“I wonder if my mama or her family is still living in Augusta,” I said quietly.
“There’s no way of telling, I guess.”
I had nothing more to say. I needed a quiet, dark place to think. I asked Patsy Ann to drive me home.
Just before I got out of the car she said, “Elizabeth, do you think I did such an awful thing? Was I wrong to switch those babies?” Her worried face had a blue cast from the light of the dashboard.
“I don’t know, Patsy Ann. I just don’t.” All of a sudden my eyelids felt like they were weighed down with wet towels. “You take care now.”
“I wouldn’t bother hunting your kinfolk down if I were you, Elizabeth. They gave you away like you were a little gypsy baby. Didn’t much care whose hands you fell into.”
“Good night, Patsy Ann.”
Thirty-One
Never test the waters with both feet.
~ Message in a fortune cookie from Dun Woo’s House of Noodles
My knees were like taffy and my hands shook as I fitted the key into the lock of my front door. Timothy stood waiting just inside.
“Oh Timothy,” I said, melting into his arms. He rubbed my back and held me close.
“I know, sweetie. I know,” he murmured. “Now you need to catch your breath.”
I lifted my tear-stained face from his shoulder.
“What is it, Timothy?”
“Elizabeth, my mother is on her way over here. She insisted on coming.”
“Now?” I asked. My eyes took in the newspapers piled on the coffee table, Maybelline’s rawhide bones strewn across the carpet, and the thin layer of dust that covered every surface of the living room. I glanced in the small mirror on the wall and saw ten miles of bad road staring back at me.
“Why is she coming here now?” I asked helplessly.
“I think she wants to offer her condolences.”
I started picking up stuff from the floor and shoving things under the couch. “What did you tell her about me?”
Timothy grabbed my elbow. “Just calm down a minute. Sit on the couch and I’ll make you some iced tea. I don’t want you to worry about all this right now. You’ve been through enough as it is.”
“But Timothy, this place looks—”
There was a knock at the door. I grabbed Maybelline and stowed her in the bathroom while Timothy let his mother in the house.
I smoothed my hair back behind my ears and went down the hall to meet her.
“Here she is,” Timothy said. “Mother, this is my wife, Elizabeth. Elizabeth, my mother, Daisy Hollingsworth.”
The woman standing in my living room was dark blond and rail thin. She was dressed plainly in a lightweight coat and her hair was pulled back tightly in a bun. The bland expression was fit for a vanilla pudding.
“Forgive me, Elizabeth, for coming over at this late hour,” she said, “but my son tells me there’s been a tragedy in your family.” She extended a beautifully manicured hand.
“Yes, my grandmother died today,” I said as I shook it. “She raised me since I was just a baby.”
She winced. “I’m so sorry. And I also regret our meeting under such troubling circumstances. Have you given thought to the arrangements?”
“Arrangements?” I asked. “No, I haven’t. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know where to start.”
She nodded. “Let me help you, then.” Her almost colorless eyes rested on Timothy. “And of course, I insist on paying for everything.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” I replied. “I’m most grateful.” I paused. “But I can’t let you pay. I’m sure Meemaw had a nest egg of some sort, and—”
She brushed her hand against my wrist. “Elizabeth, please. I won’t hear another word about it.”
Timothy kissed his mama on the cheek. “Thank you, Mother. That’s very generous.”
“It really is,” I said. “Too generous. Thank you very much.” I managed a weak smile.
She gave me a curt nod in return.
“Oh, my goodness.” My hands fluttered around my face. “Excuse my manners. I haven’t even asked you to sit down or offered you a drink or—”
She held up her palm. “That’s not necessary. I just felt that I had to drop by to let you know that I’m here to help you, Elizabeth.”
“And I appreciate that, Mrs. Hollingsworth, ma’am,” I said.
“May I see you in the morning around nine? So we can begin the funeral arrangements?”
I nodded.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Elizabeth,” she said.
Timothy escorted his mother to the car and when he came back inside, I said, “Your mama is being very kind.”
Timothy shrugged. “She’s good in a crisis.”
I collapsed on the couch. “What did she say to the two of us being married?”
Timothy sat down beside me. “She didn’t say much of anything. All she said was that our news had come as a surprise.”
“Well, she doesn’t seem upset about it, but then again she’s hardly jumping up and down either.”
Timothy rested his chin in his hand. “That’s my mother for you. She’s very hard to read, because she’s so unemotional.”
“She’s certainly being helpful to me.” I smothered a yawn.
Patsy Ann’s news would have to wait.
Mrs. Hollingsworth arrived at 9 a.m. sharp in her silver Mercedes-Benz. She wore a gray suit and carried an umbrella.
“I hope this won’t be too painful for you, Elizabeth,” she said as she opened the passenger door. We rode to Bright’s Funeral Home in silence. I watched rain sting the car windows. It felt like the whole world was crying for Meemaw.
Mr. Arthur Bright, a short, balding man in a bow tie, greeted Mrs. Hollingsworth fondly.
“Mrs. Hollingsworth, so good to see you, as always,” he said.
“Thank you, Arthur. This is Elizabeth. She’s just lost her grandmother.”
I couldn’t help but notice that Mrs. Hollingsworth didn’t identify me as her daughter-in-law.
“I am deeply aggrieved for you, Madam,” he said in a grave voice.
Mr. Bright led us into the casket showroom, a large, airy room with plush carpet. “We have The Statesman, a model I know you’re familiar with, Mrs. Hollingsworth. There’s also a new design in solid bronze that makes a masterful statement. All of Augusta’s most prestigious families are ordering it.”
We peered into the boxes as Mr. Bright pointed out their various features. “This one has lumbar support and a foot rest,” he said of one. “The caskets with fourteen-carat gold overlay are also extremely popular.”
I glanced indifferently into half a dozen boxes, but didn’t say a word about any of them. Finally Mrs. Hollingsworth looked at me and said, “Is anything catching your eye, Elizabeth?”
“All of these are so... fancy.”
“They are the Cadillac of caskets, Madam.” Mr. Bright touched his bow tie.
“They’re very nice, but the truth is, my meemaw just wasn’t the Cadillac type,” I said. “Do you have something more modest?”
Mr. Bright raised an eyebrow. “I see. Well, we do have plain pine boxes, of course. There’s the Abraham, the Ezekiel, and the Job. But I don’t even have those on display. I could show you a catalog.”
“Arthur, why don’t we go in the other room? Elizabeth just hasn’t seen everything yet.”
Mr. Bright led us to a smaller room and right away, I spied a nice white box that looked like a suitable resting place for my grandmother. I knew that if Meemaw had her druthers, she would have picked a cardboard box lined in burlap. But the coffins weren’t for the dead, they were for the living, and I would feel most comfortable putting Meemaw to rest in that sweet-looking white casket.
I nibbled a hangnail. “How much is this one?”
Mr. Bright cleared his throat and said, “The Primrose is four thousand dollars.”
I gasped. “Maybe we better take a look at some of those pine boxes you mentioned.””
Mrs. Hollingsworth interrupted. “We’ll take it, Arthur.”
Mr. Bright smiled broadly.
“But Mrs. Hollingsworth—” I began.
She put a finger to her lips. “I insist, Elizabeth.”
“Excellent choice,” Mr. Bright said. “Would you like the interior in pink or champagne?”
I still couldn’t get over the cost of that plain, white box, but Mrs. Hollingsworth seemed determined to buy it for Meemaw.
“Well, seeing how Meemaw was a teetotaler, we’d better go with the pink,” I replied.
After the funeral home, we drove over to Eternal Memorials and picked out a granite stone with flecks of blue. The engraving would read: “Beloved Glenda: Grandmother, Mother and Servant to her Maker.”
Our very last errand, and the most painful for me, was to stop at Meemaw’s house to pick out the clothes she would be buried in. As soon as I opened her front door and inhaled the mixture of cigarette smoke and rusty radiators, I burst into tears. Mrs. Hollingsworth rummaged through her purse and pressed a lace handkerchief into my hand.
Meemaw’s house looked like the vacant set of a stage play.
There was her half-drunk glass of iced tea on the kitchen table. A recipe for an onion casserole was lying by her pinking shears. Her poodle calendar, featuring two red-ribboned toy poodles posing in the basket of a bicycle, noted a podiatrist appointment today at 3 p.m. Marked in tomorrow’s square was a luncheon date with Meemaw’s best friend, Cordelia. They went to the Chat ‘N’ Chew every Wednesday and Meemaw always ordered carrot salad, banana Jell-O, and a bran muffin to keep her bowels in order.
Seeing her calendar was too much for me. Meemaw had jotted down things on it with such faith, assuming she’d be around to get her corns checked by Dr. Bales and gossip over coffee with Cordelia, and now she was dead. I plunked down on the kitchen chair and launched into a wet, blubbery cry. I was determined to squeeze out every last tear until I was dry as a bone.
Mrs. Hollingsworth disappeared. I didn’t know where she’d gone and I didn’t care.
After a time, Mrs. Hollingsworth returned carrying some of Meemaw’s clothes. She’d gone through Meemaw’s things and brought back a white blouse, a black skirt, a full slip, and some black pumps. She also had a favorite brooch of Meemaw’s. It was a gold-plated peacock with red rhinestone eyes.
“I hope this is what you had in mind,” Mrs. Hollingsworth said. “I’ve found that you simply can’t go wrong when you choose the basics.”
She’d picked out exactly what Meemaw herself would have chosen if she could have, right down to the brooch, which I remembered last seeing her wear at my engagement party.
I was grateful to my mother-in-law. I wasn’t ready to go into Meemaw’s bedroom, and touch her clothes, smell her scent. I felt like giving her a hug for all that she’d done for me, but I was afraid to. Despite all of her kindnesses that day, Mrs. Hollingsworth still seemed as unapproachable as an iceberg.
When she dropped me off at home, I was so pooped I wanted to slide under the covers and fall asleep, but just as I pulled down the bedroom shade, the phone rang.
“Hey there, Lizzie. It’s your daddy.”
I was surprised to hear his voice. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spoken to him on the telephone. Taffy generally did all the calling.
“I’m calling because I got your message about Glenda.”
I waited, and a long silence hung over the line.
“Your meemaw didn’t much like me and I wasn’t too keen on her,” he stammered. “But I’m sorry for your sake, baby girl.”
I paused for a moment. “Thank you, Daddy.”
All my life I’d hoped for grand gestures from Dwayne, but as Meemaw used to say, you can’t get lemonade from a dairy cow. As I hung up the phone, I felt grateful for his small display of sympathy. Even if Dwayne Polk was no more my daddy than the Pope, he was still the daddy I’d always known, and it meant something to me that he’d thought about me during my time of need.
That night I lay awake and heard the soft whistle in Timothy’s nostrils that came with sleep. I pictured Meemaw floating around in heaven like an angel, wearing a filmy, white gown, with her sweater over it, to keep away the drafts.
I had a vision of one of the head angels telling her that I wasn’t really her flesh-and-blood granddaughter, that the babies had been switched at the hospital. Then I saw Meemaw spread her wings like a giant moth and fly up into his face saying, “Of course I’m her grandmother. Who do you think mashed up Tylenol in her applesauce when she was sick because swallowing pills made her gag? Who smocked her white confirmation dress by hand when she was nine so she’d be the prettiest girl in her Sunday-school class? Who made her morning oatmeal with cinnamon sprinkled on top? It was her grandmother, that’s who.”
The senior angel flew away all flustered and Meemaw smiled, and I felt like she was right there in the room with me. I knew that even though we might not share the same blood we were definitely family, just the way Attalee and Mavis had been before and the way Timothy would be forever.
Thirty-Two
Still hot! Now it just comes in flashes.
~ Bumper sticker on Attalee Gaines’s Skylark
The next morning I went straight to the Bottom Dollar Emporium and fell into Mavis’s arms.
“I know, love, I know,” Mavis said, as I shuddered against her chest. “I can’t believe she’s gone.”
It was so comforting to bury myself in Mavis’s motherly embrace. Thank the Lord she’d taken her house off the market and was planning to stay in Cayboo Creek. I wouldn’t have been able to bear the loss of Mavis too.
After I’d spent my tears, I lifted my head from her shoulder and looked around at the store. She and Attalee had been busy marking down items for the Everything-Must-Go sale. Big yellow sale stickers graced every aisle and items were piled up in the clearance bins.
“I feel guilty leaving you short-handed just when you need me most,” I remarked.
“Don’t give it a second thought,” Mavis said, with a dismissive wave. “Birdie’s coming by to lend a hand and Hank’s been in and out all day today.”
I glanced around. “Where’s Attalee?”
“I think she’s in the stockroom. I don’t know what she’s been doing back there so long. Maybe you should go and check on her.”
I entered the stockroom, but its windowless gloom revealed no sign of Attalee.
“Attalee,” I called out softly. When I didn’t get a response, I flipped on the light switch. I spotted her leaning against a box of Bridgeford Beef Jerky. She was holding a photograph in her hand. The floor around her was littered with crumpled-up Kleenex.
She honked into one of the tissues. “Stupid birds and bees. Damn pollen is everywhere.”
I knelt down beside her and glanced at the photograph. It was a picture of Meemaw and Attalee glaring at one another on each side of a loving cup.
“That was last year when you and Meemaw tied for first place in the Senior Center Bingo Championship,” I said.
“Yup,” Attalee said with a sniff. “We bickered about who was going to keep the cup. We flipped a coin and she won.”
“Would you like that cup for yourself now?” I asked gently. “She’s got it on top of the fireplace mantel. She kept her loose buttons in it.”
Attalee shook her head. “I cheated to win the championship,” she said in a small voice. “I tampered with the cards. When Dixon would call out ‘B-9’ and I had ‘B-7,’ I’d use a black pen to change it.”
“Attalee!”
She covered her face with her hands. “Your meemaw was just so darn lucky. I ain’t never seen anything like it. If she’d gone to Las Vegas, they would have barred her from the slot machines.” She parted her fingers and peeked out from behind them. “I didn’t mean any harm to her. I just got caught up in the heat of the competition.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s such a terrible thing,” I said, grasping her bony hand. “She’d forgive you, I’m sure.”
“I hope so,” Attalee said. “I wouldn’t want her badmouthing me to St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.”
“Meemaw would never do that, Attalee.” I smiled. “Truth is, despite your rivalry, she was very fond of you.”
“I liked her pretty good too,” Attalee said. “Bingo night just ain’t going to be the same.”
I helped Attalee up and we walked out of the storeroom just as Birdie entered the store.
“My dearest Elizabeth,” she said, kissing my cheek. “I can’t tell you how sorry I was to hear the news about Glenda.”
A copy of the Cayboo Creek Crier was tucked underneath her arm.
“Is it in there?” I asked, gesturing at the newspaper.
“On the front page,” Birdie said. She spread out the paper on the checkout stand and we all leaned over to take a look at Meemaw’s obituary, which was titled “Much Loved Matriarch Meets Her Maker.”
“What a lovely tribute,” I breathed. “The headline sounds so poetic.”
“It’s almost as inspired as the one you composed when Burl died,” Attalee remarked. “‘Burl Gaines Gives Up Ghost.’” She shivered. “It still gives me goose flesh just thinking about it.”
Birdie laid a hand on my shoulder. “Elizabeth, tell us how we can help out with the arrangements.”
“It’s all been taken care of,” I said. “Timothy’s mother came into town the day before last and she’s handled every little last detail. Not to mention that she’s paying for everything.”
“She sounds like an angel,” Mavis said.
Bet Your Bottom Dollar (The Bottom Dollar Series Book 1) Page 20
