I scooted out of the chair and put my arms around her neck. She kissed me on my cheek. I could feel a hot tear as it ran down my neck under my shirt.
“Shaula, you’ve got to let this boy stay with me come the holidays. Come Thanksgiving and Christmas.” She dried her eyes. “The house gets so lonely without you. The rooms so empty and cold.”
“I know, Mama. After all, it’s the only home Tommy knew until now, and mine as well.”
“Mama, stop dwelling on the past,” said Uncle Everett. He rose to his feet, clattering his cup and saucer as he set them in the tray. He glanced intently at my mother and kissed her cheek. “We gotta go,” he muttered. “I’ve got work to do at my own place. Come on, Mama. Time to go. Tell Marion I’ll call him as soon as I know anything.”
He held my grandmother’s arm as she struggled to her feet.
“Pearl, you’ve been awfully quiet,” my mother said.
“Yes, ma’am. Just been thinkin’,” she smiled. “Life’s kind of hard for all of us, right now. Ain’t it?”
“A philosopher in our own midst!” Uncle Everett avowed. “Resolute! ‘Resolute’s’ the word,” he announced. “Isn’t that what you always say, Mama? ‘Resolute!’”
She stared at him in silence and stuffed her handkerchief into her purse. They passed through the living room and foyer and walked to the truck.
“Everett, be sweet to Mama,” my mother whispered under her breath.
“I know,” he said, with a lost look in his own face. “OK, everybody!” he raised his voice with a smile. “Back to Quilly Hall! All aboard for the Knobs! Nonstop, all the way!” He opened his door, and then suddenly swooped me up in his arms. He gave me a tight hug, set me down, returned to his truck, and slammed its door. Off they drove.
I think Uncle Everett must have been as shocked as my grandmother upon learning that Uncle Jim and Aunt Viola were ready to move. Earl had ridden with him in the wagon to convince them to relocate. According to Uncle Everett, it was Earl’s presence and humble spirit that won them. “Ain’t no use in fightin’ nature,” he told them. “Look at me! I ain’t able to live remote, and the Lord knows Miz. Edmonds ’a’ been like a sister to me. And you’re even kin.”
“That’s right,” Uncle Jim purportedly said. “How I hate to leave here!” he glanced toward the river and the Knobs. “’Twas the best tobacco patch I ever had.” He looked up toward the cemetery. “Cain’t neglect that!” he moaned. “My whole life was lived right here.”
“Nobody’s going to neglect their graves,” Uncle Everett promised. “We can still come back and raise tobacco, cure it in the barn, and haul it to market. But this house is no place to live anymore, and you’re too old to die here from a stroke or something worse and put that burden on Aunt Viola. I’ll always come back to check on it.”
Earl later told my grandmother how much it hurt him to look back over their farm by the river, as “me and Mr. Everett crossed the ridge. Your brother Jim and Viola had taken to their rockers and was sittin’ there in the cold, holdin’ hands. Miz. Ginny, it reminded me of Pearl’s own mother’s death, and how poor we are, though I ain’t complain’.”
Relocating the couple required everyone’s help. Jessie, Albert, and Earl each brought a wagon up from the farm. Uncle Everett managed to drive one of his own trucks to the site. It had a flatbed and was used for transporting hay, grain, bailing wire, and heavy farm equipment from locations in town to wherever it was needed at his place or Grandmother’s. Many of the women pitched in; my mother and Pearl prepared large baskets of food for everyone. I rode on the truck with Uncle Everett, along with my mother and Marion. Going up, I was able to ride on the flatbed. Coming back, I walked behind Uncle Jim’s cow for a while, before clambering up onto the truck again. That Sunday, Uncle Everett and I rode back to retrieve their pigs and chickens. How they squealed and cackled in their respective pins or coops! Earl drove the family buckboard, pulled by Sally. Pearl rode with him and oversaw the packing of Aunt Viola’s pantry goods and crocks from the springhouse. Hams and moldering slabs of bacon had been brought down the day before. The old couple couldn’t afford to leave anything that necessity would demand of them later. Uncle Jim was too proud to ask for a handout. He remained silent throughout most of the move, as did Aunt Viola.
Grandmother sighed with grateful relief when it was over. Her brother and sister-in-law were now her neighbors, and only a path’s stroll away, at that. My mother felt better, too, along with Uncle Everett and Marion. “At least she’ll have them at her elbow,” my mother observed. “Thank God for that.”
“Now you’ll have to take care of all three of them,” Marion teased Uncle Everett.
“True, but they’re a hell of a lot closer to each other. Maybe we can rest at night now. Plus, they’ll have Pearl to look after them, too. Poor girl! Once the war’s over, maybe she’ll meet somebody decent and that baby of hers will have a father.” Suddenly, he grew quiet and glanced down at me.
I instinctively knew what he was thinking. But it was all right. I strained to conjure up an image of my father, but none materialized, other than the photo on my grandmother’s mantle. One memory did resurface from time to time. A tall man was holding my hand and we were walking in a park, or at a fair. His grip felt strong. My mother flanked us; a breeze buffeted her hair. She was carrying a sticky cone of pink cotton candy.
“Tommy!” My mother placed her arm about my waist. “Tomorrow’s a school day. Time to review your homework before you go to bed.”
“Well, time for me to go,” said Uncle Everett. We had been sitting in the kitchen. He rose slowly and walked toward the front door and out into the night.
“He needs to remarry,” Marion commented. “How long’s it been now?”
“Too long,” my mother replied. There was a wistful hesitance in her voice, a melancholic glint in her eye. “Far too long.”
Just prior to Thanksgiving, Aunt Rachel showed up, uninvited, at the door. Her gay mood and sobriety, however, offset any ill will her unexpected arrival might have caused. Plus, she was my aunt and my mother’s sole sister.
“Lord, come on in,” my mother greeted her. “We’ll all be going to Mama Edmonds’ tomorrow, but you’re welcome to stay and help.”
“What’s up?” she asked, as she removed her broad-brimmed white hat, complete with a brown pheasant feather in its band. Her stylish white silk dress tweaked when she sat on the sofa to rest.
“Hog killing time! Remember?”
“Heavens, yes. I know I should have written.”
“I’ll welcome the help.”
“Oh, gads! Cutting up all that hog fat, grinding it into sausage, and rendering out lard! What a grizzly thought!”
“I’ve got an old dress and scarf you can wear. Or you can stay here in town and flirt with the cab drivers.”
“No, no! You know what will happen if I do. I’ll tag along and sweat it out.”
Hog killing time always coincided with Thanksgiving. By then the weather had turned sufficiently cold enough to kill the hogs and butcher them in the lot beside the slave cabin. Fingers would turn blue and numb, in spite of the long hours and heat from the fires.
Earl kindled one in the cabin’s hearth and swung