Sweet Water

  I nodded. “I got that idea. Till death do you part.”

  “That’s it,” said Alice. “And at the rate we were going, death probably would’ve parted us pretty soon. Then we would’ve broken another rule in the Bible. You can’t win.” She smiled, and I smiled back. I liked her.

  She stood back and surveyed me. “Now, that’s a nice dress. You look just like anybody. Horace told so many stories about your parents being radicals I thought you might have a ring through your nose or something.”

  As we were talking a car had pulled up out front. “That’s Elaine and Larry. My mother and daddy,” Alice said as a couple got out of the car and started up the walk. “I kinda wish you did have a ring in your nose. It’d give them something new to talk about.”

  Elaine was soft and bosomy, with frosted hair, a thick waist, and long, thin legs. She was wearing a halter-top pantsuit and high-heeled sandals. Larry, coming up behind her, seized my hand with a practiced grip. His skin was leathery, and his eyes were cautious and alert, like a German Shepherd’s. His black, shiny hair was combed back from his forehead.

  “She doesn’t look a thing like her,” said Elaine, pantomiming a hug with me. “Not a thing.”

  “She looks like her granddaddy,” Larry said.

  Elaine took Eric from Alice. “You are too cute,” she cooed. “Alice Marie, the turkey and everything’s in the trunk. I was afraid to even try in these heels, and your daddy’s back is hurting again.”

  “You know I hate it when you call me that, Mother.”

  “Well, then, Alice. My, we’re awfully sensitive today. And in front of our guest.” She smiled thinly at me.

  “Let me have the keys, Dad,” Alice said.

  I offered to help, and we walked down to the big pink Cadillac with a Mary Kay sticker in the back window. “Mother sells that crap,” said Alice. “She’s good at it.” She opened the trunk and began to load me up with Tupperware and Pyrex dishes. While we were standing there a minivan turned onto Red Pond Road and pulled up behind the Cadillac. “It’s really too bad you’re so damn presentable,” Alice said again, slamming the trunk. “I’d just love for you to shake them all up a little bit.”

  “Hello, cousin.” A round-faced, beaming man strode up. He offered an outstretched hand and then, seeing that my hands were full, patted me on the shoulder.

  “This is Chester,” Alice said.

  “Nice to meet you,”

  He grinned and wiped his face with a handkerchief. “Hot day, isn’t it? Golly, I like to faint out there in the sun this afternoon.”

  “Chester builds houses with his dad.”

  “There’ll be a quiz later,” Chester said, nudging me with his elbow. He took a casserole from me, and we went inside to the kitchen. Elaine was leaning against the stove talking to Clyde, who stood at the sink pouring lemonade powder into a plastic pitcher.

  “So I told her that if Daily Defense Complex worked for her and she liked it, she shouldn’t take a chance on losing it on the cruise,” Elaine was saying. “You never know, a bag might get stolen or something, and then where would you be? Out to sea and no way back, with dry skin. So would you believe she bought all ten tubes I had in stock? Well, hello, Chester!” She turned toward him and held out her arms.

  “Elaine.” He set the dish on the counter and took her hands, kissing her cheek.

  She looked at him closely. “You’ve lost a little weight.”

  “No.”

  “But you’ve been going to the health club?”

  He laughed shortly. “I’ve been real busy.”

  “How’s your cholesterol?”

  “Now, Elaine,” he said, an edge to his voice.

  “Okay.” She pulled back and pretended to lock her lips.

  “Clyde,” Chester said, crossing to the sink. “As perky as ever.”

  She flapped her hand at him. “Pshaw. I’m just a wrinkled old woman.”

  “You’re a liar, is what you are.”

  She flapped at him again and filled the pitcher with water.

  Chester turned to Elaine, his face serious all of a sudden. “Troy called this morning. He just couldn’t get away.”

  Elaine looked at him, her mouth a tense line.

  “Your cousin Troy is in a band in Atlanta,” Chester explained to me. “They’re trying to hit the big time, so he doesn’t get much leave.”

  “That’s not true and you know it, Chester,” Elaine said. “He can come home anytime he wants to.”

  “Now, Elaine—”

  “And why he called you, and not his own …” She pursed her lips. “Tell me the truth. He’s out there looking for that woman again, isn’t he?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You know good and well what I mean.”

  “I really don’t, Elaine. That’s the God’s honest truth.”

  “Listen, Chester—”

  “Mother,” Alice said, coming into the kitchen loaded up with dishes. She put them on the counter. “Don’t be so paranoid. Leave poor Chester alone.”

  “I don’t think I’m being paranoid,” Elaine snapped. “He didn’t even call.”

  “He didn’t call me either,” Alice said. “There’s nothing unusual about that. He knows Chester won’t give him a hard time.” She held her mother’s shoulders. “Don’t worry. He’s busy, that’s all. He’ll be back.”

  Elaine looked around, suddenly seeming to notice me, and gave me a tight smile. I smiled back awkwardly. She excused herself to find Larry.

  Chester watched her leave. His ears were crimson. “I hate being in the middle,” he said. “I hate it more than anything.”

  “Oh, Chester, you’ll be all right,” Alice said.

  “Would you call everybody in, Chester?” said Clyde, bustling around the kitchen. “It’s about ready. Did your mother and daddy arrive yet?”

  He strained to look out the window over the table. “Yep. I can see them on the lawn. They must’ve just got here.” He went out to the steps.

  Clyde turned toward Alice, wiping her hands on a towel and adjusting her glasses on her ears. “When are you going to teach your mama to behave in public?”

  “You raised her, Clyde,” Alice said, munching on a carrot stick, winking at me.

  “We are late, late, late!” A small woman waving her hands in the air hurried into the kitchen. Her auburn hair was neatly coiffed, and she was wearing a full denim skirt and a magenta silk blouse cinched by a thick belt. “I hope we haven’t held you all up. Horace had to settle some business with a tenant. Leaky pipes.” Wide-eyed and smiling, she fixed on me. “And you must be Ellen’s little girl. Well, not so little.” She reached for my hand. Her fingers were small and cool. “I’m Kathy. It sure is a pleasure to meet you. My, we have a gathering this evening!” She looked at Clyde. “And hello there, Grandmother. What can the tardy one do to help?”

  “Why, not a thing except stand here and talk to this old lady while she pots around.”

  Kathy started rolling up her sleeves. “You let me wash those pans. I need to feel useful.”

  “Now, don’t you get that pretty new outfit dirty,” Clyde protested.

  “These rags? You’ve seen me in ‘em a dozen times. I haven’t been shopping in years.”

  “Is she telling lies again? I swear I can’t leave her alone for a minute without her making up some story.” A red-cheeked man in a baseball cap loped up behind Kathy and squeezed her waist. She wriggled away, pretending to be insulted. “Ma,” he said, swinging his body across the kitchen and kissing Clyde on the forehead. “Kathy got it in her head to check out a couple of construction sites before dinner. That’s why we’re so darn late.”

  “He is just impossible,” Kathy said to Clyde. “Why didn’t you teach your son to mind?”

  “He’s your job now,” Clyde said.

  He came over to me and tipped his cap, which was printed with the words H. w. CLYDE AND SON. “WE MAKE HOMES.” “Horace,” he said, tilting forward on the b
alls of his feet. “Pleased to meet you. Bet you didn’t expect to come down here and find all your relatives are nuts, did you? Or maybe you did. Hey, you’re not doing some kind of study on us or anything, are you?” He laughed and motioned with his thumb toward Kathy. “If you are, I can tell you stuff about her that’ll knock your socks off.”

  “Hush. You behave, now. Cassandra is company,” Kathy said.

  “Nonsense. The girl’s family. Isn’t that right, Cassandra?”

  I looked around at all the faces. “You can call me Cassie,” I said.

  Chester came through the kitchen door with Eric under one arm. “Ready to eat!” he said. “Where should I put the turkey?” Eric squealed and squirmed away.

  An extra leaf had been added to the table, which was set for eight, with a high chair for Eric. I stood back against the wall as my aunts and cousins argued the merits of placing one uncle next to the other. When the places were finally assigned, I found myself between Alice and Elaine. Clyde hovered at the head of the table, adding trays of relish and butter, setting a large jug of iced tea in the center.

  “C’mon, Ma,” Horace said, reaching toward her. “Have a seat. Food’s getting cold.”

  “Don’t mind me. I filled up cooking.” She shooed his hand away. “Now, you all just go on. Let’s have the blessing.”

  Larry, at the foot of the table, bowed his head. One by one the other heads went down. For a moment all I could hear was the hum of the refrigerator and the loud ticking of the cuckoo clock in the next room. I looked at my hands folded in my lap. “For these and all his gifts, God’s holy name be praised.”

  I started to raise my head but looked down again quickly when I realized no one else had moved.

  “Lord, thank you on this day for bringing all of us together to break bread in your name. We thank you for our health. Praise God, not one of us is injured or sick. We’ pray for those who cannot be with us tonight, Troy and Ralph in Atlanta, that they may be safe. We thank you for bringing back to us today a missing piece of the family puzzle.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Larry look up, a faraway expression on his face.

  “You know,” he continued, “this kind of reminds me of a story Jesus once told, about a boy who’d gone off far from home and came back a number of years later. Well, his daddy saw him coming down the road, and he said to the servants, ‘Quick! Let’s kill that fatted calf! Gather up some new shoes and clothes and a ring for his finger, and then we’ll all eat, drink, and be merry. For my child was dead and now is living, he was lost and has been found.’

  “Well, we haven’t got the jewels and the shoes and the new clothes, but we do have a fatted calf—or, well, it looks like a turkey.”

  Next to me, Elaine tapped her watch with a manicured fingernail, trying to catch Larry’s eye.

  He saw her and nodded briefly. “So God be praised. Amen. Let’s eat.”

  “What can I pass you?” Alice asked, nudging me with a bowl of coleslaw. “You need to get some meat on those bones.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere,” I said, smiling.

  “Listen, it’s not flattery,” she said. “I’m going to do everything I can to fatten you up. Now that you’re here, you’re competition.”

  Piling my plate with stewed green beans and fresh creamed corn, mashed potatoes and corn bread, I thought about Larry’s blessing. I remembered what Clyde had said about all of them worrying that they would have to take care of me, wondering why I came. I thought about how strange it must seem to them that someone would choose to pack up and move to a place, sight unseen, where she knew no one and had no job prospects, a place where schools were shrinking and stores were closing because everyone who lived there was trying to get out.

  I looked around the table. Elaine was talking about her blood pressure, which was a little high. Horace was telling Chester about a cement mixer he’d bought on a whim at an auction, which would practically double production. Alice and Kathy were discussing a local school bus driver who was caught driving drunk and got off with a reprimand. Alice said she’d be taking Eric to school herself when he was old enough.

  As I sat watching them, I suddenly felt alone and out of place, as if I had fallen there out of the sky on my way to someplace else. Something inside kept me from participating, made me an outsider, an observer. I was reminded of how I had felt when I stepped off the plane in Rome the summer before. I’d been completely disoriented, overwhelmed by the disparity between my idea of what it would be like and the foreign images that confronted me. For several days I had just wandered the streets, taking in the sights and smells and sounds without any capacity to assess or analyze, as if I had no right to pass judgment or to claim it as my own. Even my journal had been little more than a litany of sights seen: the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Spanish Steps. Now, as the conversation swelled up and around me, I was aware of that same numbness, that inability to find my voice, the peculiar sense of being alien in a place that felt strangely familiar.

  “How’s your blood pressure?” said Elaine, leaning close. “You’re young and healthy. You must not have to worry about it.”

  “I don’t even think I know,” I said.

  “Well, dear, you should have it tested. High blood pressure runs in the family. Now, what about your cholesterol?”

  After dinner I helped Alice and Kathy with the dishes while Elaine sat on the front stoop watching Larry teach Eric to throw a baseball. Horace and Chester milled around the backyard with their hands in their pockets, kicking clumps of dirt and talking. Just as we finished cleaning up, Eric hurled the baseball through one of Clyde’s basement windows, bringing everyone running to the front yard.

  This seemed to signal the end of the evening. Horace inspected the damage and said he’d send someone over first thing in the morning to see to it. Clyde stood on the stoop, and I walked down to the cars to say goodbye.

  The sky was a wash of deep blue, and the moon shone faintly in the west, translucent. The light on everyone’s faces was soft and gentle.

  “You take care, now,” Kathy said. “If there’s anything we can do, just let us know.”

  “I’ll be over in a day or two to take you out to that house,” said Horace.

  “I could go out there myself. All I need is the key to the front door.”

  He shook his head. “Naw, I should go with you. Make sure it’s still standing.” He rubbed his stomach. “Boy, I sure did eat a lot. Tell that woman over there on the porch to stop cooking such good food.”

  “I heard that,” Clyde said. “It was your sister who did most of it.”

  “Well, it’s lucky for me I got a wife who can’t cook to save her life.”

  “Can you believe him?” Kathy said to me. “Sometimes I wonder why I don’t just get a d-i-v-o-r-c-e and find myself a new one.”

  “Face it, woman, you’re in love with me.”

  Kathy laughed and rolled her eyes. Horace opened the car door for her with one hand and waved goodbye with the other.

  As they pulled away, Chester sighed. “Like teenagers. Always have been. I wish I knew their secret.”

  “You just picked the wrong ones, is all,” said Larry, clapping him on the shoulder. “Like I always say, you don’t want ‘em too independent. Put it this way: if they can get along just as good without you as with you, there’s not much point in tying the knot. Isn’t that right?” he said, turning to me.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, be quiet and leave her out of it,” Elaine chided. “Don’t listen to his foolishness,” she said to me. “He’s had a few beers.”

  Clyde leaned forward on the porch, straining to hear. “What’s going on down there, a powwow?”

  “Nothing, Mother, we’re leaving, goodbye,” said Elaine.

  “Call if you need anything,” Alice said, squeezing my arm. “I’ll come by in the next couple of days to make sure you’re surviving.” She scooped Eric up and got into her car.

  After everyone left I stood in the roa
d hugging my elbows, looking up at the mountain ridge behind the fir trees that marked the edge of the development. The ridge was long and low and almost black. The warm evening air smelled of fir sap and cut grass.

  “You all right out there?” Clyde asked. I turned around. “I’m going inside. I think I’m going to hit the hay.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Thank you for dinner—and everything. It was really nice.”

  “It wasn’t anything.” She stayed on the porch a minute longer. Then she turned and went inside, closing the door behind her.

  I stood in the street for a long time, watching the branches of the tall firs creak and sway in the soft breeze. Then I lay down on my grandmother’s front lawn and gazed up at the wide expanse of sky, wider than I could remember ever having seen. Stars began to appear, like silver pins in a blue-black cloth. The moon was filling out, a milky marble. I felt almost light-headed with fatigue and relief that the day was over.

  Lying there on the lawn, I fell asleep to the sound of the wind and the crickets. I didn’t wake until the first light of the new day roused a mockingbird in a tree near the house.

  Amory was the artist, they all said. He was the artist who never lived up to his potential; and I was the one who married him and grounded him, ground him down.

  For so long he held me in the vise grip of his passions and I took it as my due, as if I deserved it for trapping him. He might have whispered it to me in my sleep, so willing was I to believe that I had nipped his budding youth and must now expect to pay for it. When he went out of the house with his hat tipped at an angle and his shoulders defiantly braced against my protests, I told myself that I had captured a rare and beautiful bird who must fly free to live, that what I loved most about him was his quest for freedom, his demand that life never be mundane. I convinced myself that by marrying me he had done me a favor.