Merritt stopped poking at the wood he was stacking under the boiler, my comment so out of the blue neither of us moved for several seconds. I quit stirring, and kicked at the collected logs nearby.
I pointed at the boiler, “The day she died, it smelled like that, but there was another odor too.”
Merritt grew wide-eyed. “What was it?”
I shook my head, wouldn’t allow that uglier fragment to emerge.
“I don’t want to remember that part.”
“Was I there?”
“Yes.”
“What was I doing?”
“Playing in the dirt.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know.”
The tops of the trees overhead created lacy, waving patterns of green against a blanket of solid gray, thick, and heavy. Above the clouds existed a deep blue heaven, and a sun that shone hot and brilliant, but it was as if that world didn’t exist at this moment. Trying to remember her as she’d been was like that. If I could wipe away the clouds in my head, I was sure I’d be able to bring her to mind. He’d gone back to stacking wood, and I’d gone back to stirring the mash.
Daddy refusing to talk about Mama was like trying to solve a math problem with only part of the equation. This is impossible because you’ve got to have all the necessary steps, and without his help I was stuck. Back then, I’d ask him about it every now and then.
“When Mama died, there was a popping sound, and then a bigger noise; what happened?”
He’d say, “Jessie, it was so long ago.”
“But Daddy, she was burning, I remember it. How did it happen?”
“I wished you’d not ask them questions. Think about something else.”
“Well. Why ain’t we got no pictures of her?”
“I got to get to work. Don’t forget to lock up when y’all leave for the bus.”
There came the time when he started to get mad about it and he’d yell at me, “Jessie! I mean it! One more word about that, and you’ll regret it!”
I crept away and the pan of peach cobbler I’d made the night before became my temporary solace. I pulled it from the oven, grabbed a spoon, and stuck one in Merritt’s hand too.
He quit after a few bites. “I can’t eat no more.”
I stopped but only for a second. I could eat more, and I did. I ate and ate, miserably spooning in sweet, slick peaches, soft buttery cake, while scraping the sugary golden syrup off the bottom of the pan. It was half-gone before I realized it, and then I was so sick I wanted to throw up. Had to. I went down the hall and into the bathroom holding my tight stomach. I stared at the toilet and thought how it felt when I had a stomach bug, the misery of getting sick, and the relief that followed. I got on my knees. I tried gagging. It didn’t work. I remembered how when I brushed my teeth, I’d sometimes get the toothbrush too far back and it would almost make me throw up, so I tried sticking my finger down my throat. I did it again, a little farther, and retched. Again, again. Finally, the cobbler came up and a good, clean feeling followed. I felt better.
Relieved, I sat on the floor. It made no sense how Daddy acted. I was simply asking about Mama, how she died. His aggravation and refusal to talk about her fueled my strange hunger, and after I would always feel the need to rid myself of all I could, as if by doing so I could expel my own anger.
It worked for a while.
* * *
Time came and went with little change. When I was thirteen, I asked Uncle Virgil about her. He rubbed at his neck where the skin was sunburned, and it flushed even deeper after he dropped his hand.
His voice cranky, like I’d asked about the birds and the bees, he said, “Don’t be asking me them questions; ask your daddy.”
I said, “He don’t never tell me nothing.”
Aunt Juanita, who’d married Uncle Virgil a couple years after Mama died, didn’t know a thing about her. I complained to her once and she waved her cigarette so dramatically, the end point flared orange and ash hit the floor.
She said, “Well, it’s a doggone shame she ain’t here to raise you and your brother,” then narrowed her eyes at the bowl of ice cream and chocolate syrup I cradled in my lap. “Honey, listen, I can’t be your mama, can’t expect to take her place, but take it from me, ain’t no man ever gonna want to marry no tub of lard.”
She took my bowl, yet half-full, and put it in the sink, smiling a little to herself like she’d done right by me and her way of thinking. I became self-conscious about my belly, my thighs, and my breasts—because that’s where she looked next. They kept growing faster than anything else. The next day she came to the house with two new bras stuffed into a bag.
“You got to start wearing these or all manner of hound dogs are gonna be showing up here at this door.”
You could say Aunt Juanita was a blend of sympathy and meanness, neither all that helpful. I wore the bras, and didn’t ever bring Mama up to her after that. That had left Mama’s mama, Granny Marsh, who couldn’t talk or do much for herself after a massive stroke. We would stop at the rest home to see her, only she didn’t know we were there most times. I’d look for any resemblance, believing Mama had to have had her features.
When she died, I was relieved because I could quit waiting for her to share something, could stop hoping she’d see me and say, By the Lord sweet Jesus, if it ain’t my own Lydia.
By the time I was fourteen, my patchy memories eventually led me to my own answers. First, Mama died while Daddy was making moonshine. Second, something went wrong, and it had been his fault; otherwise he’d talk about her. Guilt was what kept him silent. My arrival at this conclusion sent me plundering the kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator more than ever, eating till I couldn’t move, followed by remorse at being such a pig, and the need to get it out. From that point on, we hardly ever had leftovers. There’s only so much you can do to show frustration when you’re not but a teenager. It wasn’t long before I understood all the eating and vomiting did me no good. I still knew nothing about Mama, only now I’d come to a point where I couldn’t stop. My resentment toward Daddy continued to bloom. I finally thought of something I could take from him, not quite like what he was taking from me and Merritt, but a way to show him how I felt.
We were sitting at the supper table, plates filled with chicken, rice, and gravy, corn bread. Daddy liked lots of pepper, and the shaker sat near Merritt’s elbow.
Daddy always spoke soft, so his, “Pass the pepper, Son,” wasn’t heard by Merritt as he scraped his fork across his plate, mixing rice into the gravy.
I raised my voice and said, “Easton said to pass the pepper!”
It got pretty quiet. I slid a big forkful of rice in my mouth, and didn’t need to look at the head of the table where he sat.
Daddy said, “What’d you say?”
The food turned gummy, thick, and I focused on swallowing. It could’ve been the dim light of the bulb overhead, or it could’ve been the fact I unexpectedly had tears, but I believe it was sadness I recognized and what drew his mouth down.
I was determined, though, and poked Merritt. “Easton said . . .”
Daddy set his fork down. “What’s this about?”
Resolute, I said, “You know.”
“I know? What do I know?”
“You know.”
The double meaning was lost. Daddy sat back on his chair with a look of consternation and a hint of impatience. I crammed