by Nancy Hedin
“Maybe that wasn’t the money you were supposed to have. There’s people have things given to them, and there’s others who work for most everything. I guess we’re workers. Your momma is definitely a worker.”
“I get that, but how come Momma gets to decide stuff for everybody?”
“She doesn’t decide everything for everybody. We can’t help who we fall in love with.”
He let me sit with those words floating around the interior of the car, every bit as real as the blue-gray smoke of his cigarette.
“Please don’t tell me an animal story.”
“Nope, this is a love story. I know you heard the story before from Momma, but she tells it too short, and there’s more to it. I’ll tell it again how I saw it. I fell in love with your momma the first day I met her.
“That day, I was working a roofing job with Twitch. I ate my lunch by 9 a.m. When noon came, I was eat-the-asshole-out-of-a-skunk hungry. Twitch drove and had the idea we should eat at the truck stop. He went on and on about how they were supposed to have a good hot beef sandwich and pretty waitresses.
“I had my doubts about the hot beef sandwich,” he said. “They are only as good as the gravy that covers them, and I didn’t believe there could be better gravy than my ma’s. I had no frame of reference for pretty waitresses, but I was willing to take the risk.”
As he told it, even back then, Big Will owned the diner and ran it like a battleship. Dad and Twitch had washed their hands and faces with the garden hose outside the diner.
“I stuffed the brim of my hat into my back pocket and smoothed my hair down with my hands. My work shirt was too sweat-soaked to show the wrinkles it’d had when I put it on that morning. I rolled up the sleeves and buttoned it to the last button at my neck so that my dingy white T-shirt didn’t show. There weren’t any more improvements possible. I just hoped I looked presentable. I had no aspirations of being mistook for handsome.”
I pictured Dad and Twitch as young bucks. I imagined Big Will had inspected them thoroughly like he did the men I’d seen enter the diner. Big Will seemed to be on alert for trouble.
“I spied a table in the back. Twitch tugged my arm and pointed to two empty stools at the counter. ‘Better view! Wait until you see . . .’ Well he made reference to having been friendly with one of the waitresses the night before. Twitch winked at me and strutted up to the counter.
“He was right about the better view of course. Pies! Blueberry pies, cherry pies, apple pies, cinnamon and sugar sprinkled lattice crust across the top of fruit pies, three-inch meringue floating like clouds on lemon, banana cream and coconut cream pies, pumpkin and custard pies next to donuts, glazed and old-fashioned donuts, jelly-filled and jimmie-sprinkled donuts, long johns with maple frosting and toasted coconut, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, french fries, hash browns, bacon, sausages links and patties, burgers, roasted chicken and chicken-fried steak, steak with fried onions and mushrooms, pork chops and pork roast. I wanted to eat it all.”
My stomach growled. Dad told how yellow-uniformed girls rhythmically whooshed through the swinging door, to and from the kitchen, balancing food pyramids on thick white plates one way and grease-smeared naked plates and cups going the other way.
That was how Dad always remembered Momma—a hunger eating him and just before it got his whole brain, he’d seen her.
He blushed. “You won’t like to hear this, but I think a part of you understands. Your momma was so big, curvy, and beautiful. I thought I’d die if I didn’t meet her.”
He told me that he must have been ready to fall in love, and he fell even harder once he heard her.
“Russ Kringie must have swatted her behind. She stopped, turned, and put her tray on the edge of the counter. The silence, you could feel it, Lorraine. Even the grill lowered its hiss. She said, ‘Russ, I know you need that hand to eat, wipe your ass, and maybe even there’s some work you accomplish with it, but if you ever touch me again, I will chop that hand off with Big Will’s cleaver and throw it in Little Swan Lake for the bullheads.’ Damn, if that didn’t beat all!
“She moved like honey, slow and smooth. She wasn’t like the stick-girl waitresses. She was like the trunk of an oak tree, if it could have curves and softness besides solid strength. She grabbed her chestnut mane, held back out of her face with a binder, and tightened the ponytail, and then took up her tray again and disappeared through the door to the kitchen.
“‘I’m going to marry that gal!’ I told Twitch right then and there. ‘She knows about the bullheads in Little Swan.’ I made a plan in my head to marry her, slather her in love and attention, fatten and roll around in her arms, have babies just like her, a big house—a big kitchen with kids just like her, and tumble over them and feed them and feed her and never be hungry again. I didn’t know her name or one speck about her, but I knew that I could imagine spending my entire life with her. I couldn’t wait to tell her.
“Twitch told me, ‘Maybe you should wait to propose until you at least meet her.’ Then he waved his menu at another girl. ‘Emma Jean! Joseph here wants to meet that pretty waitress, Peggy,’ Twitch called out, and a skinny blonde-haired waitress looked up from the cash register, slammed the drawer closed so hard the shot glass of toothpicks nearly fell off the ledge into the bowl of pastel mints.” Dad turned to me. “Damn, I like those little mints.”
I wanted to punch the lovesick fool, but he just kept talking about meeting Momma.
“She said, ‘That is Peggy Larson. Leave her alone. She works hard and shows up every shift. Don’t give her any reason to change habits.’ Then Emma Jean turned tail and went back to work. I asked Twitch to help me meet her. The rest, as they say, is history.”
“How did Twitch already know Momma’s name?”
“Oh, they’d met another day. It don’t really matter. She loved me, married me.”
Dad took a big breath and relaxed with his hands behind his head, and his body slunk in the seat. The grin on his face made me want to laugh at him. He was all gooey when he talked about meeting Momma. It was just like Twitch had said. I guessed it was only fair that Dad had fallen in love the way he did. He shouldn’t have to explain it to anyone.
The bunny trail petered out and spit Dad and me back onto a paved road that skirted Will’s Diner. The parking lot was filled with the after-church crowd. I pulled into the parking lot, looped through the rows of cars, and parked.
“Nobody decides who we love,” Dad said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, and that’s the truth, Lorraine. If a man like me with no education can get a woman way out of his league, get two wonderful children, and this beautiful land, then you can do anything you want.” He looked away from me. “You love Charity?”
“Yeah.” Nobody had ever asked me how I felt. “But I don’t think she loves me anymore. She went back to this other woman she was in love with back at college. Jolene gave me this note from Charity.” I handed the note to Dad. “She’s gone, Dad. Charity is gone and the scholarship is gone.”
“I’m real sorry, Lorraine. I hope you won’t give up on any of it. You don’t know how it’ll all turn out, and sometimes despite lots of disappointment, things do work out like our heart wants.” He looked out the truck window a couple of beats before he slapped the dashboard. “I can’t explain all the things your momma does. I can tell you she hurts inside and tries to make up for things that aren’t even her fault. It all goes back to her little brother dying.
“Sometimes, she makes up by giving away blessings that belong to others. I can’t guarantee that it’ll help you forgive your momma or even hate her less, but I think it might be time for you to visit your grandma in Clearmont. Take a break from everything. I’ll do your chores and make your excuses.”
Why Dad thought going to visit my grandmother was important right then was lost on me. I had no nostalgia about being bounced on my grandparents’ knees or my hair ruffled by their wrinkled hands. Momma’s dad died before she was twenty and by her own report she h
adn’t seen her mother in fifteen years. But something about the way Dad glanced at me told me that he knew a secret. It was a secret he couldn’t outright tell me, but he wouldn’t get in the way of me finding out myself.
When Dad and I got home again, I went straight to my room. I didn’t speak to Momma, and refused to come out of my room while Momma was home. Momma didn’t entreat me with words to do anything differently, but she made fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, my favorite. And she baked both peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies. The sneak.
I was not swayed. I peed in a plastic waste basket and dumped the urine in the toilet once Momma left for work the next morning.
Before Dad disappeared to the barn, he gave me a brown paper sack with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches he’d made for me, and a chocolate bar. “Here’s a few dollars for gas.”
I wished I could call Jolene. Even more, I wished I could call Charity. Instead, before I left for Clearmont, I called Becky. I caught her in the middle of giving Little Man his breakfast.
“Becky, McGerber took back the scholarship.”
“I swear, Lorraine,” Becky said. “He looks just like those pictures of Jesus.”
“McGerber?”
“My baby’s so beautiful.”
“Yeah, Little Man is beautiful. I need for you to listen to me right now. I’m so sad and angry.” I started to cry. “Charity went back to Kelly, and Momma told Grind I was queer and McGerber—”
“Lorraine, I have to pray with my son. I have to discern God’s will for my life. You take care.” She hung up on me. I had nobody to confide in. I left for Clearmont.
Clearmont, Minnesota, looked much like Bend. There were businesses—the usual suspects: grocery stores, gas stations, hardware stores, a feed store, a café, and a bar. The grain elevator and the churches were the only buildings with any height, and the school was the biggest and newest building in the town. The nursing home was on the edge of town, just beyond the school, and sited next to a small mortuary.
Would I even recognize Grandma? I hadn’t seen her since I was little, and that was not a memory I’d held without the help of Momma and Dad telling it to me. I mostly remembered Momma’s tired refrain: “My folks couldn’t abide the decisions I made or the ones they thought I’d made. I’m dead to them and they are dead to me.”
I knew Grandma’s name. That would at least get me to the right room, and it wasn’t like I was expected to identify the woman in a lineup. Momma’s momma was Agnes Larson, and she was demented and half-deaf. The people who cared for her at Clearmont Home for the Aged called her Aggie.
My ruminations and practiced speeches were wasted. When I walked in the room, a silver-haired woman, the spitting image of Momma, looked up at me and smiled. “Why Margaret, I knew you’d come.”
I didn’t correct her.
“Hello, Momma. Sorry it took me so long to visit you again.” I hugged Grandma’s shoulders and felt her soft, dry skin against my own. Grandma smelled like lavender and liniment. When Grandma released me, I stared at her, first her face. It was Momma’s face with wrinkles, and her hands were big like Momma’s, but softer. Maybe hers stayed soft from less gardening. Her nails were clean and polished a pale pink.
“Well, tell me, how’s school?” she asked. “When will you get your nurse’s cap?”
“School? It’s good, Momma.” It felt wrong lying to her, but what was I supposed to say? Grandma, don’t you remember that you and your daughter don’t speak to each other? That seemed cruel. Plus, I had only a brief time to find out why Momma acted like a bug had crawled so far up her ass that nobody could find relief. Dad had given me a signal that I was supposed visit Grandma so I could understand something. I listened.
“You have always been a good student, Margaret. You’ll be a cinch for a four-year college.”
Grandma picked up a ball of yarn from a quilted bag next to her chair. Knitting needles impaled the yarn, and a blue-paneled afghan trailed on the floor beside the bag. Her needles clicked and scraped with practiced speed. She looked at me over her glasses. She said something about Daddy’s eggs and William. I didn’t catch it. She gazed off and then back again. “That’s not right. William’s gone now. How silly of me to forget that. How does a mother forget that?”
She hummed a mournful melody I couldn’t place.
“Momma, do you blame me that William died? I’m sorry—”
“Who are you?” she said. “You look familiar.”
Finally we were getting somewhere close to reality. I took a breath. “I’m Lorraine, Margaret’s girl.”
“Lorraine, yes, I’d know you anywhere. You look like your mother, but those cow eyes so greenish brown, those you got from your father.” She touched my cheek. So gentle. Grandma was back in the present. “That preacher’s boy was crazy for your mother,” she said. “I think in his heart he wished he’d done right by Margaret, but it was a long time ago. He was older and already had a girl in mind to marry.”
Her needles clicked like typewriter keys. Then her ball of yarn rolled off her lap, derailing her memory and the conversation again. She again reminisced about Momma and William.
“Oh they were very close—not like you and your sister, not twins, but only five years apart. Both were our miracle babies. I was nearly forty when Margaret was born and near forty-six when William came along. We thought we just couldn’t have babies, and then we had two. Michael was awfully fond of both children, but you know men, they want a son. Need help running a farm and all. He couldn’t have been happier when William was born, and he couldn’t bear to live when William died. William’s death literally broke Michael’s heart. Then he died too.” Her eyes teared up.
“How did William die?” I asked.
She took a tissue from her sleeve and put it to her mouth. “It hurts me to talk about this.”
“Was Momma to blame?”
“Oh no, child! It was an accident. It could have happened no matter who was watching him. Farming accidents happened all the time.”
“What happened?”
She stuffed the tissue back up her sleeve and returned to her knitting. Like the needles, her mind slipped and darted back and forth in time.
“It was July,” she began. “William had turned twelve the week prior, and he was feeling his oats, asking for more responsibility on the farm and some money to go with that. He was always moving. I suppose all boys are like that.” She nodded to me and smiled at the memory. “He was up at dawn most days, working on something one minute, playing with the animals and his few toys the next minute. I remember the exact look of the day, bright, hot, a cloudless sky. Michael and I went to town to sell the eggs and butter, and buy the few groceries we could afford and didn’t already grow ourselves.”
“How old was my momma then?”
“She was seventeen then. Michael told her to keep an eye on William while we were gone. Well, that was no small task even if she didn’t have her other chores to do. She did most all of the cooking then, and that day she was also hanging the wash.”
“Momma did farm chores?” I wished I could have seen it all: Momma young. Momma doing farm chores. Momma taking orders from anybody.
“Why sure. You couldn’t run a farm in those days without everybody pitching in on everything.” She looked at me like I should know more about it, but went on with her story. “Margaret told me how she’d called to William and he’d answer back. Margaret fed the animals, probably weeded and picked the beans and other vegetables as well. There was a lot to do on that farm, and Margaret knew how to do it all. She was always a competent child. Anyway, she called to William and he answered back.” She paused and rocked herself before she continued. She eyed the ceiling like the script might be written there or a home movie playing near the corner of the wall.
“But after she refilled the wood box by the cook stove, she called to him and he didn’t answer right away. Instead the little devil jumped out at her from behind the wood pile. He asked her to
play hide-and-seek with him. She told him she didn’t have time for that foolishness and why didn’t he help do some chores. But William ran off.”
I easily pictured Momma’s impatience at the boy’s games.
“Margaret got some things from the cellar to make dinner—probably some potatoes if there were any left from the year prior, or some rice and a jar of canned meat. She called to William and again he didn’t answer. She thought he was waiting to jump out at her again, so she went on with her work. Later, she called again, and he still didn’t answer. I don’t think she would have thought to be worried. She sure didn’t expect what she found. Sometime during that time, the preacher boy came over—”
“So Momma was being courted by a son of a preacher?” I smiled at the irony that maybe Momma’s first love had a preacher for a daddy just like Charity.
“Yes. He was always visiting Margaret. Michael said he sniffed around like a polecat. It was Allister who noticed the upper door on the grain bin was open.”
“What—” I saw Grandma’s lips moving, but my brain froze at the mention of the name Allister. “Grandma, who did you say—”
“Michael blamed Margaret, and she knew it. Michael told her it wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t been whoring with Allister.”
There it was again. How many Allisters could there be in the world? What if it was Allister Grind, Charity’s dad?
“I didn’t believe that was true,” she said. “But there was no changing Michael’s mind. And then she ran away, got a job at that diner, and word got back that she was pregnant. Michael was even more convinced that Margaret was to blame.”
“Allister who?”
“What was his last name? Something.” She was slipping again. “I don’t recall.”
“Do you mean Allister Grind was sweet on Momma? Is he my—”
It was too late. Grandma’s mind drifted away again. She mumbled something about a nest egg she’d hidden in the corner of the barn, and her plan to draw a map to it so Margaret would finally go to school. Then, she recited poems or song lyrics that weren’t familiar to me. She looked tired—probably from all the time travel. I kissed Grandma’s cheek, left the nursing home, and began my drive back to Bend. I had aged a decade in those few hours.
