Two for Joy (3 page)

Mom worked hard and stayed up late most nights trying to get everything on her list done. I went to school every day and mostly stayed up late helping Mom at night.

One more time, before we left for Mississippi, Mom asked Tannie to come live with us.

“Grace,” Tannie told her, “let’s see how I feel when you girls get here.”

“That sounds like yes to me. We’ll see you in a few days,” Mom said.

We were ready to go get Tannie.
Would Tannie be ready for us?

O
n the day of our trip, we were supposed to leave before the sun came up, but Mom let us sleep in late again. She made floppy bacon and biscuits, too. We packed up the car fast. Before we hit the road, we went over the trip one more time.

“Jenna, it’s a long drive to Tannie’s. Do we have everything we’ll need?” Mom asked me.

“I have thirty-three books and my old bunny, Hop,” I said.

“I packed a cooler with ice and drinks,” said Mom. “I’ve brought three bags of food, in case we get hungry.”

“How about a map?” I asked Mom.

“No need for a map, sweet girl. I could make this trip driving backward. We’ll go over the Blue Ridge Mountains and into Tennessee. Then we’ll gain an hour by turning our clock back. We’ll drive through the Great Smoky Mountains next. Once we’re out of the mountains, we’ll be almost there. Finally, after one time change, two mountain ranges, and three states, we’ll see Tannie. If we don’t dillydally this time, if we only stop when we need to, we’ll be there before midnight, Tannie’s time.”

As we pulled out of the driveway, I waved good-bye to our house and to that noisy mockingbird, who was singing again in the holly outside my bedroom window.

“Good-bye, mockingbird! Wait until you get to meet Aunt Tannie next week! We’re bringing her all the way back from Mississippi,” I hollered out the car window.

Mississippi
is so easy to spell. I learned to spell it when I was little, like this:

M–I

Crooked Letter–Crooked Letter–I

Crooked Letter–Crooked Letter–I

Humpback–Humpback–I

I spelled
Mississippi
over and over, until Mom asked me to stop. The whole entire day, we drove through Virginia. I read all of my books over and over again. I ate two ham sandwiches and three handfuls of chips. I looked out the window at the mountains.

“Are we out of Virginia yet?” I asked Mom.

“No, not yet, Miss Jenna. Virginia is a very long state, if you drive it sideways. Let’s play a counting game to help pass the time,” Mom suggested. “Hand me a pimento cheese sandwich, and I’ll teach you how to play.”

I dug out a sandwich for Mom.

“And some chips, too, please.”

I dug out some chips for Mom and ate a couple more myself.

“Okay, Jenna, in this game, every time we see a church steeple, we have to sing the phrase ‘
Church bells do chime’
three times. You may sing high or low, fast or slow. The only rule is that you must sing it in a way that fits the church.”

Virginia has a lot of churches. When I saw a sweet, little white church sitting atop a hill, I sang
“
Church bells do chime”
fast and high, with lots of somersaults in my voice.

When Mom saw a fine brick church way down in a valley, she lowered her voice, deep like a man’s, and said, “That is a very big, very serious-looking church.” She sang her song so slow and so low that it didn’t sound like Mom. We sang and sang until we were hoarse.

When I got tired of singing, I still wasn’t tired of counting, so I made up a new game.

“Let’s count all the big trucks we see. And if we lose track, we have to start over; that’s the only rule.” All the way to two hundred thirteen or two hundred fourteen we counted. Then we got lost in our counting and had to start over. By the time we got to Tennessee, I was tired of trucks, but I still wasn’t tired of counting.

“Let’s count crows!” Mom said. “Like Tannie and I used to do when I was little. Saint Louis would drive us to Birmingham, and we’d tell our fortunes by the number of crows standing on the side of the road. Whoever sees a crow first starts counting like this:
‘One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret never told.’
I’ll go first.”

Counting crows sounded fun to me!

Mom saw one crow. “Uh-oh, one for sorrow. Too bad. I’ll see more next time. Your turn next. Hey, do we have an apple left?” I handed Mom an apple and took one for myself.

“Two! I see two crows! One for sorrow, two for joy!” I shouted.

We took turns all through the Great Smoky Mountains. Mom always counted only one for sorrow for her fortune. I counted every number except seven.

“Look!” Mom said on her turn. “Three! Well, of course. Three for a girl and I have you.”

We drove across the Tennessee River, and finally, on my turn, I counted seven crows.

“Wow, seven for a secret never told!” Mom slapped me a high five. “What do you think that means, Jenna? What is a secret never told?”

“Maybe, if there are diamonds buried in our backyard, but nobody ever found them, not even in a million years.”

“That’s a good one,” Mom said. “Or what if a unicorn lives way up in those Smokies, so deep in the forest that no person ever saw it and no one ever, ever knew that unicorns were real?”

Then I thought of Tannie and why we were making this trip. I wondered if Tannie had a secret never told. I whispered to Mom, “What if Tannie really does want to come live with us, but it’s such a big, gigantic secret inside of her that she hasn’t even told herself?”

“I think you’ve found our fortune, Jenna,” Mom said. “Let’s stop counting crows.”

In Nashville, I stared out the window at the streetlights as they came on. Mom listened to the radio. I fluffed up my pillow against the window and rested my eyes.

The next thing I’ll see will be Tannie,
I thought.

A
fter fourteen hours — one whole day and most of a night — we turned into Tannie’s drive at a quarter till midnight.

I ran to the house, straight to find Tannie. With her broken ankle in a cast, Tannie had to walk with crutches. She moved ever so slowly, but she and Butt were standing at the door waiting for us.

Tannie’s hand shook a little when she reached out to me. “Jenna, let’s get a good look at you.” Tannie tried to smile. Butt purred against my ankles and pushed his bottom high in the air. I hugged Tannie for an extra long time.

I could tell by her face that Tannie still had some pain. I smiled a lot even though Tannie didn’t look just like herself. Mom had told me to act happy so Tannie would see how glad we would be for her to come live with us. I didn’t have to act one bit.

“Tannie, how are you?” Mom wanted to know.

“I’m all right for any old lady,” she answered. She patted Mom’s shoulder and held her cheek out for a kiss.

Mom kissed Tannie’s cheek and held her close.

“How are you, really?” Mom asked again.

“Well, I’m not myself, if that’s what you mean. I don’t expect I will be for some time, if ever.” Tannie paused and sighed. “I’m different, Grace. I’ll have to use a walker after this cast comes off. Everything is different now,” Tannie told her.

Mom nodded like she understood. Butt licked his paws, then cleaned his face.

Tannie shooed us off to bed. “These girls have been on the road for too long, haven’t they, Butt?” Butt looked up from his bath.

“Get some sleep,” said Tannie. “We’ve plenty of time for catching up tomorrow.”

But I couldn’t sleep; neither could Mom. We were ready to talk Tannie into coming home with us.

In Tannie’s big guest bed, where Mom and I slept, I whispered to Mom, “Are you sure she’ll come? If I were Tannie, I wouldn’t want to leave.”

Butt hopped in the bed with us. He smushed the quilts down, turned around and around, and settled right on top of Mom’s chest. Mom started to sneeze, “Tannie’s a tough bird—
achoo
— that’s for sure. We’ll have some convincing to do, no doubt about it.
Achoo
.”

I hoped Mom would do most of the convincing.

In the morning, Mom got up her courage while she made us pancakes and sausage for breakfast. Mom says it’s easier to talk over a good meal.

I didn’t go kick my soccer ball around the yard or race through the woods looking for quail. I didn’t run to visit the chickens. I didn’t hide in the low, tangled branches of Tannie’s magnolia tree. I stayed right beside Mom while she told Tannie how we had everything ready for her in Virginia.

She asked Tannie nicely to come home with us, but that didn’t work. Tannie didn’t put up a big fuss at the idea of leaving the place she built with Saint Louis. She just didn’t want to leave.

Tannie said, “Grace, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll stay here.” Mom didn’t give up. She’s strong willed, too, just like Tannie and me.

Mom reminded Tannie of the time Tannie helped us, when we needed help the most. “When Michael and I split up? What did you do?”

Michael’s my dad; he lives way across the country now. He’s strong willed, too, just like the rest of us. Mom jokes that nobody ever called him Saint Michael. My dad lives in San Francisco — that’s even farther from Virginia than Tannie’s place.

Tannie looked at Mom and shook her head. “You girls are like my own, that’s all.”

Mom wasn’t going to give in. “Tannie, you came to us then. You read Jenna stories and taught her every bird song you know.”

“
Bob-white, bob-white,
” I whistled for special effect.

“That’s good, Jenna. Do you remember the song of the eastern meadowlark?” Tannie asked.

“I would never forget it.” And I sang the song of the eastern meadowlark for Tannie:
“Spring-of-the-year, spring-of-the-year.”

“How about the sweet little eastern towhee? Isn’t he your favorite?”

“Drink-your-tea! Drink-your-teaaa!”
I sounded just like the towhee.

“Ladies, stop changing the subject,” Mom scolded us. “Tannie, the point is we’re family. We need to be together.”

Tannie wouldn’t budge; Mom wouldn’t quit.

“Aunt Britannia,” Mom said softly, “we all need help sometimes.”