“Oh, my gaw, I thought we were done for,” I say between gulps of air.
“Me. Too.” She’s breathing so hard she says those two words like they’re two separate sentences.
“Where do we go now? You know she’s going to call Momma and Richard,” I say.
Emma is breathing regular now and is looking out at the woods in the distance. She doesn’t say anything, she just points so that’s where we’re heading right now, into the woods. I’m not talking about the kind of woods where little baby deer nibble on moss and rabbits thump their feet while they talk to skunks. I’m talking about the kind of woods that make the sunniest day look black and the hottest day cool. These woods are the kind that take hold of your shoulders, spin you around, shove you in the direction you think you were going in and laugh when you don’t get there. Momma always warned us not to go into these woods and we pretty much listened to her. The trees aren’t any good for climbing, anyway, they’re tall with spindly branches that have lots of needles attached.
“I told you I’m not going back,” Emma says.
“I know, I know. Jeez, give me a break. I’m not going back, either, just so you know.”
“You want to, though, I can tell.”
Well, there isn’t anything I can say to that so we both stay quiet until we get to the edge of the woods.
“You think we’ll be okay?” she asks me without looking away from the darkness ahead of us.
“We’ll be just fine,” I lie.
She knows I’m lying, though, so it isn’t much use.
“Let’s get on then.”
The first thing you notice when you go deep into the woods is how soft the ground is. The layers of pine needles are so deep it’s like we’re walking on a pillow.
“You figure this is what’s it’s like when they walk on the moon?” Emma asks.
“I bet.”
“Tell the truth, do you think they’ll find us?”
Honest to God, I don’t know how to answer this question so I don’t say a word.
“Carrie?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think they’ll find us?”
“I really don’t know.”
“What were you thinking just then?” she asks me, slowing down her springy steps so she can hear me better.
“I was thinking about Richard’s guns, if you want to know the God’s honest truth. I bet he comes looking for us with that shotgun he keeps in the garage.”
Now it’s Emma’s turn to be quiet.
“You asked what I was thinking about!”
“I know, I know,” she mumbles back through the bad mood that’s been building up in her. “Richard and his damn guns.”
“I can’t believe you just said that word!” Emma never swears. In fact, she always used to tell on me if I said “darn” because she thought that was a cussword.
“Who cares. So you think he’ll bring the shotgun?”
“I bet he will ’cause Momma will be too busy looking for us to notice,” I tell her. “He loves that shotgun, that’s for sure.”
Emma is balancing on a tree trunk that’s cutting across the path we’re taking. ’Course it isn’t a path so much as it’s just space between trees. But this tree looks like it fell a long time ago since it has moss growing over it like it’s being swallowed back up into the ground.
“What I don’t get is why he cleans it all the time if it stays in the cabinet,” she says, jumping off the trunk and springing on the needles again.
I just shrug my shoulders ’cause I don’t know the answer any better than she does.
“Why’d Momma marry him, anyway?” she asks me, crouching down and picking at a little mushroom growing on top of a moss-covered rock. She’s just filling the air up with words since she knows I have no earthly idea what Momma ever saw in that man.
* * *
“I’ll tell you what,” Momma said to me, standing in front of the television blocking the Sunday morning cartoons, “you are too lazy to hit a lick at a snake.”
Deputy Dawg! My favorite!
“Caroline! You better get on up and get ready for church or your daddy’s going to beat you to a pulp.”
But Daddy didn’t look like he’s ready for anything of the sort. He was coming down the stairs smiling at Momma and rubbing his glasses with a tissue.
“You better do something about your daughter if you want a seat,” she said to him, heading for the kitchen so she could fiddle with something in the refrigerator.
“Caroline Clementine, listen to your momma and turn that off.” He came over with a tickly look in his eye. “Or you’ll have to stand up front with Bobby Bolker and help him light all the candles.”
That’s enough to get me to do just about anything. Bobby Bolker is worse than baked possum. He has white stuff caked in his ears and greasy hair that’s combed down and clammy skin that looks like it’s got dirt on it from when he was three and pretended anywhere he sat down was a sandbox.
“All right, all right,” I told Daddy, who was already pestering Momma for a kiss in the kitchen. She was swatting him off like he’s a hungry mosquito.
I practice remembering other things about Daddy. How he used to smile all the time when he was around Momma. And how he used to pretend to spank me when she told him to but really he’d smack the bed alongside me and I’d holler like it was really hurting and then he’d wink at me and leave me alone in my room to think about what I did to deserve the spanking. Momma never knew about it. It was our little secret.
Plus he smelled good. And Momma said he used to take me along on days the carpets were put in because I liked to do somersaults in the middle of the room when they were done, before furniture was put back in. I think I remember that but to tell you the truth, I’m not sure. To this day, though, I love the smell of new carpet.
Momma didn’t leave her room for a long time after Daddy died. I had to pull a chair from the living room into the kitchen so I could reach the cabinets and get food because she didn’t cook a speck during that time. Her door just stayed shut like old Mrs. Streng’s mouth stayed closed tight when she saw me in the country store in town picking penny candy out of the glass jars when Daddy gave me a quarter. And the food I could reach wasn’t the taste-good kind. It was cereal—which didn’t have milk to soften it up; flip-top cans of baked beans—which we ate cold; and a bag of sugar that I poured on the dry cereal but ended up eating straight from the bag after everything else was gone. I didn’t care. I used to love sugar, but now I don’t like it one bit.
Her room smelled like sweaty socks.
“Momma?” I always talked to her. Just because she didn’t talk to me didn’t mean she couldn’t hear me, I figured. “Momma, it’s me, Carrie.”
Her body looked so little under the covers. The only thing peeking out was the tippy-top of her head.
“Just wanted to say hey and show you the frog me and Emma caught.” I didn’t bring Buttercup into the bedroom, not knowing how Momma would feel about it and all, but if she said she wanted to see her I’d have run to get her from our bedroom.
It looked like I wouldn’t have to make that trip, though. Nothing from the bed. It was dark with the shades drawn and I don’t normally do this but I pulled the string to raise the shades on the window to let some light into that hole. The sun cut into the room like a flashlight beam and suddenly I could see tiny little pieces of dust floating in the air like they’re deciding where to land. Maybe that’s why Momma liked it dark—so she couldn’t see the dust.
I know! I’ll dust in here. Then she can keep the shades open.
“I’ll be right back, Momma,” I told her even though I guessed she wasn’t going anywhere.
I love the duster. It’s like having a pet bird, the feathers are so soft and fluffy. I went downs
tairs and fetched it from the kitchen closet and raced back upstairs before Momma had a chance to close the shade again.
“I’m back,” I said, closing the door quietly behind me. Even though Momma hadn’t come out of her room to check on us I didn’t think she’d much appreciate loud noises. Maybe they’d remind her of how Daddy died. So I’d been closing the doors by turning the handle first and letting it go once it’s lined up with the frame.
Problem was, the duster only pushed more flecks into the air and made it feel suffocating in there.
“Hey, how’d you like the window open for a spell?” I talked to her in the same voice she used to use with me when I felt sick and needed ginger ale and smashed-up banana to settle my tummy.
“I’m just going to open it a tad, get some spring air into the room. I wish you could see how pretty it is outside,” I told her. The breezes helped me out some and soon I had the bureau top all dusted off and the trunk that sits at the end of her and Daddy’s bed.
The night table was right up by her face and, even though her head was mostly covered I didn’t want to make her mad by interrupting her sleep. I thought maybe I’d skip it altogether. Then again, in a way, the night table’s the most important thing to get clean since it’s what she sees most. I tiptoed over to it, quiet as a mouse. Before I started I leaned over her to check that she was fast asleep. Jackpot. So I moved all the pill bottles off, and the picture of Daddy and me from when I was weensier than Emma is now, and the glass of half-drunk water and then I let the feather duster do the rest of the work. It erased all the round circles from where the bottles sat for I don’t know how long and soon you could see the real color of the wood like it was new from the store. I couldn’t believe my luck, Momma hadn’t made a peep. She’ll be so surprised when she sees it all fresh in here, I figured. After I put everything back the way she had it, I cleared away the Tab cans from the floor by the bed. Most of them have tons of cigarette butts floating in the brown sludge on the bottoms so I’m real careful not to drop any and then, bingo! I’m done.
I tiptoed out of her room, leaving the shade and window open so she could have a room that didn’t smell like the washroom at school.
It took me two trips up and down the stairs to empty all the Tab cans into the trash, that’s how careful I was about not tipping them over.
When Reverend Cleary came over soon after his eyes got real big, he looked at me all sad and then patted me on the head and opened Momma’s door. I looked around and couldn’t figure out what made him look that way except the kitchen was pretty dirty and messy, worse than Momma’s room. Two things Momma never used to let it get. I felt so embarrassed I went in and tried to pick up some of the trash but it was too little too late. There was one pile I didn’t dare touch: it was a stack of old pans of food people brought over but bugs had claimed it and I was afraid to shoo them away. I didn’t dare talk to Emma about it ’cause I was trying to be extra nice to her since she’s the one who saw Daddy die.
She won’t talk about it but I heard Momma talking to Mrs. Godsey on the day we buried Daddy and Momma said it was real bad. The men were after money, she said. I remember Mrs. Godsey saying that if they’d only known we were poor as church mice, Daddy’d be alive today. She said being poor’s what killed him after all, since I guess the robbers got fed up and mad when they looked all over and couldn’t find any cash. That’s when they shot him. Right in front of Emma. They figured she was too little to tell on them which I guess is pretty much true. She didn’t make a sound after Daddy died. Not that she talked a whole lot before, but she was learning her words and could even say “ma.” After that she hardly made a sound.
I was playing in the side yard with Forsyth. We were taking turns pretending we were horse and owner. Forsyth would whinny and I would comb her hair like it was a mane and then hold my hand out with an invisible sugar cube on it for her to nibble up. Forsyth heard the shots and turned to me to ask if I knew what it was and, stupid me, I said yeah it was just some car up on the road because I wanted to keep playing. But Forsyth’s momma’s voice reached across the air and pulled her back home. When I saw her tucked in between her parents at Daddy’s funeral she looked over my head, like she was more interested in some bird flying in the sky than looking at me, and I just got a bad feeling like Forsyth Phillips and me would never be friends again. Momma said Mrs. Phillips won’t let Forsyth come over to our house anymore, but we stayed friends on account of her mother letting us play over at her house.
The blood was all over the front room. I didn’t see it, but it’s a good thing we didn’t have carpet because it’d never get clean. A lot of people came in and out of the house before and after the funeral, cleaning up and bringing food and they all looked sad when they looked at me, but it only embarrassed me and made me run to the bedroom to help cheer Emma up. I heard them, though, talking their hushed talk about “poor Caroline” and about how well I seemed to be holding up, “considering.” No one dared talk about Emma, I bet, because they knew that would’ve made Momma cry even harder. But to tell you the truth I was more worried about Emma. And Momma.
Momma cried so much those first days I could feel the wall shake where her bed was. Even though I was one flight up my bed is right up against the same wall. So I would just lay there and feel my momma hurt. Over and over again. Especially in the morning like when you wake up on Christmas Day remembering there was something special going to happen and then remembering a second or two later what it was. But this was the opposite. I’d hear her rustle in her bed like she was waking up and trying to fix her brain to remember what was going on, and then, sure enough, the wall would shake when she remembered what was so awful about the day. Every day that happened. Every single day. Emma didn’t wake up to Momma’s wall-shaking like I did. When she did finally wake up she’d just blink at the ceiling. I’d snuggle up to her so if she did want to talk to me it could be a whisper so Momma wouldn’t hear her and remember how Daddy died. But as it turns out I didn’t have to pull her into me after all since Emma didn’t make a sound for a good long time.
I think Momma must have stayed alive by eating at night, when we’d gone to bed. Sometimes she’d leave clues behind like a wrapper or some brown paper that used to hold raw meat. And Tab cans. Always Tab cans. She and Daddy kept cases of Tab they got at the discount store so we’d never run out and I guess that was handy now that Momma stopped grocery shopping altogether. But I never saw her come out of the room. Not once. She didn’t even come out to make us go to school. And I couldn’t just leave Emma all alone to get herself food and water—she was just a little girl!—so I ditched school. At first it was great. I’d look at the plastic daisy clock in the kitchen and I’d think about what everyone in my class was doing and I’d be so happy knowing I wouldn’t have to do homework or clean the blackboard or anything. The only thing I like about school is geography. Most kids would tell you they like recess the best but I hate recess. Balls hit me like I’m some kind of magnet pulling them to me. Everyone knows it. They don’t even aim them at me anymore…they just keep playing whatever game they’re in the middle of when I come out (red rover, softball, spud) and it’s only a matter of time until the ball bounces off my head or slaps into my back. I always try to act like I think it’s as funny as they do but that doesn’t work. I try to act like I knew the ball was coming my way and I wanted to get hit by it but that doesn’t work, either. So I went back to square one and I don’t act at all, I’m just jumping like a goof every time the ball comes near me.
So I don’t miss recess. Not a lick.
Since Momma stopped coming out of her room, the clothes have started to pile up wherever Emma and I decide to take them off. I like the pile at the bottom of the staircase because I can jump onto it from the third stair and it feels like a pillow. Emma copied me once and fell back onto her bottom, but there were enough clothes so she didn’t hurt herself or anything. But she didn’t smile. Wh
en she forgot how to talk she also forgot how to use her mouth for smiling.
One day Momma was at the kitchen table when we came down from the Nest. Just like that. Like it was normal. I smelled the cigarette smoke from halfway down the steps and tried not to get my hopes up but ran the rest of the way down just in case it was really her.
“Momma?”
She doesn’t really look up so much as she straightens her back a little and pushes her head back up on her neck so I can see she is awake.
I hug her and even though her arms just stay down by her sides I know she’s happy I’m there. At least I think so.
Momma’s eyes are like a jack-o’-lantern’s eyes…all carved out and hollow and dark. It scares me but I don’t show it.
“You want me to get you some breakfast?” I ask her, but then I realize she’s not much going to like what we have to eat.
Her pumpkin eyes fix on me and then move to every part of the kitchen, like she’s seeing it for the very first time.
“How’re you going to do that, I wonder” are the first words she says to me in I don’t know how long. She says them real slow like she’s just learned to speak English.
“I can, you watch,” I say. Maybe she’ll like my breakfast. It’s easy. I use the mug that’s got a picture of Sacagawea on it from when Momma and Daddy drove out west when they were real young—I fill it up with flour and pour that into a mixing bowl I know I should’ve cleaned days ago. Then I hold the bowl under the tap and count to five and then I stir it together to make a paste. The frying pan’s already on the stove from yesterday so all I have to do is pour a little bit in and watch it grow into a circle that’ll fill our bellies until later. The pancake turner doesn’t slide under it all that easy since I haven’t cleaned it, either, but hey, no one’s perfect.
While the paste is cooking I sneak a peek at Momma, just to make sure she’s still there, in the flesh. I wish I hadn’t done this ’cause I hate to see her cry. It’s one thing to feel her cry, another altogether to see it in person.