Part 9 (1/2)
”You're a liar! An evil, wretched, devil liar! My daddy would never keep me from my mama,” I screamed so loudly even the crowd next door surely heard me.
”I know. You're right. I'm sorry. All I meant was that he had a hard time letting go. . . . I mean, when Martha Ann came along . . . I just . . . I just didn't know what else to do.” She stumbled, and it looked like talking and standing might yet prove too much for her frail body.
”What have you done to Martha Ann?” I screamed, tears streaming down my face.
”Nothing. I haven't seen Martha Ann. I promise. I came to the church earlier thinking I might be able to see you girls, but I got scared and left. I haven't seen her. I promise. I know this is hard. I do. But the minute I heard that Marshall had pa.s.sed, I knew this was my chance to finally see you. I have missed you girls so much. I guess I should have given you more time,” she said.
”Time! More time! What about the last twelve years of my life?” I sobbed, somehow knowing and yet refusing to believe that this woman was my mama. ”My mama drowned when I was six. My mama loved me.”
”I still love you, Catherine. I have never stopped loving you.”
”No! No, no! My mama wouldn't have run away from home like some stupid little kid.”
”Dear G.o.d, I'm so sorry,” the woman said, her voice shaking and full of tears. ”I was a stupid kid, Catherine Grace. I was so young, and I just figured you girls would forget about me after a while. Marshall said you would.”
”Forget? You are out of your mind!” Everything she said was terrifying me. I had memorized every detail of my mama's beautiful face, her brown eyes, her delicate nose, her kind smile. The woman in the photograph sitting on my dresser would never believe that her babies could simply forget that they're the only ones who didn't have a mama to bake them a birthday cake, or make them clothes for their Barbie dolls, or iron their Sunday dresses.
”I am so sorry,” the woman repeated, like this time it might have some meaning. She just kept babbling about being so young, too young to be a good mother and having dreams and I don't know what all. All I knew was that there was nothing she could say that was going to make me accept that she was my mother.
”Get out! Just get out! ” I shouted, starting to feel light-headed.
”I'm sorry. I'm very sorry,” the woman whispered as much to herself as to me. And without even the courage to look me in the eyes, she made one last declaration. ”I have loved you every day of your life. You need to know that.”
I turned to Gloria Jean and begged her to make this woman leave.
But Gloria Jean just stood there, motionless.
”Gloria Jean,” I pleaded, ”please.”
”I can't, honey.”
”Why not?” I asked, feeling the room spinning around me.
”Because she is your mother.”
CHAPTER NINE.
Standing at the Pearly Gates Begging for Forgiveness Martha Ann was pressing a cold washcloth on my forehead. A drop of water trickled down the side of my face and settled in my ear. Gloria Jean was gently slapping my hand. ”Catherine Grace, wake up, honey. You need to open your eyes.”
I found myself lying in my own bed, hoping for that first innocent moment of wakefulness that the woman claiming to be my mother had been nothing but a bad dream.
”Gloria Jean,” I asked, ”that woman, who came to see you, she's gone, right?”
But Gloria Jean took a deep breath, her body's way of telling me that she wasn't particularly comfortable with what she had to say. So I closed my eyes again, longing to drift back into that world of never-ending darkness. Lena Mae, she said, was still in Ringgold. Apparently, after Dr. Bowden gave me some pills to make me sleep, she decided to stay the night and was now sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee, talking to Miss Mabie. She was real worried about me.
”When you fainted, you need to know that it was your mama who helped me get you into your bed, well, your mama and Flora. She just wants to make sure you're okay before she leaves town. She knows you're not ready for anything more right now.”
I looked at Gloria Jean and couldn't help but laugh out loud. The woman who left me crying myself to sleep when I was six years old was suddenly worried about me.
Propping myself up on my elbows, and speaking slowly and deliberately so no one would misunderstand what I was saying, I told Gloria Jean to get the woman with the long brown hair, sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee, worrying about the little girl she abandoned, out of my house.
Martha Ann took the cloth off my forehead and knelt down beside me so we were staring at each other eye to eye. She hadn't said much since I had come home, but now her face was full of words.
”Catherine Grace, Mama coming here is a gift from G.o.d, and she is not leaving,” Martha Ann announced in an abrupt, firm tone. ”Yesterday, we were not much better off than two little orphans, and today we've got a mama. Maybe I should be mad. Maybe I will be mad. But right now, today, I am so happy to have a mother, even one that's left and come back.”
And then, putting her hand over mine, Martha Ann spoke in a softer voice, ”You need to hear her out, Catherine Grace, and then if you want to be mad at somebody, fine, but maybe you need to consider being mad at Daddy, too.”
”Daddy didn't leave us!”
”No, but maybe he didn't give Mama much of a choice. You need to talk to her.”
I just stared at my little sister. I couldn't make sense of anything anybody was saying anymore, but somehow I knew I was going to have to come face-to-face with the woman sitting at the kitchen table. But be mad at Daddy? No. I just couldn't believe that my own daddy had known all these years that Mama was alive. What kind of daddy, what kind of man of G.o.d, would let his babies suffer like that? My head was spinning. I kept closing my eyes, hoping it would make the confusion go away. But it didn't help.
”Listen, honey,” Gloria Jean repeated, ”your mama loves you, and she has had to live with what she has done every single day since she left you girls. Your daddy was a good man, n.o.body's denying that, but he had a hard time accepting that somebody could love him and still want something more. I'm just not sure she really thought she had much of a choice. She just didn't have the courage that you do.”
”What kind of monster do you think Daddy was?” I yelled, surprising myself.
”He wasn't a monster, honey. He was human. And I just think you need to understand this about your daddy. He could see marriage working only one way. I'm not sure he could admit to himself, let alone to anybody else in this town, that his young, beautiful wife was dreaming of something even bigger than the great Reverend Cline. She had a gift, Catherine, you know that. But you know all this already. You know what it means to love somebody but still want something more. And you know your daddy.”
”You knew,” I said, again surprising myself with the sharp tone of my voice. ”You knew all these years that my mama was alive but didn't say anything. What? You just thought you'd keep this little secret to yourself? Is that it? You couldn't have any children of your own, Gloria Jean, so you kept your mouth shut so you could step right in and be our mama,” I shouted, attacking the one woman who had never abandoned me.
Before I could even look for the hurt in her eyes, I started begging for forgiveness. ”I'm sorry, Gloria Jean. I am so sorry. I didn't mean it.” I didn't mean it, but I desperately wanted somebody to hurt as much as I did.
Gloria Jean took me into her arms like she had done so many times before. ”Baby, I didn't know she was alive. I had always thought something wasn't right. I had hoped. But I didn't know, and I certainly couldn't say anything to you without knowing for sure,” she said, patting my back in a familiar rhythm. ”And you're not the only one who's feeling hurt right now. She was my best friend. Oh h.e.l.l, honey, she was nothing more than a child, a child with little babies of her own.”
I sat in my bed with my eyes wide open and wondered what this woman sitting at the kitchen table could say to me that would undo all the damage that had been done. I could already smell the bacon frying on the stove, and I knew that before long Flora was going to start chirping her morning trill about me keeping up my strength. But I wasn't stepping foot in that kitchen until I made sure my daddy was dead.
I jumped out of bed and started searching for my brown penny loafers.
”Honey, where are you going?” Gloria Jean asked.
”To church,” I said.
”Now?”
”Yes, now. I have to see my daddy. I have to make sure that my daddy is lying in that casket. I have to make sure he's dead, dead, dead and that n.o.body is playing another cruel joke on me.” I had to make sure he hadn't decided to go and make a better life for himself in Little Rock or Knoxville. Maybe he was already there waiting for Miss Raines to join him. Nope, I wasn't taking any chances, not this time.
Gloria Jean and Martha Ann both stood by my bedroom door, unable to think of the words to stop me. Maybe, Gloria Jean suggested, it would be better if I waited until she was certain that the funeral home had delivered Daddy, and she had a chance to make sure he was properly situated and all.
I told her I didn't care if he was situated or not. I would sit on the steps of that church and wait for him if I had to. I never saw my mama's face after she died, and I wasn't going to make that mistake again.
After grabbing my coat from the hall closet, I stopped at the kitchen door just long enough to catch a glimpse of Lena Mae Cline. She looked up at me as I hesitated in the hallway. She had so much hope in her eyes-hope that I'd say something, anything. But I turned away, making it clear I wasn't ready to listen to her sad story.