The Memory Closet: A Novel (24 page)

Mama caught Windy in Joel’s room while he was asleep. She was looking at him through the bars of his crib. Mama got mad and  sent Windy to her room and wouldn’t let her have any supper. I sneaked her a banana and one of Jericho’s apples. He got mad at me for eating the last one but I didn’t care.

“I do remember that Jericho was absolutely nuts about apples, ate half a dozen a day—just the tart green ones though, the kind you make pies out of.” I smiled at the memory. “That may have been the lone impact the man had on my life—I love green apples, too. I’ve got a bowl full of Granny Smiths in the kitchen.” An image formed, a round little memory with no sharp edges on it anywhere. “We’d sit on the porch in the evening, watching Joel toddle around trying to catch the fireflies in the willow tree, chomping on our apples together.”

The next few entries were about school and the broken pedal on my bike that I kept trying to get Jericho to fix for me. No specific images appeared in my mind when I read those entries. But a sort of background began to form, a muted wallpaper of scenes painted with a watercolor brush. A vague picture of my classroom at school and the playroom, full of girly toys—dolls and dollhouses. Eating supper and how little Windy looked, so short Jericho had to pile books in the chair—two dictionaries and a picture book of New Orleans—so she could reach the table.

Nov. 20, 1979. Words leapt off the page at me.

Mama slapped Windy and cut her lip. She got mad when the blood dripped on the rug and she made Windy stand in a corner
.

I looked at Dusty, and he was as disturbed as I was. But he said nothing. The knot in my gut, so recently untied when I figured out I had imagined all Mama’s abuse, tightened like a hangman’s noose.

As I flipped through the pages, it was like Mama’s treatment of Windy was colored florescent red. The words, a sentence here, a few words there, jumped out at me, page after page. I read to Dusty only those sentences.

Mama wouldn’t let Windy go swimming with me and the other kids.

Mama wouldn’t let Windy dress up and go trick-or-treating.

Mama sent Windy to bed without any supper.

Mama spanked Windy with the flyswatter. When the plastic end came off, she kept hitting her anyway.

I didn’t have enough air to read anymore and I sat staring unseeing at the pages.

Dusty patted my knee and spoke softly. “I’m sorry, Anne. I was afraid of this.”

“What do you mean? Why would you think—?”

“Because I remember that your mother was always … “ he chose the word carefully, “
unkind
to Windy. We all watched it happen, all the neighborhood children. A lot of the kids were mean to Windy—just because she was different—but I always felt sorry for her, felt bad about the way your mother treated her.”

“You mean the neighbors
knew
?”

“I don’t know what the other neighbors knew. I only know what I overheard my parents say. They didn’t like Jericho one bit. And they thought it was so sad for Bobo that"--he didn’t want to finish, but he did--"that her daughter had a drinking problem just like her son who got drunk and ran into a tree.”

I began to cry silently, didn’t make a sound. My shoulders shook and tears streamed down my cheeks.

“Dusty, the abuse in the pictures …” The truth was as jagged as a broken bottle. “It was
Mama!”

The reality of it, the finality of it, kicked me in the belly with a pointed-toe boot.

“Windy, poor little Windy! When she wasn’t being molested by Little Dove’s johns, she came here and my mother …”

I turned to face Dusty. “She hurt Windy and I watched her do it. I r
emember
what she did. And I thought—hoped—I’d imagined it. But I didn’t; it was real.”

Images flashed like lightning bolts in my mind, casting everything else into harsh relief in their glaring white light. Mama smashing Windy’s underwear down on her head; Mama shoving Windy’s head into the toilet. Twin booms of thunder sparked by the lightning rumbled inside my skull.

I dropped the book into my lap, unable to hold onto it with my trembling hands.

“Oh Dusty,” I almost wailed. “My mother was …”

I couldn’t finish the sentence. Dusty finished it for me.

“A woman you loved very much. She was, wasn’t she?”

“Not
her.
Not the woman who … I never even
met
her. The woman I loved was kind … gentle …
good!
She used to stand in my bedroom doorway at night and just look at me when she thought I was asleep. But
this
woman. Dusty, what she did to Windy … “

“Did you ever think that maybe your mother spent the rest of her life trying to make up for what she did to Windy? A lifetime of remorse is a pretty stiff sentence.”

I burst into tears; it all let go. I cried in great heaving sobs that wracked my whole body. Dusty put his arm around me, pulled me close and held me while I cried, just like Bobo did the day Mama almost drowned Windy.

I cried for Windy. For Bobo. And for myself. I cried for the mother I had just buried and for the tortured woman I had only just met. I cried from a great well of pain I hadn’t even known existed, a deep dark hole where other hidden terrors still lurked.

But mostly, I cried for Windy, for a little wisp of a girl with a china doll face who never had a chance in life. I cried because I remembered--I
remembered--
how much I loved her. Finally, after all these years, I grieved the death of my little sister, Laughs in the Wind.

When I was all cried out, I felt weak. And strangely peaceful. It was like finally getting the cancer diagnosis. It’s awful, but at least you know.

I pulled back out of Dusty’s embrace and looked into his pale green eyes. “Thanks, Dusty. I—”

“You’re not allowed to thank a cop, didn’t you know that? Helping people’s what we get paid for. It’s in the job description.”

“This wasn’t your job.”

Surprisingly, Dusty was caught a little off guard this time. He stood abruptly and picked his hat up off the bed.

“I’ll be by to pick you up day after tomorrow. You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Dr. Kendrick. In Amarillo. You have an appointment at nine o’clock. I said I’d take you, remember? I’ll have to pick you up before Bobo’s chickens are awake—six o’clock. But I’ll pump you full of caffeine at R’s. Amy puts the coffee on at five-thirty. And I’ll feed you lunch, too. If you recall, that’s another promise I made: no tacos.”

I’d forgotten about the shrink appointment. All I remembered was that I had sort of agreed just to shut Dusty up, and fully intended to come up with an excuse not to go.

“Sure. Six o’clock sounds dandy.”

“You’re really looking forward to this, I can tell.”

“Like having my sinuses drained.”

Dusty chuckled.

“OK, worst-case scenario. You hate every second you spend with Dr. Kendrick. Fine. Smile your pretty little smile at her as you walk out the door, and you never have to go back. And you get all the coffee you can drink and a free lunch out of the deal—maybe dinner, too, if you play your cards right. Can’t beat that.”

He reached over and lifted my chin so I was looking at him.

“Best-case scenario. You’ve found somebody you can unload it all on—every awful detail, somebody who can help you sort out real from illusion. That’s better than a sharp stick in the eye, isn’t it?”

I smiled. “Yeah, better than poison ivy, an income tax audit, and sand in a wet bathing suit.” And in truth, it really didn’t sound bad, to finally tell another human being about the Boogie Man. Actually, that didn’t sound bad at all.

We were walking out of my bedroom when Bobo emerged from hers across the hall after her daily
Oprah
fix. As soon as she saw us, she burst into a one-hundred-watt smile, which wasn’t a black hole experience as long as she had her teeth in.

“Well, well,
well …”

My face was instantly the color of a fire truck. “Bobo, we were just—”

Dusty cut me off. He gave Bobo a big wink and stage whispered, “We were playing kissy face, Bobo. It’s a lot more fun without all those chickens watching.”

He put on his hat and tipped it at me, “See you Friday morning.” Then he bounded down the stairs to the door.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Bobo asked, “Was you
really
? The two of you, playing kissy face in there?”

Her astonished look was so comical that I laughed out loud, even though there were still tears on my cheeks.

“Here, chick-chick-chick,” I said.

Then I turned around and went back into my room to read the rest of the diary.

W
indy stood in the doorway of my bedroom. She was there as soon as I sat down on my bed and picked up the diary. The memory materialized fullblown in my mind as bright and clear as a flare tossed into the night sky.

“Windy!”

When I look up and see her standing there, I’m overjoyed. She wasn’t supposed to come until tomorrow, and she’s here a day early. A whole extra day to be together! We can play Barbies all day. And after supper, we can try to catch one of the huge toads that come out at night to eat the bugs beneath the streetlight on the corner. We can … well, we can do whatever we want to do. Windy’s here!

But something’s wrong. Windy doesn’t look right.

“Windy, are you Ok?”

She doesn’t say anything. Just stands there, her eyes vacant, her long black hair tangled, like it hasn’t been combed in a couple of days. She’s barefoot, her shirt is dirty and torn, her arms are scratched and there’s dried mud on her knees and the palms of her hands.

“Windy?”

I put down the paper doll I’m cutting out, lay the scissors aside, get down off my bed and cross to where Windy’s standing. When I

get close to the door, I can hear voices coming from the parlor.

“Mrs. Johnson, we didn’t have anywhere else to take her.”

I step around Windy and go to the top of the stairs. Two police officers are standing just inside the front door.

“She’s Jericho’s little girl, not mine, and Jericho’s not here.” That’s my mother’s voice. “She’s not supposed to be here until tomorrow. Jericho gets her on weekends and today’s Friday.”

The officer speaks slowly, the way you explain something to a small child. Or a drunk.

“Ma’am, I told you, we got a call from somebody who almost ran over her. She was just wandering down the roadside over by the trailer park.”

The other officer takes up the story. “She wouldn’t talk to us, wouldn’t say a word. We took her back to the trailer park and the neighbors said she was Little Dove’s and Jericho’s daughter. But Little Dove wasn’t home. She’s too little to be out wandering around, and your husband’s her father.”

“So why is this my problem? I told you Jericho’s not home, and I’m not that kid’s mama.”

“But ma’am, she has to stay somewhere, and her father—”

“She’s fine right here; we’ll see to her.” That’s Bobo’s voice. I can’t see her from where I’m standing but she sounds mad. 
"I'll
see to her. Thank you for your trouble. It was right nice of you …”

I turn back to Windy. She’s so much smaller than I am, I squat down to be closer to her eye level.

“Windy.” Nothing. “Windy!”

The vacant look vanishes, and her eyes suddenly focus, like she was sleepwalking and my voice woke her. She starts to tremble, looking over her shoulder like somebody might be behind her.

“Annie, it was dark and I came in quiet so nobody saw me, and then … then I hid.”

“Hid where? Who were you hiding from?”

She starts to cry and I hear Bobo’s footsteps on the stairs. When she sees Windy, she shakes her head and mumbles under her breath. I catch words like “unfit mother” and “neglect.”

“Honey, we got to get you cleaned up,” she says to Windy. She turns to me. “Run upstairs to Windy’s room and get her some clean clothes.”

She takes Windy’s hand and leads her into the bathroom off her bedroom where there’s a big, claw-foot bathtub. I go looking for clothes. The morning sun has barely cleared the trees across the street, but already the third floor is stifling hot. It’s August; the temperature will top out this afternoon at over 100 degrees, and the big old house has no air conditioning.

I open the armoire where Mama keeps clothes for Windy to wear when she’s here—old, worn-out, hand-me-downs I have outgrown. It’s empty. I search the dresser and find a lone sundress with faded pink-and-yellow checks, with pink tie straps and a sunflower on the front. All the other drawers are empty. I can find no underwear, socks or shoes, and Windy’s too little to borrow anything of mine.

When I get back downstairs, Mama is standing in the bathroom doorway, leaning against the door frame. Bobo has Windy in the tub and is washing her hair.

“Jericho gets home, he’s taking her right back over to her mother’s.”

Just then Joel wails from the playroom. There’s a baby gate across the doorway, and he’s standing at it, holding onto the bars like a prisoner at his cell door.

“Mama, up!” he cries and holds his chubby arms out. Mama smiles and starts for the playroom.

“I don’t think I’d carry that baby down them stairs right now if I was you.” Bobo voice is stern. She pours water out of a glass over Windy’s hair to rinse it.

“What are you talking about? There’s nothing wrong with me.”

Their eyes meet. After a second or two, Mama drops her gaze, turns toward the playroom and walks a little unsteadily toward Joel.

“Come on, Sweetie. Mommy’ll hold your hand, and we’ll go downstairs. And you can go outside and play in the sandbox.”

“Ox!” Joel squeals.

She lifts him over the gate, sets his feet on the floor and takes his hand. He’s two years old, but unstable on his feet, still lurches like he’d just learned to walk.

When he sees me, his face is bathed in an angelic smile. “Na-nee! Na-nee!” He has just learned to say, “Annie.”

Mama holds firmly to the banister each step down the stairs.

Bobo helps Windy out of the tub. She’s scratched and bruised, but that’s nothing out of the ordinary. She always comes here with marks on her somewhere. What is strange is her silence. She doesn’t ever have much to say around Mama, but with Bobo and me she’s a little chatterbox.

“Honey, what’s the matter?” Bobo asks as she towels Windy’s long black hair dry. “Why was you out walking all by yourself?”

“I wasn’t s’posed to be home, and I knew Mama’d be mad so I was quiet. I hid in the dark where they couldn’t see me. But I could see them.”

The phone rings downstairs. After the third ring, Bobo figures out Mama must be outside and can’t hear it so she rushes into her bedroom to answer the extension.

“Put her dirty clothes in the hamper,” she says over her shoulder to me, “and help her get dressed.”

It doesn’t take long. There’s nothing to put on but the sundress and I tie the straps on her shoulders.

“Let’s play Barbies. You want to? You can have Superstar Barbie. Joel’s outside so he won’t bother us.”

When we get into the playroom, I change my mind.

“No, let’s play babies.” I hand her a baby doll and a blanket. “You can make her bed right here. Play like you have just one baby but I have twins …” I keep talking; Windy nods and doesn’t say much. When she does talk, she sounds like a wind-up toy.

Bobo comes to the door of the playroom. She has taken off her apron and changed into a Sunday dress. “That was the church. Selma didn’t show up to work at the bake sale, and they need me. I’ll be back before supper.”

Windy and I play with baby dolls for a while, then switch to Barbie dolls. The temperature rises in the playroom as the sun climbs higher in the sky.

“Annie, lunch is ready,” Mama calls from the foot of the stairs.

Windy and I go down through the cool, dark parlor, grateful to escape the heat on the second floor. By midafternoon the whole house will be sweltering. The ceiling fans in all the rooms on the first and second floors move the hot air around and make it bearable. But there’s no fan in the kitchen; when the afternoon sun fries the backyard on its way down the western sky, the kitchen is the hottest room in the house.

Windy hangs back, fearful, and I try to be especially bubbly and charming to keep my mother’s attention off her. Joel is in his high chair, smearing grape jelly on the tray. Mama has set out two plates with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and two glasses of milk. Windy doesn’t like milk and Mama knows it. If she doesn’t drink it, Mama will punish her. But when Mama’s not looking, I’ll drink it for her.

“You having a good time playing dolls?” Mama asks me. She never talks to Windy.

She turns and sets an empty glass down on the kitchen counter by the stove, next to a bottle of bourbon that only has about an inch left in the bottom. When she turns back around, I notice that her pale blue eyes look funny. I can see no color at all—just round black spots on the white—like the eyes of a fish.

I chatter on and on about nothing, Joel picks up a piece of bread and concentrates on poking a hole through it with his finger, and Mama wipes the countertops with a washcloth, making a stab at cleaning the kitchen.

“Can we play in the sprinkler in the backyard after lunch?”

“We’ll see.”

Mama pulls the black plastic bag full of trash out of the kitchen garbage can, cinches the bag closed with the pull ties and sets it by the back door to take outside to the big cans by the garage.

As Mama puts the new bag into the can, I see a stricken look suddenly appear on Windy’s face. Mama has her back to us and I mouth, “What?”

She just sits there, horrified, like a rabbit as a car bears down on it.

And then I smell it. Mama opens the storage closet across from the cellar door to put the box of trash bags away and she smells it, too. At first she thinks it’s Joel’s diaper. He’s not potty trained yet. She steps to his chair, leans over him and sniffs. Then her eyes go to Windy, and as recognition dawns, a look of such raw revulsion appears on her face it terrifies me.

Windy has messed in her pants again. Except there are no pants. She’s wearing no panties under her sundress.

She grabs Windy by the arm and almost dislocates her shoulder yanking her out of the chair. Windy has had diarrhea. There’s a puddle where she was sitting, and when Mama pulls her out of the chair, it smears across the seat and runs down her legs onto the floor.

“You little Indian maggot!” Mama screams, her voice harsh and shrill. It startles Joel, and he begins to cry. “You filthy little vermin; you’re not fit to be around human beings.” She’s holding Windy by the arm the way you’d hold a dead mouse by the tail. “And I have to clean your crap!”

Suddenly, the diarrhea hits Windy again. As it pours with a gurgling sound down her legs, Mama screams, “No! Stop it! Don’t …”

She looks around frantically, trying to figure out what to do with the erupting mess. Her eye falls on the empty garbage can. She yanks Windy off her feet and plops her down into it. Windy’s so short the can comes up past her waist.

“Look at the mess you’ve made! You’re a disgusting little Indian pig!”

Joel is frightened, crying hard now, holding his sticky little hands over his ears. Mama takes a step toward him when the bubble and splatter sound of diarrhea launches a new cloud of putrid stench into the air.

“Aaaggghh!” Mama shrieks a cry of inarticulate fury. “You nasty rat!”

She turns and grabs the plastic garbage bag, pulls it over Windy’s shoulders and cinches it closed around her neck so that nothing but her head is sticking out. Then she grabs hold of Windy through the plastic and lifts her, bag and all, out of the can. She takes two steps to the open storage closet, tosses Windy onto the floor with a thump and slams the door shut.

She puts out her hand to steady herself on the door frame and surveys the disaster in her kitchen. A crying toddler and an 11-yearold are both staring at her with wide, frightened eyes.

“What are you gawking at?” she snarls at me, then brushes past me and fumbles around trying to unhook Joel’s tray so she can lift him out of the chair.

I realize how unstable she is.

“Let me do it, Mama.” I pull the tray away and pick up the frightened little boy. He wraps his arms tight around my neck and presses his sticky face against my shoulder.

“Go get him cleaned up. And be careful! Don’t step in that crap all over the floor.”

I make my way around the puddles of diarrhea on the linoleum and take Joel into the bathroom off the parlor. I wash the jelly and peanut butter off his hands and face and out of his red curls. He immediately stops crying, and his sunny smile reappears between his chubby cheeks.

“I rudge jew,” he says happily. I think that means “I love you.”

I carry him back into the dining room and stop at the kitchen door with him perched on my hip. Mama is on her knees on the floor wiping the puddles of lumpy brown liquid with a handful of paper towels.

“It’s time for Joel’s nap,” she says when she sees me. “Give him a Sippee cup of cold water—I’ve got some in the fridge—and put him to bed while I clean this mess!”

I edge around where Mama is cleaning, go to the refrigerator and get one of his cups out. I say nothing. What is there to say?

When Joel was born, Mama and Jericho converted the big walk-in storage closet next to their bedroom into a temporary nursery. Mama and I’d put up a fire truck wallpaper border in it to make it cozy, even though Jericho had said it was stupid to waste it there, that it wouldn’t be long before Joel was in his own room upstairs. But Joel hadn’t matured like other babies. He couldn’t walk until he was 18 months old, didn’t say a word until he was almost 2.

Now, at two, he still can’t say more than a handful of words, and he’s way too big for the baby bed. But Mama keeps him in the nursery anyway. She doesn’t think he’s ready to be in a room by himself. And his continued presence in the room next to theirs has been added to the long and ever-growing list of things Mama and Jericho fight about.

It’s relatively cool in Joel’s room. A big honeysuckle trellis covers the back wall of the house, shading the bedroom window from the scorching sun. I turn the fan in the bedroom ceiling on high, then sit down in Bobo’s antique spindle rocker and snuggle with Joel while he slurps on his cup.