April Shadows

  "That's why I'm giving you these numbers," she replied.

  "Gee, how considerate," Brenda muttered loudly enough for her to hear,

  "We do only what we are instructed to do," Ms. Luther snapped at her.

  "Only following orders? Where have I heard that before?" Brenda mused aloud.

  Mama turned her toward the front entrance.

  "Let's just go," she said, and we walked back through the lobby and out the door.

  We drove directly to the motel we had passed and got two rooms since there wasn't one big enough for the three of us. Brenda and I shared one, and Mama took the one adjoining. As soon as she settled in. Mama called the attorney and spoke with him. We sat on her bed and listened to the conversation.

  "Well," she said, turning to us after she was finished talking. "you heard some of it. Your father's plan was to keep us away from all the horror and misery he was going through. He was diagnosed some time ago and given little hope. When his symptoms grew worst, he made a decision to get away from us before they grew severe. The condition did affect his personality, his tolerance level, and his ability to do things for himself. He didn't want us to witness all that degeneration. There are instructions for afterward that included us. I guess the theory was that we would have all the sadness in one blow rather than a prolonged period of it.

  "I could never hate him for this." she added, looking more at Brenda than at me.

  "I don't hate him. Mama. I hate what's happened to him," Brenda said.

  Mama took a deep breath. "I'll just get some rest, and then we'll see about finding a nice place to eat. We should have a good dinner," she said.

  Good food always brought some comfort, helped you to feel better inside, I thought.

  Brenda and I went to our room to rest. too.

  "Did he have to go and hide the videos and take all those pictures from us?" I asked her, still stunned by the events as they were unfolding.

  "He didn't know what he was doing by then, I'm sure," Brenda said. "The disease made him crazy. Just forget all of it. It didn't happen," she said.

  Didn't happen? How could I ever convince myself of that? How could she?

  I didn't think I would fall asleep when we both lay down to take a short nap. but I did. Emotional exhaustion was harder and greater than physical. I decided. Brenda actually had to wake me to get ready to go to dinner. Mama had woken and called our room. but I didn't hear the phone ring. She had already located what the motel manager described as a good Italian restaurant nearby.

  "Italian food is your father's favorite food. actually," Mama told us on the way there.

  It was strange to hear her talk about him as if we didn't really know him. Of course, we knew that was his favorite food.

  Also, it was almost as if she were expecting he would meet us at the restaurant. He would have waken from his coma, gazed around, and thought. What am I doing here? He would have gotten dressed, found out where we were going, and gotten there ahead of us. I dreamed he was sitting at the table. smiling.

  "I'm sorry, gang," he would begin. "I put you through all this unnecessarily. Let's just have a great dinner and all go home. okay?"

  Oh, how okay that would be.

  Maybe Mama was dreaming a similar sort of dream. In her mind, he would be up and ready when we visited him again. She was in what I would call a faux happy mood. She had a cocktail before dinner and talked incessantly, remembering happy times she had with Daddy. She talked about their courting days, their dates, their vacations before we were born. Recalling these joyful events invigorated her. Every memory was another brick in the wall to keep the tragedy and the horror about to befall us away for a while longer.

  Unfortunately, that wasn't much of a while. Mama had called the facility and spoken with Ms. Luther. She gave her the phone number at the motel, and two hours or so after we had settled in for the night, the phone rang in Mama's room. Brenda told me she could hear it ring through the walls and woke up as well and could hear Mama's wail.

  I was in a very deep sleep, burying myself in it as someone would bury herself in a few warm blankets. I didn't wake up until I heard sobbing and turned, wiped my eyes, and looked at Mama and Brenda holding on to each other. I dropped my head to the pillow and cried myself.

  "At least we got here to see him," Mama said through her tears. "He waited for us. I know he did."

  Even Brenda looked as if she believed that was what had happened.

  In the morning, we headed back home. Daddy, in his careful preparations to lessen the impact of his death upon us, had made all the arrangements for his funeral and burial. We literally had nothing to do but dress and attend the church service and the

  internment,

  Uncle Palaver had been calling us and reached us the day after we returned. Mama said he didn't seem all that surprised about what Daddy had done. He said he, too, had felt there was something unreal about it when he first learned of Daddy's leaving us but soon realized it was all true, terribly true. Now that he knew the whole story, he saw it as just another kind of sleight of hand. It would take him too long to drive back, so he flew back on a small commuter airline and was there at our side throughout. I wondered why he didn't bring Destiny, but Brenda thought he had decided it just wasn't the right time to make new acquaintances.

  "She would be too uncomfortable. I know I would be,' Brenda said. Of course. I agreed.

  I was sure that people, friends and some distant relatives who came, all thought it strange that we cried little at the services. The truth was, we had already cried out our tears. That was why we were so still and vacant-eyed at the funeral. I knew people wouldn't understand. They all thought we were still angry about his running off. perhaps. I could see it in their faces when they offered their condolences. They disapproved, and that disapproval diminished their sympathy. Daddy never thought of that either, I realized.

  In one sense, he certainly did make things easier. The transition to life without him had already taken place. After Uncle Palaver left to resume his touring with Destiny, both Brenda and I returned to school as quickly as we could. Teachers and friends offered sympathy. but Brenda barely acknowledged it. If anyone thought she walked about with a chip on her shoulder before, they were convinced that chip had grown now. The anger that festered inside her continued to emerge in her athletics. She was far more aggressive on the courts and always looked like a bomb about to explode.

  Mama again talked about returning to work but never made a real effort to do so. She was shrinking inside, and she lost more weight. When I voiced my worry, she told me it was expected after the loss of a loved one and not to worry. She would get on her feet soon. Why didn't I have the same reaction? Why didn't I lose weight? I think I ate more out of depression and sadness and gained more weight.

  I moaned and groaned about myself as if I were talking about someone else.

  "You'll change," Mama assured me. "Soon."

  There was that word again, that word built on a foundation of promises: soon. It had been following me all my life. In the next weeks and months. little_ if anything. changed. however. I went to a party but felt I was being invited out of sympathy and not desire. Even the girls who were not very popular avoided me. In the food chain. I guess I was the lowest of the low, and their disdain for me helped them feel a little better about themselves. If any boy looked at me. I quickly looked away, afraid that all I would see in his eyes would be either disgust or pity. Here I was nearly sixteen. and I hadn't as much as held hands with a boy, much less kissed any.

  That summer. Brenda decided to take two of her senior year's required courses in an advanced study program the school had created. Her grades were just high enough for her to qualify. It made her eligible for early graduation. There were college scouts and representatives vigorously inquiring about her now, and before the high school year had ended, she had received two offers of full scholarships. If she completed her summer courses successfully, she would receive her diploma in mid- Augu
st and be able to leave and go to college in time to play for the girls. basketball teams. It was only a matter of deciding which one she wanted to attend.

  The very thought of Brenda's leaving home so quickly depressed me. How hollow and empty the house would become without her, even though she spent so much time outside. During the Summer, she also gave me more attention.

  "You have to get hold of yourself. April," she said, finally echoing Daddy's warnings, the ones he made during his Mr. Hyde days. "Daddy wasn't all wrong about that. It is unhealthy for you to carry so much weight. You're acing to start running and exercising with me," she commanded.

  I was afraid I would look too foolish, but she was more tolerant and patient with me than ever. I had the sense she had decided she owed this to Daddy, more than she owed it to me. One day, she even ransacked our kitchen pantry, emptying it of what she called high-calorie, low-value foods. She got Mania to stop making rich desserts after dinner, and she constantly cross- examined me about what I had eaten while she was away at school.

  Before the summer had ended. I had gone a good ten pounds below my weight since Daddy had died. Brenda had me take tennis lessons, made me carry her golf clubs when she played golf with two of her teammates at a country club one of them belongs to, and nightly put me through a series of stretching exercises. We did some yoga together as well.

  For the first time ever. I felt more like her sister. I think that motivated me more than my own desire to look better and feel better. It was important to please Brenda, to keep her interested in me, believing her efforts with me were worthwhile. With her going off to college. I wondered if I would just slip back into my couch potato rut and regain all I had lost.

  "You better not." she told me before she left when I wondered about it aloud. "You have to take better care of yourself so you can look after Mama better, too," she warned..

  Mama needed looking after. She had withdrawn into herself so deeply we both thought it would be difficult, if not impossible, to bring her back out.

  "We're all she has now." Brenda said, "You've got to get her to think about herself. Be cheery, upbeat. Join something like the drama club, if not one of the teams. Make her come out to see you do things. You understand. April. It's going to be up to you now,"

  I nodded, terrified of the responsibility.

  "Maybe Uncle Palaver will be back soon." I said.

  "He won't, and besides, he won't be here long if he is. That's not the solution. April. Mama is our problem."

  She smiled.

  "You'll be all right. You'll see," she said. "I'll call often, and you'll come visit me when you can." "Really'?"

  "Of course," she said. "I'll want you to bring Mama to the big games. too."

  I didn't think I would cry the day she left. I was older now, not only because of time but because of what we had experienced. I wanted to be more like Brenda. I wanted to have her strength and her steely eves and stoic face when I would most need it.

  Mama had given Brenda her car, since we had Daddy's car now, too. I watched her pack and helped her load the car. When it was time for her to go. Mama and I walked out to the driveway to hug and kiss her good-bye.

  She glanced at the basketball net and

  backboard. She squinted. and, like her. I could hear Daddy's laughter.

  "I'11 tell you both a secret," she said, still looking at the net. "It didn't matter that he wasn't there at the end, that he didn't come with you to the games and cheer with you."

  She looked at me. Her gaze was firm, her eyes assured and focused the way she could make them when she put her whole heart into what she would do or say.

  "He was always there. I saw him." "Yes," Mama said, nodding and smiling.

  "Don't you go gaining back a single ounce. April. I'm warning you," she said.

  "I won't. I promise."

  She got into her car and started the engine.

  "Be careful, honey," Mama said.

  Brenda nodded and winked at me. My big sister winked at me, and then she drove off slowly, turning out of the driveway and moving until she was c,one.

  Mama shook off a sob and put her arm around me.

  We stood there staring after Brenda, both of us scared to admit how afraid we were of the silence that lingered.

  Both of us scared of tomorrow.

  6 Celia's Visit

  Summer seemed to take forever to end after Brenda left us. I would sit on the grass and then lie back and look up at the sky, just watching the wind move clouds lazily. Sometimes I did it right after one of my runs. I fried having the same enthusiasm about the exercise that I had when Brenda was running beside me or just ahead of me. It was harder to keep it up. but I wanted to do it for her as much as for myself. I couldn't disappoint her. I didn't want her to give up on me.

  But it was a lonely time for me. The few friends I had were away for the summer at camps or on family trips. It got so I wanted to sleep later so there would be less time to be awake and the day would pass faster. I was actually glad when school finally began, even though I had a hard time getting back into a regular schedule of activities. I just wanted to drift like those clouds I watched.

  My English teacher quoted Henry David Thoreau one day and said. "Time is the stream I go a fishing in." We were learning how different authors treated the concept of time in their works. Thoreau, he said, didn't live his life according to any schedule or any clock. He didn't have appointments hanging over his head. He ignored it all and enjoyed life. When I heard all this and read some of it. I became envious. How wonderful not to care about anything but the moment, to be able to relax and daydream with no one standing over me, reminding me of my

  responsibilities.

  I also wondered, why teach us about Thoreau? Why torment us? How could we escape from reacting to the ringing of bells, being late, worrying about tomorrow and the days left until an assignment was due? How could we escape from torturing ourselves about our future, our graduation day? For us, the clock was ticking like a time bomb. Time wasn't a stream. Minutes weren't drops of water. They were little bees stinging us every time we dared slack off.

  And then I thought about Uncle Palaver out there on the highways of America, driving at his own pace, accepting this date or that if he wished, or not accepting any and just drifting, or parking by a beautiful scenic area and just taking in nature. Suddenly, despite all that Daddy had said about him, I envied him. Time was truly a stream for Uncle Palaver, and vet he was an adult in an adult world. He had to pay taxes and bills and worry about health insurance and all that, but maybe being able to hold on to part of Thoreau's dream was Uncle Palaver's greatest magical achievement.

  For Mama, time appeared to have come to a standstill. She, too, lost interest in dates, schedules, obligations, and calendars. She was adrift in a different way, sort of in limbo. The days could come: the days could go. It didn't matter to her. She forgot her own birthday, in fact, and was genuinely surprised to receive gifts from Brenda and me.

  I was told by more than one sympathetic mourner that time had healing qualities. Every tick of the clock was supposed to be another step away from the sadness, and soon it would take us so far that we would no longer cry or suffer such great sorrow. However, it wasn't working that way for Mama. She refused to accept tomorrow. She refused to forget. For her, the clock had stopped,

  I wrote often to Brenda, and whenever I could. I spoke to her on the telephone about my concerns for Mama. Brenda had opted to attend Thompson University in Memphis because it had such a wellorganized and impressive female athletic department. It was a small college with only a little more than a thousand students, but its record on the basketball and volleyball courts, as well as women's field hockey, was impressive thanks to its recruiting. One of its graduates. Mona LePage, did get chosen for the women's Olympic volleyball team, and the school was very proud of her.

  Since the college was in Memphis, most of the students commuted, but there was a small, twohundred-population women's dormito
ry on the campus. and Brenda shared a room with a girl three years ahead of her. Celia Harding. Apparently, they had met at Brenda's registration and had hit it off so well so quickly that they decided to be roommates. In all her letters and phone calls. Brenda praised and raved about Celia Harding. In fact, she talked so much about her I couldn't help but be jealous. I was surprised, too, when she told me she was bringing Celia home to spend Thanksgiving with us.

  First. I thought it was too soon to have an overnight guest, and second. I was afraid Mama wasn't strong enough to entertain a stranger, but Brenda had already discussed it with Mama, and Mama had agreed and even sounded a little excited about it. I relented and admitted to myself that it could be a good thing. It would take Mama's mind off the sadness and give her reason to do a full-blown Thanksgiving dinner. In my heart of hearts, I hoped and prayed that somehow Uncle Palaver would show up as well. He had been at our home only once for Thanksgiving, and I was just five years old at the time and barely remembered.

  He called more often now. Mama would get all choked up on the phone, and I would take over and talk to him and hear about his adventurous life on the road. I kept prodding him about Thanksgiving. I didn't want to come right out and say Mama needed him or I needed him, but I came as close to doing that as I could. For a while, I did think he would come, but two weeks before Thanksgiving, he called to tell us about a wonderful opportunity he was given if he went to California. He was going to be featured on more than a dozen regional television shows, and his manager thought it could be just the break he needed to get onto a national television stage of one sort or another.

  There were so many talented entertainers out there trying for the big breaks, and so many really deserved one. The competition was fierce, and opportunities like the one presented to Uncle Palaver so rare.

  "It would be cruel and unfair to Warner to pressure him to come back here for Thanksgiving and miss his chances. April." Mama told me when I whined a little too much about it. "He has worked too long and too hard."