The Cotton Queen

by Pamela Morsi

  I nodded. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” I told her. “I’ve decided that I need to go to work.”

  “Praise the Almighty!” she exclaimed. “Babs, I was beginning to worry that you were going to sit in the house until you became a piece of furniture.”

  “Why didn’t you say something to me?”

  “It wasn’t my place to say,” she answered.

  “I’m hoping that you’ll give me a job,” I told her.

  She shook her head. “Not a chance,” she said. “You don’t need to be working for me. People who work for me do it because they need money. Seems to me you’re set up well enough that money’s not your chief concern. You need to be out there doing something that brings you satisfaction.”

  “If only I knew what that was,” I said.

  “Surely you’ve done something that you really liked,” she said. “I know you’ve done something that really captured all your thoughts and made you feel helpful, useful. Maybe decorating or some such.”

  I shook my head.

  “Maybe you could open a little dress shop, you’ve always loved clothes.”

  “No, I don’t think I’d want to do that,” I said.

  “Well, there’s always running the Cotton Days celebration,” Aunt Maxine said. “You can volunteer to do that again.”

  “You know what I really liked,” I said. “I really liked Acee’s political campaign.”

  Aunt Maxine rocked thoughtfully in the swing as she nodded. “They’re always needing people for that kind of thing,” she said. “Warm bodies, they call them. With a big election coming up, they’ll be needing plenty.”

  Aunt Maxine was exactly right. On the way home, I detoured over to McDonald Street to the former gas station on the corner that now bore a huge sign that read Collin County Republican Headquarters. I parked the Buick and walked inside.

  There was only one guy in the building, a stranger. There were so many strangers in McKinney these days. The growth of the subdivisions on the edge of town meant lots of new faces. I figured that not knowing the man was both good and bad. Good, because he’d not think of me as Acee Clifton’s ex-wife. Bad, because he’d have no idea of the level of my competency at community organization.

  “Good morning,” he said. “Can I help you?”

  “Actually I’ve come in to see if I can help you,” I said. “I have some interest and experience in political campaigns and I thought that perhaps you were looking for volunteers.”

  He smiled broadly, revealing the perfect, gleaming white teeth that are only available with caps.

  “So you’re a supporter of Ronald Reagan.”

  “Ronald Reagan?”

  “That’s who we’re supporting for president,” he said.

  “Ronald Reagan, the actor?” I asked.

  The man’s smile disappeared. “Ronald Reagan, the governor of California,” he replied rather sharply.

  “Oh sorry, I guess I’m confused,” I apologized profusely. “I haven’t really been keeping up with the newspapers. And I’m a Texan, so I’m not familiar with who’s governor in other states. The only Ronald Reagan I ever heard of was that actor on Death Valley Days. Remember him? The guy who sold the Twenty Mule Team Borax, he had that same name.”

  The man’s face was beet-red, obviously furious. “Governor Reagan used to be an actor, but now he’s a governor.”

  “Oh, it is the same man, oh I’m.... I didn’t know, I...”

  The interview, such as it was, went downhill from there. I knew so little about the election, who was running, what the issues might be. My ignorance appalled even me. The last straw was when he asked if I was a registered Republican. I had no idea and had to check my voter registration card.

  I left the place feeling stupid, embarrassed and humiliated. I peeled out of the parking lot, directly in front of an oncoming car. I screamed, as I realized he was going to hit me. The sound of screeching brakes was near deafening and he swerved off the road, managing only to give my car one startling jolt.

  I sat there behind the wheel, trying to catch my breath.

  The door jerked open.

  “Babs, good God, are you all right?” a familiar voice said beside me.

  “Acee?”

  I looked over to see my ex-husband squatting down beside my car. Without any thought, agenda or motive I wrapped my arms around him, grateful for the warmth I knew was there. He hugged me back. It felt wonderful for one long, pleasurable moment and then he pulled away.

  “Are you all right?” he repeated.

  I nodded, remembering that he was not my husband anymore. “I guess, you just scared the bejeezus out of me,” I said.

  “Here, let’s get your car off the road,” he said, helping me to my feet. It was only then that I realized how traffic had begun to back up around our near accident. “Stand on the sidewalk,” he said.

  He moved my car off the street. His own was parked far out of the way on the middle of somebody’s lawn. A young motorcycle cop showed up. Acee knew him. I didn’t. We both told our stories. He appeared pretty bored with them until he realized that we were former spouses. Then he was determined to make sure that neither of us had targeted the other.

  Ultimately, I was given a ticket. There was some damage to both vehicles, but when Acee told the policeman that he was the one who paid insurance on both cars, the man went on his way. Acee and I lingered.

  “You’re looking good,” he told me.

  “Thanks. I got a new do,” I admitted. “I went down to see Laney and her boyfriend last weekend and I wanted to look my best.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, she called me after you left,” he said. “She told me that you’d gotten sick and she was worried about you. I said I’d check on you this week. But I hadn’t intend to bump into you quite this way.”

  We both laughed.

  “Why aren’t you at the office?” I asked him.

  He looked at me strangely for a moment before he replied. “It’s Marley’s birthday,” he said. “I was going out to the cemetery to put flowers on his grave.”

  “Oh! Really?”

  “I do it every year,” he said. “You knew that.”

  “No,” I told him. “I had no idea.”

  “I used to ask you to go with me,” he said. “You never wanted to, so I quit asking.”

  I thought about that for a long moment, nodding.

  “You know, I haven’t been out there since the day we buried him,” I admitted. “I doubt if I could even find his grave if I wanted to.”

  His brow furrowed and his expression was incredulous. “He’s buried next to Tom,” he said. “Don’t you remember, you insisted that he be buried next to Tom.”

  “No, I didn’t remember that.”

  “You haven’t been out to visit Tom’s grave, either,” he said.

  “No, no I guess I haven’t,” I said.

  He reached down and clasped my hand. “Come with me,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Come with me to the cemetery. Please,” he added.

  I really had no interest in going, but I couldn’t think of a good reason to refuse. I got into Acee’s car. A fragrant bouquet of lilacs and baby’s breath lay on the backseat. The meaning of it disturbed me so much that I found myself talking nonstop.

  I told him about my encounter in the Republican headquarters. He hooted with laughter.

  “Most people who want to help with elections know who’s running,” he pointed out.

  “I just enjoyed your campaign so much,” I said. “So much of it is organizing events and getting people and places set up. I really thought I could do that. You’re not thinking of running for office again, are you?”

  “No,” he assured me. “Dorrie’s great, but she wouldn’t make a good politician’s wife, she’s way too honest. Maybe you should find a cause to support. They have campaigns that are just as intense and political as any election.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I told him.<
br />
  The conversation drifted to Laney and Robert.

  “She’s got to find her own way,” Acee said. “I don’t know if this guy is right for her or wrong for her. But until they both know, maybe it is best if they don’t get married.”

  “Acee, think what people must be thinking, what they must be saying,” I said.

  He glanced over at me and chuckled. “You and I, probably one of the most well-known divorced couples in McKinney, just drove through downtown together in the same car. Can you even imagine what people are thinking or saying about that?”

  He had a point. If anyone had seen us, the gossips’ tongues would be wagging nonstop.

  “But we know we’re just driving together to the cemetery,” I pointed out. “It’s all innocent. With Laney, well, I didn’t ask for specifics, but I’m fairly certain that she and Robert are not sharing a bed because of a shortage of sheets.”

  Acee shrugged. “I slept with Dorrie before I married her,” he said.

  “I don’t want to know that.”

  “I didn’t sleep with her while I was still married to you,” he said. “You probably do want to know that. But is it so terrible to have sex before you’re married?”

  “Yes, the whole thing about marriage is that married people have sex,” I told him.

  “I don’t think it’s the whole thing about marriage,” he said. “I mean if sex was everything, I’d never have stayed with you twelve years. Our sex life was simply terrible.”

  I was so shocked at his statement, I gasped.

  “I hope you’re not going to pretend that’s not true,” he said. “You hated my touch. I’ve heard lots of jokes about women who fake orgasm, but you’re the only woman I’ve ever known or heard of that had to fake affection.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to deny it. But I didn’t bother.

  “Sorry,” I said, simply.

  “Me, too,” he said.

  The cemetery was huge, much larger than I’d remembered with webs of new roads and whole new sections of graves. Acee drove to a part more familiar. The giant trees hung over the lawns with stark shadows in the heat of midday. Acee pulled up to the curb.

  “Come on, let’s say happy birthday to the little guy,” he said, grabbing the flowers from the back.

  It felt strange, otherworldly, as I followed Acee. The little grave was exactly where I had left it. The tiny lamb carved into the stone was just as I had remembered. Marley Barstow Clifton it read, July 18–October 30, 1964.

  “Babs, are you okay,” Acee said beside me.

  The sight of the stone blurred as tears filled my eyes.

  “My baby!” I choked out and dropped to my knees at his tiny grave.

  I remembered everything about him, his little hands and his little toes, the tiny mewling cries and the dark eyes that never once focused on my face. He had been so small, so helpless, so dependent upon me. I’d failed him.

  For the second time that day, Acee wrapped his arms around me. He knelt at my side, holding me, lovingly, tenderly.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Let it out, it’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” I told him. “I killed him. I killed this precious child.”

  “You did not kill him, Babs,” Acee said.

  “I did,” I insisted. “From the moment I knew he was inside me, I wanted him dead. I was so afraid that someone would find out where he came from. Someone would suspect that he was conceived out of wedlock. Someone would think that I’d had sex without marriage. What a stupid crazy deceit. Here we are twenty years later and people brag about doing it. I was so ashamed. I was so dirty. I didn’t want him to live. I didn’t eat, I bound myself up. I pretended that I wasn’t pregnant with him. Because I hated him. I hated him until the day he was born.”

  “Babs, oh Babs,” Acee said. “He had a heart defect. That didn’t happen because of anything that you did. It was hereditary. It was there already and nothing you did or did not do would have made any difference.”

  “But I could have loved him,” I said. “If I’d been a decent person, if I hadn’t been so frightened I could have loved him. He was not someone else, not anyone’s son. He was just himself, our little Marley and all those months he was in my body I didn’t know that. I thought...I thought he was...I thought he was someone else.”

  Acee held me in my sorrow. After a few minutes, I got ahold of myself. He gave me his handkerchief and I blew my nose.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “You did love him,” he said. “You think you held back, but I was there, Babs. I saw you hold him, feed him, caress him. I knew that you loved him. And he did, too.”

  “He was too little to know anything.”

  “Even a newborn feels a mother’s love,” he said.

  I didn’t answer. There was nothing to say.

  He shook his head. “You never cried for him, you know,” he said. “I always wondered why you never cried for him.”

  “Guilt,” I answered. “I felt such guilt about him that I just couldn’t cry.”

  “I guess you’ve finally punished yourself enough,” he said.

  We sat there together on the grass for a few more minutes. He nodded toward the nearby gravestone. “That’s Tom,” he said. “Would you like me to leave you alone for a few moments to be with him?”

  I glanced over and then shook my head. “No, that’s okay,” I told him. “I have no guilt about Tom. I loved Tom.”

  “I was always jealous of him,” Acee said. “He got the girl that I wanted.”

  I nodded. “The runner-up for Cotton Queen,” I said.

  He shook his head. “That lively, laughing, daring, optimistic young woman whose effervescence could hardly be contained in the staid traditions of the Cotton Queen coronation. That’s who I fell in love with.”

  I shook my head. “I hardly even remember that young girl,” I told him. “I’m not sure that was me.”

  “It was, Babs,” he said. “I know it was.” He sighed, heavily. “I guess some people are just meant for one person. Tom was your soul mate. He brought out all the luster in you. And when he died, you just could never give your heart to anyone again.”

  His words caught me off guard somehow. I lost the drift of the conversation for a moment, unsure who he was talking about. I sat in silence, soaking it in.

  “Is that what you think?” I asked finally, incredulously.

  “What?”

  “Is that what you think was changed in me,” I said. “That Tom died and I was nothing without him.”

  “I didn’t mean it quite that way,” Acee said.

  “I loved Tom,” I said. “He was a good husband. But his existence didn’t make me more than I was. Losing him was a tragedy, but I was still capable of loving, caring, living. I know that I’m just an empty shell now. That for all I did to make your home happy and your career successful, I was never really much of a wife, but I can’t have you blame Tom for that.”

  “I wasn’t blaming Tom,” Acee said, hurriedly. “I know there was that incident, when...when you were forced.”

  “I was raped, Acee,” I told him. “I told you that I was forced. But the word ‘force’ doesn’t describe it. It was rape. One night in my own house on my own kitchen table with my baby girl asleep in the other room. A man who I thought was a friend forced his body into mine against my will. That’s it. That’s my story. That’s why I could never love you. That awful sex therapist was right about that. I can’t bear to be touched.”

  “I’m so sorry, Babs,” he responded.

  “I can’t believe that I just told you that,” I said. “All these years, I have never said it aloud.”

  “You never talked to anyone about it?”

  I shook my head. “Not anyone,” I repeated. “Not Aunt Maxine. Not the doctor. Not even the psychologists or Brother Chet. No one.”

  “And not me,” Acee said.

  “No, not you, either,” I agreed. “I couldn’t say it aloud. I tried never to think
about it. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I can’t imagine how I ever voiced it. Now that it’s out, I don’t know how I ever kept my silence.”

  “I wish you would have trusted me with it, Babs,” he said, quietly. “Maybe if I’d known we might have had a chance.”

  “I think he ruined any chance I might have ever had,” I told him.

  “Would you still have married me if that had never happened?” he asked.

  It was a strange question to ponder.

  “Yes, I think so,” I answered.

  “The truth is, we’ll never know,” he said.

  “No, I guess we won’t.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened to you, Babs,” Acee said. “I hate that such violence and cruelty ever touched your life. But I’ll never regret the time we had together.”

  LANEY

  MY GRADUATION was strangely anticlimactic. With all our friends out working in the world, I felt slightly out of step and left behind. I would have been fine just to ignore the day completely. It wasn’t mandatory that I attend commencement and my degree would come in the mail. Robert and I could privately open a bottle of champagne to toast my success.

  That was, of course, not at all how it was going to be. My mother drove down to Houston, this time bringing along party plans. The entire family would be coming to share the event. Aunt Maxine, Renny, Pete and the twins, along with their spouses and children, even Acee and Dorrie and their boys. Babs spoke with Robert about our friends and before I realized what was happening virtually everyone that we knew was on the guest list. And almost all of them planned to attend. The big holdouts, and this was, of course, significant, were Robert’s parents. Mr. and Mrs. Jerrod had yet to acknowledge me in any way as Robert’s partner. I was simply his girlfriend. No, it was worse than that, I was his live-in girlfriend who they were hoping he would dump for some nice, old-fashioned virgin.

  I was hurt at their refusal to come, but I put on a big smile and pretended it was fine. Of course, this was exactly what Babs had warned me about. That even if I thought living together was perfectly okay, there would be plenty of people who wouldn’t be so laissez-faire, who would judge me harshly and I would have no recourse but to put up with it.