“husband.” I had not realized until this moment that when my mother used the same sign, it was a euphemism.
Frank? I signed to her. I remembered his name from the hundreds of times she had told me the story of my birth. Frank was your sweetheart? And this time I was using the sign the way she meant it.
She nodded her hand. Not when we were in school, after. When we’d graduated. I loved him so much. I thought for certain that we would be married, and so it didn’t seem that bad to do things out of order.
I signed, But when it came down to a choice, you picked Genny.
She shook her hand in a vigorous no. Never! I would never have chosen anyone over Frank. I loved him. He was my husband in my head and in my heart.
I put a question mark into her hand because it didn’t make sense to me.
Mama didn’t answer me. I started to say something else, but she waved my hands away. She was thinking. In the end, I came to realize that he didn’t love me, she signed at last. I thought we would be together, the three of us always. But he said it was him or Genny.
I didn’t choose Genny over Frank. I only stayed with the person who loved me enough to not ask me to choose.
I thought about that while my mother lay back on the pillows.
I tucked the blanket up higher on her, and then I put my hand in hers and signed, What about Genny? Did she ever have a “sweetheart”?
No, of course not. Don’t be silly, my mother signed, and then laughter welled up in her so hard it made her shake, and she barely managed to sign to me what was so funny before it dissolved her. You know Genny is afraid of big animals.
I laughed, too, so hard we were shaking the bed. When we stopped, I took her hand again and asked her, I know it’s been a long day, but can we talk for a minute?
Yes. I’m glad you came, Mama signed. I’ve wanted to ask you how angry you are with me.
I started to answer her, but she stilled my hands with her own.
I realize that isn’t really the question. I think I want to ask, Do you think what I did was a sin? She added, The dogs. But I had known what she meant.
You’ll have to ask God, Mama, I signed. I can’t answer that. I do know I wish you hadn’t done it. I know why you did. But I wish you had trusted me. You knew I was working on it. You know it wasn’t right, or you wouldn’t be asking me about it at all.
Mama compressed her lips, mulling, and then signed, It wasn’t right. But I would do it again the same way. Her expression shifted, became patient, loving, and she signed to me so gently, You do not have this thing that’s in me. The thing inside Bernese. I am not sure what to call it. Will or evil, or maybe it is only that we see things through.
I can see things through! I signed, emphatic, and she patted my arm and shook her hand. I can, I insisted.
You never have before, she signed, still gentle. Genny was too afraid to come home, and I couldn’t trust that this would be the moment that you would pick to grow into yourself. I know you will. But there have been things you knew you needed to do before, hard things, and you folded in and waited and hoped either until something outside came along to make you or until it was too late.
I knew what she meant. She’d seen it in me when I had never followed up on the scholarship offer, even though I’d spent months writing my application essay and collecting recommendations. I’d stayed in my safe interpreting job in a town less than an hour from my family. And tonight I had come to her because I didn’t know where I would go tomorrow, and I was wanting her to push me to Athens or hold me here, to move me in a direction because I did not know how to move myself.
Maybe she sensed that, because she had just made it impossible for me to ask her.
As for the dogs, she had done the best she could. Maybe not the best thing there was to do, but the very best she could.
I know who you are, Mama, I said, as gentle as she had been.
You’re the lady who steals babies and poisons dogs, and you are the exact mother I would have picked for myself had anyone asked me.
I leaned in to kiss her, and her arms came around my neck and she clung to me, burying her nose in my hair, breathing me in. I held on to her, too, waiting for our usual peace to settle in between us, but it didn’t happen.
When I drew back, she signed, I know you, too.
She looked so small and tired in her bed. The lines around her unmoving mouth drew it downward, as if she were sad. I know you, too.
CHAPTER 16
MY PLAN WAS to go to sleep and let my subconscious work everything out. I would have deep, meaningful dreams about riding a train through a tunnel to a city called Jonno, France. Perhaps a highly symbolic storm would come and tear the city down, pound the bricks to red dust and churn the glass to sand. Hurricane Henry or only Hurricane Me. Strangers, passing by on their way to Cannes, would never know a city had been there at all. Or the storm would pass, and I would spin like Julie Andrews across its weather-beaten streets, singing about home. I would wake up refreshed and clear-eyed, knowing what I wanted and, more than that, knowing what was right. Maybe even how to get there from here.
I am sure it would have happened exactly that way if only I had managed to get fifteen consecutive minutes of REM sleep. But Genny had a bad night. Dream dogs chased her up through lay-ers of Xanax and Vicodin. Every time I drifted off, she would begin whimpering, flailing at her covers. I lost track of the number of times I went up and down the hall from my room to hers and back again.
Finally, I gave up and climbed into bed with her. I stayed beside her, petting the inside of her wrist and humming softly until she was deeply asleep.
My presence in the bed seemed to help, but at four she woke us both up with a shriek, and when I touched her forehead, it was slick with cold sweat. I turned on the TV for her, and she clicked around with the remote until she found a station that ran old movies with no commercials. She sat up, propping herself on a stack of pillows, and we held hands. I dozed, fading in and out as she watched the back half of Bringing Up Baby.
I woke up as the clock downstairs was chiming seven. A different movie was playing, some old Western I didn’t know. I blinked, scrubbing at my eyes. If I’d had any dreams, I didn’t remember them.
Genny appeared to be sleeping hard beside me, but as I sat up, her eyes opened and she said, “I’m a silly old thing, aren’t I? How do you all put up with me?”
She sat up, too, carefully, shame-faced, twisting her fingers together. I saw the worst was over. Her eyes were bright and bird-like, and some of the tension seemed to have drained out of her round shoulders. Mama and I had succeeded in turning her back from the bad day we’d seen starting up at the hospital. I was hugely relieved; unchecked, a bad day for Genny could last weeks.
“Don’t worry, widget. You know we adore you,” I said, yawn-ing. I leaned over Genny to check the other side of the bed.
Fisher wasn’t there.
Genny nodded. “I do know. But it’s silly to flap and panic when I know those dogs are so far. And don’t think I’m not grateful. It really makes me in some ways think better of her.”
“Of who?” I said. I got out of her bed and stretched.
“Ona Crabtree,” she said, and I made a mental note to find out exactly what pacifying lie my mother had told her frail sister, and to be sure the rest of Between knew the expurgated-for-Genny version.
I thought giving Ona the credit was pretty big of Mama, considering. But perhaps it was only pragmatic. She could tell Genny the dogs had left the state, but she could not so easily spirit Ona away. Genny needed to think of Ona as, if not benevolent, at least not actively plotting to do her harm.
On the way back to my room, I glanced in on Mama. She was still sleeping, and she was alone. My room was empty, too. So Fisher had stayed in her own bed. Good. Bernese needed to calm down a notch before I could hope to get her to see the connection between her anger with Lori-Anne and her twisted obsession with Get Fit, Kid!
All that morning, I felt
like the house was holding its breath.
Or maybe it was Mama. She stayed out of my way. I heard her clicking away on the Braille typewriter as she talked on the TTY.
When she emerged from her room, she seemed very much herself again, brisk and busy. I knew she was eager to get to work on her new sculpture, but she stayed at home, caring for Genny so I didn’t have to, creating dead space around me so I could think.
I did think, as time ate away at the day and I mulled through all the promises I had made and did nothing toward fulfilling any of them. If I didn’t go to Athens, I couldn’t say it was because I was worried about my family’s safety. Even though things were the worst they’d ever been between the Fretts and Crabtrees, this was the one day it was safe for me to leave town; Ona was expecting me for dinner. She wouldn’t have called her nephews in tonight.
Whether I went to Athens or not, there was no way I was going to make it to Ona’s. Fisher was much higher on my list of prior-ities. But Ona didn’t know I wasn’t coming. If I waited to cancel, it would be too late for her to mobilize her troops. When I did call, I would make sure to reschedule immediately, and I could ask her to stay her hand until she had spoken with me face-to-face. Henry was working on her, too.
When I thought of Henry, I discovered a cheerful pocket in my head, foolishly colored pink and stuffed full of belief that he would give me a call this morning. If I could talk my decisions for the day through with him, I might figure out what on earth was causing me to waffle.
He didn’t call.
Maybe he was waiting for me to come by the Dollhouse Store so he could talk to me in person. That was how we usually connected; I couldn’t remember him ever calling me. Of course, I also couldn’t remember him ever having sex with me on random pieces of the bookstore’s furniture, and it seemed to me that if he could so easily change that one, he ought to be able to pick up the damn phone.
Genny felt up to coming downstairs for lunch, and after we ate, she and Mama went into the den. They sat side by side on the sofa, in silent chat. I curled up in an armchair nearby, pretending to read and obsessively checking my watch. There would come a time, in a couple of hours at most, when, by not decid-ing, I would have made a decision. I wouldn’t have time to get to Athens before my slot on the docket. Mama kept feeling her Braille watch, too, but she didn’t bring it up.
I gave myself a deadline; I would know what to do by the time Lou got back with my car. He’d borrowed it again, since his car and Bernese’s were both at Firestone getting new tires. He was in Loganville buying potting soil, and since he was already in town he was picking up Fisher, but one o’clock came and went and he still wasn’t back. I was beginning to get concerned when the front door opened. “That you, Lou?” I called.
“Nope, it’s me,” said Bernese. She stomped through the foyer into the den. “Lou’s minding the store for me, and he’s got Fisher with him.”
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“I’m here to sit with Genny and your mama so you can go to Athens and get shut of that syphilitic testicle you married.”
I gaped at her. This was one of the many reasons I hadn’t gone into detail about why I was divorcing Jonno. Jonno had been permanently and publicly renamed. Worse, Bernese was such a be-hemoth that I often forgot that when she did decide to turn, she could do it on a dime. And heaven help the people standing in her path when she decided to go in the new direction.
“Lou came straight over from school with Fisher and parked in the lot behind the church, so you’ll need to walk down there. I don’t know why he didn’t park here and walk himself. He knows I can’t drive a stick shift. But this way you can pop your head in and explain to Fisher when you’ll be back. She’s already in a froth, but I told her to quit sulking. Y’all can do your movie night tomorrow. Here are your keys—you better get going.”
I was still sitting in the chair with my mouth hanging open, catching flies. Mama was signing, but I couldn’t peel my eyes off Bernese, so Genny interpreted. “Bernese? Stacia says to tell you to keep your big butt out of it.”
I glanced their way in time to see that Genny’s cheeks had pinked, and she was signing as an aside to Mama, Do you have to talk ugly?
“Someone’s got to make the girl see sense,” said Bernese.
Mama signed, Nonny? Forget Bernese. Forget what I want, too.
You decide.
“What’s she saying?” Bernese asked Genny, but Genny had seen that I was watching Mama’s gracefully arching hands and had not interpreted.
“She was talking to Nonny, not you,” Genny said primly.
“You make me crazy,” Bernese said. “You tell Stacia every stinking thing that happens in a room whether someone is talking to her or not, but now you won’t tell me what she’s saying to Nonny?”
Genny said, “No one’s stopping you from learning to sign.”
Mama was rapid-fire signing to me while they argued. This isn’t like the dogs. I can’t do this for you. If you don’t want the divorce, then say so. If that’s true, you still need to get on the road to Athens.
Go get Jonno and fight for him. But don’t act helpless and pretend it isn’t a choice. Pick—either finish it or make him treat you better.
“Nonny, what is she saying?” Bernese demanded.
I ran to the sofa and knelt by Mama, signing into her hands, I am done with Jonno, but maybe today is not the day. There is so much going on here, Genny’s still very hurt, Ona Crabtree’s on the warpath, and there’s Fisher and Bernese. I can get the court date rescheduled—
Mama pushed my hands away, shaking her hand no.
“Are you weaseling out?” Bernese said. “Are you seriously thinking about keeping that diseased piece of crap?”
“Shut up, Bernese,” I said. I reached for Mama, but she pushed my hands away again.
Mama signed, Do you think I care about this stupid day in court?
This is about you. You were “working on” moving the dogs when the dogs needed to be gone, period. And now you are “working on” getting shut of that man. And tomorrow you’ll be “working on” helping Fisher. You can’t change Bernese, you’ll say. But I know you can.
Maybe you will, maybe you won’t, but don’t say you can’t. You are welcome to throw happiness away with all your hands and stay with Jonno until you dry up and die or until he brings something home that will kill you. It’s your love life. But how much longer can Fisher wait while you “try” and “work on it” and fuss around not doing anything? How long before Bernese breaks her?
She folded her arms and stuffed her hands under them. She had said her piece, and she wasn’t giving me the opportunity to explain my way out from under her gospel.
“I hope she’s telling you to get your butt on the road,” Bernese said, and then the doorbell rang.
I immediately thought, “Henry,” and ran to get it.
“Nonny!” Bernese called after me, but I ignored her and flung the door open. It wasn’t Henry. It was a girl I didn’t know, although she looked terribly familiar. She was slim and big-eyed, a dewy little thing in peach capri pants and strappy sandals, standing nervously on the porch, wringing her hands. When I opened the door and she saw my face, she stared at me and her expression changed from nervousness to sheer, ugly rage.
“Are you kidding me?” she screeched. “You are actually here?”
When her mouth twisted up, so angry, I knew her. I didn’t see how I could have forgotten that hateful face, watching me so avidly when Bernese called to tell me Genny was hurt. She’d been sitting across from me in a red leatherette booth at Bibi’s Real Ice Cream, enjoying my life as if it were a daytime drama. I searched my mind for her name and found it. She was Amber DeClue, the girl who had booked me through my agency for an interpreting job that had never quite happened. Now she was standing on my mother’s doorstep in Between, glaring at me with the same expression I had seen when I drove away and left her poking vi-ciously at her cell phone.
&nbs
p; She reached up and grabbed handfuls of her long hair, one hunk on either side of her face, and clutched at it. “Jonno said you’d be here. Jonno said you’d never give him the divorce. But I thought for sure you couldn’t possibly be such a bitch.”
“Jonno?” I said to her, my eyes narrowing.
Bernese came into the foyer, Mama and Genny trailing behind her. Mama was following the wall with one hand while Genny signed madly into her other.
“Who’s this?” Bernese said.
Amber DeClue answered before I could. “I’m Jonno’s fiancée.”
Bernese raised her eyebrows. “Jonno has a fiancée and a wife?
How very modern.”
“He isn’t supposed to still have a wife, now, is he?” Amber snapped at Bernese, and then her gaze flipped back to me. “But here you sit, blocking him again.”
“Me?” I said. “I am blocking him?”
“If you don’t show up this time and finally get your mess all finished, what am I supposed to do? Huh? Our wedding is this weekend.”
I took a step back, off balance, as if she’d pushed me. “Married?” I said. “Jonno can’t get married this weekend.”
“He can, too,” Amber insisted. “My mama’s lawyer worked it out, and we got the license. Our minister will sign it if Jonno brings the proof he got divorced.”
“Stop talking,” I said, holding up one hand. Things were starting to make sense. Of course she was somehow rolled up with Jonno. There had never been an interpreting job. She probably didn’t even work at that ice-cream parlor. All she’d needed to book me was a valid credit-card number, and then she’d gotten to scope out the wife in neutral territory at a time when I didn’t have my guard up. I could feel my lip curling. I had known something was off. Her expensive shoes and jewelry, her oddly pushy conversation, her endless questions about why I was using my maiden name.
“Calling my agency, booking me like that, I don’t think that’s even legal,” I said.