Mama Stalks the Past

by Nora Deloach

  “It was a relative.”

  My heart beat a little faster. “Male or female?” I asked.

  “Don’t know. Just know that Reeves told one of the other patients that one of his kinfolk was going to take care of him.”

  I took a deep breath. “Mama would be interested to hear that,” I said before I hung up the phone.

  “I think,” Mama said, after I had told her what Kilroy had told me about Reeves, “I’m going to invite Sarah Jenkins, Annie Mae Gregory, and Carrie Smalls for supper tomorrow.”

  “Mama, you know what those women think about you. Now that the will has become public knowledge, they’re probably spreading all kinds of lies about you,” I protested.

  “Simone, I need to know a little more about the Mixon family, and there’s nobody in this county that knows more about its residents, alive or dead, than Annie Mae Gregory, Sarah Jenkins, and Carrie Smalls!”

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  The next afternoon, Mama’s dining room table was set with the handmade crocheted tablecloth. The china and crystal were from Germany. My father had gotten them for her when he was on one of his Air Force tours, before he retired. Rodney had sent the silver from New York for our parents’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. He’d also talked Will into buying the matching serving pieces and coffeepot.

  Mama loved setting a beautiful table.

  The food: turkey and corn bread dressing, cranberry sauce, fried chicken, string beans mixed with new potatoes, rice, collard greens, yellow squash, fried okra, succotash, corn bread. For dessert there was red devil cake and coconut cream pie. My mouth watered, just looking at the array in the kitchen.

  Despite the tension Mama felt about what these women were doing to her reputation, when Sarah Jenkins, Annie Mae Gregory, and Carrie Smalls arrived at our house, they sat at a table designed to reward them for the information they were willing to share.

  Carrie Smalls was dressed in a tailored black dress with a lace collar. Her long hair draped her shoulders. Annie Mae Gregory wore gray, a long, flowing polyester dress that accented her large frame. Her piercing eyes shone. Tonight, she kept a Cheshire cat smile on her face during the meal and she kept talking with food in her mouth.

  Sarah Jenkins had on a two-piece navy blue suit. Her white blouse had tiny white buttons down the front of it.

  Clearly, all three women were dressed for a feast. I could only hope Mama wouldn’t be their main course.

  Daddy and I wisely kept silent. At first Mama, seated at the foot of the table, spoke in an officiating manner that was unnatural, like she was making a speech. “I wanted to thank you ladies for visiting me while I was in the hospital.”

  The three women stared, like they didn’t know the Candi Covington who was talking to them. Then Annie Mae Gregory spoke. “It was nasty of somebody to try to kill you, especially after Hannah willed you all her property,” she said, grinning.

  Sarah Jenkins leaned forward. “I don’t believe I know anybody who was almost killed. Most folks either get killed or—”

  Mama took a deep breath like she was mustering up courage to go on with her dinner. Then she opened her mouth to say something. But Annie Mae Gregory, who now had a piece of turkey hanging from the side of her mouth, beat her to it. “My God, Candi, what kind of Christian woman are you? How could you have accepted Hannah’s land?”

  Mama was in a terrible dilemma; for an instant she actually seemed lost for words. She needed to get information from these women, but she didn’t like the idea of having to defend herself against their questions. The thought that she might have hurt somebody seemed too much for her. I could see that she was biting back the impulse to argue, the strong desire to set these noisy women straight. But when she answered Annie Mae Gregory, her voice was impressively unemotional. “I haven’t done anything to anybody,” she said evenly.

  Annie Mae Gregory’s fat jaws shook like Jell-o. “You know folks are saying you talked Hannah into giving you her land.”

  Mama struggled to maintain her grace and poise. But I saw defiance spark in her eyes. “That’s just not true,” she told Annie Mae.

  Frail Sarah Jenkins swallowed a tiny mouthful of collard greens. “That’s what people are saying. Course we ain’t saying we agree with them, but you know, where there’s smoke there’s fire!”

  I shifted in my seat because I could see that Mama was about to lose her temper. I decided to change the conversation before she did. “I suppose you ladies heard about Hannah’s stepson,” I said.

  Now, all three women stared at me. “No.” Sarah Jenkins rubbed her chest like she might have indigestion. “What happened to the boy?”

  “The sheriff found Reeves Mixon dead yesterday,” I told her, delighted that I had knowledge they didn’t yet have. “He was in the old house on the Mixons’ homestead.”

  The women sat up straight, their fingers laced tightly on top of the tablecloth. “I declare,” Sarah said.

  “Tell us all about it,” Annie Mae said.

  I felt a burst of energy, like something productive was really going to come out of this meal. Sarah Jenkins began rubbing her stomach, trying to make herself belch. Mama got up and went into the kitchen. When she came back, she seemed to have regained her composure. “Candi,” Sarah Jenkins said when Mama had sat back down, “did I tell you that I’ve got high blood pressure?”

  “You told me about your heart problem,” Mama told Sarah. “When did you find that out about your blood pressure?”

  “Dr. Clark told me day before yesterday. Course I knew it all the time!”

  Mama smiled a little but said that she was very sorry to hear it. “My ankles swell, my feet hurt, and I get these headaches,” Sarah Jenkins continued. Carrie Smalls glared at her.

  Mama took a deep breath. “I know you ladies told me that Hannah’s people are dead—”

  “Died out like most people right after the war,” Sarah Jenkins said heartily.

  “I was wondering about her husband’s people,” Mama went on. “She had four husbands, didn’t she?”

  “What do you want to know about them?” Carrie Smalls asked.

  “I was wondering whether any of her husbands had children by another woman?” Mama asked.

  There was a momentary silence.

  “None that we know of,” Sarah said, looking back and forth between the two other ladies.

  “Like we told you, Hannah’s first husband died young. Her second husband spent too much time gambling to do much of anything,” Sarah Jenkins declared.

  “It surprised everybody when Hannah turned up pregnant with Nat,” Annie Mae Gregory said.

  “Her third husband, Richard Wescot, never fathered no children himself, though his brother Claude had his share,” Carrie Smalls said.

  Mama looked interested. “How many children did Claude have?” she asked. There was a glint in her eyes.

  “Two girls,” Carrie Smalls said promptly.

  “Betsy Wescot married a Fennell boy from Low Branch. The other girl never married,” Sarah Jenkins said.

  “Betsy still in Low Branch?” I asked.

  “Betsy got killed in a car wreck last year,” Carrie Smalls snapped, like that was information I should have known.

  Annie Mae Gregory looked past me, or at least I think she did. She tilted her head in the way that makes her look a little cross-eyed. “I watched those girls grow up. Me and their Mama, Josie, use to pick peas on Old Man Parker’s place some years ago.”

  Annie Mae mashed potatoes and string beans together into a mush, then stuffed a wad in her mouth. “Betsy was all right but that Raven, people said she wasn’t wrapped too tight. Something wrong with her brains from birth, I think.”

  Carrie Smalls broke in, her fork poised in midair, another wad of mashed food on its tips. “Now, Annie Mae, I heard that about Raven but I knew that girl. She had a problem, but she wasn’t as crazy as most folks made her out to be.”

  Annie Mae Gregory chuckled. “I declare
, Carrie. If what people say is true, that girl set fires to her own house, and killed dogs and cats.”

  Carrie Smalls frowned in honest defense of the gossip against the Wescot girl. “I talked to Abe and her people about that, and they told me that one of Michael’s boys set those fires,” she insisted. “And those animals, they died a natural death!”

  Annie Mae Gregory’s eyes widened and I could have sworn that she looked embarrassed. She wasn’t used to a contradictory story. “Since you keep disputing anything I say and you claim you know that girl, you talk!” she snapped at Carrie. “I might as well keep my mouth shut!”

  She didn’t, though; she stuffed more string beans and mashed potato into it, instead.

  Carrie Smalls threw Annie Mae Gregory a contemptuous look, but went on eating and didn’t answer.

  For a time, nobody said anything.

  “Candi, get me some Epsom salts,” Sarah Jenkins said.

  Mama left the room again. When she returned she carried the box of Epsom salts and a large glass of water. We all watched Sarah Jenkins take a heaping spoonful of salts, watched her drink the entire glass of water. She belched, then reached immediately for another big helping of collards and corn bread.

  Carrie Smalls’s eyes darkened. She had some feeling for this girl. There was something about her she liked. “Raven used to come to my house when she was a young miss, used to write letters for me, read my mail for me, things like that. Mind now, it’s true she had a strangeness about her, but I watched her grow out of that.”

  Pain flickered across Sarah Jenkins’s narrow face like lightning. Her chest seemed to tighten, her shoulders shook a little. After the spasm had passed, she nipped a piece of corn bread between her thumb and index finger. “People said Raven was spooked. Said a gypsy marked her when she was a child.”

  Carrie Smalls sat up straighter. “People say that ’bout anybody they don’t understand. That girl needed somebody to take up time with her, that’s all!”

  For a while nobody said anything more. The women were preoccupied with their heaping plates of food.

  My father, who had wisely been silent for most of the meal, emptied his glass of wine with one swallow, and then poured himself another, “Does Raven live around here?” he asked casually.

  Now, Sarah Jenkins looked at Daddy. Her eyes were enlarged behind the rimless bifocals that hung on her bony face. She belched softly. “Raven has been gone away from around here for years now, ever since she finished school.”

  Carrie Smalls leaned forward smugly. You could see she was about to disagree with Sarah. “Raven came home for Hannah’s funeral. She stopped by my house and we had a long talk. She’s doing fine, real good now!”

  I cleared my throat. “Was she here for Nat’s funeral, too?”

  Carrie Smalls shifted in her chair, took one tiny sip of iced tea, then another. “I don’t reckon she came home. Not much of anybody attended that funeral.”

  Sarah Jenkins glared at her.

  The atmosphere would have continued strained, but Mama reached over and patted Carrie’s hand. “I’d like to get in touch with Raven Wescot, talk with her about the property Hannah willed me. After all, now that both Nat Mixon and Raven’s sister, Betsy Fennell, are dead, Raven is Hannah’s nearest kin, don’t you think?”

  Carrie Smalls nodded. “I suppose Raven could be considered a kin, yes.”

  “I’m for doing the right thing,” Mama said.

  Carrie Smalls hesitated, thinking. “I don’t reckon Raven would mind if I gave you her address.… ”

  Mama flashed a smile.

  Another silence followed.

  “Are there any others of the Wescot family still living in these parts?” I asked.

  Carrie Smalls glanced at Mama with a bit of caution, then reached for the bowl of collards. “There are some distant cousins in Darien.”

  Mama’s eyebrows raised. “What can you ladies tell us about Hannah’s last husband, Leroy Mixon?”

  Sarah Jenkins cleared her throat; her chest rattled. She started coughing.

  “You all right?” Daddy asked.

  She nodded. “It’s my windpipe,” she said. “It’ll be all right soon as it’s clear.”

  We waited.

  After a while, Sarah Jenkins continued. “Ain’t much to know about Leroy Mixon. He was a drinking man, mean and—”

  I cut in. “I heard he made it a practice to beat Miss Hannah?”

  Carrie Smalls gave me a direct look. Her dark eyes were cold, almost piercing. She rested her elbows on the table and waved her fork in the air. “There’s not a man in these three counties who would try to beat up on Hannah Mixon!” she said indignantly.

  I took a deep breath and tried hard to keep my voice polite. “I guess I’m wrong. Maybe what I heard was that Leroy Mixon beat up on his first wife.”

  Annie Mae Gregory nodded. “That’s a fact. People say Leroy killed Stella just so that he could marry Hannah.”

  Carrie Smalls nodded, chewing on a buttery piece of corn bread. “I knew Leroy all his life. He was mean enough to kill!”

  Sarah Jenkins folded her arms across her bony chest. She took a deep breath that sounded like a strangled moan.

  I glanced at Mama. She refused to give me eye contact. Daddy snickered.

  Annie Mae Gregory spoke, the flesh under her large jaws swaying like autumn leaves in a slight wind. “Stella Gordon was too good for Leroy. If Stella’s Mama and Daddy were living, they’d never have let Leroy court her.”

  I sipped from my glass of iced tea and eyed Mama, who finally slid a look in my direction. She reached for the silver coffee urn at her side, poured coffee into a china cup. “You know,” she said, matter-of-factly, “since Hannah and I were neighbors, I wish that I would have gotten to know her better.”

  “Don’t fret about that, Candi,” Annie Mae Gregory said. “Not many people got close to Hannah Mixon. What surprises us, and I reckon it surprises everybody in town, is that she left you all of Leroy’s property. The Hannah Mixon I knew was mean enough to try to take it all with her!”

  And both Carrie Smalls and Sarah Jenkins nodded.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  The telephone rang. Sarah Jenkins, Annie Mae Gregory, and Carrie Smalls looked around the table. Mama glanced at her watch, then got up to answer the phone. After a moment, she put her hand over the receiver. Her eyes had filled with tears. “Uncle Chester has had another heart attack. He died on the way to the hospital!”

  Three hours later, we sat in Cousin Agatha’s front room. “It happened so quickly,” Agatha kept sobbing. “He was signing his name on the power of attorney when he got his first pain. I suppose I should have taken him to the hospital right then, but he said not to bother ’cause it stopped hurting him. He started to sign his last name when the second pain hit him. I knew it was bad this time so I bundled him up, put him in the car, and headed for the hospital. He …” Her voice trailed off into a sob.

  “It was best the way it happened,” Mama soothed. “He didn’t suffer.”

  I wondered if she was thinking of the painful deaths the town of Otis had seen in recent days.

  One week later, we buried my great-uncle Chester. The sky was gloomy, the air wintry cold. A few flurries of snow whipped across our faces as we stood in the cemetery.

  The drive to the Cypress Creek Baptist church had been short and no one spoke during it. Mama, Daddy, Cliff, and I walked to the front of the church and sat down. The church was built of cinder block; it was bitterly cold inside. Hundreds of people came to the funeral, people from all over the country, as well as the county. The women, in their dark dresses, cried as they walked slowly up the aisle to view Uncle Chester for the last time in the open coffin.

  An hour later, when Uncle Chester’s coffin descended into the earth, I couldn’t help but think of how much of his life he’d spent trying to protect what appeared to be his eternal resting place.

  Daddy, dressed in a navy suit, a white shirt,
a dark tie with small burgundy comma figures, stood at Mama’s side. Cliff wore a gray European suit that complimented his muscular, dark-complected body. He stood next to me, holding my hand.

  After the burial, we went back to Cousin Agatha’s house. The potbellied stove was red, and a long table was full of food, a good portion of which had been cooked by Mama.

  Cousin Agatha immediately sank into her chair, obviously tired from the ordeal. A few of Daddy’s other cousins acted as servers so that we could sit around the fire and talk, since funerals are our way of visiting informally.

  Sarah Jenkins, Annie Mae Gregory, and Carrie Smalls had already taken their seats. All were eating when Annie Mae Gregory looked at Mama. “Candi,” she said, her mouth full of fried chicken, “I know people are talking about Hannah leaving you all that land but, child, you’re doing good. You ain’t even scared of whoever it is that’s been trying to kill you!”

  Everybody suddenly seemed to need to cough. Daddy’s cousin Tishri, the sister of a twin, tried to dilute the impact of Annie Mae Gregory’s statement by asking Daddy’s cousin Gertrude a question. “How much arsenic does it take to kill a person?” Tishri demanded.

  I bit my lower lip and watched Mama. But if talking about her brush with death bothered her, she didn’t show it. Gertrude answered Tishri’s question. “Not much,” she said, cheerfully.

  Tishri looked around the room. She seemed pleased that everyone’s eyes were on her. “How long does it take before you feel the effects of poison?” she asked, satisfied that she was the center of attention.

  Gertrude looked like she had been put on the spot. “I don’t know,” she said, her tone unsure. “I just work at the hospital, I’m not a doctor.”

  Tishri now turned to Mama. “What kind of treatment did they give you, Candi?”

  “They pumped my stomach,” she replied.

  “How did it make you feel?” Tishri asked, her eyes searching Mama’s face.

  Mama looked around the snug room filled with relatives, friends, and neighbors, people who eagerly wanted to hear her tell the story. It was the kind of a thing that set nerves on edge, that made you realize how much people like hearing about the evil that happens to other people. “My stomach felt like a knife was slicing through it!” Mama said reluctantly.