Tomato Girl (12 page)

As I washed my bowl and cup in the kitchen sink, I stared at the plastic bottle of Joy. Something mean rose up inside me like a black balloon. I couldn't stop myself. I took a paring knife from the drawer and cut a narrow slit in the bottom of the plastic bottle. Yellow Joy leaked into the sink. I left the bottle there to
drain. I dried my hands, returned the knife, and went out to the shed to see Daddy.

The shed stayed locked most of the time because Daddy kept dangerous things inside, like hammers, saws, and his gun. I knocked on the door. Two fast knocks, followed by three slow ones: our secret code.

“Come in, Ellie,” Daddy called.

I shoved the heavy door open and saw my father kneeling on the floor. I walked over to him and wrapped my arms around his neck. He smelled of sweat and sawdust.

Daddy laid his hammer down on the bench next to him. He sat on the bench, brushed the dust from his knees, then pulled me onto his lap. “So what do you think of my bed, Ellie?”

I leaned forward and ran my fingers over the knotty pine slab. “It's nice, Daddy. But I don't understand why you want to sleep in the sewing room.”

Daddy cleared his throat. “Your Mama's going to need her rest, Ellie. It will be better if she has the room to herself.”

I brushed sawdust from his dark hair. A fine dust landed on his shoulders. “Is Tess going to be sleeping in your new bed, too?”

His dark eyes narrowed. “What made you say that, Ellie? Tess shares your room, you know that.”

“Her things are in my room, but when I wake up, Tess isn't in my room. I've seen her pink nightgown in your room, too,” I said, my head lowered to avoid Daddy's gaze.

Daddy placed his thumb under my chin and lifted my head. His eyes were as fixed as stone. “You misunderstood what you saw, young lady. I don't want to hear you say anything so foolish around your mother. I mean it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I know it was a long time ago, but don't you remember when your mother came home from the hospital the last time? How happy she was until the letters came?”

I remembered.

I
REMEMBERED WHEN
my mother returned from the psychiatric hospital she brought a large manila folder marked “Poems by Julia Sanders.” “It was part of my therapy to write poetry.”

Mama wrote her poems on yellow legal paper. Scratching them out in pencil, she wrote at the market, in church, and between loads of laundry. I knew when she was working on a difficult line because her shoulders curled over the page, her cigarettes and coffee untouched.

“I was going to go to college,” she once told me, “and be an English teacher, then maybe a writer.”

“Why didn't you, Mama?”

“Why, silly, I met your father and had you instead.”

She touched my hair and smiled when she said this, but her mouth dropped, the corners sagging with regret.

For her birthday, Daddy surprised Mama with a blue-gray Smith Corona typewriter so she could type her poems. My father's suggestion that she send some to magazines thrilled her. She found names and addresses to editors and mailed her poems.

For awhile I'd never seen Mama so happy. Then the letters started coming, bad letters that said my mother's writing was no good.

Daddy tried to explain. “Julia, look here, it doesn't say anything's wrong with your writing. It only says they were unable to use the poems at this time.”

“Oh what do you know about poetry, Rupert? And what do you know about me, for that matter? Tell me? What?” Mama's face streaked red as the tears fell. “No, I'll tell you. You don't know a damn thing about poetry. You know even less about me!”

Mama went into another sad spell, crying a lot, angry at Daddy, ignoring me. It lasted a long time. And I never saw her write again.

• • •

D
ADDY SHOOK MY SHOULDERS
. “You can't say careless things in front of your mother. Tess is here to help with the housework, and she shares your room. Understand? You can't tell that you saw me kiss Tess, or that Tess has slept in my bed, do you understand? Do you, Ellie?”

I nodded.

Tess was like the bad letters.

W
HILE
D
ADDY CONTINUED
nailing legs on his new bed, I picked wildflowers for Mama's homecoming and carried them back to the house. I needed to trim some dead leaves and long stems, so I went to get Mama's scissors in the sewing room.

Tess was still hard at work to turn Mama's sewing room into a bedroom for Daddy. She'd shoved the black Singer into the far corner and draped all my mother's patterns and cut fabrics over a chair next to the sewing machine. Daddy's brown suitcase was near the door, and more of his clothes filled a cardboard box. On the glass-top table that had held Mama's thimble collection, Tess had placed Daddy's shaving cup and razor. She had taken down garments from the dress rack, replacing them with trousers.

Why couldn't Tess pack up her own things and leave?
I wondered. I didn't want her to handle Daddy's clothes as if she were his make-believe wife. I hated the way she crammed all Mama's things against the wall as if they didn't matter.

Mama's sewing basket was on the floor under the window. Kneeling by the basket, I opened its woven lid to find the scissors.

“What are you looking for, Ellie?” Tess asked.

I wished with my whole heart that I could be brave and smart like Mary Roberts. She always had something smart and snappy to say, mostly learned from her older brother. I bit my lip and tried to think of something.

Tess must have thought I hadn't heard her. She repeated her question: “What are you looking for, Ellie?”

And then it came. “None of your beeswax,” I said, then looked right at Tess.

“What did you say?” Tess's face turned red.

I picked up Mama's scissors. “You heard me,” I said, and marched out of the room.

Mary Roberts could not have done better.

A
FTER TRIMMING AND
arranging the flowers, I carried them upstairs and placed the vase on the table by Mama's bed, then arranged her lamp and box of tissues. When I turned on the lamp, there was no way to avoid seeing Daddy's absence there.

The room looked sad and lopsided, like a person with only one arm. The table on Daddy's side of the bed was empty. The book he was reading, his wire-rimmed glasses, and alarm clock were all gone. His shoes and boots no longer lined the floor at the foot of the bed. His navy plaid robe had been moved from the bathroom door hook. Checking inside the bathroom, I saw that his toothbrush and shaving cream were missing. I breathed in, sniffing the room. Lysol and bleach covered the cigarette smoke and Old Spice that usually tinted the air.

Back in my parents' bedroom, I opened the cedar closet. Mama's dresses hung alone on the rack. No trousers, no shirts, no row of belts or neckties.

Every trace of my father was gone. I did my best to spread out the few things I could to make the room look better. I placed some of Mama's books on Daddy's side of the bed, and arranged Mama's toiletries across the dresser.

No matter how I moved items around the room, though, there was no way to fix what was wrong.

Daddy called to me from downstairs. He'd put up his bed in the sewing room and was ready to bring Mama home from the hospital. “Let's go,” he called.

I bolted into my bedroom and fed Jellybean his second meal of the day. “We can do this, Jellybean,” I whispered, then blew a kiss his way.

I dressed as fast as I could, then ran downstairs to wait with my father for the cab.

Tess had dressed and combed her hair. She'd put on a red-and-white-striped dress with red sandals and earrings to match. Her hair was tied back with a ribbon and she'd painted her lips and nails red. Tess looked prettier than I'd ever seen her. I was happy to see she'd fixed up for Mama's homecoming.

But maybe she looked too pretty. Daddy couldn't keep his eyes off her.

When the cab pulled up in front of our house, I yanked Daddy by his sleeve and led him to the door.

As the cab turned off Grace Street, I snuggled close to my father. The pine oil and sawdust smells from his toolshed lingered on his clothes and skin. He was quiet on the ride to the hospital, but I squeezed his strong fingers in mine and tried not to worry. The past few days had been difficult, and it had felt as if something fragile had been broken. Now that Mama was coming home, we'd put the pieces back together.

A
S SOON AS
the cab slowed in front of the hospital, I grabbed the shopping bag with Mama's clothes and leapt to the sidewalk. “Daddy, come on!” My knees twitched and I could hardly stand still.

“Hold your horses, Ellie.” My father stepped out of the cab and walked toward me. He smiled, but only for a second. It wasn't the smile he wore when he felt happy, but the quick smile he put on when his mind was in a different place. Miss Wilder called the look “preoccupied.”

Knowing Daddy would catch up, I ran ahead, racing down the corridor toward the elevator. I looked straight ahead, barely noticing the smells and sights that usually scared me. After today, the bedpans, nurses, and awful smells would be a bad dream.

“Slow down, Ellie.” Daddy tried to rein me in, but I wouldn't wait. His footsteps grew quick behind me.

He caught up with me at the elevator where I had to step aside for an orderly to push an old woman in a wheelchair into the corridor.

On the elevator, I started to wonder which outfit Tess had packed for Mama. I should have checked before leaving home. Some of her dresses might be too tight now that she was going to have a baby. I opened the shopping bag to take a peek.

Curled inside was gray, paisley fabric. Tess had packed the dark, plain dress that had belonged to my dead grandmother. Mama never wore that dress. It was a keepsake, like Mama's wheat china or my white baby shoes.

My knees folded, and I sank to the elevator floor, crying, tired of trying to be brave.

Daddy knelt beside me. “What's wrong? Ellie, what's wrong?” His hands gripped my shoulders. He shook me so hard the back of my neck felt like it might snap.

My mouth opened, but only sobs came out. When the elevator doors parted, a nurse stepped inside. My father asked her to hold the doors open while he scooped me up in his arms and carried me into the corridor.

Daddy asked the nurse if there was a quiet place he could take me. She guided him toward an empty examining room. He thanked her and carried me inside where he set me on a table and held me.

“Tell me what's the matter, Ellie. Please, please, tell me.”

I pushed myself from his arms and sat upright so I could face him. Because the table was so high off the floor, my eyes were nearly even with his.

His furrowed brow glistened with sweat.

The whiteness of the room calmed my sobs, but words wouldn't come. I turned away from Daddy and stared at the chart taped to the back of the door. Fixing my eyes on the big black
E,
I pointed to the shopping bag.

The paper rustled as Daddy opened the bag. He pulled out the ghost dress and laid it in my lap.

“This?” Daddy asked. “This is what made you cry?”

I grabbed fistfuls of the dress. “Look at this! This isn't Mama's dress! Smell it!” I shoved the gray dress in my father's face. “This was Nana's dress, the one Mama was hemming at the time of the accident.”

“Well, honey,” Daddy said, taking the dress from my hands and dropping it back into the bag.

“Well, what?” I crossed my arms across my chest and poked out my chin. I wanted him to make this right.

“Tess didn't know, Ellie. She probably picked the first thing in the closet.”

I shook my head. “No, Daddy! Tess picked the ugliest dress in the closet, and she did it on purpose!”

Placing his hands on my shoulders, Daddy stared into my eyes and spoke slowly. He picked each word carefully, the way he did in the hardware store when someone complained about a purchase. “Tess is not perfect, but she's not mean, Ellie. She made a mistake, that's all. Haven't you made mistakes, too?”

“Yes, but …”

“Of course you have. We all have. Now please, Ellie. I need you to handle this like a big girl. We talked about this. You promised you were going to take care of Jellybean, help out around the house, and not upset Mama. Remember?”

“I know, Daddy, but …”

He put his finger to my lips. “Hush, no more arguing. Tess made a simple mistake. It's not important. Your mother will understand. I'll explain it to her, all right? You don't want to upset her, Ellie. Seeing you cry will only hurt her, and we don't need that, do we?”

I shook my head.

“Remember what I said about your mother being like a lily caught in a hurricane?

“Yes.”

“And the only way we can help her is to keep the wind and water around her calm. Understand?”

“Yes, Daddy. I'm sorry.”

My father pulled out his handkerchief and dried my eyes and nose.

“Now, are you ready to take your mother home?”

I struggled to smile, then nodded and reached out to him.

Daddy's large, rough hand swallowed mine.

M
AMA'S FACE BRIGHTENED
when she saw us. I jumped on her bed and threw my arms around her neck, trying to be careful not to hurt her. All the while my heart felt like a balloon ready to burst.

“All set to go?” Daddy asked, leaning to kiss her forehead.

“Am I ever! I already signed most of the forms, and saw both doctors this morning. As soon as I get dressed, we can leave.”

“I'll go check at the desk, see if there's anything else to sign while you dress. Should I get a nurse to help you?”

Mama waved her hand. “Oh, no. I can manage on my own.”