Lyla, page 21
If I didn't love the humidity so much, I would've hated it.
“Which lightbulb needs changing?” I asked Mother.
“That one up there.” Mother pointed to the light.
I opened the step ladder up into a pyramid, noticing that Mother's house was as spotless as it had ever been before. Sonnet was a ruthless housekeeper. No grain of dust went unpunished. Even the walls looked scrubbed clean.
“How's Emma Claire?” Mother asked.
I shrugged my shoulders. “She's about the same I guess. She doesn't say much.”
The pregnancy had softened Mother, made her voice quieter.
“Does she still hate me?” Mother asked. “She has a right to hate me.”
“Mother, I don't want to hear you talk that way.”
“Well, it's true. She probably hates me, and this baby, too. But, I don't blame her, it's her right.”
I unscrewed the lightbulb and tossed it onto Mother's bed.
“Quinn, would you have wanted me to get rid of the baby?”
I screwed the new lightbulb into the socket, and it popped with a quick flash.
“Dammit,” I said.
“Oh, I'll get another one.” Mother stirred in her bed, sitting up straight.
“No, no, I'll get it,” I said. “Sit back down. You're pregnant.”
“Well, you're no spring chicken, yourself.”
“Me? I'm as good as ever.”
I stepped down the ladder, my knee joints throbbing under the pressure. Regardless of my knees, ladders made me nervous. Mister Chadwick fell down a ladder one year earlier, and he was never the same afterward. After his accident, he wasn't even able to utter his own name, let alone change lightbulbs.
Mother handed me a fresh lightbulb. “Quinn, I want this baby to be loved.”
“I know you do.”
“Will you love it?”
“Of course I will.”
Mother smiled.
“And you can bet your ass Sonnet will love it too.”
We both laughed a little at that.
Then she tightened her face. “Do you think Emma Claire will ever come around to loving it?”
I did not answer, but let out a big lungful of air. There was absolutely no way to know for certain about that. Emma Claire was a mystery. To all of us.
“You're so quiet,” Mother said. “What goes on in that mind of yours?”
“Nothing, really.” I tapped my head with my cane. “Pretty empty up here, to tell you the truth.”
“Well, you've always been quiet.” She touched her belly and rubbed it. “I remember the day you were born, you were quiet then, too.” Mother let out a giggle. “God, I was just a child back then, when I had you. Younger than Emma Claire is now. Can you imagine that?”
Yes I could.
“Oh,” she said. “I was so excited to meet you. I named you Quinn before I even knew you were a boy. Long before.”
“But, what if I'd been a girl?”
“Then I would have called you Mildred.”
Thank the Lord I was a boy.
She looked out the window. “I couldn't sleep for months. I'd lay awake in bed next to my brothers, excited, before anyone else knew I was pregnant, I'd talk to you underneath my breath. I'd tell you about all my dreams, all the places I wanted to go.”
Conversations like that must've taken half the night.
I sat down on the edge of her bed and looked at her, resting my chin on my cane. I wasn't about to interrupt her.
“You know,” she said. “When I had you, it was the tallest moment in my life. I felt like I was a hundred-feet tall, like the Liberty Statue, like nothing could ever kill me. And you didn't make a noise, you never even cried.”
“I didn't cry at all?”
“Not a lick,” she laughed. “You looked like a stretched out bull frog with them long legs you got.”
I tried not to smile, but it was true, I did bare a resemblance to a bullfrog. If bullfrogs ever sprouted pairs of ears, we'd be twins.
“How are your legs doing?” she asked.
I patted my thighs. “Getting better. Just weak, is all.”
“That's good. Do you think you'll ever walk without that cane?”
“Oh sure, just need more time to heal.”
She thought for a moment, she wasn't thinking about my legs.
Neither was I.
“I'm not a very deserving person,” she said. “God knows. But I don't want this baby growing up with the whole world hating it. How can I make sure that people don't hate this baby?”
I had no idea if such a thing was possible.
People in our town could be cruel.
“I just can't ruin another life, like I've ruined Emma Claire's.” She paused. “Like I have yours. I've made a mess of everything. You both have every right to hate me.”
I reached my brown hand out and laid it on her warm stomach.
I didn't hate anyone.
In fact, sometimes I felt as if I were the only person in the universe who understood my mother.
“Well?” she asked. “Say something. What do you think about all this?”
I thought for a moment, then smiled. “We're going to have a baby Applewhite loose in the house. That's what I think.”
She gave me a weak grin.
A pregnant grin.
She knew I was right.
You can never have too many Applewhites running around.
͠
The wind was as warm as hot syrup. The breeze whizzed past the trees on the shore, weaving through their limbs like it had somewhere to be. It whistled through the wheat-colored marshlands of pale grass, sweet smelling.
I rode along the water in my little white skiff, hugging the shore. I bought the new skiff from Captain Bilsham for seven dollars, though it wasn't really new. Bilsham had used it for years as a shore dinghy for his bigger boat.
Bilsham was a strange old man who sold fish in town sometimes and lived aboard a long sailboat. People said that he came from old money, and had gone batty when his wife left him for the traveling Methodist preacher, years ago. To me, Bilsham always smelled funny, like an amalgamation of skunk and cigars. I wasn't sure he ever bathed on that old boat.
Few people knew him. He wasn't a particularly sociable person; he could be downright mean sometimes. He moored himself behind our house during the spring months, making himself our neighbor. Whether we liked it or not. Then, he'd up and disappear for the rest of the year, sailing off to God-knows-where.
He didn't stay in any one place for long.
His little shore dinghy was a fine craft, about eight feet. The white paint I'd put on her made her look brand new to the untrained eye. I was proud, drifting along.
The skiff was the newest thing I'd ever owned. I was a cracker, and crackers rarely bought new things; it was a wasteful thing to do.
Secondhand things were just as good.
It's how we are.
I even bought my boots secondhand, from Mister Emmet, along with Emma Claire's saddle shoes. Mister Emmet took in everyone's old shoes and boots, put new soles on them, and then resold them for cheap. There was no telling who'd owned my boots before Mister Emmet got his hands on them. Maybe somebody rich.
God, I hope not.
I clutched my fishing rod in my left hand and dug a little blood-colored smoking pipe out of my trouser pocket. Daddy's pipe. It was one of the few things of his that I had remaining. All his belongings, trinkets, and clothes, had somehow gotten lost in the shuffle of life. I'd even lost his pocket knife somehow.
I never forgave myself for that.
I bit the pipe, resting it in the corner of my smile. I let the mouthpiece settle on my back teeth. It felt big and awkward in my mouth. I lit it with my lighter, and puffed on it, sending a wreath of violet smoke into the air. I took a long draw from it, breathing in the taste of the tobacco. When I did that, the hot smoke set my throat on fire, filling my chest with ash. I spit the pipe out, and doubled over, hacking soot from my lungs.
Thank God no one was around to see me.
The pipe fell into the bottom of the wood boat, still smoking like a campfire. I scooped a handful of river water in my hand, dousing it.
I was a bumbling moron.
I resolved to give up smoking for good.
Even cigarettes.
It's simpler than it sounds. Quitting smoking is easy.
I'd done it hundreds of times.
I looked at the blood-colored pipe and tried to remember Daddy's face. It was in that moment I realized nothing could revive my father's memory. Not even his pipe. He continued to disintegrate, and would soon fade from my memory completely. Like he'd never existed at all. Like a man who'd never even lived. It made me a little sad to think such a thing.
Just thinking about such things made me want a cigarette.
͠
I stood in front of the kitchen counter, easing my weight onto the cane. Cooking with a walking stick was a one-handed ordeal. I dipped the hunks of fish into a bath of eggs and milk, then pressed them into a bowl of white flour. The black iron pan on the stove heating up over the flame. Hot grease in the pan made a popping noise that rang like a bell.
Sonnet and Mother marched up the porch steps, through the back of the kitchen, the screen door slapped behind them. Mother was wearing a wide-brimmed hat, the kind of hat ladies wear on Sundays, or to tea parties.
Or to funerals.
“Oh, boy,” Sonnet said, smelling the food in the air. “What'd you catch today?”
“Thirty-one little pinfish,” I said.
Mother laughed. “Must've been a bad day on the water if you're frying up baitfish for supper.”
“It's not polite to make fun of the crippled,” I said.
“You mean your ear or your legs?” Sonnet said.
My wife was hilarious.
“Well, I love pinfish,” Sonnet said. “We ate them all the time growing up.”
“I love 'em, too,” I said. “I'd just love them a whole lot more if they were twelve inches longer.”
Mother deflated into a chair and removed her large hat, fanning herself with it. She was breathless from pregnant exhaustion.
“So where were you two all day?” I asked.
“We went to the pictures,” Sonnet said. “Your mother's never seen a picture show. Can you believe that?”
“I've seen a silent one,” Mother interjected. “But it was so long ago, I barely remember it.”
Sonnet plucked an apron from the pantry doorknob. She picked out two round white onions from a bowl, then lobbed off the ends with her knife. She could chop vegetables faster than a dog in heat.
“Oh, it was marvelous,” Mother said. “I've always wanted to see Clark Gable in person. I've only ever read about him.”
“Your mother's in love,” Sonnet added.
“Who's Clark Gable?” I asked.
“An actor your mother likes.”
“He's not just some actor,” Mother corrected her. “He's the berries.”
“Is it good to be the berries?” I asked.
“How would I know?” said Sonnet. “Your mother also ate all the damn peanuts. She didn't leave me nary a one.”
Mother gave a mischievous grin.
I laid a hunk of fish into the hot grease. “I wondered where y'all took the truck off to. I was beginning to worry that y'all might've driven yourselves into the bay.”
Sonnet punched my shoulder. “I'm not that bad of a driver.”
Sonnet was a terrible driver. But I decided not to argue with a woman who was holding a knife.
“Well,” Mother said. “She's a better driver than I am. I'm grateful to her. The picture show was everything I thought it would be. I owe her one.”
One what?
Mother owed everyone something.
“You're welcome, Lyla,” Sonnet said. “I'll add it to a long list of favors that you owe me.” With that, Sonnet curtsied right there in the kitchen.
Mother smiled at her and saluted.
The two of them were absurd.
“You know,” Mother explained. “The movie house wasn't even built when your daddy was alive, but your daddy would've never taken me anyway; he would've thought it a waste of money.”
Everything was a waste of money to Dale Applewhite.
Even groceries.
“Carl never took me, either,” Mother added. “Not ever. That good-for-nothing bastard.”
“Oh, let's not talk about that fool,” Sonnet said. “My daddy can't stand Mister Carl Plight, hates him ever since Carl cheated at cards when they were boys. Daddy hate's a cheat.”
That was an understatement.
I'm surprised her daddy didn't slit old Carl's throat with a toothbrush.
“Hey, you two,” Mother said. “Is there anything I can do to help with dinner you two?”
“You?” Sonnet laughed. “Since when do you help with anything?”
Sonnet made a pertinent point.
She turned to look at Mother. “Just hush now, try to relax. Sit right there and be lazy. When the baby's born, there's going to be plenty that you can do to help out.”
“I feel like I've been so worthless lately,” Mother said.
“Well.” Sonnet raised an eyebrow. “I wish I could disagree with you.”
Sonnet peeled away the skin from the onion and sliced it into fat rings. Then she wiped her teary eyes with the backs of her hands, sniffing her nose. Onions made Sonnet cry. Every single time.
“You know,” Mother said. “I've heard that if you chew bubble gum while you're cutting onions, you won't cry at all.”
Sonnet sniffed. “I've heard that too. Don't know if I believe it.”
Mother began digging in her purse. “I think I have some gum.”
Just then, Emma Claire's shape appeared in the doorway behind Mother. She clutched an armload of books in her arms. Her sharp eyes darted back and forth, watching us.
“Well,” Emma Claire remarked. “I've heard that if you lick a piece of cold steel, it takes your tears away.”
The room went silent for a moment.
“I've never heard that,” Sonnet said.
“Hi, Emma Claire,” Mother's chair creaked, she turned to look at Emma.
“I've also heard,” Emma Claire said. “If you eat a mess of bay leaves while you're pregnant that your baby will die. You might consider that, Mother.”
Sonnet slapped the knife onto the wood block and glared at Emma.
“Emma Claire,” Sonnet said firmly, her pale complexion as red as an apple. “I'll not hear such talk in my own damn house. You'll get out of here with such disgusting language.”
But Emma Claire was not sorry.
“Shoo, go on now.” Sonnet waved her hands at Emma Claire. “Pay no attention to her, Lyla, she's only jealous we didn't invite her to the movies.”
“Yes.” Mother looked down at the table. “I'm sure that's it.”
͠
Emma Claire sat on the other side of the boat with a culling iron in her hands. She smacked the oysters with it, knocking the growths from their shells. The tapping sound reverberated over the cool water like a miniature Indian drum.
I scissored the huge tongs together looking out at the shore of the bay. A squirrel darted along one of the trees, running up the limbs. Someone's granddaddy in a previous life, no doubt. Someone's daddy. Maybe even an Apalachee boy, one of the same who'd inhabited this place long ago. I wondered for a moment if old McRyan was one of them, an ancient spirit lingering on, from an eroded world.
Then I chuckled to myself. That man was as crazy as a duck looking for thunder.
“Where's Mullet today?” Emma Claire asked. “Why am I out here doing his stupid, boring job?”
“You're not doing his job,” I said. “I'm the one who culls.”
“Well, it's a boring job.”
“Don't forget stupid.”
She stared at me with a concerned look. “Hey, are you sure you're able lift those heavy tongs? I can do it if you need to take the weight off your knees.”
“Naw, I'm fine,” I grunted. “It's good for me to do it. Also, you're slow enough with that culling iron. If I were to let you work these tongs, we'd be out here until Jesus comes back.”
She didn't laugh.
Emma Claire never laughed much anymore.
Her interest in things she once loved had waned. She cared little about the open water anymore. She was only helping me out of obligation.
I was a cripple.
“You know,” I said. “This work isn't boring, or stupid, if you let your mind wander. It can be fun.”
“But what if I don't know how to do that?” she asked. “What if one, such as myself, is a rather gregarious, loquacious?”
“Well, that's just unquestionable.”
She rolled her eyes. “That's not how you use that word.”
Damn. I was so close.
Emma Claire had changed. Inside and out. She was cooler than she used to be. Only one week earlier, Emma Claire had kicked one of the feral cats living beneath the porch, kicked it in the ribs. It shocked us. We didn't know what had come over her. The poor cat tried to wrap itself around Emma Claire's leg, it nearly made her stumble. Emma reacted by kicking it almost three feet into the air. The red cat's chest was damaged from the blow, and it broke my ever-loving heart.
Kicking is the worst form of violence that there is.
That's a fact.
After the incident, the cat laid there on the corner of our porch wheezing, curled up. Sonnet left a saucer of shredded fish and soft butter out for the cat, but it turned his nose up at the food. We were almost certain that it would die.
In contrast to Emma Claire, Sonnet loved the feral cats. She fed them every morning and evening without fail. And even though she claimed that she hated doing it, I knew better.
Sonnet was as soft as buttered grits inside.
It wasn't long before the cats adopted Sonnet as their new mother; they followed her wherever she went. She would stoop down and unwrap them from her white legs, talking to them in a high-pitched whisper. I suspected that hiding deep inside Sonnet was a frustrated momma waiting to be released.
