“Whatcha doing, doodle bug?”
“Oh, got a test on Friday and figured I’d better get on it, you know?”
“Yeah, you’re right. I forgot to ask how your French test went.”
“Ninety-three.”
“That’s my girl.” I hung on the doorjamb, waiting for an invitation.
Beth smiled at me and the light of her bedside lamp caught her profile, casting her into Botticelli’s Madonna. Her blue eyes met mine and I could detect no trace of emotional damage. The primal urge to protect her washed over me. How will we rebuild our lives? Together.
“I love you, Momma.”
“I love you too, Beth, I’m so proud of you.”
“Do you want to talk for a few minutes?”
She moved to the other side of her bed, the same one that had been mine in my childhood, to make room for me. She patted the empty space next to her, encouraging me to join her.
“Sure, why not?”
These late night talks were my treasure.
“I hate growing up.” She sighed and looked at me.
“Me too.”
“Mom, you are grown up!” she reminded me affectionately.
“I am? Oh well, it’s a hard business and it doesn’t happen in one day, you know.”
“Like Rome?”
“Yeah, like Rome. You know, it’s a very uneven process. One day you get up and think you can handle anything. The next day, life deals you a joker and you’re struggling to survive all over again.”
“Like Daddy bailing out on us?”
“Honey, Daddy didn’t bail out on you. He bailed out of our marriage.”
“I guess so.”
“Anyway, life takes a lot of patience and it helps when somebody loves you along the way. Love helps a lot, but patience is your best weapon. Livvie used to preach to me that I needed to slow down to think things through. Poor woman, she needed two tongues to raise me. I was so stubborn.”
“Do I hear a Livvie story coming on?”
“Oh, I don’t want to bore you.”
“Please! Tell me what it was like in the dark ages, when you were a kid and Livvie came to work for your family…back when you were gonna be a writer and move to Paris,” Beth said with all the drama she could muster. “I love the Livvie stories, promise!” She added a Girl Scout salute for good measure.
“Move over, then, I need a pillow. She saved our lives, you know.”
“She loved you the best, didn’t she?”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I think she had this amazing ability to make all of us feel like she loved us each the best. She was remarkable.”
“She was like your momma, wasn’t she?”
“Well, honey, you only have one momma, but if I could’ve had two, she would’ve been the other one I’d have chosen. God, she understood everything….”
“Earth calling Mom!”
“Sorry, drifting again. I was just remembering what it felt like after she came.”
“Well, tell me…I’m waiting! Tell me about how you and Aunt Maggie and Uncle Timmy met her.” I settled myself between the bumps and lumps of her old goose down pillow as the stories began to surface. “Scratch my back,” she pleaded.
I reached up under her top and ran my short fingernails across her skin, the way she likes, careful to avoid the tickle zones.
“It’s the gospel truth, you know. Every word.”
Five
Livvie
1963
MAGGIE and I were shaking the sand out of our beach towels and Timmy was winding up the crabbing lines. A bushel basket full of blue crabs sat beside us.
“I have a ton of sand in my bathing suit too,” Maggie said. “Do you want to rinse off with me?”
“Me too. Augh! It’s so disgusting!” I pulled away the bottom of my swimsuit and turned out a lump of wet sand.
“You’re gonna go to jail for indecent exposure!”
“Kiss my butt! Last one in’s a rotten egg!”
From the dunes, we sprinted to the water, not stopping until the incoming waves knocked us down, thoroughly soaking us. “You’re rotten!” Maggie dove under a roller and came up with me beside her.
I took a mouthful of water and spewed it at her with the force of a garden hose, hitting her square in the face.
“You are so gross! I’m gonna murder you!”
Maggie sputtered, rinsed her face and slapped water in my direction. Laughing, I dodged her retaliation and sent her a flood of water from the ocean surface, drenching her face again. Our shrieks were a call to arms for Timmy, who watched from the water’s edge, shaking his head.
“Don’t worry, Maggie! I’ll save you from the enemy!” Timmy dropped the crabbing gear and took a heroic, flying leap over the low waves. He grabbed me around the neck, pulling me down backwards in the shallow water. I gurgled and fought, broke free and pulled Timmy back under the water and dropped him there. Coughing my brains out, I tried to escape to the safety of the shore, but Timmy dove underwater and caught me by the legs, pulling me down again. All the while, Miss Maggie floated in regal splendor, enjoying the sounds of her little brother and sister pummeling each other.
“Help! Take that, you little creep!” I grabbed a handful of mud and threw it at Timmy, stinging him on the legs.
“Wait!” Timmy stopped and pointed in the direction of Maggie. “Let’s get her.”
Timmy and I, with our noses skimming the water and the stealth of submarine spies, cut through the water toward an unsuspecting Maggie, whose attention appeared to be focused on the sounds of the seagulls. I came on her from underneath and Timmy from behind. I grabbed her bathing suit and pulled her to the floor of the ocean, attempting to stand on her. The current had its way with all of us as we toppled, and Maggie rose up to the surface like a sperm whale, vowing to kill us both.
“I’m telling Daddy! You know you’re not supposed to do that! That’s how people drown!” Maggie’s hair was over her face and she washed it back to better view her attackers. “Y’all are in deep trouble now!”
“Ah, try to get me! Come on!” I challenged her good-naturedly.
“Yeah, you tell and we’ll get you again!” Timmy said.
“Oh, just forget it. Come on, we gotta get home.”
Maggie surrendered, all of us knowing she wouldn’t tell our father. On the way out of the water we bodysurfed, riding the waves to shore.
“We really got her, Timmy!” I crowed after sending one last mouthful of water in her direction.
“Susan Hamilton,” she said, “you are a gross pig, and no man is ever gonna want you. Ladies don’t spit!”
“Is that a fact?” I giggled and gave Maggie the finger.
“That’s it, Susan. I’m telling.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Maggie, wash the starch outta y’all’s underwear.”
“Y’all, cut the crap! We gotta get these crabs home before they die and start stinking all to hell.”
“I wish you children wouldn’t cuss so! It’s vulgar!”
“Children? Excuse me?”
Muttering to ourselves about Maggie’s assumption that she was the national arbiter of good taste and deportment, we gathered up our towels, the basket of wiggling and twisting crabs and the bucket of bait—a bunch of old chicken necks. We’d just throw that old chicken neck out in the water on the end of a piece of cord, and the stupid crabs jumped on like they had a reservation on a luncheon cruise. We caught them by the bushel all the time.
We were our own parade. We cast long shadows on the soft wet sand, bulked up by the towels thrown over our shoulders. Our footprints formed an irregular trail. An occasional sun worshiper would glance up from her paperback novel and remark on our passing to a friend in the beach chair next to her.
“There go the Hamilton kids again! Do you think they ever eat anything but crabs in that house?”
“No lie. Pretty soon they’re gonna grow claws and start walking sideways.”
People always had so
mething to say about other people on the Island. Even children like us were fair game. Timmy led the way down the beach and over the dunes, his crab net held high like the spear of victory. Maggie and I, who for the moment had made our peace, swung the basket between us. We reached the Island Gamble in a few minutes. We dropped the basket of crabs and threw our towels across the handrail of the front steps. As we started up the stairs, we heard the booming Gullah of a deep-voiced woman.
“Don’t you children be coming up ’eah bringing sand on my porch! Go round to the back and wash your feet with the hose!”
“Holy shit!” I whispered. “What was that?” We all froze.
The woman moved closer and we could see her then. She towered over us from the porch. She looked like a bronze statue from the Civil War. She was an enormous, stately woman, nearly six feet tall. Her jaw was square but even from the shadows I could see her eyes flashing. We braced ourselves for further instructions.
“I mean what I say now, you children go on to the back!”
“Who are you?” Timmy asked politely, too stunned to budge one inch. “I’m Timmy.”
“I see that. I’m Livvie Singleton and I’m here to help y’all’s momma. Harriet Avinger’s cousin. What you got in that basket?” She opened the screen door and came down to the yard for inspection. “You mussy be Maggie and Susan,” she remarked as she passed us, our feet still cemented to the bottom step. “You best be closing your jaw or you gone be catching flies,” she added under her breath.
Maggie and I snapped out of our trance and hurried to find our manners.
“I’m Maggie, Mrs. Singleton, the eldest child.”
“That’s fine!” Livvie took a long look at her.
“That makes me Susan, Mrs. Singleton, it’s nice to meet you.” I extended my hand to Livvie, who looked at me for a moment and then shook my hand soundly, smiling broadly. She had the whitest teeth I’d ever seen and dimples on both cheeks. “I love Harriet. She’s so nice.”
“Yeah, she’s a good woman, all right,” Livvie said.
“Do you have a garden like hers?” I asked.
“Bigger,” she said with a grin.
“Your melons as sweet as hers?” I asked. It took her about one split second to see where I was headed. She narrowed her eyes at me and I maintained the innocence of a choirgirl.
“Miss Susan? You want some melon from my garden, child?”
“Oh, I love watermelon,” I said.
“Yeah, she can spit a seed clear across the street,” Timmy said and started laughing.
“Shut up, Timmy,” I said.
“All right now, let’s see what you got ’eah.” Livvie peered in the old bushel basket and, indeed, fifty to sixty hapless crustaceans were climbing over each other in their stupor for salt water. As one would try to escape, his brother’s claw would pull him back into the abyss. “Hope you got more loyalty to each other than these devils do!”
“Yeah, isn’t it awful? If they had any brains, they’d get out!” Timmy said.
“Well, they ain’t got none, so we may’s well cook ’em! Bring them around to the back door and we give them a funeral!” Livvie turned and climbed the stairs. “Yes, sir, Lawd, gone be some good eating for this ’eah Hamilton family tonight! Gone be a feast!”
The screen door closed without its familiar slam as she disappeared from our view. We made our way to the back steps, lugging the heavy basket and dragging our towels across the ground.
Maggie threw her towel over the clothesline and said, “Here, gimme y’all’s and I’ll hang them up.”
“Golly gee whiz, Miss Maggie, is it my birthday or what?” I tossed her the towels and turned on the water, extending the hose from its rack to rinse our feet.
“Don’t be such a wise guy, Susan,” Timmy said.
Maggie let the cool water run over her feet and legs while Timmy and I sat on the back steps waiting to dry.
Livvie’s voice rang out from the back porch.
“You children gone bring then crabs to me or do I have to come get ’em?”
“We’re coming!” we answered together, exchanging looks of exaggerated trepidation.
“This one’s not gonna be easy to train,” I said.
“Train, hell. Did you see her face?” Timmy said.
“Yeah, Mount Rushmore,” I said. “Come on, let’s get inside.”
As we crossed the threshold of our back door, evidence of a new regime was everywhere. The empty sink sparkled, the floor shone from a fresh coat of wax and we spied the plate of homemade fudge like the ears of a good bird dog perk to flush out dove. A crisp clean cloth covered the table laden for us with egg salad sandwiches, cut tomatoes and cucumbers on lettuce, a platter of sliced watermelon and a pitcher of sweetened tea. On the front burner of the stove, our family’s largest pot was beginning to simmer, waiting for the crabs. Livvie dropped a cut lemon into the pot and turned to face us.
“I say to myself, Livvie? (My momma call me that ’cause she say I is the livingest gal she ever did see—short for ’lizabeth.) So, I says, Livvie? Them children mussy be ready to starve when they get themselves home! So I make y’all something to eat. Bring that basket over ’eah, boy. Soon’s this water set to boiling, we have us a ceremony!” Livvie laughed and clapped her hands, bending with glee as she surveyed the shock in our faces. “Y’all like fudge?”
Mesmerized, we took a place at the table and devoured the food, licking our fingers and happily coming to the realization that life could be worse.
“Gosh, Mrs. Singleton, this is sooooo good! I never thought egg salad could taste so good,” I said. It was delicious.
“Y’all call me Livvie, okay? Celery salt, a little bit of chopped onion and mustard. That’s my secret. I’ll teach you how to make it, iffin you behave! Y’all want some more tea?”
The ceiling fan spread peace over the room and the three of us filled our stomachs until we could no longer swallow another bite. I sighed in satisfaction and also in relief. It was the first time anyone had taken care of us like this that I could remember.
“Let’s us wash up these plates and send these boys to they watery grave. ’Eah?”
Livvie turned on the faucet and squirted some liquid soap into the sink, indicating to us to put our dishes in the sudsy water. Without prodding, Maggie and I began to wash and dry the dishes. Livvie found a pair of tongs and, one by one, she dropped the crabs into the pot, apologizing to them.
“All right, Mr. Crab, I sorry I gots to do this to you, but your life ain’t wasted. No, sir, you gone serve the Lawd by feeding the Hamiltons.”
We began to snicker behind her back and, hearing us, she spun around on her heels.
“What you laughing at? Get over ’eah, Mr. Timmy, you tell this crab you sorry for him. And tell him thank you.”
“Ah, go on, Livvie.”
“Go on nothing! You come ’eah, right now! I know this seems silly to you but you have to remember to say thank you. It’s important. Don’t make fun of nature! Never do that! You stir up Yemalla ire and then you ain’t got no crabs!”
She handed him the tongs and he took them very reluctantly. Timmy reached for a crab and held him high in the air over the pot before releasing him.
“Yemalla? What’s that?” I asked.
“Humph. Oh, Lawd!” Suddenly her face was filled with a kind of despair. “Y’all children go to church every Sunday?”
“Are you kidding me?” Timmy said. “If we don’t make Mass, we have to be in the hospital or in the grave!”
“That’s good,” Livvie said, “’cause everybody needs to thank the Lawd for all He does for us. Ain’t that right?”
We all agreed, bobbing our heads like well-behaved morons, while she began to tell us the first of the many stories we would hear about the Gullah culture and the ways of her people.
“My family come from Africa during the time of the plantation, before the war with the Yankees. We had our own customs and what we believe and such. We come ’ea
h, and the white people try to get us believing in what they believe. So we learn about Jesus and learn to love the Lawd. But we always remember the ways of our ancestors and elders and honor them by telling the stories they brought across the water. Don’t hurt nothing to pray to everything. Iffin everything got Gawd in him, then you should pray to everything. Ain’t that right?”
“Can’t hurt,” I said.
“Tell us more, Livvie,” Maggie piped in. “Who or what is this Yemalla?”
“She plenty powerful, that’s what. You see, we believe that iffin Gawd give free will to man then He mussy give it to all He create. So we give names to Mother Nature too! Yemalla is the name of a goddess. She the power of the ocean and the moon, control the tide, soothe the spirit with her song, light the way for us. She give us fish to sustain us, like them crazy crabs fixing to get in the pot. They is her little babies, so we thank them for feeding us.”
“That is the weirdest thing I ever heard, Livvie,” Timmy said, giggling.
“You think so, ’eah?” Livvie shot at him.
She was getting a little irked. Timmy should’ve known better than to make fun of her religion, but he’s a jerk.
“I don’t think so, Timmy! Livvie, don’t listen to him, I think it’s interesting!” I said, in a hurry trying to squash the fire before it started to burn.
“Lemme tell you children something. Gawd, Lawd, Yemalla, don’t make no never mind to me. All the same. Whatever you believe in, that’s all right. I just think it’s a gift that you can drop a hook in the river and pull out your dinner! Somebody ought to be thanked!”
She stopped talking and looked at us like a bunch of sorry-ass heathens. We were. Even though the powers in our life tried to beat Christianity into our thick heads, we resisted with vigor, relegating religion to suffering for a few hours a week in church, and cramming for religion tests in school. We talked a good enough game about heaven, hell, purgatory and limbo, but privately Timmy and I thought most of it was a load of garbage. Naturally, Maggie bought the whole thing, but she was a world-class prude. I just figured I’d do the best I could and see what happened when I died. The way I saw it, God had a whole lot of butt to kick before He got to mine, like Hitler and guys like that. Maybe He’d be worn out.