The Darkest Child (35 page)

sixty - one

T
arabelle intended to kill two birds with one stone. On my commencement day, she arrived at our house at noon with a picnic basket covered with a flower-patterned dishcloth.“Y’all got Mama ready to go?” she asked as she entered the house.

“We trying to get ready for Tan’s graduation,” Mushy informed her.“You can get Mama dressed.”

“Damn,” Tara mumbled, and placed her basket on the floor beside the couch. “I gotta watch her for y’all, and get her dressed, too? Where she at?”

“She back up in there somewhere,” Mushy answered. She was standing behind me, fastening the back of my dress, while I stared at myself in the mirror.“You pretty as a picture, Tan,” she said.“I’m so proud of you.”

“Thank you, Mushy,” I said.“I don’t think I would have made it without you.”

She winked at me. “You was born to make it.You done spent yo’ whole life talking ’bout that one piece of paper. I can’t wait to see it.”

On the couch, dressed in a pink dress, white socks and black shoes, Laura sat patiently waiting for us to finish dressing. From our bedroom came the voice of Tarabelle encouraging Mama to put her arms into the sleeves of a blouse.

“Maybe I better go help her,” Mushy suggested.

Mushy went into the bedroom, and Tarabelle came out. I don’t know why Laura missed the cues—Tara’s voice coming and Mushy’s going, the click and the clump of footsteps passing each other—but she did.When Tarabelle stepped into the front room, Laura was on her knees beside the couch rummaging through the picnic basket.

“You little thief!”Tarabelle shouted as she charged toward Laura. “You steal anything that ain’t nailed down.”

“I didn’t take nothing, Tara,” Laura cried, and moved swiftly out of harm’s way.“I was just trying to see.”

“See what? What this damn basket gotta do wit’ you?”Tarabelle snatched the basket up from the floor. “Everybody in this town talking ’bout yo’ little roguish ass.Ain’t nothing in the world worse than a thief,” she said, then shouted toward the bedroom, “Mushy, you better hurry up and send Mama on outta there before I change my mind, ’cause I’m gon’ have to hurt Laura out here. Little, low-down, dirty, thieving-ass, mangy dog.”

Laura sniffed her fingers, glanced down at her dress, then fled toward the bathroom while Tarabelle took her basket and went to wait on the front porch for Mama. I still stood in front of the mirror. A train thundered down the tracks behind the house, the house vibrated, and my reflection rippled in the glass. Soon, I thought.
Soon.

It was beautiful, breezy, sunny, a perfect day for a graduation, and I wasn’t the least bit nervous.We were leaving the house at twelve-thirty for a one o’clock ceremony, so I wasn’t rushed, and although I had not written a valedictory speech, I knew exactly what I would say. I felt calm as I adjusted the garters on my stockings and stepped into my shoes. Glancing at the mirror once more, I thought I looked nice—real nice. My warped finger was not on the hand that would reach for my diploma, but on the hand that would shake Mr.Hewitt’s.The scars on my back were hidden beneath a lovely, new dress, and the brand on my leg was barely discernible through nylon stockings.

My mother stepped into the living room, briefly glanced in my direction, and winked an eye that did not appear nearly as dull as it had a week ago. I realized that the movement of her eye must have been involuntary. But it winked again, before she stepped across the threshold.

I watched my mother walk up the street behind my sister. Mushy had offered to drive them to Penyon Road, but Tara had insisted on walking, so they strode like strangers, with Tara several paces ahead.

“Who woulda ever thought Mama would be so pitiful?” Mushy asked as we left the house for the Plymouth School.“I keep thinking ’bout how she used to be and how she is now. I know she still sick ’cause if she wadn’t, she’d be going on and on ’bout me living wit’ Richard, and she ain’t said nothing yet.”

“She’s coming around,” I said.“Every day she seems to get better. Even her eyes look clearer.”

“Maybe,” Mushy agreed.

We rode in silence for a while, and were midway up the last hill when I asked, “Mushy, if I wasn’t here, and Mama got better, would you let her take Laura back to Penyon Road to live?”

“I guess I would,” she said.“I don’t know how I could stop her. Laura is Mama’s child; she ain’t mine.”

As the school building came into view, Mushy asked, “Tan, you planning on leaving here?”

I nodded.“Yeah.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Maybe later this year or next year.”

“You gon’ leave me stuck wit’ Mama? I came back down here to help you, now you just gon’ leave me stuck here?”

Mushy parked the car on the school lot, and turned to glare at me, waiting for an answer.

“I’m sorry, Mushy,” I said.“I wanna leave Pakersfield. I thought you’d understand.”

“You selfish, Tan,” she said solemnly, shaking her head as though I had disappointed her.“We all done got dressed up today to come see you graduate ’cause we care ’bout you, and we proud of you. We thought you’d get a job and help take care of Mama. Me and Richard done took care of you for these last few months, and this how you say thank you?”

“Thank you,” I mumbled as I opened the car door to get out.

We walked across the schoolyard side by side, but not together at all. Mushy, I was sure, was craving a drink of whiskey. It seemed to be her solution to anger and frustration—her coping remedy. Although, sooner or later, she would have to face the inevitability of my departure, I blamed myself for my timing and for putting a damper on a day that should have been special.

Friends and neighbors stood in small groups, enjoying each other’s company while waiting for the start of the graduation ceremony. We were greeted cheerfully, and responded somberly, as we made our way to the main door.

“We gon’ be here all day ’til it gets dark?” Laura asked.

“Probably a couple of hours,” I answered.“You’ll have plenty of time to play with Edna, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“It won’t be dark?” Laura asked.

“No, Laura, it won’t be dark,” Mushy answered irritably.“Why you keep asking that?”

“’Cause why Tara need lamps?” Laura asked.“Mama don’t let us turn on the lamps ’til it’s dark.”

Mushy halted in her tracks and glanced down at Laura. “What you talking about?” she asked. “You know Tara ain’t gon’ stay out there all day wit’ Mama.”

“Tara ain’t got no food in her basket,” Laura answered.“She just got something that smell like kerosene, and a box of matches to light the lamps.”

“Shit!” Mushy whispered.“She gon’ set the damn house on fire. Tan, I’m gon’ drive out there before she do something stupid. I’ll try to make it back in time to see you graduate.”

“I’m going with you,” I said.“Laura, you go inside and wait for Harvey or Martha Jean.”

“Don’t tell Tara that I told,” Laura pleaded.

W
e saw the smoke and flames even before we turned off of Fife Street onto Penyon Road. Mushy, gripping the steering wheel, was swearing so fast that it came out as a chant. I was praying much the same way.

As we rounded the bend, we saw a shower of sparks drift down from the burning house to land in the field.Almost immediately, a small area of dry weeds began to burn. Up on the hill, smoke swelled from the broken window of Mama’s room and through the front door.Angry, orange flames blazed through the walls of the house and licked at the tin roof.

“Damn! Damn!” Mushy shouted. She stopped the car and shifted into reverse. “I can’t park next to the field.”

She was backing the car toward Fife when I glanced up the hill once more and saw my mother standing in a cascade of cinders. Her arms were outstretched as she whirled around like a child enjoying a spring rain.

“Let me out, Mushy!” I cried.“Stop the car! I think I see Mama.”

Mushy braked the car on the gully side of the road, and we both jumped out and raced toward the doomed house.The fire department did not cross the city line, and even if they did, they wouldn’t have been able to save anything.The room where I had spent the nights of my youth was no more. It had caved into the gully. Fire climbed the back wall of what had once been the front room, and the coal stove had dropped and rolled down the incline to be halted midway by burning rubble. Mama’s room, the hallway, half of the front porch, and all of the front steps were standing, but teetering toward collapse.

The smoke was frightening, and I could feel the intense heat from the fire as I scurried up the bank and into the yard. Mushy and I reached Mama at the same time, shouting the same thing, “Where’s Tara?”

Mama whirled in a world that revolved around her.Around and around she turned until I gripped her shoulders and brought her to a standstill. It took a few seconds before her eyes focused on me, and all the while Mushy and I were asking where Tara was.

“Where’s Tara, Mama?” I screamed once more.

Mama pointed toward the remains of the house.“She up in the house somewhere,” she answered calmly.

“No!” Mushy cried.“No, Mama!”

Across the road, the field was now burning out of control. I knew there was a possibility of embers igniting the foliage surrounding the gully, and if that happened, we could be trapped in blinding smoke. Even knowing that, we stayed where we were.

With tears streaming down her face, nearly hysterical, Mushy patted a hand against her chest, above her heart.“I don’t believe my sister is in there,” she cried. “If she was in there, I’d have that bad feeling right here. I don’t feel it.”

I knew exactly what she meant, and I didn’t feel it, either.“Take Mama out of here,” I said. “I’ll look around back for Tara.”

Mushy nodded and tried to move Mama toward the road, but Mama wouldn’t budge. “Come on, Mama, I gotta get you outta here!” Mushy shouted, tugging Mama by an arm.

Confident that Mushy would get Mama to safety—even if she had to hit her over the head and drag her away from the fire—I rushed toward the backyard, keeping as far away from the house as I could. Flames feeding greedily on dried lumber did not yet reach out into the yard, but I was cautious. I quickly scanned the rear of the house where wood crackled and crumbled at the kitchen’s corner, and the overhanging branch of a honey locust smoldered.

Tarabelle was nowhere, yet she had to be somewhere—down in the gully, under a bush, long gone from here—anywhere, except in the hell that was burning in front of me. I called out her name but got no answer.

I could see the rear wall of the house shifting beneath the roof. I stepped back along the path that led to the woods, putting distance between me and a charred wall whose fall in some direction was imminent. It roared as it separated from foundation and roof, then struck the ground, sending burning embers flying through the air. The roaring increased; it was the metallic cry of disintegrating tin.

Smoke, that had been drifting upward, now streamed out over the gully and toward the woods. My eyes watered; my throat itched, and when I tried once again to call Tara’s name, I began to cough. I stepped off of the path toward the outhouse, not quite ready to end my search, heading for the small space between the outhouse and the woods that would lead me safely back to the side yard and down to the road.

Someone had turned on the faucet in the yard.Water sprayed from the spout and hit the ground, sending a muddy stream cascading like blood, down the bank and onto the road.

Through the smoke, I saw stick figures coming toward me. “Is there anything we can do?” they asked.

If there was anything to be done, I would have done it.

I shook my head in response to their questions, and I was suddenly struck with that feeling of loss that neither Mushy nor I had felt earlier.Down on the road, Angus Betts and one of his deputies stood staring up at the burning house.They had come without my knowledge, without a siren, as though they had known there was no help to be given.

“Mushy tells me your sister is in there,” the sheriff said.

I nodded, and kept walking until I reached the spot where Mushy was waiting with Mama. I climbed onto the back seat, but for the longest time Mushy did not start the car. She stared straight ahead through the windshield, as though she expected Tarabelle to leap from the fire and smoke unharmed.

Behind us, on Fife Street, the Pakersfield Fire Department was hosing down the field on the city side of the line.

sixty - two

M
ushy had not known a sober second since returning home from Penyon Road. Richard Mackey stayed with her, consoling her. The siblings came—stunned and silent in their grief. Reverend Nelson arrived to exonerate the soul of Tarabelle Quinn for every sin she had committed in her lifetime. He bowed his head, raised a hand, and asked that her spirit rest in peace. How? I wondered.Was he not the same man who had condemned her to Hell for all eternity because she failed to honor a mother who knew nothing of honor? I was bitter.

Miss Pearl wept noisily, and Mattie stood in the living room silently shedding tears. Mr. Hewitt and Mr. Pace arrived to offer their condolences and to deliver my diploma to me. I would rather have had my sister.

I took the diploma into my room, stared at it, thought of how quickly it could go up in smoke. Finally, I tucked it inside a shopping bag that contained a change of clothes for me and Laura, then I went to the back porch and waited for a train to come along and fill my head with a roar that would obliterate all anger and pain.

Mushy stumbled out onto the porch and leaned on the banister beside me.There were puffy bags beneath her bloodshot eyes, her cheeks were flushed, and she could barely hold her head up.

“Tan,” she said, slurring her words.“I’m just gon’ come right on out and say this ’cause I can’t keep it in no longer. Mama killed our sister. While you was all up there in that smoke and stuff, I was down in that car wit’ that devil bitch, asking her what the hell happened. Took me a long time to get it outta her, but I got it. I sho’ nuff got it.”

Mushy dropped to the porch, held onto the rail, closed her eyes, bowed her head.“She say Tara told her to take a rest from her long walk. She was tired, so she done it even though the bed was all tore up to pieces.” Mushy cried, pounded her thigh with a fist.“She saw Tara pouring gasoline all through the house, could smell it, so she got up, got the matches, and went to the front door. Says she lit a match and threw it. Just walked on out the damn house and left my sister in there to burn.”

While I stood there staring straight ahead, a train whistle screamed in proxy. No sound came from me, but the roar and rumble of the locomotive filling my head were exactly what I needed.

Long after Mushy had crawled her way back inside, I remained on the porch, waiting for more trains to pass and shake up the world.
Sam, where are you? There’s a place filled with sorrow in my heart,
and you’re not there.Where are you?
I prayed for Sam, then I prayed that Tarabelle was in Heaven with Judy, and knew nothing of the fires burning in Hell.

I cried on the porch until darkness hid me.When I was able, I walked into a quiet house to see my mother, sitting on a kitchen chair, Mushy and Richard, both passed out from drink, and Laura, curled up on our bed asleep. I kissed my little sister, checked my shopping bag, then returned to the kitchen.

I didn’t really know what to tell my mother, but I knew I needed to say something. So I said, “Mama, I know you’re sick, and I’m sorry, but I think you know exactly what you’re doing.You didn’t have to kill Tara.”

“She was trying to kill me, Tangy Mae,” Mama said without emotion, without looking at me.

“You need to understand that you’ve placed yourself in the hands of the same children you taught to honor you. I’m afraid they might honor you the same way you’ve honored them, and we both know that’s no good.Tara wanted you to love her, but I don’t think you ever did. Since she died, my thoughts have been selfish ones. I think of all the chances I had to tell her I loved her, and I never said it. Now that I want to say it, she can’t hear me.”

I waited for my mother to respond, but she said nothing.

“I’d like to say that I love you, Mama, but I can’t say it today. I’ll just say that I’m trying hard not to hate you. I’m trying to understand.”

“Get away from me, Tangy Mae,” she whispered.

“I’m going,” I said, and turned to leave the kitchen, but I stopped in the doorway, and turned to look at her.“Mama, do you remember how Junior Fess came through that window and frightened you?”

She did not answer me, but I saw her back stiffen as though she knew what I was going to say.

“What do you think it’s going to be like when Tara comes back for you?” I asked. It was the cruelest thing I had ever said.

“Tangy Mae, if Tarabelle comes back, she’ll come as a fireball,” Mama said.“That’s what she was the last time I seen her.”

I
never slept that night. I watched the clock, and awakened Laura at four o’clock in the morning. She was sleepy and confused as I helped her to dress.We slipped past Mushy and Richard who were still asleep on the couch, then with a shopping bag between us, we walked up Echo Road, crossed the tracks, and made our way through town toward the bus depot.

As we stood in the dark outside the depot, Laura asked, “What happened to Tara?”

“I’m not sure,” I answered, which was the truth.

We climbed onto the five-thirty bus out of Pakersfield, and Laura took the window seat. It was fine with me.Over her head, I could see familiar landmarks passing in the dawn. Goodbye, so long, farewell.

“Where’re we going?” Laura finally thought to ask.

“We’re crossing the Georgia state line,” I answered.

She turned from the window, studied the high backs of the seats, and glanced down the narrow aisle. The bus yielded at the train tracks, and over Laura’s head, through the dirty window, I saw our mother. She was pacing the ground in front of the platform of the train depot. Her arms were folded across her chest as she marched back and forth, seemingly without purpose. She stopped, glanced at the bus, straight up at the window where we were seated. I was sure she could not see us, yet it seemed she could.

I did not want Laura to see her and take that memory with her. I placed a hand on my sister’s knee, and quickly asked, “Laura, do you remember where I was born?”

She nodded.“Yeah.You was born in a paradise beneath the sp-sp-sprawling branches of a live oak tree.”

The bus rattled across the tracks.“What else?” I asked.

“Your first remembered sight was . . .”