Prayers and Lies (9 page)

Nancy and Melinda said Tracy was crazy, like Kelly Morgan’s crazy grandma who had to go live in a hospital—but they never said it to Mother and Daddy. They whispered it to each other and sometimes to me, and I believed them.

But none of us ever mentioned Tracy’s fits outside our family. Mother had a saying: “You don’t hang underwear on the outside line.” Our family’s underwear hung neatly and properly on a clothesline in the basement to dry. And our secrets stayed neatly cloistered within the family, where they belonged. That was our way for a long time, until we couldn’t hide them anymore.

January 25, 1970

Dear Bethany

Hi! I got your letter you wrote today. I never got any mail before that was for me. I like the straberrys on your paper. Tell Aunt Helen I said thanks from me for getting you that. Now I will know when I look in the mail box if there is a letter from you.

Daddy is working on the loft at our house. It will have 2 rooms. 1 is for Caleb and 1 is for me. The baby will have my old room and Caleb will finally have his one room insted of sleeping on the sofa. He is helping Daddy bild it. Rite now there is a big hole covered with blue plastick over the living room. Mama hates the mess. But she will be glad to have the loft done. She is sick a lot and she is looking fat in the tummy. Caleb said she looks like she’s been streched out like a rubber band. Mama smacked him on the hed when he said that. He just laffed at her. He sure does make her mad.

That is all from here. Write back to me soon. Tell Tracy and Malinda and Nancy I said HI!

Love your cousin

Reana Mae

P.S. Buttons died, but Mama is so happy, she don’t even care much.

“How’s Reana Mae?” Mother asked when I came downstairs.

“She’s just fine,” I answered, flopping down beside her on the couch.

“Watch out for my yarn,” she warned. I pushed her skeins of yarn aside, brown and gold. She was knitting a sweater for Nancy in the high school’s team colors. Nancy was a varsity cheerleader, and we all went to the basketball games on Friday nights. All of us except Melinda, who told us every week that basketball games were for pork-heads. None of the really cool kids went, she said. Of course, Melinda had not made the cheerleading squad, so her opinion might have been biased.

“Bobby Lee is building the loft, and Reana Mae and Caleb will have their rooms upstairs. Caleb is helping.”

Mother’s brow furrowed slightly. “I wonder how long Caleb will be staying with them?” she said, looking up at my father. He was sitting in his La-Z-Boy watching the evening news.

“Did you say something?” he asked, never taking his eyes from the screen.

“I was just wondering how long Bobby Lee and Jolene are going to have Caleb with them,” she repeated, sighing softly and raising her eyebrows at me. Daddy often didn’t hear us when he was watching the news.

“Hmmm,” he said. Then silence, until Walter Cronkite’s grand-fatherly face was replaced by the Hawaiian Punch man floating on a pineapple in a pool of red punch. Daddy finally turned to Mother. “My guess is, he’s there for good. If Cleda Rae hasn’t come for him by now, she’s not coming.”

He shook his head and ran his hand through his thinning hair. “That whole family is a mess, and it all boils down to Noah. That man ought to be horsewhipped!”

“Jimmy, not in front of Bethany, please.” Mother frowned.

“Oh, Helen, she knows Noah ran out on his family. And she ought to know it’s wrong. Just plain wrong for a man to do that.”

“Is that why Cleda Rae’s got a sugar daddy?” I asked.

“Bethany Marie!” Mother’s shocked face stared at me over knitting needles frozen in mid-stitch. “Where in the world did you hear such a thing?”

“Reana Mae says that’s what Jolene calls Mr. Ephraim Turner,” I murmured, knowing I shouldn’t have told. Then I heard my father snort. Abruptly he rose and walked into the kitchen. A moment later, we heard him laughing.

“Jimmy,” Mother called to him. “Will you take the trash out, please?”

The back door swung shut and we couldn’t hear the laughing anymore.

“Bethany, that is not a term I ever want to hear you use again. It’s crass and rude and inappropriate for a young lady.”

“But Reana Mae said …”

“Reana Mae doesn’t know any better. She hasn’t had the advantages you do, and she hears Jolene talk like that. Jolene ought to know better, too, but then she’s had such a hard life.” Mother sighed heavily. “But you, miss, you do know better. I will not tolerate that kind of talk from you. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said meekly.

She smiled then, so I knew I was forgiven. “What else does Reana say?”

“She said thank you from her for getting me the stationery. She never had a letter before.”

“Well, you’ll have to write to her again.”

“Yes, ma’am, I was just going to do that.”

In fact, I had my box of stationery in my hand and was looking for a quiet place to write. Tracy was upstairs with her friend Lynette, so that was out.

“Would you like to use my desk?” Mother asked.

“Yes, ma’am!” I could hardly believe my ears. She never let us use her desk, or even touch the things on it. It was in her room—the one she shared with Daddy, of course, but we always called it Mother’s room. And that room was off-limits, unless we were sick. Then we slept in Mother’s bed and she brought us 7UP and potato soup and Ritz crackers with cream cheese.

She cleared a place on the desk for me to write, turned on the small hurricane lamp, and left me alone, closing the door behind her. For several moments I simply sat and looked around. It was strange being in Mother’s room when I wasn’t sick in bed. I rose and walked to the vanity. I stared at myself in the mirror, pulling my hair up on top of my head and sucking in my cheeks, the way I’d seen Nancy do. I touched Mother’s jewelry box, wishing I had the nerve to open it.

I picked up a lipstick and opened it, screwing the pale peach waxy stick up and down, up and down. Then I opened all of the perfume bottles and sniffed them, one by one. I knew by smell which ones she wore for what occasions—White Shoulders for church, soft lilac for home, and Chanel No. 5 for special nights out with my father. I wished I could put some Chanel behind my ears, the way my mother did. I imagined myself sitting at this vanity, putting on the peach lipstick and the Revlon powder and dabbing Chanel on my throat and wrists.

I heard Tracy and Lynette clomping down the stairs into the kitchen, Tracy calling to Mother that they were going to Lynette’s and she’d be home for dinner. I sat down at the desk and started writing hurriedly. If Tracy was gone, Mother might want me to go back upstairs. By the time I realized she wasn’t coming for me, I’d written half a page.

February 8, 1970

Dear Reana Mae,

Hi yourself! Thanks for writing to me. I like getting letters, and I like notes too. Do you write notes at school? I write them to my freind Susan Lewis and she writes them to me. We like to fold them in triangels or little squares. But we have to be careful passing them, because if Mrs. Hanson our teacher catches us, it is big trouble! One time, Mrs. Hanson made Susan read her note out loud to the hole class. And it was when Susan had a crush on Don Heizer. So she had to read it out loud, and he heard!!! Boy, was she embarased!

Nothing much is happening here. Fifth grade is really hard. And Mrs. Hanson is really hard. But at least she lets us read good books. I am reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (she’s got your middle name!!!), and I really, really love it. Its got a sad part where one of the girls dies. I cried when I read it. But its really good.

Mother is knitting a blanket for Jolene’s baby. It is pink and blue and yellow and green, all soft and pretty. I bet the baby will love it!

Write to me soon.

Love,

Bethany

I proudly folded the letter and addressed the envelope. I had written a whole page and a half. Mother found a stamp and told me I could walk to the mailbox to mail it. That night at bedtime when she gave me my usual kiss on the forehead, she said, “I’m glad you’re writing to Reana Mae. You’re a good friend to her, Bethany. And she needs that.”

I went to bed happy that night.

Two weeks passed before I heard from Reana again. The pale blue envelope was waiting on the kitchen table when I got home from school.

Feb. 26

Dear Bethany,

Im sorry I did not write befor. Things are just awful! Mama lost the baby, and she is so sad I am afraid she mite die! She just stays in bed all day and cries and she don’t want to eat or nothing. And daddy is gone off to drive the truck to Oragon so he can’t help her. And Caleb is gone too. And mama won’t let granma and granpa come in the house cus she says they make her nervus. So it is just me to help mama. And I don’t know how to.

What happened is last week mama was looking for Caleb cus he was supposed to be at Ida Louis house for his lessons but Ida came and said he never showed up. So mama went hunting for him and she spotted him down by the dock. He had granpa’s knife that was lost, and he was carving a stick with it. So mama got real mad and she started down to get him. But there was ice on the steps and she fell down them—almost the hole way from the top to the bottom. I was at school, but Ida says mama scremed terribel. And then she was bleeding and the baby was born, but it was way to erly for the baby to born and it died. I saw it in the dish pan on the porch when I got home. It wasn’t any bigger than my hand, but it had little tiny hands and feet. It was a boy. Granpa buried it out back. Me and granma put some plastik flowers on the grave from granpa’s store, but mama wouldnt come out there. She just stayed in bed and cried. And she told Caleb he had to go away. She said it is his falt the baby died, cus he is so mean he made her loose the baby. Granma tried to
tell her she was being rong headed, but mama would not lissen to her.

So Caleb took his stuff and he left. I dont even know where he went to. Granpa says probably he went to Hunington to find his mama but I dont think that he went to find Cleda becaus he dont like her boyfriend.

Daddy dont even know yet about the baby becus we have not herd from him this week. He will get back from Oragon tomorow or the next day and I think he will be tore up to. Expecially becus the baby was a boy. He reelly wanted a boy. I hope he will not be mad at Caleb to. I hope he goes to find him. I am woried about him. And I am woried about mama. I wish you all were here. I think aunt Helen could help mama more then me.

Write to me soon. And say your prayers for mama to.

Love

Reana Mae

I read the letter twice, my hands trembling. “Mother!” I cried. “Mother, come quick.”

“What is it?” she asked, coming up the stairs two at a time. I guess she could hear the panic in my voice.