Calling Home

by Janna McMahan

“I said for you to go in the house,” Virginia said. “You’re not too big for me to still take a switch to.”

  Shannon rolled her eyes and went inside. What she heard next made her skin prickle with shame for the second time that day.

  “Don’t you come sniffing around here again,” Virginia said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Don’t ma’am me. All I want out of you is to see your taillights going off down my road.”

  Through the front window sheers, Shannon saw Kerry pull on his cap as he walked back across the yard. She darted up the stairs to her bedroom. Her mother slammed the storm door. Shannon waited for the cracked glass to fall out, but it held inside the frame.

  “Don’t think this is over,” Virginia yelled up the stairs. “You’re grounded. Do you hear me? Grounded for two weeks.”

  In her room, Shannon gave her mother the finger. She flung herself onto her bed, buried her face in the thick bedspread, and screamed into the mattress. She stayed that way until it became difficult for her to breathe, until her face was sweaty and her lungs strained for oxygen.

  When she could stand it no longer, she rolled onto her back, out of breath, her forehead clammy. She lay there, pulling in fresh air and thinking. She had two years before she could leave. Actually, twenty-three months until she started college. Those months would go by easier if she had a boyfriend. Kerry Rucker was cute, not her ideal guy, but more appealing than Shannon had imagined. Her mother couldn’t stop her. But it would be a fight.

  3

  The smell of loose powder women wore to church wafted from the folds of the cardboard boxes Will carried. He deposited them in the small room off the kitchen that would now be his aunt Patsy’s bedroom. Virginia had been sleeping in that room the last few months. She said it was cooler downstairs, but Will knew his parents’ big bed probably seemed strange and empty to his mother. Yesterday, she’d moved her things back up.

  “Thank you, Will,” Patsy said. She turned to her sister. “Virginia, I’m sorry to make you move, but you know I can’t climb them stairs.”

  “No matter,” Virginia said.

  Patsy laid money out between them, counting slowly onto the kitchen table. She licked her fingers and rubbed the bills apart, lost her train of thought and stopped to pop a couple of potato chips into her mouth. Patsy licked her fingers again and went to counting.

  “Do you know how dirty money is?” Virginia asked.

  Will grinned. His mother’s persnickety nature would clash in short time with her sister who left chairs askew and greasy spots at every table she touched. His mother walked to the counter and placed the top back on the chips can without taking her eyes from the money on the table. She wiped down the counter and hung the dishrag up to dry.

  “Well, Sis,” his mother said. “It’ll be nice to have you here when the kids get home from school.”

  “I’ll try to have a little something cooked for them,” Patsy said. “We’ll have a good time.”

  “You know, Roger used to always be out in the shop in the afternoons. I feel better knowing somebody’s around. It’s so hard to get me at the factory.”

  “I’ll take good care of them.”

  Spy on us is more like it, Will thought. He knew it was a way for Virginia to keep tabs on Shannon, who had taken up with that boy from Mannsville as soon as their daddy moved out. Shannon thought she was being so sly, but Virginia knew what she was up to. Their mother always knew. There was more to his aunt Patsy moving in than his mother let on. Patsy had been from one relative’s house to another every few years since her own husband died. Virginia’s situation, as the family referred to it, was only an excuse for their turn with Patsy. The twenties Virginia rolled into her pocket were from his aunt’s disability check. Money she got for sitting on her ass all day.

  “Where you want these?” Will asked. He held up gold-framed prints of Blue Boy and Pinkie.

  “How about the front room, Ginnie?” Patsy asked.

  “That’d be all right. And don’t call me Ginnie. You know I don’t like that.”

  Patsy winked at Will. “When your momma was little we used to call her Ginnie.”

  “That’s why I named you kids the way I did. I’m tired of names ending with ie and y. Every person in our family is named like that—Patsy, Lovey, Donnie, Bobby, Eddie, Wendy, Sandy, Jerry, Mary. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Wayne’s not.”

  “They called him Tommy Wayne until he was twenty-five and got back from Vietnam.”

  Will dropped a box on the table. “Uncle Wayne used to be called Tommy?”

  “He didn’t seem like a Tommy no more after the war,” Patsy said.

  Everybody said Uncle Wayne never was the same after Vietnam; but his mother maintained it wasn’t true, that Wayne had always been mean and lazy. She held a special animosity for her brother that defied explanation, but then his mother found it hard to get along with a number of people.

  Their voices faded as Will climbed the stairs. He flopped on his bed and switched on the radio. Paul Harvey’s droll voice was telling the rest of the story. Next, commentators debated the Middle East peace talks and the hostage situation in Iran. As Will approached draft age he took more interest in the news. His mother said not to worry, that the draft would never come back, but Will wasn’t so sure considering how world affairs had been going lately.

  He lay across his twin bed with his feet flat on the floor. He tossed a baseball straight up from his body, concentrating on intersecting the ball with its shadow cast by the bedside lamp. He could bring the ball to within an inch of the ceiling before it dropped smoothly into his palm. Over and over he tossed the ball and caught it.

  “Anything worth listening to?” Since he turned seventeen, his mother had taken to standing at the threshold until acknowledged.

  “Our peanut farmer might get beat by some old movie star in the next election.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Carter’s not crooked enough to be president.”

  Virginia walked to his window, parted the curtains, and her eyes lingered down the road in the direction Roger now lived. A jay screamed and chattered outside. “That old bird keeps diving at the cat. She sure does hate him.”

  The baseball went up and came down.

  “Dad’s not going to come up the driveway. You can stop checking all the time.”

  Virginia let the lace fall together. “That’s not what I’m doing.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “For your information, I came up here to ask you if you would walk down to The Brown Jersey and get us shrimp boxes for dinner.”

  “Can we afford it?”

  “Don’t you smart-mouth me, Will.”

  “Mom, if you don’t file for divorce Dad’s never going to give us child support.”

  “We don’t need child support. We’re doing fine.”

  “Sure, we’re doing fine. That’s why Aunt Patsy moved in.”

  “Look. I’m not happy about this setup either, but we all have to make sacrifices.”

  “Are you ever going to divorce him?”

  Virginia hugged her arms across her chest. When she got mad, she puffed up like a threatened toad. It grated his nerves. “What goes on between your father and me is none of your business.”

  “If you think Dad is coming back while Aunt Patsy’s here, you’re crazy.”

  “It’s only temporary.”

  “Dad’s gone. That’s not temporary.”

  “William Boyd Lemmons. Don’t talk to me like that.”

  “Well, somebody’s got to talk some sense into you. It’s called abandonment. It’s called adultery. He’s a lazy bastard—”

  She slapped him.

  “Shit, Mom.” He put his hand over the burning outline of her fingers.

  “You don’t know everything there is to know about your father, and until you do, don’t pass judgment.” Virginia stood rigid for a moment, and then she melted down on the bed and put her face in his hair. “I’m sorry. Do
n’t be mad.”

  He shook her off and moved to the door. “I’m counting the days until I’m out of here.” Outside he coaxed the old truck to start, but the engine ground and ground. Will pumped the gas and was still for a moment. He said aloud, “This piece of shit is the only thing he ever gave me.”

  Shannon popped in the passenger side. “More than he ever gave me.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Take me with you,” she said. The engine turned over and he threw the truck in gear. Will shoved a tape in the eight-track and Lynyrd Skynyrd came on. He belted out “Free Bird” as he cut around curves, tools and paper tumbling in the floorboard. He was finally calm when he stopped on the bridge that spanned Buckhorn Creek. They listened to the faint crackling ping of the engine cooling. Below them, yellow and red leaves clustered on smooth dry creek banks and swirled underneath the bridge in the timid flow of water.

  “What happened?” Shannon asked.

  “I fucked up. Told her Dad’s not coming back. Got slapped for it.”

  “Thought we were going to talk to her after supper,” Shannon said.

  “How could we with fat-ass Aunt Patsy there?” Will hit the steering wheel with the palm of his hand. “Shit!” He opened the truck’s ashtray and fished out half a joint. He lit the roach and inhaled in short spurts until the end glowed. Fire fell down and he said “Shit!” again. He batted at the ember lodged against the red tongue of his Rolling Stones shirt. She reached behind them and slid the center section of the cab window open. A decal of a six-point buck’s head moved over the image of a green bass, tail curled as he struggled against a lure hooked in his lower lip. Shannon snapped up her school jacket.

  “Pass that over here.”

  “When did you start smoking?”

  “Since all this crap with Daddy.”

  “Since you took up with Kerry Rucker, I bet.”

  “I smoked before with Pam. Kerry won’t smoke weed.”

  They passed the joint between them, delicately pinching the burning paper. The truck cab fogged. Shannon drew in hard on the roach, and then blew out a thick puff. “I told him we needed money when I went out there to the whore’s house the other day.” Shannon dragged the word whore out imitating their mother. “But he didn’t care. All he did was offer me a couple of twenties.”

  “I hope you shoved them down his throat.”

  “I threw them on the ground.”

  “I might drive right on out to that bitch’s house and kick his ass just for the satisfaction.”

  “Ha. I’d like to see that.”

  “You don’t think I could?”

  “Sure you could. He’d hunker down like he always does.”

  “She still thinks he’s coming back, you know.”

  “I figured that.”

  “Mom’ll never admit how bad things are. She’ll just send us skipping on down to The Brown Jersey to get a milkshake.”

  “We’re going to have to figure out things on our own. I need money for a prom dress and shoes.”

  “You think Mom’s going to let you go to prom with Kerry Rucker?”

  “Why not? I’ll be fifteen, and besides, she already knows.”

  Shannon plucked a photograph from the jumble on the dashboard. It was a shot from football homecoming of Will and his girlfriend, Liz.

  “I love this photo,” Shannon said. “I liked your hair like that, but I’m glad you stopped trying to grow a mustache.”

  “It looked good on me.”

  “It looked weird. I bet Liz’s dress was expensive, probably from a Lexington department store.” She didn’t say what they both knew, that his suit had been ordered from the Sears catalog. “Maybe I can borrow a dress from her for Junior Miss.”

  “I can’t believe you want to be in that priss parade.”

  “Don’t laugh. You can win big money. I have a 4.0 and good volunteer work at the library. I was a candy striper, too.”

  “That was two years ago.”

  “So? I guess I better start practicing the Moonlight Sonata.”

  “Not that again. Over and over and over. You drive me insane.”

  “Shut up. You think Liz’ll help me?”

  “Sure. She’s good at prissing around. You want any more of this?” Will held a brown bit of the joint between his fingernails. Shannon shook her head no. He took a couple of quick tokes, then flicked it out the window.

  “Look,” he said. “I’ll get you the money for your Junior Miss stuff.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll get a job. My grades don’t count much now that school’s almost out. Baseball’s the only thing that’ll get me any money for school anyway.”

  “Thanks, but you’re not responsible for me.”

  “Somebody’s got to be. You can’t take care of yourself.”

  Shannon punched him in the arm. “I could find a job. I could flip burgers or something.”

  “Yeah, old lover boy’ll be hanging out at The Brown Jersey, eating onion rings and getting fat.”

  A truck came up behind them and inched past on the bridge. Will raised his hand and the farmer waved back. They silently watched the other truck bump along the road out of sight.

  “You keeping your legs together?”

  “Will, don’t ask me stuff like that.”

  “I’m telling you not to do it with him.”

  “I’m not!”

  “But if you do…”

  “I told you I’m not.”

  “There’s always rubbers in my lockbox there.”

  Shannon opened the glove compartment’s tiny door. “Gee, you must have every kind made.”

  “Liz steals them from her dad’s drugstore. We always have lots. You can take some.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “Don’t trust a guy to take care of that or you’ll end up getting married like everybody else around here.”

  “Don’t worry. That’s not in the plan.”

  “Liz’s already hinting about looking at rings. Her parents would shit.”

  “I was surprised when they let her date you.”

  Will raised his eyebrows. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Well, I was.”

  “She wants me to ask her, but man, if I had a free ride like she has…She’ll go off and meet some college boy and it’ll be see ya later sucker.”

  “She loves you.”

  “Wake up, Shannon. I’ll be lucky to be over to the community college.” He shook a cigarette from a pack on the dash and lit it. “The factory’s coming to give their dexterity test on Monday. Time to put the round peg in the square hole.”

  “Don’t even take it. Just refuse. We said we’d never work there.”

  “I may not have a choice.”

  A hawk circled above a field, scanning for small movement. Cows grazed, fat and oblivious to the stoned kids in the truck. A couple of the animals teetered down to their worn spot at the creek’s edge. Their legs sank deep into the thick, pockmarked muck.

  “Yesterday, I heard somebody in the lunchroom saying not to do good on the test or the factory would give you a hard job. Isn’t that stupid?” Shannon said.

  “Not everybody’s as smart as you.”

  “I’m not that smart.”

  “You are for around here.”

  4

  Virginia tugged her quilt tighter and hunched down in the rocking chair. The wedding ring quilt was her favorite gift, the last one her grandmother made before the old woman’s eyesight went. This morning, leaden clouds smudged the hilltops behind her house. She had called in sick, told her floor lady that her head hurt and she had a fever. Virginia couldn’t afford to miss work. She made money off the number of bundles she sewed, but her production would have been off anyway. This was something Virginia never did, take time for herself. There was always something to do, always someone to do for—a house to run, kids to raise, a job to deal with.

  Patsy had taken the Chevy to the revival, which thankfully went all day. T
he kids were at school. Even the dog ran off into the field behind the house in search of someone else to bother. Virginia crumpled the empty pack of smokes absentmindedly. Smoke flowed from her lips, rose lazily sideways, and in an instant was sucked through the porch’s screen and vanished into steady rain.

  A bobwhite called. Not the two quick questioning notes they were known for, but a sweet, melancholy gathering call that beckoned their lost family members back to the covey. Old-timers believed that you could foretell rain from a quail’s call. Virginia had always dismissed it, but recently she found there were a lot of things she had been wrong about. Who would have ever thought that Roger would have taken up with that bitch down the road? Where had they even met? Roger got his hair cut at Dewey’s, like all the rest of the men in town. Without a doubt, she would have heard about it if they had met in her beauty shop. Roger never went to the grocery store, or shopping at all. He ordered his supplies from that taxidermy catalog. He could have met her when he was setting up his displays at the Big Kmart. People were all the time gathering around to watch. His wildcat display got a lot of attention, had even made the front page of the News-Journal. Roger had been so proud, had put one of those damn cat’s paws up on a blue-and-white basketball and gave its face that crazy UK Wildcat snarl. But it didn’t take long for those bible college kids to complain to the Big K manager. They let him leave a few fish over rods ’n’ reels, but his deer business had died back when he took the big mounts down.

  Reader’s Digest ran an article about people like those private-college kids who went around bellyaching about fur coats and farming practices and hunting. Activists they called them. Virginia would like to tell some of those activists that around here you couldn’t go to a restaurant every night and have somebody else serve you a steak or some tenderloin all cooked and pretty on a plate so you wouldn’t have to feel guilty. Here most folks ate what they raised and hunted and fished for. Nobody she knew left a carcass in a field with only the antlers sliced off.

  That same issue of Reader’s Digest had a story about depression. Virginia took the quiz and the results said she was “a likely candidate.” What good would that bit of information do her? The factory wouldn’t let her have sick leave for being crazy. No doctor around here would give her anything. They would tell her to buck up. They would tell her it was the change. Virginia knew it wasn’t the change. She wasn’t even forty yet. A woman had to be careful what she complained about or she was likely to end up on an operating table having her female parts out.