Winter Birds (12 page)

You, Danny, went into the kitchen to pour yourself a
glass of cold tea, and there you found Allen and Duck eating peanut butter crackers Mama had made. You drank the tea and ate the crackers with them, till Mama came in to soak the potatoes, tussling your hair and asking, “Are you glad there's no school tomorrow? Did the teacher give you a lot of homework?”

You made a face. “She gave us this spelling stuff. We have to write this story about anything we want to, but we have to use all the spelling words for next week.”

“Is that hard? Seems like to me that might be fun.”

“Even if it's hard I still have to do it.”

She smiled at you and said, “I'll help you think up a story. I used to be good at making up little stories when I was in school.”

“We also had all this adding. But I did most of it on the school bus. And we have to read in the geography book, about this island.”

“I'll fix you spaghetti this weekend,” Mama said, “if you study hard. You have to be smart if you want to go to college.”

“Danny's too smart for his britches,” Amy hollered from the living room. “The teachers don't like it if you be too smart.”

“You hush.”

“You make me.”

“You make me make you.”

“If I'd of made you, you wouldn't be as ugly as you are.”

“Both of you hush,” Mama said. “You shouldn't talk mean to each other.”

She sent you out to play with Allen and Duck in the yard, on the opposite side of the house from the room where Grove was sleeping. If he heard you playing he would want to go outside, and Mama said he must be still until there was no more blood in his elbow. Delia came into the kitchen and stood Amy in a chair in front of the sink to wash her hair. The sound of their laughing made Mama leave the room.

Papa came home early from work and Mama made him a cup of coffee. He sat in the kitchen to drink it, watching Delia slide bobby pins through Amy's soft, wet curls. Mama had asked him to stop at the grocery store and bring home a few things, so after a while she said to him, “You didn't get the groceries I asked you buy. We're out of salt. My dinner won't be fit to eat.”

“I didn't forget,” Papa said. “But I didn't come by a store on the way home, I come down river road.”

“Well, I got to have that stuff.”

“Don't worry me about it, let me rest a minute. I'll ride out directly and get whatever you need.”

“You're going to the store?” Delia gazed at Papa holding a comb suspended in the air. “Let me go with you. I need me some shampoo and things.”

“We got some shampoo,” Mama said. “Don't waste your money.”

“You don't have the kind I like. I need me some with condition.”

Papa thumped a cigarette out of the pack and lit it. “Won't hurt to have some company.”

Delia explained to Mama, “Some of the things I need you can't ask a man to buy for you.” She and Papa watched each other, smiling. Mama turned to the sink. Through the window she watched the slowly contracting halo of color around the setting sun. She heard Delia say, “I ain't been away from this house in three days.”

“I haven't been away from this house in two weeks,” Mama said, almost quiet enough that no one heard. “Can't go nowhere. Can't get a damn battery for the car. Can't do nothing, not me.”

No one answered. She ran water over the potatoes and lit the stove beneath the pot. Wiping her hands on her apron, she disappeared into the back of the house, where Grove lay sleeping on his narrow bed. She lay beside him there, face down on the quilt.

Simply breathing, she listened to the house's sudden stillness. Grove's pale face, turned toward the ceiling, made her feel sad all the way down to her bones. “His own youngun,” she murmured. “His own. He don't half know you.” The thought made her hurt in the belly and she didn't even know why. She doubled herself over and then, lying like that on the bed and feeling all alone, she heard the kitchen door open and footsteps, laughter, the starting of the truck. Distant. The room where she lay was lit dimly by the last of the daylight. She stood at the window to watch the truck pull away, though the windshield, washed blank and dark, prevented her from seeing their faces.

Everything inside her felt torn. She tried to explain
to herself. Why shouldn't Delia go to a store with Papa? What could it hurt? Suddenly it seemed to her that things had got to that point again with Papa, that she was walking the wire again. She remembered what he had said about the red dress. She wondered if he simply didn't want to get a battery for the car, so she couldn't drive anywhere even if she wanted to. He would rather bring the groceries home himself than have to wonder where she might drive when he was away. A woman should stay home and clean her house and look after her children he said, and she added yes, you're only safe when you keep them locked away.

Now Delia. Could she be right in thinking such a thing about her own sister? Or was Mama what Papa said, a woman from a trash family with a filthy imagination? She lay on the bed and pictured Papa's truck on the highway, Delia's laughter rising over the sound of the engine.

Amy came in the room, sat on the edge of the bed and whispered, “Mama. Are you awake?”

“Yes, honey.”

“Mama, Delia rolled my hair too tight again. Will you fix it?”

It cleared her head. She took a deep breath, feeling the warm child's body close to her and hearing the other child breathe softly into his pillow. She took strength from the sounds and the warmth and sat up, saying, “Let's go in the other room. We don't want to wake up Grove.”

BY THE
time the truck had pulled into the yard again, she
had convinced herself she was only being foolish, that she ought to trust her sister better than that, even if she didn't trust her husband. She tried not to think how long they had been gone; she simply held the door open for Delia and took the grocery bag from Papa, who kissed her elaborately on the cheek. “Sit down,” she said, “I've got coffee water on the stove. You too, Delia.”

Papa sat. But Delia walked straight through the house to the bathroom. From rooms away Mama could hear the water running. Mama spooned coffee into Papa's cup and stirred, liking the soft chime of the spoon on the glass. But when she opened the bag, she found no salt. “You didn't get everything,” she said. “There's not any salt. And no fatback either.”

From the bathroom came the sound of the toilet flushing.

“There was another bag. Delia was carrying one. She must have left it in the truck.”

Mama touched his face tenderly. “You're tired, aren't you? Sit still and drink your coffee. I'll go get it.”

“No, let me—”

“I don't mind. I need me a little fresh air anyway.”

Her sweater hung from the doorknob. She pulled it on and opened the door before Papa could move. Why did he give her such an odd look? Didn't he see she was trying to say she was sorry? On the porch she stopped to touch the soil of her potted plants. They would want water tomorrow. Swinging wide the screen, she breathed the clean November air. The cold made her smile. The truck
door latch chilled her hand, and the door was hard to open but there the bag sat, on Papa's tool box, on the floor.

The seat had been cleared. Why had they cleared the seat?

Mama lifted the bag slowly, then set it down again. An odd, prescient feeling overcame her. Leaning down, with a look on her face as if she were hearing a voice, she searched under the edge of the seat.

Her heart went cold when she touched the thing. She had never really expected… . The feeling, when it came, was much different than she had supposed. She held the flaccid thing in her hand, still warm. She lifted it to the light. A simple sack of viscous seed. He must have wanted her to find it.

How simple it seemed. It probably had not even taken a long time.

She must not forget the groceries. Lifting them to her arm, unhurried, she walked back to the house, to the husband and the sister who was already packing her clothes; she was whispering, “Delia, Delia,” and carrying the leaking thing flat on her palm in the clear air, when Papa first saw her from the kitchen window.

Delia took the bus back to Pink Hill that night. The only turkey she had for Thanksgiving came out of a vending machine in the Rocky Mount bus station.

The smell of roasting chicken drifts through the house. Papa has sat still for a long time, but bends now to put on his shoes. He has long since learned to lace and tie them one-handed, asking no one's help. Stuffing the pack of cigarettes in his pocket, he circles the chair to the door. The thought that he might be leaving makes your breath come easier.

But when he opens the door Mama rushes into the room wiping her hands on a towel. “Going for a walk?” she asks.

“If I feel like it I will,” Papa says, watching the road.

“Don't you want your coat? Or do you have something else in mind to keep you warm?”

He kicks open the screen door. “It ain't cold enough for a coat.”

“No, but it's cold enough for a bottle, isn't it?”

The frown settles deeper into Papa's face, and the look in his eyes makes you afraid. “Keep it up,” he says.
“You'll get what's coming to you. It's a holiday today. Ain't nobody going to tell me what I can and can't do.”

“Go on then. Get out to the truck. You think I don't know where you hide your whiskey? Right behind the seat in a little brown bag.”

“I know better than to think I got any secrets from you, the way you sneak around.”

“Why don't you get brave and bring it to the house? I'll tell you why. Because you know I'll pour it straight down the sink. Even you can't get any more on Thanksgiving, can you?”

Papa slams the door shut behind him. You hear his fading footsteps cross the porch and descend, you hear his fading whistle. When Mama turns the anger has drained from her face. She lays her hand on Amy's shoulder and asks Grove quietly how he feels. Does he need more ice for his arm? Her voice is soft and dry as the wind through the cornstalks in the fields. All of you watch her, wanting to tell her it doesn't matter about Papa. He can drink if he wants to, you don't care. Nothing matters except that she wear some other look on her face. Amy says, “Please don't worry, Mama, we don't care about him.”

“I wish it won't ever Thanksgiving so he'd have to work all the time,” Allen says.

“I ain't even hungry,” Duck says.

Mama turns to the kitchen, folding the towel. “I'm not hungry either. All this good food cooking and none of us will want to eat a mouthful.”

You hear footsteps on the porch again. Outside, Papa hawks and spits. The sound makes you afraid, makes you hate him so much your whole body trembles, you picture him curling up in a ball and dying because you hate him so much, drying up in the heat of hate till he is small and smoking black, a dead leaf or a piece of ash, light, that the wind can lift away. But he ignores your imagination. Mama vanishes into the kitchen when she hears the doorknob turn. Papa stomps his feet on the heavy floorboards. Until he closes the door a cold wind floods the room. The flames in the gas heater dance back and forth, blown nearly to nothing. You can smell whiskey on Papa's clothes. He staggers a little, falls heavily into the chair. The look on his face is slow, stupid and thick. He fishes a cigarette out of his pocket and fumbles to light it. He flips ash to the floor. Amy glares at him full of her own hate. Softly she says, “You got an ashtray right there beside you.”

When he turns to her she tries to meet his eye. He asks, thickly, ‘What did you say?”

She holds herself perfectly still. Her mouth is a pinched line. “I said you got an ashtray right there. You don't have to strike ash on the floor.”

Papa leans forward. “Who do you think you are, my goddamn mama?”

Amy shakes her head, flushing a little.

“Answer me you little bitch. Who do you think you are, my godamn mama?”

“Don't you cuss at my sister,” Grove says, sitting up
suddenly, cradling his hurt arm under the ice. “She ain't no bitch, you are.”

Papa blinks at him.

Leans forward as if he means to stand.

“I ain't taking this kind of shit.”

Mama comes to the doorway, her shadow falling across the couch. Amy reaches for Mama's skirt, so angry she is trembling. “Lay back down, Grove,” Mama says.

“Damn cow-eyed little bitch thinks she can stare at me like she wants to cut my throat, and then she talks to me like I'm a youngun and she's raising me—” He points a thick finger at Amy, his face distended with blood. “Say it again, bitch. Say it for your Mama, she'll be proud of you.”

Amy bows her head, taking deep breaths.

“Tell me what to do again! Come on and look at me that way again, you goddamn little whore. I'm still your goddamn daddy.”

“You don't act like it,” Mama says evenly, stepping between them, washed white of blood. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, scaring your own younguns half to death.”

He turns to Mama now. Anger rises in his face like a red tide. “Somebody wants to fight today,” he says in a low voice. “Teaching these younguns to talk to their daddy like he's a dog. Don't you stand there and try to tell me what to do like I'm nothing.”

Mama answers, “I'm telling you this. When you're drinking don't you even look like you want to mess with one of my children. Do you hear me?”

“Listen to you. Don't you sound tough.”

She pushes back her hair, her clear forehead blazing. “You think I'm joking? You want to be their daddy, then act like a daddy. Let them have a holiday like normal younguns, don't come home drunk and raising hell, making them so scared of you they don't know how to act.”