Sweeter Than Tea

by Deborah Grace Staley

  “I took away the stress,” Daddy says. “We can talk about that later.” He takes a framed picture of Mother and leaves, ducking under the door frame so he doesn’t hit his head.

  Lexie shouts, “You never talk about a damn thing.”

  They say that in that picture Mother looks like me. Sometimes I crawl in her bed when the musician comes over because he and Lexie argue forever. Lexie hasn’t ever changed Mother’s sheets, so they still smell like lilacs and unwashed hair. I think I’m the only one who cares if she comes back.

  Five days after Christmas, one of Them rings the doorbell with our Christmas wreath in her hand. She has black and white hair and flushed cheeks as if she ran all the way.

  The house smells like the pound cake Lexie burned. She woke up at daybreak with contractions and decided to get domestic by baking Mimi’s famous Chocolate Wonder Pound Cake, but burned it. Then, she dropped it all over the floor when her water broke and called Daddy to come get her.

  “Where does this belong, Peter?” Aunt Blanche says. “Christmas is over.”

  “Attic,” Daddy says, tossing the wreath on the coat rack. “Take care of it later.”

  Lexie whispers, “Hide my lighters. That one cleans like a freakin’ demon.”

  Daddy and Lexie go out the door, her doing that huffy-puffy breathing. Daddy hadn’t even taken off his coat, just came to give Lexie a ride to the hospital to have The Adoptee. They leave, and I am abandoned with the third aunt, the holiest, Blanche. She was a nun once, so when I look at her, I try to imagine her really still and praying with that thing nuns wear on her head, but all she does is move and talk.

  Aunt Blanche’s hair is called salt and pepper. Her face flushes pink when she lifts the sofa and sweeps under it, behind it. She beats the cushions and vacuums them, too. She pinches when she tickles, but doesn’t say she’d love to take me to her house, like the other aunts.

  Nope.

  She’ll stay here.

  “Bring me the other can of Pledge, Sugar,” Aunt Blanche says. “And a new rag. And you can call me AB if you want. All the other cousins do. AB for Aunt Blanche.”

  With the cleaning supplies I find a pack of unopened Maverick playing cards, Mimi’s favorite brand. I skip back to my room with the other stuff.

  Aunt Blanche rips the sheets from my bed and dusts everything but the blinds. She has me emptying my toy box, adding old toys to a bag for the Goodwill. She tells stories about her and her sisters— “Mimi was the feistiest, God, rest her soul”—and how they used to be mean one minute and nice the next and how they’d get in trouble.

  She frowns at my twelve stacks of finished coloring books that each come up to my hip and asks, “Aren’t you lonely just living with Lexie? Isn’t it awful quiet?”

  I stop pulling things out of the toy box and think about who could live with us to make it louder. The purple Pegasus Daddy gave me for Christmas is sitting in the corner of my room. I haven’t taken it out of the box. I think about putting it in the Goodwill bag.

  “We have TV,” I say. “But Lexie and I like to listen to the radio. We dance and sing. And play Uno.”

  “I never figured Lexie for the dancing sort.”

  “Lately, she kinda wobbles,” I say and show her what I mean. I am glad Lexie had me change into my Christmas outfit, a green corduroy skirt and green tights with a green and purple sweater. Even if all we are doing is cleaning, I can twirl in my skirt.

  Aunt Blanche starts talking about her son and how he lives far away, and she doesn’t see her grandchildren very much, and I get the feeling that she’s the one who’s lonely, and Lexie and I have it covered. Except for the whispers that say Daddy doesn’t come because I’m not as much fun as Biloxi. Or because he knows what I did.

  “You could adopt Lexie’s baby if the other lady backs out,” I tell Aunt Blanche. “Lexie’s worried she will.”

  Aunt Blanche laughs. “When that baby is a teenager, I’ll be dead and gone. Besides, Lexie may change her mind once she sees it. Mother’s instinct and all.”

  I get a twitchy feeling in my stomach. “I’m all Lexie can manage. They said that at Thanksgiving.”

  Aunt Blanche gets this half-smile and yanks the cord on the blinds, sending dust spiraling to the floor. “They? You mean, my sisters?”

  I nod. “She’ll be back in a few days, right?”

  “If she doesn’t keep the baby or move in with Miles. Lexie is known for zigging when she should zag.” Aunt Blanche hands me the window cleaner. “Looks like your bag is full. Try your hand at this, and I’ll start on the floors.”

  She takes the Hefty bag from my hands and walks out of the room.

  The floors? I bite my bottom lip.

  It took Aunt Blanche five minutes to rip the ornaments and lights off our Christmas tree and another five to vacuum up the needles. She even found Lexie’s lighters I had hidden in my bean bag.

  The echoes of her steps reach the back door before I pop the vent loose. I reach down into my hiding place. I’ve been careful. I’ve pushed my snake back, out of sight, so no one would ever just see it. My heart beats like a hammer. I get down on my knees and reach in, up to my elbow this time.

  “Where is it?” I whisper. “Where did it go?”

  “Sophie?”

  “Yes!” I jump, banging my head on the edge of the window frame. Tears of pain, then confession, drip from my eyes. I wipe them fast. She can’t catch me.

  “Oh, there you are. Wondered where you’d gotten.”

  “She’s never coming back, is she?” I rip my hair clip from my scalp, pulling out a clump of hair.

  “What are you . . . You mean your mother?”

  “I left a plastic snake in the soap basket,” I say, barely loud enough for her to hear. But I want her to know before she likes me too much. “It’s my fault she’s gone.”

  Aunt Blanche stands in the doorway, quiet, like there’s more for me to say. She props the broom against the wall and leans against my dresser, which isn’t really mine, it’s some antique from grandma blah-blah-blah, which just means that most girls my age have white furniture, and I have this dark stained wood with drawers that don’t open easily.

  I can’t look at Aunt Blanche. With the clip, I scrape a letter S into the back of my hand. S for Snake. Sophie. Or—maybe Aunt Blanche, the nun would understand this—Sin. I heard about it on TV once. It means shit we do wrong. The S is just a white mark, just dry skin. But at the bottom curve of the S, blood comes to the top of my skin.

  I shove the clip back in my hair. “Yep. I’m the reason. You should know that.”

  Aunt Blanche walks over and looks at my hand. “Sophie, you’ve hurt yourself.” She takes the clip out of my hair and inspects my scalp. “You put the snake in the soap, and you’re sorry?”

  I nod and bite my lip to keep from crying.

  “Lexie found your snake a long time ago. It’s okay, Sugar.” She stares at my hand, clucking. “We can fix this right up.”

  It’s just a scrape, nothing like my mother’s eyes.

  I look at Aunt Blanche and frown at the clump of hair springing from my purple flowery clip. “I think I want to lie down,” I say.

  Aunt Blanche gets up and makes a place for me on the bed, but I walk to my mother’s bed and crawl under the covers. I want to sleep where she slept, but it’s not right. The sheets don’t smell like her at all. They smell like Tide.

  Stupid, stupid silent tears roll into my nose and I am glad for my mother’s box of Kleenex on her bedside table. I wipe the tears quietly and wonder where Lexie has put my snake, if she tossed him in the trash or hid him so I’d ask and have to confess.

  He can’t leave me. He is part of me. We have an agreement.

  No matter what they say, we are the same. I have to find him.

  Aunt Blanch
e creeps into my mother’s room. She sits down in the rocker and closes her eyes, but doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t rock. She doesn’t move.

  My chin shakes, and I bite my lip to keep it still. I wipe hair out of my eyes and hold my bloody hand tightly.

  We stay quiet so long I’m sure Aunt Blanche is asleep or worse, she’s died on me like Mimi. And I think I can’t miss her funeral because I’ve been sitting with her when she died.

  “Aunt Blanche?”

  She breathes, and I’m so glad she’s not dead. “Yeah, Sugar?”

  “I shouldn’t have done it. I wanted her to be scared inside the house so she’d go outside like she used to.” I swallow the knot in my throat and try to finish. “I thought Daddy was coming home to help her.”

  Aunt Blanche lets out a long sigh, like she’s tired from all that cleaning.

  “He did help Tibby. She’s where she needs to be. You need a Band-Aid?”

  I shake my head. I show her the Kleenex wrapped around my hand. “Lexie told the musician nobody goes crazy over losing a stupid baby.”

  “Humph. That’s just inexperience talking,” she says. “We can do better for your hand. Come on.”

  Someone pounds on the front door, but before Aunt Blanche can get there, the musician bursts in doing his own huffy-puffy breathing, running his fingers through his hair, grabbing it, doing a tiptoe-dance in his Converse. “Where’s Lexie? Where’s my baby?”

  Aunt Blanche is only halfway out of the rocker, but she acts like he comes through our front door every day. “At the hospital, Miles.”

  I straighten the bed and try to pretend like I have not been crying, but he acts like I’m not even there.

  The dryer beeps, and Aunt Blanche squeezes past him to the laundry room and presses buttons on the dryer.

  “I can’t let her give him up,” he says, nearly running into Aunt Blanche. “What room is she in? Has she had him yet? She’s not answering her phone or anything.”

  “Well, Miles.” Aunt Blanche smiles out of the right side of her mouth. “I suppose she’s busy.” She opens the linen closet and pulls out the first aid kit.

  “I gotta get down there,” he says. “What would she want to hear? I mean, I know what I want to say, but so far authenticity hasn’t worked. I wish I was more like Peter. You know, smooth.”

  I frown. If I tell him what I know, I’ll lose Lexie forever.

  “Really?” Aunt Blanche says, squirting ointment on my hand. “More like Peter?”

  “He got Tabitha Barfield, I mean. Holy . . .” Miles glances at me. “Miss Alabama? Come on.” Miles drops to his knees on the Oriental rug and rubs his eyes.

  “What’s he doing?” I ask.

  Aunt Blanche says, “Young man, are you on something?”

  “Just love. I was up all night. Writing a song. But it doesn’t make any sense. Want me to sing it?”

  “No,” I say. “No more singing.”

  “Jesus,” Aunt Blanche sighs. “Save this idiot.”

  “I was made to sing,” the musician says. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  Aunt Blanche slaps two Band-Aids on the back of my hand and gives my wrist a pat.

  “Maybe you’ve done enough and should leave Lexie alone. She’ll make her choice.”

  This sounds like a good idea to me, except his beard is trimmed and he still looks as gray as an oyster. The musician sits down and crosses his legs like it is story time. If he is giving up, I hope he isn’t giving up here.

  “I gave her my heart,” he says, as if he cut it out and put it in a box. “I gave her everything. And she’s giving our baby away. I don’t know what she wants.”

  He sounds like I feel about Lexie’s leaving. His eyes aren’t wild like Mother’s. I wouldn’t want anyone to look that way, though. I am starting to think there are things about Mother that aren’t right at all. But maybe, the way the musician feels about Lexie is just fine. Being a little sick over someone might be okay.

  I pluck a hair from my scalp and start to wind it around my finger. “Lexie likes that whooping crane song,” I say.

  The musician lifts his chin.

  The hair breaks. I look up at him. “She made it her ringtone.”

  “She did?”

  “After you leave, she sits on the porch and plays it over and over. She cries. I hate that song. But maybe, if you played it for Lexie . . .”

  He reaches forward and touches my sore hand. “Sophie. You’re the most honest person I know.” He takes off, leaves the front door wide open, cranks his car and tears down the street.

  “Not at all like his family, the Whites,” Aunt Blanche says. “Impetuous. A straight shooter. Sensitive.”

  “His songs stink,” I say.

  “If Lexie likes them, he’s her man.”

  My stomach feels hollow, like I’ve eaten the last Oreo.

  I get up and poke through Lexie’s collection of old record albums, pull her desk chair over and reach high to the top of her bookcase. Nothing. I don’t find anything.

  “Nada,” the musician would say.

  “Oh, there you are,” Aunt Blanche says, popping her head into Lexie’s room. “Can you strip Lexie’s sheets? We’ll do her room next. I’m not sleeping on dirty sheets.”

  I walk beside Lexie’s nightstand and pop open the vent. My snake lies coiled tightly with the same half-painted tongue. I close the vent, but keep my eyes on him, as if he might become real and slither up my arm at any moment.

  There’s a scraping sound in the hallway, and I peek to see Aunt Blanche lugging our dry Fraser fir out the front door.

  “Sophie? Anything you need to throw out?” she calls. “I see the truck coming.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  The snake makes me feel kind of worried, but I take him to my room. The first thing that hits me is the smell of lemon Pledge. Aunt Blanche has left the blinds open. Sunlight pours through the windows across the white eyelet bedspread. The mirror gleams. She has even dusted my Madame Alexander “Around the World” dolls. Mother gave me those, every Christmas and birthday. My room has not been this clean since Mimi was here.

  I sit on my bed, staring the snake down. The garbage truck comes and goes, but the snake stays the same. I turn him sideways, wondering how he could ever look real. I want to take him back to the bathroom and see how he looks, snuggled in the soap.

  Aunt Blanche pushes open the door to my room, shuffling the deck of Mavericks.

  I shove the snake under my pillow.

  She winks at me. “If you’re going to get good at hiding your secrets, Sugar, you need to learn a new game. Quit your pouting, and I’ll teach you Poker.”

  I give her a quick nod.

  When she isn’t looking, I toss the snake into my toy box, alongside the Pegasus from Daddy. He doesn’t Hiss, Hiss, Hiss, doesn’t call to me like he used to.

  I follow her into the kitchen. “Aunt Blanche, do you like oysters?”

  “Only steamed,” she says.

  She cleans off the table with a wet paper towel, sits downs and starts shuffling the Mavericks.

  “With hot sauce? How about crackers?”

  “Garlic butter makes it better. Your Mimi and I disagreed on quite a lot.”

  It doesn’t matter to me what the differences are. There’s enough sameness to get me through. I nod and pull out Mother’s favorite chair, watching as Aunt Blanche deals the cards. She starts to explain Poker.

  I stare at the cards and can’t make sense of anything. Not until I know one thing for certain. “Aunt Blanche?” I ask through a tight throat.

  “Yes, Sugar?”

  “Would you mind reading my tea leaves?”

  With a smile, she lays down the Mavericks and puts the kettle on.

  I hope
we don’t see snakes.

  Never Promised You a Rose Garden

  Kimberly Brock

  The trouble with growing up rooted deep in a family, tucked safely in a pretty valley south of the Mason-Dixon, is how your future lies in front of you like a clean sheet just off the line. Ask me. You’ll take it for granted.

  All my life, I knew when the first crocus would come up by the back step of Mama and Daddy’s house. I knew when the first hay would come in from the field, when the scent of a wood burning fire would curl out of the chimney, and when the sunflowers would stand taller than a man. And I knew that on the first fall weekend I’d clean out Mama’s perennial beds so they could bloom again the following spring. There’s something about that kind of security that will make you believe you have all the time in the world. Until you don’t.

  When my baby sister called, I’d just topped the hill overlooking the farm. “I’m already pulling in the drive, Bossy Mae,” I said. She hated when I beat her to the punch.

  “I hate how you answer the phone, Beth. And how do you know that’s why I called you?”

  Since she’d had her little girl, Leslie lived by a schedule that would have made the Marines proud, and for some reason, she’d seen that all the rest of us were put on schedules, too. She assigned our family responsibilities, and mostly we all went along just to avoid conflict.

  “This is Wednesday. Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” she snapped.

  “I took a personal day.”

  “Well, Lord, that must be nice.” Leslie worked as a bank teller and regularly complained about day care for her daughter. “It’s like I drop her off, and they spend the next three hours rubbing her down with every germ on earth. I can’t remember when we slept all night. I’m about to fall over head first.”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” I said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” The way she sucked in her breath, it was a wonder my ear didn’t snap off the side of my head.

  “I understand, Les. It’s got to be exhausting, keeping up with all you do.”