by Lynne Hinton
“Hmm.” Charlotte said this out loud, wondering how the word rocky might be thought of in referring to a Women’s Guild meeting. It seemed quite incompatible.
Beatrice sat down on one of the chairs she was cleaning. “You know, when it’s quiet in here, I feel like I hear angels humming.”
Charlotte was tying up the trash bag and putting the top on the can. “I think it’s just the refrigerator, Mrs. Newgarden, but that’s a nice sentiment.”
“No, it’s deeper than that. Beneath the buzz of the icebox. It’s like a current running through the place, something alive and old.”
Charlotte stopped and listened. She turned her head first one way and then the other. She could hear the drag and pull of the electrical appliances, the swishing sounds of a car going past, a distant chirp of crickets, but she could hear no heavenly hum.
Then she looked at Beatrice. Her head leaned back, teetered on her shoulders. She watched the smile stretch across her face, her eyes close, and her lips part. And she wondered if something had happened in the meeting that maybe she shouldn’t have missed. Or was Beatrice Newgarden having some sort of ailment that might need a doctor’s attention?
She watched and waited. She had never imagined that this woman might have a mystical side to her. And it surprised her to think that someone had sat in silence in the basement of the church and felt the call of angels. Maybe the older woman was expecting her preacher to pray; she wondered what kind of prayer might be appropriate for the kitchen after a meal.
Beatrice snapped open her eyes like an exclamation point and nodded at the preacher. At the ceiling. At the angels. Charlotte couldn’t be sure.
“Well, I guess that’s all I need for this evening. I will see you on Sunday. Are you okay here locking up by yourself, or should I wait with you?”
“No,” Charlotte assured her, “I’m used to being here alone. I need to go in my office for a few minutes anyway. You go ahead. I’ll see you soon.”
Beatrice filled her arms with her books and papers, the corner of her elbow weighted down by her purse. She turned as she walked out the back door. “Good night, dear.”
“Good night, Mrs. Newgarden.”
“It’s Beatrice, dear, or Bea. You’re my pastor, I think that allows you to be on a first-name basis, don’t you?” She smiled and waved with two fingers on her left hand.
Charlotte laughed at the thought of this woman. Her crazy ideas, her need to keep things alive. Louise Fisher was right, she was a worrisome creature. But she had honorable intentions, and her heart was open, and sometimes that meant a lot more than good sense or a clear mind. She was harmless, even better, she was deliberate with her sweetness. Even when she baked her meddlesome prune cakes, she did it without a string attached. This, Charlotte understood, was plenty to be appreciated.
In the silence of the evening’s close, the young pastor sat down and listened hard for what it was that Beatrice Newgarden had heard. She almost desired to hear something different. But there were only the things she knew and the tight edge of sadness that wrapped fiercely around her heart. This, of course, could not be lightened or loosed, not even for the song of an angel.
*
Earnestine’s Corn Relish
1½ cups sugar
½ tablespoon salt
½ tablespoon celery seed
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1½ cups vinegar
1 teaspoon hot sauce
Two 15-ounce cans whole-kernel golden sweet corn
One 1½-ounce jar chopped pimiento
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
Heat sugar, salt, celery seed, mustard, vinegar, and hot sauce. Bring the ingredients to a boil and let boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in corn, pimiento, onion, and pepper. Cover and cool. Place in refrigerator for several days to allow relish to blend. Serves 8 to 10.
—EARNESTINE WILLIAMS
*
It was Earnestine Williams who saw the cars hurry in and out of Louise’s driveway. There were at least three cars with license plates from Maryland and one from Georgia or Florida. Earnestine had just happened by when she saw all the commotion. She had her son pull off the road onto Louise’s yard just to make sure somebody wasn’t stealing everything in her house. When she saw Louise come to the front door and wave her away, a signal that everything was okay, Earnestine became very curious and decided to call some of the other women to find out what they knew.
Once she got home and had a perfect view from her kitchen window, she saw five matching suitcases being taken in, a couple of boxes, and one apparently disoriented woman being supported on both sides by two large, strapping boys, followed by a couple of young women and one older man. Earnestine couldn’t be sure if this woman was just old or sick or sick and old. But she watched as Louise stood holding open the door, her face twisted in a knot. Earnestine didn’t think her neighbor had any elderly family left, certainly not any relatives in Maryland, and with an appropriate show of concern and worry, she called Margaret to see if she knew what was happening across the street.
Margaret was as cryptic as ever. Before Earnestine knew what had happened, Margaret had changed the subject, taking her mind off the important issue at hand. And not only was she waved away from the talk she desired but Earnestine was conned into taking nursery duty for two more Sundays, all because Margaret wouldn’t answer any of her questions about Louise’s affairs. In not so many words, Earnestine was told to mind her own business. And she vowed to herself for the hundredth time that she wouldn’t call Margaret again.
Everybody knew that you shouldn’t call Margaret for gossip. She just didn’t have it in her to comment on the affairs of others. It was, for her, a task for someone else’s mind. She simply was not going to participate. However, unlike her attitude toward the regular gossipy phone calls, Margaret became concerned after this one from Earnestine. She knew that it was Roxie who was staying with Louise, and, despite her typical uncanny ability to stay detached from the problems and issues of others, she wondered whether or not Louise was doing the right thing taking an Alzheimer’s patient into her home. She decided not to give in to these unfamiliar leanings, wait a couple of days, and then she would, as she was prone to do, stop by and check on her friend.
It was thus, early in the dance of autumn, when the leaves just began to open themselves wide to the colors of nature and the sun edged farther away from the tilting earth, that Roxie Ann Barnette Cannon moved in with her best friend, Louise. It had been suggested and requested by first one and then another member of the family, until they finally all agreed that this arrangement might be best.
Louise had begged Roxie to come back to North Carolina. But Roxie, in her occasional moments of clarity, wished for things to be the same, and that meant living at home with her husband and their carefully planned out lives. When she wasn’t clear, which was now most of the time, she showed no connection to any place or person or sentimentality.
George had neither the initiative nor the aptitude to care for his wife. And the children, busy in their own lives, wanted to take her but knew it simply could never work for one reason or another. Louise was the only one who sincerely wanted and knew how to care for their wife and mother. So they decided and agreed to let this happen.
After two days and all the family members having gone back to the lives they had put on hold to make this living change, Louise sat in the rocking chair pushed up against the window, watching Roxie sleep behind the bars of the hospital bed they had rented. The sleeping woman’s mouth curled and twisted, her eyebrows knitted and released as if she were in the process of making a very important decision. Her facial muscles jerked, showing a struggle, and Louise felt a tear spill from her eye. She did not know how long she had been sitting there, but she was somewhat relieved when the doorbell rang and she saw Margaret standing on her front porch.
“Brought you some late corn, Lou. I hope you aren’t tired of the summer
vegetables yet.” Margaret waited without coming in. She was not the pushy type.
Opening wide the door, Louise softened at her neighbor’s presence. “Come in,” she said.
Almost too inviting, thought Margaret.
“No, I quit getting corn weeks ago, and I’m not going to pay those supermarket prices for puny vegetables brought up here from Florida.” Louise took the bag. “Come on in, I have some tea fixed. Care for a glass?”
“Thank you, I believe that would be just right.” Margaret moved into the den with a bit of awkwardness. Even pushed against the far wall, the hospital bed and Roxie could not be ignored.
“I can’t remember, do you take lemon?” Louise was in the kitchen.
“It doesn’t matter. Whatever’s easy.” Margaret walked over to the bed and peered in at the woman she knew was Louise’s greatest secret. Roxie now seemed to be sleeping like a child, all rolled up and comforted.
“She takes a nap every afternoon, before supper.” Louise peeked around the corner as she got ice from the freezer. “I have pages and pages of her daily routine. I’m not sure I’ll ever learn it all or get it all right. But so far everything’s been fine. I just haven’t slept in a few nights is all. I can’t seem to leave the room yet for any length of time.” She brought Margaret her tea and sat back down in the rocking chair.
Margaret sat on the sofa across the room. There was a long pause before she asked the question: “What are you doing, Lou?”
Louise bristled at first, ready to pounce in her own defense, but then she realized it wasn’t Twila or Earnestine or any other nosy neighbor looking for a story. It was Margaret. It was her friend, and she put down her glass and walked over to the bed.
“She sleeps so peacefully in the afternoon, better than at night. There’s something about the light, I guess, that eases her.” She pulled the blanket around the sleeping woman’s shoulders and continued to talk without looking at her neighbor.
“I met Roxie when we were both young and innocent.” She stopped and turned to Margaret. “If you can believe there was such a day for me.” She laughed and turned back to Roxie.
“And on the third day that we came home from the mill together and sat on the front porch of Mrs. Bonner’s boardinghouse, drinking colas and laughing at the boss, I gave her my heart. I never said a word, of course.” Louise unlatched the side rail of the bed and gently slid it down.
“I never asked a thing from her, but I was lost in her just the same, and I never found my way back to who I was before the day I promised myself to her.” Louise pulled the covers over Roxie’s shoulders.
“I suspect she knew I wasn’t a ‘safe’ friend to be around. But it never seemed to matter. She loved me pure and hard in all the ways that she knew how. And I owe her everything of the goodness I have. She is the best part of me. She is that tiny place that hasn’t closed in my heart. The only place inside me that isn’t callous. So I know that I have waited my entire life to be able to give something back to her.” She touched Roxie’s cheek.
“And for the first time, the very first time in my life, I feel like I am exactly where I am supposed to be, exactly with the person I most want to be with, and doing the thing that is the most natural thing I could ever desire to do.”
“I love her, Margaret.” She turned around to face her friend. “Like you loved Luther and your father. Like Beatrice loves her causes. Like a mother loves her child. And I don’t care that she doesn’t know who I am or how much I love her. I know, and there is nothing, nothing else in this world that I want more to do than sit here by her side and care for her, feed her, sing to her, brush her hair, wipe her tears, clean her face, and read her stories.”
Louise quit to catch her breath.
“Do you know, she can still talk about the mill and the boss and the boardinghouse like we were still there, in the beginning?”
Margaret had never seen Louise so unguarded. She was a different woman altogether.
“I am so grateful that I get this chance finally to love her that I will cherish every single moment we have, like it was the very first moment I knew that I was alive.” She stopped.
“Because that’s what love is. That’s what love does.” Water stood in her eyes.
“That’s what I’m doing, Margaret. I’m doing what love does.” She turned back around and folded the sheet under Roxie’s chin.
Margaret put down her head, embarrassed at what had been said, embarrassed that she had asked, embarrassed that friendship wasn’t always enough.
She waited, and then she stood up and walked next to Louise and put her arm around her shoulders, both of them looking into Roxie’s face. “Then I will help you, Lou. I will love her too.”
Fruits and Vegetables
*
Lucy’s Pears in Port
3 firm pears
½ cup port
2 tablespoons water
3 tablespoons honey
½ teaspoon grated lemon peel
1½ tablespoons lemon juice
Halve, peel, and remove cores of pears. Allow them to sit in port and water with honey and lemon until they are tender. Chill and serve with whipped cream.
—LUCY SEAL
*
As the president of the Women’s Guild, I would like to call this special meeting of the Cookbook Committee to order.” Beatrice was rambling through her notes.
“Bea, it’s just the five of us; I don’t think Robert’s Rules of Order are necessary. Jessie, do you want cream with your coffee?” Louise was hosting the meeting because it was easier to have folks come over to her house than to leave Roxie for any length of time. There were only a few people she trusted when she had to run errands, and after two months Roxie’s condition had declined quite a bit. “Margaret, can you get some more napkins; they’re in there next to the medicine bowl on the cabinet.” She pointed to the kitchen with her chin.
Margaret got up from her seat and walked into the kitchen. She was one of the few that Louise let stay with Roxie, and she could tell the situation had worsened. She also knew that Louise wasn’t acknowledging the seriousness of things, but there didn’t seem to be any way to approach it with her. She looked for the napkins, and there, sitting on the countertop, was a bowl filled with medicine bottles along with a schedule of what pill got taken at what time and a notebook filled with daily entries about Roxie. Margaret had only seen Louise make notes; she had never read what had been written, so she picked up the diary and began to flip through it.
Louise had notes about each meal, every bowel movement, Roxie’s vitals, what she said, her facial expressions, what made her laugh, and what she remembered. There were copious explanations about every tick and blink Roxie made, and the sight of such obsessiveness concerned Margaret.
She had noticed a ferociousness in how Louise spoke about Roxie and the possibilities for curing Alzheimer’s. She knew that Louise was determined to give Roxie a carefully planned diet that was filled with “brain food,” like fish and garlic. She bought groceries like each meal was a sacred opportunity for healing, and she measured ingredients for Roxie’s afternoon snacks like she was conducting a medical experiment. Margaret didn’t realize until now how absorbed Louise was in making Roxie recover. She put down the book, found the napkins, and walked back into the den, where the committee was meeting.
“I still think if Lucy submitted a recipe for pears floating in wine, that’s her business, and we don’t have any right to censor it.” Jessie had not seen the recipe, but everybody in church knew that Lucy Seal cooked with wine, usually a lot of wine.
Beatrice had opened the discussion of whether or not to ask Lucy to submit something other than her pears in port. “Well, I don’t have a problem with an alcoholic beverage being mentioned in the cookbook, but I don’t want the church to get a name for this.”
“What name do you think we’d get, Bea?” Margaret was handing out the napkins.
“A church with no morals, a place that teaches their c
hildren that drinking is okay, a women’s group that serves spiked punch at their meetings. I think there are all sorts of possibilities here, and why not just err on the side of caution and ask Lucy to give us another recipe?” Beatrice looked over at the preacher to see if she had any input, any suggestions, and secretly hoping that she would offer to deal with Lucy and this situation for the committee.
Charlotte suddenly felt Beatrice’s eyes on her. She hadn’t really been paying attention to what was being discussed, since she was observing Louise sitting beside Roxie on the bed. She watched as Louise took her pulse, wrote a note on a scrap of paper, and then brushed Roxie’s hair back into a ponytail. She was whispering something into Roxie’s ear, and it almost looked as if Roxie smiled. Louise made another note and helped Roxie up from the bed to walk back into the bathroom.
“Um, what’s the recipe you’re talking about?” Charlotte put down her coffee cup and smoothed her dress, trying to look interested.
“Lucy Seal gave us a recipe card for soaking pears in wine.” Bea handed the preacher the copy of the recipe. “Do you think we should ask her to submit something different?” she asked, but the others looked for the preacher’s answer as well.
“Did somebody else submit the same idea?” Charlotte took the paper, but she seemed confused.
Margaret smiled. “Bea’s concerned about having alcohol mentioned in the church cookbook. Are you uncomfortable with that as the minister?”
Charlotte thought for a minute. She never drank. Once in college at a fraternity party, she had mistakenly picked up somebody else’s glass loaded with vodka; she drank it before she knew what she had done. She didn’t get drunk, but it had made her a little too uninhibited and she didn’t like the way it left her feeling, loose and unprotected.
She was scared that her mother’s genes had predisposed her to become an alcoholic. And since Serena had died from a drug overdose, it just seemed too likely that she would have the same disposition towards overindulgence. And yet, despite the problems with her mother, she never had a moral issue with drinking. After all, she had accepted the literal interpretation about Jesus’ lifestyle, which apparently had included the drinking of wine.
