“Don’t clatter so, Darcy. You sound like a herd of elephants coming through.”
“Sorry,” I said. “You got a headache?” I went to the refrigerator and pulled open the door.
“No,” Mama said. “And don’t hold the door open. Get something and close it.”
I thought Mama’s behavior peculiar because she usually wanted to hear all about my school day. I would sit at the table and eat a snack, and she’d work on the beginnings of dinner while we talked. I glanced around and realized she hadn’t started preparations. “What’s for supper?”
“I haven’t started supper yet.”
“Can I fix something for you?”
Mama sighed and rose from her chair. She came around and touched my shoulder. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, honey. I just have a lot on my mind. Forgive me?”
“You can be grumpy, Mama. It’s allowed.”
She cupped my chin, gazed down into my eyes. She looked sad, and it caused my heart to skip a beat. “I’ll start supper while you talk to me,” she said, turning toward the stove.
I launched into a telling of my day, but I could not forget how she had looked at me and how it had tugged at my heart.
I came to the breakfast table Saturday morning and was surprised to see Adel already there. She almost always slept in on Saturdays. Papa was reading the paper and Mama was making waffles. “Morning,” Papa said.
I scraped the chair across the linoleum and Adel shot me an intolerant glare. “Morning, all. Missing out on your beauty sleep, aren’t you, Adel?”
“I slept fine,” she said. “Although I don’t know how. Your radio blared half the night.”
“I fell asleep with it on. Sorry.”
Our rooms were down the hall from each other. Adel had claimed Grandmother’s big upstairs bedroom after she died. I had been eight, and up until that time Adel and I had shared the smaller, middle bedroom. Adel’s room had its own bathroom, while I used the one across the hall, which was just as well because she kept drawers full of cosmetics, hair sprays and perfumes. There would have been no room for my meager collection of stuff. Yet when Adel had moved out, I felt adrift and lonely. “I need the space,” she had told me, then shut the door and left me to grow up on my own.
Mama and Papa’s room was over the back porch, part of the new addition to the house when they’d married. Their space was far away from the noise of Adel’s and my rooms and had large windows that looked down into the backyard gardens.
Papa folded his paper and buttered the waffle Mama had put on his plate. “We’ll be staying over in Atlanta tonight,” he said. “Adel, I expect you to take care of your sister.”
“But Sandy and I are going to the dance at the base tonight. It’s all planned.”
“Can’t be helped,” Papa said. “You’re responsible for fixing supper and breakfast tomorrow.”
“I don’t need her to baby-sit,” I said indignantly. “I’m fourteen!” I sure didn’t want Adel sulking around and being hateful to me for twenty-four hours because she couldn’t keep her date.
“It’s not open for discussion,” Papa said in the voice he used when he was finished with a topic. He cut his waffle with the side of his fork and took a mouthful.
Adel and I exchanged desperate glances, each for different reasons. “Becky Sue asked me to spend the night and I said I’d check with Mama, but that I figured it would be all right,” I blurted out. While it wasn’t exactly the truth, Becky and I had been having sleepovers since the third grade and our presence in each other’s families was frequent and interchangeable. “Can I, Mama? That way Adel can keep her date and Mrs. Johnson can watch out for me.”
“We’ll have the car,” Papa said.
“Sandy’s driving,” Adel said quickly.
“It’s all right, Graham.” Mama interrupted our negotiation. “Probably be easier that way. We won’t have to worry about Darcy and Adel pecking at each other.”
Papa glowered at both me and Adel. “Never could understand why the two of you can’t get along. You’re sisters.”
“We get along fine,” Adel said, giving me a look that was more grateful than dismissive because my quick thinking had saved her plans.
Of course, I was doing it out of self-preservation. Everybody knows that a peeved Adel is worse than a roomful of hostile bees.
Two
“What are you going to buy your mom?” I asked Becky Sue. We’d just stepped into Byron’s, where the air felt cool against my skin after our half-mile walk downtown in the muggy morning heat.
“Something on the sale racks,” Becky said. “I’m broke.”
We went to the women’s area of the store and started sorting through the clothes. Most were leftovers from the summer and looked pretty tired. “How about this?” I held up a red-and-white-checked gingham blouse. “It’s not very much.”
“She’ll look like a tablecloth,” Becky said, continuing her search. “What do you think’s wrong with your mama?”
“It’s just tests.”
“But all the way to Emory—”
“I’m worried enough about it, Becky Sue. So stop talking about it, all right?”
Becky shrugged off my sharp tone. “Well, at least Adel’s out of your immediate future.”
It was Becky’s way of reminding me that she had rescued me by letting me spend the day and night with her and so I didn’t need to snap. I said, “I’m sure about Adel seeing a guy at the base. The minute Mama and Papa drove off, she shut her room door and started primping. She’d have been snarling at me all day long.”
That was my way of saying thank you to Becky for rescuing me.
Becky Sue held up another blouse. “This looks like Mom, but it’s too small.”
We resumed our search. By lunchtime we’d bought Mrs. Johnson a purse and were eating lunch at the Woolworth soda counter. “You coming to teen group Sunday night?” Becky Sue asked me.
“I reckon so. Adel’s got choir, but I don’t think Mama and Papa will go to church after the drive home. You be there?” Our families were members of the First Baptist Church on Main Street, which was two blocks from the Second Baptist Church on Main Street. Mama’s kin had been members at the First Baptist Church since the 1860s. It was where Mama and Papa got married. I practically grew up in the pews—Baptists went to church every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night for potluck supper and all week long during Lent and revival meetings.
“I wouldn’t miss Pastor Jim’s guitar picking for anything,” Becky Sue said.
The church had started a group for teens in 1971 and invited a nice young pastor just out of seminary, Jim Murphy, and his wife, Carole, to come to Conners to assist old Pastor Franklin, who was fixing to retire but hadn’t yet. Pastor Jim was young and full of ideas and we kids liked him. Mama had taken Carole under her wing because Carole grew up in Chicago and didn’t exactly understand all our Southern ways, which Mama said were above anyone’s total understanding.
It was generally assumed that Baptists didn’t drink, dance, swear, play cards or go to the movies, but times were changing, and according to Mama, while drinking and swearing were still off-limits, we’d slowly absorbed the other sins into our daily lives, and without incident. That was how Adel got away with going to events at the military base, where everybody knew there was dancing. “Dancing won’t do any harm,” Mama had told the clacking tongues in the garden club. “Why, Jesus himself might have danced at the wedding in Cana. The Bible doesn’t say otherwise.” The old guard didn’t approve, but people liked Mama, so she got away with things others in Conners didn’t.
I took a long sip of my vanilla milk shake. “Carole cornered Mama at the supper Wednesday night and I just happened to overhear something she said.” I paused for dramatic effect. “I think it’s supposed to be a secret.”
“What?” Becky rose to the bait.
“Maybe I shouldn’t say.”
“You better say! Or I’ll have Mom call Adel and say you can’t
sleep over.”
I smiled. It was fun getting Becky Sue riled up. “Okay, no need to threaten me.” I glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping, then leaned close to Becky’s face. “I heard Carole tell Mama that her and Pastor Jim’s lives were taking a real turn. Seems like they’re getting an addition to their family.”
Becky looked properly surprised. “They’re having a baby?”
“A seventeen-year-old baby,” I said. “I heard Carole say that her kid brother is in all kinds of trouble up in Chicago and that in order to keep him out of jail”—I emphasized the word for effect—“she and Pastor Jim were having him come live with them.”
Becky Sue’s eyes grew wide, then narrowed. “Are you making that up? ’Cause if you are . . .”
“Cross my heart,” I said.
“When’s he coming?”
“Didn’t hear that part. I just know he is coming.”
“Wonder if he’s cute,” Becky said.
I rolled my eyes. “I thought your sights were set on Russell.”
“I wouldn’t want to pass up a good opportunity. That is, if Carole’s brother is worth looking at.”
“He’s a proven troublemaker and probably homely to boot.”
“Why should he be homely? Carole’s pretty.”
“So’s Adel,” I countered. “But that doesn’t make me pretty.”
Becky Sue measured me with her gaze. “You’re passable. Tall and skinny and flat as a board, but passable.”
I felt my face turning red, knowing I’d stupidly left myself open for Becky’s critique. My build was a sore spot to me. At fourteen, I still lacked the bumps and curves that every other girl in ninth grade had. Mama called me “slow to bloom, just like late summer roses.” But Adel said I’d never bloom because I was too thorny. Truth was, I believed Adel.
Becky must have sensed my discomfort because she quickly added, “Magazine models are tall and slim. Maybe you’ll be one someday.”
“I doubt that,” I said, sliding off the stool. “Come on, let’s go to the movie.”
We paid our bill, then walked outside and across the street, with Becky Sue chattering all the way and me deep into my own thoughts about myself and what was going on with my mother.
I called home Sunday after church because Adel hadn’t shown up for the eleven-o’clock service. “I got home late last night,” she told me.
“Papa won’t like knowing you skipped church,” I said.
“And he won’t know unless someone opens her big mouth.”
“They say when they’ll be home?” I ignored her threat.
“I expect they’ll be here late this afternoon.”
“Then I’m staying over here at Becky’s. We’ll go to teen group together. Will you be at choir practice?”
“I’ll be there. You’re not my conscience, you know,” she added.
“Never wanted to be,” I said. “But the one God gave you seems to be on vacation.” I hung up before she could blast me.
Teen group met in a downstairs room off the kitchen area. The room held two old sofas, some overstuffed chairs and a collection of vinyl bean-bags, plus some folding chairs. Pastor Jim played the guitar and led us in some songs. Carole passed around a platter of cookies and I settled into a beanbag next to Becky’s.
“I have some exciting news,” Carole said. Her face was flushed and she looked more anxious than excited. “My seventeen-year-old brother, Jason Polwalski, is coming for an extended visit next weekend.”
I poked Becky Sue in the ribs and gave her an I-told-you-so glance. All the other kids kept politely silent.
Carole continued. “Jason will be a senior and I would appreciate it if each and every one of you would welcome him and make him feel like a part of the Conners community. I know you all understand how difficult it might be to start in a new school without your friends.” She made eye contact with several of the jocks and more popular kids. “So, I’m asking you as a personal favor to me and Pastor Jim to help Jason find acceptance from this caring Christian community.”
I almost laughed out loud. Some of these kids were about as friendly as vipers. Conners had a pecking order, and because our town was so small, cliques weren’t easy to penetrate. Around these parts, newcomers had to work their way into people’s affections, and the regulars had to warm up to them. I hoped the link with Pastor Jim and Carole would be enough but guessed that Jason was going to have to struggle for a while to belong. Maybe Jason was a jock. That would help. Football players were worshiped as minor gods. If Jason could run, punt or pass, I figured he had a chance.
“She didn’t say a word about why Jason’s coming,” Becky Sue whispered to me when the meeting had broken up after our Bible study on the Good Samaritan.
“And don’t you say a word about it either,” I warned. “It’s supposed to be a secret.”
“I never would,” Becky insisted. “Hope Carole’s told the chief of police, though.”
“Unkind,” I said.
“What are you two whispering about? Did I hear the word ‘police’?” J. T. Rucker asked from behind us.
I jumped a foot and that made him laugh. In my frostiest tone, I said, “None of your business.”
He feigned fear. “What are you going to do? Sock me?”
Murder had crossed my mind on more than one occasion when it came to J.T. He might have been the defensive center for the Conners football team and about the size of a tank, but I considered him dumb as a rock and mean as a junkyard dog. I’d always been grateful that he was older than me and that I’d never had to tolerate him in a classroom. “You know, you’re one of the main people Carole was talking to about being nice to her brother,” I told him.
“I’ll be nice.” J.T. had a glint in his eye that said different.
“I’ll just bet you will,” I said.
“Do you know this guy?”
“No.”
“Then why are you so hot on looking out for him?”
“I’m not!”
“I’ll bet you’ve seen his picture and you’d like to jump his bones.”
I felt my face getting red. Why did I always blush in times of pressure? “I know Carole and I like her and she asked real nice for us to be accepting and—”
“Do you know your face gets all red and blotchy when you get angry?”
I balled up my fist, but Becky Sue said, “Church,” and I remembered where we were.
J.T. began to laugh and I stalked off, angrier than I’d been in days. Becky Sue followed me, saying, “Why do you let him get to you like that?”
“I don’t plan on it,” I said, hurrying up the stairs and into the narthex. “It just happens because he’s such a jerk.”
“He’s always been a jerk. But he held Branson back from making a touchdown last week. Won the game for us in a way.”
“And that’s supposed to excuse him from acting like a human being?”
“There you are!” Adel pushed through the wooden inner doors of the sanctuary. Other choir members began to fill the narthex behind her. “Come on. Mrs. Becker is giving us a ride home.”
“I’m going with Becky Sue,” I said. “My stuff ’s still at her house.”
“You can get it later. Papa called just before I came to practice and said he and Mama were on their way home and that when they arrived they wanted to talk to us. Together,” she added before I could say a word.
“What about?”
“They didn’t say. But it sounded important.”
“I’ll leave your things by your front door,” Becky said as Adel all but dragged me out.
I followed Adel to the parking lot and got into Mrs. Becker’s car. “You doing all right, Darcy?” Mrs. Becker asked.
“Just fine,” I lied. I wasn’t doing fine at all.
At the house, I saw our car in the driveway and ran up the walk ahead of Adel. In the kitchen, Mama was sitting at the table and her eyes looked as if she’d been crying. Papa was sitting beside her, but h
e stood when we came into the room. “Hold up, girls.”
“What’s wrong?” Adel asked.
He and Mama exchanged glances.
I went all cold and clammy. “You all right, Mama?”
She shook her head. “I have to go back to Emory, girls . . . on Wednesday,” she said, her voice a bit hoarse from crying. “I—I have to have an operation.”
Three
“What kind of operation?” Adel got the question out before I could.
Papa put his hand on Mama’s shoulder and she reached up and squeezed his fingers. “It seems I have a lump in my left breast,” she said.
A shockwave went over me. For starters, I had never heard my mother use the word “breast” in a sentence unless it followed the words “Thanksgiving turkey” or “cut-up frying chicken.”
Adel’s sharp intake of breath told me this was bad news that she understood better than I.
“Wh-what’s that mean?” I asked. My voice trembled.
Tears filled Mama’s eyes. “Now, please, girls, let me get through this before we fall apart.” She cleared her throat. “I found the lump myself while I was taking a shower. I went to Dr. Keller last week and he said I needed a mammogram and that the closest facility with such a machine was at Emory. It’s a kind of X-ray machine that takes pictures of the breast. I had the pictures taken yesterday and that’s when the doctor saw the lump clearly.”
Yesterday I had been shopping with Becky, sorting through sale racks, eating lunch and going to the movies without a care in the world while my mother was facing this terrible news.
“Is it big?” Adel asked.
“Big enough,” Mama said. “But now that we know it’s there, the doctors must take it out.”
That made sense to me. “When?” Adel asked.
“The surgery’s on Thursday. That’s why I’m checking in on Wednesday. Afterward, I’ll be in the hospital recovering. That will take a week or more, depending on how I do.”
“A whole week?” I blurted out, dismayed. “But it’s just a lump.”
Adel gave me a hard look. Mama’s expression was kinder. “If it’s a bad lump . . .” Mama’s voice faltered. “If it’s—”