None of this mattered. I didn't shed a tear over Bobby's betrayal. Things that used to mean a lot now seemed small and petty. Daddy's death had jerked me headlong into maturity. On the other hand, with Daddy gone, Mommy became flightier than ever. The biggest effect Daddy's death seemed to have on her was to make her even more terrified of becoming old. She spent a great deal more time primping at her vanity table, fixing her hair, debating over her makeup. She continually reviewed her wardrobe, complaining about how old and out of style all her clothes were. Her talk was always about herself: the length and shade of her hair, a puffiness in her cheeks or eyes, the firmness leaving her legs, what this bra did for her figure as opposed to what another could do.
She never asked about my school work, and between what I made for dinner and what Mama Arlene did for us, she never cooked a meal. In fact, she seldom even came home for dinner with me, claiming she'd get fat.
"I"I can't eat as much fatty food as you can, Melody," she told me. "Don't wait for me. If I'm not home by six, start eating without me," she ordered. It got so she was only home for dinner once or twice a week. Mostly, I ate with Mama Arlene and Papa George.
Even though Mommy was worried about her complexion and her figure, she continued to drink gin and smoke. When I asked her about that, she got very angry and told me it was her only vice and everyone need a little vice.
"Perfect people end up in monasteries or nunneries and eventually go mad," she explained. "I have a lot of tension now with your father gone. I need to relax, so don't make any new problems for me," she ordered. Which I knew simply meant, "Leave me alone."
I did.
I wanted to complain too: about how often she saw Archie Marlin and how often he was at our house. But I buttoned my lips and swallowed my words. It took so little to set Mommy off these days, and after she went on a rampage--shouting and flailing about--she would break down and cry and make me feel just terrible. It got so I began to feel as if I was her mother and she was my daughter.
Our bills piled up, some simply because she just never got to them. Twice, the phone company threatened to shut off our service and once the electric company came by and put a warning on our door. Mommy was always making mistakes with our checking account. I had to take over the bookkeeping, do our grocery shopping, and look after the trailer. Papa George helped me with that, but Daddy's death had had a big impact on him, too. He looked older, sicker, and much more tired these days. Mama Arlene was always after him to take better care of himself, however he wouldn't stop smoking and he even began drinking a little whiskey in the late afternoon.
There were nights when I was wakened by the sound of Mommy's laughter and then heard Archie Marlin's voice. Soon, that laughter was coming from Mommy's bedroom. I pressed my hands over my ears, but I couldn't shut out the sounds that I knew were sounds of lovemaking.
The first time I heard that, I got so sick to my stomach and I had to run to the bathroom to vomit. Mommy didn't even hear me and never asked what had happened. Usually, Archie was gone before I rose in the morning, and if I heard him moving about in the kitchen or living room, I'd wait as long as I could before rising.
All of this had happened too quickly--far too quickly for most people in Sewell. I knew there was a lot of gossip about us. One night Mommy returned from work enraged. She had gotten into an argument with Mrs. Sampler, who had always been one of her best customers. They fought because Mrs. Sampler had made a remark about Mommy's not spending enough time in respectful mourning. From what I heard afterward, Mommy had become so shrill and wild, Francine had asked her to leave.
She was fuming, and started to drink as she recited the argument. "Who is she to tell me how to act? Does she know how hard my life is? How much I suffered? She lives in her fine house and looks down on me, judging me. Who told her she could be judge and jury?"
Mommy paused now and then to make sure I was on her side. I knew it was better not to get her any more furious than she already was, so every time she looked at me with her narrowed eyes I nodded enthusiastically and acted as outraged as I could about someone openly criticizing her.
"I hate these people. They think just because they have money, they can lord it over us. They're so small-minded. They're so--" She struggled for the right word and looked to me for a suggestion.
"Provincial?"
"Yes. What's that mean?" she asked.
"They just haven't been to enough other places to get a wider point of view," I said. She liked that.
"You are smart. Good. And you're right, too. Archie's always saying the same thing. He hates this town as much as I do. And you do," she added.
"I don't hate it, Mommy."
"Of course you hate it. What's here for you?" She gulped her cocktail and then went to the phone to call Archie and tell him what had happened.
I didn't realize how serious the incident at the beauty salon had been until days later when I came home early from school and found Mommy lying on the sofa watching a soap opera. She had obviously not even gotten dressed that day. I didn't even have to ask. She saw the look on my face and told me before I could utter a question.
"I'm not working for Francine anymore," she said. "What! Why?"
"We had an argument. After all these years, you'd think she would be more loyal to me. I broke my back for her, did her all sorts of favors. The ingrate. That's what she is. That's what they all are."
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm not thinking about it right now. I'm too angry," she said, pouting. "What are we going to have for dinner?"
"There's the chicken from yesterday to warm up and I can make some potatoes and some green beans."
She smirked.
"If that's all we have, I guess that's what it will be," she said and closed her eyes.
My hands shook as I prepared our dinner. What would we do now? Who was going to give Mommy a job? What sort of a job could she manage? There was only one beauty salon in Sewell. Maybe, what I had told Alice would come true: I would have to quit school and find a job myself.
Daddy hadn't had enough life insurance and what we were getting from social security wasn't enough. Besides, Mommy had spent a lot of that money on new clothes.
But she didn't appear worried. After I had the meal prepared, she changed her mind about not liking it. She ate and drank and talked a blue streak about this new outfit she was getting, with matching shoes. After dinner, she went to her bedroom while I cleaned up, and she suddenly appeared in a new skirt and blouse with new earrings. She modeled it all for me and I had to admit, she looked beautiful. Maybe she could become a professional model, I thought, and made the mistake of saying so. Unfortunately, it started her on one of her favorite rampages.
"That's what I should have been. Only I didn't have the right advice or someone who was
sophisticated enough to take me to the right places. And what did I know? You have to have someone who has been places, who knows things and will help you, who will guide you. That's why the choice of a man to marry and love is so important. You can't just let your heart tell you what to do. But it still might not be too late for me," she added, happily gazing in the mirror.
The possibility cheered her.
"I just have to go to the right places and see the right people," she told me. She clapped her hands together and nodded. "Yes, that's what I have to do." Her face beamed. She rushed back to her bedroom as if the right person were waiting there.
I felt my heart flutter. A feather of fear tickled the inside of my chest. It was one thing to dream and to wish for things once in a while. Daddy had taught me to hope for things and look forward to another tomorrow, but it was different if you lived in a world of wishes and never saw the reality of today and never cared about responsibilities. Mommy was getting more and more like that.
After I did the dishes, I went to do my homework. A short time later, I heard a knock on my door and Mammy peeked in, still dressed in her new skirt and blouse.
"I'm going
to town," she said. "Leave the door unlocked."
A car horn honked and she was off. I didn't need to take two guesses whom she was with.
What will become of us? I wondered.
Two days later, I got my answer. It was more shocking than anything I expected.
3
Sad, Beautiful Dreamer
.
I returned from school that afternoon with an
emptiness that made my chest feel hollow. One foot followed the other mechanically, the soles of my shoes barely leaving the road. A group of grade school children ran past. Their laughter had the tinkling sound of china, crisp and musical in the clear, sharp air. Children, I realized, don't really have to contend with deep sadness. They are wooed out of it with the presentation of a toy or a promise. But being mature means realizing life is filled with dark days, too. Tragedy had sent me headlong into reality. All the things I had seen before now looked different, even nature.
The snow had melted. The white oaks, with their powerful broad branches, the beech trees and poplar trees, all had leaves turning a rich shade of green. I was vaguely aware of the birds flitting from branch to branch around me. Above me, the lazy, milk-white clouds seemed pasted against the soft blue sky, but they looked like nothing more than blobs of white. Their shapes no longer resembled camels or whales. My imagination was imprisoned in some dark closet.
Usually, the first warm kiss of sunshine filled me with excitement. Things that normally made me depressed or unhappy looked small and insignificant against the promise of budding flowers or the laughter of young children rippling through the air.
But all the spring glory in the world wouldn't bring my daddy back. I missed his voice and his laughter more every passing day. Mama Arlene was wrong: time wasn't healing the wound. It made the emptiness wider, longer, deeper.
As I plodded along, I carried my school books in the dark blue cloth bag Daddy had bought me long ago. I had two tests to study for and lots of
homework, so the bag was full and heavy. Alice had remained after school for Current Events Club. There was also a rehearsal for the school talent show, and I was supposed to play my fiddle in it. I had
volunteered months ago, but since Daddy's death, I hadn't picked up my fiddle once. I no longer had the desire or the confidence.
Everyone else seemed to have something to do, friends to be with, activities to join. Once or twice I tried to muster some enthusiasm about something I had done before Daddy's death, but an important part of me had died with Daddy. I knew my friends at school, even Alice, were losing patience with me. After a while, they stopped pleading, begging, and encouraging me to do things with them, and I began to feel like a shadow of myself. Even my teachers had begun to treat me like a window pane, gazing through me at someone else, hardly calling on me in class, whether I raised my hand or not.
My smiles were few and far between. I couldn't recall the sound of my own laughter. Even before she had lost her job, Mommy had been complaining about my moods. Now, it was a constant grievance.
"If I can let go, you can," she lectured. Then she declared, "Maybe, he's happier where he is. At least he doesn't have to fight getting old. You won't remember him as anything but young. And where he is, he doesn't have to worry about money."
I told her that was a horrible thing to say, but she just laughed. "Suit yourself. If you want to walk around with a sad-sack face all the time, do it. You won't have any friends and you certainly won't attract any handsome boys."
"I don't care!" I shouted back. Boys and parties, long conversations on the telephone, scribbling some boy's name in my notebook--none of that mattered to me anymore. Why couldn't Mommy realize that?
I didn't want to have an argument with her today, but since she had lost her job at Francine's and not found another yet, I expected she would be home when I arrived. She said I was so depressing to be around, I made her lose her appetite. It always sounded like just another excuse to go off with Archie Marlin. Today would be no different. I braced myself for another lecture.
But when I opened the trailer's front door, I wasn't greeted with her criticisms. Instead, I saw suitcases spread open on the floor. Mommy rushed about, folding clothes and dropping them into the luggage.
"Good!" she said when she saw me. "You're home early. I was afraid the one time I wanted you here, you'd find something silly to do."
"What are you doing, Mommy? Why are you packing these suitcases?"
"We're leaving," she said smiling. "Now, these two suitcases are yours," she instructed, pointing to the smaller ones near the sofa. "I'm sorry that's all you can take, but that's all that we'll have room for in the car right now. Pick out your most important things and pack them."
My mouth dropped open. "Leaving? Where are we going? I don't understand."
"I don't have a lot of time to explain, Melody." She put her hands together and looked up at the ceiling as if giving thanks. "The opportunity has come and we're taking it," she declared. "Hurry! Get your best things packed, and remember, we don't have room for anything else right now."
"I don't understand." I stood in the doorway and shook my head.
"What's to understand? We're leaving," she cried. "Finally leaving Mineral Acres! Be thankful. Be gloriously thankful, sweetheart," she pleaded.
"But why are we leaving?"
She held out her arms, turning her eyes from her right hand to her left, as if the answer were right before us. "Why?" She laughed thinly. "Why would I want to leave this Godforsaken place, this town of busybodies, of people who have no imagination, no dreams? Why would I want to leave a two-by-four trailer in a retirement park filled with people inches away from their own graves? Why?" She laughed again, then lost her smile.
"You're supposed to be a smart student. You get all those hundreds on your school tests and you ask why?"
"But Mommy, where will we go?"
"Any place else," she said. She stared at me for a moment and then her eyes grew small. "We're going to explore, look for a nice place to live where I can have an opportunity to do something more with my life and not be smothered and stifled. Now that your father is dead, we have no reason to continue living in a coal mining town, do we?"
She smiled again, but something about that smile seemed false.
"We've always lived in Mineral Acres." I said weakly.
"Because your father was working in the mines! Really, Melody. Besides," she went on, "I've spent more money than we have in the bank trying to cheer myself up after your father's death. The life insurance is gone and you know what our bills are, how close we are to not paying them every month. You're always warning me. I can't even pay for this trailer without a job and I'm not going to beg for my job back at Francine's. There just aren't any other jobs here for me. I'm not going to become a waitress. Look at me!" she said throwing wide her arms. "Do I look like I can make a living for us in this town? I can't type and if I could, I would hate to be caged in some mine company office. We have no choice. I have to get to where there are opportunities before it's too late!"
"But how are we going?"
"Archie will be here in twenty minutes," she replied. "So we don't have much time to jabber about it."
"Archie?"
"He's leaving, too. Actually, it was his idea," she added with a happy smile. "We'll go off in his car and--"
"Archie? We're going away with Archie Marlin?" I asked, incredulously.
"It's more like he's going away with us," she said and followed it with her nervous little laugh. "But he's going to be a big help. He has friends in the entertainment business. He says I can be a model."
"Oh Mommy, he's lying! He's telling you these things just so you'll stay with him."
"What? How dare you." She wagged her forefinger at me. "Archie is a sensitive person. He cares about us. As it turns out, he has no one either. It makes sense for us to all go off together. Please," she pleaded, rolling her eyes. "Get busy packing." "But what about my school and--"
> "You'll make up the work in a different school--a better school! Oh honey," she said, clapping her hands together, "isn't this exciting? What could possibly be wrong with our trying to find a new place to live? I know you're not happy here anymore, right?"
"That's because of what happened to Daddy."
"Exactly. And nothing is going to change that, so why stay? A new beginning--a fresh start--is what we all need. But we have to do it before it's too late, Melody. Do you want me to wait until I'm too old to have another chance? That's what happened to a lot of the people who are stuck here. Well, it's not going to happen to me," she said with determination.
She smiled again. "I have another surprise. I was going to save it until we actually left, until we were on the road with nothing ahead of us but a better future," she said.
I stared at her dumbly, wondering what additional surprise she could possibly have.
"Don't you even want to know what it is?" she asked when I didn't speak.
I shook my head and gazed around. It was overwhelming. The suitcases on the floor, the house in a mess, clothes thrown everywhere . .
"What?" I finally asked.
"Our first stop is going to be Provincetown, Cape Cod. You're going to see your father's family, finally. Well?" she said when I didn't reply. "Aren't you excited? You were always asking about them. Now, you'll get all the answers."
"Provincetown? Daddy's family?"
"Yes. Isn't it a good idea?"
"I don't know," I said. She was right: she had surprised me, something wasn't ringing true. I took a deep breath. My heart pounded. With everything happening so fast, I couldn't think straight.
"Shouldn't we plan this better, Mommy? Can't we sit and talk about it first and get organized?"
"No, because that usually means we won't do it," she whined. "As Archie says, if you don't do something when you have the urge, you probably never will."