Isle of Palms (8 page)

There are certain events burned into your memories like streaming video; for example, the day men landed on the moon and the landing of Grandmother Violet. I would never forget the precise moment she touched down. I was on the front porch lollygagging away the day in our ancient creaking swing. My intellectual occupation at the time was chipping away layers of paint with my fingernail. I was very involved in my own funk.

Young as I was at the time, I recognized and hated the much secreted and heavily denied fact that Momma had only the most minimal affection for me and Daddy. You wouldn’t call it love. Worse, she couldn’t have helped it. I had arrived at the conclusion that she just plain hated being married and having a child. She
must
have felt that way, because she never showed much enthusiasm for anything we ever did. It wasn’t like I was so horrible that I failed to make her love me. Or Daddy either. There just wasn’t any love to get. Like Daddy used to say about oranges in July, “no juice.” Momma had no juice.

So when Grandmother arrived, I was busy trying to figure out how my life could turn so horribly upside down in one day and I was wishing with all my heart that Angel worked for us instead of Miss Mavis.

Grandmother’s car, a huge white Cadillac, swung into our driveway, kicking up a cloud of dust and coming to an abrupt halt. The dark cloud hung in midair for a few minutes, which I would have recognized as a sign if I had possessed a peanut of intuition. As the haze drifted and settled, I could see her backseat was packed to the hilt. She stepped out, arching her back with her hands at the bottom of her waist, and squinted toward the house with a resolute expression of
I will finally assume my rightful position as Head Executioner.

Every hair on my body stood on end. I wasn’t sure why, but I knew I was in deep shit, and that was the first time I had ever thought that word. Frankly, the language does not possess a more correct term.

The enemy approached and barked, “Don’t just be sitting like a daggum bump on logs! Come! Give me my sugar and help unload this car!”

Giving her sugar did not entail passing a bowl. I was meant to deliver a kiss to her hollow cheek and then be her pack mule until the task was completed. Worse, despite over twenty years in the United States, she still saw little to no use for articles in speech. The order of verbs and her eastern European accent reminded me of those awful German war sitcoms that run at two in the morning.
I’d like to introduce my grandmother, Colonel Klink.
Having no escape and no alternative, I jumped from the swing and feigned willingness for my own sake.

“Hey! Grandmother! Can I help you?”

I was experienced enough to know that obstinate behavior would result in anything ranging from sharp words to a switching from her across the back of my legs.

“Certainly you can, young lady.”

The woman must have been descended from crows with that horrible voice of hers.

I struggled under the weight of a cardboard box she placed in my skinny arms and made it up the steps to the porch. She passed me with a suitcase in each hand, opened the screen door, holding it open with her foot for me to enter, and called my father’s name. No wonder my grandfather had died before her. A wise choice. A wise choice, indeed.

“Dougggg-lassssss! Wheeeerrrree arrrreee youuuuuu?”

“He’s
trying
to take a nap,” I said, dropped the box on the floor and ran back outside, down the steps, to get another load of her freight. I was rude and didn’t care one bit either.

I heard her hiss something like
The impertinence!
but I just kept moving. I really thought she should leave Daddy alone. But Violet had no intention of leaving
anybody
alone.

I came back with another box. Daddy had come down the stairs; he gave the old crone her obligatory peck, and then, Lord save us all, she burst out into tears, hugging Daddy’s neck. I didn’t think the shriveled-up old battle-ax had any water in her.

“It’s okay, Mother,” Daddy said, “we’re fine, Anna and I. It’s just the shock of it all. We’re really fine.”

“Fine? How can this be? Mary Beth, her body is not even cold yet. Let me look! Oh! My poor boy!”

Ignoring me and my mental state, I guess she decided Daddy was okay, because then she composed herself and said, “Where I am supposed to put my things? Let’s go.”

Daddy led and I followed behind them, my trap shut tight for once in my life.

Our house was no castle but it was passable looking and sensibly designed. It was standard beach issue—up on stilts with a front porch built for breezes. There were at least a hundred houses like ours. When you entered through the main door, you came into a hall with a staircase, but if you went straight you’d wind up in the dining room. On the right side of the house was the living room, behind it the kitchen and the den, which continued around the back of the house. The left side of the first floor had two bedrooms and an adjoining bathroom. Upstairs were two more bedrooms and another bathroom. That was about it.

Daddy mumbled that his mother would probably settle into those two rooms downstairs.

“How long is she staying, Daddy?”

“As long as she wants, honey.”

Holy hell, I thought, my life is over. Over and ruined.

“I need lamps, son,” Grandmother said. “Overhead lights give me migraine.”

“Okay. We can do that,” Daddy said.

She harrumphed at the wallpaper in her room, which was faded from sun and pretty ugly, even I’d have to agree. She sniffed and sniffed at the mildewed closets and frowned at the scuffed condition of the floors. Momma had never been the world’s greatest homemaker. My grandmother continued to sniffle from room to room, nearly to the point of an allergic fit.

“You want a Kleenex?” I asked, rolling my eyes. She saw me.

“Douglas? Are you going to tell Anna not to sass her grandmother?”

Daddy looked at me in a way I’d never seen. His face was cold and in that one glance I saw that he had given all power to his mother. She had become the Berlin Wall, dividing father and daughter.

“Anna? Why don’t you go and get a cold Coca-Cola for your grandmomma,” Daddy said.

“Oh, I’m fine, son,” she said with the smallest of all smug smiles. “I think with effort, we can make this place very presentable. I will work on it. People will be coming here from funeral, of course. What plans are made?”

The funeral! Gee, God! I hadn’t wanted to even
think
about that.
Don’t bring it up, please! Don’t talk about it in front of me!

I took off and ran upstairs to my room. I wanted life to be normal as fast as it could and listening to funeral plans wasn’t normal. I didn’t want to hear about it and I didn’t want to go to it either. I had lost my mother. Wasn’t that enough?

It wasn’t long before Grandmother stuck her head in my room.

“What you are doing? Why you don’t clean this room?”

“I hate my room,” I said, “it’s ugly.”

She looked around at my single bed, turquoise walls, and flowered curtains and didn’t disagree. She said, “Be glad you have a bed for sleeping, missy. Plenty of children in this world sleep on hard cold ground with raw turnips for supper. Your daddy slept in box for keeping apples, you know.”

“A crate,” I said. I didn’t really mean to correct her English. It just came out of my mouth.

“Yes,” she said, “crate.”

I just looked at her. She was on the verge of another story of her personal suffering. My angry jaw dared her to tell it. Didn’t she know how I felt? No, Grandmother Violet was not a geyser of healing warm waters for me, her only granddaughter. Or anybody else. She skipped the lecture but for the rest of the day, at every chance, she would remark in a whisper how frightened she was that I looked like my momma. Her thoughts hung in every room like a dreary dampness brewed with dangerous herbs.

“Before God, I tell you, she is looking just like Mary Beth, Douglas,” she said. “You better do something or she is winding up just like her!”

In her mind I was guilty of some genetic sin, like Eve’s child. I knew from the start that I would be well advised to stay out of her way. However, may I just say that despite my anxiety over her arrival, I was completely surprised that she thought I looked like my mother. I had never been told that and thought it was a wonderful revelation. To her it was anything but a compliment.

My mother’s looks were how she had met and snagged my daddy. They were introduced at the Water Festival in Beaufort and started dating. She was the Assistant Queen or something and Daddy had been invited to some party for the Queen’s Court. Even though he was a lot older than she was, they fell in love. If I would ever remind Daddy of my momma it was okay with me. He loved her like mad, even if she didn’t love him back. You see, I was born in the Land of Beauty Queens. There was a Peach Festival, a Watermelon Festival, and a festival to celebrate everything we grew, including azaleas. All these festivals had parades, parties, Queens, and Queen’s Courts. Beauty was highly valued by most adults I knew, whether it had to do with their yards, their dogs, or their daughters. When it came to daughters, they were expected to be, at the very least, well groomed and without vanity. That was one difference between Momma and me. I was groomed; she was vain. Early on I had made a vow to never become vain because in my young mind I had somehow linked it to self-centeredness, which led to loving yourself too much and not having any left over for others. I wasn’t stupid; I was dejected.

Unfortunately, I had to face it; there
was
still the matter of my momma’s funeral the next day. All I remember is that I went and that the church was very hot and crowded. And that I was wearing my yellow dress, which I would never wear again.

I just couldn’t get it through my thick head that Momma was really dead, even though there was a brass-handled, mahogany coffin right in front of me. I didn’t cry one single tear, until we got to the cemetery. Then I wailed like a baby. The minute I saw that box go into the ground, I started screaming.

I was terrorized and out of control. I wanted my momma back. How could she ever become the mother I wanted and needed her to become if she was dead? For the first time in my life, I was hopeless.

Daddy, and even Grandmother, put their arms around me and hugged me so hard I thought I would faint. It was like it finally hit me and there was nothing I could do to stop the panic I felt. People said,
We are so sorry. If there’s anything we can do . . . We’ll keep y’all in our prayers.

I just sobbed and sobbed.

“Is terrible,” Grandmother Violet said, angry tears rolling down the pleats of her wizened face. “Terrible. Terrible.”

She handed me a handkerchief and I had two fleeting thoughts as she did. One, her hand was reptilian, and two, the handkerchief smelled like lavender. It was the only time I ever felt my heart move in her direction.

I looked at my daddy. He was completely miserable and his grief was more than I could stand. He had loved her, she was gone, and that was all. Love was dangerous. I understood at that very moment that passion could be fatal. If I ever made the mistake of marrying the wrong person I could wind up dead. If I let myself feel passionate I could be like Daddy, hanging over a fresh grave. Love could wreck your life.

At some point, we wandered back to the limo and went to the reception. Momma was buried, and I felt like kicking the crap out of somebody. (Crap. Bad word number four. So what?) But I couldn’t do that. My throat was all scratchy and dry and I just wanted to go back to before all this hell happened to Daddy and me. I would rather have had a mother who didn’t love me than not have one at all. I wanted to crawl into my bed and stay there. Maybe I was just having a long nightmare. If I went to sleep and woke up maybe it all would be gone.

There was no peace and quiet in our house. Even though there had been a crowded reception at the church hall, it seemed like everyone who was there had followed us home. It wasn’t often that a young mother died. We were getting a rush of diversion from every friend we knew, plus the families of Daddy’s patients. They meant to sustain us through the most horrible day of our lives.

Cars were parked up and down the street and all over the yard. The house was bursting with people who had brought enough food for a month. Egg salad, tuna salad, chicken salad, all seasoned but without the mayonnaise, in plastic containers for sandwiches on another day. Glazed hams, macaroni and cheese, and chicken divan in Pyrex dishes to freeze, chocolate pound cakes, cases of Coca-Cola, and a whole turkey with stuffing and gravy. There were cheese balls and eggs rolled in crushed pecans, and chocolates from Russell Stover. I felt like I was going to throw up just looking at it. Someone set up a bar and started serving drinks. The adults seemed to be having a party, a seriously depressing party, but to my mind, the atmosphere was too much like there was something to celebrate.

The neighborhood kids I knew so well barely talked to me and were unusually awkward, not knowing quite what to say. I didn’t know what to say to them either. I had an overwhelming urge to pretend, to run and play and pretend nothing had happened. I couldn’t manage it because I knew it would be wrong. But wasn’t everything wrong? We were all standing around in our church clothes, humidity and heat having its way with shirttails and hair. Sparky Witte finally said, “You okay?” I said, “Yeah, I guess.” That was about it. It seemed to me that they all knew about the circumstances of my mother’s death and what she had been doing. I mean, it was bad enough to lose a parent, but were they supposed to be sympathetic in this case? So everyone acted uncomfortable, except Lillian, who knew I was deeply upset and tried to make me see the world wasn’t coming to an end.

“That was the worst part, Anna. The funeral, I mean.”