The Seventh Mother (4 page)

T
he next day I rode with Daddy in the morning, listening to country music on the radio. After we stopped for lunch in Iowa, I climbed into Emma’s SUV for the rest of the day’s ride. She looked kind of tired, but she smiled as we pulled out of the McDonald’s parking lot.

“So, this is pretty,” she said, nodding out the window at the rolling green hills. “It’s so green.”

“I guess so.” It just looked like anywhere else to me.

She glanced at me and then was quiet. After a few minutes, she tried again.

“Are you excited to be going back to Indiana?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Not really.”

“Do you remember when you lived there? You were pretty little then, I guess.”

“I remember we lived in some nasty places.” I shivered, remembering the apartments and rooms with roaches and mice. “That was before Daddy bought the trailer.”

“Do you go back to Indiana a lot?”

“Just when we need to get stuff from the storage place. We don’t stay there long. I don’t think Daddy likes it there.”

“Maybe he has sad memories from there,” she said softly. “That’s where your mom died, right?”

I stared at her for a minute.

“How do you know about my mom?”

“Your dad was telling me about her last night, about how she got the flu and died when you were just three. I’m really sorry, Jenny.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said.

She laughed a little. “I know. I’m just sorry it happened, sorry for you. You must miss her a lot.”

I shrugged again.

“Do you remember very much about her?” Emma asked.

I shook my head. “Not much. I remember she sang to me sometimes. And sometimes when Daddy was at work late, she slept in my bed with me.”

“That’s nice,” she said. “I bet she was a good mom.”

I nodded. I was surprised Daddy had told her anything about my mother. He didn’t like to talk about her. Sometimes when I was young, I’d ask him what she was like or how they met, and he got kind of mad. He always felt bad after, but he really didn’t like to talk about her. That much I knew.

“Maybe we can put flowers on her grave while we’re in Indiana.”

Emma smiled at me. “Would you like that?”

I stared again, my mouth hanging open. “I don’t think Daddy would like that,” I finally managed.

“Well, I’ll ask him. We’ll see.” She reached across the seat and patted my knee.

I just nodded. I didn’t want to tell her what I thought. I didn’t want to think about Daddy getting mad.

By mid-afternoon, the steady rumbling of the car had lulled me to sleep. I awoke with a start when Emma turned into the huge parking lot of a Walmart.

“Where are we?” I asked, rubbing sleep from my eyes.

“We’re in Indianapolis,” she said, pulling the SUV into a parking place beside where Daddy had maneuvered the trailer. “On the east side of town, I think. Your dad must need to buy some things.”

I shook my head. I knew we weren’t there to shop.

“Hey, sleepyhead!” Daddy opened the car door and stooped to hug me, pulling me from the car. “Time to rise and shine.”

“Hey,” Emma said, smiling at him across the top of the SUV. “Do we need to do some shopping?”

“Nope,” Daddy said, grinning back at her. “This is where we’re staying tonight.”

Emma gazed around her and then looked back at him. On the road behind us traffic sped by. A car braked abruptly, its tires squealing. Another car’s horn blared. In the distance, a siren wailed.

“We’re staying here? In a Walmart parking lot?”

“Sure,” he said, nodding. “Most Walmarts will let you park overnight, as long as you don’t make a mess or too much noise.”

“But, where will we plug in?” She stood staring at him, her green eyes wide, her freckled face pale.

“Tonight, honey, we’ll rough it. We can use the facilities inside. We’ll buy some sandwich stuff and have a picnic. The weather’s warm. It’ll be fine.”

Daddy was already unhitching the trailer from the truck.

“Come on, Jenny,” he said over his shoulder. “Hop to it.”

We worked in tandem, just like always, while Emma stood watching in silence, her mouth still open. I felt bad for her, because I knew she was confused and probably disappointed. I always felt that way when we stayed at a Walmart, too.

After we’d set up, Daddy held his hand out to Emma and they walked into the store. I trailed behind them.

“Welcome to Walmart,” an old lady grumbled at us.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Daddy smiled at her.

The woman’s eyes widened and finally she smiled back. Daddy was always nice to people. He said it was an easy way to make life a little better for everyone.

We filled a shopping basket with bread, sliced turkey, cheese, and tomatoes.

“Can we get some chips?” I loved potato chips, but we didn’t have them very often.

“Sure,” Daddy said. “Plain or barbecue?”

“Barbecue!” They were my favorite.

He smiled at me and touched my hair. He was in a good mood, which kind of surprised me. Usually he was grumpy when we were in Indiana.

We picked up some apple juice and a six-pack of beer. Emma trailed behind us, not saying anything. I worried she was mad because we were spending the night in a parking lot.

We stood in a long line, waiting to pay for our stuff. Ahead of us an older couple unloaded their cart onto the conveyor belt. The woman bumped into Emma, then turned to smile.

“Excuse me, dear,” she said.

Emma stared at her in silence, edging closer to Daddy.

“No worries,” Daddy said, smiling at the woman.

He looked down at Emma, his forehead wrinkled.

“Are you okay, babe?”

She nodded, still watching the woman in front of us.

After we paid for our things, we carried the bags across the parking lot to the trailer. Still, Emma said nothing. She gazed around her at all the people pushing carts. She looked like she might cry.

“Okay, what’s wrong?” Daddy asked, unlocking the door.

Emma stepped into the trailer and put her bag on the table. She was quiet for a minute, then she whispered, “There are so many black people here.”

Daddy’s eyes widened and then he laughed. “No more than anywhere else,” he said.

Emma sat down at the table. “A hell of a lot more than I ever saw before.”

I pulled the bag of chips from a sack and opened them. “Didn’t they have black people in Arizona?”

“Not the part I’m from.”

Daddy stood for a minute with his hands on his hips. Finally, he said, “Please don’t tell me you’re a racist, babe. Because where we’re going, there’ll be all kinds of people.”

She looked up at him, her eyes wide.

“I’m not a racist,” she said firmly. “I’m just not used to being around people . . . like that.”

It occurred to me then that we hadn’t seen a black person all summer.

“There weren’t any black people at the ranch,” I said.

Daddy shook his head. “I guess Idaho isn’t known for its ethnic diversity.”

“Mexicans,” Emma said. “There are lots of Mexicans there, especially in Rexburg.”

“Well, you’ll meet all kinds of people in Kentucky,” he repeated. “Blacks, Hispanics, Africans, Asians . . . you name it. Seasonal workers are a diverse bunch of folks. That’s not going to be a problem, is it?”

Emma shook her head and forced a small smile. “No,” she said. “It will be an adventure.”

“Good!” Daddy started opening packages and making sandwiches. “You’ll see, babe. People are pretty much all the same. We all want the same things. We all want to be happy. We all want a better life for our kids. We’re all just people.”

I sat down beside Emma at the table and opened the juice, wondering why there were no black people in Idaho.

After we ate, Emma cleaned the kitchen while Daddy and I pulled all of our clothes out and made piles, some to take with us and some to go into storage. I sighed when I put my swimsuit in the storage pile, wondering if it would still fit me when I got it back.

I climbed into my bed that night with Bugsy Bear and listened to the traffic of the street.

“It’s so noisy,” I heard Emma say.

“It’s just for tonight.” Daddy’s voice was low. “Tomorrow, we’ll be in Kentucky.”

“I hope it’s quieter there.”

Daddy laughed. “It’ll be fine,” he said. “You’ll see.”

The next morning when I got up, Daddy had already left to take our summer clothes to the storage unit. Emma cut a piece of coffee cake for me and poured juice.

“Your dad will be back in a while,” she said. She sipped black coffee from a Styrofoam cup.

“I hope my winter stuff still fits.”

“I’m sure some of it will. The rest, we’ll just replace.”

I nodded. “There’s a Goodwill down the street from here.”

She smiled at me. “So this is your regular Indiana camping place?”

I nodded again. “We always come here to get our stuff.”

“Maybe someday you’ll settle down somewhere for good.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Maybe.”

“Wouldn’t you like that?” she asked.

“I guess.”

She smiled and rose, pacing the narrow aisle of the trailer.

“Do you want to go back to the store?” I asked, thinking it would be nice to be out of the trailer.

“No,” she said, her voice firm. “I don’t want to go back in there. Not without your dad.”

“Are you scared of black people?”

She sat back down and sipped her coffee. “I’m just not used to them, I guess.”

“They’re okay,” I said. “Last winter in Georgia, the family in the trailer next to ours was black. They were really nice.”

“It’ll be an adventure,” she said again, but she sounded worried.

I
was glad to leave the Walmart behind. Jenny asked if she could ride with me, but I told her she should ride with her dad. I needed some alone time, just to think.

I know it surprised Brannon, the way I acted at the Walmart when I saw all those black people. I’m sure he thought I was crazy. But honestly, I never saw a single black person before I was seventeen, except sometimes on the television when I was very little, before we got rid of it. And living in Utah and Idaho, I hadn’t seen many since, except on TV and in the movies.

How could I explain to Brannon the way I was raised? He would never understand. I mean, I lived it and I still don’t understand it.

The drive south was dull, until we left the interstate and took to the back roads. We wound up and down rolling hills ablaze in yellows and reds and oranges. I had a hard time focusing on the road, the trees were so colorful. I felt like I had left the black and white of Kansas and entered a Technicolored Oz, where anything might happen. Signs for distilleries and churches flashed by, more kinds of Baptist churches than I ever knew existed—Southern Baptists, Independent Baptists, Missionary Baptists, Evangelical Baptists, Primitive Baptists. Who knew there were so many kinds of Baptists?

I knew already that Brannon wasn’t religious, and I had sure as hell had enough religion in my childhood to last through all eternity. But the little white churches were pretty, scattered along the road amid the autumn colors.

Finally, we saw a sign for Campbellsville. I followed Brannon’s trailer past the outskirts of a small city. Then we turned left and I gaped at a huge, sprawling warehouse. It looked almost as big as the city itself, with hundreds of cars in the fenced parking lot. Across the road behind another little church, we pulled into an equally huge gravel lot, stair-stepped up a hill. A sign proclaimed it the Heartland RV Park, but it looked nothing like the campgrounds I’d worked in out west. No green space, no trees, no lake or even a pond, just acres of gravel punctuated by RV hookups. A few dozen trailers were scattered across the lot, some of them much nicer than ours, others far shabbier.

Brannon parked in front of the rental office. I parked beside him and got out of the car, stretching. I felt like we’d been driving for weeks, instead of just three days.

“So, this is it,” he said, holding his hand out to me. “Home, sweet home until January.”

I stared at the barren lot and tried to smile. A small terrier yapped at the end of a chain. A dark-haired woman with a baby on her hip yelled at the dog to shut up. Down the hill, someone was grilling hamburgers for lunch. My stomach growled and I swallowed hard.

Brannon went inside to check in while I stood staring. I felt Jenny’s hand touch mine.

“It’s kind of ugly,” she said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “But maybe it’ll be prettier when it snows.”

“Maybe,” she said. Her voice sounded doubtful.

“Do you decorate the trailer for Christmas?” I asked.

“We put up lights,” she said. “I mean, more lights than we usually do.”

I nodded, remembering the plastic lanterns strung from the canopy in Idaho.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.

“We’ll get set up soon.”

“I can’t wait. Will you go with me?”

We walked into the building, where Brannon was laughing with a young blond woman who wore a skin-tight sweater and too much eye makeup.

“Here they are,” he said, waving at us. “This is Emma, and this is Jenny.”

“She’s just as pretty as you said,” the woman said, smiling at Jenny. She didn’t look at me.

“I have to pee,” Jenny said softly.

“The restroom’s next door, honey.” The woman pointed to a low building outside. “Showers and laundry are in there, too.”

“Thank you,” I said, willing her to acknowledge me. But she was already bent over her desk, pointing out our spot on a map for Brannon.

Jenny and I walked to the shower building and I pushed open the door cautiously. It was clean and well lit and smelled of bleach. I sighed with relief.

When we walked back outside, Brannon was already in the truck. The blond woman leaned against the cab, pointing down the hill to our spot.

“Thanks,” I heard Brannon say. “Thanks a lot.”

“Anytime, sugar.” She backed away from the truck and watched him pull the RV onto the gravel drive, smiling like she was pleased with herself.

Jenny and I climbed into the SUV and I gunned the engine a little, just to let the blonde know I was there.

“She looks trashy, doesn’t she?” Jenny said in a small voice.

“She sure does.”

“She looks kind of like Trish.”

“Trish? Is that a friend of yours?”

“No,” she said, staring out the window. “She was one of Daddy’s . . . friends.”

“Oh.” I glanced at her, but she didn’t look toward me. “Did she live with you guys?”

Jenny nodded. “Just for a while.”

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I hadn’t thought about it much, but of course I probably wasn’t the first woman Brannon had been with since Jenny’s mother died. How many had there been? I started to ask and stopped myself. We were already pulling alongside the RV. And I didn’t want to pump Jenny for information. She was, after all, only eleven.

Then Brannon was opening the car door and pulling me out to kiss me. He smiled that crooked smile and I felt my doubts subside. Of course he had a past. I had a past, too. They didn’t determine our future.

After we set up camp, we climbed into the truck and drove into the city of Campbellsville. It was a pretty little town, and when we parked and walked onto Main Street it felt almost like we were stepping back in time. Brick storefronts lined the street, many festooned with wreathes in fall colors. Window boxes overflowed with mums and jack-o-lanterns, stone planters bloomed on the sidewalks, light poles were wrapped in cornstalks and ribbons, and a banner draped across the street proclaiming, M
AINSTREET
S
ATURDAYNIGHT!

“It’s so pretty! Like being in a 1950s movie or something.”

“Mayberry, U.S.A.” Brannon smiled.

“What’s Mayberry?” Jenny asked.

“That’s a little town from an old TV show,” Brannon explained.

“Look!” Jenny pointed to a storefront window painted with hamburgers, french fries, and milk shakes.

“Happy Days.” Brannon read the sign aloud. “That’s another old TV show.”

“Can we eat there?” Jenny looked at her dad, her eyes wide.

“Sure,” he said. “A late lunch . . . or maybe an early supper.”

We settled into the vinyl seats of a booth with a red-checkered vinyl tablecloth. A pretty young woman with blond hair piled on top of her head approached, carrying menus.

“Welcome to Happy Days,” she said, smiling. “I’m Resa and I’ll be taking care of you today. Ya’ll ain’t from around here, are you?”

“Just got in,” Brannon said, smiling back at her. “I’m working at Amazon for the season.”

“Well, I hope you like it here.” She smiled at Jenny and then at me. “Campbellsville is a good place to live.”

I laughed when I opened the menu and read the selections, all themed from the old sitcom.

When the waitress returned, Jenny ordered the Love Me (Chicken) Tenders and Onion “Rings of Fire.” Brannon asked for Chachi’s Chili Cheeseburger. I got a veggie wrap.

“That’s not very authentic,” Brannon said, laughing. “You should at least try some fried pickle chips.”

“Not if I plan to stay in these jeans,” I said.

“Honey, if I could fit into those jeans, I’d eat until I burst wide open.” The waitress looked down at her own curvaceous figure. “I wasn’t that size when I was her age.” She nodded at Jenny.

We all laughed.

“So, what is there to do in Campbellsville?” Brannon asked.

“Not much,” she said.

“What about Main Street Saturday Night?” Jenny asked.

“That’s over for the season. Ya’ll missed the last one just last week.”

She paused then, looking at Jenny’s disappointed face. “Still,” she said, “there are some fun things to do around here. Let’s see, there’s Green River Lake. That’s real pretty. You can go boating or fishing, if it’s not too cold. Or you can take a horseback ride.”

“We did that all summer,” Jenny said, her lower lip drooping just a bit.

“Well, there are a lot of Civil War sites close by, and there’s the place Abe Lincoln was born. That’s a fun trip.”

Jenny sighed.

“Sounds great,” Brannon said, his voice just a shade too loud. “We’ll find lots of fun stuff to do.” He put his arm around Jenny’s shoulders. “I’ll bet you and Emma will have lots of great adventures.”