Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea (9781101559833) (13 page)

I planted her precious petunias and pansies and kept the garden free of weeds. She supervised me in the vegetable garden, in the kitchen, and everywhere else. Sometimes, I snapped at her when she hovered, but I didn't want to do that. What I wanted was for her to be able to be who she had been just a few short seasons ago. She was my white rock, my strength, and I needed her to always be there.

One afternoon, after she'd caught my struggle to be kind to her, she said to me, “I never thought that getting old would happen to me, but that was vainglorious of me, I guess. I'm as young in my head as I ever was, that's the funny thing. It's as big a surprise to me that things aren't working like they used to as it is to you.”

“Sorry,” I said. I looked up at her. I was holding a soil-covered spade in my hand. The spade was close enough to my nose so that I could smell the fresh dirt, and I got a whiff of life and death in one sniff.

“Well,” Grand said, “I'll just trust that Jesus knows what he's doing as far as my welfare's concerned. He had it worse on the cross.”

I never argued when Grand brought up Jesus. I had my own reasons for mistrusting his judgment, but I didn't want to throw that in Grand's face. I don't know if he had anything to do with it, but I did become more patient, and the garden yielded up a fine crop of tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, and zucchini that summer and fall.

23

“I
love Elvis,” I said, getting hot under the collar. “Elvis is the King.”

“I didn't say he was bad,” Susan said. “I just said the Beatles were better.”

“Gin,” I said, and Susan, Bud, Dottie, Glen, and a girl I didn't bother to name because soon she would be a piece of Glen's dating history groaned and counted up their points.

It was New Year's Eve, 1966. We were at Bud's house. Sam and Ida had gone up to the Buttses' house and let Bud have us all down for New Year's Eve. Grand was already in bed, it being nine thirty or so.

“You can't top ‘Love Me Tender,'” I said. “It's the most beautiful song ever sung. Elvis didn't have to grow his hair long to get noticed. Elvis is a natural. The Beatles are fake.”

“‘Yesterday' is the best song of all time,” Susan argued.

I didn't want to say that I hadn't heard it, that I refused to listen to the Beatles. It was hard to find Elvis on the radio now, but I kept turning stations looking for him, or settling for Roy Orbison, Del Shannon, or Dion, Carlie's music. “The Wanderer,” one of my favorite songs, was playing on Bud's record player. I appreciated that he had put the song on for me.
“I'm the type of guy that likes to roam around . . . ,”
I hummed.

Bud loved Elvis and the others, too, as much as I did. He'd been getting used to the Beatles, though, for Susan's sake
.
And he liked Susan, it was plain to see. Whenever I saw them at school, they were hand-in-hand, or he draped his long arm over her small shoulders. I was surprised he'd invited Glen, Dottie, and me to his house at all. I would have thought he wanted Susan all to himself.

“No way Ida's going to let him do that,” Dottie overheard Madeline telling Stella at the store. “She's not leaving them alone. That's flirting with disaster, for sure.”

So I took it we were chaperones for Bud and Susan, which set wrong with me. But I didn't want to sit out the New Year watching television while Grand snoozed upstairs.

Susan was wearing a red minidress with black tights and shoes. Her hair hung over her shoulders like beautifully cast tinsel, except when she brushed it back and little pieces fell back over her shoulders. She was good at gin, too; almost or as good as I was. I wasn't having much fun. She got up and took “The Wanderer” off the record player.

“Hey,” Dottie said, “leave that on—that song makes me feel lucky.”

“I think Florine was listening to that,” Bud said to Susan, “and so was I.”

“I know,” she said. “But listen to the words to this song, Florine,” she pleaded. She looked at me as if she would die if I didn't hear it, so I shrugged. She put a 45 onto the record player and lowered the needle. When the needle hit the vinyl, little pops and scratches marred the beginning guitar.
“Yesterday,”
one of the Beatles sang,
“all my troubles seemed so far away . . .”

“Let's play another hand,” I said. “Susan, you in?”

“Oh, Florine,” she said. “I wish you'd give it a chance. I think you'd really like it.”

She sat down, but then she popped up again and took the record off. She handed it to me. “Here,” she said, “take this home and give it a listen. Just a listen.” She walked back over to the record player and put “The Wanderer” back on.

“Gin,” I said, five minutes later.

But as the night wore on, I got agitated. When Bud kissed Susan's ear, I felt his lips as surely as if he'd kissed my ear. I watched Glen run his large hand up his girl-of-the-minute's leg. I lost concentration as I imagined Bud's hand moving up my leg and reaching the place in the middle. Susan won the whole game.

It was ten o'clock when we pushed back from the table and went into Ida's spotless living room. Susan and Bud sat down on a tan couch together, while Glen and his girl took up Sam's large chair. Glen's girl cuddled into his neck. Dottie and I sat down across from them in two other chairs.

“Well, what do you want to do now?” Dottie asked.

Bud said, “I don't know. We could watch some television, I guess.”

“I'm going home,” I said. “I can watch television there. Coming with me, Dottie?”

Dottie shrugged. We got up, humped into our winter coats, and headed for the door.

“Don't forget to listen to ‘Yesterday,' Florine. I think you'll love it,” Susan called.

“Want to come in?” Dottie asked when we reached her house.

“No,” I said. Stella and Daddy were inside.

“You letting me go in there with all them grown-ups?” Dottie asked me.

“You can come and stay overnight with me,” I said.

“Nah. Guess not. Wish me luck with the old folks.”

When I walked into Grand's house, I was surprised to find the television on. But Grand wasn't watching it. She was sitting on the porch, rocking, looking out over the dark water. I joined her in my rocker.

“Thought you'd be in bed,” I said.

“Couldn't sleep,” she said. Her flowered housecoat sat over a long, flannel nightgown. She had pulled on her ugly pink slippers and she rocked up, then back, showing brief flashes of her thick ankles.

Grand said, “Franklin and I used to go dancing up at the Rod and Reel Club every New Year's Eve. He was a wonderful dancer. Quiet, but he talked loud with the way he moved. All the other wives were jealous of me. He took each one of them for a spin, but he came back to me for the last dance.”

“What else about him, Grand?” I asked. She didn't talk about Franklin, much.

“The flower garden on the side?” she said. “Franklin planted it for me when we was first married. He dug up all of them side gardens for me and we picked out the flowers we wanted in them. He had to haul in so much dirt. Used to have Daniel Morse, up the road, bring down a couple loads of chicken shit. We dug up seaweed and mixed it all in with the dirt and got them gardens planted. On summer nights when the moon was full he'd wake me up in the night and bring me out to the garden to dance.”

I tried to picture a much younger Grand with Franklin, but I had trouble getting past the way she looked now, with her old lady hair in wisps around her head, holding on to a tall, thin old man who thought it was romantic to dance in a full-moon garden. It wasn't such a horrible picture. I liked the thought of growing old with someone, being woken up to go into a garden he'd made for me and taking a turn around the peonies and roses.

“I miss him so, Florine. I never got to grow old with him. I would have liked to grow old with him,” she said, soft as the new snow outside. We rocked for another minute or two, then she said, “Well, I had him for some good times, anyway.” We went upstairs and said “Happy New Year” to each other at the doors to our rooms.

I couldn't sleep. I thought about old people loving one another, summer gardens, my mother dancing on my father's shoes, and Susan cuddled next to Bud on the couch. When midnight came, I heard a muffled “Happy New Year!” from the Butts house. A car drove down the hill, and I heard Susan and Glen's girl call, “Goodbye.” Glen walked up the hill by Grand's house and hummed “The Wanderer.” When the sound of his footsteps faded out, I got up and walked down to the kitchen and looked out the window over the night. All of the lights in the other houses were off. I looked out for a little while, and thought about Susan and Bud. Then I remembered Susan's record. I figured I might as well listen to it, so I could tell her how much I hated it and get her off my back. I went back to my room and popped “Yesterday” onto my old record player with its worn-out needle. I kept the sound low.

“Yesterday,”
the song began. By the time the second verse started, I had slipped off of my bed and onto the floor to sit in a puddle of sadness. After four times through the song, the needle got stuck in one place, and I kept letting it skip.

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I don't know.

24

A
t ten o'clock on Monday, February 24, 1966, the phone at Grand's house rang. I was home on winter vacation from school. I was close to the hanging phone on the kitchen wall, so I picked it up.

“Hello,” I said.

“This is Parker Clemmons, Florine,” he said.

My heart stopped. “Have you found her?”

Parker said, “Florine, honey, we haven't found her. But I need to talk to Leeman. I couldn't reach him or Stella at home, so I thought I'd try Grand's house.”

“You can tell me what you need to tell him,” I said. “He's uptown, but I'll let him know when he comes home.”

Parker paused. “Well, thank you. But I need him to call me.”

I hung up. “Who was that, Florine?” Grand asked, walking into the kitchen. “Parker,” I said, then I heard a truck and saw Daddy turn into his driveway. I was out the door, down the driveway, and beside him before he could turn off the truck. “Parker said for you to call him,” I said. “He just called over to Grand's looking for you.”

Daddy handed me a paper sack as he rushed into the house. It was heavy, filled with nails. The points pricked my palms and fingers through the bag, and I dropped it. Nails scattered along the walk. “Damn,” I said, but I left them there as I hurried into the house after Daddy.

Daddy's hands shook as he dialed Parker's number. When Parker answered, Daddy said, “Florine said you called. Yes.
(Long pause.)
What? Where'd they find it? Why there? Well, should I go up there or what? Okay. Okay, I'll wait for a call. Okay. Thanks. Thanks.” Daddy hung up the phone, looking confused.

“What'd he say?” I said.

“They found Carlie's purse. That pink one? The one with the shiny gold buckle?”

Like it was yesterday, I remembered her getting into Patty's car that summer day so long ago with it slung over her shoulder.

“In Crow's Nest Harbor?” I asked. “The police up there found it?”

Daddy shook his head. “No,” he said. “Blueberry Harbor. In some woods off an old road. A guy walking a dog. Dog dug it up through the snow. Guy turned it in. Had everything in it, Florine. Her license, her wallet. Money. Everything.” As he said the words, I saw his face change as he realized what that meant. Carlie's money. Carlie's identification. If she was alive, she had nothing. It hit me, too.

Blueberry Harbor was almost an hour south of Crow's Nest Harbor, back our way.

“When you go, I want to go with you,” I said, blood pounding in my ears.

“I don't know as that would be such a good idea,” Daddy said.

“I'm going with you,” I said. I wouldn't take no for an answer, and Daddy didn't try too hard to talk me out of it. I went outside to pick up the scattered nails and wrap my mind around the fact that my beloved Carlie, my sweet, sassy mother, had walked through the horizon and was now on the other side of it and more than likely would never return. I clenched a fistful of nails to feel that pain of their points before I put them into the bag with the others. Then I took them inside and we waited for Parker to show up.

Parker drove us up to Blueberry Harbor later that afternoon. We walked into the tiny police station and were shown into a Detective Pratt's office. Detective Pratt appeared to be about Daddy's age. The skin around his mouth was loose. He had large pores in his nose and black hairs peeked out of his nostrils. Time and trouble had plowed a deep line on his forehead between his watery brown eyes.

He shook Parker's and Daddy's hands and nodded to me. “Young lady,” he said, and we all sat down at a small round table. He reached behind him and brought back a clear bag that contained Carlie's pocketbook. The “contents,” as Detective Pratt called them, were in another bag. He opened the bag and put the pocketbook on the table in front of us. Then he put “the contents” beside it. Carlie's red wallet and a red change purse. Her small, light-blue hairbrush. Clove gum and a small white handkerchief with a yellow
C
stitched into one corner of it. A dark compact with a mirror inside of it. A book of matches that read L
OBSTER
S
HACK
on the lid. A bright pink lipstick.

I reached for her wallet. “Florine,” Daddy said.

I looked at Detective Pratt. He nodded and I took Carlie's wallet and opened it. On the left side, a compartment for change that Carlie never used because it was too small. On the right side, a clear plastic window showed a picture of three people. The photograph was water stained, but I could still see us. Madeline Butts had taken our picture down by the wharf the summer I'd been ten. Daddy knelt on one knee and Carlie sat on his thigh. She held me in front of her, her arms around me. Daddy had his arms around both of us. Daddy said, “That's my wife.”

We followed Detective Pratt's car to where the purse had been found. He led the way down a tramped-down slushy path into a patch of woods above a snow-covered pond.

“This is where the dog dug it up,” he said. Clumps of dirt from the dog's claws had sprayed backwards, outside a small circle surrounded by yellow tape. That dirt and the empty shallow hole where the purse had lain among some crushed leaves were not half as interesting to me as the frozen pond, and one by one, everyone turned to look at it.

“She's not down there,” I said, but my voice wobbled.

Daddy shouted, “Jesus!” and clutched his head. He walked over to a birch tree and kicked it, hard. “Why the hell does my daughter have to worry about that?” he yelled into the woods. He gathered himself together and turned back to us. I looked at the birch tree and saw the bare wood where his foot had connected with it.

“It's all right, Daddy,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“No, by Christ, it's not,” he said, shaking his head. “It's all wrong.”

“Tomorrow we'll conduct a search,” Detective Pratt said.

The wind that came up from the pond was soft for a February day. A blue jay flew to a branch overhead. It cocked its head and looked us over with its black sharp eyes. “THIEF!” it cried, then flew off, its bright feathers dipping over the ice on the pond.

Going home in Parker's car, Daddy asked him, “What now?”

“Now, we work on why the hell the pocketbook was where it was and how it may have gotten there,” Parker said. “And we wait for them to search the pond.”

“She's not there,” I said again. I don't know how I knew, but I did. It was just one of the places where Carlie wasn't, and never would be, again, at least in this world.

I was right. They found nothing in the pond. But the odd clue riled Daddy and me up in new ways. What had happened? Why was it there? If Carlie was not among the living, where was she? My grief took a right turn as I imagined where she might be, and how alone she was through whatever had happened. I tried to bat away the worst-case scenarios, but there were so many of them that I found it easier to let one come, ride it out, then wait for the next one. After a while, my imagination ran out of options, and I spun reruns of what might have happened until I was spun out.