Swan Place (5 page)

Darlene lifted some neatly folded shorts and shirts from a shelf and looked at the labels to see the sizes. “These should fit Molly and Little Ellis,” she said. Then she moved down to another shelf, where she found a pair of shorts for me. But for my shirt, she went back into the bedroom and took a bright blue, new-looking shirt out of her own bureau.

“Here,” she said, holding the shirt out to me. “You can wear this one today. It’s my favorite, but I don’t mind.” Her eyes told me what she meant. She was trying to be extra nice to me, because of Mama. I got Molly and Little Ellis changed into their shorts and shirts and hung up their good clothes, just like Aunt Bett said. And then I changed my own clothes and hung up my church dress. When I pulled Darlene’s blue shirt over my head, I could smell the fine freshness of it and like always, I did wonder how on earth sunshine could have its own sweet smell. Darlene was watching me, and I smiled at her. That favorite shirt of hers did make me feel better. We herded the children into the living room and got them settled. Then we went to the kitchen to help Aunt Bett with Sunday dinner. The smell of that good ham in the oven made me feel sparkles under my tongue.

“Darlene, get the potato salad and deviled eggs out of the refrigerator and put them on the table. Then put on plates and silverware.” To me, Aunt Bett said, “It’s okay, Dove. Me and Darlene can take care of things.”

“But I want to help,” I protested.

“Well
 . . .
” she considered. “Are the children all in the living room?”

“Yes’m.”

“Then why don’t you go in there and tell them they can look for their Easter baskets. But they are not to eat a single bite of candy until after dinner.”

“Yes’m.”

In the living room, our cousins were lined up on the big couch like they were waiting for a bus. Molly and Little Ellis were sitting together in a chair, each one leaning over an arm and silently enduring the solemn stares of their cousins.

“Now listen,” I said. “When I count to three, you all can go find your Easter baskets.” The faces brightened, and a few of the cousins broke into grins. “But you are not to eat a single bite of candy until after you have your dinner. Do you all hear me?” Faces fell just a little, but heads nodded in agreement.

“Okay then.
One, two
 . . .
three!
”

The cousins lifted off the couch like a bunch of birds flying off a telephone wire and scattered in all directions. Molly and Little Ellis didn’t move.

“Wait a minute.” I went back into the kitchen, where Aunt Bett was lifting a big roasting pan out of the oven. Her hair was hanging in her face, and her cheeks were pink from the oven’s heat. But oh, the smell of that ham! A red, juicy smell and with clove-spice perfume and a bittersweet smell from the pineapple slices toothpicked all over it. She put the roasting pan on a wooden cutting board on the counter and wiped her face on her apron.

“Aunt Bett?” I whispered. “Where’d you hide Molly and Little Ellis’s baskets?”

“Back porch,” she whispered back. We could hear happy cries and laughing coming from the hallway and the bedrooms, as the cousins found their baskets. I went back into the living room, where Molly and Little Ellis were waiting.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go find your Easter baskets. Let’s look on the back porch.”

When we did find their baskets—one behind the washing machine and the other behind a big basket of clothes waiting to be washed—Molly and Little Ellis were so happy and excited. And I could see why. New things, things I didn’t buy for them, were in the baskets. Jellybeans in all kinds of colors were scattered over the green paper grass, and little chocolate cookie-candies all covered in tiny, white candy dots, and in the center of each basket, a chocolate Easter bunny with round, white candy eyes that had no eye-lids.

The children all gathered back in the living room, showing each other their candy treasures and doing some swapping—a red jellybean for a green one and ten jellybeans for the ears off someone else’s chocolate rabbit. But no one took a single bite, not even Little Ellis, who was too young to understand but seemed to know the rule anyway.

“Wash your hands and come on to the table,” Aunt Bett called.

We came into the dining
room to find the table loaded with food. There wasn’t room for even one more small dish, and no room around the table for one more chair. Besides the wooden chairs that matched the table, there were three kitchen chairs, as well. For a moment, we all just stood there, staring at the table. There was a big platter of sliced ham with the browned pineapple slices all around the edge, a bowl of potato salad, a dish of Aunt Bett’s famous pickles, a plate full of deviled eggs, a big bowl of coleslaw, a glistening bowl of Jell-O salad, and a basket piled high with biscuits. Aunt Bett even had fig preserves to put on the biscuits.

“Dove, you sit here and we’ll put Molly and Little Ellis on either side of you, so you can help them with their dinner. The rest of you sit in your regular places.” So we all finally managed to get into our right chairs, even though they were packed so tight together, and join our hands for the blessing.

“Lord,” Aunt Bett began. “We thank you for your risen Son this Easter Day. Make us truly grateful for all we receive from You, and especially the food You have put upon this table. Bless all who are here and make us thankful for each other. And bless those who have gone ahead
 . . .
” I kept my eyes shut tight, but I was once again seeing that dream I’d had, with my mama strong and healthy again and her going along so happy, holding the hand of the risen Lord. “. . . In Jesus’ name, amen.” As soon as Aunt Bett said amen, we all started in to serving ourselves and the little ones. And I don’t know what I’ve enjoyed a dinner so much, even with my stomach hurting about Mama. We all ate and ate, and Aunt Bett would look around the table at us having such good appetites, and I could tell how pleased that made her.

After dinner, Aunt Bett, Darlene, and I cleared the table of the dinner things and Aunt Bett brought out a high, white coconut cake for dessert. By the time we had each had a slice, there wasn’t room enough left for a single piece of Easter candy.

“Darlene, you and Dove go put the little ones down for a rest, please. And then come help me with the dishes.” The children were so stuffed, they followed us gladly into the bedrooms, where Darlene and I pulled back the bedspreads, stripped the children of their shorts, and helped them get settled on the cool top sheet. Even Molly didn’t complain, and Little Ellis was almost asleep when we tiptoed out and closed the door. Then we did as we were supposed to do and went to the kitchen to dry and put away all the dishes. We were almost done when Aunt Bett said to Darlene, “Honey, would you leave me and Dove alone for a little bit? We need to talk about
 . . .
things.”

“Yes’m.” Darlene glanced at me before she left the kitchen. Aunt Bett kept washing the last few dishes, and I kept drying. When the last plate was washed, she rinsed it and handed it to me. Then she leaned up against the sink and looked out of the window. “I don’t know why, maybe it was all that good singing at church this morning, but I was thinking about the time our mama—your grandmama—sent me and your mama to take piano lessons with old Miss Eunice. Lord have mercy on her soul!”

Aunt Bett motioned to me to come sit at the kitchen table with her. I guess she remembered how much I liked it when she talked about her and my mama as children together. Mama never would tell me things about that, but I don’t know why. Too, Aunt Bett was seldom in a mood to tell me stories about the olden times. She was usually too busy making pickles and washing and ironing clothes, and cooking for her big family. It was nice to see her in a mood to talk, for a change.

“Why, we were scared to death, honey. Because neither one of us had ever touched a piano, and we didn’t even
have
a piano in our house, but our mama had decided we would learn how to play anyway. And when Mama spent good money on something, she expected the very best. So we knew we had to do very, very well. I was around nine and your mama was only six years old. And I remember how we held hands as we walked all the way to the very end of Stone Street and then followed a dirt road on for nearly a quarter of a mile, and it nothing more than two hard clay ruts between fields of tall, dry grass where crickets chirped and little creatures we couldn’t even see scurried away and made such a fearsome noise in the weeds. We had to walk all that way before we came to Miss Eunice’s house—a big, old place with peeling paint standing way back from the road. Funny thing was, there wasn’t a tree on the place, and that day—that hot July day—we could smell the tar from the roof. Miss Eunice must have been watching from the window, because we saw the curtains move a little and then she came and opened the door, just as we got to the front steps. And what a sight she was! Such a stout lady and her wearing a white dress with hundreds and hundreds of bright lavender bows printed on the fabric.” Here, Aunt Bett paused, looked at me, and smiled. “Honey, she had a bosom like nothing I ever saw in my life! Just like two big old rattlesnake watermelons, and those shiny little buttons on her dress just straining, what with trying to keep it all inside!”

Aunt Bett laughed out loud. “And her hair was salt-and-pepper gray and standing up a little in the back, from where her head had been resting against the back of a chair. And her eyes tiny and just as shiny as the buttons on her dress. Like I said, your mama and I were both scared to death, but we knew if we went back home without having our lessons, we’d get a switching. So we went inside to where it was dark and cool, and when our eyes got used to the dimness, the first thing we noticed was that the entire ceiling of the hallway was gone. We could make out some jagged edges left of what had been the floor of the second floor above it. I’ll never forget that, how that ceiling just went up and up and into some kind of a deep and hot darkness, way up there under the roof, where there was no light. When Miss Eunice saw us staring up, she said, ‘Oh, don’t you pay no mind to that. Whole floor from upstairs fell one summer a long time ago, and after I got that mess all cleared away, I found it made the whole place a lot cooler just to leave it like that. Hot air rises, you see.’”

I had goose bumps on my arms, from imagining how that house must have looked. And Aunt Bett’s eyes were moving around the perfectly normal ceiling of her own kitchen, all those years later, but she was really seeing Miss Eunice’s house. I waited for her to go back and finish her story, but she just sat there.

“Did you and Mama learn how to play the piano?” I asked, hoping to get her going again. She glanced at me as if she had forgotten I was there.

“Oh, we learned some little songs. Not much, but enough to satisfy your grandmama. But your mama never did like to play the piano. In fact, come to think of it, there wasn’t much she ever enjoyed,” Aunt Bett admitted, drawing her eyebrows together. Then she made a little huffing sound and smiled. “Except for going dancing with Roy-Ellis,” she added, nodding her head.

“Was that really bad, Aunt Bett?” I asked her, wishing with all my heart she could have seen Mama holding hands with Jesus.

“Well, it wasn’t good, that’s for sure,” Aunt Bett said. “But God is merciful, and I believe He will have mercy on your mama—mainly because of how well she bore all that sickness and pain, I expect.”

“I’m sure He will,” I added. “I’m truly sure He will.” Because I didn’t need to wonder about it. I
knew
.

While the children were
still asleep, Darlene and I went outside and hid all the colored Easter eggs, and when the children woke up, we helped them get their shorts back on, and then we all went out into the yard to watch the fun. Such shrieking and laughing! Little Ellis kept stepping on eggs, and every time he did, we all laughed. When everyone else went back inside, to have a treat from their baskets and to put their eggs back into the refrigerator, I saw Aunt Bett standing on the steps, watching me help Molly sort out the crushed eggs from the good ones. When I looked at Aunt Bett, she pointed to Molly and nodded her head. So it was time for me to tell her.

“Molly, come over here under this tree and sit with me a little bit,” I invited, and she came, squirming and nestling against me so that I could feel her hot little body and breathe the perfume that was Molly.

“Honey, you remember that old cat Roy-Ellis brought home that time? The one he found beside the road, and it was sick and hurt?” Molly sat up a little and looked at me with burning eyes.

“I ‘member.” Then she settled back down against my shoulder.

“It couldn’t get well, no matter what we tried to do to help it,” I reminded her. “And finally, it died. Do you remember that?” I felt Molly’s head nod. My throat tried to go tight on me, and I made myself see Mama again—healthy and happy—and with Jesus. That helped.

“Well, honey—Mama was so sick and so hurt, nothing could make her better.” There—the words were said. They were said. There was no response from Molly, so I went on. “But now, she’s with Jesus, and she isn’t sick or hurt anymore. She’s healthy and happy—so happy, she’s just dancing around!”

“Her is?” Molly asked.

“Oh yes.”

“Her go to Jesus?”

“Yes.”

“Her coming back?”

“No.”

“
You
go to Jesus, Dove?

“Me? No. Not for a long, long, long time, anyway.”

“Don’t go.”

“I won’t.”

When we went inside, Aunt Bett looked at me questioningly, and I nodded my head. Molly put her eggs in the refrigerator and stood there with the door open for a little while, but Aunt Bett didn’t say a thing to her about it, and when Molly finally shut the door and came to me, she asked “Her happy?”

“Yes. Very happy.”

“Oh, okay.”