“Was everything okay driving your mom home? And was it okay when you got there? Where were your sisters?” Did that sound too nosy? Probably.
There was a distinct pause. I could hear the opening and closing of a door and assumed she was going somewhere more private. Her roommates were probably home.
“Oh, Aunt Caroline. What are we going to do about Mom? I mean, I can’t be there all the time and Belle and Linnie are practically useless. I made them swear not to let Chloe in the car with her if they thought she was, well, you know. But I can’t depend on them. They’re completely unreliable, as we all know. Sometimes I feel like the only grown-up in my whole family.”
Her remark wasn’t too far off from the truth.
“Well, I had a talk with your father today and we all agree it’s time to take steps again. My problem is the same as yours. I’m worried, very worried in fact, about the safety of all of your sisters. What happened yesterday was inexcusable. It really was.”
“What can I do? I mean, I have a year left of school! I’m up to my ears in papers and all kinds of crap!”
I hated the word crap. It was so common. I cleared my throat, a signal of my displeasure, and I could hear her sigh. When I was her age we never used that kind of language in front of adults.
“Well, maybe you can talk to your sisters about Rusty.”
“And do what? Help them hire an F-ing hit man?”
F-ing was worse. But then she had learned to express herself at the knee of a dairy cow.
“No. Please! Don’t be ridiculous. But here’s the situation. If your mother goes to Promises again or the Betty, somebody’s gonna have to care for Chloe, you know? Bath, supper, homework, bedtime.”
“We hired a housekeeper last time.”
“And last time your two younger sisters got arrested for engaging in lewd acts in public, which nearly killed your father.”
“He got them out of it . . .” Her voice trailed off in weariness.
“Yes, but we don’t want a repeat of that performance, do we? They were caught without panties! Do you remember that?”
“God. They are such little idiots.”
“No, they’re really quite clever, and well, they just have their priorities out of whack and they make some very bad choices.”
She groaned loudly. “Oh! Why is this happening to me? I am the good girl! I never did anything! Why can’t I have a normal life? God! I hate them!”
In the next instant, I could hear Amelia’s voice start to crack and I didn’t want to be responsible for making her cry. This was no time for tears. I had not called her to upset her. The poor girl!
“Well, Amelia? Honey? Listen to me right now. This isn’t your fault. You know that.”
“I know. But I don’t need this!”
“Who does? I think you’d rest a lot easier—we all would in fact—if someone who really cared about the welfare of children was around if and when your mother agrees to take a break from, well, polite society for a stretch of time.”
“Polite society?” Amelia was mounting her high horse and was about to unleash the part of her social conscience that dealt with class struggle.
“What would you call it?”
“I don’t know. But calling it taking a break from polite society? It makes you sound like such a . . . well, you sound like a little bit of a snob, Aunt Caroline. I’m sorry.”
I knew that she thought I was a snob. Her whole family thought I was a snob. So what? Well, maybe I was. But not all the time. Really.
“If not coming right out and announcing that rehab is imminent for a family member for the fifth time makes me a snob, then so be it. I’ll be a snob.”
Honestly, my niece would go a lot further in this world if she softened her language and could remember not to correct her elders. But at that moment I guessed that in some way she was trying to defend her mother, the low-rent drunk who nearly killed her sister. And I was fully aware that alcoholism was a progressive disease and that Frances Mae was firmly in its clutches and being eaten alive by it. It was all deeply upsetting, and when I was upset I did indeed have the capacity to get bitchy. Unapologetically so. I’m way far from perfect.
“Sorry,” she said. “Oh Lord! Let me think about this. You’re right. We would all be totally insane to leave Linnie and Belle in charge of the house and Chloe.”
“My point exactly.”
“So what are we going to do? Wait and see what Dad says? I guess.”
“I’m just saying that if your sisters would consider the fact that maybe Rusty isn’t the Antichrist, maybe there could be a possibility for an easy and workable solution. Do you see what I mean?”
“Yeah, sure I do.” She sighed deeply. “Look, I think Rusty is okay. In fact, I think if I had met her under different circumstances, I’d probably really like her. But I don’t care what any of us say, you know how Mom feels. Mom says she’s a home wrecker and that’s pretty much about it.”
“Well, she might be, from Frances Mae’s point of view, but she’s got time on her hands and it’s not like you can commute from Columbia. And I have a business to run.”
“Right. What about Millie? Couldn’t she come and stay with them?”
“Millie? Humph. She’s got a job, and besides, there would be a bigger revolt than if Rusty was there! Millie has no patience for nonsense. Zero tolerance. Anyway, Trip has to work this out. I’m just an aunt. He’s y’all’s parent. And here we are planning your mother’s absence when I don’t even know if Trip has talked to her about it.”
“Well, there’s really no option but rehab, is there, Aunt Caroline?”
“None that I know of, honey. I wish there was a pill.”
“Well, actually, there is one. It’s called Antabuse, I think. All I know is if you take the pill and drink booze, you puke your guts out and you could die.”
Puke was such a repulsive word and guts was better used in conversation between men regarding the eviscerating of deer and fish and animals they caught in the woods. Antabuse was it?
“Good Lord! That’s pretty powerful.”
“Yeah. It is. In fact, you can’t give it to somebody with heart trouble or any kind of vascular weakness because they really could drop dead.”
“Is this what they teach you in college these days?”
“No. I found it on the Internet. It’s been around since the 1950s, believe it or not. I was trying to find a solution for Mom. You know. She’s my mother, right? I worry about her morning, noon, and night.”
“I’m sure you do, honey. I’m sure you do. But, sweetheart?” The poor child. She needed to study, not to fear for her sister’s life. “Listen, I don’t want you to worry anymore. Let us old fogies do the worrying for a while, okay? Why don’t you see if you can soften your sisters’ hearts and I’ll keep you in the loop on everything. Is that a deal?”
“Sure. I’ll try. But they’re pretty convinced of the party line, you know.”
“Yes, I know that. Listen, Amelia, on another topic?”
“Sure, what?”
“Do you think Eric is seeing someone?”
There was silence.
“Are you there, Amelia?”
“Yes, I, um, don’t know. Maybe you should ask him?”
“Oh! I didn’t mean to pry, I mean . . . of course, you’re right!”
We said good night and I felt like I had failed miserably in trying to console her. But I had let her know that she wasn’t alone. Poor girl. Not even twenty-one years old and she was like Atlas trying to hold up the globe on her back. And to make matters worse, I asked her to betray some sort of confidence by prying into Eric’s business. Of course I was prying! He was my son! I was his mother! So, if she didn’t want to tell me, she must know something. I’d find out.
I put my wineglass in the sink and decided to forgo the grapes for a while—at least until Frances Mae went away.
I went to the front of the house to turn out the rest of the lights and saw familiar headlights
at the end of our avenue of oaks. I blinked the porch lights to signal that it was not too late to approach. Was it Trip? No, it was a patrol car driven by my friend Matthew. Matthew was coming by to check on me. That cheered me on the spot. I watched as he pulled up our long road. I ran my hand through my hair to smooth it. And I bit my lips to give them some color, hoping I didn’t look like a hag. He got out of his car and turned to look at me standing there in the doorway. Good grief, he was so appealing. Was it the uniform?
“Can I help you, Officer?” I said, teasing him in my best slow Scarlett drawl.
“Yes, ma’am, I reckon you can.” He said this with a smile but his eyes were telling me another story.
“Would you like to come in?” I leaned against the doorjamb and he stood very close to me, leaned down, and smelled the side of my neck, giving me chills.
“Yes, ma’am, I reckon I would.”
“Do you want to pull your car around back for the sake of the neighbors?” It appeared I was to have company at least for a few hours.
“If you think I should, then I will. But there’s nobody out here tonight. I checked. A couple of opossums and some bears.”
“Bears?” He was kidding, of course, but I pretended to be alarmed. “Oh my!”
“Yes, big black bears. Hungry ones. I just wanted to make sure you were safe.”
It should be noted here that I had not slept with Matthew in decades. Okay, it was last week but there was no sleeping. I was unsure of how to proceed. No, I wasn’t. I mean, was it all right to just sleep with him without some sort of goal on the relationship beyond the obvious? Of course it was. We were consenting adults, after all. So much for moral dilemmas. Problem solved.
“Are you hungry, Officer?”
“Yeah. Do you have something you might offer a starving servant of the people?”
I thought of offering him a roll in bed with honey, but instead I said, “That depends on what you’re starving for. Why don’t we go inside and see what we can find?”
Our words were corny and silly but intellectual debate on the true meaning of life was not on the agenda. I led him through the hall and up the stairs to my room. Now, may I just mention that the kindest thing ever invented by mankind is the dimmer switch? I slipped into the bathroom to change into something ooh-la-la, and there was my tub, filled with hot water while camellias and gardenias floated on the surface. I stopped for a moment and then I realized. Miss Lavinia approved.
4
Spring Forward
IT WAS BARELY EIGHT-THIRTY IN the morning but Millie and I had already been talking for almost an hour. I woke up with the birds and could not get the image of Chloe’s bleeding head out of my mind. I was still worried sick and called Millie as soon as I saw the lights on at her house. So over a pot of coffee, Millie and I cooked up a plan that we hoped might convince Frances Mae to go to rehab, sign new separation papers, and give the children to Trip for an unspecified period of time.
“Get your brother on the phone and tell him to get himself over here,” she said. “I’m making biscuits.”
I looked up at the cuckoo clock on the wall, its hands permanently stuck at 11:11 and wondered why we didn’t fix it or pitch it. It hadn’t worked since I was a child. But I hated moving or changing anything that Miss Lavinia had put in place.
Thirty minutes later, Trip walked in the back door, his hair still wet from his shower but combed perfectly in place. He dropped the morning newspapers on the table and Millie picked up The State.
“Morning!” he said, and gave me a hug. “I saw Matthew Strickland’s car here last night. Everything okay?”
“I thought I saw a bear,” I said without missing a beat.
“Really?” Trip said in all innocence. “We haven’t had bears around here in ages!”
Millie, whom I had always believed had a third eye hidden in the thick braid that encircled her head, had somehow missed Matthew’s arrival and departure. She shot me a look of surprise and then she sighed, with a pretty good idea of what had transpired last night.
“A bear,” she said, seeing right through me. “Girl, you are Miss Lavinia, more and more each day.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said.
“What am I missing here?” Trip poured himself a mug of coffee and ignored the possibility that I might have a romantic life. “Do you have any cream?”
“Nothing,” Millie said, shaking her head. “Second shelf on the left. You ain’t missing nothing.” The timer pinged. She put the newspaper down, grabbed an oven mitt, and pulled a sheet of biscuits from the oven, smiling because they were perfectly browned on top. With the deftness of a professional chef, she swept them into a linen napkin folded inside a sweetgrass basket and placed them on the table in front of Trip. “Just try to resist,” she said.
“Ah, Millie! You’re going to ruin my waistline.”
“Please. So what’s up with you today?” I said. I put a jar of strawberry jam and another of elderberry jam on the table with a plate of butter. “Do you want juice?”
“No, thanks. My day? Well, let’s see. This morning I’m going down to Beaufort to take a deposition at noon. Seems some stupid sumbitch, let’s call him Mr. Jones, thought his wife was screwing a friend of his, Mr. Smith. Turns out Mrs. Jones was just watering his plants, feeding his cat, and picking up Mr. Smith’s mail while he was away at a Bible camp trying to get over the fact that he had discovered his wife in flagrante with another woman, with whom she then ran off with to Calistoga, way out there in California. When Mr. Smith came home from Bible camp, Mr. Jones went over there to the house and shot him in the leg, only he missed, nearly amputating Mr. Smith’s jones, if you get my drift. Now Mrs. Jones wants a divorce and it’s pretty obvious to all parties involved that she actually did drink the Kool-Aid for Mr. Smith, but I hear tell Mr. Smith thinks she’s not Christian enough and he’s not interested in jeopardizing his ticket to the Pearly Gates. And Mrs. Jones is quite the delectable little morsel, so go figure. So that’s my day.”
“I’m a little confused over here,” I said.
“Me, too,” Millie said. “What kinda fool thing is all that?”
“There’s big money to be made when you mix up jealousy, infidelity, and guns. People are unbelievably stupid. So what’s on your agenda?” He stuffed a whole biscuit into his mouth, dripping butter down his chin.
“Gross.” I handed him a napkin. “The usual. But we’re looking at a deal with a big yogurt producer to provide their fruit, so we’ll see. It’s a private-label deal for Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. Miss Sweetie is all excited. It would be Sweetie’s Yogurt and she’d have her face on the label.”
“Cool.”
“Very. So tell it, little brother. Did you talk to Rusty last night about taking the kids?”
“Of course I did.”
“And?”
“What do you think? I almost had to use the paddles on her.”
“Paddles? What are you saying?” Millie asked.
“He means heart-attack resuscitation paddles, right, genius?”
“Yeah. Millie? We got any eggs in the house?”
Millie, who was now perusing the obituaries, pushed her reading glasses down her nose and looked at him.
“You want scrambled, fried, or sunny-side up?”
“Any way you feel like making ’em. Thanks!”
“So, Millie and I have been trying to figure out a way to help you out of this situation and we’ve got an idea.”
“I’m sure,” he said with a trace of sarcasm.
His sarcasm was a sign to me that Trip was prepared to be annoyed over the meddling of two well-meaning women, but sarcasm and annoyance had no impact on his appetite as he buttered up his fourth biscuit and shoved it in his face. He continued.
“Look, I appreciate y’all’s concern, but Rusty ain’t having none of it. Okay? I take the kids, I lose Rusty. It’s a lose-lose. Not happening.”
“But what if you could get Frances Mae to sign n
ew separation papers and you were free to marry Rusty within a year?”
Millie slipped a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him and he immediately took two huge bites.
“Thanks, Millie. These eggs are so pretty they ought to be on the cover of Southern Living magazine!”
“You’re right,” Millie said.
Trip turned his attention back to me. “Oh, sure. And how are we going to accomplish that? Should I put a pistol to her head and just tell her to sign on the dotted line?”
“No. And please don’t talk when you have a mouth full of food.”
“Thanks, Lavinia.”
“That’s Miss Lavinia to you.”
“Right. Well, let’s hear your brilliant idea because no tactic I’ve tried in all these years has worked.”
“You’re gonna use the old tried-and-true method. M-O-N-E-Y. Open your wallet, Trip. Money works every time.”
Trip may have been a great guy in many ways, but he was very, very tight with a dollar. In my opinion, there is very little more offensive than a cheap man.
Trip sighed deeply. “Did you hear that, Millie? My lovely sister wants me to spend even more money on Frances Mae’s shenanigans!”
“Yes, sir! I hear her giving you what for and I’m saying we don’t think you can afford not to pay for her nonsense.”
“Humph,” Trip said.
So far, Trip was unimpressed with our point of view.
“Listen, you’re going to give her that house in Walterboro and you’re going to give her a generous alimony settlement. And you’re going to tell her that she can have the girls back when she’s been sober for some period of time, which you’ll figure out. Then you tell Rusty to start planning a wedding.”
“I already give Frances Mae everything I can. And you forget I have a new swimming pool to pay for. And the landscaping. And the lighting. And the irrigation. And the outdoor grill and all that. And since my investments aren’t earning what they were, I’m taking every case that’s out there to keep the Enterprise afloat. I’m not made out of money, you know.”