Enduring (38 page)

“That’s the truth,” Latha said.

One of her tomcats jumped into Sonora’s lap and snuggled up and she began stroking him. “What’s his name?” Sonora asked.

“Melvin,” Latha said. “I named him after a candy drummer.”

“What’s a candy drummer?”

“The man who brings the candy I sell in the store,” Latha said. “Would you like to see my candy showcase? I’ll treat you to whatever you want.” She stood up, to lead Sonora into the store. They all went inside the store, and were suitably impressed with Latha’s collection of candy. The weather wasn’t hot enough yet that she’d have to start keeping the chocolate in the soda pop cooler so it wouldn’t melt. “Just help yourselves,” Latha said to them. “Just point at whichever ones you want.”

“We’ll spoil our dinner,” Mandy said, but she pointed at a Baby Ruth bar and Latha got it out for her. Vaughn also had one, a Butterfinger, and Sonora chose a Powerhouse.

“What do you say, Fan?” Mandy prompted.

“Thank you,” Sonora said.

They wandered around the store, looking at all the merchandise. Latha said, “Anything you want, just take it.”

Chapter thirty

T
hat’s my mother! I don’t mean to intrude in this story I’ve been telling with such objectivity that there is no room for myself, but I can’t help remarking on the fact that this house where I live, this porch where I often sit, these steps which I daily climb, was the setting for the first meeting of Gran with her daughter, my mother, or at least the first since Mom as a baby had been stolen away from Gran. This is the same porch where my brother Vernon announced that he intended to run for governor, the same porch where my mother first laid eyes on my father, and the same porch where Gran first laid eyes on Gramps after seventeen years, which is about to happen soon. I plan to go on living in this house the rest of my days—where Gran had her post office boxes and showcases is now where I have my living room furniture—but after I’m gone somebody ought to put up a bronze plaque declaring this humble house-that-was-once-a-store-and-post-office a historic monument.

Latha, as I’ve chosen to call Gran for the sake of the story, could not let her visitors leave, and it was not merely a matter of the polite Ozark exchange of invitations and counter-invitations reflected in the name of the town itself, “Stay More,” but a refusal of Latha to accept any counter-invitations, excuses, or alibis, so that when Vaughn said “Thank ye kindly but we’d best be getting on down the road,” Latha countered with “Not before dinner you won’t,” and when after a big dinner Mandy said “This here’s a great pie but we’ve really got to go,” Latha said, “Not before I take you to meet a fine gentleman named Dan.”

And Latha got into their car, into the back seat with her daughter, and showed them how to drive to the nearly hidden turn-off to Dan’s place, and to drive into it and up to the yellow house. A ferocious dog accosted them, but Latha knew Conan and spoke to him by name and gave him her hand to sniff.

Dan said, “I’ve sort of been expecting you folks. Latha has told me all about you, and your lovely daughter, and I’m so proud to know Latha has had a chance to meet her niece at long last.”

They sat on the porch of Dan’s frilly yellow house, which clearly enchanted Sonora. Dan’s daughter Annie, who was about seven now, came out and was introduced, but was extremely shy.

Dan spoke to his daughter, “Show Sonora your tree-house.”

Mandy said, “Her name is Fannie Mae.”

“My mistake,” Dan said.

Annie took Sonora’s hand and led her around the corner of the house and out of sight. Latha was sorry to see her go. Dan offered Chism’s Dew to his guests, and Vaughn was happy to have a glass, although Mandy declined, saying, “I may have to drive.” Latha wanted Dan to play his fiddle for them, not something by Chopin or Liszt but the good old mountain music he had learned in North Carolina. They didn’t have to wait long for the return of Annie and Sonora, hand in hand, and at Latha’s request Dan got out his fiddle. He played “Barbra Allen” and “The Three Drowned Sisters” and the spirited “Johnny the Sailor” and other ballads, or “ballits” as it was pronounced. He really was a master of the bow and strings, and even Mandy and Vaughn were so entertained that they forgot what time it was, and Vaughn had so much Chism’s Dew that Mandy wouldn’t let him drive.

When they got back in the car, Sonora said to Latha, “Annie showed me her gardens, her flower garden and her vegetable garden, and she said she got the seeds from your store.”

“Why, yes,” Latha said. “I carry all of the Shumway seeds.”

“Why don’t you have a garden?”

“I do,” Latha said. “You just didn’t see it. It’s across the road from my place. I’ll show it to you.”

So when the moment came for Vaughn to say “Thank ye kindly, but we’ve got to rush on,” Sonora could protest that she had to see Latha’s garden too, and Latha hoped she might have some moments alone with her daughter, but as it turned out Mandy insisted on accompanying them out into Latha’s garden patch, where Mandy expressed astonishment at the variety and size of her horticulture.

Several of the cats preferred to sojourn in the garden, where they made themselves useful by catching voles, moles, and mice. “My goodness,” Sonora said, “How many cats do you have?”

“I don’t have any cats,” Latha said. “There are a great number of cats around here who believe that they have
me
.”

Sonora laughed. Mandy did not. Mandy said, “Well, it’s been nice visiting you, but we’ve really got to be getting on.”

It was late in the afternoon. “Stay more,” Latha said, “and have supper with me.”

“Yes!” said Sonora, but Mandy poked her in the ribs.

Mandy said, “I’ve got to drive us as far as Vaughn’s mother’s place in Parthenon, where we’re spending the night.”

“No need of that,” Latha invited. “Just stay all night with me. There’s plenty of room.”

There followed several minutes of the usual ritual of leave-taking, Latha insisting that they stay, Mandy reiterating that they had to leave.

“Aw,
Mom
…” Sonora complained, and for a moment Latha thought she was being addressed.

“Get in the car, Fannie Mae!” Mandy said. “I mean it.”

Sonora rushed into Latha’s arms and gave her a big hug, and whispered, “I really do want to stay more.”

“Come back when you can,” Latha said to her.

Vaughn said, “Let me get a couple pitchers of you’uns,” and he took his Kodak and shot Sonora standing between Latha and Mandy.

When they were gone, Latha had to rush into her house and get her handkerchief. And for weeks after they were gone, Latha kept remembering things she wished she’d shown Sonora or said to her. Several weeks later Mandy mailed her three snapshots that Vaughn had taken, with a note, “Sure was a nice visit, but we can’t get Fannie Mae to shut up about it.” Latha examined the photos carefully, which made even clearer how much Sonora resembled her true mother. She took a pair of scissors and cut Mandy out of the photos, which she posted, one behind the post office boxes, the other beside her bed.

At Christmas she sent a card to Sonora, saying, “You are in my thoughts,” and for March 29th she sent Sonora a birthday card and a package of Shumway nasturtium seeds, with a note, “Happiest of fifteenth birthdays.”

Sonora did not reply to the Christmas card but she sent a note in April saying, “Dear Aunt Latha. Thank you so much for the card and the seeds. I don’t have any place to plant them, so I’ll just have to imagine them. Fan.”

In May, Latha got a long letter from Mandy, the gist of which was that Mandy and Vaughn were worried that Fannie Mae was causing a lot of problems. She was doing poorly in school and was in trouble for talking back to her teachers. The parents of some of her friends had forbidden the friends to associate with Fannie Mae any further. Worse, Fannie Mae was insolent to her own parents, and uncooperative to boot. In short, she was driving Mandy crazy. Mandy was afraid she might have to have herself committed to the same nuthouse where Latha had lived. The thought had crossed Mandy’s mind, and she had discussed it considerably with Vaughn, that for the sake of their sanity or at least peace of mind they ought to ship Fannie Mae off to Stay More for the duration of the summer. How did Latha feel about that? Could Latha swear a solemn oath that she would never, ever tell Fannie Mae that she was Fannie Mae’s mother? That would be a horrible thing to do. Cross her heart and hope to die? If Latha was agreeable to this, and able to afford the cost of feeding and keeping Fannie Mae, then they would put her on a bus which made only one transfer at Harrison and would deliver her and her suitcase to Jasper. Did Latha know anybody with a car who could fetch Fannie Mae from Jasper?

Patrons of the post office or store that particular day even asked Latha why she was smiling so much. Had the government given her a raise? Had they located Raymond Ingledew at last? Had she fallen in love with somebody?

It was indeed the happiest she could remember having been since the hogs ate her baby brother, as the expression goes. She tried but failed to remember a day when she’d been happier. She felt an enormous sense of justification for her belief that if you can wait long enough, something good is bound to happen. After writing a short reply to Mandy, giving her oath that she would never breathe a word to the girl about her true parentage, and promising to do whatever she could to help the girl get “in line,” Latha got busy fixing up the side room, the room on the east side of the store (her own bedroom was on the west side) into a neat, tidy, cozy bedroom for Sonora. She even went out and picked an armload of black-eyed susans and put them in a vase on Sonora’s dresser, then laughed at herself because the flowers would be long wilted before Sonora arrived. But she let them wilt.

It was mid-June before the schools let out and Sonora was finally shipped off to Stay More. Latha arranged for Ted, the mail carrier and iceman, to bring Sonora from Jasper. Latha had spent every free moment giving the house and store a thorough dusting and washing and polishing, and she killed one of her fattest hens to make chicken and dumplings, with a selection of desserts including a vinegar pie, which remained her favorite, a lemon meringue pie, and a chocolate cake.

Latha could not sleep at all the night that Sonora’s bus was on its way from Little Rock, and for the first time in memory she did not work in her garden at dawn but went straight to her bathing spot in Swain’s Creek to have a bath, and then dressed in her best gingham dress. Her cats too seemed to be excited, as if they knew company was coming, and they spent a lot of time washing themselves and each other.

Ted and his mail truck were always punctual, arriving between 10:00 and 10:15
A.M
., but on this day of days he didn’t come until 10:35, and the mail patrons were almost as anxious as Latha. “Had a flat,” he said. The first passenger out of the truck’s cab was Tearle Ingledew, who had probably been on an overnight bender in Jasper. Ted usually had a passenger or two, and the second passenger was a gorgeous redhead teenager whose name was Sonora Bourne, a.k.a. Fannie Mae Twichell. Latha was waiting for her at the top of the steps and they had such an embrace that Latha felt obliged to explain to the others, “My dear niece, come to stay with me.” Then she said to Sonora, “Am I tickled pink to see you!”

Sonora laughed and said, “I’m tickled all colors of the rainbow.”

Ted gave Latha Sonora’s suitcase. Tearle Ingledew said, “Young lady, you be a good girl now and don’t do nothing that I wouldn’t do,” and he patted her on the shoulder.

Latha escorted Sonora down the length of the porch to the door which led to her room, and opened the screen door on its noisy spring. “Here you are,” she said. “Just make yourself right at home. I’ve got to help the driver sort the mail but it won’t take me a minute.’

Sonora was visibly impressed with the neat, tidy, cozy room. Latha returned to the post office to unlock the two bags of mail with her mail keys, and sort the contents of one of them to return to Ted, who would deliver it onward to the hamlets of Demijohn, Hunton, and Spunkwater. Ted hoisted two twenty-five pound blocks of ice with his tongs and put them in the pop cooler. Then Latha quickly sorted the mail for the Stay More boxes, moving so fast she misplaced a couple of items and got complaints from the mail patrons who discovered somebody else’s mail in their boxes.

All of this took more than a minute. At one point she turned to see Sonora standing beside her behind the post office boxes. “I’m sorry, hon,” Latha said, “but it’s against the postal laws for anybody to be back here except U.S. postal employees.”

“So employ me,” Sonora said.

“You’d have to be eighteen,” Latha said. “I’ll just be another minute. Help yourself to some soda pop.”

Sonora went and helped herself to an Orange Crush, the first of several hundred cold drinks that she would consume that summer. When Latha was finished with the mail and rejoined her, Sonora asked, “How come that photo of you and me has Ma cut off of it?”

Latha laughed, but nervously. She should have taken the photo down before Sonora came. “Well, for one thing, your mother isn’t as sightly as you and me.”

Sonora laughed. “Aint that the truth!” But then she asked, “What’s the other thing?” When Latha was slow to answer, she prompted, “You and Ma never got along very well, did you?”

“Not really,” Latha admitted. “She was much closer to her other sister, your Aunt Barb.”

“Will you show me the house where you girls lived?”

“It’s hardly fit to be seen,” Latha said, thinking of what it looked like when she’d stayed there with Dan and Annie. “But I intend to show you
everything
in Stay More.”

And before the summer was over, Latha had actually shown her daughter everything that was worth seeing in Stay More, and then some. Latha sat with her at one of the desks in the schoolhouse, and told her about the time that the teacher wouldn’t let her go to the outhouse and she’d peed on the floor and when the other students laughed, a boy by the name of Every Dill had jumped on the teacher’s desk and used it as a perch to pee on the floor too. Sonora thought that was hilarious, but she asked, “Whatever became of Every Dill?” and Latha had to say she had no idea. Of course Latha pronounced this as “idee” like everyone else, including Sonora’s mother, and Sonora herself began excluding a syllable from her pronunciation of the word. The more Sonora came in contact with the Stay Morons, the more she changed her flat, drawly Southern accent into the lilting twang of the mountaineer. Sonora declared that she dearly wished she could just stay and go to this schoolhouse.