Apron Strings (32 page)

The remaining two weeks rolled by in a shimmery haze of sunshine and swimming. Jilly taught me how to ride waves, and when the water was too rough to play in, we’d walk as far down the beach as we were allowed, picking up shells, digging in the wet sand, and looking for clams that disappeared beneath the surface in a trail of bubbles.

“Boy, I bet Gordy and Lil’ Early would like this,” I said as we dug up a clam.

“Who’s Lil’ Early?” Jilly asked.

“I thought you came over and played with us once. You know Ethel’s grandson.”

“A colored boy?” She looked puzzled. “Aunt Ginny lets you play with a colored boy?”

“All of us. You, too. Don’t you remember? We played out back in the compost pile behind the garage. Jilly?” I stopped digging and looked at her hard.

“Yeah, I remember now. I just forgot for a minute cuz I never told Mama or Daddy. They wouldna liked it.” She looked embarrassed.

I just shook my head. “I don’t think I will ever understand grown people,” I said and threw the clam I had just found as far into the ocean as I could.

That night after we went to bed, I lay still listening to the ocean and Jilly’s soft breathing. I wondered about our conversation. What was the matter with people?

Things changed fast after my family arrived.

I knew Ethel never liked going to the beach. The last time she went I was only three or four, but I gathered from Carrie and Ben that she spent the whole time drunk. I didn’t really know what happened, except that Ben always laughed about Ethel’s trip. Ethel, I guessed, was lonely being there all by herself. She didn’t even have her own room. She had to stay with Helen who was just a baby.

As for Ben and Carrie, I don’t imagine they were much company being all educated and acting like they knew more than Ethel. It burned me up when Ben made his snotty comments about Ethel. I knew that she had a different way of talking than I did, but I also knew you weren’t supposed to make fun of it. I knew what she meant when she said “de ol’ man” or “m’near.” I knew, even if I couldn’t tell you exactly what the words meant.

So what if she could only write a little and that her signature looked not much better than mine. So what? She only went to school to the fifth grade and then she had to go to work. She didn’t have time to study or do her spelling homework. She and Big Early had a little farm and took care of things old Ben and Carrie and all their book smarts wouldn’t know the first thing about. People are all kinds of different. But then Ben, with his smarty self, didn’t seem to know that.

I sometimes wondered what growing up really meant. It sure didn’t mean you were smarter than you were as a kid because I knew lots of adults who weren’t half as smart as most kids, and from what I could tell they didn’t think nearly as much about stuff. Just like Ben, they’d put people in boxes in their heads and then let them hang there like a fish on a line flapping about “dumb” or “special” or “colored”: whatever it was that they had decided some person was or was not.

If I live to be a million years old I’ll never forget that morning. Ben, Jilly, and I had just come in from an early morning run to the store when Ethel came shrieking out of her room, crying and stumbling like she had broken out of hell. She was looking over her shoulder, blubbering with snot running down her face.

“He dead! The baby gone, Lord haf mercy…he dead!” She collapsed in a mound on the floor in my mother’s old nightgown which barely made her decent, and that was only if you didn’t look too close. As
bizarre as what she was saying was, the sight of Ethel in a flesh-colored, worn, gossamer nightgown, boobs akimbo was even more so. Lying in a pool of her own flesh, Ethel continued her maniacal rant until Uncle James came out of his room, his robe billowing after him.

“Girl, get up and cover yer self up. What are you saying?”

Ethel blubbered on the floor.

Carrie, who had raced into the room Ethel had just vacated, shrieked, “Oh, my God in heaven. Call the police. What has she done to him?”

My mind, which had been racing to catch up with what was going on, screeched to a halt at Carrie’s words.
Done what? Ethel? What was Carrie saying?

Uncle James disappeared into Ethel’s room. “Ben, go get Dr. Wallace next door now!” he boomed. The next thing I knew he was coming out of the room with my brother in his arms. Denny’s fat little legs and arms dangled limply like a spider’s. I shuddered. Uncle James continued barking orders. “Carrie, find Miz Ginny. Don’t tell her anything, just stay with her until the doctor comes. Ben, when you get back do something with this.” He pointed to Ethel.

“Mr. Stuart, don’t you think she’s gonna think it strange, me—,” Carrie started to protest.

He cut her off, “Do it! And get these kids outta here.”

“Come on, girls,” she herded us out of the door, mumbling, “How the hell am I gonna stay with…Poor woman. Lord God Almighty, poor woman. You two stay outta’ the way, ya hear me? Out of the way!” She headed off toward my mother’s room still mumbling to herself.

“Wait,” I stopped her. “What about Ethel?” I was confused and tears were springing to my eyes; but they weren’t for Denny. The fact that he was really dead hadn’t begun to sink in. Alarming as it was to see him like that, I was more rattled by the image of Ethel on the ground wailing and unable to get up and cover herself.

“Don’t you be worrying ‘bout her. She’s in a heap of trouble and you will be, too, if you don’t do what I say. Go find Helen and Gordy and keep’m outta the way, you hear me? Tell Stuart I want to see her. Tell her to come to your momma’s room. Now go!” The command was almost as cold as Uncle James’s had been.

“Holy shit,” Jilly swore. “Do you really think she did it?”

I could scarcely look in her direction, much less answer. We made our way to Stuart’s room without another word. Before I banged opened the door I asked Jilly,

“Would you go find Gordy and Helen and bring them here?” The blast of air-conditioned air didn’t help the feeling that I had of walking into a crypt. “Stuart, wake up.” I grabbed hold of her shoulder and shook her. “Carrie needs you at Momma’s room. Denny is dead. Ethel is running around practically naked; the police are coming.”

“What?” Stuart’s cardinal rule was “Never ever wake me up, no matter what.” Things were way beyond no matter what. “What? You’re kidding me? It’s not funny.” she stated as she pulled herself groggy from sleep to one elbow looking at me as if deciding what kind of mayhem she was going to inflict upon me. “He’s dead? What do you mean Ethel’s running around naked? Jesus Christ!” She shuddered then rubbed her sleep bleary eyes.

I nodded solemnly and said, “Well, almost. She’s in a see-through nightgown and her breasts are hanging out and…” I stopped, horrified to realize that I was smiling. Suddenly what had seemed like the collapse of all worldly order sounded funny coming out of my mouth. Ethel naked. Stuart caught my grin and must have thought it sounded funny, too, because she started to laugh. Then we were both laughing uncontrollably. I was gasping, sniffling, and squeezing out all the tears that had been building up over the past few minutes.

Jilly, Gordy, and Helen spilled into the room. “What’s so funny?” Jilly asked, perplexed.

Stuart said, “Ethel’s running around naked,” and the two of us dissolved into another gale of giggles. The three of them just looked at us.

Helen asked, “Are you suppose to laugh when somebody dies?”

Gordy ran to the window and fumbled with the blinds. He threw Helen an irritated glance, “God, we hardly knew him. This place is like a tomb. I can’t see anything. Turn the air-conditioner off so we can open the windows.” Telling people what to do must be a family trait because Gordy was sounding a lot like Uncle James. “How am I suppose to know what’s going on if I can’t hear anything?” Then I heard him mutter to
himself, “God damn, I wish I had gotten up this morning and gone to the store. I miss everything.”

While Gordy fumbled with the window, Stuart dressed. Then she gave each of us a hug and left. As she closed the door Stuart said, “You guys stay here and don’t get into any trouble. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Helen sucked her thumb, hugged her bear, and rocked softly on the bed. The rest of us were sitting in front of the door waiting for something to happen. Nobody said anything. The laughter was gone from my belly and its place was slowly being filled with a cold sense of dread. The doctor and Ben were huffing across the sand dune that separated our houses. Dr. Wallace carried a little black bag. Ben looked scared as he ran just behind the doctor sort of shepherding him along. They hustled by us. We pressed our heads up to the screen in order to get a better view.

As he pushed open the screen door, Gordy announced, “I’m not staying here another minute. I’m missing it all.” He slipped out of the room with Jilly and me just behind him, and crawled under the bushes alongside of the cottage. The woody branches scraped and stuck our skin creating any number of bloody lacerations well worth crying over any other day. We huddled together at a corner of the house as we peered through the porch screen. The doctor poked around the little body Uncle James had laid on the sofa. He took off the clothes, looked around some more, and then said, “I suspect crib death. You,” he turned on Ethel, “tell me, did anything out of the ordinary happen last night? This morning? What did he eat? When?”

Ethel had pulled herself together and was sitting by Denny’s body on the sofa. Ben had given her a not-big-enough-for-the-task beach towel that she had wrapped loosely around her shoulders. Though it was an improvement in modesty, it was still sorely lacking. Her gown only came down to mid thigh. “No, sir, I woke up this mornin’ like always. He usually be playin’ in his crib. Thought it was strange that he weren’t. When I went ta pick’m up, he was cold as ice, po’ thing. I fed him las night ‘round ten I’d say.” She started to cry again. “Lord have mercy,” she said over and over.

Dr. Wallace snapped, “Calm down you damn fool, this isn’t going to help anyone. Go on and get dressed. I’ll talk with you later.” Turning to Uncle James he asked, “Where’s Ginny? And Lizbeth?”

“Lizbeth’s still asleep, and for the time being we should leave her that way. Carrie is down with Ginny.”

“I’ll call the undertaker and then I’ll tell her. She doesn’t know, does she?” Dr. Wallace sighed as he picked up his black bag and headed toward my mother’s room. He passed Stuart in the hall. She had begun to cry. He patted her arm then asked, “The telephone?” Uncle James took the doctor into the study. Stuart didn’t come through the living room where Denny’s doll-like body still lay on the sofa. She went through the kitchen. After making his call, the doctor walked slowly down the hall toward my mother’s room, his head bent over like it was too heavy to hold up. A little while later as Carrie came down the hall, we heard my mother scream. Carrie went over to the baby, picked him up, covered him with a blanket, and took him into Ethel’s room. The two women met in the doorway. Ethel, dressed now, looked as if she were going to faint. She made a move as if to take Denny from Carrie then let her arms drop helplessly to her sides as she turned to follow Carrie back into the room.

As we jostled for a more comfortable view, Stuart hissed from behind us, “Get out of there, you idiots. Don’t you know anyone that looked could see you? Are you trying to get yourselves killed?” We scrambled out of hiding and plied Stuart with questions.

“Carrie wants me to babysit you knuckleheads,” she announced. Stuart sounded tough though her voice quavered as she mussed with Helen’s hair. Then she picked her up and held her tight. “Carrie said she went to wake Mother, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. ‘Poor soul wouldn’t ever be able to sleep like that again,’ she said. I guess Dr. Wallace is telling her. He’s probably going to give her a tranquilizer,” Stuart said with a sigh.

A while later a man Stuart said was the undertaker came and took Denny away. There was nothing more to it. My mother and Aunt Lizbeth finally got up around four and started drinking. Carrie and even Ben snapped at us all day. Ethel sat alone in her room. She didn’t even come out for meals. I knocked at the door a couple of times.

“Ethel, can I come in?” I asked.

All I got back was a brief response from a husky voice I hardly recognized. “No, darlin’, ya can’t.”

No amount of pleading or crying on my part changed the answer. “Ethel, I’m sorry.”

“I know,” she said.

I hovered there a minute longer feeling my hot breath bounce off the closed door. I was desperate to help. I made one last attempt. “Ethel, do you want me to bring you a drink?”

I don’t know if she heard me or not, but she never answered.

Nothing felt good the rest of that day—not swimming, not anything.

Ethel had probably started to nip at Aunt Lizbeth’s gin. I mean, it’s not like it wasn’t around all the time. The bar was right next to the kitchen door. You had to walk right by it on the way to the kitchen or if you were going out to the beach or the screened porch.

Ethel couldn’t swim. Stuck at the beach, she didn’t have her cows to milk or a house to clean—all she had to do was hang out with Denny all day. Bored, sad, and lonely, Ethel started taking little nips. She must have known that Carrie and Ben were laughing at her and didn’t like her much. She probably worried about Big Early and Lil’ Early at home doing all the things she did when she was there, so she drank just a little. It wasn’t like she didn’t take care of Denny. He just didn’t wake up.

Didn’t the doctor say it was no one’s fault? I didn’t blame her. Why did everybody else? She didn’t do anything wrong. She just started sipping a little. So what if she didn’t do her hair every day like she normally did and her buns got to looking a little shabby. That didn’t mean she hurt anybody.

Carrie normally loved to fish and would do so for hours at a time. But we were not on a “fishing for pleasure” trip to the sound. We were on a “get the kids the hell out from under our feet” fishing trip. Later that afternoon Carrie was sitting like a big toad down on the dock, throwing in her line, checking her bait every few minutes, and then throwing the line back. She did not look like she enjoyed it; she was just going through the motions. I never really understood the expression “like a fish out of water” until I saw Ethel plopped down next to Carrie, her body stretching the fabric of my mother’s old maternity bathing suit, a big floppy hat on her head, and one of her buns busted out in a corkscrew. She stared
out at Carrie’s red and white bobber like it was her lifeline. After we assessed the scene halfway down the dock, Jilly and I turned around and skipped right back to land.