I don’t know how long I stood there screaming at the metal gurney, my hands clamped tight to my ears, trying to drown out my own frightening voice and the visions in my head.
Daddy rushed over to me. I reached for one of the pink ribbons fastened around her swollen ankle. Ribbons. How? She never has ribbons in the house. I jabbed a finger toward Tommy. “He always made her use ugly rubber bands, cheap bastard.”
“Muddy, c’mon, let me take you home,” Daddy said in a commanding whisper. I gripped the ribbon harder. “You need to get some rest, let the police do their job now. Let’s go, baby. C’mon.”
One of Doc Lawrence’s helpers clamped his hand over my wrist and twisted, forcing me to release the ribbon. It felt like he was taking another piece of Mama along with it. I shot out my hand, reaching for everything I’d lost. An official took hold of my arm and whipped it behind my back.
“Let go of me. I said, let go!” I lifted my heel and back-kicked hard, breaking the man’s grip, then took off toward Jingles’s cruiser.
I pulled on the door latch.
Jammed.
Tommy’s dilated eyes popped, his sweaty face reddening even more. Fresh spittle coated the glaze of dried beer on his whiskers. He rocked himself away from the door. “You . . .” I banged my fist on the roof. “You took away everything.”
A state trooper locked his arms around my waist, lifting me away from the car.
I wriggled out of his grip and dropped to my knees. Grabbing fistfuls of bluegrass, I rocked in the dirt, and howled, “MURDERER, MURDERER.”
Daddy knelt down behind me and wrapped my sorrow in his embrace.
Weak, I lowered my head to the ground, letting my heartbreak choke the earth.
3
A Lie Riding on Another’s Truth
Before he drove us away from Mama’s house, Daddy pulled out his handkerchief and gave it to me. I clutched it and sat stone-faced. From the car window, I watched the mailman gawk before stuffing Friday’s mail into Mama’s old cast-iron mailbox hanging off the siding under her porch. I turned away as Peckinpaw’s undertaker pulled slowly out of the driveway.
The ride back to our farmhouse was silent. When we reached home, I hurried out, leaving Daddy sitting in my Ford Mustang—the birthday gift he’d surprised me with on the day that would now mark my final visit with Mama.
I stood on the porch stoop, the memory of our last time together replaying, flickering back and forth and over and over, like a grainy scene on a reel of film, projected onto a worn screen. It had been a perfect, sunny Thursday. Hard to believe it was only yesterday.
“Silver blue,” Daddy announced, holding up a car key. “And it complements your gray eyes, too, Muddy. It’s fast. And ’bout as powerful as those runner legs of yours, grown two city blocks long this year.” He raised a finger. “You be careful now, ya hear?”
I kicked up my long, awkward legs, squealed, and ran my hands over the Pony’s hood and compared the shine of my 1965 to his 1970 Mustang Boss, his “Goober-Grabber-Green” as he called it, and the one I’d been testing my driving skills in for over a year.
“I can’t believe it! It’s perfect! Can I drive it now?”
“You act like it’s your birthday or something,” he teased.
“Tomorrow . . . just hours away!” I laughed. On cue, I did a little pushing and pleading and some fine pouting until, laughingly, he agreed to let me drive. “It’s sharp, Daddy.”
“You’ll see,” he pointed out, “it’s a clutch, like mine. Not one of those automatics. That way you’ll never be stuck. And you’re more likely to keep your hands on the wheel, instead of that tube of lipstick.”
“I love it! Thank you, thank you!” I pecked him on the cheek. “I need to go get some stuff for it. For her,” I corrected. “I’m going to call her Peggy! ‘Peggy Sue . . . I love you . . .’” I sang Buddy Holly’s song.
“One of your grammy’s favorite songs.” He smiled.
“I still have the record she gave me.” I bent over the hood, arms wide in a sweeping hug. I’d waited so long for this—worked so hard. Counting last night’s shift at Ruby’s Dog ’n’ Suds and the six hours of babysitting before that, and Nettie’s Nest four hours from the week before, I’d tallied up 1,224 hours and 45 minutes of “hard” during these past three years. At last! “Wait here, it’ll only take a minute to get my things.”
Daddy chuckled. “Not going anywhere. And you deserve it, gal. I told you three years ago that if you worked after school and did summer jobs and saved, I’d match your earnings. He nodded at me, pride shining in his eyes.
I met him a few minutes later in the driveway with a large hatbox.
Daddy dangled the key in front of me. “You sure you can’t wait ’til Friday . . . ? Oh, never mind, on second thought, you’ll have me worn down to a frazzle, with not a minute’s peace.” He tossed me the keys.
Laughing, I jumped into the car. I inhaled the scent of vinyl and traced circles on the eye shadow blue and white bucket seats. After I emptied the contents of the box onto the passenger side, I tossed my compact, tissues, and a lipstick tube into the glove compartment. Then I carefully arranged some of my favorite 8-track tapes of music—Johnny Cash’s Man in Black, Neil Young’s Harvest, and The Who’s Who’s Next—inside the cartridge box on the passenger floorboard. I fastened the seat belt across my lap. Satisfied, I flung the box to the backseat.
My feet found the pedals and I pumped the brake, the clutch, and gas. I ran my thumb over the silver pony emblem in the center of the steering wheel. Taking a whiff of the interior, I noticed a faint smell of cigarette smoke. Not my style, but it fit the muscle car.
“Lasso that pony, gal,” Daddy called out.
“Okay!” I fumbled for the ignition. The key slid in. Taking a deep breath, I gripped the skinny wheel, pressed my foot heavy on the clutch, pushed the stick in neutral, and cranked. The engine caught on the first turn and purred.
“Can we pick up ThommaLyn?” I asked.
“Not until you’ve gotten the feel of the car. Plenty of time for driving your friends later.” Daddy chomped on his unlit cigar, studying. “Let’s see that shoulder-check.”
“Got it!” I stretched my neck over my right shoulder, then back over my left, and then over to my right again. “Satisfied?”
He wiggled the cigar clenched between his teeth.
I adjusted the rearview mirror. Peering into it, I inspected my light pink lipstick, ran my fingers through my hair, and tousled, hoping I would pass every senior at Peckinpaw High. Every senior boy, that is.
“Oh”—Daddy raised a finger—“ ’fore I forget, the radio has a short. It comes and goes, and it’s missing the on/off button. Mike said to bring it by next week and he’d have the mechanic fix it. Okay, hands at ten and two.”
I nodded and placed my hands over the wheel in clock position.
He slid his lanky body into his own car. Leaning his head out the window, he called out, “Wear that lap belt.”
“Buckled!”
I pushed the stick into first gear and eased up on the clutch while I pushed down on the gas pedal, all in one magnificent sequence of commands and response. Relieved, I released a burst of air and pulled out carefully ahead of him.
The radio blared out a few lines of ZZ Top’s bluesy “(Somebody Else Been) Shakin’ Your Tree,” giving my fingers an itch to snap along, then just as quickly, and for my own good, it went dead when I hit a mud hole.
I drove a few miles down country roads with a knuckle-white grip, nervous and thrilled, watching out for crossing critters and other cars, keeping Peggy straight and steady, and away from the shoulder. Doing it all with Daddy following close behind in his car.
When I made it safely back to our house, Daddy gave a thum bs-up.
I ran upstairs to use the old rotary dial phone. After waiting for what seemed like forever for the party line to be free, I called Mama.
“Mama, is Tommy around? I finally got my car! Yes, yessum . . . He
gave it to me today! I just drove it!” I laughed. “Yes, ma’am, today, Thursday! Yes, I do know tomorrow’s my birthday! Guess what I named her? I named her Peggy. She’s so pretty, Mama. When can I come over and take you and Genevieve for a ride?”
She whispered into the phone receiver, “Tommy will be down for his afternoon ‘nap’ soon. Come in about two hours, sugar. We’ll celebrate.”
I smiled, knowing that Tommy’s afternoon naps were a sure guarantee for us to have a peaceful visit. I looked forward to them.
Tommy hadn’t made his intense dislike of me a secret when he married Mama eight years before. I saw it in his eyes when I first spied them cozying up on Liar’s Bench after Mama divorced Daddy. The feeling was mutual. At first she took me to Nashville and a short spell later, Tommy was there, too. He’d grown up with a mix of relatives, straddling the borders of two home states.
I knew right off that I was in for a fight; I just didn’t know what type. Within a month, Tommy had wormed his way into her heart with his startling good looks, the promise of a better-paying job, and a sophisticated city apartment, leaving no room for me. The very next month, they’d married, and the month after that, she’d dumped me back at Daddy’s.
I’d sung Tommy’s good riddance when Mama dropped me back home from Nashville. But I was baptized with a new hurt when she’d left Daddy and me to go back to Tommy.
I thought for sure she’d stay with us and leave Tommy’s broken promises and half-baked brain behind. Especially after the eviction man came knocking at our Nashville apartment, and then when we’d walked in and found the empty place along the wall where the three-seater Chesterfield had been. I’d heard her and Tommy’s arguments with the repo man, and talk of late bills. Tommy had hit bottom, she’d said, and she didn’t like his new set of pals.
I recall how I could hardly sit still on the drive from Nashville to Peckinpaw. Mama’d kept a nervous smile glued to her lips all the way there. I’d rolled down the window and stuck my head out, lapping at the breezes, hungry for home. More than once, Mama gently pulled me back inside the car. We hit the final stretch of road with my bones bursting sweet hallelujahs. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt safe, and no Tommy around to snatch me up by my hair. When we pulled into Peckinpaw, I was so excited to be home, I barely heard Mama when she said, “A lot of kids live with their daddies.” For a second I tried to think of someone who did, but I didn’t know of anyone. She opened the car door, and said, “I won’t be able to stay, but you’ll be safe with Adam.”
“But—”
“I’ll be back before you know it. No time at all, Mudas. Lickety-split.”
I felt the color leave my face, and I had a fear creep hold and worry my insides. “Today?” I needled, trying to measure lickety-split. “Are you coming back today, Mama?” I reached out for her. She didn’t answer, just rushed me out of the car and busied herself with the wrinkles in her dress.
Back in Peckinpaw, I attached myself to Grammy Essie, who settled me carefully into her bosom, keeping me busy with homestead chores, school, and having me sign up for the track team.
Still, I sorely missed having a mama even before Tommy’d barged in and especially after. Folks looked at me peculiar, too, like I’d lost an arm or something. I guess I had. I still moped around for her. I wanted to Band-Aid our little family, and I knew if I could apply the right amount of ointment, I’d have them all back.
So when Mama moved back to Peckinpaw last year, I’d been hopeful, and excited about having a baby sister. I pushed aside my feelings about Tommy and met Mama on the front porch of her house, anxious and bursting for her to show me where my new room would be. I handed her a jar full of wildflowers that I’d carefully picked. But instead of welcoming me, she’d guided me off the porch and out to the crepe myrtle, making sure we were out of earshot from Tommy. “Sugar,” she’d said, “there’s not enough room for you and the new baby.”
“I can sleep on the couch,” I’d said. “Or, I could even make a pallet beside the baby’s crib. And I can help with chores, and I’ll babysit anytime you want.”
She’d peeked over her shoulder at Tommy. “Not enough room. You have to understand, sugar.”
I didn’t.
Tommy’s smug face showed he did. Mama had smoothed down her dress and linked her nervous hands behind her back. “You can come visit, Mudas. It’ll be just like living together. You’ll see.”
I wouldn’t.
I’d had a fine sense of abandonment. Of loss. All over again. It wasn’t fair. To have her back only to have her sealed off from me so quickly. Here she was so close. I’d stood there staring hard at Tommy, who sat on the porch all cocky—leg perched on the railing, arms crossed. His glare felt like sleet stinging my face. Big droplets weighed down my lashes, forcing me to run away before he could have the satisfaction of seeing.
But I couldn’t stay away long. What with Grammy Essie’s passing and Daddy’s job busier than ever, I’d gravitated back to Mama.
For so long, Grammy Essie had given me her uninterrupted presence that at first I tormented myself when Mama returned home, afraid to go visit her—refusing to doormat my heart for another interruption. Daddy tried to push me to see Mama, too, offering to give me rides. I ticked off exactly six calendar days waiting for her to pack up and split again. When I saw she might be around for a bit, I found myself slowly gathering up female questions about hair and makeup lessons, boys, first dates, and fading friends. And I couldn’t help but seek the answers in maternal arms.
It wasn’t no time until we took solace in the mostly sneaked visits with each other. They were our little secrets: the one thing that Tommy hadn’t stolen from me.
Yesterday, I’d sat on my porch stoop waiting for Tommy to go down for his nap so I could visit with Mama. Cursing Tommy with each and every tick of the clock, I felt the two hours inch by. Finally, Daddy opened the screen door and shooed me on my way, saying I was wearing out the porch boards.
4
And Many More . . .
I rested my head against the porch beam with a pound of regrets slowly monkey-wrenching my brain—wishing I hadn’t left Mama at Tommy’s doorstep yesterday and wishing I’d let Daddy drop me off at the homestead this afternoon instead of insisting on going to the crime scene with him.
Daddy was still in the car, his head stuck to the steering wheel with his arms cradling his head. I watched from the porch, worrying for him, wanting him to be strong. I felt panic claw at my throat. “Hey,” I finally managed to blurt out, “it’s hot out here. Coming?”
“Give me a minute,” he croaked.
I studied him sitting there in my birthday present, hugging the Mustang’s steering wheel, and was reminded of another birthday, my sixth. I’d fallen asleep on the porch swing, watching and waiting for him to come home from work to celebrate. Mama’s face had soured a bit more with each tick of the clock. My small birthday cake sat unsliced, the lard icing cementing around the six unlit purple candles. When Daddy came dragging in after midnight, his fine clothes rumpled like morning pajamas, she’d screamed at him about his “floozy.” The same floozy I’d tattled to her about a year before: the judge’s pretty daughter, the one I’d caught kissing Daddy on the lips when I’d charged into his office after school to show off my latest drawing. Daddy’d shooed me out, but the very next day I’d told Mama that “the pretty lady loved Daddy, too.” I’ll never forget the look in her eyes: a strange blend of grief, anger, and then the vindication that came after she’d poured herself a refreshment.
Maybe if I’d kept my big five-year-old mouth shut about what I’d seen, they would still be together. Maybe Mama would still be alive.
Again, I hollered from the porch, “C’mon, Daddy.” I saw a flash of something metal in his hands and I squinted and craned my neck, suddenly nervous that he was sneaking a drink in the car. It had been years since I’d hidden his flask, and I wasn’t eager to revisit the last time. Four years ago, Daddy’d bumbled a case after s
pending most of the weekend glued to a bottle. When the main witness Daddy was supposed to meet after Sunday church fled on account of Daddy was hung over and forgot to show up, I heard Daddy curse loud enough to shake the dirt off a field crow. It wasn’t that Daddy had missed a witness meeting, it was without that witness and the telltale ball cap the witness had seen the rapist wearing, Daddy had no case.
The rapist walked, and it wasn’t a week later when he found another ten-year-old over in Mallardsburg and had his way with her, leaving her broken-boned and laid up in the hospital. Word got around about Daddy missing his meeting, and folks did some sideway talking when he was out of earshot.
When Daddy went to visit the Mallardsburg girl in the hospital, he took along a big cutting of Grammy Essie’s blue hydrangeas and a fistful of field daisies. That night after he got home, I watched him bust all his whiskey bottles against the side of the barn. I took the silver flask from inside his jacket and ran and buried it under the front porch. He hadn’t tried to claim it or buy another bottle since.
“Daddy, come in and have some tea. Too hot out here to be sitting in a car.”
He straightened and I saw it was only the car keys in his hand. “Coming,” he called back. Relieved, a ragged breath whisked past my lips. The rage I’d unloaded at the crime scene had left me drained and I didn’t have the energy to fight any more battles. I grabbed the doorjamb for support and shot one final glance over my shoulder.
When I saw his foot hit the gravel drive, I slipped into the house, letting the screen door bang behind me, and made my way up the narrow stairs. I was suddenly desperate for my bed. My flip-flops smacked against hundred-year-old hardwoods as I hurried down the hall to my room and flung myself onto the mattress. Balling up Grammy Essie’s old chenille coverlet in my fist, I pressed it to my forehead and kneaded my thoughts. After a while, I turned over on my side and studied the small picture frame on the nightstand. It was a Polaroid snapshot of me, four years old and sitting on Mama’s lap in the middle of Daddy’s big ol’ sunflower field. Our eternal smiles, bright as the huge golden flowers that seemed to have tilted to blow petal-kisses down upon us. I fell asleep, drawn into a maze of sunflower fields, both beautiful and terrifying.
Liar's Bench Page 3
