“Oh. I see,” Lulu says, disappointed at not being instructed to lie outright.
“But,” Little Shep asks, “what if someone comes up to us and says, ‘Hey, did your mother back her car into that statue of Jesus that used to stand by the side door of the church?’ Then what do we say?”
“No one is ever going to ask you that, Little Shep,” Vivi says.
Then Caro’s kids chime in, “But what if someone asks us to swear on a stack of Holy Bibles that Aunt Vivi didn’t do it? What do we do then?”
These are kids who push things as far as they can.
“Look, spooks, let’s don’t get dramatic here,” Caro chimes in. “All we’re saying is: Mum’s the word. Got it?”
Little Shep, like a dog with a bone, can’t let it go. “But what do you want us to do if someone asks us bald-faced?”
“Just stare at ’em like they’re crazy until they walk away,” Vivi tells him.
Little Shep thinks for a minute. “Oh, okay,” Little Shep says. “I can do that. Easy-greasy.”
Then Vivi turns to Sidda. “Any questions, Sidda?” she asks.
“Yes ma’am, why don’t you report that woman to Monsignor Bergeron?”
“Don’t call her a woman,” Vivi says. “Howard is a nun.”
“Bride of Christ,” Turner says.
“That’s right,” Vivi agrees.
“Did she wear a garter when she married Christ?” Lulu asks.
Vivi stares at Lulu, then she stares at Caro. “Caro, were there some kind of classes we were supposed to take before we said we’d raise kids?”
“Yeah,” Caro replies. “We forgot to go.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Vivi laughs.
“We took the cha-cha classes instead, remember?”
“Let’s cha-cha!” the twins demand.
“Absolument!” Caro says, and goes over to the stereo and puts on a stack of records. You can tell she is glad things are starting to lighten up. They all are.
They get up from the table without so much as touching the dirty plates. Caro always leaves her dinner plates for the maid to get the next morning. Instead, she puts a record on the stereo. It’s the Let’s Learn to Cha-Cha record. And it’s not the first time they’ve danced to it.
“One-two-three, cha-cha-cha!” Baylor calls out, and dances withVivi.
They’re all full as ticks, but they’re up dancing, counting out the rhythm. It’s how they learned their numbers. When they were real little, Vivi and Caro would dance with their kids and teach them: “One-two-three, cha-cha-cha! Four-five-six, cha-cha-cha! Seven-eight-nine, cha-cha-cha!” All the way up to twenty.
At some point Little Shep appears on the dance floor with a garter belt in his hand. He got it out of Vivi’s purse! He’s dancing with it, shaking it in the air like maracas. After a while, he hands it to Baylor, who ties it to his belt and shakes his little hips with it on. He shakes it with the cha-cha rhythm so that it bangs against his belt and makes a little chinking sound that becomes an accompaniment to their dancing.
Vivi’s kids are so proud of her for getting the garter belt back from Sister Howard Regina. They can’t believe she forgot to tell them that part of the story. Sometimes they think their mother doesn’t know what a hero she really is.
“Yall just sleep over here tonight,” Caro says.
“No, we couldn’t do that,” Vivi says.
“Why in the hell not?” Caro asks. “Shep is at the duck camp, right? I mean, it is November.”
“Of course he’s at the duck camp. Do you think there are any men in this town, in this state, who are not at the duck camp?”
“Yes,” Caro says. “Blaine. He is in New Orleans, consulting with a client who’s remodeling a house in the Garden District, but who wants a ‘modern’ feel with traditional ‘overtones.’ Blaine is sashaying around New Orleans like he is the Prince of the French Quarter.”
Vivi gives Caro a look. “Sometimes I forget we married such different men.”
“Anyway, it’s still raining. The kids are exhausted, we have plenty of bunk bed space. Yall are sleeping here, that’s all there is to it. Got it?”
“Yes ma’am,” Vivi says to Caro.
Caro leads the kids off to wash their faces, pulling out extra toothbrushes for the Walker kids to share. Then Sidda, Little Shep, Lulu, and Baylor climb into Caro’s kids’ extra pajamas. The pajamas feel so soft and warm on this cold night. In the twins’ room, Sidda gives Lulu the bottom bunk, and she takes the top bunk. But soon, Lulu asks to crawl in with Sidda, and Sidda says yes. Little Shep and Baylor sleep in Turner’s room, with Little Shep in a sleeping bag on the floor. Drifting off, they can still barely hear Vivi and Caro talking in the living room, but they can’t make out the words. Soon they are fast asleep.
Caro puts another log in the fireplace. “Tell me more, Vivi,” she says.
Vivi looks at her friend, and thinks, Those three words are as good as the words I love you.
Vivi paused for a moment, took out her lipstick, and said, “Okay, I was in the church parking lot, and I was backing up. I was so angry that my peripheral vision just shut down, just completely shut down, do you understand what I am saying?!” Vivi held her lipstick in her hand and stared at it, like it was a foreign object that she had never seen before. “I am sick to death of crap being crammed down my throat. The Mary they shove down my throat is impossibly good. She is blue and pink gowns. She is roses and crowns and stars all around her. She is all sweetness and perfection.
“I want to vomit up all this Catholic shit and choose my own thoughts! Choose a Holy Mother who is strong, who thinks for herself and is brave as hell. I want to blot out all those white-bearded tired-ass old men and pray to a gorgeous woman who crushes snakes with her bare feet. You just watch it: She’s the one who’ll set us free. One of these days I’m just going to quit praying to God. I’m going to pray only to a strong and sassy Mary. Only to her. Am I crazy? Does anyone else think like this?”
Vivi stood and walked to the windows, then suddenly turned back to face Caro. “Don’t they realize that the real Mary, the strong Mary, could have said NO to the angel Gabriel?! Did anybody ever think of that? She could have said flat-out: ‘No, thank you, I will not have an illegitimate child. And I have never heard of Joseph. It is not in my plans to marry a carpenter, especially not one from Nazareth.’
“But she didn’t say no. She said yes, at great risk. She was a teenager, for God’s sake! And she said yes. And if she hadn’t said yes, maybe there would have been no Infant Jesus, period. Let alone any Infant Jesus of the Fancy Little Lord Fauntleroy Outfits of Prague.
“WHAT DO THEY WANT OF ME!! I know I’m not the best mother, but I do the best I can. Which of course is never enough. Every day I wake up and pray, Mary, please ask God to make me loving and patient and kind all day long. Please help me keep my temper. And then when I am not perfect, I FEEL LIKE SHIT!”
Caro shifts her position on the sofa. She says nothing for a moment, waiting to make sure that Vivi has finished talking. Then Caro says, “Give up.”
“Give up? No, you’ve got to keep going. I mean, what I am supposed to do, jump off the Garnet River Bridge? Not that it hasn’t crossed my mind.”
“Not that it hasn’t crossed most everybody’s mind, Vivi. But we don’t do it.”
“Well, you can’t just give up. Who is supposed to feed my children? Tell me! Who takes care of my children if I don’t get out of bed in the morning?”
“I don’t mean give up. I mean give it up. Let it go. Let all that Catholic shit stuff flow past you like water.”
“Caro,” Vivi said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“What if,” Caro continues, “just what if God didn’t intend for everything to be perfect? What if He knew it was going to be a holy mess, and he loved us anyway? What if Adam and Eve weren’t sinning? What if that prenatal original sin stain on our souls is not even there?”
“That is exactly the question that came t
o me with my last child! I looked down at Baylor when Dr. Harrison handed him to me, and I thought, How can this baby have a stain of guilt on him? He is an innocent!”
“Then think it right now,” Caro said. “When my boys were born, I looked at each one of them and said NO to that original sin shit. I looked at my babies and thought, You are pure, holy, perfect, complete, and undefiled. And nobody can tell me different, not the Pope his royal self. Believe it now.”
“Caro, that contradicts everything we’ve been taught, everything the church is built on.”
“Vivi, if you keep believing that the church is built on the guilt of babies, you will go insane. I was lucky. Mom and Pop never pushed it. Pop just ran the movie theaters with Mom’s help, and Mom cooked and watched movies and gardened. They looked at me and accepted me pretty much as I was. When they didn’t like something, they talked to me about it. Not like your family.”
“Don’t talk about my family.”
“Why not? Bloodletting takes place in the best of families. Somebody should have called the police to your house when your father took that belt off and stepped toward you and Pete. Or toward your mother, for that matter.”
“They say it’s a sin to think that.”
“They do, huh? Well, I can figure out what’s a sin and what’s not. If I am deliberately cruel to you for no reason at all, that is a sin. That crap about Turner and the twins being born with the stain of guilt on their souls—oh, no, I don’t buy that. That is a story the biggest corporation in the world called the Vatican makes up. So we’ll feel like we can never be good enough.
“Why do you buy it, hook, line, and sinker?”
Vivi stares hard at Caro. “Do you at least still believe in Mass every Sunday?” Vivi asks.
“For those who like it, fine. But do I worry if I miss Mass once in a while? Like even for a month? No, Vivi, I don’t give it a thought.”
“Surely some of the times that I don’t see yall at Mass, you’ve gone to St. Rita’s instead of Divine Compassion?”
“The times you don’t see us at Mass, we are not at Mass—we’re not at any Catholic church. We’re at the Holy Church of Pancakes in my kitchen, with Blaine and me and the three boys laughing and reading the funny papers and staying in our jammies till two in the afternoon. I give my kids Communion with maple syrup on top. And I love up on them and on my far too handsome husband, spook that he is. We just lounge.”
“You don’t feel a little ashamed?”
“Ashamed of what? About flipping pancakes high so the twins squeal with joy? About sitting in my husband’s lap and laughing at private jokes that only we understand? About telling the kids to play outside in the yard while Blaine and I make love? No, I don’t feel one bit ashamed. I feel good. If God doesn’t want me to feel good, then He’s a Nazi, and I don’t care what He thinks anyway.
“But remember, Pal, I didn’t have Buggy for a mother.”
Vivi is quiet for a moment. “Yeah, there is that,” she says finally.
“Yes, there is that,” Caro says. “And I didn’t get shipped off to Saint Augustine’s Penal Academy for Bad Catholic Girls because my mother was jealous of me.”
“My mother was not jealous of me!”
“Oh, sorry, I must have you mixed up with some other Viviane Joan Abbott who I have known for thirty-two years.”
Vivi begins to sob, softly.
“Your mother fed you the Catholic Guilt Diet whole-hog. You were criticized for everything you did. There was no way you could accept that you were a lovely young girl, because your mother treated you like a sinner.”
Vivi is silent for a while. She rearranges herself on the huge pillows that Caro has placed in the living room on the curved black sofa. She hugs a pillow to her. She thinks of her four children, Little Shep in the sleeping bag like he’s on a campout, her daughters in the bunk beds. They are bunk beds that Blaine designed and built for his boys out of old pieces of cypress reinforced with rebar. Handmade bunk beds for his boys. Everything in Caro’s house is creative. She and Blaine don’t do anything like anyone else in Thornton.
Vivi gazes at her friend. The strong jawline, the hazel eyes, the close-cropped hair—a tall, thin, athletic thoroughbred of a woman. Caro stares at the fire. She seems calm. Something in her sees this all, but is unfazed by it. There is something real and comforting about Caro’s bluntness, about her defense of the purity of her children.
For a moment Vivi’s mind drifts. If she does not work at it constantly, her mind becomes crammed full of sins. Who needs a missal, when she carries the list in her mind at all times?
“Have you murmured against God, at your own adversity, or the prosperity of others? Have you believed in fortune-tellers or consulted them? Gone to places of worship of other denominations? Have you been guilty of immodest dress or impurity? Have you read obscene books, seen immodest films? Been guilty of impure songs, conversations, words, looks, or actions by yourself or with others? Willfully entertained impure thoughts or desires?” Once it starts, it doesn’t stop. There are too many sins to list.
Vivi’s own body is exhausted. Her adrenal glands have been pumping so hard, her body still feels like it is in an earthquake. A body quake. Her heart is beating fast. Just talking to Caro, hearing the heretical views of a friend she thought she knew everything about—it all makes her want more oxygen. Her face feels flushed at even considering the ideas that Caro has brought up. The very first sin in the inventory before Confession is, “Have you doubted in matters of faith?” If this isn’t doubting, she doesn’t know what is.
Caro gets up and sits on the sofa next to Vivi. She puts her arm around her and pulls her toward her. “Here’s the deal, Viv-o. Stick with your Holy Lady. She’s your pal. Think of the strength it takes to be so quiet and calm. She’s one strong lady. And she is like a torch in you, Vivi. She keeps on burning, lighting the way, and there is nothing that can put out the light. Not Sister Howard Regina. Not anything. Not anybody.” Caro takes Vivi’s face in her hands and turns her gently toward her.
“How many years ago did we give ourselves Ya-Ya tribal names, float walnuts with candle stubs down the bayou, and cut our fingers to share our blood? You told the Ya-Ya creation story, and how the Moon Lady saved us from the alligators. I remember it like it was last night: ‘You are my darling daughters in whom I am well pleased. I will always keep my divine eyes peeled out for you.’ The Holy Lady. The Moon Lady. Don’t let them take her away from you. Let her show herself and tell you what to do.”
Caro thinks over the evening, and she sighs. I was right: Vivi is hurt. She has been in an accident and has been injured. Then Caro kisses Vivi on the forehead. “That’s the end of tonight’s sermon by the Reverend Doctor Lady Bishop Caro Brewer Bennett. I’m tired. Let’s go to bed.”
Vivi, clad in a pair of Caro’s pajamas, sinks against her friend’s back as they lie next to each other in Blaine and Caro’s bed. Vivi thinks about Mary Magdalene, a fallen woman and the first to see Jesus rise from the dead. She thinks of holy things and begins to wonder what is really and truly unholy. She takes three long, deep breaths.
Vivi considers letting it all go. She remembers the twin she lost when Sidda was born. She thinks about all the innocent babies the Catholic Church banished to Limbo forever, because they were not baptized, and how they would never see the face of God. She wonders what kind of cruel mind could devise such a fate for babies. As she falls asleep, she has a hazy picture of Sister Howard Regina as a little girl. She wonders when that girl-child had become the dogma-driven, hard woman she met today.
As exhausted as she is, Vivi cannot sleep without checking on her children. Careful not to wake Caro, who is already deep asleep, Vivi gets out of bed and softly tiptoes into the room where Sidda and Lulu lie sleeping. Lulu is in the top bunk with Sidda, and that makes Vivi smile. She touches their heads gently, then goes to the other bedroom, where Baylor is sleeping with the other boys. She kneels down beside the lower bunk where he sleeps. For a lo
ng time, she listens to her youngest child’s breathing. She strokes his forehead and holds his hand between hers. He does not stir. She marvels at his beauty, at his completeness. Pure, holy, perfect, complete, and undefiled, she thinks. Pure. Holy. Perfect. Complete. Undefiled. She sends a prayer to the Holy Lady, a prayer that she might learn to see this purity in Baylor, and in the rest of her children. She prays that she might see it in all people. She prays that she might surrender all guilt. And let it go.
Back in bed next to Caro, Vivi drifts off into the waiting arms of the Holy Lady, who can wait for Vivi as long as is necessary. She can wait for years, can wait lifetimes for her daughter to know she is loved and that her soul is not stained, but radiant, filled with lunar light, luminous with a star that lives inside her heart, inside her body at all times.
The Holy Lady can wait, she has no clock, no deadlines. Her time is like water, just flowing and flowing and flowing.
CIRCLING THE GLOBE
March 1964
Baylor Walker started whistling when he was three. People in Thornton would say they could hear him coming half a mile down the road. Most of the time, he whistled whatever was in his head, little made-up songs about the sun, birds, and Lamar the German shepherd. But if you pressed Baylor to whistle his favorite song, he would blush and go into a fevered version of “Singin’ in the Rain.” He didn’t even know where he first heard the tune, but he loved its jauntiness.
Baylor whistled almost all the time, except when he was eating. He whistled the loudest when Vivi had one of her fits. The afternoon Vivi found out Big Shep went to New Orleans with Sue Ann Morelli, Baylor whistled so loud his face turned blue, and Sidda went over and started to rub his forehead. Vivi threatened to burn the cotton fields that afternoon. With a glass of gin in her hand, she walked out into the rows of green leaves and white cotton bolls and screamed: “Your bolls will be ashes, Shep Walker!” Their maid Willetta managed to get the matches away from her, but not before Baylor had fainted and hit his head on the edge of the marble-topped dresser. Vivi snapped out of it, folded him in her arms, and cried as she sang, “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man of Mine.” Then she piled them all in the car for hamburgers at Fred’s Hamburger Drive-In.