Sweet Tea and Jesus Shoes Page 11

  In the four-wheel drive someone volunteered for their use for a trek to Wal-Mart, Robby set off the first volatile argument of the Thanksgiving season. “I am not buying a suit and walking down that aisle carrying that coffin.”

  “Take it up with your mother,” Sissy said, watching the snow swirl and wondering what this would do to their return trip in a certified clunker without tire chains.

  “You’ll have to tell her,” he insisted. “Bessie was my favorite aunt. I’m too upset. She’ll understand.”

  What Sissy understood was that Robby was wimping out. Nothing new about that.

  On one point, he was saved. It was Thanksgiving. The Wal-Mart was closed. Sam Walton would never expect mountain folks to be away from their families on Thanksgiving. “But,” Robbie told his mother, “it doesn’t matter because I’m not going to do it.”

  Robby’s mother cried. Robby went into his familiar nobody-understands-me silent mode, and the frenzy of family, food and children heightened. A second foray into town on Friday resulted in acceptable black jeans and white shirts for the children, a black dress for Sissy and shoes that none of them would ever wear again. And this was only for the “viewing.” Robby refused to buy anything. “Fine,” Sissy said. “It’s your family.”

  The justice department agreed to release their prisoner for his mother’s funeral on Sunday, but he’d be shackled because of whatever “little thing” he’d done, and would be discreetly escorted by a guard.

  On Saturday morning Sissy was told that Robby absolutely had to have a suit and it was up to her to see that he got one. If they couldn’t afford it, his mother would “go into her savings.” There were six pallbearers and with Cousin Frankie in shackles there was nobody to take Robby’s place in the funeral procession. By this time, Sissy would have slept with Hannibal Lector to get out of Tennessee. Using her most feminine wiles and a quickie in the bathroom, she talked Robby into going back to Wal-Mart. That’s when the next disaster came. Since she’d enticed him into sex, he decreed that he expected her to forget about any more talk about divorce.

  If Sissy had been in her right mind, she would have simply smiled and let Robby believe what he wanted. But too much family, food and togetherness had sapped her reason. She told him that this weekend had shown her if nothing else hadn’t that they were definitely not compatible. Once they got through this funeral and back home, the marriage was over.

  With that, Robby turned the vehicle back to the house, invited his wife of ten years to get out and announced dramatically, in front of a newly arriving family member, “Since you don’t want to have any part of me, you can find your own way back home. I’m out of here.”

  Now Sissy and her children were stranded in what might as well be a land of foreigners, in the middle of a blizzard with no car and no money, facing a steady diet of casseroles.

  “He’ll come back,” his Mama said. “These things just happen when we’re grieving. He knows how humiliating it would be for us not to have him carrying poor Bessie’s body into the church. Robby’s just...delicate, always has been.”

  This was the description of a man who ran five miles a day and refused to eat meat. Robby didn’t leave Tennessee because he was delicate. He left because he was a coward, and he didn’t return. Sissy grew desperate. She couldn’t even call me for I was in Florida with my husband’s family. By the time they were to leave for the church on Sunday afternoon, Robby hadn’t returned. His mother was having heart palpitations over trying to keep the little ones from seeing poor Frankie in chains for fear they’d be scarred for life. “We’ll just have to put off the funeral until Robby gets back,” she finally said. “I won’t bury my own sister without filling the family slot.”

  “What,” Sissy asked, “would you do if you only had single girls?”

  A look of total astonishment swept over her face. “But that’s never happened. And, if it had, I guess one of the girls would have to fill in.”

  “Fine,” Sissy agreed. “Tell me what to do.”

  And so it was decided that, if that’s what it took, Sissy, on her way out of the family, would be the first female pall bearer in history. She’d get the woman in the ground and she and the girls would walk home if that’s what it took. Just as they started out the door for the church, Robby’s mom stopped Sissy with a teary request. “I saw you had your camera. Will you videotape the funeral? I mean, some folks will make pictures at the gravesite, but a tape would be a splendid memory of Bessie’s passing. Just don’t get Frankie’s feet in the picture.”

  And so it was that as her last family duty, Sissy carried Bessie’s coffin into the church with her left hand and taped the proceeding with her right.

  As it turned out, she managed to hitch a ride on a plane filled with marching-band members on their way home from an appearance at Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. By that time, Robby was well on his way to Reno where he eventually found a woman who appreciated his art, and my sister’s marriage ended.

  But every Thanksgiving Sissy still gets a thank-you note from her ex-husband’s mother. It seems that in addition to women pall bearers, my sister is responsible for another family tradition. Every year, after turkey and dressing, the family gathers to watch the tape of Bessie’s passing. Frankie’s still in jail—another “little something” he did, and Robby’s new wife refuses to cross the Mississippi.

  Sissy’s video of Bessie’s passing is the only way all the family can be together.

  GRANDPAPA’S GARDEN

  By Deborah Smith

  Gardening is an instrument of grace.

  —May Sarton

  The southern soil knows the heart. It remembers, it cries, or it can sit in stony, dry silence when its passions tell it to sleep. In the garden, in the field, in the window box or the clay pot, our roots grow deep and our leaves unfurl with stoic hope.

  Grandpapa’s roses bloomed their prettiest the spring he died. They mourned his passing and celebrated his life along with the rest of us, a little bewildered by the invisible change of seasons, their roots shaken, but sturdy overall, thanks to Grandpapa’s careful nurturing. The roses, like us, had been established in rich earth. Grandpa, after all, was a gardening man.

  He cultivated the roses in memory of Grandmother, who died years ago. In his loneliness he sought solace through the one thing she had loved nearly as much as him and their children: Flowers. Before her death he claimed to be a no-nonsense man, a man who put his values in livestock and paying crops, but after she was gone he learned the power of temporary beauties. And so in her honor he created a scarlet red rose that grew as wildly as a long-limbed child, twining over fences and peeking from hedgerows with dozens of brilliant blooms, each big enough to fill a tea cup. The rose won many awards, which he displayed in Grandmother’s china cabinet along with her most delicate chintz plates, a porcelain celebration of living art.

  Grandpapa took on the look of a hunched garden sprite in his old age; he could frighten a child at first glance, but children always noticed his eyes right away. Warm and blue and laughing, they were as friendly as old-fashioned petunias, and then the children smiled at him. He had large, strong hands, jug ears, and a frizz of gray hair that had once been coal black. He had a craftsman’s logic, a poet’s judgment, and at heart was most at home among heavy farm equipment and men who spit tobacco. He had four loyal brothers, all younger than he, and so it was Grandpapa who inherited the family farm, a sprawling mountain home, and the unspoken title of family patriarch.

  The furrows of his life had been turned and replanted many times; he had harvested more than one kind of crop, and some said he was not much of a farmer because he couldn’t abide too much of the same produce. He laughed and replied that it was a shame to bore the earth. And so one time he planted nothing but easy hay crops for a few years, so he’d have time to serve as mayor of our town after a tornado nearly wiped us off the face of the earth. He planted self-sufficient corn while he worked for the state agriculture department as an extension
agent, during that era when an agent might still drive out to your barn and help you mend your tiller; he planted moody tomatoes while he sold tractors for a living, and had a fling with cabbage when he operated a bulldozer service.

  He learned to farm from his father and his mother, and thus the urge to plant, grow, and harvest had borne in him many generations of know-how, an infinite progression of instincts for rain and sun. He snorted at newspaper horoscopes but could pinpoint the right phase of the moon for any seed. He chaired the county fair for two decades; he spoke his piece to governors and senators as president of the district farm co-op.

  He killed a man in self-defense when he was twenty years old, stopping an armed robbery at the local service station. Then he never touched a gun again.

  He chased every pretty girl in the county as a handsome young man, then upset them all when he found the perfect wife at a church reunion two counties over. He loved her faithfully, called her the best woman in the world, and together they raised children who came home regularly and loved them both, and grandchildren who learned a charmed, caterpillar’s-eye view of the world among his flowers. His life was a tapestry so rich only his garden could do it justice. When the illness came he thought he would beat it; he tilled and planted between treatments, he spread the white specks of fertilizer like a man feeding chicks, talking to the earth as he fed it. He left us unexpectedly, with weeds still to be pulled, mulch to be spread, twigs to be pruned. Life and weeds, as a lesson to us, continued without him.

  His death scared us, shook our faith in springtime, sent us to our Bibles, our liquor cabinets, and our wisest friends. We were on unfamiliar ground; the sun too brilliant, the air so sweet it could wash tears from the eyes and bring a soul to kneel on the begging dirt. Peonies still bloomed, daisies and irises and daylillies and gladiolas sprang up as before, Queen Anne’s Lace and Crown Vetch still found their sly way into the beds like uninvited guests depending on charm to ensure their welcome. Family and friends came as worshipers to take small cuttings from Grandpapa’s roses, dividings from his mums, seeds from his poppies and columbines and other plants. They wanted the heirloom inspirations of the life he had lived so fully; they wanted his secret for happiness.

  Yet when a distant relative died a few weeks later, superstitious old ladies whispered over their chicken-salad luncheons, “Death comes in threes.” When a beloved young cousin announced her new pregnancy, we congratulated her but worried about portents and timing. She had miscarried three babies before this, and the doctors had warned her and her husband to stop trying. My cousin had listened with the best intentions, but life often takes root even when you try your hardest to give up hope.

  She beamed with terrified happiness. We made her sit in a cushioned willow chair among the shade of old oaks each time the rest of us met to tend Grandpapa’s garden. Through all the months that followed we kept his covenants, but we turned dark, worried eyes to the beloved young cousin, as she grew larger and paler through the summer and into the fall. It was never enough to wish for the best result; you had to get out into your life’s garden every day, working your rows, poking around your beds for signs of trouble, plucking out the weeds and spraying the insects before they sucked the life out of your courage. Aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, and cousins met in endless consultations over birth, death, and crabgrass that year, working Grandpapa’s garden, keeping our worries inside the borders of his fieldstone paths, pruning our fears as if they were blackberry briars.

  In the crisp cold of October we raked the jewel-toned leaves and burned them in fat piles, taking comfort in their autumn incense, watching their smoke drift gently into the sky. The moon rose plump and yellow, a harvest moon, and with our ripening young cousin we carved jack-o’-lanterns from small pumpkins grown from plants Grandpapa had set out immediately after the last spring frost. He still lived; his season’s handiwork had born fruit and all was well, so far, with this garden’s memories.

  Then November came, and with it the silver, iced dew, and the sun retreated. The ground in Grandpapa’s garden grew still and bare, and we waited, we waited with held breath, in that quieting time of the year, when new life is hard to imagine. She began to suffer, our young cousin. Small ailments, and then larger ones, her time so close that we could feel the boy child move, defying the coming winter. We prayed that he dreamed of warm suns and gentle rains, that the promise of life could lure him safely into our arms.

  On the coldest day of January, the doctors said his mother would not live through the night with him inside her. They opened her, they slipped him from her warmth, mewling and gasping, searching for the sunshine. Infinite dark hours followed. Many of us went to Grandpapa’s garden during that eternal night. We were drawn helplessly to the rich, quiet heart of our family, speaking to God under the shadows along empty flower beds, and beside roses with bare vines.

  She lived. Against all common sense and signs of the moon, she lived. And he lived, too, our new little boy, our next generation who would tend the garden. In the spring, when he had spent enough time with us to know how far his small hands might reach before ours reached out in response, I brought him a small offspring from Grandpapa’s roses, bearing one brilliant scarlet bloom, sacred and alive. He touched it in velvet wonder, and smiled his great-grandpapa’s smile.

  UNCLE CLETE’S BELL

  By Nancy Knight

  The best part of marriage is the fights.

  The rest is merely so-so.

  —Thornton Wilder

  Death is serious business. Everybody knows that. And when somebody dies, people do the dangdest things. They may start to squabble over who gets what or who the deceased loved best—or even worse. And nothing will stop them. Almost. Sometimes it takes an extraordinary event to make folks come to their senses.

  When Mama’s brother, Clete, passed away, we went to the mortuary to view the body and visit with family. Just after sunset, Mama, my sister Joyce, and I paraded into the old Victorian home that served as a funeral parlor. Mama had baked a chocolate-nut pound cake for Aunt Bett, so I took it over to her car and placed it on the front seat floorboard. Mama always took her special chocolate-nut pound cake when somebody died.

  The parking lot full of cars told me to expect to see a lot of my cousins and old friends, and maybe a few people I didn’t know. Funeral gatherings are huge occasions where people unite to talk about the dearly departed and catch up on the gossip and news. I always looked forward to these occasions, except when the deceased was a relative of mine, of course.

  As a child, I’d always loved going to Uncle Clete’s and Aunt Bett’s. They had a huge farm with lots of exciting places to play. Uncle Clete and Aunt Bett had seven children: Junior, Billy Joe, Jack, Sammy, Wayne, Rose, and Violet. What fun we had exploring the farm buildings, playing make believe in the woods, sliding down the banks of the red-clay ditches eroded by heavy rains, riding pigs, and sneaking down to the creek for a swim. Those were the days!

  We were all grown up now, married with our own children. Since I lived out of town and didn’t get home often, I was eager to see everyone again, to remember old times together.

  Hicks Funeral Parlor boasted hardwood floors, shining and slick beneath my leather clad feet. Managing somehow to walk without slipping, I entered the first room used for the public. All the relatives were gathered there.

  All five of Uncle Clete’s boys had been married more than once. In fact, some of them had been married more than three times. They were all honest, hard working folks, but they just couldn’t make their marriages work. Or maybe they were just following their daddy’s example.

  I spotted Junior’s first wife, Mattie. We hugged and I chatted with her and her girls before moving on. We still had a lot of relatives to visit with. At that point, I glanced around the room and noted just how many wives and ex-wives were assembled around the perimeter. There were plenty of them, perched on the edge of reproduction Duncan Phyfe sofas and Queen Anne chairs. And none of them looked too happ
y to be seated in the same room with their former husbands, other ex-wives, and current wives. The phrase “if looks were daggers” was made for this occasion. It quickly became apparent to me that one of the reasons, besides genuine grief of course, the women were here was to see their predecessors and their precursors, and perhaps, to get in a few barbs.

  We made the rounds, talking to various and sundry aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, third cousins’ spouses, and ex-spouses. I was thoroughly confused just trying to remember who belonged to whom. We are a big family, and the complicated second and third marriages didn’t help any. I’ve got more branch-water kin than baby frogs after a summer rain. I talked to Sammy’s latest ex-wife, cooed at Jack’s new baby boy, and then chatted with Billy Joe’s oldest daughter, who happily showed me her engagement ring. With a quick glance at a roomful of failed marriages, I offered her my best wishes. The teenage girl prattled on and on about her wedding plans while I smiled and nodded. As soon as possible, I moved on.

  My cousin, Sammy, came in. He lives in New York and has been trying to make it big for years. Thus far, his major accomplishment has been as assistant stage manager for an off-off-off-Broadway theater for little money and no fame. He and I share the “label” of black sheep of the family. Not that we do anything bad, but we are just the most interesting and, maybe, a little outlandish. So we have a lot in common. We hugged, kissed, and talked for a while. He’d just flown in and hadn’t even seen his mama, so we vowed to keep in touch and drifted apart.

  Mama introduced me to Junior’s current wife, Sally Faye, a pretty waif-like creature with huge brown eyes and wispy brown hair. I’d never met her, but tried to make pleasant conversation. After all, her new father-in-law had just died. To my surprise, she started right off explaining that she and Junior were thinking about separating. My surprise turned to astonishment as she continued. God had called Junior to the ministry and had given him Bobbi Sue to take care of. I didn’t know exactly who Bobbi Sue was, but I assured Sally Faye that everything would work out. She just needed to be patient.