Sullivans Island-Lowcountry 1 (34 page)

know exactly what he up to. He didn’t come for no party, he

come to snuff out your granddaddy’s breath! That’s what! I gots

to do something about that mirror.Ain’t no good.Ain’t gone let

another sun pass till I get some cunja on that thing.”

“Livvie? I know you wouldn’t lie to me, but I’ve never seen

anything like that in my life.”

“Humph. I seen all kind of fool thing in my day. Come on,

get your dress and let’s go on downstairs.”

By fo u r o ’ c l o c k the day Tipa died, we had over fifty Corning-

ware dishes in the kitchen filled with the specialties of every

housewife on the Island. Livvie was in the kitchen and I was

taking turns answering the door with Maggie.

“Oh! Mrs. Dufour! A ham! That’s so nice of you!”

“How’s your momma, honey?”

“She’s all right, I guess, haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Well, let’s not bother her. Listen, sweetie, that’s my best plat-

ter, so please tell your momma I’ll be needing it back next week.”

“No problem, Mrs. Dufour. I’ll put your name on the bot-

tom on a piece of masking tape.”

“That’s a good girl.”

I carried the ten pounds of pink meat down the hall past the

big mirror in the living room and stopped to give it a look.

Nothing. I didn’t see a ripping thing.

“Another ham,” I announced as I entered the kitchen.

“Do Jesus! That’s ten hams now, twenty-two bowl of potato

salad, six Jell-O molds with little marshmallows and chop pecan,

three chocolate cake, seven pound cake, nine dish of red rice, four

dish of chicken pilau and Lawd knows how many casseroles.”

Livvie shook her head as she took inventory.“Tape that dish and

add she name to the list. Your momma gotta thank all these

women. Gimme that thing and I cut the meat off the bone. Shuh.

Gone get this family a dog, that’s what.All these bone.”

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Livvie began to hum another church song. I pushed aside

some of the dishes of food and put down the ham. The table

threatened to collapse under the weight of all the food. Who

was going to eat it all I couldn’t figure out for the life of me.

“What’s that song, Livvie?” Maggie asked.

“Oh, chile, it’s my favorite, well, one of my favorites any-

how. It’s ‘Amazing Grace.’ Listen up to these words,” she said and

began to sing in her rich voice.

“When we’ve been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days to sing Gawd’s praise,

Than when we’d first begun.

“Ain’t them pretty words?” Livvie asked.

“Beautiful,” I said. The same voice that hollered at us so

loud, and hushed and composed us so sweetly, was one of the

most wonderful and soulful singing voices I imagined I’d ever

hear. Everything stood still while she sang.

“Makes me think about Mr. Tipa and how he be singing

with Gawd’s angels now,” Livvie said. “I love that song ’cause it

remind me that Gawd’s grace is saving grace. It’s for everybody,

y’all know what I mean?”

Maggie said,“I don’t know anybody who sings like you!”

“Oh, now do child, don’t be filling my head with that fool.

Honey, there’s so many women who sing in my church you

can’t be counting them all.”

“Sing something else!” I said.

“Honey, I sing all day long when y’all in school,” Livvie

said.“Makes the time go quick and I get to praise the Lawd with

song. Not so bad, ’eah? Now, Miss Maggie, that’s enough yabber

about me. Let me see that list.”

Maggie handed her the legal pad where she was noting who

had brought what in her perfect Catholic school handwriting.

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I hated that she got to do all the writing, even keeping score in

gin rummy or canasta.

“Where’re the boys?” I asked.

“I send Timmy to the Asalits for the big cooler and Mr. Henry

done gone off to the Red & White to get us some paper cups and

ice. Gone be people coming tonight and tomorrow and unless you

girls want to wash glasses and plates, we using the throw-away

kind.”

“Good idea,” Maggie said.

“Yeah,” I said.“Is Momma still in bed?”

“The doctor pay she a call earlier and he gone come back to

check on her,” Livvie said.

The translation of that was that the doctor had given her a

shot for her nerves.We had two doctors who served the Island.

One was Dr. Whicket, who mainly gave MC bazooka shots to

induce coma, and the other was Dr. Duggan, who gave her pills

that dilated her eyes and put her in a trance. We called them

Stick-’em Whicket and Dose-’em Duggan.

“Stick-’em was here,” Maggie said.“She’s zonked.”

The twins were napping and apparently Sophie the Stink

Bomb was taking a real shower. Daddy and Uncle Louis were in

Charleston, at the funeral home I guessed, probably picking out

the box.And Livvie just kept cutting ham and making aluminum

foil packages, stacking them up like silver bricks on a shelf in the

refrigerator. We had four dozen deviled eggs. Two dozen from

the postmaster’s wife, Mary Burbage, along with a lemon meringue

pie, and the others were from some old biddy who went to the

same church that we did.

My real interest in all this was, of course, the wake and the

funeral.“So, Livvie? Ever been to a wake?”

“Oh, do Lawd! More than I can remember, chile!”

“What’s a dead person look like? I mean, when they’re in

the box and all, is it scary?”

“They look waxy to me. And, iffin you do look, you gone

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see your granddaddy ain’t there nohow. Just he shell, that’s all.

Spirit gone. But remember you don’t have to look iffin you

don’t want to. My cousin Harriet ain’t never fix her eye on

a dead man yet, and she done bury both she parent and one

husband.”

She stopped to demonstrate how to avoid contact with a

dead body. “You juss fix your eye over that coffin when you

goes up to pay your respect,” she said,“and don’t look down.”

God, I love Livvie, she’s such a rock, I thought. Somebody

was knocking on the back door and I stepped outside to see who

it was. Lo and behold, it was Alice Simpson, standing there with

a jelly roll cake from the Red & White grocery store and six

bottles of Coca-Cola.

“How’s y’all’s momma doing, honey?”

“She’s fine, Mrs. Simpson. Thanks for the cake and the

Cokes.Would you like some ham?”

“No thanks.When’s the wake?”

“Dunno. Daddy’s in the city making all the plans with Uncle

Louis.”

“Well, when you find out, let me know.”

“Sure.Thanks again.”

I watched her go down the back steps and through the ole-

anders, and somehow, she seemed sad to me. Maybe she didn’t

have any family. If she showed up at the funeral, though, there

would be plenty of tongue-wagging. That would be reason to

go early and stay late.

T h e n e x t m o r n i n g Maggie made ham biscuits, ham omelets,

and ham and eggs. It was gonna be a while before we worked

our way through the mountain of meat. I had changed the

twins, given them bottles and brought them downstairs to their

playpen.Too bad they didn’t have teeth, I thought.

Daddy,Timmy and Henry were eating and talking. Momma

had been in bed since the day before and Grandma Sophie still

hadn’t emerged from her room. I don’t know if she was expecting

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229

room service, but we weren’t waiting on her. A knocking pre-

ceded Uncle Louis’s appearance at the back door.

“Hey, Bubba! You up?” he yelled through the screen.

“Yeah, God, Louis, come help us eat some of this. I swear to

God, it’s like an ancient Hawaiian ritual. One of the elders dies

and a hundred pigs are slaughtered as an offering,” Daddy said.

“Get up, son, and let your uncle have your seat.”

Timmy jumped up and put his plate in the sink, then poured

a cup of coffee for Uncle Louis.

“Yeah, old Tipa gone on the layaway plan now,” Uncle Louis

said. “Gone to God. Sure seems odd, you know? How’s my

momma this morning? Where’s the sugar bowl?”

“Here.” Daddy slid the bowl across the table. “Shocked, of

course, but actually rallying. She didn’t stop talking yesterday.”

Everything was slow motion and it was the unspoken that

mattered. That Uncle Louis’s sense of humor was out of place,

that Daddy was comparing Tipa’s death to Hawaii, that Momma

was in hiding—all these things built a mountain of nervous anx-

iety.We children acted like Indians in the forest, quietly putting

one foot in front of the other, moving in the shadows.

Livvie arrived, Henry disappeared with Timmy, and Daddy

and Uncle Louis continued to talk.

“Where’s your momma?” Livvie whispered to me as she

tied her apron.

“Don’t know. Haven’t seen her yet,” I said.

“Hm. ’Eah.” She poured a cup of coffee.“You girls take this

to her. Lemme do these dish and I come join you in a minute.

Gotta get her up and moving.This ain’t right a-tall. Been in that

bed long enough.”

The hall had never seemed so dark. Maggie led and I car-

ried the cup, the fragile porcelain tinkling against the saucer.We

opened the door carefully. Momma’s curtains were drawn and

we could see the silhouette of her figure under the covers of her

bed. I had a bad feeling and Maggie’s face didn’t look very

hopeful either.

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“Momma?” I said.“I brought you some coffee.”

No answer.

“Momma?” Maggie said.“It’s time to get up.”

I put the coffee down on her nightstand and began opening

the curtains.

“Oh, God!” she wailed.“My daddy’s dead! I can’t!”

She scared the bejesus out of both of us.

Livvie entered the room. “Miss MC? Come on, now, you

gots to rise up and face the day!”

“Can’t!” came the mournful cry from under the tangled

sheets.“Let me sleep!”

Livvie opened the rest of the curtains, flooding the room

with light.

“Why couldn’t it have been me instead of my daddy?”

Momma cried.

“You girls go on now and leave me be with your momma.

Bring me a wet washcloth, Maggie. Hurry up.”

My numb legs couldn’t follow Livvie’s order to leave the

room. I couldn’t believe what my mother had just said, that she

wanted to be dead.We were too much for her and I knew it. Six

children, a mean husband, a crazy momma, a dead daddy, and

only a Gullah woman to piece her back together. My heart sank.

Maggie returned with the cloth, handed it to Livvie and left

the room, not seeing me.

“Miss MC, you ’eah me and ’eah me good.The Lawd never

sends us nothing we can’t handle. Every back fits the burden.You

gots to buck up! ’Eah.” She ran the washcloth across my mother’s

face.“ ‘Eah now. I knows you sad.We’s all sad. Gone miss Mr.Tipa.

He was a fine man, but Gawd call him and it ain’t fitting for us to

be asking Gawd why. No, ma’am, can’t quizzit Gawd. Come on,

now, drink your coffee and I get you a dress to put on. People been

bringing food since yesterday and you need to pull yourself

together. This house been crawling with neighbors bring cake and

such. And so many hams! Oh, do Lawd! We could feed the army!”

“How many hams?” my mother said.

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231

“The better part of twenty by now!”

I watched my mother raise herself up to a sitting position

and reach for the coffee. Like my daddy said, she looked like

something from the House of Horrors. “When Carol’s daddy

died, they got thirty,” she said.“Coffee’s cold.”

“Day ain’t over yet,” Livvie said.“I gone make another pot.”

“Susan! I didn’t even see you there! Come give your momma

a kiss.”

She put her cup on the night table, extended her arms to

me and sighed a sigh that sucked in the whole room and then

blew it all away. Shakily, I leaned over her bed and kissed her on

the cheek. She smelled like sweat and old perfume.

“Do you really wish you were dead, Momma?”

Livvie stopped moving and must have given her one of her

famous looks because I saw my mother’s eyes dart in her direction.

“No, honey. I’m just upset,” she said.

I left the room and knew with every cell of my thirteen-

and-one-half-year-old self that she was lying.

W h e n a n y b o dy d i e d on Sullivan’s Island, the immediate world

went to the wake, viewed the body, kissed the family, waited for

the Knights of Columbus honor guards to come do their thing

and then said the rosary with the family priest.

I had never been to one but I’d heard the stories about them

for years. Everybody said what a good job the funeral home did

on the deceased and how he looked just like he or she could just

sit right up and talk to you. They went to wakes to wake the

dead. Very funny.

Around nine o’clock, all the grown-ups would start twitch-

ing for a cocktail, and they’d go back to the house of the person

who died and party until the wee hours, eating, drinking and