Part 12 (1/2)

My grandmother shook her head and gripped the arms of her folding chair a little tighter, looking resigned at last to telling me something she felt certain I wouldn't want to hear. She kept her eyes focused on the water. I guess she figured that, if she searched hard and long enough, she would eventually find some kind of comfort out there. Then in a flat, distant tone, she began to share my mother's story, feeding it to me as if I was a little baby, one small bite at a time.

Apparently my mother was no more than sixteen when she fell ”all crazy in love” with a boy who lived on the other side of Old Lebanon Dirt Road. His family didn't have much of anything, not hardly a pot to p.i.s.s in, according to my grandmother.

”But that didn't seem to matter much to your mama back then. She just thought that boy hung the moon, even if his pockets were always empty.

”One night your mama and this boy done come into the kitchen and sat down and announced they were gonna have a baby.” Nana stopped at this point and let out another long, steady sigh. ”I told her no way in h.e.l.l was my only daughter gonna have an illegitimate baby and ruin this family's good reputation.

”Turned out the boy wanted to marry her, try to make things right. But his family said what they had done had been a sin. Said their boy had been led astray and that he could never see your mama again. They as much as called her a tramp.” Even all these years later, my grandmother's voice was loud and offended.

”That boy was man enough to get her pregnant, but he wasn't man enough to stand up to his parents and do the right thing. He never called her again, and before long he left town to join the Army. Came back and everybody around here slapped him on the back and told him he was a great American. A couple weeks later, he up and married some poor white trash, and now it looks like their son is gonna be some famous country music singer. Isn't that something, Bezellia? His daddy gets my daughter pregnant, and then his son fools around with you and turns it into a hit song. Looks like you and your mama are just two peas in a pod after all.”

My skin was hot to the touch, and my head was already crammed full of so many hateful thoughts I wanted to slap my grandmother's mouth just to make her hush. But I had come a long way, so had my mother, and we both needed to hear everything she had to say. So I just sat there and bit my tongue, bit it hard till it bled.

”I threw your mama in the car the day that boy enlisted and drove her over to the next county. There was a doctor there who had a reputation for taking care of girls who done been thinking with the wrong part of their body. And he did just that. He took care of your mama's little problem right there on his kitchen table. She put up a fight at first, but it was for her own good. I told her that was the end of that, and we weren't to ever talk about it again.

”Elizabeth never was the same. I'll admit that much. She was angry and mad at everything and everybody. Never once thanked me for making things right. She took off not six months later, leaving us nothing but a piece of paper taped to her bedroom door and a shoe box filled with a bunch of love letters from that good-for-nothing boy.” Nana stopped talking for a minute. She quickly wiped a tear from her eye and crossed her arms against her chest.

”Lord, all I was ever trying to do was protect that girl's reputation. And look what you've gone and done. Locked her up in some mental inst.i.tution. No telling what people are gonna think about us now.”

The crickets started humming, their pitch picking up strength. The sound of my grandmother's voice had thankfully been swallowed in theirs. But I could hear my mother, loud and clear, screaming to keep her baby as they forced her onto that kitchen table and spread her legs apart. I needed the crickets to sing even louder. I needed to quiet that sound forever.

Nana finally tapped my thigh with the palm of her hand, signaling that she had shared all she intended to. Then she motioned for me to follow her into the house. On the floor, right outside my mother's bedroom door, was a large cardboard box. Her room was stripped bare. Every photo and keepsake was gone. Even the plaque with Jesus' picture on it, the one Mother had made in Vacation Bible School, was apparently now stuffed inside this box.

”Nana,” I said, more like I was asking a question, desperately wanting to know why she had packed away her daughter's childhood.

”Time to let the past go, honey,” she answered. And she picked up the box and carried it out to the Cadillac.

By the time I made my way back to the interstate, the old man in front of the gas station was gone. One single, ghostly light was left burning in the office, highlighting his display of motor oil. Suddenly I needed to see my mother. I needed her to know that she hadn't done anything wrong. She had loved a boy, that was all, a boy who probably didn't even know how to dance. There was nothing wrong with that, nothing at all. And now she just needed to come home.

Early the next morning, Uncle Thad called the hospital. The doctors were not very eager to release my mother, not even for a short visit home. They said her treatment was not going as well as expected. They needed more time. And Mrs. Grove, in their expert opinion, seemed very anxious about returning to Grove Hill. They said maybe we should instead consider a quick trip to the hospital one afternoon during regularly scheduled visiting hours. Our desire to have Mother home might be genuine, but it was not, in their expert opinion, in their patient's best interest.

Nothing about that sounded right to me or to Uncle Thad. Mother loved Grove Hill. And I knew, if given the opportunity, she would want to come home. Uncle Thad agreed and said that first thing in the morning he was driving over to Chattanooga and checking on Mother himself. He told me not to worry, but even his own voice sounded concerned.

The next morning Nathaniel hurriedly swept and cleaned every inch of the house. And Maizelle started fussing about the kitchen making chicken Kiev and tomato aspic, Mother's favorites. She would bake a lemon meringue pie before the end of the day, she promised.

Just three or four hours after Uncle Thad left Grove Hill, he called to say that he would be bringing Mother home immediately. He was packing her suitcase now, and they would be on the road by early afternoon. He said nothing more than that and then hung up the phone, his voice, firm and uncomfortably vague, resonating in my ear.

When Mother did arrive at Grove Hill, it was as if I was seeing her for the very first time. Her hair was pulled back neatly in a low ponytail, and her face was scrubbed clean. She was dressed in a pair of khaki pants, a white collared blouse, and a light blue cardigan sweater. She looked beautiful, at least so I thought, until I looked into her eyes. They were different. They were hollow and vacant, and she stared at me as if she had never seen me before.

I stepped toward her, wanting to welcome her home, to pull her into my arms and tell her that I understood now. But she inched closer to Uncle Thad, reaching for his hand, reminding me more of a child who has accidentally b.u.mped into a stranger than my very own mother. Uncle Thad slowly guided her up the large marble steps. Mother stood on the porch for a moment, seeming a bit cautious or maybe confused. But Uncle Thad squeezed her hand a little tighter and led her back inside her home.

Uncle Thad stayed until dinner, and then he stayed some more, carefully watching over my mother's every move as if she was a little girl learning to walk. And in a way, she was. She did get better, slowly. She never drank again. She never spoke hatefully to Maizelle or Nathaniel. In fact, she didn't even seem to notice that the color of their skin was different from her own. She never called me Sister or forced Adelaide to knit. And yet sometimes I wished she had done those things, because the woman who came back to Grove Hill was timid and afraid. She was just not my mother.

LOCAL VIETNAM HERO COMES HOME.

BLACK MARINE NOMINATED FOR BRONZE STAR.

To Be Honored at Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church Local black U.S. Marine Corps Private First Cla.s.s Samuel Stephenson will arrive home in Nashville Thursday after being wounded while serving a tour of duty in Vietnam. Stephenson has been nominated for the Bronze Star for Valor, one of the military's highest recognitions of bravery on the battlefield, according to a U.S. Marine Corps spokesman at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

Stephenson, a graduate of Pearl High School, served in Vietnam outside Saigon. He had only been in Vietnam for three months when he demonstrated acts of heroism during a surprise attack by Vietcong forces just south of the Marine Corps base of Khe Sanh. According to official military reports, Stephenson, surrounded by enemy combatants, moved through a hail of gunfire to rally his unit's dazed infantrymen to redirect their fire on the advancing enemy.

Although wounded by an exploding grenade, Stephenson got to his feet and led a small counterattack force. Refusing medical treatment, he pressed the attack, killed several of the enemy, and reinforced his unit's defensive position. Stephenson's dauntless courage and heroism, according to the U.S. Marine Corps spokesman, inspired his fellow Marines to defeat a determined and numerically superior enemy force. Stephenson is being discharged early due to the injuries suffered in combat, for which he will be awarded the Purple Heart.

Stephenson is the son of Nathaniel and Celia Stephenson of East Nashville. A service of thanksgiving will be held at Mt. Zion A.M.E. Church at eleven o'clock on Sat.u.r.day morning. A reception will follow in the church's fellows.h.i.+p hall.

The Nashville Register

early edition

DECEMBER 18, 1970.

chapter fifteen.

Samuel was coming home. That's what the newspaper said, that's what Nathaniel said, but somehow I still couldn't believe it. And although Christmas was just a few days away, I honestly didn't spend one minute thinking about presents or lighted trees or shepherds standing watch by a manger in an old dilapidated stable outside of a two-bit town in the middle of a desert. Not this year. All I could think about was Samuel Stephenson, the beautiful boy who spoke my name with more tenderness than even Shakespeare or the Virgin Mary could have imagined.

We were all counting the days till he came home, even Mother, though I'm not sure she really remembered who Samuel was. She said she did, but I think she just wanted to share in the excitement. There were a lot of things Mother didn't remember anymore. Apparently when they send a bolt of lightning through your body one too many times, it can knock part of your memory right out of your head. But she was getting better, at least that's what Maizelle said. She said she could see it in her eyes. And even though there were brief moments when I had begun to recognize the mother I used to know, I wasn't quite so sure.

Adelaide had made a chain out of construction paper, the kind it seems we all learned to make in kindergarten as soon as the teacher trusted us with a pair of scissors and a jar of paste. She hung it all around the kitchen so Mother, Maizelle, and I could see with our very own eyes exactly how many days it would be until Samuel was home safe and sound. That chain seemed long enough to wrap around the world when she first made it. Now there were just a few pieces of paper left, dangling above the kitchen sink.

Nathaniel and his wife were planning a special prayer service and a big party afterward in the fellows.h.i.+p hall underneath the church's sanctuary. Samuel was a hero, and he deserved a hero's welcome, they said. They mailed handwritten invitations to everybody they knew, including us. But Nathaniel said that, before even one piece of cake was cut, we were all getting down on our knees and thanking the good Lord for bringing his son back in one piece. There were too many parents out there, he said, whose boys had come home in boxes. He didn't know why that had to be. He'd just add it to a very long list of things he figured he'd never fully understand until he stood at G.o.d's feet. So only after the good Lord was thanked and praised would we head downstairs for some of the best barbecue in all of Nashville.

Nathaniel could not stop smiling. Just talking about his son coming home left him trembling with excitement. He walked into the kitchen and looked up at Adelaide's paper chain and nearly shouted, ”Three more days! Praise the Lord, three more days!” Then he headed into the dining room looking for Mother's tea service. Polis.h.i.+ng the silver might just calm him down a bit, he thought. Maizelle said she thought it might take a shot of whiskey and then turned around and walked out of the room, laughing to herself.

The front doorbell rang shortly before noon. Adelaide, Mother, and I had all gathered in the den. Adelaide was sitting on the floor writing Christmas cards to a few of her friends. She had made them herself, using the rest of her construction paper and pieces of silver and gold foil left over from some long-forgotten school project.

Mother was relaxed on the sofa, knitting Samuel a sweater. Not long after she came home from the hospital, she'd picked up a pair of Adelaide's knitting needles, and she hadn't put them down since. I had never seen my mother knit, but she said she used to do all sorts of handiwork when she was a little girl.

She chose a deep red yarn for the body of the sweater and then placed a bright green Christmas tree, perfectly trimmed with s.h.i.+ny blue ornaments and topped with a yellow star, right in the middle. And even though I couldn't picture this sweater on a young military hero, I looked at my mother and rea.s.sured her that Samuel would love it.

Uncle Thad came in from the back and knelt down by the fire just before the bell rang. He had three logs tucked under his left arm and snowflakes stuck gently to the top of his head. He carefully stoked the fire, making room for fresh wood but careful not to throw sparks onto the rug. It had started snowing not long after breakfast, just enough to lightly cover the ground, just enough to make everyone want to sip hot chocolate and listen to Adelaide's collection of rock 'n' roll holiday alb.u.ms on Father's old record player.

”Lord have mercy, if you don't look like a Christmas card yourself,” Maizelle said as she walked to the front door. But when she saw a young, dark-skinned girl standing on the porch, she dropped to her knees and cried out loud. Nathaniel came running from the back of the house. He let out a scream from somewhere so deep within his belly that I was afraid his insides might come spilling right out of his mouth. The sound washed through my body, leaving me numb and scared, and for a brief moment I found myself hiding behind my mother. Sometimes, even now as an old woman when I dream about Samuel, when we're wrapped in each other's arms underneath the cherrybark oaks, I wake to the sound of that tortured cry. The young girl rushed into the house, not waiting for anyone to formally invite her in.

”Daddy, no, it's not what you think!” she cried. ”It's not what you think. Samuel's fine. Samuel's here. He's home. He got here this morning, not long after you left. He wanted to surprise everybody. Mama told me to come and get you. Everybody's at the house now waiting for you. Daddy, stop crying,” she pleaded softly, realizing that her sudden appearance had left her father thinking that his only son was dead and gone.

And like a set of dominoes tipping forward, we all seemed to fall to the ground, so overwhelmed with relief and joy that even the weight of our own bodies was too much to bear. Mother, in a fit of unexplainable tears, wrapped her arms first around Nathaniel and then Maizelle. And once we'd caught our breath, Adelaide and I started screaming with excitement. Adelaide said she just couldn't believe it because there were still two paper loops hanging over the kitchen sink. I'm really not sure how long we stood there. Time seemed to have no meaning that day. Finally my uncle mouthed something to me that I couldn't quite understand. He motioned for me to come closer and then spoke quietly in my ear.

”Bezellia, sweetie,” he said, ”go get Nathaniel's coat and hat. We need to drive those two on home. Neither Nathaniel nor his daughter is fit to be behind the wheel of a car right now. They're just too overwhelmed with emotion to think straight, let alone drive across town. I'm not sure how that girl got here without winding up in a ditch. The roads are already getting a little slick. I'll drive Nathaniel's truck, and then you follow in mine, just put some good snow tires on it the other day.”