, “Maybe they’re just walking on the beach.” And I said, “Sure, Hektor. And maybe pigs can fly.”
But he and Donnie had to get up and go check their room themselves. And then they went downstairs and out on the porch with Hektor calling, “Mama! Papa!” loud as he could.
I went in my room and started dressing for school. Might as well. Wasn’t anything we could do about it. In a few minutes the boys were back upstairs.
“Maybe they just went to get some bread or something,” I heard Hektor say.
“Maybe they did. Go on, get dressed now. We have to get you some breakfast before the bus gets here.” Then Donnie was banging on my door. “Artie!”
“Come on in.”
Donnie had slept in an old bathing suit for some reason. His hair was sticking up in spikes.
“Did you hear anything last night?” he asked.
“Nope.” I leaned closer to the mirror and started putting on the mascara Mama had forbidden me to wear.
“You think she’s really gone?”
“Sure. Happy birthday, Donnie.”
“Well, hell. Where do you think Papa is?”
“Out looking for her, of course. He’ll probably be back in a little while.”
Donnie sat down on the bed. He was so skinny you could count the ribs down his back. “I’m not going with him again,” he said.
“Me neither. Let her stay.”
“Let her stay.”
“Willie Mae takes care of us, anyway.”
“We can take care of ourselves. Hektor, too.”
“That’s the truth.”
“Donnie!” Hektor called.
Donnie got up and went toward the door. “I wonder where she is,” he said.
“Who knows. She’ll turn up.”
“Maybe one day she won’t.”
“She will, Donnie. You know she will. Papa’ll find her and she’ll come sashaying in like the queen who never did anything wrong.”
“She’s sick, Artie.”
“I know.” I had gotten some of Mama’s mascara in my eyes and it was making them water. Well, hell, why not use it? It was my birthday. “Go help Hektor get ready for school. I’ll get us some breakfast.”
Where had she said she was going last night? A meeting at the church? That was it. That was where Papa had taken her after supper. She had said she would get a ride home. Well, she had gotten a ride, all right. Only not home.
Had she planned it or had it been a spur of the moment thing? Sitting in the meeting, had she suddenly thought I don’t want to be here and left, getting into the first car that stopped? Or had she met some man earlier and gone with him? It had happened both ways before. This time it seemed without warning, though. I thought about supper last night. Mama had been okay. Hektor had knocked over his milk and Papa had jumped up to wipe it up but Mama had said, “I’ll get it.” And she had put her napkin over it to keep it from spreading and then had gotten a dishrag and wiped it up. She hadn’t even seemed upset. Maybe not upset enough I realized now.
I fixed three bowls of cornflakes for us. Willie Mae would be in later and would cook supper before she left. So there really wasn’t anything to worry about. Donnie, Hektor, and I would be just fine. Willie Mae might even remember and bake us a cake.
They came down and we ate. We heard the bus coming just as we finished. “Get your books, Hektor,” I said.
That was when he put his head down on the table and began to cry like a baby instead of a ten-year-old. “I want Mama and Papa.”
The bus horn was blowing. “For God’s sake, Hektor. Shut up,” Donnie said. “We’ve got to go.”
Hektor looked up. Tears rolled down his round face that looked so much like Papa’s. “You go,” he
said. “I’m gonna wait on them.”
Donnie and I looked at each other. “I’ll stay with him,” he said.
“We’ll all stay,” I decided. I ran outside to tell Mr. Barganier that we wouldn’t be riding today, that Mama was taking us all to the doctor for checkups.
Carl Jenkins stuck his head out of the window while Mr. Barganier was turning around in our driveway. “You sick?” I shook my head no. “Tell Donnie I’ll be over this afternoon.”
There were whoops and catcalls from the bus. Eric Palmer stuck his head out and yelled, “You be sure and tell Donnie, Artie! He won’t want to miss Carl!”
I just grinned. I knew who Carl was coming to see. He had liked me since we were in the third grade. Last year when the boys were playing football, Carl had been knocked into the goalpost and hit his head. He was knocked out for a minute. And when he came to, he was saying, “Artie. Artie.” Coach Giles teased me about it. Said he thought he was going to have to come and get me. It made me feel good.
We put on our bathing suits and went to the beach. It was October and the water was still warm. We built a sandcastle, something we hadn’t done in a long time.
Sometime during the morning, Willie Mae came to the top of the bluff and yelled down wanting to know what we were doing home. “Playing hookey!” Donnie answered. “It’s our birthday!”
“Well, you better come get shirts or you’re gonna be sick. Out of school for real.”
We went traipsing up to the house. We knew Willie Mae was going to ask where Mama and Papa were, but she just said, “Shame on you not going to school. Gonna grow up dumb as fence posts.”
“I’m hungry,” Hektor said. Willie Mae fixed us sandwiches and we took them to the beach and sat in the shadow of Buck Stuart’s sailboat to eat them.
“I wish Mama wasn’t crazy,” Hektor said, his mouth full of peanut butter. It came out “cwazy.”
“Well, she isn’t, always,” Donnie said. “Think of the nice parties she has. And how pretty the flowers always are.”
“Ha!” I said.
“Well, she’s not!” Donnie glared at me. “You just don’t give her any credit.”
I held out my arm toward him. The sun had turned the scar just above my elbow a jagged red. “You mean I don’t give the devil her due?”
“That was an accident!”
“Throwing a knife is an accident?”
“She didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Nobody was going to win this argument. We had it all the time. Donnie always took up for Mama.
“She’s sick, anyway,” he said.
That was always the last line of the argument. We crumpled up the wax paper our sandwiches had been wrapped in and stuck it in Buck’s boat.
“Let’s walk to the hotel,” Donnie said. And that’s what we did. A slight breeze blew across the water. Our lips tasted salty when we ran our tongues around them. We drank for a long time from the fountain by the pier.
“There’s Mrs. Cates,” Donnie said. We saw her coming from one of the guest cottages, her arms full of sheets and towels. She spied us.
“What are you doing here?” she called. “There’s a thing called school, you know.”
“Maybe it’s a holiday,” Donnie said.
“And maybe you kids are playing hookey.” She smiled. “Well, I didn’t see you. Okay?”
“Okay.” We watched her go on down the walk, carrying her bundle.
“I’m hungry again,” Hektor said. “And I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Well, you can go to the bathroom here,” Donnie said. “But we don’t have any money.”
“I want some almond pie.”
“Too bad.” Donnie disappeared into the bathhouse with Hektor. I sat on a bench and watched two swimmers go back and forth the length of the pool. Back and forth. They couldn’t be enjoying themselves.
And then I heard our mother’s laugh. I thought for a minute that I was hearing things. And then I heard it again. It was coming from the cottage next to the one Mrs. Cates had just come from. I got up and walked toward it. And then I stopped. I turned around and saw that Hektor and Donnie had come out of the bathroom and were blinking in the light, looking for me.
“Here I am,” I said. “Let’s go home. Let’s walk down the road. It’s closer.”
When we got home, Papa was there. And in the afternoon, Carl came. He and I sat in the swing and he showed me the schoolwork I had missed that day. But I wasn’t paying much attention. All I could think of was that I knew where Mama was and I ought to tell Papa. But I didn’t. Willie Mae had made us a birthday cake and was fixing meat loaf and mashed potatoes for supper; Papa was reading in his study. Hektor had fallen asleep on the front porch and Donnie was listening to the radio. Everything was peaceful. It was enough to drive you crazy.
The trouble was never knowing which Mama we were going to get. She might sit in her room for days, just sit there looking out of the window or looking at the same page of a book. She wasn’t crazy like not knowing where she was. She would speak to us and even ask how school was. But it was like she was a stranger. A very formal stranger. And then we would hear her singing in the kitchen. She would hug us and plan shopping trips to Mobile and have parties, shrimp boils and cocktail parties and seated dinners. Sometimes she would tell Papa and sometimes she wouldn’t. He would come in from work and there would be a houseful of people, most of whom he didn’t know. Willie Mae wouldn’t help with the parties and after Mama threw the knife at me, I wouldn’t either. So she would get some of the Cates kids or someone from the hotel who wasn’t working that day.
The way I got cut with the knife really was an accident. At least, it was an accident that my arm was in the way. It wasn’t an accident she threw it. She was slicing a roast and I was peeling shrimp at the sink.
“Goddamn dull knife!” And she threw it at the sink. I felt it slice my arm, but the funny thing was it didn’t hurt. And it didn’t bleed for about a minute. Mama and I stood there and looked at each other, surprised. And then the blood just spurted. She grabbed a dishrag and wrapped it around my arm. “Willie Mae!” she called. Willie Mae came to the door. “We have to go to Daphne to the clinic. Would you please put this food in the icebox?” That was when I looked down at the dishrag and saw it already getting red. And I fainted. The only time in my life. Willie Mae caught me just as I went down. She hollered for Donnie and he ran next door to get Mrs. Stuart to drive us to Daphne. But Papa drove up just then so he and Donnie took me to the clinic. Papa cried all the way there and back. Donnie cried, too. But I didn’t. “Hush,” I said. “Y’all hush. I’m okay.” And I was. Even when the doctor stitched me up, it didn’t hurt. It was like I was somewhere else. “Hush, Papa. Please hush.”
Maybe the worst times are when she goes away, though. Papa always goes looking for her. Takes us with him, too. Someone will call and say they’ve seen her in New Orleans or Jackson and off we’ll go. Of course he sat us down a long time ago and explained manic depression to us. “She’s hurting as much or more than we are,” he said. But most of the time I find that hard to believe.
She’s with a man at the hotel, probably Zeke Pardue. She was with a man in New Orleans and Jackson, too. Probably Zeke Pardue at least part of the time. Papa knows it. Donnie and I know it. Maybe Hektor doesn’t, but he’s the only one. Even Carl knows it. I’ve told him. Sweet Carl. He says, “It’s okay, Artie.” But it’s not. It never will be. She never even said she was sorry about my arm. And today’s my birthday. And Donnie’s.
FOURTEEN
Armadillos
AUGUST MORNINGS, DAWN POUNCES EARLY AND HEAVILY ON Harlow. The air smells like coffee, bacon, tea olive bushes, and tidal pools. The fishing boats have already gone out; the automatic sprinklers at the Grand Hotel have shut off. By the time the first rays of the sun hit the water, most of the three thousand residents of the town have a start on their day. Nine women and two men attend six o’clock mass after which Father Carroll sits down with a bowl of cer
eal to watch Today. War, murder, and mayhem. Father Carroll spoons in cornflakes and watches them drag dead Bosnians away. Or are they Rwandans? Laotians? Kurds? Or maybe there was a blackout in New York. He should have listened closer. Well, he’ll pray for them all. He finishes his breakfast, takes his Lanoxin, Lopressor, and a vitamin, and hits the remote. Time to go to work.
Dolly awakens with a sense of loss. She has slept in her clothes and has a headache.
“My God,” she says when she looks in the mirror. She takes three aspirin and a shower. Her scalp feels sore as the water hits it. She may be getting sick.
“Telephone, Dolly. It’s your mama,” she hears May calling as she steps from the shower. Dolly puts on her pink seersucker robe and goes into Artie’s room. She sits on Artie’s bed and answers the phone.
“Hey, honey,” Mariel says. “Now regardless of what you hear, we are on schedule. Rosary tonight. Funeral tomorrow at ten.”
“Okay,” Dolly says.
“Just act like nothing has happened.”
“All right.”
“You all right? You sound funny.”
“I have a headache.”
“Well, I’m at Mama’s. I’ll be over there after while. Don’t let Mrs. Randolph leave any food out. I read an article about salmonella last week. Just what we need.”
“I won’t.”
“Well, I’ll talk to you later. Bye. Take some aspirin.”
“Bye, Mama.” Dolly wonders vaguely what her mother was talking about. She looks out Artie’s window. She counts eighteen sailboats. May comes in bringing her a cup of coffee.
Downstairs in the living room, Reese is granting an interview to a reporter from People magazine. Reese has been out of jail two hours.
“Well, I really wanted to talk to a member of the family,” the reporter says, placing a small tape recorder on the coffee table.
“Anything you want to know, I can tell you. I been her faithful retainer for twenty years.”
“Her what?”
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