Big Cherry Holler

  “There they is!” Fleeta clucks. Pearl and her doctor kiss under the mistletoe hung on the pocket doors between the Victorian and antebellum eras.

  “Doctor B. It’s so good to see you again.” I give him a big hug. We ferriners should stick together. Besides, if this romance works out with Pearl, he’ll be family.

  “Joe’s doctor.” Iva Lou whispers this as though she doesn’t realize she’s said it aloud.

  I cover for her. “Iva Lou, you remember Dr. Bakagese.”

  “Of course. How are you?”

  “Fine. Thank you.”

  Fleeta looks at me sadly; she can be sensitive once every hundred years or so, and this is one of those times.

  Dr. Bakagese smiles at me. I feel instantly guilty. So many times over the past few years, I meant to call him and thank him for all he did for our family and for Joe. But I have not called him to come to dinner, as I meant to do, nor did I go to see him. I kept meaning to, but I couldn’t. When I look into his eyes, he seems to understand. I flash back to the day I met him; of course, that was the day that would change our family forever.

  “Mama! Joe fell!” Etta hollered from upstairs.

  That kid is driving me nuts, I thought. I went up the stairs.

  “I’m fine,” Joe said, rubbing his hip.

  “Where did you land?”

  “On my butt.”

  “Good.”

  “Why? It wouldn’t hurt him if he landed on his head.”

  “That’s not funny!” Joe pushed Etta. Before they could fuss full-out, I pulled them apart.

  “Stop it. Both of you. I can’t take it anymore!” The tone of my voice scared them (a little), so Etta went off to her room in a huff.

  “Come on. Let’s get you dressed.”

  Joe took off his pajamas and waited for me to hand him his clothes. As he climbed into the red pants, I noticed a bruise near his knee.

  “What’s that from?” I asked him.

  “What?”

  “That bruise.”

  “I dunno.”

  “You’ve got to be more careful.”

  “It doesn’t hurt.”

  The room was dark because of the gray day outside, so I pulled open the shades to let more light in. The sun peeked out of a curtain of charcoal clouds, enough to help me see. I turned to help Joe into his shirt. There was another bruise on his back, right under his shoulder blade.

  “Jesus, Joe. You’re all banged up.”

  His skin looked a little transparent, and there seemed to be deep pools of shadow right under the skin, almost like bruises that turn from blue to yellow as they heal.

  “I don’t like the way this looks,” I told him, and then my son wriggled away from me. I loaded the kids into the Jeep and took them up to Saint Agnes Hospital. Looking back, that seems extreme; after all, it was just a couple of bruises. Somehow, I just knew something was terribly wrong.

  Joe sat in the front seat, holding on with his hands as we bounced down the holler road. I remember looking down at him and thinking how much I loved his little face. His profile was perfect; his chin stuck out like an emperor’s. Etta rested her head on my shoulder as she stood between the seats. I didn’t yell at her to get into her seat belt. She had her hand on her brother’s neck, the way she did when we took him into his first crowd at a high school football game. For the first time in a long while, my kids were quiet. Neither of them said a word. There was only the sound of the windshield wipers, of the wheels hitting the wet road and our breathing.

  Sister Ann Christine met us at the reception desk. She’s five feet tall (at most) and was dressed in a white shirtwaist habit, white shoes, and a white wimple. She was around sixty then, but you couldn’t tell by her skin. It was smooth and pink, not a wrinkle in it. Her small nose dipped down in a straight line; her blue eyes stood out like patches of sky against clean white clouds. As she leaned over to embrace my children, I imagined my mother holding them and almost cried.

  Dr. Bakagese entered the examination room with a big smile. “What’s happening, little buddy?” He spoke American slang with an Indian accent. He was tall and slim. He had beautiful hands with long, tapered fingers. His hair was jet black and cut short. His skin was a beautiful shade of café au lait. He had a small nose, full lips, and wide brown eyes. I’ve always had a hard time surrendering my children to doctors, but this time, I wasn’t afraid. I trusted this man.

  “Ave. Yoo-hoo.” Iva Lou pokes me back into the present.

  “I’m sorry.” I look at Pearl, whose face wears an expression that I’ve never seen before. It’s motherly. She knows what I’m thinking. Pearl always knows. “You know, I would love to have you both to Christmas dinner.” I turn to Iva Lou and Fleeta. “And you too. Lyle. Dorinda. Baby Jeanine. Everybody.” I turn back to Pearl. “Your mom. Otto and Worley.”

  “Hell. Let me check my calendar.” Fleeta searches her pockets for her cigarettes. “Yup. We can make it.”

  “Are you sure?” Pearl asks. She knows that I haven’t celebrated Christmas in a big way since Joe died. I put up a tree for Etta, but we haven’t had a party or a big dinner.

  “Yeah. I think it’s time. Lots of things to celebrate this year. Jack’s new job. The Soda Fountain. Lots of good stuff.” I look at my friends, reassuring them that this is something I really want to do. They all agree to come; we’ll talk about what they can bring later. Even if you throw a dinner in the Gap, it’s potluck. We live to get out our pans and fill them with our best dishes. Pearl and Dr. B. move on to the Roaring Twenties room.

  Iva Lou watches them go. “They’re so sweet. Like a romantic postcard.”

  “From somewheres in the Middle East.”

  “Jesus, Fleeta.” Iva Lou turns to her.

  “What?”

  “India is not in the Middle East. Git yer facts straight.”

  “It don’t matter. The man knows he’s black.”

  “Indian,” Iva Lou corrects her.

  “Black. Indian. Brown. They’s all ferriners. What’s the damn difference?” Fleeta, having had enough of the Victorian era, heads into the antebellum room. Etta runs in from the hallway.

  “Mommy, I barely touched Mrs. Arnold’s gingerbread house and the roof caved in!”

  “I told you if you touched anything, we were going home.”

  “I just ate a little piece of the top.”

  “You ate the roof? Etta, you have to go apologize immediately.”

  “Let it go,” Iva Lou says, as Etta is heading off to make amends. “It’s not a big deal. Patsy Arnold needs to get a grip. You’d think her gingerbread house was the Sistine Chapel.”

  I work through the crowds and down to the main floor, where the gingerbread houses are on display. I see Patsy in the corner, repairing the hole in the roof of Santa’s workshop with an icing bag.

  “Patsy, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Corey Stidham tore off the door and ate it before Etta had at the roof.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Hon, it’s a compliment. The thing is supposed to look good enough to eat.”

  I head through the house looking for Etta. I go to climb up the back stairs and see her sitting outside on the porch, which serves as a loading dock for the Tolliver House.

  “I told Mrs. Arnold I was sorry.”

  “I’m sorry I yelled. But there are judges coming around, and people work hard on their crafts.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “But we haven’t seen all the rooms yet.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Why?”

  “I hate Christmas.”

  “Come on, Etta.” I take my daughter’s hand. “I want to show you something.”

  In the study, there is a display of handmade quilts by local artists. The quilts are donated by families to the John Fox, Jr. Museum. Two of Etta’s Grandmother MacChesney’s creations are on display. There is a colorful drunkard’s-path pattern; a king-size quilt with bright cotton paisleys; red, blue, a
nd pink ginghams; and florals in soft pastels. A red, white, and green checkerboard with a white background covers the largest wall in the room. There is a card next to her quilts: NAN GILLIAM MACCHESNEY, 1907–1978. I point out the card to my daughter.

  “Okay,” Etta says, bored. To her, this room is a bunch of colorful old blankets that smell like cedar hanging on sticks.

  “See the stitch work? How tiny? And how there are layers and layers of it? It took her close to a year to make one of these. And she was fast.”

  “How come you don’t quilt?”

  “I don’t know. I can sew a little.”

  “Your mama sewed too.”

  “Yes, she did.”

  Etta walks off to look at the diorama of the Outdoor Drama. I think about what I’ve tried to teach my daughter about life and love and family. The one thing I wanted to give Etta that my mother couldn’t give me was the example of a happy marriage. I remember Jack told me many years ago that the most important thing a father could do for his son was to love his mother. Maybe the most important thing a mother can do for her daughter is to love her father.

  The trick to the Kiwanis Club Annual Christmas Tree Sale is to find out when the truck is delivering the trees to town; if your husband is a Kiwanis member, you have an in. Then you must position yourself for the unloading, and there is a pecking order. Hospitals and churches first, then regular people. The Kiwanis Club owns the market; no one else in town sells trees. You would think that because we live in these lush mountains, Christmas trees wouldn’t have to be imported. Any reasonable person would assume that we’d just take an ax, go out into the woods, pick a tree, and cut it down. I don’t know why, but that is just not how it’s done. We don’t chop down trees in Big Stone Gap. We wait for the Kiwanians to bring them from Canada.

  Otto and Worley dig holes in the ground where the trees stand until they are purchased. The empty corner lot across from the First Baptist Church became the outdoor showroom by process of elimination. The Club used to sell them up the street in front of Buckles Supermarket, but when the market needed additional parking space, they blacktopped the lot, and so went the Kiwanians. Otto swears that the trees stay fresher when they’re in the ground; the men water and groom them like fine racehorses. I always laugh when the trees are gone the day after Christmas. The lot is pitted with holes where the trees were, and it looks as though a team of killer groundhogs had a battle. It stays that way until Christmas comes around again.

  My husband is a new member of the Kiwanis Club, because after years of working in the mines, he can finally attend their monthly lunches at Stringer’s. (Evidently, this is the backbone of membership in the Kiwanis Club—you have to be available for lunch.) Jack substitutes in the pit band at the Outdoor Drama, and when the crowds are big, he spends intermission selling popcorn and chili dogs in the Kiwanis Club concession stand (the proceeds go to the show fund), so many of the Kiwanians thought Jack was already a member. They were a little surprised to find his name on their new members list. He was elected treasurer immediately.

  As we drive down Poplar Hill, cars are already parked all around the Christmas-tree lot. I pull in at the Baptist Church.

  “Let’s pick our tree.”

  “You go. I’m cold.”

  “Come on. It’ll be fun.” I put on my lipstick in the rearview mirror. “Etta, don’t make me beg. I don’t need a sourball in my house ruining our Christmas spirit.” Etta laughs. “I’m not kidding. Come on. They have hot chocolate.”

  Reluctantly, she gets out of the Jeep, then sees Jack. “Daddy!” Etta says, and runs to him.

  “I sold three blue spruce and one Douglas fir,” Jack says, kissing me on the cheek.

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Who knew it took selling Christmas trees?” He smiles at me.

  Since Iva Lou alerted me to the fact that I must put the romance back in my marriage, I listen carefully to everything my husband says. And now I notice Little Diggers. Like that one. He said it as a joke, but there’s a deeper meaning. He doesn’t think I admire him, so it’s my job, in this period of trying to win his heart again, to resist a funny retort and instead gently correct his misconception.

  “I’m always impressed with you and everything you do.” I give him a hug. He looks at me like I’m crazy. (I guess my new technique needs some refining.) “Did you pick out a tree for us yet?”

  “I waited for you.”

  “What do you think?” I follow him into a row of fragrant Douglas firs. I stop and inhale deeply. The cold air and the clean sap make a fragrant mix of evergreen and sweet pine that sends me spinning.

  “You look pretty,” my husband says to me. Instead of blurting, “What? Get your eyes checked,” as old, insecure Ave Maria might joke, new improved Ave Maria says, “Thank you.” What I really want to do is grab him and throw him up against a tree and say, “Are you cheating on me?,” but I don’t. Of course not. I have a plan. And the plan is: keep my emotions in check and win him back. I am going to be so adorable that there is no way he’ll want any other woman. Iva Lou swears that’s the only way to keep a man in love with you, and since I have no strategies of my own, I’m going with hers.

  “Ma, look. Little trees!” Etta waves from the end of the row.

  “Etta honey, we’ve got a whole attic full of ornaments. That tree is too small.”

  “I want a big one too. For our house.”

  “Two trees?”

  “This one is for Joe.” Etta twirls the little tree around. “I want to take it to Glencoe.”

  Jack and I glance at each other. We’re both surprised that Etta would want to take a tree up to the cemetery.

  “I can decorate it myself. But maybe you can help me.” Etta looks up at me. “I know you’re busy, Daddy.” Thatta girl, Etta. You tell him. He hasn’t been home for dinner in weeks, he’s probably grabbing sandwiches with Karen Bell—and he should be home with us.

  Jack kneels down next to Etta. “I’m sorry I’m working so much. I just started the business, and it takes up a lot of my time.”

  “Okay, Daddy.” Etta pulls a locket of mistletoe out of her pocket and holds it over Jack’s head. “Mommy?” She grins.

  “Excuse me,” I say to Etta. Then I throw Jack on the ground, straddle him, and kiss him. I really kiss him. Not a peck. Not a swipe on the lips. No, it’s one of those French Soul Kisses you heard about in high school study hall the Monday morning after the popular kids had a wild party at Huff Rock.

  “Good God a-mighty! Call Spec. Jack needs oxygen, pronto!” Zackie says loudly. “Careful, Av-uh! The Baptists will throw us off the lot!” Jack’s fellow Kiwanians whistle and applaud.

  “Hey.” I stand up and brush the leaves off my coat. “Sometimes you just have to kiss your husband.”

  “Just as long as that’s all you’re doing,” Nellie Goodloe says from the hot chocolate stand. I look down at my husband, who stares at me as though he doesn’t have a clue as to who I am. Good. He wants a new woman? He’s got one.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In the winter, the Powell River curls along Beamontown Road like a rusty pipe; red clay and gray rock and black ice make a path where the water will go come spring. I always thought this hillside by the river was a perfect place for a cemetery, but that was long before I knew anyone inside its gates.

  An ornate wrought-iron arch stretches across two regal brick pillars in the entrance way. The cursive letters spelling GLENCOE CEMETERY are surrounded by black iron filigree flowers. A beautiful fountain sits just beyond the gate; in warm weather, water gushes over the marble shells and into a deep pool.

  I used to bring the kids here on holidays. We came on Memorial Day, my mother’s birthday, and every Christmas. When we visited the cemetery, I would tell the kids stories about their grandmothers. Jack always thought it was a little creepy, that I liked the cemetery and found comfort here. I tried to explain that this was part of my Catholic faith and my Italian heritage; our gravesites are as important to
us as our living rooms. In Jack’s Scotch-Irish tradition, a cemetery is a place you visit on the day of burial, and, hopefully, not often after that. So when I came here, I came with the kids or alone, sometimes just to sit and talk to my mother.

  Four years ago this Christmas, I brought the kids here, and we placed green holly wreaths with red velvet ribbons and small glitter charms on Nan MacChesney’s grave and on my mother’s. Joe ran in and out among the stones, laughing and playing, hollering for Etta, then hiding and hooting like an owl or howling like a ghost. She pretended to be scared, and I, of course, teasingly reprimanded him for his lack of respect for the dead.

  Now Jack’s truck bounces over the gravel road on the way to the MacChesney plot. The little tree Etta chose for Joe’s gravesite is safe under a tarp in the flatbed. She has a bag of bells she made out of birdseed to use as ornaments, and red ribbons to tie on the branches. She wrapped two bricks in tinfoil like gifts to anchor the trunk at the base.

  Etta and I chat all the way in. Jack becomes somber the moment we drive through the gates. He pulls the truck up under the old tree that showers the ground with shiny black buckeyes (which we collect for good luck) every autumn. Our son’s headstone, simple black marble with white swirls, rests near the gnarly roots of that tree.

  I help Etta out of the truck. Jack lifts the tree from the back of the truck and positions it over Joe’s headstone. Etta helps anchor it with the bricks. Then she carefully lays her ornaments out on the ground and begins to decorate the tree while Jack holds the tree.

  I walk across the plot and over to my mother’s grave, marked with the same simple marble. I pull some weeds from around the stone. I look over at Fred Mulligan’s and pull some weeds from his too. My parents are buried just a few feet from the MacChesney plot (one of life’s ironic little twists). I’ve been standing at Mrs. Mac’s grave for a while when I feel my husband’s arms around me.

  “How’s Etta doing with those ribbons?” I ask him.

  “Just fine.”

  Together, we watch our daughter as she decorates the tree. The picture of her, reaching up inside the tiny branches to place pine cones coated in birdseed, reminds me of a H˘ummel statuette my mother kept on her nightstand.