“No, I’ll pick up the pizzas,” said Uncle Dean into his own phone, although he hated to pick up pizza. The whole point of ordering pizza was that they delivered it.
He wants to get out of here, thought Lutie.
Next to her, Aunt Tamika was crying. From Lutie’s cell phone came Aunt Grace’s voice, and Lutie suddenly grasped that her aunt was already on the way over, which was amazing and rather frightening. How fast was she driving? Aunt Grace! Who lobbied for laws to prevent people from talking on cell phones while they drove!
“Well, I’m off!” said her uncle, as if he planned to fly to Europe and would see them in a few weeks.
Aunt Grace was shouting, “Put Mika on the phone. Ask her should we have Veola come over?”
They all know, thought Lutie. They’re all in on it. My aunts, my uncle, my pastor. They all know.
So three things are true.
My mother is Saravette.
Saravette is a murderer.
I am the daughter of a murderer.
11
There was a song on the Laundry List so rhythmic that Lutie couldn’t sing it standing still. Not that Lutie was a standing-still singer. She was a swaying singer, a space-taking singer. But for this song, she was a stomp singer.
What you doing?
Where you be
Come to me, God!
I’m on my knees, God.
Please, please, God!
Come to me, God.
Psalm 13 cried out like that. Lutie had never cared for the dark psalms, the down psalms. Now she knew what the psalmist knew.
I’m on my knees, God, thought Lutie. Come to me, God. Saravette really did keep a list and check it off, one by one. And she’s my mother.
Aunt Grace flung herself into the house and then stopped right inside the door, like a delivery. She did not rush over to Lutie. There was no hugging or kissing or reassuring. She and her sister Tamika stared at each other, stealing little glances at Lutie.
“So?” said Lutie unpleasantly. “Who did she kill? And when? And why?”
Aunt Tamika’s beautiful bulk sagged and became fat and failure.
Aunt Grace, who could control five long lines of frustrated patrons, two new employees, a broken fax and six ringing phones without missing a beat, made it to a chair. A stiff wooden chair that nobody ever sat in, set against the wall for symmetry. She perched on the edge, as if she planned to sprint away at any moment.
Aunt Tamika just shook her head.
It was Aunt Grace who finally spoke. “Not long after you were born, Saravette handed you to her mama and she left. She wanted to have fun. Babies get in the way when you’re fifteen and fun means parties and cars and boys and dancing. She’d come by now and then, pick you up and cuddle you, maybe bring you a toy. But she wouldn’t stay. I was away at college and Mika, she was a senior in high school, and we were busy. We were no help to Saravette and we were no help to Mama. Life was rich. You were maybe two years old when Saravette and your MeeMaw had a terrible fight and Saravette left for good. We’d hear that she was in Atlanta or Miami or Myrtle Beach, but we didn’t know. We didn’t hear from her.”
How little information Lutie really had about Saravette. She had not even known—or even wondered!—how old Saravette had been when she was born. Oh, poor MeeMaw. Standing on the porch, clinging to the post, crying out in the night. How she must have regretted that fight, no matter who had been right. Be you still alive? Be you coming home?
But Lutie, growing up, had known only love and discipline and great food. Had never caught a glimpse of heartache.
“And then one day,” Aunt Grace said heavily, “Saravette came back to town. It was just awful to see what had become of her. Saravette was the beautiful one, the brilliant one. She threw it all away. I could never understand. I’m not beautiful and I’m not brilliant, but I wanted so much to make something of my life and I worked so hard! And my sister, who could have done anything, she threw herself away like trash.”
“Why?” asked Lutie.
“If I could answer that, I could save the world. Why do people throw away what’s good in them and keep what’s bad?”
Lutie thought of Train, who had thrown away what was good in him, and now he stood around himself, like a little gang of one, admiring what was wrong in him. His idol was a brother in prison. Who had Saravette idolized? Whose track had she followed?
Aunt Grace seemed to fold, like an old newspaper that had been left out in the rain.
Aunt Tamika took her turn. In a fake upbeat voice, she said, “Your MeeMaw loved you so. She always wanted grandchildren and she was so proud of her grandbaby Lutie. She made us call her MeeMaw too, so you wouldn’t get confused. There was nothing your MeeMaw liked more than photographs of you and her. On the porch, in church, getting groceries, washing the car, picking flowers, shelling peas.”
The aunts detoured into MeeMaw stories. Lutie thought that soon they would drag out the old photo albums, and the three of them would sit together on this big long sofa and laugh and talk about old times. And maybe that was for the best. How much detail did Lutie really want? Whatever the truth was, Lutie would find herself tarred with Saravette’s crimes, a seabird in an oil spill.
“I remember that it was March Madness,” said Aunt Tamika. “You were going to sleep here at our house, Lutie, so you and your uncle Dean could watch Carolina play in the Final Four, and you could yell and cheer. You had a brand-new sleeping bag for the sleepover. You phoned me off and on all day to let me know what you had packed in your overnight bag. You couldn’t decide if you wanted to sleep in front of the TV or go upstairs to the bedroom you and I had decorated. I drove over to MeeMaw’s to get you. You and MeeMaw were waiting on the porch. It was chilly. You were wearing a fleece jacket.”
That sleeping bag had been covered with rainbows. The hoodie had been lime green. The overnight bag had been an old airline carry-on from when Aunt Grace flew back and forth to college. Bright red, with scuff marks that wouldn’t come out. Lutie remembered standing on the porch, waiting for Aunt Tamika to drive up so she could go watch basketball with Uncle Dean, the world’s best sports-watching companion, whose running commentary would be a hundred times more exciting and interesting than the TV crew’s.
While they waited for Aunt Tamika, MeeMaw had been singing, of course, but not from the Laundry List. She had been singing her favorite hymn: “The Ninety and Nine.” It was a ballad, unusual for a hymn. Ninety and nine sheep were safe in the fold, but one was lost on the mountain, far from the gates of gold. The Lord set out to find his lost sheep, and what a struggle he had on that rough mountain. He got hurt, but he kept going. Finally, the angels heard him cry. “Rejoice! I have found my sheep!” Lutie smiled at the memory of MeeMaw singing.
Aunt Grace covered her eyes.
Aunt Tamika stood up, but not tall. She hung there like an old dishrag. “So I brought you here,” she said, waving around the room. “You and your uncle Dean were calling the coach a bad name and clutching each other in panic because it was just possible that we would lose. And the phone rang.” Aunt Tamika looked shocked, as if phones didn’t normally ring. Her head turned woodenly toward the archway and the kitchen beyond. She stared at the phone hanging on the kitchen wall, its curly cord dangling. It wasn’t in use, since Aunt Tamika and Uncle Dean no longer had a landline. “You didn’t hear it ring,” said Aunt Tamika, in a trembly voice. “Uncle Dean didn’t hear it ring.” There was a pause and then she said sadly, “I heard it ring.”
Aunt Grace was hugging herself, tightening her arms around her chest. She hunched down, making a box of herself.
“It was Miss Veola,” said Aunt Tamika. “Miss Veola was your MeeMaw’s best friend,” she said, as if Lutie might have forgotten. “Eunice and Veola, they’d been friends forever. Founded a church together. Ran committees and gardened and shopped and ate out.” She shook her head. “You finish, Grace,” she whispered.
Aunt Grace unfolded herself. Released her arms. Lif
ted her chin. Drew a shaky breath. She said, “Saravette had been in town a few days by then. We wouldn’t let her see you. We wouldn’t let you see her. It was too awful. What drugs can do to a person. Anyway, Miss Veola got a call. Turned out Saravette had dropped in at MeeMaw’s that night, when you were over here watching basketball with Dean. Saravette phoned Veola from MeeMaw’s house. Come quick, she said, I need you. So Veola hurried over.”
By day, Miss Veola would have walked. Like Eunice Painter, she loved the woods and the brook and the meadow. But after dark, she would have driven her Cadillac. Lutie imagined the big shiny car coming up the narrow drive. She imagined the headlights illuminating the little house and Miss Veola parking.
“MeeMaw was lying on the ground by the porch. She was dead. Saravette kept saying, ‘I didn’t mean to. She got me so mad. I just gave her a push. I didn’t know she’d fall! It’s only two steps!’ ”
Lutie saw the flat of Saravette’s hand, felt it flex, felt the strength of the arm and body shoving it forward.
She saw MeeMaw falling backward, hitting the ground. Seeing the stars above one last time and then departing to be among them.
If you believed in stars.
If you believed in anything, once you found out that a daughter could kill her own mother.
Lutie was up off the sofa and screaming. “Why are you telling me this? You shouldn’t be telling me! I don’t want to know! I hate you!” She looked around for something to smash and ruin.
“We had to tell you,” said Aunt Grace. “Or else Saravette would. She’s building up to it. And if you went once to see Saravette without us, you might go a second time. You know we would never have let you go into the city last week! When Saravette is using, and she gets angry, and somebody’s in her way, now you know what she can do.”
Lutie took refuge behind the piano. It was a pretty little blond wood spinet rented for Lutie’s piano lessons, but Lutie never got around to taking any. “I don’t know how you can go near Saravette at all! You buy her cell phones and you chat away with her and you drive around and check up on her and all along, you knew. She killed your mother!”
Probably Saravette had been facing her mother when she put out her hands and shoved. Probably the last eyes into which Eunice Painter looked were her baby girl’s.
One burst of temper, and one life was over and one life was ruined.
MeeMaw, prayed Lutie, I hope you didn’t know.
After a long time, Lutie whispered, “And then what happened?”
“For a year or so,” said Aunt Grace, “Saravette called me and Tamika and Veola all the time. I don’t know what they said, but I said terrible things. She must have wanted to hear me scream and swear because she called me the most. Couple of times, she tried to kill herself, but drugs can’t be relied on, even for death. But in the end, Lutie, I went to find her. She’s my sister. Mama would have wanted us to cherish each other, no matter what. Sometimes I can and sometimes I can’t.”
“How come the police didn’t arrest her?”
“Because your aunts and your preacher didn’t tell anybody,” said Uncle Dean.
Lutie had forgotten about her uncle. She had not heard him return. Now she smelled pizza: the unmistakable call of tomato sauce and oregano.
“Preachers know death,” said Aunt Tamika. “They’re always at hospitals and hospices and bedsides and funeral homes. Miss Veola knew that her dear friend Eunice was gone. Veola didn’t want Eunice remembered as the woman killed by her own baby girl. She wanted Eunice remembered for her love and charity, her church work and garden and cooking and laughter and, above all, her singing. The beautiful voice that would float out over Chalk so that people would stop where they were and listen and know God.”
Lutie could not stand all these digressions. “Okay, but that night? What happened that night?”
“Dean stayed here with you, while Grace and I hurried to Mama’s. Saravette kept saying it was an accident, but what’s accidental about a push? Veola sent Saravette packing. When she was gone, we called the ambulance. We said we hadn’t heard from MeeMaw and when we came over, we found her lying there. Nobody ever asked any questions, so none of us had to lie.”
Uncle Dean said, “I thought they were wrong. I thought Saravette’s best hope was jail and a drug program. But they didn’t want you to know either, Lutie. And now you know after all and we didn’t save you from anything.”
Lutie felt as if she were watching one or two frames of a long cruel movie. She needed more visuals. “How did you send Saravette packing? Did she have a car?”
“She walked through the woods and over the creek and into Chalk, and what she did next, I couldn’t say. I didn’t care.”
Lutie knew those woods. She knew every tree and rock. She imagined Saravette wading through Peter Creek, stumbling into Chalk, hoping to hitch a ride somewhere. Anywhere.
Tamika said, “Saravette phoned a few days after that. She was in Atlanta. I don’t know how she got there. At the funeral people said, ‘Where’s Saravette?’ And we said, ‘She’s hard to reach.’ And they said, ‘Poor Eunice. That girl broke her heart.’ Which was true. Broke her neck as well.”
What if these terrible images never left Lutie’s mind? What if they hung there, playing themselves like melodies from the Laundry List? What if the only song in her soul was “Be You Still Alive?”?
“That message Saravette left on your phone, Lutie?” said Aunt Grace. “She sounds drunk as a skunk to me. I don’t even give her credit for saying she’s sorry. I think when she spreads the story around, she’s handing some off to you, which leaves less for her to bear and that’s all the phone call is. Making it easier on herself.”
Neither Tamika nor Grace had said, “I forgave Saravette.”
Because who could?
Nell chattered on, as if she’d been texting and tweeting and messaging so much that her voice needed to flex. She was a fountain of gossip. It was comforting, and yet remote. Doria had the sensation of paging through some old yearbook, squinting to remember old acquaintances. How brisk Nell sounded compared to the leisurely pace of speaking in Court Hill.
“Now, I promised Steph that the moment you and I wrap up, you’ll call her,” said Nell. “I mean, we keep saying, we’ve got to call Dore. And then we don’t get to it.”
Because you have better things to do, thought Doria. But at least Steph is calling now. I haven’t actually lost my friends. I’m just out of sight.
“So I’m on my computer in my bedroom,” said Nell, “and I’m looking at the Court Hill High website. Point people out to me.”
Doria started with the basketball team, and Azure Lee, its captain.
Nell was impressed. “She lives on your street? Wow. Amazing hair. She must have a thousand braids. She is stunning.”
Then the swim team, and Pierce.
“He’s gorgeous! And he lives down the street too? Why are you on the phone with me? You should be beating down his door!”
They worked through Rebecca and Jenny, while Doria threw in a brief mention of graduating early, and then offered Kelvin, like dessert. She admitted that Kelvin, although perfect, was not looking her way. But reality had not dimmed her crush. Doria would even take up baking for Kelvin.
A thousand miles apart, the girls studied Kelvin’s Facebook page.
“He does look like a person who would enjoy cookies,” said Nell.
“I don’t know how to present them,” said Doria. “Do I bake enough cookies for the whole chorus and he’ll taste one and come up afterward? Or just grab him in the hall and hand him a ribbon-wrapped paper plate?”
“Tricky,” agreed Nell.
“Here’s something even trickier.” Doria told her about the lost songs, and Mr. Gregg and Professor Durham. “I understand wanting to take the songs. I wanted to take them myself, and send them to colleges as my audition tape for music school.”
“I thought you were going into premed,” said Nell.
“Whatever. We??
?re talking about stealing songs, Nell.”
“No, we aren’t. It isn’t stealing. Lutie doesn’t have a copyright. She doesn’t even have a recording.”
“But her grandmother’s grandmother wrote them.”
“I doubt it,” said Nell. “Apparently that whole community did laundry. Must have done it outdoors. Probably did it together, like picking peaches or something. I bet they were group songs. But tell me more about graduating early. It’s a good idea. You’ll come back up here for college and we’ll see each other more.”
“I was thinking of the University of Texas. They call it by its initials—UT. There are almost fifty thousand students there. Can you imagine?”
“I’m sure Texas is a fine place,” said Nell, in the voice of one who doesn’t think so at all, “but your friends are here. Now let’s get back to Pierce. He has possibilities.”
“He’s adorable. But he’s not the one I have a crush on.”
“So? Is he in that Youth Group?”
“Technically, I think. But he wasn’t there last week.”
“Text him. See if he’s going this week. See if you can ride with him.”
“Nell, I ruined it when they found out I’m studying physics on my own. He and Azure Lee fled.”
“He’s had time to think about it now,” said Nell, “and he’s impressed.”
“Where did you get that from?”
“Wishful thinking,” said Nell. “Listen, it was good to hear your voice,” she said, moving into wrap-up mode. “Toughen up down there. Or lighten up. I can’t quite tell.”
And then she was gone. The silence in the house felt permanent. The whole conversation took on a minor-key sound, the sound of somebody making an effort.
Doria looked up Pierce’s cell phone number on a neighborhood watch list and texted him before she could think better of it.
Went to YG at First Meth last wk. U going this Sunday?
A text message was dry and casual. All Pierce had to do was write back one word. It would probably be no, and that would be that.