Queenie’s humor helps compensate for the gravity of the moment. Violet is seldom close enough to study Miss Temple’s face. Instead of the usual tight line of irritability, her lips are relaxed and droop slightly. A drop of spittle collects in the corner of her mouth. Rose pulls a red bandana from her blue jean pocket and uses it to soak up the drool.
“It’s so odd to touch her again after so many years,” Rose says. “I half expect her to snap out of the coma and slap my arm away.”
Violet gives Rose’s other shoulder a squeeze, aware that her own shoulder isn’t reactive at all. She turns to look at Violet and Violet wonders if she and Rose might someday renew their friendship.
“You know, I think this is the longest I’ve ever spent in a room with her without getting criticized,” Rose says.
“Iris is one tough cookie,” Queenie says. “That woman should have come out of the womb with a warning label.”
“I hope she can’t hear us,” Violet whispers.
“We listened to her bellyache for years,” Queenie says. “Now it’s her turn to get a little of what she dished out.”
Violet isn’t so sure this is wise. The energy is shifting in the house. The Temple spirits seem to be waking up irritable after a long nap.
Across the room, Ava unpacks a small backpack and arranges different nurse-related items on Miss Temple’s vanity. With this task complete, she steps over and checks the IV drip that flows into Miss Temple’s hand. A thin line of black eye-liner accentuates Ava’s small green eyes, the same shade of green used on the lizard tattoo on her finger.
Nice touch, Violet thinks. If she gets to know Ava a little better she will ask her about the lizard. There has to be a story there.
Ava sits on a Victorian loveseat in the far corner of the room and pulls a People magazine from her purse. Johnny Depp graces the cover. A person her younger daughter admires.
Power and money hasn’t protected Miss Temple from this moment. She is dying just like everyone else, and with a scandal afoot.
The telephone rings and Violet jumps. Until recently, the phone had been unplugged because of all the crank calls they were getting, but with Miss Temple this ill they need a line out. As Violet answers the phone, Queenie gives Rose a brief hug and excuses herself. Violet is relieved to hear no death threats or cursing when she answers.
“It’s for you,” Violet says, handing the cordless to Rose.
Apparently, it is Rose’s daughter Katie on the phone. Rose cuts the call short, but not before telling her daughter how strange it is to be here.
Without looking up from her magazine, Ava smiles, as if she is no stranger to strange.
Rose hands the phone back to Violet and sits by her mother’s side. “You don’t have to stay,” she says to Violet.
Violet appreciates the offer to leave and excuses herself to go make dinner. Rose talking to her daughter reminds Violet that she has two daughters of her own she needs to get home to. She descends the grand spiral staircase with a fantasy of sliding down the banister like she and Rose used to do, until she realizes how many decades it has been since the last time she pulled this off. Long enough for broken bones or traction to result.
Past and present mingle as she crosses the foyer to the dining room and then into the kitchen, her constant refuge as a girl when she came to work with her grandmother. Like a game of hide-and-seek, the kitchen was always the place to run to that was deemed “safe.” Otherwise, she was to stay out of Miss Temple’s sight. A talent she still relies on to get through the day.
When Violet enters the kitchen, she finds Queenie sitting at the large, oval oak kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee. The difference between the kitchen and Miss Temple’s bedroom feels like the difference between life and death.
“How are you holding up?” Queenie asks, motioning for Violet to join her. “Can you believe Savannah’s biggest tyrant might actually die?”
“Why limit her to Savannah?” Violet says, and then apologizes. “Rose isn’t anything like her,” she adds and Queenie agrees.
“They say an apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, but in this case it fell in a totally different forest,” Queenie says.
Violet makes herself a cup of tea. She isn’t much of a coffee drinker—she prefers the smell of it more than the taste and only drinks it if she adds enough half and half and sugar to mask its bitterness.
Rose enters and sits at the table with Queenie. “I’m not sure how long I can just sit there and watch,” Rose says.
Violet pours her a cup of coffee which she accepts and drinks black.
“Would you like to visit Mama tonight?” Queenie asks Rose.
“I’d love that,” Rose says.
“We can go right after dinner, if you’re not too tired,” Queenie says. “I was going to drive over anyway and bring her back. She says your mother’s crossing is tonight and she needs to be a part of the transition.”
Violet has never witnessed one of her grandmother’s end of life rituals.
“Crossing and transition aren’t words I usually associate with death,” Rose says. “They sound more fluid and less final. Although with Mother, the more ‘final’ the better, I suppose.”
“I’m not sure the Temples know when to go,” Violet says. She waits for the resident ghosts to agree or disagree, but they are quiet for now.
“Mama and Iris have quite a history,” Queenie says. “It almost seems fitting that they would be together at the end.”
“Does Mother still believe that Old Sally put a curse on her?” Rose asks.
“Good lord, yes,” Queenie says. “Several curses, in fact. I’m not sure how much of it is true, but Iris is at the effect of something. As I’ve mentioned in my letters, the last place you want to be when your mother is having one of her attacks is downwind. It’s enough to kill a moose.”
“And then have it for dinner,” Violet says, and then offers another quick apology. She is starting to sound like her Aunt Queenie.
“No need to apologize for something that’s true,” Rose says.
“Mama would say that laughter and misery go together,” Queenie says. “They’re flip sides of the same coin.”
Violet wonders how Queenie can still laugh. It’s no secret how badly Miss Temple treats her. Sometimes Violet wishes Queenie would stand up for herself more. This is the part of her lineage she doesn’t understand. The part that thinks nothing of staying under the Temple’s rule. If Violet gets her way this will all come to an end with the next generation and even before that when Violet finally saves enough money to realize her dream. She glances at the spare cookie jar where she keeps her life savings. With the Temple security system this is as safe a place to keep it as any bank. And definitely safer than Violet and Jack’s apartment which was broken into several summers ago.
With fifteen thousand dollars saved in the twenty years she’s worked here she just needs a little more money for a deposit on the modest storefront she found downtown and to buy the equipment and inventory she’ll need. But first, she must say goodbye to Miss Temple.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rose
The machines keeping her mother alive breathe and beep in an oddly comforting way, a lullaby of technology. Ava, who is stronger than she looks, scoots one of the Queen Anne chairs from the corner of the room to the side of the bed. Rose thanks her and sits stiffly next to her mother as if anticipating complaints about her posture. At first, Rose looks at everything else in the room except her mother: the lavish draperies, the expensive antiques, and a small gold clock ticking loudly on the nightstand near her bed. Then Rose turns her gaze to the body in the hospital bed.
Her mother must have been fifty-five the last time Rose saw her. She is old now. Etched with wrinkles, her mother looks more like Rose’s grandmother who lived in the house when she was a young girl. A woman who scared Rose and always smelled of camphor and mint. Sometimes the old woman would yell at Rose for no reason at all. Her grandmother Temple was a woman
who possessed a coldness that made her mother seem full of warmth. Years after she died, the smell lingered in the hallways and in the corners of the rooms. She can almost smell it now.
At five o’clock, a woman named Lynette arrives to replace Ava. Rose is the only person in the room. Closer to Rose’s age, Lynette is almost as wide as she is tall and wears a traditional white uniform. Her pantyhose rubs together as she walks and creates a synthetic swishing sound. Because of her height and width, she resembles a linebacker in drag. Rose likes her instantly.
“I’m one of those people who believes people in a coma can hear everything that’s going on around them,” Lynette says.
Lynette’s southern accent is as thick as her plentiful waist. To her surprise, Rose has missed hearing such a rich rendition of her native tongue. In the West, the language is crisp and to the point, seeing no need to waste its time. A southern accent, on the other hand, is in no hurry. Every syllable entertains the luxury of an afternoon stroll or a balcony evening on the front porch.
Lynette asks Rose if she would like to help give her mother a sponge bath. Rose doesn’t answer at first. How can she tell kind Lynette, that besides the earlier spittle removal, she can’t remember the last time she touched her mother? Or Mother touched me, for that matter.
Lynette encourages Rose to join her. She coaches her on how to move the wash cloth gently down her mother’s arms and hands and avoid the needles that force fluids into her aged veins. Washcloth in hand, Rose stands motionless, looking down at her mother’s body.
How can she be kind to someone who she could never please? Someone who didn’t know the meaning of kindness, perhaps because nobody ever treated her that way, either.
“Oh, sweetie, I know it’s hard to see your mama this way,” Lynette says.
Rose has never, in her entire forty-four years of life, called her mother mama or mom. The terms are too endearing. She always called her Mother or simply said, ‘yes, ma’am,’ like Old Sally and Queenie did.
Lynette swishes her way to Rose’s side of the bed. “Just follow my motions, sweetie,” she says.
Following her instruction, Rose glides the moist white washcloth down her mother’s slender arms sequined in liver spots. Colors she’s used in western landscapes. She makes a long, soft brushstroke of care across her mother’s skin. Skin does strange things as it ages. It loosens, puckers, spots and blotches. Rose notes the beginnings of this process on her own body. Thankfully, it doesn’t scare her. She has always felt older than her years. Growing up in the Temple household required a certain amount of toughness.
As Rose mirrors Lynette’s motions, she pretends she is someone like Lynette who genuinely cares about the person on the bed. To her surprise, the washing of her mother’s unconscious body carries unanticipated emotions for Rose. Hidden within the folds of discomfort is a secret longing for her mother’s touch. Perhaps this reaction is brought on by her fatigue, combined with the onset of hot flashes and all the memories that have been waiting for her here. Whatever it is, she is too tired to resist it. It’s like she’s been running away for twenty-five years only to end up at the same place.
Unexpected tears rush to Rose’s eyes. More needed moisture, she thinks. Like the droughts out west, she has had a drought of tears over the years. She takes a deep breath and welcomes the rain. Yet with the quickness of a sword cutting through flesh, all emotions cease, as her brother, Edward, steps into the room.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Queenie
After Queenie adjusts the seat and air conditioning vents so they’ll blow straight on her, she backs the Lincoln out of the carriage house and waits at the gate for Rose to join her. The drive up the South Carolina coast to her mama’s house will take thirty minutes, twenty if she has good luck with the traffic lights and is generous with the gas pedal. In the past, in return for use of one of the Temple cars, Queenie had to run an errand for Iris. Perks like cars and cash have always been at her half-sister’s discretion. But Queenie has other reasons for putting up with Iris. Reasons that nobody else knows about. Not even Rose.
Toilet paper is wrapped around the garden gate and thrown into the trees. Good lord, Queenie thinks, we’ve become a college frat house.
The secrets have brought all sorts of undesirables to their doorstep. When she gets back she’ll remove the toilet paper so Iris won’t wake from her coma to complain. At least the crank calls have stopped. Calls plagued them all evening until Queenie finally called the phone company to have their phone changed to a restricted number. She taps the steering wheel, worn out from worrying that her biggest secret will end up in the classifieds, too. She’s also tired from getting up so early to get a first glance at the secret of the day. So far, several Savannah adulterers have been revealed, as well as a cross-dressing oil tycoon and a mentally ill banker. All deceased, and mostly forgotten, but still. Whoever is doing it likes to throw in a secret from the present-day every now and again just to keep people interested.
Meanwhile, not a single one of Iris’s so-called society friends visited her in the hospital. Not one. For a week, Queenie has spent every day at the hospital with Iris. Her only visitors were Violet—who stopped by every evening on her way home— and Spud Grainger, who stopped by twice a day, once in the morning before going to the Piggly Wiggly and then afterward to relieve Queenie. Although she has a hard time understanding it, she appreciates Spud Grainger’s loyalty to Iris.
Rose walks out of the house and latches the gate behind her. She looks tired. In an earlier conversation, Queenie and Violet discussed how difficult this trip back to Savannah must be for Rose. To come home after an absence of twenty-five years, her mother in a coma—a woman too stubborn to show any love—must be hard. Not to mention, seeing Edward again after all these years.
Queenie can’t believe he showed up at his mother’s bedside. When she called her half-nephew after his mother’s stroke, he seemed indifferent and inconvenienced. At least tonight he didn’t stay long. Just enough time to give Rose a prolonged sinister look before rushing off to meet someone at the country club. Queenie has never liked Edward. He acts more like a spoiled brat than a man. Edward and Rose are about as different as two siblings can be.
Rose gets into the car and buckles herself into the passenger seat, giving Queenie a faint smile.
“Seeing Mama will be good for you.” Queenie pats her hand. “You two have a special bond.”
“I’ve missed her,” Rose says. “I don’t think I realized how much until now.”
“She’s missed you, too,” Queenie says. “You’re family.”
Twelve years separate Queenie and Rose in age, but because of her mama’s influence, they have similar sensibilities flowing through them.
With Rose silent next to her, Queenie lets her mind wander. She has driven this route thousands of times and never tires of it. The Talmadge Bridge stretches across the Savannah River, a ribbon of concrete reaching toward the horizon. The water fans out in every direction and the late afternoon sun glistens across the grassy marsh.
Crossing this bridge suspends time for Queenie, as if the bridge itself is a timeline for her family. Her ancestors made this crossing, at first in boats, and her descendants will make this crossing long after she is gone. At the highest point, where the bridge arches upward, she feels weightless, a water bird soaring up and out on a heavy wind. She wishes this part could last longer. But then the bridge delivers her to the land on the other side, as waterways skirt off in different directions.
Her mama never learned how to drive a car. Her entire working career, Old Sally caught rides into Savannah with different maids and housekeepers who worked the same hours. A wide assortment of family and friends are available to call upon whenever she needs a ride. But for Queenie, learning how to drive a car was a statement of independence.
Daughters need their differences, even if their mamas are wonderful, she tells herself.
As they near the ocean, Rose sits straighter. “So many memor
ies,” she says. “You used to drive us out here all the time.”
“Mama loved bringing you and Violet to the beach,” Queenie says. “I think it gave us all a break from your mother.”
“Do you remember how we used to sing while we crossed this bridge?” Rose asks. Her eyes sparkle with recollection.
Queenie hums the melody of Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore. Her alto voice resonates, tickling her cheeks. Her hum becomes words and to Queenie’s surprise, Rose joins in on the chorus. After they finish, Rose smiles.
“That was wonderful,” Rose says. “I forgot how well you sing.”
“Violet is the real singer in the family,” Queenie says. “A few years back, the preservation society in Beaufort did a recording of her singing some of the old Gullah songs Mama had taught her.”
“I never knew that,” Rose says, her tone thoughtful.
For several seconds they ride in silence, until Queenie breaks the quiet. “I have a confession to make.”
Rose turns to look at her. “You know I love confessions,” she says.
“Well, sometimes I do more than sing when I cross this bridge,” Queenie says.
“Like what?” Rose asks, sounding intrigued.
“Sometimes I do a kind of primal scream,” Queenie says. “It’s a technique I read about in the Psychology Today magazine while waiting on your mother to finish a plate of yak.”
“Weren’t primal screams big in the 80s?” Rose asks.
“They’re still big for me. I do it whenever the frustration of living with your mother becomes too much,” Queenie says. Or whenever the shame and pressure of keeping secrets becomes too great, she thinks.
“I’m convinced if everybody screamed while crossing bridges, the world would be a better place,” Queenie continues. “Maybe we’d all break free of whatever holds us back. Maybe people right here in Savannah could break free of the past.”
It occurs to Queenie that maybe whoever is leaking the secrets to the newspaper is trying to break free, too, and get out from under Iris’s thumb. Once all your secrets are out in the open, nobody has power over you. She wonders if maybe it’s time for her to tell hers, too. Her lips tighten, as if they’ve already decided this isn’t a good idea.
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