Sweet Dream Baby (12 page)

My Aunt Delia drives fast and looks at the road, not at me. I know she's mad, and I don't think I should talk. Not yet. She doesn't even turn on the radio.

At home, Grandma Hollister asks where we've been. My Aunt Delia says we got to feeling better, so we went for a ride to cool off. Grandma Hollister wants to ask more questions, but she sees my Aunt Delia's mad. They stand on the front porch looking at each other, and my Aunt Delia's eyes are small and dark and cold. Finally, Grandma Hollister touches her throat and then the damp hair at her temple and says, “It
is
stifling. And there won't be any relief until October.” She looks up at the sky. It's clear and white. She says, “I wish it would rain.”

My Aunt Delia says, “I'm going up to my room,” and she does. I'm on the porch with my Grandma Hollister. Grandpa Hollister is out doing the law. Grandma Hollister puts her hand on my forehead. “Are you feeling better, Travis, Honey?”

I say, “Yes, ma'am.”

She looks at the screen door. My Aunt Delia's radio comes on upstairs. I can't tell what the song is. Grandma Hollister says, “What's wrong with your Aunt Delia, Honey?”

I say, “I don't know. Nothing, I guess.”

Grandma Hollister says, “Did something happen on your ride?”

I just shrug. I say, “No, ma'am. We just rode around to cool off a little.”

Grandma Hollister looks worried, and I feel sorry for her, but I can't tell her anything. She looks at the screen door again, touches her temple, and I see a drop of glow in the wispy hair in front of her ear. Grandma Hollister says horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies glow. She says, “I've got to go talk to Marvadell about the shopping. Can you find something to do, Travis?”

I say, “Sure.” Then, “Yes, ma'am.”

I go up to my room and get my John R. Tunis novel. I'm reading the one about the catcher now. There's a book about every guy on a major league baseball team. I started with the shortstop because that's what I am. I've read the pitcher, the first baseman, and now I'm reading the catcher. It's pretty good, but it's hot up here under the roof. If you lie by the window and hold yourself still, it's not so bad. I can hear the radio playing in my Aunt Delia's room. It's the Killer: “You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain. Too much love drives a man insane. You broke my will. What a thrill! Goodness, gracious! Great balls of fire!” I wonder what she's doing in there. I want to go see her. I want to ask questions, but I think maybe she wants to be alone.

It's too hot, and I don't want my Aunt Delia to be mad. I want her to be happy. I try to read, but the words don't mean much to me, and after a while I start wondering if she's mad at me. It's driving me nuts wondering that, so I get up and walk down to the bathroom and pretend to go. I flush the toilet, and then I stand outside my Aunt Delia's door. All I can hear is the radio. It's Little Anthony again. “If we could start anew, I wouldn't hesitate. I'd gladly take you back, and tempt the hand of fate.”

I stand and listen. Little Anthony's voice can get inside you.

“If you're gonna stand out there listening, Killer, you might as well come in.” She sounds mad, but not at me.

I go in, and she's lying on the bed over by the window. She's got her white blouse on, but her blue jeans are on the floor in front of me. She's got one arm thrown across her eyes, and she's pulled the gold cross up from her neck. She's twisting it with her fingers. “What did Mama ask you, Killer?”

“Just if anything happened.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I mean, I said nothing happened. We just went for a ride to cool off. Just like you told her.”

My Aunt Delia laughs. It's a quiet laugh, and it's no fun, and she keeps her arm over her eyes. She lets the cross fall beside her neck. She says, “You're a good liar, Killer. Not as good as me, but getting better all the time. Lying is one of life's essential skills.”

My dad told me not to lie. He says always tell the truth and live with the consequences of what you do. I don't like my Aunt Delia saying I'm a good liar, but I want her to like me. Her long legs seem to float above the white bedspread, and I see how her stomach in her underpants rises and falls as she breathes. I hear the breath coming and going through her nose, and I see how her black hair fans across the pillow. I feel the thing sudden hard and hot in my chest, and I don't know what it is, but I know I'd do anything for her. It doesn't matter what, I'd do it. I've never felt this way before. It's good, but it's hard. It's going to be hard to carry, but I know I have to do it. For my Aunt Delia.

I stand by her bed, and she reaches her hand out to me, the one that held the gold cross. I take her hand, and she says, “You're a good boy, Killer. You're good to me. It means a lot to have you here right now.”

“I'm not a boy. I'm just a guy.”

She doesn't laugh. I'm glad. She just says, “Okay. I won't call you that again. You'll just be my own special Killer. How 'bout that?”

“Okay,” I say. Her hand is warm in mine, and she squeezes my fingers, and I squeeze back. I say, “What did that boy mean, that Quig Knowles? What did he mean about you and baseball?”

She sighs, and then blows her breath out hot and hard on my hand. It smells good, like Spearmint gum and whiskey and her own secret spirit. I lean closer and watch her face. I like it that her eyes are covered. We can talk. “Tell me,” I say. I say it soft, almost a whisper. I squeeze her hand.

She sighs again, long and hard and hot, and I know she's going to. She says, “All right, Killer, I'm gonna tell you. Not all of it, but some of it. Only, you've got to promise not to tell anybody. Okay?”

I wish she hadn't said it. I say, “I already said I wouldn't.”

She says, “I know. But I had to ask. You can't tell a person your secrets without getting a promise in return. That's just how it is. Secrets are worth something.”

I say, “Okay.” I know she's right.

My Aunt Delia keeps her arm over her eyes. I know it helps, and my hand helps, too. I want to get into bed with her and listen, but she doesn't move over. She doesn't pat the place beside her, so I just stand by the bed and listen. She says, “I did know Morgan Conway. I met him last summer when I went to Girls' State.”

“What's girls' state?”

“Oh, it's nothing, Killer, just some meetings in the state capitol. They pick one girl from each high school—you're supposed to be interested in public service—and they send you off to Tallahassee for a week, and you act like politicians for a while, and the whole thing is organized by a bunch of boozed-up VFW wives. It's silly, really, but I did meet Morgan Conway there. He was a senate page, just like that ass, Quig Knowles, said.”

I don't get girls' state, not exactly, and I sure don't know what a senate page is—it can't be a page in a book—but I don't care. That's not the story.

My Aunt Delia says, “Anyway, me and some other girls snuck out one night and met some guys, and this Morgan Conway was one of them. He was a cool guy, and I liked him, and after a while, we were going out together without the other kids. You don't know what love is, Killer, but that's what happened with Morgan and me. We fell in love. I've never felt that way about anybody before, and I never will again. I guess that's why we did some things we shouldn't have done. Because I loved him so much. We talked about all the things we were going to do together. We talked about getting married. We made promises…”

She squeezes my hand hard, and her arm is pressed down hard over her eyes, and I squeeze back and listen as her breathing gets shorter and rougher. “Did you tell secrets?” I ask. I believe what she told me about secrets and promises.

She says, “Yes, Killer, we did, but I guess there was one secret I didn't know about Morgan Conway. If he told Quig Knowles about me, there was one great big secret I didn't know.”

The first tear squeezes out from under her arm and leaves a silver trail down her cheek. It rolls slow at first then fast and splashes on the pillow and turns the white cloth gray. All I can do is squeeze her hand and listen. I don't know what to say. I might say the wrong thing. She might send me away.

She says, “I came home after that time with Morgan and we wrote to each other for a while, but then some things happened, things I can't tell you about, and I couldn't write him after that, and Susannah Cohen helped me. If it hadn't been for Susannah, I'd be dead now. I truly believe that.”

“Did she give you books to read?”

“Yes, Killer, and she did some other things for me, too.”

I want to know the other things, and I don't want to know them. Knowing things is hard. It makes you older. I try to think what happened. I know I can't ask her. She'd tell if she wanted me to know. I wonder if Grandpa Hollister found out about her sneaking out at night with Morgan Conway. Another tear slips from under her arm and splashes the pillow. It makes the gray place bigger. She says, “When the summer was over, Morgan went off to the Masterson Academy in Birmingham. I guess he really does know that shitty Quig Knowles. Excuse me, Killer. Your virgin ears.”

“That's all right. I've heard that word a lot, I guess.”

“You shouldn't hear me say it.”

“Do you still want to see Morgan Conway? Are you gonna write him anymore?” I hope she says no. I don't know why, I just do.

She says, “No,” and the hard breathing turns into sobbing, and it's loud now, and I know Grandma Hollister's gonna hear, so I let go of my Aunt Delia's hand and turn up the radio. The radio's too loud, and my Grandma Hollister might come to the bottom of the stairs and call up, “Turn that infernal thing down, will you please, Delia?” especially if she's got a headache, but I have to take the chance. I can't let her hear my Aunt Delia crying.

I come back to the bed and take her hand again, and my Aunt Delia says, “No. I can't ever see him again,” and she's crying hard, and I think this is it. This is what she cries about at night when it storms. This is why she said someone was lost. It's Morgan Conway. He's lost, and she'll never find him, and that's why she cries and needs me sometimes at night. I stand by the bed holding her hand while she sobs, and the radio gives us the Drifters: “But don't forget who's taking you home and in whose arms you're gonna be. Oh, darling, save the last dance for me.”

Finally, she lets go of my hand and turns her face to the wall. I stand there wondering what to do, and the sobs get quieter and turn into hard breathing and then softer breathing, and then my Aunt Delia says, “Thanks, Killer. You're so good to me, but I need to be alone now. Okay?”

“Sure,” I say. “Okay.”

I go over and turn the radio back down. It's Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs now, “Oh, won't you stay, just a little bit longer.” I stand there listening, trying to understand. I know they're called love songs, but they're all about pain. I think Bick Sifford loves my Aunt Delia, and maybe Kenny Griner does, too, and both of them act like jerks, and it looks like they're in pain. My Aunt Delia loves a guy named Morgan Conway, and I guess he doesn't love her anymore, and she cries at night when it storms. I don't know what books to read or who to talk to so I can understand love. I just know I have to understand it. I just know I've got it inside me now, and it's a big hot hard thing in my chest, and it's hard to carry.

I know I can't talk to my Aunt Delia about it. It's the one thing I can't tell her. That I love her now not as my aunt but like they love in the songs. I wonder if she understands love. Maybe nobody does. Maybe you just have to listen to the radio until the right song comes on, the one that tells you what to do.

I watch my Aunt Delia's back for a while, and her white legs float on the white bedspread, and her black hair fans across the pillow, over the gray place where her tears landed. I can't hear her breathing now, but I know she's almost asleep. I know if she talked to me now, her voice would be all sleepy-dreamy. And I know I can't wait any longer. I have to tell her. “Delia,” I say, “what Kenny Griner said is true.”

She whispers, “What do you mean, Killer? Said about what?”

“About Grandpa hitting him and cutting his eye.”

She's quiet for a while, thinking, I guess. Then she says, “I know, Killer.”

“You knew it that night, didn't you? When Grandpa said Kenny had an accident.”

“Yes, Killer, I knew it. How did you know it?”

“I saw the thing he did it with. The thing Kenny Griner called his knuckle-duster. It has a long leather thong on it, and it was sticking out of his pocket, and last night I was downstairs when Grandpa came in, and I saw him take it out of his pocket and lock it in the secretary by the front door.”

“What were you doing downstairs when Daddy came in?”

I don't know if I should tell her. I don't know what she'll think about it. I have to tell her because she tells me her secrets. “Promise not to tell anyone?”

My Aunt Delia says, “Yes. I promise.”

“Grandma was asleep. It was earlier in Omaha. I was gonna call my dad, but I didn't know how. Some lady came on the line and asked if I was the sheriff.”

My Aunt Delia sighs, and her voice is sleepy-dreamy. “That's right. Your daddy hasn't called you. My perfect brother Lloyd hasn't called his son, and you've been here six weeks. We'll have to see about that, won't we.”

I say, “Don't see about it. I didn't tell you so you'd see about it. It's a secret.”

She says, “All right, Killer. If that's what you want, I won't see about it.”

I go over and touch her hair. It feels soft, and it smells like shampoo and like the wind that blows up from the river. I say, “See you in a little while, okay?”