A Trail of Crumbs

by Finkbeiner, Susie;

  She said it made her cry for how much it reminded her of her father. We hadn’t kept it out when we still lived in Red River. Mama’d left it wrapped up and in her closet so the dust wouldn’t get in and destroy it. On the day we’d moved into the house on Magnolia Street, that old music box was one of the first things she unpacked.

  After Aunt Carrie left that afternoon, I found Mama at the little table with the telephone receiver to her ear. She’d lifted the lid on the music box, running her fingertips over the velvety lining.

  “We’d like to have you over for supper tonight,” she said.

  She smiled at whatever the person on the other end of the call said. Lowering the lid of the box, she rested her hand on the simple wood.

  “Yes, I’m sure. All you need to bring is your appetite.” Again, she smiled, closing her eyes. “All right. If you really want to. That’s fine. We’ll see you then.”

  When she hung up the telephone, she turned her back toward me and sighed. But it wasn’t a sigh of being tired or sad. It was an altogether different kind of sigh.

  “Who’s coming to supper, Mama?” I asked.

  “Mr. Campbell,” she told me.

  “Does Daddy know?”

  She shot me a look that was all sharp and not even a hint of soft and she walked past me to her bedroom, shutting the door hard.

  If I’d had my way, Abe Campbell wouldn’t have come to supper that night or any other. Whenever he was around, Mama smiled and glowed and laughed. She was very nearly her old self again.

  Still, I didn’t like that it was somebody other than Daddy who brought that out in her.

  It seemed my heart was about to break all to little bits.

  If Daddy was upset about Abe Campbell sharing a meal with us, he didn’t let on. He made nice, asking Abe about how the paper was going and if he had met the new schoolteacher yet.

  “I haven’t,” Abe answered, spreading soft butter on his bread.

  “Folks around town have been talking,” Daddy said. “She’s real pretty, you know.”

  Mama wiped at the corner of her mouth with a napkin, glaring at Daddy just long enough that I saw her do it.

  “Abe brought dessert,” she said, changing the course of conversation. “Isn’t that nice, Thomas?”

  Daddy’s eyes narrowed. Mama only used his Christian name when she was upset with him about something or other.

  “It is nice, sugar,” he said back. “Real nice.”

  “Strawberry shortcake,” Mr. Campbell said as if he didn’t notice any kind of tense feelings floating between Mama and Daddy.

  “I’m sure it’s mighty good, Abe.” Daddy nodded at him.

  “It’s in the kitchen.” Mama got up from her seat so fast I was sure she’d knock her chair over into the wall. Daddy steadied it with his hand.

  “Let me help,” Mr. Campbell said, taking the napkin off his knee and putting it beside his plate before getting out of his seat. “It’s no bother.”

  “Well, all right.” Mama smiled at him and led him into the kitchen. The two of them chatted and laughed while they were putting together the biscuits and strawberries and cream. Daddy turned his head toward the kitchen, tipping back in his chair so he could see them.

  He watched the two of them in the kitchen until they came out with plates stacked high with shortcake and strawberries that looked so beautiful I thought they’d make the menu at any fancy restaurant.

  Mama smiled the rest of supper.

  Daddy barely touched his dessert.

  After Abe Campbell left nobody said hardly a single word. Mama had me help her clean up. I stacked the plates too high, trying to only take one trip from the table to the sink. I didn’t drop one of them, but I got awful close. Mama gave me a hard look and told me to be more careful.

  “I don’t need you breaking my good dishes,” she said. “Do you have money to buy new?”

  “No, ma’am,” I answered.

  “Then be more careful.”

  I did my very best even as my hands shook, she’d made me so nervous. Boy, was I ever glad when we got everything put away. I didn’t need Mama hollering at me any more than she had to.

  I sat beside Ray on the floor right in front of the radio, both of us watching it and imaging pictures to go along with whatever was going on in the program at the moment. Daddy sat on the davenport, smoking a cigarette, and Mama occupied the chair clear to the other side of the room from him where she kept herself busy filing her nails.

  The warbled duet on the radio between a man and woman ended, the tinny-sounding instruments letting out one last dah-dah, and folks clapped their hands. I thought it might be fun one day to sit in the audience of a radio show. I wondered if any of the singers looked the way I imagined them in my head.

  When I asked Mama about it, she said they were just regular people like us.

  As pretty as Mama sang, I thought they might just steal her away from us if they ever did hear her voice. She could sing pretty as any of those women on the radio, maybe even a good deal better.

  “Ray,” Daddy said, leaning forward. “Turn that up, would ya, son?” Ray leaned forward, turning a knob.

  A man’s voice garbled out of the speaker and I only picked out a word or two here and there.

  “Regret” and “day of sadness.”

  “Uncharted territory” and “flight.” Then “a day our nation will not soon forget” and “incredible loss.”

  Daddy sank back into the cushions of the davenport and snuffed his cigarette out into an ashtray. Shaking his head, he let out a sigh.

  “All were lost in the crash,” the man on the radio said. “The pilot Eddie Rickenbacker, the aviator Wiley Post, and beloved humorist Will Rogers.”

  Ray’s shoulders slumped.

  “It’s just a radio play,” I said, hoping I was right. “It’s not real. It isn’t, is it?”

  “I do believe it is, darlin’,” Daddy answered, getting up out of his seat and switching the radio off. “What a day.”

  The house turned quiet and we all shared in it together.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Aunt Carrie sat on the top step of her front porch, working her fingers through my hair to give me what she’d called a “German braid.” From what I could tell, it snaked all the way around my head like a crown or halo. It didn’t matter much to me what it looked like. All I cared was that my hair was off my neck. I liked the way the breeze cooled my skin when my hair was pulled up.

  She was gentle with my hair, Aunt Carrie was, never pulling harder than she had to when running a brush through or doing the over-under-over-under work of braiding.

  “My hair was nice and smooth like this when I was young,” she told me, pinning the last bits of hair so it would stay in place. “Mine wasn’t this pretty shade of blond.”

  “I like your brown hair,” I told her. “I always wanted my hair to be dark.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “So I’d look more like Mama.”

  Aunt Carrie put her hands on both my shoulders and gave them a kind squeeze.

  “She’s not my real mama,” I told her, glancing at her over my shoulder. “Did you know that?”

  “I did,” Aunt Carrie answered. “Does it bother you that I know?”

  “Not really.”

  “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

  “All right.”

  She told me I should come inside and look at my hair in the mirror in the room she shared with Uncle Gus. I did and thought she’d done a real nice job and I made sure to tell her so.

  “Most girls wear their hair quite short these days,” she said.

  “Mama likes my hair long.” I shrugged. “She’d be sore if I got it cut.”

  “Well, I think it’s pretty.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  She touched my cheek and I thought what a good mama she would have made. But she never had any kids and it made me wonder why not. When I’d asked Mama, she�
��d just told me it was none of my business and barred me from asking Aunt Carrie.

  But Mama was back at the house on Magnolia Street doing who knew what. I didn’t figure she’d ever find out what Aunt Carrie and I talked about.

  “Why didn’t you ever have any children?” I asked, letting my words come out slowly and in a quiet voice. “Didn’t you want any?”

  “Oh, I did. I wanted ten. Twelve, even. Enough to fill this big old house.” She reached out and pushed a stray strand of my hair into one of the hairpins. “It just never happened. I couldn’t even have one. Sometimes that’s just the way of things.”

  “Does it make you sad?”

  “Every once in a while,” she said. “It was harder at first, when we still thought it might happen. Now I know that I’m barren.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I’m not able to have babies,” she answered. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”

  I thought I understood enough then. Aunt Carrie suffered from what Meemaw would have called a dried-up womb. According to Meemaw, that was the condition old Sarah from the Bible’d had and why she didn’t give Abraham a son right away.

  “Then, the Lord God done give her a boy even in her old age,” Meemaw had said. “Praise Him!”

  “Meemaw,” I’d asked that day. “Do you think you might have a baby, then?”

  “Oh, Lord no.” She’d shook her head and cackled with her mouth open wide. Then she’d lifted both her hands toward heaven and looked up at the ceiling. “Please, God, no.”

  I’d laughed right along with her. I didn’t understand what was so funny, but it sure had been nice to hear her laugh like she did.

  “Aunt Carrie, do you ever think God might see fit to do a miracle on you?” I asked.

  “To give me a child?” she asked back. “Oh, I don’t know. I suppose if He wanted to, He could find a way.”

  “But miracles don’t happen anymore, do they?”

  “Well, I don’t know about that.” She joined her hands together in front of her, fingers laced together. “Do you think they do?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered.

  “Come with me,” she said.

  I followed her out of the bedroom and through the kitchen where Aunt Carrie handed me a basket. She took one too. Then, out to the garden we went to gather the ripest and freshest tomatoes I’d ever seen. We pulled full-formed carrots from the dark soil and cut zucchini at the stem.

  It wasn’t a half hour later and both our baskets were full to overflowing of good food. I had to tuck a couple cucumbers under my arm since they wouldn’t fit in the basket.

  “Looks like I’ll have a good canning year,” Aunt Carrie said. “Gus will get sick of all the stewed tomatoes halfway through winter.”

  She loaded a wagon full of gifts from her garden. Once Ray came in from working the fields with Uncle Gus she told us we should go ahead and take that wagon with us back home to Mama.

  “She’ll like all this, don’t you think?” Aunt Carrie asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I answered.

  She put both her hands on her hips and let out a contented sigh. I did the same, hoping the more I echoed her the better chance I had of growing up to be like her.

  I imagined, for the smallest of moments, how it might be if Aunt Carrie was my mama. Then I lowered my hands off my hips and did my best to put the idea right out of my mind. It would’ve broke Mama’s heart to know I entertained such a thought.

  “It’s been such a treat to have you with me today,” she said. “I hope you feel at home here.”

  I nodded, wanting so bad to tell her how it was the homiest place in all of Bliss but not knowing how to get the words out right.

  As Ray and I walked away, trying to keep the wagon steady on the rutted dirt road, I was quiet, thinking about what she’d said.

  The whole way back home I asked God if He wouldn’t think on making Mama be her normal self by the time we got back to the house on Magnolia Street. I sure did miss the Red River Mama.

  Seemed to me the God who hung the stars and spread the waters over the earth could do something so small as that.

  Ray and I got the wagon pulled around to the back porch and carried in all that we’d brought home from the farm. Mama did put me right to work setting the table for supper, but not before I washed my hands real good. And she did send Ray to scrub in a bath.

  “I do believe you found all the dirt on that farm,” she said to him.

  I thought sure my prayer had worked. She wore a real nice smile on her face when she said that.

  Ray got himself to the tub and I heard the water running and then a sloshing sound when he got in. I imagined he’d gotten half the bathroom floor good and wet in the process. The way Ray splished and splashed made me think he’d grown to enjoy a good soak in the tub.

  Mama came to the dining room to check on me. She rested her hands on the back of one of the chairs and told me I was doing a fine job. That made me stand up a little taller.

  “Oh, just three plates, though,” she said. “Your father’s working all night, I guess.”

  She gathered the extra plate and napkin and silver, taking them back into the kitchen, humming the whole time.

  Something in my heart felt dry and barren.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  On nights when Daddy worked, I couldn’t sleep so well. When I closed my eyes I’d think of all the worst things that could come to be. A thief could come in to steal from us, hurting Mama or taking her away. If I let myself sleep, I might not hear her cry out for help. I might not be able to save her.

  Something could catch on fire—a washrag in the kitchen or a forgotten coal on the fire—and we might sleep right through until it was too late to get out. If I stayed awake, I’d smell the smoke. I could get everyone out of the house.

  Daddy could get hurt while he was away from us. He could get caught in the line of a bullet from the gun of a thief or be driving down a dark country road when his truck would flip, making him stuck inside. My being awake could do nothing to save him, but my prayer said over and over might.

  “Dear God, please protect my daddy,” I’d mouth. “Keep him safe because we need him so bad. Don’t let anything happen to him. In Jesus’s sweet, sweet name, amen.”

  Soon as I’d finished praying that, I’d go around and say it again for good measure. Just in case.

  I’d read in the Bible that we weren’t to babble on and on in our prayers like the pagans did. So I only let myself say that prayer for Daddy four times, asking God if He would forgive me for asking more than once.

  Somehow I thought He didn’t mind too much.

  I watched out my window hoping maybe I’d spy a fat raccoon wobbling his way across the yard or a skunk rooting around in Mama’s flower bed. Those critters didn’t bother me at all, just so long as the raccoon didn’t overturn the trash or the skunk didn’t let out any stink. What I didn’t like seeing, though, were possums. They made my skin crawl.

  The only creature I saw wandering about that night was tall and walking on two legs. I knew from the lanky shadow he cast that it was Abe Campbell. It was in the way he swung his arms, lazy, at his sides. How his shoulders were broad and square. The way he reached up to run his fingers through the front of his hair. It was him all right.

  I would have preferred a possum just then, rat tail and all.

  What was Abe Campbell doing in our back yard in the middle of the night? I didn’t know the answer to that and I didn’t care. I just wished he would turn right around and go back to whatever hole he had come up out of.

  But he did not. He stepped right up to the back porch and held his fist up a moment before letting it rap-tap-tap on the door.

  Sitting up in bed, I waited, wondering if Mama’d even heard the knocking. And if she had, would she answer it? I hoped she’d send him away, reminding him of the time of night and letting him know that Daddy wasn’t to home.

  The door did open, and throu
gh my screened window I heard Mama tell him to come in.

  He did.

  I held my breath and counted to a hundred, sure he’d leave by then. He didn’t. I counted to a hundred again and again. Still, Mr. Campbell hadn’t left. Getting out of bed, I got on my knees and lowered my ear to the vent. I heard their voices as a mumbled, jumbled murmur of sound.

  If I wanted to know what they were saying, I had to get closer.

  I left my room and snuck down the steps. They hadn’t turned on so much as one light.

  “Evildoers do hate the light, you know,” Meemaw’d told me long before. “They do their evil deeds in the dark so as not to get themselfs caught.”

  Once I was at the bottom of the steps, I peeked around the wall, trying with all my might not to make so much as a single sound.

  Mama and Mr. Campbell stood on the other side of the dining-room table, closer to each other than I thought was proper. They were so close they almost touched. I was sure they could feel each other’s breath. Mama had to tip her chin up so she could look him full in the face.

  Both of them kept their hands to their sides.

  They spoke in soft voices like they meant to keep their words a secret held between the two of them. But if I listened real close, I could just make out what they were saying.

  “You shouldn’t come here,” Mama whispered to him. “I thought we agreed.”

  “I know.” He shook his head. “But I figured …”

  “People still find things out even in the middle of the night,” Mama said. “You can’t come like this again. Somebody could’ve seen you.”

  “We aren’t doing anything wrong.”

  “Abe”—Mama’s voice was full of scolding—“this needs to stop. I’m a married woman.”

  “I haven’t been so happy in a long time, Mary.”

  She crossed her arms and turned her face from him.

  “You’re happy, too,” he said. “When I’m around at least. I know it.”