What Makes a Family

by Colleen Faulkner

  As I pull my hand back from the water glass, I hit the corner of my Arizona scrapbook. I was looking at it before I went to bed. Joe didn’t pay it any mind. I’ve had it for years, and he’s never once asked me about it.

  I pick up the book and lay it on my lap. I can’t see it in the dark, but I don’t have to see it. I have the pages memorized. My favorite is the section on the red cliffs of Sedona. I don’t know why but I’ve always thought they were so beautiful; I just do. Some people say when you go to heaven, you see what you want to see, go where you want to go. I know Mrs. Brodie is still right here on this bay. But if I fell over dead tonight, it would be those red cliffs I’d see when I opened my eyes again. They would be my heaven.

  Mrs. Brodie knew about my scrapbook. She’d even give me clippings once in a while, if she came across something in a newspaper or a magazine. She never asked me why I was keeping it, but she didn’t seem to think there was anything wrong with it. I hug the old album in my arms and choke back a lump that rises in my throat, and all of a sudden I feel like I can’t listen to Joe snore one more time.

  I get up and walk out of the bedroom in my bare feet. I never go anywhere in bare feet except the shower, but I don’t go back for my slippers. I don’t even know where I’m going. I just walk down the dark hall. I don’t need any light. I know this house inside and out. I don’t need lights; my feet know the way. Even bare.

  I go downstairs. Up the hall to the sewing room. Inside the door, I flip on the light. Somebody made the bed after the funeral parlor took Mrs. Brodie. Abby, I suspect. Celeste’s not much for making beds.

  I go over and sit on the edge of the hospital bed. I’ll have to call the medical supply company to come get it. I still have to pay for the thirty days. It was the only way they would rent it.

  I look at the nightstand. The teacup and saucer with the bluebirds are still there. And the oyster shell and the little piece of blue paper rolled up and the peppermints. I reach out and snatch up one of the peppermints and start to untwist one end of the wrapper. The cellophane sounds really loud in the quiet of the house.

  I pop the mint in my mouth and suck on it.

  Mrs. Brodie was always eating peppermints. Passing them out to people, to anyone and everyone: people at church, kids in line at the bank, even strangers at the market. She’d offer them to me, but I never took them. I don’t like peppermint.

  I suck on the white and red mint, moving it around in my mouth. It tastes cold and hot at the same time and sweet. Really sweet.

  It’s good. I hate to admit it, but it’s good.

  So how many of my sixty-six years have I gone, thinking I didn’t like peppermint? Why did I think I didn’t like it to begin with? I can’t remember. But I have a feeling it had more to do with Mrs. Brodie than the candy.

  Cutting off your nose to spite your face. That’s the phrase that comes to mind. Mrs. Brodie used to say it. She was a big one for phrases. A good deed is never lost. A man warned is half saved. Every path has a puddle. She had one for every situation. I think if she didn’t know what to say, she just repeated one of her sayings.

  I bite down on the peppermint. Crunching it between my teeth, I lean back and throw my legs onto the bed. I hold my Arizona scrapbook tight in my arms against my chest and lie back to rest my head on the pillow. I close my eyes and think about Mrs. Brodie lying here dead and chew up her peppermint.

  I can’t believe she’s gone. That’s what’s been going through my head all day. That’s why I can’t sleep. Because she’s gone. I know she’s gone, but . . . I still can’t believe it’s really happened.

  I thought I’d be glad when she was gone. For months, years, I’ve been thinking about what would happen when she died. I know that seems ghoulish, but who lives to be a hundred and two?

  I can sit in her chair at the kitchen table now. I can drive her Cadillac. Little Joe gave me the keys after supper. Said it wasn’t worth enough to bother to sell and that I should have it. That Mama wanted me to have it.

  Then why didn’t she say so when she was still livin’? I wanted to ask him that, but I didn’t. I just took the keys. I had the idea I’d put them in my handbag. I actually carried them around in my apron pocket while I cleaned up the supper dishes. But they didn’t feel right in my pocket. They were too heavy. I hung them on the hook near the back door where they’ve always hung.

  But even if I don’t drive the Caddy, I’m still the woman of the house, now. The only woman. I can make what I like for supper without asking her what she would like. I can sit on the back porch with Little Joe as the sun is setting, talking about crops or a new piece of farm equipment he’s thinking of buying.

  I imagined what it would be like to sit in her place on the second pew on the left side in church. The place she’d been sitting since I was girl and came to Brodie Island. Only when I went to church today, I couldn’t sit in her seat. I tried to, but things didn’t look right from there. I ended up sliding over to the place I always sit and left her spot on the aisle empty.

  Because I can’t take her place. Not at church. Not on the island. Not in the house. Not with my children. And certainly not with Little Joe.

  I sit up, suddenly wishing I was anywhere but here. I stare at my scrapbook in my lap. I think of the basalt and limestone cliffs of Sedona. I could go there now. Mrs. Brodie doesn’t need me anymore. Joe could get on well enough if I left a bunch of meals in the freezer for him to heat up in the microwave. Joseph would keep an eye on him for me; I know he would.

  For a moment I’m excited. My heart is beating faster, and a smile lifts the corners of my mouth. I could go online in Joe’s office right now, and I bet I could buy a plane ticket. I’ve never bought a ticket. I’ve never flown on a plane. But I’ve gone to airline sites hundreds of times and pretended I was buying a ticket. I could fly into Flagstaff and rent a car. I even know what hotel I want to stay at in Sedona. It’s just a chain hotel, but all the reviews online say the view is spectacular and the rooms are clean and comfortable.

  I’ve got my own money. I could go. I could do it.

  I move my tongue around in my mouth. The peppermint is gone now, and I can only taste the memory of it.

  I stare at the scrapbook in my lap.

  Who am I kidding?

  I’m never going to Arizona. I’ll never see the red cliffs of Sedona. I’m not brave enough or strong enough. Mrs. Brodie, she could have done it. Would have, if she’d wanted to. But not me.

  I stand up, angry now, and throw the big book into the trash can. I pull up the bag and tie the top and carry it out of the room, flipping the light off behind me. I walk into the kitchen, in the dark, step on the pedal on the trash can with my bare foot, and open the lid. I drop the bag in and let the lid fall.

  Then I stand in the dark kitchen, not sure what I’m going to do after the funeral Saturday. Because I realize I can’t live here anymore. I can’t live without her because without her, I’m no one. I’m nothing.

  37

  Abby

  “This feels so weird,” I whisper. I’m curled up in Drum’s arm in my bed, my cheek on his chest. There’s a glow of light from the lamp on the nightstand that I threw a scarf over to diffuse the brightness. I thought we were going to make love when we came upstairs, relegating Sarah to her own room. I feel like we’ve been apart for weeks, rather than days, Drum and I. But once we finally made it to bed, I suddenly felt so drained that I don’t think I would have had the strength to slip off my own clothes.

  “What’s weird?” Drum murmurs. His eyes are closed. I can tell he’s almost asleep.

  He doesn’t really like talking at this point of the day. He just wants to go to sleep and mull things over in the morning over his cup of green tea. But I’m not like him. I can’t sleep with matters unsettled in my mind. Thank goodness he tolerates me.

  “Everything,” I say. “The whole day. The whole week. It feels weird to be in this house without her. Standing there at the graveside today, I kept thinking i
t’s all a dream. That I was going to wake up, and Mom Brodie was still going to be alive. That she was going to be down the hall in her bedroom, staying up too late, reading a good book.”

  “That’s normal.” Drum smiles faintly. “And I guess, in a way, she is still down the hall, reading her book.” He opens his eyes to meet my gaze. “Because as long as she’s still here”—he taps my forehead—“and here”—he taps just above my left breast—“she is still alive.”

  I close my eyes and groan. “That sounds like something she would say.”

  He chuckles.

  “No, I’m serious.” I open my eyes again. “All of this, it’s so surreal. Her death. The whopping inheritance.”

  “Celeste throwing herself on the coffin at the church service and having to be led away. Don’t forget that,” he reminds me, amusement in his voice.

  I laugh. I can’t help it. Celeste is such a bad actress. It was so fake. Her tears. The sobbing. And the hat with the veil. The big sunglasses. Way over the top. She was even worse than I expected. It was as if she was performing some awful finale.

  “I warned you, didn’t I?”

  “That you did,” he agrees. “But I thought you were kidding. Exaggerating.”

  “I don’t think it’s possible to exaggerate with Celeste.” I smooth his bare chest with my hand. He’s not very hairy, which I like, but the chest hair he does have is turning so gray. He’s aging. Which I am, too, but I’m suddenly becoming conscious of our age difference. In five years, Drum will be eligible for social security benefits. And that thought scares me. Which brings me back to the money.

  Drum and I spoke with Joseph, after the graveside service, after everyone had headed back to the church for the luncheon. After Celeste had allowed herself to be led away on the arms of two good-looking guys from town. We talked about Joseph’s proposal concerning our inheritance.

  Drum and I told Joseph we’d do it. I’d do it. I’d give Celeste part of my money. I agreed to go against Mom Brodie’s wishes and split it three ways. We discussed when to tell Celeste and agreed it could wait until next week, after Clancy got back to town. After Joseph talks to our accountant.

  “So what are you going to do with it?” Drum asks. “The money? It’s still a hefty sum.”

  I had just closed my eyes, but I open them and push up in the bed to look down at him. “You mean, what are we going to do with it? Do you think there’s any way you can still retire with it?”

  He reaches up and strokes my cheek, looking into my eyes. “I don’t know, hon. I don’t think so.” His voice is so gentle and sweet that no one would ever suspect that he’s giving up his dream with his words. “Not with our mortgage.”

  I lie down again, closing my eyes. Not if we stay in our house, he’s saying, without actually saying it. But we could swing it if we moved to Brodie. If we moved in here. He didn’t say it, but it’s got to be on his mind.

  But I can’t do it. I know I can’t. My mother and I . . . It would be a bigger disaster than Celeste’s moving home. Way bigger. I’d end up resenting Drum, resenting all of them.

  Seeming to sense my thoughts, Drum tightens his arm around me. “Stop worrying; it’ll all work out.”

  “Work out?” I whisper. “How?”

  “I don’t know.” He kisses the top of my head and lies back, sounding drowsy again. “But it always does. What happens in our lives is what’s supposed to happen.”

  I’m tempted to call him on his philosophical bullshit, but I don’t. Because I don’t want to argue with him. I don’t even want to disagree. Not tonight. “Shut out the light?” I whisper.

  He reaches, still holding me, and flips off the lamp.

  In minutes, he’s asleep.

  I’m just drifting off when I hear a tap at the door. For a second I think I’m imagining it. Then I hear the door open. “Mom?”

  “Sarah?” I sit up, a moment of panic making my heart beat a little faster.

  Drum sleeps on.

  “Mom, I’m sorry to wake you, but—”

  “You didn’t wake me. You okay?”

  “Fine.” She walks around to my side of the bed. She’s carrying her laptop, and the light from the screen illuminates her face. “Mom, you have to see this.” She sounds like she did on Christmas morning when she was a little girl.

  “Okay.” It doesn’t occur to me to send her away. One of the things I learned with Reed when he was a teen was that you talk when they want to talk. Which often means late at night because their internal clocks seem to run differently than ours. The best conversations I’ve had with Reed, over the years, took place in the wee hours of the night.

  “Let’s go to your room.” I slip out from under the sheet. “So we don’t wake your dad.” I grab my readers from the nightstand and follow her out of the room.

  “Celeste still out?” I ask as we go down the hall.

  Sarah glances over her shoulder at me. One of her are you stupid? looks. She’s wearing the SCORE! booty shorts again, and I make a mental note to accidentally leave them here in the morning, if I can wrangle it without her seeing me.

  “Didn’t you see how dressed up she was in her sleazy skirt and that yellow and green silk scarf she wears? And those crazy heels?” Sarah rolls her eyes. “She’s out, all right.”

  I sigh. “We’ll be lucky if she comes home in the next couple of days.” Already out spending the inheritance she’s not getting. Or wouldn’t be getting if it weren’t for Joseph’s good heart.

  “So, what’s up?” I ask.

  “I told you I could find it,” Sarah whispers, the excitement in her voice again.

  “Find what?” I follow her into her room, and she perches on the side of the bed. I sit beside her and slide on my glasses.

  “The tattoo. But I hit the jackpot. Mom, look.”

  My daughter turns her laptop so I can see it, and the screen is filled with a grainy, black-and-white photo of a group of people, men and women, in front of a big white tent with a striped roof. The photo is obviously from decades ago, the twenties, maybe thirties? I’m not good with that sort of thing. The first person I notice is a little person. A man, in smart clothes and a top hat. The next thing I see is something printed on the tent, behind their heads. It says RUDEBAKER’S in flaking paint.

  “There she is,” Sarah breathes. And points.

  I look at the woman she’s pointing to. It takes me a second for the synapses in my brain to fire. I’m just about to say who? when I recognize the grainy face looking back at me. Because she looks like me. And Sarah.

  “Oh, my God,” I whisper, pulling the laptop onto my own lap. The young woman is in some sort of risqué costume, barelegged, holding a fan of feathers that covers her breasts, which appear to be bare.

  “It’s Mom Brodie!” Sarah whispers excitedly. “See. There’s the tattoo. There can’t be another like it.”

  She reaches over and hits a key, and the screen zooms in to the young woman with the feathers. And there’s the bluebird tattoo on her upper thigh. Identical to the one on my grandmother’s thigh.

  “It’s her, Mom,” Sarah whispers. “It’s our Mom Brodie.”

  “It sure is,” I breathe. I can’t stop staring. I’m shocked. And thrilled to see the woman I never knew, who I’ve known all my life. “Can you zoom out a little? So I can see all of her?”

  Sarah does her magic, and my grandmother comes into view again.

  Mom Brodie looks so beautiful. And so young. She doesn’t look any older than Sarah, even with the heavy eye makeup.

  “How did you find it?” I whisper. Though why we’re whispering, I don’t know. Everyone else in the house is asleep.

  “The valentine,” she tells me. “And the marriage certificate.”

  I hit the same keys she did and zoom out until the whole picture fills the screen again. There are thirteen people, including a woman with a beard and an old Asian man covered in tattoos. Then I spot a tiger on the edge of the photo. A live tiger. At least I think it’s
a tiger because a piece of the corner of the photo is gone. “I don’t understand.”

  “The name on the valentine in the teacup box was Bilis. Remember? And a Bilis also signed the marriage certificate. Only I thought Mom Brodie had a girlfriend witness her marriage to Great-Grandpop. It was her boyfriend, Mom.” She giggles. “I found Mom Brodie through him.”

  I’m fascinated by the little man in the top hat, and the tiger, the woman with the beard, and several other young women dressed scantily with feathers, but my gaze keeps going back to my grandmother. Never, in a million years, would I have believed this if I wasn’t seeing the proof. Mom Brodie was a carny before she came to Brodie Island.

  “I Googled Bilis. Did you know Bilis was a dwarf in the King Arthur legends? Bilis, the dwarf king of the Antipodes. This guy’s parents named him after the dwarf king.” She points at him in the photo. “This Bilis, Bilis Allsop, was born in 1900 in London. His parents were super wealthy; he was educated in Europe. Had some kind of English title. But he came to the US, and he joined a carnival. He worked a couple of different carnivals in the late twenties and into the thirties, through the Depression. He was with Rudebaker’s Carnival for nine years. Rudebaker’s.” She points to the words on the screen as if I can’t read. “I found this picture of him, and there she was!”

  “And he’s identified in this photo?”

  She sighs, obviously trying to be patient with me, but not doing a good job of it. “No; there’re no names. But how many dwarfs could there have been in a carnival in the early thirties? And it doesn’t matter if that’s her Bilis or not; that’s definitely Mom Brodie.” She points again.

  I look at the screen. “Sure is.”

  We sit side by side and stare at the computer screen. “So now what?” I say, eventually.

  She looks at me. “What do you mean?”

  I shrug. “Do we tell anyone? If so, who?”

  Sarah makes a face. “Obviously we don’t tell Grandpop or Birdie.” She hesitates. “I don’t even think we should tell Uncle Joseph or Celeste.”

  “Why not?”